be worth having, as consecrating what was already secure, and conciliating
the scruples of the weak to the absolute decision of the strong. But their
resistance, as an original movement, was so wholly without hope, that they
were never weak enough to threaten it.

The army was the true successor to their places, being the _ultimate_
depository of power. Yet, as the army was necessarily subdivided, as the
shifting circumstances upon every frontier were continually varying the
strength of the several divisions as to numbers and state of discipline,
one part might be balanced against the other by an imperator standing in
the centre of the whole. The rigor of the military _sacramentum_, or
oath of allegiance, made it dangerous to offer the first overtures to
rebellion; and the money, which the soldiers were continually depositing
in the bank, placed at the foot of their military standards, if sometimes
turned against the emperor, was also liable to be sequestrated in his
favor. There were then, in fact, two great forces in the government acting
in and by each other--the Stratocracy, and the Autocracy. Each needed the
other; each stood in awe of each. But, as regarded all other forces in the
empire, constitutional or irregular, popular or senatorial, neither had
any thing to fear. Under any ordinary circumstances, therefore,
considering the hazards of a rebellion, the emperor was substantially
liberated from all control. Vexations or outrages upon the populace were
not such to the army. It was but rarely that the soldier participated in
the emotions of the citizen. And thus, being effectually without check,
the most vicious of the Caesars went on without fear, presuming upon the
weakness of one part of his subjects, and the indifference of the other,
until he was tempted onwards to atrocities, which armed against him the
common feelings of human nature, and all mankind, as it were, rose in a
body with one voice, and apparently with one heart, united by mere force
of indignant sympathy, to put him down, and "abate" him as a monster. But,