CHAPTER VI.

THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE (A.D. 249-270)

I.

 INTRODUCTION: THE AGE OF DECIUS, GALLUS AND AEMILIANUS

BRIEF survey of the period is necessary at the outset, in order to indicate who were the chief actors in the moving drama that was played in this brief span of time, what were its essential features and on what lines the action proceeded. Even this preliminary view enables one to recognize the special character of these two decades by one of its essential traits—by the amazing acceleration of the rhythm of events. Under Antoninus Pius the solidarity and inner strength of the Empire had been so great that its stability seemed to reduce every movement to insignificance and the whole period took its character from conditions, not from events. Then ensued blows of unexpected violence, but still quite isolated blows, like the Marcomannic War, or sudden revolutions like the coup d'état of Septimius Severus. Such decisive events then follow more and more closely on one another; in each and every department of life the pulse accelerates till about the middle of the century, and then, gradually and with many a relapse, it resumes its regularity. Not till Diocletian has life become calm enough for us to be able to recognize its essential conditions.

In the opening sections no appraisement of values will be given. It is first necessary to fix the course of events- We observe these at first from a great distance, so that the main contours may stand out more clearly while the details disappear, and the great movements show themselves plainly, but the din of battle and the voices of individuals are no longer heard. Only when the external order of events has been determined as precisely as possible, we may approach the tumult of wars and the life of every day, the headquarters, armies and masses, so as to determine the forces that were at work, and appreciate the historical evo­lution which kept these forces in play and the effect of individuals.

How do matters stand when this period begins? The two Philips are dead; the victorious pretender, C. Messius Quintus Decius, approaches Rome. The Senate welcomes him on his arrival with extravagant honours and bestows on him the name of Traianus, the ideal model of the. emperor ‘by grace of the Senate’. Decius, however, at once emphasizes his absolute dependence on the army of Illyricum, which had clothed him with the purple. Decius had overcome Philip near Verona in September 249. In Rome, soon after the customary celebration of his arrival and the solemn vows for the long continuance and happiness of his rule, he initiated that campaign against Christianity that threw large sections of the population into panic and misery. He had still a short time left him for buildings in the capital and for other occupations of peace. From Syria was brought, according to the fashion of the times, the head of the usurper, Jotapianus, and as late as the end of December it was still possible to discharge time-expired soldiers. But signs of disturbance soon appeared. In Gaul a civil war broke out, only to be suppressed—whether the Emperor himself visited the province cannot be decided. Thereupon followed the tidings of the inroad of the Goths into the Balkans. About April or June 250 Decius made his elder son, Herennius Etruscus, Caesar, a youth who, to judge by his portraits, had hardly reached man’s estate—and sent him with an armed force to Moesia. Soon afterwards he himself set out. Probably to ensure the loyalty of the capital by a representative of his house he appointed his second son, Hostilianus, Caesar. P. Licinius Valerianus, a respected member of the Senate, was, it appears, set at the boy’s side, to direct the civil administration for him during the Gothic war. The wife of Decius, Herennia Cupressenia Etruscilla, now raised to the rank of Augusta, may well have lent her help and counsel to the young prince. Simultaneously with the war the persecution of the Christians proceeded on a grand scale. Towards the middle of June the required sacrifices began, and the authorities, during some weeks, gave certificates of compliance to the loyal who sacrificed and began to persecute the recalcitrant. But the effects of the long drawn-out war soon began to be acutely felt. The mob of Rome, in its desire for a new régime, went to the length of proclaiming a rival emperor: the name of Decius was erased from many inscriptions. But the pretender, Julius Valens Licinianus, a man, it would appear, of senatorial rank, was soon crushed. In May 251, the two sons of the Emperor were proclaimed Augusti. But, very soon after the joyful celebration of that event, the whole Empire was shaken by the news of the destruction of the Roman expeditionary force (about the beginning of June), and the heroic deaths of Decius and his elder son at Abrittus in the Dobrudja.

It was some slight consolation that Julius Priscus, the governor of Thrace, who had surrendered with his mutinous troops to the Goths at Philippopolis and had been proclaimed emperor, had in the meantime vanished from the scene. The wrecks of the de­feated army in the Dobrudja proclaimed the legate of Lower Moesia, C. Vibius Afinius Trebonianus Gallus, second emperor, as the surviving son of Decius was still a child. Gallus, in the disastrous position in which he stood, had lost the power to dictate to the enemy the terms of peace. The flower of the population of Thrace—so far as it still survived—was carried off by the Goths, and with it went the wealth of the provinces; besides all this, the raiders received annual subsidies, to induce them not to return.

Gallus treated his fallen predecessors with all respect and had them consecrated by the Senate; Hostilianus he adopted as his son. Only Etruscilla was forced into retirement, but the wife of the new emperor, Afinia Gemina Baebiana, did not become Augusta, so as not to encroach on her prerogative. Gallus, however, at the same time made his own son, Volusianus, Caesar and, not long afterwards, Augustus; had not the son of Decius died of the plague, complications must soon have arisen. Although enough remained to be done in the devastated lands on the frontier, Gallus hastened to Rome to ensure his position by showing his respect to the Senate. Gallus seems, in fact, to have concentrated his entire attention on Rome, and it appears that it was at Rome that Gallus and his son provided decent burial for the poor who had been carried off by the plague. It was just at this moment that a fearful plague broke out, which for fifteen long years was to rage over the whole Empire. Apart from this, the two rulers were incapable of any kind of energetic action; the inroads of the East Germans not only continued, but rose to the pitch of an appalling disaster—to say nothing of the complete neglect of the East. The persecution of the Christians, which began again in 253, did not reach any serious dimensions, for the reign of Gallus and his son lasted only two years.

The successor of Gallus as governor of Lower Moesia, M. Aemilius Aemilianus, had succeeded early in 253 in putting an end to the devastation of his province by the Goths and had even carried to a victorious conclusion a punitive expedition north of the Danube. He was now proclaimed emperor. Though Goths were still running wild in Thrace, Aemilianus turned in haste to Italy to catch Gallus unprepared. The surprise succeeded, and he had reached Umbria before Gallus and Volusianus encountered him. Their army was so inferior in numbers to that of their adversary, that their own troops chose to make away with them rather than hazard a hopeless battle—at Interamna, or, according to another tradition, a little farther north at Forum Flaminii.

After Gallus had thus been disposed of, Aemilianus was recog­nized in Egypt and throughout the East, and plentiful issues from the Imperial mint attested his confirmation by that same Senate that had so recently condemned him as hostis publicus. His wife, Cornelia Supera, was made Augusta. But all these glories lasted no more than three or four summer months. For, when Gallus gave orders to P. Licinius Valerianus to bring up the Rhine legions to his aid, Valerian, instead of doing so, had him­self proclaimed emperor. He had a strong army, which had been collected in Raetia, no doubt to fight the Alemanni; he, too, now turned with it towards Italy. Aemilianus met the fate of Gallus, for, as he marched north, he was murdered, not far from the place where his predecessors had met their death (near Spoletium or perhaps between Ocriculum and Narnia). The army of Valerian was felt to be the stronger, and Valerian himself was an imposing figure, in virtue of his birth and his career, and so the troops of Aemilianus chose to kill their own lord rather than face a new civil war. It must have been out of respect to the authority of the Senate that the new ruler did not leave it to the army to proclaim his son, P. Licinius Egnatius Gallienus, as his colleague, but requested the patres to appoint his son a second Augustus about September 253.

While the best corps of the Roman army were tied down to Italy by the civil wars, the frontier-guard was everywhere being shattered by the encircling pressure of the neighbouring peoples. Valerian now resolved to entrust the conduct of the wars in the West to his son, while he himself very soon afterwards went to the East, which, since Philip, had not set eyes on any emperor.

II.

THE ROMAN EAST FROM VALERIAN TO THE ACCESSION OF AURELIAN

The harsh rule of Philip’s brother Priscus had at once produced a violent reaction. Jotapianus, who was perhaps descended from a branch of the family of Severus Alexander, was raised to the throne in Syria (or, perhaps, in Cappadocia) but he was quickly crushed. As neither Decius nor Gallus was in a position to appear in person in the East, the danger abroad and the demoralization at home continued alike to increase. The peoples of South Russia, who had by this time sucked the Danube provinces dry, began to organize great sea-raids to plunder Asia Minor. In 253 came the first sea-raid by the Goths of the Black Sea which reached Pessinus and Ephesus. Armenia was too weak to defend herself without vigorous assistance from Rome against the New Persian Empire and the friends of Persia succeeded in murdering the excellent king, Chosroes. Soon afterwards (under Gallus) his son Tiridates was compelled to flee from his country, and now began that new Persian offensive against the Roman provinces of the East that was to last nearly a decade. Early in 253 the Persian bands swarmed over Mesopo­tamia and Syria, captured Antioch and made good their retire­ment with an immense booty and a countless host of captives. When Valerian hastened to the spot in the winter of 253-4, he was already too late. But the priest-king of Emesa, Sulpicius Uranius Antoninus, who, owing to the impotence of the central government, had been set up as a pretender and had successfully organized the defence of his own small homeland, now vanished from the scene at the Emperor’s approach. The gallant commander of Pityus, the Successianus who had conducted an admirable defence of that city against an assault of the Borani early in 2 54, was appointed Praetorian Prefect and joined the Emperor in re­building Antioch from its ruins.

Egypt, too, gained a moment of relief. How loosely the govern­ment had been holding the reins can still be seen from the decay of the coinage of Alexandria under Decius. In the second Egyptian year of Gallus (August 30, 251-August 29, 252) no coins were issued—an omission without parallel between 216 and the end of the autonomous issues in 296. But even the presence of Valerian failed to bring any real stabilization. In 255 Pityus and Trapezus fell victims to an unexpected renewal of the attack of the Borani by sea, and in 256 the Goths launched their second great naval expedition, which, having sailed along the west coast of the Black Sea, scared the demoralized garrison out of Chalcedon. The conquest of this key-position placed the great cities of Bithynia at the mercy of the Goths.

In this crisis Valerian proved utterly incompetent. Out of dread of usurpations he could not bring himself to entrust any of his generals with an expeditionary force against the Goths; all he did was to send a certain Felix to Byzantium to direct the defence of that important strategic centre, preparatory to undertaking the campaign himself. Setting out from Antioch, however, he got no farther than Cappadocia, while the passage of his army proved a sore burden to the cities. As his general headquarters he chose Samosata, a fortress in a commanding position on the Upper Euphrates, covered against Persian attack by the strong advanced bastion of Edessa. But even from this favourable position he was unable to prevent the renewal of the Persian invasions. Hormizd, son of Shapur, first led an army against the frontier of the Euphrates. The recent excavations at Doura-Europos, the point at which he broke through, have given us an amazingly vivid picture of the siege and of the mine-warfare that shattered the nerve of the garrison of the fort. The latest coins found in the purses of the soldiers who fell in this underground war can be dated to the year 255', and appear to show that the fortress fell in that year.

Under these catastrophic conditions the spirit of hostility to Rome in the East found violent expression. Mariades, a Syrian noble of Antioch, led Shapur in 258 or 259 against his native city. The local knowledge of the traitor led to a complete surprise. The well-to-do were able, it is true, to escape; the officials saved the mint and the State treasure, but the masses, who shared the sympathies of Mariades, stayed on the spot. It must have been through treachery that the range of hills near the city fell without a blow into the hands of the Persians. Shapur made good his retirement a second time unscathed with his booty, after burning the city and laying waste the surrounding country.

In this fearful crisis Valerian found a vent for the general em­bitterment. Since August 257 he had been engaged in persecuting the Christians with a success denied him against his foreign enemies, and he now proceeded to intensify the harshness of his measures against them. Hatred was again allowed to run riot against a background of general dis­aster and danger, exactly as under Decius.

The surprise attack on Antioch was followed by an even more terrifying and devastating invasion by Shapur in 260. He had pushed past Commagenian Antioch as far as Cappadocia, before the fatal clash with the ageing Emperor took place. The Roman army was decimated by the plague; it was even more seriously depressed by the complete inertia and feebleness of its commander-in-chief. In his lack of all resolution he seems to have postponed the actual decision; it looks as if he shut himself up behind the walls of Samosata. Finally he risked an engagement in Mesopotamia, only to suffer defeat. The Persians then beset Edessa, where the starving garrison, mutinous though it might be, still gallantly repelled the enemy. Then, of a sudden, came the terrible tidings that the Emperor had fallen into the hands of Shapur. A whole series of picturesque and even fantastic stories was spun about Valerian’s capture and the humiliations to which he was subjected. When the Emperor died is not recorded. The jubilation among the Persians was immense .

The disaster itself occurred in the second half of June, 260. The Persians followed hard on the Roman army as it fled in utter confusion, laying waste the cities as they went. For the third time Antioch was visited by the tide of plunderers. Many other flourishing centres of civilization in Syria, Cappadocia and Cilicia were destroyed. Lycaonia, too, had been drawn into the vortex, when at last a counterstroke came from the side of Rome.

Mesopotamia itself had been occupied by the Persians, but, while Nisibis and, as it seems, Carrhae also were taken, Edessa defied their attack. Its valiant defenders were actually able to give sufficient trouble to Shapur on his return to induce him as he passed the fort to surrender the treasure captured in Syria, rather than expose to their attacks an army that had lost its formation and had ceased to care for anything beyond securing its booty. Behind the cover of this bulwark Macrianus, who had been praepositus annonae expeditionalis and, at the same time, procurator arcae expeditionis, or, in other words, Quartermaster General, was able in Samosata to take in hand the whole task of re-organization. The enemy had scattered over the east of Asia Minor to plunder and thus facilitated the Roman counter-stroke. A certain general Callistus (nicknamed Ballista) had put on ship­board the troops that he had collected in concert with Macrianus, and had surprised and defeated the Persians at more than one point on the Cilician coast; he even succeeded in intercepting the baggage-train and concubines of the Great King. This loss im­pelled Shapur to retire, driving before him his hordes of captives. But he was thankful enough to regain the Euphrates, for, as he passed Carrhae on his way to Ctesiphon, he was again attacked, this time by Odenathus, prince of Palmyra, and suffered such fresh losses that his victorious homecoming still left him crippled for a long time to come.

