Ancient States and Empires Part 34

(M1085) On the first of July, A.D. 69, t.i.tus Flavius Vespasia.n.u.s, of humble family, arose, as general, to the highest honors of the State, and was first proclaimed emperor at Alexandria, at the close of the Jewish war, which he conducted to a successful issue. A brief contest with Vitellius secured his recognition by the Senate, and the first of the Flavian line began to reign-a man of great talents and virtues. On the fall of Jerusalem, his son t.i.tus returned to Rome, and celebrated a joint triumph with his father, and the gates of the temple of Ja.n.u.s were shut,-the first time since Augustus,-and universal peace was proclaimed.

(M1086) One of the first acts of the new emperor was to purify the Senate, reduced to two hundred members, soon followed by the restoration of the finances. He rebuilt the capitol, erected the temple of Peace, the new forum, the baths of t.i.tus, and the Coliseum. He extended a generous patronage to letters, and under his reign Quintilian, the great rhetorician, and Pliny, the naturalist, flourished. It was in the ninth year of his reign that an eruption of Vesuvius occurred, when Herculaneum and Pompeii were destroyed, to witness which Pliny lost his life.

Vespasian had a.s.sociated with himself his son t.i.tus in the government, and died, after a reign of ten years, exhausted by the cares of empire; and t.i.tus quietly succeeded him, but reigned only for two years and a quarter, and was succeeded by his brother, Domitian, a man of some ability, but cruel, like Nero. He was ten years younger than t.i.tus, and was thirty years of age when proclaimed emperor by the praetorians, and accepted by the Senate, A.D. 81. At first he was a reformer, but soon was stained by the most odious vices. He continued the vast architectural works of his father and brother, and patronized learning.

(M1087) It was during the reign of Domitian that Britain was finally conquered by Agricola, who was recalled by the jealousy of the emperor, after a series of successes which gave him immortality. The reduction of this island did not seriously commence until the reign of Claudius. By Nero, Suetonius Paulinus was sent to Britain, and under him Agricola took his first lessons of soldiers.h.i.+p. Under Vespasian he commanded the twentieth legion in Britain, and was the twelfth Roman general sent to the island. On his return to Rome he was made consul, and Britain was a.s.signed to him as his province, where he remained seven years, until he had extended his conquests to the Grampian Hills. He taught the Britons the arts and luxuries of civilized life, to settle in towns, and to build houses and temples. Among the foes he encountered, the most celebrated was Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, on the eastern coast, who led the incredible number of two hundred and forty thousand against the Roman legions, but was defeated, with the loss of eighty thousand,-some atonement for the seventy thousand Romans, and their allies, who had been slain at Londinium, when Suetonius Paulinus commanded.

(M1088) The year of Agricola's recall, A.D. 84, forms the epoch of the undisguised tyranny which Domitian subsequently exercised. The reign of informers and proscriptions recommenced, and many ill.u.s.trious men were executed for insufficient reasons. The Christians were persecuted, and the philosophers were banished, and yet he received the most fulsome flattery from the poet Martial. The tyrant lived in seclusion, in his Alban villa, and was finally a.s.sa.s.sinated, after a reign of fifteen years, A.D. 96.

(M1089) On his death a new era of prosperity and glory was inaugurated, by the election of Nerva, and for five successive reigns the Roman world was governed with virtue and ability. It is the golden era of Roman history, praised by Gibbon and admired by all historians, during which the eyes of contemporaries saw nothing but to panegyrize.

(M1090) Marcus Cocceius Nerva was the great-grandson of a minister of Octavius, and was born in Umbria. He was consul with Vespasian, A.D. 71, and with Domitian, in A.D. 90, and was far advanced in life when chosen by the Senate. The public events of his short but beneficent reign are unimportant. He relieved poverty, diminished the expenses of the State, and set, in his own life, an example of republican simplicity. But he did not reign long enough to have his character tested. He died in sixteen months after his elevation to the purple. His chief work was to create a t.i.tle for his successor, for he a.s.sumed the right of adoption, and made choice of Trajan, without regard to his own kin, then at the head of the armies of Germany.

