Commencement Of The Decline And Fall

( Originally Published Early 1900's )

FROM A.D. 180 TO A.D. 235.

ALL writers unite in the praises of Marcus Aurelius, the second of the Antonines, as he is sometimes called. Still he displayed one trait of character which has ever given occasion for perplexing comment. His wife, Faustina, beautiful, fascinating, and sensual to the highest degree, was notorious and unblushing in her amours. She affected no concealment. Reveling with the gay voluptuaries of the court in the most luxurious and wanton dissoluteness, she left her philosophic and phlegmatic husband to the meditations of his study and the schemes of his cabinet.

Marcus Aurelius seemed to be the only man in the empire who was utterly indifferent to this libidinousness of his spouse. Avowing himself a disciple of Zeno the stoic, and in his re. nowned "Meditations " advocating that philosophy, which renders it essential to virtue that one should be indifferent, so far as his inward happiness is concerned, to all external things, Aurelius did not allow the shameless conduct of his wife to disturb his serenity in the slightest degree. On the contrary, the more gross her crimes the more he lavished upon her caresses, endearing epithets, and titles of honor. Even her overs he sought out and loaded with favors, giving them conspicuous posts of trust and emolument.

During a connection of thirty years, Aurelius was unintermitting in the tenderness of his attentions to his dissolute wife. He lost no opportunity of manifesting respect for her in public. He caused a decree to be issued, proclaiming her " Mother of the Camps and Armies." All Rome smiled to read in the " Meditations " of their revered emperor the expression of his thanks to the gods for having conferred upon him a wife so faithful, so gentle, and of such wonderful simplicity of manners. The senate at the earnest request of the emperor, declared her to be a goddess, temples were erected for her worship, and she was invested with the attributes of Juno, Venus, and Ceres.

This same weakness of character was indicated by the manner in which his son Commodus was educated. Unrestrained by his father, and incited by the example of his mother, he grew up a monster of depravity. Commodus was nineteen years of age at the time of his father's death. The virtues of Aurelius secured for him easy accession to the throne, and he was promptly recognized by the army, the senate, and all the provinces. He was a burly, beastly man, of huge frame and of such herculean strength, that he often appeared, in theatrical exhibitions, in the character of Hercules, dressed in a lion's skin and armed with a club.

The atrocities of Commodus can never be described. Civilization would tear out and trample under foot the page containing the abominable recital. Nothing can be conceived of in the way of loathsome, brutal, fiend-like vice, and cruelty of which he was not guilty. He filled his palace with debauchery, ransacked the brothels of Rome, compelled his sisters to yield to his incestuous love, and killed one of them, Lucilla, for venturing to repel him. He amused himself with nutting off people's lips and noses. The rich were slain for their money ; the influential and powerful from jealousy, and the friends of the slain were also dispatched lest they should murmur and excite discontent. At length one of his concubines, named Marcia, apprehensive that she was doomed to death by the tyrant, presented him with a goblet of poisoned wine.

Commodus drank freely, and almost immediately fell into heavy slumbers. But soon deadly sickness and vomiting en-sued. Marcia, who had enlisted others in her enterprise, fearful that he might escape the effects of the poison, sent a young gladiator into the room to finish the deed with the dagger. Commodus, stupefied and weakened by the drug, was probably easily despatched. The conspirators, exulting in their achievement, and conscious that the tyrant could find no competitor, resolved to fill the vacant throne with one whose avenger would secure the support of the army, the senate, and the people.

Helvius Pertinax, the prefect or governor of Rome, had risen from lowly birth to senatorial dignity and consular rank. He had filled many of the first offices of the state, and all with much honor to himself. At a late hour of the night, the conspirators rushed into his apartment to offer him the crown. With great reluctance Pertinax accepted, at their hands, the imperial purple. He was immediately conducted to the camp, while a report was circulated through the city that Commodus had died of apoplexy. The people and the army, with joyful acclaim, accepted the new emperor, and conducted him to the senate-house. The senators had been suddenly convened. It was in the early dawn of the morning of the first of January, A. D. 193. In great consternation they had assembled, fearing that the summons would prove but some new trick of the tyrant. When assured that Commodus was no more, their joy surpassed all bounds. Decrees were passed consigning the memory of Commodus to infamy, and Pertinax was invested with imperial title and power.

