It had hitherto been the peculiar felicity of the Romans, and in

the worst of times the consolation, that the virtue of the

emperors was active, and their vice indolent. Augustus, Trajan,

Hadrian, and Marcus visited their extensive dominions in person,

and their progress was marked by acts of wisdom and beneficence.

The tyranny of Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian, who resided almost

constantly at Rome, or in the adjacent was confined to the

senatorial and equestrian orders. But Caracalla was the common

enemy of mankind. He left capital (and he never returned to it)

about a year after the murder of Geta. The rest of his reign was

spent in the several provinces of the empire, particularly those

of the East, and every province was by turns the scene of his

rapine and cruelty. The senators, compelled by fear to attend his

capricious motions, were obliged to provide daily entertainments

at an immense expense, which he abandoned with contempt to his

guards; and to erect, in every city, magnificent palaces and

theatres, which he either disdained to visit, or ordered

immediately thrown down. The most wealthy families were ruined by

partial fines and confiscations, and the great body of his

subjects oppressed by ingenious and aggravated taxes. In the

midst of peace, and upon the slightest provocation, he issued his

commands, at Alexandria, in Egypt for a general massacre. From a

secure post in the temple of Serapis, he viewed and directed the

slaughter of many thousand citizens, as well as strangers,

without distinguishing the number or the crime of the sufferers;

since as he coolly informed the senate, _all_the Alexandrians,

those who had perished, and those who had escaped, were alike

guilty.

The wise instructions of Severus never made any lasting

impression on the mind of his son, who, although not destitute of

imagination and eloquence, was equally devoid of judgment and

humanity. One dangerous maxim, worthy of a tyrant, was remembered

and abused by Caracalla. “To secure the affections of the army,

and to esteem the rest of his subjects as of little moment.” But

the liberality of the father had been restrained by prudence, and

his indulgence to the troops was tempered by firmness and

authority. The careless profusion of the son was the policy of

one reign, and the inevitable ruin both of the army and of the

empire. The vigor of the soldiers, instead of being confirmed by

the severe discipline of camps, melted away in the luxury of

cities. The excessive increase of their pay and donatives

exhausted the state to enrich the military order, whose modesty

in peace, and service in war, is best secured by an honorable

poverty. The demeanor of Caracalla was haughty and full of pride;

but with the troops he forgot even the proper dignity of his

rank, encouraged their insolent familiarity, and, neglecting the

essential duties of a general, affected to imitate the dress and

manners of a common soldier.

It was impossible that such a character, and such conduct as that

of Caracalla, could inspire either love or esteem; but as long as

his vices were beneficial to the armies, he was secure from the

danger of rebellion. A secret conspiracy, provoked by his own

jealousy, was fatal to the tyrant. The Prætorian præfecture was

divided between two ministers. The military department was

intrusted to Adventus, an experienced rather than able soldier;

and the civil affairs were transacted by Opilius Macrinus, who,

by his dexterity in business, had raised himself, with a fair

character, to that high office. But his favor varied with the

caprice of the emperor, and his life might depend on the

slightest suspicion, or the most casual circumstance. Malice or

fanaticism had suggested to an African, deeply skilled in the

knowledge of futurity, a very dangerous prediction, that Macrinus

and his son were destined to reign over the empire. The report

was soon diffused through the province; and when the man was sent

in chains to Rome, he still asserted, in the presence of the

præfect of the city, the faith of his prophecy. That magistrate,

who had received the most pressing instructions to inform himself

of the _successors_ of Caracalla, immediately communicated the

examination of the African to the Imperial court, which at that

time resided in Syria. But, notwithstanding the diligence of the

public messengers, a friend of Macrinus found means to apprise

him of the approaching danger. The emperor received the letters

from Rome; and as he was then engaged in the conduct of a chariot

race, he delivered them unopened to the Prætorian Præfect,

directing him to despatch the ordinary affairs, and to report the

more important business that might be contained in them. Macrinus

read his fate, and resolved to prevent it. He inflamed the

discontents of some inferior officers, and employed the hand of

Martialis, a desperate soldier, who had been refused the rank of

centurion. The devotion of Caracalla prompted him to make a

pilgrimage from Edessa to the celebrated temple of the Moon at

Carrhæ. * He was attended by a body of cavalry: but having

stopped on the road for some necessary occasion, his guards

preserved a respectful distance, and Martialis, approaching his

person under a presence of duty, stabbed him with a dagger. The

bold assassin was instantly killed by a Scythian archer of the

Imperial guard. Such was the end of a monster whose life

disgraced human nature, and whose reign accused the patience of

the Romans. The grateful soldiers forgot his vices, remembered

only his partial liberality, and obliged the senate to prostitute

their own dignity and that of religion, by granting him a place

among the gods. Whilst he was upon earth, Alexander the Great was

the only hero whom this god deemed worthy his admiration. He

assumed the name and ensigns of Alexander, formed a Macedonian

phalanx of guards, persecuted the disciples of Aristotle, and

displayed, with a puerile enthusiasm, the only sentiment by which

he discovered any regard for virtue or glory. We can easily

conceive, that after the battle of Narva, and the conquest of

Poland, Charles XII. (though he still wanted the more elegant

accomplishments of the son of Philip) might boast of having

rivalled his valor and magnanimity; but in no one action of his

life did Caracalla express the faintest resemblance of the

Macedonian hero, except in the murder of a great number of his

own and of his father’s friends.

After the extinction of the house of Severus, the Roman world

remained three days without a master. The choice of the army (for

the authority of a distant and feeble senate was little regarded)

hung in anxious suspense, as no candidate presented himself whose

distinguished birth and merit could engage their attachment and

unite their suffrages. The decisive weight of the Prætorian

guards elevated the hopes of their præfects, and these powerful

ministers began to assert their _legal_ claim to fill the vacancy

of the Imperial throne. Adventus, however, the senior præfect,

conscious of his age and infirmities, of his small reputation,

and his smaller abilities, resigned the dangerous honor to the

crafty ambition of his colleague Macrinus, whose well-dissembled

grief removed all suspicion of his being accessary to his

master’s death. The troops neither loved nor esteemed his

character. They cast their eyes around in search of a competitor,

and at last yielded with reluctance to his promises of unbounded

liberality and indulgence. A short time after his accession, he

conferred on his son Diadumenianus, at the age of only ten years,

the Imperial title, and the popular name of Antoninus. The

beautiful figure of the youth, assisted by an additional

donative, for which the ceremony furnished a pretext, might

attract, it was hoped, the favor of the army, and secure the

doubtful throne of Macrinus.

The authority of the new sovereign had been ratified by the

cheerful submission of the senate and provinces. They exulted in

their unexpected deliverance from a hated tyrant, and it seemed

of little consequence to examine into the virtues of the

successor of Caracalla. But as soon as the first transports of

joy and surprise had subsided, they began to scrutinize the

merits of Macrinus with a critical severity, and to arraign the

hasty choice of the army. It had hitherto been considered as a

fundamental maxim of the constitution, that the emperor must be

always chosen in the senate, and the sovereign power, no longer

exercised by the whole body, was always delegated to one of its

members. But Macrinus was not a senator. The sudden elevation of

the Prætorian præfects betrayed the meanness of their origin; and

the equestrian order was still in possession of that great

office, which commanded with arbitrary sway the lives and

fortunes of the senate. A murmur of indignation was heard, that a

man, whose obscure extraction had never been illustrated by any

signal service, should dare to invest himself with the purple,

instead of bestowing it on some distinguished senator, equal in

birth and dignity to the splendor of the Imperial station. As

soon as the character of Macrinus was surveyed by the sharp eye

of discontent, some vices, and many defects, were easily

discovered. The choice of his ministers was in many instances

justly censured, and the dissatisfied people, with their usual

candor, accused at once his indolent tameness and his excessive

severity.

His rash ambition had climbed a height where it was difficult to

stand with firmness, and impossible to fall without instant

destruction. Trained in the arts of courts and the forms of civil

business, he trembled in the presence of the fierce and

undisciplined multitude, over whom he had assumed the command;

his military talents were despised, and his personal courage

suspected; a whisper that circulated in the camp, disclosed the

fatal secret of the conspiracy against the late emperor,

aggravated the guilt of murder by the baseness of hypocrisy, and

heightened contempt by detestation. To alienate the soldiers, and

to provoke inevitable ruin, the character of a reformer was only

wanting; and such was the peculiar hardship of his fate, that

Macrinus was compelled to exercise that invidious office. The

prodigality of Caracalla had left behind it a long train of ruin

and disorder; and if that worthless tyrant had been capable of

reflecting on the sure consequences of his own conduct, he would

perhaps have enjoyed the dark prospect of the distress and

calamities which he bequeathed to his successors.

In the management of this necessary reformation, Macrinus

proceeded with a cautious prudence, which would have restored

health and vigor to the Roman army in an easy and almost

imperceptible manner. To the soldiers already engaged in the

service, he was constrained to leave the dangerous privileges and

extravagant pay given by Caracalla; but the new recruits were

received on the more moderate though liberal establishment of

Severus, and gradually formed to modesty and obedience. One fatal

error destroyed the salutary effects of this judicious plan. The

numerous army, assembled in the East by the late emperor, instead

of being immediately dispersed by Macrinus through the several

provinces, was suffered to remain united in Syria, during the

winter that followed his elevation. In the luxurious idleness of

their quarters, the troops viewed their strength and numbers,

communicated their complaints, and revolved in their minds the

advantages of another revolution. The veterans, instead of being

flattered by the advantageous distinction, were alarmed by the

first steps of the emperor, which they considered as the presage

of his future intentions. The recruits, with sullen reluctance,

entered on a service, whose labors were increased while its

rewards were diminished by a covetous and unwarlike sovereign.

The murmurs of the army swelled with impunity into seditious

clamors; and the partial mutinies betrayed a spirit of discontent

and disaffection that waited only for the slightest occasion to

break out on every side into a general rebellion. To minds thus

disposed, the occasion soon presented itself.

The empress Julia had experienced all the vicissitudes of

fortune. From an humble station she had been raised to greatness,

only to taste the superior bitterness of an exalted rank. She was

doomed to weep over the death of one of her sons, and over the

life of the other. The cruel fate of Caracalla, though her good

sense must have long taught her to expect it, awakened the

feelings of a mother and of an empress. Notwithstanding the

respectful civility expressed by the usurper towards the widow of

Severus, she descended with a painful struggle into the condition

of a subject, and soon withdrew herself, by a voluntary death,

from the anxious and humiliating dependence. * Julia Mæsa, her

sister, was ordered to leave the court and Antioch. She retired

to Emesa with an immense fortune, the fruit of twenty years’

favor accompanied by her two daughters, Soæmias and Mamæ, each of

whom was a widow, and each had an only son. Bassianus, for that

was the name of the son of Soæmias, was consecrated to the

honorable ministry of high priest of the Sun; and this holy

vocation, embraced either from prudence or superstition,

contributed to raise the Syrian youth to the empire of Rome. A

numerous body of troops was stationed at Emesa; and as the severe

discipline of Macrinus had constrained them to pass the winter

encamped, they were eager to revenge the cruelty of such

unaccustomed hardships. The soldiers, who resorted in crowds to

the temple of the Sun, beheld with veneration and delight the

elegant dress and figure of the young pontiff; they recognized,

or they thought that they recognized, the features of Caracalla,

whose memory they now adored. The artful Mæsa saw and cherished

their rising partiality, and readily sacrificing her daughter’s

reputation to the fortune of her grandson, she insinuated that

Bassianus was the natural son of their murdered sovereign. The

sums distributed by her emissaries with a lavish hand silenced

every objection, and the profusion sufficiently proved the

affinity, or at least the resemblance, of Bassianus with the

great original. The young Antoninus (for he had assumed and

polluted that respectable name) was declared emperor by the

troops of Emesa, asserted his hereditary right, and called aloud

on the armies to follow the standard of a young and liberal

prince, who had taken up arms to revenge his father’s death and

the oppression of the military order.

