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Greatness and discontent of Severus
THE ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may
entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and
exercise of its own powers; but the possession of a throne
could never yet afford a lasting satisfaction to an
ambitious mind. This melancholy truth was felt and
acknowledged by Severus. Fortune and merit had, from an
humble station, elevated him to the first place among
mankind. "He had been all things," as he said himself, "and
all was of little value."(1) Distracted with the care, not of
acquiring, but of preserving an empire, oppressed with age
and infirmities, careless of fame, (2) and satiated with
power, all his prospects of life were closed. The desire of
perpetuating the greatness of his family was the only
remaining wish of his ambition and paternal tenderness.
His wife the empress Julia
Like most of the Africans, Severus was passionately addicted
to the vain studies of magic and divination, deeply versed
in the interpretation of dreams and omens, and perfectly
acquainted with the science of judicial astrology; which, in
almost every age, except the present, has maintained its
dominion over the mind of man. He had lost his first wife
whilst he was governor of the Lyonnese Gaul.(3) In the choice
of a second, he sought only to connect himself with some
favourite of fortune; and as soon as he had discovered that
a young lady of Emesa in Syria had a royal nativity he
solicited, and obtained her hand.(4) Julia Domna (for that
was her name) deserved all that the stars could promise her.
She possessed, even in an advanced age, the attractions of
beauty,(5) and united to a lively imagination a firmness of
mind, and strength of judgment, seldom bestowed on her sex.
Her amiable qualities never made any deep impression on the
dark and jealous temper of her husband, but in her son's
reign she administered the principal affairs of the empire,
with a prudence that supported his authority; and with a
moderation that sometimes corrected his wild extravagances.
(6) Julia applied herself to letters and philosophy, with some
success, and with the most splendid reputation. She was the
patroness of every art, and the friend of every man of
genius. (7) The grateful flattery of the learned has
celebrated her virtue; but, if we may credit the scandal of
ancient history, chastity was very far from being the most
conspicuous virtue of the empress Julia.(8)
Two sons, Caracalla (9) and Geta, were the fruit of this
marriage, and the destined heirs of the empire. The fond
hopes of the father, and of the Roman world, were soon
disappointed by these vain youths, who displayed the
indolent security of hereditary princes; and a presumption
that fortune would supply the place of merit and
application. Without any emulation of virtue or talents,
they discovered, almost from their infancy, a fixed and
implacable antipathy for each other. Their aversion,
confirmed by years, and fomented by the arts of their
interested favourites, broke out in childish, and gradually
in more serious, competitions; and, at length, divided the
theatre, the circus, and the court, into two factions;
actuated by the hopes and fears of their respective leaders.
The prudent emperor endeavoured, by every expedient of
advice and authority, to allay this growing animosity. The
unhappy discord of his sons clouded all his prospects, and
threatened to overturn a throne raised with so much labour,
cemented with so much blood, and guarded with every defence
of arms and treasure. With an impartial hand he maintained
between them an exact balance of favour, conferred on both
the rank of Augustus, with the revered name of Antoninus;
and for the first time the Roman world beheld three
emperors.(10) Yet even this equal conduct served only to
inflame the contest, whilst the fierce Caracalla asserted
the right of primogeniture, and the milder Geta courted the
affections of the people and the of soldiers. In the anguish
of a disappointed father, Severus foretold that the weaker
of his sons would fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who, in
his turn, would be ruined by his own vices.(11)
The Caledonian war.
In these circumstances the intelligence of a war in Britain
and of an invasion (A.D. 208) of the province by the
barbarians of the North, was received with pleasure by
Severus. Though the vigilance of his lieutenants might have
been sufficient to repel the distant enemy, he resolved to
embrace the honourable pretext of withdrawing his sons from
the luxury of Rome, which enervated their minds and
irritated their passions; and of inuring their youth to the
toils of war and government. Notwithstanding his advanced
age (for he was above threescore), and his gout, which
obliged him to be carried in a litter, he transported
himself in person into that remote island, attended by his
two sons, his whole court, and a formidable army. He
immediately passed the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus, and
entered the enemy's country, with a design of completing the
long attempted conquest of Britain. He penetrated to the
northern extremity of the island without meeting an enemy.
But the concealed ambuscades of the Caledonians, who hung
unseen on the rear and flanks of his army, the coldness of
the climate, and the severity of a winter march across the
hills and morasses of Scotland, are reported to have cost
the Romans above fifty thousand men. The Caledonians at
length yielded to the powerful and obstinate attack, sued
for peace, and surrendered a part of their arms, and a large
tract of territory. But their apparent submission lasted no
longer than the present terror. As soon as the Roman legions
had retired, they resumed their hostile independence. Their
restless spirit provoked Severus to send a new army into
Caledonia, with the most bloody orders, not to subdue but to
extirpate the natives. They were saved by the death of their
haughty enemy.(12)
Fingal and his heroes
This Caledonian war, neither marked by decisive events, nor
attended with any important consequences, would ill deserve
our attention but it is supposed, not without a considerable
degree of probability, that the invasion of Severus is
connected with the most shining period of the British
history or fable. Fingal, whose fame, with that of his
heroes and bards, has been revived in our language by a
recent publication, is said to have commanded the
Caledonians in that memorable juncture, to have eluded the
power of Severus, and to have obtained a signal victory on
the banks of the Carun, in which the son of the King of the
World, Caracul, fled from his arms along the fields of his
pride.(13) Something of a doubtful mist still hangs over
these Highland traditions; nor can it be entirely dispelled
by the most ingenious researches of modern criticism:(14) but
if we could, with safety, indulge the pleasing supposition,
that Fingal lived, and that Ossian sung, the striking
contrast of the situation and manners of the contending
nations might amuse a philosophic mind. The parallel would
be little to the advantage of the more civilised people, if
we compared the unrelenting revenge of Severus with the
generous clemency of Fingal, the timid and brutal cruelty of
Caracalla, with the bravery, the tenderness, the elegant
genius of Ossian; the mercenary chiefs who, from motives of
fear or interest, served under the Imperial standard, with
the freeborn warriors who started to arms at the voice of
the king of Morven; if, in a word, we contemplated the
untutored Caledonians, glowing with the warm virtues of
nature, and the degenerate Romans, polluted with the mean
vices of wealth and slavery.
Ambition of Caracalla
The declining health and last illness of Severus inflamed
the wild ambition and black passions of Caracalla's soul.
Impatient of any delay or division of empire, he attempted,
more than once, to shorten the small remainder of his
father's days, and endeavoured, but without success, to
excite a mutiny among the troops. (15) The old emperor had
often censured the misguided lenity of Marcus, who, by a
single act of justice, might have saved the Romans from the
tyranny of his worthless son. Placed in the same situation,
he experienced how easily the rigour of a judge dissolves
away in the tenderness of a parent. He deliberated, he
threatened, but he could not punish; and this last and only
instance of mercy was more fatal to the empire than a long
series of cruelty.(16) The disorder of his mind irritated the
pains of his body; he wished impatiently for death and
hastened the instant of it by his impatience. He expired
(A.D. 211, February 4th) at York in the sixty-fifth year of
his life, and in the eighteenth of a glorious and successful
reign. In his last moments he recommended concord to his
sons, and his sons to the army. The salutary advice never
reached the heart, or even the understanding, of the
impetuous youths; but the more obedient troops, mindful of
their oath of allegiance, and of the authority of their
deceased master, resisted the solicitations of Caracalla,
and proclaimed both brothers emperors of Rome. The new
princes soon left the Caledonians in peace, returned to the
capital, celebrated their father's funeral with divine
honours, and were cheerfully acknowledged as lawful
sovereigns, by the senate, the people, and the provinces.
