Endnotes

^†2 See the astonishment of Dionysius Halicarnassus, on the aquæducts built by Tarquin, Ant. Rom. lib. iii. They are still subsisting.

^†3 Plutarch’s life of Romulus.

^†4 This appears throughout the history of the kings of Rome.

^†5 The senate named a magistrate in the interregnum, who was to make choice of a king. This election was to be confirmed by the people. Dion. Halicarn. lib. ii. iii. iv.

^†6 See Polybius, lib. x.

^†7 The Romans considered foreigners as enemies: Hostis, according to Varro, De Lingua Lat. lib. iv. signified at first a foreigner who lived according to his own laws.

^†8 It is not known whether they were originally of that country, or only a colony; but Dion. Halicarnassus is of the former opinion, lib. i.

^†9 D. Halicarnass, declares so expresly, lib. ix. and this appears by history: they used to attempt the scalade of cities with ladders. Ephorus relates that Artemon the engineer invented large machines to batter the strongest wall. Pericles was the first who made use of them at the siege of Samos, as Piutarch tells us in the life of that general.

^†10 As appears from the treatise entitled Origo Gentis Romanæ, ascribed to Aurelius Victor.

^†11 D. Halicarnass.

^†12 See in D. Halicarn ss. lib. vi. one of the treaties concluded with this people.

^†13 These Decemviri, upon pretence of giving written laws to the people, seized upon the government. See D. Halicarnass. lib. xi.

^†14 Lib. ii. cap. 1.

^†15 See in Polybius, and in Josephus, De bello Judaico, lib. ii. a description of the arms of the Roman soldiers. There is but little difference, says the latter, between a Roman soldier and a loaded horse. “They carried (says Cicero) provision for fifteen days, necessaries of all sorts, and whatever they should have occasion for in throwing up trenches. As to their arms, they were no more incumbered with them than with their hands.

^†16 Lib. ii. cap. 25.

^†17 Particularly the throwing up of the ground.

^†18 See in Vegetius, lib. i. and in Livy, lib. xxvi. the exercises which Scipio Africanus made the soldiers perform after the taking of Carthago Nova. Marius used to go every day to the Campus Martius even in his extreme old age. It was customary for Pompey, when fifty eight years of age, to arm himself cap-a-pee, and engage in single combat with the Roman youths. He used to exercise himself in riding, when he would run with the swistest career, and hurl the javelin. Plutarch in the lives of Marius and Pompey.

^†19 Vegetius, lib. 1.

^†20 Vegetius, lib. i.

^†21 Cum alacribus saltu, cum velocibut cursu cum validis recte certabat. Fragm. of Sallust by Vegetius, B, i. cap. 9.

^†22 Frontin. Stratagem. lib. i cap. 11.

^†23 Lib. x. cap. 8.

^†24 The Romans used to present their javelins, when the Gauls struck at them with their swords, and by that means blunted them.

^†25 At the time that they warred against the lesser nations of Italy, their horse was superior to that of their enemies, and for this reason the cavalry were composed of none but the ablest bodied men, and the most considerable among the citizens, each of whom had a horse maintained at the public expence. When they alighted, no infantry was more formidable, and they very often turned the scale of victory.

^†26 These were young men, lightly armed, and the most nimble of all the legion. At the least signal that was given, they would either leap behind a horseman, or fight on foot. Valerius Maximus, lib. ii. Livy, lib. xxvi.

^†27 Fragment of Polybius cited by Suidas in the word μάχαιρα.

^†28 De bello Judaico, lib. ii.

^†29 This is the survey mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnasseus, lib. ix. art. 25. and which seems to me to be the same he speaks of at the end of his sixth book, made six years after the expulsion of the kings.

^†30 Ctesicles in Athenæus, lib. vi.

^†31 See Piutarch’s life of Cleomenes.

^†32 Livy, I decad. lib. vii. This was sometime after the taking of Rome, under the consulship. of L. Furius Camillus, and App. Claudius Crassus.

^†33 Appian.

^†34 In his life of Pyrrhus.

^†35 Justin. lib. xx.

^†36 Hannibal’s presence put an end to all the feuds and divisions which till then prevailed among the Romans; but the presence of Scipin irritated those which already subsisted among the Carthaginians, and shackled, as it were, the strength of the city; for the common people now grew diffident of the generals, the senate, and the great men; and this made the people more furious. Appian has given us the history of this war, carried on by the first Scipio.

[Polybius tells us, that there was this inconveniency at Carthage in the second Punick war, that the senate had lost almost all their authority. We are informed by Livy, that when Hannibal returned to Carthage, he found that the magistrates and the principal citizens had abused their power, and converted the public revenues to their own emolument. The virtue therefore of the magistrates, and the authority of the senate, both fell at the same time; and all was owing to the same causes, the dissolution of principles. L’Esprit des Loix, lib. viii. chap. 14.]

^†37 Flor. lib i.

^†38 See Polybius. According to the epitome of Florus they raised three hundred thousand men out of the city and among the Latins.

^†39 See Livy, lib. xxxii.

^†40 See Apian, lib. Libycus.

^†41 This punishment which was inflicted on those who had run from their colours, on mutineers, &c. was thus: The names of all the criminals being put together in a vessel or shield, were afterwards drawn out, every tenth man being to die without reprieve. By this means, though all were not put to death, yet all were terrified into obedience. Note by the translator,

^†42 See what is related by Polybius concerning their exactions.

^†43 [See more of this hereafter in chap. vi.]

^†44 Book vi.

^†45 The circumstance which gave the Romans an opportunity of taking a little breath in the second Punic war, was this, whole bodies of Numidian cavalry went over into Sicily and Italy, and there joined them.

^†46 Hence we may judge of the imperfection of the antient navies, since we have laid aside a practice in which we had so much superiority over them.

