A Manual of Ancient History Part 36

28. By means of adoption the Roman empire had been blessed, during the last eighty years, with a succession of rulers such as have not often fell to the lot of any kingdom. But in J. Commodus the son of M.

Aurelius (probably the offspring of a gladiator), who reigned from his nineteenth to his thirty-first year, there ascended the throne a monster of cruelty, insolence, and lewdness. At the commencement of his reign he bought a peace of the Marcomanni that he might return to Rome. Being himself unable to support the burden of government, the helm of state was placed in the hands of the stern and cruel Perennis, praefect of the praetorian guard; but who, being murdered by the discontented soldiers, was succeeded by the freedman Cleander, who put up all for sale, till he fell a sacrifice to his own insatiable avarice, in a revolt of the people, caused by their want of provisions. The extravagant propensity of Commodus for the diversions of the amphitheatres, and the combats of wild beasts and gladiators, wherein he himself usually took a part, in the character of Hercules, became a chief cause of his dissipation, and thereby of his cruelty; till at last he was killed at the instigation of his concubine Marcia, Laetus the praefect of the praetorian guard, and Electus. The wars on the frontiers during his reign, in Dacia, and especially in Britain, were successfully carried on by his lieutenants, generals who belonged to the school of his father.

The especial source for the history of Commodus is his private life by aeL. LAMPRIDIUS, in the _Script. Hist. August._--The history of Herodian begins with his reign.

29. The disasters under M. Aurelius, and the extravagances of Commodus, had injured the empire, but not enfeebled it. Towards the close of the period of the Antonines it still retained its pristine vigour. If wise regulations, internal peace, moderate taxes, a certain degree of political, and unrestrained civil liberty, are sufficient to form the happiness of a commonwealth, it must have been found in the Roman. What a number of advantages did it possess over every other, simply from its situation! Proofs of it appear on every side. A vigorous population, rich provinces, flouris.h.i.+ng and splendid cities, and a lively internal and foreign trade. But the most solid foundation of the happiness of a nation consists in its moral greatness, and this we here seek for in vain. Otherwise the nation would not so easily have suffered itself to be brought under the yoke of Commodus by praetorian cohorts and the legions. But what best shows the strength which the empire still retained, is the opposition it continued to make, for two hundred years longer, to the formidable attacks from without.

D. H. HEGEWISCH _upon the Epochs in Roman History most favourable to Humanity_. Hamburg, 1800-8.

Foreign commerce, so flouris.h.i.+ng in this period, could only be carried on, to any extent, with the east--mostly with India--as the Roman empire spread over all the west. This trade continued to be carried on through Egypt, and also through Palmyra and Syria. Information thereupon will be found in

W. ROBERTSON'S _Disquisition concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India_. London, 1791, 4to. Often reprinted. And particularly upon Egypt, in

W. VINCENT, _the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea_. London, 1802, 4to. 2 vols. A very instructive work.

HEEREN, _Commentationes de Graecorum et Romanorum de India not.i.tia, et c.u.m Indis commerciis_: _in Commentat. Soc. Gott._ vol. x. xi.

SECOND SECTION.

_From the death of Commodus to Diocletian, A. C. 193-284._

SOURCES. The Extracts of Xiphilinus from DION Ca.s.sIUS, lib.

lxxiii-lx.x.x. though often imperfect, reach down as low as the consulate of Dion himself under Alexander Severus, 229.--HERODIANI _Hist._ libri viii. comprise the period from Commodus to Gordian, 180-238.--The _Scriptores Historiae Augustae Minores_ contain the private lives of the emperors down to Diocletian, by JULIUS CAPITOLINUS, FLAVIUS VOPISCUS, etc.--The _Breviaria Historiae Romanae_ of EUTROPIUS, AURELIUS VICTOR, and S. RUFUS are particularly important for this period.--Finally, the important information that may be derived from the study of medals and coins, not only for this section, but for the whole history of the emperors, may be best learnt by consulting the writers upon those subjects: J. VAILLANT, _Numismata Augustorum et Caesarum_, _cura_ J. F. BALDINO. Rome, 1743, 3 vols. _The Medallic History of Imperial Rome_, by W. COOKE. London, 1781, 2 vols.--But above all, the volumes belonging to this period in ECKHEL, _Doctrina Nummorum Veterum_.

With the period of the Antonines begins the great work of the British historian:

_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, by EDWARD GIBBON. Oxford, 1828, 8 vols. 8vo. In worth and extent this work is superior to all others. It embraces the whole period of the middle ages; but only the first part belongs to this period.

1. The extinction of the race of the Antonines by the death of Commodus was attended with convulsions similar to those which took place when the house of Caesar became extinct at the death of Nero. It is true that P.

