THE PUBLIC SALE OF THE EMPIRE (A.D. 193).—The beginning of these troublous times was marked by a shameful proceeding on the part of the prætorians. Upon the death of Commodus, Pertinax, a distinguished senator, was placed on the throne; but his efforts to enforce discipline among the prætorians aroused their anger, and he was slain by them after a short reign of only three months. These soldiers then gave out notice that they would sell the empire to the highest bidder. It was, accordingly, set up for sale at the prætorian camp, and struck off to Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator, who gave $1000 to each of the 12,000 soldiers at this time composing the guard. So the price of the empire was about $12,000,000.
But these turbulent and insolent soldiers at the capital of the empire were not to have things entirely their own way. As soon as the news of the disgraceful transaction reached the legions on the frontiers, they rose as a single man in indignant revolt. Each of the three armies that held the Euphrates, the Rhine, and the Danube, proclaimed its favorite commander emperor. The leader of the Danubian troops was Septimius Severus, a man of great energy and force of character. He knew that there were other competitors for the throne, and that the prize would be his who first seized it. Instantly he set his veterans in motion and was soon at Rome. The prætorians were no match for the trained legionaries of the frontiers, and did not even attempt to defend their emperor, who was taken prisoner and put to death after a reign of sixty-five days. REIGN OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS (A.D. 193-211).—One of the first acts of Severus was to organize a new body-guard of 50,000 legionaries, to take the place of the unworthy prætorians, whom, as a punishment for the insult they had offered to the Roman state, he disbanded, and banished from the capital, and forbade to approach within a hundred miles of its walls. He next crushed his two rival competitors, and was then undisputed master of the empire. He put to death forty senators for having favored his late rivals, and completely destroyed the power of their body. Committing to the prefect of the new prætorian guard the management of affairs at the capital, Severus passed the greater part of his long and prosperous reign upon the frontiers. At one time he was chastising the Parthians beyond the Euphrates, and at another, pushing back the Caledonian tribes from the Hadrian wall in the opposite corner of his dominions. Finally, in Britain, in his camp at York, death overtook him.
REIGN OF CARACALLA (A.D. 211-217).—Severus conferred the empire upon his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. Caracalla murdered his brother, and then ordered Papinian, the celebrated jurist, to make a public argument in vindication of the fratricide. When that great lawyer refused, saying that "it was easier to commit such a crime than to justify it," he put him to death. Thousands fell victims to his senseless rage. Driven by remorse and fear, he fled from the capital, and wandered about the most distant provinces. At Alexandria, on account of some uncomplimentary remarks by the citizens upon his appearance, he ordered a general massacre. Finally, after a reign of six years, the monster was slain in a remote corner of Syria.
[Illustration: CARACALLA.]
Caracalla's sole political act of real importance was the bestowal of citizenship upon all the free inhabitants of the empire; and this he did, not to give them a just privilege, but that he might collect from them certain special taxes which only Roman citizens had to pay. Before the reign of Caracalla it was only particular classes of subjects, or the inhabitants of some particular city or province, that, as a mark of special favor, had, from time to time, been admitted to the rights of citizenship (see p. 280). By this wholesale act of Caracalla, the entire population of the empire was made Roman, at least in name and nominal privilege. "The city had become the world, or, viewed from the other side, the world had become the city" (Merivale).
REIGN OF ALEXANDER SEVERUS (A.D. 222-235).—Severus restored the virtues of the Age of the Antonines. His administration was pure and energetic; but he strove in vain to resist the corrupt and downward tendencies of the times. He was assassinated, after a reign of fourteen years, by his seditious soldiers, who were angered by his efforts to reduce them to discipline. They invested with the imperial purple an obscure officer named Maximin, a Thracian peasant, whose sole recommendation for this dignity was his gigantic stature and his great strength of limbs. Rome had now sunk to the lowest possible degradation. We may pass rapidly over the next fifty years of the empire.
[Illustration: TRIUMPH OF SAPOR OVER VALERIAN.]
THE THIRTY TYRANTS (A.D. 251-268).—Maximin was followed swiftly by Gordian, Philip, and Decius, and then came what is called the "Age of the Thirty Tyrants." The imperial sceptre being held by weak emperors, there sprang up in every part of the empire, competitors for the throne—several rivals frequently appearing in the field at the same time. The barbarians pressed upon all the frontiers, and thrust themselves into all the provinces. The empire seemed on the point of falling to pieces. [Footnote: It was during this period that the Emperor Valerian (A.D. 253-260), in a battle with the Persians before Edessa, in Mesopotamia, was defeated and taken prisoner by Sapor, the Persian king. A large rock tablet (see cut above), still to be seen near the Persian town of Shiraz, is believed to commemorate the triumph of Sapor over the unfortunate emperor.] But a fortunate succession of five good emperors—Claudius, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, and Carus (A.D. 268-284)—restored for a time the ancient boundaries, and again forced together into some sort of union the fragments of the shattered state.
THE FALL OF PALMYRA.—The most noted of the usurpers of authority in the provinces during the period of anarchy of which we have spoken, was Odenatus, Prince of Palmyra, a city occupying an oasis in the midst of the Syrian Desert, midway between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates. In gratitude for the aid he had rendered the Romans against the Parthians, the Senate had bestowed upon him titles and honors. When the empire began to show signs of weakness and approaching dissolution, Odenatus conceived the ambitious project of erecting upon its ruins in the East a great Palmyrian kingdom. Upon his death, his wife, Zenobia, succeeded to his authority and to his ambitions. This famous princess claimed descent from Cleopatra, and it is certain that in the charms of personal beauty she was the rival of the Egyptian queen. Boldly assuming the title of "Queen of the East," she bade defiance to the emperor of Rome. Aurelian marched against her, defeated her armies, and carried her a captive to Italy (273 A.D.). After having been led in golden chains in the triumphal procession of Aurelian, the queen was given a beautiful villa in the vicinity of Tibur, where, surrounded by her children, she passed the remainder of her checkered life.
The ruins of Palmyra are among the most interesting remains of Græco-Roman civilization in the East.