f Constantine and Licinius, though it was imbittered
by resentment and jealousy, by the remembrance of recent injuries, and
by the apprehension of future dangers, maintained, however, above eight
years, the tranquility of the Roman world. As a very regular series of
the Imperial laws commences about this period, it would not be difficult
to transcribe the civil regulations which employed the leisure of
Constantine. But the most important of his institutions are intimately
connected with the new system of policy and religion, which was 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 intolerant burden of taxes, and by the
vexatious 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
extraordinary 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. [93]
The law, though it may merit some praise, served rather to display than
to alleviate the public distress. It still remains an authentic monument
to contradict and confound those ve