Macrianus had renounced his allegiance to the captive Emperor when Shapur tried to negotiate with him in his name. That is the reason why the obverse types of Valerian disappear at this moment from the issues of the imperial mint at Samosata and the coinage is continued solely in the name of Gallienus. But in September, when the successes above chronicled had brought a first, interval of peace, Callistus and Macrianus broke with Gallienus. Callistus and Macrianus were both barred from the throne—the former, perhaps, by his low birth, the latter by his lameness. They therefore proclaimed as Augusti the two sons of the latter, T. Fulvius Junius Macrianus and T. Fulvius Junius Quietus. Callistus was named Praetorian Prefect.

Conditions were not unfavourable for this rebellion. The much suffering East greeted the young pretenders with enthusiasm; Gallienus had his hands fast tied in the West, while Shapur was completely crippled. But Macrianus would not confine himself to one section of the Empire and soon set out with his elder son, of the same name, to conquer the West. In the spring of 261 the Eastern army reached the Danube provinces, where Aureolus, the gifted but unscrupulous general of Gallienus, awaited it. The regiments of Pannonia, which cherished a bitter spite against Gallienus for putting the defence of the Rhine frontier before the protection of Illyricum and had already twice risen against him, joined the Eastern army. But these Oriental troops had little stomach for civil war. When the battle began and a standard chanced to fall with its bearer to the ground the other signiferi hastened to lower their standards, in token of submission. Both of the Macriani met their death. Callistus, who had stayed behind in the East with the younger pretender, Quietus, was un­able now to sustain his position. On the news of the fall of the Macriani many cities revolted against him and Gallienus adroitly directed Odenathus, prince of the desert-city of Palmyra, to attack him. Odenathus assailed Callistus in Emesa and slew him, while the inhabitants of the city, in their hard plight, executed Quietus, about November 261.

The complications and abuses that these revolutions occasioned can to some extent be realized from the one example of Egypt. The mint of Alexandria, as late as August 260, was preparing coins of Valerian for the Egyptian New Year (August 30); the capture of the Emperor was not yet taken to involve the loss of his imperial rights; the contrary view taken by Gallienus was obviously not yet known. But as early as September Macrianus and Quietus were recognized in Alexandria as in most other parts of Egypt. After the defeat of Macrianus in Illyricum the mint of Alexandria resumed its allegiance to Gallienus, whereas other parts of the country, as the papyri show, remained true to Quietus up to the moment of his death. In Alexandria itself these changes were attended by bloody fighting. The city split into two hostile camps; the testimony of the Bishop Dionysius shows that the feud was still alive about the Easter of 262. The head of the opposition party was L. Mussius Aemilianus, who since 257 had been prefect of Egypt. As he was still there in 262, there can be no doubt that he had first taken the side of the Macriani and only raised his own flag of revolt after their fall. As the mint of Alexandria lay in the quarter that resumed its allegiance to Gallienus, it was not at his disposal, but it is quite possible that he took the purple. It may be that he was encouraged to do so by a successful blow at the Blemmyes on the southern frontier of Egypt; Odenathus was unable to attack him, as he was at that very moment advancing into Persia.

The detachment of Alexandria was highly dangerous to Italy: it seems as if Rome looked in vain for the Egyptian corn-fleet. It was probably by a naval expedition that Gallienus succeeded in ridding himself of the rebel: Aurelius Theodotus, the general of Gallienus, successfully carried out the coup, while the Emperor himself, it seems, advanced by land to Byzantium, ready to inter­vene, if need arose. Theodotus, who now became prefect of Egypt, succeeded a little later in crushing a fresh rebellion, led by a Moorish officer, Memor.

In the years that followed, Septimius Odenathus, prince of Palmyra, came to be the most important political factor in the Roman East. It will be seen later how important a part the Palmyrene archers played in this period in the military history of Rome. But, besides archers, Odenathus had excellent heavy mailed cavalry on the Persian model. Nor did he fail to profit by the luck of the moment. He had little difficulty in surprising Shapur’s rabble army; the defeat of Quietus was made easy by the with­drawal of the main army under Macrianus, while Gallienus, until his hands were free, was only too glad to find so effective an ally.

Odenathus had originally sought closer touch with Shapur, whom he had esteemed far more highly than he had the Romans, but he was rudely rebuffed. This left him no choice but to draw closer to Valerian. As early as 258 he enjoyed the high distinction of becoming vir consularis. His successful attack on Shapur on his march homewards reveals the relentlessness of his opposition to that prince—an opposition perhaps intensified by the Sassanid conquest of Characene and the closing of the caravan route to the Persian Gulf. Gallienus bound him to himself in the service of the Empire by high titles of honour, and, after the removal of Quietus in 261, entrusted him with the counter-offensive against the Persian Empire. Odenathus was able to supplement the re­mains of the Roman army of the East with a strong native levy from Syria and in 262 opened his first counter-attack, which he began by regaining the great Mesopotamian fortresses, such as Carrhae and Nisibis, and then defeated the Persians in battle. Shapur was besieged in his own capital, and Gallienus could receive the title of Persicus Maximus. Some years later, early in 267, in a campaign in which his son and co-ruler, Septimius Herodes, shared, Odenathus again marched to the gates of Ctesiphon. He then turned back to meet the invasion of the Goths in Cappadocia, and advanced as far as Heraclea Pontica; but he came too late, and, not long afterwards, was murdered together with his son.

These victories produced a decisive change in Rome’s relation to Persia. Chance has preserved the record of the execution of great works of fortification in Adraha by the governor of Roman Arabia in the years 261—2 and 262—3, and this is doubtless only a reflection of a more general activity. In Doura, one of the most important points at which Shapur had broken through, a Roman- Palmyrene garrison was again stationed as early as 262. Armenia, too, must have returned to its allegiance to Rome, even if our sources only suggest it indirectly.

The relation of Odenathus to Gallienus is precisely defined by the titles which the Palmyrene prince received from his overlord. On his first expedition against Persia he had already at his dis­posal the remains of the Roman army; he must then have held the title of dux Romanorum. This is an exceptional position, in which the exact powers are deliberately left undefined, as is like­wise the case with the civil titles of this prince. The competence of the Roman governors was not meant to be undermined by this new dignity, which was intended to have a purely personal significance. After his victory over Persia Odenathus received the title of imperator. Besides the diadem of the king, Odenathus now wore, as did his son after him, the laurel-wreath of the imperial Imperator. Such an honour was barely reconcilable with the subordinate position of a vassal-prince, and already foreshadowed the struggles for the prestige of Empire that were to ensue. Nor did the civil distinctions bestowed on Odenathus represent any steps in the normal official career. As early as the second century the special commissioners to restore order in the cities of the Roman East had been designated legati Augusti ad corrigendum statum civitatium liberarum  Now, when exceptional conditions were the rule, this function was further developed. Thus arose the position of a corrector totius Italiae, held by the distinguished Pomponius Bassus; Odenathus similarly became corrector totius Orientis. This did not imply that the civil and financial administration was allotted to him, only that he enjoyed a certain right of supervision. Apart from the Roman titles of honour the dignity of the Palmyrene ruler is now de­scribed by the new title ‘King of Kings.’ This was not incompatible with his subordination to his Roman suzerain, for the same title had long been allowed, together with the absolute grant of in­dependent sovereignty, involved in a separate coinage in gold, to the kings of Bosporus. But what the name did emphasize the more strongly was a rivalry with the Great Kings of Persia.

The boundaries of the realm of Odenathus in his new position were to the north the Taurus mountains, to the south the Arabian Gulf; it extended also to Cilicia, Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia. Asia Minor and Egypt were not included and had to be seized by force later, as will soon appear.

More particularly after the conferment of the title of imperator the position of the mighty sheik fell little short of imperial auto­cracy. From the Roman point of view, therefore, it could only be regarded as a temporary concession, demanded by the necessities of the moment. Friction with the governors must have been an everyday occurrence. Two significant cases are known. A Roman official, Quirinus by name, could not stomach the fact of Odena­thus’ conducting the war of Rome (against Shapur); Odenathus, in revenge, sought to put him to death. It is not impossible that this ‘Quirinus’ is the same as Aurelius Quirinius, who is re­corded as head of the financial administration of Egypt in 262. The second instance was far more serious in its effects. A Rufinus is mentioned, who had had the ‘elder Odenathus’ put to death and was called to account for it before Gallienus by ‘the younger Odenathus.’ In the ‘elder Odenathus’ we must, with Mommsen, recognize the prince of Palmyra; in the younger Odenathus, his son falsely so-called, Vaballathus Athenodorus— the more so as another tradition makes the Emperor get rid of our Odenathus. In that case, the instigator of the murder would be the Cocceius Rufinus, who is known as governor of Roman Arabia at this time, and the political character of the deed is further to be seen in the fact that the eldest son of the king, Hairanes-Herodes, was killed along with him. It is known from other sources that the murderer himself was a kinsman of the prince, who, of course, may have been prompted by personal rancour; but behind him stood the plotter, who imagined himself to be acting in the interests of Rome.

With Odenathus vanished from the scene yet a third leading personality of Palmyra—and this, too, can be no mere coincidence. It was Septimius Vorodes, who had received from Gallienus the dignity of a iuridicus and a procurator ducenarius and who had. stood at the side of his king as military governor (argapetes) of Palmyra. The latest inscription that mentions him was set up in April 267; it was just about that time that Odenathus was stabbed. In one way or another he seems to have been involved in the plot.

Odenathus, indeed, was originally no convinced adherent of Rome. But, grievously insulted by Shapur and at bitter war with him, and loaded by Gallienus with unprecedented distinctions, he maintained a firm loyalty to Rome. Yet, after all, it appears as if the second victory over Persia widened the horizon of his ambition and as if he were meditating a breach with Rome. For this he had to pay with his life, as had many another barbarian king in the course of the Empire.

There are many other indications which suggest that Gallienus intended to make a thorough settlement with Palmyra immediately after the death of Odenathus. In the year 267 a new mint was established in the west of Asia Minor, the die-engravers of which were in part detailed from Siscia, and so attest the initia­tive of the Emperor. As in this period the foundation of mints was without exception designed to provide pay for the troops, this new mint points to the establishment of a base of operations in Asia Minor. Further, the new issue of 268 at Siscia has the reverse type Orient Augusti, which sounds like an advertisement of the claim to the East. The Vita Gallieni also reports that Gallienus sent Heraclianus with an army to the East, but that the Palmyrenes defeated him. Even if this goes too far and an open clash cannot yet have occurred, it is clear that Gallienus was only prevented by the terrible raid of the Goths on Asia Minor in 267 and the great Herulian invasion of 268 from making a final reckoning with Zenobia, the wife of the dead prince, who carried on the government in the name of her son, Herodianus, a minor, and, after him, of her third son, Vaballathus.

The complete failure of Valerian, the inability of Gallienus to transfer his activities to the East, the terrible German invasions of 267 and 268, must all have fostered the conviction in Palmyra that Rome was no longer capable of holding the reins of the East. The important part that the soldiers of Palmyra had for decades maintained in the Roman army must have heightened their consciousness of their native worth. The achievements of Odenathus followed, to confirm the conviction that it was the mission of Palmyra to rule the East, a mission that Zenobia set to work to realize with all the ambition and capacity of a Julia Domna.

It was most fortunate for Rome that Palmyra could find no support against her in Persia. It was not only the senseless folly of Shapur or the adroit diplomacy of Gallienus, not even the en­tanglements of the last years that compelled the Queen to fight out the battle for the East in a Roman setting and under Roman forms. Not that the strength of Iranian influence in this environ­ment need be denied. Odenathus, it is clear, was regarded as a pure barbarian, not only by the Roman commanders who were active in the East, but by the Syrians of Emesa themselves. More than this, it is obvious that the rise of the Palmyrene power was favourable to the elements that hated Rome. But, on the other side, it must not be forgotten that Palmyra had not only been illumined by the setting sun of Roman civilization, but had already experienced the warmth and brilliance of Rome’s noon­day prime. The long service of her young men in the Roman armies in Africa and Europe must have done much to promote assimilation to Roman ways. Even the Palmyra that, as a new Great Power, refused to serve Rome any longer, could not get clear of the Roman track, on which she had so long been running.

It was not the title of Great King, but that of Augustus, with the rest of the full imperial title, which was the final goal of the ambition of Vaballathus; Zenobia too, after the break with Rome, adopted the style of Pia and Augusta. Instead of the Persian tiara Vaballathus wears on his coins the laurel-wreath of the Imperator, as does his mother likewise. Moreover, these new aims of Palmyrene ambition were fixed by men who represented the highest classical culture of the age, above all, by the philosopher Longinus. At the court of Palmyra assembled the Neoplatonists, who, fleeing from Italy after the murder of Gallienus, continued to dream of the rule of philosophy in the State.

It has been supposed that the Palmyrenes, in the years 267—9, quietly and gradually absorbed the whole East, without disowning the Roman government. But so well disguised an acquisition of sovereign rights is hard to imagine. There is no evidence for a separation of Syria from Rome in these years, nor is there any support for the supposition that Zenobia then attached herself to Persia in place of Rome. It could hardly be reconciled with such. a direction of policy towards Persia, that Vaballathus should still have borne the title of ‘ King of Kings’ in 270 and that, even after his ensuing revolt, he should have been called Persicus Maximus. That Mesopotamia was abandoned to Persia at the time is a mere baseless hypothesis: when Aurelian appears in Asia, Mesopo­tamian troops join him—a clear proof to the contrary.

On the other hand it can be shown that Zenobia only resolved to refuse obedience to Rome at a later date, on receiving the news of the death of Claudius. To take Asia Minor first, it is known that the power of Zenobia there till the death of Claudius ex­tended no farther than Ancyra. West of this point, the cities of Pisidia did in fact continue their issues of coin in the names of Gallienus and Claudius, and one is inclined to place somewhere in this region the new imperial mint, mentioned above; it continued to function without change under Claudius. The statement that Claudius was planning to transplant the Isaurians to Cilicia may also be historical. All the more surprising is the fact that both the new imperial mint and the autonomous issues of Pisidia no longer mention Quintillus. In point of fact it was just at this time (beginning of 270) that the Palmyrene troops began to conquer the west of Asia Minor; when the news of the elevation of Aurelian arrived, they were just trying to occupy Bithynia, though they did not succeed. That is why the mint of Cyzicus, founded at the beginning of the reign of Claudius with die­engravers from the mint in the west of Asia Minor⁴, continued to strike for Quintillus and, after him, without delay, for Aurelian.

