 Chapter 4, Part 2 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Pestulence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of the calamities of Rome. The first could only be 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 had commanded the Praetorian 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 footguards, who had been long jealous of the prerogatives and insolence of the Praetorian cavalry, embraced the party of the people. The tumult became a regular engagement and threatened a general massacre. The Praetorians at length gave way, oppressed with numbers, and the tide of popular fury returned with redoubled violence against the gates of the palace, where comedists lay dissolved in luxury and alone unconscious of the Civil War. It was death to approach his person with unwelcome news. He would have perished in this supine security had not two women, his elder sister Fadilla and Marsha, the most favorite of his concubines, ventured to break into his presence. Bathed in tears and with disheveled 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 in person. Comedists started from his dream of pleasure and commanded that the head of Kliander 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 comatists. Wills T. thus abandoned the reigns 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 suraglio with 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 expiated on these abandoned scenes of prostitution which scorned every restraint of nature or modesty. But it would not be easy to translate their two 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 a cell, in the elegant arts of music and poetry. Nor should he despise his pursuits had he not converted the pleasing realization of a leisure hour into the serious business and ambition of his life. But combatus, from his earliest infancy, discovered in aversion to whatever was rational or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the populace, the sports of the circus and amphitheater, the combat 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. Wist the Moors and Parthians, who taught him to dart the javelin and shoot with the bow, found a disciple who delighted in his application, and soon equalled the most skillful of his instructors in the steadiness of the eye and 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 nemean lion and the slaughter of the wild boar of Aramanthus, the Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among the gods, and in a mortal 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 these 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 populace cities. To surprise them in their solitary haunts and to transport them to Rome that they might be slain and pomp by the hand of an emperor was an enterprise equally ridiculous for the prince and impressive for the people. Ignorant of these distinctions, Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious resemblance and styled himself, as we still read on his medals, the Roman Hercules. The club and the lion's hide were placed by the sign of the throne amongst the insides of Soventry, 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 the presence of a very few favorites. On the appointed day, the various motives of flattery, fear and curiosity attracted to the amphitheater 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 heart or head of the animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With arrows whose point was shaped into the form of a 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 leapt upon a trembling malfactor. In the same instant, the shaft flew, and the beast dropped dead and the man remained unhurt. The dens of the amphitheater, disgorged at once a hundred lions, a hundred darts from the unerring hand of Commodus laid them dead as they ran, raging around the arena. Neither the huge bulk of the elephant nor the scaly hide of the rhinoceros could defend them from his stroke. Ethiopia and India yielded their most extraordinary productions, and several animals were slain in the amphitheater, which had only been seen in the representations of art, or perhaps a fancy. In all these exhibitions, the shest 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 sanctity of the god. But the menace of the populace were affected with shame and indignation when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists as a gladiator, and professed glory in a profession which the laws and manners of the Romans had branded with the justice note of infamy. He chose the habit and arms of the Secutor, whose combat with the Retiarius formed one of the most lively scenes in the bloody sports of the amphitheater. The Secutor was armed with a helmet, sword, and buckler. His naked antagonist had only a large net and trident. With the one he endeavored to entangle, with the other to dispatch 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 735 several times. These glorious achievements were carefully recorded in the public acts of the empire, and that he might emit 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 entanglements the master of the world was always successful. In the amphitheater his victories were not often sanguinary, but when he exercised his skill in the school of gladiators, or in his own palace, his wretched antagonists were frequently honored with the mortal wound from the hand of Commodus, and obliged to seal their flattery with their blood. He now disdain the appellation of Hercules. The name of Paulus, a celebrated Secutor, was the only one which delighted his ear. He was inscribed on his class of statues, and repeated in the redoubled acclamations of the mournful and applauding senate. Claudius Pompaneanus, the virtuous husband of Lucila, 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 amphitheater. 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, Pompaneanus escaped the resentment of the tyrant, and with his honor had the good fortune to preserve his life. Claudius had now attained the summit of vice and infamy, and missed the acclamations of a flattering court, he was unable to disguise from himself that he 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, and 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. Marsha, his favorite concubine. Olectus, his chamberlain, and Lytus, his Praetorian prefect, 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. Marsha seized the occasion by 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 professional 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. Every one of whom was equal to their master in personal strength and personal abilities. The measures of the conspirators were conducted with the deliberate coolness and celerity which the greatness of the occasion required. They resolved instantly to fill the vacant throne with an emperor whose character would justify and maintain the action that had been committed. They fixed on Pyrtonax, prefect 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 successfully governed most of the provinces of the empire, and in all of 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 