16 (return) [ In a note upon the Augusta_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)

collected a number of particulars concerning these celebrated

brothers. See p. 96 of his learned commentary.]

The tyrant’s rage, after having shed the noblest blood of the

senate, at length recoiled on the principal instrument of his

cruelty. Whilst Commodus was immersed in blood and luxury, he

devolved the detail of the public business on Perennis, a servile

and ambitious minister, who had obtained his post by the murder

of his predecessor, but who possessed a considerable share of

vigor and ability. By acts of extortion, and the forfeited

estates of the nobles sacrificed to his avarice, he had

accumulated an immense treasure. The Prætorian guards were under

his immediate command; and his son, who already discovered a

military genius, was at the head of the Illyrian legions.

Perennis aspired to the empire; or what, in the eyes of Commodus,

amounted to the same crime, he was capable of aspiring to it, had

he not been prevented, surprised, and put to death. The fall of a

minister is a very trifling incident in the general history of

the empire; but it was hastened by an extraordinary circumstance,

which proved how much the nerves of discipline were already

relaxed. The legions of Britain, discontented with the

administration of Perennis, formed a deputation of fifteen

hundred select men, with instructions to march to Rome, and lay

their complaints before the emperor. These military petitioners,

by their own determined behaviour, by inflaming the divisions of

the guards, by exaggerating the strength of the British army, and

by alarming the fears of Commodus, exacted and obtained the

minister’s death, as the only redress of their grievances. 17

This presumption of a distant army, and their discovery of the

weakness of government, was a sure presage of the most dreadful

convulsions.

17 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1210. Herodian, l. i. p. 22.

Hist. August. p. 48. Dion gives a much less odious character of

Perennis, than the other historians. His moderation is almost a

pledge of his veracity. Note: Gibbon praises Dion for the

moderation with which he speaks of Perennis: he follows,

nevertheless, in his own narrative, Herodian and Lampridius. Dion

speaks of Perennis not only with moderation, but with admiration;

he represents him as a great man, virtuous in his life, and

blameless in his death: perhaps he may be suspected of

partiality; but it is singular that Gibbon, having adopted, from

Herodian and Lampridius, their judgment on this minister, follows

Dion’s improbable account of his death. What likelihood, in fact,

that fifteen hundred men should have traversed Gaul and Italy,

and have arrived at Rome without any understanding with the

Prætorians, or without detection or opposition from Perennis, the

Prætorian præfect? Gibbon, foreseeing, perhaps, this difficulty,

has added, that the military deputation inflamed the divisions of

the guards; but Dion says expressly that they did not reach Rome,

but that the emperor went out to meet them: he even reproaches

him for not having opposed them with the guards, who were

superior in number. Herodian relates that Commodus, having

learned, from a soldier, the ambitious designs of Perennis and

his son, caused them to be attacked and massacred by night.—G.

from W. Dion’s narrative is remarkably circumstantial, and his

authority higher than either of the other writers. He hints that

Cleander, a new favorite, had already undermined the influence of

Perennis.—M.]

The negligence of the public administration was betrayed, soon

afterwards, by a new disorder, which arose from the smallest

beginnings. A spirit of desertion began to prevail among the

troops: and the deserters, instead of seeking their safety in

flight or concealment, infested the highways. Maternus, a private

soldier, of a daring boldness above his station, collected these

bands of robbers into a little army, set open the prisons,

invited the slaves to assert their freedom, and plundered with

impunity the rich and defenceless cities of Gaul and Spain. The

governors of the provinces, who had long been the spectators, and

perhaps the partners, of his depredations, were, at length,

roused from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of

the emperor. Maternus found that he was encompassed, and foresaw

that he must be overpowered. A great effort of despair was his

last resource. He ordered his followers to disperse, to pass the

Alps in small parties and various disguises, and to assemble at

Rome, during the licentious tumult of the festival of Cybele. 18

To murder Commodus, and to ascend the vacant throne, was the

ambition of no vulgar robber. His measures were so ably concerted

that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome. The

envy of an accomplice discovered and ruined this singular

enterprise, in a moment when it was ripe for execution. 19

18 (return) [ During the second Punic war, the Romans imported

from Asia the worship of the mother of the gods. Her festival,

the Megalesia, began on the fourth of April, and lasted six days.

The streets were crowded with mad processions, the theatres with

spectators, and the public tables with unbidden guests. Order and

police were suspended, and pleasure was the only serious business

of the city. See Ovid. de Fastis, l. iv. 189, &c.]

19 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 23, 23.]

Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind, from a vain

persuasion, that those who have no dependence, except on their

favor, will have no attachment, except to the person of their

benefactor. Cleander, the successor of Perennis, was a Phrygian

by birth; of a nation over whose stubborn, but servile temper,

blows only could prevail. 20 He had been sent from his native

country to Rome, in the capacity of a slave. As a slave he

entered the Imperial palace, rendered himself useful to his

master’s passions, and rapidly ascended to the most exalted

station which a subject could enjoy. His influence over the mind

of Commodus was much greater than that of his predecessor; for

Cleander was devoid of any ability or virtue which could inspire

the emperor with envy or distrust. Avarice was the reigning

passion of his soul, and the great principle of his

administration. The rank of Consul, of Patrician, of Senator, was

exposed to public sale; and it would have been considered as

disaffection, if any one had refused to purchase these empty and

disgraceful honors with the greatest part of his fortune. 21 In

the lucrative provincial employments, the minister shared with

the governor the spoils of the people. The execution of the laws

was penal and arbitrary. A wealthy criminal might obtain, not

only the reversal of the sentence by which he was justly

condemned, but might likewise inflict whatever punishment he

pleased on the accuser, the witnesses, and the judge.

20 (return) [ Cicero pro Flacco, c. 27.]

21 (return) [ One of these dear-bought promotions occasioned a

current... that Julius Solon was banished into the senate.]

By these means, Cleander, in the space of three years, had

accumulated more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any

freedman. 22 Commodus was perfectly satisfied with the

magnificent presents which the artful courtier laid at his feet

in the most seasonable moments. To divert the public envy,

Cleander, under the emperor’s name, erected baths, porticos, and

places of exercise, for the use of the people. 23 He flattered

himself that the Romans, dazzled and amused by this apparent

liberality, would be less affected by the bloody scenes which

were daily exhibited; that they would forget the death of

Byrrhus, a senator to whose superior merit the late emperor had

granted one of his daughters; and that they would forgive the

execution of Arrius Antoninus, the last representative of the

name and virtues of the Antonines. The former, with more

integrity than prudence, had attempted to disclose, to his

brother-in-law, the true character of Cleander. An equitable

sentence pronounced by the latter, when proconsul of Asia,

against a worthless creature of the favorite, proved fatal to

him. 24 After the fall of Perennis, the terrors of Commodus had,

for a short time, assumed the appearance of a return to virtue.

He repealed the most odious of his acts; loaded his memory with

the public execration, and ascribed to the pernicious counsels of

that wicked minister all the errors of his inexperienced youth.

But his repentance lasted only thirty days; and, under Cleander’s

tyranny, the administration of Perennis was often regretted.

22 (return) [ Dion (l. lxxii. p. 12, 13) observes, that no

freedman had possessed riches equal to those of Cleander. The

fortune of Pallas amounted, however, to upwards of five and

twenty hundred thousand pounds; Ter millies.]

23 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 12, 13. Herodian, l. i. p. 29.

Hist. August. p. 52. These baths were situated near the Porta

Capena. See Nardini Roma Antica, p. 79.]

24 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 79.]

Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part II.

Pestilence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of the

calamities of Rome. 25 The first could be only imputed to the

just indignation of the gods; but a monopoly of corn, supported

by the riches and power of the minister, was considered as the

immediate cause of the second. The popular discontent, after it

had long circulated in whispers, broke out in the assembled

circus. The people quitted their favorite amusements for the more

delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed in crowds towards a palace

in the suburbs, one of the emperor’s retirements, and demanded,

with angry clamors, the head of the public enemy. Cleander, who

commanded the Prætorian guards, 26 ordered a body of cavalry to

sally forth, and disperse the seditious multitude. The multitude

fled with precipitation towards the city; several were slain, and

many more were trampled to death; but when the cavalry entered

the streets, their pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and

darts from the roofs and windows of the houses. The foot guards,

27 who had been long jealous of the prerogatives and insolence of

the Prætorian cavalry, embraced the party of the people. The

tumult became a regular engagement, and threatened a general

massacre. The Prætorians, at length, gave way, oppressed with

numbers; and the tide of popular fury returned with redoubled

violence against the gates of the palace, where Commodus lay,

dissolved in luxury, and alone unconscious of the civil war. It

was death to approach his person with the unwelcome news. He

would have perished in this supine security, had not two women,

his eldest sister Fadilla, and Marcia, the most favored of his

concubines, ventured to break into his presence. Bathed in tears,

and with dishevelled hair, they threw themselves at his feet; and

with all the pressing eloquence of fear, discovered to the

affrighted emperor the crimes of the minister, the rage of the

people, and the impending ruin, which, in a few minutes, would

burst over his palace and person. Commodus started from his dream

of pleasure, and commanded that the head of Cleander should be

thrown out to the people. The desired spectacle instantly

appeased the tumult; and the son of Marcus might even yet have

regained the affection and confidence of his subjects. 28

25 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 28. Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1215. The

latter says that two thousand persons died every day at Rome,

during a considerable length of time.]

26 (return) [ Tuneque primum tres præfecti prætorio fuere: inter

quos libertinus. From some remains of modesty, Cleander declined

the title, whilst he assumed the powers, of Prætorian præfect. As

the other freedmen were styled, from their several departments, a

rationibus, ab epistolis, Cleander called himself a pugione, as

intrusted with the defence of his master’s person. Salmasius and

Casaubon seem to have talked very idly upon this passage. * Note:

M. Guizot denies that Lampridius means Cleander as præfect a

pugione. The Libertinus seems to me to mean him.—M.]

27 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 31. It is doubtful whether he

means the Prætorian infantry, or the cohortes urbanæ, a body of

six thousand men, but whose rank and discipline were not equal to

their numbers. Neither Tillemont nor Wotton choose to decide this

question.]

28 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxii. p. 1215. Herodian, l. i. p.

32. Hist. August. p. 48.]

But every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in the

mind of Commodus. Whilst he thus abandoned the reins of empire to

these unworthy favorites, he valued nothing in sovereign power,

except the unbounded license of indulging his sensual appetites.

His hours were spent in a seraglio of three hundred beautiful

women, and as many boys, of every rank, and of every province;

and, wherever the arts of seduction proved ineffectual, the

brutal lover had recourse to violence. The ancient historians 29

have expatiated on these abandoned scenes of prostitution, which

scorned every restraint of nature or modesty; but it would not be

easy to translate their too faithful descriptions into the

decency of modern language. The intervals of lust were filled up

with the basest amusements. The influence of a polite age, and

the labor of an attentive education, had never been able to

infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of

learning; and he was the first of the Roman emperors totally

devoid of taste for the pleasures of the understanding. Nero

himself excelled, or affected to excel, in the elegant arts of

music and poetry: nor should we despise his pursuits, had he not

converted the pleasing relaxation of a leisure hour into the

serious business and ambition of his life. But Commodus, from his

earliest infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was rational

or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the

populace; the sports of the circus and amphitheatre, the combats

of gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts. The masters in

every branch of learning, whom Marcus provided for his son, were

heard with inattention and disgust; whilst the Moors and

Parthians, who taught him to dart the javelin and to shoot with

the bow, found a disciple who delighted in his application, and

soon equalled the most skilful of his instructors in the

steadiness of the eye and the dexterity of the hand.

