s. Some of the noblest
regulations of Roman jurisprudence have been suffered to expire; but
this edict, a convenient and forcible engine of ministerial tyranny,
was carefully inserted in the codes of Theodosius and Justinian; and the
same maxims have been revived in modern ages, to protect the electors of
Germany, and the cardinals of the church of Rome.

Yet these sanguinary laws, which spread terror among a disarmed and
dispirited people, were of too weak a texture to restrain the bold
enterprise of Tribigild the Ostrogoth. The colony of that warlike
nation, which had been planted by Theodosius in one of the most fertile
districts of Phrygia, impatiently compared the slow returns of laborious
husbandry with the successful rapine and liberal rewards of Alaric;
and their leader resented, as a personal affront, his own ungracious
reception in the palace of Constantinople. A soft and wealthy province,
in the heart of the empire, was astonished by the sound of war; and
the faithful vassal who had been disregarded or oppressed, was again
respected, as soon as he resumed the hostile character of a Barbarian.
The vineyards and fruitful fields, between the rapid Marsyas and the
winding Maeander, were consumed with fire; the decayed walls of the
cities crumbled into dust, at the first stroke of an enemy; the
trembling inhabitants escaped from a bloody massacre to the shores of
the Hellespont; and a considerable part of Asia Minor was desolated
by the rebellion of Tribigild. His rapid progress was checked by the
resistance of the peasants of Pamphylia; and the Ostrogoths, attacked in
a narrow pass, between the city of Selgae, a deep morass, and the craggy
cliffs of Mount Taurus, were defeated with the loss of their bravest
troops. But the spirit of their chief was not daunted by misfortune; and
his army was continually recruited by swarms of Barbarians and outlaws,
who were desirous of exercising the profession of robbery, under the
more honorable names of war and conquest. The rumors of the success of
Tribigild might for some time be suppressed by fear, or disguised by
flattery; yet they gradually alarmed both the court and the capital.
Every misfortune was exaggerated in dark and doubtful hints; and the
future designs of the rebels became the subject of anxious conjecture.
Whenever Tribigild advanced into the inland country, the Romans were
inclined to suppose that he meditated the passage of Mount Taurus, and
the invasion of