112 ACCESSION OF COMMODUS. [CH. IV. bad measure, which raised the impetuous youth above the restraint of reason and authority. Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society, are produced by the restraints which the necessary, but unequal, laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force, and their place is seldom * [This elevation did not raise Commodus (L. Aurel. Commodus Antoninus) "above the restraint of reason and authority." The last expression must be qualified by many considerations to give it a proper meaning. Commodus was admitted to the tribunitian power, received the title of imperator, and at last that of Augustus ("Augustus junior," is found on medals); but he remained dependent on his father, both as son and as the younger emperor. No proof can be adduced that M. Aurelius ever repented the measure, which he, without doubt, adopted deliberately, aware that his sinking health forbade him to hope for a much longer term of life, and desirous, before its close, of training his son, under his own inspection, to the business of government. The confused narrative of Lampridius, who wrote in the time of Diocletian, and for which he confesses that he had no better authority than a fertur or dicitur (in M. Aurel. c. 27, 28), says only, that M. Aurelius, before his death, foresaw and deplored his son's wicked administration. Dion, in Xiphilia (p. 1203), conjectures the same. Herodian (lib. 1, c. 3, 4) relates, that before his decease, Aurelius was anxious, that his son should not depart from the course in which he had been trained, and that, freed in his extreme youth from all restraint, he might resist the temptations by which absolute power would surround him. With this view, therefore, and calling to mind the numerous instances in which youthful sovereigns had degenerated, he earnestly recommended him to the watchful care of his ministers and generals. From the whole narrative, from the address of the dying emperor, and from the conduct of Commodus himself, who had accompanied his father to the German war, and whose perverse nature did not at once break loose, after his parent's death, it may be inferred, that M. Aurelius entertained no unfavourable opinion of his son, and had no reason to be dissatisfied with his general deportment. In Julian's Cæsar's (p. 30. Edit. Heusinger) Marcus, when reproached for having left the empire in the hands of so depraved a youth, replied, that he had not foreseen his son's vices, which had never been displayed till he became sole Julian could, no doubt, refer to better histories of that period than are now extant. Herodian (lib. 1, c. 2) says, that he commenced his history from the death of M. Aurelius, because his government had been described by many excellent writers. These cannot have been such as Capitolinus.-WENCK.] emperor. supplied by those of humanity. The ardour of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood; but these motives will not account for the unprovoked cruelties of Commodus, who had nothing to wish, and everything to enjoy. The beloved son of Marcus succeeded to his father, amidst the acclamations of the senate and armies,* and when he ascended the throne, the happy youth saw round him neither competitor to remove, nor enemies to punish. In this calm elevated station, it was surely natural, that he should prefer the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories of his five predecessors, to the ignominious fate of Nero and Domitian. Yet Čommodus was not, as he has been represented, a tiger born with an insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his infancy, of the most inhuman actions.+ Nature had formed him of a weak, rather than a wicked disposition. His simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave of his attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at length became the ruling passion of his soul.‡ Upon the death of his father, Commodus found himself embarrassed with the command of a great army, and the conduct of a difficult war against the Quadi and Marcomanni.§ The servile and profligate youths whom Marcus Commodus was the first Porphyrogenitus (born since his father's accession to the throne). By a new strain of flattery, the Egyptian medals date by the years of his life, as if they were synonymous to those of his reign. Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. 2, p. 752. + Hist. August. p. 46. [This is the language of Lampridius (in Commod. c. 1,) who affirms that Commodus was a monster from his childhood. Writers of this stamp generally adopt this tone. According to them, tyrants and virtuous rulers are all born so, and are all good or bad in one and the same way.-WENCK.] Dion. Cassius, 1. 72, p. 1203. S According to Tertullian (Apolog. c. 25,) he died at Sirmium. But the situation of Vindobona, or Vienna, where both the Victors place his death, is better adapted to the operations of the war against the Marcomanni and Quadi. [The Quadi occupied the country now called Moravia; the Marcomanni first dwelt on the banks of the Rhine and the Mein; then in the time of Augustus drove the Boii from Bohemia to settle in Boio-aria, now Bavaria. The Marcomanni, in VOL I. I 114 HIS RETURN TO ROME. [CHI. IV. had banished,* soon regained their station and influence about the new emperor. They exaggerated the hardships and dangers of a campaign in the wild countries beyond the Danube; and they assured the indolent prince, that the terror of his name, and the arms of his lieutenants, would be sufficient to complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians, or to impose such conditions as were more advantageous than any conquest. By a dexterous application to his sensual appetites, they compared the tranquillity, the splendour, the refined pleasures, of Rome, with the tumult of a Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leisure nor materials for luxury. Commodus listened to the pleasing advice; but whilst he hesitated between his own inclination, and the awe which he still retained for his father's counsellors, the summer insensibly elapsed, and his triumphal entry