29 (return) [ Sororibus suis constupratis. Ipsas concubinas suas

sub oculis...stuprari jubebat. Nec irruentium in se juvenum

carebat infamia, omni parte corporis atque ore in sexum utrumque

pollutus. Hist. Aug. p. 47.]

The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master’s

vices, applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of

flattery reminded him, that by exploits of the same nature, by

the defeat of the Nemæan lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar

of Erymanthus, the Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among

the gods, and an immortal memory among men. They only forgot to

observe, that, in the first ages of society, when the fiercer

animals often dispute with man the possession of an unsettled

country, a successful war against those savages is one of the

most innocent and beneficial labors of heroism. In the civilized

state of the Roman empire, the wild beasts had long since retired

from the face of man, and the neighborhood of populous cities. To

surprise them in their solitary haunts, and to transport them to

Rome, that they might be slain in pomp by the hand of an emperor,

was an enterprise equally ridiculous for the prince and

oppressive for the people. 30 Ignorant of these distinctions,

Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious resemblance, and styled

himself (as we still read on his medals31) the _Roman Hercules_.

311 The club and the lion’s hide were placed by the side of the

throne, amongst the ensigns of sovereignty; and statues were

erected, in which Commodus was represented in the character, and

with the attributes, of the god, whose valor and dexterity he

endeavored to emulate in the daily course of his ferocious

amusements. 32

30 (return) [ The African lions, when pressed by hunger, infested

the open villages and cultivated country; and they infested them

with impunity. The royal beast was reserved for the pleasures of

the emperor and the capital; and the unfortunate peasant who

killed one of them though in his own defence, incurred a very

heavy penalty. This extraordinary game-law was mitigated by

Honorius, and finally repealed by Justinian. Codex Theodos. tom.

v. p. 92, et Comment Gothofred.]

31 (return) [ Spanheim de Numismat. Dissertat. xii. tom. ii. p.

493.]

311 (return) [ Commodus placed his own head on the colossal

statue of Hercules with the inscription, Lucius Commodus

Hercules. The wits of Rome, according to a new fragment of Dion,

published an epigram, of which, like many other ancient jests,

the point is not very clear. It seems to be a protest of the god

against being confounded with the emperor. Mai Fragm. Vatican.

ii. 225.—M.]

32 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1216. Hist. August. p. 49.]

Elated with these praises, which gradually extinguished the

innate sense of shame, Commodus resolved to exhibit before the

eyes of the Roman people those exercises, which till then he had

decently confined within the walls of his palace, and to the

presence of a few favorites. On the appointed day, the various

motives of flattery, fear, and curiosity, attracted to the

amphitheatre an innumerable multitude of spectators; and some

degree of applause was deservedly bestowed on the uncommon skill

of the Imperial performer. Whether he aimed at the head or heart

of the animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With

arrows whose point was shaped into the form of crescent, Commodus

often intercepted the rapid career, and cut asunder the long,

bony neck of the ostrich. 33 A panther was let loose; and the

archer waited till he had leaped upon a trembling malefactor. In

the same instant the shaft flew, the beast dropped dead, and the

man remained unhurt. The dens of the amphitheatre disgorged at

once a hundred lions: a hundred darts from the unerring hand of

Commodus laid them dead as they run raging round the _Arena_.

Neither the huge bulk of the elephant, nor the scaly hide of the

rhinoceros, could defend them from his stroke. Æthiopia and India

yielded their most extraordinary productions; and several animals

were slain in the amphitheatre, which had been seen only in the

representations of art, or perhaps of fancy. 34 In all these

exhibitions, the securest precautions were used to protect the

person of the Roman Hercules from the desperate spring of any

savage, who might possibly disregard the dignity of the emperor

and the sanctity of the god. 35

33 (return) [ The ostrich’s neck is three feet long, and composed

of seventeen vertebræ. See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle.]

34 (return) [ Commodus killed a camelopardalis or Giraffe, (Dion,

l. lxxii. p. 1211,) the tallest, the most gentle, and the most

useless of the large quadrupeds. This singular animal, a native

only of the interior parts of Africa, has not been seen in Europe

since the revival of letters; and though M. de Buffon (Hist.

Naturelle, tom. xiii.) has endeavored to describe, he has not

ventured to delineate, the Giraffe. * Note: The naturalists of

our days have been more fortunate. London probably now contains

more specimens of this animal than have been seen in Europe since

the fall of the Roman empire, unless in the pleasure gardens of

the emperor Frederic II., in Sicily, which possessed several.

Frederic’s collections of wild beasts were exhibited, for the

popular amusement, in many parts of Italy. Raumer, Geschichte der

Hohenstaufen, v. iii. p. 571. Gibbon, moreover, is mistaken; as a

giraffe was presented to Lorenzo de Medici, either by the sultan

of Egypt or the king of Tunis. Contemporary authorities are

quoted in the old work, Gesner de Quadrupedibum p. 162.—M.]

35 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 37. Hist. August. p. 50.]

But the meanest of the populace were affected with shame and

indignation when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists as a

gladiator, and glory in a profession which the laws and manners

of the Romans had branded with the justest note of infamy. 36 He

chose the habit and arms of the _Secutor_, whose combat with the

_Retiarius_ formed one of the most lively scenes in the bloody

sports of the amphitheatre. The _Secutor_ was armed with a

helmet, sword, and buckler; his naked antagonist had only a large

net and a trident; with the one he endeavored to entangle, with

the other to despatch his enemy. If he missed the first throw, he

was obliged to fly from the pursuit of the _Secutor_, till he had

prepared his net for a second cast. 37 The emperor fought in this

character seven hundred and thirty-five several times. These

glorious achievements were carefully recorded in the public acts

of the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance of infamy,

he received from the common fund of gladiators a stipend so

exorbitant that it became a new and most ignominious tax upon the

Roman people. 38 It may be easily supposed, that in these

engagements the master of the world was always successful; in the

amphitheatre, his victories were not often sanguinary; but when

he exercised his skill in the school of gladiators, or his own

palace, his wretched antagonists were frequently honored with a

mortal wound from the hand of Commodus, and obliged to seal their

flattery with their blood. 39 He now disdained the appellation of

Hercules. The name of Paulus, a celebrated Secutor, was the only

one which delighted his ear. It was inscribed on his colossal

statues, and repeated in the redoubled acclamations 40 of the

mournful and applauding senate. 41 Claudius Pompeianus, the

virtuous husband of Lucilla, was the only senator who asserted

the honor of his rank. As a father, he permitted his sons to

consult their safety by attending the amphitheatre. As a Roman,

he declared, that his own life was in the emperor’s hands, but

that he would never behold the son of Marcus prostituting his

person and dignity. Notwithstanding his manly resolution

Pompeianus escaped the resentment of the tyrant, and, with his

honor, had the good fortune to preserve his life. 42

36 (return) [ The virtuous and even the wise princes forbade the

senators and knights to embrace this scandalous profession, under

pain of infamy, or, what was more dreaded by those profligate

wretches, of exile. The tyrants allured them to dishonor by

threats and rewards. Nero once produced in the arena forty

senators and sixty knights. See Lipsius, Saturnalia, l. ii. c. 2.

He has happily corrected a passage of Suetonius in Nerone, c.

12.]

37 (return) [ Lipsius, l. ii. c. 7, 8. Juvenal, in the eighth

satire, gives a picturesque description of this combat.]

38 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 50. Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1220. He

received, for each time, decies, about 8000l. sterling.]

39 (return) [ Victor tells us, that Commodus only allowed his

antagonists a...weapon, dreading most probably the consequences

of their despair.]

40 (return) [Footnote 40: They were obliged to repeat, six

hundred and twenty-six times, Paolus first of the Secutors, &c.]

41 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1221. He speaks of his own

baseness and danger.]

42 (return) [ He mixed, however, some prudence with his courage,

and passed the greatest part of his time in a country retirement;

alleging his advanced age, and the weakness of his eyes. “I never

saw him in the senate,” says Dion, “except during the short reign

of Pertinax.” All his infirmities had suddenly left him, and they

returned as suddenly upon the murder of that excellent prince.

Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1227.]

Commodus had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amidst

the acclamations of a flattering court, he was unable to disguise

from himself, that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of

every man of sense and virtue in his empire. His ferocious spirit

was irritated by the consciousness of that hatred, by the envy of

every kind of merit, by the just apprehension of danger, and by

the habit of slaughter, which he contracted in his daily

amusements. History has preserved a long list of consular

senators sacrificed to his wanton suspicion, which sought out,

with peculiar anxiety, those unfortunate persons connected,

however remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without

sparing even the ministers of his crimes or pleasures. 43 His

cruelty proved at last fatal to himself. He had shed with

impunity the noblest blood of Rome: he perished as soon as he was

dreaded by his own domestics. Marcia, his favorite concubine,

Eclectus, his chamberlain, and Lætus, his Prætorian præfect,

alarmed by the fate of their companions and predecessors,

resolved to prevent the destruction which every hour hung over

their heads, either from the mad caprice of the tyrant, 431 or

the sudden indignation of the people. Marcia seized the occasion

of presenting a draught of wine to her lover, after he had

fatigued himself with hunting some wild beasts. Commodus retired

to sleep; but whilst he was laboring with the effects of poison

and drunkenness, a robust youth, by profession a wrestler,

entered his chamber, and strangled him without resistance. The

body was secretly conveyed out of the palace, before the least

suspicion was entertained in the city, or even in the court, of

the emperor’s death. Such was the fate of the son of Marcus, and

so easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant, who, by the artificial

powers of government, had oppressed, during thirteen years, so

many millions of subjects, each of whom was equal to their master

in personal strength and personal abilities. 44

43 (return) [ The prefects were changed almost hourly or daily;

and the caprice of Commodus was often fatal to his most favored

chamberlains. Hist. August. p. 46, 51.]

431 (return) [ Commodus had already resolved to massacre them the

following night they determined o anticipate his design. Herod.

i. 17.—W.]

44 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1222. Herodian, l. i. p. 43.

Hist. August. p. 52.]

The measures of the conspirators were conducted with the

deliberate coolness and celerity which the greatness of the

occasion required. They resolved instantly to fill the vacant

throne with an emperor whose character would justify and maintain

the action that had been committed. They fixed on Pertinax,

præfect of the city, an ancient senator of consular rank, whose

conspicuous merit had broke through the obscurity of his birth,

and raised him to the first honors of the state. He had

successively governed most of the provinces of the empire; and in

all his great employments, military as well as civil, he had

uniformly distinguished himself by the firmness, the prudence,

and the integrity of his conduct. 45 He now remained almost alone

of the friends and ministers of Marcus; and when, at a late hour

of the night, he was awakened with the news, that the chamberlain

and the præfect were at his door, he received them with intrepid

resignation, and desired they would execute their master’s

orders. Instead of death, they offered him the throne of the

Roman world. During some moments he distrusted their intentions

and assurances. Convinced at length of the death of Commodus, he

accepted the purple with a sincere reluctance, the natural effect

of his knowledge both of the duties and of the dangers of the

supreme rank. 46

45 (return) [ Pertinax was a native of Alba Pompeia, in Piedmont,

and son of a timber merchant. The order of his employments (it is

marked by Capitolinus) well deserves to be set down, as

expressive of the form of government and manners of the age. 1.

He was a centurion. 2. Præfect of a cohort in Syria, in the

Parthian war, and in Britain. 3. He obtained an Ala, or squadron

of horse, in Mæsia. 4. He was commissary of provisions on the

Æmilian way. 5. He commanded the fleet upon the Rhine. 6. He was

procurator of Dacia, with a salary of about 1600l. a year. 7. He

commanded the veterans of a legion. 8. He obtained the rank of

senator. 9. Of prætor. 10. With the command of the first legion

in Rhætia and Noricum. 11. He was consul about the year 175. 12.

