Part 24

What rendered M. Aurelius’ reign most unfortunate, besides the plague, which had been occasioned by the Parthian war, was the war with the German nations. Since the days of Augustus, the Germans on the borders only had made inroads against the Romans, whose frontier reached beyond the whole of the country south of the Maine, even as far as the Spessart: Franconia, Swabia, and the Palatinate on the other side,[50] were Roman; and the Romans went from Frankfort to Ratisbon on highways which they themselves had laid down. The old inhabitants of these southern countries were either wholly Gauls, or at least outnumbered by Gallic settlers: the population, however, was but scanty. At the time when Tacitus wrote, there was evidently a peace, and even much intercourse with some of the tribes, as for instance, with the Hermunduri: during the whole of the first century, only the Sigambri and the Bructeri had taken a share in the risings of the nations on this side of the Rhine, and that was in the reign of Vespasian. This may have still been the case under Hadrian, who already gave yearly subsidies to the peoples there. When Pius was on the throne, a war against the Chatti is spoken of, which on the side of the Romans was a defensive one. It was evidently the advance of the Sclavonic nations from the East, which set the Germans in motion: in the reign of Marcus, they had broken up everywhere; and while they were flying from the enemy, they threw themselves on the Romans. Then did the Marcomanni come forth most gallantly, though indeed it was for the last time: they were at length either annihilated, or they were changed into tribes of a different name. The Marcomanni, Quadi, Chatti, and a number of other peoples, together with the Sarmatians, who were strangers and otherwise hostile to them, for the first time, broke through the Roman frontier from Dacia to Gaul, and cut their way to Rhætia and Aquileia. Xiphilinus throws little or no light on this: with the help of coins alone, which from the time of Hadrian are a very good guide, something may be made out; but even then there is great uncertainty. It is clear that the war against the Marcomanni had two different epochs, which were interrupted by a truce or a peace, in which the places taken were given up: the second war broke out in the last years of Marcus. On the magnificent bas reliefs of the monumental column erected to M. Aurelius, which, however, is very much damaged, there are many representations which tell favourably for the Romans; as for instance, barbarous princes who made their submission to him. One cannot believe that this was invented to flatter him, as he never would have tolerated anything of the kind. There is no doubt but that the war during the last years turned out a victorious one for the Romans; yet it was full of immense difficulties for them. If Marcus had lived longer, he would certainly have made Marcomannia and Sarmatia a province.

The progress of this war was interrupted by the rebellion of Avidius Cassius. This Avidius Cassius is a remarkable man; yet we are so much in the dark as to these times, that we do not even know his descent. According to some, he was a native of Cyprus or Syria; but it is more generally thought that he was sprung from the _gens Cassia_, either in the male line, or through a woman of that house who had married into his father’s family: the latter case was possible, even if he was a native of the East. It is, however, somewhat unlikely that an Asiatic should have had the chief command of an army. So long as the Latin language was spoken, it mattered not from what country a man came, whether he was a Spaniard, an African, or a Roman; but it was otherwise with the peoples of the East, who spoke Greek: that these should have risen to the highest offices, is not to be believed. Cassius was distinguished as a commander. The discipline of the Roman army had long fallen off, and the legions seem at that time to have been recruited from the military colonies and from the _limes_: this was owing to the long peace under Hadrian, and to the unwarlike rule of the pious Antonine. It was

