X. enabled him to succeed; and as his genius was CHAP. destitute of judgment, he attempted every art, except the important ones of war and government. He was a master of several curious, but useless sciences, a ready orator, and elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most contemptible prince. When the great emergencies of the state required his presence and attention, he was engaged in conversation with the philosopher Plotinus †, wasting his time in trifling or licentious pleasures, preparing his imitation to the Grecian mysteries, or soliciting a place in the Areopagus of Athens. His profuse magnificence insulted the general poverty; the solemn ridicule of his triumphs impressed a deeper sense of the public disgrace ‡. The repeated *There is still extant a very pretty Epithalamium, composed by Gallienus for the nuptials of his nephews. Ite ait, O Juvenes, pariter sudate medullis Omnibus, inter vos: non murmura vestra columbæ, At. He was on the point of giving Plotinus a ruined city of Cam- A medal which bears the head of Gallienus has perplexed the antiquarians by its legend and reverse; the former Galliena Augusta, the latter Ubique Pax. M. Spanheim supposes that the coin was struck by some of the enemies of Gallienus, and was designed as a severe satire on that effeminate prince. But as the use of irony may seem unworthy of the gravity of the Roman mint, M. de Vallemont has deduced from a passage of Trebellius Pollio (Hist. August. p. 198.) an ingenious and natural solution. Galliena was first cousin to the emperor. By delivering Africa from the usurper Celsus, she deserved the title of Augusta. On a medal in the French king's collection, we read a similar inscription of Faustina Augusta round the head of Marcus Aurelius. With regard to the Ubique Pax, it is easily explained by the vanity of Gallienus, who seized, perhaps, the CHAP. repeated intelligence of invasions, defeats, and rebellions, he received with a careless smile; and singling out, with affected contempt, some particular production of the lost province, he carelessly asked, whether Róme must be ruined, unless it was supplied with linen from Egypt, and Arras cloth from Gaul? There were, however, a few short moments in the life of Gallienus, when, exasperated by some recent injury, he suddenly appeared the intrepid soldier and the cruel tyrant; till, satiated with blood, or fatigued by resistance, he insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence of his character *. The thirty $yrants. At a time when the reins of government were held with so loose a hand, it is not surprising that a crowd of usurpers should start up in every province of the empire against the son of Valerian. It was probably some ingenious fancy, of comparing the thirty ty ran's of Rome with the thirty tyrants of Athens, that induced the writers of the Augustan history to select that celebrated number, which has been gradually received into a popular appellation +. But in every light the parallel is idle and defective. What resemblance can we discover between a council of the occasion of some momentary calm. See Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, Janvier 1700. p. 21---34. *This singular character has, I believe, been fairly transmit, ted to us, The reign of his immediate successor was short and busy; and the historians who wrote before the elevation of the family of Constantine, could not have the most remote interest to misrepresent the character of Gallienus. + Pollio expresses the most minute anxiety to complete the number. X. number was no more than nineteen. of thirty persons, the united oppressors of a sin- CHAP. gle city, and an uncertain list of independent rivals, who rose and fell in irregualar succession through the extent of a vast empire? Nor can the number of thirty be completed, unless we include in the account the women and children who were honoured with the Imperial title. The reign of Gallienus, distracted as it was, produced only nineteen pretenders to the throne; Cyriades, Their real Macrianus, Balista, Odenathus, and Zenobia, in the east; in Gaul, and the western provinces, Posthumus, Lollianus, Victorinus and his mother Victoria, Marius, and Tetricus. In Illyricum and the confines of the Danube, Ingenuus, Kegillianus, and Aureolus; in Pontus *, Saturninus; in Isauria, Trebellianus; Piso in Thessaly; Valens in Achaia; Æmilianus in Egypt; and Celsus in Africa. To illustrate the obscure monuments of the life and death of each individual, would prove a laborious task, alike barren of instruction and of amusement. We may content ourselves with investigating some general characters, that most strongly mark the condition of the times, and the manners of the men, their pretensions, their motives, their fate, and the destructive consequences of their usurpation †. It is sufficiently known, that the odious appel- character lation of Tyrant was often employed by the an- and merit cients to express the illegal seizure of supreme tyrants. power, * The place of his reign is somewhat doubtful; but there was a tyrant in Pontus, and we are acquainted with the seat of allthe others. + Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 1163, reckons them somewhat dif ferently. of the X. CHAP power, without any reference to the abuse of it. Several of the pretenders, who raised the stan dard of rebellion against the emperor Gallienus, were shining models of virtue, and almost all possessed a considerable share of vigour and abil lity. Their merit had recommended them to the favour of Valerian, and gradually promoted them to the most important commands of the empire. The generals, who assumed the title of Augustus, were either respected by their troops for their able conduct and severe discipline, or admired for for valour and success in war, or beloved" for frankness and generosity. The field of victory was often the scene of their election; and even the armourer Marius, the most contemptible of all the candidates for the purple, was distinguished however by intrepid courage, matchless strength, and blunt honesty *. His mean and recent trade cast indeed an air of ridicule on his elevation; but his birth could not be more obscure than was that of the greater part of his rivals, who were born of peasants, and inlisted in the army as private soldiers. In times of confusion, every active genius finds the place assigned him by Nature: In a general state of war, military merit is the road to glory and to greatness. Of the nineteen tyrants, Tetricus only was a senator; Piso alone was a noble, The blood of Numa, through twenty-eight successive generations, ran in the veins of Calphur Their obscure birth. asto * See the speech of Marius, in the Augustan History, p. 197. The accidental identity of names was the only circumstance that could tempt Pollio to imitate Sallust. X. nius Piso *, who, by female alliances, claimed CHAP. a right of exhibiting, in his house, the images of Crassus and of the great Pompey †. His ancestors had been repeatedly dignified with all the honours which the commonwealth could bestow; and of all the ancient families of Rome, the Calphurnian alone had survived the tyranny of the Cæsars. The personal qualities of Piso added new lustre to his race. The usurper Valens, by whose order he was killed, confessed, with deep remorse, that even an enemy ought to have respected the sanctity of Piso; and although he died in arms against Gallienus, the senate, with the emperor's generous permission, decreed the triumphal ornaments to the memory of so virtuous a rebel 1. bellion. The lieutenants of Valerian were grateful to The causes the father whom they esteemed. They dis- of their redained to serve the luxurious indolence of his unworthy son. The throne of the Roman world was unsupported by any principle of loyalty; and treason against such a prince might easily be considered as patriotism to the state. Yet if we examine with candour the conduct of these usurpers, Vos, O Pompilius sanguis! is Horace's address to the Pisos See Art. Poet. v. 292. with Dacier's and Sanadon's notes. + Tacit. Annal. xv. 48. Hist. i. 15. In the former of these passages we may venture to change paterna into materna. In every generation from Augustus to Alexander Severus, one or more Pisos appear as consuls. A Piso was deemed worthy of the throne by Augustus. (Tacit. Annal. i. 13.) A second headed a formidable conspiracy against Nero; and a third was adopted, and declared Cæsar by Galba. Hist. August. p. 195. The senate, in a moment of enthusiasm, seems to have presumed on the approbation of Gallienus. |