connected, however, with each other by the general resemblance of
religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most
beneficial consequences to the liberty of mankind. A modern
tyrant, who should find no resistance either in his own breast,
or in his people, would soon experience a gentle restrain from
the example of his equals, the dread of present censure, the
advice of his allies, and the apprehension of his enemies. The
object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of his
dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure
refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of
complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of
the Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the
hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary
prison for his enemies. The slave of Imperial despotism, whether
he was condemned to drag his gilded chain in Rome and the senate,
or to were out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or
the frozen bank of the Danube, expected his fate in silent
despair. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On
every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land,
which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered,
seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the
frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing, except the
ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of
fierce manners and unknown language, or dependent kings, who
would gladly purchase the emperor’s protection by the sacrifice
of an obnoxious fugitive. “Wherever you are,” said Cicero to the
exiled Marcellus, “remember that you are equally within the power
of the conqueror.”
Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part I.
The Cruelty, Follies, And Murder Of Commodus. Election Of
Pertinax—His Attempts To Reform The State—His Assassination By The
Prætorian Guards.
The mildness of Marcus, which the rigid discipline of the Stoics
was unable to eradicate, formed, at the same time, the most
amiable, and the only defective part of his character. His
excellent understanding was often deceived by the unsuspecting
goodness of his heart. Artful men, who study the passions of
princes, and conceal their own, approached his person in the
disguise of philosophic sanctity, and acquired riches and honors
by affecting to despise them. His excessive indulgence to his
brother, * his wife, and his son, exceeded the bounds of private
virtue, and became a public injury, by the example and
consequences of their vices.
Faustina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been
as much celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The
grave simplicity of the philosopher was ill calculated to engage
her wanton levity, or to fix that unbounded passion for variety,
which often discovered personal merit in the meanest of mankind.
The Cupid of the ancients was, in general, a very sensual deity;
and the amours of an empress, as they exact on her side the
plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much sentimental
delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire who seemed
ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of Faustina; which,
according to the prejudices of every age, reflected some disgrace
on the injured husband. He promoted several of her lovers to
posts of honor and profit, and during a connection of thirty
years, invariably gave her proofs of the most tender confidence,
and of a respect which ended not with her life. In his
Meditations, he thanks the gods, who had bestowed on him a wife
so faithful, so gentle, and of such a wonderful simplicity of
manners. The obsequious senate, at his earnest request, declared
her a goddess. She was represented in her temples, with the
attributes of Juno, Venus, and Ceres; and it was decreed, that,
on the day of their nuptials, the youth of either sex should pay
their vows before the altar of their chaste patroness.
The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of
the father’s virtues. It has been objected to Marcus, that he
sacrificed the happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a
worthless boy; and that he chose a successor in his own family,
rather than in the republic. Nothing however, was neglected by
the anxious father, and by the men of virtue and learning whom he
summoned to his assistance, to expand the narrow mind of young
Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to render him worthy
of the throne for which he was designed. But the power of
instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy
dispositions where it is almost superfluous. The distasteful
lesson of a grave philosopher was, in a moment, obliterated by
the whisper of a profligate favorite; and Marcus himself blasted
the fruits of this labored education, by admitting his son, at
the age of fourteen or fifteen, to a full participation of the
Imperial power. He lived but four years afterwards: but he lived
long enough to repent a rash measure, which raised the impetuous
youth above the restraint of reason and authority.
Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society,
are produced by the restraints which the necessary but unequal
laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by
confining to a few the possession of those objects that are
coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of
power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the
pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the
tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force,
and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The
ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of
success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future
dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the
voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has
been stained with civil blood; but these motives will not account
for the unprovoked cruelties of Commodus, who had nothing to wish
and every thing to enjoy. The beloved son of Marcus succeeded to
his father, amidst the acclamations of the senate and armies; and
when he ascended the throne, the happy youth saw round him
neither competitor to remove, nor enemies to punish. In this
calm, elevated station, it was surely natural that he should
prefer the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories
of his five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and
Domitian.
Yet Commodus was not, as he has been represented, a tiger born
with an insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his
infancy, of the most inhuman actions. Nature had formed him of a
weak rather than a wicked disposition. His simplicity and
timidity rendered him the slave of his attendants, who gradually
corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which at first obeyed the
dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at length became
the ruling passion of his soul.
Upon the death of his father, Commodus found himself embarrassed
with the command of a great army, and the conduct of a difficult
war against the Quadi and Marcomanni. The servile and profligate
youths whom Marcus had banished, soon regained their station and
influence about the new emperor. They exaggerated the hardships
and dangers of a campaign in the wild countries beyond the
Danube; and they assured the indolent prince that the terror of
his name, and the arms of his lieutenants, would be sufficient to
complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians, or to impose
such conditions as were more advantageous than any conquest. By a
dexterous application to his sensual appetites, they compared the
tranquillity, the splendor, the refined pleasures of Rome, with
the tumult of a Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leisure
nor materials for luxury. Commodus listened to the pleasing
advice; but whilst he hesitated between his own inclination and
the awe which he still retained for his father’s counsellors, the
summer insensibly elapsed, and his triumphal entry into the
capital was deferred till the autumn. His graceful person,
popular address, and imagined virtues, attracted the public
favor; the honorable peace which he had recently granted to the
barbarians, diffused a universal joy; his impatience to revisit
Rome was fondly ascribed to the love of his country; and his
dissolute course of amusements was faintly condemned in a prince
of nineteen years of age.
During the three first years of his reign, the forms, and even
the spirit, of the old administration, were maintained by those
faithful counsellors, to whom Marcus had recommended his son, and
for whose wisdom and integrity Commodus still entertained a
reluctant esteem. The young prince and his profligate favorites
revelled in all the license of sovereign power; but his hands
were yet unstained with blood; and he had even displayed a
generosity of sentiment, which might perhaps have ripened into
solid virtue. A fatal incident decided his fluctuating character.
One evening, as the emperor was returning to the palace, through
a dark and narrow portico in the amphitheatre, an assassin, who
waited his passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword, loudly
exclaiming, “_The senate sends you this._” The menace prevented
the deed; the assassin was seized by the guards, and immediately
revealed the authors of the conspiracy. It had been formed, not
in the state, but within the walls of the palace. Lucilla, the
emperor’s sister, and widow of Lucius Verus, impatient of the
second rank, and jealous of the reigning empress, had armed the
murderer against her brother’s life. She had not ventured to
communicate the black design to her second husband, Claudius
Pompeiarus, a senator of distinguished merit and unshaken
loyalty; but among the crowd of her lovers (for she imitated the
manners of Faustina) she found men of desperate fortunes and wild
ambition, who were prepared to serve her more violent, as well as
her tender passions. The conspirators experienced the rigor of
justice, and the abandoned princess was punished, first with
exile, and afterwards with death.
But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of
Commodus, and left an indelible impression of fear and hatred
against the whole body of the senate. * Those whom he had dreaded
as importunate ministers, he now suspected as secret enemies. The
Delators, a race of men discouraged, and almost extinguished,
under the former reigns, again became formidable, as soon as they
discovered that the emperor was desirous of finding disaffection
and treason in the senate. That assembly, whom Marcus had ever
considered as the great council of the nation, was composed of
the most distinguished of the Romans; and distinction of every
kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated
the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit
censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services
implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of
the father always insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was
equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a
considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might
lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted
human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse.
Of these innocent victims of tyranny, none died more lamented
than the two brothers of the Quintilian family, Maximus and
Condianus; whose fraternal love has saved their names from
oblivion, and endeared their memory to posterity. Their studies
and their occupations, their pursuits and their pleasures, were
still the same. In the enjoyment of a great estate, they never
admitted the idea of a separate interest: some fragments are now
extant of a treatise which they composed in common; and in every
action of life it was observed that their two bodies were
animated by one soul. The Antonines, who valued their virtues,
and delighted in their union, raised them, in the same year, to
the consulship; and Marcus afterwards intrusted to their joint
care the civil administration of Greece, and a great military
command, in which they obtained a signal victory over the
Germans. The kind cruelty of Commodus united them in death.
The tyrant’s rage, after having shed the noblest blood of the
senate, at length recoiled on the principal instrument of his
cruelty. Whilst Commodus was immersed in blood and luxury, he
devolved the detail of the public business on Perennis, a servile
and ambitious minister, who had obtained his post by the murder
of his predecessor, but who possessed a considerable share of
vigor and ability. By acts of extortion, and the forfeited
estates of the nobles sacrificed to his avarice, he had
accumulated an immense treasure. The Prætorian guards were under
his immediate command; and his son, who already discovered a
military genius, was at the head of the Illyrian legions.
Perennis aspired to the empire; or what, in the eyes of Commodus,
amounted to the same crime, he was capable of aspiring to it, had
he not been prevented, surprised, and put to death. The fall of a
minister is a very trifling incident in the general history of
the empire; but it was hastened by an extraordinary circumstance,
which proved how much the nerves of discipline were already
relaxed. The legions of Britain, discontented with the
administration of Perennis, formed a deputation of fifteen
hundred select men, with instructions to march to Rome, and lay
their complaints before the emperor. These military petitioners,
by their own determined behaviour, by inflaming the divisions of
the guards, by exaggerating the strength of the British army, and
by alarming the fears of Commodus, exacted and obtained the
minister’s death, as the only redress of their grievances. This
presumption of a distant army, and their discovery of the
weakness of government, was a sure presage of the most dreadful
convulsions.
The negligence of the public administration was betrayed, soon
afterwards, by a new disorder, which arose from the smallest
beginnings. A spirit of desertion began to prevail among the
troops: and the deserters, instead of seeking their safety in
flight or concealment, infested the highways. Maternus, a private
soldier, of a daring boldness above his station, collected these
bands of robbers into a little army, set open the prisons,
invited the slaves to assert their freedom, and plundered with
impunity the rich and defenceless cities of Gaul and Spain. The
governors of the provinces, who had long been the spectators, and
perhaps the partners, of his depredations, were, at length,
roused from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of
the emperor. Maternus found that he was encompassed, and foresaw
that he must be overpowered. A great effort of despair was his
last resource. He ordered his followers to disperse, to pass the
Alps in small parties and various disguises, and to assemble at
Rome, during the licentious tumult of the festival of Cybele. To
murder Commodus, and to ascend the vacant throne, was the
ambition of no vulgar robber. His measures were so ably concerted
that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome. The
envy of an accomplice discovered and ruined this singular
enterprise, in a moment when it was ripe for execution.
Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind, from a vain
persuasion, that those who have no dependence, except on their
favor, will have no attachment, except to the person of their
benefactor. Cleander, the successor of Perennis, was a Phrygian
by birth; of a nation over whose stubborn, but servile temper,
blows only could prevail. He had been sent from his native
country to Rome, in the capacity of a slave. As a slave he
entered the Imperial palace, rendered himself useful to his
master’s passions, and rapidly ascended to the most exalted
station which a subject could enjoy. His influence over the mind
of Commodus was much greater than that of his predecessor; for
Cleander was devoid of any ability or virtue which could inspire
the emperor with envy or distrust. Avarice was the reigning
passion of his soul, and the great principle of his
administration. The rank of Consul, of Patrician, of Senator, was
exposed to public sale; and it would have been considered as
disaffection, if any one had refused to purchase these empty and
disgraceful honors with the greatest part of his fortune. In the
lucrative provincial employments, the minister shared with the
governor the spoils of the people. The execution of the laws was
penal and arbitrary. A wealthy criminal might obtain, not only
the reversal of the sentence by which he was justly condemned,
but might likewise inflict whatever punishment he pleased on the
accuser, the witnesses, and the judge.
By these means, Cleander, in the space of three years, had
accumulated more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any
freedman. Commodus was perfectly satisfied with the magnificent
presents which the artful courtier laid at his feet in the most
seasonable moments. To divert the public envy, Cleander, under
the emperor’s name, erected baths, porticos, and places of
exercise, for the use of the people. He flattered himself that
the Romans, dazzled and amused by this apparent liberality, would
be less affected by the bloody scenes which were daily exhibited;
that they would forget the death of Byrrhus, a senator to whose
superior merit the late emperor had granted one of his daughters;
and that they would forgive the execution of Arrius Antoninus,
the last representative of the name and virtues of the Antonines.
The former, with more integrity than prudence, had attempted to
disclose, to his brother-in-law, the true character of Cleander.
An equitable sentence pronounced by the latter, when proconsul of
Asia, against a worthless creature of the favorite, proved fatal
to him. After the fall of Perennis, the terrors of Commodus had,
for a short time, assumed the appearance of a return to virtue.
He repealed the most odious of his acts; loaded his memory with
the public execration, and ascribed to the pernicious counsels of
that wicked minister all the errors of his inexperienced youth.
But his repentance lasted only thirty days; and, under Cleander’s
tyranny, the administration of Perennis was often regretted.
Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part II.
Pestilence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of the
calamities of Rome. The first could be only imputed to the just
indignation of the gods; but a monopoly of corn, supported by the
riches and power of the minister, was considered as the immediate
cause of the second. The popular discontent, after it had long
circulated in whispers, broke out in the assembled circus. The
people quitted their favorite amusements for the more delicious
pleasure of revenge, rushed in crowds towards a palace in the
suburbs, one of the emperor’s retirements, and demanded, with
angry clamors, the head of the public enemy. Cleander, who
commanded the Prætorian guards, ordered a body of cavalry to
sally forth, and disperse the seditious multitude. The multitude
fled with precipitation towards the city; several were slain, and
many more were trampled to death; but when the cavalry entered
the streets, their pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and
darts from the roofs and windows of the houses. The foot guards,
who had been long jealous of the prerogatives and insolence of
the Prætorian cavalry, embraced the party of the people. The
tumult became a regular engagement, and threatened a general
massacre. The Prætorians, at length, gave way, oppressed with
numbers; and the tide of popular fury returned with redoubled
violence against the gates of the palace, where Commodus lay,
dissolved in luxury, and alone unconscious of the civil war. It
was death to approach his person with the unwelcome news. He
would have perished in this supine security, had not two women,
his eldest sister Fadilla, and Marcia, the most favored of his
concubines, ventured to break into his presence. Bathed in tears,
and with dishevelled hair, they threw themselves at his feet; and
with all the pressing eloquence of fear, discovered to the
affrighted emperor the crimes of the minister, the rage of the
people, and the impending ruin, which, in a few minutes, would
burst over his palace and person. Commodus started from his dream
of pleasure, and commanded that the head of Cleander should be
thrown out to the people. The desired spectacle instantly
appeased the tumult; and the son of Marcus might even yet have
regained the affection and confidence of his subjects.
But every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in the
mind of Commodus. Whilst he thus abandoned the reins of empire to
these unworthy favorites, he valued nothing in sovereign power,
except the unbounded license of indulging his sensual appetites.
His hours were spent in a seraglio of three hundred beautiful
women, and as many boys, of every rank, and of every province;
and, wherever the arts of seduction proved ineffectual, the
brutal lover had recourse to violence. The ancient historians
have expatiated on these abandoned scenes of prostitution, which
scorned every restraint of nature or modesty; but it would not be
easy to translate their too faithful descriptions into the
decency of modern language. The intervals of lust were filled up
with the basest amusements. The influence of a polite age, and
the labor of an attentive education, had never been able to
infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of
learning; and he was the first of the Roman emperors totally
devoid of taste for the pleasures of the understanding. Nero
himself excelled, or affected to excel, in the elegant arts of
music and poetry: nor should we despise his pursuits, had he not
converted the pleasing relaxation of a leisure hour into the
serious business and ambition of his life. But Commodus, from his
earliest infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was rational
or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the
populace; the sports of the circus and amphitheatre, the combats
of gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts. The masters in
every branch of learning, whom Marcus provided for his son, were
heard with inattention and disgust; whilst the Moors and
Parthians, who taught him to dart the javelin and to shoot with
the bow, found a disciple who delighted in his application, and
soon equalled the most skilful of his instructors in the
steadiness of the eye and the dexterity of the hand.
The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master’s
vices, applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of
flattery reminded him, that by exploits of the same nature, by
the defeat of the Nemæan lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar
of Erymanthus, the Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among
the gods, and an immortal memory among men. They only forgot to
observe, that, in the first ages of society, when the fiercer
animals often dispute with man the possession of an unsettled
country, a successful war against those savages is one of the
most innocent and beneficial labors of heroism. In the civilized
state of the Roman empire, the wild beasts had long since retired
from the face of man, and the neighborhood of populous cities. To
surprise them in their solitary haunts, and to transport them to
Rome, that they might be slain in pomp by the hand of an emperor,
was an enterprise equally ridiculous for the prince and
oppressive for the people. Ignorant of these distinctions,
Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious resemblance, and styled
himself (as we still read on his medals ) the _Roman_ _Hercules_.
* The club and the lion’s hide were placed by the side of the
throne, amongst the ensigns of sovereignty; and statues were
erected, in which Commodus was represented in the character, and
with the attributes, of the god, whose valor and dexterity he
endeavored to emulate in the daily course of his ferocious
amusements.
Elated with these praises, which gradually extinguished the
innate sense of shame, Commodus resolved to exhibit before the
eyes of the Roman people those exercises, which till then he had
decently confined within the walls of his palace, and to the
presence of a few favorites. On the appointed day, the various
motives of flattery, fear, and curiosity, attracted to the
amphitheatre an innumerable multitude of spectators; and some
degree of applause was deservedly bestowed on the uncommon skill
of the Imperial performer. Whether he aimed at the head or heart
of the animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With
arrows whose point was shaped into the form of crescent, Commodus
often intercepted the rapid career, and cut asunder the long,
bony neck of the ostrich. A panther was let loose; and the archer
waited till he had leaped upon a trembling malefactor. In the
same instant the shaft flew, the beast dropped dead, and the man
remained unhurt. The dens of the amphitheatre disgorged at once a
hundred lions: a hundred darts from the unerring hand of Commodus
laid them dead as they run raging round the _Arena_. Neither the
huge bulk of the elephant, nor the scaly hide of the rhinoceros,
could defend them from his stroke. Æthiopia and India yielded
their most extraordinary productions; and several animals were
slain in the amphitheatre, which had been seen only in the
representations of art, or perhaps of fancy. In all these
exhibitions, the securest precautions were used to protect the
person of the Roman Hercules from the desperate spring of any
savage, who might possibly disregard the dignity of the emperor
and the sanctity of the god.*
But the meanest of the populace were affected with shame and
indignation when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists as a
gladiator, and glory in a profession which the laws and manners
of the Romans had branded with the justest note of infamy. He
chose the habit and arms of the _Secutor_, whose combat with the
_Retiarius_ formed one of the most lively scenes in the bloody
sports of the amphitheatre. The _Secutor_ was armed with a
helmet, sword, and buckler; his naked antagonist had only a large
net and a trident; with the one he endeavored to entangle, with
the other to despatch his enemy. If he missed the first throw, he
was obliged to fly from the pursuit of the _Secutor_, till he had
prepared his net for a second cast. The emperor fought in this
character seven hundred and thirty-five several times. These
glorious achievements were carefully recorded in the public acts
of the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance of infamy,
he received from the common fund of gladiators a stipend so
exorbitant that it became a new and most ignominious tax upon the
Roman people. It may be easily supposed, that in these
engagements the master of the world was always successful; in the
amphitheatre, his victories were not often sanguinary; but when
he exercised his skill in the school of gladiators, or his own
palace, his wretched antagonists were frequently honored with a
mortal wound from the hand of Commodus, and obliged to seal their
flattery with their blood. He now disdained the appellation of
Hercules. The name of Paulus, a celebrated Secutor, was the only
one which delighted his ear. It was inscribed on his colossal
statues, and repeated in the redoubled acclamations of the
mournful and applauding senate. Claudius Pompeianus, the virtuous
husband of Lucilla, was the only senator who asserted the honor
of his rank. As a father, he permitted his sons to consult their
safety by attending the amphitheatre. As a Roman, he declared,
that his own life was in the emperor’s hands, but that he would
never behold the son of Marcus prostituting his person and
dignity. Notwithstanding his manly resolution Pompeianus escaped
the resentment of the tyrant, and, with his honor, had the good
fortune to preserve his life.
