CHAP.

V.

It is pur

This infamous offer, the most insolent excess of military licence, diffused an universal grief, shame, and indignation throughout the city. It reached at length the chased by ears of Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator, who, reA.D. 193. gardless of the public calamities, was indulging himMarch self in the luxury of the table". His wife and his daugh

Julian,

28th.

ter, his freedmen and his parasites, easily convinced him that he deserved the throne, and earnestly conjured him to embrace so fortunate an opportunity. The vain old man hastened to the Prætorian camp, where Sulpicianus was still in treaty with the guards; and began to bid against him from the foot of the rampart. The unworthy negociation was transacted by faithful emissaries, who passed alternately from one candidate to the other, and acquainted each of them with the offers of his rival. Sulpicianus had already promised a donative of five thousand drachms (above one hundred and sixty pounds) to each soldier; when Julian, eager for the prize, rose at once to the sum of six thousand two hundred and fifty drachms, or upwards of two hundred pounds sterling. The gates of the camp, were instantly thrown open to the purchaser; he was declared emperor, and received an oath of allegiance from the soldiers, who retained humanity enough to stipulate that he should pardon and forget the competition of Sulpicianus. It was now incumbent on the Prætorians to fulfil the conditions of the sale. They placed their new soveledged by the senate. reign, whom they served and despised, in the centre of their ranks, surrounded him on every side with their shields, and conducted him in close order of battle through the deserted streets of the city. The senate was commanded to assemble; and those who had been the distinguished friends of Pertinax, or the personal enemies of Julian, found it necessary to affect a more than common share of satisfaction at this happy revolution12. After Julian had filled the senate-house with

Julian is acknow

Though the three historians agree that it was in fact an auction, Herodian alone affirms, that it was proclaimed as such by the soldiers.

11 Spartianus softens the most odious parts of the character and elevation of Julian.

12 Dion Cassius, at that time prætor, had been a personal enemy to Julian, 1, Ixxiii. p. 1235.

V.

session of

armed soldiers, he expatiated on the freedom of his CHAP. 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 power13. From Takes pos the senate Julian was conducted, by the same military the palace. procession, to take possession of the palace. The first objects that struck his eyes, were the abandoned trunk of Pertinax, and the frugal entertainment prepared for his supper. The one he viewed with indifference, the other with contempt. A magnificent feast was prepared by his order, and he amused himself till a very late hour, with dice, and the performances of Pylades, a celebrated dancer. Yet it was observed, that after the crowd of flatterers dispersed, and left him to darkness, solitude, and terrible reflection, he passed a sleepless night; revolving most probably in his mind his own rash folly, the fate of his virtuous predecessor, and the doubtful and dangerous tenure of an empire, which had not been acquired by merit, but purchased by money14.

lic discon

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

13 Hist. August. p. 61. We learn from thence one curious circumstance, that the new emperor, whatever had been his birth, was immediately aggregated to the number of Patrician families.

14 Dion, 1. Ixxiii. p. 1235. Hist. August. p. 61. I have endeavoured to blend into one consistent story the seeming contradictions of the two writers.

CHAP. rejected his liberality, and conscious of the impotence V. of their own resentment, they called aloud on the legions of the frontiers to assert the violated majesty of the Roman empire.

The armies of Britain,

declare

Julian.

The public discontent was soon diffused from the centre to the frontiers of the empire. The armies of Syria, and Britain, of Syria and of Illyricum, lamented the death Pannonia, of Pertinax, in whose company, or under whose comagainst mand, they had so often fought and conquered. They received with surprise, with indignation, and perhaps with envy, the extraordinary intelligence, that the Prætorians had disposed of the empire by public auction; and they sternly refused to ratify the ignominious bargain. Their immediate and unanimous revolt was fatal to Julian, but it was fatal at the same time to the public peace; as the generals of the respective armies, Clodius Albinus, Pescennius Niger, and Septimius Severus, were still more anxious to succeed than to revenge the murdered Pertinax. Their forces were exactly balanced. Each of them was at the head of three legions15, with a numerous train of auxiliaries; and however different in their characters, they were all soldiers of experience and capacity.

