domestics; the convulsions which agitated Rome on the death of the former were confined to the walls of the city. But Nero involved the whole empire in his ruin. In the space of eighteen months, four princes perished by the word; and the Roman world was shaken by the fury of the contending armies. Excepting only this short, though violent, eruption of military licence, the two centuries from Augustus to Commodus passed away unstained with civil blood, and undisturbed by revolutions. The emperor was elected by the authority of the senate, and the consent of the soldiers.t The legions respected their oath of fidelity; and it requires a minute inspection of the Roman annals to discover three inconsiderable rebellions, which were all suppressed in a few months, and without even the hazard of a battle.‡

In elective monarchies, the vacancy of the throne is a

*[Caligula (or more properly Caius, as he is generally called by the ancients, for the other was a mere nick-name, given by the soldiers) perished through a conspiracy among the officers of the prætorian guards, in which his domestics had no share; and Domitian would probably have escaped assassination, had not the act been sanctioned by the two chiefs of that formidable body.-WENCK.] + These words seem to have been the constitutional language. See Tacit. Annal. 13, 4.

The first was Camillus Scribonianus, who took up arms in Dalmatia against Claudius, and was deserted by his own troops in five days. The second, L. Antonius, in Germany, who rebelled against Domitian; and the third, Avidius Cassius, in the reign of M. Antoninus. The two last reigned but a few months, and were cut off by their own adherents. We may observe, that both Camillus and Cassius coloured their ambition with the design of restoring the republic; a task, said Cassius, peculiarly reserved for his name and family. [The soldiers scarcely deserve the praise here too liberally bestowed on them. Claudius was obliged to purchase their consent to his elevation; his donatives, at that time, and on some subsequent occasions, impoverished the treasury. Often, too, were the cruelties of tyrants favoured by these domineering guards, who were conciliated by extravagant gifts and a pernicious relaxation of discipline. Their excesses were, indeed, chiefly confined to the city of Rome; but as that was the seat of government, their influence was widely felt. Revolts in distant parts of the empire were more fre quent than Gibbon has admitted. Under Tiberius the German legions attempted, by seditious force, to make Germanicus assume the imperial purple. When Claudius Civilis rebelled, under Vespasian, the legions of Gaul put their general to death, and offered to support the revolted natives. Julius Sabinus was proclaimed emperor, &c. The wars, in which the troops were employed by Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, the strict discipline enforced by these emperors, and their per sonal merit, restored for a time a greater degree of subordination.-WENCK.]

VOL. I.

H

98

THE RACE OF THE CESARS AND [CH. IIL. moment big with danger and mischief. The Roman em perors, desirous to spare the legions that interval of suspense, and the temptation of an irregular choice, invested their designed successor with so large a share of present power, as should enable him, after their decease, to assume the remainder, without suffering the empire to perceive the change of masters. Thus Augustus, after all his fairer prospects had been snatched from him by untimely deaths, rested his last hopes on Tiberius, obtained for his adopted son the censorial and tribunitian powers, and dictated a law, by which the future prince was invested with an authority equal to his own, over the provinces and the armies.* Thus Vespasian subdued the generous mind of his eldest son. Titus was adored by the eastern legions, which, under his command, had recently achieved the conquest of Judea. His power was dreaded, and, as his virtues were clouded by the intemperance of youth, his designs were suspected. Instead of listening to such unworthy suspicions, the prudent monarch associated Titus to the full powers of the imperial dignity; and the grateful son ever approved himself the humble and faithful minister of so indulgent a father.t

The good sense of Vespasian engaged him, indeed, to embrace every measure that might confirm his recent and precarious elevation. The military oath, and the fidelity of the troops, had been consecrated, by the habits of a hundred years to the name and family of the Cæsars; and although that family had been continued only by the fictitious rite of adoption, the Romans still revered, in the person of Nero, the grandson of Germanicus, and the lineal successor of Augustus. It was not without reluctance and remorse,

* Velleius Paterculus, 1. 2, c. 121. Sueton. in Tiber. c. 20. [Tiberius received the tribunitian, proconsular, and imperial powers; also the censorial, but without the title of censor, which the emperors never bore. The same dignities were bestowed on Titus by Vespasian, and on Trajan by Nerva. The title of imperator was given to none who had not first obtained that of proconsul, therefore was not held by Agrippa, whom Augustus had raised no higher than the tribuneship. These dignities all denote a share in the government, but those who enjoyed them remained subordinate to Augustus. Antoninus afforded the first example of a perfectly co-equal colleague, by giving the title of Augustus to his adopted brother, L. Verus. Compare Pagi Crit. Barou. T. J. ad A. c. 71.-WENCK.] + Sueton

in Tit. c. 6. Plin. in Præfat. Hist. Natur.