Helvius Pertinax, aged sixty-seven, praefect of the city, was raised to the throne by the murderers of Commodus; and that he was acknowledged, first by the guards, and afterwards by the senate. But the reform which he was obliged to make at the beginning of his reign in the finances, rendered him so odious to the soldiers and courtiers, that a revolt of the first, excited by Laetus, cost him his life before he had reigned quite three months. This was the first commencement of that dreadful military despotism which forms the ruling character of this period; and to none did it become so terrible as to those who wished to make it the main support of their absolute power.

The insolence of the praetorian guard had risen very high during the reign of Commodus; but it had never, even in the time of the Antonines, been entirely suppressed. It was only by large donatives that their consent could be purchased, their caprice satisfied, and their good humour maintained; especially at every new adoption. One of the greatest reproaches to the age of the Antonines is, that those great princes, who seem to have had the means so much in their power, did not free themselves from so annoying a dependence.

JUL. CAPITOLINI _Pertinax Imp. in Script. Hist. Aug._

2. When, upon the death of Pertinax, the rich and profligate M. Didius Julia.n.u.s, aged fifty-seven, had outbid, to the great scandal of the people, all his compet.i.tors for the empire, and purchased it of the praetorian guard, an insurrection of the legions, who were better able to create emperors, very naturally followed. But as the army of Illyria proclaimed their general Septimius Severus, the army of Syria, Pescennius Niger, and the army of Britain, Albinus, nothing less than a series of civil wars could decide who should maintain himself on the throne.

aeL. SPARTIANI _Didius Julia.n.u.s, in Script. Hist. Aug._

3. Septimius Severus, however, aged 49-66, was the first who got possession of Rome, and, after the execution of Didius Julia.n.u.s, he was acknowledged by the senate. He dismissed, it is true, the old praetorian guard, but immediately chose, from his own army, one four times more numerous in its stead. And after he had provisionally declared Albinus emperor, he marched his army against Pescennius Niger, already master of the east, whom, after several contests near the Issus, he defeated and slew. Nevertheless, having first taken and destroyed the strong city of Byzantium, a war with Albinus soon followed, whom the perfidious Severus had already attempted to remove by a.s.sa.s.sination. After a b.l.o.o.d.y defeat near Lyons, Albinus kills himself. These civil wars were followed by hostilities against the Parthians, who had taken the part of Pescennius, and which ended with the plundering of their princ.i.p.al cities (see above, p. 304). Severus possessed most of the virtues of a soldier; but the insatiable avarice of his minister Plautia.n.u.s, the formidable captain of the praetorian guard, robbed the empire even of those advantages which may be enjoyed under a military government, until he was put to death at the instigation of Caracalla. To keep his legions employed, Severus undertook an expedition into Britain, where, after extending the boundaries of the empire, he died at York (_Eborac.u.m_), leaving his son the maxim, "to enrich the soldiers, and hold the rest for nothing."

Agricola had already erected a line of fortresses, probably between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth. These were changed by Adrian into a wall along the present boundaries of Scotland. Severus again extended the frontiers, reestablished the fortresses of Agricola, and afterwards built a wall from sea to sea; his son, however, gave up the conquered country, and the wall of Adrian again became the boundary of the empire.

aeL. SPARTIANI _Septimius Severus et Pescennius Niger_.

JUL. CAPITOLINI _Claudius Albinus, in Script. Hist. Aug._

4. The deadly hatred which reigned between the two sons of Severus, M.

Aurelius Antoninus Ba.s.sia.n.u.s Caracalla, aged 23-29, and his young step-brother Geta, aged twenty-one, led to a dreadful catastrophe; for at their return to Rome, and after a fruitless proposition had been made for a division of the empire, Geta was a.s.sa.s.sinated in the arms of his mother Julia Domna, together with all those who were considered as his friends. The restless spirit of Caracalla, however, soon drew him from Rome, and in traversing first the provinces along the Danube, and then those of the east, he ruined them all by his exactions and cruelty, to which he was driven for money to pay his soldiers, and to purchase peace of his enemies on the frontiers. The same necessity led him to grant the right of citizens.h.i.+p to all the provinces, that he might thereby gain the duty of the _vicesima hereditatum et manumissionum_ (twentieth upon inheritances and enfranchis.e.m.e.nts), which he very soon afterwards changed into a tenth (_decima_).--With respect to his foreign wars, his first was against the Catti and Alemanni, among whom he remained a long time, sometimes as a friend and sometimes as an enemy. But his princ.i.p.al efforts, after having previously ordered a dreadful ma.s.sacre of the inhabitants of Alexandria, to satisfy his cruel rapacity, were directed against the Parthians (see above, p. 304); and in his wars against them he was a.s.sa.s.sinated by Macrinus, the praefect of the praetorian guard.

