THE DECLINE AND FALL

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chap, spoil. 0 The mischiefs which flow from injudi*._cious counsels are seldom removed by the ap-

plication of partial severities : and though suc-ceeding princes laboured to restore the strengthand numbers of the frontier garrisons, the em-pire, till the last moment of its dissolution, con-tinued to languish under the mortal woundwhich had been so rashly or so weakly inflict-ed by the hand of Constantine.

Reduction The same timid policy of dividing whatevergions. is united, of reducing whatever is eminent, ofdreading every active power, and of expectingthat the most feeble will prove the most obe-dient, seems to pervade the institutions of seve-ral princes, and particularly those of Constan-tine. The martial pride of the legions, whosevictorious camps had so often been the scene ofrebellion, was nourished by the memory of theirpast exploits, and the consciousness of their ac-tual strength. As long as they maintained theirancient establishment of six thousand men, theysubsisted, under the reign of Diocletian , eachof them singly, a visible and important objectin the military history of the Roman empire.A few years afterwards, these gigantic bodieswere shrunk to a very diminutive size; andwhen seven legions, with some auxiliaries, de-fended the city of Amida against, the Persians ,the total garrison, with the inhabitants of both

0 Cod. Tlieod. I. vii, tit. i, leg. 1. tit. xii, leg. 1. See Howell’s Hist,of the World, vol. ii, p. 19. That learned historian, who is not suf.fieiently known, labours to justify the character and policy of Con-stantine.