Whilst a conspiracy of women and eunuchs was concerted with

prudence, and conducted with rapid vigor, Macrinus, who, by a

decisive motion, might have crushed his infant enemy, floated

between the opposite extremes of terror and security, which alike

fixed him inactive at Antioch. A spirit of rebellion diffused

itself through all the camps and garrisons of Syria, successive

detachments murdered their officers, and joined the party of the

rebels; and the tardy restitution of military pay and privileges

was imputed to the acknowledged weakness of Macrinus. At length

he marched out of Antioch, to meet the increasing and zealous

army of the young pretender. His own troops seemed to take the

field with faintness and reluctance; but, in the heat of the

battle, the Prætorian guards, almost by an involuntary impulse,

asserted the superiority of their valor and discipline. The rebel

ranks were broken; when the mother and grandmother of the Syrian

prince, who, according to their eastern custom, had attended the

army, threw themselves from their covered chariots, and, by

exciting the compassion of the soldiers, endeavored to animate

their drooping courage. Antoninus himself, who, in the rest of

his life, never acted like a man, in this important crisis of his

fate, approved himself a hero, mounted his horse, and, at the

head of his rallied troops, charged sword in hand among the

thickest of the enemy; whilst the eunuch Gannys, * whose

occupations had been confined to female cares and the soft luxury

of Asia, displayed the talents of an able and experienced

general. The battle still raged with doubtful violence, and

Macrinus might have obtained the victory, had he not betrayed his

own cause by a shameful and precipitate flight. His cowardice

served only to protract his life a few days, and to stamp

deserved ignominy on his misfortunes. It is scarcely necessary to

add, that his son Diadumenianus was involved in the same fate. As

soon as the stubborn Prætorians could be convinced that they

fought for a prince who had basely deserted them, they

surrendered to the conqueror: the contending parties of the Roman

army, mingling tears of joy and tenderness, united under the

banners of the imagined son of Caracalla, and the East

acknowledged with pleasure the first emperor of Asiatic

extraction.

The letters of Macrinus had condescended to inform the senate of

the slight disturbance occasioned by an impostor in Syria, and a

decree immediately passed, declaring the rebel and his family

public enemies; with a promise of pardon, however, to such of his

deluded adherents as should merit it by an immediate return to

their duty. During the twenty days that elapsed from the

declaration of the victory of Antoninus (for in so short an

interval was the fate of the Roman world decided,) the capital

and the provinces, more especially those of the East, were

distracted with hopes and fears, agitated with tumult, and

stained with a useless effusion of civil blood, since whosoever

of the rivals prevailed in Syria must reign over the empire. The

specious letters in which the young conqueror announced his

victory to the obedient senate were filled with professions of

virtue and moderation; the shining examples of Marcus and

Augustus, he should ever consider as the great rule of his

administration; and he affected to dwell with pride on the

striking resemblance of his own age and fortunes with those of

Augustus, who in the earliest youth had revenged, by a successful

war, the murder of his father. By adopting the style of Marcus

Aurelius Antoninus, son of Antoninus and grandson of Severus, he

tacitly asserted his hereditary claim to the empire; but, by

assuming the tribunitian and proconsular powers before they had

been conferred on him by a decree of the senate, he offended the

delicacy of Roman prejudice. This new and injudicious violation

of the constitution was probably dictated either by the ignorance

of his Syrian courtiers, or the fierce disdain of his military

followers.

As the attention of the new emperor was diverted by the most

trifling amusements, he wasted many months in his luxurious

progress from Syria to Italy, passed at Nicomedia his first

winter after his victory, and deferred till the ensuing summer

his triumphal entry into the capital. A faithful picture,

however, which preceded his arrival, and was placed by his

immediate order over the altar of Victory in the senate house,

conveyed to the Romans the just but unworthy resemblance of his

person and manners. He was drawn in his sacerdotal robes of silk

and gold, after the loose flowing fashion of the Medes and

Phœnicians; his head was covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous

collars and bracelets were adorned with gems of an inestimable

value. His eyebrows were tinged with black, and his cheeks

painted with an artificial red and white. The grave senators

confessed with a sigh, that, after having long experienced the

stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at length humbled

beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental despotism.

The Sun was worshipped at Emesa, under the name of Elagabalus,

and under the form of a black conical stone, which, as it was

universally believed, had fallen from heaven on that sacred

place. To this protecting deity, Antoninus, not without some

reason, ascribed his elevation to the throne. The display of

superstitious gratitude was the only serious business of his

reign. The triumph of the god of Emesa over all the religions of

the earth, was the great object of his zeal and vanity; and the

appellation of Elagabalus (for he presumed as pontiff and

favorite to adopt that sacred name) was dearer to him than all

the titles of Imperial greatness. In a solemn procession through

the streets of Rome, the way was strewed with gold dust; the

black stone, set in precious gems, was placed on a chariot drawn

by six milk-white horses richly caparisoned. The pious emperor

held the reins, and, supported by his ministers, moved slowly

backwards, that he might perpetually enjoy the felicity of the

divine presence. In a magnificent temple raised on the Palatine

Mount, the sacrifices of the god Elagabalus were celebrated with

every circumstance of cost and solemnity. The richest wines, the

most extraordinary victims, and the rarest aromatics, were

profusely consumed on his altar. Around the altar, a chorus of

Syrian damsels performed their lascivious dances to the sound of

barbarian music, whilst the gravest personages of the state and

army, clothed in long Phœnician tunics, officiated in the meanest

functions, with affected zeal and secret indignation.

Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of

Macrinus.—Part III.

To this temple, as to the common centre of religious worship, the

Imperial fanatic attempted to remove the Ancilia, the Palladium,

and all the sacred pledges of the faith of Numa. A crowd of

inferior deities attended in various stations the majesty of the

god of Emesa; but his court was still imperfect, till a female of

distinguished rank was admitted to his bed. Pallas had been first

chosen for his consort; but as it was dreaded lest her warlike

terrors might affright the soft delicacy of a Syrian deity, the

Moon, adored by the Africans under the name of Astarte, was

deemed a more suitable companion for the Sun. Her image, with the

rich offerings of her temple as a marriage portion, was

transported with solemn pomp from Carthage to Rome, and the day

of these mystic nuptials was a general festival in the capital

and throughout the empire.

A rational voluptuary adheres with invariable respect to the

temperate dictates of nature, and improves the gratifications of

sense by social intercourse, endearing connections, and the soft

coloring of taste and the imagination. But Elagabalus, (I speak

of the emperor of that name,) corrupted by his youth, his

country, and his fortune, abandoned himself to the grossest

pleasures with ungoverned fury, and soon found disgust and

satiety in the midst of his enjoyments. The inflammatory powers

of art were summoned to his aid: the confused multitude of women,

of wines, and of dishes, and the studied variety of attitude and

sauces, served to revive his languid appetites. New terms and new

inventions in these sciences, the only ones cultivated and

patronized by the monarch, signalized his reign, and transmitted

his infamy to succeeding times. A capricious prodigality supplied

the want of taste and elegance; and whilst Elagabalus lavished

away the treasures of his people in the wildest extravagance, his

own voice and that of his flatterers applauded a spirit of

magnificence unknown to the tameness of his predecessors. To

confound the order of seasons and climates, to sport with the

passions and prejudices of his subjects, and to subvert every law

of nature and decency, were in the number of his most delicious

amusements. A long train of concubines, and a rapid succession of

wives, among whom was a vestal virgin, ravished by force from her

sacred asylum, were insufficient to satisfy the impotence of his

passions. The master of the Roman world affected to copy the

dress and manners of the female sex, preferred the distaff to the

sceptre, and dishonored the principal dignities of the empire by

distributing them among his numerous lovers; one of whom was

publicly invested with the title and authority of the emperor’s,

or, as he more properly styled himself, of the empress’s husband.

It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have

been adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. Yet, confining

ourselves to the public scenes displayed before the Roman people,

and attested by grave and contemporary historians, their

inexpressible infamy surpasses that of any other age or country.

The license of an eastern monarch is secluded from the eye of

curiosity by the inaccessible walls of his seraglio. The

sentiments of honor and gallantry have introduced a refinement of

pleasure, a regard for decency, and a respect for the public

opinion, into the modern courts of Europe; * but the corrupt and

opulent nobles of Rome gratified every vice that could be

collected from the mighty conflux of nations and manners. Secure

of impunity, careless of censure, they lived without restraint in

the patient and humble society of their slaves and parasites. The

emperor, in his turn, viewing every rank of his subjects with the

same contemptuous indifference, asserted without control his

sovereign privilege of lust and luxury.

The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others

the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can

readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or

station, to justify the partial distinction. The licentious

soldiers, who had raised to the throne the dissolute son of

Caracalla, blushed at their ignominious choice, and turned with

disgust from that monster, to contemplate with pleasure the

opening virtues of his cousin Alexander, the son of Mamæa. The

crafty Mæsa, sensible that her grandson Elagabalus must

inevitably destroy himself by his own vices, had provided another

and surer support of her family. Embracing a favorable moment of

fondness and devotion, she had persuaded the young emperor to

adopt Alexander, and to invest him with the title of Cæsar, that

his own divine occupations might be no longer interrupted by the

care of the earth. In the second rank that amiable prince soon

acquired the affections of the public, and excited the tyrant’s

jealousy, who resolved to terminate the dangerous competition,

either by corrupting the manners, or by taking away the life, of

his rival. His arts proved unsuccessful; his vain designs were

constantly discovered by his own loquacious folly, and

disappointed by those virtuous and faithful servants whom the

prudence of Mamæa had placed about the person of her son. In a

hasty sally of passion, Elagabalus resolved to execute by force

what he had been unable to compass by fraud, and by a despotic

sentence degraded his cousin from the rank and honors of Cæsar.

The message was received in the senate with silence, and in the

camp with fury. The Prætorian guards swore to protect Alexander,

and to revenge the dishonored majesty of the throne. The tears

and promises of the trembling Elagabalus, who only begged them to

spare his life, and to leave him in the possession of his beloved

Hierocles, diverted their just indignation; and they contented

themselves with empowering their præfects to watch over the

safety of Alexander, and the conduct of the emperor.

