CHAP. IV. Indulgence of Marcus, to his wife Fauftina; CHA P. IV. The cruelty, follies, and murder of Commodus.-Election of Pertinax-bis attempts to reform the State-bis affaffination by the Prætorian Guards. HE mildness of Marcus, which the rigid difcipline of the Stoics was unable to eradicate, formed, at the fame time, the most amiable, and the only defective, part of his character. His excellent understanding was often deceived by the unsuspecting goodness of his heart. Artful men, who study the paffions of princes, and conceal their own, approached his perfon in the difguife of philosophic fanctity, and acquired riches and honours by affecting to despise them'. His exceffive indulgence to his brother, his wife, and his fon, exceeded the bounds of private virtue, and became a public injury, by the example and confequences of their vices. Fauftina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been as much celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The grave fimplicity of the philofopher was ill-calculated to engage her wanton levity, or to fix that unbounded paffion for variety, which often discovered perfonal merit in the meanest of mankind. The Cupid of the ancients was, in general, a very sensual deity; and the amours of an emprefs, as they exact on her fide the plainest advances, are feldom fufceptible of much fentimental delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire who feemed ignorant or infenfible of the irregularities of Fauftina; which, according to the prejudices of every age, reflected fome difgrace on the injured husband. He promoted several of her lovers to pofts of honour and profit', and during a connexion of thirty years, invariably gave her proofs of the most tender confidence, and of a respect which ended not with her life. In his Meditations, he thanks the gods, who had bestowed on him a wife, fo faithful, fo gentle, and of fuch a wonderful fimplicity of manners. The obfequious fenate, at his earnest request, declared her a goddess. She was represented in her temples, with the attributes of Juno, Venus, and Ceres ;; and it was decreed, that, on the day of their nuptials, the youth of either fex fhould pay their vows before the altar of their chafte patronefs'. CHAP. IV. Commodus. The monftrous vices of the fon have caft a fhade on the purity to his fon of the father's virtues. It has been objected to Marcus, that he facrificed the happinefs of millions to a fond partiality for a worthlefs boy; and that he chofe a fucceffor in his own family, rather than in the republic. Nothing, however, was neglected by the anxious father, and by the men of virtue and learning whom he fummoned to his affiftance, to expand the narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to render him worthy of the throne, for which he was defigned. But the power of inftruction is feldom of much efficacy, except in those happy difpofitions where it is almost fuperfluous. The diftafteful leffon of a grave philosopher was, in a moment, obliterated by the whisper of a profligate favourite; and Marcus himself blafted the fruits of this 3 Hift. Auguft. p. 34. Meditat. I. i. The world has laughed at the credulity of Marcus; but Madam Dacier aflures us (and we may credit a lady), that the husband will always be deceived, if the wife condefcends to diffemble. 5 Dion Caffius, 1. lxxi. p. 1195. Hift. Auguft. p. 33. Commentaire de Spanheim: fur les Cæfars de Julien, p. 289. The deification of Fauftina is the only defect which Julian's criticism is able to difcover in the allaccomplished character of Marcus. laboured ་ IV. CHA P. laboured education, by admitting his fon, at the age of fourteen or fifteen, to a full participation of the Imperial power. He lived but four years afterwards; but he lived long enough to repent a rafh measure, which raised the impetuous youth above the reftraint. of reafon and authority. Acceffion of the emperor Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of fociety, are Commodus. produced by the restraints which the neceffary, but unequal laws. of property, have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few the poffeffion of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our paffions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unfociable nature, fince the pride of one man requires the fubmiffion of the multitude. In the tumult of civil difcord, the laws of fociety lofe their force, and their place is feldom fup-, plied by thofe of humanity. The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the defpair of fuccefs, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to filence the voice of pity. From fuch motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood; but these motives will not account for the unprovoked cruelties of Commodus, who had A. D. 