From the reign of Commodus is generally dated the begin ling of the decline and fall of the Roman empire. Here, Gibbon commences his renowned history. Pertinax immediately entered upon vigorous measures of reform. His domestic establishment was arranged on a very economical scale ; exiles were recalled, prison-doors thrown open, and confiscated estates restored. The bodies of victims, illustrious in rank, which had been thrown into ignominious graves, were con-signed to honorable sepulture, and all possible consolations were bestowed upon ruined families.

The extortions of Commodus had been boundless, the whole empire having been taxed to its utmost point of endurance to minister to his limitless luxury. Though the treasury was utterly exhausted, so that Pertinax commenced his reign with an empty purse, and at a time when the support of the army, which was absolutely essential, could only be secured by lavishing gold upon the legions with a profuse hand, he nobly remitted all the oppressive taxes imposed by Commodus, declaring in a decree of the senate, " that he was better satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to acquire riches by the way of tyranny and dishonor."

The instruments of luxurious indulgence which the tyrant had accumulated, gold and silver plate, chariots of curious construction and enormous cost, robes of imperial dye and heavily embroidered with gems and gold, and last, and yet most worthy of note, as indicative of the barbarism of the times, a large number of beautiful slaves, both boys and girls, whom Commodus, in his depravity, had assembled in his harem, alike to minister to his lust, were sold, and the proceeds placed in the exhausted treasury. It is said that there were three hundred of each sex whom the monster had thus collected, and many of these were children of tender years, who had been born in a state of freedom, and had been torn from the arms of their weeping parents. The free-born were set at liberty ; the others though of the same race, were left in bondage.

These reforms, so salutary to the state, were all hateful to the corrupt soldiery. They loved war, and rapine, and license the plunder of provinces, the golden bribes of their officers, the possession of captive matrons and maidens. The brutal men had found in Commodus the leader they desired. The just administration of Pertinax excited their indignation and contempt. Murmurs deep and loud rose from the Pretorian guard. Three hundred of them in a body, and in open day, marched to the palace, entered unresisted, dispatched Pertinax with swords and javelins, and parading his gory head upon a lance, marched triumphantly through the streets back to their barracks. The citizens of Rome looked on in dismay and sub-mission. It was not safe for any one to utter a word against the army. One hundred thousand soldiers, well armed and drilled, are deemed amply sufficient to hold in subjection ten millions of unarmed people. The establishment of a standing army, and the disarming of the militia, places any nation at the mercy of a successful general.

The Pretorian guard amounted to but sixteen thousand men, organized in sixteen cohorts. These renowned Pretorian bands, in the highest state of discipline, were assembled in a permanent camp, just outside the walls of Rome, on the broad summit of the Quirinal and Viminal hills. The remains of their line of ramparts, it is supposed, may still be traced. These helmed troops overawed the four millions of Rome ; and, through the subject senate, and the still more servile populace of the metropolis, held the mastery of an empire of one hundred and fifty millions.

The soldiers, in their intrenched camp, rallying around the bead of Pertinax, the hideous trophy of their power, perpetrated the memorable scandal of selling the throne, at auction, to the highest bidder. They felt safe in taking the bids, for if any one failed to pay the proffered price, the soldiers had, as it was well known, a very short and decisive way of settling the account. Rome had indeed now fallen ; for the emperor had become but the prow of the national ship, while the soldiers manned the oars, and held the rudder.

There were two bidders for the imperial purple. It is a singular comment upon the morals of that age, that the first bidder was Sulpicianus, governor of Rome, and son-in-law of' Pertinax. Alarmed by the mutiny he had hastened in his official capacity to the camp ; but he immediately forgot the murder of his father, in eager graspings for the crown which had fallen from that mangled brow. Sulpicianus offered a sum, amounting to about eight hundred dollars of our money, to each man of the guard. A senator, Didius Julianus, the richest man in Rome, incited by the ambition of his wife and daughter, offered a thousand dollars to each man. "More-over," said he, " you will not have to wait for me to collect it from taxes, for I can pay you immediately, as I have the money at home."