(M1091) The new emperor, one of the most ill.u.s.trious that ever reigned at Rome, was born in Spain, A.D. 52, and had spent his life in the camp. He had a tall and commanding form, was social and genial in his habits, and inspired universal respect. No better choice could have been made. He entered his capital without pomp, unattended by guards, distinguished only for the dignity of his bearing, allowing free access to his person, and paying vows to the G.o.ds of his country. His wife, Plotina, bore herself as the spouse of a simple senator, and his sister, Marciana, exhibited a demeanor equally commendable.

(M1092) The great external event of his reign was the war against the Dacians, and their country was the last which the Romans subdued in Europe. They belonged to the Thracian group of nations, and were identical with the Getae. They inhabited the country which was bordered on the south by the Danube and Msia. They were engaged in frequent wars with the Romans, and obtained a decided advantage, in the reign of Domitian, under their king Decebalus. The honor of the empire was so far tarnished as to pay a tribute to Dacia, but Trajan resolved to wipe away the disgrace, and headed himself an expedition into this distant country, A.D. 101, with eighty thousand veterans, subdued Decebalus, and added Dacia to the provinces of the empire. He built a bridge over the Danube, on solid stone piers, about two hundred and twenty miles below the modern Belgrade, which was a remarkable architectural work, four thousand five hundred and seventy feet in length. Enough treasures were secured by the conquest of Dacia to defray the expenses of the war, and of the celebrated triumph which commemorated his victories. At the games inst.i.tuted in honor of this conquest, eleven thousand beasts were slain, and ten thousand gladiators fought in the Flavian Amphitheatre. The column on which his victories were represented still remains to perpetuate his magnificence, with its two thousand five hundred figures in bas-relief, winding in a spiral band around it from the base to the summit-one of the most interesting relics of antiquity. Near this column were erected the Forum Trajanum, and the Basilica Ulpia, the former one thousand one hundred feet long, and the basilica connected with it, surrounded with colonnades, and filled with colossal statues. This enormous structure covered more ground than the Flavian Amphitheatre, and was built by the celebrated Apollodorus, of Damascus. It filled the whole s.p.a.ce between the Capitoline and the Quirinal. The double colonnade which surrounded it was one of the most beautiful works of art in the world.

On the conquest of Dacia, Trajan devoted himself to the internal administration of his vast empire. He maintained the dignity of the Senate, and allowed the laws to take their course. He was untiring in his efforts to provide for the material wants of his subjects, and in developing the resources of the empire, nor did he rule by oppressive exactions.

(M1093) After seven years of wise administration, he again was called into the field to extend the eastern frontier of the empire. His efforts were directed against Armenia and Parthia. He reduced the former to a Roman province, and advanced into those Caucasian regions where no Roman imperator had preceded him, except Pompey, receiving the submission of Iberians and Albanians. To overthrow Parthia was now his object, and he advanced across the Tigris to Ctesiphon. In the Parthian capital he was saluted as imperator; but, oppressed with gloom and enfeebled by sickness, he did not presume to reach, as he had aspired, the limits of the Macedonian conquest. He was too old for such work. He returned to Antioch, sickened, and died in Cilicia, August, A.D. 117, after a prosperous and even glorious reign of nineteen and a half years. But he had the satisfaction of having raised the empire to a state of unparalleled prosperity, and of having extended its limits on the east and on the west to the farthest point it ever reached.

(M1094) Publius aelius Hadrian succeeded this great emperor, and was born in Rome A.D. 76, and was a son of the first cousin of Trajan. He made extraordinary attainments as a youth, and served honorably in the armies of his country, especially during the Dacian wars. At twenty-five he was quaestor, at thirty-one he was praetor, and in the following year was made consul, for the forms of the old republic were maintained under the emperors. He was adopted by Trajan, and left at the head of the army at Antioch at the age of forty-two, when Trajan died on his way to Rome. He was at once proclaimed emperor by the army, and its choice was confirmed by the Senate.

