IV.

CHAP. upon guard; and by the domestics of the old court, who had already formed a secret conspiracy against the life of the too virtuous emperor. On the news of their approach, Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment, advanced to meet his assassins; and recalled to their minds his own innocence, and the sanctity of their recent oath. For a few moments they stood in silent suspense, ashamed of their atrocious design, and awed by the venerable aspect and majestic firmness of their sovereign, till at length the despair of pardon reviving their fury, a barbarian of the country of Tongres1 levelled the first blow against Pertinax, who was instantly dispatched with a multitude of wounds. His head, separated from his body, and placed on a lance, was carried in triumph to the prætorian camp, in the sight of a mournful and indignant people, who lamented the unworthy fate of that excellent prince, and the transient blessings of a reign, the memory of which could serve only to aggravate their approaching misfortunes.

k

i The modern bishopric of Liege. This soldier probably belonged to the Batavian horse-guards, who were mostly raised in the duch of Gueldres, and the neighbourhood, and were distinguished by their valour, and by the boldness with which they swam their horses across the broadest and most rapid rivers. Tacit. Hist. iv, 12. Dion, 1. lv, p. 797. Lipsius de magnitudine Romanâ, 1. i, c. 4.

* Dion, 1. lxxiii, p. 1232. Herodian, 1. ii, p. 60. Hist. August. p. 58. Victor in Epitom. et in Cæsarib. Eutropius, viii, 16.

CHAP. 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.

V.

n

of the mili

to the num

THE power of the sword is more sensibly felt CHAP. in an extensive monarchy, than in a small community. It has been calculated by the ablest Proportion politicians, that no state, without being soon ex-tary force, hausted, can maintain above the hundredth part ber of the of its members in arms and idleness. But al- people. though 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 an union would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it would be impracti cable; 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

V.

CHAP. 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 an hundred armed followers were a weak defence against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but an 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 pras torian guards.

The prætorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom and cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely amounted to the lastTheir In- mentioned number. They derived their institution from Augustus. That crafty tyrant, sens

stitution.

ible that laws might colour, 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 favoured troops by a double pay, and supe rior 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 dis

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,

V.

persed in the adjacent towns of Italy. But CHAP. after fifty years of peace and servitude, Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which for ever Their rivetted the fetters of his country. Under the camp. fair pretences of relieving Italy from the heavy burthen 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

strength

fidence.

Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal, to the throne of despotism. By and con 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

Sueton. in August. c. 49.

• Tacit. Annal, iv, 2, Sueton. in Tiber. c. 37. Dion Cassius, lvii, p. 867.

d 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.

* 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 Antica, p. 46.

CHAP. in their hands. To divert the prætorian bands

Their specious

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.

The advocates of the guards endeavoured to claims. justify by arguments, the power which they asserted by arms; and to maintain that, according to the purest principles of the 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 and strangers that filled the streets of Rome; a servile populace, as devoid of spirit as destitute of property. The defenders of the state,

款

* 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. (Dion, 1. lxxiii, 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 se cond of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, shew the authority of the people, even in the election of the kings.