It was impossible that such a reconciliation should last, or that

even the mean soul of Elagabalus could hold an empire on such

humiliating terms of dependence. He soon attempted, by a

dangerous experiment, to try the temper of the soldiers. The

report of the death of Alexander, and the natural suspicion that

he had been murdered, inflamed their passions into fury, and the

tempest of the camp could only be appeased by the presence and

authority of the popular youth. Provoked at this new instance of

their affection for his cousin, and their contempt for his

person, the emperor ventured to punish some of the leaders of the

mutiny. His unseasonable severity proved instantly fatal to his

minions, his mother, and himself. Elagabalus was massacred by the

indignant Prætorians, his mutilated corpse dragged through the

streets of the city, and thrown into the Tiber. His memory was

branded with eternal infamy by the senate; the justice of whose

decree has been ratified by posterity.

In the room of Elagabalus, his cousin Alexander was raised to the

throne by the Prætorian guards. His relation to the family of

Severus, whose name he assumed, was the same as that of his

predecessor; his virtue and his danger had already endeared him

to the Romans, and the eager liberality of the senate conferred

upon him, in one day, the various titles and powers of the

Imperial dignity. But as Alexander was a modest and dutiful

youth, of only seventeen years of age, the reins of government

were in the hands of two women, of his mother, Mamæa, and of

Mæsa, his grandmother. After the death of the latter, who

survived but a short time the elevation of Alexander, Mamæa

remained the sole regent of her son and of the empire.

In every age and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, of

the two sexes, has usurped the powers of the state, and confined

the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life. In

hereditary monarchies, however, and especially in those of modern

Europe, the gallant spirit of chivalry, and the law of

succession, have accustomed us to allow a singular exception; and

a woman is often acknowledged the absolute sovereign of a great

kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of exercising the

smallest employment, civil or military. But as the Roman emperors

were still considered as the generals and magistrates of the

republic, their wives and mothers, although distinguished by the

name of Augusta, were never associated to their personal honors;

and a female reign would have appeared an inexpiable prodigy in

the eyes of those primitive Romans, who married without love, or

loved without delicacy and respect. The haughty Agrippina

aspired, indeed, to share the honors of the empire which she had

conferred on her son; but her mad ambition, detested by every

citizen who felt for the dignity of Rome, was disappointed by the

artful firmness of Seneca and Burrhus. The good sense, or the

indifference, of succeeding princes, restrained them from

offending the prejudices of their subjects; and it was reserved

for the profligate Elagabalus to discharge the acts of the senate

with the name of his mother Soæmias, who was placed by the side

of the consuls, and subscribed, as a regular member, the decrees

of the legislative assembly. Her more prudent sister, Mamæa,

declined the useless and odious prerogative, and a solemn law was

enacted, excluding women forever from the senate, and devoting to

the infernal gods the head of the wretch by whom this sanction

should be violated. The substance, not the pageantry, of power,

was the object of Mamæa’s manly ambition. She maintained an

absolute and lasting empire over the mind of her son, and in his

affection the mother could not brook a rival. Alexander, with her

consent, married the daughter of a patrician; but his respect for

his father-in-law, and love for the empress, were inconsistent

with the tenderness of interest of Mamæa. The patrician was

executed on the ready accusation of treason, and the wife of

Alexander driven with ignominy from the palace, and banished into

Africa.

Notwithstanding this act of jealous cruelty, as well as some

instances of avarice, with which Mamæa is charged, the general

tenor of her administration was equally for the benefit of her

son and of the empire. With the approbation of the senate, she

chose sixteen of the wisest and most virtuous senators as a

perpetual council of state, before whom every public business of

moment was debated and determined. The celebrated Ulpian, equally

distinguished by his knowledge of, and his respect for, the laws

of Rome, was at their head; and the prudent firmness of this

aristocracy restored order and authority to the government. As

soon as they had purged the city from foreign superstition and

luxury, the remains of the capricious tyranny of Elagabalus, they

applied themselves to remove his worthless creatures from every

department of the public administration, and to supply their

places with men of virtue and ability. Learning, and the love of

justice, became the only recommendations for civil offices;

valor, and the love of discipline, the only qualifications for

military employments.

But the most important care of Mamæa and her wise counsellors,

was to form the character of the young emperor, on whose personal

qualities the happiness or misery of the Roman world must

ultimately depend. The fortunate soil assisted, and even

prevented, the hand of cultivation. An excellent understanding

soon convinced Alexander of the advantages of virtue, the

pleasure of knowledge, and the necessity of labor. A natural

mildness and moderation of temper preserved him from the assaults

of passion, and the allurements of vice. His unalterable regard

for his mother, and his esteem for the wise Ulpian, guarded his

unexperienced youth from the poison of flattery. *

The simple journal of his ordinary occupations exhibits a

pleasing picture of an accomplished emperor, and, with some

allowance for the difference of manners, might well deserve the

imitation of modern princes. Alexander rose early: the first

moments of the day were consecrated to private devotion, and his

domestic chapel was filled with the images of those heroes, who,

by improving or reforming human life, had deserved the grateful

reverence of posterity. But as he deemed the service of mankind

the most acceptable worship of the gods, the greatest part of his

morning hours was employed in his council, where he discussed

public affairs, and determined private causes, with a patience

and discretion above his years. The dryness of business was

relieved by the charms of literature; and a portion of time was

always set apart for his favorite studies of poetry, history, and

philosophy. The works of Virgil and Horace, the republics of

Plato and Cicero, formed his taste, enlarged his understanding,

and gave him the noblest ideas of man and government. The

exercises of the body succeeded to those of the mind; and

Alexander, who was tall, active, and robust, surpassed most of

his equals in the gymnastic arts. Refreshed by the use of the

bath and a slight dinner, he resumed, with new vigor, the

business of the day; and, till the hour of supper, the principal

meal of the Romans, he was attended by his secretaries, with whom

he read and answered the multitude of letters, memorials, and

petitions, that must have been addressed to the master of the

greatest part of the world. His table was served with the most

frugal simplicity, and whenever he was at liberty to consult his

own inclination, the company consisted of a few select friends,

men of learning and virtue, amongst whom Ulpian was constantly

invited. Their conversation was familiar and instructive; and the

pauses were occasionally enlivened by the recital of some

pleasing composition, which supplied the place of the dancers,

comedians, and even gladiators, so frequently summoned to the

tables of the rich and luxurious Romans. The dress of Alexander

was plain and modest, his demeanor courteous and affable: at the

proper hours his palace was open to all his subjects, but the

voice of a crier was heard, as in the Eleusinian mysteries,

pronouncing the same salutary admonition: “Let none enter these

holy walls, unless he is conscious of a pure and innocent mind.”

Such a uniform tenor of life, which left not a moment for vice or

folly, is a better proof of the wisdom and justice of Alexander’s

government, than all the trifling details preserved in the

compilation of Lampridius. Since the accession of Commodus, the

Roman world had experienced, during the term of forty years, the

successive and various vices of four tyrants. From the death of

Elagabalus, it enjoyed an auspicious calm of thirteen years. *

The provinces, relieved from the oppressive taxes invented by

Caracalla and his pretended son, flourished in peace and

prosperity, under the administration of magistrates who were

convinced by experience that to deserve the love of the subjects

was their best and only method of obtaining the favor of their

sovereign. While some gentle restraints were imposed on the

innocent luxury of the Roman people, the price of provisions and

the interest of money, were reduced by the paternal care of

Alexander, whose prudent liberality, without distressing the

industrious, supplied the wants and amusements of the populace.

The dignity, the freedom, the authority of the senate was

restored; and every virtuous senator might approach the person of

the emperor without a fear and without a blush.

The name of Antoninus, ennobled by the virtues of Pius and

Marcus, had been communicated by adoption to the dissolute Verus,

and by descent to the cruel Commodus. It became the honorable

appellation of the sons of Severus, was bestowed on young

Diadumenianus, and at length prostituted to the infamy of the

high priest of Emesa. Alexander, though pressed by the studied,

and, perhaps, sincere importunity of the senate, nobly refused

the borrowed lustre of a name; whilst in his whole conduct he

labored to restore the glories and felicity of the age of the

genuine Antonines.

In the civil administration of Alexander, wisdom was enforced by

power, and the people, sensible of the public felicity, repaid

their benefactor with their love and gratitude. There still

remained a greater, a more necessary, but a more difficult

enterprise; the reformation of the military order, whose interest

and temper, confirmed by long impunity, rendered them impatient

of the restraints of discipline, and careless of the blessings of

public tranquillity. In the execution of his design, the emperor

affected to display his love, and to conceal his fear of the

army. The most rigid economy in every other branch of the

administration supplied a fund of gold and silver for the

ordinary pay and the extraordinary rewards of the troops. In

their marches he relaxed the severe obligation of carrying

seventeen days’ provision on their shoulders. Ample magazines

were formed along the public roads, and as soon as they entered

the enemy’s country, a numerous train of mules and camels waited

on their haughty laziness. As Alexander despaired of correcting

the luxury of his soldiers, he attempted, at least, to direct it

to objects of martial pomp and ornament, fine horses, splendid

armor, and shields enriched with silver and gold. He shared

whatever fatigues he was obliged to impose, visited, in person,

the sick and wounded, preserved an exact register of their

services and his own gratitude, and expressed on every occasion,

the warmest regard for a body of men, whose welfare, as he

affected to declare, was so closely connected with that of the

state. By the most gentle arts he labored to inspire the fierce

multitude with a sense of duty, and to restore at least a faint

image of that discipline to which the Romans owed their empire

over so many other nations, as warlike and more powerful than

themselves. But his prudence was vain, his courage fatal, and the

attempt towards a reformation served only to inflame the ills it

was meant to cure.

The Prætorian guards were attached to the youth of Alexander.

They loved him as a tender pupil, whom they had saved from a

tyrant’s fury, and placed on the Imperial throne. That amiable

prince was sensible of the obligation; but as his gratitude was

restrained within the limits of reason and justice, they soon

were more dissatisfied with the virtues of Alexander, than they

had ever been with the vices of Elagabalus. Their præfect, the

wise Ulpian, was the friend of the laws and of the people; he was

considered as the enemy of the soldiers, and to his pernicious

counsels every scheme of reformation was imputed. Some trifling

accident blew up their discontent into a furious mutiny; and the

civil war raged, during three days, in Rome, whilst the life of

that excellent minister was defended by the grateful people.