(M1095) He entered upon his reign with matured knowledge and experience, and sought the development of the empire rather than its extension beyond the Euphrates. He therefore withdrew his armies from Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Parthia, and returned to Rome to celebrate, in Trajan's name, a magnificent triumph, and by employing the spoils of war in largesses and remission of taxes. Averse to the extension of the empire, he still aimed to secure its limits from hostile inroads, and was thus led to repel invasions in Dacia and Britain. He marched at the head of his legions, bareheaded and on foot, as far as Msia, and in another campaign through Gaul to the Rhine, and then crossed over to Britain, and secured the northern frontier, by a wall sixty-eight and a half miles in length, against the Caledonians. He then returned to Gaul, pa.s.sed through Spain, crossed the straits to Mauritania, threatened by the Moors, restored tranquillity, and then advanced to the frontiers of Parthia. He then returned through Asia Minor, and across the aegean to Athens, and commenced the splendid works with which he adorned the intellectual capital of the empire. Before returning to Rome, he visited Carthage and Sicily.

(M1096) Five years later, he made a second progress through the empire, which lasted ten years, with some intervals, spent in his capital, residing chiefly at Athens, constructing great architectural works, and holding converse with philosophers and scholars. During this period he visited Alexandria, whose schools were rivaled only by those of Athens, studying the fantastic philosophy of the Gnostics, and probably examining the Christian system. He ascended the Nile as far as Thebes, and then repaired to Antioch, and returned to Rome through Asia Minor. In his progress, he not merely informed himself of the condition of the empire, but corrected abuses, and made the Roman rule tolerable.

(M1097) His remaining years were spent at Rome, diligently administrating the affairs of his vast government, founding libraries and schools, and decorating his capital with magnificent structures. His temple of Venus at Rome was the largest ever erected in the city, and his mausoleum, stripped of its ornaments, now forms the Castle of St. Angelo. Next to the Coliseum, it was the grandest architectural monument in Rome. He also built a villa at Tivoli, whose remains are among the most interesting which seventeen centuries have preserved.

This good emperor made a n.o.ble choice for his successor, t.i.tus Aurelius Antonius, and soon after died childless, A.D. 138, after a peaceful reign of twenty-one years, in which, says Merivale, "he reconciled, with eminent success, things. .h.i.therto found irreconcilable: a contented army and a peaceful frontier; an abundant treasury with lavish expenditure; a free Senate and stable monarchy; and all this without the l.u.s.tre of a great military reputation, the foil of an odious predecessor, or disgust at recent civil commotions. He recognized, in theory, both conquerors and conquered as one people, and greeted in person every race among his subjects." He had personal defects of character, but his reign is one of the best of the imperial series, and marked the crowning age of Roman civilization.

(M1098) Antonius Pius, his successor, had less ability, but a still more faultless character. He sprung from the ranks of the n.o.bility; was consul in the third year of Hadrian, and was prefect of Asia until his adoption, when he took up his residence in Rome, and never left its neighborhood during the remainder of his life. His peaceful reign is barren of external events, but fruitful in the peace and security of his subjects, and the only drawback in his happiness was the licentious character of his wife, who bore him two sons and two daughters. The sons died before his elevation, but one of his daughters married M. Annius Verus, whom he adopted as his successor, and a.s.sociated with him in the government of the empire. He died after a reign of twenty-three years, and was buried in the mausoleum of Hadrian, which he completed. His character is thus drawn by his son-in-law and successor, Marcus Aurelius: "In my father, I noticed mildness of manner with firmness of resolution, contempt of vainglory, industry in business, and accessibility of person. He knew how to relax, as well as when to labor. From him I learned to acquiesce in every fortune, to exercise foresight in public affairs, to rise superior to vulgar praises, to wors.h.i.+p the G.o.ds without superst.i.tion, to serve mankind without ambition, to be sober and steadfast, to be content with little, to be no sophist or dreaming bookworm, to be practical and active, to be neat and cheerful, to be temperate, modest in dress, and indifferent to the beauty of slaves and furniture, not to be led away by novelties, yet to render honor to true philosophers." What a picture of a heathen emperor, drawn by a pagan philosopher!-the single purpose of ruling for the happiness of their subjects, and realizing the idea of a paternal government, and this in one of the most corrupt periods of Roman society.