He attended Marcus into the East. 13. He commanded an army on the

Danube. 14. He was consular legate of Mæsia. 15. Of Dacia. 16. Of

Syria. 17. Of Britain. 18. He had the care of the public

provisions at Rome. 19. He was proconsul of Africa. 20. Præfect

of the city. Herodian (l. i. p. 48) does justice to his

disinterested spirit; but Capitolinus, who collected every

popular rumor, charges him with a great fortune acquired by

bribery and corruption.]

46 (return) [ Julian, in the Cæsars, taxes him with being

accessory to the death of Commodus.]

Lætus conducted without delay his new emperor to the camp of the

Prætorians, diffusing at the same time through the city a

seasonable report that Commodus died suddenly of an apoplexy; and

that the virtuous Pertinax had _already_ succeeded to the throne.

The guards were rather surprised than pleased with the suspicious

death of a prince, whose indulgence and liberality they alone had

experienced; but the emergency of the occasion, the authority of

their præfect, the reputation of Pertinax, and the clamors of the

people, obliged them to stifle their secret discontents, to

accept the donative promised by the new emperor, to swear

allegiance to him, and with joyful acclamations and laurels in

their hands to conduct him to the senate house, that the military

consent might be ratified by the civil authority. This important

night was now far spent; with the dawn of day, and the

commencement of the new year, the senators expected a summons to

attend an ignominious ceremony. 461 In spite of all

remonstrances, even of those of his creatures who yet preserved

any regard for prudence or decency, Commodus had resolved to pass

the night in the gladiators’ school, and from thence to take

possession of the consulship, in the habit and with the

attendance of that infamous crew. On a sudden, before the break

of day, the senate was called together in the temple of Concord,

to meet the guards, and to ratify the election of a new emperor.

For a few minutes they sat in silent suspense, doubtful of their

unexpected deliverance, and suspicious of the cruel artifices of

Commodus: but when at length they were assured that the tyrant

was no more, they resigned themselves to all the transports of

joy and indignation. Pertinax, who modestly represented the

meanness of his extraction, and pointed out several noble

senators more deserving than himself of the empire, was

constrained by their dutiful violence to ascend the throne, and

received all the titles of Imperial power, confirmed by the most

sincere vows of fidelity. The memory of Commodus was branded with

eternal infamy. The names of tyrant, of gladiator, of public

enemy resounded in every corner of the house. They decreed in

tumultuous votes, 462 that his honors should be reversed, his

titles erased from the public monuments, his statues thrown down,

his body dragged with a hook into the stripping room of the

gladiators, to satiate the public fury; and they expressed some

indignation against those officious servants who had already

presumed to screen his remains from the justice of the senate.

But Pertinax could not refuse those last rites to the memory of

Marcus, and the tears of his first protector Claudius Pompeianus,

who lamented the cruel fate of his brother-in-law, and lamented

still more that he had deserved it. 47

461 (return) [ The senate always assembled at the beginning of

the year, on the night of the 1st January, (see Savaron on Sid.

Apoll. viii. 6,) and this happened the present year, as usual,

without any particular order.—G from W.]

462 (return) [ What Gibbon improperly calls, both here and in the

note, tumultuous decrees, were no more than the applauses and

acclamations which recur so often in the history of the emperors.

The custom passed from the theatre to the forum, from the forum

to the senate. Applauses on the adoption of the Imperial decrees

were first introduced under Trajan. (Plin. jun. Panegyr. 75.) One

senator read the form of the decree, and all the rest answered by

acclamations, accompanied with a kind of chant or rhythm. These

were some of the acclamations addressed to Pertinax, and against

the memory of Commodus. Hosti patriæ honores detrahantur.

Parricidæ honores detrahantur. Ut salvi simus, Jupiter, optime,

maxime, serva nobis Pertinacem. This custom prevailed not only in

the councils of state, but in all the meetings of the senate.

However inconsistent it may appear with the solemnity of a

religious assembly, the early Christians adopted and introduced

it into their synods, notwithstanding the opposition of some of

the Fathers, particularly of St. Chrysostom. See the Coll. of

Franc. Bern. Ferrarius de veterum acclamatione in Grævii Thesaur.

Antiq. Rom. i. 6.—W. This note is rather hypercritical, as

regards Gibbon, but appears to be worthy of preservation.—M.]

47 (return) [ Capitolinus gives us the particulars of these

tumultuary votes, which were moved by one senator, and repeated,

or rather chanted by the whole body. Hist. August. p. 52.]

These effusions of impotent rage against a dead emperor, whom the

senate had flattered when alive with the most abject servility,

betrayed a just but ungenerous spirit of revenge.

The legality of these decrees was, however, supported by the

principles of the Imperial constitution. To censure, to depose,

or to punish with death, the first magistrate of the republic,

who had abused his delegated trust, was the ancient and undoubted

prerogative of the Roman senate; 48 but the feeble assembly was

obliged to content itself with inflicting on a fallen tyrant that

public justice, from which, during his life and reign, he had

been shielded by the strong arm of military despotism. 481

48 (return) [ The senate condemned Nero to be put to death more

majorum. Sueton. c. 49.]

481 (return) [ No particular law assigned this right to the

senate: it was deduced from the ancient principles of the

republic. Gibbon appears to infer, from the passage of Suetonius,

that the senate, according to its ancient right, punished Nero

with death. The words, however, more majerum refer not to the

decree of the senate, but to the kind of death, which was taken

from an old law of Romulus. (See Victor. Epit. Ed. Artzen p. 484,

n. 7.)—W.]

Pertinax found a nobler way of condemning his predecessor’s

memory; by the contrast of his own virtues with the vices of

Commodus. On the day of his accession, he resigned over to his

wife and son his whole private fortune; that they might have no

pretence to solicit favors at the expense of the state. He

refused to flatter the vanity of the former with the title of

Augusta; or to corrupt the inexperienced youth of the latter by

the rank of Cæsar. Accurately distinguishing between the duties

of a parent and those of a sovereign, he educated his son with a

severe simplicity, which, while it gave him no assured prospect

of the throne, might in time have rendered him worthy of it. In

public, the behavior of Pertinax was grave and affable. He lived

with the virtuous part of the senate, (and, in a private station,

he had been acquainted with the true character of each

individual,) without either pride or jealousy; considered them as

friends and companions, with whom he had shared the danger of the

tyranny, and with whom he wished to enjoy the security of the

present time. He very frequently invited them to familiar

entertainments, the frugality of which was ridiculed by those who

remembered and regretted the luxurious prodigality of Commodus.

49 (return) [ Dion (l. lxxiii. p. 1223) speaks of these

entertainments, as a senator who had supped with the emperor;

Capitolinus, (Hist. August. p. 58,) like a slave, who had

received his intelligence from one the scullions.]

To heal, as far as it was possible, the wounds inflicted by the

hand of tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task of

Pertinax. The innocent victims, who yet survived, were recalled

from exile, released from prison, and restored to the full

possession of their honors and fortunes. The unburied bodies of

murdered senators (for the cruelty of Commodus endeavored to

extend itself beyond death) were deposited in the sepulchres of

their ancestors; their memory was justified and every consolation

was bestowed on their ruined and afflicted families. Among these

consolations, one of the most grateful was the punishment of the

Delators; the common enemies of their master, of virtue, and of

their country. Yet even in the inquisition of these legal

assassins, Pertinax proceeded with a steady temper, which gave

every thing to justice, and nothing to popular prejudice and

resentment.

The finances of the state demanded the most vigilant care of the

emperor. Though every measure of injustice and extortion had been

adopted, which could collect the property of the subject into the

coffers of the prince, the rapaciousness of Commodus had been so

very inadequate to his extravagance, that, upon his death, no

more than eight thousand pounds were found in the exhausted

treasury, 50 to defray the current expenses of government, and to

discharge the pressing demand of a liberal donative, which the

new emperor had been obliged to promise to the Prætorian guards.

Yet under these distressed circumstances, Pertinax had the

generous firmness to remit all the oppressive taxes invented by

Commodus, and to cancel all the unjust claims of the treasury;

declaring, in a decree of the senate, “that he was better

satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to

acquire riches by the ways of tyranny and dishonor.” Economy and

industry he considered as the pure and genuine sources of wealth;

and from them he soon derived a copious supply for the public

necessities. The expense of the household was immediately reduced

to one half. All the instruments of luxury Pertinax exposed to

public auction, 51 gold and silver plate, chariots of a singular

construction, a superfluous wardrobe of silk and embroidery, and

a great number of beautiful slaves of both sexes; excepting only,

with attentive humanity, those who were born in a state of

freedom, and had been ravished from the arms of their weeping

parents. At the same time that he obliged the worthless favorites

of the tyrant to resign a part of their ill-gotten wealth, he

satisfied the just creditors of the state, and unexpectedly

discharged the long arrears of honest services. He removed the

oppressive restrictions which had been laid upon commerce, and

granted all the uncultivated lands in Italy and the provinces to

those who would improve them; with an exemption from tribute

during the term of ten years. 52

50 (return) [ Decies. The blameless economy of Pius left his

successors a treasure of vicies septies millies, above two and

twenty millions sterling. Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1231.]

51 (return) [ Besides the design of converting these useless

ornaments into money, Dion (l. lxxiii. p. 1229) assigns two

secret motives of Pertinax. He wished to expose the vices of

Commodus, and to discover by the purchasers those who most

resembled him.]

52 (return) [ Though Capitolinus has picked up many idle tales of

the private life of Pertinax, he joins with Dion and Herodian in

admiring his public conduct.]

Such a uniform conduct had already secured to Pertinax the

noblest reward of a sovereign, the love and esteem of his people.

Those who remembered the virtues of Marcus were happy to

contemplate in their new emperor the features of that bright

original; and flattered themselves, that they should long enjoy

the benign influence of his administration. A hasty zeal to

reform the corrupted state, accompanied with less prudence than

might have been expected from the years and experience of

Pertinax, proved fatal to himself and to his country. His honest

indiscretion united against him the servile crowd, who found

their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred

the favor of a tyrant to the inexorable equality of the laws. 53

53 (return) [ Leges, rem surdam, inexorabilem esse. T. Liv. ii.

3.]

Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of the

Prætorian guards betrayed their inward dissatisfaction. They had

reluctantly submitted to Pertinax; they dreaded the strictness of

the ancient discipline, which he was preparing to restore; and

they regretted the license of the former reign. Their discontents

were secretly fomented by Lætus, their præfect, who found, when

it was too late, that his new emperor would reward a servant, but

would not be ruled by a favorite. On the third day of his reign,

the soldiers seized on a noble senator, with a design to carry

him to the camp, and to invest him with the Imperial purple.

Instead of being dazzled by the dangerous honor, the affrighted

victim escaped from their violence, and took refuge at the feet

of Pertinax. A short time afterwards, Sosius Falco, one of the

consuls of the year, a rash youth, 54 but of an ancient and

opulent family, listened to the voice of ambition; and a

conspiracy was formed during a short absence of Pertinax, which

was crushed by his sudden return to Rome, and his resolute

behavior. Falco was on the point of being justly condemned to

death as a public enemy had he not been saved by the earnest and

sincere entreaties of the injured emperor, who conjured the

senate, that the purity of his reign might not be stained by the

blood even of a guilty senator.

54 (return) [ If we credit Capitolinus, (which is rather

difficult,) Falco behaved with the most petulant indecency to

Pertinax, on the day of his accession. The wise emperor only

admonished him of his youth and in experience. Hist. August. p.

55.]

