480 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xliv constitu- From Augustus to Trajan, the modest Caesars were content emperors to promulgate their edicts in the various characters of a Roman magistrate; and, in the decrees of the senate, the epistles and orations of the prince were respectfully inserted. Hadrian 36 appears to have been the first who assumed, without disguise, the plenitude of legislative power. And this innovation, so agreeable to his active mind, was countenanced by the patience of the times and his long absence from the seat of government. The same policy was embraced by succeeding monarchs, and, according to the harsh metaphor of Tertullian, " the gloomy and intricate forest of ancient laws was cleared away by the axe of royal mandates and constitutions".* 7 During four centuries, from Hadrian to Justinian, the public and private jurisprudence was moulded by the will of the sovereign ; and few institutions, either human or divine, were permitted to stand on their former basis. The origin of Imperial legislation was concealed by the darkness of ages and the terrors of armed despotism; and a double fiction was propagated by the servility, or perhaps the ignorance, of the civilians who basked in the sunshine of the Romans and Byzantine courts. 1. To the prayer of the ancient Caesars, the people or the senate had sometimes granted a per- sonal exemption from the obligation and penalty of particular statutes ; and each indulgence was an act of jurisdiction exercised by the republic over the first of her citizens. His humble pri- vilege was at length transformed into the prerogative of a tyrant ; and the Latin expression of " released from the laws," 38 was supposed to exalt the emperor above all human restraints, and to leave his conscience and reason as the sacred measure of his conduct. 2. A similar dependence was implied in the decrees of the senate, which, in every reign, defined the titles and powers of an elective magistrate. But it was not before the ideas, and even the language, of the Romans had been corrupted, that a 36 HiB laws are the first in the Code. See Dodwell (PrEelect. Carnbden, p. 319-340), who wanders from the subject in confused reading and feeble paradox. 37 Totam illam veterem et squalentern sylvam legum novis prineipalium re- Bcriptorum et edictorum seouribus trunoatis et cteditis (Apologet. c. 4, p. 50, edit. Havercamp). He proceeds to praise the recent firmness of Severus, who repealed the useless or pernicious laws without any regard to their age or authority. 38 The constitutional style of Legibus solutus is misinterpreted by the art or ignorance of Dion Cassius (torn. i. 1. liii. p. 713 [c. 18]). On this occasion his editor, Beimar, joins the universal censure which freedom and criticism have pronounced against that slavish historian.
