232 ADVANCE OF MAXIMIN [CH. VII. a prince of such a character, instead of suffering the rebellion to gain stability by delay, should immediately have marched from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tyber; and that his victorious army, instigated by contempt for the senate, and eager to gather the spoils of Italy, should have burned with impatience to finish the easy and lucrative conquest. Yet, as far as we can trust to the obscure chro nology of that period, it appears that the operations of some they neither agree with each other, nor with truth. (Histoire des that age leaves us in a singular perplexity. or the preceding year. 1. 8, p. 285.) The authority of Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 18) enables us to fix those games, with certainty, to the year 238, but leaves us in ignorance of the month or day. 2, The election of Gordian by the senate is fixed, with equal certainty, to the 27th of May; but we are at a loss to discover whether it was in the same Tillemont and Muratori, who maintain the two opposite opinions, bring into the field a desultory troop of authorities, conjectures, and probabilities. The one seems to draw out, the other to contract, the series of events between those periods, more than can be well reconciled to reason and history. Yet it is necessary to choose between them. [The accounts which ancient writers have given of this period are as irregular and confused as were the times of which they wrote. Still the wretched Capitolinus takes credit to himself for having done it well, and abuses the "historicorum inter se certantium imperitiam," whose works are now in part lost. The opposite opinions, to which Gibbon refers, are of older date, but have been best defended by the two learned men whom he names. According to Muratori all the events that occurred from the first revolt in Africa against Maximin to the death of Maximus and Balbinus, these included, took place during the year 238. Tillemont places the first part in the spring of 237, and brings them to a close early in the summer of 238. Whoever compares the reasons assigned by the last of these authors with his authorities and the events themselves, will not hesitate to agree with him. For this it is not necessary to suppose that Maximin employed himself in any external war, and deserved to be likened to Sylla, as, without any just ground, Gibbon has done. On the contrary, he gave at once, to the disturbances in Italy, all the attention which the urgency of the case demanded. First, he sent ambassadors to Rome, in the hope of effecting an amicable settlement. Then he collected more troops and commenced his march, which however was very slow, as Herodian expressly states, and points out the cause (1. 7, c. 8). The autumn and part of the winter were thus spent. In Italy he encountered difficulties, by which he was again delayed; and the siege of Aquileia, for which Tillemont allows only three weeks, must, from all that we know about it, have occupied more time.-WENCK.] [This chronological question has been more foreign war deferred the Italian expedition till the ensuing spring. From the prudent conduct of Maximin, we may learn that the savage features of his character have been exaggerated by the pencil of party; that his passions, however impetuous, submitted to the force of reason; and that the barbarian possessed something of the generous spirit of Sylla, who subdued the enemies of Rome, before he suffered himself to revenge his private injuries.* When the troops of Maximin, advancing in excellent order, arrived at the foot of the Julian Alps, they were terrified by the silence and desolation that reigned on the fron tiers of Italy. The villages and open towns had been abandoned on their approach by the inhabitants, the cattle were driven away, the provisions removed or destroyed, the bridges broken down, nor was any thing left which could afford either shelter or subsistence to an invader. had been the wise orders of the generals of the senate; whose design was to protract the war, to ruin the army of Maximin by the slow operation of famine, and to consume Such recently discussed by Eckhel, who has brought out results seemingly clear and probable. Putting aside historians, whose contradictory statements cannot be made to accord, he has only consulted medals, which have supplied him with facts, in the following order :A.U.C. 990,-Maximin, after having conquered the Germans, returned to Pannonia, went into winter quarters at Sirmium, and prepared to turn his arms against the northern nations. 991,-On the calends of January, he entered on his fourth tribuneship. The Gordians were elected emperors in Africa, probably in the beginning of March. The senate joyfully confirmed this election, and declared Maximin the enemy of Rome. Five days after receiving information of this revolt, Maximin left Sirmium with his army to march into Italy. This took place early in April, and soon afterwards the Gordians were killed in Africa by Capelianus, procurator of Mauritania. The alarmed senate appointed Balbinus and Maximus Papienus emperors, and intrust the latter with the conduct of the war against Maximin. On his march Maximin was stopped near Aquileia, by want of provisions and the melting of the snow, and began the siege of that place at the end of April. Papienus collected his forces at Ravenna. The soldiers of Maximin, irritated by the resistance of Aquileia, assassinate him and his son, probably about the middle of May. On this Papienus returned to Rome, and governed jointly with Balbinus. At the close of July they were murdered, and the younger Gordian placed alone on the throne. (Eckhel, de Doct. Num. Vet., tom. vii., p. 295.)—GUIZOT.] Velleius Paterculus, 1. 2, c. 24. The president de Montesquieu (in his dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates) expresses the sentiments of the dictator, in a spirited, and even a sublime manner. 234 SIEGE OF AQUILEIA. * [CH. VII. his strength in the sieges of the principal cities of Italy, which they had plentifully stored with men and provisions from the deserted country. Aquileia received and withstood the first shock of the invasion. The streams that issue from the head of the Hadriatic gulf, swelled by the melting of the winter snows, opposed an unexpected obstacle to the arms of Maximin. At length, on a singular bridge, constructed with art and difficulty, of large hogsheads, he transported his army to the opposite bank, rooted up the beautiful vineyards in the neighbourhood of Aquileia, demolished the suburbs, and employed the timber of the buildings in the engines and towers, with which, on every side, he attacked the city. The walls, fallen to decay during the security of a long peace, had been hastily repaired on this sudbut the firmest defence of Aquileia consisted in the constancy of the citizens; all ranks of whom, instead of being dismayed, were animated by the extreme danger, and their knowledge of the tyrant's unrelenting temper. Their courage was supported and directed by Crispinus and Menophilus, two of the twenty lieutenants of the senate, who, with a small body of regular troops, had thrown themselves into the besieged place. The army of Maximin was repulsed in repeated attacks, his machines destroyed by showers of artificial fire, and the generous enthusiasm of the Aquileians was exalted into a confidence of success, by the opinion that Belenus, their tutelar deity, combated in person in the defence of his distressed worshippers.