Commodus had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amidst
the acclamations of a flattering court, he was unable to disguise
from himself, that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of
every man of sense and virtue in his empire. His ferocious spirit
was irritated by the consciousness of that hatred, by the envy of
every kind of merit, by the just apprehension of danger, and by
the habit of slaughter, which he contracted in his daily
amusements. History has preserved a long list of consular
senators sacrificed to his wanton suspicion, which sought out,
with peculiar anxiety, those unfortunate persons connected,
however remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without
sparing even the ministers of his crimes or pleasures. His
cruelty proved at last fatal to himself. He had shed with
impunity the noblest blood of Rome: he perished as soon as he was
dreaded by his own domestics. Marcia, his favorite concubine,
Eclectus, his chamberlain, and Lætus, his Prætorian præfect,
alarmed by the fate of their companions and predecessors,
resolved to prevent the destruction which every hour hung over
their heads, either from the mad caprice of the tyrant, * or the
sudden indignation of the people. Marcia seized the occasion of
presenting a draught of wine to her lover, after he had fatigued
himself with hunting some wild beasts. Commodus retired to sleep;
but whilst he was laboring with the effects of poison and
drunkenness, a robust youth, by profession a wrestler, entered
his chamber, and strangled him without resistance. The body was
secretly conveyed out of the palace, before the least suspicion
was entertained in the city, or even in the court, of the
emperor’s death. Such was the fate of the son of Marcus, and so
easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant, who, by the artificial
powers of government, had oppressed, during thirteen years, so
many millions of subjects, each of whom was equal to their master
in personal strength and personal abilities.
The measures of the conspirators were conducted with the
deliberate coolness and celerity which the greatness of the
occasion required. They resolved instantly to fill the vacant
throne with an emperor whose character would justify and maintain
the action that had been committed. They fixed on Pertinax,
præfect of the city, an ancient senator of consular rank, whose
conspicuous merit had broke through the obscurity of his birth,
and raised him to the first honors of the state. He had
successively governed most of the provinces of the empire; and in
all his great employments, military as well as civil, he had
uniformly distinguished himself by the firmness, the prudence,
and the integrity of his conduct. He now remained almost alone of
the friends and ministers of Marcus; and when, at a late hour of
the night, he was awakened with the news, that the chamberlain
and the præfect were at his door, he received them with intrepid
resignation, and desired they would execute their master’s
orders. Instead of death, they offered him the throne of the
Roman world. During some moments he distrusted their intentions
and assurances. Convinced at length of the death of Commodus, he
accepted the purple with a sincere reluctance, the natural effect
of his knowledge both of the duties and of the dangers of the
supreme rank.
Lætus conducted without delay his new emperor to the camp of the
Prætorians, diffusing at the same time through the city a
seasonable report that Commodus died suddenly of an apoplexy; and
that the virtuous Pertinax had already succeeded to the throne.
The guards were rather surprised than pleased with the suspicious
death of a prince, whose indulgence and liberality they alone had
experienced; but the emergency of the occasion, the authority of
their præfect, the reputation of Pertinax, and the clamors of the
people, obliged them to stifle their secret discontents, to
accept the donative promised by the new emperor, to swear
allegiance to him, and with joyful acclamations and laurels in
their hands to conduct him to the senate house, that the military
consent might be ratified by the civil authority.
This important night was now far spent; with the dawn of day, and
the commencement of the new year, the senators expected a summons
to attend an ignominious ceremony. * In spite of all
remonstrances, even of those of his creatures who yet preserved
any regard for prudence or decency, Commodus had resolved to pass
the night in the gladiators’ school, and from thence to take
possession of the consulship, in the habit and with the
attendance of that infamous crew. On a sudden, before the break
of day, the senate was called together in the temple of Concord,
to meet the guards, and to ratify the election of a new emperor.
For a few minutes they sat in silent suspense, doubtful of their
unexpected deliverance, and suspicious of the cruel artifices of
Commodus: but when at length they were assured that the tyrant
was no more, they resigned themselves to all the transports of
joy and indignation. Pertinax, who modestly represented the
meanness of his extraction, and pointed out several noble
senators more deserving than himself of the empire, was
constrained by their dutiful violence to ascend the throne, and
received all the titles of Imperial power, confirmed by the most
sincere vows of fidelity. The memory of Commodus was branded with
eternal infamy. The names of tyrant, of gladiator, of public
enemy resounded in every corner of the house. They decreed in
tumultuous votes, that his honors should be reversed, his titles
erased from the public monuments, his statues thrown down, his
body dragged with a hook into the stripping room of the
gladiators, to satiate the public fury; and they expressed some
indignation against those officious servants who had already
presumed to screen his remains from the justice of the senate.
But Pertinax could not refuse those last rites to the memory of
Marcus, and the tears of his first protector Claudius Pompeianus,
who lamented the cruel fate of his brother-in-law, and lamented
still more that he had deserved it.
These effusions of impotent rage against a dead emperor, whom the
senate had flattered when alive with the most abject servility,
betrayed a just but ungenerous spirit of revenge. The legality of
these decrees was, however, supported by the principles of the
Imperial constitution. To censure, to depose, or to punish with
death, the first magistrate of the republic, who had abused his
delegated trust, was the ancient and undoubted prerogative of the
Roman senate; but the feeble assembly was obliged to content
itself with inflicting on a fallen tyrant that public justice,
from which, during his life and reign, he had been shielded by
the strong arm of military despotism. *
Pertinax found a nobler way of condemning his predecessor’s
memory; by the contrast of his own virtues with the vices of
Commodus. On the day of his accession, he resigned over to his
wife and son his whole private fortune; that they might have no
pretence to solicit favors at the expense of the state. He
refused to flatter the vanity of the former with the title of
Augusta; or to corrupt the inexperienced youth of the latter by
the rank of Cæsar. Accurately distinguishing between the duties
of a parent and those of a sovereign, he educated his son with a
severe simplicity, which, while it gave him no assured prospect
of the throne, might in time have rendered him worthy of it. In
public, the behavior of Pertinax was grave and affable. He lived
with the virtuous part of the senate, (and, in a private station,
he had been acquainted with the true character of each
individual,) without either pride or jealousy; considered them as
friends and companions, with whom he had shared the danger of the
tyranny, and with whom he wished to enjoy the security of the
present time. He very frequently invited them to familiar
entertainments, the frugality of which was ridiculed by those who
remembered and regretted the luxurious prodigality of Commodus.
To heal, as far as it was possible, the wounds inflicted by the
hand of tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task of
Pertinax. The innocent victims, who yet survived, were recalled
from exile, released from prison, and restored to the full
possession of their honors and fortunes. The unburied bodies of
murdered senators (for the cruelty of Commodus endeavored to
extend itself beyond death) were deposited in the sepulchres of
their ancestors; their memory was justified and every consolation
was bestowed on their ruined and afflicted families. Among these
consolations, one of the most grateful was the punishment of the
Delators; the common enemies of their master, of virtue, and of
their country. Yet even in the inquisition of these legal
assassins, Pertinax proceeded with a steady temper, which gave
every thing to justice, and nothing to popular prejudice and
resentment.
The finances of the state demanded the most vigilant care of the
emperor. Though every measure of injustice and extortion had been
adopted, which could collect the property of the subject into the
coffers of the prince, the rapaciousness of Commodus had been so
very inadequate to his extravagance, that, upon his death, no
more than eight thousand pounds were found in the exhausted
treasury, to defray the current expenses of government, and to
discharge the pressing demand of a liberal donative, which the
new emperor had been obliged to promise to the Prætorian guards.
Yet under these distressed circumstances, Pertinax had the
generous firmness to remit all the oppressive taxes invented by
Commodus, and to cancel all the unjust claims of the treasury;
declaring, in a decree of the senate, “that he was better
satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to
acquire riches by the ways of tyranny and dishonor.” Economy and
industry he considered as the pure and genuine sources of wealth;
and from them he soon derived a copious supply for the public
necessities. The expense of the household was immediately reduced
to one half. All the instruments of luxury Pertinax exposed to
public auction, gold and silver plate, chariots of a singular
construction, a superfluous wardrobe of silk and embroidery, and
a great number of beautiful slaves of both sexes; excepting only,
with attentive humanity, those who were born in a state of
freedom, and had been ravished from the arms of their weeping
parents. At the same time that he obliged the worthless favorites
of the tyrant to resign a part of their ill-gotten wealth, he
satisfied the just creditors of the state, and unexpectedly
discharged the long arrears of honest services. He removed the
oppressive restrictions which had been laid upon commerce, and
granted all the uncultivated lands in Italy and the provinces to
those who would improve them; with an exemption from tribute
during the term of ten years.
Such a uniform conduct had already secured to Pertinax the
noblest reward of a sovereign, the love and esteem of his people.
Those who remembered the virtues of Marcus were happy to
contemplate in their new emperor the features of that bright
original; and flattered themselves, that they should long enjoy
the benign influence of his administration. A hasty zeal to
reform the corrupted state, accompanied with less prudence than
might have been expected from the years and experience of
Pertinax, proved fatal to himself and to his country. His honest
indiscretion united against him the servile crowd, who found
their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred
the favor of a tyrant to the inexorable equality of the laws.
Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of the
Prætorian guards betrayed their inward dissatisfaction. They had
reluctantly submitted to Pertinax; they dreaded the strictness of
the ancient discipline, which he was preparing to restore; and
they regretted the license of the former reign. Their discontents
were secretly fomented by Lætus, their præfect, who found, when
it was too late, that his new emperor would reward a servant, but
would not be ruled by a favorite. On the third day of his reign,
the soldiers seized on a noble senator, with a design to carry
him to the camp, and to invest him with the Imperial purple.
Instead of being dazzled by the dangerous honor, the affrighted
victim escaped from their violence, and took refuge at the feet
of Pertinax. A short time afterwards, Sosius Falco, one of the
consuls of the year, a rash youth, but of an ancient and opulent
family, listened to the voice of ambition; and a conspiracy was
formed during a short absence of Pertinax, which was crushed by
his sudden return to Rome, and his resolute behavior. Falco was
on the point of being justly condemned to death as a public enemy
had he not been saved by the earnest and sincere entreaties of
the injured emperor, who conjured the senate, that the purity of
his reign might not be stained by the blood even of a guilty
senator.
These disappointments served only to irritate the rage of the
Prætorian guards. On the twenty-eighth of March, eighty-six days
only after the death of Commodus, a general sedition broke out in
the camp, which the officers wanted either power or inclination
to suppress. Two or three hundred of the most desperate soldiers
marched at noonday, with arms in their hands and fury in their
looks, towards the Imperial palace. The gates were thrown open by
their companions upon guard, and by the domestics of the old
court, who had already formed a secret conspiracy against the
life of the too virtuous emperor. On the news of their approach,
Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment, advanced to
meet his assassins; and recalled to their minds his own
innocence, and the sanctity of their recent oath. For a few
moments they stood in silent suspense, ashamed of their atrocious
design, and awed by the venerable aspect and majestic firmness of
their sovereign, till at length, the despair of pardon reviving
their fury, a barbarian of the country of Tongress levelled the
first blow against Pertinax, who was instantly despatched with a
multitude of wounds. His head, separated from his body, and
placed on a lance, was carried in triumph to the Prætorian camp,
in the sight of a mournful and indignant people, who lamented the
unworthy fate of that excellent prince, and the transient
blessings of a reign, the memory of which could serve only to
aggravate their approaching misfortunes.
Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part I.
Public Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus By The Prætorian
Guards—Clodius Albinus In Britain, Pescennius Niger In Syria, And
Septimius Severus In Pannonia, Declare Against The Murderers Of
Pertinax—Civil Wars And Victory Of Severus Over His Three
Rivals—Relaxation Of Discipline—New Maxims Of Government.
The power of the sword is more sensibly felt in an extensive
monarchy, than in a small community. It has been calculated by
the ablest politicians, that no state, without being soon
exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members
in arms and idleness. But although this relative proportion may
be uniform, the influence of the army over the rest of the
society will vary according to the degree of its positive
strength. The advantages of military science and discipline
cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united
into one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men,
such a union would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it
would be impracticable; and the powers of the machine would be
alike destroyed by the extreme minuteness or the excessive weight
of its springs. To illustrate this observation, we need only
reflect, that there is no superiority of natural strength,
artificial weapons, or acquired skill, which could enable one man
to keep in constant subjection one hundred of his
fellow-creatures: the tyrant of a single town, or a small
district, would soon discover that a hundred armed followers were
a weak defence against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but a
hundred thousand well-disciplined soldiers will command, with
despotic sway, ten millions of subjects; and a body of ten or
fifteen thousand guards will strike terror into the most numerous
populace that ever crowded the streets of an immense capital.
The Prætorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom
and cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely amounted
to the last-mentioned number.* They derived their institution
from Augustus. That crafty tyrant, sensible that laws might
color, but that arms alone could maintain, his usurped dominion,
had gradually formed this powerful body of guards, in constant
readiness to protect his person, to awe the senate, and either to
prevent or to crush the first motions of rebellion. He
distinguished these favored troops by a double pay and superior
privileges; but, as their formidable aspect would at once have
alarmed and irritated the Roman people, three cohorts only were
stationed in the capital, whilst the remainder was dispersed in
the adjacent towns of Italy. But after fifty years of peace and
servitude, Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which forever
rivetted the fetters of his country. Under the fair pretences of
relieving Italy from the heavy burden of military quarters, and
of introducing a stricter discipline among the guards, he
assembled them at Rome, in a permanent camp, which was fortified
with skilful care, and placed on a commanding situation.
Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal to
the throne of despotism. By thus introducing the Prætorian guards
as it were into the palace and the senate, the emperors taught
them to perceive their own strength, and the weakness of the
civil government; to view the vices of their masters with
familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe, which
distance only, and mystery, can preserve towards an imaginary
power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their pride
was nourished by the sense of their irresistible weight; nor was
it possible to conceal from them, that the person of the
sovereign, the authority of the senate, the public treasure, and
the seat of empire, were all in their hands. To divert the
Prætorian bands from these dangerous reflections, the firmest and
best established princes were obliged to mix blandishments with
commands, rewards with punishments, to flatter their pride,
indulge their pleasures, connive at their irregularities, and to
purchase their precarious faith by a liberal donative; which,
since the elevation of Claudius, was enacted as a legal claim, on
the accession of every new emperor.
The advocate of the guards endeavored to justify by arguments the
power which they asserted by arms; and to maintain that,
according to the purest principles of the constitution, _their_
consent was essentially necessary in the appointment of an
emperor. The election of consuls, of generals, and of
magistrates, however it had been recently usurped by the senate,
was the ancient and undoubted right of the Roman people. But
where was the Roman people to be found? Not surely amongst the
mixed multitude of slaves and strangers that filled the streets
of Rome; a servile populace, as devoid of spirit as destitute of
property. The defenders of the state, selected from the flower of
the Italian youth, and trained in the exercise of arms and
virtue, were the genuine representatives of the people, and the
best entitled to elect the military chief of the republic. These
assertions, however defective in reason, became unanswerable when
the fierce Prætorians increased their weight, by throwing, like
the barbarian conqueror of Rome, their swords into the scale.
The Prætorians had violated the sanctity of the throne by the
atrocious murder of Pertinax; they dishonored the majesty of it
by their subsequent conduct. The camp was without a leader, for
even the præfect Lætus, who had excited the tempest, prudently
declined the public indignation. Amidst the wild disorder,
Sulpicianus, the emperor’s father-in-law, and governor of the
city, who had been sent to the camp on the first alarm of mutiny,
was endeavoring to calm the fury of the multitude, when he was
silenced by the clamorous return of the murderers, bearing on a
lance the head of Pertinax. Though history has accustomed us to
observe every principle and every passion yielding to the
imperious dictates of ambition, it is scarcely credible that, in
these moments of horror, Sulpicianus should have aspired to
ascend a throne polluted with the recent blood of so near a
relation and so excellent a prince. He had already begun to use
the only effectual argument, and to treat for the Imperial
dignity; but the more prudent of the Prætorians, apprehensive
that, in this private contract, they should not obtain a just
price for so valuable a commodity, ran out upon the ramparts;
and, with a loud voice, proclaimed that the Roman world was to be
disposed of to the best bidder by public auction.
This infamous offer, the most insolent excess of military
license, diffused a universal grief, shame, and indignation
throughout the city. It reached at length the ears of Didius
Julianus, a wealthy senator, who, regardless of the public
calamities, was indulging himself in the luxury of the table. His
wife and his daughter, his freedmen and his parasites, easily
convinced him that he deserved the throne, and earnestly conjured
him to embrace so fortunate an opportunity. The vain old man
hastened to the Prætorian camp, where Sulpicianus was still in
treaty with the guards, and began to bid against him from the
foot of the rampart. The unworthy negotiation was transacted by
faithful emissaries, who passed alternately from one candidate to
the other, and acquainted each of them with the offers of his
rival. Sulpicianus had already promised a donative of five
thousand drachms (above one hundred and sixty pounds) to each
soldier; when Julian, eager for the prize, rose at once to the
sum of six thousand two hundred and fifty drachms, or upwards of
two hundred pounds sterling. The gates of the camp were instantly
thrown open to the purchaser; he was declared emperor, and
received an oath of allegiance from the soldiers, who retained
humanity enough to stipulate that he should pardon and forget the
competition of Sulpicianus. *
It was now incumbent on the Prætorians to fulfil the conditions
of the sale. They placed their new sovereign, whom they served
and despised, in the centre of their ranks, surrounded him on
every side with their shields, and conducted him in close order
of battle through the deserted streets of the city. The senate
was commanded to assemble; and those who had been the
distinguished friends of Pertinax, or the personal enemies of
Julian, found it necessary to affect a more than common share of
satisfaction at this happy revolution. After Julian had filled
the senate house with armed soldiers, he expatiated on the
freedom of his election, his own eminent virtues, and his full
assurance of the affections of the senate. The obsequious
assembly congratulated their own and the public felicity; engaged
their allegiance, and conferred on him all the several branches
of the Imperial power. From the senate Julian was conducted, by
the same military procession, to take possession of the palace.
The first objects that struck his eyes, were the abandoned trunk
of Pertinax, and the frugal entertainment prepared for his
supper. The one he viewed with indifference, the other with
contempt. A magnificent feast was prepared by his order, and he
amused himself, till a very late hour, with dice, and the
performances of Pylades, a celebrated dancer. Yet it was
observed, that after the crowd of flatterers dispersed, and left
him to darkness, solitude, and terrible reflection, he passed a
sleepless night; revolving most probably in his mind his own rash
folly, the fate of his virtuous predecessor, and the doubtful and
dangerous tenure of an empire which had not been acquired by
merit, but purchased by money.
He had reason to tremble. On the throne of the world he found
himself without a friend, and even without an adherent. The
guards themselves were ashamed of the prince whom their avarice
had persuaded them to accept; nor was there a citizen who did not
consider his elevation with horror, as the last insult on the
Roman name. The nobility, whose conspicuous station, and ample
possessions, exacted the strictest caution, dissembled their
sentiments, and met the affected civility of the emperor with
smiles of complacency and professions of duty. But the people,
secure in their numbers and obscurity, gave a free vent to their
passions. The streets and public places of Rome resounded with
clamors and imprecations. The enraged multitude affronted the
person of Julian, rejected his liberality, and, conscious of the
impotence of their own resentment, they called aloud on the
legions of the frontiers to assert the violated majesty of the
Roman empire.
The public discontent was soon diffused from the centre to the
frontiers of the empire. The armies of Britain, of Syria, and of
Illyricum, lamented the death of Pertinax, in whose company, or
under whose command, they had so often fought and conquered. They
received with surprise, with indignation, and perhaps with envy,
the extraordinary intelligence, that the Prætorians had disposed
of the empire by public auction; and they sternly refused to
ratify the ignominious bargain. Their immediate and unanimous
revolt was fatal to Julian, but it was fatal at the same time to
the public peace, as the generals of the respective armies,
Clodius Albinus, Pescennius Niger, and Septimius Severus, were
still more anxious to succeed than to revenge the murdered
Pertinax. Their forces were exactly balanced. Each of them was at
the head of three legions, with a numerous train of auxiliaries;
and however different in their characters, they were all soldiers
of experience and capacity.
Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain, surpassed both his
competitors in the nobility of his extraction, which he derived
from some of the most illustrious names of the old republic. But
the branch from which he claimed his descent was sunk into mean
circumstances, and transplanted into a remote province. It is
difficult to form a just idea of his true character. Under the
philosophic cloak of austerity, he stands accused of concealing
most of the vices which degrade human nature. But his accusers
are those venal writers who adored the fortune of Severus, and
trampled on the ashes of an unsuccessful rival. Virtue, or the
appearances of virtue, recommended Albinus to the confidence and
good opinion of Marcus; and his preserving with the son the same
interest which he had acquired with the father, is a proof at
least that he was possessed of a very flexible disposition. The
favor of a tyrant does not always suppose a want of merit in the
object of it; he may, without intending it, reward a man of worth
and ability, or he may find such a man useful to his own service.
