Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/42

 22 THE DECLINE AND FALL and grammar should be taught in the Greek and Latin languages in the metropolis of every ])rovince ; and as the size and dignity of the school was usually proportioned to the importance of the city, the academies of Rome and Constan- tinople claimed a just and singular pre-eminence. The frag- ments of the literary edicts of Valentinian imperfectly represent the school of Constantinople, which was gradually improved by subsequent regulations. That school consisted of thirty-one professors in different branches of learning. One philosopher, and two lawyers ; five sophists and ten grammarians for the Greek, and three orators and ten grammarians for the Latin, tongue ; besides seven scribes, or, as they were then styled, antiquarians, whose laborious pens supplied the public library with fair and correct copies of the classic writers. The rule of conduct, which was prescribed to the students, is the more curious, as it affords the first outlines of the form and discipline of a modern university. It was i-equired that they should bring proper certificates from the magistrates of their native province. Their names, professions, and places of abode were regularly entered in a public register. The studious youth were severely prohibited from wasting their time in feasts or in the theatre ; and the term of their education was limited to the age of twenty. The praefect of the city was empowered to chastise the idle and refractory, by stripes or expulsion ; and he was directed to make an annual report to the master of the offices, that the knowledge and abilities of the scholars might be usefully applied to the public service. The institutions of Valentinian contributed to secure the benefits of peace and plenty ; and the cities were guarded by the establishment of the Defoi.sors,'^^ freely elected as the tribunes and advocates of the people, to support their rights and to expose their grievances before the tribunals of the civil magistrates, or even at the foot of the Imperial throne. The finances were diligently administered by two princes, who had been so long accustomed to the rigid economy of a private fortune ; but in the receipt and application of the revenue a discerning eye might observe some difference between the government of the East and of the West. Valens was persuaded that royal liberality can be supplied only by public oppression, and Jiis ambition never aspired to secure, by their actual distress, th^ future strength 8^ Cod. Theodos. 1. i. tit. xi. .hQodekoy's Paratitlon, which diligently gleans from the rest of the code.