The Empresses of Rome

by Joseph McCabe

BUST IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

From such details as these we may construct a picture of the quiet and temperate life of Alexander’s palace, and we shall be disposed to think lightly of the quarrels which are said to have disturbed the relations of mother and son. We can hardly believe that one so frugal as Alexander would profess much indignation at his mother’s assiduous nursing of the treasury, nor can we suppose that Mamæa greatly resented the young monarch’s accessibility to his subjects. Their frugality, indeed, must not be exaggerated, as they were generous in gifts. Instead of sending men to extort their incomes from the provinces in which they took office, Alexander provided them, when they left Rome, with an outfit so complete as to include a concubine. His deference to his mother may, in fact, be said to be the only consistent charge against him. The Emperor Julian (“The Cæsars”) insinuates that he showed a mediocrity of intelligence in allowing his mother to accumulate money, instead of prudently spending it. In a sense Julian was right; though it was not weakness of intelligence, but severity of principle, that restrained Alexander and Mamæa from this prudent expenditure. Had they lavished their funds upon the troops, the history of Rome during the next ten years might have run differently.

From an early period in the reign of Alexander the attitude of the troops cast a shadow over the palace and the Empire. Five successive Emperors, besides earlier ones, had received the purple from the hands of the troops, and had been compelled either to refrain from pressing the necessary discipline upon them, or to compensate the rigours of discipline with excessive rewards. The soldiers became conscious of their power, and sufficiently demoralized to abuse it. Less exercise and more pay led to a lamentable enervation; and the filling of the ranks from the more distant peoples, who had not contributed to the making of the Empire and were insensible to its prestige, dissolved in the legions the old spirit of nationality. From the lonely forests, the frozen hills, or the blistering deserts of the frontiers, they sought ever to be withdrawn to the comforts and pleasures of the cities. And when they found that a fresh effort was being made to restrict their indulgences and restore the earlier discipline, when they reflected that it was only the feeble hands of a woman and a youth that would enforce this austerity, they broke into sullen murmurs of discontent.

The most dangerous part of the army was the extensive regiment of Prætorian Guards, which, from its camp at the walls, overshadowed Rome with its power. Over these men Mamæa had placed a civilian, the distinguished jurist Domitius Ulpianus. It was natural that Ulpian should wish to extend to the guards the valuable reforms which he was introducing into every department of the State; equally natural that the soldiers should chafe under his discipline. The citizens took the part of Ulpian and Mamæa, who protected him, and the irritation at last erupted in a bloody struggle, in which the populace fought for three days against the soldiers in the streets of Rome. The quarrel was arrested, but some time afterwards—not in the fight, as Gibbon says—the angry guards put an end to the reforms of Ulpian. The statesman fled before them into the palace, and sought the protection of the Emperor; but the insolent guards penetrated the sanctuary of the royal house with drawn swords, and murdered, in Alexander’s presence, the most eminent and enlightened of his counsellors. The provincial troops were giving little less concern. We take our leave at this stage of the historian Dio. His work closes with a mournful lament of the condition of the army, and a just presentiment of impending calamity. He too had endeavoured to enforce discipline on the legions, and had found the authority of the Emperor insufficient to protect him from their murderous resentment.

As if this lamentable situation had been communicated to the countless peoples who pressed eagerly against the barriers of the Empire, we find a new boldness arising amongst them, and a serious beginning of those raids which will at last put the mighty power under the heel of the barbarian. The tragedy of the fall of Rome reaches a more certain stage. It is a singular and melancholy reflection that Rome suffered most under its most virtuous rulers. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius the gods had seemed to make a war upon virtue. The new Stoic and his virtuous mother were destined to see the enemies gathering fiercely about their enfeebled frontiers, and to perish tragically in a futile effort to repel them.

