The Roman empire, and the Roman emperors, it might naturally be supposed
by one who had not as yet traversed that tremendous chapter in the
history of man, would be likely to present a separate and almost equal
interest. The empire, in the first place, as the most magnificent
monument of human power which our planet has beheld, must for that
single reason, even though its records were otherwise of little
interest, fix upon itself the very keenest gaze from all succeeding
ages to the end of time. To trace the fortunes and revolutions of that
unrivalled monarchy over which the Roman eagle brooded, to follow the
dilapidations of that aêrial arch, which silently and steadily through
seven centuries ascended under the colossal architecture of the children
of Romulus, to watch the unweaving of the golden arras, and step by
step to see paralysis stealing over the once perfect cohesion of the
republican creations,--cannot but insure a severe, though
melancholy delight. On its own separate account, the decline of this
throne-shattering power must and will engage the foremost place amongst
all historical reviews. The "dislimning" and unmoulding of some mighty
pageantry in the heavens has its own appropriate grandeurs, no less
than the gathering of its cloudy pomps. The going down of the sun
is contemplated with no less awe than his rising. Nor is any thing
portentous in its growth, which is not also portentous in the steps and
"moments" of its decay. Hence, in the second place, we might presume a
commensurate interest in the characters and fortunes of the successive
emperors. If the empire challenged our first survey, the next would seem
due to the Cæsars who guided its course; to the great ones who retarded,
and to the bad ones who precipitated, its ruin.
Such might be the natural expectation of an inexperienced reader. But
it is _not_ so. The Cæsars, throughout their long line, are not
interesting, neither personally in themselves, nor derivatively from the
tragic events to which their history is attached. Their whole interest
lies in their situation--in the unapproachable altitude of their
thrones. But, considered with a reference to their human qualities,
scarcely one in the whole series can be viewed with a human interest
apart from the circumstances of his position. "Pass like shadows, so
depart!" The reason for this defect of all personal variety of interest
in these enormous potentates, must be sought in the constitution of
their power and the very necessities of their office. Even the greatest
among them, those who by way of distinction were called _the Great_,
as Constantine and Theodosius, were not great, for they were not
magnanimous; nor could they be so under _their_ tenure of power, which
made it a duty to be suspicious, and, by fastening upon all varieties of
original temper one dire necessity of bloodshed, extinguished under
this monotonous cloud of cruel jealousy and everlasting panic every
characteristic feature of genial human nature, that would else have
emerged through so long a train of princes. There is a remarkable story
told of Agrippina, that, upon some occasion, when a wizard announced
to her, as truths which he had read in the heavens, the two fatal
necessities impending over her son,--one that he should ascend to
empire, the other that he should murder herself, she replied in
these stern and memorable words--_Occidat, dum imperet_. Upon which a
continental writer comments thus: "Never before or since have three such
words issued from the lips of woman; and in truth, one knows not which
most to abominate or to admire--the aspiring princess, or the loving
mother. Meantime, in these few words lies naked to the day, in its whole
hideous deformity, the very essence of Romanism and the imperatorial
power, and one might here consider the mother of Nero as the
impersonation of that monstrous condition."
This is true: _Occidat dum imperet_, was the watchword and very
cognizance of the Roman imperator. But almost equally it was his
watchword--_Occidatur dum imperet_. Doing or suffering, the Cæsars were
almost equally involved in bloodshed; very few that were not murderers,
and nearly all were themselves murdered.
The empire, then, must be regarded as the primary object of our
interest; and it is in this way only that any secondary interest arises
for the emperors. Now, with respect to the empire, the first question
which presents itself is,--Whence, that is, from what causes and from
what era, we are to date its decline? Gibbon, as we all know, dates it
from the reign of Commodus; but certainly upon no sufficient, or even
plausible grounds. Our own opinion we shall state boldly: the empire
itself, from the very era of its establishment, was one long decline of
the Roman power. A vast monarchy had been created and consolidated by
the all-conquering instincts of a republic--cradled and nursed in wars,
and essentially warlike by means of all its institutions [Footnote:
Amongst these institutions, none appear to us so remarkable, or fitted
to accomplish so prodigious a circle of purposes belonging to the
highest state policy, as the Roman method of colonization. Colonies
were, in effect, the great engine of Roman conquest; and the following
are among a few of the great ends to which they were applied. First
of all, how came it that the early armies of Rome served, and served
cheerfully, without pay? Simply because all who were victorious knew
that they would receive their arrears in the fullest and amplest
form upon their final discharge, viz. in the shape of a colonial
estate--large enough to rear a family in comfort, and seated in the
midst of similar allotments, distributed to their old comrades in arms.
These lands were already, perhaps, in high cultivation, being often
taken from conquered tribes; but, if not, the new occupants could rely
for aid of every sort, for social intercourse, and for all the offices
of good neighborhood upon the surrounding proprietors--who were sure to
be persons in the same circumstances as themselves, and draughted from
the same legion. For be it remembered, that in the primitive ages
of Rome, concerning which it is that we are now speaking, entire
legions--privates and officers--were transferred in one body to the new
colony. "Antiquitus," says the learned Goesius, "deducebantur integral
legiones, quibus parta victoria." Neither was there much waiting for
this honorary gift. In later ages, it is true, when such resources were
less plentiful, and when regular pay was given to the soldiery, it
was the veteran only who obtained this splendid provision; but in the
earlier times, a single fortunate campaign not seldom dismissed the
young recruit to a life of ease and honor. "Multis legionibus," says
Hyginus, "contigit bellum feliciter transigere, et ad laboriosam
agriculturæ requiem _primo tyrocinii gradu_ pervenire. Nam cum signis
et aquilâ et primis ordinibus et tribunis deducebantur." Tacitus also
notices this organization of the early colonies, and adds the reason
of it, and its happy effect, when contrasting it with the vicious
arrangements of the colonizing system in his own days. "Olim," says he,
"universæ legiones deducebantur cum tribunis et centurionibus, et
sui cujusque ordinis militibus, _ut consensu et charitate rempublicam
efficerent_." _Secondly_, not only were the troops in this way paid at
a time when the public purse was unequal to the expenditure of war--but
this pay, being contingent on the successful issue of the war, added
the strength of self-interest to that of patriotism in stimulating the
soldier to extraordinary efforts. Thirdly, not only did the soldier in
this way reap his pay, but also he reaped a reward, (and that besides a
trophy and perpetual monument of his public services,) so munificent as
to constitute a permanent provision for a family; and accordingly he
was now encouraged, nay, enjoined, to marry. For here was an hereditary
landed estate equal to the liberal maintenance of a family. And thus did
a simple people, obeying its instinct of conquest, not only discover, in
its earliest days, the subtle principle of Machiavel--_Let war support
war_; but (which is far more than Machiavel's view) they made each
present war support many future wars--by making it support a new offset
from the population, bound to the mother city by indissoluble ties of
privilege and civic duties; and in many other ways they made every
war, by and through the colonizing system to which it gave occasion,
serviceable to future aggrandizement. War, managed in this way, and
with these results, became to Rome what commerce or rural industry is
to other countries, viz. the only hopeful and general way for making
a fortune. _Fourthly_, by means of colonies it was that Rome delivered
herself from her surplus population. Prosperous and well-governed, the
Roman citizens of each generation outnumbered those of the generation
preceding. But the colonies provided outlets for these continual
accessions of people, and absorbed them faster than they could arise.
