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Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to death in their flight
from the field of battle. Their fate excited neither surprise nor
compassion. They had staked their lives against the chance of empire,
and suffered what they would have inflicted; nor did
Severus
claim the arrogant superiority of suffering his rivals to live in a private
station. But his unforgiving
temper, stimulated by avarice,
indulged a spirit of
revenge, where there was no room for
apprehension. The most considerable of the provincials, who, without
any
dislike to the fortunate candidate, had obeyed the governor under whose
authority they were accidentally placed, were punished by
death, exile, and especially by the confiscation of their estates. Many
cities of the East were stripped of their ancient honors, and
obliged to pay, into the treasury of Severus, four times the amount of the
sums contributed by them for the service of Niger.
56
Footnote 56: Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1250.
Till the final decision of the war, the cruelty of Severus was, in some
measure, restrained by the uncertainty of the event, and his
pretended reverence for the senate. The head of Albinus, accompanied
with a menacing letter, announced to the Romans that he was
resolved to spare none of the adherents of his unfortunate competitors.
He was irritated by the just auspicion that he had never
possessed the affections of the senate, and he concealed his old
malevolence under the recent discovery of some treasonable
correspondences. Thirty-five senators, however, accused of having
favored the party of Albinus, he freely pardoned, and, by his
subsequent behavior, endeavored to convince them, that he had
forgotten, as well as forgiven, their supposed offences. But, at the
same time, he condemned forty-one
57 other senators,
whose names history has recorded; their wives, children, and clients
attended
them in death,
* and the noblest provincials of
Spain and
Gaul were involved in the same ruin.
! Such rigid justice -
for so he termed
it - was, in the opinion of Severus, the only conduct capable of insuring
peace to the people or stability to the prince; and he
condescended slightly to lament, that to be mild, it was necessary that
he should first be cruel.
58
Footnote 57: Dion, (l. lxxv. p.
1264;) only twenty-nine senators are mentioned by him, but forty-one are
named in the Augustan History, p. 69, among whom were
six of the name of Pescennius. Herodian (l. iii. p. 115) speaks in general
of the cruelties of Severus.
Footnote *: Wenck denies that there is any authority for
this massacre of the wives of the senators. He adds, that only the children
and relatives of Niger and Albinus were put to death. This is true of the
family of Albinus, whose bodies were thrown into the Rhone;
those of Niger, according to Lampridius, were sent into exile, but
afterwards put to death. Among the partisans of Albinus who were
put to death were many women of rank, multae foeminae illustres.
Lamprid. in Sever. - M.
Footnote !: A new fragment of Dion describes the state
of Rome during this contest. All pretended to be on the side of Severus;
but
their secret sentiments were often betrayed by a change of countenance
on the arrival of some sudden report. Some were detected by
overacting their loyalty, Mai. Fragm. Vatican. p. 227 Severus told the
senate he would rather have their hearts than their votes. - Ibid. -
M.
Footnote 58: Aurelius Victor.
The true interest of an absolute
monarch generally coincides with that
of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and their
security, are the best and only foundations of his real greatness; and
were he totally devoid of
virtue, prudence might supply its place,
and would dictate the same rule of conduct. Severus considered
the
Roman empire as his property, and had no sooner secured the
possession, than he bestowed his care on the
cultivation and
improvement of so valuable an acquisition. Salutary laws, executed with
inflexible firmness, soon corrected most of the abuses with which, since
the death of Marcus, every part of the government had been
infected. In the administration of
justice, the judgments of the emperor
were characterized by attention,
discernment, and impartiality;
and whenever he deviated from the strict line of equity, it was generally
in favor of the poor and oppressed; not so much indeed from
any sense of humanity, as from the natural propensity of a
despot to
humble the pride of greatness, and to sink all his subjects to the
same common level of absolute
dependence. His expensive taste for
building, magnificent shows, and above all a constant and liberal
distribution of corn and provisions, were the surest means of captivating
the affection of the Roman people.
59 The misfortunes of
civil
discord were obliterated. The clam of peace and prosperity was
once more experienced in the provinces; and many cities,
restored by the munificence of Severus, assumed the title of his colonies,
and attested by public monuments their gratitude and felicity.
60 The fame of the Roman arms was revived by that warlike
and successful emperor,
61 and he boasted, with a just
pride, that,
having received the empire oppressed with foreign and domestic wars,
he left it established in profound, universal, and honorable
peace.
62
Footnote 59: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1272. Hist. August. p. 67. Severus
celebrated the secular games with extraordinary
magnificence, and he left in the public granaries a provision of corn for
seven years, at the rate of 75,000 modii, or about 2500
quarters per day. I am persuaded that the granaries of Severus were
supplied for a long term, but I am not less persuaded, that policy
on one hand, and admiration on the other, magnified the hoard far
beyond its true contents.