Some pre-eminence of rank seems to have been allowed to the
elder brother; but they both administered the empire with
equal and independent power.(17)
Jealousy and hatred of the two emperors
Such a divided form of government would have proved a source
of discord between the most affectionate brothers. It was
impossible that it could long subsist between two implacable
enemies, who neither desired nor could trust a
reconciliation. It was visible that one only could reign,
and that the other must fall; and each of them judging of
his rival's designs by his own, guarded his life with the
most jealous vigilance from the repeated attacks of poison
or the sword. Their rapid journey through Gaul and Italy,
during which they never ate at the same table, or slept in
the same house, displayed to the provinces the odious
spectacle of fraternal discord. On their arrival at Rome,
they immediately divided the vast extent of the Imperial
palace.(18) No communication was allowed between their
apartments: the doors and passages were diligently
fortified, and guards posted and relieved with the same
strictness as in a besieged place. The emperors met only in
public, in the presence of their afflicted mother; and each
surrounded by a numerous train of armed followers. Even on
these occasions of ceremony, the dissimulation of courts
could ill disguise the rancour of their hearts.(19)
Fruitless negotiation for dividing the empire between them
This latent civil war already distracted the whole
government, when a scheme was suggested that seemed of
mutual benefit to the hostile brothers. It was proposed,
that since it was impossible to reconcile their minds, they
should separate their interest, and divide the empire
between them. The conditions of the treaty were already
drawn with some accuracy. It was agreed that Caracalla, as
the elder brother, should remain in possession of Europe and
the western Africa; and that he should relinquish the
sovereignty of Asia and Egypt to Geta, who might fix his
residence at Alexandria or Antioch, cities little inferior
to Rome itself in wealth and greatness; that numerous armies
should be constantly encamped on either side of the Thracian
Bosphorus, to guard the frontiers of the rival monarchies;
and that the senators of European extraction should
acknowledge the sovereign of Rome, whilst the natives of
Asia followed the emperor of the East. The tears of the
empress Julia interrupted the negotiation, the first idea of
which had filled every Roman breast with surprise and
indignation. The mighty mass of conquest was so intimately
united by the hand of time and policy, that it required the
most forcible violence to rend it asunder. The Romans had
reason to dread that the disjoined members would soon be
reduced by a civil war under the dominion of one master; but
if the separation was permanent, the division of the
provinces must terminate in the dissolution of an empire
whose unity had hitherto remained inviolate.(20)
Murder of Geta
Had the treaty been carried into execution, the sovereign of
Europe might soon have been the conqueror of Asia; but
Caracalla obtained an easier though a more guilty victory.
He artfully listened to his mother's entreaties, and
consented (A.D. 212, 27th February) to meet his brother in
her apartment, on terms of peace and reconciliation. In the
midst of their conversation, some centurions, who had
contrived to conceal themselves, rushed with drawn swords
upon the unfortunate Geta. His distracted mother strove to
protect him in her arms; but, in the unavailing struggle,
she was wounded in the hand, and covered with the blood of
her younger son, while she saw the elder animating and
assisting(21) the fury of the assassins. As soon as the deed
was perpetrated, Caracalla, with hasty steps, and horror in
his countenance, ran towards the Praetorian camp as his only
refuge, and threw himself on the ground before the statues
of the tutelar deities. (22) The soldiers attempted to raise
and comfort him. In broken and disordered words he informed
them of his imminent danger and fortunate escape;
insinuating that he had prevented the designs of his enemy,
and declared his resolution to live and die with his
faithful troops. Geta had been the favourite of the
soldiers; but complaint was useless, revenge was dangerous,
and they still reverenced the son of Severus. Their
discontent died away in idle murmurs, and Caracalla soon
convinced them of the justice of his cause, by distributing
in one lavish donative the accumulated treasures of his
father's reign.(23) The real sentiments of the soldiers alone
were of importance to his power or safety. Their declaration
in his favour commanded the dutiful professions of the
senate. The obsequious assembly was always prepared to
ratify the decision of fortune; but as Caracalla wished to
assuage the first emotions of public indignation, the name
of Geta was mentioned with decency, and he received the
funeral honours of a Roman emperor.(24) Posterity, in pity to
his misfortune, 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 cruelty of Caracalla
The crime went not unpunished. Neither business, nor
pleasure, nor flattery, could defend Caracalla from the
stings of a guilty conscience; and 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 him.(25) 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 recall 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 long-connected 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.(26) Helvius Pertinax, son to the prince of that name,
lost his life by an unseasonable witticism. (27) It was a
sufficient crime of Thrasea Priscus, to be descended from a
family in which the love of liberty seemed an hereditary
quality.(28) 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 bewailed by
the secret tears of their friends and families. The death of
Papinian, the Praetorian praefect, was lamented as a public
calamity. During the last seven years of Severus, he had
exercised the most important office of the state, and, by
his salutary influence, guided the emperor's steps in the
paths of justice and moderation. In full assurance of his
virtues and abilities Severus, on his deathbed, had conjured
him to watch over the prosperity and union of the Imperial
family.(29) 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
Praefect 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 Agrippina.(30) That it was easier to commit than to
justify a "parricide," was the glorious reply of Papinian,
(31) who did not hesitate between the loss of life and that of
honour. Such intrepid virtue, which had escaped pure and
unsullied from the intrigues of courts, the habits of
business, and the arts of his profession, reflects more
lustre on the memory of Papinian, than all his great
employments, his numerous writings, and the superior
reputation as a lawyer, which he has preserved through every
age of the Roman jurisprudence.(32)
His tyranny extended over the whole empire
It had hitherto been the peculiar felicity of the Romans,
and in the worst of times their consolation, 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.(33) But Caracalla was the common enemy
of mankind. He left (A.D. 213) the capital (and he never
returned to it) about a year after the murder of Geta. 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
taxes.(34) 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
Serapis, he viewed and directed the slaughter of many
thousand citizens, as well as strangers, without
distinguishing either the number or the crime of the
sufferers; since, as he coolly informed the senate, all the
Alexandrians, those who had perished and those who had
escaped, were alike guilty.(35)
Relaxation of discipline
The wise instructions of Severus never made any lasting
impression on the mind of his son, who, although not
destitute of imagination and eloquence, was equally devoid
of judgment and humanity.(36) 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 moment."(37) 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 donatives(38)
exhausted the state to enrich the military order, whose
modesty in peace, and service in war, is best secured by an
honourable poverty. The demeanour 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, neglecting the essential duties of a
general, affected to imitate the dress and manners of a
common soldier.
Murder of Caracalla. A.D. 217, 8th March.
It was impossible that such a character, and such a conduct
as that of Caracalla, could inspire either love or esteem;
but as long as his vices were beneficial to the armies, he
was secure from the danger of rebellion. A secret
conspiracy, provoked by his own jealousy, was fatal to the
tyrant. The Praetorian praefecture 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 Praefect of the city,
the faith of his prophecy. 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 apprise 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 Praetorian Praefect, directing him to
dispatch the ordinary affairs, and to report the more
important business that might be contained in them. Macrinus
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 Carrhae. (39) He (A.D. 217, 8th March) was
attended by a body of cavalry; but having stopped on the
road for some necessary occasion, his guards preserved a
respectful distance, and Martialis approaching his person
under a pretence of duty, stabbed him with a dagger. The
bold assassin was instantly killed by a Scythian archer of
the Imperial guard. Such was the end of a monster whose life
disgraced human nature, and whose reign accused the patience
of the Romans. The grateful soldiers forgot his vices
remembered only his partial liberality, and obliged the
senate to prostitute their own dignity and that of religion
by granting him a place among the gods. Whilst he was upon
earth, Alexander the Great was the only hero whom this god
deemed worthy his admiration. He assumed the name and
ensigns of Alexander, formed a Macedonian phalanx of guards,
persecuted the disciples of Aristotle, and displayed with a
puerile enthusiasm the only sentiment by which he discovered
any regard for virtue or glory. We can easily conceive, that
after the battle of Narva, and the conquest of Poland,
Charles the Twelfth (though he still wanted the more elegant
accomplishments of the son of Philip) might boast of having
rivalled his valour and magnanimity, but in no one action of
his life did Caracalla express the faintest resemblance of
the Macedonian hero, except in the murder of a great number
of his own and of his father's friends.(40)
Election and character of Macrinus
After the extinction of the house of Severus, the Roman
world remained three days without a master. The choice of
the army (for the authority of a distant and feeble senate
was little regarded) hung in an anxious suspense; as no
candidate presented himself whose distinguished birth and
merit could engage their attachment and unite their
suffrages. The decisive weight of the Praetorian guards
elevated the hopes of their praefects, and these powerful
ministers began to assert their legal claim to fill the
vacancy of the Imperial throne. Adventus, however, the
senior praefect, conscious of his age and infirmities, of
his small reputation, and his smaller abilities, resigned
the dangerous honour to the crafty ambition of his colleague
Macrinus, whose well-dissembled grief removed all suspicion
of his being accessory to his master's death.(41) The troops
neither loved nor esteemed his character. They cast their
eyes around in search of a competitor, and at last yielded
with reluctance to his promises of unbounded liberality and
indulgence. A short time after his accession (A.D. 217,
March 11th ) he conferred on his son Diadumenianus, at the
age of only ten years, the Imperial title and the popular
name of Antoninus. The beautiful figure of the youth,
assisted by an additional donative, for which the ceremony
furnished a pretext, might attract, it was hoped, the favour
of the army, and secure the doubtful throne of Macrinus.
