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chap. XL] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 285 He required that the seven sages who had visited the court of Persia should be exempted from the penal laws which Justinian enacted against his Pagan subjects ; and this privilege, expressly- stipulated in a treaty of peace, was guarded by the vigilance of a powerful mediator. 156 Simplicius and his companions ended The last of their lives in peace and obscurity ; and, as they left no disciples, sophers they terminate the long list of Grecian philosophers, who may be justly praised, notwithstanding their defects, as the wisest and most virtuous of their contemporaries. The writings of Simplicius are now extant. His physical and metaphysical commentaries on Aristotle have passed away with the fashion of the times ; but his moral interpretation of Epictetus is pre- served in the library of nations, as a classic book, most excel- lently adapted to direct the will, to purify the heart, and to confirm the understanding, by a just confidence in the nature both of God and man. About the same time that Pythagoras first invented the The appellation of philosopher, liberty and the consulship were C o°n™uiship founded at Rome by the elder Brutus. The revolutions of the guished by consular office, which may be viewed in the successive lights of I^mi" 1 " a substance, a shadow, and a name, have been occasionally mentioned in the present history. The first magistrates of the republic had been chosen by the people, to exercise, in the senate and in the camp, the powers of peace and war, which were after- wards translated to the emperors. But the tradition of ancient dignity was long revered by the Romans and Barbarians. A Gothic historian applauds the consulship of Theodoric as the height of all temporal glory and greatness ; 156 the king of Italy himself congratulates those annual favourites of fortune who, without the cares, enjoyed the splendour of the throne ; and at the end of a thousand years two consuls were created by the sovereigns of Rome and Constantinople, for the sole purpose of giving a date to the year and a festival to the people. But the expenses of this festival, in which the wealthy and the vain aspired to surpass their predecessors, insensibly 155 Agathias (1. ii. p. 69, 70, 71) relates this curious story. Chosroes ascended the throne in the year 531, and made his first peace with the Romans in the begin- ning of 533, a date most compatible with his young fame and the old age of Isidore (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient, torn. iii. p. 404. Pagi, torn. ii. p. 543, 550). 156 Cassiodor. Variarum Epist. vi. 1. Jornandes, c. 57, p. 696, edit. Grot. Quod summum bonum primumque in mundo decus edicitur.