with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption. ^5 A secret
but universal decay was felt in every part of the public
administration, and the emperor himself, though he still retained
the obedience, gradually lost the esteem, of his subjects. The
dress and manners, which, towards the decline of life, he chose
to affect, served only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind.
The Asiatic pomp, which had been adopted by the pride of
Diocletian, assumed an air of softness and effeminacy in the
person of Constantine. He is represented with false hair of
various colors, laboriously arranged by the skilful artists to
the times; a diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a
profusion of gems and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a
variegated flowing robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with
flowers of gold. In such apparel, scarcely to be excused by the
youth and folly of Elagabalus, we are at a loss to discover the
wisdom of an aged monarch, and the simplicity of a Roman veteran.
^6 A mind thus relaxed by prosperity and indulgence, was
incapable of rising to that magnanimity which disdains suspicion,
and dares to forgive. The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may
perhaps be justified by the maxims of policy, as they are taught
in the schools of tyrants; but an impartial narrative of the
executions, or rather murders, which sullied the declining age of
Constantine, will suggest to our most candid thoughts the idea of
a prince who could sacrifice without reluctance the laws of
justice, and the feelings of nature, to the dictates either of
his passions or of his interest.
[Footnote 3: See Eutropius, x. 6. In primo Imperii tempore
optimis principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From the ancient
Greek version of Poeanius, (edit. Havercamp. p. 697,) I am
inclined to suspect that Eutropius had originally written vix