^†47 See L’Esprit des Loix, l. xxi. c. 9.

^†48 Lewis XIV.

^†49 Spain and Muscovy.

^†50 Antiq. Rom. lib. viii.

^†51 [How was it possible for Carthage to maintain her ground? When Hannibal, upon his being prætor, attempted to hinder the magistrates from plundering the republic, did they not complain of him to the Romans? Wretches, that wanted to be citizens without a city, and to be beholden for their riches to their very destroyers! L’Esprit des Loix, l. iii. c. 3. See likewise l. x. c. 6.]

^†52 It is surprizing, as Josephus observes in his treatise against Appion, that neither Herodotus nor Thucydides make the least mention of the Romans, though they had been engaged in such mighty wars.

^†53 The magistrates, to please the multitude, did not open the courts of justice: and the dying bequeathed their effects to their friends, to the laid out in feasts. See a fragment of the xxth book of Polybru, in the Extract of Virtues and Vices.

^†54 [Justin lib. vi. attributes the extinction of Athenian virtue to the death of Epaminondas. Having no further emulation, they spent their revenues in leasts, frequentius cœnam quam castra visentes. Then it was that the Macedonians emerged out of obscurity. L’Esprit de Loix, l. viii. c. 6.]

^†55 They were not engaged in any alliance with the other nations of Greece. Polyb, lib. viii.

^†56 See Polyb. who relates the unjust and cruel actions by which Philip lost the favour of the people.

^†57 I have given the reason of this in the xv. chapter, borrowed partly from the geographical disposition of the two empires.

^†58 Lewis XIV.

^†59 They had before observed this political conduct with regard to the Carthaginians, whom they obliged, by the treaty concluded with them, to employ no longer auxiliary troops, as appears from a fragment of Dion.

^†60 See an example of this, in their war with the Dalmatians. See Polybius.

^†61 See particularly their treaty with the Jews in the 1st book of the Maccabees, chap. viii.

^†62 Ariarathes offered a sacrifice to the gods, says Polybius, by way of thanks for having obtained their alliance.

^†63 See Polybius on the cities of Greece.

^†64 The son of Philopator.

^†65 This was Antiochus’s case.

^†66 The order sent to Antiochus, even before the war, for him not to cross into Europe, was made general with regard to all other kings.

^†67 Appian, de Beils Mithridat.

^†68 A fragment of Dionysius, copied from the extract of embassies, made by Constantine Porphyrogenneta.

^†69 To enable themselves to ruin Syria, in quality of guardians, they declared in favour of the son of Antiochus, who was but a child, in opposition to Demetrius, who was their hostage, and conjured them to do him justice, crying, That Rome was his mother and the senators his fathers.

^†70 This was their constant practice, as appears from history.

^†71 [That is, to save the corporation, but not the city.]

^†72 After Claudius Glycias had granted the Corsicans a peace, the senate gave orders for renewing the war against them, and delivered up Glycias to the inhabitants of the island, who would not receive him. Every one knows what happened at the Furcæ Caudinæ.

^†73 They acted the same part with regard to Viriatus after having obliged him to give up the deserters, he was ordered to surrender up his arms, to which neither himself not his army could consent. Fragment of Dion.

^†74 The presents which the senate used to send kings were mere trifles, as an ivory chair and staff, or a robe like that worn by their own magistrates.

^†75 Divitiarum tanta fama erat, says Florus, ut victor gentium populus, & donare regna conjuetus, socii virique regis confiscationem mandaverit. lib. iii. c. 9.

^†76 They did not dare to venture their colonies in those countries; but chose rather to raise an eternal jealousy between the Carthaginians and Masinissa, and to make both these powers assist them in the conquest of Macedonia and Greece.

^†77 See Dionys. Halicarn. lib. vi. cap. 95. Edit. Oxon.

^†78 Frontin. Stratagena. lib. ii. tells us, that Archelaus, lieutenant of Mithridates, engaging against Sylla, posted, in the first rank, his chariots armed with scythes, in the second his phalanx, in the third his auxiliaries armed after the Roman way; mixtis fugitivis Italia, quorum pervicaciæ multum fidebat. Mithridates even made an alliance with Sertorius. See also Plutarch, life of Lucullus.

^†79 Mithridates had made him king of the Bosphorus. News being brought of his father’s arrival, he dispatched himself.

^†80 See Appian, de Bello Mithridatico.

^†81 See Plutarch in the life of Pompey; and Zonaras, lib. ii.

^†82 The patricians were invested, in some measure, with a character, and they only were allowed to take the auspices. See in Livy, book vi. the speech of Appius Claudius.

^†83 As for instance they alone were permitted to triumph, since they alone could be consuls and generals.

^†84 Zonaras, lib. ii.

^†85 Origin of the tribunes of the people.

^†86 The people had so great a veneration for the chief families, that although they had obtained the privilege of creating plebeian military tribunes, who were invested with the same power as the consuls, they nevertheless always made choice of patricians for this employment. They were obliged to put a constraint upon themselves, and to enact, that one consul always should be a plebeian; and when some plebeian families were raised to offices, the way was afterwards open to them without intermission. It was with difficulty that the people, notwithstanding the perpetual desire they had to depress the nobility, depressed them in reality; and when they raised to honours some person of mean extraction, as Varro and Marius, it cost them very great struggles.

^†87 The patricians, to defend themselves, used to create a dictator, which proved of the greatest advantage to them; but the plebeians having obtained the privilege of being elected consuls, could also be elected dictators, which quite disconcerted the patricians. See in Livy, lib. viii. in what manner Publius Philo depressed them in his dictatorship. He enacted three laws, by which they received the highest prejudice.

^†88 The patricians reserved to themselves only a few offices belonging to the priesthood, and the privilege of creating a magistrate called interex.