## particularly in the East, that the legions had degenerated. They

remained stationary in the same place; and being constantly recruited, whilst the veterans of course were discharged, they became a sort of resident janissaries in the border countries. This was quite a senseless arrangement, and one cannot understand how Trajan could have tolerated such a thing. They should have been kept in camps; but they were most of them quartered in the towns, as at Antioch, and elsewhere. Syria is an exceedingly fine and lovely country, and there they became thoroughly demoralized. Yet among these very legions, Cassius had at this time restored discipline; and he had led them to victory in a war against the Parthians who had made a most successful attack: these last, though they likewise had degenerated, had still an excellent cavalry. The proconsuls in the senatorial provinces were changed; but the _legati pro Prætore_ in the imperial ones very often remained the whole of their lives in the same province: thus also Cassius remained here a very long time, and was highly popular throughout the East, even as far as Egypt. He was yet perhaps more so with the people than with the army, in which, though the best men were proud of him as a distinguished commander, he practised a Cassian _severitas_. By part of his army, and by the population, he was proclaimed emperor, as a report is said to have got abroad that M. Aurelius was dead. It was a misfortune for the empire that this report was not true; for Cassius was perfectly equal to the management of affairs, and the empire would thus have been spared the shameful reign of Commodus. That Cassius should have dreamt of restoring the republic,[51] is not to be believed of so able a general; but he meant to govern the empire according to the principles of his predecessors. Thirty days[52] had not passed, before Cassius was murdered by a centurion, the tidings having come in the meanwhile that Marcus was still alive: this murder plainly proves that part of the army disliked the strictness of the general. The provinces unwillingly returned to their obedience. That Faustina had a share in the rebellion of Cassius, as a biographer wants to make us believe, has been most convincingly disproved by others. The letters of Faustina and Marcus are very interesting; but one is already shocked at their Latinity: several obsolete forms are met with over and over again; as for instance, _rebellio_ instead of _rebellis_, like the old _perduellio_ instead of _perduellis_. There are, however, no historical sources more wretched than the _Scriptores Historiæ Augustæ_. They are without any exception altogether silly; and they put together the most glaringly impossible things, without being at all startled by it. To separate the several _Vitæ_ from one another, is quite impossible.

M. Aurelius went to the East to set all right again. He forbore to punish the rebellious provinces, although, the senate was very ready to do so. His mildness was even shown towards the son of Cassius, whom he wished to save, but who was murdered without his knowledge: the other children he actually saved; and he would not allow their estates to be confiscated. There are some remarkable letters of Cassius in which he expressed his discontent at the rule of Marcus, whom he calls _dialogista_. We cannot wonder at this: it is quite possible, that a practical man of sterling ability, like Cassius, should have found that Marcus, notwithstanding his private virtues, was not fit for his dignity; for although the latter most conscientiously devoted himself to public business, he had no heart for ruling, and was always much more inclined towards other pursuits. There is another passage in his letters worthy of attention, in which it is said, that Marcus was a noble-hearted man, but that he was not able to judge of those about him; so that any one who gave himself out to be a philosopher, would get hold of him, and try under this disguise to serve his own ends. Just so was Julian likewise taken in by any one who called himself a philosopher; and so has been many a prince in our own times by the Tartuffes.

Some additional light is now thrown on the state of things under M. Aurelius by the fragments of Fronto. These letters, however trifling their literary value may be, are of very high historical importance. The weakness of Marcus for many people, and above all for Faustina, shows that he carried several of his virtues even to excess, more especially his virtues as a husband and a father. Fronto lets himself be used as a tool by Faustina to set aside the will of an old aunt, the younger Matidia, because she had not left in it anything to the empress. Marcus answers him in a remarkable note, in which he thanks him. We do not know how the matter ended; but there can be no doubt that he really set aside the will. This weakness must also have been displayed towards many other persons besides Faustina.

In short, the condition of the empire at home was not good, and the disasters abroad were great: the plague must have remained in Italy and in the West; Africa it did not visit, as may be seen from the writings of Tertullian. It is the same plague as that which is met with again under Commodus; nor are there any grounds for doubting the statement of Dio, who was a Roman senator, that two thousand men were buried every day at Rome. The population had in some measure recovered its losses since the times of Augustus, under whom it had very much dwindled, but there was now again as awful a destruction of life.

The virtues of Marcus have certainly done much harm: even his great favour and indulgence towards the senate had many evil consequences; for the senate was bad. The Emperor died on the Marcomannian frontier in his camp, March A. D. 180, after a reign of nineteen years, his son Commodus being at that time nineteen years old. The only reproach ever made against him, was that in his reign the exclusiveness of a court began to show itself: the former emperors, down to Antoninus Pius, had still looked upon themselves as being only as it were the first magistrates of the state. This did not certainly come from one like him, who valued men according to their intrinsic worth, but from the overbearing Faustina.

There were yet several excellent generals in the army, such as Pescennius Niger in the East, and L. Septimius Severus on the Illyrian frontier: in the administration, Helvius Pertinax was distinguished, who afterwards became emperor. Claudius Severus also seems to have still been alive; an excellent man he was, if we may judge from what is told us by Marcus, on whom we may rely in this instance, although he was elsewhere mistaken. There still was much intellectual life and refinement lingering in the world, especially in the East: in Italy it was waning fast. Gellius wrote in the reign of M. Aurelius, and indeed only after the death of Fronto, which was brought on by the plague somewhat about the year 169: (it is decidedly wrong to give it an earlier date.) This book shows the grammatical and rhetorical tendency which then prevailed: we see in a remarkable manner how the existing institutions had no influence whatever on him.

