 CHAPTER 38 PART 2 OF THE DECLINE OF FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE VOLUME 3 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The allegiance of his brother was already seduced, and the obedience of Godsegill, who joined the royal standard with the troops of Geneva, more effectually promoted the success of the conspiracy. While the Franks and Burgundians contended with equal valour, this seasonable desertion decided the event of the battle. And as Gundobald was faintly supported by the disaffected Gauls, he yielded to the arms of Clovis and hastily retreated from the field, which appears to have been situated between Longre and Dijon. He distrusted the strength of Dijon, a quadrangular fortress encompassed by two rivers and a wall 30 feet high and 15 thick, with four gates and 33 towers. He abandoned to the pursuit of Clovis the important cities of Lyon and Vien, and Gundobald still fled with precipitation till he had reached Avion at the distance of 250 miles from the field of battle. A long siege and an artful negotiation admonished the king of the Franks of the danger and difficulty of his enterprise. He imposed a tribute on the Burgundian prince, compelled him to pardon and reward his brother's treachery, and proudly returned to his own dominions with the spoils and captives of the southern provinces. This splendid triumph was soon clouded by the intelligence that Gundobald had violated his recent obligations, and that the unfortunate godsagil who was left at Vien with the garrison of 5,000 Franks had been besieged, surprised, and massacred by his inhuman brother. Such an outrage might have exasperated the patience of the most peaceful sovereign, yet the conqueror of Gaul dissembled the injury, released the tribute, and accepted the alliance and military servants of the king of Burgundy. Clovis no longer possessed those advantages which had assured the success of the preceding war, and his rival, instructed by adversity, had found new resources in the affections of his people. The Gauls, or Romans, applauded the mild and impartial laws of Gundobald, which almost raised them to the same level with their conquerors. The bishops were reconciled and flattered by the hopes which he artfully suggested of his approaching conversion, and though he alluded their accomplishment to the last moment of his life, his moderation secured the peace and suspended the ruin of the kingdom of Burgundy. I am impatient to pursue the final ruin of that kingdom, which was accomplished under the reign of Sigismund, the son of Gundobald. The Catholic Sigismund had acquired the honors of a saint and martyr, but the hands of the royal saint were stained with the blood of his innocent son, whom he inhumanly sacrificed to the pride and resentment of a stepmother. He soon discovered his heir and bewailed the irreparable loss, while Sigismund embraced the corpse of the unfortunate youth. He received a severe ammunition from one of his attendants. It is not his situation, O king. It is thine which deserves pity and lamentation. The reproaches of a guilty conscience were alleviated, however, by his liberal donations to the monastery of Agunum, or St. Maurice, in Valais, which he himself had founded in honor of the imaginary martyrs of the Thebian Legion. A full chorus of perpetual psalmody was instituted by the pious king. He assiduously practiced the austere devotion of the monks, and it was his humble prayer that heaven would inflict in this world the punishment of his sins. His prayer was heard, the avengers were at hand, and the provinces of Burgundy were overwhelmed by an army of victorious Franks. After the event of an unsuccessful battle, Sigismund, who wished to protract his life that he might prolong his penance, concealed himself in the desert in a religious habit till he was discovered and betrayed by his subjects, who solicited the favor of their new masters. The captive monarch, with his wife and two children, were transported to Orléans, and buried alive in a deep well by the stern command of the sons of Clovis, whose cruelty might derive some excuse from the maxims and examples of the barbarous age. Their ambition, which urged them to achieve the conquest of Burgundy, was inflamed or disguised by filial piety, include Tilda, whose sanctity did not consist in the forgiveness of injuries, pressed them to revenge her father's death on the family of his assassin. The rebellious Burgundians, for they had attempted to break their chains, were still permitted to enjoy their national laws under the abrogations of tribute and military service. And the Merovingian princes peacefully reigned over a kingdom whose glory and greatness had first been overthrown by the arms of Clovis. The first victories of Clovis had insulted the honor of the Goths. They viewed his rapid progress with jealousy and terror, and the youthful fame of Alaric was oppressed by the more potent genius of his rival. Some disputes inevitably arose on the edge of their contiguous dominions. And after the delays of fruitless negotiation, a personal interview of the two kings was proposed and accepted. The conference of Clovis and Alaric was held in a small island of the Loire, near Ambois. They embraced, familiarly conversed, and feasted together, and separated with the warmest professions of peace and brotherly love. But their apparent confidence concealed a dark suspicion of hostile and treacherous designs, and their mutual complaints solicited, eluded, and disclaimed a final arbitration. At Paris, which he had already considered as his royal seat, Clovis declared to an assembly of the princes and warriors the pretense and the motive of a Gothic war. It grieves me to see that the Aryans still possess the fairest portion of Gaul. Let us march against them, with the aid of God, and having vanquished the heretics, we will possess and defy their fertile provinces. The Franks, who were inspired by hereditary valor and recent zeal, applauded the generous design of their monarch, expressed their resolution to conquer or die, since death and conquest would be equally profitable, and solemnly protested that they would never shave their beards till victory should absolve them from that inconvenient vow. The enterprise was promoted by the public or private exhortations of Clotilda. She reminded her as been how effectually some pious foundation would propitiate the deity and his servants, and the Christian hero darting his battle-axe with a skillful and nervous hand. There, said he, on that spot where my Francisca shall fall, will I erect a church in honor of the holy apostles. This ostentatious piety confirmed and justified the attachment of the Catholics, with whom he secretly corresponded, and their devout wishes were gradually ripened into a formidable conspiracy. The people of Aquitaine was alarmed by the indiscreet reproaches of the Gothic tyrants, who justly accused them of preferring the dominion of the Franks. And their zealous adherent, Quintianus, Bishop of Vordes, preached more forcibly in his exile than in his diocese. To resist these foreign and domestic enemies, who were fortified by the alliance of the Burgundians, Alaric collected his troops far more numerous than the military powers of Clovis. The Visigoths resumed the exercise of arms, which they had neglected in a long and luxurious peace. A select band of valiant and robust slaves attended their masters to the field, and the cities of Gaul were compelled to furnish their doubtful and reluctant aid. Theodoric king of the Ostrogoths, who reigned in Italy, had labored to maintain the tranquility of Gaul, and he assumed, or affected for that purpose, the impartial character of a mediator. But the sagacious monarch dreaded the rising empire of Clovis, and he was firmly engaged to support the national and religious cause of the Goths. The accidental or artificial prodigies which adorned the expedition of Clovis were accepted by a superstitious age as the manifest declaration of the divine favor. He marched from Paris, and as he proceeded with decent reverence through the holy dioceses of Tour, his anxiety tempted him to consult the shrine of Saint Martin, the sanctuary, and the Oracle of Gaul. His messengers were instructed to remark the words of the psalm, which had happened to be chanted at the precise moment when they entered the church. Those words most fortunately expressed the valor and the victory of the champions of heaven, and the application was easily transferred to the new Joshua, the new Gideon, who went forth to battle against the enemies of the Lord. Orléans secured to the Franks a bridge on the Loire, but at the distance of 40 miles from Portier, their progress was intercepted by an extraordinary swell of the river Vigena, or Vien, and the opposite banks were covered by the encampment of the Visigoths. Delay must always be dangerous to barbarians who consume the country through which they march, and had Clovis possess leisure and materials, it might have been impracticable to construct a bridge or to force a passage in the face of a superior enemy. But the affectionate peasants, who were impatient to welcome the deliverer, could easily betray some unknown or unguarded Ford. The merit of the discovery was enhanced by the useful interposition of fraud or fiction, and a white heart of singular size and beauty appeared to guide and animate the march of the Catholic army. The councils of the Visigoths were a resolute and distracted, a crowd of impatient warriors presumptuous in their strength and disdaining to fly before the robbers of Germany, excited Alaric to assert in arms the name and blood of the conqueror of Rome. The advice of the graver, Cheeptums, pressed him to allude the first ardor of the Franks and to expect in the southern provinces of Gaul the veteran and victorious Astragoths, whom the king of Italy had already sent to his assistance. The decisive moments were wasted in idle deliberation, and the Goths too hastily abandoned, perhaps in advantageous post, and the opportunity of a secure retreat was lost by their slow and disorderly motions. After Clovis had passed the Ford, as it is still named of the heart, he advanced with bold and hasty steps to prevent the escape of the enemy. His nocturnal march was directed by a flaming meteor suspended in the air above the cathedral portier, and this signal, which might be previously concerted with the orthodox successor of St. Hilary, was compared to the column of fire that guided the Israelites in the desert. At the third hour of the day, about 10 miles beyond portier, Clovis overtook and instantly attacked the Gothic army, whose defeat was already prepared by terror and confusion. Yet they rallied in their extreme distress, and the martial youths, who had clamorously demanded the battle, refused to survive the ignominy of flight. The two kings encountered each other in single combat. Alaric fell by the hand of his rival, and the victorious Frank was saved by the goodness of his cuirass and the vigor of his horse from the spears of two desperate gods, who furiously rode against him to revenge the death of their sovereign. The vague expression of a mountain of the slain serves to indicate a cruel, though indefinite slaughter, but Gregory has carefully observed that his valent countrymen, Apollonarius, the son of Sidonius, lost his life at the head of the nobles of Avernia. Perhaps these suspected Catholics had been maliciously exposed to the blind assault of the enemy, and perhaps the influence of religion was superseded by personal attachment or military honor. Such is the empire or a fortune, if we may still disguise our ignorance under that popular name, that it is almost equally difficult to foresee the events of war or to explain their various consequences. A bloody and complete victory has sometimes yielded no more than the possession of the field, and the loss of 10,000 men has sometimes been sufficient to destroy in a single day the work of ages. The decisive battle of Portier was followed by the conquest of Aquitaine. Alaric had left behind him an infant son, a bastard competitor, factious nobles and a disloyal people, and the remaining forces of the gods were oppressed by the general consternation or opposed to each other in civil discord. The victorious king of the Franks proceeded without delay to the siege of Angoulême. At the sound of his trumpets, the walls of the city imitated the example of Jericho and instantly fell to the ground, a splendid miracle, which may be reduced to the supposition that some clerical engineers had secretly undermined the foundations of the rampart. At Bordeaux, which submitted without resistance, Clovis established his winter quarters, and his prudent economy transported from Toulouse, the royal treasuries, which were deposited in the capital of the monarchy. The conqueror penetrated as far as the confines of Spain, restored the honors of the Catholic church, fixed in Aquitaine, a colony of Franks, and delegated to his lieutenants the easy task of seduying or extirpating the nation of the Visigoths. But the Visigoths were protected by the wise and powerful monarch of Italy. While the balance was still equal, Theodoric had perhaps delayed the march of the Ostrogoths, but their strenuous effort successfully resisted the ambition of Clovis, and the army of the Franks and their Burgundian allies was compelled to raise the siege of Arles with the loss, as it was said, of 30,000 men. These vicissitudes inclined the fierce spirit of Clovis to acquiesce in an avatangious