Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/85

OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE 65 merits and miracles of the whole calendar are of less account in the eyes of a sage than the toil of a single husbandman, Avho multiplies the gifts of the Creator and supplies the food of his brethren. Yet the royal authors of the Geoponics were more seriously employed in expounding the precepts of the destroying art, which has been taught since the days of Xenophon ^ as the art of lieroes and kings. But the Tactics of Leo and Constan- tine are mingled with the baser alloy of the age in which they lived. It was destitute of original genius ; they implicitly transcribe the rules and maxims which had been confirmed by victories. It was unskilled in the propriety of style and method ; they blindly confound the most distant and discordant institutions, the phalanx of Sparta and that of Macedon, the legions of Cato and Trajan, of Augustus and Theodosius. Even the use, or at least the importance, of these militaiy i-udiments, may be fairly questioned : their general theoiy is dictated by reason ; but the merit, as well as difficulty, consists in the application. The discipline of a soldier is formed by exercise rather than by study ; the talents of a commander are appro- priated to those calm though rapid minds, which nature pro- duces to decide the fate of armies and nations : the former is the habit of a life, the latter the glance of a moment ; and the battles won by lessons of tactics may be numbered with the epic poems created from the rules of criticism. The book of cere- monies is a recital, tedious yet imperfect, of the despicable pageantry which had infected the church and state since the gradual decay of the purity of the one and the power of the othei". A review of the themes or provinces might promise such authentic and useful information as the curiosity of govern- ment only can obtain, instead of traditionary fables on the origin of the cities, and malicious epigrams on the vices of their inhabitants. 1*^ Such information the historian would have been '•'According to the first book of the Cyropredia, professors of tactics, a small pnrt of the science of war, were already instituted in Persia, by which Greece must be understood. A good edition of all tlie Scriptores Tactici would be a task not un- worthy of a scholar. His industry might discover some new Mss. and his learning might illustrate the military history of the ancients. But this scholar should be likewise a soldier ; and, alas ! Quintus Icilius is no more. [Kochly and Riistow have edited some of the Tactici in Greek and German (1853-5) > but a complete corpus is looked for from Herr K. K. Miillcr of Jena.] 1" After observing that the demerit of the Cappadocians rose in proportion to their rank and riches, he inserts a more pointed epigram, which is ascribed to Demodocus : KnTTTrafioKTji' ttot* e;^t5ra KaKrf Solkcv^ aAAa Kal avrrf KaiOare, yf uaa/AcVij a'tjutaTo? lO/SoAov. VOL. VI. 5