Discontent of the senate
The authority of the new sovereign had been ratified by the
cheerful submission of the senate and provinces. They
exulted in their unexpected deliverance from a hated tyrant,
and it seemed of little consequence to examine into the
virtues of the successor of Caracalla. But as soon as the
first transports of joy and surprise had subsided, they
began to scrutinise the merits of Macrinus with a critical
severity, and to arraign the hasty choice of the army. It
had hitherto been considered as a fundamental maxim of the
constitution, that the emperor must be always chosen in the
senate, and the sovereign power, no longer exercised by the
whole body, was always delegated to one of its members. But
Macrinus was not a senator.(42) The sudden elevation of the
Praetorian praefects betrayed the meanness of their origin;
and the equestrian order was still in possession of that
great office, which commanded with arbitrary sway the lives
and fortunes of the senate. A murmur of indignation was
heard, that a man whose obscure(43) extraction had never been
illustrated by any signal service, should dare to invest
himself with the purple, instead of bestowing it on some
distinguished senator, equal in birth and dignity to the
splendour of the Imperial station. As soon as the character
of Macrinus was surveyed by the sharp eye of discontent, some
vices, and many defects, were easily discovered. The choice of
his ministers was in many instances justly censured, and the
dissatisfied people, with their usual candour, accused at once
his indolent tameness and his excessive severity.(44)
and the army
His rash ambition had climbed a height where it was
difficult to stand with firmness, and impossible to fall
without instant destruction. Trained in the arts of courts,
and the forms of civil business, he trembled in the presence
of the fierce and undisciplined multitude, over whom he had
assumed the command. His military talents were despised, and
his personal courage suspected; a whisper that circulated in
the camp disclosed the fatal secret of the conspiracy
against the late emperor, aggravated the guilt of murder by
the baseness of hypocrisy, and heightened contempt by
detestation. To alienate the soldiers, and to provoke
inevitable ruin, the character of a reformer was only
wanting: and such was the peculiar hardship of his fate,
that Macrinus was compelled to exercise that invidious
office. The prodigality of Caracalla had left behind it a
long train of ruin and disorder; and if that worthless
tyrant had been capable of reflecting on the sure
consequences of his own conduct, he would perhaps have
enjoyed the dark prospect of the distress and calamities
which he bequeathed to his successors.
Macrinus attempts a reformation of the army.
In the management of this necessary reformation, Macrinus
proceeded with a cautious prudence, which would have
restored health and vigour to the Roman army, in an easy and
almost imperceptible manner. To the soldiers already engaged
in the service, he was constrained to leave the dangerous
privileges and extravagant pay given by Caracalla; but the
new recruits were received on the more moderate though
liberal establishment of Severus, and gradually formed to
modesty and obedience. (45) One fatal error destroyed the
salutary effects of this judicious plan. The numerous army,
assembled in the East by the late emperor, instead of being
immediately dispersed by Macrinus through the several
provinces, was suffered to remain united in Syria, during
the winter that followed his elevation. In the luxurious
idleness of their quarters, the troops viewed their strength
and numbers, communicated their complaints, and revolved in
their minds the advantages of another revolution. The
veterans, instead of being flattered by the advantageous
distinction, were alarmed by the first steps of the emperor,
which they considered as the presage of his future
intentions. The recruits, with sullen reluctance, entered on
a service, whose labours were increased while its rewards
were diminished by a covetous and unwarlike sovereign. The
murmurs of the army swelled with impunity into seditious
clamours; and the partial mutinies betrayed a spirit of
discontent and disaffection, that waited only for the
slightest occasion to break out on every side into a general
rebellion. To minds thus disposed, the occasion soon
presented itself.
Death of the empress Julia
The empress Julia had experienced all the vicissitudes of
fortune. From an humble station she had been raised to
greatness, only to taste the superior bitterness of an
exalted rank. she was doomed to weep over the death of one
of her sons, and over the life of the other. The cruel fate
of Caracalla, though her good sense must have long taught
her to expect it, awakened the feelings of a mother and of
an empress. Notwithstanding the respectful civility
expressed by the usurper towards the widow of Severus, she
descended with a painful struggle into the condition of a
subject, and soon withdrew herself by a voluntary death from
the anxious and humiliating dependence. Julia Maosa, her
sister, was ordered to leave the court and Antioch.(46) She
retired to Emesa with an immense fortune, the fruit of
twenty years' favour, accompanied by her two daughters,
Soaemias and Mamma, each of whom was a widow, and each had
an only son. Bassianus, for that was the name of the son of
Soaemias, was consecrated to the honourable ministry of high
priest of the Sun; and this holy vocation, embraced either
from prudence or superstition, contributed to raise the
Syrian youth to the empire of Rome. A numerous body of
troops was stationed at Emesa; and, as the severe discipline
of Macrinus had constrained them to pass the winter
encamped, they were eager to revenge the cruelty of such
unaccustomed hardships. The soldiers, who resorted in crowds
to the temple of the Sun, beheld with veneration and delight
the elegant dress and figure of a young Pontiff: they
recognised, or they thought that they recognised, the
features of Caracalla, whose memory they now adored. The
artful Maosa saw and cherished their rising partiality, and
readily sacrificing her daughter's reputation to the fortune
of her grandson, she insinuated that Bassianus was the
natural son of their murdered sovereign. The sums
distributed by her emissaries with a lavish hand silenced
every objection, and the profusion sufficiently proved the
affinity, or at least the resemblance, of Bassianus with the
great original. The young Antoninus (for he had assumed and
polluted that respectable name) was (A.D. 218, May 16)
declared emperor by the troops of Emesa, asserted his
hereditary right, and called aloud on the armies to follow
the standard of a young and liberal prince, who had taken up
arms to revenge his father's death and the oppression of the
military order.(47)
Defeat and death of Macrinus
Whilst a conspiracy of women and eunuchs was concerted with
prudence, and conducted with rapid vigour, Macrinus, who, by
a decisive motion, might have crushed his infant enemy,
floated between the opposite extremes of terror and
security, which alike fixed him inactive at Antioch. A
spirit of rebellion diffused itself through all the camps
and garrisons of Syria, successive detachments murdered
their officers,(48) and joined the party of the rebels; and
the tardy restitution of military pay and privileges was
imputed to the acknowledged weakness of Macrinus. At length
he marched out of Antioch, to meet the increasing and
zealous army of the young pretender. His own troops seemed
to take the field with faintness and reluctance; but (A.D.
218, June 7), in the heat of the battle,(49) the Praetorian
guards, almost by an involuntary impulse, asserted the
superiority of their valour and discipline. The rebel ranks
were broken; when the mother and grandmother of the Syrian
prince, who, according to their eastern custom, had attended
the army, threw themselves from their covered chariots, and,
by exciting the compassion of the soldiers, endeavoured to
animate their drooping courage. Antoninus himself, who, in
the rest of his life, never acted like a man, in this
important crisis of his fate approved himself a hero,
mounted his horse, and, at the head of his rallied troops,
charged sword in hand among the thickest of the enemy;
whilst the eunuch Gannys, whose occupations had been
confined to female cares and the soft luxury of Asia,
displayed the talents of an able and experienced general.
