06

THE DECLINE AND FALL

chap, believe, that this formidable edict was either

XXI.

„_composed without being published, or was pub-

lished without being executed. The evidence offacts, and the monuments which are still extantof brass and marble, continue to prove the pub-lic exercise of the pagan worship during thewhole reign of the sons of Constantine. In theEast, as well as in the West; in cities, as wellas in the country, a great number of templeswere respected, or at least were spared; andthe devout multitude still enjoyed the luxuryof sacrifices, of festivals, and of processions, bythe permission, or by the connivance, of thecivil government. About four years after thesupposed date of his bloody edict, Constantius visited the temples of Rome ; and the decencyof his behaviour is recommended by a paganorator as an example worthy of the imitationof succeeding princes. “ That emperor,” saysSymmachus , “ suffered the privileges of the“ vestal virgins to remain inviolate; he bestow-“ ed the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of“ Rome , granted the customary allowance to“ defray the expences cf the public rites and“ sacrifices: and, though he had embraced a“ different religion, he never attempted to de-“ prive the empire of the sacred worship of an-“ tiquity.” k The senate still presumed to con-

magistrates is punished by death and confiscation, M. de la Bastie(Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xv, p. 98) conjectures, with a shew ofreason, that this was no more than the minutes of a law, the heads ofan intended bill, which were found in Scriniis Memorise, among thepapers of Constantins, and afterwards inserted, as a worthy model, in theTheodosian code.

k Symmach. Kpistol. x, 54.