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

Pertinax found a nobler way of condemning his predecessor's memory, by the contrast of his own virtues with the vices of Commodus. On the day of his accession, he resigned over to his wife and son his whole private fortune, that they might have no pretence to solicit favours at the expense of the state. He refused to flatter the vanity of the former with the title of Augusta, or to corrupt the inexperienced youth of the latter by the rank of Cæsar. Accurately distinguishing between the duties of a parent and those of a sovereign, he educated his son with a severe

manifested either the honest admiration or the servile fears and anxieties of its members. Derogatory as it may appear to the dignity of assemblies so holy, the first Christians adopted it in their congregations and synods, although it was condemned and resisted by many fathers of the church, and among others, by S. Chrysostom. (See the excursive but diligent Collection of Franc. Bern. Ferarrius, De veterum Plausu et Acclamatione, in Grævii Thesaur. Antiq. Rom. tom. vi.)WENCK.] [The whole tenor of this criticism seems rather to confirm than to correct the expression used by Gibbon.-ED.] * The senate condemned Nero to be put to death more majorum. Sueton. c. 49. [This prerogative of the senate was authorized by no special law. It was derived from the ancient constitutional principles of the republic. After the people were deprived of their rights, and the comitia transferred to the senate, the whole sovereign power centered in that body, and was committed by them to the emperor. If we find little accordance here between theory and practice, it arises from the original illegality of the imperial government, which disarranged the entire system and prepared the fall of the empire. Gibbon seems to understand by the passage in Suetonius, that the senate, in virtue of their ancient right (more majorum), condemned Nero to death. These words refer, not to the sentence itself, but to the kind of death inflicted, which was according to an early law of Romulus. (See Victor's Epitome, edit. Arntzen. p. 484, n. 7.)-WENCK.]

simplicity, which, while it gave him no assured prospect of the throne, might in time have rendered him worthy of it. In public, the behaviour of Pertinax was grave and affable. He lived with the virtuous part of the senate (and, in a private station, he had been acquainted with the true character of each individual), without either pride or jealousy; considered them as friends and companions, with whom he had shared the 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 remembered and regretted the luxurious prodigality of Commodus.*

To heal, as far as it was possible, the wounds inflicted by the hand of tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task of Pertinax. The innocent victims who yet survived were recalled from exile, released from prison, and restored to the full possession of their honours and fortunes. The unburied bodies of the murdered senators (for the cruelty of Commodus endeavoured to extend itself beyond death) were deposited in the sepulchres of their ancestors; their memory was justified; and every consolation was bestowed on their ruined and afflicted families. Among these consolations, one of the most grateful was the punishment of the Delators; the common enemies of their master, of virtue, and of their country. Yet even in the inquisition of these legal assassins, Pertinax proceeded with a steady temper, which gave 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 8000l. were found in the exhausted treasury,t to defray the current expenses of government, and to discharge the pressing demand of a

*Dion (1. 73, p. 1223) speaks of these entertainments, as a senator who had supped with the emperor. Capitolinus (Hist. August. p. 58) like a slave, who had received his intelligence from one of the scullions Decies. The blameless economy of Pius left his successors a trea sure of vicies septies millies, above 22,000,000l. sterling. Dion, 1. 73, p. 1231.

liberal donative, which the new emperor had been obliged to promise the prætorian guards. Yet, under these distressed circumstances, Pertinax had the generous firmness to remit all the oppressive taxes invented by Commodus, and to cancel all the unjust claims of the treasury; declaring, in a decree of the senate, that he was better satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to acquire riches by the ways of tyranny and dishonour. Economy and industry he considered as the pure and genuine sources of wealth; and from them he soon derived a copious supply for the public necessities. The expense of the household was immediately reduced to one half. ~ All the instruments of luxury Pertinax exposed to public auction;* gold and silver plate, chariots of a singular construction, a superfluous wardrobe of silk and embroidery, and a great number of beautiful slaves of both sexes; excepting only, with attentive humanity, those who were born in a state of freedom, and had been ravished from the arms of their weeping parents. At the same time that he obliged the worthless favourites of the tyrant to resign a part of their ill-gotten wealth, he satisfied the just creditors of the state, and unexpectedly discharged the long arrears of honest services. He removed the oppressive restrictions which had been laid upon commerce, and granted all the uncultivated lands in Italy and the provinces to those who would improve them; with an exemption from tribute during the term of ten years.t

