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The Project Gutenberg Etext of History Of The Decline And Fall Of The
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History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Volume 1  by Edward
Gibbon, Esq. With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

April, 1997  [Etext # 890]

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This is the first volume of the six volumes of Edward Gibbon's History
Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire.  If you find any errors
please feel free to notify me of them. I want to make this the best
etext edition possible for both scholars and the general public. I would
like to thank those who have helped in making this text better.
Especially Dale R. Fredrickson who has hand entered the Greek characters
in the footnotes and who has suggested retaining the conjoined ae
character in the text.  [e-mail] and [e-mail] are my
email addresses for now. Please feel free to send me your comments and I
hope you enjoy this.

David Reed

History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire

Edward Gibbon, Esq.  With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman  Vol. 1  1782
(Written), 1845 (Revised)

Introduction

Preface By The Editor.

The great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student of history. The
literature of Europe offers no substitute for "The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire." It has obtained undisputed possession, as rightful
occupant, of the vast period which it comprehends. However some
subjects, which it embraces, may have undergone more complete
investigation, on the general view of the whole period, this history is
the sole undisputed authority to which all defer, and from which few
appeal to the original writers, or to more modern compilers. The
inherent interest of the subject, the inexhaustible labor employed upon
it; the immense condensation of matter; the luminous arrangement; the
general accuracy; the style, which, however monotonous from its uniform
stateliness, and sometimes wearisome from its elaborate art., is
throughout vigorous, animated, often picturesque always commands
attention, always conveys its meaning with emphatic energy, describes
with singular breadth and fidelity, and generalizes with unrivalled
felicity of expression; all these high qualifications have secured, and
seem likely to secure, its permanent place in historic literature.

This vast design of Gibbon, the magnificent whole into which he has cast
the decay and ruin of the ancient civilization, the formation and birth
of the new order of things, will of itself, independent of the laborious
execution of his immense plan, render "The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire" an unapproachable subject to the future historian:* in the
eloquent language of his recent French editor, M. Guizot: --

"The gradual decline of the most extraordinary dominion which has ever
invaded and oppressed the world; the fall of that immense empire,
erected on the ruins of so many kingdoms, republics, and states both
barbarous and civilized; and forming in its turn, by its dismemberment,
a multitude of states, republics, and kingdoms; the annihilation of the
religion of Greece and Rome; the birth and the progress of the two new
religions which have shared the most beautiful regions of the earth; the
decrepitude of the ancient world, the spectacle of its expiring glory
and degenerate manners; the infancy of the modern world, the picture of
its first progress, of the new direction given to the mind and character
of man -- such a subject must necessarily fix the attention and excite
the interest of men, who cannot behold with indifference those memorable
epochs, during which, in the fine language of Corneille --

'Un grand destin commence, un grand destin s'achève.'"

This extent and harmony of design is unquestionably that which
distinguishes the work of Gibbon from all other great historical
compositions. He has first bridged the abyss between ancient and modern
times, and connected together the two great worlds of history. The great
advantage which the classical historians possess over those of modern
times is in unity of plan, of course greatly facilitated by the narrower
sphere to which their researches were confined. Except Herodotus, the
great historians of Greece -- we exclude the more modern compilers, like
Diodorus Siculus -- limited themselves to a single period, or at least
to the contracted sphere of Grecian affairs. As far as the
Barbarianstrespassed within the Grecian boundary, or were necessarily
mingled up with Grecian politics, they were admitted into the pale of
Grecian history; but to Thucydides and to Xenophon, excepting in the
Persian inroad of the latter, Greece was the world. Natural unity
confined their narrative almost to chronological order, the episodes
were of rare occurrence and extremely brief. To the Roman historians the
course was equally clear and defined. Rome was their centre of unity;
and the uniformity with which the circle of the Roman dominion spread
around, the regularity with which their civil polity expanded, forced,
as it were, upon the Roman historian that plan which Polybius announces
as the subject of his history, the means and the manner by which the
whole world became subject to the Roman sway. How different the
complicated politics of the European kingdoms! Every national history,
to be complete, must, in a certain sense, be the history of Europe;
there is no knowing to how remote a quarter it may be necessary to trace
our most domestic events; from a country, how apparently disconnected,
may originate the impulse which gives its direction to the whole course
of affairs.

In imitation of his classical models, Gibbon places Romeas the cardinal
point from which his inquiries diverge, and to which they bear constant
reference; yet how immeasurable the space over which those inquiries
range; how complicated, how confused, how apparently inextricable the
causes which tend to the decline of the Roman empire! how countless the
nations which swarm forth, in mingling and indistinct hordes, constantly
changing the geographical limits -- incessantly confounding the natural
boundaries! At first sight, the whole period, the whole state of the
world, seems to offer no more secure footing to an historical adventurer
than the chaos of Milton -- to be in a state of irreclaimable disorder,
best described in the language of the poet: --

"A dark  Illimitable ocean, without bound,  Without dimension, where
length, breadth, and height,  And time, and place, are lost: where
eldest Night  And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold  Eternal anarchy,
amidst the noise  Of endless wars, and by confusion stand."

We feel that the unity and harmony of narrative, which shall comprehend
this period of social disorganization, must be ascribed entirely to the
skill and luminous disposition of the historian. It is in this sublime
Gothic architecture of his work, in which the boundless range, the
infinite variety, the, at first sight, incongruous gorgeousness of the
separate parts, nevertheless are all subordinate to one main and
predominant idea, that Gibbon is unrivalled. We cannot but admire the
manner in which he masses his materials, and arranges his facts in
successive groups, not according to chronological order, but to their
moral or political connection; the distinctness with which he marks his
periods of gradually increasing decay; and the skill with which, though
advancing on separate parallels of history, he shows the common tendency
of the slower or more rapid religious or civil innovations. However
these principles of composition may demand more than ordinary attention
on the part of the reader, they can alone impress upon the memory the
real course, and the relative importance of the events. Whoever would
justly appreciate the superiority of Gibbon's lucid arrangement, should
attempt to make his way through the regular but wearisome annals of
Tillemont, or even the less ponderous volumes of Le Beau. Both these
writers adhere, almost entirely, to chronological order; the consequence
is, that we are twenty times called upon to break off, and resume the
thread of six or eight wars in different parts of the empire; to suspend
the operations of a military expedition for a court intrigue; to hurry
away from a siege to a council; and the same page places us in the
middle of a campaign against the barbarians, and in the depths of the
Monophysite controversy. In Gibbon it is not always easy to bear in mind
the exact dates but the course of events is ever clear and distinct;
like a skilful general, though his troops advance from the most remote
and opposite quarters, they are constantly bearing down and
concentrating themselves on one point -- that which is still occupied by
the name, and by the waning power of Rome. Whether he traces the
progress of hostile religions, or leads from the shores of the Baltic,
or the verge of the Chinese empire, the successive hosts of barbarians
-- though one wave has hardly burst and discharged itself, before
another swells up and approaches -- all is made to flow in the same
direction, and the impression which each makes upon the tottering fabric
of the Roman greatness, connects their distant movements, and measures
the relative importance assigned to them in the panoramic history. The
more peaceful and didactic episodes on the development of the Roman law,
or even on the details of ecclesiastical history, interpose themselves
as resting-places or divisions between the periods of barbaric invasion.
In short, though distracted first by the two capitals, and afterwards by
the formal partition of the empire, the extraordinary felicity of
arrangement maintains an order and a regular progression. As our horizon
expands to reveal to us the gathering tempests which are forming far
beyond the boundaries of the civilized world -- as we follow their
successive approach to the trembling frontier -- the compressed and
receding line is still distinctly visible; though gradually dismembered
and the broken fragments assuming the form of regular states and
kingdoms, the real relation of those kingdoms to the empire is
maintained and defined; and even when the Roman dominion has shrunk into
little more than the province of Thrace -- when the name of Rome,
confined, in Italy, to the walls of the city -- yet it is still the
memory, the shade of the Roman greatness, which extends over the wide
sphere into which the historian expands his later narrative; the whole
blends into the unity, and is manifestly essential to the double
catastrophe of his tragic drama.

But the amplitude, the magnificence, or the harmony of design, are,
though imposing, yet unworthy claims on our admiration, unless the
details are filled up with correctness and accuracy. No writer has been
more severely tried on this point than Gibbon. He has undergone the
triple scrutiny of theological zeal quickened by just resentment, of
literary emulation, and of that mean and invidious vanity which delights
in detecting errors in writers of established fame. On the result of the
trial, we may be permitted to summon competent witnesses before we
deliver our own judgment.

M. Guizot, in his preface, after stating that in France and Germany, as
well as in England, in the most enlightened countries of Europe, Gibbon
is constantly cited as an authority, thus proceeds: --

"I have had occasion, during my labors, to consult the writings of
philosophers, who have treated on the finances of the Roman empire; of
scholars, who have investigated the chronology; of theologians, who have
searched the depths of ecclesiastical history; of writers on law, who
have studied with care the Roman jurisprudence; of Orientalists, who
have occupied themselves with the Arabians and the Koran; of modern
historians, who have entered upon extensive researches touching the
crusades and their influence; each of these writers has remarked and
pointed out, in the 'History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire,' some negligences, some false or imperfect views some omissions,
which it is impossible not to suppose voluntary; they have rectified
some facts combated with advantage some assertions; but in general they
have taken the researches and the ideas of Gibbon, as points of
departure, or as proofs of the researches or of the new opinions which
they have advanced."

M. Guizot goes on to state his own impressions on reading Gibbon's
history, and no authority will have greater weight with those to whom
the extent and accuracy of his historical researches are known: --

"After a first rapid perusal, which allowed me to feel nothing but the
interest of a narrative, always animated, and, notwithstanding its
extent and the variety of objects which it makes to pass before the
view, always perspicuous, I entered upon a minute examination of the
details of which it was composed; and the opinion which I then formed
was, I confess, singularly severe. I discovered, in certain chapters,
errors which appeared to me sufficiently important and numerous to make
me believe that they had been written with extreme negligence; in
others, I was struck with a certain tinge of partiality and prejudice,
which imparted to the exposition of the facts that want of truth and
justice, which the English express by their happy term
misrepresentation. Some imperfect (tronquées) quotations; some passages,
omitted unintentionally or designedly cast a suspicion on the honesty
(bonne foi) of the author; and his violation of the first law of history
-- increased to my eye by the prolonged attention with which I occupied
myself with every phrase, every note, every reflection -- caused me to
form upon the whole work, a judgment far too rigorous. After having
finished my labors, I allowed some time to elapse before I reviewed the
whole. A second attentive and regular perusal of the entire work, of the
notes of the author, and of those which I had thought it right to
subjoin, showed me how much I had exaggerated the importance of the
reproaches which Gibbon really deserved; I was struck with the same
errors, the same partiality on certain subjects; but I had been far from
doing adequate justice to the immensity of his researches, the variety
of his knowledge, and above all, to that truly philosophical
discrimination (justesse d'esprit) which judges the past as it would
judge the present; which does not permit itself to be blinded by the
clouds which time gathers around the dead, and which prevent us from
seeing that, under the toga, as under the modern dress, in the senate as
in our councils, men were what they still are, and that events took
place eighteen centuries ago, as they take place in our days. I then
felt that his book, in spite of its faults, will always be a noble work
-- and that we may correct his errors and combat his prejudices, without
ceasing to admit that few men have combined, if we are not to say in so
high a degree, at least in a manner so complete, and so well regulated,
the necessary qualifications for a writer of history."

The present editor has followed the track of Gibbon through many parts
of his work; he has read his authorities with constant reference to his
pages, and must pronounce his deliberate judgment, in terms of the
highest admiration as to his general accuracy. Many of his seeming
errors are almost inevitable from the close condensation of his matter.
From the immense range of his history, it was sometimes necessary to
compress into a single sentence, a whole vague and diffuse page of a
Byzantine chronicler. Perhaps something of importance may have thus
escaped, and his expressions may not quite contain the whole substance
of the passage from which they are taken. His limits, at times, compel
him to sketch; where that is the case, it is not fair to expect the full
details of the finished picture. At times he can only deal with
important results; and in his account of a war, it sometimes requires
great attention to discover that the events which seem to be
comprehended in a single campaign, occupy several years. But this
admirable skill in selecting and giving prominence to the points which
are of real weight and importance -- this distribution of light and
shade -- though perhaps it may occasionally betray him into vague and
imperfect statements, is one of the highest excellencies of Gibbon's
historic manner. It is the more striking, when we pass from the works of
his chief authorities, where, after laboring through long, minute, and
wearisome descriptions of the accessary and subordinate circumstances, a
single unmarked and undistinguished sentence, which we may overlook from
the inattention of fatigue, contains the great moral and political
result.

Gibbon's method of arrangement, though on the whole most favorable to
the clear comprehension of the events, leads likewise to apparent
inaccuracy. That which we expect to find in one part is reserved for
another. The estimate which we are to form, depends on the accurate
balance of statements in remote parts of the work; and we have sometimes
to correct and modify opinions, formed from one chapter by those of
another. Yet, on the other hand, it is astonishing how rarely we detect
contradiction; the mind of the author has already harmonized the whole
result to truth and probability; the general impression is almost
invariably the same. The quotations of Gibbon have likewise been called
in question; -- I have, in general, been more inclined to admire their
exactitude, than to complain of their indistinctness, or incompleteness.
Where they are imperfect, it is commonly from the study of brevity, and
rather from the desire of compressing the substance of his notes into
pointed and emphatic sentences, than from dishonesty, or uncandid
suppression of truth.

These observations apply more particularly to the accuracy and fidelity
of the historian as to his facts; his inferences, of course, are more
liable to exception. It is almost impossible to trace the line between
unfairness and unfaithfulness; between intentional misrepresentation and
undesigned false coloring. The relative magnitude and importance of
events must, in some respect, depend upon the mind before which they are
presented; the estimate of character, on the habits and feelings of the
reader. Christians, like M. Guizot and ourselves, will see some things,
and some persons, in a different light from the historian of the Decline
and Fall. We may deplore the bias of his mind; we may ourselves be on
our guard against the danger of being misled, and be anxious to warn
less wary readers against the same perils; but we must not confound this
secret and unconscious departure from truth, with the deliberate
violation of that veracity which is the only title of an historian to
our confidence. Gibbon, it may be fearlessly asserted, is rarely
chargeable even with the suppression of any material fact, which bears
upon individual character; he may, with apparently invidious hostility,
enhance the errors and crimes, and disparage the virtues of certain
persons; yet, in general, he leaves us the materials for forming a
fairer judgment; and if he is not exempt from his own prejudices,
perhaps we might write passions, yet it must be candidly acknowledged,
that his philosophical bigotry is not more unjust than the theological
partialities of those ecclesiastical writers who were before in
undisputed possession of this province of history.

We are thus naturally led to that great misrepresentation which pervades
his history -- his false estimate of the nature and influence of
Christianity.

But on this subject some preliminary caution is necessary, lest that
should be expected from a new edition, which it is impossible that it
should completely accomplish. We must first be prepared with the only
sound preservative against the false impression likely to be produced by
the perusal of Gibbon; and we must see clearly the real cause of that
false impression. The former of these cautions will be briefly suggested
in its proper place, but it may be as well to state it, here, somewhat
more at length. The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair impression
produced by his two memorable chapters, consists in his confounding
together, in one indistinguishable mass, the origin and
apostolicpropagation of the new religion, with its later progress. No
argument for the divine authority of Christianity has been urged with
greater force, or traced with higher eloquence, than that deduced from
its primary development, explicable on no other hypothesis than a
heavenly origin, and from its rapid extension through great part of the
Roman empire. But this argument -- one, when confined within reasonable
limits, of unanswerable force -- becomes more feeble and disputable in
proportion as it recedes from the birthplace, as it were, of the
religion. The further Christianity advanced, the more causes purely
human were enlisted in its favor; nor can it be doubted that those
developed with such artful exclusiveness by Gibbon did concur most
essentially to its establishment. It is in the Christian dispensation,
as in the material world. In both it is as the great First Cause, that
the Deity is most undeniably manifest. When once launched in regular
motion upon the bosom of space, and endowed with all their properties
and relations of weight and mutual attraction, the heavenly bodies
appear to pursue their courses according to secondary laws, which
account for all their sublime regularity. So Christianity proclaims its
Divine Author chiefly in its first origin and development. When it had
once received its impulse from above -- when it had once been infused
into the minds of its first teachers -- when it had gained full
possession of the reason and affections of the favored few -- it might
be-- and to the Protestant, the rational Christian, it is impossible to
define whenit really was-- left to make its way by its native force,
under the ordinary secret agencies of all-ruling Providence. The main
question, the divine origin of the religion, was dexterously eluded, or
speciously conceded by Gibbon; his plan enabled him to commence his
account, in most parts, below the apostolic times; and it was only by
the strength of the dark coloring with which he brought out the failings
and the follies of the succeeding ages, that a shadow of doubt and
suspicion was thrown back upon the primitive period of Christianity.

"The theologian," says Gibbon, "may indulge the pleasing task of
describing religion as she descended from heaven, arrayed in her native
purity; a more melancholy duty is imposed upon the historian: -- he must
discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she
contracted in a long residence upon earth among a weak and degenerate
race of beings." Divest this passage of the latent sarcasm betrayed by
the subsequent tone of the whole disquisition, and it might commence a
Christian history written in the most Christian spirit of candor. But as
the historian, by seeming to respect, yet by dexterously confounding the
limits of the sacred land, contrived to insinuate that it was an Utopia
which had no existence but in the imagination of the theologian -- as he
suggestedrather than affirmed that the days of Christian purity were a
kind of poetic golden age; -- so the theologian, by venturing too far
into the domain of the historian, has been perpetually obliged to
contest points on which he had little chance of victory -- to deny facts
established on unshaken evidence -- and thence, to retire, if not with
the shame of defeat, yet with but doubtful and imperfect success.

Paley, with his intuitive sagacity, saw through the difficulty of
answering Gibbon by the ordinary arts of controversy; his emphatic
sentence, "Who can refute a sneer?" contains as much truth as point. But
full and pregnant as this phrase is, it is not quite the whole truth; it
is the tone in which the progress of Christianity is traced, in
comparisonwith the rest of the splendid and prodigally ornamented work,
which is the radical defect in the "Decline and Fall." Christianity
alone receives no embellishment from the magic of Gibbon's language; his
imagination is dead to its moral dignity; it is kept down by a general
zone of jealous disparagement, or neutralized by a painfully elaborate
exposition of its darker and degenerate periods. There are occasions,
indeed, when its pure and exalted humanity, when its manifestly
beneficial influence, can compel even him, as it were, to fairness, and
kindle his unguarded eloquence to its usual fervor; but, in general, he
soon relapses into a frigid apathy; affectsan ostentatiously severe
impartiality; notes all the faults of Christians in every age with
bitter and almost malignant sarcasm; reluctantly, and with exception and
reservation, admits their claim to admiration. This inextricable bias
appears even to influence his manner of composition. While all the other
assailants of the Roman empire, whether warlike or religious, the Goth,
the Hun, the Arab, the Tartar, Alaric and Attila, Mahomet, and Zengis,
and Tamerlane, are each introduced upon the scene almost with dramatic
animation -- their progress related in a full, complete, and unbroken
narrative -- the triumph of Christianity alone takes the form of a cold
and critical disquisition. The successes of barbarous energy and brute
force call forth all the consummate skill of composition; while the
moral triumphs of Christian benevolence -- the tranquil heroism of
endurance, the blameless purity, the contempt of guilty fame and of
honors destructive to the human race, which, had they assumed the proud
name of philosophy, would have been blazoned in his brightest words,
because they own religion as their principle -- sink into narrow
asceticism. The gloriesof Christianity, in short, touch on no chord in
the heart of the writer; his imagination remains unkindled; his words,
though they maintain their stately and measured march, have become cool,
argumentative, and inanimate. Who would obscure one hue of that gorgeous
coloring in which Gibbon has invested the dying forms of Paganism, or
darken one paragraph in his splendid view of the rise and progress of
Mahometanism? But who would not have wished that the same equal justice
had been done to Christianity; that its real character and deeply
penetrating influence had been traced with the same philosophical
sagacity, and represented with more sober, as would become its quiet
course, and perhaps less picturesque, but still with lively and
attractive, descriptiveness? He might have thrown aside, with the same
scorn, the mass of ecclesiastical fiction which envelops the early
history of the church, stripped off the legendary romance, and brought
out the facts in their primitive nakedness and simplicity -- if he had
but allowed those facts the benefit of the glowing eloquence which he
denied to them alone. He might have annihilated the whole fabric of
post-apostolic miracles, if he had left uninjured by sarcastic
insinuation those of the New Testament; he might have cashiered, with
Dodwell, the whole host of martyrs, which owe their existence to the
prodigal invention of later days, had he but bestowed fair room, and
dwelt with his ordinary energy on the sufferings of the genuine
witnesses to the truth of Christianity, the Polycarps, or the martyrs of
Vienne.

And indeed, if, after all, the view of the early progress of
Christianity be melancholy and humiliating we must beware lest we charge
the whole of this on the infidelity of the historian. It is idle, it is
disingenuous, to deny or to dissemble the early depravations of
Christianity, its gradual but rapid departure from its primitive
simplicity and purity, still more, from its spirit of universal love. It
may be no unsalutary lesson to the Christian world, that this silent,
this unavoidable, perhaps, yet fatal change shall have been drawn by an
impartial, or even an hostile hand. The Christianity of every age may
take warning, lest by its own narrow views, its want of wisdom, and its
want of charity, it give the same advantage to the future unfriendly
historian, and disparage the cause of true religion.

The design of the present edition is partly corrective, partly
supplementary: corrective, by notes, which point out (it is hoped, in a
perfectly candid and dispassionate spirit with no desire but to
establish the truth) such inaccuracies or misstatements as may have been
detected, particularly with regard to Christianity; and which thus, with
the previous caution, may counteract to a considerable extent the unfair
and unfavorable impression created against rational religion:
supplementary, by adding such additional information as the editor's
reading may have been able to furnish, from original documents or books,
not accessible at the time when Gibbon wrote.

The work originated in the editor's habit of noting on the margin of his
copy of Gibbon references to such authors as had discovered errors, or
thrown new light on the subjects treated by Gibbon. These had grown to
some extent, and seemed to him likely to be of use to others. The
annotations of M. Guizot also appeared to him worthy of being better
known to the English public than they were likely to be, as appended to
the French translation.

The chief works from which the editor has derived his materials are, I.
The French translation, with notes by M. Guizot; 2d edition, Paris,
1828. The editor has translated almost all the notes of M. Guizot. Where
he has not altogether agreed with him, his respect for the learning and
judgment of that writer has, in general, induced him to retain the
statement from which he has ventured to differ, with the grounds on
which he formed his own opinion. In the notes on Christianity, he has
retained all those of M. Guizot, with his own, from the conviction, that
on such a subject, to many, the authority of a French statesman, a
Protestant, and a rational and sincere Christian, would appear more
independent and unbiassed, and therefore be more commanding, than that
of an English clergyman.

The editor has not scrupled to transfer the notes of M. Guizot to the
present work. The well-known zeal for knowledge, displayed in all the
writings of that distinguished historian, has led to the natural
inference, that he would not be displeased at the attempt to make them
of use to the English readers of Gibbon. The notes of M. Guizot are
signed with the letter G.

II. The German translation, with the notes of Wenck. Unfortunately this
learned translator died, after having completed only the first volume;
the rest of the work was executed by a very inferior hand.

The notes of Wenck are extremely valuable; many of them have been
adopted by M. Guizot; they are distinguished by the letter W.*

III. The new edition of Le Beau's "Histoire du Bas Empire, with notes by
M. St. Martin, and M. Brosset." That distinguished Armenian scholar, M.
St. Martin (now, unhappily, deceased) had added much information from
Oriental writers, particularly from those of Armenia, as well as from
more general sources. Many of his observations have been found as
applicable to the work of Gibbon as to that of Le Beau.

IV. The editor has consulted the various answers made to Gibbon on the
first appearance of his work; he must confess, with little profit. They
were, in general, hastily compiled by inferior and now forgotten
writers, with the exception of Bishop Watson, whose able apology is
rather a general argument, than an examination of misstatements. The
name of Milner stands higher with a certain class of readers, but will
not carry much weight with the severe investigator of history.

V. Some few classical works and fragments have come to light, since the
appearance of Gibbon's History, and have been noticed in their
respective places; and much use has been made, in the latter volumes
particularly, of the increase to our stores of Oriental literature. The
editor cannot, indeed, pretend to have followed his author, in these
gleanings, over the whole vast field of his inquiries; he may have
overlooked or may not have been able to command some works, which might
have thrown still further light on these subjects; but he trusts that
what he has adduced will be of use to the student of historic truth.

The editor would further observe, that with regard to some other
objectionable passages, which do not involve misstatement or inaccuracy,
he has intentionally abstained from directing particular attention
towards them by any special protest.

The editor's notes are marked M.

A considerable part of the quotations (some of which in the later
editions had fallen into great confusion) have been verified, and have
been corrected by the latest and best editions of the authors.

June, 1845.

In this new edition, the text and the notes have been carefully revised,
the latter by the editor.

Some additional notes have been subjoined, distinguished by the
signature M. 1845.

Preface Of The Author.

It is not my intention to detain the reader by expatiating on the
variety or the importance of the subject, which I have undertaken to
treat; since the merit of the choice would serve to render the weakness
of the execution still more apparent, and still less excusable. But as I
have presumed to lay before the public a first volume only  of the
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it will, perhaps,
be expected that I should explain, in a few words, the nature and limits
of my general plan.

The memorable series of revolutions, which in the course of about
thirteen centuries gradually undermined, and at length destroyed, the
solid fabric of human greatness, may, with some propriety, be divided
into the three following periods:

I. The first of these periods may be traced from the age of Trajan and
the Antonines, when the Roman monarchy, having attained its full
strength and maturity, began to verge towards its decline; and will
extend to the subversion of the Western Empire, by the barbarians of
Germany and Scythia, the rude ancestors of the most polished nations of
modern Europe. This extraordinary revolution, which subjected Rome to
the power of a Gothic conqueror, was completed about the beginning of
the sixth century.

II. The second period of the Decline and Fall of Rome may be supposed to
commence with the reign of Justinian, who, by his laws, as well as by
his victories, restored a transient splendor to the Eastern Empire. It
will comprehend the invasion of Italy by the Lombards; the conquest of
the Asiatic and African provinces by the Arabs, who embraced the
religion of Mahomet; the revolt of the Roman people against the feeble
princes of Constantinople; and the elevation of Charlemagne, who, in the
year eight hundred, established the second, or German Empire of the West

III. The last and longest of these periods includes about six centuries
and a half; from the revival of the Western Empire, till the taking of
Constantinople by the Turks, and the extinction of a degenerate race of
princes, who continued to assume the titles of Cæsar and Augustus, after
their dominions were contracted to the limits of a single city; in which
the language, as well as manners, of the ancient Romans, had been long
since forgotten. The writer who should undertake to relate the events of
this period, would find himself obliged to enter into the general
history of the Crusades, as far as they contributed to the ruin of the
Greek Empire; and he would scarcely be able to restrain his curiosity
from making some inquiry into the state of the city of Rome, during the
darkness and confusion of the middle ages.

As I have ventured, perhaps too hastily, to commit to the press a work
which in every sense of the word, deserves the epithet of imperfect. I
consider myself as contracting an engagement to finish, most probably in
a second volume,  the first of these memorable periods; and to deliver
to the Public the complete History of the Decline and Fall of Rome, from
the age of the Antonines to the subversion of the Western Empire. With
regard to the subsequent periods, though I may entertain some hopes, I
dare not presume to give any assurances. The execution of the extensive
plan which I have described, would connect the ancient and modern
history of the world; but it would require many years of health, of
leisure, and of perseverance.

Bentinck Street, February 1, 1776.

P. S. The entire History, which is now published, of the Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, abundantly discharges my
engagements with the Public. Perhaps their favorable opinion may
encourage me to prosecute a work, which, however laborious it may seem,
is the most agreeable occupation of my leisure hours.

Bentinck Street, March 1, 1781.

An Author easily persuades himself that the public opinion is still
favorable to his labors; and I have now embraced the serious resolution
of proceeding to the last period of my original design, and of the Roman
Empire, the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, in the year one
thousand four hundred and fifty-three. The most patient Reader, who
computes that three ponderous  volumes have been already employed on the
events of four centuries, may, perhaps, be alarmed at the long prospect
of nine hundred years. But it is not my intention to expatiate with the
same minuteness on the whole series of the Byzantine history. At our
entrance into this period, the reign of Justinian, and the conquests of
the Mahometans, will deserve and detain our attention, and the last age
of Constantinople (the Crusades and the Turks) is connected with the
revolutions of Modern Europe. From the seventh to the eleventh century,
the obscure interval will be supplied by a concise narrative of such
facts as may still appear either interesting or important.

Bentinck Street, March 1, 1782.

Preface To The First Volume.

Diligence and accuracy are the only merits which an historical writer
may ascribe to himself; if any merit, indeed, can be assumed from the
performance of an indispensable duty. I may therefore be allowed to say,
that I have carefully examined all the original materials that could
illustrate the subject which I had undertaken to treat. Should I ever
complete the extensive design which has been sketched out in the
Preface, I might perhaps conclude it with a critical account of the
authors consulted during the progress of the whole work; and however
such an attempt might incur the censure of ostentation, I am persuaded
that it would be susceptible of entertainment, as well as information.

At present I shall content myself with a single observation. The
biographers, who, under the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine,
composed, or rather compiled, the lives of the Emperors, from Hadrian to
the sons of Carus, are usually mentioned under the names of Ælius
Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Ælius Lampridius, Vulcatius Gallicanus,
Trebellius Pollio and Flavius Vopiscus. But there is so much perplexity
in the titles of the MSS., and so many disputes have arisen among the
critics (see Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin. l. iii. c. 6) concerning their
number, their names, and their respective property, that for the most
part I have quoted them without distinction, under the general and
well-known title of the Augustan History.

Preface To The Fourth Volume Of The Original Quarto Edition.

I now discharge my promise, and complete my design, of writing the
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, both in the West
and the East. The whole period extends from the age of Trajan and the
Antonines, to the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet the Second; and
includes a review of the Crusades, and the state of Rome during the
middle ages. Since the publication of the first volume, twelve years
have elapsed; twelve years, according to my wish, "of health, of
leisure, and of perseverance." I may now congratulate my deliverance
from a long and laborious service, and my satisfaction will be pure and
perfect, if the public favor should be extended to the conclusion of my
work.

It was my first intention to have collected, under one view, the
numerous authors, of every age and language, from whom I have derived
the materials of this history; and I am still convinced that the
apparent ostentation would be more than compensated by real use. If I
have renounced this idea, if I have declined an undertaking which had
obtained the approbation of a master-artist, * my excuse may be found in
the extreme difficulty of assigning a proper measure to such a
catalogue. A naked list of names and editions would not be satisfactory
either to myself or my readers: the characters of the principal Authors
of the Roman and Byzantine History have been occasionally connected with
the events which they describe; a more copious and critical inquiry
might indeed deserve, but it would demand, an elaborate volume, which
might swell by degrees into a general library of historical writers. For
the present, I shall content myself with renewing my serious
protestation, that I have always endeavored to draw from the
fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always
urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded
my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose
faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend.

I shall soon revisit the banks of the Lake of Lausanne, a country which
I have known and loved from my early youth. Under a mild government,
amidst a beauteous landscape, in a life of leisure and independence, and
among a people of easy and elegant manners, I have enjoyed, and may
again hope to enjoy, the varied pleasures of retirement and society. But
I shall ever glory in the name and character of an Englishman: I am
proud of my birth in a free and enlightened country; and the approbation
of that country is the best and most honorable reward of my labors. Were
I ambitious of any other Patron than the Public, I would inscribe this
work to a Statesman, who, in a long, a stormy, and at length an
unfortunate administration, had many political opponents, almost without
a personal enemy; who has retained, in his fall from power, many
faithful and disinterested friends; and who, under the pressure of
severe infirmity, enjoys the lively vigor of his mind, and the felicity
of his incomparable temper. Lord North will permit me to express the
feelings of friendship in the language of truth: but even truth and
friendship should be silent, if he still dispensed the favors of the
crown.

In a remote solitude, vanity may still whisper in my ear, that my
readers, perhaps, may inquire whether, in the conclusion of the present
work, I am now taking an everlasting farewell. They shall hear all that
I know myself, and all that I could reveal to the most intimate friend.
The motives of action or silence are now equally balanced; nor can I
pronounce, in my most secret thoughts, on which side the scale will
preponderate. I cannot dissemble that six quartos must have tried, and
may have exhausted, the indulgence of the Public; that, in the
repetition of similar attempts, a successful Author has much more to
lose than he can hope to gain; that I am now descending into the vale of
years; and that the most respectable of my countrymen, the men whom I
aspire to imitate, have resigned the pen of history about the same
period of their lives. Yet I consider that the annals of ancient and
modern times may afford many rich and interesting subjects; that I am
still possessed of health and leisure; that by the practice of writing,
some skill and facility must be acquired; and that, in the ardent
pursuit of truth and knowledge, I am not conscious of decay. To an
active mind, indolence is more painful than labor; and the first months
of my liberty will be occupied and amused in the excursions of curiosity
and taste. By such temptations, I have been sometimes seduced from the
rigid duty even of a pleasing and voluntary task: but my time will now
be my own; and in the use or abuse of independence, I shall no longer
fear my own reproaches or those of my friends. I am fairly entitled to a
year of jubilee: next summer and the following winter will rapidly pass
away; and experience only can determine whether I shall still prefer the
freedom and variety of study to the design and composition of a regular
work, which animates, while it confines, the daily application of the
Author. Caprice and accident may influence my choice; but the dexterity
of self-love will contrive to applaud either active industry or
philosophic repose.

Downing Street, May 1, 1788.

P. S. I shall embrace this opportunity of introducing two verbalremarks,
which have not conveniently offered themselves to my notice. 1. As often
as I use the definitions of beyondthe Alps, the Rhine, the Danube, &c.,
I generally suppose myself at Rome, and afterwards at Constantinople;
without observing whether this relative geography may agree with the
local, but variable, situation of the reader, or the historian. 2. In
proper names of foreign, and especially of Oriental origin, it should be
always our aim to express, in our English version, a faithful copy of
the original. But this rule, which is founded on a just regard to
uniformity and truth, must often be relaxed; and the exceptions will be
limited or enlarged by the custom of the language and the taste of the
interpreter. Our alphabets may be often defective; a harsh sound, an
uncouth spelling, might offend the ear or the eye of our countrymen; and
some words, notoriously corrupt, are fixed, and, as it were, naturalized
in the vulgar tongue. The prophet Mohammedcan no longer be stripped of
the famous, though improper, appellation of Mahomet: the well-known
cities of Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo, would almost be lost in the
strange descriptions of Haleb, Demashk, and Al Cahira: the titles and
offices of the Ottoman empire are fashioned by the practice of three
hundred years; and we are pleased to blend the three Chinese
monosyllables, Con-fû-tzee, in the respectable name of Confucius, or
even to adopt the Portuguese corruption of Mandarin. But I would vary
the use of Zoroaster and Zerdusht, as I drew my information from Greece
or Persia: since our connection with India, the genuine Timouris
restored to the throne of Tamerlane: our most correct writers have
retrenched the Al, the superfluous article, from the Koran; and we
escape an ambiguous termination, by adopting Mosleminstead of Musulman,
in the plural number. In these, and in a thousand examples, the shades
of distinction are often minute; and I can feel, where I cannot explain,
the motives of my choice.

Chapter I: The Extend Of The Empire In The Age Of The Antoninies.

Part I.

Introduction  -- The Extent And Military Force Of The Empire In The Age
Of The Antonines.

In the second century of the Christian Æra, the empire of Rome
comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized
portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were
guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor. The gentle but powerful
influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the
provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages
of wealth and luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved
with decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the
sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive
powers of government. During a happy period of more than fourscore
years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and
abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. It is the
design of this, and of the two succeeding chapters, to describe the
prosperous condition of their empire; and after wards, from the death of
Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its
decline and fall; a revolution which will ever be remembered, and is
still felt by the nations of the earth.

The principal conquests of the Romans were achieved under the republic;
and the emperors, for the most part, were satisfied with preserving
those dominions which had been acquired by the policy of the senate, the
active emulations of the consuls, and the martial enthusiasm of the
people. The seven first centuries were filled with a rapid succession of
triumphs; but it was reserved for Augustus to relinquish the ambitious
design of subduing the whole earth, and to introduce a spirit of
moderation into the public councils. Inclined to peace by his temper and
situation, it was easy for him to discover that Rome, in her present
exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear from the chance of
arms; and that, in the prosecution of remote wars, the undertaking
became every day more difficult, the event more doubtful, and the
possession more precarious, and less beneficial. The experience of
Augustus added weight to these salutary reflections, and effectually
convinced him that, by the prudent vigor of his counsels, it would be
easy to secure every concession which the safety or the dignity of Rome
might require from the most formidable barbarians. Instead of exposing
his person and his legions to the arrows of the Parthians, he obtained,
by an honorable treaty, the restitution of the standards and prisoners
which had been taken in the defeat of Crassus.

His generals, in the early part of his reign, attempted the reduction of
Ethiopia and Arabia Felix. They marched near a thousand miles to the
south of the tropic; but the heat of the climate soon repelled the
invaders, and protected the un-warlike natives of those sequestered
regions.  The northern countries of Europe scarcely deserved the expense
and labor of conquest. The forests and morasses of Germany were filled
with a hardy race of barbarians, who despised life when it was separated
from freedom; and though, on the first attack, they seemed to yield to
the weight of the Roman power, they soon, by a signal act of despair,
regained their independence, and reminded Augustus of the vicissitude of
fortune.  On the death of that emperor, his testament was publicly read
in the senate. He bequeathed, as a valuable legacy to his successors,
the advice of confining the empire within those limits which nature
seemed to have placed as its permanent bulwarks and boundaries: on the
west, the Atlantic Ocean; the Rhine and Danube on the north; the
Euphrates on the east; and towards the south, the sandy deserts of
Arabia and Africa.

Happily for the repose of mankind, the moderate system recommended by
the wisdom of Augustus, was adopted by the fears and vices of his
immediate successors. Engaged in the pursuit of pleasure, or in the
exercise of tyranny, the first Cæsars seldom showed themselves to the
armies, or to the provinces; nor were they disposed to suffer, that
those triumphs which their indolence neglected, should be usurped by the
conduct and valor of their lieutenants. The military fame of a subject
was considered as an insolent invasion of the Imperial prerogative; and
it became the duty, as well as interest, of every Roman general, to
guard the frontiers intrusted to his care, without aspiring to conquests
which might have proved no less fatal to himself than to the vanquished
barbarians.

The only accession which the Roman empire received, during the first
century of the Christian Æra, was the province of Britain. In this
single instance, the successors of Cæsar and Augustus were persuaded to
follow the example of the former, rather than the precept of the latter.
The proximity of its situation to the coast of Gaul seemed to invite
their arms; the pleasing though doubtful intelligence of a pearl
fishery, attracted their avarice;  and as Britain was viewed in the
light of a distinct and insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed
any exception to the general system of continental measures. After a war
of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid,  maintained by the
most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the emperors,
the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke.  The
various tribes of Britain possessed valor without conduct, and the love
of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage
fierceness; they laid them down, or turned them against each other, with
wild inconsistency; and while they fought singly, they were successively
subdued. Neither the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the despair of
Boadicea, nor the fanaticism of the Druids, could avert the slavery of
their country, or resist the steady progress of the Imperial generals,
who maintained the national glory, when the throne was disgraced by the
weakest, or the most vicious of mankind. At the very time when Domitian,
confined to his palace, felt the terrors which he inspired, his legions,
under the command of the virtuous Agricola, defeated the collected force
of the Caledonians, at the foot of the Grampian Hills; and his fleets,
venturing to explore an unknown and dangerous navigation, displayed the
Roman arms round every part of the island. The conquest of Britain was
considered as already achieved; and it was the design of Agricola to
complete and insure his success, by the easy reduction of Ireland, for
which, in his opinion, one legion and a few auxiliaries were sufficient.
The western isle might be improved into a valuable possession, and the
Britons would wear their chains with the less reluctance, if the
prospect and example of freedom were on every side removed from before
their eyes.

But the superior merit of Agricola soon occasioned his removal from the
government of Britain; and forever disappointed this rational, though
extensive scheme of conquest. Before his departure, the prudent general
had provided for security as well as for dominion. He had observed, that
the island is almost divided into two unequal parts by the opposite
gulfs, or, as they are now called, the Friths of Scotland. Across the
narrow interval of about forty miles, he had drawn a line of military
stations, which was afterwards fortified, in the reign of Antoninus
Pius, by a turf rampart, erected on foundations of stone.  This wall of
Antoninus, at a small distance beyond the modern cities of Edinburgh and
Glasgow, was fixed as the limit of the Roman province. The native
Caledonians preserved, in the northern extremity of the island, their
wild independence, for which they were not less indebted to their
poverty than to their valor. Their incursions were frequently repelled
and chastised; but their country was never subdued.  The masters of the
fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe turned with contempt from
gloomy hills, assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a
blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the deer of the
forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians.

Such was the state of the Roman frontiers, and such the maxims of
Imperial policy, from the death of Augustus to the accession of Trajan.
That virtuous and active prince had received the education of a soldier,
and possessed the talents of a general.  The peaceful system of his
predecessors was interrupted by scenes of war and conquest; and the
legions, after a long interval, beheld a military emperor at their head.
The first exploits of Trajan were against the Dacians, the most warlike
of men, who dwelt beyond the Danube, and who, during the reign of
Domitian, had insulted, with impunity, the Majesty of Rome.  To the
strength and fierceness of barbarians they added a contempt for life,
which was derived from a warm persuasion of the immortality and
transmigration of the soul.  Decebalus, the Dacian king, approved
himself a rival not unworthy of Trajan; nor did he despair of his own
and the public fortune, till, by the confession of his enemies, he had
exhausted every resource both of valor and policy.  This memorable war,
with a very short suspension of hostilities, lasted five years; and as
the emperor could exert, without control, the whole force of the state,
it was terminated by an absolute submission of the barbarians.  The new
province of Dacia, which formed a second exception to the precept of
Augustus, was about thirteen hundred miles in circumference. Its natural
boundaries were the Niester, the Teyss or Tibiscus, the Lower Danube,
and the Euxine Sea. The vestiges of a military road may still be traced
from the banks of the Danube to the neighborhood of Bender, a place
famous in modern history, and the actual frontier of the Turkish and
Russian empires.

Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall continue to
bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their
benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the
most exalted characters. The praises of Alexander, transmitted by a
succession of poets and historians, had kindled a dangerous emulation in
the mind of Trajan. Like him, the Roman emperor undertook an expedition
against the nations of the East; but he lamented with a sigh, that his
advanced age scarcely left him any hopes of equalling the renown of the
son of Philip.  Yet the success of Trajan, however transient, was rapid
and specious. The degenerate Parthians, broken by intestine discord,
fled before his arms. He descended the River Tigris in triumph, from the
mountains of Armenia to the Persian Gulf. He enjoyed the honor of being
the first, as he was the last, of the Roman generals, who ever navigated
that remote sea. His fleets ravaged the coast of Arabia; and Trajan
vainly flattered himself that he was approaching towards the confines of
India.  Every day the astonished senate received the intelligence of new
names and new nations, that acknowledged his sway. They were informed
that the kings of Bosphorus, Colchos, Iberia, Albania, Osrhoene, and
even the Parthian monarch himself, had accepted their diadems from the
hands of the emperor; that the independent tribes of the Median and
Carduchian hills had implored his protection; and that the rich
countries of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, were reduced into the
state of provinces.  But the death of Trajan soon clouded the splendid
prospect; and it was justly to be dreaded, that so many distant nations
would throw off the unaccustomed yoke, when they were no longer
restrained by the powerful hand which had imposed it.

Chapter I: The Extend Of The Empire In The Age Of The Antoninies. --
Part II.

It was an ancient tradition, that when the Capitol was founded by one of
the Roman kings, the god Terminus (who presided over boundaries, and was
represented, according to the fashion of that age, by a large stone)
alone, among all the inferior deities, refused to yield his place to
Jupiter himself. A favorable inference was drawn from his obstinacy,
which was interpreted by the augurs as a sure presage that the
boundaries of the Roman power would never recede.  During many ages, the
prediction, as it is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment. But
though Terminus had resisted the Majesty of Jupiter, he submitted to the
authority of the emperor Hadrian.  The resignation of all the eastern
conquests of Trajan was the first measure of his reign. He restored to
the Parthians the election of an independent sovereign; withdrew the
Roman garrisons from the provinces of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria;
and, in compliance with the precept of Augustus, once more established
the Euphrates as the frontier of the empire.  Censure, which arraigns
the public actions and the private motives of princes, has ascribed to
envy, a conduct which might be attributed to the prudence and moderation
of Hadrian. The various character of that emperor, capable, by turns, of
the meanest and the most generous sentiments, may afford some color to
the suspicion. It was, however, scarcely in his power to place the
superiority of his predecessor in a more conspicuous light, than by thus
confessing himself unequal to the task of defending the conquests of
Trajan.

The martial and ambitious of spirit Trajan formed a very singular
contrast with the moderation of his successor. The restless activity of
Hadrian was not less remarkable when compared with the gentle repose of
Antoninus Pius. The life of the former was almost a perpetual journey;
and as he possessed the various talents of the soldier, the statesman,
and the scholar, he gratified his curiosity in the discharge of his
duty. Careless of the difference of seasons and of climates, he marched
on foot, and bare-headed, over the snows of Caledonia, and the sultry
plains of the Upper Egypt; nor was there a province of the empire which,
in the course of his reign, was not honored with the presence of the
monarch.  But the tranquil life of Antoninus Pius was spent in the bosom
of Italy, and, during the twenty-three years that he directed the public
administration, the longest journeys of that amiable prince extended no
farther than from his palace in Rome to the retirement of his Lanuvian
villa.