the late hour of the night he was awakened with the news that the chamberlain and prefect read his door, he received them with intrepid resignation and desired that 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 sincere reluctance, the natural effect of his knowledge both of the duties and of the dangers of the supreme rank. Marcus conducted without delay the new emperor to the camp of the Praetorians, defusing at the same time through the city a seasonable report that Commodus died suddenly of an apoplexy, and that the virtuous Perthanax had already succeeded to the throne. The guards were rather surprised and pleased with the suspicious death of a prince whose indulgence in liberality they alone had experienced. But the emergency of the occasion, the authority of the prefect, the reputation of Perthanax 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 those of his creatures who had not yet preserved any regard for prudence or decency, Commodus had resolved to pass the night in the gladiator's school and from thence to take possession of the consulship and 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 that 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. Pyrtonax, who modestly represented the meanness of his extraction, pointed out several noble senators more deserving than himself of the empire, was constrained by their dutiful violence to ascend the throne and receive all the titles of imperial power, confirmed by the most sincere vows of fidelity. The memory of Commodus was branded with internal infamy. The names of tyrant, of gladiator, of public enemy resounded in every corner of the house. They decreed in tumultuous votes that his honor 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 even expressed some indignation about those officious servants who had already presumed to screen his remains from the justice of the Senate. But Pyrtonax could not refuse those last rights to the memory of Marcus and the fears of his first protector, Claudius Pompeonus, 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 the dead emperor, whom the Senate had flattered when alive with the most abject civility, betrayed a just but ungenerous spirit or 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 dedicated trust, was the ancient and undoubted prerogative of the Roman Senate. But that feeble assembly was obliged to contend itself with inflicting on a fallen tyrant that public justice from which, during his life in reign, he had been shielded by the strong arm of military despotism. Pyrtonax found the 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 ascension, he resigned over to his wife and son, his whole private fortune, that they might have no pretense 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 Caesar. Accurately distinguishing between the duties of a parent and those of a sovereign, he educated his son with the 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 Pyrtonax 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, consider them as friends and companions, with whom he shared the dangers 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 were membered and regretted the luxurious prodigality of Commodus. To heal, as far as it was possible, the wounds inflicted by the hands of tyranny was the pleasing but melancholy task of Pyrtonax. The innocent victims who yet survived were called 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 supplicurs of their ancestors. The memories were 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 dilators, the common enemies of their master, of virtue, and of their country. Yet in the inquisition of these legal assassins, Pyrtonax proceeded with a steady temper, which gave everything 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 applied to promise to the Praetorian guards. Yet, under these distressed circumstances, Pyrtonax 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 poorer public 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 Pyrtonax 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, accepting only and 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 that 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 tubu during the term of ten years. Such an uniform conduct had already secured to Pyrtonax 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 flatter themselves that they should long enjoy the benign influence of his administration. A heasty zeal to reform the corrupted state, accompanied with less prudence than might have been expected from the years and experience of Pyrtonax, 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 Praetorian guards betrayed their inward dissatisfaction. They had reluctantly submitted to Pyrtonax, they dreaded the strictness of the ancient discipline, which he was preparing to restore, and they regretted the license of their former reign. Their discontents were secretly formented by Lytus, their prefect, 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 the 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 the violence and took refuge at the feet of Pyrtonax. A short time afterwards, Sosias Falco, one of the councils 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 Pyrtonax, which was crushed by a 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 Prytorian guards. On the 28th of March, 86 days only after the death of Commodus, a general sedition broke out in 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 two virtuous emperor. On the news of their approach, Pyrtonax, disdaining either flight or concealment, advanced to meet his assassins and recalled to their minds his own innocence and the sanctity of the 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 Tongres leveled the first blow against Pyrtonax, who was instantly dispatched with a multitude of wounds. His head, separated from his body and placed on a lance, was carried in triumph to the Praetorian camp in the sight of a mournful and indignant people, who lamented the unworthy fate of that insolent prince, in the transient blessings of a reign, the memory of which can serve only to aggravate their approaching misfortunes. Chapter 5 of the Empire to Dideus Julianus 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. Where they handful of men such 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 of 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 would 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 Praetorian 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 colour, 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 all the Senate and either to prevent or to crush the first motions of rebellion. He distinguished these favoured troops by a double pay and superior privileges, but as their formidable aspect would at once have alarmed and irritated the Roman people, three co-hoats 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 for ever riveted the fetters of his country. Under the fair pretenses 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 skillful 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 Praetorian 