treaty of peace. The Visigoths were suffered to retain the possession of Septimania, a narrow tract of sea coast from their own to the Pyrenees, but the ample profits of Aquitaine, from those mountains to the Loire, was ill dissolvably united to the kingdom of France. After the success of the Gothic war, Clovis accepted the honors of the Roman consulship. The emperor Anastasius ambitiously bestowed on the most powerful rival of Theodoric the titles and insines of that eminent dignity. Yet from some unknown cause, the name of Clovis has not been inscribed in the Fausti, either in the East or West. On the solemn day, the monarch of Gaul placing a diadem on his head was invested in the Church of St. Martin with the purple tunic and mantle. From thence, he proceeded on horseback to the Cathedral of Tour, and as he passed through the streets, profusely scattered with his own hand a donative of gold and silver to the joyful multitude who incessantly repeated their acclamations of consul and Augustus. The legal or actual authority of Clovis could not receive any new accessions from the consular dignity. It was a name, a shadow, an empty pageant. And if the conqueror had been instructed to claim the ancient prerogatives of that high office, they must have expired with the period of its annual duration. But the Romans were disposed to revere in the person of their master that antique title which the emperor's condescended to assume. The barbarian himself seemed to contract a sacred obligation to respect the majesty of the Republic and the successors of Theodosius by soliciting his friendship, tacitly forgave, and almost ratified the usurpation of Gaul. 25 years after the death of Clovis, this important concession was more formally declared in the treaty between his sons and the emperor Justinian. The Ostrogas of Italy, unable to defend their distant acquisitions had resigned to the Franks, the cities of Arle and Marseille. Of Arle, still adorned with the seat of a Praetorian prefect and of Marseille enriched by the advantages of trade and navigation. This transaction was confirmed by the imperial authority. And Justinian, generously yielding to the Franks the sovereignty of the countries beyond the Alps, which they already possessed, absolved the presentials from their allegiance and established on a more lawful, though not more solid foundation, the throne of the Merovingians. After that era, they enjoyed the right of celebrating at Arle the games of the circus and by a singular privilege, which was denied even to the Persian monarch, the gold coin, impressed their name and image, obtained a legal currency in the empire. A Greek historian of that age has praised the private and public virtues of the Franks with a partial enthusiasm that cannot be sufficiently justified by their domestic annals. He celebrates their plightness and urbanity, their regular government and orthodox religion and boldly asserts that these barbarians could be distinguished only by their dress and language from the subjects of Rome. Perhaps the Franks already displayed the social disposition and lively graces, which in every age have disguised their vices and sometimes concealed their intrinsic merit. Perhaps Agathius and the Greeks were dazzled by the rapid progress of their arms and the splendor of their empire. Since the conquest of Burgundy, Gaul, except the Gothic provinces of Septimania was subject in its whole extent to the sons of Clovis. They had extinguished the German kingdom of Thuringia and their vague dominion penetrated beyond the Rhine into the heart of their native forest. The Alemani and Bavarians who had occupied the Roman provinces of Racia and Noricum to the south of the Danube confessed themselves the humble vassals of the Franks and the feeble barrier of the Alps was incapable of resisting their ambition. When the last survivor of the sons of Clovis united the inheritance and the conquests of the Merovingians, his kingdom extended far beyond the limits of modern France. Yet modern France, such as been the progress of arts and policy, far surpasses in wealth and populousness and power the spacious yet savage realms of Clotaire or Dagobert. The Franks or French are the only people of Europe who can deduce a perpetual secession from the conquerors of the Western Empire. But their conquest of Gaul was followed by 10 centuries of anarchy and ignorance. On the revival of learning, the students who had been formed in the schools of Athens and Rome disdained their barbarian ancestors and a long period elapsed before the patient labor could provide the requisite materials to satisfy or rather to excite the curiosity of more enlightened times. At length, the eye of criticism and philosophy was directed to the antiquities of France but even philosophers had been tainted by the contagion of prejudice and passion. The most extreme and exclusive systems of the personal servitude of the Gauls or of their voluntary and equal alliance with the Franks had been rashly conceived and obstinately defended. And the intemperate disputants have accused each other of conspiring against the prerogative of the crown, the dignity of the nobles or the freedom of the people. Yet the sharp conflict has usefully exercised the adverse powers of learning and genius and each antagonist, alternately vanquished and victorious has extirpated some ancient heirs and established some interesting truths. An impartial stranger instructed by their discoveries, their disputes, and even their faults may describe from the same original materials the state of the Roman provincials after Gaul had submitted to the arms and laws of the Merovingian kings. The rudest or the most servile condition of human society is regulated however by some fixed and general rules. When Tacitus surveyed the primitive simplicity of the Germans, he discovered some permanent maxims or customs of public and private life which were preserved by faithful tradition till the introduction of the art of writing and of the Latin tongue. Before the election of the Merovingian kings, the most powerful tribe or nation of the Franks appointed four venerable chieftains to compose the Salic Laws. And their labors were examined and approved in three successive assemblies of the people. After the baptism of Clovis, he reformed several articles that appeared incompatible with Christianity. The Salic Law was in good, amended by his sons and at length under the reign of Dagoburt. The code was revised and promulgated in its actual form 120 years after the establishment of the French monarchy. Within the same period, the customs of the Repurians were transcribed and published and Charlemagne himself, the legislator of his age and country had accurately studied the two national laws which still prevailed among the Franks. The same care was extended to their vassals and the rude institutions of the Alamani and Bavarians were diligently compiled and ratified by the supreme authority of the Merovingian kings. The Visigoths and Burgundians whose conquest in Gaul preceded those of the Franks showed less impatience to attain one of the principal benefits of civilized society. Yorick was the first of the Gothic princes who expressed in writing the manners and customs of his people and the compositions of the Burgundian laws was a measure of policy rather than of justice to alleviate the yoke and regain the affections of their Gallic subjects. Thus, by singular coincidence, the Germans framed their artless institutions at a time when the elaborate system of Roman jurisprudence was finally consummated. In the Salic laws and the pandex of Justinian, we may compare the first rudiments and the full maturity of civil wisdom. And whatever prejudices may be suggested in favor of barbarism, our calmer reflections will ascribe to the Romans the superior advantages, not only of science and reason, but of humanity and justice. Yet the laws of the barbarians were adapted to their wants and desires, their occupations and their capacity. And they all contributed to preserve the peace and to promote the improvements of the society for whose use they were originally established. The Merovingians, instead of imposing a uniform rule of conduct on their various subjects, permitted each people and each family of their empire freely to enjoy their domestic institutions, nor were the Romans excluded from the common benefits of this legal toleration. The children embraced the law of their parents, the wife that of her husband, the freedman that of his patron. And in all causes where the parties were of different nations, the plaintiff or accuser was obliged to follow the tribunal of the defendant who may always plead a judicial presumption of the right or innocence. A more ample attitude was allowed if every citizen in the presence of the judge might declare the law under which he desired to live and the national society to which he chose to belong. Such an indulgence would abolish the partial distinctions of victory and the Roman provincials might patiently acquiesce in the hardships of their condition, since it depended on themselves to assume the privilege if they just dared to assert the character of free and warlike barbarians. End of chapter 38, part two. Chapter 38, part three of the decline of fall of the Roman Empire, volume three. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. When justice inexorably requires the death of a murderer, each private citizen is fortified by the assurance that the laws, the magistrate and the whole community are the guardians of his personal safety. But in the loose society of the Germans, revenge was always honorable and often meritorious. The independent warrior chastised or vindicated with his own hand the injuries which he had offered or received. And he had only to dread the resentment of the sons and kinsmen of the enemy whom he had sacrificed to his selfish or angry passions. The magistrate, conscious of his weakness, interposed not to punish but to reconcile. And he was satisfied if he could persuade or compel the contending parties to pay or to accept the moderate fine which had been ascertained as the price of blood. The fierce spirit of the Franks would have opposed a more rigorous sentence. The same fierceness despised these ineffectual restraints. And when their simple manners had been corrupted by the wealth of Gaul, the public peace was continuously violated by acts of hasty or deliberate guilt. In every just government the same penalty is inflicted or at least is imposed for the murder of a peasant or a prince. But the national inequality established by the Franks in their criminal proceedings was the last insult and abuse of conquest. In the calm moments of legislation, they solemnly pronounced that the life of a Roman was of smaller value than that of a barbarian. The Antrustian, a name expressive of the most illustrious birth or dignity among the Franks was appreciated at the sum of 600 pieces of gold, while the noble provincial, who was admitted to the king's table, might be legally murdered at the expense of 300 pieces. 200 was deemed sufficient for a Frank of ordinary condition, but the Mina Romans were exposed to disgrace and danger by a trifling compensation of 100 or even 50 pieces of gold. Had these laws been regulated by any principle of equity or reason, the public protection should have supplied in just proportion the want of personal strength. But the legislator had weighed in the scale not of justice, but of policy, the loss of a soldier against that of a slave. The head of an insulate and rapacious barbarian was guarded by a heavy fine and the slightest aid was afforded to the most defenseless subjects. Time insensibly abated the pride of the conquerors and the patience of the vanquished and the boldest citizen was taught by experience that he might suffer more injuries than he could inflict. As the manners of the Franks became less ferocious, their laws were rendered more severe and the mayor of Injean kings attempted to imitate the impartial rigor of the Visigoths and Burgundians. Under the empire of Charlemagne, murder was universally punished with death and the use of capital punishments has been liberally multiplied in the jurisprudence of modern Europe. The civil and military professions which had been separated by Constantine were again united by the barbarians. The harsh sound of the Teutonic Appalachians were mollified into the Latin titles of Duke of Count or of Prefect. And the same officer assumed within his district the command of the troops and the administration of justice. But the fierce and illiterate chieftain was seldom qualified to discharge the duties of a judge which require all the faculties of a philosophic mind laboriously cultivated by experience and study and his rude ignorance was compelled to embrace some simple and visible methods of asserting the cause of justice. In every religion, the deity has been invoked to confirm the truth or to punish the falsehood of human testimony. But this powerful instrument was misapplied and abused by the simplicity of the German legislators. The party accused might justify his innocence by producing before the tribunal a number of friendly witnesses who solemnly declared their belief or assurance that he was not guilty. According to the weight of the charge, this legal number of compurgatours was multiplied. 