CHAP. XVII.
the names of those citizens who possessed the means of an honourable, or at least of a decent subsistence, the comparative smallness of their numbers explains and justifies the high rate of their capitation. The truth of this assertion may be illustrated by the following example. The Ædui, one of the most powerful and civilized tribes or cities of Gaul, occupied an extent of territory which now contains above five hundred thousand inhabitants, in the two ecclesiastical dioceses of Autui and Nevers[1]; and with the probable accession of those of Chalons and Macon[2], the population would amount to eight hundred thousand souls. In the time of Con- stantino, the territory of the Ædui afforded no more than twenty-five thousand heads of capitation, of whom seven thousand were discharged by that prince from the intolerable weight of tribute[3]. A just analogy would seem to countenance the opinion of an ingenious historian[4] that the free and tributary citizens did not surpass the number of half a million; and if, in the ordinary administration of government, their annual
- ↑ The ancient jurisdiction of {Augustodunum') Autun in Burgundy, the capital of the Ædui, comprehended the adjacent territory of (Noviodunum) Nevers. See d'AnviUe, Notice de I'Ancienne Gaule, p. 491. The two dioceses of Autun and Nevers are now composed, the former of six hundred and ten, and the latter of one hundred and sixty parishes. The registers of births, taken during eleven years, in four hundred and seventy-six parishes of the same province of Burgundy, and multiplied by the moderate proportion of twenty-five, (see Messance, Recherches sur la Population, p. 142.) may authorise us to assign an average number of six hundred and fifty-six persons for each parish, which being again multiplied by the seven hundred and seventy parishes of the dioceses of Nevers and Autun, will produce the sum of five hundred and five thousand one hundred and twenty persons for the extent of country which was once possessed by the Ædui.
- ↑ We might derive an additional supply of three hundred and one thousand seven hundred and fifty inhabitants from the dioceses of Chalons (Cabillonum) and of Mayon (Matisco;) since they contain, the one two hundred, and the other two hundred and sixty parishes. This accession of territory might be justified by very specious reasons. 1. Châlons and Maçon were undoubtedly within the original jurisdiction of the vEdui. See d'Anville. Notice, p. 187. 443. 2. In the Notitia of Gaul, they are enumerated not as civitates, but merely as castra. 3. They do not appear to have been episcopal seats before the fifth and sixth centuries. Yet there is a passage in Eumenius (Panegyr. Vet. viii. 7.) which very forcibly deters me from extending the territory of the Ædui in the reign of Constantine along the beautiful banks of the navigable Saône.
- ↑ Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. viii. 11.
- ↑ L'Abbé du Bos, Hist. Critique de la M. F. tom. i. p. 121.
