Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/475

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 451 though secret wound, which the senate received from CHAP, the hands of Diocletian and Maximian, was inflicted by the inevitable operation of their absence. As long as the emperors resided at Rome, that assembly might be oppressed, but it could scarcely be neglected. The successors of Augustus exercised the power of dictating Vhatever laws their wisdom or caprice might suggest ; but those laws were ratified by the sanction of the senate. The model of ancient freedom was preserved in its deliberations and decrees ; and wise princes, who respected the prejudices of the Roman people, were in some measure obliged to assume the language and be- haviour suitable to the general and first magistrate of the republic. In the armies and in the provinces, they displayed the dignity of monarchs; and when they fixed their residence at a distance from the capital, they for ever laid aside the dissimulation which Au- gustus had recommended to his successors. In the exercise of the legislative as well as the executive power, the sovereign advised with his ministers, instead of consulting the great council of the nation. The name of the senate was mentioned with honour till the last period of the empire ; the vanity of its members was still flattered with honorary distinctions ^ ; but the assembly which had so long been the source, and so long the instrument of power, was respectfully suffered to sink into oblivion. The senate of Rome, losing all connection with the imperial court and the actual con- stitution, was left a venerable but useless monument of antiquity on the Capitoline hill. When the Roman princes had lost sight of the Civil magi- senate and of their ancient capital, they easily forgot as^ide?^ the origin and nature of their legal power. The civil offices of consul, of proconsul, of censor, and of tribune, ancient establishment, they each consisted of six thousand men. They had acquired much reputation by the use of the plumbatce, or darts loaded with lead. Each soldier carried five of these, which he darted from a consider- able distance, with great strength and dexterity. See Vegetius, i. 17. •* See the Theodosian Code, 1. vi. tit. ii. with Godefroy's commentary. Gg2