72 voices were required to absolve an incendiary or assassin. When the chastity of a queen of France was suspected, 300 gallant nobles swore without hesitation that the infant prince had been actually begotten by her deceased husband. The sin and scandal of manifest and frequent perjuries engaged the magistrates to remove these dangerous temptations and to supply the defects of human testimony by the famous experiments of fire and water. These extraordinary trials were so capriciously contrived that in some cases guilt and the innocence in others could not be proved without the interposition of a miracle. Such miracles were readily provided by fraud and credulity. The most intricate causes were determined by this easy and infallible method. In the turbulent barbarians who might have disdained the sentence of a magistrate, submissively acquiesced in the judgment of God. But the trials of single combat gradually obtained superior credit and authority among a war-like people who could not believe that a brave man deserved to suffer or that a coward deserved to live. Both in civil and criminal proceedings, the plaintiff or accuser, the defendant or even the witness were exposed to mortal challenge from the antagonist who was destitute of legal proofs and it was incumbent on them either to desert their cause or publicly to maintain their honor in the lists of battle. They fought either on foot or on horseback according to the custom of their nation and the decision of the sword or lance was ratified by the sanction of heaven, of the judge and of the people. This sanguinary law was introduced into Gaul by the Burgundians and their legislator Gundobald condescended to answer the complaints and objections of his subject, Avitus. Is it not true, said the king of Burgundy to the bishop, that the event of national wars and private combats is directed by the judgment of God and that his providence awards the victory to the juster cause? By such prevailing arguments, the absurd and cruel practice of judicial duels which had been peculiar to some tribes of Germany was propagated and established in all the monarchies of Europe, from Sicily to the Baltic. At the end of 10 centuries, the reign of legal violence was not totally extinguished and the ineffectual censures of saints, of popes and of synods may seem to prove that the influence of superstition is weakened by its unnatural alliance with reason and humanity. The tribunals were stained with the blood, perhaps of innocent and respectable citizens. The law, which now favors the rich, then yielded to the strong and the old, the feeble and the infirm were condemned either to renounce their fairest claims and possessions, to sustain the dangers of an unequal conflict or to trust the doubtful aid of a mercenary champion. This oppressive jurisprudence was imposed on the provincials of Gaul who complained of any injuries in their persons and property. Whatever might be the strength or courage of individuals, the victorious barbarians excelled in the love and exercise of arms and the vanquished Roman was unjustly summoned to repeat in his own person the bloody contest which had already been decided against his country. A devouring host of 120,000 Germans had formerly passed the Rhine under the command of Ariovistus. One third part of the fertile lands of the Sikwani was appropriated to their use and the conqueror soon repeated his oppressive demand of another third for the accommodation of a new colony of 24,000 barbarians whom he had invited to share the rich harvest of Gaul. At the distance of 500 years, the Visigoths and Burgundians who revenge the defeat of Ariovistus usurped the same unequal proportion of two thirds of the subject lands. But this distribution, instead of spreading over the province may be reasonably confined to the peculiar districts where the victorious people had been planted by their own choice or the policy of their leader. In these districts, each barbarian was connected by the ties of hospitality with some rovin' provincial. To this unwelcome guest, the proprietor was compelled to abandon two thirds of his patrimony. But the German, a shepherd and a hunter might sometimes contend himself with a spacious range of wood and pasture and resigned the smallest though most valuable portion to the toil of the industrious husbandmen. The silence of ancient and authentic testimony has encouraged an opinion that the rapine of the Franks was not moderated or disguised by the forms of a legal division, that they dispersed themselves over the provinces of Gaul without order or control, and that each victorious robber, according to his wants, his avarice and his strength, measured with his sword the extent of his new inheritance. At a distance from their sovereign, the barbarians might indeed be tempted to exercise such arbitrary depredation, but the firm and artful policy of Clovis must curb a licentious spirit, which would aggravate the misery of the banquished whilst it corrupted the union and discipline of the conquerors. The memorable vase of Swanson is a monument and a pledge of the regular distribution of the Gallic spoils. It was the duty and interest of Clovis to provide rewards for a successful army and settlements for numerous people without inflicting any wanton or superfluous injuries on the loyal Catholics of Gaul. The ample fund, which you might lawfully acquire of the imperial patrimony, vacant lands and Gothic usurpations would diminish the cruel necessity of seizure and confiscation and the humble provincials would more patiently acquiesce in the equal and regular distribution of their loss. The wealth of the Merovingian princes consisted in their extensive domain. After the conquest of Gaul, they still delighted in the rustic simplicity of their ancestors. The cities were abandoned to solitude and decay and their coins, their charters and their synods are still inscribed with the names of the villas or rural palaces in which they successfully resided. 160 of these palaces, a title which need not excite any unsusunable ideas of art or luxury were scattered throughout the provinces of their kingdom. And if some might claim the honors of a fortress, the far greater part could be esteemed only in the light of profitable farms. The mansion of the long-haired kings was surrounded with convenient yards and stables for the cattle and the poultry. The garden was planted with useful vegetables, the various trades, the labors of agriculture and even the arts of hunting and fishing were exercised by the servile hands for the emolument of the sovereign. His magazines were filled with corn and wine either for sale or consumption and the whole administration was conducted by the strictest maxims of private economy. This ample patrimony was appropriated to supply the hospitable plenty of Clovis and his successors and to reward the fidelity of the brave companions who both in peace and war were devoted to their personal service. Instead of a horse or suit of armor, each companion according to his rank or merit or favor was invested with a benefits, the primitive name and most simple form of the feudal possessions. These gifts might be resumed at the pleasure of the sovereign and his feeble prerogative derived some support from the influence of his liberality. But this dependent tenure was gradually abolished by the independent and rapacious nobles of France who established the perpetual property and hereditary secession of their benefits. A revolution salutary to the earth which had been injured or neglected by its precarious masters. Besides these royal and beneficiary estates, a large proportion had been assigned in the division of Gaul of allodial and salic lands. They were exempt from tribute and the salic lands were equally shared among the male descendants of the Franks. In the bloody discord and silent decay of the Merovingian line, a new order of tyrants arose in the provinces who, under the appellation of seniors or lords, usurped a right to govern and a license to oppress the subjects of their peculiar territory. Their ambition might be checked by the hostile resistance of an equal, but the laws were extinguished and the sacrilegious barbarians who dared to provoke the vengeance of a saint or bishop would seldom respect the landmarks of a profane and defenseless neighbor. The common or public right of nature such as they had always been deemed by the Roman jurisprudence were severely restrained by the German conquerors whose amusement or rather passion was the exercise of hunting. The vague dominion, which man has assumed over the wild inhabitants of the earth, the air, and the waters was confined to some fortunate individuals of the human species. Gaul was again overspread with woods and the animals who were reserved for the use or pleasure of the Lord might ravage with impunity the fields of his industrious vassals. The chase was the sacred privilege of the nobles and their domestic servants. Plebeian transgressors were legally chastised with stripes and imprisonment, but in an age which admitted a slight composition for the life of a citizen, it was a capital crime to destroy a stag or wild bole within the precincts of the royal forests. According to the maxims of ancient war, the conqueror became the lawful master of the enemy whom he had subdued and spared. And the fruitful cause of personal slavery, which had been almost suppressed by the peaceful sovereignty of Rome, was again revived and multiplied by the perpetual hostilities of the independent barbarians. The Goth, the Burgundian, or the Frank, who returned from a successful expedition dragged after him a long train of sheep, of oxen and of human captives whom he treated with the same brutal contempt. The use of an elegant form and ingenious aspect were set apart for the domestic service, a doubtful situation, which alternately exposed them to the favorable or cruel impulse of passion. The useful mechanics and servants, smiths, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, cooks, gardeners, dyers, and workmen in gold and silver, et cetera, employed their skill for the use or profit of their master. But the Roman captives who were destitute of art but capable of labor were condemned without regard to their former rank to tend the cattle and cultivate the lands of the barbarians. The number of the hereditary bondsmen who were attached to the Gallic estates was continuously increased by new supplies. And the servile people, according to the situation and temper of their lords, were sometimes raised by precarious indulgence and more frequently depressed by capricious despotism. An absolute power of life and death was exercised by these lords. And when they married their daughters, a train of useful servants chained on the wagons to prevent their escape was sent as a nuptial present into a distant country. The magistrate of the Roman laws protected the liberty of each citizen against the rash effects of his own distress or despair. But the subjects of the Merovingian kings might alienate their personal freedom. And this act of legal suicide, which was familiarly practiced, is expressed in terms most disgraceful and afflicting to the dignity of human nature. The example of the poor who purchased life by the sacrifice of all that could render life desirable was gradually imitated by the feeble and the devout who, in times of public disorder, pusillanimously crowded to shelter themselves under the battlements of a powerful chief and around the shrine of a popular saint. Their submission was accepted by these temporal or spiritual patrons and the hasty transaction irrevocably fixed their own condition and that of their latest posterity. From the reign of Clovis, during five successive centuries, the laws and manners of Gaul uniformly tended to promote the increase and to confirm the duration of personal servitude. Time and violence had almost obliterated the intermediate ranks of society and left an obscure and narrow interval between the noble and the slave. This arbitrary and recent division has been transformed by pride and prejudice into a national distinction, universally established by the arms and laws of the Merovingians. The nobles who claim their genuine or fabulous descent from the independent and victorious Franks have asserted and abused the indefensible right of conquest over a prostrate crowd of slaves and plebeians, to whom they imputed the imaginary disgrace of a Gallic or Roman extraction. The general state and revolutions of France, a name which was imposed by the conquerors may be illustrated by the particular example of a province, a diocese or a senatorial family. Albania had formally maintained a just preeminence among the independent states and cities of Gaul. The brave and numerous inhabitants displayed a singular trophy, the sword of Caesar himself, which he had lost when he was repulsed before the walls of Gurgovia. As the common offspring of Troy, they claimed a fraternal alliance with the Romans. And if each province had imitated the courage and loyalty of Albania, the fall of the Western empire might have been prevented or delayed. They firmly maintained the fidelity which they had reluctantly sworn to the Visigoths, but when their bravest nobles had fallen in the battle of Portier, they accepted without resistance a victorious and Catholic sovereign. This easy and valuable conquest was achieved and possessed by Theodoric, the eldest son of Clovis. But the remote province was separated from his Austrasian dominions by the intermediate kingdoms of Suisson, Paris and Orléans, which formed after their father's death the inheritance of his three brothers. The king of Paris, Chotebert was tempted by the neighborhood and beauty