[Footnote: And in this way we must explain the fact--that, in the many
successive numerations of the people continually noticed by Livy and
others, we do not find that sort of multiplication which we might have
looked for in a state so ably governed. The truth is, that the continual
surpluses had been carried off by the colonizing drain, before they
could become noticeable or troublesome.] And thus the great original
sin of modern states, that heel of Achilles in which they are all
vulnerable, and which (generally speaking) becomes more oppressive to
the public prosperity as that prosperity happens to be greater (for in
poor states and under despotic governments, this evil does not exist),
that flagrant infirmity of our own country, for which no statesman
has devised any commensurate remedy, was to ancient Rome a perpetual
foundation and well-head of public strength and enlarged resources.
With us of modern times, when population greatly outruns the demand for
labor, whether it be under the stimulus of upright government, and just
laws, justly administered, in combination with the manufacturing system
(as in England,) or (as in Ireland) under the stimulus of idle habits,
cheap subsistence, and a low standard of comfort--we think it much if we
can keep down insurrection by the bayonet and the sabre. _Lucro ponamus_
is our cry, if we can effect even thus much; whereas Rome, in her
simplest and pastoral days, converted this menacing danger and standing
opprobrium of modern statesmanship to her own immense benefit. Not
satisfied merely to have neutralized it, she drew from it the vital
resources of her martial aggrandizement. For, _Fifthly_, these colonies
were in two ways made the corner-stones of her martial policy: 1st, They
were looked to as nurseries of their armies; during one generation the
original colonists, already trained to military habits, were themselves
disposable for this purpose on any great emergency; these men
transmitted heroic traditions to their posterity; and, at all events, a
more robust population was always at hand in agricultural colonies
than could be had in the metropolis. Cato the elder, and all the early
writers, notice the quality of such levies as being far superior to
those drawn from a population of sedentary habits. 2dly, The Italian
colonies, one and all, performed the functions which in our day are
assigned to garrisoned towns and frontier fortresses. In the earliest
times they discharged a still more critical service, by sometimes
entirely displacing a hostile population, and more often by dividing it
and breaking its unity. In cases of desperate resistance to the Roman
arms, marked by frequent infraction of treaties, it was usual to remove
the offending population to a safer situation, separated from Rome by
the Tiber; sometimes entirely to disperse and scatter it. But, where
these extremities were not called for by expediency or the Roman maxims
of justice, it was judged sufficient to _interpolate_, as it were,
the hostile people by colonizations from Rome, which were completely
organized [Footnote: That is indeed involved in the technical term
of _Deductio_; for unless the ceremonies, religious and political, of
inauguration and organization, were duly complied with, the colony
was not entitled to be considered as _deducta_--that is, solemnly and
ceremonially transplanted from the metropolis.] for mutual aid, having
officers of all ranks dispersed amongst them, and for overawing the
growth of insurrectionary movements amongst their neighbors. Acting on
this system, the Roman colonies in some measure resembled the _English
Pale_, as existing at one era in Ireland. This mode of service, it is
true, became obsolete in process of time, concurrently with the dangers
which it was shaped to meet; for the whole of Italy proper, together
with that part of Italy called Cisalpine Gaul, was at length reduced
to unity and obedience by the almighty republic. But in forwarding that
great end, and indispensable condition towards all foreign warfare, no
one military engine in the whole armory of Rome availed so much as
her Italian colonies. The other use of these colonies, as frontier
garrisons, or, at any rate, as interposing between a foreign enemy and
the gates of Rome, they continued to perform long after their earlier
uses had passed away; and Cicero himself notices their value in this
view. "Colonias," says he [_Orat. in Rullum_], "sic idoneis in locis
contra suspicionem periculi collocarunt, ut esse non oppida Italiæ sed
_propugnacula_ imperii viderentur." _Finally_, the colonies were the
best means of promoting tillage, and the culture of vineyards. And
though this service, as regarded the Italian colonies, was greatly
defeated in succeeding times by the ruinous largesses of corn
[_frumentationes_], and other vices of the Roman policy after the vast
revolution effected by universal luxury, it is not the less true that,
left to themselves and their natural tendency, the Roman colonies would
have yielded this last benefit as certainly as any other. Large volumes
exist, illustrated by the learning of Rigaltius, Salmatius, and Goesius,
upon the mere technical arrangements of the Roman colonies. And whose
libraries might be written on these same colonies considered as engines
of exquisite state policy.] and by the habits of the people. This
monarchy had been of too slow a growth--too gradual, and too much
according to the regular stages of nature herself in its development, to
have any chance of being other than well cemented; the cohesion of its
parts was intense; seven centuries of growth demand one or two at least
for palpable decay; and it is only for harlequin empires like that of
Napoleon, run up with the rapidity of pantomime, to fall asunder under
the instant reaction of a few false moves in politics, or a single
unfortunate campaign. Hence it was, and from the prudence of Augustus
acting through a very long reign, sustained at no very distant interval
by the personal inspection and revisions of Hadrian, that for some time
the Roman power seemed to be stationary. What else could be expected?