^†89 As Saturninus and Glaucias.

^†90 [When the people of Rome had obtained the privilege of sharing the patrician magistracies, it was natural to think that the flatterers of them would immediately become arbiters of the government. But no such thing.—It is observable, that the very people who had rendered the plebeians capable of public offices, fixed, notwithstanding, their choice constantly on the patricians. Because they were virtuous, they were magnanimous; and because they were free, they had a contempt of power. But when their morals were corrupted, the more power they were possessed of, the less prudent was their conduct; till at length upon becoming their own tyrants and slaves, they lost the strength of liberty to fall into the weakness and impotency of licentiousness. L’Esprit des Loix, lib. viii. c. 12.]

^†91 The census, or survey of the citizens, was a very prudent institution in itself; it was a survey of the state of their affairs, and an inquiry into their power. It was founded by Servius Tullius; before whom, according to Eutropius, book i. the census was unknown.

^†92 The reader may see in what manner those were degraded who, after the battle of Cannæ, were for leaving Italy; those who had surrendered to Hannibal; those who by an insiduous and false interpretation, had forfeited their word.

^†93 The Plebians obtained, in opposition to the patricians, that the laws and elections of magistrates should be made by the people assembled by tribes and not by centuries. There were thirty-five tribes, each of whom gave its vote; four belonging to the city, and thirty-one to the country. As there were but two professions among the Romans that were honourable, war and husbandry, the country tribes were had in greatest consideration; and the four remaining ones admitted into their body that contemptible part of the citizens, who having no lands to cultivate, were, if we may so say, but citizens by halves; the greatest part of them did not even go to war, for in the enlisting of soldiers the divisions of centuries was observed; and those who were members of the four city tribes, were very near the same with those who in the division by centuries were of the sixth class, in which no person was enrolled. Thus, it was scarce possible for the suffrages to be in the hands of the populace, who were consigned to their four tribes; but as every one committed a thousand frauds, for the sake of getting out of them, the censors had an opportunity of reforming this abuse every five years; and they incorporated into any tribe they pleased, not only a citizen, but also bodies and whole orders. See the first remark of chapter xi. See also Livy, lib. i. Decad. I. in which the different divisions of the people, made by Servius Tullius, are very well explained: it was the same body of the people, but divided in various respects. [—In such a manner, that property rather than numbers determined elections. L’Esprit des Loix, lib. ii. c. 2.]

^†94 Livy, lib. xxix.

^†95 Valer. Max. lib. ii.

^†96 The dignity of senator was not a public office or employment.

^†97 Tit. Liv. lib. i.

^†98 Lib. iv. act 15. &c.

^†99 Called turba forensis.

^†100 Tit. liv. lib. ix.

^†101 Nor even greater power.

^†102 The freedmen, and such as were called capite censi, (because, being possessed of little or nothing, they were subject to the poll-tax only) were not at first enrolled among the land forces, except in cases of urgent necessity: Servius Tullius had ranked them in the sixth class, and soldiers were levied out of the five first only. But when Marius set out against Jugurtha, he enlisted all without distinction. Milites scribere. says Sallust, non modo majorum neque ex classibus, sed, uti cujusque libido erat, capite censos plerosque.—De Bello Jugurthin.

^†103 The æqui said in their assemblies, Those in whose power it was to chuse, have preferred their own laws to the freedom of the city of Rome, which was a necessary penalty upon such as could not refuse it. Liv. lib. ix.

^†104 The Asculani, the Marsi, the Vestini, the Marrucini, the Frentani, the Hirpini, the Pompeians, the Venusini, the Iapyges, the Lucani, the Samnites and other nations. Appian, de Bello civil. lib. i.

^†105 The Tuscans, the Umbri, the Latins. This prompted some nations to submit themselves; and as these were also made citizens, others likewise laid down their arms, so that at last there remained only the Samnites, who were extirpated.

^†106 Let the reader figure to himself this monstrous head, formed of all the nations of Italy, which by the suffrage of every individual, governed the rest of the world.

^†107 [It is an essential point to fix the number of citizens that are to form the public assemblies; otherwise it might be uncertain whether the whole body or only a part of the people have voted. At Sparta, the number was fixed to ten thousand. But at Rome, a city designed by providence to rise from the weakest beginning to the highest pitch of grandeur; Rome, a city fated to experience all vicissitudes of fortune; Rome, that had sometimes all its inhabitants without its walls, and sometimes all Italy, and a great part of the world within them; at Rome, I say, this number was never fixed, which was one of the principal causes of its ruin. L’Esprit des Loix, book ii. ch. 2. Our author observes from Cicero, de Leg. lib. i. and iii. that another cause of its ruin was, in making, towards the close of the republic, the suffrages secret. The people in a democracy ought always to be public, who are to be directed by those of higher rank. But when the body of the nobles are to vote in an aristocracy, or in a democracy the senate, as the business in then only to prevent intrigues, the suffrages cannot be too secret. L’Esprit des Loix, ibid]

^†108 The canton of Bern.

^†109 The Roman government has been thought defective by some, because it was an intermixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and popular authority. But the perfection of a government does not consist in its conformity to any particular plan to be sound in the writings of politicians: but in its correspondence to the views every legislator ought to entertain for the grandeur and felicity of a people. Was not the government of Sparta composed of three branches?

^†110 Cyneas having discoursed of the doctrines of this sect, at the table of Pyrrhus, Fabricius said, He wished the enemies of Rome would all embrace such kind of principles. Life of Pyrrhus.

^†111 If you lend a talent to a Greek, and bind him to the repayment, by ten engagements, with as many securities, and witnesses to the loan, it is impossible to make them regard their word; whereas, among the Romans, whether it be owing to their obligation of accounting for the public and private money, they are always punctual to the oaths they have taken. For which reason, the apprehensions of infernal torments were wisely established, and it is altogether irrational that they now oppose them. Polyb. lib. vi.

