nt
of death. This deadly and incoherent mixture of treason and magic,
of poison and adultery, afforded infinite gradations of guilt and
innocence, of excuse and aggravation, which in these proceedings appear
to have been confounded by the angry or corrupt passions of the judges.
They easily discovered that the degree of their industry and discernment
was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to the number of
executions that were furnished from the respective tribunals. It was not
without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal;
but they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained with perjury, or
procured by torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the
most respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually
opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious informer,
whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity; but the wretched
victim, who discovered his real or pretended accomplices, were seldom
permitted to receive the price of his infamy. From the extremity of
Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged, were dragged in chains to the
tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers,
expired in ignominious and cruel tortures. The soldiers, who were
appointed to guard the prisons, declared, with a murmur of pity and
indignation, that their numbers were insufficient to oppose the flight,
or resistance, of the multitude of captives. The wealthiest families
were ruined by fines and confiscations; the most innocent citizens
trembled for their safety; and we may form some notion of the magnitude
of the evil, from the extravagant assertion of an ancient writer,
that, in the obnoxious provinces, the prisoners, the exiles, and the
fugitives, formed the greatest part of the inhabitants.

When Tacitus describes the deaths of the innocent and illustrious
Romans, who were sacrificed to the cruelty of the first Caesars, the art
of the historian, or the merit of the sufferers, excites in our breast
the most lively sensations of terror, of admiration, and of pity. The
coarse and undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody
figures with tedious and disgusting accuracy. But as our attention is
no longer engaged by the contrast of freedom and servitude, of recent
greatness and of actual misery, we should turn with horror from the
frequent executions, which disgraced, both at Rome and Antioch, the
reign of the two brothers. Valens was