102

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAP.

XVIII.

His vice*.

A. D.

323-337.

people, who compared the undissembled vicesof those tyrants with the spirit of wisdom andjustice which seemed to direct the general te-nor of the administration of Constantine . 11

Had Constantine fallen on the banks of theTyber, or even in the plains of Hadrianople,such is the character which, with a few excep-tions, lie might have transmitted to posterity.But the conclusion of his reign (according tothe moderate, and, indeed, tender sentence of awriter of the same age) degraded him from therank which he had acquired among the mostdeserving of the Roman princes.' In the life ofAugustus , we behold the tyrant of the republic,converted, almost by iinperceptible degrees, in-to the father of his country and of human kind.In that of Constantine, we may contemplate ahero, who had so long inspired his subjectswith love, and his enemies with terror, degene-rating into a cruel and dissolute monarch, cor-rupted by his fortune, or raised by conquestabove the necessity of dissimulation. The ge-neral peace which he maintained during the lastfourteen years of his reign, was a period of ap-

d The virtues of Coustantine are collected for the most part fromEutropius and the younger Victor , two sincere pagans, who wrote afterthe extinction of his family. Even Zosimus, and the Emperor Julian ,acknowledge his personal courage and military achievements.

e See Eutropius , x, 0. In primo Imperii tempore optimis principi-bus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From the ancient Greek version ofPoeanins (edit. Havercamp. p. G97), I am inclined to suspect thatEutropius had originally written ri.r mediis; and that the offensivemonosyllable was dropped by the wilful inadvertency of transcribers*Aurelius Victor expresses the general opinion by a vulgar, and, indeed,obscure proverb. Trachala decern annis praestantissimus; duodecim se-quentibus lain*; decent novissimis pupillus ob immodicas profusiones.