The praefect, or captain, of the praetorian guard became, from the time of Severus, the most important officer in the state. Besides the command of the guards, the finances were also under his control, together with an extensive criminal jurisdiction. A natural consequence of the continually increasing despotism.

aeL. SPARTIANI _Antoninus Caracalla et Ant. Geta, in Script. Hist.

Aug._

5. His murderer, M. Opelius Macrinus, aged fifty-three, was recognized as emperor by the soldiers, and forthwith acknowledged by the senate. He immediately created his son, M. Opelius Diadumenus, aged nine years, Caesar, and gave him the name of Antoninus. He disgracefully terminated the war against the Parthians by purchasing a peace, and changed the _decima_ (tenth) of Caracalla again into the _vicesima_ (twentieth).

However, while he still remained in Asia, Ba.s.sia.n.u.s Heliogabalus, grand-nephew of Julia Domna, and high priest in the temple of the Sun at Emesa, whom his mother gave out for a son of Caracalla, was proclaimed emperor by the legions, and, after a combat with the guards, subsequently to which Macrinus and his son lost their lives, they raised him to the throne.

Maesa, the sister of Julia Domna, had two daughters, both widows; Soaemis, the eldest, was the mother of Heliogabalus, Mammaea, the youngest, the mother of Alexander Severus.

JUL. CAPITOLINI _Opelius Macrinus, in Script. Hist. Aug._

6. Heliogabalus, aged 14-18, who a.s.sumed the additional name of M.

Aurelius Antoninus, brought with him from Syria the superst.i.tions and voluptuousness of that country. He introduced the wors.h.i.+p of his G.o.d Heliogabal in Rome, and wallowed openly in such brutal and infamous debaucheries, that history can scarcely find a parallel to his dissolute, shameless, and scandalous conduct. How low must the morality of that age have been sunk, in which a boy could so early have ripened into a monster!--The debas.e.m.e.nt of the senate, and of all important offices, which he filled with the degraded companions of his own l.u.s.ts and vices, was systematically planned by him; and he deserves no credit even for the adoption of his cousin, the virtuous Alexander Severus, as he shortly after endeavoured to take away his life, but was himself for that reason a.s.sa.s.sinated by the praetorian guards.

# aeL. LAMPRIDII _Ant. Heliogabalus, in Script. Hist. Aug._

7. His young cousin and successor, M. Aurelius Alexander Severus, aged 14-27, who had been carefully educated under the direction of his mother Mammaea, proved one of the best princes in an age and upon a throne where virtues were more dangerous than vices. Under favour of his youth he endeavoured to effect a reform, in which he was supported by the cooperation of the guards, who had elevated him to the throne. He restored the authority of the senate, from among whom he chose, with rigid justice, his privy council of state, banis.h.i.+ng the creatures of Heliogabalus from their places. The revolution in the Parthian empire, out of which was now formed the new Persian, was of so much importance to Rome, that it obliged Alexander to undertake a war against Artaxerxes, in which he was probably victorious. But while marching in haste to protect the frontiers against the advance of the Germans upon the Rhine, his soldiers, exasperated at the severity of his discipline, and incited by the Thracian Maximin, murdered him in his own tent. His praefect of the praetorian guard, Ulpian, had already, for the same cause, fallen a victim to this spirit of insubordination, which was not checked even by the immediate presence of the emperor himself.

The revolution in Parthia, whereby a new Persian empire was formed (see above, p. 304.), became a source of almost perpetual war to Rome; Artaxerxes I. and his successors, the Sa.s.sanides, claiming to be descendants of the ancient kings of Persia, formed pretensions to the possession of all the Asiatic provinces of the Roman empire.

aeLII LAMPRIDII _Alexander Severus_, _in Script. Hist. Aug._

HEYNE _de Alexandro Severo Judicium_, Comment. i. ii. in _Opuscula Academica_, vol. vi.

8. The death of A. Severus raised military despotism to the highest pitch, as it placed on the throne the half savage C. Julius Maximinus, by birth a Thracian peasant. At first he continued the war against the Germans with great success, repulsing them beyond the Rhine; and resolved, by crossing Pannonia, to carry the war even among the Sarmatians. But his insatiable rapacity, which spared neither the capital nor the provinces, made him hateful to all; and Gordian, proconsul of Africa, in his eightieth year, was, together with his son of the same name, proclaimed Augustus by the people, and immediately acknowledged by the senate. Upon this, Maximinus, eager to take vengeance on the senate, marched directly from Sirmium towards Italy. In the mean time, the legions of the almost defenceless Gordians were defeated in Africa, and themselves slain by Capellia.n.u.s the governor of Numidia. Notwithstanding this, as the senate could expect no mercy, they chose as co-emperors the praefect of the city, Maximus Pupienus, and Clodius Balbinus, who, in conformity with the wishes of the people, created the young Gordian III. Caesar. In the meanwhile Maximinus, having besieged Aquileia, and the enterprise proving unsuccessful, was slain by his own troops. Pupienus and Balbinus now seemed in quiet possession of the throne; but the guards, who had already been engaged in a b.l.o.o.d.y feud with the people, and were not willing to receive an emperor of the senate's choosing, killed them both, and proclaimed as Augustus, Gordian, already created Caesar.

