in the
ordinary course of nature, or were extinguished in so many foreign
and domestic wars, or, through a want of merit or fortune, insensibly
mingled with the mass of the people. Very few remained who could derive
their pure and genuine origin from the infancy of the city, or even from
that of the republic, when Caesar and Augustus, Claudius and Vespasian,
created from the body of the senate a competent number of new Patrician
families, in the hope of perpetuating an order, which was still
considered as honorable and sacred. But these artificial supplies (in
which the reigning house was always included) were rapidly swept away by
the rage of tyrants, by frequent revolutions, by the change of
manners, and by the intermixture of nations. Little more was left when
Constantine ascended the throne, than a vague and imperfect tradition,
that the Patricians had once been the first of the Romans. To form
a body of nobles, whose influence may restrain, while it secures the
authority of the monarch, would have been very inconsistent with the
character and policy of Constantine; but had he seriously entertained
such a design, it might have exceeded the measure of his power to
ratify, by an arbitrary edict, an institution which must expect the
sanction of time and of opinion. He revived, indeed, the title of
Patricians, but he revived it as a personal, not as an hereditary
distinction. They yielded only to the transient superiority of the
annual consuls; but they enjoyed the pre-eminence over all the great
officers of state, with the most familiar access to the person of the
prince. This honorable rank was bestowed on them for life; and as they
were usually favorites, and ministers who had grown old in the Imperial
court, the true etymology of the word was perverted by ignorance and
flattery; and the Patricians of Constantine were reverenced as the
adopted Fathers of the emperor and the republic.

II. The fortunes of the Praetorian praefects were essentially different
from those of the consuls and Patricians. The latter saw their ancient
greatness evaporate in a vain title. The former, rising by degrees from
the most humble condition, were invested with the civil and military
administration of the Roman world. From the reign of Severus to that of
Diocletian, the guards and the palace, the laws and the finances, the
armies and the provinces, were intrusted to their superintending care;
and, like the Viziers of the East, they held