of Overnia. The upper country, which rises towards the south into the mountains of the Sevan, presented a rich and various prospect of woods and pastures. The sides of the hills were clothed with vines and each eminence was crowned with a villa or castle. In the lower Overnia, the river Orlé flows through the fair and spacious plain of Le Mans and the inexhaustible fertility of the soil supplied and still supplies without any interval of repose the constant repetition of the same harvest. On the false report that their lawful sovereign had been slain in Germany, the city in dioceses of Overnia was betrayed by the grandson of Sidonius Apollonarius. Chotebert enjoyed this clandestine victory and the free subjects of Theodoric threatened to desert his standard if he indulged his private resentment while that nation was engaged in the Burgundian war. But the Franks of Australia soon yielded to the persuasive eloquence of their king. Follow me, said Theodoric, into Overnia. I will lead you into a province where you will acquire gold, silver, slaves, cattle and precious apparel to the full extent of your wishes. I repeat my promise. I give you the people and their wealth as your prey and you may transport them a pleasure into your own country. By the execution of this promise, Theodoric justly forfeited the allegiance of a people whom he devoted to destruction. His troops, reinforced by the fiercest barbarians of Germany, spread desolation over the fruitful face of Overnia and two places only, a strong castle and a holy shrine were saved or redeemed from their licentious fury. The castle of Moroleak was seated on a lofty rock which rose a hundred feet above the surface of the plain and a large reservoir of fresh water was enclosed with some arable lands within the circle of its fortifications. The Franks beheld with envy and despair this impregnable fortress. But they surprised a party of 50 stragglers and as they were oppressed by the numbers of their captives they fixed at a trifling ransom the alternative of life or death for these wretched victims whom the cruel barbarians were prepared to massacre on the refusal of the garrison. Another detachment penetrated as far as Brevas or Briaude where the inhabitants with their valuable effects had taken refuge in the sanctuary of St. Julian. The doors of this church resisted the assault but a daring soldier entered through a window of the choir and opened a passage to his companions. The clergy and people, the sacred and the profane spoils were rudely torn from the altar and the sacrilegious division was made at a small distance from the town of Briaude. But this act of impiety was severely chastised by the devout son of Clovis. He punished with death the most atrocious offenders left their secret accomplices to the vengeance of St. Julian released the captives, restored the plunder and extended the rites of sanctuary five miles around the sepricor of the holy martyr. End of chapter 38 part three. Chapter 38 part four of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, volume three. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Before the Austrasian army retreated from Albania, the Autoric exacted some pledges of the future loyalty of a people whose just hatred could be restrained only by their fear. A select band of noble youths, the sons of the principal senators was delivered to the conqueror as the hostages of the faith of Childebert and of their countrymen. On the first rumor of war or conspiracy, these guiltless youths were reduced to a state of servitude and one of them, Attalus, whose adventures are more particularly related, kept his master's horses in the diocese of Treva. After a painful search, he was discovered in this unworthy occupation by the emissaries of his grandfather, Gregory, Bishop of Longer. But his offers of ransom were sternly rejected by the avarice of the barbarian who required an exorbitant sum of 10 pounds of gold for the freedom of his noble captive. His deliverance was affected by a hearty stratagem of Leo, a slave belonging to the kitchens of the bishops of Longer. An unknown agent easily introduced him into the same family. The barbarian purchased Leo for the price of 12 pieces of gold and was pleased to learn that he was deeply skilled in the luxury of an episcopal table. Next Sunday, said the Frank, I shall invite my neighbors and kinsmen, exert thy art and force them to confess that they have never seen or tasted such an entertainment, even in the king's house. Leo assured him that if he would provide a sufficient quantity of poultry, his wishes would be satisfied. The master, who already aspired to the merit of elegant hospitality, assumed as his own the praise which the voracious guests unanimously bestowed on his cook. And the dexterous Leo insensibly acquired the trust and management of his household. After the patient expectation of a whole year, he cautiously whispered his design to Attalus and exhorted him to prepare for flight in the ensuing night. At the hour of midnight, the intemperate guests retired from table and the Frank's son-in-law, whose Leo attended to his apartment with an external quotation, condescended to jest on the faculty with which he might betray his trust. The intrepid slave, after sustaining this dangerous railery, entered his master's bedchamber, removed his spear and shield, silently drew the flittest horses from the stable, unbarred the ponderous gates and excited Attalus to save his life and liberty by incessant diligence. Their apprehensions urged them to leave their horses on the banks of the muse. They swam the river, wandered three days in the adjacent forest and subsisted only by the accidental discovery of a wild plum tree. As they lay concealed in a dark thicket, they heard the noise of horses. They were terrified by the angry countenance of their master and they anxiously listened to his declaration that, if he could seize the guilty fugitives, one of them he would cut in pieces with his sword, the other would be exposed on a gibbet. At length, Attalus and his faithful Leo reached the friendly habitations of a presbyter of Reem, who recruited their fainting strength with bread and wine, concealed them from the search of their enemy and safely conducted them beyond the limits of the Austrasian kingdom to the Episcopal Palace of Longer. Gregory embraced his grandson with tears of joy, gratefully delivered Leo with his whole family from the yoke of servitude and bestowed on him the property of a farm where he might end his days in happiness and freedom. Perhaps the singular adventure, which is marked with so many circumstances of truth and nature, was related by Attalus himself to his cousin or nephew, the first historian of the Franks. Gregory of Tour was born about 60 years after the death of Sidonius Eplanarius and their situation was almost similar since each of them was a native of Alvernia, a senator and a bishop. The difference of their style and sentiments may, therefore, express the decay of Gaul in clearly a certain how much in so short a space the human mind had lost of its energy and refinement. We are now qualified to despise the opposite and perhaps artful misrepresentations which have softened or exaggerated the oppression of the Romans of Gaul under the reign of the Merovingians. The conquerors never promulgated any universal edict of servitude or confiscation but a degenerate people who excused their weakness by the specious names of politeness and peace were exposed to the arms and laws of the ferocious barbarians who contemptuously insulted their possessions, their freedom and their safety. Their personal insults were partial and irregular but the great body of the Romans survived the revolution and still preserved the property and privileges of citizens. A large portion of their lands was exhausted for the use of the Franks but they enjoyed the remainder exempt from tribute and the same irresistible violence which swept away the arts and manufacturers of Gaul destroyed the elaborate and expensive system of imperial despotism. The provincials must frequently deplore the savage Jewish prudence of the Salek or Repurian laws but their private life in the important concerns of marriage, testaments or inheritance was still regulated by the Theodosian Code and a discontented Roman might freely aspire or descend to the title and character of a barbarian. The honors of the state were accessible to his ambition. The education and temper of the Romans more peculiarly qualified them for offices of civil government and as soon as emulation had rekindled their military ardor they were permitted to march in the ranks and even at the head of the victorious Germans. I shall not attempt to enumerate the generals and magistrates whose names attest the liberal policy of the Merovingians. The supreme command of Burgundy with the title of patrician was successfully entrusted to three Romans. The last and most powerful, Moomolus who alternately saved and disturbed the monarchy had supplanted his father in the station of Count of Autun and left the treasury of 30 talents of gold and 250 talents of silver. The fierce and illiterate barbarians were excluded during several generations from the dignities and even from the orders of the church. The clergy of Gaul consisted almost entirely of native provincials. The haughty Franks felt prostrate at the feet of their subjects who were dignified with the Episcopal character and the power and riches which had been lost in war were insensibly recovered by superstition. In all temporal affairs, the Theodosian Code was the universal law of the clergy but the barbaric jurisprudence had liberally provided for their personal safety. A sub-deacon was equivalent to two Franks and Altruzian and priest were held in similar estimation and the life of a bishop was appreciated far above the common standard at the price of 900 pieces of gold. The Romans communicated to their conquerors the use of the Christian religion and Latin language but their language and their religion had alike degenerated from the simple purity of the Augustan and apostolic age. The progress of superstition and barbarism was rapid and universal. The worship of the saints concealed from vulgar eyes the God of the Christians and the rustic dialect of peasants and soldiers was corrupted by a Teutonic idiom and pronunciation. Yet such intercourse of sacred and social communion eradicated the distinctions of birth and victory. The nations of Gaul were gradually confounded under the name and government of the Franks. The Franks, after they mingled with their Gallic subjects might have imparted the most valuable of human gifts, a spirit and system of constitutional liberty. Under a king hereditary but limited the chiefs and counselors might have debated at Paris in the Palace of the Caesars. The adjacent field where the emperors reviewed the mercenary legions would have admitted the legislative assembly of freedmen and warriors and the rude model which had been sketched in the woods of Germany might have been polished and improved by the civil wisdom of the Romans. But the careless barbarians secure of their personal independence disdained the labor of government. The annual assemblies of the month of March were silently abolished and the nation was separated and almost dissolved by the conquest of Gaul. The monarchy was left without any regular establishment of justice, of arms or of revenue. The successors of Clovis wanted resolution to assume or strength to exercise the legislative and executive powers which the people had abdicated. The royal prerogative was distinguished only by a more ample privilege of rapin and murder and the love of freedom so often invigorated and disgraced by private ambition was reduced among the licentious Franks to the contempt of order and the desire of impunity. 