Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/90

 70 THE DECLINE AND FALL sinking world.- It was the fashion of the times to attribute every remarkable event to the particular will of the Deity ; the alterations of nature were connected, by an invisible chain, with the moral and metaphysical opinions of the human mind ; and the most sagacious divines could distinguish, according to the colour of their respective prejudices, that the establishment of heresy tended to produce an earthquake, or that a deluge was the inevitable consequence of the progress of sin and error. With- out presuming to discuss the truth or propriety of these lofty speculations, the historian may content himself with an observa- tion, which seems to be justified by experience, that man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures than from the convulsions of the elements.^ The mischievous effects of an earthquake or deluge, a hurricane, or the eruption of a volcano, bear a very inconsiderable proportion to the ordinary calamities of M'ar, as they are now moderated by the prudence or humanity of the princes of Europe, who amuse their own leisure, and exercise the courage of their subjects, in the practice of the military art. But the laws and manners of modern nations protect the safety and freedom of the van- quished soldier ; and the peaceful citizen has seldom reason to complain that his life, or even his fortune, is exposed to the rage of war. In the disastrous period of the fall of the Roman empire, which may justly be dated from the reign of Valens, the happiness and security of each individual were personally attacked ; and the arts and labours of ages were rudely defaced The Huns and by the Barbarians of Scythia and Germany. The invasion of 37°6*'"' ^'^' the Huns precipitated on the provinces of the West the Gothic nation, which advanced, in less than forty years, from the Danube to the Atlantic, and ojjcned a way, by the success of their arms, to the inroads of so many hostile tribes, more savage than themselves. The original principle of motion was concealed in the remote countries of the 5sorth ; and the curious observa- 2 The earthquakes and inundations are variously described by Libanius (Oral, de ulciscendii Juliani nece, c. x. in Fabricius, Bibl. (Jra;c. torn. vii. p. 158, with a learned note of Olearius), Zosimus (1. iv. p. 221 [c. 18]), Sozonien (1. vi. c. 2), Ced- renus (p. 310, 314), and Jerom (in Chron. p. 186, and t. i. p. 250, in Vit. Hilarion). Epidaurus must have been overwhelmed, had not the prudent citizens placed St. Hilarion, an Egyptian monk, on the beach. Ho made the sign of the cross; the mountain wave stopped, bowed, and returned. [The earthquakes in Greece men- tioned by Zosimus belong to A.d. 375.] 3 Dicasarchus, the Peripatetic, composed a formal treatise, to prove this obvious truth ; which is not the most honoiirable to the human species. Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 5.