Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/67

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 49 iiorrid ))ractice, so familiar to the ancients, of exposing- CMAI'. or murdering their nevv-boi-n infants, was become every day more frequent in the provinces, and especially in Italy. It was the effect of distress; and the distress was principally occasioned by the intolerable burden of taxes, and by the vexatious as well as cruel prosecu- tions of the officers of the revenue against their insol- vent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious part of mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed it an act of paternal tenderness to re- lease their children from the impending miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to support. The humanity of Constantine, moved, perhaps, by some recent and extraordinary instances of despair, engaged him to address an edict to all the cities of Italy, and afterwards of Africa, directing immediate and sufficient relief to be given to those parents who should produce, before the magistrates, the children whom their own poverty would not allow them to edu- cate. But the promise was too liberal, and the pro- vision too vague, to effect any general or permanent benefit*. The law, though it may merit some praise, served rather to display than to alleviate the public distress. It still remains an authentic monument to contradict and confound those venal orators, who were too well satisfied with their own situation to discover either vice or misery under the government of a gener- ous sovereign^. 2. The laws of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature ; since the description of that crime was applied not only to the brutal violence which compelled, but even to the gentle seduction which might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five, to leave the house of her parents. "The successful ravishcr was punished with vations. See likewise, 1. v. tit. 7, 8. '' Omnia foris placita, domi prospera, annonaj ubertate, fructuum copia, etc. Panegyr. ^'et. x. 38. This oration ol Nazarius was pronounced on the day of the^quinqiiennalia of the Caesars, the first of March, A. D. 321. VOL. II. E XIV.
 * Codex Theodosian. 1. xi. tit. 27. toni. iv. p. 188. with Godefroy's obser-