180. nothing to wish, and every thing to enjoy. The beloved fon of Marcus fucceeded to his father, amidst the acclamations of the fenate and armies, and when he afcended the throne, the happy youth faw round him neither competitor to remove, nor enemies to punish. In this calm elevated ftation, it was furely natural, that he fhould prefer the love of mankind to their deteftation, the mild glories of his five predeceffors, to the ignominious fate of Nero, and Domitian. Character of Yet Commodus was not, as he has been reprefented, a tiger born with an infatiate thirft of human blood, and capable, from his • Commodus was the first Porphyrogenetus (born fince his father's acceffion to the throne). By a new ftrain of flattery, the Egyptian me dals date by the years of his life; as if they were fynonymous to thofe of his reign. Tillemont, Hift. des Empereurs, tom. ii. p. 752. infancy, IV. infancy, of the most inhuman actions'. Nature had formed him CHAP. of a weak, rather than a wicked difpofition. His fimplicity and timidity rendered him the slave of his attendants, who gradually`corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which at firft obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at length became the ruling paffion of his foul ". Rome. Upon the death of his father, Commodus found himself embar- He returns to raffed with the command of a great army, and the conduct of a difficult war against the Quadi and Marcomanni'. The fervile and profligate youths whom Marcus had banished, foon regained their ftation and influence about the new emperor. They exaggerated the hardships and dangers of a campaign in the wild countries beyond the Danube; and they affured the indolent prince, that the terror of his name and the arms of his lieutenants would be fufficient to complete the conqueft of the difmayed barbarians; or to impofe fuch conditions, as were more advantageous than any conqueft. By a dextrous application to his fenfual appetites, they compared the tranquillity, the splendour, the refined pleafures of Rome, with the tumult of a Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leifure nor materials for luxury ". Commodus liftened to the pleafing advice; but whilst he hesitated between his own inclination, and the awe which he still retained for his father's counsellors, the fummer infenfibly elapfed, and his triumphal entry into the capital was deferred till the autumn. His graceful perfon ", popular address, and imagined virtues, attracted the public favour; the honourable peace which he had recently granted to the barbarians, diffused an uni IV. CHA P. verfal joy"; his impatience to revifit Rome was fondly afcribed to the love of his country; and his diffolute courfe of amufements was faintly condemned in a prince of nineteen years of age. Is wounded by an affaffin. A. D. 183. During the three firft years of his reign, the forms, and even the fpirit of the old adminiftration were maintained by thofe faithful counfellors, to whom Marcus had recommended his fon, and for whose wisdom and integrity Commodus ftill entertained a reluctant esteem. The young prince and his profligate favourites revelled in all the licence of fovereign power; but his hands were yet unftained with blood; and he had even difplayed a generosity of fentiment, which might perhaps have ripened into folid virtue ". A fatal incident decided his fluctuating character. 13 One evening as the emperor was returning to the palace through a dark and narrow portico in the amphitheatre", an affaffin, who waited his paffage, rushed upon him with a drawn fword, loudly exclaiming, "The fenate fends you this." The menace prevented the deed; the affaffin was feized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors of the confpiracy. It had been formed, not in the state, but within the walls of the palace. Lucilla, the emperor's fifter, and widow of Lucius Verus, impatient of the fecond rank, and jealous of the reigning emprefs, had armed the murderer against her brother's life. She had not ventured to communicate the black design to her second husband Claudius Pompeianus, a fenator of distinguished merit and unfhaken loyalty; but among the crowd of her lovers (for the imitated the manners of Fauftina) fhe found men of defperate fortunes and wild ambition, who were prepared to ferve her more violent, as well as her tender paffions. 12 This univerfal joy is well defcribed (from the medals as well as hiftorians) by Mr. Wotton, Hift. of Rome, p. 192, 193, 13 Manilius, the confidential fecretary of Avidue Caffius,, was difcovered after he had lain concealed feveral years. The emperor nobly relieved the public anxiety by refufing to fee him, and burning his papers without opening them. Dion Caffius, 1. lxxii. p. 1209.. 14 See Maffei degli Amphitheatri, p. 126. The |