he theatre; and the term of their education was limited
to the age of twenty. The praefect of the city was empowered to chastise
the idle and refractory by stripes or expulsion; and he was directed to
make an annual report to the master of the offices, that the knowledge
and abilities of the scholars might be usefully applied to the public
service. The institutions of Valentinian contributed to secure the
benefits of peace and plenty; and the cities were guarded by the
establishment of the Defensors; [62] freely elected as the tribunes and
advocates of the people, to support their rights, and to expose their
grievances, before the tribunals of the civil magistrates, or even
at the foot of the Imperial throne. The finances were diligently
administered by two princes, who had been so long accustomed to the
rigid economy of a private fortune; but in the receipt and application
of the revenue, a discerning eye might observe some difference between
the government of the East and of the West. Valens was persuaded, that
royal liberality can be supplied only by public oppression, and his
ambition never aspired to secure, by their actual distress, the future
strength and prosperity of his people. Instead of increasing the
weight of taxes, which, in the space of forty years, had been gradually
doubled, he reduced, in the first years of his reign, one fourth of
the tribute of the East. [63] Valentinian appears to have been less
attentive and less anxious to relieve the burdens of his people. He
might reform the abuses of the fiscal administration; but he exacted,
without scruple, a very large share of the private property; as he was
convinced, that the revenues, which supported the luxury of individuals,
would be much more advantageously employed for the defence and
improvement of the state. The subjects of the East, who enjoyed the
present benefit, applauded the indulgence of their prince. The solid
but less splendid, merit of Valentinian was felt and acknowledged by the
subsequent generation. [64]

[Footnote 60: See the Code of Justinian, l. viii. tit. lii. leg.
2. Unusquisque sabolem suam nutriat. Quod si exponendam putaverit
animadversioni quae constituta est subjacebit. For the present I shall
not interfere in the dispute between Noodt and Binkershoek; how far, or
how long this unnatural practice had been condemned or abolished by law
philosophy, and the more civilized state of society.]

[Footnote 61: These salutary institu