" Going, going, gone ! " The Roman empire was struck off to Julian. The soldiers reared an altar in the camp, placed Julian upon it, and took the oath of obedience. Then the whole band, in close order of battle, with their new emperor enclosed in the center of their ranks, descended from their encampment and entered the streets of Rome. The motley crowd from all nations, which then thronged the capital, were doubtless but little conscious of the degradation. To them it was but another gala day. It is to be presumed that ladies smiled from the balconies, waved their scarfs, and sprinkled the pavements with flowers, as the gorgeous procession passed along, with glittering helmets, shields, and spears, with silken banners floating in the breeze, and with music from a hundred bands.

The soldiers had summoned an assembly of the senate. The newly appointed emperor presented himself to receive the confirmation of that docile body, and had the good sense simply to say :

" Fathers, you want an emperor. I am the proper person for you to choose."

There were sixteen thousand arguments, in the shape of sixteen thousand swords, to sustain this simple proposition. Julian was confirmed with universal acclaim. The soldiers then, in triumphal march, conducted him to the palace. The decapitated body of Pertinax had not yet been removed, and the supper was still upon the table, at which the emperor was just about to sit down, when his assassins burst in upon him. These sights must have been suggestive of interesting thoughts to the new monarch. Till midnight the halls of the palace resounded with revelry. There was illumination, feasting, music, and dancing. But when the guests had retired, and darkness and solitude came, Julian found the imperial pillow filled with thorns, and he could not sleep.

But there were other armies in distant parts of the empire, proud, flushed with victory, and far more numerous than the Pretorian bands. Just across the Adriatic sea, in Illyricum, was Septimius Severus, a renowned general, at the head of three Roman legions, amounting to nearly twenty thousand men, and also with a large force of auxiliaries. In Britain, Clodius Albinus commanded a similar force. He was a man of the highest patrician rank, and regarded with contempt the plebeian origin of Julian. In Syria, Pescennius Niger held an army still more powerful than that of Severus or Albinus.

Each of these armies immediately imitated the Pretorian band, and each, in its own encampment, enthroned its leader, declaring him to be invested with the imperial purple. There were now four emperors, and from Illyricum, Britain, and Syria, sixty thousand Roman troops, with large accompanying banda of auxiliaries, were marching upon Rome. To meet them Julian had but the Pretorian bands. Severus, in Illyrscum, was the nearest to Rome, and was approaching with rapid strides. Julian, terrified, sent ambassadors to treat with him, offering to share the empire. Severus, conscious of the superiority of his army, rejected the proposal. Eager to reach Rome and to consolidate his power before either of his rivals should appear beneath the walls, he placed himself at the head of his columns, marching on foot, scarcely allow hag time for sleep or food, sharing the hardships of the hum. blest soldier, and animating all by the glittering prize within their grasp. He crossed the Alps. City after city, neither able nor disposed to oppose, joyfully received him. Ravenna, the great seaport of the northern Adriatic, surrendered, and with it Severus obtained the whole Adriatic fleet. With unintermitted strides he pressed on, and was now within two hundred and fifty miles of Rome.

Julian, almost delirious with terror, acted like a mad man. He was continually sending ambassadors to the camp of Severus to negotiate, and assassins to stab. He invoked the gods, the senate, the people, the guards. He sent the vestal virgins, and the priests in their sacerdotal garb, to plead his cause with Severus. He had recourse to enchantments to paralyze his foe. But all was in vain. Severus was now within seventy miles of Rome, and as yet had met with no opposition calling for the unsheathing of the sword. His agents were already in the capital, and mingling with the Pretorian bands, were attempting to purchase their espousal of his cause. The soldiers cared but little who was emperor, if it were but one from whom they could receive liberal rewards. It was evident now that Severus would be victorious.

