152 DEFEAT OF ALBINUS. [сн. т. one hundred and fifty thousand* Romans were engaged, was equally fatal to Albinus. The valour of the British army maintained, indeed, a sharp and doubtful contest with the hardy discipline of the Illyrian legions. The fame and person of Severus appeared, during a few moments, irrecoverably lost, till that warlike prince rallied his fainting troops, and led them on to a decisive victory. The war was finished by that memorable day. The civil wars of modern Europe have been distinguished not only by the fierce animosity, but likewise by the obstinate perseverance, of the contending factions. They have generally been justified by some principle, or, at least, coloured by some pretext, of religion, freedom, or loyalty. The leaders were nobles of independent property and hereditary influence. The troops fought like men interested in the decision of the quarrel; and as military spirit and party zeal were strongly diffused throughout the whole community, a vanquished chief was immediately supplied with new adherents, eager to shed their blood in the same cause. But the Romans, after the fall of the republic, combated only for the choice of masters. Under the standard of a popular candidate for empire, a few enlisted from affection, some for fear, many from interest, none from principle. The legions, third book of Herodian, and the seventy-fourth book of Dion Cassius. [There were three battles-one near Cyzicus, not far from the Hellespont; the second near Nice, in Bithynia; the other near the Issus, in Cilicia, where Alexander conquered Darius. Dion, p. 12471249. Herodian, lib. 3, c. 2-4.-WENCK.] Dion, 1. 75, p. 1260. * Dion, 1. 75, p. 1261. Herodian, 1. 3, p. 110. Hist. August. p. 68. The battle was fought in the plain of Trevoux, three or four leagues from Lyons. See Tillemont, tom. iii, p. 406, note 18. [According to Herodian, it was Lætus, his lieutenant, whe rallied the troops, and gained the battle, when almost lost by Severus. This Lætus was not the præfect who instigated the conspiracies against Commodus and Pertinax; he had been executed by Julianus. Dion also (p. 1261) ascribes to the lieutenant a large share of the victory. Severus afterwards put him to death, either to punish some suspicious or treacherous conduct in this battle, or, as is more probable, though jealousy of the attachment which the army manifested towards him.-WENCK.] Some latitude must, of course, be allowed to a modern philosophic historian, in his ornamental passages. Taking facts in their literal exactness, there were many internal struggles under the emperors, in which the Romans combated for some principle of a particular party. In the present case, for example, many of the people, and a large class of the nobility, sided with Albinus, because he was descended from uninflamed by party zeal, were allured into civil war by liberal donatives, and still more liberal promises. A defeat, by disabling the chief from the performance of his engagements, dissolved the mercenary allegiance of his followers, and left them to consult their own safety, by a timely desertion of an unsuccessful cause. It was of little momeut to the provinces under whose name they were oppressed or governed; they were driven by the impulsion of the present power, and as soon as that power yielded to a superior force, they hastened to implore the clemency of the conqueror, who, as he had an immense debt to discharge, was obliged to sacrifice the most guilty countries to the avarice of his soldiers. In the vast extent of the Roman empire, there were few fortified cities capable of protecting a routed army; nor was there any person, or family, or order of men, whose natural interest, unsupported by the powers of government, was capable of restoring the cause of a sinking party.* Yet, in the contest between Niger and Severus, a single city deserves an honourable exception. As Byzantium was one of the greatest passages from Europe into Asia, it had been provided with a strong garrison, and a fleet of five hundred vessels was anchored in the harbour. The impetuosity of Severus disappointed this prudent scheme of defence; he left to his generals the siege of Byzantium, forced the less guarded passage of the Hellespont, and impatient of a meaner enemy, pressed forward to encounter his rival. Byzantium, attacked by a numerous and increasing army, and afterwards by the whole naval power of the empire, sustained a siege of three years, and remained faithful to the name and memory of Niger. The citizens and soldiers (we know not from what cause) were animated with equal fury; several of the principal officers of Niger, who an illustrious family; and they preferred him to Severus, whose future system of government the more prudent foresaw and dreaded. The Syrians supported Niger from an affectionate personal regard.-WENCK. [The term pragmatischen, used by M. Wenck in this note, I have rendered by philosophic, as the most expressive of his meaning. No English reader would have understood pragmatic, in its there ap plied German sense of "developing the motives and causes of action." -ED.] *Montesquieu, Considérations sur la Grandeur et la Décadence des Romains, c. 12. + Most of these, as may be supposed, were sinall open vessels; some, however, were galleys of two, and a few of three, ranks of oars. 154 SIEGE OF BYZANTIUM [CH. V despaired of, or who disdained, a pardon, had thrown them selves into this last refuge: the fortifications were esteemed impregnable, and, in the defence of the place, a celebrated engineer displayed all the mechanic powers known to the ancients. Byzantium, at length, surrendered to famine. put to the sword, the walls demolished, the privileges suppressed, and the destined capital of the east subsisted only as an open village, subject to the insulting jurisdiction of Perinthus. The historian Dion, who had admired the flourishing, and lamented the desolate, state of Byzantium, accused the revenge of Severus for depriving the Roman people of the strongest bulark against the barbarians of Pontus and Asia. The truth of * The engineer's name was Priscus. His skill saved his life, and he was taken into the service of the conqueror. For the particular facts of the siege, consult Dion Cassius (1. 75, p. 1251) and Herodian (1. 3, P. 95). For the theory of it, the fanciful Chevalier de Folard may be + Perinthus, on the shore looked into. See Polybe, tom. 1, p. 76. of the Propontis, was afterwards called Heraclea. It was destroyed; but the modern Erekli, which has risen out of its ruins, preserves the (D'Anville, Géog. Anc., tom. i, p. 291). memory of its second name. Byzantium, when it became Constantinople, caused, in its turn, the Notwithstanding the authority of decay of Heraclea.