Notwithstanding this difference in their personal conduct, the general
system of Augustus was equally adopted and uniformly pursued by Hadrian
and by the two Antonines. They persisted in the design of maintaining
the dignity of the empire, without attempting to enlarge its limits. By
every honorable expedient they invited the friendship of the barbarians;
and endeavored to convince mankind that the Roman power, raised above
the temptation of conquest, was actuated only by the love of order and
justice. During a long period of forty-three years, their virtuous
labors were crowned with success; and if we except a few slight
hostilities, that served to exercise the legions of the frontier, the
reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius offer the fair prospect of
universal peace.  The Roman name was revered among the most remote
nations of the earth. The fiercest barbarians frequently submitted their
differences to the arbitration of the emperor; and we are informed by a
contemporary historian that he had seen ambassadors who were refused the
honor which they came to solicit of being admitted into the rank of
subjects.

Part II.

The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation
of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant preparation for war;
and while justice regulated their conduct, they announced to the nations
on their confines, that they were as little disposed to endure, as to
offer an injury. The military strength, which it had been sufficient for
Hadrian and the elder Antoninus to display, was exerted against the
Parthians and the Germans by the emperor Marcus. The hostilities of the
barbarians provoked the resentment of that philosophic monarch, and, in
the prosecution of a just defence, Marcus and his generals obtained many
signal victories, both on the Euphrates and on the Danube.  The military
establishment of the Roman empire, which thus assured either its
tranquillity or success, will now become the proper and important object
of our attention.

In the purer ages of the commonwealth, the use of arms was reserved for
those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a property to defend,
and some share in enacting those laws, which it was their interest as
well as duty to maintain. But in proportion as the public freedom was
lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and
degraded into a trade.  The legions themselves, even at the time when
they were recruited in the most distant provinces, were supposed to
consist of Roman citizens. That distinction was generally considered,
either as a legal qualification or as a proper recompense for the
soldier; but a more serious regard was paid to the essential merit of
age, strength, and military stature.  In all levies, a just preference
was given to the climates of the North over those of the South: the race
of men born to the exercise of arms was sought for in the country rather
than in cities; and it was very reasonably presumed, that the hardy
occupations of smiths, carpenters, and huntsmen, would supply more vigor
and resolution than the sedentary trades which are employed in the
service of luxury.  After every qualification of property had been laid
aside, the armies of the Roman emperors were still commanded, for the
most part, by officers of liberal birth and education; but the common
soldiers, like the mercenary troops of modern Europe, were drawn from
the meanest, and very frequently from the most profligate, of mankind.

That public virtue, which among the ancients was denominated patriotism,
is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation
and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Such a
sentiment, which had rendered the legions of the republic almost
invincible, could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary
servants of a despotic prince; and it became necessary to supply that
defect by other motives, of a different, but not less forcible nature --
honor and religion. The peasant, or mechanic, imbibed the useful
prejudice that he was advanced to the more dignified profession of arms,
in which his rank and reputation would depend on his own valor; and
that, although the prowess of a private soldier must often escape the
notice of fame, his own behavior might sometimes confer glory or
disgrace on the company, the legion, or even the army, to whose honors
he was associated. On his first entrance into the service, an oath was
administered to him with every circumstance of solemnity. He promised
never to desert his standard, to submit his own will to the commands of
his leaders, and to sacrifice his life for the safety of the emperor and
the empire.  The attachment of the Roman troops to their standards was
inspired by the united influence of religion and of honor. The golden
eagle, which glittered in the front of the legion, was the object of
their fondest devotion; nor was it esteemed less impious than it was
ignominious, to abandon that sacred ensign in the hour of danger.  These
motives, which derived their strength from the imagination, were
enforced by fears and hopes of a more substantial kind. Regular pay,
occasional donatives, and a stated recompense, after the appointed time
of service, alleviated the hardships of the military life,  whilst, on
the other hand, it was impossible for cowardice or disobedience to
escape the severest punishment. The centurions were authorized to
chastise with blows, the generals had a right to punish with death; and
it was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline, that a good soldier
should dread his officers far more than the enemy. From such laudable
arts did the valor of the Imperial troops receive a degree of firmness
and docility unattainable by the impetuous and irregular passions of
barbarians.

And yet so sensible were the Romans of the imperfection of valor without
skill and practice, that, in their language, the name of an army was
borrowed from the word which signified exercise.  Military exercises
were the important and unremitted object of their discipline. The
recruits and young soldiers were constantly trained, both in the morning
and in the evening, nor was age or knowledge allowed to excuse the
veterans from the daily repetition of what they had completely learnt.
Large sheds were erected in the winter-quarters of the troops, that
their useful labors might not receive any interruption from the most
tempestuous weather; and it was carefully observed, that the arms
destined to this imitation of war, should be of double the weight which
was required in real action.  It is not the purpose of this work to
enter into any minute description of the Roman exercises. We shall only
remark, that they comprehended whatever could add strength to the body,
activity to the limbs, or grace to the motions. The soldiers were
diligently instructed to march, to run, to leap, to swim, to carry heavy
burdens, to handle every species of arms that was used either for
offence or for defence, either in distant engagement or in a closer
onset; to form a variety of evolutions; and to move to the sound of
flutes in the Pyrrhic or martial dance.  In the midst of peace, the
Roman troops familiarized themselves with the practice of war; and it is
prettily remarked by an ancient historian who had fought against them,
that the effusion of blood was the only circumstance which distinguished
a field of battle from a field of exercise. ^39 It was the policy of the
ablest generals, and even of the emperors themselves, to encourage these
military studies by their presence and example; and we are informed that
Hadrian, as well as Trajan, frequently condescended to instruct the
unexperienced soldiers, to reward the diligent, and sometimes to dispute
with them the prize of superior strength or dexterity.  Under the reigns
of those princes, the science of tactics was cultivated with success;
and as long as the empire retained any vigor, their military
instructions were respected as the most perfect model of Roman
discipline.

Nine centuries of war had gradually introduced into the service many
alterations and improvements. The legions, as they are described by
Polybius,  in the time of the Punic wars, differed very materially from
those which achieved the victories of Cæsar, or defended the monarchy of
Hadrian and the Antonines. The constitution of the Imperial legion may
be described in a few words.  The heavy-armed infantry, which composed
its principal strength,  was divided into ten cohorts, and fifty-five
companies, under the orders of a correspondent number of tribunes and
centurions. The first cohort, which always claimed the post of honor and
the custody of the eagle, was formed of eleven hundred and five
soldiers, the most approved for valor and fidelity. The remaining nine
cohorts consisted each of five hundred and fifty-five; and the whole
body of legionary infantry amounted to six thousand one hundred men.
Their arms were uniform, and admirably adapted to the nature of their
service: an open helmet, with a lofty crest; a breastplate, or coat of
mail; greaves on their legs, and an ample buckler on their left arm. The
buckler was of an oblong and concave figure, four feet in length, and
two and a half in breadth, framed of a light wood, covered with a bull's
hide, and strongly guarded with plates of brass. Besides a lighter
spear, the legionary soldier grasped in his right hand the formidable
pilum, a ponderous javelin, whose utmost length was about six feet, and
which was terminated by a massy triangular point of steel of eighteen
inches.  This instrument was indeed much inferior to our modern
fire-arms; since it was exhausted by a single discharge, at the distance
of only ten or twelve paces. Yet when it was launched by a firm and
skilful hand, there was not any cavalry that durst venture within its
reach, nor any shield or corselet that could sustain the impetuosity of
its weight. As soon as the Roman had darted his pilum, he drew his
sword, and rushed forwards to close with the enemy. His sword was a
short well-tempered Spanish blade, that carried a double edge, and was
alike suited to the purpose of striking or of pushing; but the soldier
was always instructed to prefer the latter use of his weapon, as his own
body remained less exposed, whilst he inflicted a more dangerous wound
on his adversary.  The legion was usually drawn up eight deep; and the
regular distance of three feet was left between the files as well as
ranks.  A body of troops, habituated to preserve this open order, in a
long front and a rapid charge, found themselves prepared to execute
every disposition which the circumstances of war, or the skill of their
leader, might suggest. The soldier possessed a free space for his arms
and motions, and sufficient intervals were allowed, through which
seasonable reenforcements might be introduced to the relief of the
exhausted combatants.  The tactics of the Greeks and Macedonians were
formed on very different principles. The strength of the phalanx
depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes, wedged together in the closest
array.  But it was soon discovered by reflection, as well as by the
event, that the strength of the phalanx was unable to contend with the
activity of the legion.

The cavalry, without which the force of the legion would have remained
imperfect, was divided into ten troops or squadrons; the first, as the
companion of the first cohort, consisted of a hundred and thirty-two
men; whilst each of the other nine amounted only to sixty-six. The
entire establishment formed a regiment, if we may use the modern
expression, of seven hundred and twenty-six horse, naturally connected
with its respective legion, but occasionally separated to act in the
line, and to compose a part of the wings of the army.  The cavalry of
the emperors was no longer composed, like that of the ancient republic,
of the noblest youths of Rome and Italy, who, by performing their
military service on horseback, prepared themselves for the offices of
senator and consul; and solicited, by deeds of valor, the future
suffrages of their countrymen.  Since the alteration of manners and
government, the most wealthy of the equestrian order were engaged in the
administration of justice, and of the revenue;  and whenever they
embraced the profession of arms, they were immediately intrusted with a
troop of horse, or a cohort of foot.  Trajan and Hadrian formed their
cavalry from the same provinces, and the same class of their subjects,
which recruited the ranks of the legion. The horses were bred, for the
most part, in Spain or Cappadocia. The Roman troopers despised the
complete armor with which the cavalry of the East was encumbered.
Theirmore useful arms consisted in a helmet, an oblong shield, light
boots, and a coat of mail. A javelin, and a long broad sword, were their
principal weapons of offence. The use of lances and of iron maces they
seem to have borrowed from the barbarians.

The safety and honor of the empire was principally intrusted to the
legions, but the policy of Rome condescended to adopt every useful
instrument of war. Considerable levies were regularly made among the
provincials, who had not yet deserved the honorable distinction of
Romans. Many dependent princes and communities, dispersed round the
frontiers, were permitted, for a while, to hold their freedom and
security by the tenure of military service.  Even select troops of
hostile barbarians were frequently compelled or persuaded to consume
their dangerous valor in remote climates, and for the benefit of the
state.  All these were included under the general name of auxiliaries;
and howsoever they might vary according to the difference of times and
circumstances, their numbers were seldom much inferior to those of the
legions themselves.  Among the auxiliaries, the bravest and most
faithful bands were placed under the command of præfects and centurions,
and severely trained in the arts of Roman discipline; but the far
greater part retained those arms, to which the nature of their country,
or their early habits of life, more peculiarly adapted them. By this
institution, each legion, to whom a certain proportion of auxiliaries
was allotted, contained within itself every species of lighter troops,
and of missile weapons; and was capable of encountering every nation,
with the advantages of its respective arms and discipline.  Nor was the
legion destitute of what, in modern language, would be styled a train of
artillery. It consisted in ten military engines of the largest, and
fifty-five of a smaller size; but all of which, either in an oblique or
horizontal manner, discharged stones and darts with irresistible
violence.

Chapter I: The Extend Of The Empire In The Age Of The Antoninies. --
Part III.

The camp of a Roman legion presented the appearance of a fortified city.
As soon as the space was marked out, the pioneers carefully levelled the
ground, and removed every impediment that might interrupt its perfect
regularity. Its form was an exact quadrangle; and we may calculate, that
a square of about seven hundred yards was sufficient for the encampment
of twenty thousand Romans; though a similar number of our own troops
would expose to the enemy a front of more than treble that extent. In
the midst of the camp, the prætorium, or general's quarters, rose above
the others; the cavalry, the infantry, and the auxiliaries occupied
their respective stations; the streets were broad and perfectly
straight, and a vacant space of two hundred feet was left on all sides
between the tents and the rampart. The rampart itself was usually twelve
feet high, armed with a line of strong and intricate palisades, and
defended by a ditch of twelve feet in depth as well as in breadth. This
important labor was performed by the hands of the legionaries
themselves; to whom the use of the spade and the pickaxe was no less
familiar than that of the sword or pilum. Active valor may often be the
present of nature; but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of
habit and discipline.

Whenever the trumpet gave the signal of departure, the camp was almost
instantly broke up, and the troops fell into their ranks without delay
or confusion. Besides their arms, which the legendaries scarcely
considered as an encumbrance, they were laden with their kitchen
furniture, the instruments of fortification, and the provision of many
days.  Under this weight, which would oppress the delicacy of a modern
soldier, they were trained by a regular step to advance, in about six
hours, near twenty miles.  On the appearance of an enemy, they threw
aside their baggage, and by easy and rapid evolutions converted the
column of march into an order of battle.  The slingers and archers
skirmished in the front; the auxiliaries formed the first line, and were
seconded or sustained by the strength of the legions; the cavalry
covered the flanks, and the military engines were placed in the rear.

Such were the arts of war, by which the Roman emperors defended their
extensive conquests, and preserved a military spirit, at a time when
every other virtue was oppressed by luxury and despotism. If, in the
consideration of their armies, we pass from their discipline to their
numbers, we shall not find it easy to define them with any tolerable
accuracy. We may compute, however, that the legion, which was itself a
body of six thousand eight hundred and thirty-one Romans, might, with
its attendant auxiliaries, amount to about twelve thousand five hundred
men. The peace establishment of Hadrian and his successors was composed
of no less than thirty of these formidable brigades; and most probably
formed a standing force of three hundred and seventy-five thousand men.
Instead of being confined within the walls of fortified cities, which
the Romans considered as the refuge of weakness or pusillanimity, the
legions were encamped on the banks of the great rivers, and along the
frontiers of the barbarians. As their stations, for the most part,
remained fixed and permanent, we may venture to describe the
distribution of the troops. Three legions were sufficient for Britain.
The principal strength lay upon the Rhine and Danube, and consisted of
sixteen legions, in the following proportions: two in the Lower, and
three in the Upper Germany; one in Rhætia, one in Noricum, four in
Pannonia, three in Mæsia, and two in Dacia. The defence of the Euphrates
was intrusted to eight legions, six of whom were planted in Syria, and
the other two in Cappadocia. With regard to Egypt, Africa, and Spain, as
they were far removed from any important scene of war, a single legion
maintained the domestic tranquillity of each of those great provinces.
Even Italy was not left destitute of a military force. Above twenty
thousand chosen soldiers, distinguished by the titles of City Cohorts
and Prætorian Guards, watched over the safety of the monarch and the
capital. As the authors of almost every revolution that distracted the
empire, the Prætorians will, very soon, and very loudly, demand our
attention; but, in their arms and institutions, we cannot find any
circumstance which discriminated them from the legions, unless it were a
more splendid appearance, and a less rigid discipline.

The navy maintained by the emperors might seem inadequate to their
greatness; but it was fully sufficient for every useful purpose of
government. The ambition of the Romans was confined to the land; nor was
that warlike people ever actuated by the enterprising spirit which had
prompted the navigators of Tyre, of Carthage, and even of Marseilles, to
enlarge the bounds of the world, and to explore the most remote coasts
of the ocean. To the Romans the ocean remained an object of terror
rather than of curiosity;  the whole extent of the Mediterranean, after
the destruction of Carthage, and the extirpation of the pirates, was
included within their provinces. The policy of the emperors was directed
only to preserve the peaceful dominion of that sea, and to protect the
commerce of their subjects. With these moderate views, Augustus
stationed two permanent fleets in the most convenient ports of Italy,
the one at Ravenna, on the Adriatic, the other at Misenum, in the Bay of
Naples. Experience seems at length to have convinced the ancients, that
as soon as their galleys exceeded two, or at the most three ranks of
oars, they were suited rather for vain pomp than for real service.
Augustus himself, in the victory of Actium, had seen the superiority of
his own light frigates (they were called Liburnians) over the lofty but
unwieldy castles of his rival.  Of these Liburnians he composed the two
fleets of Ravenna and Misenum, destined to command, the one the eastern,
the other the western division of the Mediterranean; and to each of the
squadrons he attached a body of several thousand marines. Besides these
two ports, which may be considered as the principal seats of the Roman
navy, a very considerable force was stationed at Frejus, on the coast of
Provence, and the Euxine was guarded by forty ships, and three thousand
soldiers. To all these we add the fleet which preserved the
communication between Gaul and Britain, and a great number of vessels
constantly maintained on the Rhine and Danube, to harass the country, or
to intercept the passage of the barbarians.  If we review this general
state of the Imperial forces; of the cavalry as well as infantry; of the
legions, the auxiliaries, the guards, and the navy; the most liberal
computation will not allow us to fix the entire establishment by sea and
by land at more than four hundred and fifty thousand men: a military
power, which, however formidable it may seem, was equalled by a monarch
of the last century, whose kingdom was confined within a single province
of the Roman empire.

We have attempted to explain the spirit which moderated, and the
strength which supported, the power of Hadrian and the Antonines. We
shall now endeavor, with clearness and precision, to describe the
provinces once united under their sway, but, at present, divided into so
many independent and hostile states.

Spain, the western extremity of the empire, of Europe, and of the
ancient world, has, in every age, invariably preserved the same natural
limits; the Pyrenæan Mountains, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic
Ocean. That great peninsula, at present so unequally divided between two
sovereigns, was distributed by Augustus into three provinces, Lusitania,
Bætica, and Tarraconensis. The kingdom of Portugal now fills the place
of the warlike country of the Lusitanians; and the loss sustained by the
former on the side of the East, is compensated by an accession of
territory towards the North. The confines of Grenada and Andalusia
correspond with those of ancient Bætica. The remainder of Spain,
Gallicia, and the Asturias, Biscay, and Navarre, Leon, and the two
Castiles, Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, and Arragon, all contributed to
form the third and most considerable of the Roman governments, which,
from the name of its capital, was styled the province of Tarragona.  Of
the native barbarians, the Celtiberians were the most powerful, as the
Cantabrians and Asturians proved the most obstinate. Confident in the
strength of their mountains, they were the last who submitted to the
arms of Rome, and the first who threw off the yoke of the Arabs.

Ancient Gaul, as it contained the whole country between the Pyrenees,
the Alps, the Rhine, and the Ocean, was of greater extent than modern
France. To the dominions of that powerful monarchy, with its recent
acquisitions of Alsace and Lorraine, we must add the duchy of Savoy, the
cantons of Switzerland, the four electorates of the Rhine, and the
territories of Liege, Luxemburgh, Hainault, Flanders, and Brabant. When
Augustus gave laws to the conquests of his father, he introduced a
division of Gaul, equally adapted to the progress of the legions, to the
course of the rivers, and to the principal national distinctions, which
had comprehended above a hundred independent states.  The sea-coast of
the Mediterranean, Languedoc, Provence, and Dauphine, received their
provincial appellation from the colony of Narbonne. The government of
Aquitaine was extended from the Pyrenees to the Loire. The country
between the Loire and the Seine was styled the Celtic Gaul, and soon
borrowed a new denomination from the celebrated colony of Lugdunum, or
Lyons. The Belgic lay beyond the Seine, and in more ancient times had
been bounded only by the Rhine; but a little before the age of Cæsar,
the Germans, abusing their superiority of valor, had occupied a
considerable portion of the Belgic territory. The Roman conquerors very
eagerly embraced so flattering a circumstance, and the Gallic frontier
of the Rhine, from Basil to Leyden, received the pompous names of the
Upper and the Lower Germany.  Such, under the reign of the Antonines,
were the six provinces of Gaul; the Narbonnese, Aquitaine, the Celtic,
or Lyonnese, the Belgic, and the two Germanies.

We have already had occasion to mention the conquest of Britain, and to
fix the boundary of the Roman Province in this island. It comprehended
all England, Wales, and the Lowlands of Scotland, as far as the Friths
of Dumbarton and Edinburgh. Before Britain lost her freedom, the country
was irregularly divided between thirty tribes of barbarians, of whom the
most considerable were the Belgæin the West, the Brigantes in the North,
the Silures in South Wales, and the Iceni in Norfolk and Suffolk.  As
far as we can either trace or credit the resemblance of manners and
language, Spain, Gaul, and Britain were peopled by the same hardy race
of savages. Before they yielded to the Roman arms, they often disputed
the field, and often renewed the contest. After their submission, they
constituted the western division of the European provinces, which
extended from the columns of Hercules to the wall of Antoninus, and from
the mouth of the Tagus to the sources of the Rhine and Danube.

Before the Roman conquest, the country which is now called Lombardy, was
not considered as a part of Italy. It had been occupied by a powerful
colony of Gauls, who, settling themselves along the banks of the Po,
from Piedmont to Romagna, carried their arms and diffused their name
from the Alps to the Apennine. The Ligurians dwelt on the rocky coast
which now forms the republic of Genoa. Venice was yet unborn; but the
territories of that state, which lie to the east of the Adige, were
inhabited by the Venetians.  The middle part of the peninsula, that now
composes the duchy of Tuscany and the ecclesiastical state, was the
ancient seat of the Etruscans and Umbrians; to the former of whom Italy
was indebted for the first rudiments of civilized life.  The Tyber
rolled at the foot of the seven hills of Rome, and the country of the
Sabines, the Latins, and the Volsci, from that river to the frontiers of
Naples, was the theatre of her infant victories. On that celebrated
ground the first consuls deserved triumphs, their successors adorned
villas, and their posterity have erected convents.  Capua and Campania
possessed the immediate territory of Naples; the rest of the kingdom was
inhabited by many warlike nations, the Marsi, the Samnites, the
Apulians, and the Lucanians; and the sea-coasts had been covered by the
flourishing colonies of the Greeks. We may remark, that when Augustus
divided Italy into eleven regions, the little province of Istria was
annexed to that seat of Roman sovereignty.

The European provinces of Rome were protected by the course of the Rhine
and the Danube. The latter of those mighty streams, which rises at the
distance of only thirty miles from the former, flows above thirteen
hundred miles, for the most part to the south-east, collects the tribute
of sixty navigable rivers, and is, at length, through six mouths,
received into the Euxine, which appears scarcely equal to such an
accession of waters.  The provinces of the Danube soon acquired the
general appellation of Illyricum, or the Illyrian frontier,  and were
esteemed the most warlike of the empire; but they deserve to be more
particularly considered under the names of Rhætia, Noricum, Pannonia,
Dalmatia, Dacia, Mæsia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece.

The province of Rhætia, which soon extinguished the name of the
Vindelicians, extended from the summit of the Alps to the banks of the
Danube; from its source, as far as its conflux with the Inn. The
greatest part of the flat country is subject to the elector of Bavaria;
the city of Augsburg is protected by the constitution of the German
empire; the Grisons are safe in their mountains, and the country of
Tirol is ranked among the numerous provinces of the house of Austria.

The wide extent of territory which is included between the Inn, the
Danube, and the Save, -- Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the Lower
Hungary, and Sclavonia, -- was known to the ancients under the names of
Noricum and Pannonia. In their original state of independence, their
fierce inhabitants were intimately connected. Under the Roman government
they were frequently united, and they still remain the patrimony of a
single family. They now contain the residence of a German prince, who
styles himself Emperor of the Romans, and form the centre, as well as
strength, of the Austrian power. It may not be improper to observe, that
if we except Bohemia, Moravia, the northern skirts of Austria, and a
part of Hungary between the Teyss and the Danube, all the other
dominions of the House of Austria were comprised within the limits of
the Roman Empire.

Dalmatia, to which the name of Illyricum more properly belonged, was a
long, but narrow tract, between the Save and the Adriatic. The best part
of the sea-coast, which still retains its ancient appellation, is a
province of the Venetian state, and the seat of the little republic of
Ragusa. The inland parts have assumed the Sclavonian names of Croatia
and Bosnia; the former obeys an Austrian governor, the latter a Turkish
pacha; but the whole country is still infested by tribes of barbarians,
whose savage independence irregularly marks the doubtful limit of the
Christian and Mahometan power.

After the Danube had received the waters of the Teyss and the Save, it
acquired, at least among the Greeks, the name of Ister.  It formerly
divided Mæsia and Dacia, the latter of which, as we have already seen,
was a conquest of Trajan, and the only province beyond the river. If we
inquire into the present state of those countries, we shall find that,
on the left hand of the Danube, Temeswar and Transylvania have been
annexed, after many revolutions, to the crown of Hungary; whilst the
principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia acknowledge the supremacy of
the Ottoman Porte. On the right hand of the Danube, Mæsia, which, during
the middle ages, was broken into the barbarian kingdoms of Servia and
Bulgaria, is again united in Turkish slavery.

The appellation of Roumelia, which is still bestowed by the Turks on the
extensive countries of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, preserves the
memory of their ancient state under the Roman empire. In the time of the
Antonines, the martial regions of Thrace, from the mountains of Hæmus
and Rhodope, to the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, had assumed the form
of a province. Notwithstanding the change of masters and of religion,
the new city of Rome, founded by Constantine on the banks of the
Bosphorus, has ever since remained the capital of a great monarchy. The
kingdom of Macedonia, which, under the reign of Alexander, gave laws to
Asia, derived more solid advantages from the policy of the two Philips;
and with its dependencies of Epirus and Thessaly, extended from the
Ægean to the Ionian Sea. When we reflect on the fame of Thebes and
Argos, of Sparta and Athens, we can scarcely persuade ourselves, that so
many immortal republics of ancient Greece were lost in a single province
of the Roman empire, which, from the superior influence of the Achæan
league, was usually denominated the province of Achaia.

Such was the state of Europe under the Roman emperors. The provinces of
Asia, without excepting the transient conquests of Trajan, are all
comprehended within the limits of the Turkish power. But, instead of
following the arbitrary divisions of despotism and ignorance, it will be
safer for us, as well as more agreeable, to observe the indelible
characters of nature. The name of Asia Minor is attributed with some
propriety to the peninsula, which, confined betwixt the Euxine and the
Mediterranean, advances from the Euphrates towards Europe. The most
extensive and flourishing district, westward of Mount Taurus and the
River Halys, was dignified by the Romans with the exclusive title of
Asia. The jurisdiction of that province extended over the ancient
monarchies of Troy, Lydia, and Phrygia, the maritime countries of the
Pamphylians, Lycians, and Carians, and the Grecian colonies of Ionia,
which equalled in arts, though not in arms, the glory of their parent.
The kingdoms of Bithynia and Pontus possessed the northern side of the
peninsula from Constantinople to Trebizond. On the opposite side, the
province of Cilicia was terminated by the mountains of Syria: the inland
country, separated from the Roman Asia by the River Halys, and from
Armenia by the Euphrates, had once formed the independent kingdom of
Cappadocia. In this place we may observe, that the northern shores of
the Euxine, beyond Trebizond in Asia, and beyond the Danube in Europe,
acknowledged the sovereignty of the emperors, and received at their
hands either tributary princes or Roman garrisons. Budzak, Crim Tartary,
Circassia, and Mingrelia, are the modern appellations of those savage
countries.

Under the successors of Alexander, Syria was the seat of the Seleucidæ,
who reigned over Upper Asia, till the successful revolt of the Parthians
confined their dominions between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean.
When Syria became subject to the Romans, it formed the eastern frontier
of their empire: nor did that province, in its utmost latitude, know any
other bounds than the mountains of Cappadocia to the north, and towards
the south, the confines of Egypt, and the Red Sea. Phoenicia and
Palestine were sometimes annexed to, and sometimes separated from, the
jurisdiction of Syria. The former of these was a narrow and rocky coast;
the latter was a territory scarcely superior to Wales, either in
fertility or extent. * Yet Phoenicia and Palestine will forever live in
the memory of mankind; since America, as well as Europe, has received
letters from the one, and religion from the other.  A sandy desert,
alike destitute of wood and water, skirts along the doubtful confine of
Syria, from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. The wandering life of the
Arabs was inseparably connected with their independence; and wherever,
on some spots less barren than the rest, they ventured to for many
settled habitations, they soon became subjects to the Roman empire.

The geographers of antiquity have frequently hesitated to what portion
of the globe they should ascribe Egypt.  By its situation that
celebrated kingdom is included within the immense peninsula of Africa;
but it is accessible only on the side of Asia, whose revolutions, in
almost every period of history, Egypt has humbly obeyed. A Roman præfect
was seated on the splendid throne of the Ptolemies; and the iron sceptre
of the Mamelukes is now in the hands of a Turkish pacha. The Nile flows
down the country, above five hundred miles from the tropic of Cancer to
the Mediterranean, and marks on either side of the extent of fertility
by the measure of its inundations. Cyrene, situate towards the west, and
along the sea-coast, was first a Greek colony, afterwards a province of
Egypt, and is now lost in the desert of Barca. *

From Cyrene to the ocean, the coast of Africa extends above fifteen
hundred miles; yet so closely is it pressed between the Mediterranean
and the Sahara, or sandy desert, that its breadth seldom exceeds
fourscore or a hundred miles. The eastern division was considered by the
Romans as the more peculiar and proper province of Africa. Till the
arrival of the Phnician colonies, that fertile country was inhabited by
the Libyans, the most savage of mankind. Under the immediate
jurisdiction of Carthage, it became the centre of commerce and empire;
but the republic of Carthage is now degenerated into the feeble and
disorderly states of Tripoli and Tunis. The military government of
Algiers oppresses the wide extent of Numidia, as it was once united
under Massinissa and Jugurtha; but in the time of Augustus, the limits
of Numidia were contracted; and, at least, two thirds of the country
acquiesced in the name of Mauritania, with the epithet of Cæsariensis.
The genuine Mauritania, or country of the Moors, which, from the ancient
city of Tingi, or Tangier, was distinguished by the appellation of
Tingitana, is represented by the modern kingdom of Fez. Salle, on the
Ocean, so infamous at present for its piratical depredations, was
noticed by the Romans, as the extreme object of their power, and almost
of their geography. A city of their foundation may still be discovered
near Mequinez, the residence of the barbarian whom we condescend to
style the Emperor of Morocco; but it does not appear, that his more
southern dominions, Morocco itself, and Segelmessa, were ever
comprehended within the Roman province. The western parts of Africa are
intersected by the branches of Mount Atlas, a name so idly celebrated by
the fancy of poets;  but which is now diffused over the immense ocean
that rolls between the ancient and the new continent.

Having now finished the circuit of the Roman empire, we may observe,
that Africa is divided from Spain by a narrow strait of about twelve
miles, through which the Atlantic flows into the Mediterranean. The
columns of Hercules, so famous among the ancients, were two mountains
which seemed to have been torn asunder by some convulsion of the
elements; and at the foot of the European mountain, the fortress of
Gibraltar is now seated. The whole extent of the Mediterranean Sea, its
coasts and its islands, were comprised within the Roman dominion. Of the
larger islands, the two Baleares, which derive their name of Majorca and
Minorca from their respective size, are subject at present, the former
to Spain, the latter to Great Britain. * It is easier to deplore the
fate, than to describe the actual condition, of Corsica.  Two Italian
sovereigns assume a regal title from Sardinia and Sicily. Crete, or
Candia, with Cyprus, and most of the smaller islands of Greece and Asia,
have been subdued by the Turkish arms, whilst the little rock of Malta
defies their power, and has emerged, under the government of its
military Order, into fame and opulence.

This long enumeration of provinces, whose broken fragments have formed
so many powerful kingdoms, might almost induce us to forgive the vanity
or ignorance of the ancients. Dazzled with the extensive sway, the
irresistible strength, and the real or affected moderation of the
emperors, they permitted themselves to despise, and sometimes to forget,
the outlying countries which had been left in the enjoyment of a
barbarous independence; and they gradually usurped the license of
confounding the Roman monarchy with the globe of the earth.  But the
temper, as well as knowledge, of a modern historian, require a more
sober and accurate language. He may impress a juster image of the
greatness of Rome, by observing that the empire was above two thousand
miles in breadth, from the wall of Antoninus and the northern limits of
Dacia, to Mount Atlas and the tropic of Cancer; that it extended in
length more than three thousand miles from the Western Ocean to the
Euphrates; that it was situated in the finest part of the Temperate
Zone, between the twenty-fourth and fifty-sixth degrees of northern
latitude; and that it was supposed to contain above sixteen hundred
thousand square miles, for the most part of fertile and well-cultivated
land.

Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines. Part I.

Of The Union And Internal Prosperity Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of
The Antonines.

It is not alone by the rapidity, or extent of conquest, that we should
estimate the greatness of Rome. The sovereign of the Russian deserts
commands a larger portion of the globe. In the seventh summer after his
passage of the Hellespont, Alexander erected the Macedonian trophies on
the banks of the Hyphasis.  Within less than a century, the irresistible
Zingis, and the Mogul princes of his race, spread their cruel
devastations and transient empire from the Sea of China, to the confines
of Egypt and Germany.  But the firm edifice of Roman power was raised
and preserved by the wisdom of ages. The obedient provinces of Trajan
and the Antonines were united by laws, and adorned by arts. They might
occasionally suffer from the partial abuse of delegated authority; but
the general principle of government was wise, simple, and beneficent.
They enjoyed the religion of their ancestors, whilst in civil honors and
advantages they were exalted, by just degrees, to an equality with their
conquerors.

I. The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned
religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened,
and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The
various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all
considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as
equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus
toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious
concord.

The superstition of the people was not imbittered by any mixture of
theological rancor; nor was it confined by the chains of any speculative
system. The devout polytheist, though fondly attached to his national
rites, admitted with implicit faith the different religions of the
earth.  Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream or an omen, a singular
disorder, or a distant journey, perpetually disposed him to multiply the
articles of his belief, and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The
thin texture of the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but not
discordant materials. As soon as it was allowed that sages and heroes,
who had lived or who had died for the benefit of their country, were
exalted to a state of power and immortality, it was universally
confessed, that they deserved, if not the adoration, at least the
reverence, of all mankind. The deities of a thousand groves and a
thousand streams possessed, in peace, their local and respective
influence; nor could the Romans who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber,
deride the Egyptian who presented his offering to the beneficent genius
of the Nile. The visible powers of nature, the planets, and the elements
were the same throughout the universe. The invisible governors of the
moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and
allegory. Every virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine
representative; every art and profession its patron, whose attributes,
in the most distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived from the
character of their peculiar votaries. A republic of gods of such
opposite tempers and interests required, in every system, the moderating
hand of a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of knowledge and
flattery, was gradually invested with the sublime perfections of an
Eternal Parent, and an Omnipotent Monarch.  Such was the mild spirit of
antiquity, that the nations were less attentive to the difference, than
to the resemblance, of their religious worship. The Greek, the Roman,
and the Barbarian, as they met before their respective altars, easily
persuaded themselves, that under various names, and with various
ceremonies, they adored the same deities.  The elegant mythology of
Homer gave a beautiful, and almost a regular form, to the polytheism of
the ancient world.

The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from the nature of man,
rather than from that of God. They meditated, however, on the Divine
Nature, as a very curious and important speculation; and in the profound
inquiry, they displayed the strength and weakness of the human
understanding.  Of the four most celebrated schools, the Stoics and the
Platonists endeavored to reconcile the jaring interests of reason and
piety. They have left us the most sublime proofs of the existence and
perfections of the first cause; but, as it was impossible for them to
conceive the creation of matter, the workman in the Stoic philosophy was
not sufficiently distinguished from the work; whilst, on the contrary,
the spiritual God of Plato and his disciples resembled an idea, rather
than a substance. The opinions of the Academics and Epicureans were of a
less religious cast; but whilst the modest science of the former induced
them to doubt, the positive ignorance of the latter urged them to deny,
the providence of a Supreme Ruler. The spirit of inquiry, prompted by
emulation, and supported by freedom, had divided the public teachers of
philosophy into a variety of contending sects; but the ingenious youth,
who, from every part, resorted to Athens, and the other seats of
learning in the Roman empire, were alike instructed in every school to
reject and to despise the religion of the multitude. How, indeed, was it
possible that a philosopher should accept, as divine truths, the idle
tales of the poets, and the incoherent traditions of antiquity; or that
he should adore, as gods, those imperfect beings whom he must have
despised, as men? Against such unworthy adversaries, Cicero condescended
to employ the arms of reason and eloquence; but the satire of Lucian was
a much more adequate, as well as more efficacious, weapon. We may be
well assured, that a writer, conversant with the world, would never have
ventured to expose the gods of his country to public ridicule, had they
not already been the objects of secret contempt among the polished and
enlightened orders of society.

Notwithstanding the fashionable irreligion which prevailed in the age of
the Antonines, both the interest of the priests and the credulity of the
people were sufficiently respected. In their writings and conversation,
the philosophers of antiquity asserted the independent dignity of
reason; but they resigned their actions to the commands of law and of
custom. Viewing, with a smile of pity and indulgence, the various errors
of the vulgar, they diligently practised the ceremonies of their
fathers, devoutly frequented the temples of the gods; and sometimes
condescending to act a part on the theatre of superstition, they
concealed the sentiments of an atheist under the sacerdotal robes.
Reasoners of such a temper were scarcely inclined to wrangle about their
respective modes of faith, or of worship. It was indifferent to them
what shape the folly of the multitude might choose to assume; and they
approached with the same inward contempt, and the same external
reverence, the altars of the Libyan, the Olympian, or the Capitoline
Jupiter.

It is not easy to conceive from what motives a spirit of persecution
could introduce itself into the Roman councils. The magistrates could
not be actuated by a blind, though honest bigotry, since the magistrates
were themselves philosophers; and the schools of Athens had given laws
to the senate. They could not be impelled by ambition or avarice, as the
temporal and ecclesiastical powers were united in the same hands. The
pontiffs were chosen among the most illustrious of the senators; and the
office of Supreme Pontiff was constantly exercised by the emperors
themselves. They knew and valued the advantages of religion, as it is
connected with civil government. They encouraged the public festivals
which humanize the manners of the people. They managed the arts of
divination as a convenient instrument of policy; and they respected, as
the firmest bond of society, the useful persuasion, that, either in this
or in a future life, the crime of perjury is most assuredly punished by
the avenging gods.  But whilst they acknowledged the general advantages
of religion, they were convinced that the various modes of worship
contributed alike to the same salutary purposes; and that, in every
country, the form of superstition, which had received the sanction of
time and experience, was the best adapted to the climate, and to its
inhabitants. Avarice and taste very frequently despoiled the vanquished
nations of the elegant statues of their gods, and the rich ornaments of
their temples;  but, in the exercise of the religion which they derived
from their ancestors, they uniformly experienced the indulgence, and
even protection, of the Roman conquerors. The province of Gaul seems,
and indeed only seems, an exception to this universal toleration. Under
the specious pretext of abolishing human sacrifices, the emperors
Tiberius and Claudius suppressed the dangerous power of the Druids:  but
the priests themselves, their gods and their altars, subsisted in
peaceful obscurity till the final destruction of Paganism.

Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was incessantly filled with
subjects and strangers from every part of the world,  who all introduced
and enjoyed the favorite superstitions of their native country.  Every
city in the empire was justified in maintaining the purity of its
ancient ceremonies; and the Roman senate, using the common privilege,
sometimes interposed, to check this inundation of foreign rites. * The
Egyptian superstition, of all the most contemptible and abject, was
frequently prohibited: the temples of Serapis and Isis demolished, and
their worshippers banished from Rome and Italy.  But the zeal of
fanaticism prevailed over the cold and feeble efforts of policy. The
exiles returned, the proselytes multiplied, the temples were restored
with increasing splendor, and Isis and Serapis at length assumed their
place among the Roman Deities.  Nor was this indulgence a departure from
the old maxims of government. In the purest ages of the commonwealth,
Cybele and Æsculapius had been invited by solemn embassies;  and it was
customary to tempt the protectors of besieged cities, by the promise of
more distinguished honors than they possessed in their native country.
Rome gradually became the common temple of her subjects; and the freedom
of the city was bestowed on all the gods of mankind.

II. The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture, the
pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the fortune, and
hastened the ruin, of Athens and Sparta. The aspiring genius of Rome
sacrificed vanity to ambition, and deemed it more prudent, as well as
honorable, to adopt virtue and merit for her own wheresoever they were
found, among slaves or strangers, enemies or barbarians.  During the
most flourishing æra of the Athenian commonwealth, the number of
citizens gradually decreased from about thirty  to twenty-one thousand.
If, on the contrary, we study the growth of the Roman republic, we may
discover, that, notwithstanding the incessant demands of wars and
colonies, the citizens, who, in the first census of Servius Tullius,
amounted to no more than eighty-three thousand, were multiplied, before
the commencement of the social war, to the number of four hundred and
sixty-three thousand men, able to bear arms in the service of their
country.  When the allies of Rome claimed an equal share of honors and
privileges, the senate indeed preferred the chance of arms to an
ignominious concession. The Samnites and the Lucanians paid the severe
penalty of their rashness; but the rest of the Italian states, as they
successively returned to their duty, were admitted into the bosom of the
republic,  and soon contributed to the ruin of public freedom. Under a
democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of
sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost,
if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude. But when the popular
assemblies had been suppressed by the administration of the emperors,
the conquerors were distinguished from the vanquished nations, only as
the first and most honorable order of subjects; and their increase,
however rapid, was no longer exposed to the same dangers. Yet the wisest
princes, who adopted the maxims of Augustus, guarded with the strictest
care the dignity of the Roman name, and diffused the freedom of the city
with a prudent liberality.

Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines. -- Part
II.

Till the privileges of Romans had been progressively extended to all the
inhabitants of the empire, an important distinction was preserved
between Italy and the provinces. The former was esteemed the centre of
public unity, and the firm basis of the constitution. Italy claimed the
birth, or at least the residence, of the emperors and the senate.  The
estates of the Italians were exempt from taxes, their persons from the
arbitrary jurisdiction of governors. Their municipal corporations,
formed after the perfect model of the capital, * were intrusted, under
the immediate eye of the supreme power, with the execution of the laws.
From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, all the natives
of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial distinctions were
obliterated, and they insensibly coalesced into one great nation, united
by language, manners, and civil institutions, and equal to the weight of
a powerful empire. The republic gloried in her generous policy, and was
frequently rewarded by the merit and services of her adopted sons. Had
she always confined the distinction of Romans to the ancient families
within the walls of the city, that immortal name would have been
deprived of some of its noblest ornaments. Virgil was a native of
Mantua; Horace was inclined to doubt whether he should call himself an
Apulian or a Lucanian; it was in Padua that an historian was found
worthy to record the majestic series of Roman victories. The patriot
family of the Catos emerged from Tusculum; and the little town of
Arpinum claimed the double honor of producing Marius and Cicero, the
former of whom deserved, after Romulus and Camillus, to be styled the
Third Founder of Rome; and the latter, after saving his country from the
designs of Catiline, enabled her to contend with Athens for the palm of
eloquence.

The provinces of the empire (as they have been described in the
preceding chapter) were destitute of any public force, or constitutional
freedom. In Etruria, in Greece,  and in Gaul,  it was the first care of
the senate to dissolve those dangerous confederacies, which taught
mankind that, as the Roman arms prevailed by division, they might be
resisted by union. Those princes, whom the ostentation of gratitude or
generosity permitted for a while to hold a precarious sceptre, were
dismissed from their thrones, as soon as they had per formed their
appointed task of fashioning to the yoke the vanquished nations. The
free states and cities which had embraced the cause of Rome were
rewarded with a nominal alliance, and insensibly sunk into real
servitude. The public authority was every where exercised by the
ministers of the senate and of the emperors, and that authority was
absolute, and without control.  But the same salutary maxims of
government, which had secured the peace and obedience of Italy were
extended to the most distant conquests. A nation of Romans was gradually
formed in the provinces, by the double expedient of introducing
colonies, and of admitting the most faithful and deserving of the
provincials to the freedom of Rome.

"Wheresoever the Roman conquers, he inhabits," is a very just
observation of Seneca,  confirmed by history and experience. The natives
of Italy, allured by pleasure or by interest, hastened to enjoy the
advantages of victory; and we may remark, that, about forty years after
the reduction of Asia, eighty thousand Romans were massacred in one day,
by the cruel orders of Mithridates.  These voluntary exiles were
engaged, for the most part, in the occupations of commerce, agriculture,
and the farm of the revenue. But after the legions were rendered
permanent by the emperors, the provinces were peopled by a race of
soldiers; and the veterans, whether they received the reward of their
service in land or in money, usually settled with their families in the
country, where they had honorably spent their youth. Throughout the
empire, but more particularly in the western parts, the most fertile
districts, and the most convenient situations, were reserved for the
establishment of colonies; some of which were of a civil, and others of
a military nature. In their manners and internal policy, the colonies
formed a perfect representation of their great parent; and they were
soon endeared to the natives by the ties of friendship and alliance,
they effectually diffused a reverence for the Roman name, and a desire,
which was seldom disappointed, of sharing, in due time, its honors and
advantages.  The municipal cities insensibly equalled the rank and
splendor of the colonies; and in the reign of Hadrian, it was disputed
which was the preferable condition, of those societies which had issued
from, or those which had been received into, the bosom of Rome.  The
right of Latium, as it was called, * conferred on the cities to which it
had been granted, a more partial favor. The magistrates only, at the
expiration of their office, assumed the quality of Roman citizens; but
as those offices were annual, in a few years they circulated round the
principal families.  Those of the provincials who were permitted to bear
arms in the legions;  those who exercised any civil employment; all, in
a word, who performed any public service, or displayed any personal
talents, were rewarded with a present, whose value was continually
diminished by the increasing liberality of the emperors. Yet even, in
the age of the Antonines, when the freedom of the city had been bestowed
on the greater number of their subjects, it was still accompanied with
very solid advantages. The bulk of the people acquired, with that title,
the benefit of the Roman laws, particularly in the interesting articles
of marriage, testaments, and inheritances; and the road of fortune was
open to those whose pretensions were seconded by favor or merit. The
grandsons of the Gauls, who had besieged Julius Cæsar in Alcsia,
commanded legions, governed provinces, and were admitted into the senate
of Rome.  Their ambition, instead of disturbing the tranquillity of the
state, was intimately connected with its safety and greatness.

