by one head. But Constantine—indeed, any statesman of the time—would naturally suppose that this was the only solution of the difficulty, and that to avert anarchy there must be a strong central administration. This it was which he did his best to create, and he did his work with much ability; but one of the inevitable results was a want of sympathy between the government and the governed. The administration was in the hands of a multitude of imperial officials: it was a bureaucracy, with all the weaknesses of that system. How Constantine could have done otherwise in the interests of order, it is not easy to see. The empire had to be held together, and there was apparently only one way of preserving its unity; but unfortunately that way was one which led to a method of government in which anything like national feeling and a sense of responsibility among the governed had no place. At the same time, some of Constantine's reforms were really wise and beneficial, and as they were on a great scale, and produced lasting effects, we may fairly call him a great legislator. Henceforth the emperor was not, as he had been, so much a military commander-in-chief as a political ruler, and the army was thus subordinated to the civil power. Justice, too, was more regularly administered, and, with better laws, oppression was rendered less easy. To this result Christianity largely contributed. Cruel punishments—that of crucifixion among them—were abolished; the rigours of imprisonment were softened; slavery itself was fenced by restrictions tending to make it tolerable. The Jew, the heathen, could not have a Christian slave,
