ount_ and _Duke_ joined with those of
Quaestors and Proconsuls. All the civil magistrates were taken from the
legal profession. The law was now the most honorable of the professions,
and the law school at Berytus, in Phoenicia, had flourished since the
reign of Alexander Severus.

The Roman Empire was divided into four great praefectures, which were
themselves subdivided into dioceses and provinces. The praefectures were
named that of the East, of Illyricum, of Italy, and of Gaul. A Praetorian
Praefect had charge of each praefecture, and regulated its civil
government; took care of the roads, ports, granaries, manufactures,
coinage; was the supreme legal magistrate, from whose decision there was
no appeal. Rome and Constantinople had their own Praefects, whose courts
took the place of those of the ancient Praetors, while a considerable
police force preserved the quiet of each city. The magistrates of the
empire were divided into three classes, the Illustrissimi, or
illustrious; the Spectabiles, or respectable; and the Clarissimi, or the
honorable.

Constantine also made Christianity the established religion of the
state, and appropriated a large portion of the revenues of the cities to
the support of the churches and the clergy. His standing army was very
large, but the ranks were now filled chiefly by barbarians, the Roman
youth having lost all taste for arms. It is said the young men of Italy
were in the habit of cutting off the fingers of the right hand in order
to unfit themselves for military service.

In order to support this extensive system, Constantine was forced to
impose heavy taxes upon his people. Every year the emperor subscribed
with his own hand, in purple ink, the _indiction_, or tax levy of each
diocese, which was set up in its principal city, and when this proved
insufficient, an additional tax, or _superindiction_, was imposed.
Lands, cattle, and slaves were all heavily taxed, and the declining
agriculture of the empire was finally ruined by the exorbitant demands
of the state. In Campania alone, once the most fertile part of Italy,
one eighth of the whole province lay uncultivated, and the condition of
Gaul seems to have been no better. Besides this, merchants,
manufacturers, mechanics, and citizens were taxed beyond their power of
endurance, while those who failed to pay were shut up in prison. Every
fourth year these taxes on industry were levied, a period to which the
people looked forward wit