peror suggested a new tax of five per cent on all legacies and inheritances. But the nobles of Rome were more tenacious of property than of freedom. Their indignant murmurs were received by Augustus with his usual temper. He candidly referred the whole business to the senate, and exhorted them to provide for the public service by some other expedient of a less odious nature. They were divided and perplexed. He insinuated to them, that their obstinacy would oblige him to propose a general land-tax and capitation. They acquiesced in silence.* The new imposition on legacies and inheritances was, however, mitigated by some restrictions. It did not take place unless the object was of a certain value, most probably of fifty or a hundred pieces of gold; nor could it be exacted from the nearest of kin on the father's side. When the rights of nature and poverty were thus secured, it seemed reasonable that a stranger or a distant relation, who acquired an unexpected accession of fortune, should cheerfully resign a twentieth part of it, for the benefit of the state.§

Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every wealthy community, was most happily suited to the situation of the Romans, who could frame their arbitrary wills according to the dictates of reason or caprice, without any restraint from the modern fetters of entails and settlements. From various causes the partiality of paternal affection often lost its influence over the stern patriots of the commonwealth, and the dissolute nobles of the empire; and if the father bequeathed to his son the fourth part of his estate, he removed all ground of legal complaint. But a rich childless old man was a domestic tyrant, and his power

the relief was of very short duration. * Dion Cassius, 1. 55, p. 794; 1. 56, p. 825. [No mention is made by Dion, either of such a proposition or of the capitation. He says only that the emperor imposed a land-tax, and sent round commissioners to prepare a schedule of it, but without fixing how or how much each individual was to pay. The senators, to avoid a greater sacrifice, submitted to the imposition on legacies and inheritances. This took place A.U.C. 759-760, not long before the death of Augustus.-WENCK.] The sum is only fixed by conjecture. As the Roman law subsisted for many ages, the cognati, or relations on the mother's side, were not called into the succession. This harsh institution was gradually undermined by humanity, and finally abolished by Justinian. § Plin. Panegyric. c. 37. ¶ See Heineccius, in the Antiquit. Juris Romani, 1. 2.

increased with his years and infirmities. A servile crowd, in which he frequently reckoned prætors and consuls, courted his smiles, pampered his avarice, applauded his follies, served his passions, and waited with impatience for his death. The arts of attendance and flattery were formed into a most lucrative science; those who professed it acquired a peculiar appellation; and the whole city, according to the lively descriptions of satire, was divided between two parties, the hunters and their game.* Yet, whilst so many unjust and extravagant wills were every day dictated by cunning and subscribed by folly, a few were the results of rational esteem and virtuous gratitude. Cicero, who had so often defended the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens, was rewarded with legacies to the amount of 170,000l.,† nor do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less generous to that amiable orator.‡ Whatever was the motive of the testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the twentieth part of his estate; and in the course of two or three generations, the whole property of the subject must have gradually passed through the coffers of the state.

In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince, from a desire of popularity, and perhaps from a blind impulse of benevolence, conceived a wish of abolishing the oppression of the customs and excise. The wisest senators applauded his magnanimity; but they diverted him from the execution of a design which would have dissolved the strength and resources of the republic.§ Had it indeed been possible to realize this dream of fancy, such princes as Trajan and the Antonines would surely have embraced with ardour the glorious opportunity of conferring so signal an obligation on mankind. Satisfied, however, with alleviating the public burden, they attempted not to remove it. The mildness and precision of their laws ascertained the rule and measure of taxation, and protected the subject of every rank against arbitrary interpretations, antiquated claims, and the insolent vexation of the farmers

* Horat. 1. 2, sat. 5. Petron. c. 116, &c. Plin. 1. 2. epist 20.

+ Cicero in Philipp. 2. c. 16. See his epistles. Every such will gave him an occasion of displaying his reverence to the dead, and his justice to the living. He reconciled both, in his behaviour to a son who had been disinherited by his mother. (5, 1). § Tacit. Annal.

of the revenue.* For it is somewhat singular that, in every age, the best and wisest of the Roman governors persevered in this pernicious method of collecting the principal branches at least of the excise and customs.†

The sentiments, and indeed the situation of Caracalla, were very different from those of the Antonines. Inattentive, or rather averse, to the welfare of his people, he found himself under the necessity of gratifying the insatiate avarice which he had excited in the army. Of the several impositions introduced by Augustus, the twentieth on inheritances and legacies was the most fruitful as well as the most comprehensive. As its influence was not confined to Rome or Italy, the produce continually increased with the gradual extension of the Roman City. The new citizens, though charged on equal terms with the payment of new taxes, which had not affected them as subjects, derived an ample compensation from the rank they obtained, the privileges they acquired, and the fair prospect of honours and fortune that was thrown open to their ambition. But the favour which implied a distinction was lost in the prodigality of Caracalla, and the reluctant provincials were compelled to assume the vain title, and the real obligations, of Roman citizens. Nor was the rapacious son of Severus contented with such a measure of taxation as had appeared sufficient to his moderate predecessors. Instead of a twentieth, he exacted a tenth of all legacies and inheritances; and during his reign (for the ancient proportion was restored after his death) he crushed alike every part of the empire under the weight of his iron sceptre.§