The mere strength of the impetus derived from the republican
institutions, could not but propagate itself, and cause even a motion
in advance, for some time after those institutions had themselves given
way. And besides the military institutions survived all others; and the
army continued very much the same in its discipline and composition,
long after Rome and all its civic institutions had bent before an utter
revolution. It was very possible even that emperors should have arisen
with martial propensities, and talents capable of masking, for many
years, by specious but transitory conquests, the causes that were
silently sapping the foundations of Roman supremacy; and thus by
accidents of personal character and taste, an empire might even have
expanded itself in appearance, which, by all its permanent and real
tendencies, was even then shrinking within narrower limits, and
travelling downwards to dissolution. In reality, one such emperor there
was. Trajan, whether by martial inclinations, or (as is supposed by
some) by dissatisfaction with his own position at Rome, when brought
into more immediate connection with the senate, was driven into needless
war; and he achieved conquests in the direction of Dacia as well as
Parthia. But that these conquests were not substantial,--that they were
connected by no true cement of cohesion with the existing empire, is
evident from the rapidity with which they were abandoned. In the next
reign, the empire had already recoiled within its former limits; and
in two reigns further on, under Marcus Antoninus, though a prince of
elevated character and warlike in his policy, we find such concessions
of territory made to the Marcomanni and others, as indicate too plainly
the shrinking energies of a waning empire. In reality, if we consider
the polar opposition, in point of interest and situation, between the
great officers of the republic and the Augustus or Cæsar of the empire,
we cannot fail to see the immense effect which that difference must have
had upon the permanent spirit of conquest. Cæsar was either adopted
or elected to a situation of infinite luxury and enjoyment. He had
no interests to secure by fighting in person: and he had a powerful
interest in preventing others from fighting; since in that way only he
could raise up competitors to himself, and dangerous seducers of the
army. A consul, on the other hand, or great lieutenant of the senate,
had nothing to enjoy or to hope for, when his term of office should have
expired, unless according to his success in creating military fame and
influence for himself. Those Cæsars who fought whilst the empire was or
seemed to be stationary, as Trajan, did so from personal taste. Those
who fought in after centuries, when the decay became apparent, and
dangers drew nearer, as Aurelian, did so from the necessities of fear;
and under neither impulse were they likely to make durable conquests.
The spirit of conquest having therefore departed at the very time
when conquest would have become more difficult even to the republican
energies, both from remoteness of ground and from the martial character
of the chief nations which stood beyond the frontier,--it was a matter
of necessity that with the republican institutions should expire the
whole principle of territorial aggrandizement; and that, if the empire
seemed to be stationary for some time after its establishment by Julius,
and its final settlement by Augustus, this was through no strength of
its own, or inherent in its own constitution, but through the continued
action of that strength which it had inherited from the republic. In a
philosophical sense, therefore, it may be affirmed, that the empire of
the Cæsars was _always_ in decline; ceasing to go forward, it could not
do other than retrograde; and even the first _appearances_ of decline
can, with no propriety, be referred to the reign of Commodus. His vices
exposed him to public contempt and assassination; but neither one
nor the other had any effect upon the strength of the empire. Here,
therefore, is one just subject of complaint against Gibbon, that he has
dated the declension of the Roman power from a commencement arbitrarily
assumed; another, and a heavier, is, that he has failed to notice the
steps and separate indications of decline as they arose,--the moments
(to speak in the language of dynamics) through which the decline
travelled onwards to its consummation. It is also a grievous offence
as regards the true purposes of history,--and one which, in a complete
exposition of the imperial history, we should have a right to insist
on,--that Gibbon brings forward only such facts as allow of a scenical
treatment, and seems every where, by the glancing style of his
allusions, to presuppose an acquaintance with that very history which
he undertakes to deliver. Our immediate purpose, however, is simply
to characterize the office of emperor, and to notice such events and
changes as operated for evil, and for a final effect of decay, upon
the Cæsars or their empire. As the best means of realizing it, we shall
rapidly review the history of both, promising that we confine ourselves
to the true Cæsars, and the true empire, of the West.
The first overt act of weakness,--the first expression of conscious
declension, as regarded the foreign enemies of Rome, occurred in the
reign of Hadrian; for it is a very different thing to forbear making
conquests, and to renounce them when made. It is possible, however, that
the cession then made of Mesopotamia and Armenia, however sure to be
interpreted into the language of fear by the enemy, did not imply any
such principle in this emperor. He was of a civic and paternal spirit,
and anxious for the substantial welfare of the empire rather than its
ostentatious glory. The internal administration of affairs had very much
gone into neglect since the times of Augustus; and Hadrian was perhaps
right in supposing that he could effect more public good by an extensive
progress through the empire, and by a personal correction of abuses,
than by any military enterprise. It is, besides, asserted, that he
received an indemnity in money for the provinces beyond the Euphratus.
But still it remains true, that in his reign the God Terminus made his
first retrograde motion; and this emperor became naturally an object of
public obloquy at Rome, and his name fell under the superstitious ban of
a fatal tradition connected with the foundation of the capitol. The two
Antonines, Titus and Marcus, who came next in succession, were truly
good and patriotic princes; perhaps the only princes in the whole series
who combined the virtues of private and of public life. In their reigns
the frontier line was maintained in its integrity, and at the expense
of some severe fighting under Marcus, who was a strenuous general at
the same time that he was a severe student. It is, however, true, as we
observed above, that, by allowing a settlement within the Roman
frontier to a barbarous people, Marcus Aurelius raised the first ominous
precedent in favor of those Gothic, Vandal, and Frankish hives, who
were as yet hidden behind a cloud of years. Homes had been obtained by
Trans-Danubian barbarians upon the sacred territory of Rome and Cæsar:
that fact remained upon tradition; whilst the terms upon which they had
been obtained, how much or how little connected with fear, necessarily
became liable to doubt and to oblivion. Here we pause to remark, that
the first twelve Cæsars, together with Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the
two Antonines, making seventeen emperors, compose the first of four
nearly equal groups, who occupied the throne in succession until
the extinction of the Western Empire. And at this point be it
observed,--that is, at the termination of the first group,--we take
leave of all genuine virtue. In no one of the succeeding princes, if we
except Alexander Severus, do we meet with any goodness of heart, or even
amiableness of manners. The best of the future emperors, in a public
sense, were harsh and repulsive in private character.
The second group, as we have classed them, terminating with Philip the
Arab, commences with Commodus. This unworthy prince, although the son of
the excellent Marcus Antoninus, turned out a monster of debauchery.
At the moment of his father's death, he was present in person at the
head-quarters of the army on the Danube, and of necessity partook
in many of their hardships. This it was which furnished his evil
counsellors with their sole argument for urging his departure to the
capital. A council having been convened, the faction of court sycophants
pressed upon his attention the inclemency of the climate, contrasting it
with the genial skies and sunny fields of Italy; and the season, which
happened to be winter, gave strength to their representations. What!
would the emperor be content for ever to hew out the frozen water with
an axe before he could assuage his thirst? And, again, the total want of
fruit-trees--did that recommend their present station as a fit one for
the imperial court? Commodus, ashamed to found his objections to the
station upon grounds so unsoldierly as these, affected to be moved by
political reasons: some great senatorial house might take advantage of
his distance from home,--might seize the palace, fortify it, and raise
levies in Italy capable of sustaining its pretensions to the throne.
