V.

CHA P. imbibed the fofter manners of Rome, the levies were extended to Macedonia, Noricum, and Spain. In the room of thefe elegant troops, better adapted to the pomp of courts than to the ufes of war, it was eftablished by Severus, that from all the legions of the frontiers, the foldiers moft diftinguifhed for ftrength, valour, and fidelity, fhould be occafionally draughted; and promoted, as an honour and reward, into the more eligible fervice of the guards", By this new inftitution, the Italian youth were diverted from the exercife of arms, and the capital was terrified by the ftrange afpect and manners of a multitude of barbarians. But Severus flattered himself, that the legions would confider thefe chofen Prætorians as the representatives of the whole military order; and that the prefent aid of fifty thoufand men, fuperior in arms and appointments to any force that could be brought into the field against them, would for ever crush the hopes of rebellion, and fecure the empire to himfelf and his pofterity.

The office

rian Præ

fect.

The command of these favoured and formidof Prato- able troops foon became the firft office of the empire. As the government degenerated into military defpotifm, the Prætorian Præfect, who in his origin had been a fimple captain of the guards, was placed, not only at the head of the army, but of the finances, and even of the law. In every department of administration, he reprefented the perfon, and exercifed the authority,

67 Dion, 1. lxxiv. p. 1243.

of

V.

of the Emperor. The firft Præfect who enjoyed CHA P. and abufed this immenfe power was Plautianus, the favourite minifter of Severus. His reign lafted above ten years, till the marriage of his daughter with the eldeft fon of the Emperor, which feemed to affure his fortune, proved the occafion of his ruin 68. The animofities of the palace, by irritating the ambition and alarming the fears of Plautianus, threatened to produce a revolution, and obliged the Emperor, who ftill loved him, to confent with reluctance to his death 69. After the fall of Plautianus, an eminent lawyer, the celebrated Papinian, was appointed to execute the motley office of Prætorian Præfect.

Till the reign of Severus, the virtue and even The senate the good fenfe of the emperors had been diftin- oppreffed by military guished by their zeal or affected reverence for defpotifm. the fenate, and by a tender regard to the nice frame of civil policy inftituted by Auguftus. But the youth of Severus had been trained in the implicit obedience of camps, and his riper years spent in the defpotifm of military command. His haughty and inflexible spirit could not difcover, or would not acknowledge, the advantage of preferving an intermediate power,

68 One of his most daring and wanton acts of power, was the caftration of an hundred free Romans, fome of them married men, and even fathers of families: merely that his daughter, on her marriage with the young Emperor, might be attended by a train of eunuchs worthy of an eaftern queen. Dion, 1. lxxvi. p. 1271.

69 Dion, 1. lxxvi. p. 1274. Herodian, 1. iii. p. 122. 129. The grammarian of Alexandria seems, as it is not unusual, much better acquainted with this myfterious tranfaction, and more affured of the guilt of Plautianus, than the Roman fenator ventures to be.

however

V.

CHA P. however imaginary, between the Emperor and the army. He disdained to profess himself the fervant of an affembly that detefted his perfon and trembled at his frown; he iffued his commands, where his request would have proved as effectual; affumed the conduct and style of a fovereign and a conqueror, and exercised, without difguife, the whole legiflative as well as the executive power.

New max

Imperial prerogazive.

The victory over the fenate was eafy and inims of the glorious. Every eye and every paffion were directed to the fupreme magiftrate, who poffeffed the arms and treasure of the state; whilft the fenate, neither elected by the people, nor guarded by military force, nor animated by public spirit, rested its declining authority on the frail and crumbling bafis of ancient opinion. The fine theory of a republic infenfibly vanished, and made way for the more natural and fubftantial feelings of monarchy. As the freedom and honours of Rome were fucceffively communicated to the provinces, in which the old government had been either unknown, or was remembered with abhorrence, the tradition of republican maxims was gradually obliterated. The

Greek hiftorians of the age of the Antonines" obferve with a malicious pleasure, that although the fovereign of Rome, in compliance with an obfolete prejudice, abftained from the name of king, he poffeffed the full measure of regal power, In the reign of Severus, the fenate was

V.

filled with polished and eloquent flaves from the C HA P. eastern provinces, who juftified perfonal flattery by fpeculative principles of fervitude. Thefe new advocates of prerogative were heard with pleasure by the court, and with patience by the people, when they inculcated the duty of paffive obedience, and defcanted on the inevitable mifchiefs of freedom. The lawyers and the hif torians concurred in teaching, that the Imperial authority was held, not by the delegated commiffion, but by the irrevokable refignation of the fenate; that the Emperor was freed from the restraint of civil laws, could command by his arbitrary will the lives and fortunes of his fubjects, and might difpofe of the empire as of his private patrimony ". The moft eminent of

the civil lawyers, and particularly Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, flourished under the house of Severus; and the Roman jurifprudence having closely united itself with the fyftem of monarchy, was fuppofed to have attained its full maturity and perfection.

The contemporaries of Severus, in the enjoyment of the peace and glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been introduced. Pofterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his maxims and example, juftly confidered him as the principal author of the decline of the Roman empire.

71 Dion Caffius feems to have written with no other view, than to form these opinions into an hiftorical fyftem. The Pandects will fhew how affiduously the lawyers, on their fide, laboured in the cause of prerogative,

VI.

and dif content of Severus.

CHAP. VI.

The Death of Severus.-Tyranny of Caracalla.Ufurpation of Macrinus.-Follies of Elagabalus.-Virtues of Alexander Severus.-Licentioufness of the Army.-General State of the Roman Finances.

CHAP. THE afcent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may entertain an active spirit Greatness with the confcioufnefs and exercife of its own powers; but the poffeffion of a throne could never yet afford a lafting fatisfaction to an ambitious mind. This melancholy truth was felt and acknowledged by Severus. Fortune and merit had from an humble ftation, elevated him to the first place among mankind. "He "had been all things," as he faid himself," and

His wife the Empress Julia.

all was of little value'." Diftracted with the care, not of acquiring, but of preferving an empire, oppreffed with age and infirmities, carelefs of fame, and fatiated with power, all his profpects of life were closed. The defire of perpetuating the greatnefs of his family, was the only remaining wifh of his ambition and paternal tenderness.

Like most of the Africans, Severus was paffionately addicted to the vain ftudies of magic and divination, deeply verfed in the interpreta

'Hift. Auguft. p. 71. "Omnia fuï et nihil expedit."

2 Dion Caffius, 1. lxxvi. p. 1284.

I I

tion