So sensible were the Romans of the influence of language over national
manners, that it was their most serious care to extend, with the
progress of their arms, the use of the Latin tongue.  The ancient
dialects of Italy, the Sabine, the Etruscan, and the Venetian, sunk into
oblivion; but in the provinces, the east was less docile than the west
to the voice of its victorious preceptors. This obvious difference
marked the two portions of the empire with a distinction of colors,
which, though it was in some degree concealed during the meridian
splendor of prosperity, became gradually more visible, as the shades of
night descended upon the Roman world. The western countries were
civilized by the same hands which subdued them. As soon as the
barbarians were reconciled to obedience, their minds were open to any
new impressions of knowledge and politeness. The language of Virgil and
Cicero, though with some inevitable mixture of corruption, was so
universally adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul Britain, and Pannonia,  that
the faint traces of the Punic or Celtic idioms were preserved only in
the mountains, or among the peasants.  Education and study insensibly
inspired the natives of those countries with the sentiments of Romans;
and Italy gave fashions, as well as laws, to her Latin provincials. They
solicited with more ardor, and obtained with more facility, the freedom
and honors of the state; supported the national dignity in letters  and
in arms; and at length, in the person of Trajan, produced an emperor
whom the Scipios would not have disowned for their countryman. The
situation of the Greeks was very different from that of the barbarians.
The former had been long since civilized and corrupted. They had too
much taste to relinquish their language, and too much vanity to adopt
any foreign institutions. Still preserving the prejudices, after they
had lost the virtues, of their ancestors, they affected to despise the
unpolished manners of the Roman conquerors, whilst they were compelled
to respect their superior wisdom and power.  Nor was the influence of
the Grecian language and sentiments confined to the narrow limits of
that once celebrated country. Their empire, by the progress of colonies
and conquest, had been diffused from the Adriatic to the Euphrates and
the Nile. Asia was covered with Greek cities, and the long reign of the
Macedonian kings had introduced a silent revolution into Syria and
Egypt. In their pompous courts, those princes united the elegance of
Athens with the luxury of the East, and the example of the court was
imitated, at an humble distance, by the higher ranks of their subjects.
Such was the general division of the Roman empire into the Latin and
Greek languages. To these we may add a third distinction for the body of
the natives in Syria, and especially in Egypt, the use of their ancient
dialects, by secluding them from the commerce of mankind, checked the
improvements of those barbarians.  The slothful effeminacy of the former
exposed them to the contempt, the sullen ferociousness of the latter
excited the aversion, of the conquerors.  Those nations had submitted to
the Roman power, but they seldom desired or deserved the freedom of the
city: and it was remarked, that more than two hundred and thirty years
elapsed after the ruin of the Ptolemies, before an Egyptian was admitted
into the senate of Rome.

It is a just though trite observation, that victorious Rome was herself
subdued by the arts of Greece. Those immortal writers who still command
the admiration of modern Europe, soon became the favorite object of
study and imitation in Italy and the western provinces. But the elegant
amusements of the Romans were not suffered to interfere with their sound
maxims of policy. Whilst they acknowledged the charms of the Greek, they
asserted the dignity of the Latin tongue, and the exclusive use of the
latter was inflexibly maintained in the administration of civil as well
as military government.  The two languages exercised at the same time
their separate jurisdiction throughout the empire: the former, as the
natural idiom of science; the latter, as the legal dialect of public
transactions. Those who united letters with business were equally
conversant with both; and it was almost impossible, in any province, to
find a Roman subject, of a liberal education, who was at once a stranger
to the Greek and to the Latin language.

It was by such institutions that the nations of the empire insensibly
melted away into the Roman name and people. But there still remained, in
the centre of every province and of every family, an unhappy condition
of men who endured the weight, without sharing the benefits, of society.
In the free states of antiquity, the domestic slaves were exposed to the
wanton rigor of despotism. The perfect settlement of the Roman empire
was preceded by ages of violence and rapine. The slaves consisted, for
the most part, of barbarian captives, * taken in thousands by the chance
of war, purchased at a vile price,  accustomed to a life of
independence, and impatient to break and to revenge their fetters.
Against such internal enemies, whose desperate insurrections had more
than once reduced the republic to the brink of destruction,  the most
severe  regulations,  and the most cruel treatment, seemed almost
justified by the great law of self-preservation. But when the principal
nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa were united under the laws of one
sovereign, the source of foreign supplies flowed with much less
abundance, and the Romans were reduced to the milder but more tedious
method of propagation. * In their numerous families, and particularly in
their country estates, they encouraged the marriage of their slaves.
The sentiments of nature, the habits of education, and the possession of
a dependent species of property, contributed to alleviate the hardships
of servitude.  The existence of a slave became an object of greater
value, and though his happiness still depended on the temper and
circumstances of the master, the humanity of the latter, instead of
being restrained by fear, was encouraged by the sense of his own
interest. The progress of manners was accelerated by the virtue or
policy of the emperors; and by the edicts of Hadrian and the Antonines,
the protection of the laws was extended to the most abject part of
mankind. The jurisdiction of life and death over the slaves, a power
long exercised and often abused, was taken out of private hands, and
reserved to the magistrates alone. The subterraneous prisons were
abolished; and, upon a just complaint of intolerable treatment, the
injured slave obtained either his deliverance, or a less cruel master.

Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition, was not denied to the
Roman slave; and if he had any opportunity of rendering himself either
useful or agreeable, he might very naturally expect that the diligence
and fidelity of a few years would be rewarded with the inestimable gift
of freedom. The benevolence of the master was so frequently prompted by
the meaner suggestions of vanity and avarice, that the laws found it
more necessary to restrain than to encourage a profuse and
undistinguishing liberality, which might degenerate into a very
dangerous abuse.  It was a maxim of ancient jurisprudence, that a slave
had not any country of his own; he acquired with his liberty an
admission into the political society of which his patron was a member.
The consequences of this maxim would have prostituted the privileges of
the Roman city to a mean and promiscuous multitude. Some seasonable
exceptions were therefore provided; and the honorable distinction was
confined to such slaves only as, for just causes, and with the
approbation of the magistrate, should receive a solemn and legal
manumission. Even these chosen freedmen obtained no more than the
private rights of citizens, and were rigorously excluded from civil or
military honors. Whatever might be the merit or fortune of their sons,
theylikewise were esteemed unworthy of a seat in the senate; nor were
the traces of a servile origin allowed to be completely obliterated till
the third or fourth generation.  Without destroying the distinction of
ranks, a distant prospect of freedom and honors was presented, even to
those whom pride and prejudice almost disdained to number among the
human species.

It was once proposed to discriminate the slaves by a peculiar habit; but
it was justly apprehended that there might be some danger in acquainting
them with their own numbers.  Without interpreting, in their utmost
strictness, the liberal appellations of legions and myriads,  we may
venture to pronounce, that the proportion of slaves, who were valued as
property, was more considerable than that of servants, who can be
computed only as an expense.  The youths of a promising genius were
instructed in the arts and sciences, and their price was ascertained by
the degree of their skill and talents.  Almost every profession, either
liberal  or mechanical, might be found in the household of an opulent
senator. The ministers of pomp and sensuality were multiplied beyond the
conception of modern luxury.  It was more for the interest of the
merchant or manufacturer to purchase, than to hire his workmen; and in
the country, slaves were employed as the cheapest and most laborious
instruments of agriculture. To confirm the general observation, and to
display the multitude of slaves, we might allege a variety of particular
instances. It was discovered, on a very melancholy occasion, that four
hundred slaves were maintained in a single palace of Rome.  The same
number of four hundred belonged to an estate which an African widow, of
a very private condition, resigned to her son, whilst she reserved for
herself a much larger share of her property.  A freedman, under the name
of Augustus, though his fortune had suffered great losses in the civil
wars, left behind him three thousand six hundred yoke of oxen, two
hundred and fifty thousand head of smaller cattle, and what was almost
included in the description of cattle, four thousand one hundred and
sixteen slaves.

The number of subjects who acknowledged the laws of Rome, of citizens,
of provincials, and of slaves, cannot now be fixed with such a degree of
accuracy, as the importance of the object would deserve. We are
informed, that when the Emperor Claudius exercised the office of censor,
he took an account of six millions nine hundred and forty-five thousand
Roman citizens, who, with the proportion of women and children, must
have amounted to about twenty millions of souls. The multitude of
subjects of an inferior rank was uncertain and fluctuating. But, after
weighing with attention every circumstance which could influence the
balance, it seems probable that there existed, in the time of Claudius,
about twice as many provincials as there were citizens, of either sex,
and of every age; and that the slaves were at least equal in number to
the free inhabitants of the Roman world. * The total amount of this
imperfect calculation would rise to about one hundred and twenty
millions of persons; a degree of population which possibly exceeds that
of modern Europe,  and forms the most numerous society that has ever
been united under the same system of government.

Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines. -- Part
III.

Domestic peace and union were the natural consequences of the moderate
and comprehensive policy embraced by the Romans. If we turn our eyes
towards the monarchies of Asia, we shall behold despotism in the centre,
and weakness in the extremities; the collection of the revenue, or the
administration of justice, enforced by the presence of an army; hostile
barbarians established in the heart of the country, hereditary satraps
usurping the dominion of the provinces, and subjects inclined to
rebellion, though incapable of freedom. But the obedience of the Roman
world was uniform, voluntary, and permanent. The vanquished nations,
blended into one great people, resigned the hope, nay, even the wish, of
resuming their independence, and scarcely considered their own existence
as distinct from the existence of Rome. The established authority of the
emperors pervaded without an effort the wide extent of their dominions,
and was exercised with the same facility on the banks of the Thames, or
of the Nile, as on those of the Tyber. The legions were destined to
serve against the public enemy, and the civil magistrate seldom required
the aid of a military force.  In this state of general security, the
leisure, as well as opulence, both of the prince and people, were
devoted to improve and to adorn the Roman empire.

Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by the
Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few have
resisted the ravages of time and barbarism! And yet, even the majestic
ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the provinces, would be
sufficient to prove that those countries were once the seat of a polite
and powerful empire. Their greatness alone, or their beauty, might
deserve our attention: but they are rendered more interesting, by two
important circumstances, which connect the agreeable history of the arts
with the more useful history of human manners. Many of those works were
erected at private expense, and almost all were intended for public
benefit.

It is natural to suppose that the greatest number, as well as the most
considerable of the Roman edifices, were raised by the emperors, who
possessed so unbounded a command both of men and money. Augustus was
accustomed to boast that he had found his capital of brick, and that he
had left it of marble.  The strict economy of Vespasian was the source
of his magnificence. The works of Trajan bear the stamp of his genius.
The public monuments with which Hadrian adorned every province of the
empire, were executed not only by his orders, but under his immediate
inspection. He was himself an artist; and he loved the arts, as they
conduced to the glory of the monarch. They were encouraged by the
Antonines, as they contributed to the happiness of the people. But if
the emperors were the first, they were not the only architects of their
dominions. Their example was universally imitated by their principal
subjects, who were not afraid of declaring to the world that they had
spirit to conceive, and wealth to accomplish, the noblest undertakings.
Scarcely had the proud structure of the Coliseum been dedicated at Rome,
before the edifices, of a smaller scale indeed, but of the same design
and materials, were erected for the use, and at the expense, of the
cities of Capua and Verona.  The inscription of the stupendous bridge of
Alcantara attests that it was thrown over the Tagus by the contribution
of a few Lusitanian communities. When Pliny was intrusted with the
government of Bithynia and Pontus, provinces by no means the richest or
most considerable of the empire, he found the cities within his
jurisdiction striving with each other in every useful and ornamental
work, that might deserve the curiosity of strangers, or the gratitude of
their citizens. It was the duty of the proconsul to supply their
deficiencies, to direct their taste, and sometimes to moderate their
emulation.  The opulent senators of Rome and the provinces esteemed it
an honor, and almost an obligation, to adorn the splendor of their age
and country; and the influence of fashion very frequently supplied the
want of taste or generosity. Among a crowd of these private benefactors,
we may select Herodes Atticus, an Athenian citizen, who lived in the age
of the Antonines. Whatever might be the motive of his conduct, his
magnificence would have been worthy of the greatest kings.

[See Theatre Of Marcellus: Augustus built in Rome the theatre of
Marcellus.]

The family of Herod, at least after it had been favored by fortune, was
lineally descended from Cimon and Miltiades, Theseus and Cecrops, Æacus
and Jupiter. But the posterity of so many gods and heroes was fallen
into the most abject state. His grandfather had suffered by the hands of
justice, and Julius Atticus, his father, must have ended his life in
poverty and contempt, had he not discovered an immense treasure buried
under an old house, the last remains of his patrimony. According to the
rigor of the law, the emperor might have asserted his claim, and the
prudent Atticus prevented, by a frank confession, the officiousness of
informers. But the equitable Nerva, who then filled the throne, refused
to accept any part of it, and commanded him to use, without scruple, the
present of fortune. The cautious Athenian still insisted, that the
treasure was too considerable for a subject, and that he knew not how to
use it. Abuse it then, replied the monarch, with a good-natured
peevishness; for it is your own.  Many will be of opinion, that Atticus
literally obeyed the emperor's last instructions; since he expended the
greatest part of his fortune, which was much increased by an
advantageous marriage, in the service of the public. He had obtained for
his son Herod the prefecture of the free cities of Asia; and the young
magistrate, observing that the town of Troas was indifferently supplied
with water, obtained from the munificence of Hadrian three hundred
myriads of drachms, (about a hundred thousand pounds,) for the
construction of a new aqueduct. But in the execution of the work, the
charge amounted to more than double the estimate, and the officers of
the revenue began to murmur, till the generous Atticus silenced their
complaints, by requesting that he might be permitted to take upon
himself the whole additional expense.

The ablest preceptors of Greece and Asia had been invited by liberal
rewards to direct the education of young Herod. Their pupil soon became
a celebrated orator, according to the useless rhetoric of that age,
which, confining itself to the schools, disdained to visit either the
Forum or the Senate. He was honored with the consulship at Rome: but the
greatest part of his life was spent in a philosophic retirement at
Athens, and his adjacent villas; perpetually surrounded by sophists, who
acknowledged, without reluctance, the superiority of a rich and generous
rival.  The monuments of his genius have perished; some considerable
ruins still preserve the fame of his taste and munificence: modern
travellers have measured the remains of the stadium which he constructed
at Athens. It was six hundred feet in length, built entirely of white
marble, capable of admitting the whole body of the people, and finished
in four years, whilst Herod was president of the Athenian games. To the
memory of his wife Regilla he dedicated a theatre, scarcely to be
paralleled in the empire: no wood except cedar, very curiously carved,
was employed in any part of the building. The Odeum, * designed by
Pericles for musical performances, and the rehearsal of new tragedies,
had been a trophy of the victory of the arts over barbaric greatness; as
the timbers employed in the construction consisted chiefly of the masts
of the Persian vessels. Notwithstanding the repairs bestowed on that
ancient edifice by a king of Cappadocia, it was again fallen to decay.
Herod restored its ancient beauty and magnificence. Nor was the
liberality of that illustrious citizen confined to the walls of Athens.
The most splendid ornaments bestowed on the temple of Neptune in the
Isthmus, a theatre at Corinth, a stadium at Delphi, a bath at
Thermopylæ, and an aqueduct at Canusium in Italy, were insufficient to
exhaust his treasures. The people of Epirus, Thessaly, Euboea, Boeotia,
and Peloponnesus, experienced his favors; and many inscriptions of the
cities of Greece and Asia gratefully style Herodes Atticus their patron
and benefactor.

In the commonwealths of Athens and Rome, the modest simplicity of
private houses announced the equal condition of freedom; whilst the
sovereignty of the people was represented in the majestic edifices
designed to the public use;  nor was this republican spirit totally
extinguished by the introduction of wealth and monarchy. It was in works
of national honor and benefit, that the most virtuous of the emperors
affected to display their magnificence. The golden palace of Nero
excited a just indignation, but the vast extent of ground which had been
usurped by his selfish luxury was more nobly filled under the succeeding
reigns by the Coliseum, the baths of Titus, the Claudian portico, and
the temples dedicated to the goddess of Peace, and to the genius of
Rome.  These monuments of architecture, the property of the Roman
people, were adorned with the most beautiful productions of Grecian
painting and sculpture; and in the temple of Peace, a very curious
library was open to the curiosity of the learned. * At a small distance
from thence was situated the Forum of Trajan. It was surrounded by a
lofty portico, in the form of a quadrangle, into which four triumphal
arches opened a noble and spacious entrance: in the centre arose a
column of marble, whose height, of one hundred and ten feet, denoted the
elevation of the hill that had been cut away. This column, which still
subsists in its ancient beauty, exhibited an exact representation of the
Dacian victories of its founder. The veteran soldier contemplated the
story of his own campaigns, and by an easy illusion of national vanity,
the peaceful citizen associated himself to the honors of the triumph.
All the other quarters of the capital, and all the provinces of the
empire, were embellished by the same liberal spirit of public
magnificence, and were filled with amphi theatres, theatres, temples,
porticoes, triumphal arches, baths and aqueducts, all variously
conducive to the health, the devotion, and the pleasures of the meanest
citizen. The last mentioned of those edifices deserve our peculiar
attention. The boldness of the enterprise, the solidity of the
execution, and the uses to which they were subservient, rank the
aqueducts among the noblest monuments of Roman genius and power. The
aqueducts of the capital claim a just preeminence; but the curious
traveller, who, without the light of history, should examine those of
Spoleto, of Metz, or of Segovia, would very naturally conclude that
those provincial towns had formerly been the residence of some potent
monarch. The solitudes of Asia and Africa were once covered with
flourishing cities, whose populousness, and even whose existence, was
derived from such artificial supplies of a perennial stream of fresh
water.

We have computed the inhabitants, and contemplated the public works, of
the Roman empire. The observation of the number and greatness of its
cities will serve to confirm the former, and to multiply the latter. It
may not be unpleasing to collect a few scattered instances relative to
that subject without forgetting, however, that from the vanity of
nations and the poverty of language, the vague appellation of city has
been indifferently bestowed on Rome and upon Laurentum.

I. AncientItaly is said to have contained eleven hundred and
ninety-seven cities; and for whatsoever æra of antiquity the expression
might be intended,  there is not any reason to believe the country less
populous in the age of the Antonines, than in that of Romulus. The petty
states of Latium were contained within the metropolis of the empire, by
whose superior influence they had been attracted. * Those parts of Italy
which have so long languished under the lazy tyranny of priests and
viceroys, had been afflicted only by the more tolerable calamities of
war; and the first symptoms of decay which they experienced, were amply
compensated by the rapid improvements of the Cisalpine Gaul. The
splendor of Verona may be traced in its remains: yet Verona was less
celebrated than Aquileia or Padua, Milan or Ravenna. II. The spirit of
improvement had passed the Alps, and been felt even in the woods of
Britain, which were gradually cleared away to open a free space for
convenient and elegant habitations. York was the seat of government;
London was already enriched by commerce; and Bath was celebrated for the
salutary effects of its medicinal waters. Gaul could boast of her twelve
hundred cities;  and though, in the northern parts, many of them,
without excepting Paris itself, were little more than the rude and
imperfect townships of a rising people, the southern provinces imitated
the wealth and elegance of Italy.  Many were the cities of Gaul,
Marseilles, Arles, Nismes, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Bourdeaux, Autun,
Vienna, Lyons, Langres, and Treves, whose ancient condition might
sustain an equal, and perhaps advantageous comparison with their present
state. With regard to Spain, that country flourished as a province, and
has declined as a kingdom. Exhausted by the abuse of her strength, by
America, and by superstition, her pride might possibly be confounded, if
we required such a list of three hundred and sixty cities, as Pliny has
exhibited under the reign of Vespasian.  III. Three hundred African
cities had once acknowledged the authority of Carthage,  nor is it
likely that their numbers diminished under the administration of the
emperors: Carthage itself rose with new splendor from its ashes; and
that capital, as well as Capua and Corinth, soon recovered all the
advantages which can be separated from independent sovereignty. IV. The
provinces of the East present the contrast of Roman magnificence with
Turkish barbarism. The ruins of antiquity scattered over uncultivated
fields, and ascribed, by ignorance to the power of magic, scarcely
afford a shelter to the oppressed peasant or wandering Arab. Under the
reign of the Cæsars, the proper Asia alone contained five hundred
populous cities,  enriched with all the gifts of nature, and adorned
with all the refinements of art. Eleven cities of Asia had once disputed
the honor of dedicating a temple of Tiberius, and their respective
merits were examined by the senate.  Four of them were immediately
rejected as unequal to the burden; and among these was Laodicea, whose
splendor is still displayed in its ruins.  Laodicea collected a very
considerable revenue from its flocks of sheep, celebrated for the
fineness of their wool, and had received, a little before the contest, a
legacy of above four hundred thousand pounds by the testament of a
generous citizen.  If such was the poverty of Laodicea, what must have
been the wealth of those cities, whose claim appeared preferable, and
particularly of Pergamus, of Smyrna, and of Ephesus, who so long
disputed with each other the titular primacy of Asia?  The capitals of
Syria and Egypt held a still superior rank in the empire; Antioch and
Alexandria looked down with disdain on a crowd of dependent cities,  and
yielded, with reluctance, to the majesty of Rome itself.

Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines. -- Part
IV.

All these cities were connected with each other, and with the capital,
by the public highways, which, issuing from the Forum of Rome, traversed
Italy, pervaded the provinces, and were terminated only by the frontiers
of the empire. If we carefully trace the distance from the wall of
Antoninus to Rome, and from thence to Jerusalem, it will be found that
the great chain of communication, from the north-west to the south-east
point of the empire, was drawn out to the length if four thousand and
eighty Roman miles.  The public roads were accurately divided by
mile-stones, and ran in a direct line from one city to another, with
very little respect for the obstacles either of nature or private
property. Mountains were perforated, and bold arches thrown over the
broadest and most rapid streams.  The middle part of the road was raised
into a terrace which commanded the adjacent country, consisted of
several strata of sand, gravel, and cement, and was paved with large
stones, or, in some places near the capital, with granite.  Such was the
solid construction of the Roman highways, whose firmness has not
entirely yielded to the effort of fifteen centuries. They united the
subjects of the most distant provinces by an easy and familiar
intercourse; out their primary object had been to facilitate the marches
of the legions; nor was any country considered as completely subdued,
till it had been rendered, in all its parts, pervious to the arms and
authority of the conqueror. The advantage of receiving the earliest
intelligence, and of conveying their orders with celerity, induced the
emperors to establish, throughout their extensive dominions, the regular
institution of posts.  Houses were every where erected at the distance
only of five or six miles; each of them was constantly provided with
forty horses, and by the help of these relays, it was easy to travel a
hundred miles in a day along the Roman roads.  * The use of posts was
allowed to those who claimed it by an Imperial mandate; but though
originally intended for the public service, it was sometimes indulged to
the business or conveniency of private citizens.  Nor was the
communication of the Roman empire less free and open by sea than it was
by land. The provinces surrounded and enclosed the Mediterranean: and
Italy, in the shape of an immense promontory, advanced into the midst of
that great lake. The coasts of Italy are, in general, destitute of safe
harbors; but human industry had corrected the deficiencies of nature;
and the artificial port of Ostia, in particular, situate at the mouth of
the Tyber, and formed by the emperor Claudius, was a useful monument of
Roman greatness.  From this port, which was only sixteen miles from the
capital, a favorable breeze frequently carried vessels in seven days to
the columns of Hercules, and in nine or ten, to Alexandria in Egypt.

[See Remains Of Claudian Aquaduct]

Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive
empire, the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences
to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the
vices, diffused likewise the improvements, of social life. In the more
remote ages of antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The East was
in the immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the West was
inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained
agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown. Under the protection of
an established government, the productions of happier climates, and the
industry of more civilized nations, were gradually introduced into the
western countries of Europe; and the natives were encouraged, by an open
and profitable commerce, to multiply the former, as well as to improve
the latter. It would be almost impossible to enumerate all the articles,
either of the animal or the vegetable reign, which were successively
imported into Europe from Asia and Egypt:  but it will not be unworthy
of the dignity, and much less of the utility, of an historical work,
slightly to touch on a few of the principal heads. 1. Almost all the
flowers, the herbs, and the fruits, that grow in our European gardens,
are of foreign extraction, which, in many cases, is betrayed even by
their names: the apple was a native of Italy, and when the Romans had
tasted the richer flavor of the apricot, the peach, the pomegranate, the
citron, and the orange, they contented themselves with applying to all
these new fruits the common denomination of apple, discriminating them
from each other by the additional epithet of their country. 2. In the
time of Homer, the vine grew wild in the island of Sicily, and most
probably in the adjacent continent; but it was not improved by the
skill, nor did it afford a liquor grateful to the taste, of the savage
inhabitants.  A thousand years afterwards, Italy could boast, that of
the fourscore most generous and celebrated wines, more than two thirds
were produced from her soil.  The blessing was soon communicated to the
Narbonnese province of Gaul; but so intense was the cold to the north of
the Cevennes, that, in the time of Strabo, it was thought impossible to
ripen the grapes in those parts of Gaul.  This difficulty, however, was
gradually vanquished; and there is some reason to believe, that the
vineyards of Burgundy are as old as the age of the Antonines.  3. The
olive, in the western world, followed the progress of peace, of which it
was considered as the symbol. Two centuries after the foundation of
Rome, both Italy and Africa were strangers to that useful plant: it was
naturalized in those countries; and at length carried into the heart of
Spain and Gaul. The timid errors of the ancients, that it required a
certain degree of heat, and could only flourish in the neighborhood of
the sea, were insensibly exploded by industry and experience.  4. The
cultivation of flax was transported from Egypt to Gaul, and enriched the
whole country, however it might impoverish the particular lands on which
it was sown.  5. The use of artificial grasses became familiar to the
farmers both of Italy and the provinces, particularly the Lucerne, which
derived its name and origin from Media.  The assured supply of wholesome
and plentiful food for the cattle during winter, multiplied the number
of the docks and herds, which in their turn contributed to the fertility
of the soil. To all these improvements may be added an assiduous
attention to mines and fisheries, which, by employing a multitude of
laborious hands, serve to increase the pleasures of the rich and the
subsistence of the poor. The elegant treatise of Columella describes the
advanced state of the Spanish husbandry under the reign of Tiberius; and
it may be observed, that those famines, which so frequently afflicted
the infant republic, were seldom or never experienced by the extensive
empire of Rome. The accidental scarcity, in any single province, was
immediately relieved by the plenty of its more fortunate neighbors.

Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures; since the productions of
nature are the materials of art. Under the Roman empire, the labor of an
industrious and ingenious people was variously, but incessantly,
employed in the service of the rich. In their dress, their table, their
houses, and their furniture, the favorites of fortune united every
refinement of conveniency, of elegance, and of splendor, whatever could
soothe their pride or gratify their sensuality. Such refinements, under
the odious name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists
of every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue, as
well as happiness, of mankind, if all possessed the necessaries, and
none the superfluities, of life. But in the present imperfect condition
of society, luxury, though it may proceed from vice or folly, seems to
be the only means that can correct the unequal distribution of property.
The diligent mechanic, and the skilful artist, who have obtained no
share in the division of the earth, receive a voluntary tax from the
possessors of land; and the latter are prompted, by a sense of interest,
to improve those estates, with whose produce they may purchase
additional pleasures. This operation, the particular effects of which
are felt in every society, acted with much more diffusive energy in the
Roman world. The provinces would soon have been exhausted of their
wealth, if the manufactures and commerce of luxury had not insensibly
restored to the industrious subjects the sums which were exacted from
them by the arms and authority of Rome. As long as the circulation was
confined within the bounds of the empire, it impressed the political
machine with a new degree of activity, and its consequences, sometimes
beneficial, could never become pernicious.

But it is no easy task to confine luxury within the limits of an empire.
The most remote countries of the ancient world were ransacked to supply
the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests of Scythia afforded some
valuable furs. Amber was brought over land from the shores of the Baltic
to the Danube; and the barbarians were astonished at the price which
they received in exchange for so useless a commodity.  There was a
considerable demand for Babylonian carpets, and other manufactures of
the East; but the most important and unpopular branch of foreign trade
was carried on with Arabia and India. Every year, about the time of the
summer solstice, a fleet of a hundred and twenty vessels sailed from
Myos-hormos, a port of Egypt, on the Red Sea. By the periodical
assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean in about forty
days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of Ceylon,  was the usual term
of their navigation, and it was in those markets that the merchants from
the more remote countries of Asia expected their arrival. The return of
the fleet of Egypt was fixed to the months of December or January; and
as soon as their rich cargo had been transported on the backs of camels,
from the Red Sea to the Nile, and had descended that river as far as
Alexandria, it was poured, without delay, into the capital of the
empire.  The objects of oriental traffic were splendid and trifling;
silk, a pound of which was esteemed not inferior in value to a pound of
gold;  precious stones, among which the pearl claimed the first rank
after the diamond;  and a variety of aromatics, that were consumed in
religious worship and the pomp of funerals. The labor and risk of the
voyage was rewarded with almost incredible profit; but the profit was
made upon Roman subjects, and a few individuals were enriched at the
expense of the public. As the natives of Arabia and India were contented
with the productions and manufactures of their own country, silver, on
the side of the Romans, was the principal, if not the only * instrument
of commerce. It was a complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate,
that, in the purchase of female ornaments, the wealth of the state was
irrecoverably given away to foreign and hostile nations.  The annual
loss is computed, by a writer of an inquisitive but censorious temper,
at upwards of eight hundred thousand pounds sterling.  Such was the
style of discontent, brooding over the dark prospect of approaching
poverty. And yet, if we compare the proportion between gold and silver,
as it stood in the time of Pliny, and as it was fixed in the reign of
Constantine, we shall discover within that period a very considerable
increase.  There is not the least reason to suppose that gold was become
more scarce; it is therefore evident that silver was grown more common;
that whatever might be the amount of the Indian and Arabian exports,
they were far from exhausting the wealth of the Roman world; and that
the produce of the mines abundantly supplied the demands of commerce.

Notwithstanding the propensity of mankind to exalt the past, and to
depreciate the present, the tranquil and prosperous state of the empire
was warmly felt, and honestly confessed, by the provincials as well as
Romans. "They acknowledged that the true principles of social life,
laws, agriculture, and science, which had been first invented by the
wisdom of Athens, were now firmly established by the power of Rome,
under whose auspicious influence the fiercest barbarians were united by
an equal government and common language. They affirm, that with the
improvement of arts, the human species were visibly multiplied. They
celebrate the increasing splendor of the cities, the beautiful face of
the country, cultivated and adorned like an immense garden; and the long
festival of peace which was enjoyed by so many nations, forgetful of the
ancient animosities, and delivered from the apprehension of future
danger."  Whatever suspicions may be suggested by the air of rhetoric
and declamation, which seems to prevail in these passages, the substance
of them is perfectly agreeable to historic truth.

It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover
in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption. This
long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow
and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were
gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was
extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated. The natives of
Europe were brave and robust. Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum
supplied the legions with excellent soldiers, and constituted the real
strength of the monarchy. Their personal valor remained, but they no
longer possessed that public courage which is nourished by the love of
independence, the sense of national honor, the presence of danger, and
the habit of command. They received laws and governors from the will of
their sovereign, and trusted for their defence to a mercenary army. The
posterity of their boldest leaders was contented with the rank of
citizens and subjects. The most aspiring spirits resorted to the court
or standard of the emperors; and the deserted provinces, deprived of
political strength or union, insensibly sunk into the languid
indifference of private life.

The love of letters, almost inseparable from peace and refinement, was
fashionable among the subjects of Hadrian and the Antonines, who were
themselves men of learning and curiosity. It was diffused over the whole
extent of their empire; the most northern tribes of Britons had acquired
a taste for rhetoric; Homer as well as Virgil were transcribed and
studied on the banks of the Rhine and Danube; and the most liberal
rewards sought out the faintest glimmerings of literary merit.  The
sciences of physic and astronomy were successfully cultivated by the
Greeks; the observations of Ptolemy and the writings of Galen are
studied by those who have improved their discoveries and corrected their
errors; but if we except the inimitable Lucian, this age of indolence
passed away without having produced a single writer of original genius,
or who excelled in the arts of elegant composition.  ^! The authority of
Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools;
and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation
of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise
the powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind. The beauties of
the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own,
inspired only cold and servile mitations: or if any ventured to deviate
from those models, they deviated at the same time from good sense and
propriety. On the revival of letters, the youthful vigor of the
imagination, after a long repose, national emulation, a new religion,
new languages, and a new world, called forth the genius of Europe. But
the provincials of Rome, trained by a uniform artificial foreign
education, were engaged in a very unequal competition with those bold
ancients, who, by expressing their genuine feelings in their native
tongue, had already occupied every place of honor. The name of Poet was
almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of
critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning,
and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste.

The sublime Longinus, who, in somewhat a later period, and in the court
of a Syrian queen, preserved the spirit of ancient Athens, observes and
laments this degeneracy of his contemporaries, which debased their
sentiments, enervated their courage, and depressed their talents. "In
the same manner," says he, "as some children always remain pygmies,
whose infant limbs have been too closely confined, thus our tender
minds, fettered by the prejudices and habits of a just servitude, are
unable to expand themselves, or to attain that well-proportioned
greatness which we admire in the ancients; who, living under a popular
government, wrote with the same freedom as they acted."  This diminutive
stature of mankind, if we pursue the metaphor, was daily sinking below
the old standard, and the Roman world was indeed peopled by a race of
pygmies; when the fierce giants of the north broke in, and mended the
puny breed. They restored a manly spirit of freedom; and after the
revolution of ten centuries, freedom became the happy parent of taste
and science.

Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines. Part I.

Of The Constitution Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of The Antonines.

The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state, in
which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, is
intrusted with the execution of the laws, the management of the revenue,
and the command of the army. But, unless public liberty is protected by
intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a
magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism. The influence of the
clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert
the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the
throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been
seen on the side of the people. * A martial nobility and stubborn
commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into
constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a
free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince.

Every barrier of the Roman constitution had been levelled by the vast
ambition of the dictator; every fence had been extirpated by the cruel
hand of the triumvir. After the victory of Actium, the fate of the Roman
world depended on the will of Octavianus, surnamed Cæsar, by his uncle's
adoption, and afterwards Augustus, by the flattery of the senate. The
conqueror was at the head of forty-four veteran legions,  conscious of
their own strength, and of the weakness of the constitution, habituated,
during twenty years' civil war, to every act of blood and violence, and
passionately devoted to the house of Cæsar, from whence alone they had
received, and expected the most lavish rewards. The provinces, long
oppressed by the ministers of the republic, sighed for the government of
a single person, who would be the master, not the accomplice, of those
petty tyrants. The people of Rome, viewing, with a secret pleasure, the
humiliation of the aristocracy, demanded only bread and public shows;
and were supplied with both by the liberal hand of Augustus. The rich
and polite Italians, who had almost universally embraced the philosophy
of Epicurus, enjoyed the present blessings of ease and tranquillity, and
suffered not the pleasing dream to be interrupted by the memory of their
old tumultuous freedom. With its power, the senate had lost its dignity;
many of the most noble families were extinct. The republicans of spirit
and ability had perished in the field of battle, or in the proscription
. The door of the assembly had been designedly left open, for a mixed
multitude of more than a thousand persons, who reflected disgrace upon
their rank, instead of deriving honor from it.

The reformation of the senate was one of the first steps in which
Augustus laid aside the tyrant, and professed himself the father of his
country. He was elected censor; and, in concert with his faithful
Agrippa, he examined the list of the senators, expelled a few members, *
whose vices or whose obstinacy required a public example, persuaded near
two hundred to prevent the shame of an expulsion by a voluntary retreat,
raised the qualification of a senator to about ten thousand pounds,
created a sufficient number of patrician families, and accepted for
himself the honorable title of Prince of the Senate,  which had always
been bestowed, by the censors, on the citizen the most eminent for his
honors and services.  But whilst he thus restored the dignity, he
destroyed the independence, of the senate. The principles of a free
constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is
nominated by the executive.

Before an assembly thus modelled and prepared, Augustus pronounced a
studied oration, which displayed his patriotism, and disguised his
ambition. "He lamented, yet excused, his past conduct. Filial piety had
required at his hands the revenge of his father's murder; the humanity
of his own nature had sometimes given way to the stern laws of
necessity, and to a forced connection with two unworthy colleagues: as
long as Antony lived, the republic forbade him to abandon her to a
degenerate Roman, and a barbarian queen. He was now at liberty to
satisfy his duty and his inclination. He solemnly restored the senate
and people to all their ancient rights; and wished only to mingle with
the crowd of his fellow-citizens, and to share the blessings which he
had obtained for his country."

It would require the pen of Tacitus (if Tacitus had assisted at this
assembly) to describe the various emotions of the senate, those that
were suppressed, and those that were affected. It was dangerous to trust
the sincerity of Augustus; to seem to distrust it was still more
dangerous. The respective advantages of monarchy and a republic have
often divided speculative inquirers; the present greatness of the Roman
state, the corruption of manners, and the license of the soldiers,
supplied new arguments to the advocates of monarchy; and these general
views of government were again warped by the hopes and fears of each
individual. Amidst this confusion of sentiments, the answer of the
senate was unanimous and decisive. They refused to accept the
resignation of Augustus; they conjured him not to desert the republic,
which he had saved. After a decent resistance, the crafty tyrant
submitted to the orders of the senate; and consented to receive the
government of the provinces, and the general command of the Roman
armies, under the well-known names of Proconsul and Imperator.  But he
would receive them only for ten years. Even before the expiration of
that period, he hope that the wounds of civil discord would be
completely healed, and that the republic, restored to its pristine
health and vigor, would no longer require the dangerous interposition of
so extraordinary a magistrate. The memory of this comedy, repeated
several times during the life of Augustus, was preserved to the last
ages of the empire, by the peculiar pomp with which the perpetual
monarchs of Rome always solemnized the tenth years of their reign.

Without any violation of the principles of the constitution, the general
of the Roman armies might receive and exercise an authority almost
despotic over the soldiers, the enemies, and the subjects of the
republic. With regard to the soldiers, the jealousy of freedom had, even
from the earliest ages of Rome, given way to the hopes of conquest, and
a just sense of military discipline. The dictator, or consul, had a
right to command the service of the Roman youth; and to punish an
obstinate or cowardly disobedience by the most severe and ignominious
penalties, by striking the offender out of the list of citizens, by
confiscating his property, and by selling his person into slavery.  The
most sacred rights of freedom, confirmed by the Porcian and Sempronian
laws, were suspended by the military engagement. In his camp the general
exercise an absolute power of life and death; his jurisdiction was not
confined by any forms of trial, or rules of proceeding, and the
execution of the sentence was immediate and without appeal.  The choice
of the enemies of Rome was regularly decided by the legislative
authority. The most important resolutions of peace and war were
seriously debated in the senate, and solemnly ratified by the people.
But when the arms of the legions were carried to a great distance from
Italy, the general assumed the liberty of directing them against
whatever people, and in whatever manner, they judged most advantageous
for the public service. It was from the success, not from the justice,
of their enterprises, that they expected the honors of a triumph. In the
use of victory, especially after they were no longer controlled by the
commissioners of the senate, they exercised the most unbounded
despotism. When Pompey commanded in the East, he rewarded his soldiers
and allies, dethroned princes, divided kingdoms, founded colonies, and
distributed the treasures of Mithridates. On his return to Rome, he
obtained, by a single act of the senate and people, the universal
ratification of all his proceedings.  Such was the power over the
soldiers, and over the enemies of Rome, which was either granted to, or
assumed by, the generals of the republic. They were, at the same time,
the governors, or rather monarchs, of the conquered provinces, united
the civil with the military character, administered justice as well as
the finances, and exercised both the executive and legislative power of
the state.

From what has already been observed in the first chapter of this work,
some notion may be formed of the armies and provinces thus intrusted to
the ruling hand of Augustus. But as it was impossible that he could
personally command the regions of so many distant frontiers, he was
indulged by the senate, as Pompey had already been, in the permission of
devolving the execution of his great office on a sufficient number of
lieutenants. In rank and authority these officers seemed not inferior to
the ancient proconsuls; but their station was dependent and precarious.
They received and held their commissions at the will of a superior, to
whose auspiciousinfluence the merit of their action was legally
attributed.  They were the representatives of the emperor. The emperor
alone was the general of the republic, and his jurisdiction, civil as
well as military, extended over all the conquests of Rome. It was some
satisfaction, however, to the senate, that he always delegated his power
to the members of their body. The imperial lieutenants were of consular
or prætorian dignity; the legions were commanded by senators, and the
præfecture of Egypt was the only important trust committed to a Roman
knight.

Within six days after Augustus had been compelled to accept so very
liberal a grant, he resolved to gratify the pride of the senate by an
easy sacrifice. He represented to them, that they had enlarged his
powers, even beyond that degree which might be required by the
melancholy condition of the times. They had not permitted him to refuse
the laborious command of the armies and the frontiers; but he must
insist on being allowed to restore the more peaceful and secure
provinces to the mild administration of the civil magistrate. In the
division of the provinces, Augustus provided for his own power and for
the dignity of the republic. The proconsuls of the senate, particularly
those of Asia, Greece, and Africa, enjoyed a more honorable character
than the lieutenants of the emperor, who commanded in Gaul or Syria. The
former were attended by lictors, the latter by soldiers. * A law was
passed, that wherever the emperor was present, his extraordinary
commission should supersede the ordinary jurisdiction of the governor; a
custom was introduced, that the new conquests belonged to the imperial
portion; and it was soon discovered that the authority of the Prince,
the favorite epithet of Augustus, was the same in every part of the
empire.

In return for this imaginary concession, Augustus obtained an important
privilege, which rendered him master of Rome and Italy. By a dangerous
exception to the ancient maxims, he was authorized to preserve his
military command, supported by a numerous body of guards, even in time
of peace, and in the heart of the capital. His command, indeed, was
confined to those citizens who were engaged in the service by the
military oath; but such was the propensity of the Romans to servitude,
that the oath was voluntarily taken by the magistrates, the senators,
and the equestrian order, till the homage of flattery was insensibly
converted into an annual and solemn protestation of fidelity.

Although Augustus considered a military force as the firmest foundation,
he wisely rejected it, as a very odious instrument of government. It was
more agreeable to his temper, as well as to his policy, to reign under
the venerable names of ancient magistracy, and artfully to collect, in
his own person, all the scattered rays of civil jurisdiction. With this
view, he permitted the senate to confer upon him, for his life, the
powers of the consular  and tribunitian offices,  which were, in the
same manner, continued to all his successors. The consuls had succeeded
to the kings of Rome, and represented the dignity of the state. They
superintended the ceremonies of religion, levied and commanded the
legions, gave audience to foreign ambassadors, and presided in the
assemblies both of the senate and people. The general control of the
finances was intrusted to their care; and though they seldom had leisure
to administer justice in person, they were considered as the supreme
guardians of law, equity, and the public peace. Such was their ordinary
jurisdiction; but whenever the senate empowered the first magistrate to
consult the safety of the commonwealth, he was raised by that decree
above the laws, and exercised, in the defence of liberty, a temporary
despotism.  The character of the tribunes was, in every respect,
different from that of the consuls. The appearance of the former was
modest and humble; but their persons were sacred and inviolable. Their
force was suited rather for opposition than for action. They were
instituted to defend the oppressed, to pardon offences, to arraign the
enemies of the people, and, when they judged it necessary, to stop, by a
single word, the whole machine of government. As long as the republic
subsisted, the dangerous influence, which either the consul or the
tribune might derive from their respective jurisdiction, was diminished
by several important restrictions. Their authority expired with the year
in which they were elected; the former office was divided between two,
the latter among ten persons; and, as both in their private and public
interest they were averse to each other, their mutual conflicts
contributed, for the most part, to strengthen rather than to destroy the
balance of the constitution. * But when the consular and tribunitian
powers were united, when they were vested for life in a single person,
when the general of the army was, at the same time, the minister of the
senate and the representative of the Roman people, it was impossible to
resist the exercise, nor was it easy to define the limits, of his
imperial prerogative.

To these accumulated honors, the policy of Augustus soon added the
splendid as well as important dignities of supreme pontiff, and of
censor. By the former he acquired the management of the religion, and by
the latter a legal inspection over the manners and fortunes, of the
Roman people. If so many distinct and independent powers did not exactly
unite with each other, the complaisance of the senate was prepared to
supply every deficiency by the most ample and extraordinary concessions.
The emperors, as the first ministers of the republic, were exempted from
the obligation and penalty of many inconvenient laws: they were
authorized to convoke the senate, to make several motions in the same
day, to recommend candidates for the honors of the state, to enlarge the
bounds of the city, to employ the revenue at their discretion, to
declare peace and war, to ratify treaties; and by a most comprehensive
clause, they were empowered to execute whatsoever they should judge
advantageous to the empire, and agreeable to the majesty of things
private or public, human of divine.

When all the various powers of executive government were committed to
the Imperial magistrate, the ordinary magistrates of the commonwealth
languished in obscurity, without vigor, and almost without business. The
names and forms of the ancient administration were preserved by Augustus
with the most anxious care. The usual number of consuls, prætors, and
tribunes,  were annually invested with their respective ensigns of
office, and continued to discharge some of their least important
functions. Those honors still attracted the vain ambition of the Romans;
and the emperors themselves, though invested for life with the powers of
the consul ship, frequently aspired to the title of that annual dignity,
which they condescended to share with the most illustrious of their
fellow-citizens.  In the election of these magistrates, the people,
during the reign of Augustus, were permitted to expose all the
inconveniences of a wild democracy. That artful prince, instead of
discovering the least symptom of impatience, humbly solicited their
suffrages for himself or his friends, and scrupulously practised all the
duties of an ordinary candidate.  But we may venture to ascribe to his
councils the first measure of the succeeding reign, by which the
elections were transferred to the senate.  The assemblies of the people
were forever abolished, and the emperors were delivered from a dangerous
multitude, who, without restoring liberty, might have disturbed, and
perhaps endangered, the established government.