into the capital was deferred till the autumn. His graceful person, popular address, and imagined virtues, attracted the public favour; the honourable peace which he had recently granted to the barbarians, diffused a universal joy;§ his impatience to revisit Rome was fondly ascribed to the love of his country; and his dissolute course of amusements was faintly condemned in a prince of nineteen years of age. During the three first years of his reign, the forms, and even the spirit, of the old administration were maintained by those faithful counsellors to whom Marcus had recommended his son, and for whose wisdom and integrity Commodus still entertained a reluctant esteem. The young prince and his profligate favourites revelled in all the license of sovereign power; but his hands were yet unstained with blood, and he had even displayed a generosity of sentiment, which might perhaps have ripened into solid virtue. A fatal incident decided his fluctuating character. their turn, were expelled from Bohemia by the Sarmati or Sclavonians, by whose descendants it is now inhabited. See D'Anville, Geog. Anc. tom. i. p. 131.-GUIZOT.] * [This is Gibbon's conjecture. I know no proof on which it rests.-WENCK.] [It is a fair inference from the character of the father, the best of all authorities, that he banished from his court the attendants, who, as just before stated, had corrupted his son's mind.—ED.] + Herod. 1. 1, p. 12. Herod. 1. 1, p. 16. § This universal joy is well described (from the medals as well as histo rians) by Mr. Wotton, Hist. of Rome, p. 192, 193. Manilius, the confidential secretary of Avidius Cassius, was discovered after he had lain ** One evening, as the emperor was returning to the palace, through a dark and narrow portico in the amphitheatre, an assassin, who waited his passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, "The senate sends you this." The menace prevented the deed; the assassin was seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors of the conspiracy. It had been formed not in the State, but within the walls of the palace. Lucilla, the emperor's sister, and widow of Lucius Verus, impatient of the second rank, and jealous of the reigning empress, had armed the murderer against her brother's life. She had not ventured to communicate the black design to her second husband, Claudius Pompeianus, a senator of distinguished merit and unshaken loyalty; but among the crowd of her lovers (for she imitated the manners of Faustina) she found men of desperate fortunes and wild ambition, who were prepared to serve her more violent as well as her tender passions. The conspirators experienced the rigour of justice, and the abandoned princess was punished, first with exile, and afterwards with death.t But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body of the senate. Those whom he had dreaded as importunate ministers, he now suspected as secret enemies. The Delators, a race of men discouraged, and almost extinguished, under the former reigns, again became formidable, as soon as they discovered that the emperor was desirous of finding disaffection and treason in the senate. That assembly, whom Marcus had ever considered as the great council of the nation, was composed of the most distinguished of the Romans; and distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue * concealed several years. The emperor nobly relieved the public anxiety by refusing to see him, and burning his papers without opening them. Dion Cassius, 1. 72, p. 1209. See Maffei degli Amphitheatri, p. 126. [It is most probable that this occurred as the emperor was going into the amphitheatre, the construction of which must be borne in mind. The assassin had taken his staud in the dark entrance. WENCK.] + Dion, 1. 72, p. 1205. Herodian, 1. 1, p. 16. Hist, August. p. 46. [The conspirators were senators, and Quintianus, who was to have struck the fatal blow, was himself one. Herodian. lib. 1, c. 8.—WENCK} 116 PERENNIS. [CH. IV. implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always ensured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse. Of these innocent victims of tyranny, none died more lamented than the two brothers of the Quintilian family, Maximus and Condianus, whose fraternal love has saved their names from oblivion, and endeared their memory to posterity. Their studies and their occupations, their pur suits and their pleasures, were still the same. In the enjoy ment of a great estate they never admitted the idea of a separate interest; some fragments are now extant of a treaties which they composed in common; and in every action of life it was observed that their two bodies were animated by one soul. The Antonines, who valued their virtues and delighted in their union, raised them, in the same year, to the consulship; and Marcus afterward entrusted to their joint care the civil administration of Greece, and a great military command, in which they obtained a signal viatory over the Germans. The kind cruelty of Commodus united them in death.* The tyrant's rage, after having shed the noblest blood of the senate, at length recoiled on the principal instrument of his cruelty. Whilst Commodus was immersed in blood and luxury, he devolved the detail of the public business on Perennis, a servile and ambitious minister, who had obtained his post by the murder of his predecessor, but who possessed a considerable share of vigour and ability. By acts of extortion, and the forfeited estates of the nobles sacrificed to his avarice, he had accumulated an immense treasure. The prætorian guards were under his immediate * In a note upon the Augustan History, Casaubon has collected a number of particulars concerning these celebrated brothers. See p. 96 of his learned commentary. [The subject of their treatise was agriculture, and it has often been referred to by subsequent writers. See P. Needham, Prolegomena ad Geoponica, 8vo. Cambridge, 1704, p. 17, seq.-WENCK.] [Philostratus, in his Life of the Sophist Herodes, says that the Quintiliani were not ancient Roman citizens, but of Trojan origin. See Casaubon, as above quoted....GUIZOT.] |