As regards the spread of Palmyrene power in Syria, the position is cleared up by the activity of the mint of Antioch. It works without a break to the end of the reign of Gallienus and even dispatches workers to the new mint in the west of Asia Minor. It then continues its striking for Claudius; the numerous types of its two issues are certainly quite enough to fill the eighteen months of this ruler. But the coinage of Quintillus of this mint is to seek. Just as the accession of Aurelian brought a change in Asia Minor, so too in Syria. Zenobia re-opens the mint of Antioch and strikes coins at once for Vaballathus, with the titles which Gallienus had given his father, but with the bust of Aurelian on the reverse. She was therefore aiming at an understanding with the famous general, but she had already gone too far to obtain it.

Palmyrene activity following on the death of Claudius probably extended to the province of Arabia, and also to Egypt. In the latter country the bitter feeling against Rome had been steadily rising since the suppression of the revolts described above. Yet another revolution in Alexandria followed, in which many members of the Council joined in the breach of loyalty; for several years the rebels were besieged in the suburb of Bruchium, until at last they were starved out and forced to surrender, apparently in the autumn of 268. It was no long time, however, after the awful havoc of this war, that the anti-Roman party shouted in triumph as the Palmyrene troops marched in.

Many writers, it must be admitted, have set this conquest under Claudius. But, as the mint of Alexandria belonged to that em­peror till the end of his reign and was even able to inaugurate an issue for Quintillus, it is clear that it was only just at that moment, about February 270, that the troops of Zenobia arrived. The prefect, Tenagino Probus, was actually on the seas, engaged in the subjection of the Gothic pirates and, in his absence, the Palmyrene army under Zabdas, 70,000 strong, defeated the weak Roman levies; Probus returned in haste and threw back the foe, but soon lost his life by the treachery of the leader of the Palmyrene party in Egypt.

Tenagino Probus served under Claudius first as praeses Numidiae (end of 268), then as prefect of Egypt, and in that capacity—doubtless in 269—he chastised the Marmaridae, situated between Egypt and Cyrene. From thence he was called to Carthage to quell a revolt. The year must have been nearing its close when he re­turned with his army to Egypt and then took to the sea, the Gothic pirates having got as far as Cyprus. Then, early in 270, followed his return and his death fighting against Palmyra. As at Antioch, so at Alexandria, the coins reflect the new turn taken by events on the proclamation of Aurelian. Here again appears the portrait of Vaballathus as imperator dux Romanorum with the bust of Aurelian on the other side. Here again a com­promise was proposed and supported by the despatch of the corn­fleet in this year to Rome. But at the same time Aurelian was proclaiming his resolve to be Restitutor Orientis.

III.

THE WEST FROM THE JOINT REIGN OF VALERIAN AND GALLIENUS TO THE PROCLA­MATION OF AURELIAN

While his father betook himself to the East, Gallienus was left with the task of ordering the affairs of the West. It was perhaps at this moment that his mother, Egnatia Mariniana, died and was consecrated; in her place his wife, Cornelia Salonina, received the rank of an Augusta.

Now that the invasion of the Empire by its neighbours, Dacian, Sarmatian and, above all, German, had become endemic, wars threatened on every hand. It is not possible to determine precisely where and in what order the five German wars of Gallienus between 254 and 259 ran their course. What is certain is that he was constantly and completely engaged in war, prepara­tions for war and measures of defence against the invasions, and must have done much more work at fortification than is directly recorded.

It is clear, however, that he regarded the position in Gaul and on the Rhine as the most critical and therefore undertook the conduct of war on that front in person, while entrusting to his generals the defence of the Danube lands. There, too, there was mischief enough. In 254 the Goths were already threatening Greece and the Marcomanni drove through Pannonia into North Italy; Pannonia had also to suffer in these years from her neighbours, the Quadi and Iazyges, and could only be defended effectively by the settlement within it of a Marcomannic king and his tribe. Dacia was sorely harassed by the Carpi, but the title of Gallienus, Dacicus Maximus, in 257 points to their defeat. The despair of the population of Illyricum at an emperor who would not come to their help, broke out during the ensuing years in a succession of rebellions.

In order to have yet another representative of the reigning house, whose presence might check usurpations if it did nothing else, the Emperors early in 256 raised to be Caesar the elder son of Gallienus, P. Licinius Cornelius Valerianus. He was still a boy, unable to direct wars in person; it is probable, then, that he remained chiefly in Rome. He soon died, early in 258, apparently from natural causes, whereupon his younger brother, P. Licinius Cornelius Saloninus, was at once proclaimed his successor. But the difficulties produced by the incessant wars fanned such a flame of hatred and desperation, that the government, towards the autumn of 257, no doubt on the initiative of the elder Emperor, resumed the persecution of the Christians and intensifiedan it in the following year.

The same year (257) brought with it an important change in  the government. Gallienus numbered the victories he had won under his own auspices and not those of his father, beginning with the war against the Alemanni; on issues of Cologne he now appears cim exercitu suo, clearly emphasizing is independent command-in-chief. A definite separation of Eastern and Western armies must have occurred, probably not unconnected with an estrangement between the two rulers that had consequences beyond the military sphere. Gallienus now had his hands free to carry out the reforms that he desired. It is cert that he now- called into being his new central cavalry corps, henceforth stationed at Milan It had soon to be tested in battle against Ingenuus.

The imperial mint of Viminacium was in this year transferred to Cologne, where Gallienus mainly resided and directed the repulse of the German invasions from the Rhine. Nor did he fail to show his energy in the building of fortifications. In fact he did his utmost to earn the title of restitutor Galliarum that his issues of Cologne give him. Either in 258 or the following year he had to leave the Rhine to combat a serious invasion of Italy by the Alemanni. With a small army he succeeded in defeating and ejecting a greatly superior force, and returned forthwith to Germany.

The next year was one of catastrophes unexampled in Roman history. Early in 260 the governor of Numidia successfully repulsed a number of attacks by the Bavares and Quinquegentanei, in one of which the historian Q. Gargilius Martians, after greatly distinguishing himself, met his death on the held of honour. This campaign seems to mark the end or a series of disturbances of longer standing.

Then, towards the end of July, came the news of the tragedy in the East; the whole Empire was in confusion, and conditions moved rapidly towards anarchy. But Gallienus kept his head. Father and son had from the first been set in opposition by fundamental differences of temperament and this had led on, no doubt owing to Valerian’s failure, to an effective separation of East and West in 258. In this moment of peril the benefits of the change were realized. Gallienus was able to break the last ties that bound him to the policy of his father. The captivity of the elder Augustus was naturally felt as an unprecedented disgrace to the Roman name; even the late historians with senatorial sympathies record their verdict that it was an ignobilis servitus. This was the view that Gallienus himself adopted. Far from considering any steps for the recovery of his unhappy father, he even went so far as to deny, by a kind of damnatio memoriae, any connection with his fatal régime. Hitherto the imperial coins of Egypt had in­variably given Gallienus himself the added name of Valerianus; now all of a sudden this stops. Saloninus, too, in the short span of life yet allotted to him, ceased to be called Valerianus and was named Gallienus—at least in such places as Asia Minor, where the Emperor’s orders could still reach the officials. Gallienus would not even tolerate further mention of the great victories that he had himself won under his father’s auspices and insisted on the numbering of his military successes from the separation of 258. More than this, he prescribed the beginning of a new count of his regnal years. This order reached Egypt in early summer 261 and the new regnal year one was placed besides the old year eight. Here the new count was afterwards abandoned, but in the West it continued in use. But the reaction against the old régime went still further. Gallienus broke with the policy of Valerian, who had steadily leaned on the Senate, and, by a polite but definite exclusion of the senators from all high commands in the army, dealt a sore blow to the dignity and status of the senatorial career. It is part of the same policy that his colleague as consul ordinarius in 261 was no senator, but a distinguished eques, L. Petronius Taurus Volusianus, a man high in his con­fidence, who had already been praefectus vigilum and Praetorian Prefect. The opposition of this man to the nobiles is also reflected in the fact that he was not co-opted into the high priestly offices; but, in 267—85 he was praefectus urbi, and protected the inter­ests of the Emperor during his absence. A further evidence of the break with the policy of friendship to the Senate is to be seen in the suspension, soon after the beginning of the sole rule of Gallienus, of the bronze coinage with the signature senatus consulto, a formal but tenderly cherished symbol of the authority of the patres. This bronze coinage had, it is true, lost its meaning through the complete devaluation of the double denarius; but none the less its disappearance was tantamount to a grave infringe­ment of the sovereign rights of the Senate From the middle of 261 the revolution in policy was felt in every department of life. Its full import is further seen in the complete reversal of the imperial policy towards the Christians.

This change of direction and organization was carried out under the most unfavourable conditions imaginable. Before the autumn of 260 was past, two dangerous revolts broke out in quick succession in the Danube lands. If the conjecture, that the election of Pope Julius followed on the news of the capture of Valerian, is correct, the rebellion of Ingenuus also broke out in the second half of July, for it was ‘comperta Valeriani clade’ that he raised the standard of revolt. He was governor of Pannonia, and, despite the misgivings of the Empress, enjoyed the confidence of Gallienus. Moesia also joined him. He chose as his residence Sirmium in the south of Pannonia, a city that was often to serve as imperial headquarters. Not far from it, at Mursa, his troops encountered Gallienus as he hastened to the spot. The new cavalry corps and its commander, Aureolus, came out of the test with flying colours; the Moorish javelin-men, too, had their share in the victory that Gallienus gained. Ingenuus was captured as he fled and was put to death.

The Emperor had no wish to punish the rebels severely; but none the less the rebellion was renewed by the same troops. They proclaimed emperor Regalianus, the governor of Upper Pannonia, who had a number of old billon coins overstruck with his own portrait at his improvised mint of Carnuntum. Parallel issues reveal the fact that he was married to a daughter of an influential family of the Senate, Sulpicia Dryantilla. Regalianus probably had his adherents also in the Senate. It can be shown that, be­sides the two legions of Upper Pannonia (X Gemina and XIV Gemina), the XIII Gemina (which can hardly have been still at its old post in Apulum) and the garrison of Durostorum in Lower Moesia were implicated in the revolt. But the reign of Regalianus cannot have lasted more than a few weeks. Gallienus returned in haste and made an end of him.

Meanwhile (in September), Macrianus had broken with Gallienus, had proclaimed his sons emperors and drawn the East to his side. This was yet another immediate result of the catastrophe of Valerian. But the general consternation thus produced had further, indirect consequences. Just before the end of 260 followed a fourth usurpation. M. Cassianius Latinius Postumus, who was possibly governor of one or other Germania, had quarrelled with another high officer, Silvanus. Silvanus was in Cologne directing the government in the name of the Caesar Saloninus (who, capable and attractive, was still quite a boy), and even issuing commands to Postumus himself. The quarrel was about the booty taken from German invaders, which Postumus wished to distribute among his soldiers, but which Silvanus sought to have delivered to the court of the Caesar,—probably to secure the return of the stolen property to its owners. It is a pretty picture of demoralization. Postumus marched on Cologne and invested the city. While the siege was still in progress, the mint went on striking large gold pieces in the name of Gallienus for the New Year of 261 and, in defiance, the young Caesar was proclaimed Augustus. But not long afterwards the garrison surrendered both the prince and his tutor, and Postumus had them put to death. The usurper then succeeded in occupying the passes of the Alps and any thought of crushing him was frustrated by a new threat. Macrianus was advancing with an army, 30,000 strong. Aureolus defeated this force in Pannonia, where Gallienus, the persistent absentee, was held responsible for the desperate misery of the times and where the garrisons again joined this new rival; but the Oriental troops soon abandoned the contest and the two Macriani both fell (summer, 261). Meanwhile yet another rebellion, the fifth in a few months, had been disposed of. A certain Valens, probably proconsul of Achaea, who had assumed the purple, met his death at the approach of Macrianus—if any conclusion can fairly be drawn from the confused account in the Augustan History. In 262 the former prefect of Egypt, Aemilianus, spread consternation in Italy by detaining the corn­fleet, and had to be removed, is possible that Gallienus pushed forward to Byzantium, to restore order in those regions. It seems that on this occasion Pannonia, too, was re­organized; the establishment and undisturbed activity of the mint of Siscia from a.d. 262 onwards may count as evidence of the fact. Early in autumn at the end of the ninth year of his reign, Gallienus was certainly in Rome to celebrate his decennalia, with a magnificence still attested by an exceptionally rich issue of coins. The panic of 260 and the usurpations attendant on it were for the moment overcome.

It was now possible to attempt a reckoning with Postumus. In all probability Gallienus took the field against him early in 263. The passes of the Alps were either already in his hands or, if not, were now captured. The first encounter brought defeat, but it was followed by a decisive victory. The pursuit of the beaten enemy was entrusted to Aureolus, the commander of the new corps of cavalry; but Aureolus was meditating treason and allowed Postumus to slip through his fingers. There was a general conviction of his guilt; the Emperor alone gave credence to his excuses—it was one day to cost him his life. Postumus, escaping, succeeded in re-assembling his army—he could call upon large bands of free Germans—but suffered a second severe defeat. He threw himself into a fortified city in Gaul and was besieged there by the Emperor. Luck again came to his aid. Gallienus was seriously wounded by an arrow and was incapacitated from directing the operations. He was presumably carried back to Rome; the foothills of the Alps in the South of Gaul seem to have remained in his hands, or at least the most important passes.

The attempt to re-unite the whole of the West in one hand had failed, and the failure involved a terrible weakening of the armed forces of the Empire. The continuance of the conflict meant that a large part of the troops on both sides was directed inwards, whilst the frontier-defence suffered enormously; the district along the limes of Raetia and Germany was doomed to perish between the rival powers. The lasting sense of insecurity in Gaul itself is attested by countless coin-hoards buried in those years. Postumus, who, after his exploits as general in 260, had again in 261 to parry a German invasion, must undoubtedly have been often compelled to defend himself against such attacks. Even his boasted victory of 264 was certainly the outcome of a defensive campaign. On the other side, the forces of Gallienus were insufficient to provide Dacia, that great advanced bridge­head of the Danube front, with a full complement of garrisons; even the Danube front itself had to be strengthened by settlements of barbarians. Finally, this inner cleavage robbed Gallienus of his last chance of ordering the affairs of the East in person; to guard against the Persian danger, he was compelled to feed the rank growth of Palmyra.

