entence 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. [52]

[Footnote 42a: This infamous inquisition into sorcery and witchcraft
has been of greater influence on human affairs than is commonly
supposed. The persecutions against philosophers and their libraries was
carried on with so much fury, that from this time (A. D. 374) the names
of the Gentile philosophers became almost extinct; and the Christian
philosophy and religion, particularly in the East, established their
ascendency. I am surprised that Gibbon has not made this observation.
Heyne, Note on Zosimus, l. iv. 14, p. 637. Besides vast heaps of
manuscripts publicly destroyed throughout the East, men of letters
burned their whole libraries, lest some fatal volume should expose them
to the malice of the informers and the extreme penalty of the law. Amm.
Marc. xxix. 11.--M.]

[Footnote 43: Libanius de ulciscend. Julian. nece, c. ix. p. 158, 159.
The sophist deplores the public frenzy, but he does not (after their
deaths) impeach the justice of the emperors.]

[Footnote 44: The French and English lawyers, of the present age, allow
the theory, and deny the practice, of witchcraft, (Denisart, Recueil
de Decisions de Jurisprudence, au mot Sorciers, tom. iv. p. 553.
Blackstone's Commentarie