By declaring themselves the protectors of the people, Marius and Cæsar
had subverted the constitution of their country. But as soon as the
senate had been humbled and disarmed, such an assembly, consisting of
five or six hundred persons, was found a much more tractable and useful
instrument of dominion. It was on the dignity of the senate that
Augustus and his successors founded their new empire; and they affected,
on every occasion, to adopt the language and principles of Patricians.
In the administration of their own powers, they frequently consulted the
great national council, and seemedto refer to its decision the most
important concerns of peace and war. Rome, Italy, and the internal
provinces, were subject to the immediate jurisdiction of the senate.
With regard to civil objects, it was the supreme court of appeal; with
regard to criminal matters, a tribunal, constituted for the trial of all
offences that were committed by men in any public station, or that
affected the peace and majesty of the Roman people. The exercise of the
judicial power became the most frequent and serious occupation of the
senate; and the important causes that were pleaded before them afforded
a last refuge to the spirit of ancient eloquence. As a council of state,
and as a court of justice, the senate possessed very considerable
prerogatives; but in its legislative capacity, in which it was supposed
virtually to represent the people, the rights of sovereignty were
acknowledged to reside in that assembly. Every power was derived from
their authority, every law was ratified by their sanction. Their regular
meetings were held on three stated days in every month, the Calends, the
Nones, and the Ides. The debates were conducted with decent freedom; and
the emperors themselves, who gloried in the name of senators, sat,
voted, and divided with their equals.

To resume, in a few words, the system of the Imperial government; as it
was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes who
understood their own interest and that of the people, it may be defined
an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The
masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness,
concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves
the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they
dictated and obeyed.

The face of the court corresponded with the forms of the administration.
The emperors, if we except those tyrants whose capricious folly violated
every law of nature and decency, disdained that pomp and ceremony which
might offend their countrymen, but could add nothing to their real
power. In all the offices of life, they affected to confound themselves
with their subjects, and maintained with them an equal intercourse of
visits and entertainments. Their habit, their palace, their table, were
suited only to the rank of an opulent senator. Their family, however
numerous or splendid, was composed entirely of their domestic slaves and
freedmen.  Augustus or Trajan would have blushed at employing the
meanest of the Romans in those menial offices, which, in the household
and bedchamber of a limited monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the
proudest nobles of Britain.

The deification of the emperors  is the only instance in which they
departed from their accustomed prudence and modesty. The Asiatic Greeks
were the first inventors, the successors of Alexander the first objects,
of this servile and impious mode of adulation. * It was easily
transferred from the kings to the governors of Asia; and the Roman
magistrates very frequently were adored as provincial deities, with the
pomp of altars and temples, of festivals and sacrifices.  It was natural
that the emperors should not refuse what the proconsuls had accepted;
and the divine honors which both the one and the other received from the
provinces, attested rather the despotism than the servitude of Rome. But
the conquerors soon imitated the vanquished nations in the arts of
flattery; and the imperious spirit of the first Cæsar too easily
consented to assume, during his lifetime, a place among the tutelar
deities of Rome. The milder temper of his successor declined so
dangerous an ambition, which was never afterwards revived, except by the
madness of Caligula and Domitian. Augustus permitted indeed some of the
provincial cities to erect temples to his honor, on condition that they
should associate the worship of Rome with that of the sovereign; he
tolerated private superstition, of which he might be the object;  but he
contented himself with being revered by the senate and the people in his
human character, and wisely left to his successor the care of his public
deification. A regular custom was introduced, that on the decease of
every emperor who had neither lived nor died like a tyrant, the senate
by a solemn decree should place him in the number of the gods: and the
ceremonies of his apotheosis were blended with those of his funeral.
This legal, and, as it should seem, injudicious profanation, so
abhorrent to our stricter principles, was received with a very faint
murmur,  by the easy nature of Polytheism; but it was received as an
institution, not of religion, but of policy. We should disgrace the
virtues of the Antonines by comparing them with the vices of Hercules or
Jupiter. Even the characters of Cæsar or Augustus were far superior to
those of the popular deities. But it was the misfortune of the former to
live in an enlightened age, and their actions were too faithfully
recorded to admit of such a mixture of fable and mystery, as the
devotion of the vulgar requires. As soon as their divinity was
established by law, it sunk into oblivion, without contributing either
to their own fame, or to the dignity of succeeding princes.

In the consideration of the Imperial government, we have frequently
mentioned the artful founder, under his well-known title of Augustus,
which was not, however, conferred upon him till the edifice was almost
completed. The obscure name of Octavianus he derived from a mean family,
in the little town of Aricia.  It was stained with the blood of the
proscription; and he was desirous, had it been possible, to erase all
memory of his former life. The illustrious surname of Cæsar he had
assumed, as the adopted son of the dictator: but he had too much good
sense, either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared with
that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to dignify their
minister with a new appellation; and after a serious discussion, that of
Augustus was chosen, among several others, as being the most expressive
of the character of peace and sanctity, which he uniformly affected.
Augustuswas therefore a personal, Cæsara family distinction. The former
should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was bestowed;
and however the latter was diffused by adoption and female alliance,
Nero was the last prince who could allege any hereditary claim to the
honors of the Julian line. But, at the time of his death, the practice
of a century had inseparably connected those appellations with the
Imperial dignity, and they have been preserved by a long succession of
emperors, Romans, Greeks, Franks, and Germans, from the fall of the
republic to the present time. A distinction was, however, soon
introduced. The sacred title of Augustus was always reserved for the
monarch, whilst the name of Cæsar was more freely communicated to his
relations; and, from the reign of Hadrian, at least, was appropriated to
the second person in the state, who was considered as the presumptive
heir of the empire. *

Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines. -- Part II.

The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he had
destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive consideration of the
character of that subtle tyrant. A cool head, an unfeeling heart, and a
cowardly disposition, prompted him at the age of nineteen to assume the
mask of hypocrisy, which he never afterwards laid aside. With the same
hand, and probably with the same temper, he signed the proscription of
Cicero, and the pardon of Cinna. His virtues, and even his vices, were
artificial; and according to the various dictates of his interest, he
was at first the enemy, and at last the father, of the Roman world.
When he framed the artful system of the Imperial authority, his
moderation was inspired by his fears. He wished to deceive the people by
an image of civil liberty, and the armies by an image of civil
government.

I. The death of Cæsar was ever before his eyes. He had lavished wealth
and honors on his adherents; but the most favored friends of his uncle
were in the number of the conspirators. The fidelity of the legions
might defend his authority against open rebellion; but their vigilance
could not secure his person from the dagger of a determined republican;
and the Romans, who revered the memory of Brutus,  would applaud the
imitation of his virtue. Cæsar had provoked his fate, as much as by the
ostentation of his power, as by his power itself. The consul or the
tribune might have reigned in peace. The title of king had armed the
Romans against his life. Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed
by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and
people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured
that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom. A feeble senate and
enervated people cheerfully acquiesced in the pleasing illusion, as long
as it was supported by the virtue, or even by the prudence, of the
successors of Augustus. It was a motive of self-preservation, not a
principle of liberty, that animated the conspirators against Caligula,
Nero, and Domitian. They attacked the person of the tyrant, without
aiming their blow at the authority of the emperor.

There appears, indeed, onememorable occasion, in which the senate, after
seventy years of patience, made an ineffectual attempt to re-assume its
long-forgotten rights. When the throne was vacant by the murder of
Caligula, the consuls convoked that assembly in the Capitol, condemned
the memory of the Cæsars, gave the watchword libertyto the few cohorts
who faintly adhered to their standard, and during eight-and-forty hours
acted as the independent chiefs of a free commonwealth. But while they
deliberated, the prætorian guards had resolved. The stupid Claudius,
brother of Germanicus, was already in their camp, invested with the
Imperial purple, and prepared to support his election by arms. The dream
of liberty was at an end; and the senate awoke to all the horrors of
inevitable servitude. Deserted by the people, and threatened by a
military force, that feeble assembly was compelled to ratify the choice
of the prætorians, and to embrace the benefit of an amnesty, which
Claudius had the prudence to offer, and the generosity to observe.

[See The Capitol: When the throne was vacant by the murder of Caligula,
the consuls convoked that assembly in the Capitol.]

II. The insolence of the armies inspired Augustus with fears of a still
more alarming nature. The despair of the citizens could only attempt,
what the power of the soldiers was, at any time, able to execute. How
precarious was his own authority over men whom he had taught to violate
every social duty! He had heard their seditious clamors; he dreaded
their calmer moments of reflection. One revolution had been purchased by
immense rewards; but a second revolution might double those rewards. The
troops professed the fondest attachment to the house of Cæsar; but the
attachments of the multitude are capricious and inconstant. Augustus
summoned to his aid whatever remained in those fierce minds of Roman
prejudices; enforced the rigor of discipline by the sanction of law;
and, interposing the majesty of the senate between the emperor and the
army, boldly claimed their allegiance, as the first magistrate of the
republic.

During a long period of two hundred and twenty years from the
establishment of this artful system to the death of Commodus, the
dangers inherent to a military government were, in a great measure,
suspended. The soldiers were seldom roused to that fatal sense of their
own strength, and of the weakness of the civil authority, which was,
before and afterwards, productive of such dreadful calamities. Caligula
and Domitian were assassinated in their palace by their own domestics: *
the convulsions which agitated Rome on the death of the former, were
confined to the walls of the city. But Nero involved the whole empire in
his ruin. In the space of eighteen months, four princes perished by the
sword; and the Roman world was shaken by the fury of the contending
armies. Excepting only this short, though violent eruption of military
license, the two centuries from Augustus to Commodus passed away
unstained with civil blood, and undisturbed by revolutions. The emperor
was elected by the authority of the senate, and the consent of the
soldiers.  The legions respected their oath of fidelity; and it requires
a minute inspection of the Roman annals to discover three inconsiderable
rebellions, which were all suppressed in a few months, and without even
the hazard of a battle.

In elective monarchies, the vacancy of the throne is a moment big with
danger and mischief. The Roman emperors, desirous to spare the legions
that interval of suspense, and the temptation of an irregular choice,
invested their designed successor with so large a share of present
power, as should enable him, after their decease, to assume the
remainder, without suffering the empire to perceive the change of
masters. Thus Augustus, after all his fairer prospects had been snatched
from him by untimely deaths, rested his last hopes on Tiberius, obtained
for his adopted son the censorial and tribunitian powers, and dictated a
law, by which the future prince was invested with an authority equal to
his own, over the provinces and the armies.  Thus Vespasian subdued the
generous mind of his eldest son. Titus was adored by the eastern
legions, which, under his command, had recently achieved the conquest of
Judæa. His power was dreaded, and, as his virtues were clouded by the
intemperance of youth, his designs were suspected. Instead of listening
to such unworthy suspicions, the prudent monarch associated Titus to the
full powers of the Imperial dignity; and the grateful son ever approved
himself the humble and faithful minister of so indulgent a father.

The good sense of Vespasian engaged him indeed to embrace every measure
that might confirm his recent and precarious elevation. The military
oath, and the fidelity of the troops, had been consecrated, by the
habits of a hundred years, to the name and family of the Cæsars; and
although that family had been continued only by the fictitious rite of
adoption, the Romans still revered, in the person of Nero, the grandson
of Germanicus, and the lineal successor of Augustus. It was not without
reluctance and remorse, that the prætorian guards had been persuaded to
abandon the cause of the tyrant.  The rapid downfall of Galba, Otho, and
Vitellus, taught the armies to consider the emperors as the creatures of
theirwill, and the instruments of theirlicense. The birth of Vespasian
was mean: his grandfather had been a private soldier, his father a petty
officer of the revenue;  his own merit had raised him, in an advanced
age, to the empire; but his merit was rather useful than shining, and
his virtues were disgraced by a strict and even sordid parsimony. Such a
prince consulted his true interest by the association of a son, whose
more splendid and amiable character might turn the public attention from
the obscure origin, to the future glories, of the Flavian house. Under
the mild administration of Titus, the Roman world enjoyed a transient
felicity, and his beloved memory served to protect, above fifteen years,
the vices of his brother Domitian.

Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins of Domitian,
before he discovered that his feeble age was unable to stem the torrent
of public disorders, which had multiplied under the long tyranny of his
predecessor. His mild disposition was respected by the good; but the
degenerate Romans required a more vigorous character, whose justice
should strike terror into the guilty. Though he had several relations,
he fixed his choice on a stranger. He adopted Trajan, then about forty
years of age, and who commanded a powerful army in the Lower Germany;
and immediately, by a decree of the senate, declared him his colleague
and successor in the empire.  It is sincerely to be lamented, that
whilst we are fatigued with the disgustful relation of Nero's crimes and
follies, we are reduced to collect the actions of Trajan from the
glimmerings of an abridgment, or the doubtful light of a panegyric.
There remains, however, one panegyric far removed beyond the suspicion
of flattery. Above two hundred and fifty years after the death of
Trajan, the senate, in pouring out the customary acclamations on the
accession of a new emperor, wished that he might surpass the felicity of
Augustus, and the virtue of Trajan.

We may readily believe, that the father of his country hesitated whether
he ought to intrust the various and doubtful character of his kinsman
Hadrian with sovereign power. In his last moments the arts of the
empress Plotina either fixed the irresolution of Trajan, or boldly
supposed a fictitious adoption;  the truth of which could not be safely
disputed, and Hadrian was peaceably acknowledged as his lawful
successor. Under his reign, as has been already mentioned, the empire
flourished in peace and prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the
laws, asserted military discipline, and visited all his provinces in
person. His vast and active genius was equally suited to the most
enlarged views, and the minute details of civil policy. But the ruling
passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity. As they prevailed, and
as they were attracted by different objects, Hadrian was, by turns, an
excellent prince, a ridiculous sophist, and a jealous tyrant. The
general tenor of his conduct deserved praise for its equity and
moderation. Yet in the first days of his reign, he put to death four
consular senators, his personal enemies, and men who had been judged
worthy of empire; and the tediousness of a painful illness rendered him,
at last, peevish and cruel. The senate doubted whether they should
pronounce him a god or a tyrant; and the honors decreed to his memory
were granted to the prayers of the pious Antoninus.

The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor. After
revolving in his mind several men of distinguished merit, whom he
esteemed and hated, he adopted Ælius Verus a gay and voluptuous
nobleman, recommended by uncommon beauty to the lover of Antinous.  But
whilst Hadrian was delighting himself with his own applause, and the
acclamations of the soldiers, whose consent had been secured by an
immense donative, the new Cæsar  was ravished from his embraces by an
untimely death. He left only one son. Hadrian commended the boy to the
gratitude of the Antonines. He was adopted by Pius; and, on the
accession of Marcus, was invested with an equal share of sovereign
power. Among the many vices of this younger Verus, he possessed one
virtue; a dutiful reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he
willingly abandoned the ruder cares of empire. The philosophic emperor
dissembled his follies, lamented his early death, and cast a decent veil
over his memory.

As soon as Hadrian's passion was either gratified or disappointed, he
resolved to deserve the thanks of posterity, by placing the most exalted
merit on the Roman throne. His discerning eye easily discovered a
senator about fifty years of age, blameless in all the offices of life;
and a youth of about seventeen, whose riper years opened a fair prospect
of every virtue: the elder of these was declared the son and successor
of Hadrian, on condition, however, that he himself should immediately
adopt the younger. The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now
peaking,) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same
invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. Although Pius had two sons,  he
preferred the welfare of Rome to the interest of his family, gave his
daughter Faustina, in marriage to young Marcus, obtained from the senate
the tribunitian and proconsular powers, and, with a noble disdain, or
rather ignorance of jealousy, associated him to all the labors of
government. Marcus, on the other hand, revered the character of his
benefactor, loved him as a parent, obeyed him as his sovereign,  and,
after he was no more, regulated his own administration by the example
and maxims of his predecessor. Their united reigns are possibly the only
period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole
object of government.

Titus Antoninus Pius has been justly denominated a second Numa. The same
love of religion, justice, and peace, was the distinguishing
characteristic of both princes. But the situation of the latter opened a
much larger field for the exercise of those virtues. Numa could only
prevent a few neighboring villages from plundering each other's
harvests. Antoninus diffused order and tranquillity over the greatest
part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of
furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more
than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. In
private life, he was an amiable, as well as a good man. The native
simplicity of his virtue was a stranger to vanity or affectation. He
enjoyed with moderation the conveniences of his fortune, and the
innocent pleasures of society;  and the benevolence of his soul
displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.

The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of severer and more
laborious kind.  It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned
conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration.
At the age of twelve years he embraced the rigid system of the Stoics,
which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his
reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all
things external as things indifferent.  His meditations, composed in the
tumult of the camp, are still extant; and he even condescended to give
lessons of philosophy, in a more public manner than was perhaps
consistent with the modesty of sage, or the dignity of an emperor.  But
his life was the noblest commentary on the precepts of Zeno. He was
severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others, just and
beneficent to all mankind. He regretted that Avidius Cassius, who
excited a rebellion in Syria, had disappointed him, by a voluntary
death, * of the pleasure of converting an enemy into a friend;; and he
justified the sincerity of that sentiment, by moderating the zeal of the
senate against the adherents of the traitor.  War he detested, as the
disgrace and calamity of human nature;  but when the necessity of a just
defence called upon him to take up arms, he readily exposed his person
to eight winter campaigns, on the frozen banks of the Danube, the
severity of which was at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution.
His memory was revered by a grateful posterity, and above a century
after his death, many persons preserved the image of Marcus Antoninus
among those of their household gods.

If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world,
during which the condition of the human race was most happy and
prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from
the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of
the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of
virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle
hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority
commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration
were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines,
who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering
themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws. Such princes
deserved the honor of restoring the republic, had the Romans of their
days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom.

The labors of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward that
inseparably waited on their success; by the honest pride of virtue, and
by the exquisite delight of beholding the general happiness of which
they were the authors. A just but melancholy reflection imbittered,
however, the noblest of human enjoyments. They must often have
recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the
character of single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching, when
some licentious youth, or some jealous tyrant, would abuse, to the
destruction, that absolute power, which they had exerted for the benefit
of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might
serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the
emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible instrument of
oppression; and the corruption of Roman manners would always supply
flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers prepared to serve, the fear
or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, of their master.

These gloomy apprehensions had been already justified by the experience
of the Romans. The annals of the emperors exhibit a strong and various
picture of human nature, which we should vainly seek among the mixed and
doubtful characters of modern history. In the conduct of those monarchs
we may trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted
perfection, and the meanest degeneracy of our own species. The golden
age of Trajan and the Antonines had been preceded by an age of iron. It
is almost superfluous to enumerate the unworthy successors of Augustus.
Their unparalleled vices, and the splendid theatre on which they were
acted, have saved them from oblivion. The dark, unrelenting Tiberius,
the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel
Nero, the beastly Vitellius,  and the timid, inhuman Domitian, are
condemned to everlasting infamy. During fourscore years (excepting only
the short and doubtful respite of Vespasian's reign)  Rome groaned
beneath an unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient families
of the republic, and was fatal to almost every virtue and every talent
that arose in that unhappy period.

Under the reign of these monsters, the slavery of the Romans was
accompanied with two peculiar circumstances, the one occasioned by their
former liberty, the other by their extensive conquests, which rendered
their condition more completely wretched than that of the victims of
tyranny in any other age or country. From these causes were derived, 1.
The exquisite sensibility of the sufferers; and, 2. The impossibility of
escaping from the hand of the oppressor.

I. When Persia was governed by the descendants of Sefi, a race of
princes whose wanton cruelty often stained their divan, their table, and
their bed, with the blood of their favorites, there is a saying recorded
of a young nobleman, that he never departed from the sultan's presence,
without satisfying himself whether his head was still on his shoulders.
The experience of every day might almost justify the scepticism of
Rustan.  Yet the fatal sword, suspended above him by a single thread,
seems not to have disturbed the slumbers, or interrupted the
tranquillity, of the Persian. The monarch's frown, he well knew, could
level him with the dust; but the stroke of lightning or apoplexy might
be equally fatal; and it was the part of a wise man to forget the
inevitable calamities of human life in the enjoyment of the fleeting
hour. He was dignified with the appellation of the king's slave; had,
perhaps, been purchased from obscure parents, in a country which he had
never known; and was trained up from his infancy in the severe
discipline of the seraglio.  His name, his wealth, his honors, were the
gift of a master, who might, without injustice, resume what he had
bestowed. Rustan's knowledge, if he possessed any, could only serve to
confirm his habits by prejudices. His language afforded not words for
any form of government, except absolute monarchy. The history of the
East informed him, that such had ever been the condition of mankind.
The Koran, and the interpreters of that divine book, inculcated to him,
that the sultan was the descendant of the prophet, and the vicegerent of
heaven; that patience was the first virtue of a Mussulman, and unlimited
obedience the great duty of a subject.

The minds of the Romans were very differently prepared for slavery.
Oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption and of military
violence, they for a long while preserved the sentiments, or at least
the ideas, of their free-born ancestors. The education of Helvidius and
Thrasea, of Tacitus and Pliny, was the same as that of Cato and Cicero.
From Grecian philosophy, they had imbibed the justest and most liberal
notions of the dignity of human nature, and the origin of civil society.
The history of their own country had taught them to revere a free, a
virtuous, and a victorious commonwealth; to abhor the successful crimes
of Cæsar and Augustus; and inwardly to despise those tyrants whom they
adored with the most abject flattery. As magistrates and senators they
were admitted into the great council, which had once dictated laws to
the earth, whose authority was so often prostituted to the vilest
purposes of tyranny. Tiberius, and those emperors who adopted his
maxims, attempted to disguise their murders by the formalities of
justice, and perhaps enjoyed a secret pleasure in rendering the senate
their accomplice as well as their victim. By this assembly, the last of
the Romans were condemned for imaginary crimes and real virtues. Their
infamous accusers assumed the language of independent patriots, who
arraigned a dangerous citizen before the tribunal of his country; and
the public service was rewarded by riches and honors.  The servile
judges professed to assert the majesty of the commonwealth, violated in
the person of its first magistrate,  whose clemency they most applauded
when they trembled the most at his inexorable and impending cruelty.
The tyrant beheld their baseness with just contempt, and encountered
their secret sentiments of detestation with sincere and avowed hatred
for the whole body of the senate.

II. The division of Europe into a number of independent states,
connected, however, with each other by the general resemblance of
religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most beneficial
consequences to the liberty of mankind. A modern tyrant, who should find
no resistance either in his own breast, or in his people, would soon
experience a gentle restrain form the example of his equals, the dread
of present censure, the advice of his allies, and the apprehension of
his enemies. The object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow
limits of his dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a
secure refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of
complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of the
Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the hands of a
single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his
enemies. The slave of Imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to
drags his gilded chain in Rome and the senate, or to were out a life of
exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen bank of the Danube,
expected his fate in silent despair.  To resist was fatal, and it was
impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent
of sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse without being
discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the
frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing, except the ocean,
inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of fierce manners
and unknown language, or dependent kings, who would gladly purchase the
emperor's protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious fugitive.
"Wherever you are," said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, "remember that
you are equally within the power of the conqueror."

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

The Cruelty, Follies, And Murder Of Commodus. Election Of Pertinax --
His Attempts To Reform The State -- His Assassination By The Prætorian
Guards.

The mildness of Marcus, which the rigid discipline of the Stoics was
unable to eradicate, formed, at the same time, the most amiable, and the
only defective part of his character. His excellent understanding was
often deceived by the unsuspecting goodness of his heart. Artful men,
who study the passions of princes, and conceal their own, approached his
person in the disguise of philosophic sanctity, and acquired riches and
honors by affecting to despise them.  His excessive indulgence to his
brother, * his wife, and his son, exceeded the bounds of private virtue,
and became a public injury, by the example and consequences of their
vices.

Faustina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been as much
celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The grave simplicity
of the philosopher was ill calculated to engage her wanton levity, or to
fix that unbounded passion for variety, which often discovered personal
merit in the meanest of mankind.  The Cupid of the ancients was, in
general, a very sensual deity; and the amours of an empress, as they
exact on her side the plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much
sentimental delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire who seemed
ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of Faustina; which,
according to the prejudices of every age, reflected some disgrace on the
injured husband. He promoted several of her lovers to posts of honor and
profit,  and during a connection of thirty years, invariably gave her
proofs of the most tender confidence, and of a respect which ended not
with her life. In his Meditations, he thanks the gods, who had bestowed
on him a wife so faithful, so gentle, and of such a wonderful simplicity
of manners.  The obsequious senate, at his earnest request, declared her
a goddess. She was represented in her temples, with the attributes of
Juno, Venus, and Ceres; and it was decreed, that, on the day of their
nuptials, the youth of either sex should pay their vows before the altar
of their chaste patroness.

The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of the
father's virtues. It has been objected to Marcus, that he sacrificed the
happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a worthless boy; and that
he chose a successor in his own family, rather than in the republic.
Nothing however, was neglected by the anxious father, and by the men of
virtue and learning whom he summoned to his assistance, to expand the
narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to
render him worthy of the throne for which he was designed. But the power
of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy
dispositions where it is almost superfluous. The distasteful lesson of a
grave philosopher was, in a moment, obliterated by the whisper of a
profligate favorite; and Marcus himself blasted the fruits of this
labored education, by admitting his son, at the age of fourteen or
fifteen, to a full participation of the Imperial power. He lived but
four years afterwards: but he lived long enough to repent a rash
measure, which raised the impetuous youth above the restraint of reason
and authority.

Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society, are
produced by the restraints which the necessary but unequal laws of
property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few
the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our
passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and
unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of
the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose
their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity.
The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success,
the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all
contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of pity. From
such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil
blood; but these motives will not account for the unprovoked cruelties
of Commodus, who had nothing to wish and every thing to enjoy. The
beloved son of Marcus succeeded to his father, amidst the acclamations
of the senate and armies;  and when he ascended the throne, the happy
youth saw round him neither competitor to remove, nor enemies to punish.
In this calm, elevated station, it was surely natural that he should
prefer the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories of his
five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and Domitian.

Yet Commodus was not, as he has been represented, a tiger born with an
insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his infancy, of the
most inhuman actions.  Nature had formed him of a weak rather than a
wicked disposition. His simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave
of his attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which
at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at
length became the ruling passion of his soul.

Upon the death of his father, Commodus found himself embarrassed with
the command of a great army, and the conduct of a difficult war against
the Quadi and Marcomanni.  The servile and profligate youths whom Marcus
had banished, soon regained their station and influence about the new
emperor. They exaggerated the hardships and dangers of a campaign in the
wild countries beyond the Danube; and they assured the indolent prince
that the terror of his name, and the arms of his lieutenants, would be
sufficient to complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians, or to
impose such conditions as were more advantageous than any conquest. By a
dexterous application to his sensual appetites, they compared the
tranquillity, the splendor, the refined pleasures of Rome, with the
tumult of a Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leisure nor materials
for luxury.  Commodus listened to the pleasing advice; but whilst he
hesitated between his own inclination and the awe which he still
retained for his father's counsellors, the summer insensibly elapsed,
and his triumphal entry into the capital was deferred till the autumn.
His graceful person,  popular address, and imagined virtues, attracted
the public favor; the honorable peace which he had recently granted to
the barbarians, diffused a universal joy;  his impatience to revisit
Rome was fondly ascribed to the love of his country; and his dissolute
course of amusements was faintly condemned in a prince of nineteen years
of age.

During the three first years of his reign, the forms, and even the
spirit, of the old administration, were maintained by those faithful
counsellors, to whom Marcus had recommended his son, and for whose
wisdom and integrity Commodus still entertained a reluctant esteem. The
young prince and his profligate favorites revelled in all the license of
sovereign power; but his hands were yet unstained with blood; and he had
even displayed a generosity of sentiment, which might perhaps have
ripened into solid virtue.  A fatal incident decided his fluctuating
character.

One evening, as the emperor was returning to the palace, through a dark
and narrow portico in the amphitheatre,  an assassin, who waited his
passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, "The
senate sends you this." The menace prevented the deed; the assassin was
seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors of the
conspiracy. It had been formed, not in the state, but within the walls
of the palace. Lucilla, the emperor's sister, and widow of Lucius Verus,
impatient of the second rank, and jealous of the reigning empress, had
armed the murderer against her brother's life. She had not ventured to
communicate the black design to her second husband, Claudius Pompeiarus,
a senator of distinguished merit and unshaken loyalty; but among the
crowd of her lovers (for she imitated the manners of Faustina) she found
men of desperate fortunes and wild ambition, who were prepared to serve
her more violent, as well as her tender passions. The conspirators
experienced the rigor of justice, and the abandoned princess was
punished, first with exile, and afterwards with death.

But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and
left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body
of the senate. * Those whom he had dreaded as importunate ministers, he
now suspected as secret enemies. The Delators, a race of men
discouraged, and almost extinguished, under the former reigns, again
became formidable, as soon as they discovered that the emperor was
desirous of finding disaffection and treason in the senate. That
assembly, whom Marcus had ever considered as the great council of the
nation, was composed of the most distinguished of the Romans; and
distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth
stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit
censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a
dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always
insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof;
trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was
attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and
when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity
or remorse.

Of these innocent victims of tyranny, none died more lamented than the
two brothers of the Quintilian family, Maximus and Condianus; whose
fraternal love has saved their names from oblivion, and endeared their
memory to posterity. Their studies and their occupations, their pursuits
and their pleasures, were still the same. In the enjoyment of a great
estate, they never admitted the idea of a separate interest: some
fragments are now extant of a treatise which they composed in common;
and in every action of life it was observed that their two bodies were
animated by one soul. The Antonines, who valued their virtues, and
delighted in their union, raised them, in the same year, to the
consulship; and Marcus afterwards intrusted to their joint care the
civil administration of Greece, and a great military command, in which
they obtained a signal victory over the Germans. The kind cruelty of
Commodus united them in death.

The tyrant's rage, after having shed the noblest blood of the senate, at
length recoiled on the principal instrument of his cruelty. Whilst
Commodus was immersed in blood and luxury, he devolved the detail of the
public business on Perennis, a servile and ambitious minister, who had
obtained his post by the murder of his predecessor, but who possessed a
considerable share of vigor and ability. By acts of extortion, and the
forfeited estates of the nobles sacrificed to his avarice, he had
accumulated an immense treasure. The Prætorian guards were under his
immediate command; and his son, who already discovered a military
genius, was at the head of the Illyrian legions. Perennis aspired to the
empire; or what, in the eyes of Commodus, amounted to the same crime, he
was capable of aspiring to it, had he not been prevented, surprised, and
put to death. The fall of a minister is a very trifling incident in the
general history of the empire; but it was hastened by an extraordinary
circumstance, which proved how much the nerves of discipline were
already relaxed. The legions of Britain, discontented with the
administration of Perennis, formed a deputation of fifteen hundred
select men, with instructions to march to Rome, and lay their complaints
before the emperor. These military petitioners, by their own determined
behaviour, by inflaming the divisions of the guards, by exaggerating the
strength of the British army, and by alarming the fears of Commodus,
exacted and obtained the minister's death, as the only redress of their
grievances.  This presumption of a distant army, and their discovery of
the weakness of government, was a sure presage of the most dreadful
convulsions.

The negligence of the public administration was betrayed, soon
afterwards, by a new disorder, which arose from the smallest beginnings.
A spirit of desertion began to prevail among the troops: and the
deserters, instead of seeking their safety in flight or concealment,
infested the highways. Maternus, a private soldier, of a daring boldness
above his station, collected these bands of robbers into a little army,
set open the prisons, invited the slaves to assert their freedom, and
plundered with impunity the rich and defenceless cities of Gaul and
Spain. The governors of the provinces, who had long been the spectators,
and perhaps the partners, of his depredations, were, at length, roused
from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of the emperor.
Maternus found that he was encompassed, and foresaw that he must be
overpowered. A great effort of despair was his last resource. He ordered
his followers to disperse, to pass the Alps in small parties and various
disguises, and to assemble at Rome, during the licentious tumult of the
festival of Cybele.  To murder Commodus, and to ascend the vacant
throne, was the ambition of no vulgar robber. His measures were so ably
concerted that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome.
The envy of an accomplice discovered and ruined this singular
enterprise, in a moment when it was ripe for execution.

Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind, from a vain
persuasion, that those who have no dependence, except on their favor,
will have no attachment, except to the person of their benefactor.
Cleander, the successor of Perennis, was a Phrygian by birth; of a
nation over whose stubborn, but servile temper, blows only could
prevail.  He had been sent from his native country to Rome, in the
capacity of a slave. As a slave he entered the Imperial palace, rendered
himself useful to his master's passions, and rapidly ascended to the
most exalted station which a subject could enjoy. His influence over the
mind of Commodus was much greater than that of his predecessor; for
Cleander was devoid of any ability or virtue which could inspire the
emperor with envy or distrust. Avarice was the reigning passion of his
soul, and the great principle of his administration. The rank of Consul,
of Patrician, of Senator, was exposed to public sale; and it would have
been considered as disaffection, if any one had refused to purchase
these empty and disgraceful honors with the greatest part of his
fortune.  In the lucrative provincial employments, the minister shared
with the governor the spoils of the people. The execution of the laws
was penal and arbitrary. A wealthy criminal might obtain, not only the
reversal of the sentence by which he was justly condemned, but might
likewise inflict whatever punishment he pleased on the accuser, the
witnesses, and the judge.

By these means, Cleander, in the space of three years, had accumulated
more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any freedman.  Commodus
was perfectly satisfied with the magnificent presents which the artful
courtier laid at his feet in the most seasonable moments. To divert the
public envy, Cleander, under the emperor's name, erected baths,
porticos, and places of exercise, for the use of the people.  He
flattered himself that the Romans, dazzled and amused by this apparent
liberality, would be less affected by the bloody scenes which were daily
exhibited; that they would forget the death of Byrrhus, a senator to
whose superior merit the late emperor had granted one of his daughters;
and that they would forgive the execution of Arrius Antoninus, the last
representative of the name and virtues of the Antonines. The former,
with more integrity than prudence, had attempted to disclose, to his
brother-in-law, the true character of Cleander. An equitable sentence
pronounced by the latter, when proconsul of Asia, against a worthless
creature of the favorite, proved fatal to him.  After the fall of
Perennis, the terrors of Commodus had, for a short time, assumed the
appearance of a return to virtue. He repealed the most odious of his
acts; loaded his memory with the public execration, and ascribed to the
pernicious counsels of that wicked minister all the errors of his
inexperienced youth. But his repentance lasted only thirty days; and,
under Cleander's tyranny, the administration of Perennis was often
regretted.

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

Pestilence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of the
calamities of Rome.  The first could be only imputed to the just
indignation of the gods; but a monopoly of corn, supported by the riches
and power of the minister, was considered as the immediate cause of the
second. The popular discontent, after it had long circulated in
whispers, broke out in the assembled circus. The people quitted their
favorite amusements for the more delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed
in crowds towards a palace in the suburbs, one of the emperor's
retirements, and demanded, with angry clamors, the head of the public
enemy. Cleander, who commanded the Prætorian guards,  ordered a body of
cavalry to sally forth, and disperse the seditious multitude. The
multitude fled with precipitation towards the city; several were slain,
and many more were trampled to death; but when the cavalry entered the
streets, their pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and darts from
the roofs and windows of the houses. The foot guards,  who had been long
jealous of the prerogatives and insolence of the Prætorian cavalry,
embraced the party of the people. The tumult became a regular
engagement, and threatened a general massacre. The Prætorians, at
length, gave way, oppressed with numbers; and the tide of popular fury
returned with redoubled violence against the gates of the palace, where
Commodus lay, dissolved in luxury, and alone unconscious of the civil
war. It was death to approach his person with the unwelcome news. He
would have perished in this supine security, had not two women, his
eldest sister Fadilla, and Marcia, the most favored of his concubines,
ventured to break into his presence. Bathed in tears, and with
dishevelled hair, they threw themselves at his feet; and with all the
pressing eloquence of fear, discovered to the affrighted emperor the
crimes of the minister, the rage of the people, and the impending ruin,
which, in a few minutes, would burst over his palace and person.
Commodus started from his dream of pleasure, and commanded that the head
of Cleander should be thrown out to the people. The desired spectacle
instantly appeased the tumult; and the son of Marcus might even yet have
regained the affection and confidence of his subjects.

But every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in the mind of
Commodus. Whilst he thus abandoned the reins of empire to these unworthy
favorites, he valued nothing in sovereign power, except the unbounded
license of indulging his sensual appetites. His hours were spent in a
seraglio of three hundred beautiful women, and as many boys, of every
rank, and of every province; and, wherever the arts of seduction proved
ineffectual, the brutal lover had recourse to violence. The ancient
historians  have expatiated on these abandoned scenes of prostitution,
which scorned every restraint of nature or modesty; but it would not be
easy to translate their too faithful descriptions into the decency of
modern language. The intervals of lust were filled up with the basest
amusements. The influence of a polite age, and the labor of an attentive
education, had never been able to infuse into his rude and brutish mind
the least tincture of learning; and he was the first of the Roman
emperors totally devoid of taste for the pleasures of the understanding.
Nero himself excelled, or affected to excel, in the elegant arts of
music and poetry: nor should we despise his pursuits, had he not
converted the pleasing relaxation of a leisure hour into the serious
business and ambition of his life. But Commodus, from his earliest
infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was rational or liberal, and
a fond attachment to the amusements of the populace; the sports of the
circus and amphitheatre, the combats of gladiators, and the hunting of
wild beasts. The masters in every branch of learning, whom Marcus
provided for his son, were heard with inattention and disgust; whilst
the Moors and Parthians, who taught him to dart the javelin and to shoot
with the bow, found a disciple who delighted in his application, and
soon equalled the most skilful of his instructors in the steadiness of
the eye and the dexterity of the hand.

The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master's vices,
applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of flattery
reminded him, that by exploits of the same nature, by the defeat of the
Nemæan lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar of Erymanthus, the
Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among the gods, and an immortal
memory among men. They only forgot to observe, that, in the first ages
of society, when the fiercer animals often dispute with man the
possession of an unsettled country, a successful war against those
savages is one of the most innocent and beneficial labors of heroism. In
the civilized state of the Roman empire, the wild beasts had long since
retired from the face of man, and the neighborhood of populous cities.
To surprise them in their solitary haunts, and to transport them to
Rome, that they might be slain in pomp by the hand of an emperor, was an
enterprise equally ridiculous for the prince and oppressive for the
people.  Ignorant of these distinctions, Commodus eagerly embraced the
glorious resemblance, and styled himself (as we still read on his medals
) the RomanHercules. * The club and the lion's hide were placed by the
side of the throne, amongst the ensigns of sovereignty; and statues were
erected, in which Commodus was represented in the character, and with
the attributes, of the god, whose valor and dexterity he endeavored to
emulate in the daily course of his ferocious amusements.

Elated with these praises, which gradually extinguished the innate sense
of shame, Commodus resolved to exhibit before the eyes of the Roman
people those exercises, which till then he had decently confined within
the walls of his palace, and to the presence of a few favorites. On the
appointed day, the various motives of flattery, fear, and curiosity,
attracted to the amphitheatre an innumerable multitude of spectators;
and some degree of applause was deservedly bestowed on the uncommon
skill of the Imperial performer. Whether he aimed at the head or heart
of the animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With arrows whose
point was shaped into the form of crescent, Commodus often intercepted
the rapid career, and cut asunder the long, bony neck of the ostrich.  A
panther was let loose; and the archer waited till he had leaped upon a
trembling malefactor. In the same instant the shaft flew, the beast
dropped dead, and the man remained unhurt. The dens of the amphitheatre
disgorged at once a hundred lions: a hundred darts from the unerring
hand of Commodus laid them dead as they run raging round the Arena.
Neither the huge bulk of the elephant, nor the scaly hide of the
rhinoceros, could defend them from his stroke. Æthiopia and India
yielded their most extraordinary productions; and several animals were
slain in the amphitheatre, which had been seen only in the
representations of art, or perhaps of fancy.  In all these exhibitions,
the securest precautions were used to protect the person of the Roman
Hercules from the desperate spring of any savage, who might possibly
disregard the dignity of the emperor and the sanctity of the god. ^

But the meanest of the populace were affected with shame and indignation
when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists as a gladiator, and
glory in a profession which the laws and manners of the Romans had
branded with the justest note of infamy.  He chose the habit and arms of
the Secutor, whose combat with the Retiariusformed one of the most
lively scenes in the bloody sports of the amphitheatre. The Secutorwas
armed with a helmet, sword, and buckler; his naked antagonist had only a
large net and a trident; with the one he endeavored to entangle, with
the other to despatch his enemy. If he missed the first throw, he was
obliged to fly from the pursuit of the Secutor, till he had prepared his
net for a second cast.  The emperor fought in this character seven
hundred and thirty-five several times. These glorious achievements were
carefully recorded in the public acts of the empire; and that he might
omit no circumstance of infamy, he received from the common fund of
gladiators a stipend so exorbitant that it became a new and most
ignominious tax upon the Roman people.  It may be easily supposed, that
in these engagements the master of the world was always successful; in
the amphitheatre, his victories were not often sanguinary; but when he
exercised his skill in the school of gladiators, or his own palace, his
wretched antagonists were frequently honored with a mortal wound from
the hand of Commodus, and obliged to seal their flattery with their
blood.  He now disdained the appellation of Hercules. The name of
Paulus, a celebrated Secutor, was the only one which delighted his ear.
It was inscribed on his colossal statues, and repeated in the redoubled
acclamations  of the mournful and applauding senate.  Claudius
Pompeianus, the virtuous husband of Lucilla, was the only senator who
asserted the honor of his rank. As a father, he permitted his sons to
consult their safety by attending the amphitheatre. As a Roman, he
declared, that his own life was in the emperor's hands, but that he
would never behold the son of Marcus prostituting his person and
dignity. Notwithstanding his manly resolution Pompeianus escaped the
resentment of the tyrant, and, with his honor, had the good fortune to
preserve his life.

Commodus had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amidst the
acclamations of a flattering court, he was unable to disguise from
himself, that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of every man of
sense and virtue in his empire. His ferocious spirit was irritated by
the consciousness of that hatred, by the envy of every kind of merit, by
the just apprehension of danger, and by the habit of slaughter, which he
contracted in his daily amusements. History has preserved a long list of
consular senators sacrificed to his wanton suspicion, which sought out,
with peculiar anxiety, those unfortunate persons connected, however
remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without sparing even the
ministers of his crimes or pleasures.  His cruelty proved at last fatal
to himself. He had shed with impunity the noblest blood of Rome: he
perished as soon as he was dreaded by his own domestics. Marcia, his
favorite concubine, Eclectus, his chamberlain, and Lætus, his Prætorian
præfect, alarmed by the fate of their companions and predecessors,
resolved to prevent the destruction which every hour hung over their
heads, either from the mad caprice of the tyrant, * or the sudden
indignation of the people. Marcia seized the occasion of presenting a
draught of wine to her lover, after he had fatigued himself with hunting
some wild beasts. Commodus retired to sleep; but whilst he was laboring
with the effects of poison and drunkenness, a robust youth, by
profession a wrestler, entered his chamber, and strangled him without
resistance. The body was secretly conveyed out of the palace, before the
least suspicion was entertained in the city, or even in the court, of
the emperor's death. Such was the fate of the son of Marcus, and so easy
was it to destroy a hated tyrant, who, by the artificial powers of
government, had oppressed, during thirteen years, so many millions of
subjects, each of whom was equal to their master in personal strength
and personal abilities.

The measures of he conspirators were conducted with the deliberate
coolness and celerity which the greatness of the occasion required. They
resolved instantly to fill the vacant throne with an emperor whose
character would justify and maintain the action that had been committed.
They fixed on Pertinax, præfect of the city, an ancient senator of
consular rank, whose conspicuous merit had broke through the obscurity
of his birth, and raised him to the first honors of the state. He had
successively governed most of the provinces of the empire; and in all
his great employments, military as well as civil, he had uniformly
distinguished himself by the firmness, the prudence, and the integrity
of his conduct.  He now remained almost alone of the friends and
ministers of Marcus; and when, at a late hour of the night, he was
awakened with the news, that the chamberlain and the præfect were at his
door, he received them with intrepid resignation, and desired they would
execute their master's orders. Instead of death, they offered him the
throne of the Roman world. During some moments he distrusted their
intentions and assurances. Convinced at length of the death of Commodus,
he accepted the purple with a sincere reluctance, the natural effect of
his knowledge both of the duties and of the dangers of the supreme rank.

Lætus conducted without delay his new emperor to the camp of the
Prætorians, diffusing at the same time through the city a seasonable
report that Commodus died suddenly of an apoplexy; and that the virtuous
Pertinax had already succeeded to the throne. The guards were rather
surprised than pleased with the suspicious death of a prince, whose
indulgence and liberality they alone had experienced; but the emergency
of the occasion, the authority of their præfect, the reputation of
Pertinax, and the clamors of the people, obliged them to stifle their
secret discontents, to accept the donative promised by the new emperor,
to swear allegiance to him, and with joyful acclamations and laurels in
their hands to conduct him to the senate house, that the military
consent might be ratified by the civil authority.