These arguments were combated by Pompeianus, who, besides his personal
weight as an officer, had married the eldest sister of the young
emperor. Shame prevailed for the present with Commodus, and he dismissed
the council with an assurance that he would think farther of it. The
sequel was easy to foresee. Orders were soon issued for the departure of
the court to Rome, and the task of managing the barbarians of Dacia, was
delegated to lieutenants. The system upon which these officers executed
their commission was a mixed one of terror and persuasion. Some they
defeated in battle; and these were the majority; for Herodian says,
_pleizous ton barbaron haplois echeirosanto_: Others they bribed into
peace by large sums of money. And no doubt this last article in the
policy of Commodus was that which led Gibbon to assign to this reign the
first rudiments of the Roman declension. But it should be remembered,
that, virtually, this policy was but the further prosecution of that
which had already been adopted by Marcus Aurelius. Concessions and
temperaments of any sort or degree showed that the Pannonian frontier
was in too formidable a condition to be treated with uncompromising
rigor. To _hamerimnon onoumenos_, purchasing an immunity from all
further anxiety, Commodus (as the historian expresses it) _panta edidou
ta aitoumena_--conceded all demands whatever. His journey to Rome was
one continued festival: and the whole population of Rome turned out
to welcome him. At this period he was undoubtedly the darling of the
people: his personal beauty was splendid; and he was connected by blood
with some of the greatest nobility. Over this flattering scene of hope
and triumph clouds soon gathered: with the mob, indeed, there is reason
to think that he continued a favorite to the last; but the respectable
part of the citizens were speedily disgusted with his self-degradation,
and came to hate him even more than ever or by any class he had been
loved. The Roman pride never shows itself more conspicuously throughout
all history, than in the alienation of heart which inevitably followed
any great and continued outrages upon his own majesty, committed by
their emperor. Cruelties the most atrocious, acts of vengeance the most
bloody, fratricide, parricide, all were viewed with more toleration than
oblivion of his own inviolable sanctity. Hence we imagine the wrath
with which Rome would behold Commodus, under the eyes of four hundred
thousand spectators, making himself a party to the contests of
gladiators. In his earlier exhibitions as an archer, it is possible that
his matchless dexterity, and his unerring eye, would avail to mitigate
the censures: but when the Roman Imperator actually descended to
the arena in the garb and equipments of a servile prize-fighter, and
personally engaged in combat with such antagonists, having previously
submitted to their training and discipline--the public indignation
rose a to height, which spoke aloud the language of encouragement to
conspiracy and treason. These were not wanting: three memorable plots
against his life were defeated; one of them (that of Maternus, the
robber) accompanied with romantic circumstances, [Footnote: On this
occasion we may notice that the final execution of the vengeance
projected by Maternus, was reserved for a public festival, exactly
corresponding to the modern _carnival_; and from an expression used by
Herodian, it is plain that masquerading had been an ancient practice
in Rome.] which we have narrated in an earlier paper of this series.
Another was set on foot by his eldest sister, Lucilla; nor did her close
relationship protect her from capital punishment. In that instance,
the immediate agent of her purposes, Quintianus, a young man, of signal
resolution and daring, who had attempted to stab the emperor at the
entrance of the amphitheatre, though baffled in his purpose, uttered a
word which rang continually in the ears of Commodus, and poisoned
his peace of mind for ever. His vengeance, perhaps, was thus more
effectually accomplished than if he had at once dismissed his victim
from life. "The senate," he had said, "sends thee this through me:" and
henceforward the senate was the object of unslumbering suspicions to the
emperor. Yet the public suspicions settled upon a different quarter; and
a very memorable scene must have pointed his own in the same direction,
supposing that he had previously been blind to his danger. On a day
of great solemnity, when Rome had assembled her myriads in the
amphitheatre, just at the very moment when the nobles, the magistrates,
the priests, all, in short, that was venerable or consecrated in the
State, with the Imperator in their centre, had taken their seats, and
were waiting for the opening of the shows, a stranger, in the robe of
a philosopher, bearing a staff in his hand, (which also was the
professional ensign [Footnote: See Casaubon's notes upon Theophrastus.]
of a philosopher,) stepped forward, and, by the waving of his hand,
challenged the attention of Commodus. Deep silence ensued: upon which,
in a few words, ominous to the ear as the handwriting on the wall to the
eye of Belshazzar, the stranger unfolded to Commodus the instant peril
which menaced both his life and his throne, from his great servant
Perennius. What personal purpose of benefit to himself this stranger
might have connected with his public warning, or by whom he might have
been suborned, was never discovered; for he was instantly arrested by
the agents of the great officer whom he had denounced, dragged away to
punishment, and put to a cruel death. Commodus dissembled his panic for
the present; but soon after, having received undeniable proofs (as is
alleged) of the treason imputed to Perennius, in the shape of a
coin which had been struck by his son, he caused the father to be
assassinated; and, on the same day, by means of forged letters, before
this news could reach the son, who commanded the Illyrian armies, he
lured him also to destruction, under the belief that he was obeying the
summons of his father to a private interview on the Italian frontier.
So perished those enemies, if enemies they really were. But to these
tragedies succeeded others far more comprehensive in their mischief, and
in more continuous succession than is recorded upon any other page of
universal history. Rome was ravaged by a pestilence--by a famine--by
riots amounting to a civil war--by a dreadful massacre of the unarmed
mob--by shocks of earthquake--and, finally, by a fire which consumed
the national bank, [Footnote: Viz. the Temple of Peace; at that time the
most magnificent edifice in Rome. Temples, it is well known, were the
places used in ancient times as banks of deposit. For this function
they were admirably fitted by their inviolable sanctity.] and the most
sumptuous buildings of the city. To these horrors, with a rapidity
characteristic of the Roman depravity, and possible only under the most
extensive demoralization of the public mind, succeeded festivals of
gorgeous pomp, and amphitheatrical exhibitions, upon a scale of grandeur
absolutely unparalleled by all former attempts. Then were beheld, and
familiarized to the eyes of the Roman mob--to children--and to women,
animals as yet known to us, says Herodian, only in pictures. Whatever
strange or rare animal could be drawn from the depths of India, from
Siam and Pegu, or from the unvisited nooks of Ethiopia, were now brought
together as subjects for the archery of the universal lord. [Footnote:
What a prodigious opportunity for the zoologist!--And considering
that these shows prevailed, for 500 years, during all which period the
amphitheatre gave bounties, as it were, to the hunter and the fowler of
every climate, and that, by means of a stimulus so constantly applied,
scarcely any animal, the shyest, rarest, fiercest, escaped the demands
of the arena,--no one fact so much illustrates the inertia of the public
mind in those days, and the indifference to all scientific pursuits, as
that no annotator should have risen to Pliny the elder--no rival to the
immortal tutor of Alexander.] Invitations (and the invitations of kings
are commands) had been scattered on this occasion profusely; not, as
heretofore, to individuals or to families--but, as was in proportion
to the occasion where an emperor was the chief performer, to nations.
