Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/70

 >3 THE DECLINE AND FALL </^v ('. 11 A P. which had been constructed by Trajan, penetrated into ^'^' the stronjxest recesses of Dacia, and when lie had in- ■ O flicted a severe revenge, condescended to give peace to the suppliant Goths, on condition that, as often as they were required, they should supply his armies with a hody of forty thousand soldiers'. Exploits like these were no doubt honourable to Constantine, and bene- ficial to the state ; but it may surely be questioned, whether they can justify the exaggerated assertion of Eusebius, that all Scythia, as far as the extremity of the north, divided as it was into so many names and nations of the most vai'ious and savage manners, had been added by his victorious arms to the Roman em- pire . Second ci- In this exalted state of glory it was impossible that uveen Con- Constantine should any longer endure a partner in the staiitineand empire. Confiding in the superiority of his genius and Liciiiius. ,, • 1 • 1 i A.D. 323. military power, he determined, without any previous injury, to exert them for the destruction of Licinius, whose advanced age and unpopular vices seemed to offer a very easy conquest'. But the old emperor, awakened by the approaching danger, deceived the expectations of his friends as well as of his enemies. Calling forth that spirit and those abilities by wdiich he had deserved tlie friendship of Galerius and the im- perial purple, he prepared himself for the contest, col- lected the forces of the east, and soon filled the plains of Hadrianople with his troops, and the straits of the '■ In the Caesars of Julian, (p. 329. Commentaire de Spanheim, p. 252.) Constantine boasts, that lie had recovered the province (Dacia) which 'Irajan had subdued. But it is insinuated by Silenus, that the conquests of Constantine were like the gardens of Adonis, which fade and wither almost the moment they appear. ' Jornandes de Rebus Getinis, c. 21. I know not whether we may en- tirely depend on his authority. Such an alliance has a very recent air, and scarcely is suited to the maxims of the beginning of the fourth century. '' Eusebius in 'n, (Jonstantin. 1. i.e. 8. This passage, however, is taken from a general declamation on the greatness of Constantine, and not from any particular account of the Gothic war. ' Constantinus tamen, vir ingens, et omnia efficere nitens qua; animo praeparasset, simul principatum totius orbis affectans, Licinio bellum intulit. Eutropius, X. 5 ; Zosinius, 1. ii. p. 89. The reasons which they have as- signed for the first civil war may, with more propriety, be applied to the second.