Postumus did not content himself so exclusively with the mastery of his Gallic realm as has been supposed. That he was mainly restricted to it was more due to Gallienus than to himself. It is true that at his proclamation he protested before his former master that his only intention was to protect and prosper Gaul, the task assigned him by Gallienus, and that he would shed no drop of Roman blood. His coins, too, at the outset speak only of the salvation of the Rhine provinces and represent him as Restitutor Galliarum and as Hercules of Roman Germany. But after the consolidation of his rule in the West his ambitions increased out of all measure. He suc­ceeded in forcing Britain to his side and visited the island in person. It has long been known from inscriptions that Spain went over to him. After all this, he came to feel himself the protector of Roma Aeterna, a new Hercules Romanus—as coins attest—and, indeed, fears of his advance were entertained in Italy while Gallienus was fighting against the Goths in 268. In fact, he even succeeded, if only for a short time, in bringing North Italy on to his side, as will shortly appear. That Postumus even dreamed of ruling the East is shown by his coin-types (continued by his successors) with Oriens Augusti. His aspirations to world-rule are further illustrated by the legend on the reverse, Restitutor Orbis.

To this general attitude the organization of his new State corresponds. He certainly set up a new Senate, because he also appointed consuls independently of Rome. He himself held the consulship five times,—the fourth time as colleague of his future successor Victorinus, the fifth time just before his death in 269. His bronze issues often bear the formula Senatus Consulto,  one of his senators, as is well known, was Tetricus, whom he entrusted with the governorship of Aquitania and who afterwards sat on his throne. He had his own Praetorian Guard, stationed in Traves, for he had chosen that city as his residence and adorned it with buildings. Here, too, under his care, a new imperial mint was established. Both at this mint and at Cologne a precisely regu­lated coinage in gold was produced, clear evidence of an efficient economic administration, while his small change was just as bad an inflation-coinage as that of his antagonist.

What Gallienus was doing in the years from 263—267 is unknown. There seems to have been no serious warfare, and the effects of that inner consolidation that has been observed in the empire of Postumus were not unfelt on the other side. The epi­demic of usurpations of 260 had been mastered, and, until the new flood of German invasions (in 267), there was a respite that made progress possible. These short years, indeed, permitted the ripening of that reaction of the ancient spirit, whose very soul Gallienus was, a reaction that even found expression in the art both of his court and that of Postumus. Under the patronage of Gallienus the circle of Neoplatonists that gathered about Plotinus succeeded in framing a philosophy suited to an educated man and in finding an expression for the political and patriotic necessity of polytheism which remained valid to the end of paganism. In art, again, the reaction of the classical antique against the modern primitivism breaks for a brief moment of high intensity and significance into flower; the observations on aesthetics found in Plotinus show how close must have been the connection between the Neoplatonists and this new bloom of art. The whole movement had a pronounced hellenic character; was not the court of Gallienus crowded with Greek men of letters?

It was in definite harmony with these cultural endeavours that Gallienus strove to lead the masses away from the mystery­religions to the cult of Demeter of Eleusis. It was perhaps while engaged in measures of defence against the new German peril in the Aegean that he journeyed to Athens, allowed himself, like Hadrian, to be elected as eponymous archon and received initiation at Eleusis. On the aurei of Rome appears at this time the solemn religious type that represents Gallienus in the guise of Demeter—a combination that strikes the modern mind as ridiculous, but that is not so alien from ancient sentiment or unfamiliar in the speculation of the mystics and gnostics; it bears the name Galliena Augusta. The return of Gallienus to his capital was celebrated with extravagant honours—Genius Populi Roma) intravit urbem).

Apart from this, Gallienus is known to have been occupied with the putting of the fleet on to a war basis and with the forti­fication of the coast cities of Asia Minor. At the new year of 268 he experienced the joy of seeing his third son Marinianus solemnly inaugurate his public career as consul, but in the spring he was compelled to hasten to the Balkans to counter an ex­ceptionally serious invasion of the Heruli and Goths. He had already won a decisive victory at Naissus, when a veritable Job’s message called him suddenly back to Italy.

Aureolus, who had from the first commanded the equites, the new ‘flying army’ of Gallienus and was now entrusted with the troops of Raetia and other subalpine districts, in order to prevent the invasion of Italy by Postumus, now changed sides. He had already once, in the previous offensive, frustrated the complete success of Gallienus by his ambiguous conduct. The coins, which he struck in Milan in the name of Postumus, all glorify the virtues of the cavalry under his command, who were the mainstay of his rebellion. Gallienus handed over to Marcianus the prosecution of the Gothic war and soon appeared in the plain of the Po. Aureolus was defeated in a pitched battle near Milan. He withdrew into the city and was besieged by Gallienus. While the siege was in progress he was proclaimed emperor—an advance­ment that was to cost him his life. Meanwhile a conspiracy had been formed by the leading personalities in the entourage of Gallienus. The Praetorian Prefect Heraclianus, the Emperor’s deputy in the chief-command, M. Aurelius Claudius and L. Domitius Aurelianus, the new commander of the cavalry, were the ringleaders of the plot. On a false report of the approach of Aureolus with his army the unsuspecting Emperor rushed out without helmet and cuirass, to meet him and received the fatal thrust. The fact that the siege proceeded without interruption after the murder of the Emperor argues strongly for the compli­city of the whole staff. Great, however, was the indignation of the army over the loss of its brilliant commander; it was only the secret understanding between the chief officers that made it possible to still the storm. To facilitate the prearranged proclama­tion of Claudius, the story was put abroad that Gallienus, as he lay dying, had solemnly appointed him his successor; at the same time, the State-chest, which in those evil days was always carted round with the Emperor, so as to be available at need, paid out twenty aurei to each man, the time-honoured method of winning over the army. But the demand of the army that the kindred of the dead should be spared came too late. The Senate, bitterly offended by its exclusion from the high commands, and the mob of Rome, that made Gallienus the scapegoat for all the sorrows of his time, murdered his relations and confidants, above all, his brother Valerian (consul in 265) and his little son, Marinianus. Claudius could do no more than hinder further bloodshed. The Senate, however, had to consent to consecrate Gallienus; the temper of the army was such as to commend the step to Claudius, and the patres naturally, followed his lead.

It was in vain that Aureolus now surrendered to Claudius: he was at once put to death. All these tragic happenings fell in the August of 268. It was a piece of good fortune that the new emperor was in Northern Italy, for he was thus enabled quickly to bring to action and repel the Alemanni, who had already reached Lake Garda. It is probable that he then went to Rome to pay his respects to the Senate and People. Certainly at this stage—if not an even earlier one—an alliance was concluded between emperor and Senate. After the measures taken by Gallienus, there must be some real significance in the reappear­ance of the type of Genius Senatus on issues of Rome with the Emperor’s titles at the New Year of 269. The extravagant honours paid to Claudius after his death and the choice of his insignificant brother by the Senate to succeed him are clear witnesses to a strong bond between emperor and Senate. The lost biographical history of the emperors, of the middle of the fourth century, sought to explain the enthusiasm of the patres by the legendary account of the solemn devotion by Claudius of his own life to the service of the State, on the model of the heroic sacrifice of the Decii. But, in point of fact, that enthusiasm had a far more prosaic foundation.

Claudius had now a splendid opportunity to attack Postumus. A little time back, Italy had been exposed to the usurper by the adhesion of Aureolus; now Postumus, in his turn, found his rear exposed to Claudius. The fact that he did not come to the assistance of Aureolus is indeed remarkable. He was beyond doubt pre­vented from so doing. For, although it was not till some four or five months later that he was able finally to dispose of his rival, Ulpius Cornelius Laelianus, the revolt of the latter may well have begun earlier. Some idea of this clash of forces is given by the fact that the mint of Cologne was still striking a plentiful issue for Postumus for the New Year of 269, while the legion XXX Ulpia of Vetera (Xanten) went over to Laelianus and both Mainz and the capital Treves, where his coins were struck, also joined him. Laelianus was shut up in Mainz and died when the city was taken; but Postumus himself, when he denied his barbaric troops the satisfaction of sacking the city, had to pay for his refusal with his life. It is remarkable that at so appropriate a moment the legions of the Rhine did not return to their allegiance to Claudius, but preferred to set up M. Aurelius Marius and, after his death in a few months, M. Piavonius Victorinus.

In Rome, the plan of recalling Gaul to its obedience was for a moment debated, but Claudius decided, rightly, that the exter­mination of the East Germans in Illyricum was a more serious duty. So to Illyricum he went. But he thrust into the south of Gaul an expeditionary force, commanded by Julius Placidianus, who soon afterwards was made Praetorian Prefect. The vexillationes and cavalry serving under him maintained their position near Grenoble, doubtless in order to facilitate the hoped-for advance of Claudius with the main army. They actually succeeded in restoring communications with Spain, which, on the evidence of inscriptions, acknowledged Claudius. But when Augustodunum (Autun), not far to the north, closed its gates and called on Claudius for aid, Placidianus could not save the city, after a siege of seven months it was forced to surrender at discretion to Victorinus. By that time Claudius was probably already dead.

Claudius gained one more decisive victory over the Goths, who after the victory of Gallienus had continued to be hard pressed by Marcianus, and then directed the ‘mopping-up’ process from the imperial palace in Sirmium, until early in 270 the plague took him from the Empire’s service.

The Senate, reawakened to energetic action by the policy of Gallienus, anticipated the army in its decision. The authorities deserve full belief when they tell us that the brother of the dead Emperor, M. Aurelius Quintillus, was chosen emperor by the Senate. He seems to have been in command of the flying column which had to protect North Italy against the German invasions. It might be supposed that he went direct to Rome, to present himself before the Senate; but he never reached the point of distributing the promised largesse to the people of the capital, and the actual news of the proclamation of Aurelian found him in Aquileia.

The armies had at first accepted the election of Quintillus, as the issues of the mints of Milan, Siscia and Cyzicus show; only Palmyra broke away. But he was a very insignificant person, entirely unversed in State affairs, and his collapse at the first shock proves that he would never have had the energy on his own initiative to grasp at the purple. The common soldiers hardly knew him and abandoned him the moment that a popular general became a candidate for the throne; it was soon revealed, too, that the generals could not have backed his proclamation. All the more remarkable in its contrast is the praise of the pro-senatorial historians of a later age: ‘Unicae moderationis vir et civilitatis, aequandus fratri vel praeponendus’; but even they had to admit that owing to the shortness of his reign he did not amount to anything. He was in fact intended to be a tool of the Senate.

Quintillus was, of course, anxious to win the favour of the Danubian troops and, as an Illyrian himself, he had the personi­fications of the warlike Pannoniae placed on his issues of Milan; the types of Genius Illyrici and Dacia Felix likewise seem to have been prepared for him at the same mint, but never actually issued by him. His dependence on the memory of his elder brother is shown by his assumption of the name of Claudius; the issues in honour of Divus Claudius Gothicus at Milan and Rome began in his reign and served the same purpose.

When Aurelian rose against him in Illyricum in April 270, his armies at once abandoned him and he was driven to commit suicide. Aurelian spread the report that Claudius had designated himself and not his brother as successor and, soon after his proclamation, had coins of Divus Claudius struck in Siscia and Cyzicus for purposes of propaganda, a clear evidence of the same intention. In actual fact Aurelian, and not Quintillus, stood in the succession of Claudius as representative of that Virtue Illyrici that was destined to save the Empire.

IV.

 THE CHIEF POLITICAL FACTORS

The general development of the imperial autocracy has been described elsewhere, but it is here in place to note how the consummation of a long process, which was bound to be reached in the third century, was hastened by successful or unsuccessful usurpations and the violent deaths of emperors. It became clear that the Senate could no longer secure stability for the throne, and that it must have another foundation than legalistic traditions, highly as these continued to be regarded. What was first needed was a religious basis, and as Juppiter Optimus Maximus became dim, men turned to this or that Eastern God temporarily in the ascendant, until at last, under Aurelian, ‘Sol dominus imperii Romani’ embodied the idea of a unifying deity to correspond to the sole earthly ruler of the world. A dangerous rival to this claim was the equally monarchical and Universal idea of the God of the Christians. Decius and his successors had striven to place in the foreground, not the divinity of the emperor but the divine power that shielded him, and with this came the possibility that the idea of the divine favour might remain, but that the pagan gods might give place to the one true God.

It is, however, important to realize that the extraordinary emphasis given in these disastrous times to the fabled bliss of the Golden Age which the emperor brings with him is closely connected with the struggle of the State against Christianity. This becomes at once clear when one considers the overstressing in the official propaganda of the blessings conferred by the restitutor orbis and by the emperor, as salus generis humani, and to the emphatic protests raised in the other camp. The saeculum novum with all its glories, advertised by the issues of Decius and Gallus from Antioch, was, in fact, a pitiful age of disasters; yet, if these issues are to be believed, each ephemeral emperor was destined to bring in a Golden Age, in which peace eternal reigns; the hapless sons of Gallienus must each be the leaders of the new age, as ‘novum Iovis in'crementum’, and, during the terrible invasions of the end of the reign of Gallienus, ‘ubique pax’ the coins say: The Christians, however, needed to be recalled to the enjoyment of this marvellous age of bliss. This doctrinaire creed was, of course, a blank contradiction of the hard reality, but there was no other redeemer who could be matched against the Christian. When, under Gallienus, Augustus is called ‘deus’, instead of ‘divus’, as before, the meaning is that Augustus really is a god, not a dead man, as the Christians say. This theological trans­figuration of the person of the emperor and, even more so, his direct deification, had originally been in sharp conflict with the old humanistic conceptions and, above all, with the mentality of the Senate. Now, however, the opposition of Christianity made the worship of the emperor a part of the policy of the patriotic conservatives, and so it remained until paganism had drawn its last breath.

The absolutist Empire never allowed its subjects to share in real political or constitutional decisions. At best, complaints might be brought before the All-Highest by the Senate in the Curia or by the masses at the games, in the gentle disguise of a formal litany; decisions were taken in the ‘silentium’ of the palace by a court clique. But, as the autocracy still rested, however much by anachronism, on the fiction of a conferment of official competence by the Senate and as this conferment could obviously only happen after the pretender to the throne had proved his claim by success, the real choice must first of all be left to the free play of forces. Thus the retention of the old political forms, with their Republican colour, at the changes of emperor left considerable room for the conflict of political forces in the Empire,—especially as, in the twenty-four years between the deterioration of the situation at the end of the reign of Philip and the beginnings of Aurelian, there were some thirty proclamations of emperors.