People were summoned by circles of longitude and latitude to come
and see _theasumenoi ha mæ proteron mæte heormkesun mæte
ækaekoeisun_--things that eye had not seen nor ear heard of] the
specious miracles of nature brought together from arctic and from tropic
deserts, putting forth their strength, their speed, or their beauty, and
glorifying by their deaths the matchless hand of the Roman king.
There was beheld the lion from Bilidulgerid, and the leopard from
Hindostan--the rein-deer from polar latitudes--the antelope from the
Zaara--and the leigh, or gigantic stag, from Britain. Thither came the
buffalo and the bison, the white bull of Northumberland and Galloway,
the unicorn from the regions of Nepaul or Thibet, the rhinoceros and
the river-horse from Senegal, with the elephant of Ceylon or Siam. The
ostrich and the cameleopard, the wild ass and the zebra, the chamois and
the ibex of Angora,--all brought their tributes of beauty or deformity
to these vast aceldamas of Rome: their savage voices ascended in
tumultuous uproar to the chambers of the capitol: a million of
spectators sat round them: standing in the centre was a single
statuesque figure--the imperial sagittary, beautiful as an Antinous, and
majestic as a Jupiter, whose hand was so steady and whose eye so true,
that he was never known to miss, and who, in this accomplishment at
least, was so absolute in his excellence, that, as we are assured by a
writer not disposed to flatter him, the very foremost of the Parthian
archers and of the Mauritanian lancers [_Parthyaion oi toxichæs
hachribentes, chai Mauresion oi hachontixein harizoi_] were not able
to contend with him. Juvenal, in a well known passage upon the
disproportionate endings of illustrious careers, drawing one of his
examples from Marius, says, that he ought, for his own glory, and to
make his end correspondent to his life, to have died at the moment when
he descended from his triumphal chariot at the portals of the capitol.
And of Commodus, in like manner, it may be affirmed, that, had he
died in the exercise of his peculiar art, with a hecatomb of victims
rendering homage to his miraculous skill, by the regularity of the files
which they presented, as they lay stretched out dying or dead upon the
arena,--he would have left a splendid and a characteristic impression
of himself upon that nation of spectators who had witnessed his
performance. He was the noblest artist in his own profession that the
world had seen--in archery he was the Robin Hood of Rome; he was in the
very meridian of his youth; and he was the most beautiful man of his
own times _Ton chath eauton hathropon challei euprepestatos_. He would
therefore have looked the part admirably of the dying gladiator; and he
would have died in his natural vocation. But it was ordered otherwise;
his death was destined to private malice, and to an ignoble hand. And
much obscurity still rests upon the motives of the assassins, though its
circumstances are reported with unusual minuteness of detail. One
thing is evident, that the public and patriotic motives assigned by the
perpetrators as the remote causes of their conspiracy, cannot have been
the true ones. The grave historian may sum up his character of Commodus
by saying that, however richly endowed with natural gifts, he abused
them all to bad purposes; that he derogated from his noble ancestors,
and disavowed the obligations of his illustrious name; and, as the
climax of his offences, that he dishonored the purple--_aischrois
epitædeumasin_--by the baseness of his pursuits. All that is true, and
more than that. But these considerations were not of a nature to
affect his parasitical attendants very nearly or keenly. Yet the story
runs--that Marcia, his privileged mistress, deeply affected by the
anticipation of some further outrages upon his high dignity which he
was then meditating, had carried the importunity of her deprecations too
far; that the irritated emperor had consequently inscribed her name, in
company with others, (whom he had reason to tax with the same offence,
or whom he suspected of similar sentiments,) in his little black book,
or pocket souvenir of death; that this book, being left under the
cushion of a sofa, had been conveyed into the hands of Marcia by a
little pet boy, called Philo-Commodus, who was caressed equally by the
emperor and by Marcia; that she had immediately called to her aid, and
to the participation of her plot, those who participated in her danger;
and that the proximity of their own intended fate had prescribed to them
an immediate attempt; the circumstances of which were these. At mid-day
the emperor was accustomed to bathe, and at the same time to take
refreshments. On this occasion, Marcia, agreeably to her custom,
presented him with a goblet of wine, medicated with poison. Of this
wine, having just returned from the fatigues of the chase, Commodus
drank freely, and almost immediately fell into heavy slumbers; from
which, however, he was soon aroused by deadly sickness. That was a case
which the conspirators had not taken into their calculations; and they
now began to fear that the violent vomiting which succeeded might throw
off the poison. There was no time to be lost; and the barbarous Marcia,
who had so often slept in the arms of the young emperor, was the person
to propose that he should now be strangled. A young gladiator, named
Narcissus, was therefore introduced into the room; what passed is not
known circumstantially; but, as the emperor was young and athletic,
though off his guard at the moment, and under the disadvantage
of sickness, and as he had himself been regularly trained in the
gladiatorial discipline, there can be little doubt that the vile
assassin would meet with a desperate resistance. And thus, after all,
there is good reason to think that the emperor resigned his life in the
character of a dying gladiator. [Footnote: It is worthy of notice, that,
under any suspension of the imperatorial power or office, the senate
was the body to whom the Roman mind even yet continued to turn. In this
case, both to color their crime with a show of public motives, and to
interest this great body in their own favor by associating them in their
own dangers, the conspirators pretended to have found a long roll of
senatorial names included in the same page of condemnation with their
own. A manifest fabrication!]
So perished the eldest and sole surviving son of the great Marcus
Antoninus; and the crown passed into the momentary possession of two old
men, who reigned in succession each for a few weeks. The first of
these was Pertinax, an upright man, a good officer, and an unseasonable
reformer; unseasonable for those times, but more so for himself. Lætus,
the ringleader in the assassination of Commodus, had been at that time
the prætorian prefect--an office which a German writer considers as best
represented to modern ideas by the Turkish post of grand vizier.
Needing a protector at this moment, he naturally fixed his eyes upon
Pertinax--as then holding the powerful command of city prefect (or
governor of Rome.) Him therefore he recommended to the soldiery--that
is, to the prætorian cohorts. The soldiery had no particular objection
to the old general, if he and they could agree upon terms; his age being
doubtless appreciated as a first-rate recommendation, in a case where it
insured a speedy renewal of the lucrative bargain.