The battle still raged with doubtful violence, and Macrinus
might have obtained the victory, had he not betrayed his own
cause by a shameful and precipitate flight. His cowardice
served only to protract his life a few days, and to stamp
deserved ignominy on his misfortunes. It is scarcely
necessary to add, that his son Diadumenianus was involved in
the same fate. As soon as the stubborn Praetorians could be
convinced that they fought for a prince who had basely
deserted them, they surrendered to the conqueror; the
contending parties of the Roman army, mingling tears of joy
and tenderness, united under the banners of the imagined son
of Caracalla, and the East acknowledged with pleasure the
first emperor of Asiatic extraction.
Elagabalus writes to the senate
The letters of Macrinus had condescended to inform the
senate of the slight disturbance occasioned by an impostor
in Syria, and a decree immediately passed, declaring the
rebel and his family public enemies; with a promise of
pardon, however, to such of his deluded adherents as should
merit it by an immediate return to their duty. During the
twenty days that elapsed from the declaration to the victory
of Antoninus (for in so short an interval was the fate of
the Roman world decided), the capital and the provinces,
more especially those of the East, were distracted with
hopes and fears, agitated with tumult, and stained with a
useless effusion of civil blood, since whosoever of the
rivals prevailed in Syria, must reign over the empire. The
specious letters in which the young conqueror announced his
victory to the obedient senate, were filled with professions
of virtue and moderation; the shining examples of Marcus and
Augustus he should ever consider as the great rule of his
administration; and he affected to dwell with pride on the
striking resemblance of his own age and fortunes with those
of Augustus, Who in the earliest youth had revenged by a
successful war the murder of his father. By adopting the
style of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, son of Antoninus and
grandson of Severus, he tacitly asserted his hereditary
claim to the empire; but, by assuming the tribunitian and
proconsular powers before they had been conferred on him by
a decree of the senate, he offended the delicacy of Roman
prejudice. This new and injudicious violation of the
constitution was probably dictated either by the ignorance
of his Syrian courtiers, or the fierce disdain of his
military followers.(50)
Picture of Elagabalus
As the attention of the new emperor was diverted by the most
trifling amusements, he (A.D. 219) wasted many months in his
luxurious progress from Syria to Italy, passed at Nicomedia
his first winter after his victory, and deferred till the
ensuing summer his triumphal entry into the capital. A
faithful picture, however, which preceded his arrival, and
was placed by his immediate order over the altar of Victory
in the senate-house, conveyed to the Romans the just but
unworthy resemblance of his person and manners. He was drawn
in his sacerdotal robes of silk and gold, after the loose
flowing fashion of the Medes and Phoenicians; his head was
covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous collars and
bracelets were adorned with gems of an inestimable value.
His eyebrows were tinged with black, and his cheeks painted
with an artificial red and white. (51) The grave senators
confessed with a sigh, that, after having long experienced
the stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at
length humbled beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental
despotism.
His superstition
The Sun was worshipped at Emesa, under the name of
Elagabalus,(52) and under the form of a black conical stone,
which, as it was universally believed, had fallen from
heaven on that sacred place. To this protecting deity,
Antoninus, not without some reason, ascribed his elevation
to the throne. The display of superstitious gratitude was
the only serious business of his reign. The triumph of the
God of Emesa over all the religions of the earth, was the
great object of his zeal and vanity: and the appellation of
Elagabalus (for he presumed as pontiff and favourite to
adopt that sacred name) was dearer to him than all the
titles of Imperial greatness. In a solemn procession through
the streets of Rome, the way was strewed with gold dust; the
black stone, set in precious gems, was placed on a chariot
drawn by six milk-white horses richly caparisoned. The pious
emperor held the reins, and, supported by his ministers,
moved slowly backwards, that he might perpetually enjoy the
felicity of the divine presence. In a magnificent temple
raised on the Palatine Mount, the sacrifices of the god of
Elagabalus were celebrated with every circumstance of cost
and solemnity. The richest wines, the most extraordinary
victims, and the rarest aromatics, were profusely consumed
on his altar. Around the altar a chorus of Syrian damsels
performed their lascivious dances to the sound of barbarian
music, whilst the gravest personages of the state and army,
clothed in long Phoenician tunics, officiated in the meanest
functions, with affected zeal and secret indignation.(53)
To this temple, as to the common centre of religious
worship, the Imperial fanatic attempted to remove the
Ancilia, the Palladium,(54) and all the sacred pledges of the
faith of Numa. A crowd of inferior deities attended in
various stations the majesty of the god of Emesa; but his
court was still imperfect, till a female of distinguished
rank was admitted to his bed. Pallas had been first chosen
for his comfort; but as it was dreaded lest her warlike
terrors might affright the soft delicacy of a Syrian deity,
the Moon, adored by the Africans under the name of Astarte,
was deemed a more suitable companion for the Sun. Her image,
with the rich offerings of her temple as a marriage portion
was transported with solemn pomp from Carthage to Rome, and
the day of these mystic nuptials was a general festival in
the capital and throughout the empire.(55)
His profligate and effeminate luxury
A rational voluptuary adheres with invariable respect to the
temperate dictates of nature, and improves the
gratifications of sense by social intercourse, endearing
connections, and the soft colouring of taste and the
imagination. But Elagabalus (I speak of the emperor of that
name), corrupted by his youth, his country, and his fortune,
abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned
fury, and soon found disgust and satiety in the midst of his
enjoyments. The inflammatory powers of art were summoned to
his aid: the confused multitude of women, of wines, and of
dishes, and the studied variety of attitudes and sauces,
served to revive his languid appetites. New terms and new
inventions in these sciences, the only ones cultivated and
patronised by the monarch, (56) signalised his reign, and
transmitted his infamy to succeeding times. A capricious
prodigality supplied the want of taste and elegance; and
whilst Elagabalus lavished away the treasures of his people
in the wildest extravagance, his own voice and that of his
flatterers applauded a spirit and magnificence unknown to
the tameness of his predecessors. To confound the order of
seasons and climates, (57) to sport with the passions and
prejudices of his subjects, and to subvert every law of
nature and decency, were in the number of his most delicious
amusements. A long train of concubines, and a rapid
succession of wives, among whom was a vestal virgin,
ravished by force from her sacred asylum, (58) were
insufficient to satisfy the impotence of his passions. The
master of the Roman world affected to copy the dress and
manners of the female sex, preferred the distaff to the
sceptre, and dishonoured the principal dignities of the
empire by distributing them among his numerous lovers; one
of whom was publicly invested with the title and authority
of the emperor's, or, as he more properly styled himself, of
the empress's husband.(59)
Contempt of decency which distinguished the Roman tyrants
It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus
have been adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice.(60)
Yet confining ourselves to the public scenes displayed
before the Roman people, and attested by grave and
contemporary historians, their inexpressible infamy
surpasses that of any other age or country. The licence of
an eastern monarch is secluded from the eye of curiosity by
the inaccessible walls of his seraglio. The sentiments of
honour and gallantry have introduced a refinement of
pleasure, a regard for decency, and a respect for the public
opinion, into the modern courts of Europe; but the corrupt
and opulent nobles of Rome gratified every vice that could
be collected from the mighty conflux of nations and manners.
Secure of impunity, careless of censure, they lived without
restraint in the patient and humble society of their slaves
and parasites. The emperor, in his turn, viewing every rank
of his subjects with the same contemptuous indifference,
asserted without control his sovereign privilege of lust and
luxury.
Discontents of the army
The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in
others the same disorders which they allow in themselves;
and can readily discover some nice difference of age,
character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
The licentious soldiers, who had raised to the throne the
dissolute son of Caracalla, blushed at their ignominious
choice, and turned with disgust from that monster, to
contemplate with pleasure the opening virtues of his cousin
Alexander the son of Mamaea. The crafty Maesa, sensible that
her grandson Elagabalus must inevitably destroy himself by
his own vices, had provided another and surer support of her
family. Embracing a favourable moment of fondness and
devotion, she had persuaded the young emperor to adopt
Alexander, and to invest him with the title of Caesar(A.D. 221),
that his own divine occupations might be no longer
interrupted by the care of the earth. In the second rank
that amiable prince soon acquired the affections of the
public, and excited the tyrant's jealousy, who resolved to
terminate the dangerous competition, either by corrupting
the manners, or by taking away the life, of his rival. His
arts proved unsuccessful; his vain designs were constantly
discovered by his own loquacious folly, and disappointed by
those virtuous and faithful servants whom the prudence of
Mamaea had placed about the person of her son. In a hasty
sally of passion, Elagabalus resolved to execute by force
what he had been unable to compass by fraud, and by a
despotic sentence degraded his cousin from the rank and
honours of Caesar. The message was received in the senate
with silence, and in the camp with fury. The Praetorian
guards swore to protect Alexander, and to revenge the
dishonoured majesty of the throne. The tears and promises of
the trembling Elagabalus, who only begged them to spare his
life, and to leave him in the possession of his beloved
Hierocles, diverted their just indignation and they
contented themselves with empowering their praefects to
watch over the safety of Alexander, and the conduct of the
emperor.(61)
Sedition of the guards, and murder of Elagabalus.