No separation of these risings into legitimate and illegitimate can be made. For from the very first the act by which the supreme offices of State were conferred was of minor importance when dealing with the candidates backed by the armed forces. And, as often as continuity had not been secured by the ad­vancement of the emperor’s real or adoptive son, difficulties in­evitably arose. Dynastic sentiment, developed by transference of this kind, had been strong enough to guarantee the succession by fictions of a pious or even of a repellent character (as in the cases of Hadrian, Elagabalus and Severus Alexander)—and could guarantee it even to children like Gordian III; in our period, too, there was still recourse to it. But the storms of the age would not permit of the introduction of a sure, dynastic succession. The decisions lay with those who carried the sword. Thus the patres had been forced to. declare Decius a hostis publicus, for only so could Philip protect his rear when he marched out against him; but the tables were soon turned, and Decius was welcomed with an extravagance of delight as ‘optimus princeps’—a Trajan come again. The same thing happened once more with Gallus and Aemilianus. Nor had the Senate even to pay for its change of tone; its recognition was regarded as a mere formality. Never once did the Senate protest when the man whom it had legiti­mized was killed, but prudently consulted the wishes of his successor. The strict adherence to principle shown by a Senate uncompromisingly true to Republican tradition in the third century, is no more than a fond illusion of the partisans of the Roman aristocracy of the late Empire, as mirrored with peculiar clarity in the Historia Augusta.

But it would certainly be a grave mistake to deny to the Senate of the period under review any kind of political import­ance. It not only reacted with notable energy against the attempts to thrust it aside and appointed emperors of genuine senatorial sympathies on other occasions than in 238, but it was able, in 270 and 275, to command even greater authority and consent than before, because the anarchy and bloodshed caused by the violent changes on the throne had taught the army the useful lesson that the maintenance of continuity in the constitution must be shielded and respected. Not only did the solemn election of Tacitus fall to the lot of the Senate but Quintillus, before him, was the Senate’s tool. One may even go further and say that the close sympathy between the patres and Claudius seems to have had a history behind it; not without reason does Orosius say of him: ‘voluntate senatus sumpsit imperium.’

Nor must it be forgotten, that the candidates whom the soldiers raised to the throne, who, after all, were almost without exception senators down to 260, were quite capable of maintain­ing a completely senatorial programme and temper, as, for example, did Decius and Valerian. Most of the other creatures of the army, too, were full of expressions of respect and reverence for the Senate. Philip in a moment of discouragement wished to return his authority to the Senate, though he had not received it from them. The example of the disaster of Maximinus Thrax likewise played its part in putting the fear of the Senate into the soldier-emperors. They made all haste after their procla­mation to make pilgrimage to Rome and to pay their respects to the patres. Aemilianus, for example, represented himself as executor of the Senate’s will. When in this age the stamp of senatorial authority appears on gold and silver coins where the right of issue had from the first been reserved to the emperor, as for example, under Gallus, Tacitus and the Tetrarchy or when under Gallienus and Claudius in the issues of small change in Cyzicus and the still unnamed mint in western Asia Minor the four proud letters s.p.q.r. are advertised with full official approval, the facts tell their own story.

The contrast between the enhancement of honour and the decline of actual power is highly significant of an age in which symbolical and abstract values prevailed over reality. In this case, for example, the more than ornamental part played by the Senate as a supreme authority at the election of Emperors was questioned by no one, least of all by the soldiers of Illyricum, who felt themselves to be carrying on the traditions of old Rome; but all its other political functions had been completely lost. As a constitutional instrument it had been treated with tact and tenderness by the emperors from Augustus onwards, but its participation in State affairs had been continually whittled down and its functions transformed into formalities. Unimpaired, however, stood the reputation and influence of its members as governors and generals, until Commodus began to have them represented by knights in the provinces and a practice, begun as an exception, became the rule. Gallienus excluded senators from the high commands by his permanent agentes vices and restricted their employment as civil governors: he thus appears in this field, as elsewhere, as completing a long process of evolution. It was not the soldier-emperors, it was the incapacity of the senators that accelerated the process: militiae labor a nobilissimo quoque pro sordido et inliberali reiciebatur. The permanent state of war called for hard professional soldiers at the head of the troops, not spoilt gentlemen of the capital.

If in spite of this exclusion the Senate still remained something more than a relic of ancient glories, the fact must be credited to the great landed possessions of the senatorial families, which were not so completely ruined by the bankruptcy of the State and by the inflation as were the money fortunes of the middle classes. The album senatorium of the late Empire shows an uninterrupted high position of many of the great families of the third century. It was obviously this economic strength that nerved the Senate to a new political effort in defence of Italy and its heritage of culture in the fifth and sixth centuries. Even in the crisis of the third century it was due to these wealthy lords, that in Rome itself the continuity of the traditions of classical art was not broken and that important treasures of literary and philosophic humanism were handed on to the next age. Again, it is to the reaction of the Senate against revolutionary Christianity that the visible quickening of the old Roman religious sentiment in Rome itself in that dark time was due. It was the emperors of genuinely senatorial temper, like Decius and Valerian, who were the natural enemies of the Church.

But it was not to the Senate alone that the emperor was bound by the ties of an honoured tradition: the idle mob of the capital must receive the customary tokens of respect and favour. With what care the precise scope of imperial generosity in Rome was recorded in our period is still shown by the exact list of congiaria in the Chronographer of a.d. 354. But, under the sole rule of Gallienus (and, simultaneously, under Postumus), the systematic count of the benefactions of the Augusti on the coins ceases, and the representation of ‘liberalitas’ only continues for a time as an empty form, to disappear almost completely after Aurelian. The attempt to win the favour of the citizens now recedes behind the bid for the support of the soldiers by largitio. It was the abrupt changes on the throne rather than the old importance of the capital that still enabled Rome to witness brilliant festivities, such as the processions that glorified the advent of the god­-emperor or the dazzling shows at the periodic imperial festivals. The accounts in the Historia Augusta of the pomp and glory displayed at the decennalia of Gallienus may not all be true, but they certainly preserve many genuine characteristics.

Decius in his day beautified the capital by his completion and dedication of the Thermae of Commodus; he may also have built a portico and restored the Colosseum But even then the fortification of the City demanded first attention. There is no reason to question the statement, that he was busy on plans for the fortification of Rome. Any considerable building activity was then interrupted by the plague that began under Gallus, by the constant absence of the emperors and by financial distress and war. The Arch of Gallienus of 262, erected after the custom of the age to celebrate the decennalia of the emperor, was a private dedication of a simpler character.

Despite all this, the wars of these decades hastened a change in the function of Rome in the State, that had long been preparing. Now that the emperor must be near the field of war, permanent imperial residences grew up at or behind the front so that Rome ceased to be the centre of political life. The free development of the conception of the emperor had as its corollary: ‘where the ruler is, there is Rome.’ Hand in hand with this final loss of political privilege went the crystallization of the abstract idea of the eternal supremacy of Rome. It is no accident that at this very moment the idea of the primacy of the Roman Church received its final shape from Cyprian who voiced the idea of the Cathedra Petri:, the guard at this shrine of human culture was already being relieved.

Beside this decline in power of the old vital centre of the world-state stood the rise of the army as a factor in politics. Its right to share in the election of the emperor had long been estab­lished by custom, and it now found vigorous expression in. the ceremonial of inauguration. But from the time that Septimius Severus and Caracalla shortsightedly abandoned the traditional reliance on the Senate and proclaimed their dependence on the soldiers, it was the temper and will of the army that must prove decisive in filling the throne. But as the Italians had long since disappeared from the army and the educated classes in the inner provinces had likewise ceased to take any serious part in its recruitment, the word now rested with the sons of the border­provinces. What, in the end, determined their attitude was not really the military point of view, but the atmosphere of their native lands, their nationality and the degree in which they were permeated by Roman influences.

A notable role was played by the Osrhoenian archers, who from the time of Caracalla formed a regular part of the Imperial forces. The proclamation of the first Uranius under Severus Alexander rested on their support; but, on the other hand, they with the other Syrian archers formed a strong backing for the Syrian emperors and for Philip the Arabian, and, after the death of Severus Alexander, tried to displace the candidate of the Pannonians by an emperor of their own. When a special issue of coinage under Gallus celebrates the chief god of the Osrhoenians Aziz, who was identified with Apollo Pythius, it was in honour of this important arm of the service. The valour of the Osrhoenians in 260 in battle with Shapur enables us to realize clearly their military, and consequently their political, value. The whole career of Odenathus and his family is but one reflection the more of the might of these Oriental archers.

Another important corps d'élite consisted of the Moorish javelin-men, who had given open support to the elevation of their countryman, Macrinus; and the proclamation of Aemilianus, too, a Moor of Girba, must have stood in some relation to the rising reputation of his fellow Moors. The usurpation of the Moorish officer, Memor, under Gallienus and of the Mauretanian Saturninus under Probus are further practical examples of the same thing.

But the armies of the Western provinces took a much more serious part in the making of emperors in this period. The notion of the Historia Augusta, that it was the civilian Gauls (Gallicani, Galli) who were the originators of the separate empire of Western Europe, though still deeply rooted in the historical literature of today, finds no support in the genuine tradition. The civil population of that age was not at all inclined to risk its life for a separate Gallic Empire; and it was a Roman and not a Gallic programme that Postumus and his successors announced. But the army, to which they owed their rule, was not disposed to leave unguarded the Rhine frontier, which was its home, and to fight in distant lands; it was for that reason that it repeatedly elected emperors of its own. The bitter results of this separatism have already been seen.

The real decision in the election of emperors lay, from Severus onwards, with the Danube army, of Illyro-Celtic stock. From the time of Decius the sons of Illyricum themselves often reach the throne, until with Claudius it became the rule for more than a century that the emperors shall hail from the Danube countries. It was the supreme good fortune of the Empire that this folk was completely romanized and, despite the fearful devastation of its own lands, was resolute to fight for the majesty of Rome in all quarters of the Empire. Beginning with Decius and continuing down the line of his Pannonian successors, the Genius Illyrici is displayed as a new revelation of Roman patriotism, Roman virtue and Roman self-sacrifice,—as was only just, for it was Illyricum that restored the unity of the Empire. This Illyrican supremacy represents at the same time a last advance of the West against the preponderance of the East. If the Latin language could make itself at home in the East, if the Roman conception of the State could take firm root, and if a new Rome could be founded there, it was the efforts of the new ruler­caste of Illyricum that deserve the credit. This role fell, above all, to the Pannonians as can still be recognized, though the Dacian regiments played a distinguished part, while Moesians and Thracians had their share in the great task of restoration.

On the other hand it must not be forgotten that the encroach­ment of army influence on political life involved pernicious con­sequences. Apart from the fact that the movements of the army in themselves produced severe pressure and serious disturbance in the life of the civil population involved, apart, too, from the heavy- financial burden of the chronic state of war, an original error of the Principate had bad results. From the Julian house onwards, at every change of emperor gifts of money were made to the troops to secure their loyalty and, after 193, these developed into a system­atic purchase of military fidelity, which contributed largely to­wards a revolution of economic life. The large gold pieces of Gallienus, with the legend ‘ob fidem reservatam’, express only too clearly the purpose for which they were issued.

Such were the forces that determined who should be made emperor. But it would be a grave mistake to see their effects in isolation. They crossed one another in a hundred different ways. Decius, the Pannonian, was the pride of the senatorial party; other Illyrians, like Claudius and Quintillus, though plain soldiers and not senators themselves, were nevertheless helped on their way to the purple by the complicity, or, it may be, by the direct will of the Senate. Valerian, Regalianus² and other men of consular rank owed their elevation to the army, and that same army remained unswervingly loyal to the high-born Gallienus in his later years. Nor did the high birth of Gallienus prevent him from cutting down the privileges of his senatorial peers.

The Praetorian Prefects still played their ominous part in the rise and fall of emperors, as, for example, Heraclianus in 268. But this position was now only exceptionally a step to the throne, as earlier with Macrinus, and later with Florian and Julianus. Until the year 260 it was an apple of discord between the sena­torial governors; after that date one commander of the new cavalry corps after another—Aureolus, Aurelian and Probus— grasped at the succession. It is easy to understand why Dio­cletian abolished a position of such dangerous strength.

Yet another force that raised up pretenders by the score or brought about their overthrow lay in the psychological malaise of despairing mankind, seeking its redeemers and hurling its scape­goats to destruction. The aspirants to the throne showed neither scruples nor any sense of responsibility. Decius, the conservative senator, cannot be cleared of this reproach by all the tendencious stories of heathen literature (cf. p. 222 below), any more than can the other ‘constitutional’ rulers, like Valerian. They were as guilty when they clutched at the purple as were the rough soldiers who rose from the ranks, or the men of the Eastern border-lands. In revolt against Gallienus rose his own creatures and familiars, like Ingenuus, Postumus, Aureolus, Claudius and Aurelian—all highly-skilled soldiers, or, finally, his father’s confidant, Macrianus. The loyal spirit of an Agrippa was for ever lost. Only very slowly was the balance against this wild orgy of personal ambition and adventure restored by the sound political sense and earnest Roman sentiment of the Illyrian peasants. When after the exclusion of the senators, in 260, the officers from the Danube countries following the equestrian career came more and more to monopolize the highest commands, the election of an emperor was gradually restricted to them.

V.

THE STATE AND THE CHURCH

Soon after his accession Decius took in hand a persecution of the Christians. In this there were several stages. First came measures against the leaders of the Church, beginning with the imprisonment of the Bishop of Rome, who was put to death on January 20, 250. There is evidence to show that the persecution was pressed more severely in March, but the third stage of more decisive action must be placed in June, since the many certificates of having made sacrifice to the pagan gods that have been found in Egypt were all issued between June 12 and July 15. This reflects the carrying through of a new measure providing that all subjects of the Empire, from small children to the priests of the pagan cults, must be registered as making an offering, and the enforcement of this order was controlled by the whole machinery of the Roman administration. The penalty for recalcitrancy was death, though the magistrates only imposed it where they failed by persuasion or threats to secure obedience. The acta of the martyrs compiled for the purpose of edification and in a set literary con­vention do not afford, in general, trustworthy evidence, but there is no reason to doubt that the number of those who suffered for their faith was large. Porphyry, a pitiless enemy of Christianity and a well-informed contemporary, declares that in the persecutions of the middle of the third century thousands were put to death. That a still larger number of confessores were left alive is to be explained, not only by the leniency of the magistrates but by the dying down of the persecution due to the Gothic war about the end of the year 250. The firm stand of these confessores greatly impressed the Christians who had yielded, and the organizing skill, political tact, and determination of the clergy in the restoration of the Church was a potent factor in recovery. But it cannot be doubted that the general result might have been far different had Decius not met his death in battle and had he been able, with iron hand, to persecute not for a year but a decade, and leave no breathing-space to the Church.