This important night was now far spent; with the dawn of day, and the
commencement of the new year, the senators expected a summons to attend
an ignominious ceremony. * In spite of all remonstrances, even of those
of his creatures who yet preserved any regard for prudence or decency,
Commodus had resolved to pass the night in the gladiators' school, and
from thence to take possession of the consulship, in the habit and with
the attendance of that infamous crew. On a sudden, before the break of
day, the senate was called together in the temple of Concord, to meet
the guards, and to ratify the election of a new emperor. For a few
minutes they sat in silent suspense, doubtful of their unexpected
deliverance, and suspicious of the cruel artifices of Commodus: but when
at length they were assured that the tyrant was no more, they resigned
themselves to all the transports of joy and indignation. Pertinax, who
modestly represented the meanness of his extraction, and pointed out
several noble senators more deserving than himself of the empire, was
constrained by their dutiful violence to ascend the throne, and received
all the titles of Imperial power, confirmed by the most sincere vows of
fidelity. The memory of Commodus was branded with eternal infamy. The
names of tyrant, of gladiator, of public enemy resounded in every corner
of the house. They decreed in tumultuous votes,  that his honors should
be reversed, his titles erased from the public monuments, his statues
thrown down, his body dragged with a hook into the stripping room of the
gladiators, to satiate the public fury; and they expressed some
indignation against those officious servants who had already presumed to
screen his remains from the justice of the senate. But Pertinax could
not refuse those last rites to the memory of Marcus, and the tears of
his first protector Claudius Pompeianus, who lamented the cruel fate of
his brother-in-law, and lamented still more that he had deserved it.

These effusions of impotent rage against a dead emperor, whom the senate
had flattered when alive with the most abject servility, betrayed a just
but ungenerous spirit of revenge. The legality of these decrees was,
however, supported by the principles of the Imperial constitution. To
censure, to depose, or to punish with death, the first magistrate of the
republic, who had abused his delegated trust, was the ancient and
undoubted prerogative of the Roman senate;  but the feeble assembly was
obliged to content itself with inflicting on a fallen tyrant that public
justice, from which, during his life and reign, he had been shielded by
the strong arm of military despotism. *

Pertinax found a nobler way of condemning his predecessor's memory; by
the contrast of his own virtues with the vices of Commodus. On the day
of his accession, he resigned over to his wife and son his whole private
fortune; that they might have no pretence to solicit favors at the
expense of the state. He refused to flatter the vanity of the former
with the title of Augusta; or to corrupt the inexperienced youth of the
latter by the rank of Cæsar. Accurately distinguishing between the
duties of a parent and those of a sovereign, he educated his son with a
severe simplicity, which, while it gave him no assured prospect of the
throne, might in time have rendered him worthy of it. In public, the
behavior of Pertinax was grave and affable. He lived with the virtuous
part of the senate, (and, in a private station, he had been acquainted
with the true character of each individual,) without either pride or
jealousy; considered them as friends and companions, with whom he had
shared the danger of the tyranny, and with whom he wished to enjoy the
security of the present time. He very frequently invited them to
familiar entertainments, the frugality of which was ridiculed by those
who remembered and regretted the luxurious prodigality of Commodus.

To heal, as far as I was possible, the wounds inflicted by the hand of
tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task of Pertinax. The
innocent victims, who yet survived, were recalled from exile, released
from prison, and restored to the full possession of their honors and
fortunes. The unburied bodies of murdered senators (for the cruelty of
Commodus endeavored to extend itself beyond death) were deposited in the
sepulchres of their ancestors; their memory was justified and every
consolation was bestowed on their ruined and afflicted families. Among
these consolations, one of the most grateful was the punishment of the
Delators; the common enemies of their master, of virtue, and of their
country. Yet even in the inquisition of these legal assassins, Pertinax
proceeded with a steady temper, which gave every thing to justice, and
nothing to popular prejudice and resentment.

The finances of the state demanded the most vigilant care of the
emperor. Though every measure of injustice and extortion had been
adopted, which could collect the property of the subject into the
coffers of the prince, the rapaciousness of Commodus had been so very
inadequate to his extravagance, that, upon his death, no more than eight
thousand pounds were found in the exhausted treasury,  to defray the
current expenses of government, and to discharge the pressing demand of
a liberal donative, which the new emperor had been obliged to promise to
the Prætorian guards. Yet under these distressed circumstances, Pertinax
had the generous firmness to remit all the oppressive taxes invented by
Commodus, and to cancel all the unjust claims of the treasury;
declaring, in a decree of the senate, "that he was better satisfied to
administer a poor republic with innocence, than to acquire riches by the
ways of tyranny and dishonor. "Economy and industry he considered as the
pure and genuine sources of wealth; and from them he soon derived a
copious supply for the public necessities. The expense of the household
was immediately reduced to one half. All the instruments of luxury
Pertinax exposed to public auction,  gold and silver plate, chariots of
a singular construction, a superfluous wardrobe of silk and embroidery,
and a great number of beautiful slaves of both sexes; excepting only,
with attentive humanity, those who were born in a state of freedom, and
had been ravished from the arms of their weeping parents. At the same
time that he obliged the worthless favorites of the tyrant to resign a
part of their ill-gotten wealth, he satisfied the just creditors of the
state, and unexpectedly discharged the long arrears of honest services.
He removed the oppressive restrictions which had been laid upon
commerce, and granted all the uncultivated lands in Italy and the
provinces to those who would improve them; with an exemption from
tribute during the term of ten years.

Such a uniform conduct had already secured to Pertinax the noblest
reward of a sovereign, the love and esteem of his people. Those who
remembered the virtues of Marcus were happy to contemplate in their new
emperor the features of that bright original; and flattered themselves,
that they should long enjoy the benign influence of his administration.
A hasty zeal to reform the corrupted state, accompanied with less
prudence than might have been expected from the years and experience of
Pertinax, proved fatal to himself and to his country. His honest
indiscretion united against him the servile crowd, who found their
private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred the favor of
a tyrant to the inexorable equality of the laws.

Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of the
Prætorian guards betrayed their inward dissatisfaction. They had
reluctantly submitted to Pertinax; they dreaded the strictness of the
ancient discipline, which he was preparing to restore; and they
regretted the license of the former reign. Their discontents were
secretly fomented by Lætus, their præfect, who found, when it was too
late, that his new emperor would reward a servant, but would not be
ruled by a favorite. On the third day of his reign, the soldiers seized
on a noble senator, with a design to carry him to the camp, and to
invest him with the Imperial purple. Instead of being dazzled by the
dangerous honor, the affrighted victim escaped from their violence, and
took refuge at the feet of Pertinax. A short time afterwards, Sosius
Falco, one of the consuls of the year, a rash youth,  but of an ancient
and opulent family, listened to the voice of ambition; and a conspiracy
was formed during a short absence of Pertinax, which was crushed by his
sudden return to Rome, and his resolute behavior. Falco was on the point
of being justly condemned to death as a public enemy had he not been
saved by the earnest and sincere entreaties of the injured emperor, who
conjured the senate, that the purity of his reign might not be stained
by the blood even of a guilty senator.

These disappointments served only to irritate the rage of the Prætorian
guards. On the twenty-eighth of March, eighty-six days only after the
death of Commodus, a general sedition broke out in the camp, which the
officers wanted either power or inclination to suppress. Two or three
hundred of the most desperate soldiers marched at noonday, with arms in
their hands and fury in their looks, towards the Imperial palace. The
gates were thrown open by their companions upon guard, and by the
domestics of the old court, who had already formed a secret conspiracy
against the life of the too virtuous emperor. On the news of their
approach, Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment, advanced to
meet his assassins; and recalled to their minds his own innocence, and
the sanctity of their recent oath. For a few moments they stood in
silent suspense, ashamed of their atrocious design, and awed by the
venerable aspect and majestic firmness of their sovereign, till at
length, the despair of pardon reviving their fury, a barbarian of the
country of Tongress  levelled the first blow against Pertinax, who was
instantly despatched with a multitude of wounds. His head, separated
from his body, and placed on a lance, was carried in triumph to the
Prætorian camp, in the sight of a mournful and indignant people, who
lamented the unworthy fate of that excellent prince, and the transient
blessings of a reign, the memory of which could serve only to aggravate
their approaching misfortunes.

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

Public Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus By The Prætorian Guards --
Clodius Albinus In Britain, Pescennius Niger In Syria, And Septimius
Severus In Pannonia, Declare Against The Murderers Of Pertinax -- Civil
Wars And Victory Of Severus Over His Three Rivals -- Relaxation Of
Discipline -- New Maxims Of Government.

The power of the sword is more sensibly felt in an extensive monarchy,
than in a small community. It has been calculated by the ablest
politicians, that no state, without being soon exhausted, can maintain
above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness. But
although this relative proportion may be uniform, the influence of the
army over the rest of the society will vary according to the degree of
its positive strength. The advantages of military science and discipline
cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united into
one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men, such a union
would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it would be impracticable;
and the powers of the machine would be alike destroyed by the extreme
minuteness or the excessive weight of its springs. To illustrate this
observation, we need only reflect, that there is no superiority of
natural strength, artificial weapons, or acquired skill, which could
enable one man to keep in constant subjection one hundred of his
fellow-creatures: the tyrant of a single town, or a small district,
would soon discover that a hundred armed followers were a weak defence
against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but a hundred thousand
well-disciplined soldiers will command, with despotic sway, ten millions
of subjects; and a body of ten or fifteen thousand guards will strike
terror into the most numerous populace that ever crowded the streets of
an immense capital.

The Prætorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom and
cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely amounted to the
last-mentioned number  They derived their institution from Augustus.
That crafty tyrant, sensible that laws might color, but that arms alone
could maintain, his usurped dominion, had gradually formed this powerful
body of guards, in constant readiness to protect his person, to awe the
senate, and either to prevent or to crush the first motions of
rebellion. He distinguished these favored troops by a double pay and
superior privileges; but, as their formidable aspect would at once have
alarmed and irritated the Roman people, three cohorts only were
stationed in the capital, whilst the remainder was dispersed in the
adjacent towns of Italy.  But after fifty years of peace and servitude,
Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which forever rivetted the
fetters of his country. Under the fair pretences of relieving Italy from
the heavy burden of military quarters, and of introducing a stricter
discipline among the guards, he assembled them at Rome, in a permanent
camp,  which was fortified with skilful care,  and placed on a
commanding situation.

Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal to the
throne of despotism. By thus introducing the Prætorian guards as it were
into the palace and the senate, the emperors taught them to perceive
their own strength, and the weakness of the civil government; to view
the vices of their masters with familiar contempt, and to lay aside that
reverential awe, which distance only, and mystery, can preserve towards
an imaginary power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their
pride was nourished by the sense of their irresistible weight; nor was
it possible to conceal from them, that the person of the sovereign, the
authority of the senate, the public treasure, and the seat of empire,
were all in their hands. To divert the Prætorian bands from these
dangerous reflections, the firmest and best established princes were
obliged to mix blandishments with commands, rewards with punishments, to
flatter their pride, indulge their pleasures, connive at their
irregularities, and to purchase their precarious faith by a liberal
donative; which, since the elevation of Claudius, was enacted as a legal
claim, on the accession of every new emperor.

The advocate of the guards endeavored to justify by arguments the power
which they asserted by arms; and to maintain that, according to the
purest principles of the constitution, theirconsent was essentially
necessary in the appointment of an emperor. The election of consuls, of
generals, and of magistrates, however it had been recently usurped by
the senate, was the ancient and undoubted right of the Roman people.
But where was the Roman people to be found? Not surely amongst the mixed
multitude of slaves and strangers that filled the streets of Rome; a
servile populace, as devoid of spirit as destitute of property. The
defenders of the state, selected from the flower of the Italian youth,
and trained in the exercise of arms and virtue, were the genuine
representatives of the people, and the best entitled to elect the
military chief of the republic. These assertions, however defective in
reason, became unanswerable when the fierce Prætorians increased their
weight, by throwing, like the barbarian conqueror of Rome, their swords
into the scale.

The Prætorians had violated the sanctity of the throne by the atrocious
murder of Pertinax; they dishonored the majesty of it by their
subsequent conduct. The camp was without a leader, for even the præfect
Lætus, who had excited the tempest, prudently declined the public
indignation. Amidst the wild disorder, Sulpicianus, the emperor's
father-in-law, and governor of the city, who had been sent to the camp
on the first alarm of mutiny, was endeavoring to calm the fury of the
multitude, when he was silenced by the clamorous return of the
murderers, bearing on a lance the head of Pertinax. Though history has
accustomed us to observe every principle and every passion yielding to
the imperious dictates of ambition, it is scarcely credible that, in
these moments of horror, Sulpicianus should have aspired to ascend a
throne polluted with the recent blood of so near a relation and so
excellent a prince. He had already begun to use the only effectual
argument, and to treat for the Imperial dignity; but the more prudent of
the Prætorians, apprehensive that, in this private contract, they should
not obtain a just price for so valuable a commodity, ran out upon the
ramparts; and, with a loud voice, proclaimed that the Roman world was to
be disposed of to the best bidder by public auction.

This infamous offer, the most insolent excess of military license,
diffused a universal grief, shame, and indignation throughout the city.
It reached at length the ears of Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator,
who, regardless of the public calamities, was indulging himself in the
luxury of the table.  His wife and his daughter, his freedmen and his
parasites, easily convinced him that he deserved the throne, and
earnestly conjured him to embrace so fortunate an opportunity. The vain
old man hastened to the Prætorian camp, where Sulpicianus was still in
treaty with the guards, and began to bid against him from the foot of
the rampart. The unworthy negotiation was transacted by faithful
emissaries, who passed alternately from one candidate to the other, and
acquainted each of them with the offers of his rival. Sulpicianus had
already promised a donative of five thousand drachms (above one hundred
and sixty pounds) to each soldier; when Julian, eager for the prize,
rose at once to the sum of six thousand two hundred and fifty drachms,
or upwards of two hundred pounds sterling. The gates of the camp were
instantly thrown open to the purchaser; he was declared emperor, and
received an oath of allegiance from the soldiers, who retained humanity
enough to stipulate that he should pardon and forget the competition of
Sulpicianus. *

It was now incumbent on the Prætorians to fulfil the conditions of the
sale. They placed their new sovereign, whom they served and despised, in
the centre of their ranks, surrounded him on every side with their
shields, and conducted him in close order of battle through the deserted
streets of the city. The senate was commanded to assemble; and those who
had been the distinguished friends of Pertinax, or the personal enemies
of Julian, found it necessary to affect a more than common share of
satisfaction at this happy revolution.  After Julian had filled the
senate house with armed soldiers, he expatiated on the freedom of his
election, his own eminent virtues, and his full assurance of the
affections of the senate. The obsequious assembly congratulated their
own and the public felicity; engaged their allegiance, and conferred on
him all the several branches of the Imperial power.  From the senate
Julian was conducted, by the same military procession, to take
possession of the palace. The first objects that struck his eyes, were
the abandoned trunk of Pertinax, and the frugal entertainment prepared
for his supper. The one he viewed with indifference, the other with
contempt. A magnificent feast was prepared by his order, and he amused
himself, till a very late hour, with dice, and the performances of
Pylades, a celebrated dancer. Yet it was observed, that after the crowd
of flatterers dispersed, and left him to darkness, solitude, and
terrible reflection, he passed a sleepless night; revolving most
probably in his mind his own rash folly, the fate of his virtuous
predecessor, and the doubtful and dangerous tenure of an empire which
had not been acquired by merit, but purchased by money.

He had reason to tremble. On the throne of the world he found himself
without a friend, and even without an adherent. The guards themselves
were ashamed of the prince whom their avarice had persuaded them to
accept; nor was there a citizen who did not consider his elevation with
horror, as the last insult on the Roman name. The nobility, whose
conspicuous station, and ample possessions, exacted the strictest
caution, dissembled their sentiments, and met the affected civility of
the emperor with smiles of complacency and professions of duty. But the
people, secure in their numbers and obscurity, gave a free vent to their
passions. The streets and public places of Rome resounded with clamors
and imprecations. The enraged multitude affronted the person of Julian,
rejected his liberality, and, conscious of the impotence of their own
resentment, they called aloud on the legions of the frontiers to assert
the violated majesty of the Roman empire.

The public discontent was soon diffused from the centre to the frontiers
of the empire. The armies of Britain, of Syria, and of Illyricum,
lamented the death of Pertinax, in whose company, or under whose
command, they had so often fought and conquered. They received with
surprise, with indignation, and perhaps with envy, the extraordinary
intelligence, that the Prætorians had disposed of the empire by public
auction; and they sternly refused to ratify the ignominious bargain.
Their immediate and unanimous revolt was fatal to Julian, but it was
fatal at the same time to the public peace, as the generals of the
respective armies, Clodius Albinus, Pescennius Niger, and Septimius
Severus, were still more anxious to succeed than to revenge the murdered
Pertinax. Their forces were exactly balanced. Each of them was at the
head of three legions,  with a numerous train of auxiliaries; and
however different in their characters, they were all soldiers of
experience and capacity.

Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain, surpassed both his competitors in
the nobility of his extraction, which he derived from some of the most
illustrious names of the old republic.  But the branch from which he
claimed his descent was sunk into mean circumstances, and transplanted
into a remote province. It is difficult to form a just idea of his true
character. Under the philosophic cloak of austerity, he stands accused
of concealing most of the vices which degrade human nature.  But his
accusers are those venal writers who adored the fortune of Severus, and
trampled on the ashes of an unsuccessful rival. Virtue, or the
appearances of virtue, recommended Albinus to the confidence and good
opinion of Marcus; and his preserving with the son the same interest
which he had acquired with the father, is a proof at least that he was
possessed of a very flexible disposition. The favor of a tyrant does not
always suppose a want of merit in the object of it; he may, without
intending it, reward a man of worth and ability, or he may find such a
man useful to his own service. It does not appear that Albinus served
the son of Marcus, either as the minister of his cruelties, or even as
the associate of his pleasures. He was employed in a distant honorable
command, when he received a confidential letter from the emperor,
acquainting him of the treasonable designs of some discontented
generals, and authorizing him to declare himself the guardian and
successor of the throne, by assuming the title and ensigns of Cæsar.
The governor of Britain wisely declined the dangerous honor, which would
have marked him for the jealousy, or involved him in the approaching
ruin, of Commodus. He courted power by nobler, or, at least, by more
specious arts. On a premature report of the death of the emperor, he
assembled his troops; and, in an eloquent discourse, deplored the
inevitable mischiefs of despotism, described the happiness and glory
which their ancestors had enjoyed under the consular government, and
declared his firm resolution to reinstate the senate and people in their
legal authority. This popular harangue was answered by the loud
acclamations of the British legions, and received at Rome with a secret
murmur of applause. Safe in the possession of his little world, and in
the command of an army less distinguished indeed for discipline than for
numbers and valor,  Albinus braved the menaces of Commodus, maintained
towards Pertinax a stately ambiguous reserve, and instantly declared
against the usurpation of Julian. The convulsions of the capital added
new weight to his sentiments, or rather to his professions of
patriotism. A regard to decency induced him to decline the lofty titles
of Augustus and Emperor; and he imitated perhaps the example of Galba,
who, on a similar occasion, had styled himself the Lieutenant of the
senate and people.

Personal merit alone had raised Pescennius Niger, from an obscure birth
and station, to the government of Syria; a lucrative and important
command, which in times of civil confusion gave him a near prospect of
the throne. Yet his parts seem to have been better suited to the second
than to the first rank; he was an unequal rival, though he might have
approved himself an excellent lieutenant, to Severus, who afterwards
displayed the greatness of his mind by adopting several useful
institutions from a vanquished enemy.  In his government Niger acquired
the esteem of the soldiers and the love of the provincials. His rigid
discipline foritfied the valor and confirmed the obedience of the
former, whilst the voluptuous Syrians were less delighted with the mild
firmness of his administration, than with the affability of his manners,
and the apparent pleasure with which he attended their frequent and
pompous festivals.  As soon as the intelligence of the atrocious murder
of Pertinax had reached Antioch, the wishes of Asia invited Niger to
assume the Imperial purple and revenge his death. The legions of the
eastern frontier embraced his cause; the opulent but unarmed provinces,
from the frontiers of Æthiopia  to the Hadriatic, cheerfully submitted
to his power; and the kings beyond the Tigris and the Euphrates
congratulated his election, and offered him their homage and services.
The mind of Niger was not capable of receiving this sudden tide of
fortune: he flattered himself that his accession would be undisturbed by
competition and unstained by civil blood; and whilst he enjoyed the vain
pomp of triumph, he neglected to secure the means of victory. Instead of
entering into an effectual negotiation with the powerful armies of the
West, whose resolution might decide, or at least must balance, the
mighty contest; instead of advancing without delay towards Rome and
Italy, where his presence was impatiently expected,  Niger trifled away
in the luxury of Antioch those irretrievable moments which were
diligently improved by the decisive activity of Severus.

The country of Pannonia and Dalmatia, which occupied the space between
the Danube and the Hadriatic, was one of the last and most difficult
conquests of the Romans. In the defence of national freedom, two hundred
thousand of these barbarians had once appeared in the field, alarmed the
declining age of Augustus, and exercised the vigilant prudence of
Tiberius at the head of the collected force of the empire.  The
Pannonians yielded at length to the arms and institutions of Rome. Their
recent subjection, however, the neighborhood, and even the mixture, of
the unconquered tribes, and perhaps the climate, adapted, as it has been
observed, to the production of great bodies and slow minds,  all
contributed to preserve some remains of their original ferocity, and
under the tame and uniform countenance of Roman provincials, the hardy
features of the natives were still to be discerned. Their warlike youth
afforded an inexhaustible supply of recruits to the legions stationed on
the banks of the Danube, and which, from a perpetual warfare against the
Germans and Sarmazans, were deservedly esteemed the best troops in the
service.

The Pannonian army was at this time commanded by Septimius Severus, a
native of Africa, who, in the gradual ascent of private honors, had
concealed his daring ambition, which was never diverted from its steady
course by the allurements of pleasure, the apprehension of danger, or
the feelings of humanity.  On the first news of the murder of Pertinax,
he assembled his troops, painted in the most lively colors the crime,
the insolence, and the weakness of the Prætorian guards, and animated
the legions to arms and to revenge. He concluded (and the peroration was
thought extremely eloquent) with promising every soldier about four
hundred pounds; an honorable donative, double in value to the infamous
bribe with which Julian had purchased the empire.  The acclamations of
the army immediately saluted Severus with the names of Augustus,
Pertinax, and Emperor; and he thus attained the lofty station to which
he was invited, by conscious merit and a long train of dreams and omens,
the fruitful offsprings either of his superstition or policy.

The new candidate for empire saw and improved the peculiar advantage of
his situation. His province extended to the Julian Alps, which gave an
easy access into Italy; and he remembered the saying of Augustus, That a
Pannonian army might in ten days appear in sight of Rome.  By a celerity
proportioned to the greatness of the occasion, he might reasonably hope
to revenge Pertinax, punish Julian, and receive the homage of the senate
and people, as their lawful emperor, before his competitors, separated
from Italy by an immense tract of sea and land, were apprised of his
success, or even of his election. During the whole expedition, he
scarcely allowed himself any moments for sleep or food; marching on
foot, and in complete armor, at the head of his columns, he insinuated
himself into the confidence and affection of his troops, pressed their
diligence, revived their spirits, animated their hopes, and was well
satisfied to share the hardships of the meanest soldier, whilst he kept
in view the infinite superiority of his reward.

The wretched Julian had expected, and thought himself prepared, to
dispute the empire with the governor of Syria; but in the invincible and
rapid approach of the Pannonian legions, he saw his inevitable ruin. The
hasty arrival of every messenger increased his just apprehensions. He
was successively informed, that Severus had passed the Alps; that the
Italian cities, unwilling or unable to oppose his progress, had received
him with the warmest professions of joy and duty; that the important
place of Ravenna had surrendered without resistance, and that the
Hadriatic fleet was in the hands of the conqueror. The enemy was now
within two hundred and fifty miles of Rome; and every moment diminished
the narrow span of life and empire allotted to Julian.

He attempted, however, to prevent, or at least to protract, his ruin. He
implored the venal faith of the Prætorians, filled the city with
unavailing preparations for war, drew lines round the suburbs, and even
strengthened the fortifications of the palace; as if those last
intrenchments could be defended, without hope of relief, against a
victorious invader. Fear and shame prevented the guards from deserting
his standard; but they trembled at the name of the Pannonian legions,
commanded by an experienced general, and accustomed to vanquish the
barbarians on the frozen Danube.  They quitted, with a sigh, the
pleasures of the baths and theatres, to put on arms, whose use they had
almost forgotten, and beneath the weight of which they were oppressed.
The unpractised elephants, whose uncouth appearance, it was hoped, would
strike terror into the army of the north, threw their unskilful riders;
and the awkward evolutions of the marines, drawn from the fleet of
Misenum, were an object of ridicule to the populace; whilst the senate
enjoyed, with secret pleasure, the distress and weakness of the usurper.

Every motion of Julian betrayed his trembling perplexity. He insisted
that Severus should be declared a public enemy by the senate. He
entreated that the Pannonian general might be associated to the empire.
He sent public ambassadors of consular rank to negotiate with his rival;
he despatched private assassins to take away his life. He designed that
the Vestal virgins, and all the colleges of priests, in their sacerdotal
habits, and bearing before them the sacred pledges of the Roman
religion, should advance in solemn procession to meet the Pannonian
legions; and, at the same time, he vainly tried to interrogate, or to
appease, the fates, by magic ceremonies and unlawful sacrifices.

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

Severus, who dreaded neither his arms nor his enchantments, guarded
himself from the only danger of secret conspiracy, by the faithful
attendance of six hundred chosen men, who never quitted his person or
their cuirasses, either by night or by day, during the whole march.
Advancing with a steady and rapid course, he passed, without difficulty,
the defiles of the Apennine, received into his party the troops and
ambassadors sent to retard his progress, and made a short halt at
Interamnia, about seventy miles from Rome. His victory was already
secure, but the despair of the Prætorians might have rendered it bloody;
and Severus had the laudable ambition of ascending the throne without
drawing the sword.  His emissaries, dispersed in the capital, assured
the guards, that provided they would abandon their worthless prince, and
the perpetrators of the murder of Pertinax, to the justice of the
conqueror, he would no longer consider that melancholy event as the act
of the whole body. The faithless Prætorians, whose resistance was
supported only by sullen obstinacy, gladly complied with the easy
conditions, seized the greatest part of the assassins, and signified to
the senate, that they no longer defended the cause of Julian. That
assembly, convoked by the consul, unanimously acknowledged Severus as
lawful emperor, decreed divine honors to Pertinax, and pronounced a
sentence of deposition and death against his unfortunate successor.
Julian was conducted into a private apartment of the baths of the
palace, and beheaded as a common criminal, after having purchased, with
an immense treasure, an anxious and precarious reign of only sixty-six
days.  The almost incredible expedition of Severus, who, in so short a
space of time, conducted a numerous army from the banks of the Danube to
those of the Tyber, proves at once the plenty of provisions produced by
agriculture and commerce, the goodness of the roads, the discipline of
the legions, and the indolent, subdued temper of the provinces.

The first cares of Severus were bestowed on two measures the one
dictated by policy, the other by decency; the revenge, and the honors,
due to the memory of Pertinax. Before the new emperor entered Rome, he
issued his commands to the Prætorian guards, directing them to wait his
arrival on a large plain near the city, without arms, but in the habits
of ceremony, in which they were accustomed to attend their sovereign. He
was obeyed by those haughty troops, whose contrition was the effect of
their just terrors. A chosen part of the Illyrian army encompassed them
with levelled spears. Incapable of flight or resistance, they expected
their fate in silent consternation. Severus mounted the tribunal,
sternly reproached them with perfidy and cowardice, dismissed them with
ignominy from the trust which they had betrayed, despoiled them of their
splendid ornaments, and banished them, on pain of death, to the distance
of a hundred miles from the capital. During the transaction, another
detachment had been sent to seize their arms, occupy their camp, and
prevent the hasty consequences of their despair.

The funeral and consecration of Pertinax was next solemnized with every
circumstance of sad magnificence.  The senate, with a melancholy
pleasure, performed the last rites to that excellent prince, whom they
had loved, and still regretted. The concern of his successor was
probably less sincere; he esteemed the virtues of Pertinax, but those
virtues would forever have confined his ambition to a private station.
Severus pronounced his funeral oration with studied eloquence, inward
satisfaction, and well-acted sorrow; and by this pious regard to his
memory, convinced the credulous multitude, that he alone was worthy to
supply his place. Sensible, however, that arms, not ceremonies, must
assert his claim to the empire, he left Rome at the end of thirty days,
and without suffering himself to be elated by this easy victory,
prepared to encounter his more formidable rivals.

The uncommon abilities and fortune of Severus have induced an elegant
historian to compare him with the first and greatest of the Cæsars.  The
parallel is, at least, imperfect. Where shall we find, in the character
of Severus, the commanding superiority of soul, the generous clemency,
and the various genius, which could reconcile and unite the love of
pleasure, the thirst of knowledge, and the fire of ambition?  In one
instance only, they may be compared, with some degree of propriety, in
the celerity of their motions, and their civil victories. In less than
four years,  Severus subdued the riches of the East, and the valor of
the West. He vanquished two competitors of reputation and ability, and
defeated numerous armies, provided with weapons and discipline equal to
his own. In that age, the art of fortification, and the principles of
tactics, were well understood by all the Roman generals; and the
constant superiority of Severus was that of an artist, who uses the same
instruments with more skill and industry than his rivals. I shall not,
however, enter into a minute narrative of these military operations; but
as the two civil wars against Niger and against Albinus were almost the
same in their conduct, event, and consequences, I shall collect into one
point of view the most striking circumstances, tending to develop the
character of the conqueror and the state of the empire.

Falsehood and insincerity, unsuitable as they seem to the dignity of
public transactions, offend us with a less degrading idea of meanness,
than when they are found in the intercourse of private life. In the
latter, they discover a want of courage; in the other, only a defect of
power: and, as it is impossible for the most able statesmen to subdue
millions of followers and enemies by their own personal strength, the
world, under the name of policy, seems to have granted them a very
liberal indulgence of craft and dissimulation. Yet the arts of Severus
cannot be justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He
promised only to betray, he flattered only to ruin; and however he might
occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his conscience,
obsequious to his interest, always released him from the inconvenient
obligation.

If his two competitors, reconciled by their common danger, had advanced
upon him without delay, perhaps Severus would have sunk under their
united effort. Had they even attacked him, at the same time, with
separate views and separate armies, the contest might have been long and
doubtful. But they fell, singly and successively, an easy prey to the
arts as well as arms of their subtle enemy, lulled into security by the
moderation of his professions, and overwhelmed by the rapidity of his
action. He first marched against Niger, whose reputation and power he
the most dreaded: but he declined any hostile declarations, suppressed
the name of his antagonist, and only signified to the senate and people
his intention of regulating the eastern provinces. In private, he spoke
of Niger, his old friend and intended successor,  with the most
affectionate regard, and highly applauded his generous design of
revenging the murder of Pertinax. To punish the vile usurper of the
throne, was the duty of every Roman general. To persevere in arms, and
to resist a lawful emperor, acknowledged by the senate, would alone
render him criminal.  The sons of Niger had fallen into his hands among
the children of the provincial governors, detained at Rome as pledges
for the loyalty of their parents.  As long as the power of Niger
inspired terror, or even respect, they were educated with the most
tender care, with the children of Severus himself; but they were soon
involved in their father's ruin, and removed first by exile, and
afterwards by death, from the eye of public compassion.

Whilst Severus was engaged in his eastern war, he had reason to
apprehend that the governor of Britain might pass the sea and the Alps,
occupy the vacant seat of empire, and oppose his return with the
authority of the senate and the forces of the West. The ambiguous
conduct of Albinus, in not assuming the Imperial title, left room for
negotiation. Forgetting, at once, his professions of patriotism, and the
jealousy of sovereign power, he accepted the precarious rank of Cæsar,
as a reward for his fatal neutrality. Till the first contest was
decided, Severus treated the man, whom he had doomed to destruction,
with every mark of esteem and regard. Even in the letter, in which he
announced his victory over Niger, he styles Albinus the brother of his
soul and empire, sends him the affectionate salutations of his wife
Julia, and his young family, and entreats him to preserve the armies and
the republic faithful to their common interest. The messengers charged
with this letter were instructed to accost the Cæsar with respect, to
desire a private audience, and to plunge their daggers into his heart.
The conspiracy was discovered, and the too credulous Albinus, at length,
passed over to the continent, and prepared for an unequal contest with
his rival, who rushed upon him at the head of a veteran and victorious
army.

The military labors of Severus seem inadequate to the importance of his
conquests. Two engagements, * the one near the Hellespont, the other in
the narrow defiles of Cilicia, decided the fate of his Syrian
competitor; and the troops of Europe asserted their usual ascendant over
the effeminate natives of Asia.  The battle of Lyons, where one hundred
and fifty thousand Romans  were engaged, was equally fatal to Albinus.
The valor of the British army maintained, indeed, a sharp and doubtful
contest, with the hardy discipline of the Illyrian legions. The fame and
person of Severus appeared, during a few moments, irrecoverably lost,
till that warlike prince rallied his fainting troops, and led them on to
a decisive victory.  The war was finished by that memorable day.

The civil wars of modern Europe have been distinguished, not only by the
fierce animosity, but likewise by the obstinate perseverance, of the
contending factions. They have generally been justified by some
principle, or, at least, colored by some pretext, of religion, freedom,
or loyalty. The leaders were nobles of independent property and
hereditary influence. The troops fought like men interested in the
decision of the quarrel; and as military spirit and party zeal were
strongly diffused throughout the whole community, a vanquished chief was
immediately supplied with new adherents, eager to shed their blood in
the same cause. But the Romans, after the fall of the republic, combated
only for the choice of masters. Under the standard of a popular
candidate for empire, a few enlisted from affection, some from fear,
many from interest, none from principle. The legions, uninflamed by
party zeal, were allured into civil war by liberal donatives, and still
more liberal promises. A defeat, by disabling the chief from the
performance of his engagements, dissolved the mercenary allegiance of
his followers, and left them to consult their own safety by a timely
desertion of an unsuccessful cause. It was of little moment to the
provinces, under whose name they were oppressed or governed; they were
driven by the impulsion of the present power, and as soon as that power
yielded to a superior force, they hastened to implore the clemency of
the conqueror, who, as he had an immense debt to discharge, was obliged
to sacrifice the most guilty countries to the avarice of his soldiers.
In the vast extent of the Roman empire, there were few fortified cities
capable of protecting a routed army; nor was there any person, or
family, or order of men, whose natural interest, unsupported by the
powers of government, was capable of restoring the cause of a sinking
party.

Yet, in the contest between Niger and Severus, a single city deserves an
honorable exception. As Byzantium was one of the greatest passages from
Europe into Asia, it had been provided with a strong garrison, and a
fleet of five hundred vessels was anchored in the harbor.  The
impetuosity of Severus disappointed this prudent scheme of defence; he
left to his generals the siege of Byzantium, forced the less guarded
passage of the Hellespont, and, impatient of a meaner enemy, pressed
forward to encounter his rival. Byzantium, attacked by a numerous and
increasing army, and afterwards by the whole naval power of the empire,
sustained a siege of three years, and remained faithful to the name and
memory of Niger. The citizens and soldiers (we know not from what cause)
were animated with equal fury; several of the principal officers of
Niger, who despaired of, or who disdained, a pardon, had thrown
themselves into this last refuge: the fortifications were esteemed
impregnable, and, in the defence of the place, a celebrated engineer
displayed all the mechanic powers known to the ancients.  Byzantium, at
length, surrendered to famine. The magistrates and soldiers were put to
the sword, the walls demolished, the privileges suppressed, and the
destined capital of the East subsisted only as an open village, subject
to the insulting jurisdiction of Perinthus. The historian Dion, who had
admired the flourishing, and lamented the desolate, state of Byzantium,
accused the revenge of Severus, for depriving the Roman people of the
strongest bulwark against the barbarians of Pontus and Asia  The truth
of this observation was but too well justified in the succeeding age,
when the Gothic fleets covered the Euxine, and passed through the
undefined Bosphorus into the centre of the Mediterranean.

Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to death in their flight
from the field of battle. Their fate excited neither surprise nor
compassion. They had staked their lives against the chance of empire,
and suffered what they would have inflicted; nor did Severus claim the
arrogant superiority of suffering his rivals to live in a private
station. But his unforgiving temper, stimulated by avarice, indulged a
spirit of revenge, where there was no room for apprehension. The most
considerable of the provincials, who, without any dislike to the
fortunate candidate, had obeyed the governor under whose authority they
were accidentally placed, were punished by death, exile, and especially
by the confiscation of their estates. Many cities of the East were
stripped of their ancient honors, and obliged to pay, into the treasury
of Severus, four times the amount of the sums contributed by them for
the service of Niger.

Till the final decision of the war, the cruelty of Severus was, in some
measure, restrained by the uncertainty of the event, and his pretended
reverence for the senate. The head of Albinus, accompanied with a
menacing letter, announced to the Romans that he was resolved to spare
none of the adherents of his unfortunate competitors. He was irritated
by the just suspicion that he had never possessed the affections of the
senate, and he concealed his old malevolence under the recent discovery
of some treasonable correspondences. Thirty-five senators, however,
accused of having favored the party of Albinus, he freely pardoned, and,
by his subsequent behavior, endeavored to convince them, that he had
forgotten, as well as forgiven, their supposed offences. But, at the
same time, he condemned forty-one  other senators, whose names history
has recorded; their wives, children, and clients attended them in death,
* and the noblest provincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the
same ruin.  Such rigid justice -- for so he termed it -- was, in the
opinion of Severus, the only conduct capable of insuring peace to the
people or stability to the prince; and he condescended slightly to
lament, that to be mild, it was necessary that he should first be cruel.

The true interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides with that
of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and their
security, are the best and only foundations of his real greatness; and
were he totally devoid of virtue, prudence might supply its place, and
would dictate the same rule of conduct. Severus considered the Roman
empire as his property, and had no sooner secured the possession, than
he bestowed his care on the cultivation and improvement of so valuable
an acquisition. Salutary laws, executed with inflexible firmness, soon
corrected most of the abuses with which, since the death of Marcus,
every part of the government had been infected. In the administration of
justice, the judgments of the emperor were characterized by attention,
discernment, and impartiality; and whenever he deviated from the strict
line of equity, it was generally in favor of the poor and oppressed; not
so much indeed from any sense of humanity, as from the natural
propensity of a despot to humble the pride of greatness, and to sink all
his subjects to the same common level of absolute dependence. His
expensive taste for building, magnificent shows, and above all a
constant and liberal distribution of corn and provisions, were the
surest means of captivating the affection of the Roman people.  The
misfortunes of civil discord were obliterated. The clam of peace and
prosperity was once more experienced in the provinces; and many cities,
restored by the munificence of Severus, assumed the title of his
colonies, and attested by public monuments their gratitude and felicity.
The fame of the Roman arms was revived by that warlike and successful
emperor,  and he boasted, with a just pride, that, having received the
empire oppressed with foreign and domestic wars, he left it established
in profound, universal, and honorable peace.

Although the wounds of civil war appeared completely healed, its mortal
poison still lurked in the vitals of the constitution. Severus possessed
a considerable share of vigor and ability; but the daring soul of the
first Cæsar, or the deep policy of Augustus, were scarcely equal to the
task of curbing the insolence of the victorious legions. By gratitude,
by misguided policy, by seeming necessity, Severus was reduced to relax
the nerves of discipline.  The vanity of his soldiers was flattered with
the honor of wearing gold rings their ease was indulged in the
permission of living with their wives in the idleness of quarters. He
increased their pay beyond the example of former times, and taught them
to expect, and soon to claim, extraordinary donatives on every public
occasion of danger or festivity. Elated by success, enervated by luxury,
and raised above the level of subjects by their dangerous privileges,
they soon became incapable of military fatigue, oppressive to the
country, and impatient of a just subordination. Their officers asserted
the superiority of rank by a more profuse and elegant luxury. There is
still extant a letter of Severus, lamenting the licentious stage of the
army, * and exhorting one of his generals to begin the necessary
reformation from the tribunes themselves; since, as he justly observes,
the officer who has forfeited the esteem, will never command the
obedience, of his soldiers.  Had the emperor pursued the train of
reflection, he would have discovered, that the primary cause of this
general corruption might be ascribed, not indeed to the example, but to
the pernicious indulgence, however, of the commander-in-chief.

The Prætorians, who murdered their emperor and sold the empire, had
received the just punishment of their treason; but the necessary, though
dangerous, institution of guards was soon restored on a new model by
Severus, and increased to four times the ancient number.  Formerly these
troops had been recruited in Italy; and as the adjacent provinces
gradually imbibed the softer manners of Rome, the levies were extended
to Macedonia, Noricum, and Spain. In the room of these elegant troops,
better adapted to the pomp of courts than to the uses of war, it was
established by Severus, that from all the legions of the frontiers, the
soldiers most distinguished for strength, valor, and fidelity, should be
occasionally draughted; and promoted, as an honor and reward, into the
more eligible service of the guards.  By this new institution, the
Italian youth were diverted from the exercise of arms, and the capital
was terrified by the strange aspect and manners of a multitude of
barbarians. But Severus flattered himself, that the legions would
consider these chosen Prætorians as the representatives of the whole
military order; and that the present aid of fifty thousand men, superior
in arms and appointments to any force that could be brought into the
field against them, would forever crush the hopes of rebellion, and
secure the empire to himself and his posterity.

The command of these favored and formidable troops soon became the first
office of the empire. As the government degenerated into military
despotism, the Prætorian Præfect, who in his origin had been a simple
captain of the guards, * was placed not only at the head of the army,
but of the finances, and even of the law. In every department of
administration, he represented the person, and exercised the authority,
of the emperor. The first præfect who enjoyed and abused this immense
power was Plautianus, the favorite minister of Severus. His reign lasted
above then years, till the marriage of his daughter with the eldest son
of the emperor, which seemed to assure his fortune, proved the occasion
of his ruin.  The animosities of the palace, by irritating the ambition
and alarming the fears of Plautianus,  threatened to produce a
revolution, and obliged the emperor, who still loved him, to consent
with reluctance to his death.  After the fall of Plautianus, an eminent
lawyer, the celebrated Papinian, was appointed to execute the motley
office of Prætorian Præfect.

Till the reign of Severus, the virtue and even the good sense of the
emperors had been distinguished by their zeal or affected reverence for
the senate, and by a tender regard to the nice frame of civil policy
instituted by Augustus. But the youth of Severus had been trained in the
implicit obedience of camps, and his riper years spent in the despotism
of military command. His haughty and inflexible spirit could' not
discover, or would not acknowledge, the advantage of preserving an
intermediate power, however imaginary, between the emperor and the army.
He disdained to profess himself the servant of an assembly that detested
his person and trembled at his frown; he issued his commands, where his
requests would have proved as effectual; assumed the conduct and style
of a sovereign and a conqueror, and exercised, without disguise, the
whole legislative, as well as the executive power.

The victory over the senate was easy and inglorious. Every eye and every
passion were directed to the supreme magistrate, who possessed the arms
and treasure of the state; whilst the senate, neither elected by the
people, nor guarded by military force, nor animated by public spirit,
rested its declining authority on the frail and crumbling basis of
ancient opinion. The fine theory of a republic insensibly vanished, and
made way for the more natural and substantial feelings of monarchy. As
the freedom and honors of Rome were successively communicated to the
provinces, in which the old government had been either unknown, or was
remembered with abhorrence, the tradition of republican maxims was
gradually obliterated. The Greek historians of the age of the Antonines
observe, with a malicious pleasure, that although the sovereign of Rome,
in compliance with an obsolete prejudice, abstained from the name of
king, he possessed the full measure of regal power. In the reign of
Severus, the senate was filled with polished and eloquent slaves from
the eastern provinces, who justified personal flattery by speculative
principles of servitude. These new advocates of prerogative were heard
with pleasure by the court, and with patience by the people, when they
inculcated the duty of passive obedience, and descanted on the
inevitable mischiefs of freedom. The lawyers and historians concurred in
teaching, that the Imperial authority was held, not by the delegated
commission, but by the irrevocable resignation of the senate; that the
emperor was freed from the restraint of civil laws, could command by his
arbitrary will the lives and fortunes of his subjects, and might dispose
of the empire as of his private patrimony.  The most eminent of the
civil lawyers, and particularly Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, flourished
under the house of Severus; and the Roman jurisprudence, having closely
united itself with the system of monarchy, was supposed to have attained
its full majority and perfection.

The contemporaries of Severus in the enjoyment of the peace and glory of
his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been introduced.
Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his maxims and example,
justly considered him as the principal author of the decline of the
Roman empire.

Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Marcinus. Part I.

The Death Of Severus. -- Tyranny Of Caracalla. -- Usurpation Of
Macrinus. -- Follies Of Elagabalus. -- Virtues Of Alexander Severus. --
Licentiousness Of The Army. -- General State Of The Roman Finances.

The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may entertain an
active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of its own powers: but
the possession of a throne could never yet afford a lasting satisfaction
to an ambitious mind. This melancholy truth was felt and acknowledged by
Severus. Fortune and merit had, from an humble station, elevated him to
the first place among mankind. "He had been all things," as he said
himself, "and all was of little value"  Distracted with the care, not of
acquiring, but of preserving an empire, oppressed with age and
infirmities, careless of fame,  and satiated with power, all his
prospects of life were closed. The desire of perpetuating the greatness
of his family was the only remaining wish of his ambition and paternal
tenderness.