M.

that the prætorian guards had been persuaded to abandon the cause of the tyrant.* The rapid downfall of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, taught the armies to consider the emperors as the creatures of their will, and the instruments of their licence. The birth of Vespasian was mean; his grandfather had been a private soldier, his father a petty officer of the revenue,† his own merit had raised him, in an advanced age, to the empire; but his merit was rather useful than shining, and his virtues were disgraced by a strict and even sordid parsimony. Such a prince consulted his true interest by the association of a son, whose more splendid and amiable character might turn the public attention, from the obscure origin, to the future glories of the Flavian house.‡ Under the mild administration of Titus, the Roman world enjoyed a transient felicity, and his beloved memory served to protect, above fifteen years, the vices of his brother Domitian.§

Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins

*This idea is frequently and strongly inculcated by Tacitus. See Hist, i. 5, 16; ii. 76. The emperor Vespasian, with his usual good sense. laughed at the genealogists, who deduced his family from Flavius, the founder of Reate (his native country), and one of the companions of Hercules. Suet. in Vespasian, c. 12. [Vespasian was, no doubt, of humble birth, especially when compared with his subsequent good fortune; yet his parentage was not so despicable as is here represented. His grandfather was not a common soldier, but a centurion, or captain; though it must be admitted, that the Roman leader of a hundred men was not considered to have so respectable a rank as the modern commander of a company in a regiment. His father held a profitable office in the collection of the Asiatic revenue, and the provincials, over whom he was placed, raised statues to commemorate the mildness of his administration. After this he carried on an extensive money-changing business, in the same manner as the knights. His mother was the daughter of a military tribune, and sister of a senator. If, in some cases, like an old man, he carried his frugality too far, it was always with the noblest intentions. He saved, not for himself, but for the commonwealth. No emperor, in so short a period, restored so successfully the sinking state; none adorned it with more splendid public works, or rewarded merit with a more magnanimous liberality. See Tillemont's opinion in his Hist. des Emp. tom. 2, p. 25-27, that, when the exigencies of the state compelled Vespasian to exact to the utmost, his avarice, though it might be less criminal, was nevertheless inexcusable.-WENCK.]

$ [The tyrant found a surer protection in his soldiers. He could only be rendered more hateful by the remembrance of Titus, to whose death he was suspected of having been accessory.- WENCK.]

100

HADRIAN.

[CH. III. of Domitian, before he discovered that his feeble age was unable to stem the torrent of public disorders, which had multiplied under the long tyranny of his predecessor. His mild disposition was respected by the good; but the degenerate Romans required a more vigorous character, whose justice should strike terror into the guilty. Though he had several relations, he fixed his choice on a stranger. He adopted Trajan, then about forty years of age, and who commanded a powerful army in the Lower Germany; and immediately, by a decree of the senate, declared him his colleague and successor in the empire. It is sincerely to be lamented, that whilst we are fatigued with the disgustful relation of Nero's crimes and follies, we are reduced to collect the actions of Trajan from the glimmerings of an abridgment, or the doubtful light of a panegyric. There remains, however, one panegyric far removed beyond the suspicion of flattery. Above two hundred and fifty years after the death of Trajan, the senate, in pouring out the customary acclamations on the accession of a new emperor, wished that he might surpass the felicity of Augustus and the virtue of Trajan.+

We may readily believe, that the father of his country hesitated whether he ought to intrust the various and doubtful character of his kinsman Hadrian with sovereign In his last moments, the arts of the Empress Plotina power. either fixed the irresolution of Trajan, or boldly supposed a fictitious adoption; the truth of which could not be safely disputed, and Hadrian was peaceably acknowledged as his lawful successor. Under his reign, as has been already mentioned, the empire flourished in peace and prosperity, He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted military discipline, and visited all his provinces in person. His vast and active genius was equally suited to the most enlarged views and the minute details of civil policy. But the ruling passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity. As they

+ Felicior

* Dion, 1. 68, p. 1121. Plin. Secund. in Panegyric. Augusto, melior Trajano. Eutrop. 8, 5. Dion (1. 69, p. 1249) affirms the whole to have been a fiction, on the authority of his father, who, being governor of the province where Trajan died, had very good Yet Dodwell opportunities of sifting this mysterious transaction. (Prælect. Camden. 17) has maintained that Hadrian was called to the certain hope of the empire during the lifetime of Trajan.

prevailed, and as they were attracted by different objects, Hadrian was, by turns, an excellent prince, a ridiculous sophist, and a jealous tyrant. The general tenour of his conduct deserved praise for its equity and moderation. Yet in the first days of his reign he put to death four consular senators, his personal enemies, and men who had been judged worthy of empire; and the tediousness of a painful. illness rendered him, at last, peevish and cruel. The senate doubted whether they should pronounce him a god or a tyrant; and the honours decreed to his memory were granted to the prayers of the pious Antoninus.*

The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor. After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished merit, whom he esteemed and hated, he adopted Ælius Verus, a gay and voluptuous nobleman, recommended by uncommon beauty to the lover of Antinous. But whilst Hadrian was delighting himself with his own applause, and the acclamations of the soldiers, whose consent had been secured by an immense donative, the new Cæsart was ravished from his embraces by an untimely death. He left only one son. Hadrian commended the boy to the gratitude of the Antonines. He was adopted by Pius; and, on the accession of Marcus, was invested with an equal share of sovereign power. Among the many vices of this younger Verus, he possessed one virtue; a dutiful reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he willingly abandoned the ruder cares of empire. The philosophic emperor dissembled his follies, lamented his early death, and cast a decent veil over his memory.

As soon as Hadrian's passion was either gratified or disappointed, he resolved to deserve the thanks of posterity, by placing the most exalted merit on the Roman throne. His discerning eye easily discovered a senator about fifty years of age, blameless in all the offices of life; and a youth of about seventeen, whose riper years opened a fair prospect

Yet we

Dion, 1. 70, p. 1174. Aurel. Victor. The deification of Antinous, his medals, statues, temples, city, oracles, and constellation, are well known, and still dishonour the memory of Hadrian. may remark, that of the first fifteen emperors, Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely correct. For the honours of Antinous, see Spanheim, Commentaire sur les Cæsars de Julien, p. 80. Hist. August. p. 13. Aurelius Victor in Epitom.