CHAPTER V. Public Sale of the Empire to Didius Julianus by the Prætorian Guards.-Clodius Albinus in Britain, Pescennius Niger in Syria, and Septimius Severus in Pannonia, declare against the Murderers of Pertinax.-Civil Wars, and Victory of Severus over his three Rivals.-Relaxation of Discipline.-New Maxims of Government. Proportion of force to the number of the people. THE power of the sword is more sensibly felt in an extensive monarchy than in a small community. It has been calculated by the ablest politicians that no State, withthe military out being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness. But although this relative proportion may be uniform, the influence of the army over the rest of the society will vary according to the degree of its positive strength. The advantages of military science and discipline cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united into one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men, such a union would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host it would be impracticable; and the powers of the machine would be alike destroyed by the extreme minuteness or the excessive weight of its springs. To illustrate this observation we need only reflect that there is no superiority of natural strength, artificial weapons, or acquired skill, which could enable one man to keep in constant subjection one hundred of his fellow-creatures: the tyrant of a single town, or a small district, would soon discover that a hundred armed followers were a weak defence against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but a hundred thousand well-disciplined soldiers will command, with despotic sway, ten millions of subjects; and a body of ten or fifteen thousand guards will strike terror into the most numerous populace that ever crowded the streets of an immense capital. The Præto Their insti The Prætorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom and cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely amounted to the last-mentioned number.' rian guards. They derived their institution from Augustus. That crafty tyrant, sensible that laws might color, tution. but that arms alone could maintain, his usurped dominion, had gradually formed this powerful body of guards, in constant readiness to protect his person, to awe the senate, and either to prevent or to crush the first motions of rebellion. He distinguished these favored troops by a double pay and superior privileges; but, as their formidable aspect would at once have alarmed and irritated the Roman people, three cohorts only were stationed in the capital; whilst the remainder was dispersed in the adjacent towns of Italy. But after fifty years of peace and servitude, Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which forever riveted the fetters of his country. Under the fair pretences of relieving Italy from the heavy burden of military quarters, and of introducing a stricter discipline among the guards, he assembled them at Rome in a permanent camp,' which was fortified with skilful care,' and placed on a commanding situation." Their camp. 1 They were originally nine or ten thousand men (for Tacitus and Dion are not agreed upon the subject), divided into as many cohorts. Vitellius increased them to sixteen thousand, and, as far as we can learn from inscriptions, they never afterwards sunk much below that number. See Lipsius de Magnitudine Romanâ, i. 4. 2 Sueton. in August. c. 49. 3 Tacit. Annal. iv. 2. Sueton. in Tiber. c. 37. Dion Cassius, 1. lvii. [c. 19] p. 867. 4 In the civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian, the Prætorian camp was attacked and defended with all the machines used in the siege of the best fortified cities. Tacit. Hist. iii. 84. 5 Close to the walls of the city, on the broad summit of the Quirinal and Viminal hills. See Nardini, Roma Antica, p. 174. Donatus de Roma Antiqua, p. 46.a a The Castra did not stand on these hills, but to the east of them, beyond the agger of Servius Tullius and between the Porta Viminalis and the Porta Collina. When Aurelian surrounded Rome with a new line of walls, the walls of the Castra formed part of the fortifications of the city; and accordingly, when Constantine disbanded the Prætorian guards, and dismantled their camp (Zosimus, ii. 17), three sides of the walls were left standing, and the side towards the city was alone pulled down. See Becker, Handbuch der Römischen Alterthümer, vol. i. pt. 1, p. 199.-S. Their strength and confidence. Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal, to the throne of despotism. By thus introducing the Prætorian guards, as it were, into the palace and the senate, the emperors taught them to perceive their own strength, and the weakness of the civil government; to view the vices of their masters with familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe which distance only and mystery can preserve towards an imaginary power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their pride was nourished by the sense of their irresistible weight; nor was it possible to conceal from them that the person of the sovereign, the authority of the senate, the public treasure, and the seat of empire, were all in their hands. To divert the Prætorian bands from these dangerous reflections, the firmest and best-established princes were obliged to mix blandishments with commands, rewards with punishments, to flatter their pride, indulge their pleasures, connive at their irregularities, and to purchase their precarious faith by a liberal donative; which, since the elevation of Claudius, was exacted as a legal claim on the accession of every new emperor. Their spe The advocates of the guards endeavored to justify by arguments the power which they