Before the battle of Salamis, Themistocles, while sacrificing, was ordered by the soothsayer to sacrifice three Persian captives to Bacchus; for hereby, it was said, the Greeks would not only save themselves, but also obtain the victory. Themistocles, says Plutarch," was startled at a prophecy that carried so much cruelty and inhumanity with it; but the populace, according to their manner in all pressing difficulties, trusting more to any extravagant and absurd means of safety than to such as are reasonable, with one voice invoked Bacchus, and bringing the captives to the altar, compelled him to perform the sacrifice."

The night before the battle of Leuctra, Pelopidas was commanded in a dream to sacrifice a red-haired virgin to the Leuctridæ. Being unwilling to offer so inhuman a facrifice, he told his dream the next morning to the soothsayer and the commanders. "Some were of opinion that this order ought not to be neglected or disobeyed;" and they enforced their sentiments by various arguments and examples. "Others insisted that so barbarous and unjust an oblation could not be acceptable to any superior being; that it was absurd to suppose that the gods took delight in human sacrifices, and if any of them did, they were to be neglected as vicious and impotent beings." The sentiment of mercy prevailed, and a colt was substituted for the red-haired virgin.

In the Macedonian war, when the Roman and Macedonian armies were encamped near each other, there was a total eclipse of the moon. The Romans immediately resorted to their religious rites appointed to be observed on such an occasion, while their enemies were struck with dismay.

"The Romans, according to their custom, with the noise of brass pans, and lifting up a great many fire brands and torches, endeavoured to recover her light; whilst the Macedonians behaved themselves far otherwise, for horror and amazement seized their whole army, and a rumour crept by degrees into their camp, that this eclipse portended the downfall of their king. Æmilius being very devout, a religious observer of sacrifices, and well skilled in the art of divination, as soon as he had perceived the moon had regained her former lustre, he offered up to her eleven heifers."

All the foreign and domestic affairs of the Romans were made

to depend on their religion. The augurs, who were appointed to divine by the flight of birds, were entrusted by the Roman constitution with most extraordinary powers.

"Nothing was more absolute than the power and authority of these augurs. They had the privilege of dismissing assemblies, though summoned by order of the chief magistrates, and to annul whatever had been transacted in them. An augur had only to pronounce another day, and all was at a stop. They could oblige the consuls to quit their office; and had a right to confer with the people, to grant or refuse whatever they pleased, and abrogate the laws they had enacted. In short, nothing done by the magistrates, either within the walls or without, could be ratified without their authority.

"The priests, whose business it was to observe the flying of birds at the time of choosing the consuls, declared that the election of those two (Quintius Flaminius and Furius Philo) was unduly and inauspiciously made. Hereupon the senate immediately despatched letters to the army, expressly forbidding the consuls to attempt anything against the enemy in that capacity, and enjoining them to return with all speed to Rome, in order to lay down their office. Flaminius having received these letters, deferred opening them till he had fought and defeated the enemy, and ravaged their whole country; after which he marched towards Rome. But though he carried a prodigious booty home with him, none of the people went out to meet him; nay, they had like to have denied him the honour of a triumph, because he did not instantly obey the senate, but slighted and despised their orders; and as soon as the triumph was ended, both he and his colleague were deposed from their office, and reduced to the condition of private citizens; such a respect had the Romans for religion, making all their affairs depend solely on the pleasure of the gods."1

2

This mighty system of heathenism, so hostile to revealed religion, supported so long and enforced by all the authority and power of Rome, received a deadly blow in the beginning,

I Plutarch in Themisticoles, Pelopidas and P. Æmilius, translated by Langhorne. 2 Vitringa, in his exposition of Isaiah, xxxiv. 4, considers the fourth verse a parallel prophecy with Revelation, vi. 13, 14; but he again expresses a strong doubt as to the soundness of this opinion. His difficulty is, that in prophecy, as he justly says, the people of God are represented under one great economy, and that the prophecy of Isaiah refers to the destruction of a system, which, exhibiting the image of such an economy, is opposed to the truth. He, therefore, thinks the verse will have

Q

and was totally suppressed before the close of the fourth

century.

A rapid sketch shall now be given of the events which produced this great revolution, ruined the supporters of idolatry, and filled them with an unspeakable dread of the Lord.

The Roman empire was governed, as we have seen, by four emperors, Diocletian and Maximian having the supreme dignity of Augustus; Galerius and Constantius Chlorus being in the subordinate rank of Cæsars.

Diocletian and Maximian resigned the purple, A.D. 305, coerced thereto, as it is said, by Galerius.

Galerius and Constantius Chlorus succeeded to the supreme honour; and Severus and Maximin, who were both the friends of Galerius, were made Cæsars; Severus, in the west, and Maximin, in the east.

In the same year Maxentius, the son of Maximian, enraged that his claims to the vacant Cæsarship had been passed over, assumed the purple in Italy, and, foreseeing war to be inevitable, invited his father who had great military talents, to withdraw from his retirement, and share with him the sovereignty.

