Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/76

 58 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, pendence. Licinius solicited and accejjted tlic pardon of his offences, laid himself and his purple at the feet of liis lord and master, was raised from the ground with insulting pity, was admitted the same day to the impe- rial banquet, and soon afterwards was sent away to Thessalonica, which had been chosen for the place of his confinement'. His confinement was soon termi- nated by death ; and it is doubtful whether a tumult of the soldiers, or a decree of the senate, was suggested as the motive for his execution. According to the rides of tyranny, he was accused of forming a conspi- racy, and of holding a treasonable correspondence with the barbarians ; but as he was never convicted, either by his own conduct, or by any legal evidence, we may perhaps be allowed, from his weakness, to presume his innocence". The memory of Licinius was branded with infamy, his statues were thrown down, and, by a hasty edict, of such mischievous tendency that it was almost immediately corrected, all his laws, and all the judicial Reunion of proceedings of his reign, were at once abolished*. By a"^d"324^ ^^"^ victory of Constantine, the Roman world was again united under the authority of one emperor, thirty-seven years after Diocletian had divided his power and pro- vinces with his associate Maximian. The successive steps of the elevation of Constantine, i'rom his first assuming the purple at York, to the re- signation of Licinius at Nicomedia, have been related with some minuteness and precision, not only as the events are in themselves both interesting and import- ant, but still more as they contributed to the decline of ' Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 102; Victor junior in epitome; Anonym. ; Valesian, p. 714. " Contra religionem sacramenti Thessalonicaj privatus occisus est. Eu- tropius, X. 6; and his evidence is confirmed by .Terome in (Chronic.) as well as by Zosimus, 1, ii. p. 102. The Valesian writer is the only one who men- lions the soldiers; and it is Zonaras alone who calls in the assistance of the senate. Eusebius prudently slides over this delicate transaction. But So- zoinen, a century afterwards, ventures to assert the treasonable practices of Licinius. " See the Theodosian Code, 1. xv. tit. 15. torn. v. p. 404, 405. These edicts of Constantine betray a degree of passion and precipitancy very un- becoming of the character of a lawgiver. i» Ji