[857] Cod., I, xlviii.
[858] Novel. viii; xcv; clxi.
[859] Cod. Theod., III, iii; V, viii; XI, xxvii, and Godefroy’s illustrations. Sold in this way, Roman citizens were not held in perpetual bondage, but regained their liberty after serving for a term; cf. Cassiodorus, Var. Ep., viii, 33. Constantine was shocked to find that deaths from starvation were frequent in his dominions, and so advertised a measure of outdoor relief, which Rectors were instructed to exhibit conspicuously in all parts; cf. Lactantius, Divin. Inst., vi, 20. The same Constantine is the author of an extravagant law by which lovers who elope together are subjected to capital (?) punishment without any suffrance of accommodation, whilst even persons who may have counselled them to the step are condemned to perish by having molten lead poured down their throats. By such frantic whims could legislation be travestied in those days; Cod. Theod., IX, xxiv.
[860] Cod. Theod., II, xiv; Cod., II, xvi; Augustine, Enarr. in Psalm. XXI, etc.
[861] Cod., IX, xii, 10. See Priscus for a general outline of some of the grievances dealt with in this article; Hist. Goth. Excerpt., p. 190; cf. Nov. xxxiii, etc.
[862] Cod. Theod., XI, xxiv; Cod., XI, liii; cf. liv. Libanius in the East and Salvian in the West, at the distance of nearly a century, complain in analogous terms of the manner in which the wealthy residents turned the tribulations of their poorer neighbours to their own profit; De Prostasiis (ii, p. 493 R.); De Gubern. Dei, v, 8, 9; cf. Nov. xxxiii, etc.
[863] Cod. Theod., XIII, i, 16; XVI, ii, 10, etc. “Distincta enim stipendia sunt religionis et calliditatis” is the caustic taunt put into the mouth of Arcadius. The concessions were withdrawn by Valentinian III (Novel. II, xii), ineffectively we may safely assume from Nov. xliii; 1,100 duty-free shops at CP. belonging to St. Sophia alone.
[864] Cod. Theod., XII, xiv.
[865] Ibid., IX, xxx, 2, 5; xxxi. A further hardship was the quartering of soldiers on private persons, but this, of course, was only local and temporary. The Goths and other barbarians were especially harsh and grasping among those who had to receive them when in transit through the country; see Jos. Stylites, op. cit., 86. Generally the military were arrogant towards, and contemned the civil population; Zosimus, ii, 34.
[866] There seems to be no good reason why children should not now be taught from a primer of scientific cosmology, and have a catechism of ethics as well to the exclusion of everything mythological. The human brain is a weak organ of mind, and requires, above all things, a tonic treatment. Nothing can be more enfeebling than any teaching which causes children to imagine that they are surrounded by unseen intelligences having the power to affect them for good or evil. In most instances, a mind so subdued never recovers its resiliency; liberty of thought is always hampered by dread of the invisible; and many of our greatest men have been unable in after life to free themselves from this fatuity. There should, however, be places of public assembly where people could resort for ethical direction and encouragement, without the lessons taught being vitiated or nullified by being made to depend on mythology. But the objectionable name “agnostic” should be discarded, as if to be properly educated were to belong to a peculiar sect. It suggests a country in which a special designation has to be given to all who are neither diseased nor deformed.