RECAPITULATION.
Galba (A. D. 68, 69) offends his guards by his strict economy, and is murdered after seven months. Otho, three months emperor, is defeated by Vitellius, who reigns from April to December, A. D. 69. Vespasian (A. D. 69-79) restores peace, order, and prosperity. In his reign Jerusalem is destroyed. The short but beneficent reign of Titus (A. D. 79-81) is disturbed by great calamities—earthquake, fire, and pestilence. Domitian (A. D. 81-96) is a gloomy tyrant, disgraced abroad and detested at home. Nerva (A. D. 96-98) restores confidence, and chooses for his successor Trajan (A. D. 98-117), who is called the best and ablest of all the emperors. He gains victories north of the Danube and east of the Euphrates, thus extending the empire to the utmost limits which it ever attains. Hadrian (A. D. 117-138) visits every portion of his dominions, and diffuses every-where the blessings of peace and good government. Antoninus Pius (A. D. 138-161) enjoys a reign of unexampled tranquillity. Marcus Aurelius (A. D. 161-180), though a peaceful philosopher by choice, is involved by necessity in many wars. He generously forgives the rebellion led by Cassius, but permits a persecution of the Christians, at the instance of the Stoics. Commodus (A. D. 180-193), exasperated by a plot against his life, becomes a revengeful tyrant, and under his reckless misrule all order, industry, and safety vanish from the empire.
Second Period, A. D. 193-284.
207. By their unchecked disorders, the soldiers had learned their power, and now assumed to set up and put down emperors at their will. The murderers of Commodus proceeded to the house of Per´tinax, præfect of the city, and offered him the crown. He was a good old man, one of the few surviving friends of Marcus Antoninus, and one to whose care the young prince Commodus had been committed. He reluctantly accepted the dangerous honor, and the result justified his fears. The economy and order which he attempted to introduce, disgusted equally the amusement-loving citizens and the turbulent and grasping soldiers. Pertinax was murdered in his own palace by the prætorians, March 28, A. D. 193, after a reign of less than three months. The guards now put up the imperial crown at public auction, and sold it to Did´ius Julia´nus, a wealthy senator, for $15,000,000. The Senate acknowledged him, and he reigned more than two months at Rome. But the armies in Britain, Pannonia, and Syria, not so much offended by the scandalous insolence as encouraged by the example of their comrades at the capital, set up their own leaders, Albi´nus, Seve´rus, and Niger, as emperors.
208. Severus arrived first at Rome, gained over the prætorians by promises of donatives, and was acknowledged by the Senate. Julianus was deserted and slain in his palace. The first imperial act of Severus was to disarm the prætorians, and to banish them to a distance of 100 miles from the capital. He defeated his two rivals, the one at Cyzicus and Issus, and the other near Lyons (Lugdu´num), in Gaul; and by their death became undisputed master of the empire. Instead of the old prætorians, he garrisoned Rome with 40,000 troops chosen from the legions, and their chief, the prætorian præfect, became, next the sovereign, the most powerful person in the world; for, beside his military command, he had control of the public treasury, and great influence in the making and enforcing of the laws. Severus was an able and successful general. He extended the empire eastward by the capture of the Parthian capital, and the conquest of Adiabe´ne; and northward, by his wars against the Caledonians. He died at York, the Roman capital of Britain, A. D. 211, having reigned eighteen years.
209. The two sons of Severus, Caracal´la and Geta, had been associated by their father in his imperial dignity, and reigned together a year after his death. Then their mutual hatred broke out afresh, and after a vain attempt to divide the empire between them, Caracalla murdered Geta in the arms of their mother. In the five years of his sole reign, he proved one of the worst tyrants that Rome had known. Under the pretext of exterminating the “friends of Geta,” he massacred 20,000 persons, some of whom were the most virtuous and illustrious in the empire. Goaded by his restless conscience, Caracalla then quitted Rome, and wandered through all the eastern and northern provinces, followed every-where by a track of poverty, desolation, and death. At last he plunged into a war with Parthia, in which he had some success; but before his second campaign he was murdered by Macri´nus, his prætorian præfect, whom the guards proclaimed emperor.
210. Macrinus bestowed the title of Cæsar upon his son, and then hastened to follow up Caracalla’s victories over the Parthians. He encountered the Eastern monarch near Nis´ibis, and suffered a shameful defeat, which forced him to retire into Syria. The soldiers were now tired of their chosen imperator, whose severity of discipline was an unwelcome change from the reckless liberality of Caracalla. Julia Mæsa, sister-in-law of Severus, persuaded one division of the army to accept as their prince her grandson, Bassia´nus, whom she declared to be a son of Caracalla. He is more commonly called Elagab´alus, from the Syrian sun-god to whose priesthood he had been dedicated as a child. The wealth which Mæsa had hoarded during her residence at her sister’s court materially aided to convince the soldiers. A body of troops, sent to quell the insurrection, were also, in great measure, gained over to her wishes. A battle was fought near Antioch, in which Macrinus was defeated, and eventually slain, after a reign of fourteen months.
211. Elagabalus, or his ministers, hastened to send a letter to the Senate, in which he loaded himself with all the high-sounding titles of Cæsar, Imperator, son of Antoninus, grandson of Severus, Pius, Felix, Augustus, etc. The Romans passively admitted his claims, and the Arval Brothers offered their annual vows for his health and safety under all these names. The Syrian boy, who, at the age of fourteen, found himself thus clothed with imperial honors, was the most contemptible of all the tyrants that ever afflicted the Roman world. His days and nights were given up to gluttonous feasting and loathsome excesses.
The decorous and solemn rites of Roman religion were replaced by degrading sorceries, which were believed to be accompanied in secret by human sacrifices. The Syrian sun-god was placed above Jupiter Capitolinus himself, and all that was sacred or honorable in the eyes of the people became the object of insult and profanation. The emperor had been persuaded to confer the title of Cæsar on his cousin, Alexander Severus; but perceiving that this good prince soon surpassed him in the respect of the army, he sought to procure his death. A second attempt was fatal to Elagabalus. The prætorians murdered him and cast him into the Tiber.
212. Alexander Severus, now in his seventeenth year, was acknowledged with joy by the soldiers and the Senate. His blameless life and lofty and beneficent aims present a bright, refreshing contrast to the long annals of Roman degradation. Purity and economy returned to public affairs; wise and virtuous men received the highest offices; the Senate was treated with a deference which belonged to its ancient dignity, rather than to its recent base compliance with the whims of the army. If the power of Alexander had been as great as his designs were pure, the world might have been benefited.