(M1099) Marcus Aurelius, like Trajan and Hadrian, derived his origin from Spain, but was born in Italy. His features are the most conspicuously preserved in the repositories of ancient art, as his name is the most honorably enshrined on the pages of history-the n.o.blest and most august type of the ancient rulers of the world, far transcending any Jewish king in the severity of his virtues, and the elevation of his soul. His life was modeled on the strictest discipline of the stoical philosophy, of which he was the brightest ornament. He was nearly forty years of age on the death of his father-in-law, although for twenty-three years he had sat side by side with him on the tribunals of the State. His reign, therefore, was virtually a long one, and he was devoted to all the duties which his station imposed. He was great as ruler, as he was profound as a philosopher.

(M1100) It was under his ill.u.s.trious reign that the barbarians formed a general union for the invasion of the Roman world, and struck the first of those fatal blows under which the empire finally succ.u.mbed. We have but little information of the long contest with Germans, Sarmatians, Marcomanni, Quadi, and Alani, on the banks of the Danube, who were pressed forward by the Scythian tribes. They were repelled, indeed, but they soon after advanced, with renovated forces, when the empire was weakened by the miserable emperors who succeeded Aurelius. And although this great prince commemorated his victory over the barbarians by a column similar to that of Trajan, still they were far from being subdued, and a disgraceful peace, which followed his death, shows that they were exceedingly formidable. He died at Sirmium, or Vindobona (Vienna), exhausted by incessant wars and the cares of State, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and twentieth of his reign. The concurrent testimony of historians represents this emperor as the loftiest character that ever wielded a sceptre among the nations of antiquity, although we can not forget that he was a persecutor of the Christians.

(M1101) His son, Commodus, succeeded him, and the thirteen years of his inglorious reign are summed up in conflicts with the Moors, Dacians, and Germans. Skillful generals, by their successes, warded off the attacks of barbarians, but the character and rule of the emperor resembled that of Nero and Domitian. He was weak, cruel, pleasure-seeking, and dissolute.

His time was divided between private vices and disgraceful public exhibitions. He fought as a gladiator more than seven hundred times, and against antagonists whose only weapons were tin and lead. He also laid claim to divinity, and was addicted to debasing superst.i.tions. He destroyed the old ministers of his father, and decimated the Senate. All who excited his jealousy, or his covetousness, were put out of the way. He was poisoned by his favorite mistress, Marcia, and the Senate set the brand of infamy on his name. Thus perished the last of the line of the Antonines, even as the Julian line was ended by the a.s.sa.s.sination of Nero, and the Flavian by that of Domitian, and the empire became once again the prize of the soldier, A. D. 192.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE.

(M1102) Able or virtuous princes had now ruled the Roman world, with a few exceptions, from Julius Caesar to Commodus, a period of more than two hundred years. Among these were some odious tyrants, or madmen, who were removed by a.s.sa.s.sination. But some of these very tyrants governed with ability, and such was the general prosperity, such the wonderful mechanism of government for which the Romans had a genius, that the general condition of the world was better than at any preceding period. All that government could do to preserve and extend civilization was done, on the whole. Despotism was not signally oppressive, and the _regime_ of Augustus, of Vespasian, and Hadrian was generally maintained. The Roman governors, appointed by the emperors, ruled more wisely and beneficently than in the time of the republic. Peace, security, and law reigned, and, in consequence, the population increased, civilization advanced, and wealth was acc.u.mulated. The whole empire rejoiced in populous cities, in works of art, in literary culture, and in genial manners. Society was pagan, but attractive, and Rome herself was the resort of travelers, the centre of fas.h.i.+on and glory, the joy and the pride of the whole earth.

There were no destructive wars, except on the frontiers; all cla.s.ses were secure, the face of nature was cultivated and beautiful, and poets sung the praises of civilization such as never existed but in isolated cities and countries.