The soldiers of the Pretorian guard accordingly reassembled the senate, and ordered them to depose Julian. Then they conducted Julian very politely into one of the private apartments of his palace, carefully, and without any needless rudeness or violence, cut off his head, and sent the bloody trophy on a pike a peace-offering to Severus. Such was the end of Julian's reign of sixty-six days. Severus entered Rome in triumph, despoiled the Pretorian guard, which had become enervated through luxury, of their arms and wealth, dig. banded the body and banished the members, on pain of death, to the distance of one hundred miles from the metro. polis. But Severus, though thus triumphant, was in danger of encountering the same fate which had overwhelmed Julian.

There were two hostile armies now approaching Rome, the one under Albinus, from Britain, equal to that of Severus, and the other still more formidable, under Niger, from Syria. The union of these armies would render the ruin of Severus certain. With characteristic cunning, and perfidy, Severus disarmed Albinus, by entering into an alliance with him, giving him the title of Caesar, and virtually sharing with him the empire. Having accomplished this feat, he turned, with all his energy, upon Niger, and in three great battles destroyed his army. Niger fled helpless to Antioch. For a defeated general there was no possible escape. The executioners of Severus pursued the fugitive, and cutting off his head sent it to the conqueror.

Severus now extended his scepter undisputed over the nations of the East. But Albinus still lived, in command of armes, and claiming a sort of colleagueship with the imperial victor. It was needful, for the concentration of dignity and power in the hands of Severus, that Albinus should be disposed of. Severus wrote to him affectionately, as follows :

" Brother of my soul and empire; the gods have given us the victory over our enemies. Niger is no more, and his army is destroyed. I entreat you to preserve the troops and the public faithful to our common interests. Present my affectionate salutation to your wife Julia, and to your little family"

The messenger who conveyed this epistle was directed to watch his chance and plunge a dagger into the heart of Albinos. By some chance the conspiracy was discovered, and Albinus, enraged, and conscious that death was his inevitable doom, resolved to sell his life dearly. Severus was now altogether too powerful to be vanquished by the leader of a few legions in Britain. Albinus, however, put himself at the head of his troops, crossed the channel, and met the victorious army of Severus in Gaul, near the site of the present city of Lyons. The battle was fiercely fought, through a long day. The army of Albinus was cut to pieces, and he himself completed the victory of Severus, by thrusting a sword through his own heart. The head of the unfortunate general was sent a trophy to Rome. The brutal victor trampled the body beneath his horse's hoofs, and after leaving the mangled corpse, for a time, to be devoured by dogs, ordered the remains to be thrown into the Rhine. The wife and children of Albinus were also inhumanly massacred. Enriching his army abundantly with the spoils of the vanquished, Severus returned to Rome, where a splendid triumphal arch was erected to commemorate his success, which arch still remains in a good state of preservation.

An insurrection in Britain called the emperor to that island. Appointing his two sons, Caracalla and Geta as joint successors in the empire, with a powerful army he landed in Britain. Sending a division of his army, under Geta to overawe the lower provinces, he advanced, accompanied by Caracalla, to attack the Caledonians. His army encountered incredible fatigue in forcing their way through forests and marshes, and over unbridged rivers. In a few months fifty thousand men perished from sickness and the sword. But the Caledonians were at length compelled to beg for peace. They were forced to surrender a portion of their country, and, as a protection from their future incursions, Severus built the famous wall, which still goes by his name, from Solway Frith to the German ocean. Soon after this Severus died in the city of York, in Britain, at the age of sixty-six, after a reign of eighteen years.

During his reign a new Pretorian guard was organized, four times as numerous as the one disbanded. He lavished great wealth upon his troops, so that they became enervated by the most sensual indulgence. All power was wrested from the senate, and a long step was thus taken in the road to national ruin. Gloom overshadowed his last days, " Omnia fui," he exclaimed, " et nihil expedit." I have been all things and all is of little value. Satiated with riches and fame, weary of the cares of empire, and disturbed by the bickerings of his sons, into whose depraved and hostile hands he was to surrender unlimited power, and with nothing to contemplate beyond the grave but darkness impenetrable, he sank in sadness to the tomb. And yet the hoary-headed tyrant bequeathed to his boys the political aphorism, by obedience to which he had gained all his power. It was this, "Enrich your soldiers at any price, and regard all the rest of your subjects as mere ciphers."

