The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 4J. & J. Harper, 1826 |
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Africa Agathias Alboin Anastasius ancient Anecdot Arian arms army Athens avarice Avars barbarians Baronius Belisarius Bibliot bishops Boethius Byzantine camp capital Carthage Cassiodorius CHAP Chosroes Christ Christian Chron church citizens command conqueror conquest Constantinople danger death disgrace East edit emperor empire empress enemy Evagrius factions faith favour fortune gates Gelimer gold Gothic Goths Greek guards Heraclius Heruli Hist honour horses hundred Italian Italy John Malala John of Cappadocia jurisprudence justice Justinian king labour Latin laws Lombards merit military monarch monks Narses nation nephew Nestorians Nestorius Orient Pagi palace Pandects patriarch peace perhaps Persian philosopher præfect prince Procopius provinces Ravenna reign restored revenge Roman Rome royal senate Sicily silk slaves soldiers soon sovereign spirit subjects synod Theodora Theodoric Theophanes thousand throne tinian tion Totila treasures Tribonian troops valour Vandals victory virtues walls XLIII XLVII
Popular passages
Page 39 - While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment the sentence or the stroke of death, he composed, in the tower of Pavia, the Consolation of Philosophy ; a golden volume not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the situation of the author.
Page 258 - In the space of ten centuries the infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand volumes, which no -fortune could purchase and no capacity could digest. Books could not easily be found ; and the judges, poor .in the midst of riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion.
Page 326 - Rome, 87 which had reached, about the close of the sixth century, the lowest period of her depression. By the removal of the seat of empire, and the successive loss of the provinces, the sources of public and private opulence were exhausted; the lofty tree, under whose shade the nations of the earth had reposed, was deprived of its leaves and branches, and the sapless trunk was left to wither on the ground.
Page 240 - Constantinople ; that many cities of the East were left vacant; and that in several districts of Italy the harvest and the vintage withered on the ground. The triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine, afflicted the subjects of Justinian, and his reign is disgraced by a visible decrease of the human species, which has never been repaired in some of the fairest countries of the globe.136 136 After some figures of rhetoric, the sands of the sea, &c.
Page 327 - A vague tradition was embraced, that two Jewish teachers, a tent-maker and a fisherman, had formerly been executed in the circus of Nero, and at the end of five hundred years their genuine or fictitious relics were adored as the Palladium of Christian Rome.
Page 363 - Roman empire was reduced to the walls of Constantinople, with the remnant of Greece, Italy, and Africa, and some maritime cities, from Tyre to Trebizond, of the Asiatic coast. After the loss of Egypt, the capital was afflicted by famine and pestilence ; and the emperor, incapable of resistance and hopeless of relief, had resolved to transfer his person and government to the more secure residence of Carthage.
Page 362 - M and the royal stables were filled with six thousand mules and horses, among whom the names of Shebdiz and Barid are renowned for their speed or beauty. Six thousand guards successively mounted before the palace gate; the service of the interior apartments was performed by twelve thousand slaves; and in the number of three thousand virgins, the fairest of Asia, some happy concubine might console her master for the age or the indifference of Sira.
Page 78 - The triumph of Christ was adorned with the last spoils of Paganism, but the greater part of these costly stones was extracted from the quarries of Asia Minor, the isles and continent of Greece, Egypt, Africa, and Gaul. Eight columns of porphyry, which Aurelian had placed in the temple of the sun, were offered by the piety of a Roman matron; eight others of green marble were presented by the ambitious zeal of the magistrates of Ephesus : both are admirable by their size and beauty, but every order...
Page 300 - ... extort the hasty wish of exchanging our elaborate jurisprudence for the simple and summary decrees of a Turkish cadhi. Our calmer reflection will suggest, that such forms and delays are necessary to guard the person and property of the citizen; that the discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny; and that the laws of a free people should foresee and determine every question that may probably arise in the exercise of power and the transactions of industry.
Page 278 - ... twenty-five years. Women were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians; a sex created to please and obey was never supposed to have attained the age of reason and experience.