Heeren, Commentationes de Græcorum et Romanorum de India notitia, et cum Indis commerciis: in Commentat. Soc. Gott. vol. x. xi.
SECOND SECTION.
From the death of Commodus to Diocletian, A. C. 193—284.
Sources. The Extracts of Xiphilinus from Dion Cassius, lib. lxxiii—lxxx. though often imperfect, reach down as low as the consulate of Dion himself under Alexander Severus, 229.—Herodiani Hist. libri viii. comprise the period from Commodus to Gordian, 180—238.—The Scriptores Historiæ Augustæ Minores contain the private lives of the emperors down to Diocletian, by Julius Capitolinus, Flavius Vopiscus, etc.—The Breviaria Historiæ Romanæ of Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, and S. Rufus are particularly important for this period.—Finally, the important information that may be derived from the study of medals and coins, not only for this section, but for the whole history of the emperors, may be best learnt by consulting the writers upon those subjects: J. Vaillant, Numismata Augustorum et Cæsarum, cura J. F. Baldino. Rome, 1743, 3 vols. The Medallic History of Imperial Rome, by W. Cooke. London, 1781, 2 vols.—But above all, the volumes belonging to this period in Eckhel, Doctrina Nummorum Veterum.
With the period of the Antonines begins the great work of the British historian:
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon. Oxford, 1828, 8 vols. 8vo. In worth and extent this work is superior to all others. It embraces the whole period of the middle ages; but only the first part belongs to this period.
Pertinax, Jan. 1—March 28, 193.
1. The extinction of the race of the Antonines by the death of Commodus was attended with convulsions similar to those which took place when the house of Cæsar became extinct at the death of Nero. It is true that P. Helvius Pertinax, aged sixty-seven, præfect of the city, was raised to the throne by the murderers of Commodus; and that he was acknowledged, first by the guards, and afterwards by the senate. But the reform which he was obliged to make at the beginning of his reign in the finances, rendered him so odious to the soldiers and courtiers, that a revolt of the first, excited by Lætus, cost him his life before he had reigned quite three months. This was the first commencement of that dreadful military despotism which forms the ruling character of this period; and to none did it become so terrible as to those who wished to make it the main support of their absolute power.