-GUIZOT.] Spartianus, and some modern Greeks, we may be assured from Dion and Herodian, that Byzantium, many years after the death of Severus, lay in ruins. There is no contradiction between Dion's account and that as well as some modern Greeks. Dion does not given by Spartianus, say, that Severus destroyed Byzantium, but only that he took away its franchises and privileges, confiscated the property of its inhabitants, levelled its fortifications, and placed it under the jurisdiction of its ancient enemies, the Perinthians, who treated it as a subordinate hamlet. Excuses may be offered for some of these penalties; but the levelling of the fortifications was rather a punishment and loss to the empire itself than to the Byzantines. When, therefore, Spartianus, Suidas, and Cedrenus say (See Reimarus on Dion, p. 1254, n. 81) that Severus and his son reinstated Byzantium in its former privileges, constructed theatres, temples, baths, &c., there is no difficulty in reconciling this with Dion's narrative. The latter may also have said more in the portions of his history which are lost. That Severus and Caracalla rebuilt the walls and defences of Byzantium, is not asserted by any one of these writers. Dion only deplores their ruin. Herodian's expressions are evidently exaggerated, like those of many historians in such cases, and his history of Severus, especially, is full of inaccuracies. In his third book (cap. ix.), ignorant that there was between the Euphrates and the Tigris a district called Arabia, and that its chief town was Atra, he makes Severus advance at once from Mesopotamia and Adiabene (beyond the Tigris) into Arabia Felix, this observation was but too well justified in the succeeding age, when the Gothic fleets covered the Euxine, and passed through the undefended Bosphorus into the centre of the Mediterranean. Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to death in their flight from the field of battle. Their fate excited neither surprise nor compassion. They had staked their lives against the chance of empire, and suffered what they would have inflicted; nor did Severus claim the arrogant superiority of suffering his rivals to live in a private station. But his unforgiving temper, stimulated by avarice, indulged a spirit of revenge, where there was no room for apprehension. The most considerable of the provincials, who, without any dislike to the fortunate candidate, had obeyed the governor under whose authority they were accidentally placed, were punished by death, exile, and especially by the confiscation of their estates. Many cities of the east were stripped of their ancient honours, and obliged to pay, into the treasury of Severus, four times the amount of the sum contributed by them for the service of Niger.* Till the final decision of the war, the cruelty of Severus was, in some measure, restrained by the uncertainty of the event, and his pretended reverence for the senate. The head of Albinus, accompanied with a menacing letter, announced to the Romans, that he was resolved to spare none of the adherents of his unfortunate competitors. He was irritated by the just suspicion, that he never had possessed the affections of the senate, and he concealed his old malevolence under the recent discovery of some treasonable correspondences. Thirty-five senators, however, accused of having favoured the party of Albinus, he freely pardoned; and, by his subsequent behaviour, endeavoured to convince them, that he had forgotten, as well as forgiven, their supposed offences. But, at the same time, he condemned fortyonet other senators, whose names history has recorded; gain possession of many towns, besiege Atra ineffectually, then embark his whole army, and, driven by a storm on the coast of Parthia, land near the metropolis, Ctesiphon. Such geography never was heard of. -WENCK.] *Dion, 1. 74, p. 1250. + Dion (1. 75, p. 1264). Only twenty-nine senators are mentioned by him, but forty-one are named in the Augustan History (p. 69), among whom are six of the name of Pescennius. Herodian (1. 3, p. 115) speaks in general of the cruelties of Soverus. [There is no authority for this slaughter of the wives, 156 CRUELTY OF SEVERUS [CH. V. their wives, children, and clients, attended them in death, and the noblest provincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the same ruin. Such rigid justice, for so he termed it, was, in the opinion of Severus, the only conduct capable of ensuring peace to the people, or stability to the prince; and he condescended slightly to lament, that, to be mild, it was that he should first be cruel.* necessary was The true interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides with that of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and their security, are the best and only foun dations of his real greatness; and were he totally devoid of virtue, prudence might supply its place, and would dictate the same rule of conduct. Severus considered the Roman empire as his property, and had no sooner secured the possession, than he bestowed his care on the cultivation and improvement of so valuable an acquisition. Salutary laws, executed with inflexible firmness, soon corrected most of the abuses with which, since the death of Marcus, every part of the government had been infected. In the adminis tration of justice, the judgments of the emperor were characterized by attention, discernment, and impartiality, and whenever he deviated from the strict line of equity, it' generally in favour of the poor and oppressed; not so much indeed from any sense of humanity, as from the natural propensity of a despot to humble the pride of greatness, and to sink all his subjects to the same common level of absolute dependence. His expensive taste for building, magnificent shows, and, above all, a constant and liberal distribution of corn and provisions, were the surest means of captivating the affections of the Roman people.t children, and clients of the forty-one condemned senators, nor is the fact itself credible. The families and relations of Niger and Albinus When Severus first arrived in Rome, and his were all put to death. position was not yet secure, he vowed in the senate, that not one of that body should suffer capitally. He even caused a decree to be passed, that whosoever might condemn a senator to death, be he even the emperor himself, and those who might execute the sentence, they, with their families, should all be declared enemies of the state. This, like all his other oaths, was disregarded; and the very senator who, by his command, had proposed the decree, was the first whom he sent for execution.-WENCK.] * Aurelius Victor. + Dion, 1. 76, p. 1272. Hist. August. p. 67. Severus celebrated the secular games with extraordinary magnificence, and he left in the public granaries a provision of corn for seven years, at the rate of 75,000 modii, or about |