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

*Besides the design of converting these useless ornaments into money, Dion (1. 73, p. 1229,) assigns two secret motives of Pertinax. He wished to expose the vices of Commodus, and to discover by the purchasers those who most resembled him. Though Capitolinus has picked up many idle tales of the private life of Pertinax, he joins with Dion and Herodian in admiring his public conduct.

the servile crowd, who found their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred the favour of a tyrant to the inexorable equality of the laws.*

Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of the prætorian guards betrayed their inward dissatisfaction. They had reluctantly submitted to Pertinax; they dreaded the strictness of the ancient discipline, which he was preparing to restore; and they regretted the licence of the former reign. Their discontents were secretly fomented by Lætus, their prefect, who found, when it was too late, that his new emperor would reward a servant, but would not be ruled by a favourite. On the third day of his reign, the soldiers seized on a noble senator, with a design to carry him to the camp, and to invest him with the imperial purple. Instead of being dazzled by the dangerous honour, the affrighted victim escaped from their violence, and took refuge at the feet of Pertinax.

A short time afterwards Sosius Falco, one of the consuls of the year, a rash youth,† but of an ancient and opulent family, listened to the voice of ambition; and a conspiracy was formed during a short absence of Pertinax, which was crushed by his sudden return to Rome, and his resolute behaviour. Falco was on the point of being justly condemned to death as a public enemy, had he not been saved by the earnest and sincere entreaties of the injured emperor, who conjured the senate that the purity of his reign might not be stained by the blood even of a guilty senator.

These disappointments served only to irritate the rage of the prætorian guards. On the 28th of March, eighty-six days only after the death of Commodus, a general sedition broke out in the camp, which the officers wanted either power or inclination to suppress. Two or three hundred of the most desperate soldiers marched at noon-day, with arms in their hands and fury in their looks, towards the imperial palace. The gates were thrown open by their companions upon guard, and by the domestics of the old court, who had already formed a secret conspiracy against the life of the too-virtuous emperor. On the news of their approach, Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment,

* Leges, rem surdam, inexorabilem esse. T. Liv. 2, 3. + If we credit Capitolinus (which is rather difficult,) Falco behaved with the most petulant indecency to Pertinax on the day of his accession. The

advanced to meet his assassins; recalling to their minds his own innocence and the sanctity of their recent oath. For a few moments they stood in silent suspense, ashamed of their atrocious design, and awed by the venerable aspect and majestic firmness of their sovereign, till at length the despair of pardon reviving their fury, a barbarian of the country of Tongres* levelled the first blow against Pertinax, who was instantly despatched with a multitude of wounds. His head, separated from his body, and placed on a lance, was carried in triumph to the prætorian camp, in the sight of a mournful and indignant people, who lamented the unworthy fate of that excellent prince, and the transient blessings of a reign, the memory of which could serve only to aggravate their approaching misfortunes.†

CHAPTER V.-PUBLIC SALE OF THE EMPIRE TO DIDIUS JULIANUS BY THE PRÆTORIAN GUARDS.-CLODIUS ALBINUS IN BRITAIN, PESCENNIUS NIGER IN SYRIA, AND SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS IN PANNONIA, DECLARE AGAINST THE MURDERERS OF PERTINAX.-CIVIL WARS AND VICTORY OF SEVERUS OVER HIS THREE RIVALS.-RELAXATION OF DISCIPLINE. -NEW MAXIMS OF GOVERNMENT.

THE power of the sword is more sensibly felt in an extensive monarchy, than in a small community. It has been calculated by the ablest politicians, that no state, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness. But although this relative proportion may be uniform, the influence of the army over the rest of the society will vary according to the

wise emperor only admonished him of his youth and inexperience. Hist. August. p. 55. *The modern bishopric of Liege. This soldier probably belonged to the Batavian horse-guards, who were mostly raised in the duchy of Gueldres, and the neighbourhood; and were distinguished by their valour, and by the boldness with which they swam their horses across the broadest and most rapid rivers. Tacit. Hist. 4, 12. Dion, 1. 55, p. 797. Lipsius de Magnitudine Romana, 1. 1, c. 4. + Dion, 1. 73, p. 1252. Herodian, 1. 2, p. 60. Hist. August. p. 58. Victor in Epitom. et in Cæsarib, Eutropius, 8, 16. [Herodian (lib. 2, c. 5, 6,) says, on the contrary, that the assassins hid themselves from the people, and that the Prætorians prepared to defend themselves in their camp against an expected attack. As soon as the people heard of the murder, an enraged multitude collected and zought for the perpetrators, but without finding them.-WENCK.]