It does not appear that Albinus served the son of Marcus, either
as the minister of his cruelties, or even as the associate of his
pleasures. He was employed in a distant honorable command, when
he received a confidential letter from the emperor, acquainting
him of the treasonable designs of some discontented generals, and
authorizing him to declare himself the guardian and successor of
the throne, by assuming the title and ensigns of Cæsar. The
governor of Britain wisely declined the dangerous honor, which
would have marked him for the jealousy, or involved him in the
approaching ruin, of Commodus. He courted power by nobler, or, at
least, by more specious arts. On a premature report of the death
of the emperor, he assembled his troops; and, in an eloquent
discourse, deplored the inevitable mischiefs of despotism,
described the happiness and glory which their ancestors had
enjoyed under the consular government, and declared his firm
resolution to reinstate the senate and people in their legal
authority. This popular harangue was answered by the loud
acclamations of the British legions, and received at Rome with a
secret murmur of applause. Safe in the possession of his little
world, and in the command of an army less distinguished indeed
for discipline than for numbers and valor, Albinus braved the
menaces of Commodus, maintained towards Pertinax a stately
ambiguous reserve, and instantly declared against the usurpation
of Julian. The convulsions of the capital added new weight to his
sentiments, or rather to his professions of patriotism. A regard
to decency induced him to decline the lofty titles of Augustus
and Emperor; and he imitated perhaps the example of Galba, who,
on a similar occasion, had styled himself the Lieutenant of the
senate and people.
Personal merit alone had raised Pescennius Niger, from an obscure
birth and station, to the government of Syria; a lucrative and
important command, which in times of civil confusion gave him a
near prospect of the throne. Yet his parts seem to have been
better suited to the second than to the first rank; he was an
unequal rival, though he might have approved himself an excellent
lieutenant, to Severus, who afterwards displayed the greatness of
his mind by adopting several useful institutions from a
vanquished enemy. In his government Niger acquired the esteem of
the soldiers and the love of the provincials. His rigid
discipline fortified the valor and confirmed the obedience of the
former, whilst the voluptuous Syrians were less delighted with
the mild firmness of his administration, than with the affability
of his manners, and the apparent pleasure with which he attended
their frequent and pompous festivals. As soon as the intelligence
of the atrocious murder of Pertinax had reached Antioch, the
wishes of Asia invited Niger to assume the Imperial purple and
revenge his death. The legions of the eastern frontier embraced
his cause; the opulent but unarmed provinces, from the frontiers
of Æthiopia to the Hadriatic, cheerfully submitted to his power;
and the kings beyond the Tigris and the Euphrates congratulated
his election, and offered him their homage and services. The mind
of Niger was not capable of receiving this sudden tide of
fortune: he flattered himself that his accession would be
undisturbed by competition and unstained by civil blood; and
whilst he enjoyed the vain pomp of triumph, he neglected to
secure the means of victory. Instead of entering into an
effectual negotiation with the powerful armies of the West, whose
resolution might decide, or at least must balance, the mighty
contest; instead of advancing without delay towards Rome and
Italy, where his presence was impatiently expected, Niger trifled
away in the luxury of Antioch those irretrievable moments which
were diligently improved by the decisive activity of Severus.
The country of Pannonia and Dalmatia, which occupied the space
between the Danube and the Hadriatic, was one of the last and
most difficult conquests of the Romans. In the defence of
national freedom, two hundred thousand of these barbarians had
once appeared in the field, alarmed the declining age of
Augustus, and exercised the vigilant prudence of Tiberius at the
head of the collected force of the empire. The Pannonians yielded
at length to the arms and institutions of Rome. Their recent
subjection, however, the neighborhood, and even the mixture, of
the unconquered tribes, and perhaps the climate, adapted, as it
has been observed, to the production of great bodies and slow
minds, all contributed to preserve some remains of their original
ferocity, and under the tame and uniform countenance of Roman
provincials, the hardy features of the natives were still to be
discerned. Their warlike youth afforded an inexhaustible supply
of recruits to the legions stationed on the banks of the Danube,
and which, from a perpetual warfare against the Germans and
Sarmazans, were deservedly esteemed the best troops in the
service.
The Pannonian army was at this time commanded by Septimius
Severus, a native of Africa, who, in the gradual ascent of
private honors, had concealed his daring ambition, which was
never diverted from its steady course by the allurements of
pleasure, the apprehension of danger, or the feelings of
humanity. On the first news of the murder of Pertinax, he
assembled his troops, painted in the most lively colors the
crime, the insolence, and the weakness of the Prætorian guards,
and animated the legions to arms and to revenge. He concluded
(and the peroration was thought extremely eloquent) with
promising every soldier about four hundred pounds; an honorable
donative, double in value to the infamous bribe with which Julian
had purchased the empire. The acclamations of the army
immediately saluted Severus with the names of Augustus, Pertinax,
and Emperor; and he thus attained the lofty station to which he
was invited, by conscious merit and a long train of dreams and
omens, the fruitful offsprings either of his superstition or
policy.
The new candidate for empire saw and improved the peculiar
advantage of his situation. His province extended to the Julian
Alps, which gave an easy access into Italy; and he remembered the
saying of Augustus, that a Pannonian army might in ten days
appear in sight of Rome. By a celerity proportioned to the
greatness of the occasion, he might reasonably hope to revenge
Pertinax, punish Julian, and receive the homage of the senate and
people, as their lawful emperor, before his competitors,
separated from Italy by an immense tract of sea and land, were
apprised of his success, or even of his election. During the
whole expedition, he scarcely allowed himself any moments for
sleep or food; marching on foot, and in complete armor, at the
head of his columns, he insinuated himself into the confidence
and affection of his troops, pressed their diligence, revived
their spirits, animated their hopes, and was well satisfied to
share the hardships of the meanest soldier, whilst he kept in
view the infinite superiority of his reward.
The wretched Julian had expected, and thought himself prepared,
to dispute the empire with the governor of Syria; but in the
invincible and rapid approach of the Pannonian legions, he saw
his inevitable ruin. The hasty arrival of every messenger
increased his just apprehensions. He was successively informed,
that Severus had passed the Alps; that the Italian cities,
unwilling or unable to oppose his progress, had received him with
the warmest professions of joy and duty; that the important place
of Ravenna had surrendered without resistance, and that the
Hadriatic fleet was in the hands of the conqueror. The enemy was
now within two hundred and fifty miles of Rome; and every moment
diminished the narrow span of life and empire allotted to Julian.
He attempted, however, to prevent, or at least to protract, his
ruin. He implored the venal faith of the Prætorians, filled the
city with unavailing preparations for war, drew lines round the
suburbs, and even strengthened the fortifications of the palace;
as if those last intrenchments could be defended, without hope of
relief, against a victorious invader. Fear and shame prevented
the guards from deserting his standard; but they trembled at the
name of the Pannonian legions, commanded by an experienced
general, and accustomed to vanquish the barbarians on the frozen
Danube. They quitted, with a sigh, the pleasures of the baths and
theatres, to put on arms, whose use they had almost forgotten,
and beneath the weight of which they were oppressed. The
unpractised elephants, whose uncouth appearance, it was hoped,
would strike terror into the army of the north, threw their
unskilful riders; and the awkward evolutions of the marines,
drawn from the fleet of Misenum, were an object of ridicule to
the populace; whilst the senate enjoyed, with secret pleasure,
the distress and weakness of the usurper.
Every motion of Julian betrayed his trembling perplexity. He
insisted that Severus should be declared a public enemy by the
senate. He entreated that the Pannonian general might be
associated to the empire. He sent public ambassadors of consular
rank to negotiate with his rival; he despatched private assassins
to take away his life. He designed that the Vestal virgins, and
all the colleges of priests, in their sacerdotal habits, and
bearing before them the sacred pledges of the Roman religion,
should advance in solemn procession to meet the Pannonian
legions; and, at the same time, he vainly tried to interrogate,
or to appease, the fates, by magic ceremonies and unlawful
sacrifices.
Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part II.
Severus, who dreaded neither his arms nor his enchantments,
guarded himself from the only danger of secret conspiracy, by the
faithful attendance of six hundred chosen men, who never quitted
his person or their cuirasses, either by night or by day, during
the whole march. Advancing with a steady and rapid course, he
passed, without difficulty, the defiles of the Apennine, received
into his party the troops and ambassadors sent to retard his
progress, and made a short halt at Interamnia, about seventy
miles from Rome. His victory was already secure, but the despair
of the Prætorians might have rendered it bloody; and Severus had
the laudable ambition of ascending the throne without drawing the
sword. His emissaries, dispersed in the capital, assured the
guards, that provided they would abandon their worthless prince,
and the perpetrators of the murder of Pertinax, to the justice of
the conqueror, he would no longer consider that melancholy event
as the act of the whole body. The faithless Prætorians, whose
resistance was supported only by sullen obstinacy, gladly
complied with the easy conditions, seized the greatest part of
the assassins, and signified to the senate, that they no longer
defended the cause of Julian. That assembly, convoked by the
consul, unanimously acknowledged Severus as lawful emperor,
decreed divine honors to Pertinax, and pronounced a sentence of
deposition and death against his unfortunate successor. Julian
was conducted into a private apartment of the baths of the
palace, and beheaded as a common criminal, after having
purchased, with an immense treasure, an anxious and precarious
reign of only sixty-six days. The almost incredible expedition of
Severus, who, in so short a space of time, conducted a numerous
army from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tyber, proves
at once the plenty of provisions produced by agriculture and
commerce, the goodness of the roads, the discipline of the
legions, and the indolent, subdued temper of the provinces.
The first cares of Severus were bestowed on two measures, the one
dictated by policy, the other by decency; the revenge, and the
honors, due to the memory of Pertinax. Before the new emperor
entered Rome, he issued his commands to the Prætorian guards,
directing them to wait his arrival on a large plain near the
city, without arms, but in the habits of ceremony, in which they
were accustomed to attend their sovereign. He was obeyed by those
haughty troops, whose contrition was the effect of their just
terrors. A chosen part of the Illyrian army encompassed them with
levelled spears. Incapable of flight or resistance, they expected
their fate in silent consternation. Severus mounted the tribunal,
sternly reproached them with perfidy and cowardice, dismissed
them with ignominy from the trust which they had betrayed,
despoiled them of their splendid ornaments, and banished them, on
pain of death, to the distance of a hundred miles from the
capital. During the transaction, another detachment had been sent
to seize their arms, occupy their camp, and prevent the hasty
consequences of their despair.