^†112 Polyb. lib. iv. let. 18.

^†113 The Curiatian law disposed of the military power, and the edict of the senate regulated the troops, the money, and officers that were to be allotted to the governors: now the consuls, in order to accomplish these particulars, to their own satisfaction, contrived a false law and a false edict of the senate.

^†114 Ut merito dicatur genitos esse, qui nec ipsi habere possent vos familiares, nec alios pati. Fragment of Sallust cited by Augustin, in his book of the City of God, lib. ii. c. 18.

^†115 Cic. Offic. lib. i. c. 42. Illiberales & sordidi quæstus mercenariorum omnium, quorum operæ, non quorum artes emuntur: est enim illis ipsa merces auctoramentum servitutis. The merchants, adds that author, raise no profit unless they falsity their word. Agriculture is the noblest of all arts, and most worthy of a man in a state of freedom.

^†116 They were obliged to serve ten years, between the age of sixteen years and forty-seven. Polyb. lib. vi.

^†117 Marius in order to obtain a commission for carrying on the war against Mithridates, in prejudice of Sylla’s pretensions, had, by the concurrence of Sulpicius the tribune, incorporated the eight new tribes of the people of Italy, into the ancient, which rendered the Italians masters of the suffrages; and the generality of that people espoused the party of Marius, whilst the senate and the ancient citizens engaged in the interest of Sylla.

^†118 See in Catiline’s conspiracy, the description of Sallust has given us of that army.

^†119 Fugatis Marii copiis, primus urbem Romam cum armis ingressus est. A fragment of John of Antioch, in his extract of the virtues and vices.

^†120 At the beginning of the wars, the lands of the vanquished enemies were parcelled among the army; but Sylla made the same division of those which belonged to the citizens.

^†121 Offices, lib. ii. c. 8.

^†122 Agreeably to what happened after the death of Cæsar.

^†123 Fragment of Sallust.

^†124 See Plutarch.

^†125 See Plutarch’s life of Pompey.

^†126 This is well cleared up in Appian’s history of the civil war, lib. iv. The army of Octavius and Antony would have perished by same, if their enemies had not given them battle.

^†127 Familiar letters, lib. xv.

^†128 He abolished the office of tribunes of the people.

^†129 See the letters of Cicero and Servius Sulpicus.

^†130 Decanus, Brutus, Caius Casca, Trebonius, Tullius Cimber, Minutius, Basilius, were Cæsar’s friends. Appian. De bello civili, lib. ii.

^†131 See the letter of Brutus, in the collection of Cicero’s letters.

^†132 That action would not have been unprecedented; for when Tiberius Gracehus was slain, Lucretius the edile, who was afterwards called Vesallo, threw his body into the Tyber. Aurel, Victor, de viris illust.

^†133 Letters to Atticus, lib. xiv. c. 6.

^†134 See more on this subject, in the letters of Cicero to Atticus, lib. v. and the remark of the abbé de Mongaut.

^†135 Dion. relates that the triumviri, who all expected the same deification, took all imaginable care to enlarge the honours paid to Cæsar.

^†136 Esse quam videri bonus malebat: itaque quo minus gloriam petebat, eo magis illam assequebatur. Sallust. bell. Catil.

^†137 He was Cæsar’s heir, and his son by adoption.

^†138 So inveterate was their cruelty, that they commanded every individual among the people to rejoice at the proscriptions on pain of death. Dion.

^†139 Eorum qui de se statuebant humebantur corpora, manebant testamenta; pretium festinandi. Tacit. An. vi.

^†140 If Charles I. and James II. had been educated in a religion which would have permitted them to destroy themselves, the one would not have submitted to such a death, nor the other to such a life.

^†141 The abbé de St. Real.

^†142 Dion. lib. i.

^†143 Cæsar made war with the Gauls, and Crassus with the Parthians, without any previous deliberation of the senate, or any decree of the people. Dion.

^†144 I use this word in the sense of the Greeks and Romans, who gave this name to all those who had subverted a democracy, for in all other particulars Augustus was a lawful prince, after the law enacted by the people: Lege regia, quæ de ejus imperio lata est, Populus ei & in eum amna imperium transtulit. instit. lib. 1.

^†145 Triumphal ornaments were all the honours now granted to any particular general. Dion. in Aug.

^†146 The Romans having changed their government, without sustaining any invasion from an enemy, the same customs continued as were practised before the alteration of the government, the form of which still remained though the essentials were destroyed.

^†147 Dion in Aug. lib. liv. acquaints us that Agrippa neglected, out of modesty, to give the senate an account of his expedition against the people of the Bosphorus, and even refused a triumph; since which time it was not granted to any person of his class; but it was a favour Augustus intended to afford Agrippa, though Antony would not allow it to Ventidius, the first time he conquered the Parthians.

^†148 Sueton. in August.

^†149 Justin. Institut. lib. i. & Suet. in Aug.

^†150 Dion. in Aug.

^†151 Dionys. Halicarnass. lib. iv.

^†152 See Tacit. Annal. lib. xiii.

^†153 He ordered that the prætorian soldiers should have five thousand drachmas a piece after sixteen years service, and the others three thousand drachmas after twenty years. Dion. in Aug.

^†154 See Tacit. Annal. lib. xiv.

^†155 Before the time of the emperors, the senate confined their attention to public affairs, and never decided the causes of private persons in a full body.

^†156 The great men were impoverished even in the time of Augustus, and no longer solicited for the office of ædile, or tribune of the people; and many of them had not any inclination to have a seat among the senators.

^†157 Tacit. Annal. lib. i. Dion. lib. liv. They were afterwards reestablished, and then annulled by Caligula.