COMMODUS. PERTINAX. DIDIUS JULIANUS. SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS.

Had not Marcus been so weak, he would hardly have allowed Commodus to become his successor: he must have seen how coarse and void of all virtue the youth was, and he should have come to the resolution of adopting one of his leading generals. The idea of the empire’s being an heir-loom, was scarcely yet a settled one; but Marcus established it.

Commodus was a handsome and active young man, of great strength and nimbleness of body; and thus he was led to choose the roughest amusements, as archery, fencing, and such like. At first, he checked himself, and matters went on smoothly enough in the track of his father; but he soon followed his own nature. It was not long before he gave up the government to the prefect M. Perennis, who ruled in the most oppressive manner, quite in the Asiatic style. This ended in a sedition, and Commodus sacrificed his minister and favourite to the mutineers. Soon afterwards, he was attacked by an assassin, whom his sister Lucilla is said to have employed against him, but who told him that he had been set on by the senate; whereupon Commodus began to wreak his vengeance on that body. His means of ingratiating himself had been his profuse liberality, especially to the _plebs urbana_ and the soldiers: this, as we see from the coins, was very often repeated, and thus the treasures of the empire were completely drained. At the death of Pius, there were 2,700 million of sesterces (135,000,000 dollars of our [Prussian] money) in the treasury; but this had been spent in the wars of Marcus, who had even sold the valuable things in his palace, so that he should not be obliged to lay on new taxes. Commodus now also began to shed blood, that he might have more money to throw away. His reign is detestable, and it is impossible to dwell on it. After Perennis was sacrificed, our interest is excited by the similar fate of Cleander, a freedman: it does not, however, seem quite credible, that he was _præfectus prætorio_. The cavalry of the prætorians and the _cohortes urbanæ_ had now already begun to have brawls with each other; which proves in what a distracted state things then were. The city cohorts, which took the part of the town against the prætorians, had the best of it; and Commodus would have been murdered at Lanuvium,[53] whither he had retired on account of the plague, had not his sister Fadilla and his concubine Marcia, pointed out to him the danger in which he was. He only escaped by sacrificing Cleander.

His tastes were now no longer confined to the sports of the chase; but it was the pride of his later years to come forth as a gladiator, and he called himself Hercules. His head which he put on the colossal statue of the god of the Sun, is undoubtedly still preserved, and it is very beautiful. His mad decrees are the dreams of a tyrant. When he wanted, on the Calends of January, to march at the head of the gladiators from the _ludus gladiatorius_ to the Capitol, and thus take possession of the consulship without auspices; he was led in his wrath to proscribe Lætus and Marcia, who had most strongly urged him not to do so. This, however, was betrayed to them by a dwarf; on which Marcia gave Commodus a cup of poison, and she also sent a strong wrestler to strangle him. The senate and people now vented their hatred by cursing and reviling his memory; but the prætorians grumbled, as they were fond of him for his weakness. It was spread abroad that he had died of apoplexy.

The _præfectus prætorio_ Lætus now proclaimed old Pertinax, who was already upwards of sixty, emperor. A worthier man than he, could not have been chosen: he had distinguished himself as a brave, although not precisely as a great general; but it was especially for his administrative talent and his sterling character, that he was known and respected. He had Marcus’ virtues without his faults, and he would therefore in time have even excelled him as a ruler; for with all his heart and soul he threw himself into the business of the state. The people rejoiced at his election: but only part of the senators did, as he was not of noble race; and the soldiers tolerated him indeed, but they did not like him. On the first of January 193, he entered upon the government; before the end of March in the same year, he was already murdered.

After his death, as the story goes, the prætorians put up the empire to the highest bidder. This is most likely a gross exaggeration. It was a generally received custom for every new ruler to give the prætorians a _donativum_; and as Sulpician and Didius Julianus were trying at the same time to get the sovereignty, it is quite natural that the largeness of the donation turned the scales. Sulpician who was in the camp, promised twenty thousand sesterces for every prætorian; but Julianus, who was at the gates of the city, offered twenty-five thousand. The prætorians opened the gates to the latter, and acknowledged him as emperor. Julianus here appears still more contemptible than he really was, as he had quite as good prospects of ascending the throne as any one else, and he was really innocent of the death of Commodus. He had not been a bad governor of a province, and there is on the whole, not much against his personal character: he was a very rich, but at the same time, a very vain man, and he had, as a governor, distinguished himself in his campaign against Dalmatia. It was not with his own treasures, that he bought the empire; but with those of the state: yet the fierce ill-will which he thus aroused against himself, was owing to his having so openly applied to the prætorians, thereby letting them know the secret of their power, and the fact that they were masters of the government. As Dio here is mutilated, and Herodian was a foreigner, and a frivolous writer; most of the circumstances are to be gleaned from the _Scriptores Historiæ Augustæ_, who, however, are wretched beyond all conception. They contain, notwithstanding, many a detail which even Gibbon has overlooked.