† den emergency; The Emperor Maximus, who had advanced as far as * Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. ii. p. 294) thinks the melting of the snow suits better with the months of June or July, than with that of February. The opinion of a man who passed his life between the Alps and the Apennines, is undoubtedly of great weight; yet I observe, 1, That the long winter, of which Muratori takes advantage, is to be found only in the Latin version, and not in the Greek text of Herodian. 2, That the vicissitudes of suns and rains, to which the soldiers of Maximin were exposed (Herodian, 1. 8, p. 277), denotes the spring rather than the summer. We may observe, likewise, that these several streams, as they melted into one, composed the Timavus, so poetically (in every sense of the word) described by Virgil. They are about twelve miles to the east of Aquileia. See Cluver. Italia, tom. i. p. 189, &c. + Herodian, 1. 8, p. 272. This Celtic deity was supposed to be Apollo, and received, under that name, the thanks of the senate. A temple was likewise built to Venus the Bald, in honour of the women of Aquileia, whɔ had given up their hair to make ropes for Ravenna, to secure that important place, and to hasten the military preparations, beheld the event of the war in the more faithful mirror of reason and policy. He was too sensible that a single town could not resist the persevering efforts of a great army; and he dreaded lest the enemy, tired with the obstinate resistance of Aquileia, should on a sudden relinquish the fruitless siege, and march directly towards Rome.* The fate of the empire, and the cause of freedom, must then be committed to the chance of a battle; and what arms could he oppose to the veteran legions of the Rhine and Danube? Some troops newly levied among the generous, but enervated youth of Italy, and a body of German auxiliaries, on whose firmness in the hour of trial it was dangerous to depend. In the midst of these just alarms, the stroke of domestic conspiracy punished the crimes of Maximin, and delivered Rome and the senate from the calamities that would surely have attended the victory of an enraged barbarian. The people of Aquileia had scarcely experienced any of the common miseries of a siege; their magazines were plentifully supplied, and several fountains within the walls. assured them of an inexhaustible resource of fresh water. The soldiers of Maximin were, on the contrary, exposed to the inclemency of the season, the contagion of disease, and the horrors of famine. The open country was ruined, the rivers filled with the slain, and polluted with blood. A spirit of despair and disaffection began to diffuse itself among the troops; and as they were cut off from all intelligence, they easily believed that the whole empire had embraced the cause of the senate, and that they were left as devoted victims to perish under the impregnable walls of Aquileia. The fierce temper of the tyrant was exasperated by disappointments, which he imputed to the cowardice of his army; and his wanton and ill-timed cruelty, instead of striking terror, inspired hatred, and a just desire of revenge. A party of prætorian guards, who trembled for their wives and children in the camp of Alba, near Rome, executed the sentence of the senate. Maximin, abandoned by his guards, was slain in his tent, with his son (whom he had associated the military engines. * According to Herodian (1. 8, c. 5) this would not have been possible. Capitolinus says only, that Maximus 236 MAXIMIN'S S CHARACTER. city were thrown open,+ * [CH. VII. to the honours of the purple), Anulinus the prefect, and the principal ministers of his tyranny. The sight of their heads, borne on the points of spears, convinced the citizens of Aquileia that the siege was at an end; the gates of the the hungry troops of Maximin, and the whole army joined protestations of fidelity to the senate and the people of Rome, and to their lawful emperors, Maximus and Balbinus. Such was the deserved fate of a brutal savage, destitute, as he has generally been represented, of every sentiment that distinguishes a civilized, or even a a liberal market was provided for in solemn human being. The body was suited to the soul. The stature of Maximin exceeded the measure of eight feet, and circumstances almost incredible are related of his matchless strength and appetite. Had he lived in a less enlightened age, tradition and poetry might well have described him as one of those monstrous giants, whose supernatural power was constantly exerted for the destruction of mankind. It is easier to conceive than to describe the universal joy of the Roman world on the fall of the tyrant, the news of which is said to have been carried in four days from Aquileia to Rome. The return of Maximus was a triumphal procession; his colleague and young Gordian went out to meet him, and the three princes made their entry into the capital, attended by the ambassadors of almost all the cities of Italy, saluted with the splendid offerings of gratitude and superstition, and received with the unfeigned acclamations of the remained at Ravenna, and feared Maximin.-WENCK. * Herodian, 1. 8, p. 279. Hist. August. p. 146. The duration of Maximin's reign has not been defined with much accuracy, except by Eutropius, who allows him three years and a few days (1. 9, 1); we may depend on the integrity of the text, as the Latin original is checked by the Greek version of Paanius. [The younger Maximin had been appointed only Cæsar and Princeps Juventutis.-WENCK.] [The gates were certainly not opened. The inhabitants of Aquileia feared to admit a licentious army, composed chiefly of barbarians. But they supplied them plentifully with provisions outside the walls. (Herodian, 1. 8, c. 6.)WENCK.] Eight Roman feet, and one third, which are equal to above eight English feet, as the two measures are to each other in the proportion of nine hundred and sixty-seven to one thousand. See Grave's discourse on the Roman foot. We are told that Maximin could drink in a day an amphora (or about seven gallons of wine), and eat thirty or forty pounds of meat. He could move a loaded waggon, break a horse's leg with his fist, crumble stones in his hand, |