From the death of Commodus to Diocletian, A. C. 193—284.

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 CÆsar became extinct at the death of Nero. It is true that P. Helvius Pertinax, aged sixty-seven, prÆfect 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 LÆtus, 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.

2. When, upon the death of Pertinax, the rich and profligate M. Didius Julianus, aged fifty-seven, had outbid, to the great scandal of the people, all his competitors for the empire, and purchased it of the prÆtorian 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, Pescennius Niger, Albinus. 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.

3. Septimius Severus, however, aged 49—66, was the first who got possession of Rome, and, after the execution of Didius Julianus, he was acknowledged by the senate. He dismissed, it is true, the old prÆtorian 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 assassination. After a bloody defeat near Lyons, Albinus kills himself, Feb. 19, 197. 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 principal cities (see above, p. 304). Severus possessed most of the virtues of a soldier; but the insatiable avarice of his minister Plautianus, the formidable captain of the prÆtorian guard, robbed the empire even of those advantages which may be enjoyed under a military government, 204. 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 (Eboracum), leaving his son the maxim, "to enrich the soldiers, and hold the rest for nothing."

4. The deadly hatred which reigned between the two sons of Severus, M. Aurelius Antoninus Bassianus 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 murdered, April 4, 212. Geta was assassinated 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 citizenship to all the provinces, that he might thereby gain the duty of the vicesima hereditatum et manumissionum (twentieth upon inheritances and enfranchisements), which he very soon afterwards changed into a tenth (decima).—With respect to his foreign wars, his first was against the Catti and Alemanni, 215. among whom he remained a long time, sometimes as a friend and sometimes as an enemy. But his principal efforts, after having previously ordered a dreadful massacre of the inhabitants of Alexandria, to satisfy his cruel rapacity, were directed against 216. the Parthians (see above, p. 304); and in his wars against them he was assassinated by Macrinus, the prÆfect of the prÆtorian guard.

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, CÆsar, 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, Bassianus 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.

6. Heliogabalus, aged 14—18, who assumed the additional name of M. Aurelius Antoninus, brought with him from Syria the superstitions and voluptuousness of that country. He introduced the worship of his god 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 debasement of the senate, and of all important offices, which he filled with the degraded companions of his own lusts 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 assassinated by the prÆtorian guards.

7. His young cousin and successor, M. Aurelius Alexander Severus, aged 14—27, who had been carefully educated under the direction of his mother MammÆa, 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, banishing the creatures of Heliogabalus War against Persia, 226. 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 231—233. 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, 235. murdered him in his own tent. His prÆfect of the prÆtorian guard, Ulpian, had already, for the same cause, fallen a victim to this spirit of insubordination, which was not checked 222. even by the immediate presence of the emperor himself.

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 April, 238. 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 The Gordians. Africa, and themselves slain by Capellianus the governor of Numidia. Notwithstanding this, as the senate could expect no mercy, they chose as co-emperors the prÆfect of the city, Maximus Pupienus, and Clodius Balbinus and Pupienus. Balbinus, who, in conformity with the wishes of the people, created the young Gordian III. CÆsar. 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 bloody 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 CÆsar.

9. The reign of the young M. Antoninus Gordianus 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, prÆfect of the prÆtorian 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 prÆfect 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 assassinated.

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 assume 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 sÆculares, were celebrated, one thousand years from the foundation of the city.

11. Under the reign of his successor, Trajanus 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 CÆsar. Upon this the army proclaimed C. Trebonianus Gallus emperor, who created his son, Volusian, CÆsar; 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, Æmilianus, May 253. Æmilius Æmilianus, in Moesia, and was slain, together with his son, by his own army. In three months, however, Æmilianus shared the same fate; Publius Licinius Valerianus, 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. 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 associate in the empire, P. Licinius Gallienus, 259—968. 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 CÆsars, 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.

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 269. 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.

Trebellii Pollionis divus Claudius, in Script. Hist. Aug.

13. During the reign of L. Domitius Aurelianus, which lasted almost five years, those countries which had been partly or entirely lost to the empire were restored. Having first driven back the Goths and the Alemanni, who had advanced as far as Umbria, he undertook his expedition 271. against the celebrated Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, who at that time possessed Syria, Egypt, and part of Asia Minor. These countries he again brought under the dominion of the empire, after having Zenobia defeated and made prisoner, 271—273. defeated Zenobia and made her prisoner. The western provinces of Gaul, Britain, and Spain, which since the time of Gallienus had been governed by separate rulers, and were now under the dominion of Tetricus, he reduced to their former obedience. Dacia, on the contrary, he willingly abandoned; and as he transported 274. the Roman inhabitants across the Danube into Moesia, the latter henceforward bore the name of Dacia Aureliani. Hated for his severity, which in a warrior so easily degenerates into cruelty, 275. he was assassinated in Illyria at the instigation of his private secretary Mnestheus.