Even before this, Clodius Albinus, who commanded in Britain, had been on bad terms with Commodus. The offer which the latter had once made him of taking the title of Cæsar, in case any accident should happen to himself, he had declined; and, on the other hand, he seems, even before the death of the tyrant, to have shielded himself by means of his army against any of his attempts. As for Pertinax, he had neither acknowledged nor rejected him. After the death of Pertinax, the British and Gallic legions proclaimed Albinus; the German and Pannonian ones, Septimius Severus; and those of the East, Pescennius Niger. The senate, on the whole, was for Albinus; the people, and some of the senators, for Pescennius Niger; whilst Severus had in Rome a comparatively small number of partisans, and Julianus had every one against him: the senate could not abide him, because he had made himself dependent on the prætorians. Pescennius could not advance, as Severus was blocking up his way. The latter acted with indefatigable energy: three months after the death of Pertinax, he was at Terni. No one raised his hand to uphold Julianus, and the prætorians themselves scarcely made an attempt to defend their own creature: for they were now as cowardly and mutinous as the Janissaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries down to the time of their destruction. The senate swore fealty to Severus, who entered Rome with his army: the populace was panic-struck; Julianus was put to death; and the prætorians were disarmed, and disbanded in disgrace. Upon this, Severus immediately turned himself towards the East.

Septimius Severus was a most remarkable man: he came from Leptis, an old Punic colony in which a Roman _conventus_ had settled. There is no doubt but that the Septimius Severus to whom Statius addressed a poem (the _Leptitani_), was an ancestor of his. He was thoroughly Punic, and indeed his sister, when she came to Rome, spoke nothing but broken Latin: these places in Africa had so completely retained their foreign character, that Punic was the prevailing language, even in the towns: Severus, however, both in Greek and Latin was a good writer. We have of his only one undoubted letter, which, although he wrote it in a passion, is very well written: he also composed memoirs, which unfortunately have been lost.—He was then in his forty-seventh year, and in every department, whether of administration or of military command, he had greatly distinguished himself. A marked feature in his character was his leaning towards foreign religions, astrology, and soothsaying: these things, on the whole, were now getting more and more into vogue, thus paving the way for the Christian religion. Many took this up as they would any other theurgy, as the Orphic or such like; and therefore it also now begins to emerge from obscurity. Severus’ reign was exceedingly favourable to Christianity, with which his empress, Julia, a Syrian woman, was particularly struck. Unction being at that time often applied as a remedy, Severus also had received it in a violent illness; and as he thought himself to have been cured by it, he gave protection to Christianity in the instructions issued to his lieutenants. He was an uncommonly handsome man; his countenance was so dignified and noble, that it prepossessed all who beheld it. The great charge brought against him, is that of cruelty, which showed itself after the downfall of Albinus: forty-one senators had to atone with their blood for their connexion with the latter, and Spartianus also mentions women and children. This wretched writer cannot, however, be relied on: he is so careless as to make Caracalla the son of Severus by his first wife.

The war of Pescennius Niger is of a peculiar character. If we call to mind how Avidius Cassius in his time met with such favour in the East, and how widely the eastern and western world were kept apart by difference of language; we are led to believe that the East wished even then to sever itself from the West. Niger had in the days of Aurelius gained much renown as a general, being indeed highly thought of as a strict disciplinarian. Notwithstanding this, he was a kindhearted man, quite different from Severus, and generally respected. Severus crossed the Hellespont, and overcame a general of Pescennius near Cyzicus; then he followed up his victory, and defeated Pescennius himself at Issus, where the latter was slain. The whole of the East submitted. Byzantium alone stoutly held out in quite an unaccountable manner, and was completely destroyed after a siege of three years. Perhaps the Byzantines had so grievously offended the emperor, that they were afraid of some severe punishment; or, perhaps, being conscious of the importance of the site of their city, they wanted it at that time already to become the capital of the world.