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 master with familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe which distance only and mystery can preserve toward 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 Praetorian 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 native, which, since the elevation of Claudius, was enacted as a legal claim on the accession of every new emperor. The advocate of the guards endeavored to justify by arguments the power which they asserted by arms, and to maintain that, according to the purest principles of the Constitution, their consent was essentially necessary in the appointment of an emperor. The election of consuls, of generals, and of magistrates, however it had been recently usurped by the Senate, was the ancient and undoubted right of the Roman people. But where was the Roman people to be found? Not surely amongst the mixed multitude of slaves and strangers that filled the streets of Rome. A servile populace as devoid of spirit, as destitute of property, the defenders of the state selected from the flower of the Italian youth, and trained in the exercise of arms and virtue were the genuine representatives of the people, and the best entitled to elect the military chief of the Republic. These assertions, however defective in reason, became unanswerable when the fierce Praetorians increased their weight by throwing like the barbarian conqueror of Rome their swords into the scale. The Praetorians 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 perfect Cletus, 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 endeavouring to calm the fury of the multitude when he was silenced by the clamourous return of the murderers, bearing on a lands 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 from the imperial dignity, but the more prudent of the Praetorians apprehensive that in this private contract they should not obtain a just price for also 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 licence, 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 his health in the luxury of the table. His wife and his daughter, his freedman 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 Praetorian 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 denative of 5,000 drachmas, above 106 pounds, to each soldier, when Julian, eager for the prize, rose at once to the sum of 6,250 drachmas, or upwards of 200 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 Praetorians to fulfill the conditions of the sale. They placed their new sovereign, whom they served and despised, in the center 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 Pertenax, 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's 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. On 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 Pertenax, 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 performance of Pylades, a celebrated dancer. Yet it was observed that after the group of flatterers dispersed and left him to darkness, solitude, and terrible reflection, he passed a sleepless night, revolving most probably in his own 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. He purchased by money. He had reason to tremble. On the throne of the world he found himself without a friend, and even without an adherence. 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 inability 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, securing their numbers and obscurity, gave a free vent to their passions. The streets and public places of Rome resounded with clamours and implications. 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 Pertorians 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, Albinas, Visenius, 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, Albinas, 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 empire. 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 visors, 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 Albinas 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 favour of a tyrant does not always suppose a want of merit in the object of it. He may, without tending 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 Albinas 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, honourable 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 entrance of Caesar, the governor of Britain wisely declined the dangerous honour, 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 valour. Albinus braved the menaces of Commodus, leaning towards Pertinax a stately ambiguous reserve, and instantly declared against the usurpation of Julian. The convulsions of the capital had a 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 as the lieutenant of the senate and people. Personal merit alone had raised Bersenius' 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 part seemed to have been better suited to the second than to the first rank. He was an unequal rival, though he might have proved himself an excellent lieutenant to Severus, who afterwards displayed the greatness of his mind by adopting several useful institutions from a vanquished enemy. In his government, Niger acquired the esteem of the soldiers and the love of the provincials. His rigid discipline fortified the valour and confirmed the obedience of the former, while 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 Ethiopia to the Adriatic, 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 Adriatic, 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 neighbourhood 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 exhaustible supply of recruits to the legions stationed on the banks of the Danube and which from a perpetual warfare against the Germans and Samasans 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 assent of private honours had concealed his daring ambition which was never diverted from its steady course by the elements of pleasure, the apprehension of danger or the feelings of humanity. On the first news of the murder of Pertenax he assembled his troops painted in the most lively colours the crime, the insolence and the weakness of the Praetorian 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 honourable denative 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, Pertenax 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 Panonian 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 Pertenax, 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 armour 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 Panonian 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 surrounded with our 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 a 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 Praetorians 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 entrenchments could be defended without hope of relief against the 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 weights of which they were oppressed. The unpracticed elephants whose uncouth appearance it was hoped would strike terror into the army of the north through their unskillful riders and the awkward evolutions of the marines drawn from the fleet of