These disappointments served only to irritate the rage of the

Prætorian guards. On the twenty-eighth of March, eighty-six days

only after the death of Commodus, a general sedition broke out in

the camp, which the officers wanted either power or inclination

to suppress. Two or three hundred of the most desperate soldiers

marched at noonday, with arms in their hands and fury in their

looks, towards the Imperial palace. The gates were thrown open by

their companions upon guard, and by the domestics of the old

court, who had already formed a secret conspiracy against the

life of the too virtuous emperor. On the news of their approach,

Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment, advanced to

meet his assassins; and recalled to their minds his own

innocence, and the sanctity of their recent oath. For a few

moments they stood in silent suspense, ashamed of their atrocious

design, and awed by the venerable aspect and majestic firmness of

their sovereign, till at length, the despair of pardon reviving

their fury, a barbarian of the country of Tongress 55 levelled

the first blow against Pertinax, who was instantly despatched

with a multitude of wounds. His head, separated from his body,

and placed on a lance, was carried in triumph to the Prætorian

camp, in the sight of a mournful and indignant people, who

lamented the unworthy fate of that excellent prince, and the

transient blessings of a reign, the memory of which could serve

only to aggravate their approaching misfortunes. 56

55 (return) [ The modern bishopric of Liege. This soldier

probably belonged to the Batavian horse-guards, who were mostly

raised in the duchy of Gueldres and the neighborhood, and were

distinguished by their valor, and by the boldness with which they

swam their horses across the broadest and most rapid rivers.

Tacit. Hist. iv. 12 Dion, l. lv p. 797 Lipsius de magnitudine

Romana, l. i. c. 4.]

56 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1232. Herodian, l. ii. p. 60.

Hist. August. p. 58. Victor in Epitom. et in Cæsarib. Eutropius,

viii. 16.]

Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part I.

Public Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus By The Prætorian

Guards—Clodius Albinus In Britain, Pescennius Niger In Syria, And

Septimius Severus In Pannonia, Declare Against The Murderers Of

Pertinax—Civil Wars And Victory Of Severus Over His Three

Rivals—Relaxation Of Discipline—New Maxims Of Government.

The power of the sword is more sensibly felt in an extensive

monarchy, than in a small community. It has been calculated by

the ablest politicians, that no state, without being soon

exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members

in arms and idleness. But although this relative proportion may

be uniform, the influence of the army over the rest of the

society will vary according to the degree of its positive

strength. The advantages of military science and discipline

cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united

into one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men,

such a union would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it

would be impracticable; and the powers of the machine would be

alike destroyed by the extreme minuteness or the excessive weight

of its springs. To illustrate this observation, we need only

reflect, that there is no superiority of natural strength,

artificial weapons, or acquired skill, which could enable one man

to keep in constant subjection one hundred of his

fellow-creatures: the tyrant of a single town, or a small

district, would soon discover that a hundred armed followers were

a weak defence against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but a

hundred thousand well-disciplined soldiers will command, with

despotic sway, ten millions of subjects; and a body of ten or

fifteen thousand guards will strike terror into the most numerous

populace that ever crowded the streets of an immense capital.

The Prætorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom

and cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely amounted

to the last-mentioned number. 1 They derived their institution

from Augustus. That crafty tyrant, sensible that laws might

color, but that arms alone could maintain, his usurped dominion,

had gradually formed this powerful body of guards, in constant

readiness to protect his person, to awe the senate, and either to

prevent or to crush the first motions of rebellion. He

distinguished these favored troops by a double pay and superior

privileges; but, as their formidable aspect would at once have

alarmed and irritated the Roman people, three cohorts only were

stationed in the capital, whilst the remainder was dispersed in

the adjacent towns of Italy. 2 But after fifty years of peace and

servitude, Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which forever

rivetted the fetters of his country. Under the fair pretences of

relieving Italy from the heavy burden of military quarters, and

of introducing a stricter discipline among the guards, he

assembled them at Rome, in a permanent camp, 3 which was

fortified with skilful care, 4 and placed on a commanding

situation. 5

1 (return) [ They were originally nine or ten thousand men, (for

Tacitus and son are not agreed upon the subject,) divided into as

many cohorts. Vitellius increased them to sixteen thousand, and

as far as we can learn from inscriptions, they never afterwards

sunk much below that number. See Lipsius de magnitudine Romana,

i. 4.]

2 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 49.]

3 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. iv. 2. Sueton. in Tiber. c. 37. Dion

Cassius, l. lvii. p. 867.]

4 (return) [ In the civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian,

the Prætorian camp was attacked and defended with all the

machines used in the siege of the best fortified cities. Tacit.

Hist. iii. 84.]

5 (return) [ Close to the walls of the city, on the broad summit

of the Quirinal and Viminal hills. See Nardini Roma Antica, p.

174. Donatus de Roma Antiqua, p. 46. * Note: Not on both these

hills: neither Donatus nor Nardini justify this position.

(Whitaker’s Review. p. 13.) At the northern extremity of this

hill (the Viminal) are some considerable remains of a walled

enclosure which bears all the appearance of a Roman camp, and

therefore is generally thought to correspond with the Castra

Prætoria. Cramer’s Italy 390.—M.]

Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal to

the throne of despotism. By thus introducing the Prætorian guards

as it were into the palace and the senate, the emperors taught

them to perceive their own strength, and the weakness of the

civil government; to view the vices of their masters with

familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe, which

distance only, and mystery, can preserve towards an imaginary

power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their pride

was nourished by the sense of their irresistible weight; nor was

it possible to conceal from them, that the person of the

sovereign, the authority of the senate, the public treasure, and

the seat of empire, were all in their hands. To divert the

Prætorian bands from these dangerous reflections, the firmest and

best established princes were obliged to mix blandishments with

commands, rewards with punishments, to flatter their pride,

indulge their pleasures, connive at their irregularities, and to

purchase their precarious faith by a liberal donative; which,

since the elevation of Claudius, was enacted as a legal claim, on

the accession of every new emperor. 6

6 (return) [ Claudius, raised by the soldiers to the empire, was

the first who gave a donative. He gave quina dena, 120l. (Sueton.

in Claud. c. 10: ) when Marcus, with his colleague Lucius Versus,

took quiet possession of the throne, he gave vicena, 160l. to

each of the guards. Hist. August. p. 25, (Dion, l. lxxiii. p.

1231.) We may form some idea of the amount of these sums, by

Hadrian’s complaint that the promotion of a Cæsar had cost him

ter millies, two millions and a half sterling.]

The advocate of the guards endeavored to justify by arguments the

power which they asserted by arms; and to maintain that,

according to the purest principles of the constitution, _their_

consent was essentially necessary in the appointment of an

emperor. The election of consuls, of generals, and of

magistrates, however it had been recently usurped by the senate,

was the ancient and undoubted right of the Roman people. 7 But

where was the Roman people to be found? Not surely amongst the

mixed multitude of slaves and strangers that filled the streets

of Rome; a servile populace, as devoid of spirit as destitute of

property. The defenders of the state, selected from the flower of

the Italian youth, 8 and trained in the exercise of arms and

virtue, were the genuine representatives of the people, and the

best entitled to elect the military chief of the republic. These

assertions, however defective in reason, became unanswerable when

the fierce Prætorians increased their weight, by throwing, like

the barbarian conqueror of Rome, their swords into the scale. 9

7 (return) [ Cicero de Legibus, iii. 3. The first book of Livy,

and the second of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, show the authority

of the people, even in the election of the kings.]

8 (return) [ They were originally recruited in Latium, Etruria,

and the old colonies, (Tacit. Annal. iv. 5.) The emperor Otho

compliments their vanity with the flattering titles of Italiæ,

Alumni, Romana were juventus. Tacit. Hist. i. 84.]

9 (return) [ In the siege of Rome by the Gauls. See Livy, v. 48.

Plutarch. in Camill. p. 143.]

The Prætorians had violated the sanctity of the throne by the

atrocious murder of Pertinax; they dishonored the majesty of it

by their subsequent conduct. The camp was without a leader, for

even the præfect Lætus, who had excited the tempest, prudently

declined the public indignation. Amidst the wild disorder,

Sulpicianus, the emperor’s father-in-law, and governor of the

city, who had been sent to the camp on the first alarm of mutiny,

was endeavoring to calm the fury of the multitude, when he was

silenced by the clamorous return of the murderers, bearing on a

lance the head of Pertinax. Though history has accustomed us to

observe every principle and every passion yielding to the

imperious dictates of ambition, it is scarcely credible that, in

these moments of horror, Sulpicianus should have aspired to

ascend a throne polluted with the recent blood of so near a

relation and so excellent a prince. He had already begun to use

the only effectual argument, and to treat for the Imperial

dignity; but the more prudent of the Prætorians, apprehensive

that, in this private contract, they should not obtain a just

price for so valuable a commodity, ran out upon the ramparts;

and, with a loud voice, proclaimed that the Roman world was to be

disposed of to the best bidder by public auction. 10

10 (return) [ Dion, L. lxxiii. p. 1234. Herodian, l. ii. p. 63.

Hist. August p. 60. Though the three historians agree that it was

in fact an auction, Herodian alone affirms that it was proclaimed

as such by the soldiers.]

This infamous offer, the most insolent excess of military

license, diffused a universal grief, shame, and indignation

throughout the city. It reached at length the ears of Didius

Julianus, a wealthy senator, who, regardless of the public

calamities, was indulging himself in the luxury of the table. 11

His wife and his daughter, his freedmen and his parasites, easily

convinced him that he deserved the throne, and earnestly conjured

him to embrace so fortunate an opportunity. The vain old man

hastened to the Prætorian camp, where Sulpicianus was still in

treaty with the guards, and began to bid against him from the

foot of the rampart. The unworthy negotiation was transacted by

faithful emissaries, who passed alternately from one candidate to

the other, and acquainted each of them with the offers of his

rival. Sulpicianus had already promised a donative of five

thousand drachms (above one hundred and sixty pounds) to each

soldier; when Julian, eager for the prize, rose at once to the

sum of six thousand two hundred and fifty drachms, or upwards of

two hundred pounds sterling. The gates of the camp were instantly

thrown open to the purchaser; he was declared emperor, and

received an oath of allegiance from the soldiers, who retained

humanity enough to stipulate that he should pardon and forget the

competition of Sulpicianus. 111

11 (return) [ Spartianus softens the most odious parts of the

character and elevation of Julian.]

111 (return) [ One of the principal causes of the preference of

Julianus by the soldiers, was the dexterty dexterity with which

he reminded them that Sulpicianus would not fail to revenge on

them the death of his son-in-law. (See Dion, p. 1234, 1234. c.

11. Herod. ii. 6.)—W.]

It was now incumbent on the Prætorians to fulfil the conditions

of the sale. They placed their new sovereign, whom they served

and despised, in the centre of their ranks, surrounded him on

every side with their shields, and conducted him in close order

of battle through the deserted streets of the city. The senate

was commanded to assemble; and those who had been the

distinguished friends of Pertinax, or the personal enemies of

Julian, found it necessary to affect a more than common share of

satisfaction at this happy revolution. 12 After Julian had filled

the senate house with armed soldiers, he expatiated on the

freedom of his election, his own eminent virtues, and his full

assurance of the affections of the senate. The obsequious

assembly congratulated their own and the public felicity; engaged

their allegiance, and conferred on him all the several branches

of the Imperial power. 13 From the senate Julian was conducted,

by the same military procession, to take possession of the

palace. The first objects that struck his eyes, were the

abandoned trunk of Pertinax, and the frugal entertainment

prepared for his supper. The one he viewed with indifference, the

other with contempt. A magnificent feast was prepared by his

order, and he amused himself, till a very late hour, with dice,

and the performances of Pylades, a celebrated dancer. Yet it was

observed, that after the crowd of flatterers dispersed, and left

him to darkness, solitude, and terrible reflection, he passed a

sleepless night; revolving most probably in his mind his own rash

folly, the fate of his virtuous predecessor, and the doubtful and

dangerous tenure of an empire which had not been acquired by

merit, but purchased by money. 14

12 (return) [ Dion Cassius, at that time prætor, had been a

personal enemy to Julian, i. lxxiii. p. 1235.]