The only demur arose with Pertinax himself: he had been leader of the
troops in Britain, then superintendent of the police in Rome, thirdly
proconsul in Africa, and finally consul and governor of Rome. In these
great official stations he stood near enough to the throne to observe
the dangers with which it was surrounded; and it is asserted that he
declined the offered dignity. But it is added, that, finding the choice
allowed him lay between immediate death [Footnote: Historians have
failed to remark the contradiction between this statement and
the allegation that Lætus selected Pertinax for the throne on a
consideration of his ability to protect the assassins of Commodus.] and
acceptance, he closed with the proposals of the praetorian cohorts, at
the rate of about ninety-six pounds per man; which largess he paid by
bringing to sale the rich furniture of the last emperor. The danger
which usually threatened a Roman Cæsar in such cases was--lest he should
not be able to fulfill his contract. But in the case of Pertinax the
danger began from the moment when he _had_ fulfilled it. Conceiving
himself to be now released from his dependency, he commenced his
reforms, civil as well as military, with a zeal which alarmed all those
who had an interest in maintaining the old abuses. To two great factions
he thus made himself especially obnoxious--to the praetorian cohorts,
and to the courtiers under the last reign. The connecting link between
these two parties was Lætus, who belonged personally to the last, and
still retained his influence with the first. Possibly his fears
were alarmed; but, at all events, his cupidity was not satisfied. He
conceived himself to have been ill rewarded; and, immediately resorting
to the same weapons which he had used against Commodus, he stimulated
the praetorian guards to murder the emperor. Three hundred of them
pressed into the palace: Pertinax attempted to harangue them, and to
vindicate himself; but not being able to obtain a hearing, he folded his
robe about his head, called upon Jove the Avenger, and was immediately
dispatched.
The throne was again empty after a reign of about eighty days; and now
came the memorable scandal of putting up the empire to auction. There
were two bidders, Sulpicianus and Didius Julianus. The first, however,
at that time governor of Rome, lay under a weight of suspicion, being
the father-in-law of Pertinax, and likely enough to exact vengeance for
his murder. He was besides outbid by Julianus. Sulpician offered about
one hundred and sixty pounds a man to the guards; his rival offered two
hundred, and assured them besides of immediate payment; "for," said
he, "I have the money at home, without needing to raise it from the
possessions of the crown." Upon this the empire was knocked down to the
highest bidder. So shocking, however, was this arrangement to the
Roman pride, that the guards durst not leave their new creation without
military protection. The resentment of an unarmed mob, however, soon
ceased to be of foremost importance; this resentment extended rapidly
to all the frontiers of the empire, where the armies felt that the
prætorian cohorts had no exclusive title to give away the throne, and
their leaders felt, that, in a contest of this nature, their own claims
were incomparably superior to those of the present occupant. Three great
candidates therefore started forward--Septimius Severus, who commanded
the armies in Illyria, Pescennius Niger in Syria, and Albinus in
Britain. Severus, as the nearest to Rome, marched and possessed himself
of that city. Vengeance followed upon all parties concerned in the late
murder. Julianus, unable to complete his bargain, had already been put
to death, as a deprecatory offering to the approaching army. Severus
himself inflicted death upon Lætus, and dismissed the praetorian
cohorts. Thence marching against his Syrian rival, Niger, who had
formerly been his friend, and who was not wanting in military skill, he
overthrew him in three great battles. Niger fled to Antioch, the seat
of his late government, and was there decapitated. Meantime Albinus, the
British commander-in-chief, had already been won over by the title of
Cæsar, or adopted heir to the new Augustus. But the hollowness of this
bribe soon became apparent, and the two competitors met to decide their
pretensions at Lyons. In the great battle which followed, Severus fell
from his horse, and was at first supposed to be dead. But recovering, he
defeated his rival, who immediately committed suicide. Severus displayed
his ferocious temper sufficiently by sending the head of Albinus to
Rome. Other expressions of his natural character soon followed: he
suspected strongly that Albinus had been favored by the senate; forty of
that body, with their wives and children, were immediately sacrificed to
his wrath; but he never forgave the rest, nor endured to live upon terms
of amity amongst them. Quitting Rome in disgust, he employed himself
first in making war upon the Parthians, who had naturally, from
situation, befriended his Syrian rival. Their capital cities he
overthrew; and afterwards, by way of employing his armies, made war
in Britain. At the city of York he died; and to his two sons, Geta and
Caracalla, he bequeathed, as his dying advice, a maxim of policy, which
sufficiently indicates the situation of the empire at that period; it
was this--"To enrich the soldiery at any price, and to regard the rest
of their subjects as so many ciphers." But, as a critical historian
remarks, this was a shortsighted and self-destroying policy; since in
no way is the subsistence of the soldier made more insecure, than by
diminishing the general security of rights and property to those who are
not soldiers, from whom, after all, the funds must be sought, by
which the soldier himself is to be paid and nourished. The two sons
of Severus, whose bitter enmity is so memorably put on record by their
actions, travelled simultaneously to Rome; but so mistrustful of each
other, that at every stage the two princes took up their quarters at
different houses. Geta has obtained the sympathy of historians, because
he happened to be the victim; but there is reason to think, that each
of the brothers was conspiring against the other. The weak credulity,
rather than the conscious innocence, of Geta, led to the catastrophe; he
presented himself at a meeting with his brother in the presence of their
common mother, and was murdered by Caracalla in his mother's arms. He
was, however, avenged; the horrors of that tragedy, and remorse for the
twenty thousand murders which had followed, never forsook the guilty
Caracalla. Quitting Rome, but pursued into every region by the bloody
image of his brother, the emperor henceforward led a wandering life at
the head of his legions; but never was there a better illustration of
the poet's maxim, that
'Remorse is as the mind in which it grows:
If _that_ be gentle,' &c.
For the remorse of Caracalla put on no shape of repentance. On the
contrary, he carried anger and oppression wherever he moved; and
protected himself from plots only by living in the very centre of a
nomadic camp. Six years had passed away in this manner, when a mere
accident led to his assassination. For the sake of security, the office
of praetorian prefect had been divided between two commissioners, one
for military affairs, the other for civil. The latter of these two
officers was Opilius Macrinus. This man has, by some historians, been
supposed to have harbored no bad intentions; but, unfortunately, an
astrologer had foretold that he was destined to the throne. The prophet
was laid in irons at Rome, and letters were dispatched to Caracalla,
apprizing him of the case. These letters, as yet unopened, were
transferred by the emperor, then occupied in witnessing a race, to
Macrinus, who thus became acquainted with the whole grounds of suspicion
against himself,--grounds which, to the jealousy of the emperor, he
well knew would appear substantial proofs. Upon this he resolved to
anticipate the emperor in the work of murder. The head-quarters were
then at Edessa; and upon his instigation, a disappointed centurion,
named Martialis, animated also by revenge for the death of his brother,
undertook to assassinate Caracalla. An opportunity soon offered, on
a visit which the prince made to the celebrated temple of the moon at
Carrhæ. The attempt was successful: the emperor perished; but Martialis
paid the penalty of his crime in the same hour, being shot by a Scythian
archer of the body-guard.
