Page images
PDF
EPUB

W.

T

CHA P. 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 an hundred armed folylowers were a weak defence against ten thousand peasants nor citizens; but an hundred thousand well-disciplined soldiers will command, with despotic sway, ten millions of subjects; and a body Lof ten or fifteen thousand guards will strike terror into the most numerous populace that ever crowded the streets of an immense capital.

The Præguards

torian

stitution.

[ocr errors]

The Prætorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom and cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely amounted to the last Their in- mentioned number*, They derived their instiwtution from Augustus. That crafty tyrant, sensible 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 superior privileges; but, as their formidable aspect would at once have alarmed and irriated the Roman people, three cohorts only were stationed in the capital; whilst the remainder was discla persed

[ocr errors]

* They

and Dion

[blocks in formation]

ten thousand men (for Tacitus subject), divided into as many

cohorts. Vitellius increased them to sixteen thousand, and as far s we can learn from inscriptions, they never afterwards sunk * much below that number. See Lipsius de magnitudine Romana, WT 3⁄44pɔNA smol (ribis 592

нA P,

W.

camp.

persed in the adjacent towns of Italy *But after fifty years of peace and servitude, Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which for ever rivetted the fetters of this country. Under the Their fair pretences of relieving Italy from the heavy burthen of military quarters, and of introducing abstricter discipline among the guards, bhéɔ assembled them at Rome, in a permanent campt, which was fortified with skilful care, and placed on a commanding situation f.om at oth: 107

and confi.

[ocr errors]

Such formidable servants are always hecessary, Their but often fatal to the throne of despotism. By strength Pothus introducing the Prætorian guards, as it were dence. into the b 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 disEtance 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 Founterz stew vine atrofeo sint signq mora. i roba air oft tender Issiqno ed r eru Sueton. in August. c. 49.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

in

Tacit. Annal. iv. 2. Sueton. in Tiber, c. 37. Dion Cas

sius, 1. lvii.

867.

In the civil war between Vitellius and Vespa 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.

[ocr errors]

CHA?. 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 pur chase 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 *.

[ocr errors]

Their spe

cious claims.

[ocr errors]

The advocates of the guards endeavoured to 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 t. 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, selected

Claudius, raised by the soldiers to the empire, was the first who gave a donative. He gave quina dena, 1201. (Sueton. in Claud, c. 10.) when Marcus, with his colleague Lucius Verus, took quiet possession of the throne, he gave vicena, 1601. 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 second of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, shew the authority of the people, even in the election of the kings.

selected from the flower of the Italian youth, * C ́HAP. and trained in the exercise of arms and virtue,

[ocr errors]

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 t.

V.

the empire to sale.

The Prætorians had violated the sanctity of They offer the throne, by the atrocious murder of Pertinax they dishonoured 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 endeavouring 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

*They were originally recruited in Latium, Etruria, and the old colonies. (Tacit. Annal. iv. 5.) The emperor Otho compli ments their vanity, with the flattering titles of Italiæ Alumni, Romana vere juventus. Tacit. Hist. i. 84.

+ In the siege of Rome by the Gauls. See Livy, v. 48. Pla-r tarch in Camill. p. 148.

172

о THE DECLINE AND FALL

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

only effectual argument, and to treat for the
18 920199119 94101 199890
Imperial dignity; but the more prudent of
baibaud owt baguodi. xato que e
Prætorians, apprehensive that, in this private
contract, they should not obtain a just price for
obtingu, on
a commodity, ran out upon the ram-
andreje
so Valuable a
parts; and, with a loud voice, proclaimed that
the Roman
I World some heal
was to be disposed of to the
best bidder by public auction 94
*.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

pholy
parasites, easily convinced him
that he deserved the throne, and earnestly con-
2199112 5911929b
basalmages of bebasm

jured him to embrace so fortunate an oppor-
tunity. The vain old man hastened to the Præ-
torian camp,
insismo
where Sulpicianus was still in treaty
with the guards, and began to bid against him
from the foot of the ramp
footst
*gortuloverosd 2 fe

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Dion, d. lxxiii. p. 1234 gust. 60.

Herodian such by the soldiers.

fact and Though one as

+ Spartianus softens the most and elevation of Julian.

-909 18102799 & 11990 bed 10

odious parts of the character
smit tettavia no*
*874 q.ixx! i nalul of ym

« PreviousContinue »