Mycenaeum 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 dispatched private assassins to take away his life. He designed that the Vestal Virgins at all the colleges of priest 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. End of Chapter 5 Part 1 Chapter 5 Part 2 of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire Volume 1 This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit Librivox.org Sale of the empire to Didius Julianus Part 2 Severus, who dreaded neither his arms nor his enchantments, guarded himself from the only danger of secret conspiracy by the faithful attendants of six hundred chosen men who never acquitted his person or their curasses either by night or by day during the whole march. Advancing with a steady and rapid cause he passed without difficulty the deviles of the Apennine received into his party the troops and ambassadors sent to return his progress and made a short halt at Interamnia about 70 miles from Rome. His victory was already secure but the despair of the Praetorians might have rendered it bloody and Severus had the laudable ambition of ascending the throne without drawing his 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 Praetorians 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 66 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 Tiber proves at once the plenty of provisions provided 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 Praetorian guards directing them to wait his arrival on a large plane 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 silence 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 30 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 Caesars 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 valour 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 offenders 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 statesman 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 avenging 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 severs 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 while severs 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 Caesar as a reward for his fatal neutrality till the first contest was decided severs 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 Caesar with respect to desire a private audience and to plunge their daggers into his heart the conspiracy was discovered and the two 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 severs seem inadequate to the importance of his conquests two engagements the one near the helispont the other in the narrow defiles of selicia decided the fate of his syrian competitor and the troops of europe asserted their usual ascendant of the effeminate natives of asia the battle of leon where 150 000 romans were engaged was equally fatal to albinus the valour of the british army maintained indeed a sharp and doubtful contest with a hardy discipline of the lyrian legions the fame and person of severus appeared during a few moments irrecoverably lost so 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 was 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 combatted 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 denatives 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 rooted 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 500 vessels was anchored in the harbour 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 helispont an 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 defense 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 uke sign and passed through the undefined Bosphorus to the centre of the Mediterranean both Niger and albinus were discovered and put to death in their flight from 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 and 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 reasonable correspondences thirty-five senators however accused of having favoured the party of albinus he freely pardoned and by his subsequent behavior endeavored to convince him that he had forgotten as well as forgiven their supposed offensives but at the same time he condemned 41 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 ensuring 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 where 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 secure 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 abusers 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 but from the natural propensity of a death spot 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 Caesar or the deep policy of Augustus was 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 denatives on every public occasion of danger or festivity elated by success renovated 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 reformations 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 praetorians 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 formally these troops had been recruited in Italy and as the adjacent provinces gradually imbibe 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 drafted 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 praetorians 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 praetorium prefect who in his origin have been a simple captain of the guards was placed not only at the head of the army but of the financiers and even of the law in every department of administration he represented the person and exercised the authority of the emperor the first prefect who enjoyed and abused this immense power was Plotianus the favorite minister of Severus his reign lasted above then years to the marriage of his daughter with the eldest son of the emperor which seemed to assure his fortune prove the occasion be drawing the animosities of the palace by irritating the ambition and alarming the fears of Plotianus threatened to produce a revolution and obliged the emperor who still loved him to consent with reluctance to his death after the fall of Plotianus an eminent lawyer the celebrated Papinian was appointed to execute the motley office praetorium prefect till the reign of Severus the virtue and even the good sense of the emperors had been distinguished by the 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 ripe 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 were approved as effectual assume the conduct and style of a sovereign and a conqueror and exercise without disguise the whole legislative as well as the executive power the victory of 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 guided 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 was 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 antonymes 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 discounted 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 patchimony the most eminent of the civil lawyers and particularly Papinian Paulus and Upian 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 in perfection the contemporaries of severus and 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 an example justly considered him as the principal author of the decline of the roman empire end of chapter five part two chapter six part one of the decline and fall of the