It is in place here to consider what motives impelled the Emperor to turn executioner. It is true that the Christians were exposed to penalties before Decius, if they were denounced, and that before his time there had been sporadic persecutions. The hatred of the mob against Christianity was of old standing, and if the Christians saw in the worship of the heathen gods the cause of the troubles and evils that beset the world, it cannot be doubted that the pagans repaid them in their own coin. At the end of Philip’s reign Origen could declare that wars, famines and plagues were attributed to the increasing number of the Christians, and even that the cessation of persecution was made responsible for the disorders that followed. The feeling of the mob was whipped up by agitators from the lettered classes as in Alexandria and elsewhere. Thus there was a widespread popular hostility to the Church which might well induce Decius to act. It is also not impossible that the Emperor bore in mind that the strongest supporters of his predecessor had been the Eastern archers, among whom the partly Christian Osrhoenians played a leading role. His own power rested on the soldiery from Illyricum where Christianity had made hardly any progress. Finally, his good relations with the Senate urged him along the path of persecution. Thus to other motives may be added the general direction of policy that followed his accession.

It may further be pointed out that the Christian community was ever more strongly claiming to be an imperium in imperio. Despite the humanity and tolerance of the Roman State, the Church was resolute to yield no whit of its ideals in order to obey the Roman laws. Thus was removed the possibility of an under­standing, and the claims of the Church to dominion, illustrated by the illusion that certain recent emperors had even been Christians, were too high to admit of reconciliation. Immediately before the Decian persecution Origen had declared that Christ (and therefore also His followers) was stronger than the emperor and all his officers, stronger than the Senate and the Roman People². He looked for a day when the heathen cults should disappear and loyalty to the sovereign be no longer attested by pagan cult-acts. This does not, he argues, mean anarchy as even the barbarians will lose their savagery through the teaching of the Church. It is thus true of Decius that his opponents prescribed for him in full measure the principle of his action.

Finally, the change that had converted the Principate based on Republican and juristic concepts into an absolutism which rested on a theological basis made the claim of the emperor to worship wholly irreconcilable with the claim of the Christians. In the view of the present writer, the offering demanded of the Christians by Decius was something other than an expiatory supplication of the gods, and its purpose was not to restore the pax deorum but to attest loyalty to the Emperor, whose reign was assumed to bring divinely-ordained happiness in which an attempt to deprecate disaster had no place. Indeed, to declare the need for worldwide offerings to appease the gods would refute the courtly insistence on the Golden Age which the ruling emperor was supposed to restore to earth. For in this period the sane logic of mankind had yielded to such idealizing theories. The primary purpose of the offering was the welfare of the emperor and it was a matter of subsidiary importance what god received it; this was no innovation but was in the tradition of the Empire. Only the precise registration of those who make offerings and the certificates were new. Furthermore, the anniversary of Decius’ proclamation as emperor fell about the middle of June, and the offering ordered about that time may be regarded as the traditional expression of loyalty on this occasion. In the early Empire, needless to say, such offerings to the Emperor-Saviour were spontaneous, and compulsion was employed only in the absence of goodwill or in times of great danger. But what was once offered in gratitude from below was later on commanded from above. This test of loyalty, as the sources show, was eagerly welcomed by the pagans, who might well regard refusal as a denial of the general goodwill to the sovereign inspired by the occasion. The idea of the renewal of felicity on earth by the Saviour-ruler clashed with the Christian doctrine—‘tempora Christianis semper, et nunc vel maxime, non auro sed ferro transi- guntur’. It seems, therefore, that by such action Decius was de­termined to demand religious ways of expression of loyalty towards the emperor, and this is further emphasized by the appearance on coins of Decius of the busts of all the consecrated emperors.

Under Decius’ successor, Trebonianus Gallus, there were signs of an approaching persecution, but hardly had the new emperor decided upon it than he died. Gallus, too, began with proceedings against the Bishop of Rome, Cornelius, who was arrested and banished, as was, soon after, his successor Lucius. He too next proceeded with measures against the clergy, but did not reach any general persecution. It can be asserted with con­fidence that Gallus did not renew Decius’ order for a universal act of sacrifice, and what traces of such an act there are must be attributed to the local initiative of a governor. It has been pointed out that such an order need not be regarded as exceptional, and may, as that of Decius, have been connected with some imperial anniversary. It is, thus, at least hazardous to regard Gallus as having simply continued the policy of his predecessor and his death left unrevealed how far he intended to carry his attack upon the Church.

It was not until 257 that a new persecution was launched, this time by Valerian. The bishop Dionysius of Alexandria in laudation of Gallienus set himself to find a foil to that emperor as the author of the later toleration, and chose for this purpose the rebel Macrianus rather than Valerian, who after all was Gallienus’ father. Yet Valerian had been Decius’ chief lieutenant, and it is hardly probable that he did not share his hostility to the Church, so that it may be conjectured that it was only his preoccupation with the dangers of the Empire that delayed his action. Macrianus’ part in the persecution may be reduced to his activity as chief finance minister, whose administrative machinery was involved particularly in the confiscation of Church property. If then the decision really lay with Valerian, the reason for it is not far to seek. August 257 found him with a whole series of defeats to his discredit, and he sought to turn popular indignation against the ’Christians and avert it from him­self. The acta of Cyprian and works of Dionysius of Alexandria afford excellent evidence for the character of Valerian’s actions. The State demands no more than the minimum of obedience, not that the Christians should abandon their faith but that they should add to it a willingness to respect old-established religious for­malities. In the words of the governor of Africa—‘qui Romanam religionem non colunt, debere Romanas caerimonias recognoscere.’ And it was made clear that this recognition is imperative because it attests loyalty to the sovereign. The defence of the Christians takes up this point—the Christians do not cease to pray for the welfare of the emperors, but can only do so to the one true God. In the words of Cyprian—‘nullos alios deos novi, nisi unum et verum Deum—huic Deo nos Christiani deservimus, hunc deprecamur diebus et noctibus—et pro incolumitate ipsorum imperatorum’

The persecution began, as under Decius, with the arrest of the leading churchmen, but then followed a different course. The main body of believers was not called to book, but meetings for religious purposes and entry to the cemeteries were forbidden under pain of death. Around these cemeteries, particularly in the Catacombs, workshops and rooms had been formed for the social life and administration of the Church, and it was here that in Rome the bishop Xystus and his deacons together with many clergy and laity were arrested and then put to death. It is sur­prising that Dionysius of Alexandria and Cyprian, despite their manful recalcitrancy, were at ‘first visited only with exile or at worst, deportatio, but their reprieve was short. In a year came a new rescript ordering the immediate execution of the clergy; highly-placed Christians who clung to their faith suffered con­fiscation as well as death, while the Christians of the imperial household and domains were punished with deportatio. The humbler folk, so long as they did not disobey the former edict or provoke the magistrates to action, were left untouched. The persecution cost many lives and continued till the death of Valerian. But, though it lasted three years, it did not overthrow the Church. The disciplina Romana, which for centuries had held in its grasp the civilized world, could not prevail over the divinities tradita disciplined of Christianity. Herein was to be the secret of victory—in the iron calm and Roman pride with which a Cyprian faced death, in the resolution with which the Roman see claimed to lead the whole Church amid the terrors of persecution, in the unswerving discharge of spiritual duties and the care for the oppressed and the poor in days of constant peril.

When Valerian was taken prisoner by the Persians, Gallienus, in this as in all else, broke with his father’s policy first decree has not come down to us, but only the Greek transla­tion of a rescript to the bishops of Egypt in which he extended his concessions to that country after the fall of Macrianus (a.d. 261) and of Aemilianus (262). The imperial decree which gave freedom and security to the Faith and its adherents and restored to the communities their places of worship and cemeteries was of funda­mental importance. Christianity was now pronounced neither outside the law nor against the law. When the Emperor acted on a petition from the bishops, he admitted that they possessed a legal status, and in giving back the property of the Church he con­firmed the legality of its possession. It is true that his murder was followed by a violent reaction, but his action pointed the way to the final solution. The organization of the Church was able to advance, and in a favourable moment an emperor like Aurelian was prepared to admit the competence of the bishops of Rome and Italy in an ecclesiastical question.

When Gallienus decided to end the policy of persecution and the tradition it implied, it was not that he failed to recognize the danger to the Empire of the Christian movement or that he lacked the will and ability to carry through a Roman policy of restoration planned by Decius and Valerian. Such a judgment of his capacity is the fiction of late historians. The explanation of his action is rather that he realized that Christianity could only be cured by treatment, not by the knife, and it was his hope that in the anti- Christian polemic of Neoplatonism, the outcome of the intellect­ual circles in which he moved, might be found the antidote that was needed to bring about the cure².

In the short reign of Claudius II there are recorded a host of martyrdoms. The acta that tell of these are late and not above suspicion. But they are not to be wholly set aside, for they are concerned with executions in Italy and it was here that the reaction against Gallienus was most violent, so that a change of policy towards the Christians was to be expected. Claudius, who enjoyed the confidence of the Senate, was for that very reason inclined to persecution, even though the Gothic war and his own death hindered him from taking part in it. Although he and his immediate successors did not resume the policy of persecution on a large scale, they preferred to ignore Christianity in a hostile spirit, father than to continue Gallienus’ real toleration of the Church. Yet it was not in their power to undo what he had done or to counter its consequences.

VI.

THE ARMY AND ITS TRANSFORMATION

Until the middle of the third century and even for a time thereafter, the legions remained the backbone of the Roman army, and their number was increased by Septimius Severus and, though less notably, by some of his successors¹. More than half the army, to the number of 200,000 men, consisted of legionaries, and throughout the century the best of these were drafted into the cohortes praetoriae. The most valiant and warlike soldiers of that time were the Illyrians, and these supplied the majority of the legionaries, and, after Septimius Severus, of the Guard. Their political predominance reflects that of the legions, which, as the use of vexillationes became the rule instead of the exception, provided the best infantry and a part of the cavalry for a new mobile army, so that in the wars of Aurelian and even somewhat later the great military creation of Rome still brilliantly proved its worth, though indeed it no longer was the sole decisive factor.

Although Septimius Severus confirmed the right of the soldiers to a family life and allowed them to lease the prata legionis it would be a mistake to suppose that thus early the legionaries became settlers by compulsion like the barbarians who were then planted behind the limites. The Illyrians were, indeed, a peasant stock, yet they left their farms to become soldiers and fought the battles of the Empire from end to end of it, especially in the many campaigns of the middle of the century. But before the reforms of Constantine the legionaries, like the frontier cavalry, had come to be regarded as peasants tied to their farms², and this implies that in the preceding decades the legions had been transformed into a settled and hereditary frontier guard. The great wars of the middle of the century, the pestilences that visited the Empire and the loss of men carried off in the wide­spread barbarian invasions had exhausted in the Illyrians the last source of romanized man-power, so that Constantine no longer relied upon them. Further, with the constant withdrawal of the best troops to serve in the mobile army, the garrisoning of the frontier sank to a secondary role that was entrusted to barbarians and semi-barbarians.

In the period of the great military crisis Rome had to meet enemies who had shown superiority in the field, and the need to match their methods undermined the tactical supremacy of the legion. This was not due to any failure of the Illyrians, who were no less suited to maintain the Roman art of war than the Italians had been. They were simple peasants, but the fact alone that they supplied most of the centurions of the army at this time shows that they were well able through years of service to train them­selves in Roman discipline and skill of manoeuvre, and they were inspired by the spirit of Rome. But the countless forced marches of great range were merely hindered by the old Roman practice of fortifying camps at the end of each day. Caesar had long before realized how hampering the heavy legionary armament could be in the face of a nimble arid mounted enemy, and now, in the third century, the infantry tactics and weapons of the legions were clearly shown to be out of date. A hint of this may be found in the fact that Macrinus had sought to increase the mobility of his troops by taking away their breast­plates and heavy shields². Further, now that the enemy, both in East and West, trusted to long-distance missiles or sudden cavalry­attacks, the pilum, which was designed for use against close and comparatively immobile masses, lost its effectiveness and disap­peared in the third century, and with it the short sword, which was replaced by the long spatha of the auxiliaries and the German enemy, together with the lance³. But new equipment, suited to the fighting of the time, had already been supplied to other formations, as was indeed inevitable now that cavalry was be­coming more important than infantry.

As the old tactics lost their hold, discipline naturally declined. But more grave was the effect of the disappearance of suitable personnel. The level of education began to sink during the third century, especially among the officers, where it is more danger­ous. The exclusion of senators from a military career did more harm to the civil service than to the army, but the disappearance of the Italian officers of equestrian rank in this period meant an irreparable loss, and inevitably lowered the cultural standard of the whole hierarchy. Whereas earlier the principalis marked out to be centurion had already in the bureaux of his superiors acquired a thorough knowledge of all sides of the service and had also proved himself in military administration, the army officer in this epoch was a mere man of his hands⁴, and in the fourth century often an illiterate.

Next come the regular auxilia. In order to understand the later development it is important to stress the fact that in the second century these had not so wholly lost their national character as might be thought. Though Trajan’s Column shows many auxiliaries in uniform Roman equipment, advantageous as that could be, their organization and way of fighting were less assimi­lated to those of the legions than has been supposed. Such an assimilation was hardly possible for the cavalry, which in the legion played a subordinate role, and it is not an archaism when Vegetius declares that there was a marked difference between auxilia and legions—‘alia instituta, alius inter eos est usus armorum.’ The motley groups of fighters with their special kinds of dress and arms that also appear in these reliefs are not all to be regarded as ‘irregular’ formations.

In the second century national peculiarities in the practice of war were highly appreciated, and barbarian formations had even been made out of romanized personnel. To take one instance, the ala Ulpia contariorum civium Romanorum used the long thrusting spear of the Iranians to meet the Quadi who fought in the Sarmatian way, and the tactics of the Sarmatians and Alani, together with their use of the wedge-formation in attack, were practised in the army, and there was even made an ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum catafraetata for use against these enemies. Hadrian, in particular, who had studied the barbarian ways of fighting, will not have contented himself with allowing the use of national war­cries by the auxilia. This is obvious so far as the numerous cavalry regiments and infantry of the Oriental bowmen are concerned; nor can Rome have dispensed with the admired dexterity of the Batavians, the much-copied cavalry manoeuvres of the Spaniards or the skill of the Moorish javelin-men. National methods of fighting became even more important in the third century. There are new archer formations and an ala nova firma milliaria catafractaria in competition with the Parthians and Persians. To the variously equipped troops that have been mentioned may be added, for instance, the ala of camelry, the cohortes scutatae Hispanorum and other formations, even cavalry armed with the scutum. It is even possible that the half-naked Germans on Trajan’s Column were regular troops like those cohorts which were disbanded after the rebellion of a.d. 69— Germanorum... nudis corporibus super umeros scuta quatientium’

The practice of filling up the auxilia with recruits from the region in which they were stationed militated against the main­tenance of their national character, but the practice was far from uniform. It has been shown that in the third century the Oriental bowmen received recruits from their home countries as also the ala nova of cataphracts. At the beginning of that century the cohort III Batavorum milliaria., which had been stationed in Pannonia for a long while, still made dedications to its tribal goddess Vagdavercustis, and so must have retained its national character. Soldiers’ sons joined their fathers’ formations and thus assisted a continuity of race that must not be underrated. However much the auxilia might be romanized, there were openings for national characteristics, especially when, as early as Hadrian, arose the fixed institution of the numeric which were separated off, not because of their alien character but because of their special functions in the strategy of that emperor.