Maximian readily acceding to his request, the Roman world had six emperors, and the Christian religion, five imperial enemies.

Constantius Chlorus died at York, A.D. 306, and was succeeded by his son, Constantine, with the subordinate rank of Cæsar.

The state of the empire, which now became the theatre of a series of bloody civil wars, is thus described by Gibbon :-" The abdication of Diocletian and Maximian was succeeded by eighteen years of discord and confusion: the empire was afflicted by five civil wars; and the remainder of the time was not so much a state of tranquillity as a suspension of arms

its accomplishment in the destruction of the mystical Babylon. But Vitringa does not appear to have recollected that ancient Romanism was such a system that it claimed a divine origin-that it was established, fenced, and sedulously guarded by the laws-that it was opposed to revealed religion-that its votaries claimed to be the followers of reason and piety-hated the Jews, and fiercely persecuted the Christians.

between several hostile monarchs, who, viewing each other with an eye of hatred, strove to increase their respective forces at the expense of their subjects."1

The first civil war broke out in Italy between Severus, Maxentius, and Maximian. Severus was defeated, taken prisoner, and allowed by the victors to choose whether he would die by his own hands, or by the hands of the executione

Galerius to avenge the death of his friend invaded Italy, from which he was compelled to retreat with loss and disgrace.

Not long after their victory Maximian and Maxentius quarrelled. Maximian fled to the court of his son-in-law, Constantine, intrigued against and attempted to dethrone him: his intrigues were discovered; he was taken, cast into prison, and, like Severus, allowed to choose whether he would die by his own. hand, or the hand of the public executioner.

The

In the year 312, the civil war broke out between Constantine and Maxentius. Maxentius was defeated in three battles, and, as he fled from the third, drowned in crossing the Tiber. victor, says Gibbon, "put to death the two sons of the tyrant, and carefully extirpated his whole race."

The next civil war was between Maximin and Licinius (raised to the purple on the death of Severus). Maximin2 was defeated, and killed himself in despair. All his family and friends were involved in his ruin.

The civil wars terminated in the triumph of Constantine, the overthrow of paganism, the ruin of its great supporters, and the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire. Paganism never recovered the shock. Julian, indeed, cast down Christianity, and restored the gods to their old place; but they fell immediately with their patron; and heathenism, as a public form of worship, was suppressed shortly after, without à

murmur.

THE FALL OF PRINCES AND NOBLES.

It is evident that, when paganism, after a fierce and protracted

1 Decline and Fall, vol. ii. c. xiv, p. 54.

2 His son and daughter were immediately killed, and his wife was thrown into the Orontes, in which she had caused many Christians to be immersed.-Lactantius de mort persecut., 50.

struggle, ceased to be the religion of a mighty empire, was discountenanced by the monarch, shorn of pomp and wealth, and its frauds exposed, the priesthood and its supporters would be involved in its ruin.

As we have had already occasion to notice the fate of Severus, Maximian, Maxentius, Maximin,' and their families, we shall now proceed to give a brief account of the fortunes of the other great persecutors, their families, and friends.

Galerius died miserably in 311; and his child, wife, motherin-law, and their friends, being left without a protector, were persecuted, tortured, and put to death without pity.

Maximin wished to marry Valeria, who was the daughter of Diocletian and widow of Galerius; but meeting with a repulse,

"His love," says Gibbon," "was converted into fury.

Her estates were confiscated; her eunuchs and domestics were devoted to the most inhuman tortures, and several innocent and respectable matrons, who were honoured with her friendship, suffered death on a false accusation of adultery. The empress herself, together with her mother Prisca, was condemned to exile; and as they were ignominiously hurried from place to place, before they were confined to a sequestered village in the deserts of Syria, they exposed their shame and distress to the provinces of the East, which, during thirty years, had respected their august dignity." After the death of Maximin, they fell into the hands of Licinius. "His behaviour in the first days of his reign, and the honourable reception which he gave to young Candidianus (the son of Galerius) inspired Valeria with a secret satisfaction, both on her own account and that of her adopted son. But these grateful prospects were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment; and the bloody executions which stained the palace of Nicomedia, sufficiently convinced her, that the throne of Maximin was filled by a tyrant more inhuman than himself. Valeria consulted her safety by a hasty flight, and still accompanied by her mother Prisca, they wandered about fifteen months through the provinces, concealed in the disguise of plebeian habits. They were at length discovered at Thessalonica, and as the sentence of their death

1 "It is remarkable," says Milner, that all the associates of Maximin in his crimes, partook also of his punishment. Among these Culician, the bloody governor of Thebais and Theotecnus, are distinguished. His enchanters were by torments compelled to lay open the frauds of their employers, and he and they with all the children and relations of the tyrant, were destroyed."

2 Decline and Fall, vol. ii. c. xiv. p. 95.