66

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAP.

XVII.

Increaseof barba-rian auxi-liaries.

ance with which the government admitted ofthis alternative.* Such was the horror for theprofession of a soldier, which had affected theminds of the degenerate Romans, that many ofthe youth of Italy , and the provinces, chose tocut off the fingers of their right hand to escapefrom being pressed into the service; and thisstrange expedient was so commonly practised,as to deserve the severe animadversion of thelaws, p and a peculiar name in the Latin lan-guage . 11

The introduction of barbarians into the Ro-man armies became every day more universal,more necessary, and more fatal. The most dar-ing of the Scythians, of the Goths , and of theGermans , who delighted in war, and who foundit more profitable to defend than to ravage theprovinces, were enrolled, not only in the auxi-

0 Cod. Theod. 1. vii, tit. xiii, leg. 7. According to tbe historian Socrates (see Godefroy ad loc.), the same emperor Valens sometimesrequired eighty pieces of gold for a recruit. In the following law it isfaintly expressed, that slaves shall not be admitted inter optimas lec-tissimorwn militum turmas. .

f The person and property of a Roman knight, who had mutilatedhis two sons, were sold at public auction by order of Augustus . (Sue-ton. in August, c. 27). The moderation of that artful usurper proves,that this example of severity was justified by the spirit of the times.Ammianus makes a distinction between the effeminate Italians and thehardy Gauls . (L. xv, c. 12). Yet only fifteen years afterwards, Va-lentinian, in a law addressed to the praefect of Gaul, is obliged to enactthat these cowardly deserters shall be burnt alive. (Cod. Theod. 1. vii,tit. xiii, leg. 5). Their numbers in Ulyricum were so considerable, thatthe province complained of a scarcity of recruits. (Id. leg. 10).

15 They were called Murci. Murcidus is found in Plautus and Fes-tus, to denote a lazy and cowardly person, who, according to Arnobius and Augustin, was under the immediate protection of the goddess Mur-cia . From this particular instance of cowardice, murcare is used as sy-nonimous to mulilare, by the writers of the middle Latinity. See Lin-denbrogius, and Valesius ad Ammian . Marcellin. 1. xv, c 12.