75 years after the death of Clovis, his grandson, Gontrun, King of Burgundy sent an army to invade the Gothic possessions of Septimania or Languedoc. The troops of Burgundy, Bury, Albania and the adjacent territories were excited by the hopes of spoil. They marched without discipline under the banners of German or Gallic counts. Their attack was feeble and unsuccessful but the friendly and hostile provinces were desolated with indiscriminate rage. The cornfields, the villages, the churches themselves were consumed by fire. The inhabitants were massacred or dragged into captivity and in the disorderly retreat, 5,000 of these inhuman savages were destroyed by hunger or intestine discord. When the pious Gontrun reproached the guilt or neglect of their leaders and threatened to inflict not a legal sentence but instant and arbitrary execution, they accused the universal and incurable corruption of the people. No one, they said, any longer fears or respects his king, his duke or his count. Each man loves to do evil and freely indulges his criminal inclinations. The most gentle correction provokes an immediate tumult and the rash magistrate who presumes to censure or restrain his seditious subjects, seldom escapes alive from the revenge. It has been reserved for the same nation to expose by their intemperate vices the most odious abuse of freedom and to supply its loss by the spirit of honor and humanity, which now alleviates and dignifies their obedience to an absolute sovereign. The Visigoths had resigned to Clovis the greatest part of their Gallic possessions, but their loss was amply compensated by the easy conquest and secure enjoyment of the provinces of Spain. From the monarchy of the Goths, which soon involved the Suavek kingdom of Galicia, the modern Spaniard still derives some national vanity, but the historian of the Roman Empire is neither invited nor compelled to pursue the obscure and barren series of their annals. The Goths of Spain were separated from the rest of mankind by the lofty ridge of the Pyrenean mountains. Their manners and institutions, as far as they were common to the Germanic tribes, have already been explained. I have anticipated in the preceding chapter the most important of their ecclesiastical events, the fall of Arianism and the persecution of the Jews, and it only remains to observe some interesting circumstances which relate to the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the Spanish kingdom. After their conversion from idolatry or heresy, the Franks and the Visigoths were disposed to embrace with equal submission the inherent evils and accidental benefits of superstition, but the prelates of France, long before the extinction of the Merovingian race, had degenerated into fighting and hunting barbarians. They disdain the use of synods, forgot the laws of temperance and chastity, and preferred the indulgence of private ambition and luxury to the general interest of the sacri-dotal profession. The bishops of Spain respected themselves and were respected by the public. Their indissoluble union disguised their vices and confirmed their authority, and the regular discipline of the church introduced peace, order, and stability into the government of the state. From the reign of Recorrid, the first Catholic king, to that of Wittiza, the immediate predecessor of the unfortunate Roderick, 16 national councils were successfully convened. The six metropolitan, Toledo, Seville, Moreta, Braga, Terragana, and Narbonne presided according to the respective seniority. The assembly was composed of their suffraging bishops who appeared in person or by their proxies, and a place was assigned to the most holy or opulent of the Spanish abbots. During the first three days of the convocation, as long as they agitated the ecclesiastical questions of doctrine and discipline, the profane laity was excluded from their debates, which were conducted, however, with decent solemnity. But on the morning of the fourth day, the doors were thrown open for the entrance of the great officers of the palace, the dukes and counts of the provinces, the judges of the cities, and the Gothic nobles. And the decrees of heaven were ratified by the consent of the people. The same rules were observed in the provincial assemblies, the annual synods, which were empowered to hear complaints and redress grievances, and a legal government was supported by the prevailing influence of the Spanish clergy. The bishops, who, in each revolution, were prepared to flatter the victorious and to insult the prostrate, labored with diligence and success to kindle the flames of persecution, and to exalt the mitre above the crown. Yet the national councils of Toledo, in which the free spirit of the barbarians was temperate and guided by Episcopal policy, have established some prudent laws for the common benefit of the king and people. The vacancy of the throne was supplied by the choice of the bishops and palatines, and after the failure of the line of Alaric, the regal dignity was still limited to the pure and noble blood of the Goths. The clergy, who anointed their lawful prince, always recommended and sometimes practiced the duty of allegiance. And the spiritual censures were denounced on the heads of the empire subjects who should resist his authority and conspire against his life, or violate by an indecent union the chastity even of his widow. But the monarch himself, when he ascended the throne, was bound by a reciprocal oath to God and his people that he would faithfully execute his important trust. The real or imaginary faults of his administration were subject to the control of a powerful aristocracy, and the bishops and palatines regarded by a fundamental privilege that they should not be degraded, imprisoned, tortured, nor punished with death, exile, or confiscation, unless by the free and public judgment of their peers. One of these legislative councils of Toledo examined and ratified the code of laws which had been compiled by a succession of Gothic kings from the fierce Uric to the devout Egica. As long as the Visicoths themselves were satisfied with the rude customs of their ancestors, they indulged their subjects of Aquitaine and Spain in the enjoyment of the Roman law. Their gradual improvement in arts and policy and at length in religion encouraged them to imitate and to supersede these foreign institutions and to compose a code of civil and criminal jurisprudence for the use of a great and united people. The same obligations and the same privileges were communicated to the nations of the Spanish monarchy and the conquerors insensibly renouncing the Teutonic idiom submitted to the restraints of equity and exalted the Romans to the participation of freedom. The merit of this impartial policy was enhanced by the situation of Spain under the reign of the Visicoths. The provincials were long separated from the Aryan masters by the irreconcilable difference of religion. After the conversion of Rekorod had removed the prejudices of the Catholics, the coasts, both of the ocean and Mediterranean were still possessed by the Eastern emperors who secretly excited a discontented people to reject the yoke of the barbarians and to assert the name and dignity of Roman citizens. The allegiance of doubtful subjects is indeed most effectually secured by their own persuasion that they hazard more in a revolt that they can hope to obtain by revolution. But it has appeared so natural to oppress those whom we hate and fear that the contrary system well deserves the praise of wisdom and moderation. While the kingdoms of the Franks and Visicoths were established in Gaul and Spain, the Saxons achieved the conquest of Britain, the third great diocese of the prefecture of the West. Since Britain was already separated from the Roman Empire, I might without reproach decline a story familiar to the most illiterate and obscure to the most learned of my readers. The Saxons who excelled in the use of the ore or the battle acts were ignorant of the art which alone could perpetuate the fame of their exploits. The provincials relapsing into barbarism neglected to describe the ruin of their country and the doubtful tradition was almost extinguished before the missionaries of Rome restored the light of science and Christianity. The declamations of Gildus, the fragments or fables of Ninius, the obscure hints of the Saxon laws and chronicles and the ecclesiastical tales of the venerable bead have been illustrated by the diligence and sometimes embellished by the fancy of succeeding writers whose works I am not ambitious either to censure or to transcribe. Yet the historian of the Empire may be tempted to pursue the revolutions of a Roman province to live vanishes from his sight and an Englishman may curiously trace the establishment of the barbarians from which he derives his name, his laws and perhaps his origin. About 40 years after the dissolution of the Roman government, Vortigern appears to have obtained the supreme though precarious command of the princes and cities of Britain. That unfortunate monarch has been almost universally condemned for the weak and mischievous policy of inviting a formidable stranger to repel the vexatious inroads of a domestic foe. His ambassadors are dispatched by the gravest historians to the coast of Germany. They address a pathetic oration to the general assembly of the Saxons and those warlike barbarians resolved to assist with the fleet and army, the suppliance of a distant and unknown island. If Britain had indeed been unknown to the Saxons, the measure of its calamities would have been less complete but the strength of the Roman government cannot always guard the maritime province against the pirates of Germany. The independent and divided states were exposed to their attacks and the Saxons might sometimes join the Scots and the Picts in a tacit or express confederacy of raping and destruction. Vortigern can only balance the various perils which assaulted on every side his throne and his people and his policy may deserve either praise or excuse if he preferred the alliance of those barbarians whose naval power rendered them the most dangerous enemies and the most serviceable allies. Hengest and Horsa, as they ranged along the eastern coast with three ships were engaged by the promise of an ample stipend to embrace the defense of Britain and their intrepid valor soon delivered the country from the Calcedonian invaders. The Isle of Thanet, a secure and fertile district was allotted for the residents of these German auxiliaries and they were supplied according to the treaty with a plenable allowance of clothing and provisions. This favorable reception encouraged 5,000 warriors to embark with their families in 17 vessels and the infant power of Hengest was fortified by this strong and seasonable reinforcement. The crafty barbarian suggested to Vortigern the obvious advantage of fixing in the neighborhood of the Picts, a colony of faithful allies, a third fleet of 40 ships under the command of his son and nephew sailed from Germany, ravaged the Orkneys and disembarked with a new army on the coast of Northumberland or Lothian at the opposite extremity of the devoted land. It was easy to foresee but it was impossible to prevent the impending evils. The two nations were soon divided and exasperated by mutual jealousies. The Saxons magnified all that they had done and suffered in the cause of an ungrateful people. While the Britons regretted the liberal rewards which could not satisfy the Everest of those haughty mercenaries. The causes of fear and hatred were inflamed into an irreconcilable quarrel. The Saxons flew to arms and if they perpetrated a ferocious massacre during the security of a feast they destroyed the reciprocal confidence which sustains the intercourse of peace and war. Hengist, who boldly aspired to the conquest of Britain, exhorted his countrymen to embrace the glorious opportunity. He painted in lively colors the fertility of the soil, the wealth of the cities, the pusillanimous temper of the natives and the convenient situation of a spacious, solitary island accessible on all sides to the Saxon fleets. The successive colonies which issued in the period of a century from the mouths of the Elbe, the Wester and the Rhine were principally composed of three valiant tribes or nations of Germany. The Jutes, the old Saxons and the Engels. The Jutes, who fought under the peculiar banner of Hengist assumed the merit of leading their countrymen in the paths of glory and of erecting in Kent the first independent kingdom. The fame of the enterprise was attributed to the primitive Saxons and the common laws and language of the conquerors are described by the national appellation of a people which at the end of 400 years produced the first monarchs of South Britain. The Engels were distinguished by their numbers and their success and they claimed the honor of fixing a perpetual name on the country on which they occupied the most ample portion. The barbarians who followed the hopes of Rappine either on the land or sea were insensibly blended with this triple confederacy. The Frisians who had been tempted by their vicinity to the British shores might balance during a short space the strength and reputation of the native Saxons. The Danes, the Prussians and the Rugeans are faintly described and some adventurous Huns who had wandered as far as the Baltic might embark on board the German vessels for the conquest of a new world. But this arduous achievement was not prepared or executed by the Union and national powers. Each intrepid chieftain according to the measure of his fame and fortunes assembled his followers equipped a fleet of three or perhaps of 60 vessels, chose the place of the attack and conducted his subsequent operations according to the events of the war and dictates of his private interest. In the invasion of Britain many heroes vanquished and fell but only seven victorious leaders assumed or at least maintained the title of Kings. Seven independent thrones, the Saxon Heptarchy were founded by the conquerors and seven families one of which has been continued by female secession to our present sovereign derived their equal and sacred lineage from Woden, the God of War. It has been pretended that this Republic of Kings was moderated by a general council and a supreme magistrate but such an artful scheme of policy is repugnant to the rude and turbulent spirit of the Saxons. Their laws are silent and their imperfect annals afford only a dark and bloody prospect of intestine discord. A monk who in the profound ignorance of human life has presumed to exercise the office of historian strangely disfigures the state of Britain at the time of its separation from the Western Empire. Gildus describes in florid language the improvements of agriculture, the foreign trade which flowed with every tide into the Thames in seven, the solid and lofty construction of public and private edifices. He accuses the sinful luxury of the British people of a people according to the same writer ignorant of the most simple arts and incapable without the aid of the Romans of providing walls of stone or weapons of iron for the defense of their native land. Under the long dominion of the emperors Britain