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and strangled him without resistance. The body was secretly conveyed out of the palace, before the least suspicion was entertained in the city, or even in the court, of the emperor's death. Such was the fate of the son of Marcus, and so easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant, who, by the artificial powers of government, had oppressed, during thirteen years, so many millions of subjects, each of whom was equal to their master in personal strength and personal abilities.†

The measures of the conspirators were conducted with the deliberate coolness and celerity which the greatness of the occasion required. They resolved instantly to fill the vacant throne with an emperor, whose character would justify and maintain the action that had been committed. They fixed on Pertinax, prefect of the city, an ancient senator of consular rank, whose conspicuous merit had broke through the obscurity of his birth, and raised him to the first honours of the state. He had successively governed most of the provinces of the empire; and in all his great employments, military as well as civil, he had uniformly distinguished himself by the firmness, the prudence, and the integrity, of his conduct. He now remained almost alone of the friends and ministers of Marcus; and when, at a late hour of the night, he was awakened with the news that the chamberlain

*

The

[A violent retching having discharged the poison, Commodus suspected the fact, and threatened the conspirators, who then sent in the wrestler, Narcissus.-WENCK.] ↑ Dion, 1. 72, p. 1222. Herodian, 1. 1, p. 43. Hist. August. p. 52. Pertinax was a native of Alba Pompeia, in Piedmont, and son of a timber-merchant. order of his employments (it is marked by Capitolinus) well deserves to be set down, as expressive of the form of government and manners of the age. 1. He was a centurion. 2. Prefect of a cohort in Syria, in the Parthian war, and in Britain. 3. He obtained an ala, or squadron of horse, in Mosia. 4. He was commissary of provisions on the Emilian way. 5. He commanded the fleet upon the Rhine. 6. He was procurator of Dacia, with a salary of about 1600 a year. 7. He commanded the veterans of a legion. 8. He obtained the rank of senator. 9. Of prætor. 10. With the command of the first legion in Rhætia and Noricum. 11. He was consul about the year 175. 12. He attended Marcus into the east. 13. He commanded an army on the Danube. 14. He was consular legate of Moesia. 15. Of Dacia. 16. Of Syria. 17. Of Britain. 18. He had the care of the public provisions at Rome. 19. He was proconsul of Africa. 20. Prefect of the city. Herodian (1. 1, p. 48) does justice to his disinterested spirit; but Capi tolinus, who collected every popular rumour, charges him with a great fortune, acquired by bribery and corruption.

128

ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE

[CH. IV. and the prefect were at his door, he received them with intrepid resignation, and desired they would execute their master's orders. Instead of death, they offered him the throne of the Roman world. During some moments he distrusted their intentions and assurances. Convinced at length of the death of Commodus, he accepted the purple with a sincere reluctance, the natural efect of his knowledge both of the duties and of the dangers of the supreme rank.* Lætus conducted without delay his new emperor to the camp of the prætorians, diffusing at the same time through the city a seasonable report that Commodus died suddenly of an apoplexy, and that the virtuous Pertinax had already succeeded to the throne. The guards were rather surprised than pleased with the suspicious death of a prince, whose indulgence and liberality they alone had experienced; but the emergency of the occasion, the authority of their prefect, the reputation of Pertinax, and the clamours of the people, obliged them to stifle their secret discontents, to accept the donative promised by the new emperor, to swear allegiance to him, and with joyful acclamations and laurels in their hands to conduct him to the senate-house, that the military consent might be ratified by the civil authority.

This important night was now far spent; with the dawn of day, and the commencement of the new year, the senators expected a summons to attend an ignominious ceremony. In spite of all remonstrances, even of those of his creatures, who yet preserved any regard for prudence or decency, Commodus had resolved to pass the night in the gladiators' school, and from thence to take possession of the consulship, in the habit and with the attendance of that infamous crew. a sudden, before the break of day, the senate was called together in the temple of Concord, to meet the guards, and to ratify the election of a new emperor.† For a few minutes

On

* Julian, in the Cæsars, taxes him with being accessory to the death of Commodus. + [The senate always assembled during the night, preceding the first of January, to celebrate the commencement of the new year. (See Savaron. on Sidon. Appollinar. lib. 8, Epist. 6.) This took place without any special summons, nor was any such issued on the occasion here referred to. Gibbon's picture of the "silent suspense" of that body is rather imaginary than historical. Dion (p. 1227) only says, that most of the inhabitants of Rome, but still more the governors of the provinces, hesitated to believe the death of Commodus, while they earnestly desired that it might be true. He, who was himself present,

they sat in silent suspense, doubtful of their unexpected deliverance, and suspicious of the cruel artifices of Commodus; but when at length they were assured that the tyrant was no more, they resigned themselves over to the transports of joy and indignation. Pertinax, who modestly represented the meanness of his extraction, and pointed out several noble senators more deserving than himself of the empire, was constrained by their dutiful violence to ascend the throne, and received all the titles of imperial power, confirmed by the most sincere vows of fidelity.

The memory of Commodus was branded with eternal infamy. The names of tyrant, of gladiator, of public enemy, resounded in every corner of the house. They decreed, in tumultuous votes, that his honours should be reversed, his titles erased from the public monuments, his statues thrown down, his body dragged with a hook into the strippingroom of the gladiators, to satiate the public fury; and they expressed some indignation against those officious servants who had already presumed to screen his remains from the justice of the senate. But Pertinax could not refuse those last rites to the memory of Marcus, and the tears of his first protector Claudius Pompeianus, who lamented the cruel fate of his brother-in-law, and lamented still more that he had deserved it.*

gays, that the senate at once declared in favour of Pertinax; and in this, Herodian, Capitolinus, and Victor all agree with him.-WENCK.]