The funeral and consecration of Pertinax was next solemnized with
every circumstance of sad magnificence. The senate, with a
melancholy pleasure, performed the last rites to that excellent
prince, whom they had loved, and still regretted. The concern of
his successor was probably less sincere; he esteemed the virtues
of Pertinax, but those virtues would forever have confined his
ambition to a private station. Severus pronounced his funeral
oration with studied eloquence, inward satisfaction, and
well-acted sorrow; and by this pious regard to his memory,
convinced the credulous multitude, that he alone was worthy to
supply his place. Sensible, however, that arms, not ceremonies,
must assert his claim to the empire, he left Rome at the end of
thirty days, and without suffering himself to be elated by this
easy victory, prepared to encounter his more formidable rivals.
The uncommon abilities and fortune of Severus have induced an
elegant historian to compare him with the first and greatest of
the Cæsars. The parallel is, at least, imperfect. Where shall we
find, in the character of Severus, the commanding superiority of
soul, the generous clemency, and the various genius, which could
reconcile and unite the love of pleasure, the thirst of
knowledge, and the fire of ambition? In one instance only, they
may be compared, with some degree of propriety, in the celerity
of their motions, and their civil victories. In less than four
years, Severus subdued the riches of the East, and the valor of
the West. He vanquished two competitors of reputation and
ability, and defeated numerous armies, provided with weapons and
discipline equal to his own. In that age, the art of
fortification, and the principles of tactics, were well
understood by all the Roman generals; and the constant
superiority of Severus was that of an artist, who uses the same
instruments with more skill and industry than his rivals. I shall
not, however, enter into a minute narrative of these military
operations; but as the two civil wars against Niger and against
Albinus were almost the same in their conduct, event, and
consequences, I shall collect into one point of view the most
striking circumstances, tending to develop the character of the
conqueror and the state of the empire.
Falsehood and insincerity, unsuitable as they seem to the dignity
of public transactions, offend us with a less degrading idea of
meanness, than when they are found in the intercourse of private
life. In the latter, they discover a want of courage; in the
other, only a defect of power: and, as it is impossible for the
most able statesmen to subdue millions of followers and enemies
by their own personal strength, the world, under the name of
policy, seems to have granted them a very liberal indulgence of
craft and dissimulation. Yet the arts of Severus cannot be
justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He
promised only to betray, he flattered only to ruin; and however
he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his
conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from
the inconvenient obligation.
If his two competitors, reconciled by their common danger, had
advanced upon him without delay, perhaps Severus would have sunk
under their united effort. Had they even attacked him, at the
same time, with separate views and separate armies, the contest
might have been long and doubtful. But they fell, singly and
successively, an easy prey to the arts as well as arms of their
subtle enemy, lulled into security by the moderation of his
professions, and overwhelmed by the rapidity of his action. He
first marched against Niger, whose reputation and power he the
most dreaded: but he declined any hostile declarations,
suppressed the name of his antagonist, and only signified to the
senate and people his intention of regulating the eastern
provinces. In private, he spoke of Niger, his old friend and
intended successor, with the most affectionate regard, and highly
applauded his generous design of revenging the murder of
Pertinax. To punish the vile usurper of the throne, was the duty
of every Roman general. To persevere in arms, and to resist a
lawful emperor, acknowledged by the senate, would alone render
him criminal. The sons of Niger had fallen into his hands among
the children of the provincial governors, detained at Rome as
pledges for the loyalty of their parents. As long as the power of
Niger inspired terror, or even respect, they were educated with
the most tender care, with the children of Severus himself; but
they were soon involved in their father’s ruin, and removed first
by exile, and afterwards by death, from the eye of public
compassion.
Whilst Severus was engaged in his eastern war, he had reason to
apprehend that the governor of Britain might pass the sea and the
Alps, occupy the vacant seat of empire, and oppose his return
with the authority of the senate and the forces of the West. The
ambiguous conduct of Albinus, in not assuming the Imperial title,
left room for negotiation. Forgetting, at once, his professions
of patriotism, and the jealousy of sovereign power, he accepted
the precarious rank of Cæsar, as a reward for his fatal
neutrality. Till the first contest was decided, Severus treated
the man, whom he had doomed to destruction, with every mark of
esteem and regard. Even in the letter, in which he announced his
victory over Niger, he styles Albinus the brother of his soul and
empire, sends him the affectionate salutations of his wife Julia,
and his young family, and entreats him to preserve the armies and
the republic faithful to their common interest. The messengers
charged with this letter were instructed to accost the Cæsar with
respect, to desire a private audience, and to plunge their
daggers into his heart. The conspiracy was discovered, and the
too credulous Albinus, at length, passed over to the continent,
and prepared for an unequal contest with his rival, who rushed
upon him at the head of a veteran and victorious army.
The military labors of Severus seem inadequate to the importance
of his conquests. Two engagements, * the one near the Hellespont,
the other in the narrow defiles of Cilicia, decided the fate of
his Syrian competitor; and the troops of Europe asserted their
usual ascendant over the effeminate natives of Asia. The battle
of Lyons, where one hundred and fifty thousand Romans were
engaged, was equally fatal to Albinus. The valor of the British
army maintained, indeed, a sharp and doubtful contest, with the
hardy discipline of the Illyrian legions. The fame and person of
Severus appeared, during a few moments, irrecoverably lost, till
that warlike prince rallied his fainting troops, and led them on
to a decisive victory. The war was finished by that memorable
day.
The civil wars of modern Europe have been distinguished, not only
by the fierce animosity, but likewise by the obstinate
perseverance, of the contending factions. They have generally
been justified by some principle, or, at least, colored by some
pretext, of religion, freedom, or loyalty. The leaders were
nobles of independent property and hereditary influence. The
troops fought like men interested in the decision of the quarrel;
and as military spirit and party zeal were strongly diffused
throughout the whole community, a vanquished chief was
immediately supplied with new adherents, eager to shed their
blood in the same cause. But the Romans, after the fall of the
republic, combated only for the choice of masters. Under the
standard of a popular candidate for empire, a few enlisted from
affection, some from fear, many from interest, none from
principle. The legions, uninflamed by party zeal, were allured
into civil war by liberal donatives, and still more liberal
promises. A defeat, by disabling the chief from the performance
of his engagements, dissolved the mercenary allegiance of his
followers, and left them to consult their own safety by a timely
desertion of an unsuccessful cause. It was of little moment to
the provinces, under whose name they were oppressed or governed;
they were driven by the impulsion of the present power, and as
soon as that power yielded to a superior force, they hastened to
implore the clemency of the conqueror, who, as he had an immense
debt to discharge, was obliged to sacrifice the most guilty
countries to the avarice of his soldiers. In the vast extent of
the Roman empire, there were few fortified cities capable of
protecting a routed army; nor was there any person, or family, or
order of men, whose natural interest, unsupported by the powers
of government, was capable of restoring the cause of a sinking
party.
Yet, in the contest between Niger and Severus, a single city
deserves an honorable exception. As Byzantium was one of the
greatest passages from Europe into Asia, it had been provided
with a strong garrison, and a fleet of five hundred vessels was
anchored in the harbor. The impetuosity of Severus disappointed
this prudent scheme of defence; he left to his generals the siege
of Byzantium, forced the less guarded passage of the Hellespont,
and, impatient of a meaner enemy, pressed forward to encounter
his rival. Byzantium, attacked by a numerous and increasing army,
and afterwards by the whole naval power of the empire, sustained
a siege of three years, and remained faithful to the name and
memory of Niger. The citizens and soldiers (we know not from what
cause) were animated with equal fury; several of the principal
officers of Niger, who despaired of, or who disdained, a pardon,
had thrown themselves into this last refuge: the fortifications
were esteemed impregnable, and, in the defence of the place, a
celebrated engineer displayed all the mechanic powers known to
the ancients. Byzantium, at length, surrendered to famine. The
magistrates and soldiers were put to the sword, the walls
demolished, the privileges suppressed, and the destined capital
of the East subsisted only as an open village, subject to the
insulting jurisdiction of Perinthus. The historian Dion, who had
admired the flourishing, and lamented the desolate, state of
Byzantium, accused the revenge of Severus, for depriving the
Roman people of the strongest bulwark against the barbarians of
Pontus and Asia The truth of this observation was but too well
justified in the succeeding age, when the Gothic fleets covered
the Euxine, and passed through the undefined Bosphorus into the
centre of the Mediterranean.
Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to death in their
flight from the field of battle. Their fate excited neither
surprise nor compassion. They had staked their lives against the
chance of empire, and suffered what they would have inflicted;
nor did Severus claim the arrogant superiority of suffering his
rivals to live in a private station. But his unforgiving temper,
stimulated by avarice, indulged a spirit of revenge, where there
was no room for apprehension. The most considerable of the
provincials, who, without any dislike to the fortunate candidate,
had obeyed the governor under whose authority they were
accidentally placed, were punished by death, exile, and
especially by the confiscation of their estates. Many cities of
the East were stripped of their ancient honors, and obliged to
pay, into the treasury of Severus, four times the amount of the
sums contributed by them for the service of Niger.
Till the final decision of the war, the cruelty of Severus was,
in some measure, restrained by the uncertainty of the event, and
his pretended reverence for the senate. The head of Albinus,
accompanied with a menacing letter, announced to the Romans that
he was resolved to spare none of the adherents of his unfortunate
competitors. He was irritated by the just suspicion that he had
never possessed the affections of the senate, and he concealed
his old malevolence under the recent discovery of some
treasonable correspondences. Thirty-five senators, however,
accused of having favored the party of Albinus, he freely
pardoned, and, by his subsequent behavior, endeavored to convince
them, that he had forgotten, as well as forgiven, their supposed
offences. But, at the same time, he condemned forty-one other
senators, whose names history has recorded; their wives,
children, and clients attended them in death, * and the noblest
provincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the same ruin.
Such rigid justice—for so he termed it—was, in the opinion of
Severus, the only conduct capable of insuring peace to the people
or stability to the prince; and he condescended slightly to
lament, that to be mild, it was necessary that he should first be
cruel.
The true interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides with
that of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and
their security, are the best and only foundations of his real
greatness; and were he totally devoid of virtue, prudence might
supply its place, and would dictate the same rule of conduct.
Severus considered the Roman empire as his property, and had no
sooner secured the possession, than he bestowed his care on the
cultivation and improvement of so valuable an acquisition.
