ON THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES.-NO. I.

BY M. SISMONDI.

(Concluded from page 544.)

Grandeur and Weakness of the Roman Empire.

The fall of the Roman Empire in the West is the first spectacle that presents itself to our notice; and it is by no means the least abundant in useful lessons. People who have attained an equal degree of civilization feel that they have a certain relationship one with another. The life of the private man in the age of Constantine or Theodosius, more nearly resembles our own condition than that of our barbarous ancestors in Germania, or of the virtuous and austere citizens of the republics of Greece and Italy, whose works we admire, but of whose manners we can form but an imperfect conception. It is only after having thoroughly considered the relationship and the difference between the organization of the Roman Empire and that of modern Europe, that we shall be enabled to judge whether we are likely to be exposed to the calamities by which that empire was overthrown.

The very name of the Roman Empire awakens ideas of grandeur, power, and magnificence. By a confusion very natural to our minds, we approximate remote, and frequently dissimilar ages, in order to create a circle of glory around the great empire. The Roman republic produced men whose moral greatness has never been surpassed on earth. They transmitted to their descendants, if not their virtues, at least their names; and down to the close of the empire, those who, under oppression and baseness, always styled themselves Roman citizens, seemed likewise always to live amidst the shades and recollections of their ancestors. The spirit of the laws was changed, but the transition was slow, and scarcely perceived by the vulgar; manners were no longer the same, but the recollection of the old manners still survived. The magistrates had for the most part preserved their original titles and decorations, though their power had vanished; and the Roman people still ranged themselves before the Lictors, who preceded the Consul invested with the purple nine years after the institution of the Consulate.

From the time of Augustus to that of Constantine, the Roman Empire preserved nearly the same boundaries. The God Terminus had not yet learned to retreat any more than in the time of the Republic. This rule admits of but one remarkable exception. Dacia, which had been conquered by Trajan, and which was situated on the North of the Danube, and beyond the natural frontiers of the empire, was abandoned after having been possessed for a century and a half. But the war which the Romans of the first century continually waged beyond their own frontiers, was, in the fourth, carried back by the barbarians within the Roman dominions. The emperors could no longer defend provinces which

they once wished to rule; and they frequently beheld, without regret, valiant enemies become their guests, and occupy the deserts of their empire.

The unchangeableness of the boundaries of the Roman Empire arose, particularly, from the Romans having, in the period of their greatest power, limited their conquests to the point where they found the best military frontier to defend. Great rivers, though they do not impede the armies of civilized nations, form, in general, an effectual barrier against the incursions of barbarous invaders; and great rivers, the sea, mountains, and deserts, were, in fact, the natural boundaries of the Roman Empire.

By a somewhat vague calculation, it has been estimated that the Roman Empire extended six hundred leagues from north to south, upwards of one thousand from east to west, and that it occupied a superficies of 180,000 square leagues. But numbers afford merely an abstract idea, which is difficult to be seized. We shall better conceive what this vast extent represents, by tracing the line of the frontiers.

On the north, the empire was bounded by the Caledonian wall, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Black Sea. The Caledonian wall intersected Scotland in its narrowest part, and left the Romans in possession of the low-lands of that country, and of all England. The Rhine and the Danube, whose sources rise near each other, and which flow the one to the west and the other to the east, formed a separation between barbarous and civilized Europe. The Rhine defended Gaul, which then comprehended Helvetia and Belgium. The Danube protected the Italian and the Illyrian Peninsulas; it divided countries, some of which are now included in Germany, and others in Sclavonia. The Romans possessed on the right bank Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia, and Mœsia, which nearly corresponded with Suabia, Bavaria, a part of Austria and Hungary, and Bulgaria. The short space between the sources of the Danube and the Rhine was occupied by a chain of fortifications. The Black Sea defended Asia Minor. On its northern and eastern banks several Greek colonies still preserved a doubtful kind of independence under the protection of the empire, and a Greek prince reigned at Caffa on the Cimmerian Bosphorus: the Greek colonies in the country of the Lazi and Colchis were, by turns, subject to tributes. The Romans possessed all the southern shore of the mouth of the Danube to Trebizond.

On the east, the empire was bounded by the mountains of Armenia, a part of the Euphrates, and the deserts of Arabia. The Caucasus, one of the highest chains of mountains in the world, which extends from the Black to the Caspian Sea, and which, on one side, communicates with Thibet, and on the other with the mountains in the centre of Asia Minor, separated the Scythians of Upper Asia from the Persians and the Romans. The wildest

portion of these mountains belonged to the Iberians, who maintained their independence; that part most susceptible of cultivation was inhabited by the Armenians, who were by turns subject to the yoke of the Romans, the Parthians, and the Persians. The Tigris and the Euphrates, which rose in the mountains of Armenia and fell into the Persian Gulf, crossed the plains of Mesopotamia, along all this eastern line, as far as the sandy deserts, which, farther to the south, separated the banks of the Euphra tes from the hills of Syria. This frontier of the empire had not been traced by the hand of Nature, and the two great monarchies of the Romans and Parthians, or of the Persians their successors, by turns encroached on several provinces of Armenia or Mesopotamia. The deserts of Arabia bounded Syria along an extent of two hundred leagues, and the Red Sea formed the limit of the Egyptian dominions.

On the south the deserts of Libya and Zahara, and on the west the Atlantic, were at once the boundaries of the Roman empire, and of the habitable world.

