182 HIS VIRTUOUS CONDUCT. [CH. IV. Yet, under these distressed sources of wealth; and liberal donative, which the new emperor had been obliged to promise the prætorian guards. circumstances, Pertinax had the generous firmness to remit all the oppressive taxes invented by Commodus, and to cancel all the unjust claims of the treasury; declaring, in a decree of the senate, that he was better satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to acquire riches by the ways of tyranny and dishonour. Economy and industry he considered as the pure and genuine s derived supply for the public necessities. The expense of the household was immediately reduced to one half. All the instruments of luxury Pertinax exposed to public auction;* gold and silver plate, chariots of a singular construction, a superfluous wardrobe of silk and embroidery, and a great number of beautiful slaves of both sexes; excepting only, with attentive humanity, those who were born in a state of freedom, and had been ravished from the arms of their weeping parents. At the same time that he obliged the worthless favourites of the tyrant to resign a part of their ill-gotten wealth, he satisfied the just creditors of the state, and unexpectedly discharged the long arrears of honest services. He removed the oppressive restrictions which had been laid upon commerce, and granted all the uncultivated lands in Italy and the provinces to those who would improve them; with an exemption from tribute during the term of ten years.t Such a uniform conduct had already secured to Pertinax the noblest reward of a sovereign, the love and esteem of his people. Those who remembered the virtues of Marcus were happy to contemplate, in their new emperor, the features of that bright original, and flattered themselves that they should long enjoy the benign influence of his administration. A hasty zeal to reform the corrupted state, accompanied with less prudence than might have been expected from the years and experience of Pertinax, proved fatal to himself and to his country. His honest indiscretion united against him * Besides the design of converting these useless ornaments into money, Dion (1. 73, p. 1229,) assigns two secret motives of Pertinax. He wished to expose the vices of Commodus, and to discover by the purchasers those who most resembled him. linus has picked up many idle tales of the private life of Pertinax, Le + Though Capito joins with Dion and Herodian in admiring his public conduct. the servile crowd, who found their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred the favour of a tyrant to the inexorable equality of the laws.* Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of the prætorian guards betrayed their inward dissatisfaction. They had reluctantly submitted to Pertinax; they dreaded the strictness of the ancient discipline, which he was preparing to restore; and they regretted the licence of the former reign. Their discontents were secretly fomented by Lætus, their prefect, who found, when it was too late, that his new emperor would reward a servant, but would not be ruled by a favourite. On the third day of his reign, the soldiers seized on a noble senator, with a design to carry him. to the camp, and to invest him with the imperial purple. Instead of being dazzled by the dangerous honour, the affrighted victim escaped from their violence, and took refuge at the feet of Pertinax. A short time afterwards Sosius Falco, one of the consuls of the year, a rash youth,† but of an ancient and opulent family, listened to the voice of ambition; and a conspiracy was formed during a short absence of Pertinax, which was crushed by his sudden return to Rome, and his resolute behaviour. Falco was on the point of being justly condemned to death as a public enemy, had he not been saved by the earnest and sincere entreaties of the injured emperor, who conjured the senate that the purity of his reign might not be stained by the blood even of a guilty senator. These disappointments served only to irritate the rage of the prætorian guards. On the 28th of March, eighty-six days only after the death of Commodus, a general sedition broke out in the camp, which the officers wanted either power or inclination to suppress. Two or three hundred of the most desperate soldiers marched at noon-day, with arms in their hands and fury in their looks, towards the imperial palace. The gates were thrown open by their companions upon guard, and by the domestics of the old court, who had already formed a secret conspiracy against the life of the too-virtuous emperor. On the news of their approach, Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment, Leges, rem surdam, inexorabilem esse. T. Liv. 2, 3. + If we eredit Capitolinus (which is rather difficult,) Falco behaved with the moet petulant indecency to Pertinax on the day of his accession. The 131 DEATH OF PERTINAX. [CH. V. advanced to meet his assassins; recalling to their minds his own innocence and the sanctity of their recent oath. For a few moments they stood in silent suspense, ashamed of their atrocious design, and awed by the venerable aspect and majestic firmness of their sovereign, till at length the despair of pardon reviving their fury, a barbarian of the country of Tongres* levelled the first blow against Pertinax, who was instantly despatched with a multitude of wounds. His head, separated from his body, and placed on a lance, was carried in triumph to the prætorian camp, in the sight of a mournful and indignant people, who lamented the unworthy fate of that excellent prince, and the transient blessings of a reign, the memory of which could serve only to aggravate their approaching misfortunes.† CHAPTER V.