condemned, and, as a prince, will severely punish. Our own vigilance, and that of our father, the patrician Ricimer, shall regulate all military affairs, and provide for the safety of the Roman world, which we have saved from foreign and domestic enemies.[1] You now understand the maxims of my government: you may confide in the faithful love and sincere assurances of a prince who has formerly been the companion of your life and dangers, who still glories in the name of senator, and who is anxious that you should never repent of the judgment which you have pronounced in his favour." The emperor, who, amidst the ruins of the Roman world, revived the ancient language of law and liberty which Trajan would not have disclaimed, must have derived those generous sentiments from his own heart; since they were not suggested to his imitation by the customs of his age, or the example of his predecessors.[2]
The private and public actions of Majorian are very imperfectly known; but his laws, remarkable for an original cast of thought and expression, faithfully represent the character of a sovereign who loved his people, who sympathized in their distress, who had studied the causes of the decline of the empire, His salutary laws. A.D. 457-461 and who was capable of applying (as far as such reformation was practicable) judicious and effectual remedies to the public disorders.[3] His regulations concerning the finances manifestly tended to remove, or at least to mitigate, the most intolerable grievances. I. From the first hour of his own reign, he was solicitous (I translate his own words) to relieve the weary fortunes of the provincials, oppressed by the accumulated weight of indictions and superindictions.[4] With this view he granted [Tit. 2] an universal amnesty, a final and absolute discharge of all arrears[5] of tribute, of all debts, which, under any pretence, the fiscal- ↑ Ab externo hoste et a domesticâ clade liberavimus; by the latter, Majorian must understand the tyranny of Avitus; whose death he consequently avowed as a meritorious act. On this occasion, Sidonius is fearful and obscure; he describes the twelve Cæsars, the nations of Africa, &c. , that he may escape the dangerous name of Avitus (305-369).
- ↑ See the whole edict or epistle of Majorian to the senate (Novell. tit. iv. p. 34). Yet the expression, regnum nostrum, bears some taint of the age, and does not mix kindly with the word respublica, which he frequently repeats.
- ↑ See the laws of Majorian (they are only nine, but very long and various) at the end of the Theodosian Code, Novell. l. iv. p. 32-37. Godefroy has not given any commentary on these additional pieces.
- ↑ Fessas provincialium variâ atque multiplici tributorum exactione fortunas, et extraordinariis fiscalium solutionum oneribus attritas, &c. Novell. Majorian. tit. iv. p. 34.
- ↑ [Of more than eleven years' standing.]