Hadrian’s strategic conception, that is, the police supervision and fixing of the frontiers in the unyielding line .of a single cordon instead of a defensive battle-zone in depth, was inspired by high civilizing ideals; but it failed to meet the military needs of the Empire and led directly to the collapse of the defence in the stern times of the third century. The Roman army was far too small to guard the whole line that encircled the world-empire. To fill up the gaps Hadrian created the numeri as a kind of militia which cost less than the troops of the line, were worse equipped and not trained to equal efficiency.

For a while these served their purpose and their presence was attested on almost all the frontiers, sometimes supported by first- line troops. But the peoples within the Empire soon failed to supply men to hold the gaps in the defences, the more as inva­sions, especially those of the Germans, ever more often broke into it. At the same time, the constant elaboration of the defensive lines called for more garrison troops. The result was that the late second century already saw the first settling of barbarians from with­out the Empire, who were no longer organized as numeri. It was still possible to follow the old pattern and place these new settlers under officers such as praefecti gentium, as for example the gens Onsorum who have been newly posted under a praepositus in Lower Pannonia at the end of the second century, and the dediticii Alexandrian settled at Walldurn on the Rhine under Severus Alexander. The like control was exercised over the Chatti who at the end of the second century were transplanted to the castellum at Zugmantel in the Taunus with their families and goods. In the third century, too, the frontier troops were often reinforced by prisoners of war and fugitives from enemy countries, but at times it became necessary simply to admit a client State within the frontier line, as is shown by the settlement under Gallienus of a king of the Marcomanni on the limes of Upper Pannonia.

The numeri gained little from this barbarization of the frontier garrisons. Despite their entire or partial lack of romanization they were put under Roman commanders and officers, yet the soldiers who served in them were not only dediticii and gentiles, but, unlike the other Imperial troops, they did not receive citizenship after the completion of their years of service. None the less, they became romanized to a considerable extent, and this process was assisted by their later recruitment from the inhabitants of the part of the front allotted to them. The rise in their status (from the Roman point of view) is reflected in the fact that as late as the third century several numeri were advanced to be cohorts and alae. On the other hand the value of the citizenship had so fallen that men from Emesa and Palmyra who had become ernes Romani could be used to form numeri; even among the gaesati of Tongres citizens are found.

As early as the end of the second century bounties were pro­vided for those auxiliaries whose sons carried on their trade of arms, and in the third this duty was imposed on them. Even earlier than the auxilia the soldiers of the numeri were tied to the soil. It has already been noted how this military peasantry became barbarized both in and after the ravages of the years of crisis. Under the Tetrarchy it was a matter for congratulation if by any means men could be found to continue this service¹. Their fixed settlement and the principle of local defence, to which they owed their existence, used up the numeric They disappear from the military system after Diocletian, having either perished or else been changed into other formations. The new strategy demanded instead of the Hadrianic numeri the revival under another name of Trajan’s irregulars.

The system of the inelastic frontier cordon and the ranging along it of the whole military strength of the Empire broke down as often as serious attacks were launched upon it. But this second-century idea was too deeply rooted in the whole conception of the State for it to be abandoned. That would have meant the sacrifice of the Roman element in the frontier provinces, which at that time did most to uphold the Empire and so could not be reduced to a mere glacis or field of operations. As early as the second century there were efforts to make good the exhaustion of man­power by the strengthening of the frontier fortifications, and after the German and Persian invasions there was fresh activity in improving the castella and building new defences. In this Gallienus was as active as Postumus and, later, Diocletian and his successors. But though they clung to the traditional method of defence the emperors could not evade the demands of a new situa­tion. If the Empire was to be kept secure, it was necessary to return to a grouping of the armies in depth, and the constant wars of movement made indispensable an army that was ever ready to take the field and was independent of the frontier line. These two needs led to the creation of a new mobile army which was normally posted at important points behind the frontiers. As the new conception of defence prevailed, it conferred increased importance on the significant strategic points of Italy, especially on Aquileia, Milan and Verona, the two latter receiving under the sole rule of Gallienus the name of colonia Gallieniana on the score of the building of new fortifications. The minting of money and manufacture of arms were removed to these or other great military centres, as also troops including newly organized corps.

About the middle of the century vexillationes from Danube legions are found in Aquileia, where they formed a standing camp. This appears to have been a defensive measure taken by­ Philip, who in other respects also strove to protect North Italy, Mobile detachments of the Upper Pannonia legions stationed at Aquileia later became regiments of the field-army and were transferred to the East. The commanders of these mobile units were called fraepositus or dux. thus the ducenarius Aurelius Marcellinus, who directed as dux the work on the fortifications of Verona in 265, was also the commander of such detachments. Vexillationes of the Eastern legions came to North Italy in con­sequence of the victory over Macrianus and when Aureolus went over to Postumus in 268, they seem to have been detached by the latter to Gaul (possibly against Laelianus), as their names appear on the gold struck at Treves by Victorinus.

Gallienus posted mobile troops not only south but north of the Alps. Vexillationes from Germany and Britain are found at Sirmium in Pannonia in the period of his sole rule. At the same time, the two legions withdrawn from Dacia  were established in Poetovio at the crossing of the Drave, thus barring the road that led to Italy. In like manner a detachment from the legions at Albano and Lambaesis was posted at Lychnidus on one of the chief roads that lead to Greece. Thus there can be no doubt that Gallienus went beyond what had hitherto been attempted and devised a far-reaching strategic scheme to break the waves of the barbarian invasions. It may be that the vexil­lationes from Lower Moesia and Pannonia that are found in Dalmatia in the third century belong to the same setting. The troops on this mobile footing were of course used also in offensive operations, as for instance the advance to Southern Gaul under Claudius II.

Some emperors after Gallienus may have regarded this separat­ing off of mobile troops as a transitory innovation, but he can hardly have done so. At all events, the continuous state of war often prevented the vexillationes from returning to their parent legions on the frontier, and what began as exceptional continued till it was confirmed in the definitive new organization of Dio­cletian and Constantine when the detachments became legiones comitatenses or palatinae in the mobile army. The general rule of having two legions in each province, to which Severus and Caracalla gave effect, brought it about that these legionary vexillationes appear in pairs as a combined unit; this practice, also applied tactically, remained an essential part of the late Roman army organization.

Whereas this system was defensive in motive and was still half based on the infantry of the old order, the frequent wars of movement caused cavalry to come more into favour. It is true that at the beginning of the century it was firmly and widely held that the strength of the Roman army lay in its infantry and close fighting with spears, whereas the Parthians were distinguished by their cavalry and long-range archery. As late as 238 Maximinus drew up his army for battle with the square of legions and auxilia as its main strength. But even the cavalry had come to play a more decisive role than his ordre de bataille would suggest.

The Moorish javelin-men with their small shields, riding bare­backed, had already become famous in Trajan’s wars, and in the third century from Caracalla onwards they once more came to the front. Under Macrinus or Elagabalus they are commanded by a tribune of the Praetorian Guard; being thus regarded as élite troops, they can hardly have been reduced to the grade of numeri but remained irregular formations. Under Macrinus they were effective against the Parthians and in combination with the Oriental archers they contributed greatly to the successes of Severus Alexander and Maximinus against the Germans of the Rhine. The former brought large forces of them to the West.

Philip’s defeat of the Carpi was due to their impetuous attack, and then they appear with Valerian against the Persians, though at the same time Gallienus used a Moorish corps against Ingenuus. Finally, they fought with success against Palmyra under Aurelian.

The other important specialist troops of this period, the Oriental archers, seem to have been mainly cavalry, armed with the most dreaded weapon of antiquity, the composite bow of the Iranian and Turkish nomads. The best archer regiments after Caracalla’s annexation of their country were the Osrhoenians. Caracalla used them against the Germans, probably as irregulars, and so too Severus Alexander and Maximinus: they distinguished themselves in the war against Shapur. Finally, the heavy cavalry of the Iranians, with their long spears and armour both for man and horse, were used in the Roman army especially after the increasing conflicts with Persia, in which, indeed, the enemy, too, were driven to adopt Roman tactics. Orientals were used as catafractarii because of their long familiarity with this kind of fighting.

Such were the new kinds of troops which were at Gallienus’ disposal when he decided to break with tradition and bring cavalry into the foreground instead of infantry. But it is signifi­cant that he did not rely primarily on these when he organized mounted regiments on a new model. Doubtless he realized the danger to the State if he placed this new instrument of war in the hands of the Moors and Orientals, and so he had recourse to the unexhausted man-power of Dalmatia and created the equites Dalmatae. Since, after this army had been disbanded, the Notitia Dignitatum always mentions the equites Mauri, the equites promoti and equites scutarii with the Dalmatian regiments, it is fairly certain that Gallienus grouped them together, converting into new corps d'élite the Moorish javelin-men, and also the con­centrated legionary cavalry and the scutarii, who must have used a distinctive way of fighting. This far-reaching re­organization was made in a.d. 258. The coin-issues show that the official designation of this whole cavalry force was simply equites. and that it was posted at Milan under Gallienus, as also under Aurelian. At the decennalia of Gallienus it is put on a par with the Praetorian Guard, and this shows that it was a real house­hold corps under the direct command of the emperor. From this time onwards its commander was the most powerful subject of the Empire, though only of equestrian rank. Claudius seems to have held this post after the rebellion of Aureolus², and this agrees with the fact that he is described as second only to the emperor. After him Aurelian and then Probus (who was called Equitius) used this position as a jumping-off place to the throne.

It is important to observe that this cavalry army acted as a unit wholly independent of the infantry: thus it won the victories over Ingenuus and Macrianus. But even later this separation continued, as in 269 against the Goths, where friction between the two arms almost led to a serious disaster. Here, too, the Dalma­tians did much to secure victory, as later in the Eastern wars of Aurelian. In the battles before Antioch and near Emesa the equites played their independent role. Once the cavalry army had so brilliantly proved its worth, and while so much remained for it to do, Aurelian can hardly have broken it up and distributed its units over the East. It is more probable that this was done by Diocletian, to destroy the central political importance of their commander. At some time before a.d. 293 the name vexillationes, which had been used of legions of the mobile army, was trans­ferred to mounted detachments, which may be regarded as being parts of the cavalry army. Diocletian also restored the con­nection of the promoti with the legion, but this only lasted for a time.

After Gallienus Aurelian doubtless did much for the re­organization of the army. It seems, he strengthened the catafractarii, who are also called clibanarii. For on the Arch of Galerius at Salonica the emperor’s bodyguards wear the scale-armour of the cataphracts and the conical helmet (Spangenhelm) typical of the Iranians, which was then inherited by the Germans of the middle ages. Their standards are the Iranian dracones—serpents flying and hissing with the gaping jaws of a wild animal. These may have been used before by the Thracian auxiliaries and were employed in manoeuvres to mark enemy positions, but they had earlier been regarded as foreign and barbarian. It may be taken as certain that this Persian equipment had established itself before Galerius’ victories and no emperor had had so much to do with enemy cataphracts as Aurelian. He had, indeed, discovered the right tactics and weapons to use against them, but he doubtless learned to respect the clibanarii of Zenobia and intro­duced such regiments into his army on a large scale.

Another innovation with far-reaching consequences has been attributed to Aurelian. He apparently formed auxilia of Vandals, Juthungi and Alemanni, and this meant a quite new access of Germans to the army. There are now found wholly non-Roman formations, as even earlier a cuneus Frisiorum in Britain. But the new German auxilia also kept their ancient national standards, shield-devices and dress, which, as ever more Germans were enrolled, spread so quickly that by the early period of Constantine they became regular in the whole army. As early as the Tetrarchy the emperor himself wore even in peace time the long trousers, the once despised bracae of the Celts and Germans. It is probable that before the century ended the customs of the German warriors, as the raising on a shield and the crowning with a torque, appeared at the proclamation of the emperors. All this did not happen suddenly and without precedent. Caracalla created a privileged elite force of Germans, the leones^ which lasted on, it may be as a special kind of bodyguard. Germans had done this service to the first emperors and the third-century rulers from Caracalla certainly had German bodyguards. The reliefs of the Arch of Galerius show these as typical.

But the emperors of the third century, though they could not do without this excellent fighting material, strove as far as possible to keep the Germans in a subordinate position, as half-free coloni or third-line soldiers in the numeri or at least attached to other troops under Roman supervision. It may be that it was Philip, in whose reign recruits were already notably scarce, who first admitted them to the regular auxilia. Claudius certainly did so. But the wearing down of the Empire’s own resources is shown by the handing over of part of the Upper Pannonian limes to a German prince under Gallienus or the alliance in the same period with German kings on the Rhine outside the frontier. The contingents bought from the Germans under the cloak of a foedus gradually became indispensable. No hesitation was felt about enlisting great numbers of irregulars from free Germany. This had been the practice of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, as of Caracalla, Maximinus and Pupienus. It was followed by Gallienus on the Rhine and after him by Postumus. By keeping these irregulars it was possible to isolate these alien elements and in fact the Germans did not come to the front politically in this period because their isolation was effective. But this procedure meant that the Empire’s gold was constantly drained away. And as the troops of the line were used up, the irregulars became ever more predominant and finally became regulars. The world was upside-down. Yet the guiding of the increasing flood of Ger­mans in the army into Roman channels marks an achievement of the third-century emperors.