- THE power of the sword is more sensibly felt in an extensive monarchy, than in a small community. It has been calculated by the ablest politicians, that no state, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness. But although this relative proportion may be uniform, the influence of the army over the rest of the society will vary according to the wise emperor only admonished him of his youth and inexperience. Hist. August. p. 55. *The modern bishopric of Liege. This soldier probably belonged to the Batavian horse-guards, who were mostly raised in the duchy of Gueldres, and the neighbourhood; and were distinguished by their valour, and by the boldness with which they swam their horses across the broadest and most rapid rivers. Tacit. Hist. 4, 12. Dion, 1. 55, p. 797. Lipsius de Magnitudine Romana, 1. 1, c. 4. Dion, 1. 73, p. 1252. Herodian, 1. 2, p. 60. Hist. August. p. 58. Victor in Epitom. et in Cæsarib. Eutropius, 8, 16. [Herodian (lib. 2, c. 5, 6,) says, on the contrary, that the assassins hid themselves from the people, and that the Prætorians prepared to defend themselves in their camp against an expected attack. As soon as the people heard of the murder, an enraged multitude collected and sought for the perpetrators, but without finding them.—WENCK] degree of its positive strength. The advantage of military science and discipline cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united into one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men, such a union would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it would be impracticable; and the powers of the machine would be alike destroyed by the extreme minuteness, or the excessive weight, of its springs. To illustrate this observation, we need only reflect, that there is no superiority of natural strength, artificial weapons, or acquired skill, which could enable one man to keep in constant subjection one hundred of his fellow-creatures; the tyrant of a single town, or a small district, would soon discover that a hundred armed followers were a weak defence against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but a hundred thousand well-disciplined soldiers will command, with despotic sway, ten millions of subjects; and a body of ten or fifteen thousand guards will strike terror into the most numerous populace that ever crowded the streets of an immense capital. The prætorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom and cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely amounted to the last-mentioned number.* They derived their institution from Augustus. That crafty tyrant, sensible that laws might colour, but that arms alone could maintain, his usurped dominion, had gradually formed this powerful body of guards, in constant readiness to protect his person, to awe the senate, and either to prevent or to crush the first motions of rebellion. He distinguished these favoured troops by a double pay, and superior privileges; but, as their formidable aspect would at once have alarmed and irritated the Roman people, three cohorts only were stationed in the capital; whilst the remainder was dispersed in the adjacent towns of Italy. But after fifty years of peace and servitude, Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which for ever rivetted the fetters of his country. Under the fair pretence of relieving Italy from the heavy burden of military quarters, and of introducing a stricter discipline among the * They were originally nine or ten thousand men (for Tacitus and Dion are not agreed upon the subject), divided into as many cohorts. Vitellius increased them to sixteen thousand, and, so far as we can learn from inscriptions, they never afterwards sunk much below that number. See Lipsius de Magnitudine Romana, 1, 4. + Sueton. in 136 CLAIMS OF THE GUARDS. [сн. м. guards, he assembled them at Rome, in a permanent camp, which was fortified with skilful care,† and placed on a commanding situation.‡ Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal, to the throne of despotism. By thus introducing the prætorian guards as it were into the palace and the senate, the emperors taught them to perceive their own strength, and the weakness of the civil government; to view the vices of their masters with familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe, which distance only, and mystery, can preserve towards an imaginary power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their pride was nourished by the sense of their irresistible weight; nor was it possible to conceal from them, that the person of the sovereign, the authority of the senate, the public treasure, and the seat of empire, were all in their hands. To divert the prætorian bands from these dangerous reflections, the firmest and bestestablished princes were obliged to mix blandishments with commands, rewards with punishments, to flatter their pride, indulge their pleasures, connive at their irregularities, and to purchase their precarious faith by a liberal donative; which, since the elevation of Claudius, was exacted as a legal claim, on the accession of every new emperor.§ The advocates of the guards endeavoured to justify by arguments, the power which they asserted by arms; and to maintain that, according to the purest principles of the constitution, their consent was essentially necessary in the appointment of an emperor. The election of consuls, of generals, and of magistrates, however it had been recently usurped by the senate, was the ancient and undoubted right August. c. 49. *Tacit. Annal. 4, 2. Sueton. in Tiber. c. 37. Dion Cassius, 1. 57, p. 867. In the civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian, the prætorian camp was attacked and defended with all the machines used in the siege of the best fortified cities. Tacit. Hist. 3, 84. Close to the walls of the city, on the broad summit of the Quirinal and Viminal hills. See Nardini Roma Antica, p. 174. Donatus de Roma Antica, p. 46. § Claudius, raised by the soldiers to the empire, was the first who gave a donative. He gave quina dena, 1201. (Sueton. in Claud. c. 10.) When Marcus, with his colleague Lucius Verus, took quiet possession of the throne, he gave vicena, 1607., to each of the guards. Hist. Aug. p. 25. (Dion, 1. 73, p. 1231.) We may form some idea of the amount of these sums, by Hadrian's complaint, that the promotion of a Cæsar had cost him ter millies, |