IV.

vented.

him to the camp, and to invest him with the Imperial CHAP. 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 a conspitime afterwards Sosius Falco, one of the consuls of racy prethe 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.

ans.

A. D. 193.

These disappointments served only to irritate the Murder of rage of the Prætorian guards. On the twenty-eighth Pertinax of March, eighty-six days only after the death of PrætoriCommodus, a general sedition broke out in the camp, which the officers wanted either power or inclination March to suppress. Two or three hundred of the most des- 28th. perate 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, advanced to meet his assassins; and recalled to their minds his own innocence, and the sanctity of their recent oath. For a few moments they stood in silent suspense, ashamed of their atrocious design, and awed by the venerable aspect and majestic firmness of their sovereign, till at length the despair of pardon reviving their fury, a barbarian of the country of Tongress levelled the first blow against

54 If we credit Capitolinus (which is rather difficult), Falco behaved with the most petulant indecency to Pertinax, on the day of his accession. The wise emperor only admonished him of his youth and inexperience. Hist. August. p. 55.

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

CHAP. 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 indig nant 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.

by the boldness with which they swam their horses across the broadest and most rapid rivers, Tacit. Hist. iv. 12. Dion, 1. lv. p. 797. Lipsius de magnitudine Romanâ, l.i. c. 4.

56 Dion, 1. lxxiii. p. 1232. Herodian, l. ii. p. 60. Hist. August. p. 58. Victor in Epitom. et in Cæsarib. Eutropius, viii. 16.

Propor

tion of the

military

the num

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. force, to It has been calculated by the ablest politicians, that ber of the no state, without being soon exhausted, can maintain people, 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 po sitive strength. The advantages of military science and discipline cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united into one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men, such an union would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it would be impracticable; and the powers of the machine would be alike destroyed by the extreme minuteness, or the excessive weight, of its springs. To illustrate this observation we need only reflect, that there is no supe.

V.

riority of natural strength, artificial weapons, or ac- CHAP. quired skill, which could enable one man to keep in constant subjection one hundred of his fellow creatures: the tyrant of a single town, or a small district, would soon discover that an hundred armed followers were a weak defence against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but an hundred thousand well-disciplined soldiers will command, with despotic sway, ten mil lions of subjects; and a body of ten or fifteen thousand guards will strike terror into the most numerous populace that ever crowded the streets of an immense capital.

The Prætorian bands, whose licentious fury was The Prathe first symptom and cause of the decline of the Ro- torian man empire scarcely amounted to the last mentioned number. They derived their institution from Augus- Their in... tus. That crafty tyrant sensible that laws might co- stitution. lour, but that arms alone could maintain, his usurped dominion, had gradually formed this powerful body of guards in constant readiness to protect his person, to awe the senate, and either to prevent or to crush the first motions of rebellion. He distinguished these 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 cohorts only were stationed in the capital; whilst the remainder were dispersed in the adjacent towns of Italy. But after fifty years of peace and servitude, Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which for ever rivetted the fetters of his country. Under the fair pretences of relieving Italy from the heavy bur then of military quarters, and of introducing a stricter discipline among the guards, he assembled them at Their Rome, in a permanent camp3, which was fortified with camp. skilful care, and placed on a commanding situations.

1 They were originally nine or ten thousand men (for Tacitus and Dion are not agreed upon the subject) divided into as many cohorts. Vitellius increased them to sixteen thousand, and as far as we can learn from inscriptions, they never afterwards sunk much below that number. See Lipsius de magnitudine Romanâ, i. 4.

2 Sueton. in August, c. 49.

3 Tacit. Annal. iv. 2, Sueton. in Tiber. c. 37. Dion Cassius, 1. lvii, p. 867. 4 In the civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian, the Prætorian camp was attacked and defended with all the machines used in the siege of the best fortified cities. Tacit. Hist. iii. 84.

5 Close to the walls of the city, on the broad summit of the Quirinal

CHAP:

V.

Their

dence.

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

Their spe

cious claims.

The

The advocates of the guards endeavoured 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. 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

and Viminal hills. See Nardini Roma Antica, p. 174. Donatus de Roma Antiqua, p. 46.

6 Claudius, raised by the soldiers to the empire, was the first who gave a donative. He gave quina dena, 120l. (Sueton. in Claud. c. 10.) when Marcus, with his colleague Lucius Verus, took quiet possession of the throne, he gave vicena, 160l. to each of the guards. Hist. August. p. 25. (Dion, 1. Ixxiii. p. 1231.) We may form some idea of the amount of these sums, by Hadrian's complaint, that the promotion of a Cæsar had cost him ter millies, two millions and a half sterling.

7 Cicero de Legibus, iii. 3. The first book of Livy, and the second of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, shew the authority of the people, even in the election of the kings.

V.

slaves and strangers that filled the streets of Rome; a CHAP. servile populace, as devoid of spirit as destitute of property. The defenders of the state, selected from the flower of the Italian youth, and trained in the exercise of arms and virtue, were the genuine representatives of the people, and the best entitled to elect the military chief of the republic. These assertions, however defective in reason, became unanswerable, when the fierce Prætorians increased their weight, by throwing, like the barbarian conqueror of Rome, their swords into the scale9.

for sale.

The Prætorians had violated the sanctity of the They offer throne, by the atrocious murder of Pertinax; they dis- the empire honoured the majesty of it, by their subsequent conduct. The camp was without a leader, for even the præfect Lætus, who had excited the tempest, prudently declined the public indignation. Amidst the wild disorder Sulpicianus, the emperor's father-in-law, and governor of the city, who had been sent to the camp on the first alarm of mutiny, was endeavouring to calm the fury of the multitude, when he was silenced by the clamorous return of the murderers, bearing on a lance the head of Pertinax. Though history has accustomed us to observe every principle and every passion yielding to the imperious dictates of ambition, it is scarcely credible that, in these moments of horror, Sulpicianus should have aspired to ascend a throne polluted with the recent blood of so near a relation, and so excellent a prince. He had already begun to use the only effectual argument, and to treat for the Imperial dignity; but the more prudent of the Prætorians, apprehensive that, in this private contract, they should not obtain a just price for so valuable a commodity, ran out upon the ramparts; and, with a loud voice, proclaimed that the Roman world was to be disposed of to the best bidder by public auction1o.

8 They were originally recruited in Latium, Etruria, and the old colonies (Tacit. Annal. iv. 5.). The emperor Otho compliments their vanity, with the flattering titles of Italiæ Alumni, Romana vere juventus. Tacit. Hist. i. 84.

9 In the siege of Rome by the Gauls. See Livy, v. 48. Plutarch, in Camil. p. 143.

10 Dion, 1. lxxiii. p. 1234. Herodian, 1. ii. p. 63. Hist. August. p. 60.