13 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 61. We learn from thence one

curious circumstance, that the new emperor, whatever had been his

birth, was immediately aggregated to the number of patrician

families. Note: A new fragment of Dion shows some shrewdness in

the character of Julian. When the senate voted him a golden

statue, he preferred one of brass, as more lasting. He “had

always observed,” he said, “that the statues of former emperors

were soon destroyed. Those of brass alone remained.” The

indignant historian adds that he was wrong. The virtue of

sovereigns alone preserves their images: the brazen statue of

Julian was broken to pieces at his death. Mai. Fragm. Vatican. p.

226.—M.]

14 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1235. Hist. August. p. 61. I

have endeavored to blend into one consistent story the seeming

contradictions of the two writers. * Note: The contradiction as

M. Guizot observed, is irreconcilable. He quotes both passages:

in one Julianus is represented as a miser, in the other as a

voluptuary. In the one he refuses to eat till the body of

Pertinax has been buried; in the other he gluts himself with

every luxury almost in the sight of his headless remains.—M.]

He had reason to tremble. On the throne of the world he found

himself without a friend, and even without an adherent. The

guards themselves were ashamed of the prince whom their avarice

had persuaded them to accept; nor was there a citizen who did not

consider his elevation with horror, as the last insult on the

Roman name. The nobility, whose conspicuous station, and ample

possessions, exacted the strictest caution, dissembled their

sentiments, and met the affected civility of the emperor with

smiles of complacency and professions of duty. But the people,

secure in their numbers and obscurity, gave a free vent to their

passions. The streets and public places of Rome resounded with

clamors and imprecations. The enraged multitude affronted the

person of Julian, rejected his liberality, and, conscious of the

impotence of their own resentment, they called aloud on the

legions of the frontiers to assert the violated majesty of the

Roman empire. The public discontent was soon diffused from the

centre to the frontiers of the empire. The armies of Britain, of

Syria, and of Illyricum, lamented the death of Pertinax, in whose

company, or under whose command, they had so often fought and

conquered. They received with surprise, with indignation, and

perhaps with envy, the extraordinary intelligence, that the

Prætorians had disposed of the empire by public auction; and they

sternly refused to ratify the ignominious bargain. Their

immediate and unanimous revolt was fatal to Julian, but it was

fatal at the same time to the public peace, as the generals of

the respective armies, Clodius Albinus, Pescennius Niger, and

Septimius Severus, were still more anxious to succeed than to

revenge the murdered Pertinax. Their forces were exactly

balanced. Each of them was at the head of three legions, 15 with

a numerous train of auxiliaries; and however different in their

characters, they were all soldiers of experience and capacity.

15 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1235.]

Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain, surpassed both his

competitors in the nobility of his extraction, which he derived

from some of the most illustrious names of the old republic. 16

But the branch from which he claimed his descent was sunk into

mean circumstances, and transplanted into a remote province. It

is difficult to form a just idea of his true character. Under the

philosophic cloak of austerity, he stands accused of concealing

most of the vices which degrade human nature. 17 But his accusers

are those venal writers who adored the fortune of Severus, and

trampled on the ashes of an unsuccessful rival. Virtue, or the

appearances of virtue, recommended Albinus to the confidence and

good opinion of Marcus; and his preserving with the son the same

interest which he had acquired with the father, is a proof at

least that he was possessed of a very flexible disposition. The

favor of a tyrant does not always suppose a want of merit in the

object of it; he may, without intending it, reward a man of worth

and ability, or he may find such a man useful to his own service.

It does not appear that Albinus served the son of Marcus, either

as the minister of his cruelties, or even as the associate of his

pleasures. He was employed in a distant honorable command, when

he received a confidential letter from the emperor, acquainting

him of the treasonable designs of some discontented generals, and

authorizing him to declare himself the guardian and successor of

the throne, by assuming the title and ensigns of Cæsar. 18 The

governor of Britain wisely declined the dangerous honor, which

would have marked him for the jealousy, or involved him in the

approaching ruin, of Commodus. He courted power by nobler, or, at

least, by more specious arts. On a premature report of the death

of the emperor, he assembled his troops; and, in an eloquent

discourse, deplored the inevitable mischiefs of despotism,

described the happiness and glory which their ancestors had

enjoyed under the consular government, and declared his firm

resolution to reinstate the senate and people in their legal

authority. This popular harangue was answered by the loud

acclamations of the British legions, and received at Rome with a

secret murmur of applause. Safe in the possession of his little

world, and in the command of an army less distinguished indeed

for discipline than for numbers and valor, 19 Albinus braved the

menaces of Commodus, maintained towards Pertinax a stately

ambiguous reserve, and instantly declared against the usurpation

of Julian. The convulsions of the capital added new weight to his

sentiments, or rather to his professions of patriotism. A regard

to decency induced him to decline the lofty titles of Augustus

and Emperor; and he imitated perhaps the example of Galba, who,

on a similar occasion, had styled himself the Lieutenant of the

senate and people. 20

16 (return) [ The Posthumian and the Ce’onian; the former of whom

was raised to the consulship in the fifth year after its

institution.]

17 (return) [ Spartianus, in his undigested collections, mixes up

all the virtues and all the vices that enter into the human

composition, and bestows them on the same object. Such, indeed

are many of the characters in the Augustan History.]

18 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 80, 84.]

19 (return) [ Pertinax, who governed Britain a few years before,

had been left for dead, in a mutiny of the soldiers. Hist.

August. p 54. Yet they loved and regretted him; admirantibus eam

virtutem cui irascebantur.]

20 (return) [ Sueton. in Galb. c. 10.]

Personal merit alone had raised Pescennius Niger, from an obscure

birth and station, to the government of Syria; a lucrative and

important command, which in times of civil confusion gave him a

near prospect of the throne. Yet his parts seem to have been

better suited to the second than to the first rank; he was an

unequal rival, though he might have approved himself an excellent

lieutenant, to Severus, who afterwards displayed the greatness of

his mind by adopting several useful institutions from a

vanquished enemy. 21 In his government Niger acquired the esteem

of the soldiers and the love of the provincials. His rigid

discipline fortified the valor and confirmed the obedience of the

former, whilst the voluptuous Syrians were less delighted with

the mild firmness of his administration, than with the affability

of his manners, and the apparent pleasure with which he attended

their frequent and pompous festivals. 22 As soon as the

intelligence of the atrocious murder of Pertinax had reached

Antioch, the wishes of Asia invited Niger to assume the Imperial

purple and revenge his death. The legions of the eastern frontier

embraced his cause; the opulent but unarmed provinces, from the

frontiers of Æthiopia 23 to the Hadriatic, cheerfully submitted

to his power; and the kings beyond the Tigris and the Euphrates

congratulated his election, and offered him their homage and

services. The mind of Niger was not capable of receiving this

sudden tide of fortune: he flattered himself that his accession

would be undisturbed by competition and unstained by civil blood;

and whilst he enjoyed the vain pomp of triumph, he neglected to

secure the means of victory. Instead of entering into an

effectual negotiation with the powerful armies of the West, whose

resolution might decide, or at least must balance, the mighty

contest; instead of advancing without delay towards Rome and

Italy, where his presence was impatiently expected, 24 Niger

trifled away in the luxury of Antioch those irretrievable moments

which were diligently improved by the decisive activity of

Severus. 25

21 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 76.]

22 (return) [ Herod. l. ii. p. 68. The Chronicle of John Malala,

of Antioch, shows the zealous attachment of his countrymen to

these festivals, which at once gratified their superstition, and

their love of pleasure.]

23 (return) [ A king of Thebes, in Egypt, is mentioned, in the

Augustan History, as an ally, and, indeed, as a personal friend

of Niger. If Spartianus is not, as I strongly suspect, mistaken,

he has brought to light a dynasty of tributary princes totally

unknown to history.]

24 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1238. Herod. l. ii. p. 67. A

verse in every one’s mouth at that time, seems to express the

general opinion of the three rivals; Optimus est _Niger_,

[_Fuscus_, which preserves the quantity.—M.] bonus _Afer_,

pessimus _Albus_. Hist. August. p. 75.]

25 (return) [ Herodian, l. ii. p. 71.]

The country of Pannonia and Dalmatia, which occupied the space

between the Danube and the Hadriatic, was one of the last and

most difficult conquests of the Romans. In the defence of

national freedom, two hundred thousand of these barbarians had

once appeared in the field, alarmed the declining age of

Augustus, and exercised the vigilant prudence of Tiberius at the

head of the collected force of the empire. 26 The Pannonians

yielded at length to the arms and institutions of Rome. Their

recent subjection, however, the neighborhood, and even the

mixture, of the unconquered tribes, and perhaps the climate,

adapted, as it has been observed, to the production of great

bodies and slow minds, 27 all contributed to preserve some

remains of their original ferocity, and under the tame and

uniform countenance of Roman provincials, the hardy features of

the natives were still to be discerned. Their warlike youth

afforded an inexhaustible supply of recruits to the legions

stationed on the banks of the Danube, and which, from a perpetual

warfare against the Germans and Sarmazans, were deservedly

esteemed the best troops in the service.

26 (return) [ See an account of that memorable war in Velleius

Paterculus, is 110, &c., who served in the army of Tiberius.]

27 (return) [ Such is the reflection of Herodian, l. ii. p. 74.

Will the modern Austrians allow the influence?]

The Pannonian army was at this time commanded by Septimius

Severus, a native of Africa, who, in the gradual ascent of

private honors, had concealed his daring ambition, which was

never diverted from its steady course by the allurements of

pleasure, the apprehension of danger, or the feelings of

humanity. 28 On the first news of the murder of Pertinax, he

assembled his troops, painted in the most lively colors the

crime, the insolence, and the weakness of the Prætorian guards,

and animated the legions to arms and to revenge. He concluded

(and the peroration was thought extremely eloquent) with

promising every soldier about four hundred pounds; an honorable

donative, double in value to the infamous bribe with which Julian

had purchased the empire. 29 The acclamations of the army

immediately saluted Severus with the names of Augustus, Pertinax,

and Emperor; and he thus attained the lofty station to which he

was invited, by conscious merit and a long train of dreams and

omens, the fruitful offsprings either of his superstition or

policy. 30

28 (return) [ In the letter to Albinus, already mentioned,

Commodus accuses Severus, as one of the ambitious generals who

censured his conduct, and wished to occupy his place. Hist.

August. p. 80.]

29 (return) [ Pannonia was too poor to supply such a sum. It was

probably promised in the camp, and paid at Rome, after the

victory. In fixing the sum, I have adopted the conjecture of

Casaubon. See Hist. August. p. 66. Comment. p. 115.]

30 (return) [ Herodian, l. ii. p. 78. Severus was declared

emperor on the banks of the Danube, either at Carnuntum,

according to Spartianus, (Hist. August. p. 65,) or else at

Sabaria, according to Victor. Mr. Hume, in supposing that the

birth and dignity of Severus were too much inferior to the

Imperial crown, and that he marched into Italy as general only,

has not considered this transaction with his usual accuracy,

(Essay on the original contract.) * Note: Carnuntum, opposite to

the mouth of the Morava: its position is doubtful, either

Petronel or Haimburg. A little intermediate village seems to

indicate by its name (Altenburg) the site of an old town.