Footnote 60: See Spanheim's treatise of ancient
medals, the inscriptions, and our learned travellers Spon and Wheeler,
Shaw, Pocock,
&c, who, in Africa, Greece, and Asia, have found more monuments of
Severus than of any other Roman emperor
whatsoever.
Footnote 61: He carried his victorious arms to Seleucia
and Ctesiphon, the capitals of the Parthian monarchy. I shall have
occasion to
mention this war in its proper place.
Footnote 62: Etiam in Britannis, was his own just and
emphatic expression Hist. August. 73.
Although the wounds of
civil war appeared completely healed, its
mortal poison still lurked in the vitals of the constitution.
Severus possessed a considerable share of vigor and ability; but the
daring soul of the first
Caesar, or the deep policy of Augustus,
were scarcely equal to the task of curbing the insolence of the victorious
legions. By gratitude, by misguided policy, by seeming
necessity, Severus was reduced to relax the nerves of discipline.
63 The vanity of his soldiers was flattered with the honor of
wearing gold rings their ease was indulged in the permission of living
with their wives in the idleness of quarters. He increased their
pay beyond the example of former times, and taught them to expect,
and soon to claim, extraordinary donatives on every public
occasion of danger or festivity. Elated by success, enervated by luxury,
and raised above the level of subjects by their dangerous
privileges,
64 they soon became incapable of military
fatigue, oppressive to the country, and impatient of a just subordination.
Their
officers asserted the superiority of rank by a more profuse and elegant
luxury. There is still extant a letter of Severus, lamenting the
licentious stage of the army,
* and exhorting one of his
generals to begin the necessary
reformation from the tribunes
themselves;
since, as he justly observes, the officer who has forfeited the esteem, will
never command the
obedience, of his soldiers.
65 Had the
emperor pursued the train of reflection, he would have discovered, that
the primary cause of this general corruption might be
ascribed,
not indeed to the example, but to the pernicious indulgence, however,
of the
commander-in-chief.
Footnote 63: Herodian, l. iii. p. 115.
Hist. August. p. 68.
Footnote 64: Upon
the insolence and privileges of the soldier, the 16th satire, falsely
ascribed to Juvenal, may be
consulted; the style and circumstances of it would induce me to believe,
that it was composed under the reign of Severus, or that of
his son.
Footnote *: Not of the army, but of the troops in Gaul.
The contents of this letter seem to prove that Severus was really anxious
to
restore discipline Herodian is the only historian who accuses him of
being the first cause of its relaxation. - G. from W Spartian
mentions his increase of the pays. - M.
Footnote 65: Hist. August. p. 73.
The Praetorians, who murdered their emperor and sold the empire, had
received the just punishment of their treason; but the
necessary, though dangerous, institution of guards was soon restored on
a new model by Severus, and increased to four times the
ancient number.
66 Formerly these troops had been
recruited in Italy; and as the adjacent provinces gradually imbibed the
softer
manners of Rome, the levies were extended to
Macedonia, Noricum,
and Spain. In the room of these elegant troops, better adapted to
the pomp of courts than to the uses of war, it was established by Severus,
that from all the legions of the frontiers, the soldiers most
distinguished for strength, valor, and
fidelity, should be occasionally
draughted; and promoted, as an honor and reward, into the more
eligible service of the guards.
67 By this new institution, the
Italian youth were diverted from the exercise of arms, and the capital
was terrified by the strange aspect and manners of a multitude of
barbarians. But Severus flattered himself, that the legions would
consider these chosen Praetorians as the representatives of the whole
military order; and that the present aid of fifty thousand men,
superior in arms and appointments to any force that could be brought
into the field against them, would forever crush the hopes of
rebellion, and secure the empire to himself and his posterity.
Footnote 66: Herodian, l. iii. p. 131.
Footnote 67: Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1243.
The command of these favored and formidable troops soon became the
first office of the empire. As the government degenerated into
military despotism, the Praetorian Praefect, who in his origin had been a
simple 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 represented the person, and
exercised the authority, of the emperor. The first praefect who enjoyed
and abused this immense power was
Plautianus, the favorite
minister of Severus. His reign lasted above then years, till the marriage
of his daughter with the eldest son of the emperor, which
seemed to assure his fortune, proved the occasion of his ruin.
68 The animosities of the palace, by irritating the ambition
and alarming
the fears of Plautianus,
* threatened to produce a
revolution, and obliged the emperor, who still loved him, to consent 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
Praetorian Praefect.
