virates, or Triumvirs, as a new constitutional headship to the Roman Commonwealth. But, after a notice of Sylla's and Cinna's domination, or unconstitutional exercise of power, albeit under constitutional forms, he simply speaks of the power or political influence of Pompey and Crassus as soon passing to Cæsar,--the third of the so-called first Triumvirate; and then of the civil wars following, during which Antony, Lepidus, and Octavius (or Augustus) Cæsar governed by force of arms, as a transition to the Imperial Headship of Augustus.All which is just according to the truth of the case. The combination of Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus, was the private act of three private individuals of great political influence, and one indeed of most important bearing on the subsequent fortunes of the republic: but which can no more be considered as having constituted a new Headship to the Roman State,' than the "compact alliance" so celebrated in modern times, between certain eminent English politicians and the great democratical leader in the sister island, to our own. That of Antony Lepidus and Octavius was indeed a Triumvirate, or Government of Three;-the name adopted by themselves, the government sanctioned by a Plebi-scitum." But the Plebi-scitum was extorted from the Roman people most unconstitutionally; under the terror of the Triumvirs' present armies, and of a proscription then in force and execution:3 so that Tacitus might well, in his philosophic view

falls on those times wherein this Triumviratus Reip, constituenda was to be noted, he runs over it, so as not to be taken notice of, going on in this manner. Non Cinnæ, non Syllæ, longa dominatio; et Pompeii Crassique potentia cito in Cæsarem :-which Cinna was only Consul, Sylla first Consul and then Dictator, and Pompey and Crassus Consuls or Proconsuls, and no more. But now, where there is the very nick of naming this Triumviratus Reip. constituendæ, he only adds, et Lepidi et Antonii arma in Augustum cessere ; qui cuncta discordiis civilibus fessa nomine Principis sub imperium cepit."

1 So Ernesti on Tacitus Ann. i. 2; "Cæteri triumviratus, (i. e. others besides that of Antony Lepidus and Octavius) qui in vulgaribus libellis historicis traduntur, commentitii sunt. Cæsar, Pompeius, et Crassus tantùm privatim potentiæ societatem inter se inierant; neque aut publico aliquo scito accepere, aut nomine Triumvirorum usi sunt."

2 "Fuit magistratus cùm summo imperio, quem in quinquennium accepere, ejusque nomine usi sunt; ut patet ex nummis et inscriptionibus." Ib.

3 See Ferguson's Roman History, pp. 345, 369, 372. (Ed. in one Volume.)

Vol. iii.

H 3

of the matter, designate their rule as the arms or armed domination of the three; and later writers on the Roman Constitution reject it from lists of the supreme magistracies of Rome. Moreover with the chief of the three, Octavius Cæsar, this Triumvirate was but the introduction, after twelve years of civil discord and wars, to sole supremacy; insomuch that both ancient and modern historians of authority have dated from it the commencement of Augustus' reign: 2-that reign which under the continued title of Imperator, though with a further addition of titles and offices of the old republic to make it up,3 constituted him the originator of a new, that is the sixth or Imperial Headship of Rome.

But, all this being granted, we are but brought by it to that which involves the grand difficulty of the subject; viz. the explanation of the seventh, and connectedly with it of the eighth head also. At least the difficulty is one as yet altogether unsolved.-To convince the reader of this, it will suffice to mention those three that are, I believe, the most approved solutions given by commentators who explain the first six heads as I have. The first is that of Mede. He makes the seventh Head what he calls the Demi-Cæsar, or "Western emperor which reigned after the division of the empire into East and West and which continued, after the last division under Honorius and Arcadius, about sixty-years;—a short space." The second is that of Bishop Newton; which regards the sixth, or Imperial head, as continuing uninterruptedly, and through the line of Christian as well as Pagan Em

E. g. Dr. More quotes Fenestella, De Magist. Rom. stating that he would rather call these triumvirates tyrannides than potestates or magistratus. So too Vitringa in his Note, p. 793.

2 Of the ancients, Suetonius. "Ab eo tempore, exercitibus comparatis, primùm cùm Marco Antonio Marcoque Lepido, dein tantùm cum Antonio, per duodecim fermè annos, novissimè per quatuor et quadringinta solus Remp. tenuit." On which, says Dr. More from whom I quote, Nauclerus thus comments; "Regnavit annis quinquaginta sex; duodecim cum Antonio et Lepido, solus vero quadraginta quatuor." And he adds; Chronologers, as well of the Pontifician as of the Protestant party, fix the beginning of the reign ab U. C. Anno 710." 3 Viz. Consul, Proconsul, Censor, Tribune; that also of Princeps Senatús being superadded. See Gibbon, ch. i.