D’Anville Geogr. Anc. Sabaria, now Sarvar.—G. Compare note

37.—M.]

The new candidate for empire saw and improved the peculiar

advantage of his situation. His province extended to the Julian

Alps, which gave an easy access into Italy; and he remembered the

saying of Augustus, that a Pannonian army might in ten days

appear in sight of Rome. 31 By a celerity proportioned to the

greatness of the occasion, he might reasonably hope to revenge

Pertinax, punish Julian, and receive the homage of the senate and

people, as their lawful emperor, before his competitors,

separated from Italy by an immense tract of sea and land, were

apprised of his success, or even of his election. During the

whole expedition, he scarcely allowed himself any moments for

sleep or food; marching on foot, and in complete armor, at the

head of his columns, he insinuated himself into the confidence

and affection of his troops, pressed their diligence, revived

their spirits, animated their hopes, and was well satisfied to

share the hardships of the meanest soldier, whilst he kept in

view the infinite superiority of his reward.

31 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 3. We must reckon

the march from the nearest verge of Pannonia, and extend the

sight of the city as far as two hundred miles.]

The wretched Julian had expected, and thought himself prepared,

to dispute the empire with the governor of Syria; but in the

invincible and rapid approach of the Pannonian legions, he saw

his inevitable ruin. The hasty arrival of every messenger

increased his just apprehensions. He was successively informed,

that Severus had passed the Alps; that the Italian cities,

unwilling or unable to oppose his progress, had received him with

the warmest professions of joy and duty; that the important place

of Ravenna had surrendered without resistance, and that the

Hadriatic fleet was in the hands of the conqueror. The enemy was

now within two hundred and fifty miles of Rome; and every moment

diminished the narrow span of life and empire allotted to Julian.

He attempted, however, to prevent, or at least to protract, his

ruin. He implored the venal faith of the Prætorians, filled the

city with unavailing preparations for war, drew lines round the

suburbs, and even strengthened the fortifications of the palace;

as if those last intrenchments could be defended, without hope of

relief, against a victorious invader. Fear and shame prevented

the guards from deserting his standard; but they trembled at the

name of the Pannonian legions, commanded by an experienced

general, and accustomed to vanquish the barbarians on the frozen

Danube. 32 They quitted, with a sigh, the pleasures of the baths

and theatres, to put on arms, whose use they had almost

forgotten, and beneath the weight of which they were oppressed.

The unpractised elephants, whose uncouth appearance, it was

hoped, would strike terror into the army of the north, threw

their unskilful riders; and the awkward evolutions of the

marines, drawn from the fleet of Misenum, were an object of

ridicule to the populace; whilst the senate enjoyed, with secret

pleasure, the distress and weakness of the usurper. 33

32 (return) [ This is not a puerile figure of rhetoric, but an

allusion to a real fact recorded by Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1181. It

probably happened more than once.]

33 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1233. Herodian, l. ii. p. 81.

There is no surer proof of the military skill of the Romans, than

their first surmounting the idle terror, and afterwards

disdaining the dangerous use, of elephants in war. Note: These

elephants were kept for processions, perhaps for the games. Se

Herod. in loc.—M.]

Every motion of Julian betrayed his trembling perplexity. He

insisted that Severus should be declared a public enemy by the

senate. He entreated that the Pannonian general might be

associated to the empire. He sent public ambassadors of consular

rank to negotiate with his rival; he despatched private assassins

to take away his life. He designed that the Vestal virgins, and

all the colleges of priests, in their sacerdotal habits, and

bearing before them the sacred pledges of the Roman religion,

should advance in solemn procession to meet the Pannonian

legions; and, at the same time, he vainly tried to interrogate,

or to appease, the fates, by magic ceremonies and unlawful

sacrifices. 34

34 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 62, 63. * Note: Quæ ad speculum

dicunt fieri in quo pueri præligatis oculis, incantate...,

respicere dicuntur. * * * Tuncque puer vidisse dicitur et

adventun Severi et Juliani decessionem. This seems to have been a

practice somewhat similar to that of which our recent Egyptian

travellers relate such extraordinary circumstances. See also

Apulius, Orat. de Magia.—M.]

Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part II.

Severus, who dreaded neither his arms nor his enchantments,

guarded himself from the only danger of secret conspiracy, by the

faithful attendance of six hundred chosen men, who never quitted

his person or their cuirasses, either by night or by day, during

the whole march. Advancing with a steady and rapid course, he

passed, without difficulty, the defiles of the Apennine, received

into his party the troops and ambassadors sent to retard his

progress, and made a short halt at Interamnia, about seventy

miles from Rome. His victory was already secure, but the despair

of the Prætorians might have rendered it bloody; and Severus had

the laudable ambition of ascending the throne without drawing the

sword. 35 His emissaries, dispersed in the capital, assured the

guards, that provided they would abandon their worthless prince,

and the perpetrators of the murder of Pertinax, to the justice of

the conqueror, he would no longer consider that melancholy event

as the act of the whole body. The faithless Prætorians, whose

resistance was supported only by sullen obstinacy, gladly

complied with the easy conditions, seized the greatest part of

the assassins, and signified to the senate, that they no longer

defended the cause of Julian. That assembly, convoked by the

consul, unanimously acknowledged Severus as lawful emperor,

decreed divine honors to Pertinax, and pronounced a sentence of

deposition and death against his unfortunate successor. Julian

was conducted into a private apartment of the baths of the

palace, and beheaded as a common criminal, after having

purchased, with an immense treasure, an anxious and precarious

reign of only sixty-six days. 36 The almost incredible expedition

of Severus, who, in so short a space of time, conducted a

numerous army from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tyber,

proves at once the plenty of provisions produced by agriculture

and commerce, the goodness of the roads, the discipline of the

legions, and the indolent, subdued temper of the provinces. 37

35 (return) [ Victor and Eutropius, viii. 17, mention a combat

near the Milvian bridge, the Ponte Molle, unknown to the better

and more ancient writers.]

36 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1240. Herodian, l. ii. p. 83.

Hist. August. p. 63.]

37 (return) [ From these sixty-six days, we must first deduct

sixteen, as Pertinax was murdered on the 28th of March, and

Severus most probably elected on the 13th of April, (see Hist.

August. p. 65, and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p.

393, note 7.) We cannot allow less than ten days after his

election, to put a numerous army in motion. Forty days remain for

this rapid march; and as we may compute about eight hundred miles

from Rome to the neighborhood of Vienna, the army of Severus

marched twenty miles every day, without halt or intermission.]

The first cares of Severus were bestowed on two measures, the one

dictated by policy, the other by decency; the revenge, and the

honors, due to the memory of Pertinax. Before the new emperor

entered Rome, he issued his commands to the Prætorian guards,

directing them to wait his arrival on a large plain near the

city, without arms, but in the habits of ceremony, in which they

were accustomed to attend their sovereign. He was obeyed by those

haughty troops, whose contrition was the effect of their just

terrors. A chosen part of the Illyrian army encompassed them with

levelled spears. Incapable of flight or resistance, they expected

their fate in silent consternation. Severus mounted the tribunal,

sternly reproached them with perfidy and cowardice, dismissed

them with ignominy from the trust which they had betrayed,

despoiled them of their splendid ornaments, and banished them, on

pain of death, to the distance of a hundred miles from the

capital. During the transaction, another detachment had been sent

to seize their arms, occupy their camp, and prevent the hasty

consequences of their despair. 38

38 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1241. Herodian, l. ii. p. 84.]

The funeral and consecration of Pertinax was next solemnized with

every circumstance of sad magnificence. 39 The senate, with a

melancholy pleasure, performed the last rites to that excellent

prince, whom they had loved, and still regretted. The concern of

his successor was probably less sincere; he esteemed the virtues

of Pertinax, but those virtues would forever have confined his

ambition to a private station. Severus pronounced his funeral

oration with studied eloquence, inward satisfaction, and

well-acted sorrow; and by this pious regard to his memory,

convinced the credulous multitude, that _he alone_ was worthy to

supply his place. Sensible, however, that arms, not ceremonies,

must assert his claim to the empire, he left Rome at the end of

thirty days, and without suffering himself to be elated by this

easy victory, prepared to encounter his more formidable rivals.

39 (return) [ Dion, (l. lxxiv. p. 1244,) who assisted at the

ceremony as a senator, gives a most pompous description of it.]

The uncommon abilities and fortune of Severus have induced an

elegant historian to compare him with the first and greatest of

the Cæsars. 40 The parallel is, at least, imperfect. Where shall

we find, in the character of Severus, the commanding superiority

of soul, the generous clemency, and the various genius, which

could reconcile and unite the love of pleasure, the thirst of

knowledge, and the fire of ambition? 41 In one instance only,

they may be compared, with some degree of propriety, in the

celerity of their motions, and their civil victories. In less

than four years, 42 Severus subdued the riches of the East, and

the valor of the West. He vanquished two competitors of

reputation and ability, and defeated numerous armies, provided

with weapons and discipline equal to his own. In that age, the

art of fortification, and the principles of tactics, were well

understood by all the Roman generals; and the constant

superiority of Severus was that of an artist, who uses the same

instruments with more skill and industry than his rivals. I shall

not, however, enter into a minute narrative of these military

operations; but as the two civil wars against Niger and against

Albinus were almost the same in their conduct, event, and

consequences, I shall collect into one point of view the most

striking circumstances, tending to develop the character of the

conqueror and the state of the empire.

40 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 112]

41 (return) [ Though it is not, most assuredly, the intention of

Lucan to exalt the character of Cæsar, yet the idea he gives of

that hero, in the tenth book of the Pharsalia, where he describes

him, at the same time, making love to Cleopatra, sustaining a

siege against the power of Egypt, and conversing with the sages

of the country, is, in reality, the noblest panegyric. * Note:

Lord Byron wrote, no doubt, from a reminiscence of that

passage—“It is possible to be a very great man, and to be still

very inferior to Julius Cæsar, the most complete character, so

Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of

such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile

capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans themselves. The

first general; the only triumphant politician; inferior to none

in point of eloquence; comparable to any in the attainments of

wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen,

orators, and philosophers, that ever appeared in the world; an

author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his

travelling carriage; at one time in a controversy with Cato, at

another writing a treatise on punuing, and collecting a set of

good sayings; fighting and making love at the same moment, and

willing to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight

of the fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Cæsar appear to his

contemporaries, and to those of the subsequent ages who were the

most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius.” Note 47

to Canto iv. of Childe Harold.—M.]

42 (return) [ Reckoning from his election, April 13, 193, to the

death of Albinus, February 19, 197. See Tillemont’s Chronology.]

Falsehood and insincerity, unsuitable as they seem to the dignity

of public transactions, offend us with a less degrading idea of

meanness, than when they are found in the intercourse of private

life. In the latter, they discover a want of courage; in the

other, only a defect of power: and, as it is impossible for the

most able statesmen to subdue millions of followers and enemies

by their own personal strength, the world, under the name of

policy, seems to have granted them a very liberal indulgence of

craft and dissimulation. Yet the arts of Severus cannot be

justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He

promised only to betray, he flattered only to ruin; and however

he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his

conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from

the inconvenient obligation. 43

43 (return) [ Herodian, l. ii. p. 85.]