roman empire volume one this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org the death of severus tyranny of cracola usurpation of macronus follies of alegalibus virtues of alexander severus licentiousness of the army general state of the roman finances tax and tribute 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 can never afford a lasting satisfaction to an ambitious mind this melancholy truth was felt and acknowledged by severus fortune and merit had from a 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 africans severus was passionately addicted to the vain studies of magic and divination deeply versed in the interpretations 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 lianese gall 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 a young lady of a messa in syria had a royal nativity he solicit and obtained her hand julia domna for that was her name deserved all that the stars could promise her she possessed even in an advanced age the attractions of beauty and united to a lively imagination a firmness of mind a 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 range she administered the principal affairs of the empire with the prudence that supported his authority and with the moderation that sometimes corrected his wild extravagances 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 had 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 curricula and getta was the fruit of her 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 fermented by the arts of their interested favorites broke out in childish and gradually in more serious competitions and at length divided the theater the circus and the court into two factions actuated by the hopes and fears of their respected 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 by so much labor cemented with so much blood and guarded with every defense of arms and treasure with an impartial hand he maintained between them an exact balance of favor conferred on both the rank of Augustus and 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 curricula asserted the right of primogenitor 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 sack 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 provinces by the barbarians of the north was received with pleasure by severus though the village 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 innervated their minds and irritated their passions and of ignoring their youth to the toils of war and government not withstanding his advanced age for he was about three score 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 the 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 ampli skates 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 harasses of scotland are reported to have cost the romans above 50 000 men the caledonians at length yielded to the powerful and obstinate attack sued for peace 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 the 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 fengal 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 junction to have alluded the power of severus and to have obtained a signal victory on the banks of the caron in which the son of the king of the world caracal fled from his arms across the fields of his pride something of a doubtful mess still hangs over these highland traditions nor can it be entirely dispelled by the most ingenious researchers of modern criticism but if we could with safety indulge the pleasing supposition that fengal lived and that asian sung the striking contrast of the situation and manners of the contending nations might amuse a philosophic mind the parallel would be of little advantage to the more civilized people if we compare the unrelenting revenge of severus with the generous clemency of fengal the timid and brutal cruelty of caracala with the bravery the tenderness the elegant genius of asian the mercenary chiefs who for motives of fear or interest served under the imperial standard with the freeborn warriors who started to arms at the voice of the king of the morwen 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 illness of severus inflamed the wild ambition and black passions of caracala 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 excited 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 by his own impatience he expired at york in the 65th year of his life in the 18th 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 the authority of their deceased master resisted the solicitations of curricula 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 former 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 can trust a reconciliation it was visible that only one could reign and the other must fall and each of them judging of his rivals designs by his own guarded his life with the most jealous vigilance from the repeated attacks of poison or the sword the rapid journey through gall 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 digitally fortified and guards were posted and relieved with the same strictness as in a besieged place the emperor's met only in public in the presence of their afflicted mother and each surrounded by numerous train of armed followers even on these occasions of ceremony the dissimulation of courts could ill disguise the rancor of their hearts this late in 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 curricula is 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 get to who might fix his residence at Alexandria or Antioch cities little inferior to Rome itself in wealth and greatness the 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 sovereignty of Rome whilst the natives of Asia followed the emperor of the east the tiers of the empress Julia interrupted the negotiation the first idea of which filled every Roman breast with surprise and indignation the mighty mass of conquest was so intimately connected by the hand of time and policy that it required the most forceful violence to render 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 hitherto remained inviolate had the treaty been carried into execution the sovereign of Europe might soon have been the conqueror of Asia but Caracola obtained an easier though more guilty victory he artfully listened to his mothers and treaties 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 unveiling 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 Caracola with heavy steps and horror in his countenance ran towards the Praetorian camp as his only refuge and threw himself on the ground before the statues of the tutular the soldiers attempted to raise and comfort him in broken and disordered words he informed them of his imminent danger and fortunate escape assinuating 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 the complaint was useless revenge was dangerous and they still reverenced the son of Severus their discontent died away in idle murmurs and Caracola soon convinced them of the justice of his cause by distributing in one lavish donative the accumulated treasures of his father's reign the real sentiments of the soldiers alone were of importance