422 Saint Martin and the soldiers 



unorganized barbarism for several more centuries, seems proof positive 

 that no utter destruction of the economic fabric took place in the census 

 to which Lactantius refers. But that the pressure exerted by the central 

 power, and the responsive severity of officials, were extreme, and that 

 the opportunities for extortion were seized and cruelly used, may fairly 

 be taken for fact on his authority. This was not the beginning of 

 sufferings to the unhappy tillers of the soil, nor was it the end. One 

 census might be more ruinous to their wellbeing than another: it was 

 always exhausting, and kept the farmers in terror. But they had not 

 as yet reached the stage of thinking it better to bear the yoke of bar- 

 barian chieftains than to remain under the corrupt and senseless 

 maladministration of imperial Rome. 



LVIII. SULPICIUS SEVERUS. 



The life and doings of the famous saint of Gaul, Martin of Tours, 

 a Pannonian by birth, were chronicled by Sulpicius Severus, writing 

 soon after 400, in an enthusiastic biography still in existence. In another 

 work occurs a passage 1 narrating one of his hero's many miracles; and 

 the story is too artlessly illustrative of the behaviour of the military 

 and the state of things on the public roads, not to be mentioned here. 

 Martin was travelling on his ecclesiastical duties, riding on an ass with 

 friends in company. The rest being for a moment detained, Martin 

 went on alone for a space. Just then a government car (fiscalis raedd) 

 occupied by a party of soldiers was coming along the road. The mules 

 drawing it shied at the unfamiliar figure of the saint in his rough and 

 dark dress. They got entangled in their harness, and the difficulty of 

 disentangling them infuriated the soldiers, who were in a hurry. Down 

 they jumped and fell upon Martin with whips and staves. He said not 

 a word, but took their blows with marvellous patience, and his apparent 

 indifference only enraged them the more. His companions picked him 

 up all battered and bloody, and were hastening to quit the scene of 

 the assault, when the soldiers, on trying to make a fresh start, were 

 the victims of a miracle. No amount of beating would induce the mules 

 to stir. Supernatural influence was suspected and made certain by 

 discovery of the saint's identity. Abject repentance was followed by 

 gracious forgiveness, and mules and soldiers resumed their journey. 

 Now the point of interest to us is the matter-of-fact way in which this 

 encounter is narrated. That a party of the military should bully peace- 

 ful civilians on the high road is too commonplace an event to evoke 

 any special comment or censure. But it is clearly an edifying fact that 

 violence offered to a holy man did not escape divine punishment. There 



1 Sulp Sev dial II 3. 



