CHAP. XII. Conduct of the army and senate after the death of Aurelian.-Reigns of Tacitus, Probus, Carus, and his sons. XII. nary con tween the the senate an empe SUCH was the unhappy condition of the Ro- CHAP. man emperors, that whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the same. A Extraordi life of pleasure or virtue, of severity or mild- test be ness, of indolence or glory, alike led to an un- army and timely grave; and almost every reign is closed for the by the same disgusting repetition of treason and choice of murder. The death of Aurelian, however, is ror. emarkable by its extraordinary consequences. The legions admired, lamented, and revenged, their victorious chief. The artifice of his perfidious secretary was discovered and punished. The deluded conspirators attended the funeral of their injured sovereign, with sincere or wellfeigned contrition, and submitted to the unanimous resolution of the military order, which was signified by the following epistle: "The "brave and fortunate armies to the senate and people of Rome. The crime of one man, and "the error of many, have deprived us of the "late emperor Aurelian. May it please you, " venerable lords and fathers! to place him in "the number of the gods, and to appoint a suc"cessor whom your judgment shall declare worthy of the imperial purple! None of those "whose guilt or misfortune have contributed XII. CHAP. to our loss, shall ever reign over us.' The Roman senators heard, without surprise, that another emperor had been assassinated in his camp; they secretly rejoiced in the fall of Aurelian; but the modest and dutiful address of the legions, when it was communicated in full assembly, by the consul, diffused the most pleasing astonishment. Such honours as fear and perhaps esteem could extort, they liberally poured forth on the memory of their deceased sovereign. Such acknowledgements as gratitude could inspire, they returned to the faithful armies of the republic, who entertained so just a sense of the legal authority of the senate in the choice of an emperor. Yet, notwithstanding this flattering appeal, the most prudent of the assembly declined exposing their safety and dignity to the caprice of an armed multitude. The strength of the legions was, indeed, a pledge of their sincerity, since those who may command are seldom reduced to the necessity of dissembling; but could it naturally be expected, that a hasty repentance would correct the inveterate habits of fourscore years? Should the soldiers relapse into their accustomed seditions, their insolence might disgrace the majesty of the senate, and prove fatal to the object of its choice. Motives like these dictated a decree, by which the election of a new emperor was referred to the suffrage of the military order. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 222. Aurelius Victor mentions a formal deputation from the troops to the senate. XII. Feb. 3. interreg num of months. The contention that ensued is one of the best CHAP. attested, but most improbable, events in the history of mankind. The troops, as if satiated A. D, 275, with the exercise of power, again conjured the A peaceful senate to invest one of its own body with the imperial purple. The senate still persisted in eight its refusal; the army in its request. The reciprocal offer was pressed and rejected at least three times, and whilst the obstinate modesty of either party was resolved to receive a master from the hands of the other, eight months insensibly elapsed: an amazing period of tranquil anarchy, during which the Roman world remained without a sovereign, without an usurper, and without a sedition. The generals and magistrates appointed by Aurelian continued to execute their ordinary functions; and it is observed, that a proconsul of Asia was the only considerable person removed from his office, in the whole course of the interregnum. An event somewhat similar, but much less authentic, is supposed to have happened after the death of Romulus, who, in his life and character, bore some affinity with Aurelian. The throne was vacant during twelve months till the election of a Sabine philosopher; and the public peace was guarded in the same manner, by the union of the several orders of the state. But, Vopiscus, our principal authority, wrote at Rome, sixteen years only after the death of Aurelian; and, besides the recent notority of the facts, constantly draws his materials from the Journals of the senate, and the original papers of the Ulpian library. Zosimus and Zonaras appear as ignorant of this transaction as they were in general of the Roman constitution. XII. CHAP in the time of Numa and Romulus, the arms of the people were controlled by the authority of the patricians; and the balance of freedom was easily preserved in a small and virtuous community. The decline of the Roman state, far different from its infancy, was attended with every circumstance that could banish from an interregnum the prospect of obedience and harmony: an immense and tumultuous capital, a wide extent of empire, the servile equality of despotism, an ariny of four hundred thousand mercenaries, and the experience of frequent revolutions. Yet, notwithstanding all these temptations, the discipline and memory of Aurelian still restrained the seditious temper of the troops, as well as the fatal ambition of their leaders. The flower of the legions maintained their stations on the banks of the Bosphorus, and the imperial standard awed the less powerful camps of Rome and of the provinces. A generous though transient enthusiasm seemed to animate the military order; and we may hope that a few real patriots cultivated the returning friendship of the army and the senate, as the only expedient capable of restoring the public to its ancient beauty and vigour. A. D. 273, Sep. 25. On the twenty-fifth of September, near eight The consul months after the murder of Aurelian, the consul assembles the senate. convoked an assembly of the senate, and re Liv. i, 17. Dionys. Halicarn. l. ii, p. 115. Plutarch in Numia, p. 60. The first of these writers relates the story like an orator, the second like a lawyer, and the third like a moralist, and none of the probably without some intermixture of fable. XII. ported the doubtful and dangerous situation of CHAP. the empire. He slightly insinuated, that the precarious loyalty of the soldiers depended on the chance of every hour, and of every accident; but he represented, with the most convincing eloquence, the various dangers that might attend any farther delay in the choice of an emperor. Intelligence, he said, was already received that the Germans had passed the Rhine, and occupied some of the strongest and most opulent cities of Gaul. The ambition of the Persian king kept the East in perpetual alarms; Egypt, Africa, and Illyricum, were exposed to foreign and domestic arms; and the levity of Syria would prefer even a female sceptre to the sanctity of the Roman laws. The consul then addressing himself to Tacitus, the first of the senators, required his opinion on the important subject of a proper candidate for the vacant throne. If we can prefer personal merit to accidental Character greatness, we shall esteem the birth of Tacitus of Tacitus more truly noble than that of kings. He claimed his descent from the philosophic historian whose writings will instruct the last generations of mankind. The senator Tacitus was then seventy d Vopiscus (in Hist. August. p. 227) calls him 'primæ sententiæ consularis; and soon afterwards princeps senatus. It is natural to suppose, that the monarchs of Rome, disdaining that humble title, resigned it to the most ancient of the senators. The only objection to this genealogy is, that the historian was named Cornelius, the emperor, Claudius. But under the lower enpire, surnames were extremely varions and uncertain. |