14. An interregnum of six months followed upon the death of Aurelian, till at length the senate, at the repeated solicitations of the army, ventured to fill up the vacant throne. The object of their choice, however, M. Claudius Tacitus, the worthiest of the senators, was unfortunately seventy-five years old, and perished after a short reign of six months, in an expedition against the Goths. Upon this event the army of Syria raised M. Aurelius Probus to the purple; while Florianus the brother of Tacitus, who had already been acknowledged at Rome, was put to death by his own people.

15. The six years' reign of Probus was a warlike one. He defeated the Germans, and forced them beyond the Rhine and Danube; strengthening the frontiers by building a strong wall from the Danube, near Regensburg, to the Rhine. He also obliged the Persians to make peace. Nevertheless, the number of towns which he reestablished and peopled with prisoners of war, and the vineyards which he caused his soldiers to plant on the Rhine, are proofs that he had taste and inclination for the arts of peace. This policy, however, would not suit the legions! After he had perished, therefore, by the hands of his soldiers, they proclaimed the prÆfect of the prÆtorian guard, M. Aurelius Carus, emperor, who created his two sons CÆsars—men very unlike each other in disposition, M. Aurelius Carinus being one of the greatest reprobates, while M. Aurelius Numerianus was gentle by nature, and had a mind well formed by study. The new emperor, having defeated the Goths, marched against the Persians, but was shortly afterwards killed, it is said, by a flash of lightning. Nor did his son Numerianus long survive him, being murdered by his own father-in-law, Arrius Aper, the prÆtorian prÆfect.

16. Although this period gives us a finished picture of a complete military despotism, it is still evident that this was owing to the entire separation of the military order from the rest of the people, by the introduction of standing armies, and the extinction of all national spirit among the citizens. The legions decided because the people were unarmed. It was, indeed, only among them, situated far from the soft luxuries of the capital, and engaged in almost a continual struggle with the barbarians, that a remnant of the ancient Roman character was still preserved. The nomination of their leaders to the purple became a natural consequence, not only of the uncertainty of the succession, which could not be fixed by mere ordinances, but often of necessity, from their being in the field under the pressure of urgent circumstances. Thus a succession of distinguished generals came to the throne: what authority, indeed, would an emperor at that time have had who was not a general? All durable reform, however, was rendered quite impossible by the quick succession of rulers. Even the best among them could do but very little for the internal administration; as all their energies were required to protect the frontiers, and defend themselves against usurpers, who, with the exception of the formality of being acknowledged by the senate, had claims as well founded as their own.

17. The decline of the empire also became so much the more rapid, in proportion as in these days of terror luxury had increased not only in the splendour and profligate effeminacy of private life, but more particularly in public, to a pitch almost beyond belief. The latter was especially shown in the exhibitions of the amphitheatre and circus; by which not only every new ruler, but even every new magistrate was obliged to purchase the favour of the people. Thus these remnants of a free constitution served only to accelerate the general ruin! What enjoyments, indeed, could be found under the rod of despotism, except those of the grossest sensuality; and to satisfy this, the intellectual amusements of the theatre (mimes and pantomimes), and even those of rhetoric and poetry, were made to contribute.

18. Yet, during this general decay, the gradual spread of the Christian religion was working a reform altogether of a different nature. Before the end of this period it had opened itself a way into every province, and, notwithstanding the frequent persecutions, had made converts in every rank of society, and was now on the eve of becoming the predominant form of worship. We shall be better able to estimate its value, if we consider it as the vehicle by which civilization made its way among the rude nations that now appeared on the scene, than if we merely consider it as the means of improving the manners and morals of the Roman world. In a political view it became of the greatest importance on account of the hierarchy, the frame-work of which was now in a great measure constructed among its professors. It was afterwards adopted as a state religion; and although the ancient creed of Rome had formerly been on the same footing, yet it was only calculated for the republic, and not at all for the now existing monarchy. The overthrow of paganism was necessarily attended with some violent convulsions, yet its loss was nothing to be compared with the support which the throne afterwards found in the hierarchy.