If his two competitors, reconciled by their common danger, had

advanced upon him without delay, perhaps Severus would have sunk

under their united effort. Had they even attacked him, at the

same time, with separate views and separate armies, the contest

might have been long and doubtful. But they fell, singly and

successively, an easy prey to the arts as well as arms of their

subtle enemy, lulled into security by the moderation of his

professions, and overwhelmed by the rapidity of his action. He

first marched against Niger, whose reputation and power he the

most dreaded: but he declined any hostile declarations,

suppressed the name of his antagonist, and only signified to the

senate and people his intention of regulating the eastern

provinces. In private, he spoke of Niger, his old friend and

intended successor, 44 with the most affectionate regard, and

highly applauded his generous design of revenging the murder of

Pertinax. To punish the vile usurper of the throne, was the duty

of every Roman general. To persevere in arms, and to resist a

lawful emperor, acknowledged by the senate, would alone render

him criminal. 45 The sons of Niger had fallen into his hands

among the children of the provincial governors, detained at Rome

as pledges for the loyalty of their parents. 46 As long as the

power of Niger inspired terror, or even respect, they were

educated with the most tender care, with the children of Severus

himself; but they were soon involved in their father’s ruin, and

removed first by exile, and afterwards by death, from the eye of

public compassion. 47

44 (return) [ Whilst Severus was very dangerously ill, it was

industriously given out, that he intended to appoint Niger and

Albinus his successors. As he could not be sincere with respect

to both, he might not be so with regard to either. Yet Severus

carried his hypocrisy so far, as to profess that intention in the

memoirs of his own life.]

45 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 65.]

46 (return) [ This practice, invented by Commodus, proved very

useful to Severus. He found at Rome the children of many of the

principal adherents of his rivals; and he employed them more than

once to intimidate, or seduce, the parents.]

47 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 95. Hist. August. p. 67, 68.]

Whilst Severus was engaged in his eastern war, he had reason to

apprehend that the governor of Britain might pass the sea and the

Alps, occupy the vacant seat of empire, and oppose his return

with the authority of the senate and the forces of the West. The

ambiguous conduct of Albinus, in not assuming the Imperial title,

left room for negotiation. Forgetting, at once, his professions

of patriotism, and the jealousy of sovereign power, he accepted

the precarious rank of Cæsar, as a reward for his fatal

neutrality. Till the first contest was decided, Severus treated

the man, whom he had doomed to destruction, with every mark of

esteem and regard. Even in the letter, in which he announced his

victory over Niger, he styles Albinus the brother of his soul and

empire, sends him the affectionate salutations of his wife Julia,

and his young family, and entreats him to preserve the armies and

the republic faithful to their common interest. The messengers

charged with this letter were instructed to accost the Cæsar with

respect, to desire a private audience, and to plunge their

daggers into his heart. 48 The conspiracy was discovered, and the

too credulous Albinus, at length, passed over to the continent,

and prepared for an unequal contest with his rival, who rushed

upon him at the head of a veteran and victorious army.

48 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 84. Spartianus has inserted this

curious letter at full length.]

The military labors of Severus seem inadequate to the importance

of his conquests. Two engagements, 481 the one near the

Hellespont, the other in the narrow defiles of Cilicia, decided

the fate of his Syrian competitor; and the troops of Europe

asserted their usual ascendant over the effeminate natives of

Asia. 49 The battle of Lyons, where one hundred and fifty

thousand Romans 50 were engaged, was equally fatal to Albinus.

The valor of the British army maintained, indeed, a sharp and

doubtful contest, with the hardy discipline of the Illyrian

legions. The fame and person of Severus appeared, during a few

moments, irrecoverably lost, till that warlike prince rallied his

fainting troops, and led them on to a decisive victory. 51 The

war was finished by that memorable day. 511

481 (return) [ There were three actions; one near Cyzicus, on the

Hellespont, one near Nice, in Bithynia, the third near the Issus,

in Cilicia, where Alexander conquered Darius. (Dion, lxiv. c. 6.

Herodian, iii. 2, 4.)—W Herodian represents the second battle as

of less importance than Dion—M.]

49 (return) [ Consult the third book of Herodian, and the

seventy-fourth book of Dion Cassius.]

50 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1260.]

51 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1261. Herodian, l. iii. p. 110.

Hist. August. p. 68. The battle was fought in the plain of

Trevoux, three or four leagues from Lyons. See Tillemont, tom.

iii. p. 406, note 18.]

511 (return) [ According to Herodian, it was his lieutenant Lætus

who led back the troops to the battle, and gained the day, which

Severus had almost lost. Dion also attributes to Lætus a great

share in the victory. Severus afterwards put him to death, either

from fear or jealousy.—W. and G. Wenck and M. Guizot have not

given the real statement of Herodian or of Dion. According to the

former, Lætus appeared with his own army entire, which he was

suspected of having designedly kept disengaged when the battle

was still doudtful, or rather after the rout of severus. Dion

says that he did not move till Severus had won the victory.—M.]

The civil wars of modern Europe have been distinguished, not only

by the fierce animosity, but likewise by the obstinate

perseverance, of the contending factions. They have generally

been justified by some principle, or, at least, colored by some

pretext, of religion, freedom, or loyalty. The leaders were

nobles of independent property and hereditary influence. The

troops fought like men interested in the decision of the quarrel;

and as military spirit and party zeal were strongly diffused

throughout the whole community, a vanquished chief was

immediately supplied with new adherents, eager to shed their

blood in the same cause. But the Romans, after the fall of the

republic, combated only for the choice of masters. Under the

standard of a popular candidate for empire, a few enlisted from

affection, some from fear, many from interest, none from

principle. The legions, uninflamed by party zeal, were allured

into civil war by liberal donatives, and still more liberal

promises. A defeat, by disabling the chief from the performance

of his engagements, dissolved the mercenary allegiance of his

followers, and left them to consult their own safety by a timely

desertion of an unsuccessful cause. It was of little moment to

the provinces, under whose name they were oppressed or governed;

they were driven by the impulsion of the present power, and as

soon as that power yielded to a superior force, they hastened to

implore the clemency of the conqueror, who, as he had an immense

debt to discharge, was obliged to sacrifice the most guilty

countries to the avarice of his soldiers. In the vast extent of

the Roman empire, there were few fortified cities capable of

protecting a routed army; nor was there any person, or family, or

order of men, whose natural interest, unsupported by the powers

of government, was capable of restoring the cause of a sinking

party. 52

52 (return) [ Montesquieu, Considerations sur la Grandeur et la

Decadence des Romains, c. xiii.]

Yet, in the contest between Niger and Severus, a single city

deserves an honorable exception. As Byzantium was one of the

greatest passages from Europe into Asia, it had been provided

with a strong garrison, and a fleet of five hundred vessels was

anchored in the harbor. 53 The impetuosity of Severus

disappointed this prudent scheme of defence; he left to his

generals the siege of Byzantium, forced the less guarded passage

of the Hellespont, and, impatient of a meaner enemy, pressed

forward to encounter his rival. Byzantium, attacked by a numerous

and increasing army, and afterwards by the whole naval power of

the empire, sustained a siege of three years, and remained

faithful to the name and memory of Niger. The citizens and

soldiers (we know not from what cause) were animated with equal

fury; several of the principal officers of Niger, who despaired

of, or who disdained, a pardon, had thrown themselves into this

last refuge: the fortifications were esteemed impregnable, and,

in the defence of the place, a celebrated engineer displayed all

the mechanic powers known to the ancients. 54 Byzantium, at

length, surrendered to famine. The magistrates and soldiers were

put to the sword, the walls demolished, the privileges

suppressed, and the destined capital of the East subsisted only

as an open village, subject to the insulting jurisdiction of

Perinthus. The historian Dion, who had admired the flourishing,

and lamented the desolate, state of Byzantium, accused the

revenge of Severus, for depriving the Roman people of the

strongest bulwark against the barbarians of Pontus and Asia 55

The truth of this observation was but too well justified in the

succeeding age, when the Gothic fleets covered the Euxine, and

passed through the undefined Bosphorus into the centre of the

Mediterranean.

53 (return) [ Most of these, as may be supposed, were small open

vessels; some, however, were galleys of two, and a few of three

ranks of oars.]

54 (return) [The engineer’s name was Priscus. His skill saved his

life, and he was taken into the service of the conqueror. For the

particular facts of the siege, consult Dion Cassius (l. lxxv. p.

1251) and Herodian, (l. iii. p. 95;) for the theory of it, the

fanciful chevalier de Folard may be looked into. See Polybe, tom.

i. p. 76.]

55 (return) [ Notwithstanding the authority of Spartianus, and

some modern Greeks, we may be assured, from Dion and Herodian,

that Byzantium, many years after the death of Severus, lay in

ruins. There is no contradiction between the relation of Dion and

that of Spartianus and the modern Greeks. Dion does not say that

Severus destroyed Byzantium, but that he deprived it of its

franchises and privileges, stripped the inhabitants of their

property, razed the fortifications, and subjected the city to the

jurisdiction of Perinthus. Therefore, when Spartian, Suidas,

Cedrenus, say that Severus and his son Antoninus restored to

Byzantium its rights and franchises, ordered temples to be built,

&c., this is easily reconciled with the relation of Dion. Perhaps

the latter mentioned it in some of the fragments of his history

which have been lost. As to Herodian, his expressions are

evidently exaggerated, and he has been guilty of so many

inaccuracies in the history of Severus, that we have a right to

suppose one in this passage.—G. from W Wenck and M. Guizot have

omitted to cite Zosimus, who mentions a particular portico built

by Severus, and called, apparently, by his name. Zosim. Hist. ii.

c. xxx. p. 151, 153, edit Heyne.—M.]

Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to death in their

flight from the field of battle. Their fate excited neither

surprise nor compassion. They had staked their lives against the

chance of empire, and suffered what they would have inflicted;

nor did Severus claim the arrogant superiority of suffering his

rivals to live in a private station. But his unforgiving temper,

stimulated by avarice, indulged a spirit of revenge, where there

was no room for apprehension. The most considerable of the

provincials, who, without any dislike to the fortunate candidate,

had obeyed the governor under whose authority they were

accidentally placed, were punished by death, exile, and

especially by the confiscation of their estates. Many cities of

the East were stripped of their ancient honors, and obliged to

pay, into the treasury of Severus, four times the amount of the

sums contributed by them for the service of Niger. 56

56 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1250.]

Till the final decision of the war, the cruelty of Severus was,

in some measure, restrained by the uncertainty of the event, and

his pretended reverence for the senate. The head of Albinus,

accompanied with a menacing letter, announced to the Romans that

he was resolved to spare none of the adherents of his unfortunate

competitors. He was irritated by the just auspicion that he had

never possessed the affections of the senate, and he concealed

his old malevolence under the recent discovery of some

treasonable correspondences. Thirty-five senators, however,

accused of having favored the party of Albinus, he freely

pardoned, and, by his subsequent behavior, endeavored to convince

them, that he had forgotten, as well as forgiven, their supposed

offences. But, at the same time, he condemned forty-one 57 other

senators, whose names history has recorded; their wives,

children, and clients attended them in death, 571 and the noblest

provincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the same ruin. 572

Such rigid justice—for so he termed it—was, in the opinion of

Severus, the only conduct capable of insuring peace to the people

or stability to the prince; and he condescended slightly to

lament, that to be mild, it was necessary that he should first be

cruel. 58

57 (return) [ Dion, (l. lxxv. p. 1264;) only twenty-nine senators

are mentioned by him, but forty-one are named in the Augustan

History, p. 69, among whom were six of the name of Pescennius.

Herodian (l. iii. p. 115) speaks in general of the cruelties of

Severus.]

571 (return) [ Wenck denies that there is any authority for this

massacre of the wives of the senators. He adds, that only the

children and relatives of Niger and Albinus were put to death.

This is true of the family of Albinus, whose bodies were thrown

into the Rhone; those of Niger, according to Lampridius, were

sent into exile, but afterwards put to death. Among the partisans

of Albinus who were put to death were many women of rank, multæ

fœminæ illustres. Lamprid. in Sever.—M.]