Macrinus, after three days' interregnum, being elected emperor, began
his reign by purchasing a peace from the Parthians. What the empire
chiefly needed at this moment, is evident from the next step taken by
this emperor. He labored to restore the ancient discipline of the armies
in all its rigor. He was aware of the risk he ran in this attempt; and
that he _was_ so, is the best evidence of the strong necessity which
existed for reform. Perhaps, however, he might have surmounted his
difficulties and dangers, had he met with no competitor round whose
person the military malcontents could rally. But such a competitor soon
arose; and, to the astonishment of all the world, in the person of a
Syrian. The Emperor Severus, on losing his first wife, had resolved to
strengthen the pretensions of his family by a second marriage with some
lady having a regal "genesis," that is, whose horoscope promised a regal
destiny. Julia Domna, a native of Syria, offered him this dowry, and she
became the mother of Geta. A sister of this Julia, called Moesa,
had, through two different daughters, two grandsons--Heliogabalus and
Alexander Severus. The mutineers of the army rallied round the first of
these; a battle was fought; and Macrinus, with his son Diadumenianus,
whom he had adopted to the succession, were captured and put to death.
Heliogabalus succeeded, and reigned in the monstrous manner which has
rendered his name infamous in history. In what way, however, he lost the
affections of the army, has never been explained. His mother, Sooemias,
the eldest daughter of Moesa, had represented herself as the concubine
of Caracalla; and Heliogabalus, being thus accredited as the son of that
emperor, whose memory was dear to the soldiery, had enjoyed the full
benefit of that descent, nor can it be readily explained how he came to
lose it.
Here, in fact, we meet with an instance of that dilemma which is so
constantly occurring in the history of the Cæsars. If a prince is by
temperament disposed to severity of manners, and naturally seeks to
impress his own spirit upon the composition and discipline of the army,
we are sure to find that he was cut off in his attempts by private
assassination or by public rebellion. On the other hand, if he wallows
in sensuality, and is careless about all discipline, civil or military,
we then find as commonly that he loses the esteem and affections of
the army to some rival of severer habits. And in the midst of such
oscillations, and with examples of such contradictory interpretation, we
cannot wonder that the Roman princes did not oftener take warning by the
misfortunes of their predecessors. In the present instance, Alexander,
the cousin of Heliogabalus, without intrigues of his own, and simply (as
it appears) by the purity and sobriety of his conduct, had alienated
the affections of the army from the reigning prince. Either jealousy or
prudence had led Heliogabalus to make an attempt upon his rival's life;
and this attempt had nearly cost him his own through the mutiny which
it caused. In a second uproar, produced by some fresh intrigues of the
emperor against his cousin, the soldiers became unmanageable, and they
refused to pause until they had massacred Heliogabalus, together with
his mother, and raised his cousin Alexander to the throne.
The reforms of this prince, who reigned under the name of Alexander
Severus, were extensive and searching; not only in his court, which he
purged of all notorious abuses, but throughout the economy of the army.
He cashiered, upon one occasion, an entire legion: he restored, as far
as he was able, the ancient discipline; and, above all, he liberated
the provinces from military spoliation. "Let the soldier," said he, "be
contented with his pay; and whatever more he wants, let him obtain it
by victory from the enemy, not by pillage from his fellow-subject." But
whatever might be the value or extent of his reforms in the marching
regiments, Alexander could not succeed in binding the prætorian guards
to his yoke. Under the guardianship of his mother Mammæa, the conduct of
state affairs had been submitted to a council of sixteen persons, at
the head of which stood the celebrated Ulpian. To this minister the
prætorians imputed the reforms, and perhaps the whole spirit of reform;
for they pursued him with a vengeance which is else hardly to be
explained. Many days was Ulpian protected by the citizens of Rome, until
the whole city was threatened with conflagration; he then fled to the
palace of the young emperor, who in vain attempted to save him from his
pursuers under the shelter of the imperial purple. Ulpian was murdered
before his eyes; nor was it found possible to punish the ringleader
in this foul conspiracy, until he had been removed by something like
treachery to a remote government.
Meantime, a great revolution and change of dynasty had been effected in
Parthia; the line of the Arsacidæ was terminated; the Parthian empire
was at an end; and the sceptre of Persia was restored under the new race
of the Sassanides. Artaxerxes, the first prince of this race, sent an
embassy of four hundred select knights, enjoining the Roman emperor to
content himself with Europe, and to leave Asia to the Persians. In the
event of a refusal, the ambassadors were instructed to offer a defiance
to the Roman prince. Upon such an insult, Alexander could not do less,
with either safety or dignity, than prepare for war. It is probable,
indeed, that, by this expedition, which drew off the minds of the
soldiery from brooding upon the reforms which offended them, the life
of Alexander was prolonged. But the expedition itself was mismanaged,
or was unfortunate. This result, however, does not seem chargeable upon
Alexander. All the preparations were admirable on the march, and up to
the enemy's frontier. The invasion it was, which, in a strategic sense,
seems to have been ill combined. Three armies were to have entered
Persia simultaneously: one of these, which was destined to act on a
flank of the general line, entangled itself in the marshy grounds near
Babylon, and was cut off by the archery of an enemy whom it could
not reach. The other wing, acting upon ground impracticable for the
manoeuvres of the Persian cavalry, and supported by Chosroes the king
of Armenia, gave great trouble to Artaxerxes, and, with adequate support
from the other armies, would doubtless have been victorious. But the
central army, under the conduct of Alexander in person, discouraged by
the destruction of one entire wing, remained stationary in Mesopotamia
throughout the summer, and, at the close of the campaign, was withdrawn
to Antioch, _re infectâ_. It has been observed that great mystery hangs
over the operations and issue of this short war. Thus much, however, is
evident, that nothing but the previous exhaustion of the Persian king
saved the Roman armies from signal discomfiture; and even thus there is
no ground for claiming a victory (as most historians do) to the Roman
arms. Any termination of the Persian war, however, whether glorious or
not, was likely to be personally injurious to Alexander, by allowing
leisure to the soldiery for recurring to their grievances. Sensible, no
doubt, of this, Alexander was gratified by the occasion which then arose
for repressing the hostile movements of the Germans. He led his army off
upon this expedition; but their temper was gloomy and threatening; and
at length, after reaching the seat of war, at Mentz, an open mutiny
broke out under the guidance of Maximin, which terminated in the murder
of the emperor and his mother. By Herodian the discontents of the army
are referred to the ill management of the Persian campaign, and the
unpromising commencement of the new war in Germany. But it seems
probable that a dissolute and wicked army, like that of Alexander, had
not murmured under the too little, but the too much of military service;
not the buying a truce with gold seems to have offended them, but the
having led them at all upon an enterprise of danger and hardship.