(M1103) But now we observe the commencement of a great and melancholy change. Prosperity had led to vice, false security, and pride. All cla.s.ses had become corrupt. Disproportionate fortunes, slavery, and luxury undermined the moral health, and destroyed not only elevation of sentiment but martial virtues. Literature declined in spirit and taste, and was directed to frivolous subjects. Christianity had not become a power sufficiently strong to change or modify the corrupt inst.i.tutions controlled by the powerful cla.s.ses. The expensive luxury of the n.o.bles was almost incredible. The most distant provinces were ransacked for game, fish, and fowl for the tables of the great. Usury was practiced at a ruinous rate. Every thing was measured by the money standard. Art was prost.i.tuted to please degraded tastes. There was no dignity of character; women were degraded; only pa.s.sing vanities made any impression on egotistical cla.s.ses; games and festivals were multiplied; gladiatorial sports outraged humanity; the descendants of the proudest families prided themselves chiefly on their puerile frivolities; the worst rites of paganism were practiced; slaves performed the most important functions; the circus and the theatre were engrossing pleasures; the baths were the resort of the idle and the luxurious, who almost lived in them, and were scenes of disgraceful orgies; great extravagance in dress and ornaments was universal; the pleasures of the table degenerated to riotous excesses; cooks, buffoons, and dancers received more consideration than scholars and philosophers; everybody wors.h.i.+ped the shrine of mammon; all science was directed to utilities that demoralized; sensualism reigned triumphant, and the people lived as if there were no G.o.d.

(M1104) Such a state must prepare the way for violence, and when external dangers came there were not sufficient virtues to meet them. But the decline was gradual, and dangers were still at a distance. Both nature and art were the objects of perpetual panegyric, and the worldly and sensual Romans dreamed only of a millennium of protracted joys.

The last experiment of a const.i.tutional empire was succeeded by undisguised military despotism, and no one now desired or expected the restoration of the republic. The Senate was servile and submissive, the people had no voice in public affairs, and the prefects of the imperial guard were the recognized lieutenants and often masters of the emperors.

(M1105) Pertinax succeeded to the sceptre of Commodus, a wise and good man, and great hopes were entertained of a beneficent reign, when they were suddenly blasted by a sedition of the praetorians, only eighty-six days after the death of Commodus, and these guards publicly sold the empire to Didius Julia.n.u.s, a wealthy senator, at the price of one thousand dollars to each soldier. Such a bargain disgusted the capital, and raised the legions in the provinces to revolt. Each of the three princ.i.p.al armies set up their own candidate, but L. Septimius Severus, who commanded in Illyric.u.m, was the fortunate one, and was confirmed by the Senate. Didius Julia.n.u.s was murdered after a brief reign of sixty-six days, and the praetorians who had created the scandal were disbanded.

The reign of this general was able and fortunate, although he was cruel and superst.i.tious. His vigor prevented the separation of the empire for a century; but he had powerful rivals in Clodius Albinus, in Britain, and Pescennius Niger, in Syria, both of whom he subdued. At Lyons it is said that one hundred and fifty thousand Romans fought on both sides, when Albinus was killed. The full of Niger at the h.e.l.lespont insured the submission of the East, and the victorious emperor penetrated as far as Ctesiphon, and received the submission of Mesopotamia and Arabia. The triumphal arch erected by him celebrated those military successes.

(M1106) Having bestowed peace, and restored the dignity of the empire, this martial prince established an undisguised military despotism, and threw aside all deference to the Senate. He created a new guard of praetorian soldiers four times as numerous as the old, which were recruited from the ranks of the barbarians, who thus began to overawe the capital.

The commander of this great force was no less a man than the celebrated jurist, Papia.n.u.s, and he was the prime minister of the emperor. It was during his reign that a violent persecution of the Christians took place, A.D. 200, which called out the famous apology of Tertullian. Severus died in Britain, to which he was summoned by an irruption of Caledonians, A.D.

211, having reigned nineteen years, and with a vigor worthy of Trajan.

(M1107) He left two sons, who are best known by the names of Caracalla and Geta, and both of whom, in their father's lifetime, had been raised to the dignity of Augustus. The oldest son succeeded to the empire, and the year after his elevation murdered his brother in his mother's arms. He also executed Papinian, the praetorian prefect, because he refused to justify the fratricide, together with twenty thousand persons who were the friends of Geta. After this wholesale murder he left his capital, and never returned to it, spending his time in different provinces, which were alternately the scene of his cruelty and rapine, a victim of the foulest superst.i.tions of the East, and arrogant and vainglorious as he was savage.

His tyranny became unendurable, and he was murdered by an agent of the praetorian prefect, A.D. 217, Opilius Macrinus, who became the next emperor.