Footnote *: The Praetorian Praefect had never been a
simple captain of the guards; from the first creation of this office, under
Augustus, it possessed great power. That emperor, therefore, decreed
that there should be always two Praetorian Praefects, who
could only be taken from the equestrian order Tiberius first departed from
the former clause of this edict; Alexander Severus violated
the second by naming senators praefects. It appears that it was under
Commodus that the Praetorian Praefects obtained the province
of civil jurisdiction.
it extended only to Italy, with the exception of Rome and its district,
which was governed by the Praefectus urbi. As to the control of
the finances, and the levying of taxes, it was not intrusted to them till
after the great change that Constantine I. made in the
organization of the empire at least, I know no passage which assigns it to
them before that time; and Drakenborch, who has treated
this question in his Dissertation de official praefectorum praetorio, vi.,
does not quote one. - W.
Footnote 68: One of his most daring
and wanton acts of power, was the castration of a hundred free Romans,
some 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 eastern
queen. Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1271.
Footnote *: Plautianus was compatriot, relative, and the
old friend, of Severus; he had so completely shut up all access to the
emperor, that the latter was ignorant how far he abused his powers: at
length, being informed of it, he began to limit his authority. The
marriage of Plautilla with Caracalla was unfortunate; and the prince
who had been forced to consent to it, menaced the father and the
daughter with death when he should come to the throne. It was feared,
after that, that Plautianus would avail himself of the power
which he still possessed, against the Imperial family; and Severus caused
him to be assassinated in his presence, upon the pretext of a
conspiracy, which Dion considers fictitious. - W. This note is not, perhaps,
very necessary and does not contain the whole facts.
Dion considers the conspiracy the invention of Caracalla, by whose
command, almost by whose hand, Plautianus was slain in the
presence of Severus. - M.
Footnote 69: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1274. Herodian, l. iii. p.
122, 129. The grammarian of Alexander seems, as
is not unusual, much better acquainted with this mysterious transaction,
and more assured of the guilt of Plautianus than the Roman
senator ventures to be.
Till the reign of Severus, the virtue and even the good sense of the
emperors had been distinguished by their zeal or affected reverence
for the senate, and by a tender regard to the nice frame of civil policy
instituted by Augustus. But the youth of Severus had been
trained in the implicit obedience of camps, and his riper years spent in
the
despotism of military command. His haughty and inflexible
spirit cou' not discover, or would not acknowledge, the advantage of
preserving an intermediate power, however imaginary, between
the emperor and the army. He disdained to profess himself the servant of
an assembly that detested his person and trembled at his
frown; he issued his commands, where his requests would have proved as
effectual; assumed the conduct and style of a sovereign
and a conqueror, and exercised, without disguise, the whole legislative,
as well as the executive power.
The victory over the senate was easy and
inglorious. Every eye and
every passion were directed to the supreme magistrate, who
possessed the arms and treasure of the state; whilst the senate, neither
elected by the people, nor guarded by military force, nor
animated by public spirit, rested its declining authority on the frail and
crumbling basis of ancient opinion. The fine theory of a republic
insensibly vanished, and made way for the more natural and substantial
feelings of
monarchy. As the freedom and honors of Rome
were successively 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 historians of the age of the Antonines
70
observe, with a
malicious pleasure, that although the sovereign of
Rome, in compliance with an obsolete prejudice, abstained from the
name of king, he possessed the full measure of regal power. In the reign
of Severus, the senate was filled with polished and eloquent
slaves from the eastern provinces, who justified personal flattery by
speculative principles of
servitude. These new advocates of
prerogative were heard with pleasure by the court, and with patience by
the people, when they inculcated the duty of passive
obedience, and descanted on the inevitable mischiefs of freedom. The
lawyers and historians concurred in teaching, that the Imperial
authority was held, not by the delegated commission, but by the
irrevocable resignation of the senate; that the emperor was freed from
the restraint of civil laws, could command by his arbitrary will the lives
and fortunes of his subjects, and might dispose of the empire
as of his private
patrimony.
71 The most eminent of the
civil lawyers, and particularly Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, flourished
under
the house of Severus; and the Roman jurisprudence, having closely
united itself with the system of monarchy, was supposed to have
attained its full majority 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.
Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his maxims
and example, justly considered him as the principal author of
the decline of the Roman empire.
Footnote 70: Appian in Prooem.
Footnote 71: Dion Cassius seems to have written with no
other view than to form these opinions into an historical system. The
Pandea's will how how assiduously the lawyers, on their side, laboree in
the cause of prerogative.
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To cite original text:
Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794.
The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. 1st ed. (London : Printed for W. Strahan ; and T. Cadell, 1776-1788.), pp. 123-129.