It was impossible that such a reconciliation should last, or
that even the mean soul of Elagabalus could hold an empire
on such humiliating terms of dependence. He soon attempted,
by a dangerous experiment, to try the temper of the
soldiers. The report of the death of Alexander, and the
natural suspicion that he had been murdered, inflamed their
passions into fury, and the tempest of the camp could only
be appeased by the presence and authority of the popular
youth. Provoked at this new instance of their affection for
his cousin, and their contempt for his persons the emperor
ventured to punish some of the leaders of the mutiny. His
unseasonable severity proved instantly fatal to his minions,
his mother, and himself. Elagabalus was (A.D. 222, 10th
March) massacred by the indignant Praetorians, his mutilated
corpse dragged through the streets of the city, and thrown
into the Tiber. His memory was branded with eternal infamy
by the senate; the justice of whose decree has been ratified
by posterity.(62)
Accession of Alexander Severus.
In the room of Elagabalus, his cousin Alexander was raised
to the throne by the Praetorian guards. His relation to the
family of Severus, whose name he assumed, was the same as
that of his predecessor; his virtue and his danger had
already endeared him to the Romans, and the eager liberality
of the senate conferred upon him, in one day, the various
titles and powers of tin Imperial dignity. (63) But as
Alexander was a modest and dutiful youth, of only seventeen
years of age, the reins of government were in the hands of
two women, of his mother Mamaea, and of Maesa, his
grandmother. After the death of the latter, who survived but
a short time the elevation of Alexander, Mamaea remained the
sole regent of her son and of the empire.
Power of his mother Mamaea.
In every age and country, the wiser, or at least the
stronger, of the two sexes, has usurped the powers of the
state, and confined the other to the cares and pleasures of
domestic life. In hereditary monarchies, however, and
especially in those of modern Europe, the gallant spirit of
chivalry, and the law of succession, have accustomed us to
allow a singular exception; and a woman is often
acknowledged the absolute sovereign of a great kingdom, in
which she would be deemed incapable of exercising the
smallest employment; civil or military. But as the Roman
emperors were still considered as the generals and
magistrates of the republic, their wives and mothers,
although distinguished by the name of Augusta, were never
associated to their personal honours; and a female reign
would have appeared an inexpiable prodigy in the eyes of
those primitive Romans, who married without love, or loved
without delicacy and respect. (64) The haughty Agrippina
aspired, indeed, to share the honours of the empire, which
she had conferred on her son; but her mad ambition, detested
by every citizen who felt for the dignity of Rome, was
disappointed by the artful firmness of Seneca and Burrhus.
(65) The good sense, or the indifference, of succeeding
princes, restrained them from offending the prejudices of
their subjects; and it was reserved for the profligate
Elagabalus to discharge the acts of the senate, with the
name of his mother Soaemias, who was placed by the side of
the consuls, and subscribed, as a regular member, the
decrees of the legislative assembly. Her more prudent
sister, Mamaea, declined the useless and odious prerogative,
and a solemn law was enacted, excluding women for ever from
the senate, and devoting to the infernal gods the head of
the wretch by whom this sanction should be violated.(66) The
substance, not the pageantry, of power was the object of
Mamaea's manly ambition. She maintained an absolute. and
lasting empire over the mind of her son, and in his
affection the mother could not brook a rival. Alexander,
with her consent, married the daughter of a Patrician; but
his respect for his father-in-law, and love for the empress,
were inconsistent with the tenderness or interest of Mamaea.
The Patrician was executed on the ready accusation of
treason, and the wife of Alexander driven with ignominy from
the palace, and banished into Africa.(67)
Wise and moderate administration.
Notwithstanding this act of jealous cruelty, as well as some
instances of avarice, with which Mamaea is charged, the
general tenor of her administration was equally for the
benefit of her son and of the empire. With the approbation
of the senate, she chose sixteen of the wisest and most
virtuous senators, as a perpetual council of state, before
whom every public business of moment was debated and
determined. The celebrated Ulpian, equally distinguished by
his knowledge of, and his respect for, the laws of Rome, was
at their head; and the prudent firmness of this aristocracy
restored order and authority to the government. As soon as
they had purged the city from foreign superstition and
luxury, the remains of the capricious tyranny of Elagabalus,
they applied themselves to remove his worthless creatures
from every department of public administration, and to
supply their places with men of virtue and ability. Learning,
and the love of justice, became the only recommendations
for civil offices; valour, and the love of discipline, the
only qualifications for military employments.(68)
Education and virtuous temper of Alexander.
But the most important care of Mamaea and her wise
counsellors, was to form the character of the young emperor,
on whose personal qualities the happiness or misery of the
Roman world must ultimately depend. The fortunate soil
assisted, and even prevented, the hand of cultivation. An
excellent understanding soon convinced Alexander of the
advantages of virtue, the pleasure of knowledge, and the
necessity of labour. A natural mildness and moderation of
temper preserved him from the assaults of passion, and the
allurements of vice. His unalterable regard for his mother,
and his esteem for the wise Ulpian, guarded his
inexperienced youth from the poison of flattery.
The simple journal of his ordinary occupations exhibits a
pleasing picture of an accomplished emperor, (69) and with
some allowance for the difference of manners, might well
deserve the imitation of modern princes. Alexander rose
early; the first moments of the day were consecrated to
private devotion, and his domestic chapel was filled with
the images of those heroes, who, by improving or reforming
human life, had deserved the grateful reverence of
posterity. But, as he deemed the service of mankind the most
acceptable worship of the gods, the greatest part of his
morning hours was employed in his council, where he
discussed public affairs, and determined private causes,
with a patience and discretion above his years. The dryness
of business was relieved by the charms of literature; and a
portion of time was always set apart for his favourite
studies of poetry, history, and philosophy. The works of
Virgil and Horace, the Republics of Plato and Cicero, formed
his taste, enlarged his understanding, and gave him the
noblest ideas of man and government. The exercises of the
body succeeded to those of the mind; and Alexander, who was
tall, active, and robust, surpassed most of his equals in
the gymnastic arts. Refreshed by the use of the bath and a
slight dinner, he resumed, with new vigour, the business of
the day; and, till the hour of supper, the principal meal of
the Romans, he was attended by his secretaries, with whom he
read and answered the multitude of letters, memorials, and
petitions, that must have been addressed to the master of
the greatest part of the world. His table was served with
the most frugal simplicity; and whenever he was at liberty
to consult his own inclination, the company consisted of a
few select friends, men of learning and virtue, amongst whom
Ulpian was constantly invited. Their conversation was
familiar and instructive; and the pauses were occasionally
enlivened by the recital of some pleasing composition, which
supplied the place of the dancers, comedians, and even
gladiators, so frequently summoned to the tables of the rich
and luxurious Romans. (70) The dress of Alexander was plain
and modest, his demeanour courteous and affable: at the
proper hours his palace was open to all his subjects, but
the voice of a crier was heard, as in the Eleusinian
mysteries, pronouncing the same salutary admonition; "Let
none enter those holy walls, unless he is conscious of a
pure and innocent mind."(71)
General happiness of the Roman world.
Such an uniform tenor of life, which left not a moment for
vice or folly, is a better proof of the wisdom and justice
of Alexander's government, than all the trifling details
preserved in the compilation of Lampridius. Since the
accession of Commodus, the Roman world had experienced,
during a term of forty years, the successive and various
vices of four tyrants. From the death of Elagabalus it
enjoyed (A.D. 222-235) an auspicious calm of thirteen years.
