a farm the territory of an old republic, it is not improbable, that this private injury might affect the capital more deeply than all the conquests of the Goths or the Persians.

Tumults of

dria.

II. The foundation of Alexandria was a noble Alexan- design, at once conceived and executed by the son of Philip. The beautiful and regular form of that great city, second only to Rome itself, comprehended a circumference of fifteen miles; it was peopled by three hundred thousand free inhabitants, besides at least an equal number of slaves. The lucrative trade of Arabia and India flowed through the port of Alexandria to the capital and provinces of the empire. Idleness was unknown. Some were employed in blowing of glass, others in weaving of linen, others again manufacturing the papyrus. Either sex, and every age, was engaged in the pursuits of industry; nor did even the blind or the lame want occupations suited to their condition.' But the people of Alexandria, a various mixture of nations, united the vanity and inconstancy of the Greeks, with the superstition and obstinacy of the Egyptians. The most trifling occasion, a transient scarcity of flesh or lentils, the neglect of an accustomed salutation, a mistake of precedency in the public baths, or even a religious dispute,TM were at any time sufficient to kindle a sedition among that vast multitude, whose resentments were furious and implacable." After the captivity of Valerian and the insolence of his son had relaxed the authority of the laws, the Alexandrians abandoned themselves to the ungoverned rage of their passions, and their unhappy country was the theatre of a civil war, which continued (with a few short and suspicious truces) above twelve years. All intercourse was cut off between the i Plin. Hist. Natur. 5. 10. k Diodor. Sicul. lib. 17. p. 590. Edit. Wesseling. I See a very curious letter of Hadrian in the Augustan History, p. 245. See Diodor. Sicul. lib. 1.

m Such as the sacrilegious murder of a divine cat. n Hist. August. p. 195. This long and terrible sedition was first occasioned by a dispute between a soldier and a townsman about a pair of shoes.

Dionysius apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vol. 7. p. 21.

Ammian, 22. 16.

several quarters of the afflicted city, every street was polluted with blood, every building of strength converted into a citadel; nor did the tumults subside, till a considerable part of Alexandria was irretrievably ruined. The spacious and magnificent district of Bruchion, with its palaces and museum, the residence of the kings and philosophers, is described above a century afterward, as already reduced to its present state of dreary solitude.P

Rebellion of the

III. The obscure rebellion of Trebellianus, who assumed the purple in Isauria, a petty proIsaurians. vince of Asia Minor, was attended with strange and memorable consequences. The pageant of royalty was soon destroyed by an officer of Gallienus;, but his followers, despairing of mercy, resolved to shake off their allegiance, not only to the emperor, but to the empire, and suddenly returned to the savage manners, from which they had never perfectly been reclaimed. Their craggy rocks, a branch of the wide-extended Taurus, protected their inaccessible retreat. The tillage of some fertile valleys' supplied them with necessaries, and a habit of rapine with the luxuries of life. In the heart of the Roman monarchy, the Isaurians long continued a nation of wild barbarians. Succeeding princes, unable to reduce them to obedience either by arms or policy, were compelled to acknowledge their weakness, by surrounding the hostile and independent spot, with a strong chain of fortifications," which often proved insufficient to restrain the incursions of these domestic foes. The Isaurians, gradually extending their territory to the sea-coast, subdued the western and mountainous part of Cilicia, formerly the nest of those daring pirates, against whom the republic had once been obliged to exert its utmost force, under the conduct of the great Pompey.

P Scaliger, Animadver. ad. Euseb. Chron. p. 258. Three dissertations of M. Bonamay, in the Mem. de l'Academie, tom. 9.

Strabo, lib. 13. p. 569.

r Hist. August. p. 197.

* See Cellarius, Geogr. Antiq. tom. 2. p. 137. upon the limits of Isauria.

Famine

Our habits of thinking so fondly connect the and pesti- order of the universe with the fate of man, that lence. this gloomy period of history has been decorated with inundations, earthquakes, uncommon meteors, preternatural darkness, and a crowd of prodigies, fictitious, or exaggerated. But a long and general famine was a calamity of a more serious kind. It was the inevitable consequence of rapine and oppression, which extirpated the produce of the present, and the hope of future harvests. Famine is almost always followed by epidemical diseases, the effect of scanty and unwholesome food. Other causes must, however, have contributed to the furious plague, which, from the year 250 to the year 265, raged without interruption in every province, every city, and almost every family, of the Roman empire. During some time. five thousand persons died daily in Rome; and many towns, that had escaped the hands of the barbarians, were entirely depopulated."