Salutary laws, executed with inflexible firmness, soon corrected
most of the abuses with which, since the death of Marcus, every
part of the government had been infected. In the administration
of justice, the judgments of the emperor were characterized by
attention, discernment, and impartiality; and whenever he
deviated from the strict line of equity, it was generally in
favor of the poor and oppressed; not so much indeed from any
sense of humanity, as from the natural propensity of a despot to
humble the pride of greatness, and to sink all his subjects to
the same common level of absolute dependence. His expensive taste
for building, magnificent shows, and above all a constant and
liberal distribution of corn and provisions, were the surest
means of captivating the affection of the Roman people. The
misfortunes of civil discord were obliterated. The calm of peace
and prosperity was once more experienced in the provinces; and
many cities, restored by the munificence of Severus, assumed the
title of his colonies, and attested by public monuments their
gratitude and felicity. The fame of the Roman arms was revived by
that warlike and successful emperor, and he boasted, with a just
pride, that, having received the empire oppressed with foreign
and domestic wars, he left it established in profound, universal,
and honorable peace.
Although the wounds of civil war appeared completely healed, its
mortal poison still lurked in the vitals of the constitution.
Severus possessed a considerable share of vigor and ability; but
the daring soul of the first Cæsar, or the deep policy of
Augustus, were scarcely equal to the task of curbing the
insolence of the victorious legions. By gratitude, by misguided
policy, by seeming necessity, Severus was reduced to relax the
nerves of discipline. The vanity of his soldiers was flattered
with the honor of wearing gold rings; their ease was indulged in
the permission of living with their wives in the idleness of
quarters. He increased their pay beyond the example of former
times, and taught them to expect, and soon to claim,
extraordinary donatives on every public occasion of danger or
festivity. Elated by success, enervated by luxury, and raised
above the level of subjects by their dangerous privileges, they
soon became incapable of military fatigue, oppressive to the
country, and impatient of a just subordination. Their officers
asserted the superiority of rank by a more profuse and elegant
luxury. There is still extant a letter of Severus, lamenting the
licentious stage of the army, * and exhorting one of his generals
to begin the necessary reformation from the tribunes themselves;
since, as he justly observes, the officer who has forfeited the
esteem, will never command the obedience, of his soldiers. Had
the emperor pursued the train of reflection, he would have
discovered, that the primary cause of this general corruption
might be ascribed, not indeed to the example, but to the
pernicious indulgence, however, of the commander-in-chief.
The Prætorians, who murdered their emperor and sold the empire,
had received the just punishment of their treason; but the
necessary, though dangerous, institution of guards was soon
restored on a new model by Severus, and increased to four times
the ancient number. Formerly these troops had been recruited in
Italy; and as the adjacent provinces gradually imbibed the softer
manners of Rome, the levies were extended to Macedonia, Noricum,
and Spain. In the room of these elegant troops, better adapted to
the pomp of courts than to the uses of war, it was established by
Severus, that from all the legions of the frontiers, the soldiers
most distinguished for strength, valor, and fidelity, should be
occasionally draughted; and promoted, as an honor and reward,
into the more eligible service of the guards. By this new
institution, the Italian youth were diverted from the exercise of
arms, and the capital was terrified by the strange aspect and
manners of a multitude of barbarians. But Severus flattered
himself, that the legions would consider these chosen Prætorians
as the representatives of the whole military order; and that the
present aid of fifty thousand men, superior in arms and
appointments to any force that could be brought into the field
against them, would forever crush the hopes of rebellion, and
secure the empire to himself and his posterity.
The command of these favored and formidable troops soon became
the first office of the empire. As the government degenerated
into military despotism, the Prætorian Præfect, who in his origin
had been a simple captain of the guards, * was placed not only at
the head of the army, but of the finances, and even of the law.
In every department of administration, he represented the person,
and exercised the authority, of the emperor. The first præfect
who enjoyed and abused this immense power was Plautianus, the
favorite minister of Severus. His reign lasted above ten years,
till the marriage of his daughter with the eldest son of the
emperor, which seemed to assure his fortune, proved the occasion
of his ruin. The animosities of the palace, by irritating the
ambition and alarming the fears of Plautianus, threatened to
produce a revolution, and obliged the emperor, who still loved
him, to consent with reluctance to his death. After the fall of
Plautianus, an eminent lawyer, the celebrated Papinian, was
appointed to execute the motley office of Prætorian Præfect.
Till the reign of Severus, the virtue and even the good sense of
the emperors had been distinguished by their zeal or affected
reverence for the senate, and by a tender regard to the nice
frame of civil policy instituted by Augustus. But the youth of
Severus had been trained in the implicit obedience of camps, and
his riper years spent in the despotism of military command. His
haughty and inflexible spirit could not discover, or would not
acknowledge, the advantage of preserving an intermediate power,
however imaginary, between the emperor and the army. He disdained
to profess himself the servant of an assembly that detested his
person and trembled at his frown; he issued his commands, where
his requests would have proved as effectual; assumed the conduct
and style of a sovereign and a conqueror, and exercised, without
disguise, the whole legislative, as well as the executive power.
The victory over the senate was easy and inglorious. Every eye
and every passion were directed to the supreme magistrate, who
possessed the arms and treasure of the state; whilst the senate,
neither elected by the people, nor guarded by military force, nor
animated by public spirit, rested its declining authority on the
frail and crumbling basis of ancient opinion. The fine theory of
a republic insensibly vanished, and made way for the more natural
and substantial feelings of monarchy. As the freedom and honors
of Rome were successively communicated to the provinces, in which
the old government had been either unknown, or was remembered
with abhorrence, the tradition of republican maxims was gradually
obliterated. The Greek historians of the age of the Antonines
observe, with a malicious pleasure, that although the sovereign
of Rome, in compliance with an obsolete prejudice, abstained from
the name of king, he possessed the full measure of regal power.
In the reign of Severus, the senate was filled with polished and
eloquent slaves from the eastern provinces, who justified
personal flattery by speculative principles of servitude. These
new advocates of prerogative were heard with pleasure by the
court, and with patience by the people, when they inculcated the
duty of passive obedience, and descanted on the inevitable
mischiefs of freedom. The lawyers and historians concurred in
teaching, that the Imperial authority was held, not by the
delegated commission, but by the irrevocable resignation of the
senate; that the emperor was freed from the restraint of civil
laws, could command by his arbitrary will the lives and fortunes
of his subjects, and might dispose of the empire as of his
private patrimony. The most eminent of the civil lawyers, and
particularly Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, flourished under the
house of Severus; and the Roman jurisprudence, having closely
united itself with the system of monarchy, was supposed to have
attained its full majority and perfection.
The contemporaries of Severus in the enjoyment of the peace and
glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been
introduced. Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his
maxims and example, justly considered him as the principal author
of the decline of the Roman empire.
Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Macrinus.—Part I.
The Death Of Severus.—Tyranny Of Caracalla.—Usurpation Of
Macrinus.—Follies Of Elagabalus.—Virtues Of Alexander
Severus.—Licentiousness Of The Army.—General State Of The Roman
Finances.
The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may
entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of
its own powers: but the possession of a throne could never yet
afford a lasting satisfaction to an ambitious mind. This
melancholy truth was felt and acknowledged by Severus. Fortune
and merit had, from an humble station, elevated him to the first
place among mankind. “He had been all things,” as he said
himself, “and all was of little value.” Distracted with the care,
not of acquiring, but of preserving an empire, oppressed with age
and infirmities, careless of fame, and satiated with power, all
his prospects of life were closed. The desire of perpetuating the
greatness of his family was the only remaining wish of his
ambition and paternal tenderness.
Like most of the Africans, Severus was passionately addicted to
the vain studies of magic and divination, deeply versed in the
interpretation of dreams and omens, and perfectly acquainted with
the science of judicial astrology; which, in almost every age
except the present, has maintained its dominion over the mind of
man. He had lost his first wife, while he was governor of the
Lionnese Gaul. In the choice of a second, he sought only to
connect himself with some favorite of fortune; and as soon as he
had discovered that the young lady of Emesa in Syria had a royal
nativity, he solicited and obtained her hand. Julia Domna (for
that was her name) deserved all that the stars could promise her.
She possessed, even in advanced age, the attractions of beauty,
and united to a lively imagination a firmness of mind, and
strength of judgment, seldom bestowed on her sex. Her amiable
qualities never made any deep impression on the dark and jealous
temper of her husband; but in her son’s reign, she administered
the principal affairs of the empire, with a prudence that
supported his authority, and with a moderation that sometimes
corrected his wild extravagancies. Julia applied herself to
letters and philosophy, with some success, and with the most
splendid reputation. She was the patroness of every art, and the
friend of every man of genius. The grateful flattery of the
learned has celebrated her virtues; but, if we may credit the
scandal of ancient history, chastity was very far from being the
most conspicuous virtue of the empress Julia.
Two sons, Caracalla and Geta, were the fruit of this marriage,
and the destined heirs of the empire. The fond hopes of the
father, and of the Roman world, were soon disappointed by these
vain youths, who displayed the indolent security of hereditary
princes; and a presumption that fortune would supply the place of
merit and application. Without any emulation of virtue or
talents, they discovered, almost from their infancy, a fixed and
implacable antipathy for each other.
Their aversion, confirmed by years, and fomented by the arts of
their interested favorites, broke out in childish, and gradually
in more serious competitions; and, at length, divided the
theatre, the circus, and the court, into two factions, actuated
by the hopes and fears of their respective leaders. The prudent
emperor endeavored, by every expedient of advice and authority,
to allay this growing animosity. The unhappy discord of his sons
clouded all his prospects, and threatened to overturn a throne
raised with so much labor, cemented with so much blood, and
guarded with every defence of arms and treasure. With an
impartial hand he maintained between them an exact balance of
favor, conferred on both the rank of Augustus, with the revered
name of Antoninus; and for the first time the Roman world beheld
three emperors. Yet even this equal conduct served only to
inflame the contest, whilst the fierce Caracalla asserted the
right of primogeniture, and the milder Geta courted the
affections of the people and the soldiers. In the anguish of a
disappointed father, Severus foretold that the weaker of his sons
would fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who, in his turn, would
be ruined by his own vices.
In these circumstances the intelligence of a war in Britain, and
of an invasion of the province by the barbarians of the North,
was received with pleasure by Severus. Though the vigilance of
his lieutenants might have been sufficient to repel the distant
enemy, he resolved to embrace the honorable pretext of
withdrawing his sons from the luxury of Rome, which enervated
their minds and irritated their passions; and of inuring their
youth to the toils of war and government. Notwithstanding his
advanced age, (for he was above threescore,) and his gout, which
obliged him to be carried in a litter, he transported himself in
person into that remote island, attended by his two sons, his
whole court, and a formidable army. He immediately passed the
walls of Hadrian and Antoninus, and entered the enemy’s country,
with a design of completing the long attempted conquest of
Britain. He penetrated to the northern extremity of the island,
without meeting an enemy. But the concealed ambuscades of the
Caledonians, who hung unseen on the rear and flanks of his army,
the coldness of the climate and the severity of a winter march
across the hills and morasses of Scotland, are reported to have
cost the Romans above fifty thousand men. The Caledonians at
length yielded to the powerful and obstinate attack, sued for
peace, and surrendered a part of their arms, and a large tract of
territory. But their apparent submission lasted no longer than
the present terror. As soon as the Roman legions had retired,
they resumed their hostile independence. Their restless spirit
provoked Severus to send a new army into Caledonia, with the most
bloody orders, not to subdue, but to extirpate the natives. They
were saved by the death of their haughty enemy.