^†158 [Under the reign of Tiberius, statues were erected to, and triumphant ornaments conferred on informers, which debased these honours to such a degree, that those who had merited them, disdained to accept of them. Fragm. of Dio, lib. lviii. L’Esprit des Loix, lib. viii. c. 7.

^†159 See Tacitus.

^†160 See the institutes of Justinian, where they treat of the power of parents and masters.

^†161 The duke of Braganza had an immense estate in Portugal; and when he first revolted, the king of Spain was congratulated by his nobility for the rich confiscation he was to derive from that event.

^†162 The Greeks had games in which it was decent to fight, and glorious to conquer: the Romans had little more than spectacles; and the infamous gladiators were peculiar to them. But for a great person to descend into the Arena or mount the stage, was what the Roman gravity did not admit of. How should a senator submit to it; he, who by the laws could not contract any alliance with men who had been disgraced by the disgusts or even the applauses of the people? Some emperors, however, appeared in these places; and this folly which indicated an extreme irregularity of the heart, a contempt for all that is, great, decent, and good, historians ever brand with the mark of tyranny.

^†163 See Tacitus.

^†164 Tacitus Annal. lib. i.

^†165 Cætera senatui servanda, ibid.

^†166 See the oration of Germanicus. ibid.

^†167 Gaudebat cædibus miles. quasi semet absolveret: Tacitus, ibid. The privileges which had been extorted, were afterwards revoked. Tacitus ibid.

^†168 Tacitus, lib. i.

^†169 Idem, lib. iii.

^†170 See in Livy the sums distributed in the several triumphs. It was the humour of the generals to carry a great deal of money into the public treasury and give but little to the soldiers.

^†171 Paulus æmilius, at a time when the greatness of the conquests had occasioned there liberalities to be augmented, gave only one hundred denarii to each private man; but Cæsar gave two thousand, and his example was followed by Antony and Octavius, by Brutus and Cassius. See Dio and Appian.

^†172 Suscepere duo manipulares imperium populi Romani transferendum, et transtulerunt. Tacit. lib. i.

^†173 The country did not produce any trees large enough to be wrought into engines proper for the siege of towns. Plut. life of Antonin is.

^†174 See Herodian’s life of Alexander.

^†175 Augustin. De civit. Dei. lib. iv. c. 23 & 29.

^†176 Herodian’s life of Severus.

^†177 This fatality continued in the reign of Alexander. Artaxerxes, who re-established the Persian empire, made it formidable to the Romans, because their soldiers, either through caprice or a libertine disposition, deserted in great multitudes to the king of Persia.

^†178 Namely, the Persians, who followed their example.

^†179 Severus defeated the Asiatic legions of Niger, Constantine those of Licinius; Vespasian, though proclaimed by the armies of Syria, made war against Vitellius only with the legions of Mœsia, Pannonia, and Dalmatia. Cicero, when he was at his province, wrote to the senate, that they should not reckon on the levies raised in this country. Constantine defeated Maxentius, says Zozimen, by his cavalry only. See hereafter chap. xxii.

^†180 Augustus fixed the legions to particular stations in the provinces. The levies were originally raised at Rome, after that among the Latins, in Italy next, and last of all in the provinces.

^†181 Seven thousand myriads. Dion. in Macrinus.

^†182 The Attic drachm was the same with the Roman denarius, the eighth part of an ounce, and the sixty-fourth part of our maic.

^†183 He raised it in proportion as seventy-five is to an hundred.

^†184 Annal. lib. i.

^†185 Life of Jul. Cæs.

^†186 Hist. Nat. xxxiii. 13. Instead of giving ten ounces of copper for twenty, they paid sixteen. [The author should have said, instead of ten asses of brass of two ounces each, they paid only sixteen asses of one ounce each.]

^†187 A soldier in the Mostellaria of Plautus, says it was three asses; which can be understood only of asses of ten ounces. But if the pay was exactly six asses in the first Punic war, it was not diminished in the second a fifth, but a sixth, and the fraction was omitted

^†188 Polybius, who reduces the pay to Greck money, differs only by a fraction.

^†189 See Orosius and Suetonius in Domitian. They say the some thing under different words I have reduced the terms to ounces of brass, that I might be understood without having recourse to the several species of the Roman Money.

^†190 Cic. Offic. lib. 2.

^†191 ælius Lampridius in vita Alexandri Severi.

^†192 See the abridgment of Xiphil. in the life of Adrian, and Herodian in the life of Severus.

^†193 At this time every one thought himself good enough to rise to empire. See Dial. lxxix.

^†194 See Lampridius.

^†195 Casaubon observes, on the Historia Augusta, that during the period of 160 years which it comprehends, there were seventy persons, who justly or otherwise, had the title of Cæsar. Adeo erant in illo Principatu, quem tamem omnes mirantur, comitia Imperii semper incerta. So uncertain, to the astonishment of all, were the elections in that empire. Which circumstance sufficiently manifests the difference between the Roman government and that of France, where, for the long space of twelve hundred years, no more than sixty three kings have reigned.

^†196 See Julius Capitolinus.

^†197 This may serve for an answer to the famous question, Why the North is no longer to populous as formerly?

^†198 An hundred and fifty years after this event, the Barbarians invaded the empire, in the reign of Honorius.

^†199 See Orosius, lib. vii. and Aurelius Victor.

^†200 Expatiantia tecta multos addidere urbes, says Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. iii.

^†201 Coin, says Tacitus, was formerly exported from Italy to the distant provinces, and it is not a barren land now; but we cultivate Africa and Egypt, and choose to expose the lives of the Roman people to danger.

^†202 Seuton. in August. Oros. lib. vi. Rome often met with these revolutions. I have before observed, that the treasures brought hither from Macedonia, su erseded all farther tribute. Cicero in his Offices, lib. ii.