Diminu

human

We have the knowledge of a very curious cirtion of the cumstance, of some use perhaps in the melanspecies. choly calculation of human calamities. An exact register was kept at Alexandria of all the citizens entitled to receive the distribution of corn. It was found, that the ancient number of those comprised between the ages of forty and seventy, had been equal to the whole sum of claimants, from fourteen to fourscore years of age, who remained alive after the reign of Gallienus.* Applying this authentic fact to the most correct tables of mortality, it evidently proves, that above half the people of Alexandria had perished; and could we venture to extend the analogy to the other provinces, we might suspect, that war, pestilence, and famine, had consumed, in a few years, the moiety of the human species."

t Hist. August. p. 177.

Hist. August. p. 177. Zosimus, lib. 1. p. 24. Zonaras, lib. 12. p. 623. Euseb. Chronicon. Victor in Epitom. Victor in Cæsar. Eutropius, 9. 5. Orosius, 7. 21. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 7. 21. The fact is taken from the Letters of Dionysius, who, in the time of those troubles, was bishop of Alexandria.

y In a great number of parishes eleven thousand persons were found between

CHAP. XI.

Reign of Claudius-Defeat of the Goths-Victories, triumph, and death, of Aurelian.

UNDER the deplorable reigns of Valerian and Gallienus. the empire was oppressed and almost destroyed by the soldiers, the tyrants, and the barbarians. It was saved by a series of great princes, who derived their obscure origin from the martial provinces of Illyricum. Within a period of about thirty years, Claudius, Aurelian, Probus, Dioclesian and his colleagues, triumphed over the foreign and domestic enemies of the state, re-established with the military discipline, the strength of the frontiers, and deserved the glorious title of restorers of the Roman world.

Aureolus

and be

Milan.

The removal of an effeminate tyrant made way invades for a succession of heroes. The indignation of Italy; is defeated the people imputed all their calamities to Galsieged at lienus, and the far greater part were, indeed, the consequence of his dissolute manners and careless administration. He was even destitute of a sense of honour, which so frequently supplies the absence of public virtue; and as long as he was permitted to enjoy the possession of Italy, a victory of the barbarians, the loss of a province, or the rebellion of a general, seldom disturbed the tranquil course of his pleasures. At length, a considerable army, stationed on the Upper Danube, invested with the imperial purple their leader Aureolus; who, disdaining a confined and barren reign over the mountains of Rhætia, passed the Alps, occupied Milan, threatened Rome, and challenged Gallienus to dispute in the field the sovereignty of Italy. The emperor, provoked by the insult, and alarmed by

A.D. 268.

fourteen and eighty: five thousand three hundred and sixty-five between forty and seventy. See Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, tom. 2. p. 590.

the instant danger, suddenly exerted that latent vigour, which sometimes broke through the indolence of his temper. Forcing himself from the luxury of the palace, he appeared in arms at the head of his legions, and advanced beyond the Po to encounter his competitor. The corrupted name of Pontirolo" still preserves the memory of a bridge over the Adda, which, during the action, must have proved an object of the utmost importance to both armies. The Rhætian usurper, after receiving a total defeat and a dangerous wound, retired into Milan. The siege of that great city was immediately formed; the walls were battered with every engine in use among the ancients; and Aureolus, doubtful of his internal strength, and hopeless of foreign succours, already anticipated the fatal consequences of unsuccessful rebellion.

His last resource was an attempt to seduce the loyalty of the besiegers. He scattered libels through their camp, inviting the troops to desert an unworthy master, who sacrificed the public happiness to his luxury, and the lives of his most valuable subjects to the slightest suspicions. The arts of Aureolus diffused fears and discontent among the principal officers of his rival. A conspiracy was formed by Heraclianus, the prætorian prefect, by Marcian, a general of rank and reputation, and by Cecrops, who commanded a numerous body of Dalmatian guards. The death of Gallienus was resolved; and, notwithstanding their desire of first terminating the siege of Milan, the extreme danger which accompanied every moment's delay, obliged them to hasten the execution of their daring purpose. At a late hour of the night, but while the emperor still protracted the pleasures of the table, an alarm was suddenly given, that Aureolus at the head of all his forces, had made a desperate sally from the town: Gallienus, who was never deficient in personal

a Pons Aureoli, thirteen miles from Bergamo, and thirty-two from Milan. See Cluver. Italia Antiq. tom. 1. p. 245. Near this place, in the year 1703, the obstinate battle of Cassano was fought between the French and Austrians. The excellent relation of the chevalier de Folard, who was present, gives a very distinct idea of the ground. See Polybe de Folard, tom. 3. p. 223–248.