JUL. CAPITOLINI _Maximinus Gordiani tres, Pupienus et Balbinus_, _in Script. Hist. August._

9. The reign of the young M. Antoninus Gordia.n.u.s lasted from his twelfth to his eighteenth year. He was grandson of the proconsul who had lost his life in Africa, and in the early part of his reign, acquired a degree of firmness from the support of his father-in-law, Misitheus, praefect of the praetorian guard, as well as from the successful expedition which he undertook into Syria against the Persians, who had invaded that province. But after the death of Misitheus, Philip the Arabian, being made praefect of the guards in his stead, found means to gain the troops over to himself, and, after driving Gordian from the throne, caused him to be a.s.sa.s.sinated.

10. The reign of M. Julius Philippus was interrupted by several insurrections, especially in Pannonia; until at length Decius, whom he himself had sent thither to quell the rebellion, was compelled by the troops to a.s.sume the diadem. Philip was soon after defeated by him near Verona, where he perished, together with his son of the same name. In this reign the secular games, _ludi saeculares_, were celebrated, one thousand years from the foundation of the city.

11. Under the reign of his successor, Traja.n.u.s Decius, aged fifty, the Goths for the first time forced their way into the Roman empire by crossing the Danube; and although Decius in the beginning opposed them with success, he was at last slain by them in Thrace, together with his son, Cl. Herennius Decius, already created Caesar. Upon this the army proclaimed C. Trebonia.n.u.s Gallus emperor, who created his son, Volusian, Caesar; and having invited Hostilian, the yet remaining son of Decius, with the ostensible purpose of securing his cooperation, he nevertheless soon contrived to get rid of him. He purchased a peace of the Goths; but, despised by his generals, he became involved in a war with his victorious lieutenant, aemilius aemilia.n.u.s, in Moesia, and was slain, together with his son, by his own army. In three months, however, aemilia.n.u.s shared the same fate; Publius Licinius Valeria.n.u.s, the friend and avenger of Gallus, advancing against him with the legions stationed in Gaul. Both the people and army hoped to see the empire restored under Valerian, already sixty years of age; but, although his generals defended the frontiers against the Germans and Goths, he himself had the misfortune to be defeated and taken prisoner by the superior forces of the Persians. Upon this event his son and a.s.sociate in the empire, P.

Licinius Gallienus, who knew everything except the art of governing, reigned alone. Under his indolent rule the Roman empire seemed on one hand ready to be split into a number of small states, while on the other it seemed about to fall a prey to the barbarians; for the lieutenants in most of the provinces declared themselves independent of a prince whom they despised, and to which, indeed, they were driven, like Posthumius in Gaul, for their own security.--There were nineteen of these; but as many of them named their sons Caesars, this period has been very improperly distinguished by the name of _the thirty tyrants_, although their intolerable oppressions might well justify the latter expression.

The Persians at the same time were victorious in the east, and the Germans in the west.

The German nations which were now become so formidable to the Roman empire, were: 1. The great confederation of tribes under the name of _Franks_, who spread over Gaul along the whole extent of the Lower Rhine. 2. The allied nations of the Alemanni on the Upper Rhine. 3.

The Goths, the most powerful of all, who had formed a monarchy upon the banks of the Lower Danube and the northern coasts of the Black sea, which soon extended from the Boristhenes to the Don; and who became formidable, not only by their land forces, but also by their naval power, especially after they had captured the peninsula of Crim Tartary (_Chersonesus Taurica_); and by means of their fleets they not only kept the Grecian, but likewise the Asiatic provinces in a continual state of alarm.

TREBELLI POLLIONIS _Valeria.n.u.s, Gallieni duo, triginta tyranni_, _in Script. Hist. Aug._

# _Concerning the thirty tyrants under the Roman emperor Gallienus_, by J. C. F. MANSO; at the end of his _Life of Constantine_.

12. Gallienus losing his life before Milan, in the war against Aureolus an usurper, had nevertheless recommended M. Aurelius Claudius (aged 45-47) for his successor. The new Augustus reestablished in some degree the tottering empire; not only by taking Aureolus prisoner and defeating the Alemanni, but also by a decisive victory gained at Nissa over the Goths, who had invaded Moesia. He died, however, soon after, at Sirmium, of a pestilential disease, naming for his successor Aurelian, a hero like himself, who mounted the throne upon the death of Quintillus the late emperor's brother, who had at first proclaimed himself Augustus, but afterwards died by his own hand.