AN IMPERIAL SAVAGE.
We have now reached the period in which began the decline and fall of the Roman empire. Its story is crowded with events, but lacks those dramatic and romantic incidents which give such interest to the history of early Rome. Now good emperors ruled, now bad ones followed, now peace prevailed, now war raged; the story grows monotonous as we advance. The reigns of virtuous emperors yield much to commend but little to describe; those of wicked emperors repel us by their enormities and disgust us by their follies. We must end our tales with a few selections from the long and somewhat dreary list.
EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF MARCUS AURELIUS.
After Vespasian came to the throne, a period of nearly two centuries elapsed during most of which Rome was governed by men of virtue and ability, though cursed for a time by the reigns of the cruel Domitian, the dissolute Commodus, the base Caracalla, and the foolish Elagabalus. Fortunately, none of the monsters who disgraced the empire reigned long. Assassination purified the throne. The total length of reign of the cruel monarchs of Rome covered no long space of time, though they occupy a great space in history.
We have now to tell how the patrician families of Rome lost their hold upon the throne, and a barbarian peasant became lord and master of this vast empire, of which his ancestors of a few generations before had perhaps scarcely heard. The story is an interesting one, and well worth repeating.
Just after the year 200 A.D. the emperor Septimius Severus, father of the notorious Caracalla, while returning from an expedition to the East, halted in Thrace to celebrate, with military games, the birthday of Geta, his youngest son. The spectacle was an enticing one, and the country-people for many miles round gathered in crowds to gaze upon their sovereign and behold the promised sports.
Among those who came was a young barbarian of such gigantic stature and great muscular development as to excite the attention of all who saw him. In a rude dialect, which those who heard could barely understand, he asked if he might take part in the wrestling exercises and contend for the prize. This the officers would not permit. For a Roman soldier to be overthrown by a Thracian peasant, as seemed likely to be the result, would be a disgrace not to be risked. But he might try, if he would, with the camp followers, some of the stoutest of whom were chosen to contend with him. Of these he laid no less than sixteen, in succession, on the ground.
Here was a man worth having in the ranks. Some gifts were given him, and he was told that he might enlist, if he chose; a privilege he was quick to accept. The next day the peasant, happy in the thought of being a soldier, was seen among a crowd of recruits, dancing and exulting in rustic fashion, while his head towered above them all.