Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/373

 OF THE KOMAN EMPIRE 353 successively fallen, the maritime provinces were restored to the empire. Yet their obedience was imperfect and precarious: the vain, inconstant, rebellious disposition of the people was incom- patible either with freedom or servitude/^o and Armorica, though it could not long maintain the form of a republic,!^! was agitated by frequent and destructive revolts. Britain was irrecoverably lost.1^2 But, as the emperors wisely acquiesced in the independ- ence of a remote province, the separation was not embittered by the reproach of tyranny or rebellion ; and the claims of alle- giance and protection were succeeded by the mutual and volun- tary offices of national friendship. ^'^^^ This revolution dissolved the artificial fabric of civil and militaiy state of government ; and the independent country, during a period of fra^^ ^^ forty years, till the descent of the Saxons, was ruled by the authority of the clergy, the nobles, and the municipal towns. ^^* I. Zosimus, who alone has preserved the memory of this singular transaction, very accurately observes that the letters of Honorius were addressed to the cities of Britain. ^^^ Under the protection of the Romans, ninety-two considerable towns had arisen in the several parts of that great province ; and, among these, thirty- three cities were distinguished above the rest by their superior 180 Gens inter geminos ncJtissima clauditur amnes, Armoricana prius veteri cognomine dicta. Torva, ferox, ventosa, procax, incauta, rebellis Inconstans, disparque sibi novitatis amore ; Prodiga verboruin, sed non et prodiga facti. Erricus Monach. in Vit. St. Germani, 1. v. apud Vales. Notit. Galliarum, p. 43. Valesius alleges several testimonies to confirm this character ; to which I shall add the evidence of the presbyter Constantine (a.d. 488), who, in the life of St. Ger- main, calls the Armorican rebels mobilem et indisciplinatum populum. See the Historians of France, tom. i. p. 643. 181 I thought it necessary to enter my protest against this part of the system of the Abb^ Dubos, Vv-hich Montesquieu has so vigorously opposed. See Esprit des Loix, 1. XXX. c. 24. 182 BperavvCav neVroc 'Poj/xaiot avacruia-acrdai. ou/cert elxov are the WOrds of Pro- copius (de Bell. Vandal. L i. c. 2, p. 181, Louvre edition) in a very important pas- sage which has been too much neglected. Even Bede (Hist. Gent. Anglican. 1. i. c. 12, p. 50, edit. Smith) acknowledges that the Romans finally left Britain in the reign of Honorius. Yet our modern historians and antiquaries extend the term of their dominion ; and there are some who allow only the interval of a few months between their departure and the arrival of the Saxons. 183 Bede has not forgot the occasional aid of the legions against the Scots and Picts ; and more authentic proof will hereafter be produced that the independent Britains raised 12,000 men for the service of the emperor Anthemius in GauL 184 I owe it to myself, and to historic truth, to declare that some circumstances in the paragraph are founded only on conjecture and analogy. The stubbornness of our language has sometimes forced me to deviate from the conditional into the indicative mood. 185 Vipo^ TOLS kv Bperaci/ta TroAeis. ZosimUS, 1. vL p. 383 [lo]. VOL. III. 23