13, 50. Esprit des Loix, 1. 12, c. 19. * See Pliny's Panegyric, the Augustan History, and Burmann, de Vectigal. passim. The tributes (properly so called) were not farmed, since the good princes often remitted many millions of arrears. The situation of the new citizens is minutely described by Pliny. (Panegyric. c. 37, 38.) Trajan published a law very much in their favour. § Dion, 1. 77, p. 1295. [Gibbon has here adopted the opinion, generally received on the authority of Spanheim and Burmann, who attribute to Caracalla the edict by which all the inhabitants of the provinces were made citizens of Rome. This, however, is not an undisputed point. The passage in Dion, on which it rests, is very suspicious. His epitomizers, Xiphilin and Zonaras, knew it not. We have it only as a detached portion from the Excerpta of the emperor Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, to which we cannot give implicit faith. In many passages of Spartianus, Aure

When all the provincials became liable to the peculiar impositions of Roman citizens, they seemed to acquire a legal exemption from the tributes which they had paid in their former condition of subjects. Such were not the maxims of government adopted by Caracalla and his pretended son. The old as well as the new taxes were, at the same time, levied in the provinces. It was reserved for the virtue of Alexander to relieve them, in a great measure, from this intolerable grievance, by reducing the tributes to a thirtieth part of the sum exacted at the time of his accession. It is impossible to conjecture the motives that engaged him to spare so trifling a remnant of the public evil; but the noxious weed, which had not been totally eradicated, again sprung up with the most luxuriant growth, and, in the succeeding age, darkened the Roman world with its deadly shade. In the course of this history, we shall be too often summoned to explain the land-tax, the capitation, and the heavy contributions of corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were extracted from the provinces for the use of the army and the capital.

As long as Rome and Italy were respected as the centre of government, a national spirit was preserved by the ancient, and insensibly imbibed by the adopted, citizens. The principal commands of the army were filled by men who had received a liberal education, were well instructed in the advantages of laws and letters, and who had risen, by equal steps, through the regular succession of civil and military honours. To their influence and example we may

lius Victor, and Aristides, the edict is said to have been issued by Marcus Antoninus the philosopher. I refer those who are curious on this subject to a learned dissertation, in very bad Latin, but prepared with great industry, entitled "Joh. P. Mahneri Commentatio de Marco Aurelio Antonino, constitutionis de civitate universo orbi Romano data auctore. Hala, 8vo. 1772." It appears that Marcus Aurelius introduced into his edict clauses which relieved the provincials from some of the burdens imposed on them by the freedom of the city, and withheld from them some of the advantages which it conferred. These clauses Caracalla repealed, and so converted the privilege into an injury.-WENCK.] * He who paid ten aurei, the usual tribute, was charged with no more than the third part of an aureus, and proportional pieces of gold were coined by Alexander's order. Hist. August. p. 127, with the commentary of Salmasius. See the lives of Agricola, Vespasian, Trajan, Severus, and his three competitors, and indeed of all the eminent men of those times.

partly ascribe the modest obedience of the legions during the two first centuries of the imperial history.

But when the last enclosure of the Roman constitution was trampled down by Caracalla, the separation of professions gradually succeeded to the distinction of ranks. The more polished citizens of the internal provinces were alone qualified to act as lawyers and magistrates. The rougher trade of arms was abandoned to the peasants and barbarians of the frontiers, who knew no country but their camp, no science but that of war, no civil laws, and scarcely those of military discipline. With bloody hands, savage manners, and desperate resolutions, they sometimes guarded, but much oftener subverted, the throne of the emperors.

CHAPTER VII.-THE ELEVATION AND TYRANNY OF MAXIMIN.-REBELLION IN AFRICA AND ITALY, UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE SENATE. -CIVIL WARS AND SEDITIONS.-VIOLENT DEATHS OF MAXIMIN AND HIS SON, OF MAXIMUS AND BALBINUS, AND OF THE THREE GORDIANS.— USURPATION AND SECULAR GAMES OF PHILIP.

Or the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary_monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule. Is it possible to relate, without an indignant smile, that on the father's decease, the property of a nation, like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, as yet unknown to mankind and to himself; and that the bravest warriors and the wisest statesmen, relinquishing their natural right to empire, approach the royal cradle with bended knees and protestations of inviolable fidelity? Satire and declamation may paint these obvious topics in the most dazzling colours, but our more serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice, that establishes a rule of succession, independent of the passions of mankind; and we shall cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which deprives the multitude of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal, power of giving themselves a master.

In the cool shade of retirement, we may easily devise imaginary forms of government, in which the sceptre shall