Terrified, at length, by the sight of some houses in flames, and

by the threats of a general conflagration, the people yielded

with a sigh, and left the virtuous but unfortunate Ulpian to his

fate. He was pursued into the Imperial palace, and massacred at

the feet of his master, who vainly strove to cover him with the

purple, and to obtain his pardon from the inexorable soldiers. *

Such was the deplorable weakness of government, that the emperor

was unable to revenge his murdered friend and his insulted

dignity, without stooping to the arts of patience and

dissimulation. Epagathus, the principal leader of the mutiny, was

removed from Rome, by the honorable employment of præfect of

Egypt: from that high rank he was gently degraded to the

government of Crete; and when at length, his popularity among the

guards was effaced by time and absence, Alexander ventured to

inflict the tardy but deserved punishment of his crimes. Under

the reign of a just and virtuous prince, the tyranny of the army

threatened with instant death his most faithful ministers, who

were suspected of an intention to correct their intolerable

disorders. The historian Dion Cassius had commanded the Pannonian

legions with the spirit of ancient discipline. Their brethren of

Rome, embracing the common cause of military license, demanded

the head of the reformer. Alexander, however, instead of yielding

to their seditious clamors, showed a just sense of his merit and

services, by appointing him his colleague in the consulship, and

defraying from his own treasury the expense of that vain dignity:

but as was justly apprehended, that if the soldiers beheld him

with the ensigns of his office, they would revenge the insult in

his blood, the nominal first magistrate of the state retired, by

the emperor’s advice, from the city, and spent the greatest part

of his consulship at his villas in Campania.

Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of

Macrinus.—Part IV.

The lenity of the emperor confirmed the insolence of the troops;

the legions imitated the example of the guards, and defended

their prerogative of licentiousness with the same furious

obstinacy. The administration of Alexander was an unavailing

struggle against the corruption of his age. In llyricum, in

Mauritania, in Armenia, in Mesopotamia, in Germany, fresh

mutinies perpetually broke out; his officers were murdered, his

authority was insulted, and his life at last sacrificed to the

fierce discontents of the army. One particular fact well deserves

to be recorded, as it illustrates the manners of the troops, and

exhibits a singular instance of their return to a sense of duty

and obedience. Whilst the emperor lay at Antioch, in his Persian

expedition, the particulars of which we shall hereafter relate,

the punishment of some soldiers, who had been discovered in the

baths of women, excited a sedition in the legion to which they

belonged. Alexander ascended his tribunal, and with a modest

firmness represented to the armed multitude the absolute

necessity, as well as his inflexible resolution, of correcting

the vices introduced by his impure predecessor, and of

maintaining the discipline, which could not be relaxed without

the ruin of the Roman name and empire. Their clamors interrupted

his mild expostulation. “Reserve your shout,” said the undaunted

emperor, “till you take the field against the Persians, the

Germans, and the Sarmatians. Be silent in the presence of your

sovereign and benefactor, who bestows upon you the corn, the

clothing, and the money of the provinces. Be silent, or I shall

no longer style you soldiers , but _citizens_, if those indeed

who disclaim the laws of Rome deserve to be ranked among the

meanest of the people.” His menaces inflamed the fury of the

legion, and their brandished arms already threatened his person.

“Your courage,” resumed the intrepid Alexander, “would be more

nobly displayed in the field of battle; _me_ you may destroy, you

cannot intimidate; and the severe justice of the republic would

punish your crime and revenge my death.” The legion still

persisted in clamorous sedition, when the emperor pronounced,

with a loud voice, the decisive sentence, “_Citizens!_ lay down

your arms, and depart in peace to your respective habitations.”

The tempest was instantly appeased: the soldiers, filled with

grief and shame, silently confessed the justice of their

punishment, and the power of discipline, yielded up their arms

and military ensigns, and retired in confusion, not to their

camp, but to the several inns of the city. Alexander enjoyed,

during thirty days, the edifying spectacle of their repentance;

nor did he restore them to their former rank in the army, till he

had punished with death those tribunes whose connivance had

occasioned the mutiny. The grateful legion served the emperor

whilst living, and revenged him when dead.

The resolutions of the multitude generally depend on a moment;

and the caprice of passion might equally determine the seditious

legion to lay down their arms at the emperor’s feet, or to plunge

them into his breast. Perhaps, if this singular transaction had

been investigated by the penetration of a philosopher, we should

discover the secret causes which on that occasion authorized the

boldness of the prince, and commanded the obedience of the

troops; and perhaps, if it had been related by a judicious

historian, we should find this action, worthy of Cæsar himself,

reduced nearer to the level of probability and the common

standard of the character of Alexander Severus. The abilities of

that amiable prince seem to have been inadequate to the

difficulties of his situation, the firmness of his conduct

inferior to the purity of his intentions. His virtues, as well as

the vices of Elagabalus, contracted a tincture of weakness and

effeminacy from the soft climate of Syria, of which he was a

native; though he blushed at his foreign origin, and listened

with a vain complacency to the flattering genealogists, who

derived his race from the ancient stock of Roman nobility. The

pride and avarice of his mother cast a shade on the glories of

his reign; and by exacting from his riper years the same dutiful

obedience which she had justly claimed from his unexperienced

youth, Mamæa exposed to public ridicule both her son’s character

and her own. The fatigues of the Persian war irritated the

military discontent; the unsuccessful event * degraded the

reputation of the emperor as a general, and even as a soldier.

Every cause prepared, and every circumstance hastened, a

revolution, which distracted the Roman empire with a long series

of intestine calamities.

The dissolute tyranny of Commodus, the civil wars occasioned by

his death, and the new maxims of policy introduced by the house

of Severus, had all contributed to increase the dangerous power

of the army, and to obliterate the faint image of laws and

liberty that was still impressed on the minds of the Romans. The

internal change, which undermined the foundations of the empire,

we have endeavored to explain with some degree of order and

perspicuity. The personal characters of the emperors, their

victories, laws, follies, and fortunes, can interest us no

farther than as they are connected with the general history of

the Decline and Fall of the monarchy. Our constant attention to

that great object will not suffer us to overlook a most important

edict of Antoninus Caracalla, which communicated to all the free

inhabitants of the empire the name and privileges of Roman

citizens. His unbounded liberality flowed not, however, from the

sentiments of a generous mind; it was the sordid result of

avarice, and will naturally be illustrated by some observations

on the finances of that state, from the victorious ages of the

commonwealth to the reign of Alexander Severus.

The siege of Veii in Tuscany, the first considerable enterprise

of the Romans, was protracted to the tenth year, much less by the

strength of the place than by the unskilfulness of the besiegers.

The unaccustomed hardships of so many winter campaigns, at the

distance of near twenty miles from home, required more than

common encouragements; and the senate wisely prevented the

clamors of the people, by the institution of a regular pay for

the soldiers, which was levied by a general tribute, assessed

according to an equitable proportion on the property of the

citizens. During more than two hundred years after the conquest

of Veii, the victories of the republic added less to the wealth

than to the power of Rome. The states of Italy paid their tribute

in military service only, and the vast force, both by sea and

land, which was exerted in the Punic wars, was maintained at the

expense of the Romans themselves. That high-spirited people (such

is often the generous enthusiasm of freedom) cheerfully submitted

to the most excessive but voluntary burdens, in the just

confidence that they should speedily enjoy the rich harvest of

their labors. Their expectations were not disappointed. In the

course of a few years, the riches of Syracuse, of Carthage, of

Macedonia, and of Asia, were brought in triumph to Rome. The

treasures of Perseus alone amounted to near two millions

sterling, and the Roman people, the sovereign of so many nations,

was forever delivered from the weight of taxes. The increasing

revenue of the provinces was found sufficient to defray the

ordinary establishment of war and government, and the superfluous

mass of gold and silver was deposited in the temple of Saturn,

and reserved for any unforeseen emergency of the state.

History has never, perhaps, suffered a greater or more

irreparable injury than in the loss of the curious register *

bequeathed by Augustus to the senate, in which that experienced

prince so accurately balanced the revenues and expenses of the

Roman empire. Deprived of this clear and comprehensive estimate,

we are reduced to collect a few imperfect hints from such of the

ancients as have accidentally turned aside from the splendid to

the more useful parts of history. We are informed that, by the

conquests of Pompey, the tributes of Asia were raised from fifty

to one hundred and thirty-five millions of drachms; or about four

millions and a half sterling. Under the last and most indolent of

the Ptolemies, the revenue of Egypt is said to have amounted to

twelve thousand five hundred talents; a sum equivalent to more

than two millions and a half of our money, but which was

afterwards considerably improved by the more exact economy of the

Romans, and the increase of the trade of Æthiopia and India. Gaul

was enriched by rapine, as Egypt was by commerce, and the

tributes of those two great provinces have been compared as

nearly equal to each other in value. The ten thousand Euboic or

Phœnician talents, about four millions sterling, which vanquished

Carthage was condemned to pay within the term of fifty years,

were a slight acknowledgment of the superiority of Rome, and

cannot bear the least proportion with the taxes afterwards raised

both on the lands and on the persons of the inhabitants, when the

fertile coast of Africa was reduced into a province.

Spain, by a very singular fatality, was the Peru and Mexico of

the old world. The discovery of the rich western continent by the

Phœnicians, and the oppression of the simple natives, who were

compelled to labor in their own mines for the benefit of

strangers, form an exact type of the more recent history of

Spanish America. The Phœnicians were acquainted only with the

sea-coast of Spain; avarice, as well as ambition, carried the

arms of Rome and Carthage into the heart of the country, and

almost every part of the soil was found pregnant with copper,

silver, and gold. * Mention is made of a mine near Carthagena

which yielded every day twenty-five thousand drachmas of silver,

or about three hundred thousand pounds a year. Twenty thousand

pound weight of gold was annually received from the provinces of

Asturia, Gallicia, and Lusitania.

We want both leisure and materials to pursue this curious inquiry

through the many potent states that were annihilated in the Roman

empire. Some notion, however, may be formed of the revenue of the

provinces where considerable wealth had been deposited by nature,

or collected by man, if we observe the severe attention that was

directed to the abodes of solitude and sterility. Augustus once

received a petition from the inhabitants of Gyarus, humbly

praying that they might be relieved from one third of their

excessive impositions. Their whole tax amounted indeed to no more

than one hundred and fifty drachms, or about five pounds: but

Gyarus was a little island, or rather a rock, of the Ægean Sea,

destitute of fresh water and every necessary of life, and

inhabited only by a few wretched fishermen.

From the faint glimmerings of such doubtful and scattered lights,

we should be inclined to believe, 1st, That (with every fair

allowance for the differences of times and circumstances) the

general income of the Roman provinces could seldom amount to less

than fifteen or twenty millions of our money; and, 2dly, That so

ample a revenue must have been fully adequate to all the expenses

of the moderate government instituted by Augustus, whose court

was the modest family of a private senator, and whose military

establishment was calculated for the defence of the frontiers,

without any aspiring views of conquest, or any serious

apprehension of a foreign invasion.

Notwithstanding the seeming probability of both these

conclusions, the latter of them at least is positively disowned

by the language and conduct of Augustus. It is not easy to

determine whether, on this occasion, he acted as the common

father of the Roman world, or as the oppressor of liberty;

whether he wished to relieve the provinces, or to impoverish the

senate and the equestrian order. But no sooner had he assumed the

reins of government, than he frequently intimated the

insufficiency of the tributes, and the necessity of throwing an

equitable proportion of the public burden upon Rome and Italy. In

the prosecution of this unpopular design, he advanced, however,

by cautious and well-weighed steps. The introduction of customs

was followed by the establishment of an excise, and the scheme of

taxation was completed by an artful assessment on the real and

personal property of the Roman citizens, who had been exempted

from any kind of contribution above a century and a half.