Like most of the Africans, Severus was passionately addicted to the vain
studies of magic and divination, deeply versed in the interpretation of
dreams and omens, and perfectly acquainted with the science of judicial
astrology; which, in almost every age except the present, has maintained
its dominion over the mind of man. He had lost his first wife, while he
was governor of the Lionnese Gaul.  In the choice of a second, he sought
only to connect himself with some favorite of fortune; and as soon as he
had discovered that the young lady of Emesa in Syria had a royal
nativity, he solicited and obtained her hand.  Julia Domna (for that was
her name) deserved all that the stars could promise her. She possessed,
even in advanced age, the attractions of beauty,  and united to a lively
imagination a firmness of mind, and strength of judgment, seldom
bestowed on her sex. Her amiable qualities never made any deep
impression on the dark and jealous temper of her husband; but in her
son's reign, she administered the principal affairs of the empire, with
a prudence that supported his authority, and with a moderation that
sometimes corrected his wild extravagancies.  Julia applied herself to
letters and philosophy, with some success, and with the most splendid
reputation. She was the patroness of every art, and the friend of every
man of genius.  The grateful flattery of the learned has celebrated her
virtues; but, if we may credit the scandal of ancient history, chastity
was very far from being the most conspicuous virtue of the empress
Julia.

Two sons, Caracalla  and Geta, were the fruit of this marriage, and the
destined heirs of the empire. The fond hopes of the father, and of the
Roman world, were soon disappointed by these vain youths, who displayed
the indolent security of hereditary princes; and a presumption that
fortune would supply the place of merit and application. Without any
emulation of virtue or talents, they discovered, almost from their
infancy, a fixed and implacable antipathy for each other.

Their aversion, confirmed by years, and fomented by the arts of their
interested favorites, broke out in childish, and gradually in more
serious competitions; and, at length, divided the theatre, the circus,
and the court, into two factions, actuated by the hopes and fears of
their respective leaders. The prudent emperor endeavored, by every
expedient of advice and authority, to allay this growing animosity. The
unhappy discord of his sons clouded all his prospects, and threatened to
overturn a throne raised with so much labor, cemented with so much
blood, and guarded with every defence of arms and treasure. With an
impartial hand he maintained between them an exact balance of favor,
conferred on both the rank of Augustus, with the revered name of
Antoninus; and for the first time the Roman world beheld three emperors.
Yet even this equal conduct served only to inflame the contest, whilst
the fierce Caracalla asserted the right of primogeniture, and the milder
Geta courted the affections of the people and the soldiers. In the
anguish of a disappointed father, Severus foretold that the weaker of
his sons would fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who, in his turn, would
be ruined by his own vices.

In these circumstances the intelligence of a war in Britain, and of an
invasion of the province by the barbarians of the North, was received
with pleasure by Severus. Though the vigilance of his lieutenants might
have been sufficient to repel the distant enemy, he resolved to embrace
the honorable pretext of withdrawing his sons from the luxury of Rome,
which enervated their minds and irritated their passions; and of inuring
their youth to the toils of war and government. Notwithstanding his
advanced age, (for he was above threescore,) and his gout, which obliged
him to be carried in a litter, he transported himself in person into
that remote island, attended by his two sons, his whole court, and a
formidable army. He immediately passed the walls of Hadrian and
Antoninus, and entered the enemy's country, with a design of completing
the long attempted conquest of Britain. He penetrated to the northern
extremity of the island, without meeting an enemy. But the concealed
ambuscades of the Caledonians, who hung unseen on the rear and flanks of
his army, the coldness of the climate and the severity of a winter march
across the hills and morasses of Scotland, are reported to have cost the
Romans above fifty thousand men. The Caledonians at length yielded to
the powerful and obstinate attack, sued for peace, and surrendered a
part of their arms, and a large tract of territory. But their apparent
submission lasted no longer than the present terror. As soon as the
Roman legions had retired, they resumed their hostile independence.
Their restless spirit provoked Severus to send a new army into
Caledonia, with the most bloody orders, not to subdue, but to extirpate
the natives. They were saved by the death of their haughty enemy.

This Caledonian war, neither marked by decisive events, nor attended
with any important consequences, would ill deserve our attention; but it
is supposed, not without a considerable degree of probability, that the
invasion of Severus is connected with the most shining period of the
British history or fable. Fingal, whose fame, with that of his heroes
and bards, has been revived in our language by a recent publication, is
said to have commanded the Caledonians in that memorable juncture, to
have eluded the power of Severus, and to have obtained a signal victory
on the banks of the Carun, in which the son of the King of the World,
Caracul, fled from his arms along the fields of his pride.  Something of
a doubtful mist still hangs over these Highland traditions; nor can it
be entirely dispelled by the most ingenious researches of modern
criticism;  but if we could, with safety, indulge the pleasing
supposition, that Fingal lived, and that Ossian sung, the striking
contrast of the situation and manners of the contending nations might
amuse a philosophic mind. The parallel would be little to the advantage
of the more civilized people, if we compared the unrelenting revenge of
Severus with the generous clemency of Fingal; the timid and brutal
cruelty of Caracalla with the bravery, the tenderness, the elegant
genius of Ossian; the mercenary chiefs, who, from motives of fear or
interest, served under the imperial standard, with the free-born
warriors who started to arms at the voice of the king of Morven; if, in
a word, we contemplated the untutored Caledonians, glowing with the warm
virtues of nature, and the degenerate Romans, polluted with the mean
vices of wealth and slavery.

The declining health and last illness of Severus inflamed the wild
ambition and black passions of Caracalla's soul. Impatient of any delay
or division of empire, he attempted, more than once, to shorten the
small remainder of his father's days, and endeavored, but without
success, to excite a mutiny among the troops.  The old emperor had often
censured the misguided lenity of Marcus, who, by a single act of
justice, might have saved the Romans from the tyranny of his worthless
son. Placed in the same situation, he experienced how easily the rigor
of a judge dissolves away in the tenderness of a parent. He deliberated,
he threatened, but he could not punish; and this last and only instance
of mercy was more fatal to the empire than a long series of cruelty.
The disorder of his mind irritated the pains of his body; he wished
impatiently for death, and hastened the instant of it by his impatience.
He expired at York in the sixty-fifth year of his life, and in the
eighteenth of a glorious and successful reign. In his last moments he
recommended concord to his sons, and his sons to the army. The salutary
advice never reached the heart, or even the understanding, of the
impetuous youths; but the more obedient troops, mindful of their oath of
allegiance, and of the authority of their deceased master, resisted the
solicitations of Caracalla, and proclaimed both brothers emperors of
Rome. The new princes soon left the Caledonians in peace, returned to
the capital, celebrated their father's funeral with divine honors, and
were cheerfully acknowledged as lawful sovereigns, by the senate, the
people, and the provinces. Some preeminence of rank seems to have been
allowed to the elder brother; but they both administered the empire with
equal and independent power.

Such a divided form of government would have proved a source of discord
between the most affectionate brothers. It was impossible that it could
long subsist between two implacable enemies, who neither desired nor
could trust a reconciliation. It was visible that one only could reign,
and that the other must fall; and each of them, judging of his rival's
designs by his own, guarded his life with the most jealous vigilance
from the repeated attacks of poison or the sword. Their rapid journey
through Gaul and Italy, during which they never ate at the same table,
or slept in the same house, displayed to the provinces the odious
spectacle of fraternal discord. On their arrival at Rome, they
immediately divided the vast extent of the imperial palace.  No
communication was allowed between their apartments; the doors and
passages were diligently fortified, and guards posted and relieved with
the same strictness as in a besieged place. The emperors met only in
public, in the presence of their afflicted mother; and each surrounded
by a numerous train of armed followers. Even on these occasions of
ceremony, the dissimulation of courts could ill disguise the rancor of
their hearts.

This latent civil war already distracted the whole government, when a
scheme was suggested that seemed of mutual benefit to the hostile
brothers. It was proposed, that since it was impossible to reconcile
their minds, they should separate their interest, and divide the empire
between them. The conditions of the treaty were already drawn with some
accuracy. It was agreed that Caracalla, as the elder brother should
remain in possession of Europe and the western Africa; and that he
should relinquish the sovereignty of Asia and Egypt to Geta, who might
fix his residence at Alexandria or Antioch, cities little inferior to
Rome itself in wealth and greatness; that numerous armies should be
constantly encamped on either side of the Thracian Bosphorus, to guard
the frontiers of the rival monarchies; and that the senators of European
extraction should acknowledge the sovereign of Rome, whilst the natives
of Asia followed the emperor of the East. The tears of the empress Julia
interrupted the negotiation, the first idea of which had filled every
Roman breast with surprise and indignation. The mighty mass of conquest
was so intimately united by the hand of time and policy, that it
required the most forcible violence to rend it asunder. The Romans had
reason to dread, that the disjointed members would soon be reduced by a
civil war under the dominion of one master; but if the separation was
permanent, the division of the provinces must terminate in the
dissolution of an empire whose unity had hitherto remained inviolate.

Had the treaty been carried into execution, the sovereign of Europe
might soon have been the conqueror of Asia; but Caracalla obtained an
easier, though a more guilty, victory. He artfully listened to his
mother's entreaties, and consented to meet his brother in her apartment,
on terms of peace and reconciliation. In the midst of their
conversation, some centurions, who had contrived to conceal themselves,
rushed with drawn swords upon the unfortunate Geta. His distracted
mother strove to protect him in her arms; but, in the unavailing
struggle, she was wounded in the hand, and covered with the blood of her
younger son, while she saw the elder animating and assisting  the fury
of the assassins. As soon as the deed was perpetrated, Caracalla, with
hasty steps, and horror in his countenance, ran towards the Prætorian
camp, as his only refuge, and threw himself on the ground before the
statues of the tutelar deities.  The soldiers attempted to raise and
comfort him. In broken and disordered words he informed them of his
imminent danger, and fortunate escape; insinuating that he had prevented
the designs of his enemy, and declared his resolution to live and die
with his faithful troops. Geta had been the favorite of the soldiers;
but complaint was useless, revenge was dangerous, and they still
reverenced the son of Severus. Their discontent died away in idle
murmurs, and Caracalla soon convinced them of the justice of his cause,
by distributing in one lavish donative the accumulated treasures of his
father's reign.  The real sentimentsof the soldiers alone were of
importance to his power or safety. Their declaration in his favor
commanded the dutiful professionsof the senate. The obsequious assembly
was always prepared to ratify the decision of fortune; * but as
Caracalla wished to assuage the first emotions of public indignation,
the name of Geta was mentioned with decency, and he received the funeral
honors of a Roman emperor.  Posterity, in pity to his misfortune, has
cast a veil over his vices. We consider that young prince as the
innocent victim of his brother's ambition, without recollecting that he
himself wanted power, rather than inclination, to consummate the same
attempts of revenge and murder.

The crime went not unpunished. Neither business, nor pleasure, nor
flattery, could defend Caracalla from the stings of a guilty conscience;
and he confessed, in the anguish of a tortured mind, that his disordered
fancy often beheld the angry forms of his father and his brother rising
into life, to threaten and upbraid him.  The consciousness of his crime
should have induced him to convince mankind, by the virtues of his
reign, that the bloody deed had been the involuntary effect of fatal
necessity. But the repentance of Caracalla only prompted him to remove
from the world whatever could remind him of his guilt, or recall the
memory of his murdered brother. On his return from the senate to the
palace, he found his mother in the company of several noble matrons,
weeping over the untimely fate of her younger son. The jealous emperor
threatened them with instant death; the sentence was executed against
Fadilla, the last remaining daughter of the emperor Marcus; * and even
the afflicted Julia was obliged to silence her lamentations, to suppress
her sighs, and to receive the assassin with smiles of joy and
approbation. It was computed that, under the vague appellation of the
friends of Geta, above twenty thousand persons of both sexes suffered
death. His guards and freedmen, the ministers of his serious business,
and the companions of his looser hours, those who by his interest had
been promoted to any commands in the army or provinces, with the long
connected chain of their dependants, were included in the proscription;
which endeavored to reach every one who had maintained the smallest
correspondence with Geta, who lamented his death, or who even mentioned
his name.  Helvius Pertinax, son to the prince of that name, lost his
life by an unseasonable witticism.  It was a sufficient crime of Thrasea
Priscus to be descended from a family in which the love of liberty
seemed an hereditary quality.  The particular causes of calumny and
suspicion were at length exhausted; and when a senator was accused of
being a secret enemy to the government, the emperor was satisfied with
the general proof that he was a man of property and virtue. From this
well-grounded principle he frequently drew the most bloody inferences.

Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Marcinus. -- Part II.

The execution of so many innocent citizens was bewailed by the secret
tears of their friends and families. The death of Papinian, the
Prætorian Præfect, was lamented as a public calamity.  During the last
seven years of Severus, he had exercised the most important offices of
the state, and, by his salutary influence, guided the emperor's steps in
the paths of justice and moderation. In full assurance of his virtue and
abilities, Severus, on his death-bed, had conjured him to watch over the
prosperity and union of the Imperial family.  The honest labors of
Papinian served only to inflame the hatred which Caracalla had already
conceived against his father's minister. After the murder of Geta, the
Præfect was commanded to exert the powers of his skill and eloquence in
a studied apology for that atrocious deed. The philosophic Seneca had
condescended to compose a similar epistle to the senate, in the name of
the son and assassin of Agrippina.  "That it was easier to commit than
to justify a parricide," was the glorious reply of Papinian;  who did
not hesitate between the loss of life and that of honor. Such intrepid
virtue, which had escaped pure and unsullied from the intrigues courts,
the habits of business, and the arts of his profession, reflects more
lustre on the memory of Papinian, than all his great employments, his
numerous writings, and the superior reputation as a lawyer, which he has
preserved through every age of the Roman jurisprudence.

It had hitherto been the peculiar felicity of the Romans, and in the
worst of times the consolation, that the virtue of the emperors was
active, and their vice indolent. Augustus, Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus
visited their extensive dominions in person, and their progress was
marked by acts of wisdom and beneficence. The tyranny of Tiberius, Nero,
and Domitian, who resided almost constantly at Rome, or in the adjacent
was confined to the senatorial and equestrian orders.  But Caracalla was
the common enemy of mankind. He left capital (and he never returned to
it) about a year after the murder of Geta. The rest of his reign was
spent in the several provinces of the empire, particularly those of the
East, and province was by turns the scene of his rapine and cruelty. The
senators, compelled by fear to attend his capricious motions, were
obliged to provide daily entertainments at an immense expense, which he
abandoned with contempt to his guards; and to erect, in every city,
magnificent palaces and theatres, which he either disdained to visit, or
ordered immediately thrown down. The most wealthy families ruined by
partial fines and confiscations, and the great body of his subjects
oppressed by ingenious and aggravated taxes.  In the midst of peace, and
upon the slightest provocation, he issued his commands, at Alexandria,
in Egypt for a general massacre. From a secure post in the temple of
Serapis, he viewed and directed the slaughter of many thousand citizens,
as well as strangers, without distinguishing the number or the crime of
the sufferers; since as he coolly informed the senate, allthe
Alexandrians, those who perished, and those who had escaped, were alike
guilty.

The wise instructions of Severus never made any lasting impression on
the mind of his son, who, although not destitute of imagination and
eloquence, was equally devoid of judgment and humanity.  One dangerous
maxim, worthy of a tyrant, was remembered and abused by Caracalla. "To
secure the affections of the army, and to esteem the rest of his
subjects as of little moment."  But the liberality of the father had
been restrained by prudence, and his indulgence to the troops was
tempered by firmness and authority. The careless profusion of the son
was the policy of one reign, and the inevitable ruin both of the army
and of the empire. The vigor of the soldiers, instead of being confirmed
by the severe discipline of camps, melted away in the luxury of cities.
The excessive increase of their pay and donatives  exhausted the state
to enrich the military order, whose modesty in peace, and service in
war, is best secured by an honorable poverty. The demeanor of Caracalla
was haughty and full of pride; but with the troops he forgot even the
proper dignity of his rank, encouraged their insolent familiarity, and,
neglecting the essential duties of a general, affected to imitate the
dress and manners of a common soldier.

It was impossible that such a character, and such conduct as that of
Caracalla, could inspire either love or esteem; but as long as his vices
were beneficial to the armies, he was secure from the danger of
rebellion. A secret conspiracy, provoked by his own jealousy, was fatal
to the tyrant. The Prætorian præfecture was divided between two
ministers. The military department was intrusted to Adventus, an
experienced rather than able soldier; and the civil affairs were
transacted by Opilius Macrinus, who, by his dexterity in business, had
raised himself, with a fair character, to that high office. But his
favor varied with the caprice of the emperor, and his life might depend
on the slightest suspicion, or the most casual circumstance. Malice or
fanaticism had suggested to an African, deeply skilled in the knowledge
of futurity, a very dangerous prediction, that Macrinus and his son were
destined to reign over the empire. The report was soon diffused through
the province; and when the man was sent in chains to Rome, he still
asserted, in the presence of the præfect of the city, the faith of his
prophecy. That magistrate, who had received the most pressing
instructions to inform himself of the successorsof Caracalla,
immediately communicated the examination of the African to the Imperial
court, which at that time resided in Syria. But, notwithstanding the
diligence of the public messengers, a friend of Macrinus found means to
apprise him of the approaching danger. The emperor received the letters
from Rome; and as he was then engaged in the conduct of a chariot race,
he delivered them unopened to the Prætorian Præfect, directing him to
despatch the ordinary affairs, and to report the more important business
that might be contained in them. Macrinus read his fate, and resolved to
prevent it. He inflamed the discontents of some inferior officers, and
employed the hand of Martialis, a desperate soldier, who had been
refused the rank of centurion. The devotion of Caracalla prompted him to
make a pilgrimage from Edessa to the celebrated temple of the Moon at
Carrhæ. * He was attended by a body of cavalry: but having stopped on
the road for some necessary occasion, his guards preserved a respectful
distance, and Martialis, approaching his person under a presence of
duty, stabbed him with a dagger. The bold assassin was instantly killed
by a Scythian archer of the Imperial guard. Such was the end of a
monster whose life disgraced human nature, and whose reign accused the
patience of the Romans.  The grateful soldiers forgot his vices,
remembered only his partial liberality, and obliged the senate to
prostitute their own dignity and that of religion, by granting him a
place among the gods. Whilst he was upon earth, Alexander the Great was
the only hero whom this god deemed worthy his admiration. He assumed the
name and ensigns of Alexander, formed a Macedonian phalanx of guards,
persecuted the disciples of Aristotle, and displayed, with a puerile
enthusiasm, the only sentiment by which he discovered any regard for
virtue or glory. We can easily conceive, that after the battle of Narva,
and the conquest of Poland, Charles XII. (though he still wanted the
more elegant accomplishments of the son of Philip) might boast of having
rivalled his valor and magnanimity; but in no one action of his life did
Caracalla express the faintest resemblance of the Macedonian hero,
except in the murder of a great number of his own and of his father's
friends.

After the extinction of the house of Severus, the Roman world remained
three days without a master. The choice of the army (for the authority
of a distant and feeble senate was little regarded) hung in anxious
suspense, as no candidate presented himself whose distinguished birth
and merit could engage their attachment and unite their suffrages. The
decisive weight of the Prætorian guards elevated the hopes of their
præfects, and these powerful ministers began to assert their legalclaim
to fill the vacancy of the Imperial throne. Adventus, however, the
senior præfect, conscious of his age and infirmities, of his small
reputation, and his smaller abilities, resigned the dangerous honor to
the crafty ambition of his colleague Macrinus, whose well-dissembled
grief removed all suspicion of his being accessary to his master's
death.  The troops neither loved nor esteemed his character. They cast
their eyes around in search of a competitor, and at last yielded with
reluctance to his promises of unbounded liberality and indulgence. A
short time after his accession, he conferred on his son Diadumenianus,
at the age of only ten years, the Imperial title, and the popular name
of Antoninus. The beautiful figure of the youth, assisted by an
additional donative, for which the ceremony furnished a pretext, might
attract, it was hoped, the favor of the army, and secure the doubtful
throne of Macrinus.

The authority of the new sovereign had been ratified by the cheerful
submission of the senate and provinces. They exulted in their unexpected
deliverance from a hated tyrant, and it seemed of little consequence to
examine into the virtues of the successor of Caracalla. But as soon as
the first transports of joy and surprise had subsided, they began to
scrutinize the merits of Macrinus with a critical severity, and to
arraign the nasty choice of the army. It had hitherto been considered as
a fundamental maxim of the constitution, that the emperor must be always
chosen in the senate, and the sovereign power, no longer exercised by
the whole body, was always delegated to one of its members. But Macrinus
was not a senator.  The sudden elevation of the Prætorian præfects
betrayed the meanness of their origin; and the equestrian order was
still in possession of that great office, which commanded with arbitrary
sway the lives and fortunes of the senate. A murmur of indignation was
heard, that a man, whose obscure  extraction had never been illustrated
by any signal service, should dare to invest himself with the purple,
instead of bestowing it on some distinguished senator, equal in birth
and dignity to the splendor of the Imperial station. As soon as the
character of Macrinus was surveyed by the sharp eye of discontent, some
vices, and many defects, were easily discovered. The choice of his
ministers was in many instances justly censured, and the dissatisfied
people, with their usual candor, accused at once his indolent tameness
and his excessive severity.

His rash ambition had climbed a height where it was difficult to stand
with firmness, and impossible to fall without instant destruction.
Trained in the arts of courts and the forms of civil business, he
trembled in the presence of the fierce and undisciplined multitude, over
whom he had assumed the command; his military talents were despised, and
his personal courage suspected; a whisper that circulated in the camp,
disclosed the fatal secret of the conspiracy against the late emperor,
aggravated the guilt of murder by the baseness of hypocrisy, and
heightened contempt by detestation. To alienate the soldiers, and to
provoke inevitable ruin, the character of a reformer was only wanting;
and such was the peculiar hardship of his fate, that Macrinus was
compelled to exercise that invidious office. The prodigality of
Caracalla had left behind it a long train of ruin and disorder; and if
that worthless tyrant had been capable of reflecting on the sure
consequences of his own conduct, he would perhaps have enjoyed the dark
prospect of the distress and calamities which he bequeathed to his
successors.

In the management of this necessary reformation, Macrinus proceeded with
a cautious prudence, which would have restored health and vigor to the
Roman army in an easy and almost imperceptible manner. To the soldiers
already engaged in the service, he was constrained to leave the
dangerous privileges and extravagant pay given by Caracalla; but the new
recruits were received on the more moderate though liberal establishment
of Severus, and gradually formed to modesty and obedience.  One fatal
error destroyed the salutary effects of this judicious plan. The
numerous army, assembled in the East by the late emperor, instead of
being immediately dispersed by Macrinus through the several provinces,
was suffered to remain united in Syria, during the winter that followed
his elevation. In the luxurious idleness of their quarters, the troops
viewed their strength and numbers, communicated their complaints, and
revolved in their minds the advantages of another revolution. The
veterans, instead of being flattered by the advantageous distinction,
were alarmed by the first steps of the emperor, which they considered as
the presage of his future intentions. The recruits, with sullen
reluctance, entered on a service, whose labors were increased while its
rewards were diminished by a covetous and unwarlike sovereign. The
murmurs of the army swelled with impunity into seditious clamors; and
the partial mutinies betrayed a spirit of discontent and disaffection
that waited only for the slightest occasion to break out on every side
into a general rebellion. To minds thus disposed, the occasion soon
presented itself.

The empress Julia had experienced all the vicissitudes of fortune. From
an humble station she had been raised to greatness, only to taste the
superior bitterness of an exalted rank. She was doomed to weep over the
death of one of her sons, and over the life of the other. The cruel fate
of Caracalla, though her good sense must have long taught her to expect
it, awakened the feelings of a mother and of an empress. Notwithstanding
the respectful civility expressed by the usurper towards the widow of
Severus, she descended with a painful struggle into the condition of a
subject, and soon withdrew herself, by a voluntary death, from the
anxious and humiliating dependence.  * Julia Mæsa, her sister, was
ordered to leave the court and Antioch. She retired to Emesa with an
immense fortune, the fruit of twenty years' favor accompanied by her two
daughters, Soæmias and Mamæ, each of whom was a widow, and each had an
only son. Bassianus,  for that was the name of the son of Soæmias, was
consecrated to the honorable ministry of high priest of the Sun; and
this holy vocation, embraced either from prudence or superstition,
contributed to raise the Syrian youth to the empire of Rome. A numerous
body of troops was stationed at Emesa; and as the severe discipline of
Macrinus had constrained them to pass the winter encamped, they were
eager to revenge the cruelty of such unaccustomed hardships. The
soldiers, who resorted in crowds to the temple of the Sun, beheld with
veneration and delight the elegant dress and figure of the young
pontiff; they recognized, or they thought that they recognized, the
features of Caracalla, whose memory they now adored. The artful Mæsa saw
and cherished their rising partiality, and readily sacrificing her
daughter's reputation to the fortune of her grandson, she insinuated
that Bassianus was the natural son of their murdered sovereign. The sums
distributed by her emissaries with a lavish hand silenced every
objection, and the profusion sufficiently proved the affinity, or at
least the resemblance, of Bassianus with the great original. The young
Antoninus (for he had assumed and polluted that respectable name) was
declared emperor by the troops of Emesa, asserted his hereditary right,
and called aloud on the armies to follow the standard of a young and
liberal prince, who had taken up arms to revenge his father's death and
the oppression of the military order.

Whilst a conspiracy of women and eunuchs was concerted with prudence,
and conducted with rapid vigor, Macrinus, who, by a decisive motion,
might have crushed his infant enemy, floated between the opposite
extremes of terror and security, which alike fixed him inactive at
Antioch. A spirit of rebellion diffused itself through all the camps and
garrisons of Syria, successive detachments murdered their officers,  and
joined the party of the rebels; and the tardy restitution of military
pay and privileges was imputed to the acknowledged weakness of Macrinus.
At length he marched out of Antioch, to meet the increasing and zealous
army of the young pretender. His own troops seemed to take the field
with faintness and reluctance; but, in the heat of the battle,  the
Prætorian guards, almost by an involuntary impulse, asserted the
superiority of their valor and discipline. The rebel ranks were broken;
when the mother and grandmother of the Syrian prince, who, according to
their eastern custom, had attended the army, threw themselves from their
covered chariots, and, by exciting the compassion of the soldiers,
endeavored to animate their drooping courage. Antoninus himself, who, in
the rest of his life, never acted like a man, in this important crisis
of his fate, approved himself a hero, mounted his horse, and, at the
head of his rallied troops, charged sword in hand among the thickest of
the enemy; whilst the eunuch Gannys, * whose occupations had been
confined to female cares and the soft luxury of Asia, displayed the
talents of an able and experienced general. The battle still raged with
doubtful violence, and Macrinus might have obtained the victory, had he
not betrayed his own cause by a shameful and precipitate flight. His
cowardice served only to protract his life a few days, and to stamp
deserved ignominy on his misfortunes. It is scarcely necessary to add,
that his son Diadumenianus was involved in the same fate. As soon as the
stubborn Prætorians could be convinced that they fought for a prince who
had basely deserted them, they surrendered to the conqueror: the
contending parties of the Roman army, mingling tears of joy and
tenderness, united under the banners of the imagined son of Caracalla,
and the East acknowledged with pleasure the first emperor of Asiatic
extraction.

The letters of Macrinus had condescended to inform the senate of the
slight disturbance occasioned by an impostor in Syria, and a decree
immediately passed, declaring the rebel and his family public enemies;
with a promise of pardon, however, to such of his deluded adherents as
should merit it by an immediate return to their duty. During the twenty
days that elapsed from the declaration of the victory of Antoninus, (for
in so short an interval was the fate of the Roman world decided,) the
capital and the provinces, more especially those of the East, were
distracted with hopes and fears, agitated with tumult, and stained with
a useless effusion of civil blood, since whosoever of the rivals
prevailed in Syria must reign over the empire. The specious letters in
which the young conqueror announced his victory to the obedient senate
were filled with professions of virtue and moderation; the shining
examples of Marcus and Augustus, he should ever consider as the great
rule of his administration; and he affected to dwell with pride on the
striking resemblance of his own age and fortunes with those of Augustus,
who in the earliest youth had revenged, by a successful war, the murder
of his father. By adopting the style of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, son
of Antoninus and grandson of Severus, he tacitly asserted his hereditary
claim to the empire; but, by assuming the tribunitian and proconsular
powers before they had been conferred on him by a decree of the senate,
he offended the delicacy of Roman prejudice. This new and injudicious
violation of the constitution was probably dictated either by the
ignorance of his Syrian courtiers, or the fierce disdain of his military
followers.

As the attention of the new emperor was diverted by the most trifling
amusements, he wasted many months in his luxurious progress from Syria
to Italy, passed at Nicomedia his first winter after his victory, and
deferred till the ensuing summer his triumphal entry into the capital. A
faithful picture, however, which preceded his arrival, and was placed by
his immediate order over the altar of Victory in the senate house,
conveyed to the Romans the just but unworthy resemblance of his person
and manners. He was drawn in his sacerdotal robes of silk and gold,
after the loose flowing fashion of the Medes and Phnicians; his head was
covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous collars and bracelets were
adorned with gems of an inestimable value. His eyebrows were tinged with
black, and his cheeks painted with an artificial red and white.  The
grave senators confessed with a sigh, that, after having long
experienced the stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at
length humbled beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental despotism.

The Sun was worshipped at Emesa, under the name of Elagabalus,  and
under the form of a black conical stone, which, as it was universally
believed, had fallen from heaven on that sacred place. To this
protecting deity, Antoninus, not without some reason, ascribed his
elevation to the throne. The display of superstitious gratitude was the
only serious business of his reign. The triumph of the god of Emesa over
all the religions of the earth, was the great object of his zeal and
vanity; and the appellation of Elagabalus (for he presumed as pontiff
and favorite to adopt that sacred name) was dearer to him than all the
titles of Imperial greatness. In a solemn procession through the streets
of Rome, the way was strewed with gold dust; the black stone, set in
precious gems, was placed on a chariot drawn by six milk-white horses
richly caparisoned. The pious emperor held the reins, and, supported by
his ministers, moved slowly backwards, that he might perpetually enjoy
the felicity of the divine presence. In a magnificent temple raised on
the Palatine Mount, the sacrifices of the god Elagabalus were celebrated
with every circumstance of cost and solemnity. The richest wines, the
most extraordinary victims, and the rarest aromatics, were profusely
consumed on his altar. Around the altar, a chorus of Syrian damsels
performed their lascivious dances to the sound of barbarian music,
whilst the gravest personages of the state and army, clothed in long
Phnician tunics, officiated in the meanest functions, with affected zeal
and secret indignation.

Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Marcinus. -- Part III.

To this temple, as to the common centre of religious worship, the
Imperial fanatic attempted to remove the Ancilia, the Palladium,  and
all the sacred pledges of the faith of Numa. A crowd of inferior deities
attended in various stations the majesty of the god of Emesa; but his
court was still imperfect, till a female of distinguished rank was
admitted to his bed. Pallas had been first chosen for his consort; but
as it was dreaded lest her warlike terrors might affright the soft
delicacy of a Syrian deity, the Moon, adorned by the Africans under the
name of Astarte, was deemed a more suitable companion for the Sun. Her
image, with the rich offerings of her temple as a marriage portion, was
transported with solemn pomp from Carthage to Rome, and the day of these
mystic nuptials was a general festival in the capital and throughout the
empire.

A rational voluptuary adheres with invariable respect to the temperate
dictates of nature, and improves the gratifications of sense by social
intercourse, endearing connections, and the soft coloring of taste and
the imagination. But Elagabalus, (I speak of the emperor of that name,)
corrupted by his youth, his country, and his fortune, abandoned himself
to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury, and soon found disgust
and satiety in the midst of his enjoyments. The inflammatory powers of
art were summoned to his aid: the confused multitude of women, of wines,
and of dishes, and the studied variety of attitude and sauces, served to
revive his languid appetites. New terms and new inventions in these
sciences, the only ones cultivated and patronized by the monarch,
signalized his reign, and transmitted his infamy to succeeding times. A
capricious prodigality supplied the want of taste and elegance; and
whilst Elagabalus lavished away the treasures of his people in the
wildest extravagance, his own voice and that of his flatterers applauded
a spirit of magnificence unknown to the tameness of his predecessors. To
confound the order of seasons and climates,  to sport with the passions
and prejudices of his subjects, and to subvert every law of nature and
decency, were in the number of his most delicious amusements. A long
train of concubines, and a rapid succession of wives, among whom was a
vestal virgin, ravished by force from her sacred asylum,  were
insufficient to satisfy the impotence of his passions. The master of the
Roman world affected to copy the dress and manners of the female sex,
preferred the distaff to the sceptre, and dishonored the principal
dignities of the empire by distributing them among his numerous lovers;
one of whom was publicly invested with the title and authority of the
emperor's, or, as he more properly styled himself, of the empress's
husband.

It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have been
adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice.  Yet, confining ourselves
to the public scenes displayed before the Roman people, and attested by
grave and contemporary historians, their inexpressible infamy surpasses
that of any other age or country. The license of an eastern monarch is
secluded from the eye of curiosity by the inaccessible walls of his
seraglio. The sentiments of honor and gallantry have introduced a
refinement of pleasure, a regard for decency, and a respect for the
public opinion, into the modern courts of Europe; * but the corrupt and
opulent nobles of Rome gratified every vice that could be collected from
the mighty conflux of nations and manners. Secure of impunity, careless
of censure, they lived without restraint in the patient and humble
society of their slaves and parasites. The emperor, in his turn, viewing
every rank of his subjects with the same contemptuous indifference,
asserted without control his sovereign privilege of lust and luxury.

The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the
same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover
some nice difference of age, character, or station, to justify the
partial distinction. The licentious soldiers, who had raised to the
throne the dissolute son of Caracalla, blushed at their ignominious
choice, and turned with disgust from that monster, to contemplate with
pleasure the opening virtues of his cousin Alexander, the son of Mamæa.
The crafty Mæsa, sensible that her grandson Elagabalus must inevitably
destroy himself by his own vices, had provided another and surer support
of her family. Embracing a favorable moment of fondness and devotion,
she had persuaded the young emperor to adopt Alexander, and to invest
him with the title of Cæsar, that his own divine occupations might be no
longer interrupted by the care of the earth. In the second rank that
amiable prince soon acquired the affections of the public, and excited
the tyrant's jealousy, who resolved to terminate the dangerous
competition, either by corrupting the manners, or by taking away the
life, of his rival. His arts proved unsuccessful; his vain designs were
constantly discovered by his own loquacious folly, and disappointed by
those virtuous and faithful servants whom the prudence of Mamæa had
placed about the person of her son. In a hasty sally of passion,
Elagabalus resolved to execute by force what he had been unable to
compass by fraud, and by a despotic sentence degraded his cousin from
the rank and honors of Cæsar. The message was received in the senate
with silence, and in the camp with fury. The Prætorian guards swore to
protect Alexander, and to revenge the dishonored majesty of the throne.
The tears and promises of the trembling Elagabalus, who only begged them
to spare his life, and to leave him in the possession of his beloved
Hierocles, diverted their just indignation; and they contented
themselves with empowering their præfects to watch over the safety of
Alexander, and the conduct of the emperor.

It was impossible that such a reconciliation should last, or that even
the mean soul of Elagabalus could hold an empire on such humiliating
terms of dependence. He soon attempted, by a dangerous experiment, to
try the temper of the soldiers. The report of the death of Alexander,
and the natural suspicion that he had been murdered, inflamed their
passions into fury, and the tempest of the camp could only be appeased
by the presence and authority of the popular youth. Provoked at this new
instance of their affection for his cousin, and their contempt for his
person, the emperor ventured to punish some of the leaders of the
mutiny. His unseasonable severity proved instantly fatal to his minions,
his mother, and himself. Elagabalus was massacred by the indignant
Prætorians, his mutilated corpse dragged through the streets of the
city, and thrown into the Tiber. His memory was branded with eternal
infamy by the senate; the justice of whose decree has been ratified by
posterity.

[See Island In The Tiber: Elagabalus was thrown into the Tiber]?

In the room of Elagabalus, his cousin Alexander was raised to the throne
by the Prætorian guards. His relation to the family of Severus, whose
name he assumed, was the same as that of his predecessor; his virtue and
his danger had already endeared him to the Romans, and the eager
liberality of the senate conferred upon him, in one day, the various
titles and powers of the Imperial dignity.  But as Alexander was a
modest and dutiful youth, of only seventeen years of age, the reins of
government were in the hands of two women, of his mother, Mamæa, and of
Mæsa, his grandmother. After the death of the latter, who survived but a
short time the elevation of Alexander, Mamæa remained the sole regent of
her son and of the empire.

In every age and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, of the
two sexes, has usurped the powers of the state, and confined the other
to the cares and pleasures of domestic life. In hereditary monarchies,
however, and especially in those of modern Europe, the gallant spirit of
chivalry, and the law of succession, have accustomed us to allow a
singular exception; and a woman is often acknowledged the absolute
sovereign of a great kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of
exercising the smallest employment, civil or military. But as the Roman
emperors were still considered as the generals and magistrates of the
republic, their wives and mothers, although distinguished by the name of
Augusta were never associated to their personal honors; and a female
reign would have appeared an inexpiable prodigy in the eyes of those
primitive Romans, who married without love, or loved without delicacy
and respect.  The haughty Agripina aspired, indeed, to share the honors
of the empire which she had conferred on her son; but her mad ambition,
detested by every citizen who felt for the dignity of Rome, was
disappointed by the artful firmness of Seneca and Burrhus.  The good
sense, or the indifference, of succeeding princes, restrained them from
offending the prejudices of their subjects; and it was reserved for the
profligate Elagabalus to discharge the acts of the senate with the name
of his mother Soæmias, who was placed by the side of the consuls, and
subscribed, as a regular member, the decrees of the legislative
assembly. Her more prudent sister, Mamæa, declined the useless and
odious prerogative, and a solemn law was enacted, excluding women
forever from the senate, and devoting to the infernal gods the head of
the wretch by whom this sanction should be violated.  The substance, not
the pageantry, of power. was the object of Mamæa's manly ambition. She
maintained an absolute and lasting empire over the mind of her son, and
in his affection the mother could not brook a rival. Alexander, with her
consent, married the daughter of a patrician; but his respect for his
father-in-law, and love for the empress, were inconsistent with the
tenderness of interest of Mamæa. The patrician was executed on the ready
accusation of treason, and the wife of Alexander driven with ignominy
from the palace, and banished into Africa.

Notwithstanding this act of jealous cruelty, as well as some instances
of avarice, with which Mamæa is charged, the general tenor of her
administration was equally for the benefit of her son and of the empire.
With the approbation of the senate, she chose sixteen of the wisest and
most virtuous senators as a perpetual council of state, before whom
every public business of moment was debated and determined. The
celebrated Ulpian, equally distinguished by his knowledge of, and his
respect for, the laws of Rome, was at their head; and the prudent
firmness of this aristocracy restored order and authority to the
government. As soon as they had purged the city from foreign
superstition and luxury, the remains of the capricious tyranny of
Elagabalus, they applied themselves to remove his worthless creatures
from every department of the public administration, and to supply their
places with men of virtue and ability. Learning, and the love of
justice, became the only recommendations for civil offices; valor, and
the love of discipline, the only qualifications for military
employments.

But the most important care of Mamæa and her wise counsellors, was to
form the character of the young emperor, on whose personal qualities the
happiness or misery of the Roman world must ultimately depend. The
fortunate soil assisted, and even prevented, the hand of cultivation. An
excellent understanding soon convinced Alexander of the advantages of
virtue, the pleasure of knowledge, and the necessity of labor. A natural
mildness and moderation of temper preserved him from the assaults of
passion, and the allurements of vice. His unalterable regard for his
mother, and his esteem for the wise Ulpian, guarded his unexperienced
youth from the poison of flattery. *

The simple journal of his ordinary occupations exhibits a pleasing
picture of an accomplished emperor,  and, with some allowance for the
difference of manners, might well deserve the imitation of modern
princes. Alexander rose early: the first moments of the day were
consecrated to private devotion, and his domestic chapel was filled with
the images of those heroes, who, by improving or reforming human life,
had deserved the grateful reverence of posterity. But as he deemed the
service of mankind the most acceptable worship of the gods, the greatest
part of his morning hours was employed in his council, where he
discussed public affairs, and determined private causes, with a patience
and discretion above his years. The dryness of business was relieved by
the charms of literature; and a portion of time was always set apart for
his favorite studies of poetry, history, and philosophy. The works of
Virgil and Horace, the republics of Plato and Cicero, formed his taste,
enlarged his understanding, and gave him the noblest ideas of man and
government. The exercises of the body succeeded to those of the mind;
and Alexander, who was tall, active, and robust, surpassed most of his
equals in the gymnastic arts. Refreshed by the use of the bath and a
slight dinner, he resumed, with new vigor, the business of the day; and,
till the hour of supper, the principal meal of the Romans, he was
attended by his secretaries, with whom he read and answered the
multitude of letters, memorials, and petitions, that must have been
addressed to the master of the greatest part of the world. His table was
served with the most frugal simplicity, and whenever he was at liberty
to consult his own inclination, the company consisted of a few select
friends, men of learning and virtue, amongst whom Ulpian was constantly
invited. Their conversation was familiar and instructive; and the pauses
were occasionally enlivened by the recital of some pleasing composition,
which supplied the place of the dancers, comedians, and even gladiators,
so frequently summoned to the tables of the rich and luxurious Romans.
The dress of Alexander was plain and modest, his demeanor courteous and
affable: at the proper hours his palace was open to all his subjects,
but the voice of a crier was heard, as in the Eleusinian mysteries,
pronouncing the same salutary admonition: "Let none enter these holy
walls, unless he is conscious of a pure and innocent mind."

Such a uniform tenor of life, which left not a moment for vice or folly,
is a better proof of the wisdom and justice of Alexander's government,
than all the trifling details preserved in the compilation of
Lampridius. Since the accession of Commodus, the Roman world had
experienced, during the term of forty years, the successive and various
vices of four tyrants. From the death of Elagabalus, it enjoyed an
auspicious calm of thirteen years. * The provinces, relieved from the
oppressive taxes invented by Caracalla and his pretended son, flourished
in peace and prosperity, under the administration of magistrates, who
were convinced by experience that to deserve the love of the subjects,
was their best and only method of obtaining the favor of their
sovereign. While some gentle restraints were imposed on the innocent
luxury of the Roman people, the price of provisions and the interest of
money, were reduced by the paternal care of Alexander, whose prudent
liberality, without distressing the industrious, supplied the wants and
amusements of the populace. The dignity, the freedom, the authority of
the senate was restored; and every virtuous senator might approach the
person of the emperor without a fear and without a blush.

The name of Antoninus, ennobled by the virtues of Pius and Marcus, had
been communicated by adoption to the dissolute Verus, and by descent to
the cruel Commodus. It became the honorable appellation of the sons of
Severus, was bestowed on young Diadumenianus, and at length prostituted
to the infamy of the high priest of Emesa. Alexander, though pressed by
the studied, and, perhaps, sincere importunity of the senate, nobly
refused the borrowed lustre of a name; whilst in his whole conduct he
labored to restore the glories and felicity of the age of the genuine
Antonines.

In the civil administration of Alexander, wisdom was enforced by power,
and the people, sensible of the public felicity, repaid their benefactor
with their love and gratitude. There still remained a greater, a more
necessary, but a more difficult enterprise; the reformation of the
military order, whose interest and temper, confirmed by long impunity,
rendered them impatient of the restraints of discipline, and careless of
the blessings of public tranquillity. In the execution of his design,
the emperor affected to display his love, and to conceal his fear of the
army. The most rigid economy in every other branch of the administration
supplied a fund of gold and silver for the ordinary pay and the
extraordinary rewards of the troops. In their marches he relaxed the
severe obligation of carrying seventeen days' provision on their
shoulders. Ample magazines were formed along the public roads, and as
soon as they entered the enemy's country, a numerous train of mules and
camels waited on their haughty laziness. As Alexander despaired of
correcting the luxury of his soldiers, he attempted, at least, to direct
it to objects of martial pomp and ornament, fine horses, splendid armor,
and shields enriched with silver and gold. He shared whatever fatigues
he was obliged to impose, visited, in person, the sick and wounded,
preserved an exact register of their services and his own gratitude, and
expressed on every occasion, the warmest regard for a body of men, whose
welfare, as he affected to declare, was so closely connected with that
of the state.  By the most gentle arts he labored to inspire the fierce
multitude with a sense of duty, and to restore at least a faint image of
that discipline to which the Romans owed their empire over so many other
nations, as warlike and more powerful than themselves. But his prudence
was vain, his courage fatal, and the attempt towards a reformation
served only to inflame the ills it was meant to cure.

The Prætorian guards were attached to the youth of Alexander. They loved
him as a tender pupil, whom they had saved from a tyrant's fury, and
placed on the Imperial throne. That amiable prince was sensible of the
obligation; but as his gratitude was restrained within the limits of
reason and justice, they soon were more dissatisfied with the virtues of
Alexander, than they had ever been with the vices of Elagabalus. Their
præfect, the wise Ulpian, was the friend of the laws and of the people;
he was considered as the enemy of the soldiers, and to his pernicious
counsels every scheme of reformation was imputed. Some trifling accident
blew up their discontent into a furious mutiny; and the civil war raged,
during three days, in Rome, whilst the life of that excellent minister
was defended by the grateful people. Terrified, at length, by the sight
of some houses in flames, and by the threats of a general conflagration,
the people yielded with a sigh, and left the virtuous but unfortunate
Ulpian to his fate. He was pursued into the Imperial palace, and
massacred at the feet of his master, who vainly strove to cover him with
the purple, and to obtain his pardon from the inexorable soldiers. *
Such was the deplorable weakness of government, that the emperor was
unable to revenge his murdered friend and his insulted dignity, without
stooping to the arts of patience and dissimulation. Epagathus, the
principal leader of the mutiny, was removed from Rome, by the honorable
employment of præfect of Egypt: from that high rank he was gently
degraded to the government of Crete; and when at length, his popularity
among the guards was effaced by time and absence, Alexander ventured to
inflict the tardy but deserved punishment of his crimes.  Under the
reign of a just and virtuous prince, the tyranny of the army threatened
with instant death his most faithful ministers, who were suspected of an
intention to correct their intolerable disorders. The historian Dion
Cassius had commanded the Pannonian legions with the spirit of ancient
discipline. Their brethren of Rome, embracing the common cause of
military license, demanded the head of the reformer. Alexander, however,
instead of yielding to their seditious clamors, showed a just sense of
his merit and services, by appointing him his colleague in the
consulship, and defraying from his own treasury the expense of that vain
dignity: but as was justly apprehended, that if the soldiers beheld him
with the ensigns of his office, they would revenge the insult in his
blood, the nominal first magistrate of the state retired, by the
emperor's advice, from the city, and spent the greatest part of his
consulship at his villas in Campania.

Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Marcinus. -- Part IV.

The lenity of the emperor confirmed the insolence of the troops; the
legions imitated the example of the guards, and defended their
prerogative of licentiousness with the same furious obstinacy. The
administration of Alexander was an unavailing struggle against the
corruption of his age. In llyricum, in Mauritania, in Armenia, in
Mesopotamia, in Germany, fresh mutinies perpetually broke out; his
officers were murdered, his authority was insulted, and his life at last
sacrificed to the fierce discontents of the army.  One particular fact
well deserves to be recorded, as it illustrates the manners of the
troops, and exhibits a singular instance of their return to a sense of
duty and obedience. Whilst the emperor lay at Antioch, in his Persian
expedition, the particulars of which we shall hereafter relate, the
punishment of some soldiers, who had been discovered in the baths of
women, excited a sedition in the legion to which they belonged.
Alexander ascended his tribunal, and with a modest firmness represented
to the armed multitude the absolute necessity, as well as his inflexible
resolution, of correcting the vices introduced by his impure
predecessor, and of maintaining the discipline, which could not be
relaxed without the ruin of the Roman name and empire. Their clamors
interrupted his mild expostulation. "Reserve your shout," said the
undaunted emperor, "till you take the field against the Persians, the
Germans, and the Sarmatians. Be silent in the presence of your sovereign
and benefactor, who bestows upon you the corn, the clothing, and the
money of the provinces. Be silent, or I shall no longer style you
solders, but citizens,  if those indeed who disclaim the laws of Rome
deserve to be ranked among the meanest of the people." His menaces
inflamed the fury of the legion, and their brandished arms already
threatened his person. "Your courage," resumed the intrepid Alexander,
"would be more nobly displayed in the field of battle; meyou may
destroy, you cannot intimidate; and the severe justice of the republic
would punish your crime and revenge my death." The legion still
persisted in clamorous sedition, when the emperor pronounced, with a cud
voice, the decisive sentence, "Citizens!lay down your arms, and depart
in peace to your respective habitations." The tempest was instantly
appeased: the soldiers, filled with grief and shame, silently confessed
the justice of their punishment, and the power of discipline, yielded up
their arms and military ensigns, and retired in confusion, not to their
camp, but to the several inns of the city. Alexander enjoyed, during
thirty days, the edifying spectacle of their repentance; nor did he
restore them to their former rank in the army, till he had punished with
death those tribunes whose connivance had occasioned the mutiny. The
grateful legion served the emperor whilst living, and revenged him when
dead.

The resolutions of the multitude generally depend on a moment; and the
caprice of passion might equally determine the seditious legion to lay
down their arms at the emperor's feet, or to plunge them into his
breast. Perhaps, if this singular transaction had been investigated by
the penetration of a philosopher, we should discover the secret causes
which on that occasion authorized the boldness of the prince, and
commanded the obedience of the troops; and perhaps, if it had been
related by a judicious historian, we should find this action, worthy of
Cæsar himself, reduced nearer to the level of probability and the common
standard of the character of Alexander Severus. The abilities of that
amiable prince seem to have been inadequate to the difficulties of his
situation, the firmness of his conduct inferior to the purity of his
intentions. His virtues, as well as the vices of Elagabalus, contracted
a tincture of weakness and effeminacy from the soft climate of Syria, of
which he was a native; though he blushed at his foreign origin, and
listened with a vain complacency to the flattering genealogists, who
derived his race from the ancient stock of Roman nobility.  The pride
and avarice of his mother cast a shade on the glories of his reign; an
by exacting from his riper years the same dutiful obedience which she
had justly claimed from his unexperienced youth, Mamæa exposed to public
ridicule both her son's character and her own.  The fatigues of the
Persian war irritated the military discontent; the unsuccessful event *
degraded the reputation of the emperor as a general, and even as a
soldier. Every cause prepared, and every circumstance hastened, a
revolution, which distracted the Roman empire with a long series of
intestine calamities.

The dissolute tyranny of Commodus, the civil wars occasioned by his
death, and the new maxims of policy introduced by the house of Severus,
had all contributed to increase the dangerous power of the army, and to
obliterate the faint image of laws and liberty that was still impressed
on the minds of the Romans. The internal change, which undermined the
foundations of the empire, we have endeavored to explain with some
degree of order and perspicuity. The personal characters of the
emperors, their victories, laws, follies, and fortunes, can interest us
no farther than as they are connected with the general history of the
Decline and Fall of the monarchy. Our constant attention to that great
object will not suffer us to overlook a most important edict of
Antoninus Caracalla, which communicated to all the free inhabitants of
the empire the name and privileges of Roman citizens. His unbounded
liberality flowed not, however, from the sentiments of a generous mind;
it was the sordid result of avarice, and will naturally be illustrated
by some observations on the finances of that state, from the victorious
ages of the commonwealth to the reign of Alexander Severus.

The siege of Veii in Tuscany, the first considerable enterprise of the
Romans, was protracted to the tenth year, much less by the strength of
the place than by the unskillfulness of the besiegers. The unaccustomed
hardships of so many winter campaigns, at the distance of near twenty
miles from home,  required more than common encouragements; and the
senate wisely prevented the clamors of the people, by the institution of
a regular pay for the soldiers, which was levied by a general tribute,
assessed according to an equitable proportion on the property of the
citizens.  During more than two hundred years after the conquest of
Veii, the victories of the republic added less to the wealth than to the
power of Rome. The states of Italy paid their tribute in military
service only, and the vast force, both by sea and land, which was
exerted in the Punic wars, was maintained at the expense of the Romans
themselves. That high-spirited people (such is often the generous
enthusiasm of freedom) cheerfully submitted to the most excessive but
voluntary burdens, in the just confidence that they should speedily
enjoy the rich harvest of their labors. Their expectations were not
disappointed. In the course of a few years, the riches of Syracuse, of
Carthage, of Macedonia, and of Asia, were brought in triumph to Rome.
The treasures of Perseus alone amounted to near two millions sterling,
and the Roman people, the sovereign of so many nations, was forever
delivered from the weight of taxes.  The increasing revenue of the
provinces was found sufficient to defray the ordinary establishment of
war and government, and the superfluous mass of gold and silver was
deposited in the temple of Saturn, and reserved for any unforeseen
emergency of the state.

History has never, perhaps, suffered a greater or more irreparable
injury than in the loss of the curious register * bequeathed by Augustus
to the senate, in which that experienced prince so accurately balanced
the revenues and expenses of the Roman empire.  Deprived of this clear
and comprehensive estimate, we are reduced to collect a few imperfect
hints from such of the ancients as have accidentally turned aside from
the splendid to the more useful parts of history. We are informed that,
by the conquests of Pompey, the tributes of Asia were raised from fifty
to one hundred and thirty-five millions of drachms; or about four
millions and a half sterling.   Under the last and most indolent of the
Ptolemies, the revenue of Egypt is said to have amounted to twelve
thousand five hundred talents; a sum equivalent to more than two
millions and a half of our money, but which was afterwards considerably
improved by the more exact economy of the Romans, and the increase of
the trade of Æthiopia and India.  Gaul was enriched by rapine, as Egypt
was by commerce, and the tributes of those two great provinces have been
compared as nearly equal to each other in value.  The ten thousand
Euboic or Phnician talents, about four millions sterling,  which
vanquished Carthage was condemned to pay within the term of fifty years,
were a slight acknowledgment of the superiority of Rome,  and cannot
bear the least proportion with the taxes afterwards raised both on the
lands and on the persons of the inhabitants, when the fertile coast of
Africa was reduced into a province.

Spain, by a very singular fatality, was the Peru and Mexico of the old
world. The discovery of the rich western continent by the Phnicians, and
the oppression of the simple natives, who were compelled to labor in
their own mines for the benefit of strangers, form an exact type of the
more recent history of Spanish America.  The Phnicians were acquainted
only with the sea-coast of Spain; avarice, as well as ambition, carried
the arms of Rome and Carthage into the heart of the country, and almost
every part of the soil was found pregnant with copper, silver, and gold.
* Mention is made of a mine near Carthagena which yielded every day
twenty-five thousand drachmns of silver, or about three hundred thousand
pounds a year.  Twenty thousand pound weight of gold was annually
received from the provinces of Asturia, Gallicia, and Lusitania.

We want both leisure and materials to pursue this curious inquiry
through the many potent states that were annihilated in the Roman
empire. Some notion, however, may be formed of the revenue of the
provinces where considerable wealth had been deposited by nature, or
collected by man, if we observe the severe attention that was directed
to the abodes of solitude and sterility. Augustus once received a
petition from the inhabitants of Gyarus, humbly praying that they might
be relieved from one third of their excessive impositions. Their whole
tax amounted indeed to no more than one hundred and fifty drachms, or
about five pounds: but Gyarus was a little island, or rather a rock, of
the Ægean Sea, destitute of fresh water and every necessary of life, and
inhabited only by a few wretched fishermen.

From the faint glimmerings of such doubtful and scattered lights, we
should be inclined to believe, 1st, That (with every fair allowance for
the differences of times and circumstances) the general income of the
Roman provinces could seldom amount to less than fifteen or twenty
millions of our money;  and, 2dly, That so ample a revenue must have
been fully adequate to all the expenses of the moderate government
instituted by Augustus, whose court was the modest family of a private
senator, and whose military establishment was calculated for the defence
of the frontiers, without any aspiring views of conquest, or any serious
apprehension of a foreign invasion.

Notwithstanding the seeming probability of both these conclusions, the
latter of them at least is positively disowned by the language and
conduct of Augustus. It is not easy to determine whether, on this
occasion, he acted as the common father of the Roman world, or as the
oppressor of liberty; whether he wished to relieve the provinces, or to
impoverish the senate and the equestrian order. But no sooner had he
assumed the reins of government, than he frequently intimated the
insufficiency of the tributes, and the necessity of throwing an
equitable proportion of the public burden upon Rome and Italy.  In the
prosecution of this unpopular design, he advanced, however, by cautious
and well-weighed steps. The introduction of customs was followed by the
establishment of an excise, and the scheme of taxation was completed by
an artful assessment on the real and personal property of the Roman
citizens, who had been exempted from any kind of contribution above a
century and a half.

I. In a great empire like that of Rome, a natural balance of money must
have gradually established itself. It has been already observed, that as
the wealth of the provinces was attracted to the capital by the strong
hand of conquest and power, so a considerable part of it was restored to
the industrious provinces by the gentle influence of commerce and arts.
In the reign of Augustus and his successors, duties were imposed on
every kind of merchandise, which through a thousand channels flowed to
the great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatsoever manner the
law was expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the provincial
merchant, who paid the tax.  The rate of the customs varied from the
eighth to the fortieth part of the value of the commodity; and we have a
right to suppose that the variation was directed by the unalterable
maxims of policy; that a higher duty was fixed on the articles of luxury
than on those of necessity, and that the productions raised or
manufactured by the labor of the subjects of the empire were treated
with more indulgence than was shown to the pernicious, or at least the
unpopular commerce of Arabia and India.  There is still extant a long
but imperfect catalogue of eastern commodities, which about the time of
Alexander Severus were subject to the payment of duties; cinnamon,
myrrh, pepper, ginger, and the whole tribe of aromatics a great variety
of precious stones, among which the diamond was the most remarkable for
its price, and the emerald for its beauty;  Parthian and Babylonian
leather, cottons, silks, both raw and manufactured, ebony ivory, and
eunuchs.  We may observe that the use and value of those effeminate
slaves gradually rose with the decline of the empire.

II. The excise, introduced by Augustus after the civil wars, was
extremely moderate, but it was general. It seldom exceeded one per
cent.; but it comprehended whatever was sold in the markets or by public
auction, from the most considerable purchases of lands and houses, to
those minute objects which can only derive a value from their infinite
multitude and daily consumption. Such a tax, as it affects the body of
the people, has ever been the occasion of clamor and discontent. An
emperor well acquainted with the wants and resources of the state was
obliged to declare, by a public edict, that the support of the army
depended in a great measure on the produce of the excise. 1

III. When Augustus resolved to establish a permanent military force for
the defence of his government against foreign and domestic enemies, he
instituted a peculiar treasury for the pay of the soldiers, the rewards
of the veterans, and the extra-ordinary expenses of war. The ample
revenue of the excise, though peculiarly appropriated to those uses, was
found inadequate. To supply the deficiency, the emperor suggested a new
tax of five per cent. on all legacies and inheritances. But the nobles
of Rome were more tenacious of property than of freedom. Their indignant
murmurs were received by Augustus with his usual temper. He candidly
referred the whole business to the senate, and exhorted them to provide
for the public service by some other expedient of a less odious nature.
They were divided and perplexed. He insinuated to them, that their
obstinacy would oblige him to propose a general land tax and capitation.
They acquiesced in silence. . The new imposition on legacies and
inheritances was, however, mitigated by some restrictions. It did not
take place unless the object was of a certain value, most probably of
fifty or a hundred pieces of gold;  nor could it be exacted from the
nearest of kin on the father's side.  When the rights of nature and
poverty were thus secured, it seemed reasonable, that a stranger, or a
distant relation, who acquired an unexpected accession of fortune,
should cheerfully resign a twentieth part of it, for the benefit of the
state.

Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every wealthy community, was
most happily suited to the situation of the Romans, who could frame
their arbitrary wills, according to the dictates of reason or caprice,
without any restraint from the modern fetters of entails and
settlements. From various causes, the partiality of paternal affection
often lost its influence over the stern patriots of the commonwealth,
and the dissolute nobles of the empire; and if the father bequeathed to
his son the fourth part of his estate, he removed all ground of legal
complaint.  But a rich childish old man was a domestic tyrant, and his
power increased with his years and infirmities. A servile crowd, in
which he frequently reckoned prætors and consuls, courted his smiles,
pampered his avarice, applauded his follies, served his passions, and
waited with impatience for his death. The arts of attendance and
flattery were formed into a most lucrative science; those who professed
it acquired a peculiar appellation; and the whole city, according to the
lively descriptions of satire, was divided between two parties, the
hunters and their game.  Yet, while so many unjust and extravagant wills
were every day dictated by cunning and subscribed by folly, a few were
the result of rational esteem and virtuous gratitude. Cicero, who had so
often defended the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens, was
rewarded with legacies to the amount of a hundred and seventy thousand
pounds;  nor do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less
generous to that amiable orator.  Whatever was the motive of the
testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the twentieth part
of his estate: and in the course of two or three generations, the whole
property of the subject must have gradually passed through the coffers
of the state.

In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince, from a
desire of popularity, and perhaps from a blind impulse of benevolence,
conceived a wish of abolishing the oppression of the customs and excise.
The wisest senators applauded his magnanimity: but they diverted him
from the execution of a design which would have dissolved the strength
and resources of the republic.  Had it indeed been possible to realize
this dream of fancy, such princes as Trajan and the Antonines would
surely have embraced with ardor the glorious opportunity of conferring
so signal an obligation on mankind. Satisfied, however, with alleviating
the public burden, they attempted not to remove it. The mildness and
precision of their laws ascertained the rule and measure of taxation,
and protected the subject of every rank against arbitrary
interpretations, antiquated claims, and the insolent vexation of the
farmers of the revenue.  For it is somewhat singular, that, in every
age, the best and wisest of the Roman governors persevered in this
pernicious method of collecting the principal branches at least of the
excise and customs.

The sentiments, and, indeed, the situation, of Caracalla were very
different from those of the Antonines. Inattentive, or rather averse, to
the welfare of his people, he found himself under the necessity of
gratifying the insatiate avarice which he had excited in the army. Of
the several impositions introduced by Augustus, the twentieth on
inheritances and legacies was the most fruitful, as well as the most
comprehensive. As its influence was not confined to Rome or Italy, the
produce continually increased with the gradual extension of the Roman
City. The new citizens, though charged, on equal terms,  with the
payment of new taxes, which had not affected them as subjects, derived
an ample compensation from the rank they obtained, the privileges they
acquired, and the fair prospect of honors and fortune that was thrown
open to their ambition. But the favor which implied a distinction was
lost in the prodigality of Caracalla, and the reluctant provincials were
compelled to assume the vain title, and the real obligations, of Roman
citizens. * Nor was the rapacious son of Severus contented with such a
measure of taxation as had appeared sufficient to his moderate
predecessors. Instead of a twentieth, he exacted a tenth of all legacies
and inheritances; and during his reign (for the ancient proportion was
restored after his death) he crushed alike every part of the empire
under the weight of his iron sceptre.

When all the provincials became liable to the peculiar impositions of
Roman citizens, they seemed to acquire a legal exemption from the
tributes which they had paid in their former condition of subjects. Such
were not the maxims of government adopted by Caracalla and his pretended
son. The old as well as the new taxes were, at the same time, levied in
the provinces. It was reserved for the virtue of Alexander to relieve
them in a great measure from this intolerable grievance, by reducing the
tributes to a thirteenth part of the sum exacted at the time of his
accession.  It is impossible to conjecture the motive that engaged him
to spare so trifling a remnant of the public evil; but the noxious weed,
which had not been totally eradicated, again sprang up with the most
luxuriant growth, and in the succeeding age darkened the Roman world
with its deadly shade. In the course of this history, we shall be too
often summoned to explain the land tax, the capitation, and the heavy
contributions of corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted from the
provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the capital.

As long as Rome and Italy were respected as the centre of government, a
national spirit was preserved by the ancient, and insensibly imbibed by
the adopted, citizens. The principal commands of the army were filled by
men who had received a liberal education, were well instructed in the
advantages of laws and letters, and who had risen, by equal steps,
through the regular succession of civil and military honors.  To their
influence and example we may partly ascribe the modest obedience of the
legions during the two first centuries of the Imperial history.

But when the last enclosure of the Roman constitution was trampled down
by Caracalla, the separation of professions gradually succeeded to the
distinction of ranks. The more polished citizens of the internal
provinces were alone qualified to act as lawyers and magistrates. The
rougher trade of arms was abandoned to the peasants and barbarians of
the frontiers, who knew no country but their camp, no science but that
of war no civil laws, and scarcely those of military discipline. With
bloody hands, savage manners, and desperate resolutions, they sometimes
guarded, but much oftener subverted, the throne of the emperors.

Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
Maximin. Part I. The Elevation And Tyranny Of Maximin. -- Rebellion In
Africa And Italy, Under The Authority Of The Senate. -- Civil Wars And
Seditions. -- Violent Deaths Of Maximin And His Son, Of Maximus And
Balbinus, And Of The Three Gordians. -- Usurpation And Secular Games Of
Philip.

Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an
hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule. Is
it possible to relate without an indignant smile, that, on the father's
decease, the property of a nation, like that of a drove of oxen,
descends to his infant son, as yet unknown to mankind and to himself;
and that the bravest warriors and the wisest statesmen, relinquishing
their natural right to empire, approach the royal cradle with bended
knees and protestations of inviolable fidelity? Satire and declamation
may paint these obvious topics in the most dazzling colors, but our more
serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice, that establishes a
rule of succession, independent of the passions of mankind; and we shall
cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which deprives the multitude of
the dangerous, and indeed the ideal, power of giving themselves a
master.

In the cool shade of retirement, we may easily devise imaginary forms of
government, in which the sceptre shall be constantly bestowed on the
most worthy, by the free and incorrupt suffrage of the whole community.
Experience overturns these airy fabrics, and teaches us, that in a large
society, the election of a monarch can never devolve to the wisest, or
to the most numerous part of the people. The army is the only order of
men sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and powerful
enough to impose them on the rest of their fellow-citizens; but the
temper of soldiers, habituated at once to violence and to slavery,
renders them very unfit guardians of a legal, or even a civil
constitution. Justice, humanity, or political wisdom, are qualities they
are too little acquainted with in themselves, to appreciate them in
others. Valor will acquire their esteem, and liberality will purchase
their suffrage; but the first of these merits is often lodged in the
most savage breasts; the latter can only exert itself at the expense of
the public; and both may be turned against the possessor of the throne,
by the ambition of a daring rival.

The superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the sanction of
time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least invidious of all
distinctions among mankind. The acknowledged right extinguishes the
hopes of faction, and the conscious security disarms the cruelty of the
monarch. To the firm establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful
succession and mild administration of European monarchies. To the defect
of it we must attribute the frequent civil wars, through which an
Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his fathers.
Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is usually limited to
the princes of the reigning house, and as soon as the more fortunate
competitor has removed his brethren by the sword and the bowstring, he
no longer entertains any jealousy of his meaner subjects. But the Roman
empire, after the authority of the senate had sunk into contempt, was a
vast scene of confusion. The royal, and even noble, families of the
provinces had long since been led in triumph before the car of the
haughty republicans. The ancient families of Rome had successively
fallen beneath the tyranny of the Cæsars; and whilst those princes were
shackled by the forms of a commonwealth, and disappointed by the
repeated failure of their posterity,  it was impossible that any idea of
hereditary succession should have taken root in the minds of their
subjects. The right to the throne, which none could claim from birth,
every one assumed from merit. The daring hopes of ambition were set
loose from the salutary restraints of law and prejudice; and the meanest
of mankind might, without folly, entertain a hope of being raised by
valor and fortune to a rank in the army, in which a single crime would
enable him to wrest the sceptre of the world from his feeble and
unpopular master. After the murder of Alexander Severus, and the
elevation of Maximin, no emperor could think himself safe upon the
throne, and every barbarian peasant of the frontier might aspire to that
august, but dangerous station.

About thirty-two years before that event, the emperor Severus, returning
from an eastern expedition, halted in Thrace, to celebrate, with
military games, the birthday of his younger son, Geta. The country
flocked in crowds to behold their sovereign, and a young barbarian of
gigantic stature earnestly solicited, in his rude dialect, that he might
be allowed to contend for the prize of wrestling. As the pride of
discipline would have been disgraced in the overthrow of a Roman soldier
by a Thracian peasant, he was matched with the stoutest followers of the
camp, sixteen of whom he successively laid on the ground. His victory
was rewarded by some trifling gifts, and a permission to enlist in the
troops. The next day, the happy barbarian was distinguished above a
crowd of recruits, dancing and exulting after the fashion of his
country. As soon as he perceived that he had attracted the emperor's
notice, he instantly ran up to his horse, and followed him on foot,
without the least appearance of fatigue, in a long and rapid career.
"Thracian," said Severus with astonishment, "art thou disposed to
wrestle after thy race?" "Most willingly, sir," replied the unwearied
youth; and, almost in a breath, overthrew seven of the strongest
soldiers in the army. A gold collar was the prize of his matchless vigor
and activity, and he was immediately appointed to serve in the
horseguards who always attended on the person of the sovereign.

Maximin, for that was his name, though born on the territories of the
empire, descended from a mixed race of barbarians. His father was a
Goth, and his mother of the nation of the Alani. He displayed on every
occasion a valor equal to his strength; and his native fierceness was
soon tempered or disguised by the knowledge of the world. Under the
reign of Severus and his son, he obtained the rank of centurion, with
the favor and esteem of both those princes, the former of whom was an
excellent judge of merit. Gratitude forbade Maximin to serve under the
assassin of Caracalla. Honor taught him to decline the effeminate
insults of Elagabalus. On the accession of Alexander he returned to
court, and was placed by that prince in a station useful to the service,
and honorable to himself. The fourth legion, to which he was appointed
tribune, soon became, under his care, the best disciplined of the whole
army. With the general applause of the soldiers, who bestowed on their
favorite hero the names of Ajax and Hercules, he was successively
promoted to the first military command;  and had not he still retained
too much of his savage origin, the emperor might perhaps have given his
own sister in marriage to the son of Maximin.

Instead of securing his fidelity, these favors served only to inflame
the ambition of the Thracian peasant, who deemed his fortune inadequate
to his merit, as long as he was constrained to acknowledge a superior.
Though a stranger to real wisdom, he was not devoid of a selfish
cunning, which showed him that the emperor had lost the affection of the
army, and taught him to improve their discontent to his own advantage.
It is easy for faction and calumny to shed their poison on the
administration of the best of princes, and to accuse even their virtues
by artfully confounding them with those vices to which they bear the
nearest affinity. The troops listened with pleasure to the emissaries of
Maximin. They blushed at their own ignominious patience, which, during
thirteen years, had supported the vexatious discipline imposed by an
effeminate Syrian, the timid slave of his mother and of the senate. It
was time, they cried, to cast away that useless phantom of the civil
power, and to elect for their prince and general a real soldier,
educated in camps, exercised in war, who would assert the glory, and
distribute among his companions the treasures, of the empire. A great
army was at that time assembled on the banks of the Rhine, under the
command of the emperor himself, who, almost immediately after his return
from the Persian war, had been obliged to march against the barbarians
of Germany. The important care of training and reviewing the new levies
was intrusted to Maximin. One day, as he entered the field of exercise,
the troops either from a sudden impulse, or a formed conspiracy, saluted
him emperor, silenced by their loud acclamations his obstinate refusal,
and hastened to consummate their rebellion by the murder of Alexander
Severus.

The circumstances of his death are variously related. The writers, who
suppose that he died in ignorance of the ingratitude and ambition of
Maximin, affirm, that, after taking a frugal repast in the sight of the
army, he retired to sleep, and that, about the seventh hour of the day,
a part of his own guards broke into the imperial tent, and, with many
wounds, assassinated their virtuous and unsuspecting prince.  If we
credit another, and indeed a more probable account, Maximin was invested
with the purple by a numerous detachment, at the distance of several
miles from the head-quarters; and he trusted for success rather to the
secret wishes than to the public declarations of the great army.
Alexander had sufficient time to awaken a faint sense of loyalty among
the troops; but their reluctant professions of fidelity quickly vanished
on the appearance of Maximin, who declared himself the friend and
advocate of the military order, and was unanimously acknowledged emperor
of the Romans by the applauding legions. The son of Mamæa, betrayed and
deserted, withdrew into his tent, desirous at least to conceal his
approaching fate from the insults of the multitude. He was soon followed
by a tribune and some centurions, the ministers of death; but instead of
receiving with manly resolution the inevitable stroke, his unavailing
cries and entreaties disgraced the last moments of his life, and
converted into contempt some portion of the just pity which his
innocence and misfortunes must inspire. His mother, Mamæa, whose pride
and avarice he loudly accused as the cause of his ruin, perished with
her son. The most faithful of his friends were sacrificed to the first
fury of the soldiers. Others were reserved for the more deliberate
cruelty of the usurper; and those who experienced the mildest treatment,
were stripped of their employments, and ignominiously driven from the
court and army.

The former tyrants, Caligula and Nero, Commodus, and Caracalla, were all
dissolute and unexperienced youths,  educated in the purple, and
corrupted by the pride of empire, the luxury of Rome, and the perfidious
voice of flattery. The cruelty of Maximin was derived from a different
source, the fear of contempt. Though he depended on the attachment of
the soldiers, who loved him for virtues like their own, he was conscious
that his mean and barbarian origin, his savage appearance, and his total
ignorance of the arts and institutions of civil life,  formed a very
unfavorable contrast with the amiable manners of the unhappy Alexander.
He remembered, that, in his humbler fortune, he had often waited before
the door of the haughty nobles of Rome, and had been denied admittance
by the insolence of their slaves. He recollected too the friendship of a
few who had relieved his poverty, and assisted his rising hopes. But
those who had spurned, and those who had protected, the Thracian, were
guilty of the same crime, the knowledge of his original obscurity. For
this crime many were put to death; and by the execution of several of
his benefactors, Maximin published, in characters of blood, the
indelible history of his baseness and ingratitude.

The dark and sanguinary soul of the tyrant was open to every suspicion
against those among his subjects who were the most distinguished by
their birth or merit. Whenever he was alarmed with the sound of treason,
his cruelty was unbounded and unrelenting. A conspiracy against his life
was either discovered or imagined, and Magnus, a consular senator, was
named as the principal author of it. Without a witness, without a trial,
and without an opportunity of defence, Magnus, with four thousand of his
supposed accomplices, was put to death. Italy and the whole empire were
infested with innumerable spies and informers. On the slightest
accusation, the first of the Roman nobles, who had governed provinces,
commanded armies, and been adorned with the consular and triumphal
ornaments, were chained on the public carriages, and hurried away to the
emperor's presence. Confiscation, exile, or simple death, were esteemed
uncommon instances of his lenity. Some of the unfortunate sufferers he
ordered to be sewed up in the hides of slaughtered animals, others to be
exposed to wild beasts, others again to be beaten to death with clubs.
During the three years of his reign, he disdained to visit either Rome
or Italy. His camp, occasionally removed from the banks of the Rhine to
those of the Danube, was the seat of his stern despotism, which trampled
on every principle of law and justice, and was supported by the avowed
power of the sword.  No man of noble birth, elegant accomplishments, or
knowledge of civil business, was suffered near his person; and the court
of a Roman emperor revived the idea of those ancient chiefs of slaves
and gladiators, whose savage power had left a deep impression of terror
and detestation.

As long as the cruelty of Maximin was confined to the illustrious
senators, or even to the bold adventurers, who in the court or army
expose themselves to the caprice of fortune, the body of the people
viewed their sufferings with indifference, or perhaps with pleasure. But
the tyrant's avarice, stimulated by the insatiate desires of the
soldiers, at length attacked the public property. Every city of the
empire was possessed of an independent revenue, destined to purchase
corn for the multitude, and to supply the expenses of the games and
entertainments. By a single act of authority, the whole mass of wealth
was at once confiscated for the use of the Imperial treasury. The
temples were stripped of their most valuable offerings of gold and
silver, and the statues of gods, heroes, and emperors, were melted down
and coined into money. These impious orders could not be executed
without tumults and massacres, as in many places the people chose rather
to die in the defence of their altars, than to behold in the midst of
peace their cities exposed to the rapine and cruelty of war. The
soldiers themselves, among whom this sacrilegious plunder was
distributed, received it with a blush; and hardened as they were in acts
of violence, they dreaded the just reproaches of their friends and
relations. Throughout the Roman world a general cry of indignation was
heard, imploring vengeance on the common enemy of human kind; and at
length, by an act of private oppression, a peaceful and unarmed province
was driven into rebellion against him.

The procurator of Africa was a servant worthy of such a master, who
considered the fines and confiscations of the rich as one of the most
fruitful branches of the Imperial revenue. An iniquitous sentence had
been pronounced against some opulent youths of that country, the
execution of which would have stripped them of far the greater part of
their patrimony. In this extremity, a resolution that must either
complete or prevent their ruin, was dictated by despair. A respite of
three days, obtained with difficulty from the rapacious treasurer, was
employed in collecting from their estates a great number of slaves and
peasants blindly devoted to the commands of their lords, and armed with
the rustic weapons of clubs and axes. The leaders of the conspiracy, as
they were admitted to the audience of the procurator, stabbed him with
the daggers concealed under their garments, and, by the assistance of
their tumultuary train, seized on the little town of Thysdrus,  and
erected the standard of rebellion against the sovereign of the Roman
empire. They rested their hopes on the hatred of mankind against
Maximin, and they judiciously resolved to oppose to that detested tyrant
an emperor whose mild virtues had already acquired the love and esteem
of the Romans, and whose authority over the province would give weight
and stability to the enterprise. Gordianus, their proconsul, and the
object of their choice, refused, with unfeigned reluctance, the
dangerous honor, and begged with tears, that they would suffer him to
terminate in peace a long and innocent life, without staining his feeble
age with civil blood. Their menaces compelled him to accept the Imperial
purple, his only refuge, indeed, against the jealous cruelty of Maximin;
since, according to the reasoning of tyrants, those who have been
esteemed worthy of the throne deserve death, and those who deliberate
have already rebelled.

The family of Gordianus was one of the most illustrious of the Roman
senate. On the father's side he was descended from the Gracchi; on his
mother's, from the emperor Trajan. A great estate enabled him to support
the dignity of his birth, and in the enjoyment of it, he displayed an
elegant taste and beneficent disposition. The palace in Rome, formerly
inhabited by the great Pompey, had been, during several generations, in
the possession of Gordian's family.  It was distinguished by ancient
trophies of naval victories, and decorated with the works of modern
painting. His villa on the road to Præneste was celebrated for baths of
singular beauty and extent, for three stately rooms of a hundred feet in
length, and for a magnificent portico, supported by two hundred columns
of the four most curious and costly sorts of marble.  The public shows
exhibited at his expense, and in which the people were entertained with
many hundreds of wild beasts and gladiators,  seem to surpass the
fortune of a subject; and whilst the liberality of other magistrates was
confined to a few solemn festivals at Rome, the magnificence of Gordian
was repeated, when he was ædile, every month in the year, and extended,
during his consulship, to the principal cities of Italy. He was twice
elevated to the last-mentioned dignity, by Caracalla and by Alexander;
for he possessed the uncommon talent of acquiring the esteem of virtuous
princes, without alarming the jealousy of tyrants. His long life was
innocently spent in the study of letters and the peaceful honors of
Rome; and, till he was named proconsul of Africa by the voice of the
senate and the approbation of Alexander,  he appears prudently to have
declined the command of armies and the government of provinces. * As
long as that emperor lived, Africa was happy under the administration of
his worthy representative: after the barbarous Maximin had usurped the
throne, Gordianus alleviated the miseries which he was unable to
prevent. When he reluctantly accepted the purple, he was above fourscore
years old; a last and valuable remains of the happy age of the
Antonines, whose virtues he revived in his own conduct, and celebrated
in an elegant poem of thirty books. With the venerable proconsul, his
son, who had accompanied him into Africa as his lieutenant, was likewise
declared emperor. His manners were less pure, but his character was
equally amiable with that of his father. Twenty-two acknowledged
concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the
variety of his inclinations; and from the productions which he left
behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were
designed for use rather than for ostentation.  The Roman people
acknowledged in the features of the younger Gordian the resemblance of
Scipio Africanus,  recollected with pleasure that his mother was the
granddaughter of Antoninus Pius, and rested the public hope on those
latent virtues which had hitherto, as they fondly imagined, lain
concealed in the luxurious indolence of private life.

As soon as the Gordians had appeased the first tumult of a popular
election, they removed their court to Carthage. They were received with
the acclamations of the Africans, who honored their virtues, and who,
since the visit of Hadrian, had never beheld the majesty of a Roman
emperor. But these vain acclamations neither strengthened nor confirmed
the title of the Gordians. They were induced by principle, as well as
interest, to solicit the approbation of the senate; and a deputation of
the noblest provincials was sent, without delay, to Rome, to relate and
justify the conduct of their countrymen, who, having long suffered with
patience, were at length resolved to act with vigor. The letters of the
new princes were modest and respectful, excusing the necessity which had
obliged them to accept the Imperial title; but submitting their election
and their fate to the supreme judgment of the senate.

The inclinations of the senate were neither doubtful nor divided. The
birth and noble alliances of the Gordians had intimately connected them
with the most illustrious houses of Rome. Their fortune had created many
dependants in that assembly, their merit had acquired many friends.
Their mild administration opened the flattering prospect of the
restoration, not only of the civil but even of the republican
government. The terror of military violence, which had first obliged the
senate to forget the murder of Alexander, and to ratify the election of
a barbarian peasant,  now produced a contrary effect, and provoked them
to assert the injured rights of freedom and humanity. The hatred of
Maximin towards the senate was declared and implacable; the tamest
submission had not appeased his fury, the most cautious innocence would
not remove his suspicions; and even the care of their own safety urged
them to share the fortune of an enterprise, of which (if unsuccessful)
they were sure to be the first victims. These considerations, and
perhaps others of a more private nature, were debated in a previous
conference of the consuls and the magistrates. As soon as their
resolution was decided, they convoked in the temple of Castor the whole
body of the senate, according to an ancient form of secrecy,  calculated
to awaken their attention, and to conceal their decrees. "Conscript
fathers," said the consul Syllanus, "the two Gordians, both of consular
dignity, the one your proconsul, the other your lieutenant, have been
declared emperors by the general consent of Africa. Let us return
thanks," he boldly continued, "to the youth of Thysdrus; let us return
thanks to the faithful people of Carthage, our generous deliverers from
a horrid monster -- Why do you hear me thus coolly, thus timidly? Why do
you cast those anxious looks on each other? Why hesitate? Maximin is a
public enemy! may his enmity soon expire with him, and may we long enjoy
the prudence and felicity of Gordian the father, the valor and constancy
of Gordian the son!"  The noble ardor of the consul revived the languid
spirit of the senate. By a unanimous decree, the election of the
Gordians was ratified, Maximin, his son, and his adherents, were
pronounced enemies of their country, and liberal rewards were offered to
whomsoever had the courage and good fortune to destroy them.

[See Temple Of Castor and Pollux]

During the emperor's absence, a detachment of the Prætorian guards
remained at Rome, to protect, or rather to command, the capital. The
præfect Vitalianus had signalized his fidelity to Maximin, by the
alacrity with which he had obeyed, and even prevented the cruel mandates
of the tyrant. His death alone could rescue the authority of the senate,
and the lives of the senators from a state of danger and suspense.
Before their resolves had transpired, a quæstor and some tribunes were
commissioned to take his devoted life. They executed the order with
equal boldness and success; and, with their bloody daggers in their
hands, ran through the streets, proclaiming to the people and the
soldiers the news of the happy revolution. The enthusiasm of liberty was
seconded by the promise of a large donative, in lands and money; the
statues of Maximin were thrown down; the capital of the empire
acknowledged, with transport, the authority of the two Gordians and the
senate;  and the example of Rome was followed by the rest of Italy.

A new spirit had arisen in that assembly, whose long patience had been
insulted by wanton despotism and military license. The senate assumed
the reins of government, and, with a calm intrepidity, prepared to
vindicate by arms the cause of freedom. Among the consular senators
recommended by their merit and services to the favor of the emperor
Alexander, it was easy to select twenty, not unequal to the command of
an army, and the conduct of a war. To these was the defence of Italy
intrusted. Each was appointed to act in his respective department,
authorized to enroll and discipline the Italian youth; and instructed to
fortify the ports and highways, against the impending invasion of
Maximin. A number of deputies, chosen from the most illustrious of the
senatorian and equestrian orders, were despatched at the same time to
the governors of the several provinces, earnestly conjuring them to fly
to the assistance of their country, and to remind the nations of their
ancient ties of friendship with the Roman senate and people. The general
respect with which these deputies were received, and the zeal of Italy
and the provinces in favor of the senate, sufficiently prove that the
subjects of Maximin were reduced to that uncommon distress, in which the
body of the people has more to fear from oppression than from
resistance. The consciousness of that melancholy truth, inspires a
degree of persevering fury, seldom to be found in those civil wars which
are artificially supported for the benefit of a few factious and
designing leaders.

For while the cause of the Gordians was embraced with such diffusive
ardor, the Gordians themselves were no more. The feeble court of
Carthage was alarmed by the rapid approach of Capelianus, governor of
Mauritania, who, with a small band of veterans, and a fierce host of
barbarians, attacked a faithful, but unwarlike province. The younger
Gordian sallied out to meet the enemy at the head of a few guards, and a
numerous undisciplined multitude, educated in the peaceful luxury of
Carthage. His useless valor served only to procure him an honorable
death on the field of battle. His aged father, whose reign had not
exceeded thirty-six days, put an end to his life on the first news of
the defeat. Carthage, destitute of defence, opened her gates to the
conqueror, and Africa was exposed to the rapacious cruelty of a slave,
obliged to satisfy his unrelenting master with a large account of blood
and treasure.

The fate of the Gordians filled Rome with just but unexpected terror.
The senate, convoked in the temple of Concord, affected to transact the
common business of the day; and seemed to decline, with trembling
anxiety, the consideration of their own and the public danger. A silent
consternation prevailed in the assembly, till a senator, of the name and
family of Trajan, awakened his brethren from their fatal lethargy. He
represented to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had
been long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by nature,
and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy, at the head of
the military force of the empire; and that their only remaining
alternative was either to meet him bravely in the field, or tamely to
expect the tortures and ignominious death reserved for unsuccessful
rebellion. "We have lost," continued he, "two excellent princes; but
unless we desert ourselves, the hopes of the republic have not perished
with the Gordians. Many are the senators whose virtues have deserved,
and whose abilities would sustain, the Imperial dignity. Let us elect
two emperors, one of whom may conduct the war against the public enemy,
whilst his colleague remains at Rome to direct the civil administration.
I cheerfully expose myself to the danger and envy of the nomination, and
give my vote in favor of Maximus and Balbinus. Ratify my choice,
conscript fathers, or appoint in their place, others more worthy of the
empire." The general apprehension silenced the whispers of jealousy; the
merit of the candidates was universally acknowledged; and the house
resounded with the sincere acclamations of "Long life and victory to the
emperors Maximus and Balbinus. You are happy in the judgment of the
senate; may the republic be happy under your administration!"

Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
Maximin. -- Part II.

The virtues and the reputation of the new emperors justified the most
sanguine hopes of the Romans. The various nature of their talents seemed
to appropriate to each his peculiar department of peace and war, without
leaving room for jealous emulation. Balbinus was an admired orator, a
poet of distinguished fame, and a wise magistrate, who had exercised
with innocence and applause the civil jurisdiction in almost all the
interior provinces of the empire. His birth was noble,  his fortune
affluent, his manners liberal and affable. In him the love of pleasure
was corrected by a sense of dignity, nor had the habits of ease deprived
him of a capacity for business. The mind of Maximus was formed in a
rougher mould. By his valor and abilities he had raised himself from the
meanest origin to the first employments of the state and army. His
victories over the Sarmatians and the Germans, the austerity of his
life, and the rigid impartiality of his justice, while he was a Præfect
of the city, commanded the esteem of a people whose affections were
engaged in favor of the more amiable Balbinus. The two colleagues had
both been consuls, (Balbinus had twice enjoyed that honorable office,)
both had been named among the twenty lieutenants of the senate; and
since the one was sixty and the other seventy-four years old,  they had
both attained the full maturity of age and experience.

After the senate had conferred on Maximus and Balbinus an equal portion
of the consular and tribunitian powers, the title of Fathers of their
country, and the joint office of Supreme Pontiff, they ascended to the
Capitol to return thanks to the gods, protectors of Rome.  The solemn
rites of sacrifice were disturbed by a sedition of the people. The
licentious multitude neither loved the rigid Maximus, nor did they
sufficiently fear the mild and humane Balbinus. Their increasing numbers
surrounded the temple of Jupiter; with obstinate clamors they asserted
their inherent right of consenting to the election of their sovereign;
and demanded, with an apparent moderation, that, besides the two
emperors, chosen by the senate, a third should be added of the family of
the Gordians, as a just return of gratitude to those princes who had
sacrificed their lives for the republic. At the head of the city-guards,
and the youth of the equestrian order, Maximus and Balbinus attempted to
cut their way through the seditious multitude. The multitude, armed with
sticks and stones, drove them back into the Capitol. It is prudent to
yield when the contest, whatever may be the issue of it, must be fatal
to both parties. A boy, only thirteen years of age, the grandson of the
elder, and nephew * of the younger Gordian, was produced to the people,
invested with the ornaments and title of Cæsar. The tumult was appeased
by this easy condescension; and the two emperors, as soon as they had
been peaceably acknowledged in Rome, prepared to defend Italy against
the common enemy.

Whilst in Rome and Africa, revolutions succeeded each other with such
amazing rapidity, that the mind of Maximin was agitated by the most
furious passions. He is said to have received the news of the rebellion
of the Gordians, and of the decree of the senate against him, not with
the temper of a man, but the rage of a wild beast; which, as it could
not discharge itself on the distant senate, threatened the life of his
son, of his friends, and of all who ventured to approach his person. The
grateful intelligence of the death of the Gordians was quickly followed
by the assurance that the senate, laying aside all hopes of pardon or
accommodation, had substituted in their room two emperors, with whose
merit he could not be unacquainted. Revenge was the only consolation
left to Maximin, and revenge could only be obtained by arms. The
strength of the legions had been assembled by Alexander from all parts
of the empire. Three successful campaigns against the Germans and the
Sarmatians, had raised their fame, confirmed their discipline, and even
increased their numbers, by filling the ranks with the flower of the
barbarian youth. The life of Maximin had been spent in war, and the
candid severity of history cannot refuse him the valor of a soldier, or
even the abilities of an experienced general.  It might naturally be
expected, that a prince of such a character, instead of suffering the
rebellion to gain stability by delay, should immediately have marched
from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tyber, and that his
victorious army, instigated by contempt for the senate, and eager to
gather the spoils of Italy, should have burned with impatience to finish
the easy and lucrative conquest. Yet as far as we can trust to the
obscure chronology of that period,  it appears that the operations of
some foreign war deferred the Italian expedition till the ensuing
spring. From the prudent conduct of Maximin, we may learn that the
savage features of his character have been exaggerated by the pencil of
party, that his passions, however impetuous, submitted to the force of
reason, and that the barbarian possessed something of the generous
spirit of Sylla, who subdued the enemies of Rome before he suffered
himself to revenge his private injuries.