The provinces, relieved from the oppressive taxes invented
by Caracalla and his pretended son, flourished in peace and
prosperity, under the administration of magistrates, who
were convinced by experience, that to deserve the love of
the subjects was their best and only method of obtaining the
favour of their sovereign. While some gentle restraints were
imposed on the innocent luxury of the Roman people, the
price of provisions, and the interest of money, were
reduced, by the paternal care of Alexander, whose prudent
liberality, without distressing the industrious, supplied
the wants and amusements of the populace. The dignity, the
freedom, the authority of the senate were restored; and
every virtuous senator might approach the person of the
emperor, without fear, and without a blush.
Alexander refuses the name of Antoninus.
The name of Antoninus, ennobled by the virtues of Pius and
Marcus, had been communicated by adoption to the dissolute
Verus, and by descent to the cruel Commodus. It became the
honourable appellation of the sons of Severus, was bestowed
on young Diadumenianus, and at length prostituted to the
infamy of the high priest of Emesa. Alexander, though
pressed by the studied, and perhaps sincere, importunity of
the senate, nobly refused the borrowed lustre of a name
whilst in his whole conduct he laboured to restore the
glories and felicity of the awe of the genuine Antonines.(72)
He attempts to reform the army.
In the civil administration of Alexander, wisdom was
enforced by power, and the people, sensible of the public
felicity, repaid their benefactor with their love and
gratitude. There still remained a greater, a more necessary,
but a more difficult enterprise; the reformation of the
military order, whose interest and temper, confirmed by long
impunity, rendered them impatient of the restraints of
discipline, and careless of the blessings of public
tranquillity. In the execution of his design the emperor
affected to display his love, and to conceal his fear, of
the army. The most rigid economy in every other branch of
the administration, supplied a fund of gold and silver for
the ordinary pay and the extraordinary rewards of the
troops. In their marches he relaxed the severe obligation of
carrying seventeen days' provision on their shoulders. Ample
magazines were formed along the public roads, and as soon as
they entered the enemy's country, a numerous train of mules
and camels waited on their haughty laziness. As Alexander
despaired of correcting the luxury of his soldiers, he
attempted, at least, to direct it to objects at martial pomp
and ornament, fine horses splendid armour, and shield
enriched with silver and gold. He shared whatever fatigues
he vas obliged to impose, visited, in person, the sick and
wounded, preserved an exact register of their services and
his own gratitude, and expressed on every occasion, the
warmest regard for body of men whose welfare, as he affected
to declare, was so closely connected with that of the State.
(73) By the most gentle arts he laboured to inspire the fierce
multitude with a sense of duty, and to restore at least a
faint image of that discipline to which the Romans owed
their empire over so many other nations, as warlike and more
powerful than themselves. But his prudence was vain, his
courage fatal, and the attempt towards a reformation served
only to inflame the ills it was meant to cure.
Seditions of the Praetorian guards, and murder of Ulpian.
The Praetorian guards were attached to the Youth of
Alexander. They loved him as a tender pupil, whom they had
saved from a tyrant's fury, and placed on the Imperial
throne. That amiable prince was sensible of; the obligation
but as his gratitude was restrained within the limits of
reason and justice, they soon were more dissatisfied with
the virtues of Alexander, than they had ever been with the
vices of Elagabalus. Their praefect, the wise Ulpian, was
the friend of the laws and of the people; he was considered
as the enemy of the soldiers, and to his pernicious counsels
every scheme of reformation was imputed. Some trifling
accident blew up their discontent into a furious mutiny; and
a civil war raged, during three days, in Rome, whilst the
life of that excellent minister was defended by the grateful
people. Terrified, at length, by the sight of some houses in
flames, and by the threats of a general conflagration, the
people yielded with a sigh, and left the virtuous, but
unfortunate, Ulpian to his fate. He was pursued into the
Imperial palace, and massacred at the feet of his master,
who vainly strove to cover him with the purple, and to
obtain his pardon from the inexorable soldiers. Such was the
deplorable weakness of government, that the emperor was
unable to revenge his murdered friend and his insulted
dignity, without stooping to the arts of patience and
dissimulation. Epagathus, the principal leader of the
mutiny, was removed from Rome, by the honourable employment
of praefect of Egypt; from that high rank he was gently
degraded to the government of Crete; and when, at length,
his popularity among the guards was effaced by time and
absence, Alexander ventured to inflict the tardy, but
deserved punishment of his crimes.(74) Under the reign of a
just and virtuous prince, the tyranny of the army threatened
with instant death his most faithful ministers, who were
suspected of an intention to correct their intolerable
disorders. The historian Dion Cassius had commanded the
Pannonian legions with the spirit of ancient discipline.
Their brethren of Rome, embracing the common cause of
military licence, demanded the head of the reformer.
Alexander, however, instead of yielding to their seditious
clamours, showed a just sense of his merit and services, by
appointing him his colleague in the consulship, and
defraying from his own treasury the expense of that vain
dignity: but as it was justly apprehended, that if the
soldiers beheld him with the ensigns of his office, they
would revenge the insult in his blood, the nominal first
magistrate of the state retired, by the emperor's advice,
from the city, and spent the greatest part of his consulship
at his villas in Campania.(75)
Tumult of the legions.
The lenity of the emperor confirmed the insolence of the
troops; the legions imitated the example of the guards, and
defended their prerogative of licentiousness with the same
furious obstinacy. The administration of Alexander was an
unavailing struggle against the corruption of his age. In
Illyricum, in Mauritania, in Armenia, in Mesopotamia, in
Germany, fresh mutinies perpetually broke out; his officers
were murdered, his authority was insulted, and his life at
last sacrificed to the fierce discontents of the army.(76)
Firmness of One particular fact well deserves to be recorded, as it
the emperor, illustrates the manners of the troops, and exhibits a
singular instance of their return to a sense of duty and
obedience. Whilst the emperor lay at Antioch, in his Persian
expedition, the particulars of which we shall hereafter
relate, the punishment of some soldiers, who had been
discovered in the baths of women, excited a sedition in the
legion to which they belonged. Alexander ascended his
tribunal, and with a modest firmness represented to the
armed multitude the absolute necessity as well as his
inflexible resolution of correcting the vices introduced by
his impure predecessor, and of maintaining the discipline,
which could not be relaxed without the ruin of the Roman
name and empire. Their clamours interrupted his mild
expostulation. "Reserve your shouts," said the undaunted
emperor, "till you take the field against the Persians, the
Germans, and the Sarmatians. Be silent in the presence of
your sovereign and benefactor, who bestows upon you the
corn, the clothing, and the money of the provinces; Be
silent, or I shall no longer style you soldiers, but
citizens,(77) if those indeed who disclaim the laws of Rome
deserve to be ranked among the meanest of the people." His
menaces inflamed the fury of the legion, and their
brandished arms already threatened his person. "Your
courage," resumed the intrepid Alexander, "would be more
nobly displayed in the field of battle; me you may destroy,
you cannot intimidate; and the severe justice of the
republic would punish your crime, and revenge my death. "
The legion still persisted in clamorous sedition, when the
emperor pronounced, with a loud voice, the decisive
sentence, "Citizens! lay down your arms, and depart in peace
to your respective habitations." The tempest was instantly
appeased the soldiers, filled with grief and shame, silently
confessed the justice of their punishment and the power of
discipline, yielded up their arms and military ensigns, and
retired in confusion, not to their camp, but to the several
inns of the city. Alexander enjoyed, during thirty days, the
edifying spectacle of their repentance; nor did he restore
them to their former rank in the army, till he had punished
with death those tribunes whose connivance had occasioned
the mutiny. The grateful legion served the emperor, whilst
living, and revenged him when dead.(78)
Defects of his reign and character.
