r license of the soldiers; and although the laws were violated
by power, or perverted by subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman
jurisprudence preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown to the
despotic governments of the East. The rights of mankind might derive
some protection from religion and philosophy; and the name of freedom,
which could no longer alarm, might sometimes admonish, the successors of
Augustus, that they did not reign over a nation of Slaves or Barbarians.
[193]

[Footnote 193: The great Theodosius, in his judicious advice to his son,
(Claudian in iv. Consulat. Honorii, 214, &c.,) distinguishes the station
of a Roman prince from that of a Parthian monarch. Virtue was necessary
for the one; birth might suffice for the other.]

Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.--Part I.

Character Of Constantine.--Gothic War.--Death Of Constantine.--Division
Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.--Persian War.--Tragic Deaths Of
Constantine The Younger And Constans.--Usurpation Of Magnentius.--Civil
War.--Victory Of Constantius.

The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire, and
introduced such important changes into the civil and religious
constitution of his country, has fixed the attention, and divided
the opinions, of mankind. By the grateful zeal of the Christians, the
deliverer of the church has been decorated with every attribute of a
hero, and even of a saint; while the discontent of the vanquished party
has compared Constantine to the most abhorred of those tyrants, who,
by their vice and weakness, dishonored the Imperial purple. The same
passions have in some degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations,
and the character of Constantine is considered, even in the present age,
as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the impartial union of
those defects which are confessed by his warmest admirers, and of those
virtues which are acknowledged by his most-implacable enemies, we might
hope to delineate a just portrait of that extraordinary man, which the
truth and candor of history should adopt without a blush. [1] But
it would soon appear, that the vain attempt to blend such discordant
colors, and to reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a
figure monstrous rather than human, unless it is viewed in its proper
and distinct lights, by a careful separation of the different periods of
the reign of Constantine.

[Footnote 1: On ne se trompera poi