to his safety or power their declaration in his favor commanded the dutiful professions of the senate the obsequious assembly was always prepared to ratify the decision of fortune but as Caracola 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 and pity to his misfortune has cast a veil over his vices we consider that young prince is the innocent victim of his brother's ambition without recollecting that he himself wanted power rather than inclination to consummate the same attempts of murder and revenge the crime went not unpunished neither business nor pleasure nor flattery could defend Caracola from the stings of a guilty conscience 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 upgrade 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 Caracola 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 size and to receive the assassin with smiles of joy and approbation it was computed that under the vague appellation of the friends of get up above 20,000 persons of both sexes suffered death his guards and freedmen ministers of a 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 dependents were included in the prescription which endeavored to reach everyone who had maintained the smallest correspondence with get up who lamented his death or even mentioned his name healthiest person acts son to the prince of that name lost his life by an unseasonable widowsism it was a sufficient crime of three see a priscus to be descended from a family in which the love of liberty seemed to be an hereditary quality the particular causes of calamity and suspicion were 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 and of chapter six part one chapter six part two of the decline and fall of the roman empire volume one this is a Libervox recording all Libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libervox.org the execution of so many innocent citizens was bewailed by the secret tiers of their friends and families the death of pepinion the praetorian prefect 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 virtues and abilities severus on his deathbed had conjured him to watch over the prosperity and union of the imperial family the honest labors of pepinion served only to inflame the hatred which curricula had already conceived against his father's minister after the murder of geta the prefect 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 quote that it was easier to commit than to justify a parasite and quote was the glorious reply of pepinion who do not hesitate between the loss of life and that of honor such intrepid virtue which had escaped pure and unsullied from the intrigues of courts the habits of business and the arts of his profession reflects more luster on the memory of pepinion than all his great employments his numerous writings and the superior reputation as a lawyer which he has preserved through every age of roman jurisprudence it had hitherto been the particular felicity of the romans and in the worst of times their consolation that the virtue of the emperors was active their vice indolent augustus trajan hadrian and marcus had visited their extensive dominions in person their progress was marked by acts of wisdom and beneficence the tyranny of tiberius nero and demission who resided almost constantly at roam or in the adjacent villas was confined to the senatorial and equestrian orders but caracola was a common enemy of mankind he left the capital and he never returned to it about a year after the murder of ghetta the rest of his reign was spent in the several provinces of the empire particularly those of the east and every province was by turns the scene of his rapine and cruelty the senators compelled by fear to attend his capricious motions were obliged to provide daily entertainments at an immense expense which he abandoned with contempt to his guards and to erect in every city magnificent palaces and theaters which he either disdain to visit or ordered to be immediately thrown down the most wealthy families were ruined by partial fines and confiscations and the great body of his subjects oppressed by ingenious and aggravated taxes in the midst of peace and upon the slightest provocation he issued his commands at alexandria in egypt for a general massacre from a secure post in the temple of serapis he viewed and directed the slaughter of many thousand citizens as well as strangers without distinguishing either the numbers or the crimes of the sufferers since as he coolly informed the senate all the alexandrians those who had perished and those who had escaped were alike guilty the wise instructions of severus never made any lasting impression on the mind of his son who although not destitute of imagination and eloquence was equally devoid of judgment and humanity one dangerous maxim worthy of a tyrant was remembered and abused by curricula to secure the affections of the army and 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 troop was tempered by firmness and authority the careless perfusion of the son was the policy of one reign in the inevitable ruin of the army and of the empire the vigor of the soldiers instead of being confirmed by the severe discipline of the 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 and peace and service and war is best secured by an honorable poverty the demeanor of curricula 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 their dress and manners of a common soldier it was impossible that such a character and such a conduct as that of curricula can inspire either love or esteem but as long as his vices were beneficial to the armies he was secure from the danger of rebellion the secret conspiracy provoked by his own jealousy was fatal to the tyrant the praetorian prefecture was divided between two ministers the military department was entrusted to eventus and experienced rather than enable soldier and the civil affairs was transacted by a pilius 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 suggest 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 prefect of the city the faith of his prophecy that magistrate who had received the most pressing instructions to inform himself of the successors of curricula immediately communicated the examination of the african to the imperial court which at that time resided in Syria notwithstanding the diligence of the public messengers the friends 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 praetorian prefect directing him to dispatch 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 curricula had prompted him to make a pilgrimage from a desa to the celebrated temple of the moon a carai he was attended by a body of cavalry but it stopped on the road for some necessary occasion his guards preserved a respectful distance and martialis approaching his person under a pretense of duty stabbed him with a dagger the bold assassin was instantly killed by a schizian archer of the imperial guard such was the end of a monster whose life disgraced human nature and whose reign accused the patients of the romans the grateful soldiers forgot their 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 