Having thus traced the frontiers of the great empire, we may bestow a moment's attention to the enumeration of the provinces of which it was composed. About the year 292, Diocletian, with the intention of better providing for the defence of the empire, divided it into four Prætorial Prefectures, to which he appointed four chiefs. These prefectures were, the Gauls, Illyria, Italy, and the East. The Prefect of the Gauls, who established his residence at Treves, had under his orders the three Vicars of the Gauls, Spain, and Britain. Gaul was divided, according to the ancient languages of its inhabitants, into Gallia Narbonensis, Aquitania, Celtica, Belgica, and Germania. Spain was separated into three provinces, Lusitania, Boetica, and Terraconensis. Finally, Britain included the whole island, as far as the Friths of Dumbarton and Edinburgh.

The Illyrian Prefecture consisted of that immense triangle, of which the Danube was the base, and the two sides of which were marked by the Adriatic, the Egean, and the Euxine Seas. It now includes nearly the whole of Austria and European Turkey. It was anciently divided into the provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia, Dalmatia, Mœsia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece.

The Italian Prefecture comprised, besides the province whence had issued the conquerors of the world, all Africa, from the frontiers of Egypt to the present empire of Morocco. The provinces were named Libya, Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania. Rome and Milan were alternately the residence of the Prefect of Italy; but Carthage was the capital of all the African provinces. That city equalled Rome, both in population and magnificence; and in the time of their prosperity, the African provinces were three times as extensive as modern France.

The Prefecture of the East, which was bounded by the Black Sea, the kingdom of Persia, and the Desert, was the richest, the most extensive, and most populous of all. It contained the provinces of Asia Minor, Bithynia and Pontus, Cilicia, Syria, Phenicia and Palestine, Egypt with a part of Colchis, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Arabia. The Prefect resided at Antioch, but that city was not superior, either in population or riches, to some other capitals, and particularly Alexandria in Egypt.

The imagination is confounded by the enumeration of the Roman provinces, and by the comparison of their vast extent with that of the empires now in existence; but our astonishment increases when we reflect on the great cities with which each of the provinces was adorned. Cities such as Alexandria, Antioch, and Carthage, surpassed our largest capitals in population and in riches, and seemed to contain whole nations within their confines. The single province of the Gauls included one hundred and fifteen towns distinguished by the name of cities. The ruins of some are still preserved, and they exceed in magnificence any thing that has been produced in modern times.

The sight of these ruins inspires us with admiration, even in provinces where they excite no glorious recollections. Who can view the monuments of Nismes, Arles, or Narbonne, without emotions of respect? And yet they are merely models of art. No historical recollection is attached to them :-those noble edifices which we so highly admire were raised at the period when Rome had lost, with her liberty, her virtues and her glory. When we come to fix the date of their creation, we find it corresponds with the reign of those emperors whose names history has transmitted to the execration of mankind.

But these monuments, even in the most remote provinces, even in the most obscure towns, bear the ancient Roman impress the impress of grandeur and magnificence. Customs and moral impressions are sometimes preserved in the arts, even after they are effaced from the mind of the artists. The Roman architect, even during the latest periods of the decline of the empire, constantly beheld before him the witnesses of past ages, which kept him in the right course; and he felt that he was labouring for eternity. The Romans uniformly impressed on their works that character of grandeur and durability which commands our admiration, and claims the preference over all that has since been produced. The force and magnificence of the Roman architecture in some measure resembles that of Upper Egypt; though it differs from the latter in its object. The Egyptians attended only to their Deities; but the Romans, even during their slavery, were never unmindful of the people. Their monuments were calculated to administer to the pleasures of all. In the time of the Republic, aqueducts and great roads were constructed for the public benefit; but under the

Emperors, the pleasures of the people were still more a subject of consideration, and circuses and theatres were built. It may be said, that the Egyptian architect was occupied in the temples soicly with the presence of his Deities, and the Roman artist with the adoration of the people.

Amidst all its magnificence, the Roman empire, the fall of which we shall shortly take into consideration, in the fourth century degenerated into the most incurable weakness. It was assailed by hordes of warriors from the North:+from the extremities of Scandinavia to the frontiers of China, new nations arrived, and desolation marked their course. The calamities experienced by the human race at that period exceed, in extent and severity, the utmost horrors and miseries of any other age. We cannot presume to calculate the millions of men who perished before the fall of the Roman empire was effected. Yet this ruin was not caused by the ravages of barbarians. The empire had long been a prey to internal wounds. Various causes, doubtless, contributed to destroy among the subjects of the Casars, patriotism, military virtue, the opulence of the provinces, and the means of resistance; but we shall at present particularly confine our attention to the state of the population, as on that every system of national defence must always depend.

Patriotism, that pure and exalted virtue, which frequently rises to the highest degree of heroism, and which renders the citizen capable of the most glorious sacrifices,-patriotism which had long constituted the glory and the power of Rome, no longer flourished in the empire of the universe. An edict of Caracalla, who reigned from 211 to 217, had rendered common to all the inhabitants of the empire, the titles and duties, rather than the prerogatives, of the Roman citizen. Thus the Gaul and the Briton styled themselves the countrymen of the Moor and the Syrian; and the Greek was regarded as the compatriot of the Egyptian and the Spaniard. But in proportion as this fasces was enlarged, the bond by which it was united became relaxed. What glory, what distinction could be attached to a prerogative which had been rendered universal? What recollections could be awakened by the name of country, when that name was no longer endeared by any local image, by any association of ideas, or participation in any thing that had shed a lustre over the social body?

Thus national recollections and sentiments were abolished in ancient Rome; and their place was but feebly supplied by the two distinctions which might be observed among the inhabitants ;-those of language and of rank.

Language is the powerful symbol that renders nations sensible of their unity: it operates on all the impressions of the mind, it imparts a colouring to every sentiment and every thought. When it reveals to us a countryman in a foreign nation, it rouses in the