When the troops of Maximin, advancing in excellent order, arrived at the
foot of the Julian Alps, they were terrified by the silence and
desolation that reigned on the frontiers of Italy. The villages and open
towns had been abandoned on their approach by the inhabitants, the
cattle was driven away, the provisions removed or destroyed, the bridges
broken down, nor was any thing left which could afford either shelter or
subsistence to an invader. Such had been the wise orders of the generals
of the senate: whose design was to protract the war, to ruin the army of
Maximin by the slow operation of famine, and to consume his strength in
the sieges of the principal cities of Italy, which they had plentifully
stored with men and provisions from the deserted country. Aquileia
received and withstood the first shock of the invasion. The streams that
issue from the head of the Hadriatic Gulf, swelled by the melting of the
winter snows,  opposed an unexpected obstacle to the arms of Maximin. At
length, on a singular bridge, constructed with art and difficulty, of
large hogsheads, he transported his army to the opposite bank, rooted up
the beautiful vineyards in the neighborhood of Aquileia, demolished the
suburbs, and employed the timber of the buildings in the engines and
towers, with which on every side he attacked the city. The walls, fallen
to decay during the security of a long peace, had been hastily repaired
on this sudden emergency: but the firmest defence of Aquileia consisted
in the constancy of the citizens; all ranks of whom, instead of being
dismayed, were animated by the extreme danger, and their knowledge of
the tyrant's unrelenting temper. Their courage was supported and
directed by Crispinus and Menophilus, two of the twenty lieutenants of
the senate, who, with a small body of regular troops, had thrown
themselves into the besieged place. The army of Maximin was repulsed in
repeated attacks, his machines destroyed by showers of artificial fire;
and the generous enthusiasm of the Aquileians was exalted into a
confidence of success, by the opinion that Belenus, their tutelar deity,
combated in person in the defence of his distressed worshippers.

The emperor Maximus, who had advanced as far as Ravenna, to secure that
important place, and to hasten the military preparations, beheld the
event of the war in the more faithful mirror of reason and policy. He
was too sensible, that a single town could not resist the persevering
efforts of a great army; and he dreaded, lest the enemy, tired with the
obstinate resistance of Aquileia, should on a sudden relinquish the
fruitless siege, and march directly towards Rome. The fate of the empire
and the cause of freedom must then be committed to the chance of a
battle; and what arms could he oppose to the veteran legions of the
Rhine and Danube? Some troops newly levied among the generous but
enervated youth of Italy; and a body of German auxiliaries, on whose
firmness, in the hour of trial, it was dangerous to depend. In the midst
of these just alarms, the stroke of domestic conspiracy punished the
crimes of Maximin, and delivered Rome and the senate from the calamities
that would surely have attended the victory of an enraged barbarian.

The people of Aquileia had scarcely experienced any of the common
miseries of a siege; their magazines were plentifully supplied, and
several fountains within the walls assured them of an inexhaustible
resource of fresh water. The soldiers of Maximin were, on the contrary,
exposed to the inclemency of the season, the contagion of disease, and
the horrors of famine. The open country was ruined, the rivers filled
with the slain, and polluted with blood. A spirit of despair and
disaffection began to diffuse itself among the troops; and as they were
cut off from all intelligence, they easily believed that the whole
empire had embraced the cause of the senate, and that they were left as
devoted victims to perish under the impregnable walls of Aquileia. The
fierce temper of the tyrant was exasperated by disappointments, which he
imputed to the cowardice of his army; and his wanton and ill-timed
cruelty, instead of striking terror, inspired hatred, and a just desire
of revenge. A party of Prætorian guards, who trembled for their wives
and children in the camp of Alba, near Rome, executed the sentence of
the senate. Maximin, abandoned by his guards, was slain in his tent,
with his son, (whom he had associated to the honors of the purple,)
Anulinus the præfect, and the principal ministers of his tyranny.  The
sight of their heads, borne on the point of spears, convinced the
citizens of Aquileia that the siege was at an end; the gates of the city
were thrown open, a liberal market was provided for the hungry troops of
Maximin, and the whole army joined in solemn protestations of fidelity
to the senate and the people of Rome, and to their lawful emperors
Maximus and Balbinus. Such was the deserved fate of a brutal savage,
destitute, as he has generally been represented, of every sentiment that
distinguishes a civilized, or even a human being. The body was suited to
the soul. The stature of Maximin exceeded the measure of eight feet, and
circumstances almost incredible are related of his matchless strength
and appetite.  Had he lived in a less enlightened age, tradition and
poetry might well have described him as one of those monstrous giants,
whose supernatural power was constantly exerted for the destruction of
mankind.

It is easier to conceive than to describe the universal joy of the Roman
world on the fall of the tyrant, the news of which is said to have been
carried in four days from Aquileia to Rome. The return of Maximus was a
triumphal procession; his colleague and young Gordian went out to meet
him, and the three princes made their entry into the capital, attended
by the ambassadors of almost all the cities of Italy, saluted with the
splendid offerings of gratitude and superstition, and received with the
unfeigned acclamations of the senate and people, who persuaded
themselves that a golden age would succeed to an age of iron.  The
conduct of the two emperors corresponded with these expectations. They
administered justice in person; and the rigor of the one was tempered by
the other's clemency. The oppressive taxes with which Maximin had loaded
the rights of inheritance and succession, were repealed, or at least
moderated. Discipline was revived, and with the advice of the senate
many wise laws were enacted by their imperial ministers, who endeavored
to restore a civil constitution on the ruins of military tyranny. "What
reward may we expect for delivering Rome from a monster?" was the
question asked by Maximus, in a moment of freedom and confidence.
Balbinus answered it without hesitation -- "The love of the senate, of
the people, and of all mankind." "Alas!" replied his more penetrating
colleague -- "alas! I dread the hatred of the soldiers, and the fatal
effects of their resentment."  His apprehensions were but too well
justified by the event.

Whilst Maximus was preparing to defend Italy against the common foe,
Balbinus, who remained at Rome, had been engaged in scenes of blood and
intestine discord. Distrust and jealousy reigned in the senate; and even
in the temples where they assembled, every senator carried either open
or concealed arms. In the midst of their deliberations, two veterans of
the guards, actuated either by curiosity or a sinister motive,
audaciously thrust themselves into the house, and advanced by degrees
beyond the altar of Victory. Gallicanus, a consular, and Mæcenas, a
Prætorian senator, viewed with indignation their insolent intrusion:
drawing their daggers, they laid the spies (for such they deemed them)
dead at the foot of the altar, and then, advancing to the door of the
senate, imprudently exhorted the multitude to massacre the Prætorians,
as the secret adherents of the tyrant. Those who escaped the first fury
of the tumult took refuge in the camp, which they defended with superior
advantage against the reiterated attacks of the people, assisted by the
numerous bands of gladiators, the property of opulent nobles. The civil
war lasted many days, with infinite loss and confusion on both sides.
When the pipes were broken that supplied the camp with water, the
Prætorians were reduced to intolerable distress; but in their turn they
made desperate sallies into the city, set fire to a great number of
houses, and filled the streets with the blood of the inhabitants. The
emperor Balbinus attempted, by ineffectual edicts and precarious truces,
to reconcile the factions at Rome. But their animosity, though smothered
for a while, burnt with redoubled violence. The soldiers, detesting the
senate and the people, despised the weakness of a prince, who wanted
either the spirit or the power to command the obedience of his subjects.

After the tyrant's death, his formidable army had acknowledged, from
necessity rather than from choice, the authority of Maximus, who
transported himself without delay to the camp before Aquileia. As soon
as he had received their oath of fidelity, he addressed them in terms
full of mildness and moderation; lamented, rather than arraigned the
wild disorders of the times, and assured the soldiers, that of all their
past conduct the senate would remember only their generous desertion of
the tyrant, and their voluntary return to their duty. Maximus enforced
his exhortations by a liberal donative, purified the camp by a solemn
sacrifice of expiation, and then dismissed the legions to their several
provinces, impressed, as he hoped, with a lively sense of gratitude and
obedience.  But nothing could reconcile the haughty spirit of the
Prætorians. They attended the emperors on the memorable day of their
public entry into Rome; but amidst the general acclamations, the sullen,
dejected countenance of the guards sufficiently declared that they
considered themselves as the object, rather than the partners, of the
triumph. When the whole body was united in their camp, those who had
served under Maximin, and those who had remained at Rome, insensibly
communicated to each other their complaints and apprehensions. The
emperors chosen by the army had perished with ignominy; those elected by
the senate were seated on the throne.  The long discord between the
civil and military powers was decided by a war, in which the former had
obtained a complete victory. The soldiers must now learn a new doctrine
of submission to the senate; and whatever clemency was affected by that
politic assembly, they dreaded a slow revenge, colored by the name of
discipline, and justified by fair pretences of the public good. But
their fate was still in their own hands; and if they had courage to
despise the vain terrors of an impotent republic, it was easy to
convince the world, that those who were masters of the arms, were
masters of the authority, of the state.

When the senate elected two princes, it is probable that, besides the
declared reason of providing for the various emergencies of peace and
war, they were actuated by the secret desire of weakening by division
the despotism of the supreme magistrate. Their policy was effectual, but
it proved fatal both to their emperors and to themselves. The jealousy
of power was soon exasperated by the difference of character. Maximus
despised Balbinus as a luxurious noble, and was in his turn disdained by
his colleague as an obscure soldier. Their silent discord was understood
rather than seen;  but the mutual consciousness prevented them from
uniting in any vigorous measures of defence against their common enemies
of the Prætorian camp. The whole city was employed in the Capitoline
games, and the emperors were left almost alone in the palace. On a
sudden, they were alarmed by the approach of a troop of desperate
assassins. Ignorant of each other's situation or designs, (for they
already occupied very distant apartments,) afraid to give or to receive
assistance, they wasted the important moments in idle debates and
fruitless recriminations. The arrival of the guards put an end to the
vain strife. They seized on these emperors of the senate, for such they
called them with malicious contempt, stripped them of their garments,
and dragged them in insolent triumph through the streets of Rome, with
the design of inflicting a slow and cruel death on these unfortunate
princes. The fear of a rescue from the faithful Germans of the Imperial
guards, shortened their tortures; and their bodies, mangled with a
thousand wounds, were left exposed to the insults or to the pity of the
populace.

In the space of a few months, six princes had been cut off by the sword.
Gordian, who had already received the title of Cæsar, was the only
person that occurred to the soldiers as proper to fill the vacant
throne.  They carried him to the camp, and unanimously saluted him
Augustus and Emperor. His name was dear to the senate and people; his
tender age promised a long impunity of military license; and the
submission of Rome and the provinces to the choice of the Prætorian
guards, saved the republic, at the expense indeed of its freedom and
dignity, from the horrors of a new civil war in the heart of the
capital.

As the third Gordian was only nineteen years of age at the time of his
death, the history of his life, were it known to us with greater
accuracy than it really is, would contain little more than the account
of his education, and the conduct of the ministers, who by turns abused
or guided the simplicity of his unexperienced youth. Immediately after
his accession, he fell into the hands of his mother's eunuchs, that
pernicious vermin of the East, who, since the days of Elagabalus, had
infested the Roman palace. By the artful conspiracy of these wretches,
an impenetrable veil was drawn between an innocent prince and his
oppressed subjects, the virtuous disposition of Gordian was deceived,
and the honors of the empire sold without his knowledge, though in a
very public manner, to the most worthless of mankind. We are ignorant by
what fortunate accident the emperor escaped from this ignominious
slavery, and devolved his confidence on a minister, whose wise counsels
had no object except the glory of his sovereign and the happiness of the
people. It should seem that love and learning introduced Misitheus to
the favor of Gordian. The young prince married the daughter of his
master of rhetoric, and promoted his father-in-law to the first offices
of the empire. Two admirable letters that passed between them are still
extant. The minister, with the conscious dignity of virtue,
congratulates Gordian that he is delivered from the tyranny of the
eunuchs,  and still more that he is sensible of his deliverance. The
emperor acknowledges, with an amiable confusion, the errors of his past
conduct; and laments, with singular propriety, the misfortune of a
monarch, from whom a venal tribe of courtiers perpetually labor to
conceal the truth.

The life of Misitheus had been spent in the profession of letters, not
of arms; yet such was the versatile genius of that great man, that, when
he was appointed Prætorian Præfect, he discharged the military duties of
his place with vigor and ability. The Persians had invaded Mesopotamia,
and threatened Antioch. By the persuasion of his father-in-law, the
young emperor quitted the luxury of Rome, opened, for the last time
recorded in history, the temple of Janus, and marched in person into the
East. On his approach, with a great army, the Persians withdrew their
garrisons from the cities which they had already taken, and retired from
the Euphrates to the Tigris. Gordian enjoyed the pleasure of announcing
to the senate the first success of his arms, which he ascribed, with a
becoming modesty and gratitude, to the wisdom of his father and Præfect.
During the whole expedition, Misitheus watched over the safety and
discipline of the army; whilst he prevented their dangerous murmurs by
maintaining a regular plenty in the camp, and by establishing ample
magazines of vinegar, bacon, straw, barley, and wheat in all the cities
of the frontier.  But the prosperity of Gordian expired with Misitheus,
who died of a flux, not with out very strong suspicions of poison.
Philip, his successor in the præfecture, was an Arab by birth, and
consequently, in the earlier part of his life, a robber by profession.
His rise from so obscure a station to the first dignities of the empire,
seems to prove that he was a bold and able leader. But his boldness
prompted him to aspire to the throne, and his abilities were employed to
supplant, not to serve, his indulgent master. The minds of the soldiers
were irritated by an artificial scarcity, created by his contrivance in
the camp; and the distress of the army was attributed to the youth and
incapacity of the prince. It is not in our power to trace the successive
steps of the secret conspiracy and open sedition, which were at length
fatal to Gordian. A sepulchral monument was erected to his memory on the
spot  where he was killed, near the conflux of the Euphrates with the
little river Aboras.  The fortunate Philip, raised to the empire by the
votes of the soldiers, found a ready obedience from the senate and the
provinces.

We cannot forbear transcribing the ingenious, though somewhat fanciful
description, which a celebrated writer of our own times has traced of
the military government of the Roman empire. "What in that age was
called the Roman empire, was only an irregular republic, not unlike the
aristocracy  of Algiers,  where the militia, possessed of the
sovereignty, creates and deposes a magistrate, who is styled a Dey.
Perhaps, indeed, it may be laid down as a general rule, that a military
government is, in some respects, more republican than monarchical. Nor
can it be said that the soldiers only partook of the government by their
disobedience and rebellions. The speeches made to them by the emperors,
were they not at length of the same nature as those formerly pronounced
to the people by the consuls and the tribunes? And although the armies
had no regular place or forms of assembly; though their debates were
short, their action sudden, and their resolves seldom the result of cool
reflection, did they not dispose, with absolute sway, of the public
fortune? What was the emperor, except the minister of a violent
government, elected for the private benefit of the soldiers?

"When the army had elected Philip, who was Prætorian præfect to the
third Gordian, the latter demanded that he might remain sole emperor; he
was unable to obtain it. He requested that the power might be equally
divided between them; the army would not listen to his speech. He
consented to be degraded to the rank of Cæsar; the favor was refused
him. He desired, at least, he might be appointed Prætorian præfect; his
prayer was rejected. Finally, he pleaded for his life. The army, in
these several judgments, exercised the supreme magistracy." According to
the historian, whose doubtful narrative the President De Montesquieu has
adopted, Philip, who, during the whole transaction, had preserved a
sullen silence, was inclined to spare the innocent life of his
benefactor; till, recollecting that his innocence might excite a
dangerous compassion in the Roman world, he commanded, without regard to
his suppliant cries, that he should be seized, stripped, and led away to
instant death. After a moment's pause, the inhuman sentence was
executed.

Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
Maximin. -- Part III.

On his return from the East to Rome, Philip, desirous of obliterating
the memory of his crimes, and of captivating the affections of the
people, solemnized the secular games with infinite pomp and
magnificence. Since their institution or revival by Augustus,  they had
been celebrated by Claudius, by Domitian, and by Severus, and were now
renewed the fifth time, on the accomplishment of the full period of a
thousand years from the foundation of Rome. Every circumstance of the
secular games was skillfully adapted to inspire the superstitious mind
with deep and solemn reverence. The long interval between them  exceeded
the term of human life; and as none of the spectators had already seen
them, none could flatter themselves with the expectation of beholding
them a second time. The mystic sacrifices were performed, during three
nights, on the banks of the Tyber; and the Campus Martius resounded with
music and dances, and was illuminated with innumerable lamps and
torches. Slaves and strangers were excluded from any participation in
these national ceremonies. A chorus of twenty-seven youths, and as many
virgins, of noble families, and whose parents were both alive, implored
the propitious gods in favor of the present, and for the hope of the
rising generation; requesting, in religious hymns, that according to the
faith of their ancient oracles, they would still maintain the virtue,
the felicity, and the empire of the Roman people.  The magnificence of
Philip's shows and entertainments dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The
devout were employed in the rites of superstition, whilst the reflecting
few revolved in their anxious minds the past history and the future fate
of the empire.

Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds and outlaws, fortified
himself on the hills near the Tyber, ten centuries had already elapsed.
During the four first ages, the Romans, in the laborious school of
poverty, had acquired the virtues of war and government: by the vigorous
exertion of those virtues, and by the assistance of fortune, they had
obtained, in the course of the three succeeding centuries, an absolute
empire over many countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three
hundred years had been consumed in apparent prosperity and internal
decline. The nation of soldiers, magistrates, and legislators, who
composed the thirty-five tribes of the Roman people, were dissolved into
the common mass of mankind, and confounded with the millions of servile
provincials, who had received the name, without adopting the spirit, of
Romans. A mercenary army, levied among the subjects and barbarians of
the frontier, was the only order of men who preserved and abused their
independence. By their tumultuary election, a Syrian, a Goth, or an
Arab, was exalted to the throne of Rome, and invested with despotic
power over the conquests and over the country of the Scipios.

The limits of the Roman empire still extended from the Western Ocean to
the Tigris, and from Mount Atlas to the Rhine and the Danube. To the
undiscerning eye of the vulgar, Philip appeared a monarch no less
powerful than Hadrian or Augustus had formerly been. The form was still
the same, but the animating health and vigor were fled. The industry of
the people was discouraged and exhausted by a long series of oppression.
The discipline of the legions, which alone, after the extinction of
every other virtue, had propped the greatness of the state, was
corrupted by the ambition, or relaxed by the weakness, of the emperors.
The strength of the frontiers, which had always consisted in arms rather
than in fortifications, was insensibly undermined; and the fairest
provinces were left exposed to the rapaciousness or ambition of the
barbarians, who soon discovered the decline of the Roman empire.

Chapter VIII: State Of Persion And Restoration Of The Monarchy. Part I.

Of The State Of Persia After The Restoration Of The Monarchy By
Artaxerxes.

Whenever Tacitus indulges himself in those beautiful episodes, in which
he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of the Parthians,
his principal object is to relieve the attention of the reader from a
uniform scene of vice and misery. From the reign of Augustus to the time
of Alexander Severus, the enemies of Rome were in her bosom -- the
tyrants and the soldiers; and her prosperity had a very distant and
feeble interest in the revolutions that might happen beyond the Rhine
and the Euphrates. But when the military order had levelled, in wild
anarchy, the power of the prince, the laws of the senate, and even the
discipline of the camp, the barbarians of the North and of the East, who
had long hovered on the frontier, boldly attacked the provinces of a
declining monarchy. Their vexatious inroads were changed into formidable
irruptions, and, after a long vicissitude of mutual calamities, many
tribes of the victorious invaders established themselves in the
provinces of the Roman Empire. To obtain a clearer knowledge of these
great events, we shall endeavor to form a previous idea of the
character, forces, and designs of those nations who avenged the cause of
Hannibal and Mithridates.

In the more early ages of the world, whilst the forest that covered
Europe afforded a retreat to a few wandering savages, the inhabitants of
Asia were already collected into populous cities, and reduced under
extensive empires, the seat of the arts, of luxury, and of despotism.
The Assyrians reigned over the East,  till the sceptre of Ninus and
Semiramis dropped from the hands of their enervated successors. The
Medes and the Babylonians divided their power, and were themselves
swallowed up in the monarchy of the Persians, whose arms could not be
confined within the narrow limits of Asia. Followed, as it is said, by
two millions of men, Xerxes, the descendant of Cyrus, invaded Greece.
Thirty thousand soldiers, under the command of Alexander, the son of
Philip, who was intrusted by the Greeks with their glory and revenge,
were sufficient to subdue Persia. The princes of the house of Seleucus
usurped and lost the Macedonian command over the East. About the same
time, that, by an ignominious treaty, they resigned to the Romans the
country on this side Mount Tarus, they were driven by the Parthians, *
an obscure horde of Scythian origin, from all the provinces of Upper
Asia. The formidable power of the Parthians, which spread from India to
the frontiers of Syria, was in its turn subverted by Ardshir, or
Artaxerxes; the founder of a new dynasty, which, under the name of
Sassanides, governed Persia till the invasion of the Arabs. This great
revolution, whose fatal influence was soon experienced by the Romans,
happened in the fourth year of Alexander Severus, two hundred and
twenty-six years after the Christian era.

Artaxerxes had served with great reputation in the armies of Artaban,
the last king of the Parthians, and it appears that he was driven into
exile and rebellion by royal ingratitude, the customary reward for
superior merit. His birth was obscure, and the obscurity equally gave
room to the aspersions of his enemies, and the flattery of his
adherents. If we credit the scandal of the former, Artaxerxes sprang
from the illegitimate commerce of a tanner's wife with a common soldier.
The latter represent him as descended from a branch of the ancient kings
of Persian, though time and misfortune had gradually reduced his
ancestors to the humble station of private citizens.  As the lineal heir
of the monarchy, he asserted his right to the throne, and challenged the
noble task of delivering the Persians from the oppression under which
they groaned above five centuries since the death of Darius. The
Parthians were defeated in three great battles. * In the last of these
their king Artaban was slain, and the spirit of the nation was forever
broken.  The authority of Artaxerxes was solemnly acknowledged in a
great assembly held at Balch in Khorasan.  Two younger branches of the
royal house of Arsaces were confounded among the prostrate satraps. A
third, more mindful of ancient grandeur than of present necessity,
attempted to retire, with a numerous train of vessels, towards their
kinsman, the king of Armenia; but this little army of deserters was
intercepted, and cut off, by the vigilance of the conqueror,  who boldly
assumed the double diadem, and the title of King of Kings, which had
been enjoyed by his predecessor. But these pompous titles, instead of
gratifying the vanity of the Persian, served only to admonish him of his
duty, and to inflame in his soul and should the ambition of restoring in
their full splendor, the religion and empire of Cyrus.

I. During the long servitude of Persia under the Macedonian and the
Parthian yoke, the nations of Europe and Asia had mutually adopted and
corrupted each other's superstitions. The Arsacides, indeed, practised
the worship of the Magi; but they disgraced and polluted it with a
various mixture of foreign idolatry. * The memory of Zoroaster, the
ancient prophet and philosopher of the Persians,  was still revered in
the East; but the obsolete and mysterious language, in which the
Zendavesta was composed,  opened a field of dispute to seventy sects,
who variously explained the fundamental doctrines of their religion, and
were all indifferently derided by a crowd of infidels, who rejected the
divine mission and miracles of the prophet. To suppress the idolaters,
reunite the schismatics, and confute the unbelievers, by the infallible
decision of a general council, the pious Artaxerxes summoned the Magi
from all parts of his dominions. These priests, who had so long sighed
in contempt and obscurity obeyed the welcome summons; and, on the
appointed day, appeared, to the number of about eighty thousand. But as
the debates of so tumultuous an assembly could not have been directed by
the authority of reason, or influenced by the art of policy, the Persian
synod was reduced, by successive operations, to forty thousand, to four
thousand, to four hundred, to forty, and at last to seven Magi, the most
respected for their learning and piety. One of these, Erdaviraph, a
young but holy prelate, received from the hands of his brethren three
cups of soporiferous wine. He drank them off, and instantly fell into a
long and profound sleep. As soon as he waked, he related to the king and
to the believing multitude, his journey to heaven, and his intimate
conferences with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced by this
supernatural evidence; and the articles of the faith of Zoroaster were
fixed with equal authority and precision.  A short delineation of that
celebrated system will be found useful, not only to display the
character of the Persian nation, but to illustrate many of their most
important transactions, both in peace and war, with the Roman empire.

The great and fundamental article of the system, was the celebrated
doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious attempt of
Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral and physical evil
with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and Governor of the world.
The first and original Being, in whom, or by whom, the universe exists,
is denominated in the writings of Zoroaster, Time without bounds;  but
it must be confessed, that this infinite substance seems rather a
metaphysical, abstraction of the mind, than a real object endowed with
self-consciousness, or possessed of moral perfections. From either the
blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite Time, which bears
but too near an affinity with the chaos of the Greeks, the two secondary
but active principles of the universe, were from all eternity produced,
Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them possessed of the powers of creation,
but each disposed, by his invariable nature, to exercise them with
different designs. * The principle of good is eternally absorbed in
light; the principle of evil eternally buried in darkness. The wise
benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and abundantly
provided his fair habitation with the materials of happiness. By his
vigilant providence, the motion of the planets, the order of the
seasons, and the temperate mixture of the elements, are preserved. But
the malice of Ahriman has long since pierced Ormusd's egg; or, in other
words, has violated the harmony of his works. Since that fatal eruption,
the most minute articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled
and agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up amidst the most
salutary plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest the
conflict of Nature, and the little world of man is perpetually shaken by
vice and misfortune. Whilst the rest of human kind are led away captives
in the chains of their infernal enemy, the faithful Persian alone
reserves his religious adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd,
and fights under his banner of light, in the full confidence that he
shall, in the last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive
period, the enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power of
Ormusd superior to the furious malice of his rival. Ahriman and his
followers, disarmed and subdued, will sink into their native darkness;
and virtue will maintain the eternal peace and harmony of the universe.

Chapter VIII: State Of Persion And Restoration Of The Monarchy. -- Part
II.

The theology of Zoroaster was darkly comprehended by foreigners, and
even by the far greater number of his disciples; but the most careless
observers were struck with the philosophic simplicity of the Persian
worship. "That people," said Herodotus,  "rejects the use of temples, of
altars, and of statues, and smiles at the folly of those nations who
imagine that the gods are sprung from, or bear any affinity with, the
human nature. The tops of the highest mountains are the places chosen
for sacrifices. Hymns and prayers are the principal worship; the Supreme
God, who fills the wide circle of heaven, is the object to whom they are
addressed." Yet, at the same time, in the true spirit of a polytheist,
he accuseth them of adoring Earth, Water, Fire, the Winds, and the Sun
and Moon. But the Persians of every age have denied the charge, and
explained the equivocal conduct, which might appear to give a color to
it. The elements, and more particularly Fire, Light, and the Sun, whom
they called Mithra,  were the objects of their religious reverence,
because they considered them as the purest symbols, the noblest
productions, and the most powerful agents of the Divine Power and
Nature.

Every mode of religion, to make a deep and lasting impression on the
human mind, must exercise our obedience, by enjoining practices of
devotion, for which we can assign no reason; and must acquire our
esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to the dictates of our own
hearts. The religion of Zoroaster was abundantly provided with the
former and possessed a sufficient portion of the latter. At the age of
puberty, the faithful Persian was invested with a mysterious girdle, the
badge of the divine protection; and from that moment all the actions of
his life, even the most indifferent, or the most necessary, were
sanctified by their peculiar prayers, ejaculations, or genuflections;
the omission of which, under any circumstances, was a grievous sin, not
inferior in guilt to the violation of the moral duties. The moral
duties, however, of justice, mercy, liberality, &c., were in their turn
required of the disciple of Zoroaster, who wished to escape the
persecution of Ahriman, and to live with Ormusd in a blissful eternity,
where the degree of felicity will be exactly proportioned to the degree
of virtue and piety.

But there are some remarkable instances in which Zoroaster lays aside
the prophet, assumes the legislator, and discovers a liberal concern for
private and public happiness, seldom to be found among the grovelling or
visionary schemes of superstition. Fasting and celibacy, the common
means of purchasing the divine favor, he condemns with abhorrence, as a
criminal rejection of the best gifts of Providence. The saint, in the
Magian religion, is obliged to beget children, to plant useful trees, to
destroy noxious animals, to convey water to the dry lands of Persia, and
to work out his salvation by pursuing all the labors of agriculture. *
We may quote from the Zendavesta a wise and benevolent maxim, which
compensates for many an absurdity. "He who sows the ground with care and
diligence acquires a greater stock of religious merit than he could gain
by the repetition of ten thousand prayers."  In the spring of every year
a festival was celebrated, destined to represent the primitive equality,
and the present connection, of mankind. The stately kings of Persia,
exchanging their vain pomp for more genuine greatness, freely mingled
with the humblest but most useful of their subjects. On that day the
husbandmen were admitted, without distinction, to the table of the king
and his satraps. The monarch accepted their petitions, inquired into
their grievances, and conversed with them on the most equal terms. "From
your labors," was he accustomed to say, (and to say with truth, if not
with sincerity,) "from your labors we receive our subsistence; you
derive your tranquillity from our vigilance: since, therefore, we are
mutually necessary to each other, let us live together like brothers in
concord and love."  Such a festival must indeed have degenerated, in a
wealthy and despotic empire, into a theatrical representation; but it
was at least a comedy well worthy of a royal audience, and which might
sometimes imprint a salutary lesson on the mind of a young prince.

Had Zoroaster, in all his institutions, invariably supported this
exalted character, his name would deserve a place with those of Numa and
Confucius, and his system would be justly entitled to all the applause,
which it has pleased some of our divines, and even some of our
philosophers, to bestow on it. But in that motley composition, dictated
by reason and passion, by enthusiasm and by selfish motives, some useful
and sublime truths were disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and
dangerous superstition. The Magi, or sacerdotal order, were extremely
numerous, since, as we have already seen, fourscore thousand of them
were convened in a general council. Their forces were multiplied by
discipline. A regular hierarchy was diffused through all the provinces
of Persia; and the Archimagus, who resided at Balch, was respected as
the visible head of the church, and the lawful successor of Zoroaster.
The property of the Magi was very considerable. Besides the less
invidious possession of a large tract of the most fertile lands of
Media,  they levied a general tax on the fortunes and the industry of
the Persians.  "Though your good works," says the interested prophet,
"exceed in number the leaves of the trees, the drops of rain, the stars
in the heaven, or the sands on the sea-shore, they will all be
unprofitable to you, unless they are accepted by the destour, or priest.
To obtain the acceptation of this guide to salvation, you must
faithfully pay him tithesof all you possess, of your goods, of your
lands, and of your money. If the destour be satisfied, your soul will
escape hell tortures; you will secure praise in this world and happiness
in the next. For the destours are the teachers of religion; they know
all things, and they deliver all men."  *

These convenient maxims of reverence and implicit were doubtless
imprinted with care on the tender minds of youth; since the Magi were
the masters of education in Persia, and to their hands the children even
of the royal family were intrusted.  The Persian priests, who were of a
speculative genius, preserved and investigated the secrets of Oriental
philosophy; and acquired, either by superior knowledge, or superior art,
the reputation of being well versed in some occult sciences, which have
derived their appellation from the Magi.  Those of more active
dispositions mixed with the world in courts and cities; and it is
observed, that the administration of Artaxerxes was in a great measure
directed by the counsels of the sacerdotal order, whose dignity, either
from policy or devotion, that prince restored to its ancient splendor.

The first counsel of the Magi was agreeable to the unsociable genius of
their faith,  to the practice of ancient kings,  and even to the example
of their legislator, who had a victim to a religious war, excited by his
own intolerant zeal.  By an edict of Artaxerxes, the exercise of every
worship, except that of Zoroaster, was severely prohibited. The temples
of the Parthians, and the statues of their deified monarchs, were thrown
down with ignominy.  The sword of Aristotle (such was the name given by
the Orientals to the polytheism and philosophy of the Greeks) was easily
broken;  the flames of persecution soon reached the more stubborn Jews
and Christians;  nor did they spare the heretics of their own nation and
religion. The majesty of Ormusd, who was jealous of a rival, was
seconded by the despotism of Artaxerxes, who could not suffer a rebel;
and the schismatics within his vast empire were soon reduced to the
inconsiderable number of eighty thousand.  * This spirit of persecution
reflects dishonor on the religion of Zoroaster; but as it was not
productive of any civil commotion, it served to strengthen the new
monarchy, by uniting all the various inhabitants of Persia in the bands
of religious zeal.

II. Artaxerxes, by his valor and conduct, had wrested the sceptre of the
East from the ancient royal family of Parthia. There still remained the
more difficult task of establishing, throughout the vast extent of
Persia, a uniform and vigorous administration. The weak indulgence of
the Arsacides had resigned to their sons and brothers the principal
provinces, and the greatest offices of the kingdom in the nature of
hereditary possessions. The vitax, or eighteen most powerful satraps,
were permitted to assume the regal title; and the vain pride of the
monarch was delighted with a nominal dominion over so many vassal kings.
Even tribes of barbarians in their mountains, and the Greek cities of
Upper Asia,  within their walls, scarcely acknowledged, or seldom
obeyed. any superior; and the Parthian empire exhibited, under other
names, a lively image of the feudal system  which has since prevailed in
Europe. But the active victor, at the head of a numerous and disciplined
army, visited in person every province of Persia. The defeat of the
boldest rebels, and the reduction of the strongest fortifications,
diffused the terror of his arms, and prepared the way for the peaceful
reception of his authority. An obstinate resistance was fatal to the
chiefs; but their followers were treated with lenity.  A cheerful
submission was rewarded with honors and riches, but the prudent
Artaxerxes suffering no person except himself to assume the title of
king, abolished every intermediate power between the throne and the
people. His kingdom, nearly equal in extent to modern Persia, was, on
every side, bounded by the sea, or by great rivers; by the Euphrates,
the Tigris, the Araxes, the Oxus, and the Indus, by the Caspian Sea, and
the Gulf of Persia.  That country was computed to contain, in the last
century, five hundred and fifty-four cities, sixty thousand villages,
and about forty millions of souls.  If we compare the administration of
the house of Sassan with that of the house of Sefi, the political
influence of the Magian with that of the Mahometan religion, we shall
probably infer, that the kingdom of Artaxerxes contained at least as
great a number of cities, villages, and inhabitants. But it must
likewise be confessed, that in every age the want of harbors on the
sea-coast, and the scarcity of fresh water in the inland provinces, have
been very unfavorable to the commerce and agriculture of the Persians;
who, in the calculation of their numbers, seem to have indulged one of
the nearest, though most common, artifices of national vanity.

As soon as the ambitious mind of Artaxerxes had triumphed ever the
resistance of his vassals, he began to threaten the neighboring states,
who, during the long slumber of his predecessors, had insulted Persia
with impunity. He obtained some easy victories over the wild Scythians
and the effeminate Indians; but the Romans were an enemy, who, by their
past injuries and present power, deserved the utmost efforts of his
arms. A forty years' tranquillity, the fruit of valor and moderation,
had succeeded the victories of Trajan. During the period that elapsed
from the accession of Marcus to the reign of Alexander, the Roman and
the Parthian empires were twice engaged in war; and although the whole
strength of the Arsacides contended with a part only of the forces of
Rome, the event was most commonly in favor of the latter. Macrinus,
indeed, prompted by his precarious situation and pusillanimous temper,
purchased a peace at the expense of near two millions of our money;  but
the generals of Marcus, the emperor Severus, and his son, erected many
trophies in Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Among their exploits, the
imperfect relation of which would have unseasonably interrupted the more
important series of domestic revolutions, we shall only mention the
repeated calamities of the two great cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon.

Seleucia, on the western bank of the Tigris, about forty-five miles to
the north of ancient Babylon, was the capital of the Macedonian
conquests in Upper Asia.  Many ages after the fall of their empire,
Seleucia retained the genuine characters of a Grecian colony, arts,
military virtue, and the love of freedom. The independent republic was
governed by a senate of three hundred nobles; the people consisted of
six hundred thousand citizens; the walls were strong, and as long as
concord prevailed among the several orders of the state, they viewed
with contempt the power of the Parthian: but the madness of faction was
sometimes provoked to implore the dangerous aid of the common enemy, who
was posted almost at the gates of the colony.  The Parthian monarchs,
like the Mogul sovereigns of Hindostan, delighted in the pastoral life
of their Scythian ancestors; and the Imperial camp was frequently
pitched in the plain of Ctesiphon, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, at
the distance of only three miles from Seleucia.  The innumerable
attendants on luxury and despotism resorted to the court, and the little
village of Ctesiphon insensibly swelled into a great city.  Under the
reign of Marcus, the Roman generals penetrated as far as Ctesiphon and
Seleucia. They were received as friends by the Greek colony; they
attacked as enemies the seat of the Parthian kings; yet both cities
experienced the same treatment. The sack and conflagration of Seleucia,
with the massacre of three hundred thousand of the inhabitants,
tarnished the glory of the Roman triumph.  Seleucia, already exhausted
by the neighborhood of a too powerful rival, sunk under the fatal blow;
but Ctesiphon, in about thirty-three years, had sufficiently recovered
its strength to maintain an obstinate siege against the emperor Severus.
The city was, however, taken by assault; the king, who defended it in
person, escaped with precipitation; a hundred thousand captives, and a
rich booty, rewarded the fatigues of the Roman soldiers.
Notwithstanding these misfortunes, Ctesiphon succeeded to Babylon and to
Seleucia, as one of the great capitals of the East. In summer, the
monarch of Persia enjoyed at Ecbatana the cool breezes of the mountains
of Media; but the mildness of the climate engaged him to prefer
Ctesiphon for his winter residence.

From these successful inroads the Romans derived no real or lasting
benefit; nor did they attempt to preserve such distant conquests,
separated from the provinces of the empire by a large tract of
intermediate desert. The reduction of the kingdom of Osrhoene was an
acquisition of less splendor indeed, but of a far more solid advantage.
That little state occupied the northern and most fertile part of
Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Edessa, its capital,
was situated about twenty miles beyond the former of those rivers; and
the inhabitants, since the time of Alexander, were a mixed race of
Greeks, Arabs, Syrians, and Armenians.  The feeble sovereigns of
Osrhoene, placed on the dangerous verge of two contending empires, were
attached from inclination to the Parthian cause; but the superior power
of Rome exacted from them a reluctant homage, which is still attested by
their medals. After the conclusion of the Parthian war under Marcus, it
was judged prudent to secure some substantia, pledges of their doubtful
fidelity. Forts were constructed in several parts of the country, and a
Roman garrison was fixed in the strong town of Nisibis. During the
troubles that followed the death of Commodus, the princes of Osrhoene
attempted to shake off the yoke; but the stern policy of Severus
confirmed their dependence,  and the perfidy of Caracalla completed the
easy conquest. Abgarus, the last king of Edessa, was sent in chains to
Rome, his dominions reduced into a province, and his capital dignified
with the rank of colony; and thus the Romans, about ten years before the
fall of the Parthian monarchy, obtained a firm and permanent
establishment beyond the Euphrates.

Prudence as well as glory might have justified a war on the side of
Artaxerxes, had his views been confined to the defence or acquisition of
a useful frontier. but the ambitious Persian openly avowed a far more
extensive design of conquest; and he thought himself able to support his
lofty pretensions by the arms of reason as well as by those of power.
Cyrus, he alleged, had first subdued, and his successors had for a long
time possessed, the whole extent of Asia, as far as the Propontis and
the Ægean Sea; the provinces of Caria and Ionia, under their empire, had
been governed by Persian satraps, and all Egypt, to the confines of
Æthiopia, had acknowledged their sovereignty.  Their rights had been
suspended, but not destroyed, by a long usurpation; and as soon as he
received the Persian diadem, which birth and successful valor had placed
upon his head, the first great duty of his station called upon him to
restore the ancient limits and splendor of the monarchy. The Great King,
therefore, (such was the haughty style of his embassies to the emperor
Alexander,) commanded the Romans instantly to depart from all the
provinces of his ancestors, and, yielding to the Persians the empire of
Asia, to content themselves with the undisturbed possession of Europe.
This haughty mandate was delivered by four hundred of the tallest and
most beautiful of the Persians; who, by their fine horses, splendid
arms, and rich apparel, displayed the pride and greatness of their
master.  Such an embassy was much less an offer of negotiation than a
declaration of war. Both Alexander Severus and Artaxerxes, collecting
the military force of the Roman and Persian monarchies, resolved in this
important contest to lead their armies in person.

If we credit what should seem the most authentic of all records, an
oration, still extant, and delivered by the emperor himself to the
senate, we must allow that the victory of Alexander Severus was not
inferior to any of those formerly obtained over the Persians by the son
of Philip. The army of the Great King consisted of one hundred and
twenty thousand horse, clothed in complete armor of steel; of seven
hundred elephants, with towers filled with archers on their backs, and
of eighteen hundred chariots armed with scythes. This formidable host,
the like of which is not to be found in eastern history, and has
scarcely been imagined in eastern romance,  was discomfited in a great
battle, in which the Roman Alexander proved himself an intrepid soldier
and a skilful general. The Great King fled before his valor; an immense
booty, and the conquest of Mesopotamia, were the immediate fruits of
this signal victory. Such are the circumstances of this ostentatious and
improbable relation, dictated, as it too plainly appears, by the vanity
of the monarch, adorned by the unblushing servility of his flatterers,
and received without contradiction by a distant and obsequious senate.
Far from being inclined to believe that the arms of Alexander obtained
any memorable advantage over the Persians, we are induced to suspect
that all this blaze of imaginary glory was designed to conceal some real
disgrace.

Our suspicious are confirmed by the authority of a contemporary
historian, who mentions the virtues of Alexander with respect, and his
faults with candor. He describes the judicious plan which had been
formed for the conduct of the war. Three Roman armies were destined to
invade Persia at the same time, and by different roads. But the
operations of the campaign, though wisely concerted, were not executed
either with ability or success. The first of these armies, as soon as it
had entered the marshy plains of Babylon, towards the artificial conflux
of the Euphrates and the Tigris,  was encompassed by the superior
numbers, and destroyed by the arrows of the enemy. The alliance of
Chosroes, king of Armenia,  and the long tract of mountainous country,
in which the Persian cavalry was of little service, opened a secure
entrance into the heart of Media, to the second of the Roman armies.
These brave troops laid waste the adjacent provinces, and by several
successful actions against Artaxerxes, gave a faint color to the
emperor's vanity. But the retreat of this victorious army was imprudent,
or at least unfortunate. In repassing the mountains, great numbers of
soldiers perished by the badness of the roads, and the severity of the
winter season. It had been resolved, that whilst these two great
detachments penetrated into the opposite extremes of the Persian
dominions, the main body, under the command of Alexander himself, should
support their attack, by invading the centre of the kingdom. But the
unexperienced youth, influenced by his mother's counsels, and perhaps by
his own fears, deserted the bravest troops, and the fairest prospect of
victory; and after consuming in Mesopotamia an inactive and inglorious
summer, he led back to Antioch an army diminished by sickness, and
provoked by disappointment. The behavior of Artaxerxes had been very
different. Flying with rapidity from the hills of Media to the marshes
of the Euphrates, he had everywhere opposed the invaders in person; and
in either fortune had united with the ablest conduct the most undaunted
resolution. But in several obstinate engagements against the veteran
legions of Rome, the Persian monarch had lost the flower of his troops.
Even his victories had weakened his power. The favorable opportunities
of the absence of Alexander, and of the confusions that followed that
emperor's death, presented themselves in vain to his ambition. Instead
of expelling the Romans, as he pretended, from the continent of Asia, he
found himself unable to wrest from their hands the little province of
Mesopotamia.

The reign of Artaxerxes, which, from the last defeat of the Parthians,
lasted only fourteen years, forms a memorable æra in the history of the
East, and even in that of Rome. His character seems to have been marked
by those bold and commanding features, that generally distinguish the
princes who conquer, from those who inherit an empire. Till the last
period of the Persian monarchy, his code of laws was respected as the
groundwork of their civil and religious policy.  Several of his sayings
are preserved. One of them in particular discovers a deep insight into
the constitution of government. "The authority of the prince," said
Artaxerxes, "must be defended by a military force; that force can only
be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at last, fall upon agriculture;
and agriculture can never flourish except under the protection of
justice and moderation."  Artaxerxes bequeathed his new empire, and his
ambitious designs against the Romans, to Sapor, a son not unworthy of
his great father; but those designs were too extensive for the power of
Persia, and served only to involve both nations in a long series of
destructive wars and reciprocal calamities.

The Persians, long since civilized and corrupted, were very far from
possessing the martial independence, and the intrepid hardiness, both of
mind and body, which have rendered the northern barbarians masters of
the world. The science of war, that constituted the more rational force
of Greece and Rome, as it now does of Europe, never made any
considerable progress in the East. Those disciplined evolutions which
harmonize and animate a confused multitude, were unknown to the
Persians. They were equally unskilled in the arts of constructing,
besieging, or defending regular fortifications. They trusted more to
their numbers than to their courage; more to their courage than to their
discipline. The infantry was a half-armed, spiritless crowd of peasants,
levied in haste by the allurements of plunder, and as easily dispersed
by a victory as by a defeat. The monarch and his nobles transported into
the camp the pride and luxury of the seraglio. Their military operations
were impeded by a useless train of women, eunuchs, horses, and camels;
and in the midst of a successful campaign, the Persian host was often
separated or destroyed by an unexpected famine.

But the nobles of Persia, in the bosom of luxury and despotism,
preserved a strong sense of personal gallantry and national honor. From
the age of seven years they were taught to speak truth, to shoot with
the bow, and to ride; and it was universally confessed, that in the two
last of these arts, they had made a more than common proficiency.  The
most distinguished youth were educated under the monarch's eye,
practised their exercises in the gate of his palace, and were severely
trained up to the habits of temperance and obedience, in their long and
laborious parties of hunting. In every province, the satrap maintained a
like school of military virtue. The Persian nobles (so natural is the
idea of feudal tenures) received from the king's bounty lands and
houses, on the condition of their service in war. They were ready on the
first summons to mount on horseback, with a martial and splendid train
of followers, and to join the numerous bodies of guards, who were
carefully selected from among the most robust slaves, and the bravest
adventures of Asia. These armies, both of light and of heavy cavalry,
equally formidable by the impetuosity of their charge and the rapidity
of their motions, threatened, as an impending cloud, the eastern
provinces of the declining empire of Rome.