Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/98

 78 THE DECLINE AND FALL of their peculiar territories were gradually fixed by superior force or mutual consent. But the constant operation of various and permanent causes contributed to unite the vagrant Hords into national communities, under the command of a supreme head. The weak were desirous of support, and tlie strong were ambitious of dominion ; the power, which is the result of union, oppressed and collected the divided forces of the adjacent tribes ; and, as the vanquished were freely admitted to share the advantages of victory, the most valiant chiefs hastened to range themselves and their followers under the formidable standard of a confederate nation. The most successful of the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to which he was entitled by the superiority either of merit or of power. He was raised to the throne by the acclamations of his equals ; and the title of Khan expresses, in the language of the North of Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the founder of the monarchy ; and at this moment all the Khans, who reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal descendants of the renowned Zingis.^^ But, as it is the indis- pensable duty of a Tartar sovereign to lead his warlike subjects into the field, the claims of an infant are often disregarded ; and some royal kinsman, distinguished by his age and valour, is intrusted with the sword and sceptre of his predecessor. Two distinct and regular taxes are levied on the tribes, to support the dignity of their national monarch and of their peculiar chief; and each of those contributions amounts to the tythe both of their property and of their spoil. A Tai-tar sovereign enjoys the tenth part of the wealth of his people ; and, as his own domestic riches of flocks and herds increase in a much larger proportion, he is able plentifially to maintain the rustic splendour of his court, to reward the most deserving, or the most favoured, of his followers, and to obtain, from the gentle influence of corruption, the obedience which might be sometimes refused to the stem mandates of authority. The manners of his subjects, accustomed, Hke himself, to blood and rapine, might excuse, in their eyes, such partial acts of tyranny 13 See the second volume of the Genealogical History of the Tartars, and the list of the Khans, at the end of the life of Gengis, or Zingis. Under the reign of Timur, or Tamerlane, one of his subjects, a descendant of Zingis, still bore the regal appellation of Khan ; and the conqueror of Asia contented himself with the title of Elniir, or Sultan. Abulghazi, p. v. c. 4. D'Herbelot, BibUothtque Orientale, p. 878.