The resolutions of the multitude generally depend on a
moment; and the caprice of passion might equally determine
the seditious legion to lay down their arms at the emperor's
feet, or to plunge them into his breast. Perhaps, if the
singular transaction had been investigated by the
penetration of a philosophers, we should discover the secret
causes which on that occasion authorised the boldness of the
prince, and commanded the obedience of the troops; and
perhaps, if it had been related by a judicious historian, we
should find this action, worthy of Caesar himself, reduced
nearer to the level of probability and the common standard
of the character of Alexander Severus. The abilities of that
amiable prince seem to have been inadequate to the
difficulties of his situation, the firmness of his conduct
inferior to the purity of his intentions. His virtues as
well as the vices of Elagabalus, contracted a tincture of
weakness and effeminacy from the soft climate of Syria, of
which he was a native; though he blushed at his foreign
origin, and listened with a vain complacency to the
flattering genealogists, who derived his race from the
ancient stock of Roman nobility.(79) The pride and avarice of
his mother cast a shade on the glories of his reign; and by
exacting from his riper years the sage dutiful obedience
which she had justly claimed from his inexperienced youth,
Mamaea exposed to public ridicule, both her son's character
and her own. (80) The fatigues of the Persian war irritated
the military discontent; the unsuccessful event degraded the
reputation of the emperor as a general, and even as a
soldier. Every cause prepared, and every circumstance
hastened, a revolution, which distracted the Roman, empire
with a long series of intestine calamities
Digression on the finances of the empire.
The dissolute tyranny of Commodus, the civil wars occasioned
by his death, and the new maxims of policy introduced by the
house of Severus, had all contributed to increase the
dangerous power of the army, and to obliterate the faint
image of laws and liberty that was still impressed on the
minds of the Romans. This internal change, which undermined
the foundations of the empire, we have endeavoured to
explain with some degree of order and perspicuity. The
personal characters of the emperors, their victories, laws,
follies, and fortunes, can interest us no farther than as
they are connected with the general history of the Decline
and Fall of the monarchy. Our constant attention to that
great object will not suffer us to overlook a most important
edict of Antoninus Caracalla, which communicated to all the
free inhabitants of the empire the name and privileges of
Roman citizens. His unbounded liberality flowed not,
however, from the sentiments of a generous mind; it was the
sordid result of avarice, and will naturally be illustrated
by some observations on the finances of that state, from the
victorious ages of the commonwealth to the reign of
Alexander Severus.
Establishment.
The siege of Veii in Tuscany, the first considerable
enterprise of the Romans, was protracted to the tenth year,
much less by the strength of the place than by the
unskilfulness of the besiegers. The unaccustomed hardships
of so many winter campaigns, at the distance of near twenty
miles from home, (81) required more than common
encouragements; and the senate wisely prevented the clamours
of the people, by the institution of a regular pay for the
soldiers, which was levied by a general tribute, assessed
according to an equitable proportion on the property of the
citizens.(82) During more than two hundred years after the
conquest of Veii, the victories of the republic added less
to the wealth than to the power of Rome. The states of Italy
paid their tribute in military service only, and the vast
force both by sea and land, which was exerted in the Punic
wars, was maintained at the expense of the Romans
themselves. That high-spirited people (such is often the
generous enthusiasm of freedom) cheerfully submitted to the
most excessive but voluntary burdens, in the just confidence
that they should speedily enjoy the rich harvest of their
labours. Their expectations were not disappointed. In the
and abolitioncourse of a few years, the riches of Syracuse, of Carthage,
of the tributeof Macedonia, and of Asia, were brought in triumph to Rome.
on Roman The treasures of Perseus alone amounted to near two millions
citizens sterling and the Roman people, the sovereign of so many
nations, was for ever delivered from the weight of taxes.(83)
The increasing revenue of the provinces was found sufficient
to defray the ordinary establishment of war and government
and the superfluous mass of gold and silver was deposited in
the temple of Saturn, and reserved for any unforeseen
emergency of the state.(84)
Tributes of the provinces.
History has never perhaps suffered a greater or more
irreparable injury, than in the loss of the curious register
bequeathed by Augustus to the senate, in which that
experienced prince so accurately balanced the revenues and
expenses of the Roman empire.(85) Deprived of this clear and
comprehensive estimate, we are reduced to collect a few
imperfect hints from such of the ancients as have
accidentally turned aside from the splendid to the more
useful parts of history. We are informed that, by the
conquests of Pompey, the tributes of Asia were raised from
fifty to one hundred and thirty-five millions of drachms; or
about four millions and a half sterling.(86) Under the last
and most indolent of the Ptolemies, the revenue of Egypt is
said to have amounted to twelve thousand five hundred
talents; a sum equivalent to more than two millions and a
half of our money, but which was afterwards considerably
improved by the more exact economy of the Romans, and the
of Gaul increase of the trade of Ethiopia and India.(87) Gaul was
enriched by rapine, as Egypt was by commerce, and the
tributes of those two great provinces have been compared as
nearly equal to each other in value.(88) The ten thousand
of Africa Euboic or Phoenician talents, about four millions sterling,
(89) which vanquished Carthage was condemned to pay within the
term of fifty years, were a slight acknowledgment of the
superiority of Rome,(90) and cannot bear the least proportion
with the taxes afterwards raised both on the lands and on
the persons of the inhabitants, when the fertile coast of
Africa was reduced into a province.(91)
Spain, by a very singular fatality, was the Peru and Mexico
of the old world. The discovery of the rich western
continent by the Phoenicians, and the oppression of the
simple natives, who were compelled to labour in their own
mines for the benefit of strangers, form an exact type of
the more recent history of Spanish America. (92) The
Phoenicians were acquainted only with the sea-coast of
Spain; avarice, as well as ambition, carried the arms of
Rome and Carthage into the heart of the country, and almost
every part of the soil was found pregnant with copper,
silver, and gold. Mention is made of a mine near Carthagena
which yielded every day twenty-five thousand drachms of
silver, or about three hundred thousand pounds a year.(93)
Twenty thousand pound weight of gold was annually received
from the provinces of Asturia, Gallicia, and Lusitania.(94)
of the isle of Gyarus
We want both leisure and materials to pursue this curious
inquiry through the many potent states that were annihilated
in the Roman empire. Some notion, however, may be formed of
the revenue of the provinces where considerable wealth had
been deposited by nature, or collected by man, if we observe
the severe attention that was directed to the abodes of
solitude and sterility. Augustus once received a petition
from the inhabitants of Gyarus, humbly praying that they
might be relieved from one-third of their excessive
impositions. Their whole tax amounted indeed to no more than
one hundred and fifty drachms, or about five pounds; but
Cyarus was a little island, or rather a rock, of the AEgean
Sea, destitute of fresh water and every necessary of life,
and inhabited only by a few wretched fishermen.(95)
Amount of the revenue
From the faint glimmerings of such doubtful and scattered
lights we should be inclined to believe, 1st, That (with
every fair allowance for the difference of times and
circumstances) the general income of the Roman provinces
could seldom amount to less than fifteen or twenty millions
of our money; (96) and, 2ndly, That so ample a revenue must
have been fully adequate to all the expenses of the moderate
government instituted by Augustus, whose court was the
modest family of a private senator, and whose military
establishment was calculated for the defence of the
frontiers, without any aspiring views of conquest, or any
serious apprehension of a foreign invasion.
Taxes on Roman citizens instituted by Augustus
Notwithstanding the seeming probability of both these
conclusions, the latter of them at least is positively
disowned by the language and conduct of Augustus. It is not
easy to determine whether, on this occasion, he acted as the
common father of the Roman world, or as the oppressor of
liberty; whether he wished to relieve the provinces, or to
impoverish the senate and the equestrian order. But no
sooner had he assumed the reins of government than he
frequently intimated the insufficiency of the tributes, and
the necessity of throwing an equitable proportion of the
public burden upon Rome and Italy. In the prosecution of
this unpopular design, he advanced, however, by cautious and
well-weighed steps. The introduction of customs was followed
by the establishment of an excise, and the scheme of
taxation was completed by an artful assessment on the real
and personal property of the Roman citizens, who had been
exempted from any kind of contribution above a century and a
half.
The customs.
