The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Эдвард Гиббон

= 1287a.] Both the prince and the philosopher choose, however, to involve this eternal truth in artful and laboured obscurity.

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      That sentiment is expressed almost in the words of Julian himself. Ammian. xxii. 10.

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      Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 95, p. 320), who mentions the wish and design of Julian, insinuates, in mysterious language (θεω̂ν οὔτω γνόντων . . . ἀλλ’ν ἀμείνων ὁ κωλύων), that the emperor was restrained by some particular revelation.

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      Julian. in Misopogon. p. 343 [p. 442, ed. H.]. As he never abolished, by any public law, the proud appellations of Despot or Dominus, they are still extant on his medals (Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 38, 39); and the private displeasure which he affected to express only gave a different tone to the servility of the court. The Abbé de la Bléterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 99-102) has curiously traced the origin and progress of the word Dominus under the Imperial government.

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      Ammian. xxii. 7. The consul Mamertinus (in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 28, 29, 30) celebrates the auspicious day, like an eloquent slave, astonished and intoxicated by the condescension of his master.

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      Personal satire was condemned by the laws of the twelve tables:

      Si male condiderit in quem quis carmina, jus est

      Judiciumque —

      Julian (in Misopogon. p. 337 [ad init.]) owns himself subject to the law; and the Abbé de la Bléterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 92) has eagerly embraced a declaration so agreeable to his own system, and indeed to the true spirit of the Imperial constitution.

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      Zosimus, l. iii. p. 158.

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      Ἡ τη̂ς βουλη̂ς ἴσχυς ψύχη πόλεώς ὲστιν. See Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 71, p. 296), Ammianus (xxii. 9), and the Theodosian Code (l. xii. tit. i. leg. 50-55)., with Godefroy’s Commentary (tom. iv. p. 390-402). Yet the whole subject of the Curiæ, notwithstanding very ample materials, still remains the most obscure in the legal history of the empire.

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      Quæ paulo ante arida et siti anhelantia visebantur, ea nunc perlui, mundari, madere; Fora, Deambulacra, Gymnasia, lætis et gaudentibus populis frequentari; dies festos, et celebrari veteres, et novos in honorem principis consecrari (Mamertin. xi. 9). He particularly restored the city of Nicopolis, and the Actiac games, which had been instituted by Augustus.

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      Julian. Epist. xxxv. p. 407-411. This epistle, which illustrates the declining age of Greece, is omitted by the Abbé de la Bléterie; and strangely disfigured by the Latin translator, who, by rendering ἀτέλεια, tributum, and ἰδιω̂ται, populus, directly contradicts the sense of the original.

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      He reigned in Mycenæ, at the distance of fifty stadia, or six miles, from Argos: but these cities, which alternately flourished, are confounded by the Greek poets. Strabo, l. viii. p. 579, edit. Amstel. p. 1707.

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      Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 421. This pedigree from Temenus and Hercules may be suspicious; yet it was allowed, after a strict inquiry by the judges of the Olympic games (Herodot. l. v. c. 22) at a time when the Macedonian kings were obscure and unpopular in Greece. When the Achæan league declared against Philip, it was thought decent that the deputies of Argos should retire (T. Liv. xxxii. 22).

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      His eloquence is celebrated by Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 75, 76, p. 300, 301), who distinctly mentions the orators of Homer. Socrates (l. iii. c. 1) has rashly asserted that Julian was the only prince, since Julius Cæsar, who harangued the senate. All the predecessors of Nero (Tacit. Annal. xiii. 3), and many of his successors, possessed the faculty of speaking in public; and it might be proved, by various examples, that they frequently exercised it in the senate.

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      Ammianus (xxii. 10) has impartially stated the merits and defects of his judicial proceedings. Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 90, 91, p. 315, &c.) has seen only the fair side, and his picture, if it flatters the person, expresses at least the duties, of the Judge. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iv. p. 120), who suppresses the virtues, and exaggerates even the venial faults, of the apostate, triumphantly asks, Whether such a judge was fit to be seated between Minos and Rhadamanthus, in the Elysian fields.

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      Of the laws which Julian enacted in a reign of sixteen months, fifty-four have been admitted into the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian (Gothofred. Chron. Legum, p. 64-67). The Abbé de la Bléterie (tom. ii. p. 329-336) has chosen one of these laws to give an idea of Julian’s Latin style, which is forcible and elaborate, but less pure than his Greek.

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      . . . . . . Ductor fortissimus armis;

      Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore manûque

      Consultor patriæ; sed non consultor habendæ

      Religionis; amans tercentûm millia Divûm.

      Perfidus ille Deo, sed non et [leg. quamuis non] perfidus orbi.

      — Prudent. Apotheosis, 450, &c.

      [ed. Dressel, p. 102].

      The consciousness of a generous sentiment seems to have raised the Christian poet above his usual mediocrity.