The two sons of Severus had from childhood been implacably hostile to each other. Gradually they had divided the court into two antagonistic factions. The incessant quarrels of these two heirs of the throne had greatly embittered the last days of their father. Caracalla was the elder of the princes, and his soul seemed ever agitated with the wildest ambition, and the most depraved passions. Geta was more voluptuous and effeminate, and he was more popular with the people. Caracalla had made several unsuccessful attempts to poison his father, and at one time had nearly succeeded in ex-citing a mutiny among the troops. Immediately after the death of Severus, the two young men, who thus succeeded to the crown, commenced a rapid journey, through Gaul and Italy, to Rome.

They traveled the same road, with separate retinues, jealously watching each other, to guard against assassination, and never venturing to eat at the same table, or sleep in the same house. Thus, the fame of their discord was widely spread On their arrival at Rome they occupied different palaces, with guards stationed around the doors, and with no communication existing between them, except that which was marked with the utmost jealousy and rancor. It seemed impossible that the empire could be governed in common by men whose hostility to each other was so deadly, and it was proposed that they should divide the empire between them. Some progress had been made in the negotiation, upon the basis that Calla, as the elder, should reside in Rome, and retain dominion over Europe and western Africa, while Geta, selecting Antioch or Alexandria as his capital, should exercise sovereignty over Asia and Egypt. Numerous armies were to be encamped on each shore of the Thracian Bosphorus to protect the frontiers of the rival monarchies.

This plan for a dismemberment of the empire, merely to gratify the passions of two worthless young men, excited indignation in almost every Roman breast. Caracalla reflected that one dagger thrust, one cup of poison would relieve him from all these embarrassments, and with new energy he pre-pared to put his brother out of the way. Feigning desire for reconciliation, he proposed a friendly meeting in the apartment of their mother. In the midst of the conversation, two assassins, who had been concealed, rushed in, and, with the assistance of Caracalla cut down Geta, and he died in his mother's arms, drenching her garments with his blood. She herself was severely wounded in the endeavor to shield her son from the daggers which were aimed at him.

Caracalla easily secured the support of the army with vast bribes. The senate was now ever ready to do homage to successful power. The only redeeming trait in the character of Caracalla is to found in the fact that he could not escape the stings of remorse. The image of his brother, bleeding, struggling, dying, in the arms of his terrified, shrieking mother, pursued the murderer to his grave. But this remorse only goaded him to new crimes. Julia, his mother, was threatened with instant death °f she did not cease her lamentations, and receive Caracalla with smiles of approbation and joy. Every one who was supposed to be in the interest of Geta, without regard to age or sex, was put to death. More than twenty thousand perished in this wholesale proscription. The friends of the executed were compelled to hide their tears, for the slightest indication of sympathy was sure to call down the vengeance of the tyrant.

About a year after the death of Geta, Caracalla left Rome, to visit the distant provinces of his empire. His path was everywhere marked with the traces of extortion, rapine, and violence. A large number of the senate were compelled to accompany him, and to provide in every city the most costly entertainments. New and ingenious forms of taxation were invented, and the wealthy families were ruined by fines and confiscations. In consequence of a lampoon, which some wag in Alexandria had composed, Caracalla issued an order for the general massacre of the inhabitants. A demon could hardly have been more wanton and perfidious in cruelty. But enormous gifts to the army, with the permission of any amount of license, secured the support of their swords. With such support he had few enemies to fear. The resources of the state were exhausted to enrich the soldiers, " whose modesty in peace, and service in war," Gibbon has well observed, "is best secured by an honorable poverty."

One of the emperor's generals, Macrinus, who commanded the imperial forces in Mesopotamia, accidentally discovered that he had excited the suspicions of Caracalla, and was consequently doomed to death. In his despair he engaged one of his centurions, a man of herculean strength, to assassinate the emperor. Watching his opportunity, as the emperor was riding out one day. in the vicinity of Edessa, the centurion stabbed him in the back, killing him instantly. The assassin, however, paid the forfeit of his own life, for he was immediately cut down by the guard. Thus terminated the diabolical sway of Caracalla, with which God had allowed the world to be cursed for six years.

