Gutenkarte

Note: Compare a dissertation of Manso on the thirty tyrants at the end of his Leben Constantius des Grossen. Breslau, 1817. - M.]

[Footnote *: On the relative power of the Augusti and the Caesars, consult a dissertation at the end of Manso's Leben Constantius des Grossen - M.] [Footnote 10: Aurelius Victor. Victor in Epitome. Eutrop. ix. 22. Lactant de M. P. c. 8. Hieronym. in Chron.]

Yet no unprejudiced person can read this coarse and particular private conversation of the two emperors, without assenting to the justice of Gibbon's severe sentence. But the authorship of the treatise is by no means certain. The fame of Lactantius for eloquence as well as for truth, would suffer no loss if it should be adjudged to some more "obscure rhetorician." Manso, in his Leben Constantins des Grossen, concurs on this point with Gibbon Beylage, iv. - M.]

Note: Compare Manso, Beylage, iv. p. 302. Gibbon's account is at least as probable as that of his critic. - M.]

Note: Manso (Beylage, vi.) examines the question, and adduces two manifest allusions to the bridge, from the Life of Constantine by Praxagoras, and from Libanius. Is it not very probable that such a bridge was thrown over the river to facilitate the advance, and to secure the retreat, of the army of Maxentius? In case of defeat, orders were given for destroying it, in order to check the pursuit: it broke down accidentally, or in the confusion was destroyed, as has not unfrequently been the case, before the proper time. - M.]