(M1108) Macrinus was only elevated to the purple by promising rich donations to the soldiers, for his rank was only that of a knight. He undertook to restore discipline in the army, and the licentious soldiery found a new candidate for the empire in the person of Avitus, of the family of Severus, a beautiful boy of seventeen, who officiated as priest of the sun in Syria, and whose name in history, from the G.o.d he served, is called Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus. But Macrinus was at the head of a formidable force, and fought his rival with bravery, but without success.

The battle was decided against him, and he was overtaken in flight and put to death, A.D. 218.

(M1109) With Elagabalus is a.s.sociated the most repulsive and loathsome reign of all the emperors. He was guilty of the most shameless obscenities, and the most degrading superst.i.tions. He painted and dressed himself like an Oriental prince; he banqueted in halls hung with cloth of gold, and enriched with jewels; he slept on mattresses stuffed with down found only under the wings of partridges; he dined from tables of pure gold; he danced in public, arrayed in the garb of a Syrian priest; and he collected in his capital all the forms of idolatry and all the hideous abominations which even Grecian paganism despised. This wretch, who insulted every consecrated sentiment, was murdered after a reign of little more than three years, A.D. 222, and his body was thrown into the Tiber, and his memory branded with infamy by the Senate.

(M1110) The praetorians, who now controlled the State, offered the purple to his cousin, Alexander Severus, grand-nephew of Septimius Severus, an emperor who adorned those degenerate times, and who resembled the great Aurelius in the severity of his virtues. His prime minister-the prefect of the praetorian guards-was the celebrated Ulpian, the greatest of Roman jurists, and next to him in dignity and power was the historian, Dion Ca.s.sius, consul, governor in Africa, and legate in Dalmatia.

(M1111) The great labors of Alexander Severus were to quell the mutinous spirit of the praetorian guards, who reveled in the spoil of the empire; to subdue the Persians; and to repel barbarian inroads on the western frontiers. It was while he was in Thrace that a young barbarian of gigantic stature solicited permission to contend for the prize of wrestling. Sixteen of the stoutest Roman soldiers he successively overthrew, and he was permitted to enlist among the troops. The next day he attracted the notice of the emperor, and again contended successfully with seven of the Roman champions, and received, at the hand of the emperor, a gold collar and a place in the body-guard. He rose, step by step, till appointed to discipline the recruits of the army of the Rhine.

He became the favorite of the army, and was saluted as imperator. Severus fled to his tent, and was a.s.sa.s.sinated, A.D. 235.

(M1112) The savage, Maximin, who now governed the empire, ruled like a barbarian, as he was, disdaining all culture, and hostile to all refinements. Confiscations, exile, or death awaited the few ill.u.s.trious men who adorned the age. Only brute force was recognized as a claim to imperial favor. The sole object of Maximin was to secure the favor of the soldiers, barbarians like himself, whom he propitiated with exorbitant donations, extorted by fines and confiscations, and derived from the sack of temples. He lived in the camp, and knew nothing of the cities he ruled.

(M1113) Such outrages of course provoked rebellion, and M. Antonius Gordia.n.u.s, the proconsul of Africa, a descendant of the Gracchi and of Trajan, distinguished for wealth and culture, was proclaimed emperor, at the age of eighty, who a.s.sociated with him, in the government, his son.

The Senate confirmed the Gordians, who fixed their court at Carthage, but Maximin suppressed the insurrection, and proceeded to Rome to satisfy his vengeance. The Senate, in despair, conferred the purple on two members of their own body, Maximus, an able soldier, and Balbinus, a poet and orator.

The praetorians supported their claims, and Maximin was a.s.sa.s.sinated in his tent, A.D. 238. But the new emperors had scarcely given promise of a wise administration, before they in turn were a.s.sa.s.sinated by the praetorians, and Gordian, a grandson of the first of that name, was elevated to the imperial dignity. He, again, was soon murdered in a mutiny of the soldiers, who elected Philip as his successor, A.D. 244. This emperor, whose reign was marked by the celebration of the secular games with unwonted magnificence, to commemorate the one thousand years since Rome was founded, was put to death by the praetorian guards the following year, and the dignity of Augustus was conferred on Decius.

