We come now to a time of obvious decline. Even in the golden epoch the nation was probably static rather than progressive, notwithstanding the glory that surrounds the great names of its emperors. But now the deterioration is too rapid and too marked to be questioned. The period has no importance except as a transition time from the great days of the empire to the days of its degradation. Nevertheless, the events of this transition age marshal themselves before the eye in one of the most striking panoramas in all history. These events group themselves into a few strange scenes. The first shows us a philosopher’s son given over to the lowest forms of vice; demeaning himself in the arena; associating with gladiators and slaves; and finally coming to an ignominious death at the hands of his wife and freedmen, who kill him that their own lives may be saved.
The second scene shows us, in sharp contrast to the ignoble son of the philosopher, the noble son of a slave assuming the purple. Pertinax passes across the stage as a good old man, well-meaning, but incompetent to stem the tide of the times. He meets what may be called the normal imperial fate—assassination; and the historic stage is cleared for one of the strangest spectacles that it has yet witnessed—the auction of an empire. This, to be sure, is not the first time that money has made its power felt in the disposal of the imperial office. It has long been the custom for a new emperor to make “presents” to the soldiers. But now the affair is reduced to the frank terms of sale and purchase.
In due course the man who has thus bargained for an empire pays the penalty of his ambition; then a turmoil ensues between the rival aspirants to the succession, which ends, naturally enough, with the death of all but one; he, Septimius Severus by name, gives to the empire a moment of relative tranquillity; and at last presents a spectacle hardly less strange than all the others,—the spectacle of a Roman emperor dying a natural death. We shall not see the like again for many a reign.
Following Severus come his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. The former plays well the part of heartless despot; he kills his brother and slaughters a host of helpless subjects in the East; and then, to emphasise a paradox, grants the bauble of Roman citizenship to all subjects of the empire. In due course he meets the imperial death, and is succeeded by Macrinus, who, slain at once, is followed by Elagabalus. This degenerate youth typifies his era; sinks to depths of debauchery which horrify even the Roman conscience; introduces new forms of worship from the East; wins the title of Sardanapalus; and, finally, slaughtered, his body thrown into the Tiber, is nicknamed Tiberinus, in mocking remembrance of his ignoble death and yet more ignoble life.
And now, at last, a ray of light pierces the gloom, and with the coming of Alexander Severus there is a brief recrudescence of the days when Rome was something more than the battle-ground of mercenaries and the court of voluptuaries. Yet, in the end, even this good emperor meets the fate of all the rest. Truly, the time is out of joint.
Let us take up now in more detailed presentation—yet still as briefly as historical completeness will permit—the story of these strange events, beginning with the reign of that renegade Commodus, who owed his position on the throne to the parental affection rather than the philosophic judgment of the best of emperors.[a]
Commodus (180-192 A.D.)
Marcus Aurelius was succeeded by his son, usually known as Commodus, whose full name was Marcus Lucius Ælius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus. This unworthy scion of a glorious house was born at Lanuvium on the 31st of August, 161, and proclaimed cæsar on the 12th of October, 166. In the year 177 the tribunician authority was bestowed on Commodus and he was summoned to take his place as “augustus” by his father’s side.
Three years later, on the 17th of March, 180, Aurelius died, and Commodus, who was at that time less than nineteen years of age, assumed the reins of government without difficulty. But he was not the man to rise to the occasion and reap the advantage of his father’s victories. He made a peace with the Germani, which might pass for honourable, but was far from furnishing a satisfactory safeguard for the interests of Rome. The principal conditions were the same that Marcus Aurelius had imposed upon the enemy five or six years before, but Commodus yielded up all the strongholds which the Romans had established in the heart of the enemy’s country. The lustre of the Roman arms was restored for the time, it is true, and the old and new commanders, trained in the school of the Parthian and German wars, guarded the frontiers of the empire at all points. But the change for the worse soon manifested itself in the internal policy of the empire.[b]