I. In a great empire like that of Rome, a natural balance of

money must have gradually established itself. It has been already

observed, that as the wealth of the provinces was attracted to

the capital by the strong hand of conquest and power, so a

considerable part of it was restored to the industrious provinces

by the gentle influence of commerce and arts. In the reign of

Augustus and his successors, duties were imposed on every kind of

merchandise, which through a thousand channels flowed to the

great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatsoever manner the

law was expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the

provincial merchant, who paid the tax. The rate of the customs

varied from the eighth to the fortieth part of the value of the

commodity; and we have a right to suppose that the variation was

directed by the unalterable maxims of policy; that a higher duty

was fixed on the articles of luxury than on those of necessity,

and that the productions raised or manufactured by the labor of

the subjects of the empire were treated with more indulgence than

was shown to the pernicious, or at least the unpopular, commerce

of Arabia and India. There is still extant a long but imperfect

catalogue of eastern commodities, which about the time of

Alexander Severus were subject to the payment of duties;

cinnamon, myrrh, pepper, ginger, and the whole tribe of

aromatics; a great variety of precious stones, among which the

diamond was the most remarkable for its price, and the emerald

for its beauty; Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons, silks,

both raw and manufactured, ebony ivory, and eunuchs. We may

observe that the use and value of those effeminate slaves

gradually rose with the decline of the empire.

II. The excise, introduced by Augustus after the civil wars, was

extremely moderate, but it was general. It seldom exceeded one

per cent.; but it comprehended whatever was sold in the markets

or by public auction, from the most considerable purchases of

lands and houses, to those minute objects which can only derive a

value from their infinite multitude and daily consumption. Such a

tax, as it affects the body of the people, has ever been the

occasion of clamor and discontent. An emperor well acquainted

with the wants and resources of the state was obliged to declare,

by a public edict, that the support of the army depended in a

great measure on the produce of the excise.*

III. When Augustus resolved to establish a permanent military

force for the defence of his government against foreign and

domestic enemies, he instituted a peculiar treasury for the pay

of the soldiers, the rewards of the veterans, and the

extra-ordinary expenses of war. The ample revenue of the excise,

though peculiarly appropriated to those uses, was found

inadequate. To supply the deficiency, the emperor suggested a new

tax of five per cent. on all legacies and inheritances. But the

nobles of Rome were more tenacious of property than of freedom.

Their indignant murmurs were received by Augustus with his usual

temper. He candidly referred the whole business to the senate,

and exhorted them to provide for the public service by some other

expedient of a less odious nature. They were divided and

perplexed. He insinuated to them, that their obstinacy would

oblige him to _propose_ a general land tax and capitation. They

acquiesced in silence. The new imposition on legacies and

inheritances was, however, mitigated by some restrictions. It did

not take place unless the object was of a certain value, most

probably of fifty or a hundred pieces of gold; nor could it be

exacted from the nearest of kin on the father’s side. When the

rights of nature and property were thus secured, it seemed

reasonable, that a stranger, or a distant relation, who acquired

an unexpected accession of fortune, should cheerfully resign a

twentieth part of it, for the benefit of the state.

Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every wealthy

community, was most happily suited to the situation of the

Romans, who could frame their arbitrary wills, according to the

dictates of reason or caprice, without any restraint from the

modern fetters of entails and settlements. From various causes,

the partiality of paternal affection often lost its influence

over the stern patriots of the commonwealth, and the dissolute

nobles of the empire; and if the father bequeathed to his son the

fourth part of his estate, he removed all ground of legal

complaint. But a rich childish old man was a domestic tyrant, and

his power increased with his years and infirmities. A servile

crowd, in which he frequently reckoned prætors and consuls,

courted his smiles, pampered his avarice, applauded his follies,

served his passions, and waited with impatience for his death.

The arts of attendance and flattery were formed into a most

lucrative science; those who professed it acquired a peculiar

appellation; and the whole city, according to the lively

descriptions of satire, was divided between two parties, the

hunters and their game. Yet, while so many unjust and extravagant

wills were every day dictated by cunning and subscribed by folly,

a few were the result of rational esteem and virtuous gratitude.

Cicero, who had so often defended the lives and fortunes of his

fellow-citizens, was rewarded with legacies to the amount of a

hundred and seventy thousand pounds; nor do the friends of the

younger Pliny seem to have been less generous to that amiable

orator. Whatever was the motive of the testator, the treasury

claimed, without distinction, the twentieth part of his estate:

and in the course of two or three generations, the whole property

of the subject must have gradually passed through the coffers of

the state.

In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince,

from a desire of popularity, and perhaps from a blind impulse of

benevolence, conceived a wish of abolishing the oppression of the

customs and excise. The wisest senators applauded his

magnanimity: but they diverted him from the execution of a design

which would have dissolved the strength and resources of the

republic. Had it indeed been possible to realize this dream of

fancy, such princes as Trajan and the Antonines would surely have

embraced with ardor the glorious opportunity of conferring so

signal an obligation on mankind. Satisfied, however, with

alleviating the public burden, they attempted not to remove it.

The mildness and precision of their laws ascertained the rule and

measure of taxation, and protected the subject of every rank

against arbitrary interpretations, antiquated claims, and the

insolent vexation of the farmers of the revenue. For it is

somewhat singular, that, in every age, the best and wisest of the

Roman governors persevered in this pernicious method of

collecting the principal branches at least of the excise and

customs.

The sentiments, and, indeed, the situation, of Caracalla were

very different from those of the Antonines. Inattentive, or

rather averse, to the welfare of his people, he found himself

under the necessity of gratifying the insatiate avarice which he

had excited in the army. Of the several impositions introduced by

Augustus, the twentieth on inheritances and legacies was the most

fruitful, as well as the most comprehensive. As its influence was

not confined to Rome or Italy, the produce continually increased

with the gradual extension of the Roman City. The new citizens,

though charged, on equal terms, with the payment of new taxes,

which had not affected them as subjects, derived an ample

compensation from the rank they obtained, the privileges they

acquired, and the fair prospect of honors and fortune that was

thrown open to their ambition. But the favor which implied a

distinction was lost in the prodigality of Caracalla, and the

reluctant provincials were compelled to assume the vain title,

and the real obligations, of Roman citizens. * Nor was the

rapacious son of Severus contented with such a measure of

taxation as had appeared sufficient to his moderate predecessors.

Instead of a twentieth, he exacted a tenth of all legacies and

inheritances; and during his reign (for the ancient proportion

was restored after his death) he crushed alike every part of the

empire under the weight of his iron sceptre.

When all the provincials became liable to the peculiar

impositions of Roman citizens, they seemed to acquire a legal

exemption from the tributes which they had paid in their former

condition of subjects. Such were not the maxims of government

adopted by Caracalla and his pretended son. The old as well as

the new taxes were, at the same time, levied in the provinces. It

was reserved for the virtue of Alexander to relieve them in a

great measure from this intolerable grievance, by reducing the

tributes to a thirteenth part of the sum exacted at the time of

his accession. It is impossible to conjecture the motive that

engaged him to spare so trifling a remnant of the public evil;

but the noxious weed, which had not been totally eradicated,

again sprang up with the most luxuriant growth, and in the

succeeding age darkened the Roman world with its deadly shade. In

the course of this history, we shall be too often summoned to

explain the land tax, the capitation, and the heavy contributions

of corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted from the

provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the capital.

As long as Rome and Italy were respected as the centre of

government, a national spirit was preserved by the ancient, and

insensibly imbibed by the adopted, citizens. The principal

commands of the army were filled by men who had received a

liberal education, were well instructed in the advantages of laws

and letters, and who had risen, by equal steps, through the

regular succession of civil and military honors. To their

influence and example we may partly ascribe the modest obedience

of the legions during the two first centuries of the Imperial

history.

But when the last enclosure of the Roman constitution was

trampled down by Caracalla, the separation of professions

gradually succeeded to the distinction of ranks. The more

polished citizens of the internal provinces were alone qualified

to act as lawyers and magistrates. The rougher trade of arms was

abandoned to the peasants and barbarians of the frontiers, who

knew no country but their camp, no science but that of war, no

civil laws, and scarcely those of military discipline. With

bloody hands, savage manners, and desperate resolutions, they

sometimes guarded, but much oftener subverted, the throne of the

emperors.

Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of

Maximin.—Part I.

The Elevation And Tyranny Of Maximin.—Rebellion In Africa And Italy,

Under The Authority Of The Senate.—Civil Wars And Seditions.—Violent

Deaths Of Maximin And His Son, Of Maximus And Balbinus, And Of The

Three Gordians.—Usurpation And Secular Games Of Philip.

Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the

world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope

for ridicule. Is it possible to relate without an indignant

smile, that, on the father’s decease, the property of a nation,

like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, as yet

unknown to mankind and to himself; and that the bravest warriors

and the wisest statesmen, relinquishing their natural right to

empire, approach the royal cradle with bended knees and

protestations of inviolable fidelity? Satire and declamation may

paint these obvious topics in the most dazzling colors, but our

more serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice, that

establishes a rule of succession, independent of the passions of

mankind; and we shall cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which

deprives the multitude of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal,

power of giving themselves a master.

In the cool shade of retirement, we may easily devise imaginary

forms of government, in which the sceptre shall be constantly

bestowed on the most worthy, by the free and incorrupt suffrage

of the whole community. Experience overturns these airy fabrics,

and teaches us, that in a large society, the election of a

monarch can never devolve to the wisest, or to the most numerous

part of the people. The army is the only order of men

sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and

powerful enough to impose them on the rest of their

fellow-citizens; but the temper of soldiers, habituated at once

to violence and to slavery, renders them very unfit guardians of

a legal, or even a civil constitution. Justice, humanity, or

political wisdom, are qualities they are too little acquainted

with in themselves, to appreciate them in others. Valor will

acquire their esteem, and liberality will purchase their

suffrage; but the first of these merits is often lodged in the

most savage breasts; the latter can only exert itself at the

expense of the public; and both may be turned against the

possessor of the throne, by the ambition of a daring rival.

The superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the

sanction of time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least

invidious of all distinctions among mankind. The acknowledged

right extinguishes the hopes of faction, and the conscious

security disarms the cruelty of the monarch. To the firm

establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful succession and

mild administration of European monarchies. To the defect of it

we must attribute the frequent civil wars, through which an

Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his

fathers. Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is

usually limited to the princes of the reigning house, and as soon

as the more fortunate competitor has removed his brethren by the

sword and the bowstring, he no longer entertains any jealousy of

his meaner subjects. But the Roman empire, after the authority of

the senate had sunk into contempt, was a vast scene of confusion.

The royal, and even noble, families of the provinces had long

since been led in triumph before the car of the haughty

republicans. The ancient families of Rome had successively fallen

beneath the tyranny of the Cæsars; and whilst those princes were

shackled by the forms of a commonwealth, and disappointed by the

repeated failure of their posterity, it was impossible that any

idea of hereditary succession should have taken root in the minds

of their subjects. The right to the throne, which none could

claim from birth, every one assumed from merit. The daring hopes

of ambition were set loose from the salutary restraints of law

and prejudice; and the meanest of mankind might, without folly,

entertain a hope of being raised by valor and fortune to a rank

in the army, in which a single crime would enable him to wrest

the sceptre of the world from his feeble and unpopular master.