wilson 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 the purile 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 the twelfth although he still wanted the more elegant accomplishments of the son of philip might boast of having rival his valor and magnanimity but in no one action of his life did caracola express the finance resemblance of the macedonian hero except in the murder of a great number of his own and 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 an ancient suspense as no candidate presented himself whose distinguished birth and merit could engage their attachment and unite their suffrages the decisive weight the praetorian guards elevated the hopes of the prefects and these powerful ministers began to assert their legal claim to fill the vacancy of the imperial throne eventus however the senior prefect 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 suspicions of his being accessory 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 did you do many honest at the age of only 10 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 exalted in their unexpected deliverance from a hated tyrant and it seemed of little consequence to examine into the virtues of the successor of curricula but as soon as the first transports of joy and surprise had subsided they began to scrutinize the merits of macrinus with a critical severity and to arraign the hasty choice of the army it had hitherto been considered as a fundamental maxim of the constitution yet the emperor must always be 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 praetorian prefects betrayed the meanness of the 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 nation 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 several instances justly censored 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 in 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 disclose 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 the macrinus was compelled to exercise that invidious office the prodigality of curricula had left behind it a long train of ruin and disorder and if that worthless tyrant had been capable of reflecting on the short 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 curricula 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 in 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 was selling reluctance entered on a servants whose labors were increased while his rewards were diminished by a covetous and unwarlike sovereign the murmurs of the army swelled with impunity into seditious climbers 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 two minds thus disposed the occasion soon presented itself the empress julia had experienced all the vicissitudes of fortune from a 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 curricula though her good sense must have long taught her to expect it awaken 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 dependents julia mysa her sister was ordered to leave the court and anteach she retired to amessa with an immense fortune the fruit of 20 years labor accompanied by her two daughters somaius and mamaya each of whom was a widow and each had an only son bazianus for that was the name of the son the soimius 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 were stationed at amessa and as the severe discipline of mcrinus had constrained them to pass the winter and camped they were eager to revenge the cruelty of such unacostum 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 thought they had recognized the features of curricula whose memory they now adored the artful mysa saw and cherished the rising partiality and readily sacrificing her daughter's reputation to the fortunes of her grandson she insinuated that bazianus 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 bazianus with the great original the young antoninus for he had assumed and polluted that respectable name was declared emperor by the troops of amessa asserted his hereditary right and called aloud in the armies to follow the standard of a young and liberal prince who had taken up arms to revenge his father's death in the oppression of the military order will stick conspiracy of women in unix 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 anti-ock 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 anti-ock 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 battle the praetorian 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 through themselves from their covered chariots and by exciting the compassion of the soldiers endeavor 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 rally troops charged sword in hand among the thickest of the enemy whilst the eunuch ghanis whose occupation 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 calls by a shameful and precipitate flight his cowardice served only to protract his life a few days and a stamp deserved ignominy on his misfortunes it is scarcely necessary to add that his son dea du minianus was involved in the same fate as soon as the stubborn praetorians could be convinced that they fought for a prince who had basically 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 curricula 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 imposter 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 adherence as should merit it by an immediate return to their duty during the 20 days that elapsed from the declaration to the victory of antoninus foreign 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 the useless effusion of civil blood since whosoever 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 his 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 grandson of severus he tassily asserted his hereditary claim to empire but by assuming the tribunition 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 idli passed in nikah media the first winner after his victory and deferred to 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 trust but unworthy resemblance of his person and manners he was drawn in his sacrodotal robes of silk and gold after the loose flowing fashion of the meads and phonetians his head was covered with a lofty tiara his numerous collars and bracelets were adorned with gems of an estimal 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 worshiped at imessa under the name of elegalibus 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 for the god of imessa over all the religions of the earth was the great object of his zeal and vanity and the appellation of elegalibus for he presumed as pontiff in favor 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 stewed with gold dust the black stone set in precious gems was placed on a chariot drawn by six milk white horses richly comparison 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 elegalibus 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 the lascivious dances to the rhythm of barbarian music whist the grave personages of the state and army clothed in long Phoenician tunics officiated in the menis functions with affected zeal and secret indignation end of chapter six part two