^†203 Tacitus, De moribus Germanorum, declares this in express terms. Besides, We know pretty nearly the time in which most of the mines of Germany were opened. See Thomas Sesreiberus of the origin of the mines of the Harts. Those of Saxony are thought to be less ancient.

^†204 See Pliny Nat. Hist. xxxvii. 77.

^†205 The Carthaginians, says Diodorus, understood very well the art of making an advantage of them; and the Romans that of hindering others from making such advantage.

^†206 This account of Constantine’s proceedings no ways contradicts the ecclesiastical writers, who declare they confine themselves to those actions of this prince which had any relation to religion, without concerning themselves with the political transactions in that reign. Euseb. Life of Constantine, lib i. c. 9. Socrates, lib. 1. c. 1.

^†207 Zozimus, lib. ii.

^†208 After the establishment of Christianity, the combats of gladiators were very seldom exhibited, and Constantine prohibited them by his authority; but this barbarous custom was not entirely abolished till the time of Honorius. The Romans retained nothing of their ancient shews, but what tended to emasculate their minds, and allure them to pleasure. In former times, the soldiers before they took the field, were entertained with a combat of gladiators, to familiarise them to the fight of blood and weapons of war, and to inspire them with intrepidity when they engaged the enemy. Jul. Capit. Life of Maximus and Balbinus.

^†209 Ammian. Marcellin. lib. xvi. xvii. and xviii.

^†210 Ammian. Marcellin. ibid.

^†211 See the noble panegyric made by Ammianus Marcellinus on this prince, lib. xxv.

^†212 Zozimus, lib. iv.

^†213 Jornandes de rebus Geticis. The Miscellaneous Hist. of Procopius.

^†214 Vide Sozomen, lib. vi.

^†215 Ammian. Marcellin. lib. xxix.

^†216 Several of those who had received these orders abandoned themselves to a brutal passion for some of the male refugees; others were ensnared by the beauty of the young barbarians of the other sex, and became the captives of their female slaves; a third sort were corrupted by presents in money, linen habits, and fringed mantles; and all their thoughts only tended to enrich their houses with slaves, and to stock their farms with cattle. Hist. of Dexippus.

^†217 See the Gothic history by Priscus, who has set this difference of customs in a clear light. It may be asked perhaps, how it was possible for nations who never cultivated their lands, to be so powerful, when those of America are so very weak: it is because people who follow a pastoral life are furnished with a better subsistence than those who live by the chase.

It appears by the account given by Ammianus Marcellinus, that the Hune, in their first settlements, did not manure their lands, and only subsisted on their flocks and herds, in a country that abounded with rich pastures, and was watered with many rivers; such is the practice of the inhabitants of little Tartary, which is part of the same country. And it is probable that the nations we have been speaking of, having, after their emigrations from their native land, settled in countries that afforded little or no pasture for their cattle, applied themselves to the cultivation of the soil.

^†218 See Zozimus, lib. iv. Se also Dexippus’s Extract of the Embassies of Constantine Porphyrogenitus.

^†219 At first they gave all to the soldiers; afterwards all to the enemy.

^†220 Ammian. Marcellin. lib. xxiv.

^†221 Idem, lib. xxvi.

^†222 You would willingly be rich, said Julian to his mutinous army, there is Persia for your purpose, let us march thither; for, believe me, all the riches of the Roman republic are now no more: our poverty is owing to those who persuaded our princes to purchase peace from the Barbarians. Our treasury is exhausted, our cities are in ruins, and our provinces look dreadful with desolation. An emperor who knows no riches but those of the mind, is not ashamed to acknowledge a virtuous and irreproachable poverty. You may revolt if you are so disposed; for my part, either death shall relieve me, for I scorn a life of which the least fever can deprive me as effectually as my sword, or I will retire from the world; for I have not passed my days in such a manner, as to be incapable of a private life. Amm. Marcell. lib. xxiv.

^†223 This observation is made by Vegetius; and it appears from Livy, that if the auxiliaries sometimes exceeded the Romans in number, the superiority was very inconsiderable.

^†224 De re Militari, lib. i. c. 20.

^†225 The cavalry of the Tartars, without observing any of our military maxims, has at all times performed great things. See the histories, and particularly those of the conquest of China.

^†226 They would not submit to the Roman discipline. See Ammianus Marcellinus, lib xxiii. who relates it as an extraordinary circumstance, that they condescended in one instance to please Julian, who intended to fortify several places belonging to the state.

^†227 This was not to be wondered at, in that mixture of nations who had been used to a wandering life, and had no knowledge of any country of their own, since entire bodies of them would frequently side with the enemy who had conquered them, even against their own nation. See Procopius’s account of the Goths under Viliges.

^†228 See his whole fifth book, De Gubernatione Dei. See also in the account of the Embassy written by Priscus, the speech of a Roman who had settled among the Huns, on his happiness in that country.

^†229 See Salvian, lib. v. and the laws of the Code, and the Digest on them.

^†230 Lactantius, De morte persecutor.

^†231 Letter of Symmach. lib. x. 4.

^†232 Of God’s government.

^†233 Of the city of God.

^†234 History of the Goths, and relation of the embassy written by Priscus. This emperor was Theodosius the younger.

^†235 History of the Goths. Hæ sedes regis barbariem totam tenentis; hæc captis civitatibus habitacula præponebat. This was the mansion in which the monarch of all the Barbarian nations resided; this the habitation which he preferred to the stately cities he had conquered Jornandes, De rebus Geticis.

^†236 It appears by the account given by Priscus, that the court of Attila had some thoughts of subjecting even the Persians.

^†237 Jornandes and Priscus have drawn the character of this prince, and described the manners of his court.