After the murder of Alexander Severus, and the elevation of

Maximin, no emperor could think himself safe upon the throne, and

every barbarian peasant of the frontier might aspire to that

august, but dangerous station.

About thirty-two years before that event, the emperor Severus,

returning from an eastern expedition, halted in Thrace, to

celebrate, with military games, the birthday of his younger son,

Geta. The country flocked in crowds to behold their sovereign,

and a young barbarian of gigantic stature earnestly solicited, in

his rude dialect, that he might be allowed to contend for the

prize of wrestling. As the pride of discipline would have been

disgraced in the overthrow of a Roman soldier by a Thracian

peasant, he was matched with the stoutest followers of the camp,

sixteen of whom he successively laid on the ground. His victory

was rewarded by some trifling gifts, and a permission to enlist

in the troops. The next day, the happy barbarian was

distinguished above a crowd of recruits, dancing and exulting

after the fashion of his country. As soon as he perceived that he

had attracted the emperor’s notice, he instantly ran up to his

horse, and followed him on foot, without the least appearance of

fatigue, in a long and rapid career. “Thracian,” said Severus

with astonishment, “art thou disposed to wrestle after thy race?”

“Most willingly, sir,” replied the unwearied youth; and, almost

in a breath, overthrew seven of the strongest soldiers in the

army. A gold collar was the prize of his matchless vigor and

activity, and he was immediately appointed to serve in the

horseguards who always attended on the person of the sovereign.

Maximin, for that was his name, though born on the territories of

the empire, descended from a mixed race of barbarians. His father

was a Goth, and his mother of the nation of the Alani. He

displayed on every occasion a valor equal to his strength; and

his native fierceness was soon tempered or disguised by the

knowledge of the world. Under the reign of Severus and his son,

he obtained the rank of centurion, with the favor and esteem of

both those princes, the former of whom was an excellent judge of

merit. Gratitude forbade Maximin to serve under the assassin of

Caracalla. Honor taught him to decline the effeminate insults of

Elagabalus. On the accession of Alexander he returned to court,

and was placed by that prince in a station useful to the service,

and honorable to himself. The fourth legion, to which he was

appointed tribune, soon became, under his care, the best

disciplined of the whole army. With the general applause of the

soldiers, who bestowed on their favorite hero the names of Ajax

and Hercules, he was successively promoted to the first military

command; and had not he still retained too much of his savage

origin, the emperor might perhaps have given his own sister in

marriage to the son of Maximin.

Instead of securing his fidelity, these favors served only to

inflame the ambition of the Thracian peasant, who deemed his

fortune inadequate to his merit, as long as he was constrained to

acknowledge a superior. Though a stranger to real wisdom, he was

not devoid of a selfish cunning, which showed him that the

emperor had lost the affection of the army, and taught him to

improve their discontent to his own advantage. It is easy for

faction and calumny to shed their poison on the administration of

the best of princes, and to accuse even their virtues by artfully

confounding them with those vices to which they bear the nearest

affinity. The troops listened with pleasure to the emissaries of

Maximin. They blushed at their own ignominious patience, which,

during thirteen years, had supported the vexatious discipline

imposed by an effeminate Syrian, the timid slave of his mother

and of the senate. It was time, they cried, to cast away that

useless phantom of the civil power, and to elect for their prince

and general a real soldier, educated in camps, exercised in war,

who would assert the glory, and distribute among his companions

the treasures, of the empire. A great army was at that time

assembled on the banks of the Rhine, under the command of the

emperor himself, who, almost immediately after his return from

the Persian war, had been obliged to march against the barbarians

of Germany. The important care of training and reviewing the new

levies was intrusted to Maximin. One day, as he entered the field

of exercise, the troops, either from a sudden impulse, or a

formed conspiracy, saluted him emperor, silenced by their loud

acclamations his obstinate refusal, and hastened to consummate

their rebellion by the murder of Alexander Severus.

The circumstances of his death are variously related. The

writers, who suppose that he died in ignorance of the ingratitude

and ambition of Maximin affirm that, after taking a frugal repast

in the sight of the army, he retired to sleep, and that, about

the seventh hour of the day, a part of his own guards broke into

the imperial tent, and, with many wounds, assassinated their

virtuous and unsuspecting prince. If we credit another, and

indeed a more probable account, Maximin was invested with the

purple by a numerous detachment, at the distance of several miles

from the head-quarters; and he trusted for success rather to the

secret wishes than to the public declarations of the great army.

Alexander had sufficient time to awaken a faint sense of loyalty

among the troops; but their reluctant professions of fidelity

quickly vanished on the appearance of Maximin, who declared

himself the friend and advocate of the military order, and was

unanimously acknowledged emperor of the Romans by the applauding

legions. The son of Mamæa, betrayed and deserted, withdrew into

his tent, desirous at least to conceal his approaching fate from

the insults of the multitude. He was soon followed by a tribune

and some centurions, the ministers of death; but instead of

receiving with manly resolution the inevitable stroke, his

unavailing cries and entreaties disgraced the last moments of his

life, and converted into contempt some portion of the just pity

which his innocence and misfortunes must inspire. His mother,

Mamæa, whose pride and avarice he loudly accused as the cause of

his ruin, perished with her son. The most faithful of his friends

were sacrificed to the first fury of the soldiers. Others were

reserved for the more deliberate cruelty of the usurper; and

those who experienced the mildest treatment, were stripped of

their employments, and ignominiously driven from the court and

army.

The former tyrants, Caligula and Nero, Commodus, and Caracalla,

were all dissolute and unexperienced youths, educated in the

purple, and corrupted by the pride of empire, the luxury of Rome,

and the perfidious voice of flattery. The cruelty of Maximin was

derived from a different source, the fear of contempt. Though he

depended on the attachment of the soldiers, who loved him for

virtues like their own, he was conscious that his mean and

barbarian origin, his savage appearance, and his total ignorance

of the arts and institutions of civil life, formed a very

unfavorable contrast with the amiable manners of the unhappy

Alexander. He remembered, that, in his humbler fortune, he had

often waited before the door of the haughty nobles of Rome, and

had been denied admittance by the insolence of their slaves. He

recollected too the friendship of a few who had relieved his

poverty, and assisted his rising hopes. But those who had

spurned, and those who had protected, the Thracian, were guilty

of the same crime, the knowledge of his original obscurity. For

this crime many were put to death; and by the execution of

several of his benefactors, Maximin published, in characters of

blood, the indelible history of his baseness and ingratitude.

The dark and sanguinary soul of the tyrant was open to every

suspicion against those among his subjects who were the most

distinguished by their birth or merit. Whenever he was alarmed

with the sound of treason, his cruelty was unbounded and

unrelenting. A conspiracy against his life was either discovered

or imagined, and Magnus, a consular senator, was named as the

principal author of it. Without a witness, without a trial, and

without an opportunity of defence, Magnus, with four thousand of

his supposed accomplices, was put to death. Italy and the whole

empire were infested with innumerable spies and informers. On the

slightest accusation, the first of the Roman nobles, who had

governed provinces, commanded armies, and been adorned with the

consular and triumphal ornaments, were chained on the public

carriages, and hurried away to the emperor’s presence.

Confiscation, exile, or simple death, were esteemed uncommon

instances of his lenity. Some of the unfortunate sufferers he

ordered to be sewed up in the hides of slaughtered animals,

others to be exposed to wild beasts, others again to be beaten to

death with clubs. During the three years of his reign, he

disdained to visit either Rome or Italy. His camp, occasionally

removed from the banks of the Rhine to those of the Danube, was

the seat of his stern despotism, which trampled on every

principle of law and justice, and was supported by the avowed

power of the sword. No man of noble birth, elegant

accomplishments, or knowledge of civil business, was suffered

near his person; and the court of a Roman emperor revived the

idea of those ancient chiefs of slaves and gladiators, whose

savage power had left a deep impression of terror and

detestation.

As long as the cruelty of Maximin was confined to the illustrious

senators, or even to the bold adventurers, who in the court or

army expose themselves to the caprice of fortune, the body of the

people viewed their sufferings with indifference, or perhaps with

pleasure. But the tyrant’s avarice, stimulated by the insatiate

desires of the soldiers, at length attacked the public property.

Every city of the empire was possessed of an independent revenue,

destined to purchase corn for the multitude, and to supply the

expenses of the games and entertainments. By a single act of

authority, the whole mass of wealth was at once confiscated for

the use of the Imperial treasury. The temples were stripped of

their most valuable offerings of gold and silver, and the statues

of gods, heroes, and emperors, were melted down and coined into

money. These impious orders could not be executed without tumults

and massacres, as in many places the people chose rather to die

in the defence of their altars, than to behold in the midst of

peace their cities exposed to the rapine and cruelty of war. The

soldiers themselves, among whom this sacrilegious plunder was

distributed, received it with a blush; and hardened as they were

in acts of violence, they dreaded the just reproaches of their

friends and relations. Throughout the Roman world a general cry

of indignation was heard, imploring vengeance on the common enemy

of human kind; and at length, by an act of private oppression, a

peaceful and unarmed province was driven into rebellion against

him.

The procurator of Africa was a servant worthy of such a master,

who considered the fines and confiscations of the rich as one of

the most fruitful branches of the Imperial revenue. An iniquitous

sentence had been pronounced against some opulent youths of that

country, the execution of which would have stripped them of far

the greater part of their patrimony. In this extremity, a

resolution that must either complete or prevent their ruin, was

dictated by despair. A respite of three days, obtained with

difficulty from the rapacious treasurer, was employed in

collecting from their estates a great number of slaves and

peasants blindly devoted to the commands of their lords, and

armed with the rustic weapons of clubs and axes. The leaders of

the conspiracy, as they were admitted to the audience of the

procurator, stabbed him with the daggers concealed under their

garments, and, by the assistance of their tumultuary train,

seized on the little town of Thysdrus, and erected the standard

of rebellion against the sovereign of the Roman empire. They

rested their hopes on the hatred of mankind against Maximin, and

they judiciously resolved to oppose to that detested tyrant an

emperor whose mild virtues had already acquired the love and

esteem of the Romans, and whose authority over the province would

give weight and stability to the enterprise. Gordianus, their

proconsul, and the object of their choice, refused, with

unfeigned reluctance, the dangerous honor, and begged with tears,

that they would suffer him to terminate in peace a long and

innocent life, without staining his feeble age with civil blood.

Their menaces compelled him to accept the Imperial purple, his

only refuge, indeed, against the jealous cruelty of Maximin;

since, according to the reasoning of tyrants, those who have been

esteemed worthy of the throne deserve death, and those who

deliberate have already rebelled.

The family of Gordianus was one of the most illustrious of the

Roman senate. On the father’s side he was descended from the

Gracchi; on his mother’s, from the emperor Trajan. A great estate

enabled him to support the dignity of his birth, and in the

enjoyment of it, he displayed an elegant taste and beneficent

disposition. The palace in Rome, formerly inhabited by the great

Pompey, had been, during several generations, in the possession

of Gordian’s family. It was distinguished by ancient trophies of

naval victories, and decorated with the works of modern painting.