asserted by arms; and to maintain that, according to the purest principles of the cious claims. constitution, their consent was essentially necessary in the appointment of an emperor. The election of consuls, of generals, and of magistrates, however it had been recently usurped by the senate, was the ancient and undoubted right. of the Roman people.' But where was the Roman people to be found? Not surely amongst the mixed multitude of slaves 6 Claudius, raised by the soldiers to the empire, was the first who gave a donative. He gave quina dena, £120 (Sueton. in Claud. c. 10): when Marcus, with his colleague Lucius Verus, took quiet possession of the throne, he gave vicena, £160, to each of the guards. Hist. August. p. 25. [Capitol. M. Anton. c. 7.] (Dion, 1. lxxiii. [c. 8] p. 1231.) We may form some idea of the amount of these sums, by Hadrian's complaint that the promotion of a Cæsar had cost him ter millies, two millions and a half sterling. Cicero de Legibus, iii. 3. The first book of Livy, and the second of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, show the authority of the people, even in the election of the kings. They offer the empire to sale. and strangers that filled the streets of Rome; a servile populace, as devoid of spirit as destitute of property. The defenders of the State, selected from the flower of the Italian youth, and trained in the exercise of arms and virtue, were the genuine representatives of the people, and the best entitled to elect the military chief of the republic. These assertions, however defective in reason, became unanswerable when the fierce Prætorians increased their weight by throwing, like the barbarian conqueror of Rome, their swords into the scale." The Prætorians had violated the sanctity of the throne by the atrocious murder of Pertinax; they dishonored the majesty of it by their subsequent conduct. The camp was without a leader, for even the præfect Lætus, who had excited the tempest, prudently declined the public indignation. Amidst the wild disorder, Sulpicianus, the emperor's father-in-law, and governor of the city, who had been sent to the camp on the first alarm of mutiny, was endeavoring to calm the fury of the multitude, when he was silenced by the clamorous return of the murderers, bearing on a lance the head of Pertinax. Though history has accustomed us to observe every principle and every passion yielding to the imperious dictates of ambition, it is scarcely credible that, in these moments of horror, Sulpicianus should have aspired to ascend a throne polluted with the recent blood of so near a relation and so excellent a prince. He had already begun to use the only effectual argument, and to treat for the imperial dignity; but the more prudent of the Prætorians, apprehensive that, in this private contract, they should not obtain a just price for so valuable a commodity, ran out upon the ramparts, and, with a loud voice, proclaimed that the Roman world was to be disposed of to the best bidder by public auction.1 8 They were originally recruited in Latium, Etruria, and the old colonies (Tacit. Annal. iv. 5). The Emperor Otho compliments their vanity with the flattering titles of Italia Alumni, Romana vere juventus. Tacit. Hist. i. 84. In the siege of Rome by the Gauls. See Livy, v. 48. Plutarch. in Camill. [c. 29] p. 143. 10 Dion, 1. lxxiii. [c. 11] p. 1234. Herodian, l. ii. [c. 6] p. 63. Hist. August. p. 60. [Spartian. Julian. c. 2.] Though the three historians agree that it was in fact an auction, Herodian alone affirms that it was proclaimed as such by the soldiers. This infamous offer, the most insolent excess of military license, diffused a universal grief, shame, and indignation It is pur- March 28. throughout the city. It reached at length the ears of Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator, who, regardless of the public calamities, was indulging himself in the luxury of the table." His wife and his daughter, his freedmen and his parasites, easily convinced him that he deserved the throne, and earnestly conjured him to embrace so fortunate an opportunity. The vain old man hastened to the Prætorian camp, where Sulpicianus was still in treaty with the guards, and began to bid against him from the foot of the rampart. The unworthy negotiation was transacted by faithful emissaries, who passed alternately from one candidate to the other, and acquainted each of them with the offers of his rival. Sulpicianus had already promised a donative of five thousand drachms (above one hundred and sixty pounds) to each soldier; when Julian, eager for the prize, rose at once to the sum of six thousand two hundred and fifty drachms, or upwards of two hundred pounds sterling. The gates of the camp were instantly thrown open to the purchaser; he was declared emperor, and received an oath of allegiance from the soldiers, who retained humanity enough to stipulate that he should pardon and forget the competition of Sulpicianus. Julian is ac It was now incumbent on the Prætorians to fulfil the conditions of the sale. They placed their new sovereign, whom they served and despised, in the centre of their knowledged ranks, surrounded him on every side with their shields, and conducted him in close order of battle through the deserted streets of the city. The senate was commanded to assemble; and those who had been the distinguished friends of Pertinax, or the personal enemies of Ju by the senate. 11 Spartianus softens the most odious parts of the character and elevation of Julian. One of the principal causes of the preference of Julianus by the soldiers was the dexterity with which he reminded them that Sulpicianus would not fail to revenge on them the death of his son-in-law. See Dion, p. 1234, [1. lxxiii.] c. 11. Herod. ii. 6.-W. |