This Caledonian war, neither marked by decisive events, nor
attended with any important consequences, would ill deserve our
attention; but it is supposed, not without a considerable degree
of probability, that the invasion of Severus is connected with
the most shining period of the British history or fable. Fingal,
whose fame, with that of his heroes and bards, has been revived
in our language by a recent publication, is said to have
commanded the Caledonians in that memorable juncture, to have
eluded the power of Severus, and to have obtained a signal
victory on the banks of the Carun, in which the son of _the King
of the World_, Caracul, fled from his arms along the fields of
his pride. Something of a doubtful mist still hangs over these
Highland traditions; nor can it be entirely dispelled by the most
ingenious researches of modern criticism; but if we could, with
safety, indulge the pleasing supposition, that Fingal lived, and
that Ossian sung, the striking contrast of the situation and
manners of the contending nations might amuse a philosophic mind.
The parallel would be little to the advantage of the more
civilized people, if we compared the unrelenting revenge of
Severus with the generous clemency of Fingal; the timid and
brutal cruelty of Caracalla with the bravery, the tenderness, the
elegant genius of Ossian; the mercenary chiefs, who, from motives
of fear or interest, served under the imperial standard, with the
free-born warriors who started to arms at the voice of the king
of Morven; if, in a word, we contemplated the untutored
Caledonians, glowing with the warm virtues of nature, and the
degenerate Romans, polluted with the mean vices of wealth and
slavery.
The declining health and last illness of Severus inflamed the
wild ambition and black passions of Caracalla’s soul. Impatient
of any delay or division of empire, he attempted, more than once,
to shorten the small remainder of his father’s days, and
endeavored, but without success, to excite a mutiny among the
troops. The old emperor had often censured the misguided lenity
of Marcus, who, by a single act of justice, might have saved the
Romans from the tyranny of his worthless son. Placed in the same
situation, he experienced how easily the rigor of a judge
dissolves away in the tenderness of a parent. He deliberated, he
threatened, but he could not punish; and this last and only
instance of mercy was more fatal to the empire than a long series
of cruelty. The disorder of his mind irritated the pains of his
body; he wished impatiently for death, and hastened the instant
of it by his impatience. He expired at York in the sixty-fifth
year of his life, and in the eighteenth of a glorious and
successful reign. In his last moments he recommended concord to
his sons, and his sons to the army. The salutary advice never
reached the heart, or even the understanding, of the impetuous
youths; but the more obedient troops, mindful of their oath of
allegiance, and of the authority of their deceased master,
resisted the solicitations of Caracalla, and proclaimed both
brothers emperors of Rome. The new princes soon left the
Caledonians in peace, returned to the capital, celebrated their
father’s funeral with divine honors, and were cheerfully
acknowledged as lawful sovereigns, by the senate, the people, and
the provinces. Some preeminence of rank seems to have been
allowed to the elder brother; but they both administered the
empire with equal and independent power.
Such a divided form of government would have proved a source of
discord between the most affectionate brothers. It was impossible
that it could long subsist between two implacable enemies, who
neither desired nor could trust a reconciliation. It was visible
that one only could reign, and that the other must fall; and each
of them, judging of his rival’s designs by his own, guarded his
life with the most jealous vigilance from the repeated attacks of
poison or the sword. Their rapid journey through Gaul and Italy,
during which they never ate at the same table, or slept in the
same house, displayed to the provinces the odious spectacle of
fraternal discord. On their arrival at Rome, they immediately
divided the vast extent of the imperial palace. No communication
was allowed between their apartments; the doors and passages were
diligently fortified, and guards posted and relieved with the
same strictness as in a besieged place. The emperors met only in
public, in the presence of their afflicted mother; and each
surrounded by a numerous train of armed followers. Even on these
occasions of ceremony, the dissimulation of courts could ill
disguise the rancor of their hearts.
This latent civil war already distracted the whole government,
when a scheme was suggested that seemed of mutual benefit to the
hostile brothers. It was proposed, that since it was impossible
to reconcile their minds, they should separate their interest,
and divide the empire between them. The conditions of the treaty
were already drawn with some accuracy. It was agreed that
Caracalla, as the elder brother should remain in possession of
Europe and the western Africa; and that he should relinquish the
sovereignty of Asia and Egypt to Geta, who might fix his
residence at Alexandria or Antioch, cities little inferior to
Rome itself in wealth and greatness; that numerous armies should
be constantly encamped on either side of the Thracian Bosphorus,
to guard the frontiers of the rival monarchies; and that the
senators of European extraction should acknowledge the sovereign
of Rome, whilst the natives of Asia followed the emperor of the
East. The tears of the empress Julia interrupted the negotiation,
the first idea of which had filled every Roman breast with
surprise and indignation. The mighty mass of conquest was so
intimately united by the hand of time and policy, that it
required the most forcible violence to rend it asunder. The
Romans had reason to dread, that the disjointed members would
soon be reduced by a civil war under the dominion of one master;
but if the separation was permanent, the division of the
provinces must terminate in the dissolution of an empire whose
unity had hitherto remained inviolate.
Had the treaty been carried into execution, the sovereign of
Europe might soon have been the conqueror of Asia; but Caracalla
obtained an easier, though a more guilty, victory. He artfully
listened to his mother’s entreaties, and consented to meet his
brother in her apartment, on terms of peace and reconciliation.
In the midst of their conversation, some centurions, who had
contrived to conceal themselves, rushed with drawn swords upon
the unfortunate Geta. His distracted mother strove to protect him
in her arms; but, in the unavailing struggle, she was wounded in
the hand, and covered with the blood of her younger son, while
she saw the elder animating and assisting the fury of the
assassins. As soon as the deed was perpetrated, Caracalla, with
hasty steps, and horror in his countenance, ran towards the
Prætorian camp, as his only refuge, and threw himself on the
ground before the statues of the tutelar deities. The soldiers
attempted to raise and comfort him. In broken and disordered
words he informed them of his imminent danger, and fortunate
escape; insinuating that he had prevented the designs of his
enemy, and declared his resolution to live and die with his
faithful troops. Geta had been the favorite of the soldiers; but
complaint was useless, revenge was dangerous, and they still
reverenced the son of Severus. Their discontent died away in idle
murmurs, and Caracalla soon convinced them of the justice of his
cause, by distributing in one lavish donative the accumulated
treasures of his father’s reign. The real _sentiments_ of the
soldiers alone were of importance to his power or safety. Their
declaration in his favor commanded the dutiful _professions_ of
the senate. The obsequious assembly was always prepared to ratify
the decision of fortune; * but as Caracalla wished to assuage the
first emotions of public indignation, the name of Geta was
mentioned with decency, and he received the funeral honors of a
Roman emperor. Posterity, in pity to his misfortune, has cast a
veil over his vices. We consider that young prince as the
innocent victim of his brother’s ambition, without recollecting
that he himself wanted power, rather than inclination, to
consummate the same attempts of revenge and murder.
The crime went not unpunished. Neither business, nor pleasure,
nor flattery, could defend Caracalla from the stings of a guilty
conscience; and he confessed, in the anguish of a tortured mind,
that his disordered fancy often beheld the angry forms of his
father and his brother rising into life, to threaten and upbraid
him. The consciousness of his crime should have induced him to
convince mankind, by the virtues of his reign, that the bloody
deed had been the involuntary effect of fatal necessity. But the
repentance of Caracalla only prompted him to remove from the
world whatever could remind him of his guilt, or recall the
memory of his murdered brother. On his return from the senate to
the palace, he found his mother in the company of several noble
matrons, weeping over the untimely fate of her younger son. The
jealous emperor threatened them with instant death; the sentence
was executed against Fadilla, the last remaining daughter of the
emperor Marcus; * and even the afflicted Julia was obliged to
silence her lamentations, to suppress her sighs, and to receive
the assassin with smiles of joy and approbation. It was computed
that, under the vague appellation of the friends of Geta, above
twenty thousand persons of both sexes suffered death. His guards
and freedmen, the ministers of his serious business, and the
companions of his looser hours, those who by his interest had
been promoted to any commands in the army or provinces, with the
long connected chain of their dependants, were included in the
proscription; which endeavored to reach every one who had
maintained the smallest correspondence with Geta, who lamented
his death, or who even mentioned his name. Helvius Pertinax, son
to the prince of that name, lost his life by an unseasonable
witticism. It was a sufficient crime of Thrasea Priscus to be
descended from a family in which the love of liberty seemed an
hereditary quality. The particular causes of calumny and
suspicion were at length exhausted; and when a senator was
accused of being a secret enemy to the government, the emperor
was satisfied with the general proof that he was a man of
property and virtue. From this well-grounded principle he
frequently drew the most bloody inferences.
Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Macrinus.—Part II.
The execution of so many innocent citizens was bewailed by the
secret tears of their friends and families. The death of
Papinian, the Prætorian Præfect, was lamented as a public
calamity. During the last seven years of Severus, he had
exercised the most important offices of the state, and, by his
salutary influence, guided the emperor’s steps in the paths of
justice and moderation. In full assurance of his virtue and
abilities, Severus, on his death-bed, had conjured him to watch
over the prosperity and union of the Imperial family. The honest
labors of Papinian served only to inflame the hatred which
Caracalla had already conceived against his father’s minister.
After the murder of Geta, the Præfect was commanded to exert the
powers of his skill and eloquence in a studied apology for that
atrocious deed. The philosophic Seneca had condescended to
compose a similar epistle to the senate, in the name of the son
and assassin of Agrippina. “That it was easier to commit than to
justify a parricide,” was the glorious reply of Papinian; who did
not hesitate between the loss of life and that of honor. Such
intrepid virtue, which had escaped pure and unsullied from the
intrigues of courts, the habits of business, and the arts of his
profession, reflects more lustre on the memory of Papinian, than
all his great employments, his numerous writings, and the
superior reputation as a lawyer, which he has preserved through
every age of the Roman jurisprudence.