(M1114) His reign is memorable for a savage persecution of the Christians, and the victories of the Goths, who, in the preceding reign, had penetrated to Dacia, and conquered Msia. The next twenty years were mournful and disgraceful. The emperor marched against these barbarians in person, but was defeated by them in Thrace, and lost his life at a place called Abrutum, A.D. 251. The Goths continued their ravages along the coasts of the Euxine, and made themselves masters of the Crimea. They then sailed, with a large fleet, to the northern parts of the Euxine, took Pityus and Trapezus, attacked the wealthy cities of the Thracian Bosphorus, conquered Chalcedon, Nicomedia, and Nice, and retreated laden with spoil. The next year, with five hundred boats, they pursued their destructive navigation, destroyed Cyzicus, crossed the aegean, landed at Athens, plundered Thebes, Argos, Corinth and Sparta, advanced to the coasts of Epirus, and devastated the whole Illyrian peninsula. In their ravages they destroyed the famous temple of Ephesus, and, wearied with plunder, returned through Msia to their own settlements beyond the Danube.

(M1115) During this raid, the son of Decius, Hostilia.n.u.s, reigned in conjunction with Gallus, one of the generals of Decius, but were put to death by aemilia.n.u.s, governor of Pannonia and Msia, who had succeeded in gaining a victory over the new and terrible enemy. He was in turn overthrown by Valeria.n.u.s-a n.o.bleman of great distinction, who signalized himself by considerable military ability, and who a.s.sociated with himself in the empire his son, Gallienus, A.D. 253, whose frivolities were an offset to the virtues of his father. Valerian was taken prisoner by Sapor, king of Persia, and shortly after died, and the Roman world relapsed under the sway of his son, and at a time of great calamity, memorable for the successes of the Goths, and the direst pestilence which had ever visited the empire. Gallienus-not without accomplishments, but utterly unfit to govern an empire in the stormy times which witnessed the fierce irruptions of the Goths-was slain by a conspiracy of his officers, A.D. 268.

(M1116) The empire was now threatened by barbarians, and wasted by pestilence, and distracted by rebellions and riots. It was on the verge of ruin; but the ruin was averted for one hundred years by a succession of great princes, who traced their origin to the martial province of Illyric.u.m. The first of these emperors was Claudius, one of the generals of Gallienus, and was fifty-four years of age when invested with the purple. He led the armies of the waning empire against the Alemanni, who had invaded Italy, and drove them beyond the Alps. But a fiercer tribe of Germanic barbarians remained to be subdued or repelled-those who had devastated Greece-the Goths. They again appeared upon the Euxine with a fleet, variously estimated from two thousand to six thousand vessels, carrying three hundred and twenty thousand men. A division of this vast, but undisciplined force, invaded Crete and Cyprus, but the main body ravaged Macedonia, and undertook the siege of Thessalonica. Claudius advanced to meet them, and gained at Naissus a complete victory, where fifty thousand of the barbarians perished. A desultory war followed in Thrace, Macedonia, and Msia, which resulted in the destruction of the Gothic fleet, and an immense booty in captives and cattle.

(M1117) Claudius survived this great, but not decisive victory, but two years, and was carried off by pestilence, at Sirmiun, A.D. 270; but not until he had designated for his successor a still greater man-the celebrated Aurelian, whose father had been a peasant. Every day of his short reign was filled with wonders. He put an end to the Gothic war, chastised the Germans who invaded Italy, recovered Gaul, Britain, and Spain, defeated the Alemanni, who devastated the empire from the Po to the Danube, destroyed the proud monarchy which Zen.o.bia had built up in the deserts of the East, took the queen captive, and carried her to Rome, where he celebrated the most magnificent triumph which the world had seen since the days of Pompey and Caesar. This celebrated woman, equaling Cleopatra in beauty, and Boadicea in valor, and blending the popular manners of the Roman princes with the stately pomp of Oriental kings, had retired, on her defeat, to the beautiful city which Solomon had built, shaded with palms, and ornamented with palaces. There, in that Tadmor of the wilderness, Palmyra, the capital of her empire, which embraced a large part of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, she had cultivated the learning of the Greeks, and the Oriental tongues of the countries she ruled, excelling equally in the chase and in war, the most truly accomplished woman of antiquity,-sprung, like Cleopatra, from the Greek kings of Egypt. Among her counselors was the celebrated Longinus-the most conspicuous ornament of the last age of Greek cla.s.sic literature, and a philosopher who taught the wisdom of Plato. When Palmyra was taken by Aurelian, this great man, who had stimulated Zen.o.bia in her rebellion, was executed, without uttering a word of complaint, together with the people of the city, with remorseless barbarity, and the city of Solomon became an inconsiderable Arab town. The queen, who had fled, was pursued and taken, and graced the magnificent triumph of the martial emperor. The captive queen was made to precede the triumphal chariot, on foot, loaded with fetters of gold, and arrayed in the most gorgeous dress of her former empire. She was not executed, but permitted to reside in the capital in the state of princes.

