Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/121

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 101 Bv the well-known edict of Caracalla, his subjects, from Britain owivionof -A -ii 1 i-.ipr> the Latin to Efjypt, were entitled to tlie name and pnvuege oi nomans^ lansuage and their national sovereign might fix his occasional or permanent residence in any province of their common country. In the divi- sion of the East and West an ideal imity was scrupulously pre- served, and in their titles, laws, and statutes the successors of Arcadius and Honorius announced themselves as the inseparable colleagues of the same office, as the joint sovereigns of the Roman world and city, which were bounded bj^ the same limits. After the fall of the Western monarchy^ the majesty of the purple re- sided solely in the princes of Constantinople ; and of these Jus- tinian was the first, who, after a divorce of sixty years, regained the dominion of ancient Rome and asserted, by the right of con- quest, the august title of Emperor of the Romans.^*^" A motive of vanitv or discontent solicited one of his successors, Constans the Second, to abandon the Thracian Bosphorus and to restore the pristine honours of the Tiber: an extravagant project (exclaims the malicious Byzantine), as if he had despoiled a beautiful and blooming virgin, to enrich, or rather to expose, the deformity of a wrinkled and decrepit matron. ^"^ But the sword of the Lombards opposed his settlement in Italy ; he entered Rome, not as a conqueror, but as a fugitive, and, after a visit of twelve days, he pillaged, and for ever deserted, the ancient capital of the world. ^'^^ The final revolt and separation of Italy Sfepitis et stomachuni nitidis laxarc saginis Elatasque domos rutilo fulcire metallo. Non eadem Gallos similis vcl cura remordet ; Vicinas quibus est studium devincere terras Deprcssumque larem spoliis hinc inde coactis Sustentare (Anonym. Carmen Panepyricum de Laudibus Berengarii Augusli, 1. ii. in Muratcjri, Script. Rerum Italic, torn. ii. pars i. p. 393 [/eif. 395] [in Pcrt^ Monum., iv. p. 189 s//f/. New ed. by Diininiler, 1871]). 100 Justinian, says the Historian Agathias (1. r. p. 157 [c. 14]), Trpiros 'Ptofjuiiiuv avTOKpiiriop ord/xari xa'i npayfiari. Yet the specific title of Emperor of the Romans was not used at Constantinople, till it had been claimed by the French and Ger- man emperors of old Rome. ^"1 Constantine Manasses reprobates this design in his barbarous verse [3836 Kal Trjv fiox?/)' ;^aptVrtO-0at [ttJ] Tpiirefj-neXto Tii'ifjrj, n? f)Ti? f7^poo"ToAta"Toi' aTTOKOo'inritTei i'Vtxffir)t Kat ypavy Tti'a rpiKoptjivrtv t.'j? K6prv lopaiaa. and it is confirmed by Theophanes, Zonaras, Cedrenus, and the Historia Miscella : Voluit in urbem Roniam Imperium transferre (1. xix. p. 157, in torn. i. pars i. of the Scriptores Rer. Ital. of Muratori). 102 Paul. Diacon. 1. r. c. 11, p. 480. Anastasius in Vitis Pontificum, in Muratori's Collection, torn. iii. pars i. p. 141,