VI. CHAP. has cast a veil over his vices. We consider that young prince as the innocent victim of his brother's ambition, without recollecting that he himself wanted power, rather than inclination, to consummate the same attempts of revenge and murder. Remorse and cruel calla. The crime went not unpunished. Neither business, ty of Cara- nor pleasure, nor flattery, could defend Caracalla from the stings of a guilty conscience; ond 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 upbraid him25. 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 Caracalla only prompted him to remove from the world whatever could remind him of his guilt, or recal 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 sighs, and to receive the assassin with smiles of joy and approbation. It was computed that, under the vague appellation of the friends of Geta, above twenty thousand persons of both sexes suffered death. His guards and freedmen, the ministers of his 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 longconnected chain of their dependents, were included in the proscription; which endeavoured to reach every one who had maintained the smallest correspondence with Geta, who lamented his death, or who even mentioned his name. Helvius Pertinax, son to the prince of that 25 Dion, 1. lxxvii. p. 1307. 26 Dion, 1. lxxvii. p. 1290. Herodian, 1. iv. p. 150. Dion (p. 1298.) says, that the comic poets no longer durst employ the name of Geta in their plays, and that the estates of those who mentioned it in their testaments were confiscated.. VI. name, lost his life by an unseasonable witticism27. It CHAP. was a sufficient cap of Thrasea Priscus, to be descended from a ry in which the love of liberty seemed an hereditary quality. The particular causes of calumny and suspicion were at 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. The execution of so many innocent citizens was be- Death of wailed by the secret tears of their friends and fami- Papinian. lies. The death of Papinian, the Prætorian præfect, 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. Ill assurance of his virtues and abilities, Severus, on his death-bed, had conjured him to watch over the prosperity and union of the Imperial family29. The honest labours of Papinian served only to inflame the hatred which Caracalla had already conceived against his father's minister. After the murder of Geta, the Præfect 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 Agrippina30; "That it was easier to commit "than to justify a parricide," was the glorious reply of Papinian, who did not hesitate between the loss of life and that of honour. Such intrepid virtue, which had escaped pure and unsullied from the in 27 Caracalla had assumed the names of several conquered nations; Pertinax observed, that the name of Geticus (he had obtained some advantage of the Goths or Geta) would be a proper addition to Parthicus, Alemannicus, &c. August. p. 89. 28 Dion, 1. lxxvii. p. 1291. He was probably descended from Helvidius Priscus, and Thrasea Pætus, those patriots, whose firm, but useless and unseasonable virtue, has been immortalized by Tacitus. 29 It is said that Papinian was himself a relation of the empress of Julia, 30 Tacit. Annal. xiv. ii. 31 Hist. August. p. 88. CHAP. V.I His tyranny extend ed over empire. trigues of courts, the habits of business, and the arts of his profession, reflects more on the memory of Papinian, than all his great eployments, his numerous writings, and the superior reputation as a lawyer, which he has preserved through every age of the Roman jurisprudence. It had hitherto been the peculiar felicity of the Romans, and in the worst of times their consolation, the whole that the virtue of the emperors was active, and their vice indolent. Augustus, Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus, visited their extensive dominions in person, and their progress was marked by acts of wisdom and beneficence. The tyranny of Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian, who resided almost constantly at Rome, or in the adjacent villas, was confined to the senatorial and equestrian orders. But Caracalla was the common enemy of mankind. He left the capital (and he never returned to it) about a year after the murder of Geta. A. D. 213. 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 theatres, which he either disdained 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 taxes34. 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 Seraphis, he viewed and directed the slaughter of many thousand citizens, as well as strangers, without distinguishing either the 32 With regard to Papinian, see Heineccius's Historia Juris Romani, l. 330, &c. 33 Tiberius and Domitian never moved from the neighbourhood of Rome. Nero made a short journey into Greece. "Et laudatorum Principum usus ex æquo quamvis procul agentibus. Sævi proximis ingruunt.” Tacit. Hist. iv. 75. 34 Dion. 1. Ixxvii. p. 1294. ६ number or the crime of the sufferers; since, as he coolly CHAP. informed the senate, all the Alexandrians, those who VI. had perished, and those who had escaped, were alike guilty 35 cipline. The wise instructions of Severus never made any Relaxalasting impression on the mind of his son, who, although tion of dis 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 Caracalla, "To secure the affections of the army, "and to esteem the rest of his subjects as of little mo"ment37" But the liberality of the father had been restrained by prudence, and his indulgence to the troops was tempered by firmness and authority. The careless profusion of the son was the policy of one reign, and the inevitable ruin both of the army and of the empire. The vigour of the soldiers, instead of being confirmed by the severe discipline of camps, melted away in the luxury of cities. The excessive increase of their pay and donatives38 exhausted the state to enrich the military order, whose modesty in peace, and service in war, is best secured by an honourable poverty. The demeanor of Caracalla was haughty and full of pride; but with the troops he forgot even the proper dignity of his rank, encouraged their insolent familiarity, and 35 Dion, 1. lxxvii. p. 1307. Herodian, I. iv. p. 158. The former repre sents it as a cruel massacre, the latter as a perfidious one too. It seems probable, that the Alexandrians had irritated the tyrant by their railleries, and perhaps, by their tumults. 37 Dion, 1. lxxvi. p. 1284. Mr. Wotton (Hist. of Rome. p. 330.) suspects that this maxim was invented by Caracalla himself, and attributed to his father. 38 Dion (1. lxxviii. p. 1343.) informs us, that the extraordinary gifts of Caracalla to the army amounted annually to seventy millions of drachme (about two millions three hundred and fifty thousand pounds). There is another passage in Dion, concerning the military pay, infinitely curious; were it not obscure, imperfect, and probably corrupt. The best sense seems to be, that the Prætorian guards received twelve hundred and fifty drachmæ (forty pounds) a year (Dion, 1. lxxvii. p. 1307.) Under the reign of Augustus they were paid at the rate of two drachmæ, or denarii, per day, 730 a year (Tacit. Annal. i. 17.). Domitian, who increased the soldiers' pay one fourth, must have raised the Prætorians to 960 drachmæ (Gronovius de Pecuniâ Veteri, 1. iii. c. 2.). These successive augmentations ruined the empire, for, with the soldiers pay, their numbers too were increased. We have seen the Prætorians alone increased from 10,000 to 50,000 men. Murder of CHAP. neglecting the essential duties of a general, affected to VI. imitate the dress and manners of a common soldier. It was impossible that such a character, and such a Caracalla, conduct as that of Caracalla, could inspire either love AD. 217 or esteem; but as long as his vices were beneficial to 8th March the armies, he was secure from the danger of rebellion. A secret conspiracy, provoked by his own jealousy, was fatal to the tyrant. The Prætorian præfecture was divided between two ministers. The military department was intrusted to Adventus, an experienced rather than an able soldier; and the civil affairs were transacted by Opilius Macrinus, who, by his dexterity in business, had raised himself, with a fair character, to that high office. But his favour 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 suggested 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 Præfect of the city, the faith of his prophesy. That magistrate, who had received the most pressing instructions to inform himself of the successors of Caracalla, immediately communicated the examination of the African to the Imperial court, which at that time resided in Syria. But, notwithstanding the diligence of the public messengers, a friend of Macrinus found means to apprize 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 Prætorian Præfect, directing him to despatch the ordinary affairs, and to report the more important business that might be contained in them. Maerinus 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 Caracalla prompted him to make a pilgrimage from Edessa to the celebrated temple of the Moon at Carrhæ. He was attended by a body of cavalry; but having stopped on the road for some neces |