4 Works, Bk. iii. Ch. 8; also Bk. v. Ch. 12.

perors, until Augustulus and the Heruli; then the seventh to be the Dukedom of Rome, established soon after under the Exarchate of Ravenna. The third is that of Dr. More and Mr. Cuninghame; who suppose the Christian Emperors, from Constantine to Augustulus, to have constituted the seventh head, and that this had its excision by the sword of the Heruli.-But against all these alike there stands the objection that they make a Christian headship a head of the Dragon and of the Wild Beast : —that which is a violation of the propriety of things, and of all Scriptural rule and analogy, such as nothing can render credible. Moreover there exists an additional and almost equally insuperable difficulty, applicable to each and all of the solutions, in respect of the eighth head and its enigmatic designation as yet one of the seven; the which, as illustrating the point I speak of, it may be well here to specify. The following is Mr. Mede's explanation. "The Cesars (the sixth Head) though indeed but one, yet for some accidental respect may be accounted two, Cæsars and Demi-Cæsars: for essence the same, but for extent and some manner of government differing. Now if the sixth Head be reckoned for two, the seventh will be an eighth, and yet but one of the seven :"-i. e. that the eighth would be seventh, from the seventh being in a certain sense but part of the sixth. Of which double view however of the last head but one, or last head but two, the Angel says not a word. Nor indeed does the enigma turn upon the possible differences of man's opinion as to the numerical position of the Heads. The statements are absolute. The last Head was the eighth. The same last Head was one of the Beast's seven. In similarly objectionable manner Bishop Newton, who makes the Popedom the eighth head, suggests, in explanation of its being one of the seven, the reasonable doubt which might be entertained on the question whether the seventh was a new government or not; being as it was, according to him, a Dukedom subject through the Exarchate to the Imperial Government at Constantinople. If you say it was not a new one,

argues the Bishop, then its successor, the Beast from the abyss, will be the seventh if you say it was, then this Beast will be the eighth.-On the other hand Mr. Cuninghame, regarding the Gothic decem-regal confederacy of Western Europe under the Papacy as the eighth head, explains it as one of the seven, by making the ten horns branch off from, and grow on the seventh, or christian imperial head:-i. e. makes the ten horns, growing on the seventh head, to be equivalent in a certain sense to an eighth head!'

Is then the difficulty insuperable? And, having advanced thus far on such clear and consistent evidence, must we here stop and confess that the path is hedged up before us? Certainly not. It must already have been observed by the considerate reader, that could some change of government be shewn to have arisen in the Roman empire between the time of St. John's imprisonment, when the imperial or sixth head was in power, and that of the establishment of Christianity by Constantine, there would then open before us a simple solution of all the grand difficulties of the question. For we should then in the first place have seven Pagan governing heads, or forms of government, agreeable with that prominent symbol of the seven heads seen upon the Dragon: we should next have an obvious interpretation of the wounding of that seventh head, as effected by the sword of Constantine and the Christian Emperors his successors and, further, of the manner in which the seventh head, seen upon the Beast on its emergence, would yet by necessity be chronologically the eighth : being the substitute for, and in the place of, the former

1

2

p. 150. "This eighth form is said to be of the seven. It is the Christian Imperial power branching off into ten sovereignties. The horns therefore all grew on the seventh head." In a case like this it is necessary to give the very words of the interpreter; as it might otherwise seem misrepresentation. Has a stag two heads because it has both a head and horns?

2 Strange as it may appear, I do not remember to have seen this simple explanation of the enigma of the last Head being one of the seven though the eighth, clearly put forth by any commentator. Vitringa's alternative, p. 1037, comes the nearest.

seventh so wounded to death.-Now it has been uniformly taken for granted by expositors, that the sixth Imperial head continued unchanged in Pagan form till Constantine; and in Christian until overthrown by the Goths and Heruli. And so indeed it did, in a certain sense ;-I mean as regards the name of the thing, the Imperial title. But as regards the reality of things, the case was very different. And it needs but for the Interpreter to set aside the vagaries of his own imagination, and to follow fully and undeviatingly the guidance, the wonderful guidance, of the Apocalyptic emblems, in order to see this reality; and therein, as I hesitate not to say, the unriddling of the enigma.

For what, let me ask, meant those diadems on the Dragon's heads, as the badge of the Church-opposed power bearing rule in the Empire of the City on the seven hills, (though indeed over but a third part of it, as seemed indicated) at the epoch figured in the vision; i. e. at the epoch just preceding the establishment of Christianity? Was there nothing strange in them to the eyes of one familiar, like St. John, with the Roman symbols of office, and the Roman sentiments too, of the day? Not so. We have already seen the direct contrary. Again, though so strange and new a badge to a Roman's eye,-being the badge in fact of absolute Asiatic sovereignty,—was it in the present case to be deemed unsignificant, and indicative of no change in the ruling power, or form of government? Surely not for a moment could the supposition have been entertained by St. John, considering the precision and significancy of every other symbol thus far depicted in vision and especially how the crown (not diadem) was at the commencement of the Apocalyptic visions pictured before him, to signify the then ruling imperial power, just agreeably with the received symbolization of the times. The diadem must necessarily, I conceive, have been understood by him to mark the existence of a change in the sovereign power, from the original imperitorial character to that of an absolute Asiatic

1 See Vol. i. pp. 130, 131.