572 (return) [ A new fragment of Dion describes the state of Rome

during this contest. All pretended to be on the side of Severus;

but their secret sentiments were often betrayed by a change of

countenance on the arrival of some sudden report. Some were

detected by overacting their loyalty, Mai. Fragm. Vatican. p. 227

Severus told the senate he would rather have their hearts than

their votes.—Ibid.—M.]

58 (return) [ Aurelius Victor.]

The true interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides with

that of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and

their security, are the best and only foundations of his real

greatness; and were he totally devoid of virtue, prudence might

supply its place, and would dictate the same rule of conduct.

Severus considered the Roman empire as his property, and had no

sooner secured the possession, than he bestowed his care on the

cultivation and improvement of so valuable an acquisition.

Salutary laws, executed with inflexible firmness, soon corrected

most of the abuses with which, since the death of Marcus, every

part of the government had been infected. In the administration

of justice, the judgments of the emperor were characterized by

attention, discernment, and impartiality; and whenever he

deviated from the strict line of equity, it was generally in

favor of the poor and oppressed; not so much indeed from any

sense of humanity, as from the natural propensity of a despot to

humble the pride of greatness, and to sink all his subjects to

the same common level of absolute dependence. His expensive taste

for building, magnificent shows, and above all a constant and

liberal distribution of corn and provisions, were the surest

means of captivating the affection of the Roman people. 59 The

misfortunes of civil discord were obliterated. The calm of peace

and prosperity was once more experienced in the provinces; and

many cities, restored by the munificence of Severus, assumed the

title of his colonies, and attested by public monuments their

gratitude and felicity. 60 The fame of the Roman arms was revived

by that warlike and successful emperor, 61 and he boasted, with a

just pride, that, having received the empire oppressed with

foreign and domestic wars, he left it established in profound,

universal, and honorable peace. 62

59 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1272. Hist. August. p. 67.

Severus celebrated the secular games with extraordinary

magnificence, and he left in the public granaries a provision of

corn for seven years, at the rate of 75,000 modii, or about 2500

quarters per day. I am persuaded that the granaries of Severus

were supplied for a long term, but I am not less persuaded, that

policy on one hand, and admiration on the other, magnified the

hoard far beyond its true contents.]

60 (return) [ See Spanheim’s treatise of ancient medals, the

inscriptions, and our learned travellers Spon and Wheeler, Shaw,

Pocock, &c, who, in Africa, Greece, and Asia, have found more

monuments of Severus than of any other Roman emperor whatsoever.]

61 (return) [ He carried his victorious arms to Seleucia and

Ctesiphon, the capitals of the Parthian monarchy. I shall have

occasion to mention this war in its proper place.]

62 (return) [ Etiam in Britannis, was his own just and emphatic

expression Hist. August. 73.]

Although the wounds of civil war appeared completely healed, its

mortal poison still lurked in the vitals of the constitution.

Severus possessed a considerable share of vigor and ability; but

the daring soul of the first Cæsar, or the deep policy of

Augustus, were scarcely equal to the task of curbing the

insolence of the victorious legions. By gratitude, by misguided

policy, by seeming necessity, Severus was reduced to relax the

nerves of discipline. 63 The vanity of his soldiers was flattered

with the honor of wearing gold rings; their ease was indulged in

the permission of living with their wives in the idleness of

quarters. He increased their pay beyond the example of former

times, and taught them to expect, and soon to claim,

extraordinary donatives on every public occasion of danger or

festivity. Elated by success, enervated by luxury, and raised

above the level of subjects by their dangerous privileges, 64

they soon became incapable of military fatigue, oppressive to the

country, and impatient of a just subordination. Their officers

asserted the superiority of rank by a more profuse and elegant

luxury. There is still extant a letter of Severus, lamenting the

licentious stage of the army, 641 and exhorting one of his

generals to begin the necessary reformation from the tribunes

themselves; since, as he justly observes, the officer who has

forfeited the esteem, will never command the obedience, of his

soldiers. 65 Had the emperor pursued the train of reflection, he

would have discovered, that the primary cause of this general

corruption might be ascribed, not indeed to the example, but to

the pernicious indulgence, however, of the commander-in-chief.

63 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 115. Hist. August. p. 68.]

64 (return) [ Upon the insolence and privileges of the soldier,

the 16th satire, falsely ascribed to Juvenal, may be consulted;

the style and circumstances of it would induce me to believe,

that it was composed under the reign of Severus, or that of his

son.]

641 (return) [ Not of the army, but of the troops in Gaul. The

contents of this letter seem to prove that Severus was really

anxious to restore discipline Herodian is the only historian who

accuses him of being the first cause of its relaxation.—G. from W

Spartian mentions his increase of the pays.—M.]

65 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 73.]

The Prætorians, who murdered their emperor and sold the empire,

had received the just punishment of their treason; but the

necessary, though dangerous, institution of guards was soon

restored on a new model by Severus, and increased to four times

the ancient number. 66 Formerly these troops had been recruited

in Italy; and as the adjacent provinces gradually imbibed the

softer manners of Rome, the levies were extended to Macedonia,

Noricum, and Spain. In the room of these elegant troops, better

adapted to the pomp of courts than to the uses of war, it was

established by Severus, that from all the legions of the

frontiers, the soldiers most distinguished for strength, valor,

and fidelity, should be occasionally draughted; and promoted, as

an honor and reward, into the more eligible service of the

guards. 67 By this new institution, the Italian youth were

diverted from the exercise of arms, and the capital was terrified

by the strange aspect and manners of a multitude of barbarians.

But Severus flattered himself, that the legions would consider

these chosen Prætorians as the representatives of the whole

military order; and that the present aid of fifty thousand men,

superior in arms and appointments to any force that could be

brought into the field against them, would forever crush the

hopes of rebellion, and secure the empire to himself and his

posterity.

66 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 131.]

67 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1243.]

The command of these favored and formidable troops soon became

the first office of the empire. As the government degenerated

into military despotism, the Prætorian Præfect, who in his origin

had been a simple captain of the guards, 671 was placed not only

at the head of the army, but of the finances, and even of the

law. In every department of administration, he represented the

person, and exercised the authority, of the emperor. The first

præfect who enjoyed and abused this immense power was Plautianus,

the favorite minister of Severus. His reign lasted above ten

years, till the marriage of his daughter with the eldest son of

the emperor, which seemed to assure his fortune, proved the

occasion of his ruin. 68 The animosities of the palace, by

irritating the ambition and alarming the fears of Plautianus, 681

threatened to produce a revolution, and obliged the emperor, who

still loved him, to consent with reluctance to his death. 69

After the fall of Plautianus, an eminent lawyer, the celebrated

Papinian, was appointed to execute the motley office of Prætorian

Præfect.

671 (return) [ The Prætorian Præfect had never been a simple

captain of the guards; from the first creation of this office,

under Augustus, it possessed great power. That emperor,

therefore, decreed that there should be always two Prætorian

Præfects, who could only be taken from the equestrian order

Tiberius first departed from the former clause of this edict;

Alexander Severus violated the second by naming senators

præfects. It appears that it was under Commodus that the

Prætorian Præfects obtained the province of civil jurisdiction.

It extended only to Italy, with the exception of Rome and its

district, which was governed by the Præfectus urbi. As to the

control of the finances, and the levying of taxes, it was not

intrusted to them till after the great change that Constantine I.

made in the organization of the empire at least, I know no

passage which assigns it to them before that time; and

Drakenborch, who has treated this question in his Dissertation de

official præfectorum prætorio, vi., does not quote one.—W.]

68 (return) [ One of his most daring and wanton acts of power,

was the castration of a hundred free Romans, some of them married

men, and even fathers of families; merely that his daughter, on

her marriage with the young emperor, might be attended by a train

of eunuchs worthy of an eastern queen. Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1271.]

681 (return) [ Plautianus was compatriot, relative, and the old

friend, of Severus; he had so completely shut up all access to

the emperor, that the latter was ignorant how far he abused his

powers: at length, being informed of it, he began to limit his

authority. The marriage of Plautilla with Caracalla was

unfortunate; and the prince who had been forced to consent to it,

menaced the father and the daughter with death when he should

come to the throne. It was feared, after that, that Plautianus

would avail himself of the power which he still possessed,

against the Imperial family; and Severus caused him to be

assassinated in his presence, upon the pretext of a conspiracy,

which Dion considers fictitious.—W. This note is not, perhaps,

very necessary and does not contain the whole facts. Dion

considers the conspiracy the invention of Caracalla, by whose

command, almost by whose hand, Plautianus was slain in the

presence of Severus.—M.]

69 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1274. Herodian, l. iii. p. 122,

129. The grammarian of Alexander seems, as is not unusual, much

better acquainted with this mysterious transaction, and more

assured of the guilt of Plautianus than the Roman senator

ventures to be.]

Till the reign of Severus, the virtue and even the good sense of

the emperors had been distinguished by their zeal or affected

reverence for the senate, and by a tender regard to the nice

frame of civil policy instituted by Augustus. But the youth of

Severus had been trained in the implicit obedience of camps, and

his riper years spent in the despotism of military command. His

haughty and inflexible spirit could not discover, or would not

acknowledge, the advantage of preserving an intermediate power,

however imaginary, between the emperor and the army. He disdained

to profess himself the servant of an assembly that detested his

person and trembled at his frown; he issued his commands, where

his requests would have proved as effectual; assumed the conduct

and style of a sovereign and a conqueror, and exercised, without

disguise, the whole legislative, as well as the executive power.

The victory over the senate was easy and inglorious. Every eye

and every passion were directed to the supreme magistrate, who

possessed the arms and treasure of the state; whilst the senate,

neither elected by the people, nor guarded by military force, nor

animated by public spirit, rested its declining authority on the

frail and crumbling basis of ancient opinion. The fine theory of

a republic insensibly vanished, and made way for the more natural

and substantial feelings of monarchy. As the freedom and honors

of Rome were successively communicated to the provinces, in which

the old government had been either unknown, or was remembered

with abhorrence, the tradition of republican maxims was gradually

obliterated. The Greek historians of the age of the Antonines 70

observe, with a malicious pleasure, that although the sovereign

of Rome, in compliance with an obsolete prejudice, abstained from

the name of king, he possessed the full measure of regal power.

In the reign of Severus, the senate was filled with polished and

eloquent slaves from the eastern provinces, who justified

personal flattery by speculative principles of servitude. These

new advocates of prerogative were heard with pleasure by the

court, and with patience by the people, when they inculcated the

duty of passive obedience, and descanted on the inevitable

mischiefs of freedom. The lawyers and historians concurred in

teaching, that the Imperial authority was held, not by the

delegated commission, but by the irrevocable resignation of the

senate; that the emperor was freed from the restraint of civil

laws, could command by his arbitrary will the lives and fortunes

of his subjects, and might dispose of the empire as of his

private patrimony. 71 The most eminent of the civil lawyers, and

particularly Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, flourished under the

house of Severus; and the Roman jurisprudence, having closely

united itself with the system of monarchy, was supposed to have

attained its full majority and perfection.

70 (return) [ Appian in Proœm.]

71 (return) [ Dion Cassius seems to have written with no other

view than to form these opinions into an historical system. The

Pandea’s will how how assiduously the lawyers, on their side,

laboree in the cause of prerogative.]

The contemporaries of Severus in the enjoyment of the peace and

glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been

introduced. Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his

maxims and example, justly considered him as the principal author

of the decline of the Roman empire.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) · 第 3 / 79 章

16 (return) [ In a note upon the Augustan History, Casaubon has