His villa on the road to Præneste was celebrated for baths of

singular beauty and extent, for three stately rooms of a hundred

feet in length, and for a magnificent portico, supported by two

hundred columns of the four most curious and costly sorts of

marble. The public shows exhibited at his expense, and in which

the people were entertained with many hundreds of wild beasts and

gladiators, seem to surpass the fortune of a subject; and whilst

the liberality of other magistrates was confined to a few solemn

festivals at Rome, the magnificence of Gordian was repeated, when

he was ædile, every month in the year, and extended, during his

consulship, to the principal cities of Italy. He was twice

elevated to the last-mentioned dignity, by Caracalla and by

Alexander; for he possessed the uncommon talent of acquiring the

esteem of virtuous princes, without alarming the jealousy of

tyrants. His long life was innocently spent in the study of

letters and the peaceful honors of Rome; and, till he was named

proconsul of Africa by the voice of the senate and the

approbation of Alexander, he appears prudently to have declined

the command of armies and the government of provinces. * As long

as that emperor lived, Africa was happy under the administration

of his worthy representative: after the barbarous Maximin had

usurped the throne, Gordianus alleviated the miseries which he

was unable to prevent. When he reluctantly accepted the purple,

he was above fourscore years old; a last and valuable remains of

the happy age of the Antonines, whose virtues he revived in his

own conduct, and celebrated in an elegant poem of thirty books.

With the venerable proconsul, his son, who had accompanied him

into Africa as his lieutenant, was likewise declared emperor. His

manners were less pure, but his character was equally amiable

with that of his father. Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and

a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the variety of

his inclinations; and from the productions which he left behind

him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were

designed for use rather than for ostentation. The Roman people

acknowledged in the features of the younger Gordian the

resemblance of Scipio Africanus, recollected with pleasure that

his mother was the granddaughter of Antoninus Pius, and rested

the public hope on those latent virtues which had hitherto, as

they fondly imagined, lain concealed in the luxurious indolence

of private life.

As soon as the Gordians had appeased the first tumult of a

popular election, they removed their court to Carthage. They were

received with the acclamations of the Africans, who honored their

virtues, and who, since the visit of Hadrian, had never beheld

the majesty of a Roman emperor. But these vain acclamations

neither strengthened nor confirmed the title of the Gordians.

They were induced by principle, as well as interest, to solicit

the approbation of the senate; and a deputation of the noblest

provincials was sent, without delay, to Rome, to relate and

justify the conduct of their countrymen, who, having long

suffered with patience, were at length resolved to act with

vigor. The letters of the new princes were modest and respectful,

excusing the necessity which had obliged them to accept the

Imperial title; but submitting their election and their fate to

the supreme judgment of the senate.

The inclinations of the senate were neither doubtful nor divided.

The birth and noble alliances of the Gordians had intimately

connected them with the most illustrious houses of Rome. Their

fortune had created many dependants in that assembly, their merit

had acquired many friends. Their mild administration opened the

flattering prospect of the restoration, not only of the civil but

even of the republican government. The terror of military

violence, which had first obliged the senate to forget the murder

of Alexander, and to ratify the election of a barbarian peasant,

now produced a contrary effect, and provoked them to assert the

injured rights of freedom and humanity. The hatred of Maximin

towards the senate was declared and implacable; the tamest

submission had not appeased his fury, the most cautious innocence

would not remove his suspicions; and even the care of their own

safety urged them to share the fortune of an enterprise, of which

(if unsuccessful) they were sure to be the first victims. These

considerations, and perhaps others of a more private nature, were

debated in a previous conference of the consuls and the

magistrates. As soon as their resolution was decided, they

convoked in the temple of Castor the whole body of the senate,

according to an ancient form of secrecy, calculated to awaken

their attention, and to conceal their decrees. “Conscript

fathers,” said the consul Syllanus, “the two Gordians, both of

consular dignity, the one your proconsul, the other your

lieutenant, have been declared emperors by the general consent of

Africa. Let us return thanks,” he boldly continued, “to the youth

of Thysdrus; let us return thanks to the faithful people of

Carthage, our generous deliverers from a horrid monster—Why do

you hear me thus coolly, thus timidly? Why do you cast those

anxious looks on each other? Why hesitate? Maximin is a public

enemy! may his enmity soon expire with him, and may we long enjoy

the prudence and felicity of Gordian the father, the valor and

constancy of Gordian the son!” The noble ardor of the consul

revived the languid spirit of the senate. By a unanimous decree,

the election of the Gordians was ratified, Maximin, his son, and

his adherents, were pronounced enemies of their country, and

liberal rewards were offered to whomsoever had the courage and

good fortune to destroy them.

During the emperor’s absence, a detachment of the Prætorian

guards remained at Rome, to protect, or rather to command, the

capital. The præfect Vitalianus had signalized his fidelity to

Maximin, by the alacrity with which he had obeyed, and even

prevented the cruel mandates of the tyrant. His death alone could

rescue the authority of the senate, and the lives of the senators

from a state of danger and suspense. Before their resolves had

transpired, a quæstor and some tribunes were commissioned to take

his devoted life. They executed the order with equal boldness and

success; and, with their bloody daggers in their hands, ran

through the streets, proclaiming to the people and the soldiers

the news of the happy revolution. The enthusiasm of liberty was

seconded by the promise of a large donative, in lands and money;

the statues of Maximin were thrown down; the capital of the

empire acknowledged, with transport, the authority of the two

Gordians and the senate; and the example of Rome was followed by

the rest of Italy.

A new spirit had arisen in that assembly, whose long patience had

been insulted by wanton despotism and military license. The

senate assumed the reins of government, and, with a calm

intrepidity, prepared to vindicate by arms the cause of freedom.

Among the consular senators recommended by their merit and

services to the favor of the emperor Alexander, it was easy to

select twenty, not unequal to the command of an army, and the

conduct of a war. To these was the defence of Italy intrusted.

Each was appointed to act in his respective department,

authorized to enroll and discipline the Italian youth; and

instructed to fortify the ports and highways, against the

impending invasion of Maximin. A number of deputies, chosen from

the most illustrious of the senatorian and equestrian orders,

were despatched at the same time to the governors of the several

provinces, earnestly conjuring them to fly to the assistance of

their country, and to remind the nations of their ancient ties of

friendship with the Roman senate and people. The general respect

with which these deputies were received, and the zeal of Italy

and the provinces in favor of the senate, sufficiently prove that

the subjects of Maximin were reduced to that uncommon distress,

in which the body of the people has more to fear from oppression

than from resistance. The consciousness of that melancholy truth,

inspires a degree of persevering fury, seldom to be found in

those civil wars which are artificially supported for the benefit

of a few factious and designing leaders.

For while the cause of the Gordians was embraced with such

diffusive ardor, the Gordians themselves were no more. The feeble

court of Carthage was alarmed by the rapid approach of

Capelianus, governor of Mauritania, who, with a small band of

veterans, and a fierce host of barbarians, attacked a faithful,

but unwarlike province. The younger Gordian sallied out to meet

the enemy at the head of a few guards, and a numerous

undisciplined multitude, educated in the peaceful luxury of

Carthage. His useless valor served only to procure him an

honorable death on the field of battle. His aged father, whose

reign had not exceeded thirty-six days, put an end to his life on

the first news of the defeat. Carthage, destitute of defence,

opened her gates to the conqueror, and Africa was exposed to the

rapacious cruelty of a slave, obliged to satisfy his unrelenting

master with a large account of blood and treasure.

The fate of the Gordians filled Rome with just but unexpected

terror. The senate, convoked in the temple of Concord, affected

to transact the common business of the day; and seemed to

decline, with trembling anxiety, the consideration of their own

and the public danger. A silent consternation prevailed in the

assembly, till a senator, of the name and family of Trajan,

awakened his brethren from their fatal lethargy. He represented

to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had been

long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by

nature, and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy,

at the head of the military force of the empire; and that their

only remaining alternative was either to meet him bravely in the

field, or tamely to expect the tortures and ignominious death

reserved for unsuccessful rebellion. “We have lost,” continued

he, “two excellent princes; but unless we desert ourselves, the

hopes of the republic have not perished with the Gordians. Many

are the senators whose virtues have deserved, and whose abilities

would sustain, the Imperial dignity. Let us elect two emperors,

one of whom may conduct the war against the public enemy, whilst

his colleague remains at Rome to direct the civil administration.

I cheerfully expose myself to the danger and envy of the

nomination, and give my vote in favor of Maximus and Balbinus.

Ratify my choice, conscript fathers, or appoint in their place,

others more worthy of the empire.” The general apprehension

silenced the whispers of jealousy; the merit of the candidates

was universally acknowledged; and the house resounded with the

sincere acclamations of “Long life and victory to the emperors

Maximus and Balbinus. You are happy in the judgment of the

senate; may the republic be happy under your administration!”

Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of

Maximin.—Part II.

The virtues and the reputation of the new emperors justified the

most sanguine hopes of the Romans. The various nature of their

talents seemed to appropriate to each his peculiar department of

peace and war, without leaving room for jealous emulation.

Balbinus was an admired orator, a poet of distinguished fame, and

a wise magistrate, who had exercised with innocence and applause

the civil jurisdiction in almost all the interior provinces of

the empire. His birth was noble, his fortune affluent, his

manners liberal and affable. In him the love of pleasure was

corrected by a sense of dignity, nor had the habits of ease

deprived him of a capacity for business. The mind of Maximus was

formed in a rougher mould. By his valor and abilities he had

raised himself from the meanest origin to the first employments

of the state and army. His victories over the Sarmatians and the

Germans, the austerity of his life, and the rigid impartiality of

his justice, while he was a Præfect of the city, commanded the

esteem of a people whose affections were engaged in favor of the

more amiable Balbinus. The two colleagues had both been consuls,

(Balbinus had twice enjoyed that honorable office,) both had been

named among the twenty lieutenants of the senate; and since the

one was sixty and the other seventy-four years old, they had both

attained the full maturity of age and experience.

After the senate had conferred on Maximus and Balbinus an equal

portion of the consular and tribunitian powers, the title of

Fathers of their country, and the joint office of Supreme

Pontiff, they ascended to the Capitol to return thanks to the

gods, protectors of Rome. The solemn rites of sacrifice were

disturbed by a sedition of the people. The licentious multitude

neither loved the rigid Maximus, nor did they sufficiently fear

the mild and humane Balbinus. Their increasing numbers surrounded

the temple of Jupiter; with obstinate clamors they asserted their

inherent right of consenting to the election of their sovereign;

and demanded, with an apparent moderation, that, besides the two

emperors, chosen by the senate, a third should be added of the

family of the Gordians, as a just return of gratitude to those

princes who had sacrificed their lives for the republic. At the

head of the city-guards, and the youth of the equestrian order,

Maximus and Balbinus attempted to cut their way through the

seditious multitude. The multitude, armed with sticks and stones,

drove them back into the Capitol. It is prudent to yield when the

contest, whatever may be the issue of it, must be fatal to both

parties. A boy, only thirteen years of age, the grandson of the

elder, and nephew * of the younger Gordian, was produced to the

people, invested with the ornaments and title of Cæsar. The

tumult was appeased by this easy condescension; and the two

emperors, as soon as they had been peaceably acknowledged in

Rome, prepared to defend Italy against the common enemy.