had insensibly molded into the elegant and servile form of a Roman province whose safety was entrusted to a foreign power. The subjects of Honorius contemplated their new freedom with surprise and terror and they were left destitute of any civil or military constitution and their uncertain rulers wanted either skill or courage or authority to direct the public force against the public enemy. The introduction of the Saxons betrayed their internal weakness and degraded the character both of the prince and of the people. Their consternation magnified the danger and the want of union diminished the resources and the madness of civil factions was more solicitous to accuse than to remedy the evils which they imputed to the misconduct of their adversaries. Yet the Britons were not ignorant. They could not be ignorant of the manufacture or use of arms. The successive and disorderly attacks of the Saxons allowed them to recover from their amazement and the prosperous or adverse events of the war added discipline and experience to their native valor. While the continent of Europe and Africa yielded without resistance to the barbarians the British Island alone and unaided maintained along a vigorous though an unsuccessful struggle against the formidable pirates who almost at the same instant assaulted the northern, the eastern and the southern coasts. The cities which had been fortified with skill were defended with resolution. The advantages of ground, hills, forests and morasses were diligently improved by the inhabitants. The conquest of each district was purchased with blood and the defeats of the Saxons are strongly attested by the discreet silence of their analyst. Kingist might hope to achieve the conquest of Britain but his ambition in an active reign of 35 years was confined to the possession of Kent. In the numerous colony which he had planted in the north was extirpated by the sword of the Britons. The monarchy of the West Saxons was laboriously founded by the persevering efforts of three martial generations. The life of Cerdric one of the bravest of the children of Wotan was consumed in the conquest of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and the loss which he sustained in the battle of Mount Badden reduced him to a state of inglorious repose. Kenrick, his valiant son, advanced into Wiltshire, besieged Salisbury at that time seated on a commanding eminence and vanquished an army which advanced to the relief of the city. In the subsequent battle of Marlborough, his British enemies displayed their military science. Their troops were formed in three lines and each line consisted of three distinct bodies. In the cavalry, the archers and the pikemen were distributed according to the principles of Roman tactics. The Saxons charged in one weighty column, boldly encountered with their short swords the long glances of the Britons and maintained an equal conflict to the approach of night. Two decisive victories, the death of three British kings in the reduction of current cester, Bath and Glaucuster, established the fame and power of Kaolin, the grandson of Kerdrick, who carried his victorious arms to the banks of the Severn. After a war of a hundred years, the independent Britons still occupied the whole extent of the western coast, from the wall of Antoninus to the extreme promontory of Cornwall and the principal cities of the inland country still opposed the arms of the barbarians. Resistance became more languid as the number and boldness of the assailants continually increased, winning their way by slow and painful efforts, the Saxons, the Angles, and their various Confederates advanced from the north, from the east, and from the south till their victorious banners were united in the center of the island. Beyond the Severn, the Britons still asserted their national freedom, which survived the Heptarchy and even the monarchy of the Saxons. The bravest warriors who preferred exile to slavery found a secure refuge in the mountains of Wales. The reluctant submission of Cornwall was delayed for some ages and a band of fugitives acquired a settlement in Gaul by their own valour or the liberality of the Merovingian kings. The western angle of Amorica acquired the new appellations of Cornwall and the lesser Britain, and the vacant hands of the Osamiee were filled by a strange people who, under the authority of their counts and bishops, preserved the laws and language of their ancestors. To the feeble descendants of Clovis and Charlemagne, the Britons of Amorica refused the customary tribute, subdued the neighbouring diocese of Vaan, Reyn and Nantes, and formed a powerful, though vassal state, which has been united to the Crown of France. End of Chapter 38, Part 4. Chapter 38, Part 5 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 3. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. In a century, a perpetual or at least implacable war, much courage and some skill must have been exerted for the defence of Britain. Yet, if the memory of its champions is almost buried in oblivion, we need not repine, since every age, however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds in acts of blood, a military renown. The tomb of Vortimer, the son of Vortigern, was erected on the margin of the seashore as a landmark formidable to the Saxons, whom he had thriced vanquished in the fields of Kent. Ambrosius Aurelian was descended from a normal family of Romans. His modesty was equal to his valour, and his valour, till the last fatal action was crowned with splendid success. But every British name is effaced by the illustrious name of Arthur, the hereditary prince of the Celarais, in South Wales, in the elective king or general of the nation. According to the most rational account, he defeated in 12 successive battles the Angles of the North and the Saxons of the West. But the declining age of the hero was embittered by popular ingratitude and domestic misfortunes. The events of his life are less interesting than the singular revolutions of his fame. During a period of 500 years, the tradition of his exploits was preserved and rudely embellished by the obscure bards of Wales and Amorica, who were odious to the Saxons and unknown to the rest of mankind. The pride and curiosity of the Norman conquerors prompted them to inquire into the ancient history of Britain. They listened with fond credulity to the tale of Arthur and eagerly applauded the merit of a prince who had triumphed over the Saxons, their common enemies. His romance transcribed in the Latin of Geoffrey of Monmouth and afterwards translated into the fashionable idiom of the times was enriched with the various, though incoherent ornaments which were familiar to the experience, the learning, or the fancy of the 12th century. The progress of a Phrygian colony from the Tiber to the Thames was easily engrafted onto the fable of the Aeneid and the royal ancestors of Arthur derived their origin from Troy and claimed their alliance with the Caesars. His trophies were decorated with the captive provinces and imperial titles and his Danish victories avenged the recent injuries of his country. The gallantry and superstition of the British hero, his feasts and tournaments and the memorable institution of his knights of the round table were faithfully copied from the reigning manors of Chivalry and the fabulous exploits of Uther's son appear less incredible than the adventures which were achieved by the enterprising valor of the Normans. Pilgrimage and the Holy Wars introduced into Europe the specious miracles of Arabian magic. Fairies and giants, flying dragons and enchanted palaces were blended with the more simple fictions of the West and the fate of Britain depended on the art or the predictions of Merlin. Every nation embraced and adorned the popular romance of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Their names were celebrated in Greece and Italy and the voluminous tales of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristum were devoutly studied by the princes and nobles who disregarded the genuine heroes and historians of antiquity. It linked the light of science and reason was rekindled. The talisman was broken. The visionary fabric melted into air and by a natural though unjust reverse of the popular opinion, the severity of the present age is inclined to question the existence of Arthur. Resistance, if it cannot avert must increase the miseries of conquest and conquest has never appeared more dreadful and destructive than in the hands of the Saxons who hated the valor of their enemies, disdain the faith of treaties and violated without remorse the most sacred objects of the Christian worship. The fields of battle might be traced almost in every district by monuments of bones and the fragments of falling towers were stained with blood. The last of the Britons without distinction of age or sex was massacred in the ruins of Andruida and the repetition of such calamities was frequent and familiar under the Saxon Heptarchy. The arts and religion, the laws and language which the Romans had so carefully planted in Britain were extirpated by the Barbarian successors. After the destruction of the principal churches, the bishops who had declined the crown of martyrdom retired with the holy relics and the whales and Amorica and the remains of their flocks were left destitute of any spiritual food. The practice and even the remembrance of Christianity were abolished and the British clergy might obtain some comfort from the damnation of the idolatrous strangers. The kings of France maintained the privileges of the Roman subjects but the ferocious Saxons trampled on the laws of Rome and of the emperors. The proceedings of civil and criminal jurisprudence, the titles of honor, the forms of office, the ranks of society, and even the domestic rights of marriage, testament, and inheritance were finally suppressed and the indiscriminate crowd of noble and Poblian slaves were governed by the traditionary customs which had been coarsely framed for the shepherds and pirates of Germany. The language of science, of business, and of conversation which had been introduced by the Romans was lost in the general desolation. A sufficient number of Latin or Celtic words might be assumed by the barbarians to express their new wants and ideas but those illiterate pagans preserved and established the use of their national dialect. Almost every name conspicuous either in church or state reveals its teutonic origin and the geography of England was universally inscribed with foreign characters and appellations. The example of a revolution so rapid and so complete may not easily be found but it will excite a probable suspicion that the arts of Rome were less deeply rooted in Britain than in Gaul or Spain and that the native rudeness of the country and its inhabitants was covered by a thin varnish of Italian manners. This strange alteration has persuaded historians and even philosophers that the provincials of Britain were totally exterminated and that the vacant land was again peopled by the perpetual influx and rapid increase of the German colonies. 300,000 Saxons are said to have obeyed the summons of Hengest. The entire emigration of the Ingles was attested in the age of Bede by the solitude of their native country and our experience has shown the free propagation of the human race if they are cast on a fruitful wilderness where their steps are unconfined and their subsistence is plentiful. The Saxon kingdoms displayed the face of recent discovery and cultivation. The towns were small, the villages were distant, the husbandry was languid and unskillful. Four sheep were equivalent to an acre of the best land. An ample space of wood and morass was resigned to the vagueninian of nature and the modern bishopric of Durham and the whole territory from the tine to the tees had returned to its primitive state of a savage and solitary forest. Such imperfect population might have been supplied in some generations by the English colonies but neither reason nor fact could justify the unnatural supposition that the Saxons of Britain remained alone in the desert which they had subdued. After the sanguinary barbarians had secured their dominion and gratified the revenge, it was their interest to preserve the peasants as well as the cattle of the unresisting country. In each successive revolution, the patient herd becomes the property of its new masters and the salutary compact of food and labor is silently ratified by their mutual necessities. Wilfred, the apostle of Sussex, accepted from his royal convert the gift of the peninsula of Celsius near Kirkester with the persons and property of its inhabitants who then amounted to 87 families. He released them at once from spiritual and temporal bondage and 250 slaves of both sexes were baptized by their indulgent master. The kingdom of Sussex, which spread from the sea to the Thames contained 7,000 families, 1200 were ascribed to the Isle of Wight and if we multiply this vague computation it may seem probable that England was cultivated by a million of servants or villains who were attached to the states of their arbitrary landlords. The indigent barbarians were often tempted to sell their children or themselves into perpetual and even foreign bondage. Yet the special exemptions which were granted to national slaves sufficiently declare that there are much less numerance than the strangers and captives who had lost their liberty or changed their masters by the accidents of war. When time and religion had mitigated the