humanity and justice, which taught him to abhor, as of the basest
alloy, the gold that was extracted from the tears of the people. For
their relief, as often as they had suffered by natural or hostile
calamities, he was impatient to remit the arrears of the past, or the
demands of future taxes: he sternly rejected the servile offerings of
his ministers, which were compensated by tenfold oppression; and the
wise and equitable laws of Tiberius excited the praise and regret
of succeeding times. Constantinople believed that the emperor had
discovered a treasure: but his genuine treasure consisted in the
practice of liberal economy, and the contempt of all vain and
superfluous expense. The Romans of the East would have been happy, if
the best gift of Heaven, a patriot king, had been confirmed as a proper
and permanent blessing. But in less than four years after the death of
Justin, his worthy successor sunk into a mortal disease, which left him
only sufficient time to restore the diadem, according to the tenure
by which he held it, to the most deserving of his fellow-citizens.
He selected Maurice from the crowd, a judgment more precious than the
purple itself: the patriarch and senate were summoned to the bed of
the dying prince: he bestowed his daughter and the empire; and his last
advice was solemnly delivered by the voice of the quaestor. Tiberius
expressed his hope that the virtues of his son and successor would erect
the noblest mausoleum to his memory. His memory was embalmed by the
public affliction; but the most sincere grief evaporates in the tumult
of a new reign, and the eyes and acclamations of mankind were speedily
directed to the rising sun. The emperor Maurice derived his origin from
ancient Rome; [29] but his immediate parents were settled at Arabissus
in Cappadocia, and their singular felicity preserved them alive to
behold and partake the fortune of their august son. The youth of Maurice
was spent in the profession of arms: Tiberius promoted him to the
command of a new and favorite legion of twelve thousand confederates;
his valor and conduct were signalized in the Persian war; and
he returned to Constantinople to accept, as his just reward, the
inheritance of the empire. Maurice ascended the throne at the mature age
of forty-three years; and he reigned above twenty years over the East
and over himself; [30] expelling from his mind the wild democracy
of passions, and establishing (according to the quaint expr