The army now looked around for a successor, and after an interval of three days fixed upon Macrinus, who made them great promises. The appointment was sent to the senate, and was submissively confirmed. But Macrinus was neither Mustrious through lineage, wealth, nor exploits ; and gradually murmurs began to arise against the bestowal of the imperial purple upon one so obscure. These murmurs were loudly increased by his cautious attempts to introduce a few reforms into the army. He did not venture to meddle with the privileges and extravagant pay which the soldiers who were already engaged received, but endeavored to organize new recruits upon a more economical basis. The army was encamped in winter quarters in Syria. Macrinus, with a division of the army, as his ostentatious retinue, was luxuriating in the imperial palace at Antioch.

Under these circumstances, a Syrian, named Elagabalus, under the pretense that he was the son of one of the concubines of Caracalla, whose memory the corrupt army adored, formed a conspiracy, and, supported by the encamped troops, declared himself emperor and marched upon Antioch. The soldiers, eager for the renewal of their former license, with enthusiasm, cohort after cohort, abandoned Macrinus, and joined Elagabalus. One battle finished the strife, Macrinus was slain, and all the troops flocked to the banners of the conqueror. But twenty days elapsed from the commencement of the strife to the victory of Elagabalus. The powerless senate dared not remonstrate against the sword of the army, and confirmed with exemplary docility, their choice of a new emperor. The reign of Macrinus lasted but one year and two months.

Elagabalus passed the winter in riotous living with his generals in Nicomedia, and early in the spring commenced a triumphal march toward Rome. As he had formerly been, in the idolatrous worship of the East, high priest of the sun, he entered Rome in the double character of pontiff and emperor. The streets through which he passed were sprinkled with gold dust. Elagabalus, arrayed in sacerdotal robes of silk and gold, with a gorgeous tiara upon his brow, and with bracelets and collars studded with inestimable gems, led six milk white horses, most sumptuously caparisoned, drawing a chariot containing the black, conical stone which was the symbol of the god at whose shrine he ministered. In his character of Driest, he held the reins and walked slowly backwards, that his eye might not for one moment wander from the divinity Le adored.

A magnificent temple was reared for this new deity on the Palatine mount, and he was daily worshiped with oblations and sacrifices, which surpassed all that Rome had yet beheld of idolatrous splendor. Syrian girls of voluptuous beauty danced lasciviously around the altar, while the highest dignitaries of the state and army performed the humblest functions before the, shrine. Elagabalus rioting in imperial wealth and power, surrendered himself to the grossest and most disgusting dissoluteness. Bringing the vices and the luxury of the orient to his court, and adding to those all the refinements of enervating and demoralizing pleasure which the occident could suggest, he presented to the world a spectacle of shameless debauchery, which had never before been paralleled.

The palaces of the Cęsars had been already as corrupt as the ingenuity of their possessors could make them. But Elagabalus, transporting to Rome the vices of Asia, had more capacity for the perpetration of deeds of enormous foulness than any of his predecessors possessed. The story of his atrocities can not be told. Modern civilization can not listen to the recital. He dressed boys in the robes of girls and married them. The ingenuity of his court was taxed to subvert every law of nature and of decency. Bad as the world now is, it has made vast strides in the path of improvement since that day. Christianity has indeed, notwithstand. ing all its corruptions, already wrought a wonderful change.

No court in Europe now would tolerate for a day a Nero of an Elagabalus.

At length even pagan Rome could endure such infamy no longer. The fiendfiul priest and emperor was smitten down in a sudden fray in the camp, and, with many of his minions, was hewn to pieces. His mutilated corpse was dragged with every expression of contempt through the streets of Rome, and cast into the Tiber. The senate passed a decree con-signing his name to eternal infamy. With an universal out-burst of approval, posterity has ratified the edict.