(M1118) This great and brilliant triumph-one of the last glories of the setting sun of Roman greatness-seemed to augur the restoration of the empire. The emperor was sanguine, and boasted that all external danger had pa.s.sed away. But in a few months he was summoned to meet new enemies in the East, and he was murdered by a conspiracy of his officers, probably in revenge for the cruelties and ma.s.sacres he had inflicted at Rome. In one of his reforms a sedition arose, and was quelled inexorably by the slaughter of seven thousand of the soldiers, besides a large number of the leading n.o.bles.

(M1119) His sceptre descended to Tacitus, A.D. 275, a descendant of the great historian: a man, says Niebuhr, "who was great in every thing that could distinguish a senator; he possessed immense property, of which he made a brilliant use; he was a man of unblemished character; he possessed the knowledge of a statesman, and had, in his youth, shown great military skill." Scarcely was he inaugurated as emperor before he marched against the Alans, a Scythian tribe, who had ravaged Pontus, Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Galatea. He, however, lost his life amid the hards.h.i.+ps of his first campaign, at the age of seventy-five, and after a brief reign of six months.

(M1120) The veteran general, M. Aurelius Probus, the commander of the Eastern provinces, was proclaimed emperor by the legions, although originally of peasant rank. He was forty-five years of age, and united the military greatness of Aurelian with political prudence, in all respects the best choice which could have been made, and one of the best and greatest of all the emperors. His six years of administration were marked by uninterrupted successes, and he won a fame equal to that of the ancient heroes. He restored peace and order in all the provinces; he broke the power of the Sarmatians; he secured the alliance of the Goths; he drove the Isaurians to their strongholds among their inaccessible mountains; he chastised the rebellious cities of Egypt; he delivered Gaul from the Germanic barbarians; he drove the Franks to their mora.s.ses at the mouth of the Rhine; he vanquished the Burgundians who had wandered in quest of booty from the banks of the Oder; he defeated the Lygii, a fierce tribe on the borders of Silesia; he extended his victories to the Elbe, and erected a wall, two hundred miles in length, from the Danube to the Rhine; so that "there was not left," says Gibbon, "in all the provinces, a hostile barbarian, or tyrant, or even a robber." After having destroyed four hundred thousand of the barbarians, he returned to his capital to celebrate a triumph, which equaled in splendor that of Aurelian. He, too, fancied that all external enemies were subdued forever, and that Rome should henceforth rejoice in eternal peace. But scarcely had the paeans of victory been sung by a triumphant and infatuated people, when he was a.s.sa.s.sinated in a mutiny of his own troops, whom he had compelled to labor in draining the marshes around Sirmium, A.D. 282.

(M1121) The soldiers, repenting the act as soon as it was done, conferred the purple on the praetorian prefect, and _notified_ the Senate of its choice. And the choice was a good one; and the new emperor, Carus, at sixty years of age, conferring the t.i.tle of Caesar upon his two sons, Carinus and Numeria.n.u.s, whom he left to govern the West, hastened against the Sarmatians, who had overrun Illyric.u.m. Successful in his objects, he advanced, in the depth of winter, through Thrace and Asia Minor to the confines of Persia. The Persian king, wis.h.i.+ng to avert the storm, sent his amba.s.sadors to the imperial camp, and found the emperor seated on the gra.s.s, dining from peas and bacon, in all the simplicity of the early successors of Mohammed. But before he could advance beyond the Tigris, his tent was struck by lightning, and he was killed, on Christmas day, A.D.