294 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, the names of those citizens who possessed the means of
- _ an honourable, or at least of a decent subsistence, the
comparative smallness of their numbers explains and justifies the high rate of their capitation. The truth of this assertion may be illustrated by the following exam- ple. The yEdui, one of the most powerful and civihzed tribes or cities of Gaul, occupied an extent of territory which now contains above five hundred thousand inha- bitants, in the two ecclesiastical dioceses of Autui and Nevers^; and with the probable accession of those of Chalons and Macon ^, the population would amount to eight hundred thousand souls. In the time of Con- stantino, the territory of the iEdui afforded no more than twenty-five thousand heads of capitation, of whom seven thousand were discharged by that prince from the intolerable weight of tribute*'. A just analogy would seem to countenance the opinion of an ingenious historian '^j that the free and tributary citizens did not surpass the number of half a million ; and if, in the ordinary administration of government, their annual ^ The ancient jurisdiction of {Augustodunum') Autun in Burgundy, the capital of the ^dui, comprehended the adjacent territory of {Novio- duimm) Nevers. See d'AnviUe, Notice de I'Ancienne Gaule, p. 491. The two dioceses of Autun and Nevers are now composed, the former of six hundred and ten, and the latter of one hundred and sixty parishes. The registers of birtlrs, taken during eleven years, in four hundred and seventy- six parishes of the same province of Burgundy, and multiplied by the mo- derate proportion of twenty-five, (see Messance, Recherches sur la Popula- tion, p. 142.) may authorise us to assign an average number of six hundred and tifty-six persons for each parish, which being again multiplied by the seven hundred and seventy parishes of the dioceses of Nevers and Autun, will produce the sum of five hundred and five thousand one hundred and twenty persons for the extent of country which was once possessed by the ^dui. '^ We might derive an additional supply of three hundred and one thousand seven hundred and fifty inhabitants from the dioceses of Chalons {Cabil- lonum) and of Mayon {Matisco ;) since they contain, the one two hun- dred, and the other two hundred and sixty parishes. This accession of ter- ritory might be justified by very specious reasons. 1. Chalons and IMafon were undoubtedly within the original jurisdiction of the vEdui. See d'An- ville. Notice, p. 187. 443. 2. In the Notitia of Gaul, they are enumerated not as civitales, but merely as castra. 3. They do not appear to have been episcopal seats before the fifth and sixth centuries. Yet there is a passage in Eumenius (Panegyr. Vet. viii. 7.) which very forcibly deters me from ex- tending the territory of the ^-Edui in the reign of Constantine along the beautiful banks of the navigable Saone. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. viii. 11. •^ L'Abbe du Bos, Hist. Critiijue de la M. F. lom. i. p. 121.