^†238 The Goths were a very destructive nation, they destroyed all the husbandmen in Thrace, and cut off the hands of every charioteer. Byzantine history of Malchus, in the extract of the embassies.

^†239 See in the chronicles, collected by Andrew du Chesne, the condition of this province, towards the end of the ninth, or beginning of the tenth century. Script. Norman Hist. Veteres.

^†240 The Goths, as we have intimated, did not cultivate their lands.

The Vandals called them Trulli, which was the name of a small measure, because they once sold them such a measure of corn very dear, in a famine. Olimpiador in Biblioth. Phot. lib xxx.

^†241 Priscus relates in his history, that markets were established by treaties on the banks of the Danube.

^†242 When the Goths sent to desire Zeno to receive Theuderic the son of Triaries into his alliance, on the terms accorded by him to Theuderic the son of Balamer, the senate being consulted on this occasion, said, the revenues of the empire were not sufficient to support two Gothic nations, and that the alliance of only one of them was to be consented to. Malchus’s history, in the extract of the embassies.

^†243 This partition of the empire was very prejudicial to the affairs of the western Romans. Priscus, lib. ii.

^†244 Honorius was informed, that the Visigoths had made a descent into the western empire, after an alliance with Arcadius. Procop. of the Vandal war.

^†245 Lib. ii.

^†246 Priscus, ibid.

^†247 Procopius, in his war with the Vandal.

^†248 Priscus, lib. ii.

^†249 See Jornandes, De rebus Geticis, c. xxxvi.

^†250 This appeared more especially in the war between Constantinus and Licinius.

^†251 Priscus, lib. ii.

^†252 In the time of Honorius, Alaric, who besieged Rome, obliged that city to enter into an alliance with him, even against the emperor, who was in no condition to oppose it. Procop. War of the Goths, lib. i. Zozim. lib. vi.

^†253 Zozim. lib. vi.

^†254 Precop. war of the Vandals, lib. i.

^†255 Ibid. lib. ii.

^†256 In the time of Honorius.

^†257 Byzantine history, in the extract of the embassies.

^†258 See Procopius’s history of the wars of the Vandals, lib. i. and his war of the Goths. lib. i. The Gothic bowmen sought on foot and were but indifferently disciplined.

^†259 The Romans, having suffered their infantry to be weakened, placed all their force in the horse, and the more so because they were obliged to spring suddenly to every part, to check the incursions of the Barbarians.

^†260 A remarkable passage of Jornandes tells us all these discriminating circumstances, having occasion to mention the battle between the Gepidæ and the sons of Attila.

^†261 Justinian only granted him a triumph for Africa.

^†262 See Suidas, under the article Belisarius.

^†263 The two empires ravaged each other the more, because they had no hopes of securing their conquests.

^†264 The empress Theodora.

^†265 This political distemper was of ancient date; for Seutonius tells us, that Caligula, because he was attached to the Green faction, hated the people who applauded the other.

^†266 the reader may form a good idea of the spirit of those times, by consulting Theophanes, who relates a long conversation in the theatre between the emperor and the Greens.

^†267 See the Institutes of Justinian.

^†268 Lib. iv. c. 10.

^†269 Augustus established nine such frontiers, the number of which increased in the following reigns, when the Barbarians began to appear in several parts; and Dion. lib. lv. says, that in his time, when Alexander was emperor, there were thirty, as appears by the Noritia Imperii, written since the reigns of Arcadius and Honorius: there were fifteen even in the eastern empire, and the number was perpetually increasing. Papmhylia, Lycaonia, and Pisidia were made frontiers, and the whole empire was covered with fortifications, till at last Aurelian was obliged to fortify Rome itself.

^†270 And the English.

^†271 The Huns.

^†272 Call d the Caspian Streights.

^†273 Procopius of the Persian war, lib. i.

^†274 Meranda’s embassies.

^†275 Zeno greatly contributed to this mean relaxation of justice. See the Byzantine history of Malchus, cited in the extracts of the embassies.

^†276 See the life of Andronicus Comnenus, compiled by Nicetas.

^†277 Zozim. lib. iv.

^†278 See the account given by Zosimus of the cavalry of Aurelian, and that of Palmyra. See likewise what Ammianus Marcellinus relates of the Persian cavalry.

^†279 The greatest part of that country was then covered with water, but the art of man has since made it habitable and commodious.

^†280 See Ammiar. Marcellin. lib. xxvii.

^†281 Cæsar represents the German horses as too small, and good for little.

^†282 Zonaras’s life of Constantine the Boarded.

^†283 History of the emperor Maurice by Theophylact, lib. ii. c. iii.

^†284 Ockley’s history of the conquest of Syria, Persia, and Egypt, by the Saracens.

^†285 Life of Lecapena by Zoraras.

^†286 Life of John Commenus, by Nicetas.

^†287 Valens, many years before this events, made a law to compel the Monks to serve the government in the army in times of war, and caused all who disobeyed that injunction, to be slain

^†288 These circumstances relating to the monks, cannot fix any criminal imputation on their order in general; for it would be unjust to represent an institution as pernicious, because it may happen to be abused in some particular countries and at certain periods of time.

^†289 Leo the grammarian’s lives of Leo the Arminian, and Theophilus. Suidas, under the article of Constantine the son of Leo.

^†290 Lib. iv.

^†291 Vide Pachymer, lib. viii.

^†292 See the lives of Basilius and Leo by Zonaras and Nicephorus.

^†293 Pachymer. lib. vii.

^†294 Pachymer. lib. vii. c. 29. We have had recourse to the translation of the president Cousin.

^†295 Palæologus. See the history of the two emperors of this name written by Cantacuzenus, lib. i. c. 50.

^†296 Cantacuzen. lib. iii. c. 99.

^†297 Hist. of the last Palæologi by Ducas.