Capitolinus gives us the particulars of these tumultuary votes, which were moved by one senator, and repeated, or rather chanted, by the whole body. Hist. August. p. 52. [These "tumultuary votes," as Gibbon incorrectly terms them, were only the acclamations and applauses, so often mentioned in the history of the emperors. The practice originated in the theatre, was adopted in the forum, and passed thence into the senate. Pliny the younger informs us (Paneg. c. 75), that the imperial decrees were first sanctioned by acclamation in the time of Trajan. After the decree had been read by a senator, the assent of the body was given by a kind of chant, or metrical form of approbation. The following are some of these cries, that were addressed to Pertinax and against Commodus: "Hosti patriæ honores detrahantur!" "Parricidæ honores detrahantur!" "Ut salvi simus, Jupiter Optime Maxime, serva nobis Pertinacem!" and others, which it is needless to repeat. This form was often re-echoed, and in some decrees, it is stated how many times it was given; as, for example: "Auguste Claudi, Di te nobis præstant!" dictum sexagies. This custom prevailed not only in councils of state, properly so called, but in all meetings of the senate, for any other purpose whatever; and, according to the character of the reigning prince,

VOL. I.

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revenge.

RAGE OF THE SENATE.

[CK. IV.

These effusions of impotent rage against a dead emperor, whom the senate had flattered when alive with the most abject servility, betrayed a just but ungenerous spirit of The legality of these decrees was, however, supported by the principles of the imperial constitution. To censure, to depose, or to punish with death, the first magistrate of the republic, who had abused his delegated trust, was the ancient and undoubted prerogative of the Roman senate; but that feeble assembly was obliged to content itself with inflicting on a fallen tyrant that public justice, from which, during his life and reign, he had been shielded by the strong arm of military despotism.

Pertinax found a nobler way of condemning his predecessor's memory, by the contrast of his own virtues with the vices of Commodus. On the day of his accession, he resigned over to his wife and son his whole private fortune, that they might have no pretence to solicit favours at the expense of the state. He refused to flatter the vanity of the former with the title of Augusta, or to corrupt the inexperienced youth of the latter by the rank of Cæsar. Accurately distinguishing between the duties of a parent and those of a sovereign, he educated his son with a severe

manifested either the honest admiration or the servile fears and anxieties of its members. Derogatory as it may appear to the dignity of assemblies so holy, the first Christians adopted it in their congregations and synods, although it was condemned and resisted by many fathers of the church, and among others, by S. Chrysostom. (See the excursive but diligent Collection of Franc. Bern. Ferarrius, De veterum Plausu et Acclamatione, in Grævii Thesaur. Antiq. Rom. tom. vi.)— WENCK.] [The whole tenor of this criticism seems rather to confirm than to correct the expression used by Gibbon.-ED.]

The

senate condemned Nero to be put to death more majorum. Sueton.
c. 49. [This prerogative of the senate was authorized by no special
law. It was derived from the ancient constitutional principles of the
republic. After the people were deprived of their rights, and the
comitia transferred to the senate, the whole sovereign power centered
in that body, and was committed by them to the emperor. If we find
little accordance here between theory and practice, it arises from the
original illegality of the imperial government, which disarranged the
entire system and prepared the fall of the empire. Gibbon seems to
understand by the passage in Suetonius, that the senate, in virtue of
their ancient right (more majorum), condemned Nero to death. These
words refer, not to the sentence itself, but to the kind of death inflicted,
which was according to an early law of Romulus. (See Victor
Epitome, edit. Arntzen. p. 484, n. 7.)—WENCK.]

simplicity, which, while it gave him no assured prospect of the throne, might in time have rendered him worthy of it. In public, the behaviour of Pertinax was grave and affable. He lived with the virtuous part of the senate (and, in a private station, he had been acquainted with the true character of each individual), without either pride or jealousy; considered them as friends and companions, with whom he had shared the dangers of the tyranny, and with whom he wished to enjoy the security of the present time. He very frequently invited them to familiar entertainments, the frugality of which was ridiculed by those who remembered and regretted the luxurious prodigality of Commodus.*

To heal, as far as it was possible, the wounds inflicted by the hand of tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task of Pertinax. The innocent victims who yet survived were recalled from exile, released from prison, and restored to the full possession of their honours and fortunes. The unburied bodies of the murdered senators (for the cruelty of Commodus endeavoured to extend itself beyond death) were deposited in the sepulchres of their ancestors; their memory was justified; and every consolation was bestowed on their ruined and afflicted families. Among these consolations, one of the most grateful was the punishment of the Delators; the common enemies of their master, of virtue, and of their country. Yet even in the inquisition of these legal assassins, Pertinax proceeded with a steady temper, which gave everything to justice, and nothing to popular prejudice and

resentment.

The finances of the state demanded the most vigilant care of the emperor. Though every measure of injustice and extortion had been adopted, which could collect the property of the subject into the coffers of the prince, the rapaciousness of Commodus had been so very inadequate to his extravagance, that, upon his death, no more than 8000l. were found in the exhausted treasury,t to defray the current expenses of government, and to discharge the pressing demand of a

* Dion (L. 73, p. 1223) speaks of these entertainments, as a senator who had supped with the emperor. Capitolinus (Hist. August. p. 58) like a slave, who had received his intelligence from one of the scullions + Decies. The blameless economy of Pius left his successors a trea sure of vicies septies millies, above 22,000,000l. sterling. Dion, L 73, P. 1231.

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