I. In a great empire like that of Rome, a natural balance of
money must have gradually established itself. It has been
already observed, that as the wealth of the provinces was
attracted to the capital by the strong hand of conquest and
power, so a considerable part of it was restored to the
industrious provinces by the gentle influence of commerce
and arts. In the reign of Augustus and his successors,
duties were imposed on every kind of merchandise, which
through a thousand channels flowed to the great centre of
opulence and luxury; and in whatsoever manner the law was
expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the
provincial merchant, who paid the tax.(97) The rate of the
customs varied from the eighth to the fortieth part of the
value of the commodity; and we have a right to suppose that
the variation was directed by the unalterable maxims of
policy: that a higher duty was fixed on the articles of
luxury than on those of necessity, and that the productions
raised or manufactured by the labour of the subjects of the
empire were treated with more indulgence than was shown to
the pernicious, or at least the unpopular, commerce of
Arabia and India. (98) There is still extant a long but
imperfect catalogue of eastern commodities, which about the
time of Alexander Severus were subject to the payment of
duties; cinnamon, myrrh, pepper, ginger, and the whole tribe
of aromatics, a great variety of precious stones, among
which the diamond was the most remarkable for its price, and
the emerald for its beauty, (99) Parthian and Babylonian
leather, cottons, silks, both raw and manufactured, ebony,
ivory, and eunuchs. (100) We may observe that the use and
value of those effeminate slaves gradually rose with the
decline of the empire.
The excise
II. The excise, introduced by Augustus after the civil wars,
was extremely moderate, but it was general. It seldom
exceeded one per cent.; but it comprehended whatever was
sold in the markets or by public auction, from the most
considerable purchases of lands and houses to those minute
objects which can only derive a value from their infinite
multitude and daily consumption. Such a tax, as it affects
the body of the people, has ever been the occasion of
clamour and discontent. An emperor well acquainted with the
wants and resources of the state, was obliged to declare by
a public edict that the support of the army depended in a
great measure on the produce of the excise.(101)
Tax on legacies and inheritances
III. When Augustus resolved to establish a permanent
military force for the defence of his government against
foreign and domestic enemies, he instituted a peculiar
treasury for the pay of the soldiers, the rewards of the
veterans, and the extraordinary expenses of war. The ample
revenue of the excise, though peculiarly appropriated to
those uses, was found inadequate. To supply the deficiency,
the emperor suggested a new tax of five per cent. on all
legacies and inheritances. But the nobles of Rome were more
tenacious of property than of freedom. Their indignant
murmurs were received by Augustus with his usual temper. He
candidly referred the whole business to the senate, and
exhorted them to provide for the public service by some
other expedient of a less odious nature. They were divided
and perplexed. He insinuated to them that their obstinacy
would oblige him to propose a general land-tax and
capitation They acquiesced in silence. (102) The new
imposition on legacies and inheritances was however
mitigated by some restrictions. It did not take place unless
the object was of a certain value, most probably of fifty or
an hundred pieces of gold,(103) nor could it be exacted from
the nearest of kin on the father's side.(104) When the rights
of nature and poverty were thus secured, it seemed
reasonable that a stranger, or a distant relation, who
acquired an unexpected accession of fortune, should
cheerfully resign a twentieth part of it for the benefit of
the state.(105)
Suited to the laws and manners.
Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every wealthy
community, was most happily suited to the situation of the
Romans, who could frame their arbitrary wills, according to
the dictates of reason or caprice, without any restraint
from the modern fetters of entails and settlements. From
various causes the partiality of paternal affection often
lost its influence over the stern patriots of the
commonwealth and the dissolute nobles of the empire; and if
the father bequeathed to his son the fourth part of his
estate, he removed all ground of legal complaint.(106) But a
rich childless old man was a domestic tyrant, and his power
increased with his years and infirmities. A servile crowd,
in which he frequently reckoned praetors and consuls,
courted his smiles, pampered his avarice, applauded his
follies, served his passions, and waited with impatience for
his death. The arts of attendance and flattery were formed
into a most lucrative science; those who professed it
acquired a peculiar appellation; and the whole city,
according to the lively descriptions of satire, was divided
between two parties, the hunters and their game.(107) Yet,
while so many unjust and extravagant wills were every day
dictated by cunning, and subscribed by folly, a few were the
result of rational esteem and virtuous gratitude. Cicero,
who had so often defended the lives and fortunes of his
fellow-citizens, was rewarded with legacies to the amount of
an hundred and seventy thousand pounds; (108) nor do the
friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less generous
to that amiable orator. (109) Whatever was the motive of the
testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the
twentieth part of his estate; and in the course of two or
three generations, the whole property of the subject must
have gradually passed through the coffers of the state.
Regulations of the emperors
In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that
prince, from a desire of popularity, and perhaps from a
blind impulse of benevolence conceived a wish of abolishing
the oppression of the customs and excise. The wisest
senators applauded his magnanimity; but they diverted him
from the execution of a design, which would have dissolved
the strength and resources of the republic. (110) Had it
indeed been possible to realise this dream of fancy, such
princes as Trajan and the Antonines would surely have
embraced with ardour the glorious opportunity of conferring
so signal an obligation on mankind. Satisfied, however, with
alleviating the public burden, they attempted not to remove
it. The mildness and precision of their laws ascertained the
rule and measure of taxation, and protected the subject of
every rank against arbitrary interpretations, antiquated
claims, and the insolent vexation of the farmers of the
revenue.(111) For it is somewhat singular that, in every age,
the best and wisest of the Roman governors persevered in
this pernicious method of collecting the principal branches
at least of the excise and customs.(112)
Edict of Caracalla
The sentiments, and, indeed, the situation of Caracalla,
were very different from those of the Antonines.
Inattentive, or rather averse, to the welfare of his people,
he found himself under the necessity of gratifying the
insatiate avarice, which he had excited in the army. Of the
several impositions introduced by Augustus, the twentieth on
inheritances and legacies was the most fruitful, as well as
the most comprehensive. As its influence was not confined to
Rome or Italy, the produce continually increased with the
gradual extension of the ROMAN CITY. The new citizens,
though charged, on equal terms,(113) with the payment of new
taxes, which had not affected them as subjects, derived an
ample compensation from the rank they obtained, the
privileges they acquired, and the fair prospect of honours
The freedom and fortune that was thrown open to their ambition. But the
of the city favour which implied a distinction, was lost in the
given to all prodigality of Caracalla, and the reluctant provincials were
the compelled to assume the vain title, and the real
provincials obligations, of Roman citizens. Nor was the rapacious son of
for the purpose Severus contented with such a measure of taxation, as had
of taxation. appeared sufficient to his moderate predecessors. Instead of
a twentieth, he exacted a tenth of all legacies and
inheritances; and during his reign (for the ancient
proportion was restored after his death) he crushed alike
every part of the empire under the weight of his iron
sceptre.(114)
Temporary reduction of tribute
When all the provincials became liable to the peculiar
impositions of Roman citizens, they seemed to acquire a
legal exemption from the tributes which they had paid in
their former condition of subjects. Such were not the maxims
of government adopted by Caracalla and his pretended son.
The old as well as the new taxes were, at the same time,
levied in the provinces. It was reserved for the virtue of
Alexander to relieve them in a great measure from this
intolerable grievance, by reducing the tributes to a
thirtieth part of the sum exacted at the time of his
accession.(115) It is impossible to conjecture the motive
that engaged him to spare so trifling a remnant of the
public evil, but the noxious weed, which had not been
totally eradicated, again sprang up with the most luxuriant
growth, and in the succeeding age darkened the Roman world
with its deadly shade. In the course of this history, we
shall be too often summoned to explain the land-tax, the
capitation, and the heavy contributions of corn, wine, oily
and meat, which were exacted from the provinces for the use
of the court, the army, and the capital.
Consequences of the universal freedom of Rome
As long as Rome and Italy were respected as the centre of
government, a national spirit was preserved by the ancient,
and insensibly imbibed by the adopted, citizens. The
principal commands of the army were filled by men who had
received a liberal education, were well instructed in the
advantages of laws and letters, and who had risen, by equal
steps, through the regular succession of civil and military
honours.(116) To their influence and example we may partly
ascribe the modest obedience of the legions during the two
first centuries of the Imperial history.
But when the last enclosure of the Roman constitution was
trampled down by Caracalla, the separation of professions
gradually succeeded to the distinction of ranks. The more
polished citizens of the internal provinces were alone
qualified to act as lawyers and magistrates. The rougher
trade of arms was abandoned to the peasants and barbarians
of the frontiers, who knew no country but their camp, no
science but that of war, no civil laws, and scarcely those
of military discipline. With bloody hands, savage manners,
and desperate resolutions, they sometimes guarded, but much
oftener subverted, the throne of the emperors.