Clodius

Albinus

Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain, surpassed in Britain, both his competitors in the nobility of his extraction, which he derived from some of the most illustrious names of the old republic16. But the branch from whence he claimed his descent, was sunk into mean circumstances, and transplanted into a remote province. It is difficult to form a just idea of his true character. Under the philosophic cloak of austerity, he stands accused of concealing most of the vices which degrade human nature1. But his accusers are those venal writers who adored the fortune of Severus, and trampled on the ashes of an unsuccessful rival. Virtue, or the appearances of virtue, recommended Albinus to the

15 Dion, 1. lxxiii. p. 1235.

16 The Posthumian and the Cejonian; the former of whom was raised to the consulship in the fifth year after its institution.

17 Spartianus, in his undigested collections, mixes up all the virtues and all the vices that enter into the human composition, and bestows them on the same object. Such, indeed, are many of the characters in the Augustan history.

V.

confidence and good opinion of Marcus; and his pre- OHAP. serving 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 intending it, reward a man of worth and ability, or he may find such a man useful to his own service. It does not appear that Albinus served the son of Marcus, either as the minister of his cruelties, or even as the associate of his pleasures. He was employed in a distant honourable command, when he received a confidential letter from the emperor, acquainting him of the treasonable designs of some discontented generals, and authorising him to declare himself the guardian and successor of the throne, by assuming the title and ensigns of Cæsar18. 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 reeceived at Rome with a secret murmer of applause. Safe in the possession of this little world, and in the command of an army less distinguished indeed for discipline than for numbers and valour1, Albinus braved the menaces of Commodus, maintained towards Pertinax a stately ambiguous reserve, and instantly declared against the usurpation of Julian. The convulsions of the capital added new weight to his sentiments, or rather to his professions of patriotism. A

18 Hist. August. p. 80. 84.

19 Pertinax, who governed Britain a few years before, had been left for dead, in a mutiny of the soldiers. Hist. August. p. 54. Yet they loved and regretted him; admirantibus eam virtutem cui irascebantur.

CHAP. regard to decency induced him to decline the lofty V. titles of Augustus and Emperor; and he imitated perhaps the example of Galba, who, on a similar occasion had styled himself the Lieutenant of the senate and people 20.

Pescenni

Personal merit alone had raised Pescennius Niger us Niger from an obscure birth and station, to the government in Syria. of Syria; a lucrative and important command, which in times of civil confusion gave him a near prospect of the throne. Yet his parts seem to have been better suited to the second than to the first rank; he was an unequal rival, though he might have approved himself an excellent lieutenant to Severus, who afterwards displayed the greatness of his mind by adopting several useful institutions from a vanquished enemy. In his government, Niger acquired the esteem of the soldiers, and the love of the provincials. His rigid discipline fortified the valour and confirmed the obedience of the former, whilst the voluptuous Syrians were less delighted with the mild firmness of his administration, than with the affability of his manners, and the apparent pleasure with which he attended their frequent and pompous festivals22. 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 Hadriatic cheerfully submitted to his power; and the kings beyond the Tigris and the Euphrates congratulated his election, and offered him their homage and services. The mind of Niger was not capable of receiving this sudden tide of fortune; he flattered himself that his accession would be undis

23

20 Sueton. in Galb. e. 10.

21 Hist. August. p. 76.

22 Herod. 1. ii. p. 68. The chronicle of John Malala, of Antioch, shews the zealous attachment of his countrymen to these festivals which at once gratified their superstition, and their love of pleasure.

23 A king of Thebes, in Egypt, is mentioned in the Augustan History, as an ally, and, indeed, as a personal friend of Niger. If Spartianus is not, as I strongly suspect, mistaken, he has brought to light a dynasty of tribu tary princes totally unknown to history.