Maximin succeeded, whose feats of strength, when he first courted the
notice of the Emperor Severus, have been described by Gibbon. He was
at that period a Thracian peasant; since then he had risen gradually
to high offices; but, according to historians, he retained his Thracian
brutality to the last. That may have been true; but one remark must be
made upon this occasion: Maximin was especially opposed to the senate;
and, wherever that was the case, no justice was done to an emperor. Why
it was that Maximin would not ask for the confirmation of his
election from the senate, has never been explained; it is said that he
anticipated a rejection. But, on the other hand, it seems probable that
the senate supposed its sanction to be despised. Nothing, apparently,
but this reciprocal reserve in making approaches to each other, was
the cause of all the bloodshed which followed. The two Gordians, who
commanded in Africa, were set up by the senate against the new emperor;
and the consternation of that body must have been great, when these
champions were immediately overthrown and killed. They did not, however,
despair: substituting the two governors of Rome, Pupienus and Balbinus,
and associating to them the younger Gordian, they resolved to make a
stand; for the severities of Maximin had by this time manifested that
it was a contest of extermination. Meantime, Maximin had broken up from
Sirmium, the capital of Pannonia, and had advanced to Aquileia,--that
famous fortress, which in every invasion of Italy was the first object
of attack. The senate had set a price upon his head; but there was every
probability that he would have triumphed, had he not disgusted his army
by immoderate severities. It was, however, but reasonable that those,
who would not support the strict but equitable discipline of the mild
Alexander, should suffer under the barbarous and capricious rigor of
Maximin. That rigor was his ruin: sunk and degraded as the senate was,
and now but the shadow of a mighty name, it was found on this occasion
to have long arms when supported by the frenzy of its opponent. Whatever
might be the real weakness of this body, the rude soldiers yet felt a
blind traditionary veneration for its sanction, when prompting them as
patriots to an act which their own multiplied provocations had but too
much recommended to their passions. A party entered the tent of Maximin,
and dispatched him with the same unpitying haste which he had shown
under similar circumstances to the gentle-minded Alexander. Aquileia
opened her gates immediately, and thus made it evident that the war had
been personal to Maximin.
A scene followed within a short time which is in the highest degree
interesting. The senate, in creating two emperors at once (for the boy
Gordian was probably associated to them only by way of masking their
experiment), had made it evident that their purpose was to restore the
republic and its two consuls. This was their meaning; and the experiment
had now been twice repeated. The army saw through it: as to the double
number of emperors, _that_ was of little consequence, farther than as
it expressed their intention, viz. by bringing back the consular
government, to restore the power of the senate, and to abrogate that of
the army. The prætorian troops, who were the most deeply interested in
preventing this revolution, watched their opportunity, and attacked the
two emperors in the palace. The deadly feud, which had already arisen
between them, led each to suppose himself under assault from the other.
The mistake was not of long duration. Carried into the streets of Rome,
they were both put to death, and treated with monstrous indignities. The
young Gordian was adopted by the soldiery. It seems odd that even thus
far the guards should sanction the choice of the senate, having the
purposes which they had; but perhaps Gordian had recommended himself to
their favor in a degree which might outweigh what they considered
the original vice of his appointment, and his youth promised them
an immediate impunity. This prince, however, like so many of his
predecessors, soon came to an unhappy end. Under the guardianship of the
upright Misitheus, for a time he prospered; and preparations were made
upon a great scale for the energetic administration of a Persian war.
But Misitheus died, perhaps by poison, in the course of the campaign;
and to him succeeded, as prætorian prefect, an Arabian officer, called
Philip. The innocent boy, left without friends, was soon removed by
murder; and a monument was afterwards erected to his memory, at the
junction of the Aboras and the Euphrates. Great obscurity, however,
clouds this part of history; nor is it so much as known in what way the
Persian war was conducted or terminated.
Philip, having made himself emperor, celebrated, upon his arrival in
Rome, the secular games, in the year 247 of the Christian era--that
being the completion of a thousand years from the foundation of Rome.
But Nemesis was already on his steps. An insurrection had broken out
amongst the legions stationed in Msia; and they had raised to the
purple some officer of low rank. Philip, having occasion to notice this
affair in the senate, received for answer from Decius, that probably the
pseudo-imperator would prove a mere evanescent phantom. This conjecture
was confirmed; and Philip in consequence conceived a high opinion of
Decius, whom (as the insurrection still continued) he judged to be the
fittest man for appeasing it. Decius accordingly went, armed with the
proper authority. But on his arrival, he found himself compelled by the
insurgent army to choose between empire and death. Thus constrained, he
yielded to the wishes of the troops; and then hastening with a veteran
army into Italy, he fought the battle of Verona, where Philip was
defeated and killed, whilst the son of Philip was murdered at Rome by
the prætorian guards.
With Philip ends, according to our distribution, the second series of
the Cæsars, comprehending Commodus, Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Septimius
Severus, Caracalla, and Geta, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander Severus,
Maximin, the two Gordians, Pupienus and Balbinus, the third Gordian, and
Philip the Arab.
In looking back at this series of Cæsars, we are horror-struck at the
blood-stained picture. Well might a foreign writer, in reviewing the
same succession, declare, that it is like passing into a new world when
the transition is made from this chapter of the human history to that of
modern Europe. From Commodus to Decius are sixteen names, which, spread
through a space of 59 years, assign to each Cæsar a reign of less than
four years. And Casaubon remarks, that, in one period of 160 years,
there were 70 persons who assumed the Roman purple; which gives to
each not much more than two years. On the other hand, in the history of
France, we find that, through a period of 1200 years, there have been
no more than 64 kings: upon an average, therefore, each king appears to
have enjoyed a reign of nearly nineteen years. This vast difference
in security is due to two great principles,--that of primogeniture as
between son and son, and of hereditary succession as between a son and
every other pretender. Well may we hail the principle of hereditary
right as realizing the praise of Burke applied to chivalry, viz., that
it is "the cheap defence of nations;" for the security which is thus
obtained, be it recollected, does not regard a small succession of
princes, but the whole rights and interests of social man: since the
contests for the rights of belligerent rivals do not respect themselves
only, but very often spread ruin and proscription amongst all orders
of men. The principle of hereditary succession, says one writer, had it
been a discovery of any one individual, would deserve to be considered
as the very greatest ever made; and he adds acutely, in answer to the
obvious, but shallow objection to it (viz. its apparent assumption of
equal ability for reigning in father and son for ever), that it is like
the Copernican system of the heavenly bodies,--contradictory to our
sense and first impressions, but true notwithstanding.