obfcure foldier. Their filent difcord was under- C H A P. ftood rather than feen 43; but the mutual consciousness prevented them from uniting in any vigorous measures of defence against their common enemies of the Prætorian camp. The whole city was employed in the Capitoline games, and the Emperors were left almoft alone in the palace. On a fudden they were A.D. 238. alarmed by the approach of a troop of defpe- July 15. rate affaffins. Ignorant of each other's fituation or defigns, for they already occupied very distant apartments, afraid to give or to - receive affiftance, they wafted the important moments in idle debates and fruitlefs recriminations. The arrival of the guards put an end to the vain ftrife. They feized on thefe Emperors of the fenate, for fuch they called them with malicious contempt, ftripped them of their garments, and dragged them in infolent triumph through the streets of Rome, with a defign of inflicting a flow and cruel death on these unfortunate Princes. The fear of a rescue from the faithful Germans of the Imperial guards, fhortened their tortures; and their bodies, mangled with a thoufand wounds, were left exposed to the infults or to the pity of the populace 44.

In the space of a few months, fix princes The third had been cut off by the fword. Gordian, Gordian

43 Difcordiæ tacitæ, et quæ intelligerentur potius quam viderentur. Hift. Auguft. p. 170. This well-chofen expreffion is probably stolen

from fome better writer.

44 Herodian, 1. viii. p. 287, 288.

VOL. I.

X

who

remains fole Empe

ror.

VII.

CHA P. who had already received the title of Cæfar, was the only perfon that occurred to the foldiers as proper to fill the vacant throne 45. They carried him to the camp, and unanimoufly faluted him Auguftus and Emperor. His name was dear to the fenate and people; his tender age promifed a long impunity of military licence; and the fubmiffion of Rome and the provinces to the choice of the Prætorian guards, faved the republic, at the expence indeed of its freedom and dignity, from the horrors of a new civil war in the heart of the capital 46.

Innocence

of Gordian.

As the third Gordian was only nineteen years and virtues of age at the time of his death, the hiftory of his life, were it known to us with greater accuracy than it really is, would contain little more than the account of his education, and the conduct of the minifters, who by turns abused or guided the fimplicity of his unexperienced youth. Immediately after his acceffion, he fell into the hands of his mother's eunuchs, that pernicious vermin of the Eaft, who, fince the days

45 Quia non alius erat in præfenti, is the expreffion of the Auguftan Hiftory.

46 Quintus Curtius (1. x. c. 9.) pays an elegant compliment to the Emperor of the day, for having, by his happy acceffion, extinguished fo many firebrands, sheathed so many swords, and put an end to the evils of a divided government. After weighing with attention every word of the paffage, I am of opinion, that it suits better with the elevation of Gordian, than with any other period of the Roman History. In that cafe, it may serve to decide the age of Quintus Curtius. Thofe who place him under the firft Cæfars, argue from the purity of his ftyle, but are embarraffed by the filence of Quintilian in his accurate lift of Roman hiftorians.

of

VII.

of Elagabalus, had infefted the Roman palace. CHA P. By the artful confpiracy of these wretches, an impenetrable veil was drawn between an innocent Prince and his oppreffed fubjects, the virtuous difpofition of Gordian was deceived, and the honours of the empire fold without his knowledge, though in a very public manner, to the moft worthlefs of mankind. We are ignorant by what fortunate accident the Emperor efcaped from this ignominious flavery, and devolved his confidence on a minif ter, whose wife councils had no object except the glory of his fovereign, and the happiness of the people. It fhould feem that love and A.D. 240. learning introduced Mifitheus to the favour Adminif of Gordian. The young Prince married the Mifitheus. daughter of his master of rhetoric, and promoted his father-in-law to the firft offices of

the empire. Two admirable letters that paffed between them are ftill extant. The minifter, with the confcious dignity of virtue, congratulates Gordian that he is delivered from the tyranny of the eunuchs 47, and ftill more that he is fenfible of his deliverance. The Emperor acknowledges, with an amiable confufion, the errors of his past conduct; and laments, with fingular propriety, the misfortune of a monarch, from whom a venal tribe of

47 Hift. Auguft. p. 161. From fome hints in the two letters, I fhould expect that the eunuchs were not expelled the palace, without some degree of gentle violence, and that the young Gordian rather approved of, than consented to, their disgrace.

tration of

CHAP. courtiers perpetually labour to conceal the truth 48.

VII.

The Per

fian war.

A.D. 242.

The life of Mifitheus had been spent in the profeffion of letters, not of arms; yet fuch was the versatile genius of that great man, that when he was appointed Prætorian præfect, he dif charged the military duties of his place with vigour and ability. The Perfians had invaded Mefopotamia, and threatened Antioch. By the perfuafion of his father-in-law, the young Emperor quitted the luxury of Rome, opened, for the last time recorded in history, the temple of Janus, and marched in person into the East. On his approach with a great army, the Perfians withdrew their garrifons from the cities which they had already taken, and retired from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Gordian enjoyed the pleafure of announcing to the fenate the firft fuccefs of his arms, which he ascribed with a becoming modefty and gratitude to the wifdom of his father and præfect. During the whole expedition, Mifitheus watched over the fafety and difcipline of the army; whilst he prevented their dangerous murmurs by maintaining a regular plenty in the camp, and by establishing ample magazines of vinegar, bacon, ftraw, barley, and wheat, in all the cities of the frontier 49. But the profperity

48 Duxit uxorem filiam Mifithei, quem caufâ eloquentiæ dignum parentela fuâ putavit; et præfectum ftatim fecit; poft quod, non puerile jam et contemptibile videbatur imperium.

49 Hift. Auguft. p. 162. Aurelius Victor. Porphyrius in Vit. Plotin. ap. Fabricium. Biblioth. Græc. l. iv. c. 36. The philofo pher Plotinus accompanied the army, prompted by the love of knowledge, and by the hope of penetrating as far as India.

of

VII.

Philip.

of Gordian expired with Mifitheus, who died of CHA P. a flux, not without very ftrong fufpicions of poifon. Philip, his fucceffor in the præfecture, was A.D. 243an Arab by birth, and confequently, in the earlier Arts of part of his life, a robber by profeffion. His rife from fo obfcure a station to the firft dignities of the empire, feems to prove that he was a bold and able leader. But his boldness prompted him to aspire to the throne, and his abilities were employed to fupplant, not to ferve, his indulgent mafter. The minds of the foldiers were irritated by an artificial scarcity, created by his contrivance in the camp; and the distress of the army was attributed to the youth and incapacity of the Prince. It is not in our power to trace the fucceffive fteps of the fecret confpiracy and open fedition, which were at length fatal to Gordian. A fepulchral monument was erected to his me- Murder of mory on the spot so where he was killed, near the Gordian. conflux of the Euphrates with the little river March. Aboras S. SI The fortunate Philip, raised to the empire by the votes of the foldiers, found a ready obedience from the fenate and the provinces 52. We cannot forbear tranfcribing the ingenious, Form of a though fomewhat fanciful, defcription, which a military

50 About twenty miles from the little town of Circefium, on the frontier of the two empires.

5 The inscription (which contained a very fingular pun) was erased by the order of Licinius, who claimed some degree of relationfhip to Philip (Hift. August. p. 165.); but the tumulus or mound of earth which formed the sepulchre, still subsisted in the time of Julian. See Ammian. Marcellin. xxiii. 5.

52 Aurelius Victor. Eutrop. ix. 2. Orofius, vii, 20. Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 5. Zofimus, 1.i. p. 19. Philip, who was a native of Boftra, was about forty years of age.

A.D. 244

republic,