298 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, suspended on the frontiers. The arts of luxury and
- _ literature were cultivated, and the elegant pleasures of
society were enjoyed by the inhabitants of a consider- able portion of the globe. The forms, the pomp, and the expense of the civil administration contributed to restrain the irregular licence of the soldiers ; and al- though the laws were violated by power, or perverted by subtilty, the sage principles of the Roman jurispru- dence preserved a sense of order and equity unknown to the despotic governments of the east. The rights of mankind might derive some protection from religion and philosophy ; and the name of freedom, which could no longer alarm, might sometimes admonish, the suc- cessors of Augustus, that they did not reign over a na- tion of slaves or barbarians '.
- The g^reat Theodosius, in his judicious advice to his son, (Claudian in
iv Consulaf. Honoiii, 214, etc.) distinguishes the station of a Roman prince from that of a Parthian monarch. Virtue was necessary for tiie one. Birth might suffice for the other.