fierce spirits of the Anglo-Saxons, the laws encouraged the frequent practice of manumission and their subjects of Welsh or Cambrian extraction assumed the respectable station of inferior freedmen possessed of lands and entitled to the rights of civil society. Such gentle treatment might secure the allegiance of a fierce people who had been recently subdued on the confines of Wales and Cornwall. The sage Ena, the legislator of Wessex united the two nations in the bands of domestic alliance and four British lords of Somerset Sire may be honorably distinguished in the court of a Saxon monarch. The independent Britons appeared to have relapsed into the state of original barbarism from whence they had been imperfectly reclaimed. Separated by their enemies from the rest of mankind, they soon became an object of scandal and abhorrence to the Catholic world. Christianity was still professed in the mountains of Wales, but the rude schismatics in the form of the clerical tauncher and in the day of the celebration of Easter, obstinately resisted the imperious mandates of the Roman Pontiffs. The use of the Latin language was insensibly abolished and the Britons were deprived of the arts and learning which Italy communicated to her Saxon proselytites. In Wales and Amorica, the Celtic tongue, the native idiom of the West was preserved and propagated and the Bards, who had been the companions of the Druids were still protected in the 16th century by the laws of Elizabeth. Their chief, the respectable officer of the courts of Penguin or Oberfraer or Kermuthen, accompanied the king's servants to war. The monarchy of the Britons, which he sung in the front of battle, excited their courage and justify their depredations and the songster claimed for his legitimate prize, the fairest heifer of the spoil. His subordinate ministers, the masters and disciples of vocal and instrumental music visited in the respective circuits, the royal, the noble and the plebeian houses. And the public poverty, almost exhausted by the clergy, was oppressed by the important demands of the Bards. Their rank and merit were certain by solemn trials and the strong belief of supernatural inspiration exalted the fancy of the poet and of his audience. The last retreats of Celtic freedom, the extreme territories of Gaul and Britain were less adapted to agriculture than to pastureage and the wealth of the Britons consisted in their flocks and herds. Milk and flesh were their ordinary food and bread was sometimes esteemed or rejected as a foreign luxury. Liberty had peopled the mountains of Wales and the morasses of Amorica, but their populousness had been maliciously ascribed to the loose practice of polygamy and the houses of these licentious barbarians had been supposed to contain 10 wives and perhaps 50 children. Their disposition was rash and choleric. They were bold in action and in speech and as they were ignorant of the arts of peace, they alternately indulged their passions in foreign and domestic war. The cavalry of Amorica, the spearmen of Gwent and the archers of Marioneth were equally formidable but their poverty could seldom procure either shields or helmets and the inconvenient weight which would have retarded the speed and agility of their desolatory operations. One of the greatest of the English monarchs was requested to satisfy the curiosity of a Greek emperor concerning the state of Britain and Henry II could assert from his personal experience that Wales was inhabited by a race of naked warriors who encountered without fear the defensive armor of their enemies. By the revolution of Britain, the limits of science as well as of empire were contracted, the dark cloud which had been cleared by the Phoenician discoveries and finally dispelled by the arms of Caesar again settled on the shores of the Atlantic and a Roman province was again lost among the fabulous islands of the ocean. 150 years after the reign of Inorius, the Graevas historian of the times describes the wonders of a remote isle whose eastern and western parts are divided by an antique wall, the boundary of life and death or more properly of truth and fiction. The east is a fair country inhabited by a civilized people. The air is healthy, the waters are pure and plentiful and the earth yields her regular and fruitful increase. In the west, beyond the wall, the air is infectious and mortal, the ground is covered with serpents and this dreary solitude is the region of departed spirits who are transported from the opposite shores and substantial boats and by living rowers. Some families of fishermen, the subjects of the Franks are excused from tribute in consideration of the mysterious office which is performed by these chariots of the ocean. Each in his turn is summoned at the hour of midnight to hear the voices and even the names of the ghosts. He is sensible of their weight and feels himself impelled by an unknown but irresistible power. After this dream of fancy reread with astonishment that the name of this island is Britia, that it lies in the ocean against the mouth of the Rhine and less than 30 miles from the continent, that it is possessed by three nations, the Frisians, the Angles and the Britons and that some Angles have appeared at Constantinople in the train of the French ambassadors. From these ambassadors, Procopius might be informed of a singular though not improbable adventure which announces the spirit rather than the delicacy of an English heroine. She had been betrothed to Rattiger, the king of the Varney, a tribe of Germans who touched the ocean and the Rhine but the perfidious lover was tempted by motives of policy to prefer his father's widow, the sister of the Autoburth, King of the Franks. The forsaken princess of the Angles, instead of bewailing, revenged her disgrace. Her warlike subjects are said to be ignorant of the use and even of the form of a horse but she boldly sailed from Britain to the mouth of the Rhine with a fleet of 400 ships and an army of 100,000 men. After the loss of a battle, the captive Rattiger employed the mercy of his victorious bride who generously pardoned his offense, dismissed her rival and compelled the king of the Varney to discharge with honor and fidelity the duties of a husband. This gallant exploit appears to be the last naval enterprise of the Anglo-Saxons, the arts of navigation by which they had acquired the empire of Britain and of the sea was soon neglected by the Indolent barbarians who supinely renounced all the commercial advantages of their insular situation. Seven independent kingdoms were agitated by perpetual discord and the British world was seldom connected either in peace or a war with the nations of the continent. I have now accomplished the laborious narrative of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire from the fortunate age of Trajan and the Antonines to its total extinction in the West about five centuries after the Christian era. At that unhappy period, the Saxons fiercely struggled with the natives for the possession of Britain. Gaul and Spain were divided between the powerful monarchies of the Franks and Visigoths and the dependent kingdoms of the Suivi and Burgundians. Africa was exposed to the cruel persecution of the Vandals and the savage insults of the Moors. Rome and Italy, as far as the banks of the Danube were afflicted by an army of barbarian mercenaries whose lawless tyranny was succeeded by the reign of Theodoric, the Ostrogoth. All the subjects of the empire who by the use of the Latin language more particularly deserved the name and privileges of Romans were oppressed by the disgrace and calamities of foreign conquest and the victorious nations of Germany established a new system of manners and government in the Western countries of Europe. The majesty of Rome was faintly represented by the princes of Constantinople, the feeble and imaginary successors of Augustus. Yet they continued to reign over the east from the Danube to the Nile and Tigris. The Gothic and Vandal kingdoms of Italy and Africa were subverted by the arms of Justinian and the history of the Greek emperors may still afford a long series of instructive lessons and interesting revolutions. End of chapter 38, part five. Section 38, part six of the decline of fall of the Roman Empire. Volume three, this is the Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. General observations on the fall of the Roman Empire in the west. The Greeks, after their country had been reduced into a province, imputed the triumphs of Rome not to the merit but to the fortune of the Republic. The inconstant goddess who so blindly distributes and resumes her favors had now consented such was the language of envious flattery to resign her wings, to descend from her globe and to fix her firm and immutable throne on the banks of the Tiber. A wiser Greek who has composed with the philosophic spirit the memorable history of his own times deprived his countrymen of this vain and delusive comfort by opening to their view the deep foundations of the greatness of Rome. The fidelity of the citizens to each other and to the state was confirmed by the habits of education and the prejudices of religion. Honor as well as virtue was the principle of the Republic. The ambitious citizens labored to deserve the solemn glories of the triumph and the ardor of the Roman youth was kindled into the active emulation as often as they beheld the domestic images of their ancestors. The temperate struggles of the patricians and Poblians had finally established the firm and equal balance of the constitution which united the freedom of popular assemblies with the authority and wisdom of a Senate. In the executive powers of a regal magistrate when the consul displayed the standard of the Republic each citizen bound himself by the obligation of an oath to draw his sword in the cause of his country till he had discharged the sacred duty by a military service of 10 years. This wise institution continually poured into the field the rising generations of free men and soldiers and their numbers were reinforced by the warlike and populist states of Italy who after a brave resistance had yielded to the valor and embraced the alliance of the Romans. The sage historian who excited the virtue of the younger Scipio and beheld the ruin of Carthage has accurately described their military systems. Their levies, arms, exercises, subordination, marches, encampments and the invincible legion superior and active strength to the Macedonian failings of Philip and Alexander. From these institutions of peace and war, Polybius has deduced the spirit and success of a people incapable of fear and impatient of repose. The ambitious design of conquest which might have been defeated by the seasonable conspiracy of mankind was attempted and achieved and the perpetual violation of justice was maintained by the political virtues of prudence and courage. The arms of the Republic sometimes vanquished in battle always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine and the ocean. And the images of gold or silver or brass that might serve to represent the nations and their kings were successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome. The rise of a city which swelled into an empire may deserve as a singular prodigy the reflection of a philosophic mind but the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay. The causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest. And as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and obvious and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious legions who in distant wars acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries first oppressed the freedom of the Republic and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors anxious for their personal safety and the public peace were reduced to the basic expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy. The rigor of the military government was relaxed and finally dissolved by the partial institutions of Constantine. And the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of barbarians. The decay of Rome has frequently been ascribed to the translation of the seat of empire. But this history has already shown that the powers of the government were divided rather than removed. The throne of Constantinople was erected in the east while the west was still possessed by a series of emperors who held their residence in Italy and claimed their equal inheritance of the legions and provinces. This dangerous novelty impaired the strength and fermented the vices of a double reign. The institutions of an impressive and arbitrary system were multiplied and a vain emulation of luxury, not of merit was introduced and supported between the degenerate successors of Theodosius. Extreme distress which unites the virtue of a free people embitters the factions of a declining monarchy. The hostile favorites of Arcadius and Anorius betrayed the Republic to its common enemies. And the Byzantine court beheld with indifference, perhaps with pleasure, the disgrace of Rome, the misfortunes of Italy and the loss of the west. Under the succeeding reigns, the alliance of the two empires was restored, but the aid of the Oriental Romans was tardy, doubtful and ineffectual, and the national schisms of the Greeks and Latins was enlarged by the perpetual difference of language and manners, of interests and even of religion. Yet the salutary event approved in some measure the judgment of Constantine. During a long period of decay, his impregnable city repelled the