^†298 The question in debate was, whether a congregation, who heard mass from a priest who had consented to pacific measures, ought not to have fled from him as if he had been a destructive flame. The great church was accounted a profane temple, and the monk Gennadius hurled his anathemas against all who were desirous of peace.

^†299 Andronicus Palæologus.

^†300 Pachymer. lib. vii.

^†301 Epist. ad Attic. lib. iv.

^†302 They infest the navigation of the Italians in the Mediterranean.

^†303 All projects of this nature against the Turks, and particularly such as have any similitude to that which was formed in the papacy of Leo tenth, by which it was concerted, that the emperor should march to Constantinople through Bosnia; the king of France through Albania and Greece, whilst the maritime powers were to embark at their several ports; I say, such projects were never seriously intended, or were framed at least by those who were altogether unacquainted with the true constitution of Europe.

^†304 History of Manuel Comnenus by Nicetas, lib. i.

^†305 Nicet. History of the eastern transactions, of the taking of Constantinople, c. 3.

^†306 Cantacuzen. lib. iv.

^†307 Pachymer. lib. vii.

^†308 Catacuzen. lib. 3. c. 96. Pachymer. lib. xi. c. 9.

^†309 This circumstance gave birth to a northern tradition related by Jornandes the Goth: that Phillimer, king of the Goths, having made an inroad into the Celtic territories, found several women who were sorceresses and drove them to a great distance from his army; after which, those female magicians wandered in the deserts, where that species of Dæmons called Incubi, consorted with them, and by their amorous familiarities, produced the nation of the Huns. Genus ferocissimum, quod fuit primum inter paludes, minutum, tetrum, atque exile, nec aliud vaee notum, nisi quæ humani scrmonis imaginem assignabat. i. e. A fierce and savage people, who lived sequestered from the rest of mankind, among sens and marshes, ghastly and haggard in their persons, and whose voices were only an imperfect articulation of human speech.

^†310 Michael Ducas’s hist. of John Manuel, John and Constantine, c. b. Constantine Porphyrogenitus observes, at the beginning of his extract of the embassies, that when the Barbarians came to Constantinople, the Romans ought to have been very cautious of shewing them the grandeur of their riches, and the beauty of their wives.

^†311 See the history of the emperors John Palæologus and John Cantacuzenus, written by Cantacuzenus.

^†312 The Persian women are much more closely kept than those among the Turks and Indians.

^†313 A Mahometan tradition.

^†314 This is likewise a Mahometan tradition.

^†315 These are probably the knights of Malta.

^†316 The Persian women wear four.

^†317 Ispahan.

^†318 Lent.

^†319 The Persians are of a more tolerating spirit than the other Mahometans.

^†320 This may be true according to the absurd ideas of them which Mahometism teaches; but by no means so with respect to that idea which the Christian revelation gives of them.

^†321 Hagi signifies one who hath been on pilgrimage to Mecca.

^†322 A Turk.

^†323 A Jew.

^†324 An Armenian.

^†325 An order which they publish in Persia, when women of quality are removed, to forbid any man’s being in the way.

^†326 M. de Montesquien speaks of himself here in the person of Usbek.

^†327 These customs are altered.

^†328 A sect of fire-worshippers among the Persians. The curious reader may see a farther account of them in Prideaux’s Connection, and Calmet’s Dictionary.

^†329 This letter is not only a satire on the French academy, but on all others, who pretend to fix the standard of a living, and consequently a fluctuating language.

^†330 The author means the great French dictionary, published by that academy.

^†331 The dictionary of Mr. Nuretiere, which he stole from the academy, and published before theirs came out; for which base action they expelled him.

^†332 This is supposed to allude to Mr. Granier, another member of the academy, who defrauded an orphan of a large sum of money: for which they likewise expelled him.

^†333 The Mahometans have no desire to take Venice, because they would not have water there proper for their purifications.

^†334 This letter, not in the former edition, seems to be added by the author, in answer to the former, in which he appears as a defender of suicide.

^†335 Juan de Castro.

^†336 Las Batuecas.

^†337 The porters at the noblemens houses in France being generally Swiss.

^†338 Louis XIV, who died September 1, 1715.

^†339 A kind of Mahometan monk.

^†340 He means the quarrel of Ramus.

^†341 A. D. 1610.

^†342 Cardinal Mazarine was an Italian by birth.

^†343 The Cardinal being to pronounce the edict of the Union, he called it, before the deputies of the parliament, the edict of the Onion, which made the public very merry.

^†344 The sin of his being born a foreigner.

^†345 The former editions bad here as follows:—‘We must not therefore pretend to count the years of the world; the number of the grains of sand upon the sea-shore, is no more to be compared to them than one instant.’

^†346 Peculium (from peculum, a little stock): this was among the Romans the stock of him who was in subjection to another, as a child of the family, or a slave; it consisted of what he was able to acquire by his own industry, without any assistance from his father, or master, but with his permission only.

^†347 I suppose he means monks and nuns.

^†348 I suppose he means that small portion of Latin necessary to say mass.

^†349 The original is very obscure; ancantes: dans le Tyen.—As by Tyen, the Chinese not only mean the Sovereign Lord of all things, but also call the father of a family Tyen; perhaps the sense of the passage is this; ‘they believe that their parents souls extinct in the Tyen,’ that is, in the father, ‘resume a new life.’ I hazard this conjecture, and if mistaken, should be glad of better information from any intelligent reader.

^†350 The author perhaps means the island of Bourbon.

^†351 Cardinal Alberoni, who persuaded the king of Spain to fall upon the emperor, A. D. 1717, when he was engaged in a war with the Turks.

^†352 Baron Gortz.

^†353 A former edition had here as follows: ‘There are many things in it which I do not understand; but you, who are a physician, must be acquainted with the language of your brethren.’

^†354 See the last note.