CHAPTER XII.
PAGAN ROME.
Infamy of Commodus.—His Death.—The Reign of Pertinax.—The Mob of Soldiers.—Death of Pertinax.—Julian purchases the Crown.—Rival Claimants.—Severus.—Persecutions.—Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas.—The Reign of Caracalla.—Fiendlike Atrocities.—Elagabalus, Priest of the Sun.—Death by the Mob.—Alexander and his Christian Mother.—Contrast between Paganism and Christianity.—The Sin of Unbelief.
FTER a stormy reign of twenty-three years, the Emperor Aurelius died, and his son Commodus, nineteen years of age, succeeded to the throne. He was a demon. His atrocities I must not describe: nothing can be imagined, in the way of loathsome, brutal, fiendlike vice, of which he was not guilty. A foul pagan, he filled the palaces of Rome with all the atrocities of iniquity.
He murdered one of his own sisters, and worse than murdered the rest. He amused himself in cutting off the lips and noses of those who incurred his displeasure. The rich he slew, to get their money; the virtuous, because their example reproved his vices; the influential, fearing lest they should attain too much power.
Under Commodus, the Christians were not exposed to governmental persecution, though there were occasional acts of the grossest outrage. One of his female favorites, who had great influence over him, became their protector. Conversions were rapidly multiplied. Many of the most noble and opulent in Rome embraced the Christian faith, which they could seepresented the only hope for this lost world. One of these very distinguished men, Apollonius, an accomplished scholar, presented to the Roman senate a very eloquent appeal in favor of Christianity. The senate demanded that he should retract his opinions. As he refused, he was sent to the block, and beheaded.
The outrages Commodus was perpetrating, and the executions he was daily ordering, at length became intolerable. His nominal wife, the same Marcia who had protected the Christians, finding, from a memorandum which she picked from his pocket, that he had doomed her with several others to die, gave him a cup of poison. As he was reeling under the influence of the draught, an accomplice plunged a dagger into his heart, and “he went to his own place.” “To his own place!” Where was that place? No one can be familiar with the history of the awful crimes which have been perpetrated upon this globe, and not feel that there is necessity for justice and retribution beyond the grave.
The joy in Rome was indescribable when the rumor spread through the thronged streets, on the morning of the 1st of January, 193, that the tyrant was dead. The senate and army placed Pertinax, mayor of Rome, upon the vacant throne. He was, for a pagan, a good man. He found the nation with an empty treasury, and enormously in debt, and attempted to economize; but the army demanded the wealth and luxury which could be obtained only by rapine.
Commodus had accumulated a vast amount of gold and silver plate; chariots of most costly construction; robes of imperial purple, heavily embroidered with gems and gold; and last, but not least, he had seized, and crowded into his harem, six hundred of the most beautiful boys and girls. The plate, the chariots, the robes, and the handsome boys and beautiful girls, were all sold to the highest bidder. It is Christianity alone which recognizes the brotherhood of man. Pertinax, a pagan, could perhaps see no wrong in selling these young men and maidens into slavery. All the money thus infamously obtained was honestly paid into the exhausted treasury.
The army had loved Commodus. He allowed the soldiers unlimited license; he filled their purses with gold; he crowded their camp with male and female slaves. Pertinax wished to introduce reforms. The army hated Pertinax because he was good, as devils hate angels. “Away with him!” was the cry which resounded through the whole encampment.