victorious armies of barbarians, protected the wealth of Asia, and commanded both in peace and war, the important straits which connect the Eucsain and Mediterranean seas. The foundation of Constantinople more essentially contributed to the preservation of the east than to the ruin of the west. As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction or at least the abuse of Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillulimity. The active virtues of society was discouraged and the last remnants in military spirit were buried in the cloister. A large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion. And the soldier's pay was lavished on the useless multitude of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and the more earthly passions of malice and ambition kindled the flame of theological discord. And the church and even the state were distracted by religious factions whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and always implacable. The attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods and the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny and the persecuted sex became the secret enemies of their country. Yet party spirit, however pernicious or absurd is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The bishops from 1800 pulpits inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign. Their frequent assemblies and perpetual correspondence maintained the communion of distant churches and the benevolent temper of the gospel was strengthened, though confined by the spiritual alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile in a feminine age. But if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert from baser motives, the standard of the Republic. Religious precepts are easily obeyed which indulge and sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries. But the pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced to its beneficial though imperfect effects on the barbarian proselytites of the North. If the decline of the Roman Empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall and modified the ferocious temper of the conquerors. This awful revolution may be usefully applied to the instruction of the present age. It is the duty of a patriot to prefer and promote the exclusive interest and glory of his native country. But a philosopher may be permitted to enlarge his views and to consider Europe as one great republic whose various inhabitants have attained almost the same level of politeness and cultivation. The balance of power will continue to fluctuate and the prosperity of our own or the neighboring kingdoms may be alternately exalted or depressed. But these partial events cannot essentially injure our general state of happiness. The system of arts and laws and manners which so advantageously distinguish above the rest of mankind the Europeans and their colonies. The savage nations of the globe are the common enemies of civilized society and we may inquire with anxious curiosity whether Europe is still threatened with the repetition of those calamities which formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of Rome. Perhaps the same reflections will illustrate the fall of the mighty empire and explain the probable causes of our actual security. One, the Romans were ignorant of the extent of their danger and the numbers of their enemies. Beyond the Rhine and Danube, the northern countries of Europe and Asia were filled with innumerable tribes of hunters and shepherds, poor, voracious and turbulent, bold in arms and impatient to ravish the fruits of industry. The barbarian world was agitated by the rapid impulse of war and the peace of Gaul or Italy was shaken by the distant revolutions of China. The Huns who fled before a victorious enemy directed their march towards the west and the torrent was swelled by the gradual accession of captives and allies. The flying tribes who yielded to the Huns assumed in their turn the spirit of conquest. The endless column of barbarians pressed on the Roman Empire with accumulated weight and, if the foremost were destroyed, the vacant space was instantly replenished by new assailants. Such formidable emigration's no longer issue from the north and the longer oppose which has been imputed to the decrease of population is the happy consequence of the progress of arts and agriculture. Instead of some rude villages thinly scattered among its woods and morasses, Germany now produces a list of 2,300 walled towns. The Christian kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden and Poland have been successively established and the Hansa merchants with the Teutonic Knights have extended their colonies along the coast of the Baltic as far as the Gulf of Finland. From the Gulf of Finland to the eastern ocean, Russia now assumes the form of a powerful and civilized empire. The Plough, the Loom and the Forge are introduced on the banks of the Volga, the Obi and the Lena and the fiercest of the Tartar hordes have been taught to tremble and obey. The reign of independent barbarians is now contracted to a narrow span and the remnant of Kalmux or Uzbeks whose forces may almost be numbered cannot seriously excite the apprehensions of the great Republic of Europe. Yet this apparent security should not tempt us to forget that new enemies and unknown dangers may possibly arise from some obscure people scarcely visible on the map of the world. The Arabs or Saracans who spread their conquests from India to Spain had languished in poverty and contempt till Muhammad breathed into those savage bodies the spirit of enthusiasm. Two, the Empire of Rome was firmly established by the singular and perfect coalition of its members. The subject nations residing the hope and even the wish of independence embraced the character of Roman citizens and the provinces of the West were reluctantly torn by the barbarians from the bosom of their mother country. Yet this union was purchased by the loss of national freedom and military spirit and the servile provinces destitute of life and motion expected their safety from the mercenary troops and governors who were directed by the orders of a distant court. The happiness of in hundreds millions depended on the personal merit of one or two men perhaps children whose minds were corrupted by education, luxury and despotic power. The deepest wounds were inflicted on the Empire during the minorities of the sons and grandsons of Theodosius and after those incapable princes seemed to obtain the age of manhood, they abandoned the church to the bishops, the state to the eunuchs and the provinces to the barbarians. Europe is now divided into 12 powerful though unequal kingdoms, three respectable common wells and a variety of smaller though independent states. The chances of royal and ministerial talents are multiplied at least with the number of its rulers and a Julian or a Semiramis may reign in the North while Arcadius and Anorius again slumber on the thrones of the South. The abuses of tyranny are restrained by the mutual influence of fear and shame. Republics have required order and stability. Monarchies have imbibed the principles of freedom or at least of moderation and some sense of honor and justice is introduced into the most defective constitutions by the general manners of the times. In peace, the progress of knowledge and industry is accelerated by the emulation of so many active rivals. In war, the European forces are exercised by temperate and undecisive conquests. If a savage conqueror should issue from the deserts of Tartary, he must repeatedly vanquish the robust peasants of Russia, the numerous armories of Germany, the Gallant Nobles of France, the intrepid freedmen of Britain, who perhaps might confederate for their common defense. Should the victorious barbarians carry slavery and desolation as far as the Atlantic Ocean, 10,000 vessels would transport beyond their pursuit the remnants of civilized society and Europe would revive and flourish in the American world which is already filled with their colonies and institutions. Three, cold, poverty and a life of danger and fatigue fortify the strength and courage of barbarians. In every age, they have oppressed the polite and peaceful nations of China, India and Persia who neglected and still neglect to counterbalance these natural powers by the resources of military art. The warlike states of antiquity, Greece, Macedonia and Rome, educated a race of soldiers, exercised their bodies, disciplined their courage, multiplied their forces by regular evolutions and converted the iron which they possessed into strong and serviceable weapons. But this superiority insensibly declined with their laws and manners and the feeble policy of Constantine and his successors armed and instructed for the ruin of the empire, the rude valor of the barbarian mercenaries. The military art has been changed by the invention of gunpowder which enables man to command the two most powerful agents of nature, air and fire. Mathematics, chemistry, mechanics, architecture have been applied to the service of war and the adverse parties opposed to each other the most elaborate modes of attack and of defense. Historians may indignantly observe that the preparations of a siege would found and maintain a flourishing colony. Yet we cannot be displeased that the subversion of a city should be a work of cost and difficulty or that an industrious people should be protected by those arts which survive and supply the decline of military virtue. Cannon and fortifications now form an impregnable barrier against the Tartar horse and Europe is secure from any future eruption of barbarians since before they can conquer they must cease to be barbarians. Their gradual advances in the science of war would always be accompanied as we may learn from the example of Russia with a proportionable improvement in the arts of peace and civil policy and they themselves must deserve a place among the polished nations whom they subdue. Should these speculations be found doubtful or fallacious there still remains a more humble source of comfort and hope. The discovery of ancient and modern navigators and the domestic history or tradition of the most enlightened nations represent the human savage naked both in mind and body and destitute of laws, of arts, of ideas and almost of language. From this abject condition perhaps the primitive and universal state of man he has gradually arisen to command the animals to fertilize the earth, to traverse the ocean and to measure the heavens. His progress in the improvement and exercise of his mental and corporal faculties have been irregular and various infinitely slow in the beginning and increasing by degrees with redouble velocity. Ages of laborious ascent have been followed by a moment of rapid downfall and the several climates of the globe have felt the vicissitudes of light and darkness. Yet the experience of 4,000 years should enlarge our hopes and diminish our apprehensions. We cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire and their advances towards perfection but it may safely be presumed that no people unless the face of nature is changed will relapse into their original barbarism. The improvements of society may be viewed under a threefold aspect. One, the poet or philosopher illustrates his age and country by the efforts of a single mind but these superior powers of reason or fancy are rare in spontaneous productions and the genius of Homer or Cicero or Newton would excite less admiration if they could be created by the will of a prince or the lessons of a perceptor. Two, the benefits of law and policy of trade and manufacturers of arts and sciences are more solid and permanent and many individuals may be qualified by education and discipline to promote in their respective stations the interests of the community but this general order is the effective skill and labor and the complex machinery may be decayed by time or injured by violence. Three, fortunately for mankind the more useful or at least more necessary arts can be performed without superior talents or national subordination without the powers of one or the union of many. Each village, each family, each individual must always possess both ability and inclination to perpetuate the use of fire and of metals the propagation and service of domestic animals the methods of hunting and fishing the rudiments of navigation the imperfect cultivation of corn or other nutritive grain in the simple practice of the mechanic trades. Private genius and public industry may be extirpated but these hardy plans survive the tempest and strike an everlasting root into the most unfavorable soil. The splendid days of Augustus and Trajan were eclipsed by a cloud of ignorance and the barbarians subverted the laws and palaces of Rome but the sith, the invention or emblem of Saturn still continued annually to mow the harvest of Italy and the human feasts of the Leistragons have never been renewed on the coast of Campania. Since the first discovery of the arts, war, commerce and religious zeal have diffused among the savages of the old and new world, these inestable gifts they have been successfully propagated and they can never be lost. We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion that every age of the world has increased and still increases the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge and perhaps the virtue of the human race. End of chapter 38 and the end of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, volume three.