ROME. 
The Empire. 
293 
The Empire. 
sense of their true interest soon connected Licinius and Con¬ 
stantine ; a secret alliance was concluded between Maxiinin 
and Maxentius, and their unhappy subjects expected with 
terror the bloody consequences of their inevitable dissen- 
tions. 
. Among so many crimes and misfortunes occasioned by 
the passions of the Roman princes, there is some pleasure in 
discovering a single action which may be ascribed to their 
virtue. -In the sixth year of his reign, Constantine visited 
the city of Autun, and generously remitted the arrears of 
tribute, reducing at the same time the proportion of their 
assessment, from twenty-five to eighteen thousand heads, 
subject to the real and personal capitation. Yet even this 
indulgence affords the most unquestionable proof of the 
public misery. This tax was so extremely oppressive, either 
in itself, or in the mode of collecting it, that whilst the 
revenue was increased by extortion, it was diminished by 
despair: a considerable part of the territory of Autun was 
left uncultivated; and great numbers of the provincials 
rather chose to live as exiles and outlaws, than to support the 
weight of civil society. 
The virtues of Constantine were rendered more illustrious 
by, the vices of Maxentius. Whilst the Gallic provinces 
enjoyed as much happiness as the condition of the times was 
capable of receiving, Italy and Africa groaned under the 
dominion of a tyrant as contemptible as he was odious. 
He had had the good fortune to suppress a slight rebellion in 
Africa. The governor and a few adherents had been guilty; 
the province suffered for their crime. The flourishing cities 
of Cirtha and Carthage, and the whole extent of that fertile 
country, were wasted by tire and sword. The state of the 
capital was no less deserving of compassion than that of 
Africa. The wealth of Rome supplied an inexhaustible 
fund for his vain and prodigal expenses, and the ministers 
of his revenue were skilled in the arts of rapine. It was 
under his reign that the method of exacting a free gift from 
the senators was first invented; and as the sum was insen¬ 
sibly increased, the pretences of levying it, a victory, a 
birth, a marriage, or an imperial consulship, were propor- 
tionably multiplied. Maxentius had imbibed the same im¬ 
placable aversion to the senate, which had characterized most 
of the former tyrants of Rome; nor was it possible for his 
ungrateful temper to forgive the generous fidelity which had 
raised him to the throne, and supported him against all his 
enemies. The lives of the senators were exposed to his 
jealous suspicions, the dishonour of their wives and daughters 
heightened the gratification of his sensual passions. It may 
be presumed that an imperial lover was seldom reduced to 
sigh in vain; but there remains one memorable example of 
a noble matron, who preserved her chastity by a voluntary 
death. The soldiers were the only order of men whom he 
appeared to respect, or studied to please. He filled Rome 
and Italy with armed troops, connived at their tumults, suf¬ 
fered them with impunity to plunder, and even to massacre, 
the defenceless people; and indulging them in the same 
licentiousness which their emperor enjoyed, Maxentius often 
bestowed on his military favourites the splendid villa, or the 
beautiful wife of a senator. 
Though Constantine viewed the conduct of Maxentius with 
abhorrence, and the situation of the Romans with compas¬ 
sion, we have no reason to presume that he would have taken 
up arms to punish the one, or to relieve the other. But the 
tyrant of Italy rashly ventured to provoke a formidable 
enemy, whose ambition had been hitherto restrained by 
considerations of prudence, rather than by principles of 
justice. Maxentius openly avowed his pretensions to the 
whole monarchy of the West, prepared a very considerable 
force to invade the Gallic provinces on the side of Rhsetia, 
and though he could not expect any assistance from Licinius, 
was flattered with the hope that the legions of Ulyricum, 
allured by his presents and promises, would desert the 
standard of that prince, and unanimously declare themselves 
his soldiers and subjects. Constantine no longer hesitated. 
He gave a private audience to the ambassadors, who, in the 
name of the senate and people, conjured him to deliver Rome 
t, Vol. XXII. No. 1502. 
from a detested tyrant; and, without regarding the timid 
remonstrances of his council, he resolved to prevent theenemy, 
and to carry the war into the heart of Italy. 
The conduct of Constantine, and the devotion of his troops 
triumphed over the slothful Maxentius although the army of 
the latter nearly doubled that of the former. During the many 
wars that were necessary to the final overthrow of the Roman 
emperor, several signal acts of valour were performed, and the 
praetorian bands especially, were almost exterminated, ere 
they surrendered. The victory of Constantine was sullied by 
the cruellies usual at the time, and the free gift extorted by 
Maxentius, was charged by the new emperor as a perpetual 
tax on the senators, which effectually rendered a seat in the 
senate house, formerly an honour, and an indication of power, 
a vain and expensive distinction. 
A long war also took place between Licinius and Con¬ 
stantine, and fora few days, two generals were raised by 
the respective emperors to the rank of Caesars. These, 
however, were soon dethroned, and a peace was made, 
which secured Constantine a large share of his rival’s 
territory. 
The reconciliation of Constantine and Licinius, maintain¬ 
ed, above eight years, the tranquillity of the Roman world. 
Civil regulations employed during this time the leisure of 
Constantine. The most important of his institutions referred 
to the new system of policy and religion, which w'as not 
perfectly established till the last and peaceful years of his 
reign. There are many of his laws, which, as far as they 
concern the rights and property of individuals, and the 
practice of the bar, are more properly referred to the private 
than to the public jurisprudence of the empire; and he 
published many edicts of so local and temporary a nature, 
that they would ill deserve the notice of a general history. 
Two laws, however, may be selected from the crowd; the 
one for its importance, the other for its singularity ; the 
former for its remarkable benevolence, the latter for its 
excessive severity. 1. The horrid practice, so familiar to the 
ancients, of exposing or murdering their new-born infants, 
was become every day more frequent in the provinces, 
and especially in Italy. It was the effect of distress; and 
the distress was principally occasioned by the intolerable 
burden of taxes, and by the vexations as well as cruel 
prosecutions of the officers of the revenue against their 
insolvent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious 
part of mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of 
family, deemed it an act of paternal tenderness to release 
their children from the impending miseries of a life which 
they themselves were unable to support. The humanity of 
Constantine, moved, perhaps, by some recent and extraor¬ 
dinary instances of despair, engaged him to address an edict 
to all the cities of Italy, and afterwards of Africa, directing 
immediate and sufficient relief to be given to those parents 
who should produce before the magistrates the children 
whom their own poverty would not allow them to educate. 
But the promise was too liberal, and the provision too vague, 
to effect any general or permanent benefit. The law, though 
it may merit some praise, served rather to display than to 
alleviate the public distress. 2. The laws of Constantine against 
rapes were dictated with very little indulgence for the weak¬ 
ness of human nature; since the description of that crime 
was applied, not only to the brutal violence which compelled, 
but even to the seduction which persuaded an unmarried 
woman, under the age of twenty-five, to leave the house of 
her parents. The successful ravisher was either burnt alive, 
or torn in pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The 
virgin’s declaration that she had been carried away with her 
own consent, instead of saving her lover, exposed her to 
share his fate. The duty of a public prosecution was en¬ 
trusted to the parents of the guilty or unfortunate maid; and 
if the sentiments of nature prevailed on them todissemble the 
injury, and to repair by a subsequent marriage the honour 
of their family, they were themsel ves punished by exile and 
confiscation. The slaves, whether male or female, who were 
convicted of having been accessary to the rape or seduc¬ 
tion, were burnt alive, or put to death by the ingenious 
4 F torture 