Whilst in Rome and Africa, revolutions succeeded each other with

such amazing rapidity, that the mind of Maximin was agitated by

the most furious passions. He is said to have received the news

of the rebellion of the Gordians, and of the decree of the senate

against him, not with the temper of a man, but the rage of a wild

beast; which, as it could not discharge itself on the distant

senate, threatened the life of his son, of his friends, and of

all who ventured to approach his person. The grateful

intelligence of the death of the Gordians was quickly followed by

the assurance that the senate, laying aside all hopes of pardon

or accommodation, had substituted in their room two emperors,

with whose merit he could not be unacquainted. Revenge was the

only consolation left to Maximin, and revenge could only be

obtained by arms. The strength of the legions had been assembled

by Alexander from all parts of the empire. Three successful

campaigns against the Germans and the Sarmatians, had raised

their fame, confirmed their discipline, and even increased their

numbers, by filling the ranks with the flower of the barbarian

youth. The life of Maximin had been spent in war, and the candid

severity of history cannot refuse him the valor of a soldier, or

even the abilities of an experienced general. It might naturally

be expected, that a prince of such a character, instead of

suffering the rebellion to gain stability by delay, should

immediately have marched from the banks of the Danube to those of

the Tyber, and that his victorious army, instigated by contempt

for the senate, and eager to gather the spoils of Italy, should

have burned with impatience to finish the easy and lucrative

conquest. Yet as far as we can trust to the obscure chronology of

that period, it appears that the operations of some foreign war

deferred the Italian expedition till the ensuing spring. From the

prudent conduct of Maximin, we may learn that the savage features

of his character have been exaggerated by the pencil of party,

that his passions, however impetuous, submitted to the force of

reason, and that the barbarian possessed something of the

generous spirit of Sylla, who subdued the enemies of Rome before

he suffered himself to revenge his private injuries.

When the troops of Maximin, advancing in excellent order, arrived

at the foot of the Julian Alps, they were terrified by the

silence and desolation that reigned on the frontiers of Italy.

The villages and open towns had been abandoned on their approach

by the inhabitants, the cattle was driven away, the provisions

removed or destroyed, the bridges broken down, nor was any thing

left which could afford either shelter or subsistence to an

invader. Such had been the wise orders of the generals of the

senate: whose design was to protract the war, to ruin the army of

Maximin by the slow operation of famine, and to consume his

strength in the sieges of the principal cities of Italy, which

they had plentifully stored with men and provisions from the

deserted country. Aquileia received and withstood the first shock

of the invasion. The streams that issue from the head of the

Hadriatic Gulf, swelled by the melting of the winter snows,

opposed an unexpected obstacle to the arms of Maximin. At length,

on a singular bridge, constructed with art and difficulty, of

large hogsheads, he transported his army to the opposite bank,

rooted up the beautiful vineyards in the neighborhood of

Aquileia, demolished the suburbs, and employed the timber of the

buildings in the engines and towers, with which on every side he

attacked the city. The walls, fallen to decay during the security

of a long peace, had been hastily repaired on this sudden

emergency: but the firmest defence of Aquileia consisted in the

constancy of the citizens; all ranks of whom, instead of being

dismayed, were animated by the extreme danger, and their

knowledge of the tyrant’s unrelenting temper. Their courage was

supported and directed by Crispinus and Menophilus, two of the

twenty lieutenants of the senate, who, with a small body of

regular troops, had thrown themselves into the besieged place.

The army of Maximin was repulsed in repeated attacks, his

machines destroyed by showers of artificial fire; and the

generous enthusiasm of the Aquileians was exalted into a

confidence of success, by the opinion that Belenus, their tutelar

deity, combated in person in the defence of his distressed

worshippers.

The emperor Maximus, who had advanced as far as Ravenna, to

secure that important place, and to hasten the military

preparations, beheld the event of the war in the more faithful

mirror of reason and policy. He was too sensible, that a single

town could not resist the persevering efforts of a great army;

and he dreaded, lest the enemy, tired with the obstinate

resistance of Aquileia, should on a sudden relinquish the

fruitless siege, and march directly towards Rome. The fate of the

empire and the cause of freedom must then be committed to the

chance of a battle; and what arms could he oppose to the veteran

legions of the Rhine and Danube? Some troops newly levied among

the generous but enervated youth of Italy; and a body of German

auxiliaries, on whose firmness, in the hour of trial, it was

dangerous to depend. In the midst of these just alarms, the

stroke of domestic conspiracy punished the crimes of Maximin, and

delivered Rome and the senate from the calamities that would

surely have attended the victory of an enraged barbarian.

The people of Aquileia had scarcely experienced any of the common

miseries of a siege; their magazines were plentifully supplied,

and several fountains within the walls assured them of an

inexhaustible resource of fresh water. The soldiers of Maximin

were, on the contrary, exposed to the inclemency of the season,

the contagion of disease, and the horrors of famine. The open

country was ruined, the rivers filled with the slain, and

polluted with blood. A spirit of despair and disaffection began

to diffuse itself among the troops; and as they were cut off from

all intelligence, they easily believed that the whole empire had

embraced the cause of the senate, and that they were left as

devoted victims to perish under the impregnable walls of

Aquileia. The fierce temper of the tyrant was exasperated by

disappointments, which he imputed to the cowardice of his army;

and his wanton and ill-timed cruelty, instead of striking terror,

inspired hatred, and a just desire of revenge. A party of

Prætorian guards, who trembled for their wives and children in

the camp of Alba, near Rome, executed the sentence of the senate.

Maximin, abandoned by his guards, was slain in his tent, with his

son (whom he had associated to the honors of the purple),

Anulinus the præfect, and the principal ministers of his tyranny.

The sight of their heads, borne on the point of spears, convinced

the citizens of Aquileia that the siege was at an end; the gates

of the city were thrown open, a liberal market was provided for

the hungry troops of Maximin, and the whole army joined in solemn

protestations of fidelity to the senate and the people of Rome,

and to their lawful emperors Maximus and Balbinus. Such was the

deserved fate of a brutal savage, destitute, as he has generally

been represented, of every sentiment that distinguishes a

civilized, or even a human being. The body was suited to the

soul. The stature of Maximin exceeded the measure of eight feet,

and circumstances almost incredible are related of his matchless

strength and appetite. Had he lived in a less enlightened age,

tradition and poetry might well have described him as one of

those monstrous giants, whose supernatural power was constantly

exerted for the destruction of mankind.

It is easier to conceive than to describe the universal joy of

the Roman world on the fall of the tyrant, the news of which is

said to have been carried in four days from Aquileia to Rome. The

return of Maximus was a triumphal procession; his colleague and

young Gordian went out to meet him, and the three princes made

their entry into the capital, attended by the ambassadors of

almost all the cities of Italy, saluted with the splendid

offerings of gratitude and superstition, and received with the

unfeigned acclamations of the senate and people, who persuaded

themselves that a golden age would succeed to an age of iron. The

conduct of the two emperors corresponded with these expectations.

They administered justice in person; and the rigor of the one was

tempered by the other’s clemency. The oppressive taxes with which

Maximin had loaded the rights of inheritance and succession, were

repealed, or at least moderated. Discipline was revived, and with

the advice of the senate many wise laws were enacted by their

imperial ministers, who endeavored to restore a civil

constitution on the ruins of military tyranny. “What reward may

we expect for delivering Rome from a monster?” was the question

asked by Maximus, in a moment of freedom and confidence. Balbinus

answered it without hesitation—“The love of the senate, of the

people, and of all mankind.” “Alas!” replied his more penetrating

colleague—“alas! I dread the hatred of the soldiers, and the

fatal effects of their resentment.” His apprehensions were but

too well justified by the event.

Whilst Maximus was preparing to defend Italy against the common

foe, Balbinus, who remained at Rome, had been engaged in scenes

of blood and intestine discord. Distrust and jealousy reigned in

the senate; and even in the temples where they assembled, every

senator carried either open or concealed arms. In the midst of

their deliberations, two veterans of the guards, actuated either

by curiosity or a sinister motive, audaciously thrust themselves

into the house, and advanced by degrees beyond the altar of

Victory. Gallicanus, a consular, and Mæcenas, a Prætorian

senator, viewed with indignation their insolent intrusion:

drawing their daggers, they laid the spies (for such they deemed

them) dead at the foot of the altar, and then, advancing to the

door of the senate, imprudently exhorted the multitude to

massacre the Prætorians, as the secret adherents of the tyrant.

Those who escaped the first fury of the tumult took refuge in the

camp, which they defended with superior advantage against the

reiterated attacks of the people, assisted by the numerous bands

of gladiators, the property of opulent nobles. The civil war

lasted many days, with infinite loss and confusion on both sides.

When the pipes were broken that supplied the camp with water, the

Prætorians were reduced to intolerable distress; but in their

turn they made desperate sallies into the city, set fire to a

great number of houses, and filled the streets with the blood of

the inhabitants. The emperor Balbinus attempted, by ineffectual

edicts and precarious truces, to reconcile the factions at Rome.

But their animosity, though smothered for a while, burnt with

redoubled violence. The soldiers, detesting the senate and the

people, despised the weakness of a prince, who wanted either the

spirit or the power to command the obedience of his subjects.

After the tyrant’s death, his formidable army had acknowledged,

from necessity rather than from choice, the authority of Maximus,

who transported himself without delay to the camp before

Aquileia. As soon as he had received their oath of fidelity, he

addressed them in terms full of mildness and moderation;

lamented, rather than arraigned the wild disorders of the times,

and assured the soldiers, that of all their past conduct the

senate would remember only their generous desertion of the

tyrant, and their voluntary return to their duty. Maximus

enforced his exhortations by a liberal donative, purified the

camp by a solemn sacrifice of expiation, and then dismissed the

legions to their several provinces, impressed, as he hoped, with

a lively sense of gratitude and obedience. But nothing could

reconcile the haughty spirit of the Prætorians. They attended the

emperors on the memorable day of their public entry into Rome;

but amidst the general acclamations, the sullen, dejected

countenance of the guards sufficiently declared that they

considered themselves as the object, rather than the partners, of

the triumph. When the whole body was united in their camp, those

who had served under Maximin, and those who had remained at Rome,

insensibly communicated to each other their complaints and

apprehensions. The emperors chosen by the army had perished with

ignominy; those elected by the senate were seated on the throne.

The long discord between the civil and military powers was

decided by a war, in which the former had obtained a complete

victory. The soldiers must now learn a new doctrine of submission

to the senate; and whatever clemency was affected by that politic

assembly, they dreaded a slow revenge, colored by the name of

discipline, and justified by fair pretences of the public good.

But their fate was still in their own hands; and if they had

courage to despise the vain terrors of an impotent republic, it

was easy to convince the world, that those who were masters of

the arms, were masters of the authority, of the state.