The gravest trouble arose in the East. The ancient kingdom of Persia revived, and its vigorous rulers determined to regain the provinces which Greece and Rome had shorn from their once vast empire. Alexander, and probably Mamæa, went to the East. If we may believe the panegyrist of Alexander in the “Historia Augusta,” he displayed an admirable firmness in enforcing discipline upon the troops when he arrived at Antioch. Gathering their sullen and spoiled officers from the haunts of Antioch and the licentious groves of the suburb of Daphne, he punished a number of them severely, boldly confronted the drawn swords of their demoralized followers, and set the legions in motion against the Persians. But the plan of the campaign was injudicious, and the execution weak. The Romans suffered a heavy reverse, and, before they could recover and check the advancing spirit of the Persians, Alexander was recalled to Europe with the news that the Germanic tribes were bursting through the northern frontier.

From the sunny lands of their native East the Emperor and his mother passed, in the year 234, to the banks of the Rhine. They had passed through Rome, where the citizens were easily persuaded to celebrate his triumph over the Persians. From the Capitol they had carried the young Emperor on their shoulders to his palace, his chariot with its four elephants walking behind them, and a great wave of enthusiasm went with him as he started for Gaul. He was now in his twenty-sixth year, and Mamæa must have felt that he was at the beginning of a glorious career. They little suspected that they were going to meet their deaths at the hands of their own troops.

One of the commanders on the Rhine was a gigantic and powerful barbarian, half Goth and half Alan, of the name of Maximinus. More than eight feet in height, with a thumb so large that he wore his wife’s bracelet on it as a ring, the giant had made his way in the army by sheer strength. A man who could eat forty pounds of meat in a day, drink a proportionate quantity of wine, and fell you with a finger, had the respect of the barbarian soldiers. Elagabalus had repelled him, when he sought office, with salacious questions about his strength; Alexander had eagerly welcomed him, and put him in command of the younger troops. But Alexander had afterwards refused him an honour, which Mamæa desired to confer on him, and he probably heard this. He had given his son a good Roman education, and Mamæa thought that the young man was a suitable match for her daughter Theoclea. Alexander protested that his sister would find the father-in-law too boorish, and the young Maximinus, now a tall, handsome, cultivated, and dissolute noble, married a granddaughter of Antoninus Pius, Junia Fadilla.

Whether this affront was remembered, or whether Maximinus acted from mere ambition, we cannot say. He began, in any case, to spread discontent in the army. When Alexander practically bought peace from the barbarians, instead of conducting a vigorous campaign against them, the whispers were changed into open murmuring. These effeminate Syrians, it was said, were unable to endure the sturdy North, and were eager to return to the East. The Emperor was a maudlin youth, who could not act without his mother’s permission. He had abandoned the war against Persia in order to return to her side, and he was again sacrificing the honour of Rome out of regard for her comfort. Her palace at Rome was full of hoarded treasure, while the hard-worked soldiers were insufficiently paid. These complaints circulated freely in the camp during the long German winter. A lavish distribution of money might have defeated the plot of Maximinus, and a speedy retirement to Rome would certainly have saved the lives of the Emperor and Empress. But they remained in camp until the middle of March, 235, and then the end came.

They were at, or in the neighbourhood of, the small frontier town which is now known as Mainz. One morning, when Maximinus rode out to control the exercises, he was greeted with the name of Emperor. He feigned surprise and reluctance, but the soldiers—probably in pursuance of an arranged plan—drew their swords, and threatened to kill him if he did not take the power from the hands of the effeminate Syrians. He consented, promised a liberal donation in honour of his accession, and said that all punishments that had been inflicted on the soldiers would be remitted. He then led them toward the tent of Alexander. The young Emperor came out to meet them, and made an appeal that seems to have divided the followers of the usurper, as they went away to their tents. At night, however, the guards at the Imperial tent announced that the mutinous troops were gathering about it. Alexander rushed out, and called upon the loyal soldiers to defend him, making a tardy promise of money and concessions. Many of them came to his side, but at last the massive figure of Maximinus was seen to approach at the head of a strong body of troops. For the last time the soldiers were urged to choose between the strong, generous man and the avaricious woman and her child. Alexander saw the faithful few pass sullenly to the side of Maximinus, and he returned to his tent. It is said that the last moments were spent in a violent quarrel between mother and son about the responsibility for the disaster. There was little time for it. The soldiers of Maximinus entered at once, and slew Mamæa, Alexander, and their few remaining friends.