must be allured into the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled
by the dread of punishment. The resources of the Roman treasury were
exhausted by the increase of pay, by the repetition of donatives, and by
the invention of new emolument and indulgences, which, in the opinion
of the provincial youth might compensate the hardships and dangers of a
military life. Yet, although the stature was lowered, although slaves,
least by a tacit connivance, were indiscriminately received into the
ranks, the insurmountable difficulty of procuring a regular and adequate
supply of volunteers, obliged the emperors to adopt more effectual and
coercive methods. The lands bestowed on the veterans, as the free reward
of their valor were henceforward granted under a condition which
contain the first rudiments of the feudal tenures; that their sons, who
succeeded to the inheritance, should devote themselves to the profession
of arms, as soon as they attained the age of manhood; and their cowardly
refusal was punished by the lose of honor, of fortune, or even of life.
But as the annual growth of the sons of the veterans bore a very small
proportion to the demands of the service, levies of men were frequently
required from the provinces, and every proprietor was obliged either to
take up arms, or to procure a substitute, or to purchase his exemption
by the payment of a heavy fine. The sum of forty-two pieces of gold, to
which it was reduced, ascertains the exorbitant price of volunteers, and
the reluctance with which the government admitted of this alterative.
Such was the horror for the profession of a soldier, which had affected
the minds of the degenerate Romans, that many of the youth of Italy
and the provinces chose to cut off the fingers of their right hand, to
escape from being pressed into the service; and this strange expedient
was so commonly practised, as to deserve the severe animadversion of the
laws, and a peculiar name in the Latin language.

Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part V.

The introduction of Barbarians into the Roman armies became every day
more universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The most daring of the
Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans, who delighted in war, and
who found it more profitable to defend than to ravage the provinces,
were enrolled, not only in the auxiliaries of their respective nations,
but in the legions themselves, and among the most distinguished of the
Palatine