The Pretorian guard, in its luxurious suburban encampment, passed the scepter into the hands of Alexander, a cousin of Elagabalus, a modest youth of but seventeen years of age. The sovereign army supposed that it could mold him at its will. The senate, as ever, was pliant as wax. The mother of the unassuming boy was a woman of uncommon character, and with singular sagacity, she for a time guided all his measures. It is said that she was a disciple of the Saviour, and that, instructed by that pure faith, it was her great ambition to cleanse Rome from the pollutions of the preceding reign. She appointed for her son teachers of the most estimable character, and he was instructed in the faith and morale of Christianity. She established an advisory council, consisting of sixteen of the ablest senators. All the minions of Elagabalus were driven from office.

Under the guidance of wise teachers, Alexander Severus, as he is usually called, began to develop a singularly mild and sure character. He seems to have been endowed with an original constitution of soul, which was dove-like and passion less. He was amiable, unsensual, and moderate in all his desires. There was nothing in his nature which responded to ordinary temptations. He was not virtuous through stern resistance to the allurements of vice ; he was virtuous because he had apparently no temptation to be otherwise. God had made him so. In the human family there are lambs and there are tiger's whelps. The fact is undeniable. But whose philosophy or theology can explain the fact? Elagabalus and Alexander were cousins. But temptation glided from the soul of Alexander, as Jeremy Taylor would say, like dew-drops from a duck's neck. And yet, can any philosophy or theology triumph over the common sense declaration that Elagabalus was an infamous wretch, meriting the execration of mankind ?

The historians of those days give the following account of the education of this prince, then an emperor. Strange scenes to have been witnessed in a palace of the Cęsars ! Alexander rose at an early hour, and in prayer implored divine guidance for the day. He then met his cabinet council, and with great patience devoted several hours to the discussion of affairs of state, and to the redress of private wrongs. A portion of time was then set apart for study, much attention being devoted to the works of Virgil, Plato, Horace, and Cicero. He then entered his gymnasium for bodily exercise, and thus there was developed a muscular system of unusual vigor. After a bath and a slight dinner, he received petitions, and directed replies to letters and memorials, till supper, which, with the Romans, was the principal meal of the day. His table was always spread with great frugality, and usually invited guests, distinguished for learning and virtue, sat down with him. His dress was plain, and all were impressed by his polished manners. For forty years the palaces of the Caesars had been but a simmering pool of corruption. The first approaches of Christianity thus changed the scene.

But the moment the emperor touched, even with the gentlest hand, the privileges of the soldiers, a cry was heard which resounded through the empire. In a paroxysm cf rage the Pretorian guards marched into the city, breathing threaten. ings and slaughter. For three days, a fierce civil war raged in the streets of Rome. Many houses were burned, multitudes were slain, and the city was menaced with a general conflagration. Several of the leading friends of the emperor were massacred, and Alexander was compelled to succumb to the military mob; and the soldiers returned, unpunished and triumphant, to their quarters.

The legions in the provinces followed the successful example of the Pretorian guard, and refused to submit to the slightest curtailment of their privileges. This contest with the licentious soldiery embittered the whole of the reign of Alexander.

Thirty-two years before the period of which we now are writing, the emperor Severus, returning from one of his east-ern expeditions, halted in Thrace, to celebrate with military games the birth of his son Geta. A gigantic young barbarian came rollicking into the camp, challenging any one to wrestle with him. Sixteen of the stoutest followers of the army he, in succession, laid upon their backs. The next day, as Severus with his suite, on horseback, was galloping over the plain, this agile young barbarian, whose name was Maximin, with the speed of an antelope, placed himself at the side of the emperor, keeping pace with his horse in a long and rapid career ; and then, apparently not fatigued in the slightest degree with his race, in a wrestling match threw, one after another, seven of the most powerful soldiers of the army.

The emperor, astonished at these feats, rewarded Maximin with a golden collar, and assigned him an important post in his own retinue. This Maximin was a genuine barbarian, having a Goth for his father, and a woman from the still more savage tribe of the Alani, for his mother. Renowned for strength and bravery, he rose rapidly in the army, until he attained the first military command. He now headed a conspiracy against Alexander. " Why," said he, " should Roman armies be subject to an effeminate Syrian, the slave of his mother, and of the senate. Soldiers should be governed by a soldier, one reared in camps, and one who knows how to distribute among his comrades the treasures of the empire."