Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/396

372 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, have been an action equally popular with the destruc- • tion of those obsolete accounts, which by the empe- ror's order were burnt in the forum of Trajan . In an age when the principles of commerce were so imper- fectly understood, the most desirable end might per- haps be effected by harsh and injudicious means; but a temporary grievance of such a nature can scarcely excite and support a serious civil war. The repe- tition of intolerable taxes, imposed either on the land or on the necessaries of life, may at last provoke those who will not, or who cannot, relinquish their country. But the case is far otherwise in every operation which, by whatsoever expedients, restores the just value of money. The transient evil is soon obliterated by the permanent benefit, the loss is divided among multi- tudes; and if a few wealthy individuals experience a sensible diminution of treasure, with their riches they at the same time lose the degree of weight and import- ance which they derived from the possession of them. However Aurelian might choose to disguise the real cause of the insurrection, his reformation of the coin could furnish only a faint pretence to a party already powerful and discontented. Rome, though deprived of freedom, was distracted by faction. The people, towards whom the emperor, himself a plebeian, always expressed a peculiar fondness, lived in perpetual dis- sension with the senate, the equestrian order, and the pretorian guards y. Nothing less than the firm though secret conspiracy of those orders, of the authority of the first, the wealth of the second, and the arms of the third, could have displayed a strength capable of con- tending in battle with the veteran legions of the Dan- ube, which, under the conduct of a martial sovereign, had achieved the conquest of the west and of the east. Cruelty of Whatever was the cause or the object of this re- Aurehan. belUon, imputed with so little probability to the work- " Hist. August, p. 222 ; Aurel. Victor. y It already raged before Aurelian's return from Egypt. See Vopiscus, - who quotes an original letter. Hist. August, p. 244.