OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.'

119

shewed the Ctesars to the armies and provinces, chap.he maintained every part of the empire in equalobedience to its supreme head.” The tranquil-lity of the last fourteen years of his reign wasscarcely interrupted by the contemptible in-surrection of a camel-driver in the island of Cy-prus , 0 or by the active part which the policy ofConstantine engaged him to assume in the warsof the Goths and Sarmatians.

Among the different branches of the human Manner*race, the Sarmatians form a very remarkable matians"shade; as they seem to unite the manners ofthe Asiatic barbarians with the figure and com-plexion of the ancient inhabitants of Europe .According to the various accidents of peace andwar, of alliance or conquest, the Sarmatianswere sometimes confined to the banks of theTanais; and they sometimes spread themselvesover the immense plains which lie between theVistula and the Volga. p The care of their nu-merous flocks and herds, the pursuit of game,and the exercise of war, or rather of rapine, di-rected the vagrant motions of the Sarmatians.

“ Eusebius (1. iv, c. 51 52), with a design of exalting the authorityand glory of Constantine , affirms, that he divided the Roman empire asa private citizen might have divided his patrimony. His distributionof the provinces may be collected from Eutropius , the two Victors,and the Valesian fragment.

° Calocerus, the obscure leader of this rebellion, or rather tumult,was apprehended and burnt alive in the market-place of Tarsus, by thevigilance of Dalmatius. See the elder Victor, the Chronicle of Jerom,and the doubtful traditions of Theophanes and Cedrcnus.

p Cellarius has collected the opinions of the ancients concerning theEuropean and Asiatic Sarmatia ; and M. d’Anville has applied them tomodern geography with the skill and accuracy which alway* distin-guish that excellent writer