chap, xxxvi] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 19 language of law and liberty which Trajan would not have dis- claimed, must have derived those generous sentiments from his own heart ; since they were not suggested to his imitation by the customs of his age, or the example of his predecessors. 47 The private and public actions of Majorian are very imper- fectly known ; but his laws, remarkable for an original cast of thought and expression, faithfully represent the character of a sovereign who loved his people, who sympathized in their dis- tress, who had studied the causes of the decline of the empire, and who was capable of applying (as far as such reformation His was practicable) judicious and effectual remedies to the public laws. a.d. disorders. 48 His regulations concerning the finances manifestly tended to remove, or at least to mitigate, the most intolerable grievances. I. From the first hour of his own reign, he was solicitous (I translate his own words) to relieve the weary for- tunes of the provincials, oppressed by the accumulated weight of indictions and superindictions. 49 With this view he granted an universal amnesty, a final and absolute discharge of all arrears 50 of tribute, of all debts, which, under any pretence, [Tit. 2] the fiscal officers might demand from the people. This wise dereliction of obsolete, vexatious, and unprofitable claims im- proved and purified the sources of the public revenue ; and the subject who could now look back without despair might labour with hope and gratitude for himself and for his country. II. In the assessment and collection of taxes Majorian restored the ordinary jurisdiction of the provincial magistrates, and suppressed the extraordinary commissions which had been in- troduced in the name of the emperor himself or of the Praetorian prsefects. The favourite servants, who obtained such irregular powers, were insolent in their behaviour and arbitrary in their demands ; they affected to despise the subordinate tribunals, and they were discontented if their fees and profits did not 47 See the whole edict or epistle of Majorian to the senate (Novell, tit. iv. p. 34). Yet the expression, regnum iwstrum, bears some taint of the age, and does not mix kindly with the word respublica, which he frequently repeats. 48 See the laws of Majorian (they are only nine, but very long and various) at the end of the Theodosian Code, Novell. 1. iv. p. 32-37. Godefroy has not given any commentary on these additional pieces. 49 Fessas provincialium varia atque multiplici tributorum exactione fortunas, et extraordinariis hscalium solutionum oneribus attritas, &c. Novell. Majorian. tit. iv. p. 34. 80 [Of more than eleven years' standing.]