The great changes in the army were reflected in its hierarchy and it was Gallienus who made the decisive alterations in its organization. There is one institution which seems to date from the beginning of his reign, which was to lead to important de­velopments, that of the protectores divini lateris. The model for these may have been the somatophylakes of the Hellenistic Kings. The Hellenistic ideas that underlay the autocracy were salient in this period, and Gallienus, though he showered distinctions on the Germans, still excluded them from the regular service of the State. This suggests that the first institution of the protectores is to be distinguished from its later development in which the direct personal relation of the protectores domestici to the monarch became tinged with the idea of loyal retainership familiar to the germanized officers of the court. Another sign of the change in the position of the protectores is to be seen in the fact that at first the name marked a distinction reserved for the tribunes of the Praetorian Guard, the prefects of the legions and the com­manders of the mobile units, whereas later it was applied to the whole body of centurions. The essential feature of the institution was residence at the Imperial camp as a kind of training as staff-­officers.

Gallienus’ exclusion of senators from military service had im­portant consequences. The creation of so eminent a position as that of the general of the new cavalry army foreshadowed the office of magister militum under Constantine. This general, and no less the army-commanders in the provinces, the praefecti legionis,and the praepositi or duces of the vexillationes were equites. But the equestrian order was no longer the old social class of Rome and the Italians. Even under the early Empire centurions had been promoted to this rank and Septimius Severus granted all under-officers the privilege of wearing the gold ring which was the badge of the equestrian order. This process continued, and Gallienus bestowed this rank on the sons of principales and cen­turions at their birth.

As this development broke down the old class-distinctions, so the new strategy deprived Rome of its central importance in favour of the Imperial headquarters. To these were also removed the arms-factories and the decentralization of coining worked in the same direction. In this, too, Gallienus broke with tradition. But the army not only lost its connection with the capital but was wholly divorced from old ideas of the State. It no longer stood for the Roman citizen body, and had no feeling for ancient pre­rogatives, but depended simply on the will of the monarch. This personal attachment to the Imperator had also much to do with the change that came over the economic life of the Empire.

The Roman denarius had for centuries possessed a value based not on State regulation but on its intrinsic worth, and though since Nero its silver content imperceptibly decreased, it was the founda­tion of the prosperity of the Antonine period. But in the reign of Septimius Severus the debasement of the currency was already so advanced that either it must be checked or account must be taken of its consequences. Severus adopted the second alternative. He  allowed the process to continue, but was able to compensate the soldiers, apart from an increase in their pay, by granting them the benefits of a new taxation in kind, the annona. This new levy bore hardly on the provincials and induced a far-reaching system of requisitions. From Septimius Severus onwards the silver content of the currency fell though gradually, until in the lamentable conditions of a.d. 253 Valerian and Gallienus found themselves forced to resort to a more drastic debasement of the currency to get money for the State, and after the catastrophe of 260 the denarius was rapidly replaced by a silver-washed copper coinage. At the same time the imperial authority attached an arbitrary value to this inflation-currency, and compelled its ac­ceptance at this rate; now that the value of money was fixed by authority, not by the free play of economic forces, the foundations of the old individual form of life were destroyed. But while no effort was made to do more for the silver currency than regulate the inflation-money, gold was issued and put into currency by a new method. By substituting increases of pay² for military dis­tinctions and developing the abuse of presents in gold Severus had inaugurated a process that was to have far-reaching effects. Apart from the facts that from his reign onwards the normal issues of gold were ever more often made to coincide with the periodic Imperial celebrations and that the gold reserve more regularly moved about with the imperial court and camp, there now further developed a peculiar system for the distribution of the gold coins (which never lost their full metal content). This change is best seen in the money struck for presents. These gifts became es­pecially common since the reign of Hadrian and usually consisted in the second century of bronze pieces of no intrinsic value but well fitted by their high artistic execution to be presented to highly placed personages on great occasions. After Severus the ‘medallions’ suited to the taste of a cultivated upper class were gradually replaced by large gold pieces, which, in striking contrast to the poverty of the time, had become by the period of the Tetrarchy heavy lumps of gold. Their types displayed with growing emphasis their connection with the Imperial festivals.

These largesses, which were no longer designed for the citizens but for the soldiers, served not only to secure their loyalty but called forth the traditional religious and emotional expression of it. It was not undisguised bribery, but was allied with offerings and solemnities as was demanded by the spirit of the age. Liberalitas praestantissimorum imperatorum expungebatur in castris, milites laureati adibant,’ writes Tertullian. This development of the system of presents gained a new impetus as the old conception of money died out in the second half of the third century. While the compulsory acceptance of the inflation-money and the growing contribution in kind deprived the civil population of money of intrinsic value, the soldiers were provided for not only by payments in kind but by the presents that accompanied the Imperial festivals, a process whereby the minister of finance became a comes sacrarum largitionum.

Despite all this, whoever would make the soldiers alone re­sponsible for this development, should not forget how these men served the Empire with their lives. The millions of Italian and other citizens of the towns merely looked on at the wars, and had no desire to put themselves in peril for their country. They pre­ferred to endure the crushing burden of taxation and the oppres­sion of the autocracy.

VII.

THE EMPERORS

First the picture, or rather caricature, presented by the ancient authorities must be considered. Of Decius there is no contemporary tradition apart from the Church Fathers, like Cyprian, who knew him only as tyrannus ferociens. For Lactantius, this persecutor of the Faith is an exaecrabile animal. The Byzantine tradition presents a view that looks like a direct answer to such slanders. That convinced heathen, Zosimus, maintains that he ruled most admirably and won all his battles. Again, in the story told by the late Greek sources of his accession, the same tendency is revealed: the intention is to clear him of the charge of usurpa­tion. Actually, he had already been months in Illyricum, and had certainly got rid of the partisans of Pacatianus, when his revolt began; he could not therefore have been forced to assume the purple by those same soldiers, in dread of punishment. Nor does it appear to the present writer to be true that he intended to lay aside the purple, but that the evil, distrustful Philip would not credit his intention². That would be to attribute to this man of iron a course of conduct actually followed a century later by the soft and servile Vetranio, or, before him, by the feeble Tetricus. Decius knew that the purple on his shoulders meant empire or death—in that knowledge he acted. The same tendency is even more crudely exaggerated in that pamphlet against Christianity, the Historia Augusta. For it Decius is the ideal champion of the old Roman position, an embodiment of true Roman virtues. But what is beyond all doubt is that the Senate always regarded him as flesh of its flesh and that his heroic death finally silenced all criticism in these circles and so prepared the way for his later transfiguration. To excuse the terrible disaster that befell this defender of the old national religion and morality the sources on which our Byzantine authorities depend sought a scapegoat to bear the guilt. They found one in the successor of Decius, the witness of his fall— Trebonianus Gallus. The treachery of Gallus, as alleged by our authorities, is an absurd invention. What was left for him to do, when all was lost, but to bow to the inevitable and let the Goths go their way?

Of the unhappy Valerian the heathen sources, truthfully enough, have almost nothing good to report; the Christians load him with abuse. But the Historia Augusta, in its hatred for the Christians, excels itself and makes this wretched figure a national hero. The whole vita Valeriani is a reply to Lactantius, who says of this persecutor—‘deus novo ac singular! poenae genere adfecit.. . . Etiam hoc accessitad poenam, quod cum filium haberet imperatorem, captivitatis suae tamen ac servitutis extremae non invenit ultorem, nec omnino repetitus est.’ Forged letters are quoted to prove the contrary, and the biographies that follow Valerian’s in this pitiful production swarm with praises of the persecutor. All this has no relation to reality.

Never were the historical features of an emperor so distorted as were those of Gallienus. Even in his lifetime, when despairing humanity demanded the causes of the fearful blows of fate, the short-sighted naturally sought to lay the blame on the man who held the rudder of State. Embitterment of this kind helped many an adventurer to rise against him. Then, when this malaise of the mind had been mastered, the resentment of the Senate against him grew ever fiercer. It was in vain that the army tried to repress the Senate’s fury after his murder: ‘ patres. . . stimulabat proprii ordinis contumelia.’ The fact that so few edicts from the sole reign of Gallienus are preserved in the law books of Justinian compared with the rather ample material from his joint reign with his father shows that the patres might tolerate the shame brought on the State by the father, but could never forgive their own humiliation by the son. A generation later, it is true, a panegyrist could still debate whether the instability of the Roman State under him came from ‘incuria rerum’ or ‘quadam inclinatione fatorum,’ but the attitude of the Latin writers was So completely determined by the views of the senatorial circles that the unjust verdict became ever more exaggerated as time went on. This state of mind is represented by the author of the lost biographical history of the emperors on which our later chronicles and compendia depend. He found in the sound tradition much that was favourable to Gallienus, and so he endeavoured to in­tegrate and harmonize its self-contradictory verdict in a manner very natural to ancient thought. From the poems of Solon onwards we find recurring in ancient literature the ethical dogma that good fortune and prosperity bring men to destruction— ‘mutant secundae res animos.’ The Greeks themselves estab­lished the formal type of the tyrant, who, after good beginnings, ‘secundis solutior,’ is progressively corrupted: even an Alexander could not escape such reproaches from moralists. The theme was in due course inherited by the Romans, and the anonymous historian naturally followed this scheme in calumniating Gallienus. But the arbitrariness of his method is soon betrayed by the actual sequence of the events, which he forces into this artificial pro­gression from good to evil.

There is a second literary motif that plays a part with our anonymous writer in his blackening of the character of Gallienus —that of the growing effeminacy of the luxurious tyrant; it passed into the Caesares of Julian and rises in the Historia Augusta to a veritable medley of ancient commonplaces: Gallienus has here become sordidissimus feminarum omnium. There is yet a third tendency that starts with our anonymous historian: in contrast to Gallienus he eulogizes his opponents, in particular Odenathus and Postumus, who brought salvation where the profligate failed. That is why the chapter on the thirty tyrants is spun out in so romantic a style in the Historia Augusta.

In the Greek writers, on the contrary, we find only the favourable portrait of a humane and illustrious prince. Even if this may represent no more than the devotion of cultured Hellenists, such as Dexippus, Porphyry, Callinicus and Longinus, the popularity of Gallienus among the lower social circles of the East is still echoed in the fantastic stories told by Malalas. In the Christian literature of his own age Gallienus was greeted with high praises, or even with formal panegyrics. But this note grew fainter when emperors followed who had become Christians themselves and thus could easily overtrump the good will shown by Gallienus. St Ambrose, for example, already takes his full share in condemning him. The great historian of later Rome, Ammianus Marcellinus, found on the one hand the verdict: ‘neque Gallieni flagitia, dum urbes erunt, occultari queant, et, quisque pessimus erit, par similisque semper ipsi habebitur’¹; on the other, the praise of the Greeks. He took over the re­proaches, but also admitted, albeit with some embarrassment, the favourable judgments—in one case, indeed, where the Greek authority is still preserved³. Now that the research of recent years has cleared the memory of Gallienus of this coating of calumny, it can be seen that, this apart, the really weak sides of the man had been completely forgotten, even his natural failings can hardly be discerned.

The same senatorial reaction that created this dark picture tried to acquit Gallienus’ successor, Claudius, of participation in his murder and to surround him with an atmosphere of glory and light. Even his insignificant and shortlived brother received the meed of unstinted appreciation.

Let us now see what the facts in their turn have to say. The tradition that survives from late antiquity would suggest that the emperors in these decades had the power to do good or evil, as their own natures dictated, to act of their own free will. But, in reality, the path they trod depended on a long and varied series of premisses. In all departments of life it may be observed how a secular evolution set the seal on that great crisis of the Empire, and how the new shape that things now took had had a long preparation behind it. A few examples must here suffice.

The development of art is particularly revealing for the history of civilized States. Here it is possible to trace very clearly the long lines of connection between the early and late Imperial period. For instance one can determine the road by which the chief characteristic of late Roman-medieval painting, the gold back­ground, was unobtrusively led up to through centuries⁴. The change of style in relief-sculpture has revealed how, as early as the second century, the inability to create new compositions resulted in the old scenes becoming over-crowded by the addition of new figures. This process means the disappearance of the background, and perspective loses its raison d'être. This ‘anarchy of forms’ reaches its climax in this period, while at the same time economic stress crushes the great sarcophagus workshops in Rome. The approaching new order of things can do no more than bring in a primitively schematic form of composition, and the exhaustion of the power of composition is followed, about a. d. 300, by the disap­pearance of technical virtuosity. But the art of portraiture shows, with peculiar clearness, that during the regression of the organic­ally conceived portrait to a lifeless schematic generalizing like­ness, there suddenly, about 260, appears a violent recoil to the classical. Since this reaction is found not only in Italy but simul­taneously in the realm of Postumus, it is clear that it is widely based, and that, though the rulers might favour it and guide it to maturity, they did not initiate it.

Much light is thrown on these progressive changes of orienta­tion by the unbroken sequence of the history of the monetary devaluation. This shows clearly that about 260 the manipulation of the silver content of the double denarius that had been going on for two centuries, accelerated and led to its complete destruction. Here again it is instructive to draw the parallels between the course of this process in the regions governed by Postumus and by Gallienus, as it demonstrates an essential similarity that did not depend on those two personalities. The career of this debased money is precisely similar in both areas; at about the same time it sank, on one side and the other, to be a mere copper piece, coated with silver. The only difference is that the inflation in Gaul brought with it a great outburst of private coinage (of a rude and barbarous character), intended to exploit for itself, instead of for the State, the difference between nominal and metal value. In the lands governed by Gallienus this mischief was successfully averted, except in Rome, where from 268 to 270 similar abuses flourished though on a more modest scale. On the other hand, Postumus continued to turn out his aurei at the normal weight, whereas the procurator of the mint of Rome let the weight of the gold coins fall so low, that in many issues they were disks as thin as paper. In other mints, on the contrary, order reigned in this field even under Gallienus. But the corruption now established was terrible: despite the iron hand of Aurelian each issue of small change can be seen, for a century and a half, to be diminished in size in a few months, and there is no pause in the reforms that simply establish, under old or new titles and denominations, some normal weight for these coins.

It is possible, again, by following the changes in the representa­tion of the monarch, to discern the earlier foundations on which the autocratic constitution was based. Step by step we can trace the process by which the old emphasis on organic function gives way to the new stress on outward form. Here again it becomes evident that the transition was actually made in this epoch of crisis, and that Diocletian and Constantine only gave clear definition to what was already accomplished. The displacement of the civil princeps by the military dominus is unmasked and seen as the production of a very long process of evolution.

The centrifugal tendencies that found expression in the rise of usurpers and undoubtedly slowly prepared the way for the later separation of East and West, had likewise a course of develop­ment proper to them. Not only does the need of a second ruler grow more acute and his competence come more and more to be associated with a division of territory. Under Philip and Aurelian appear administrators of the East as rector Orientis, praefectus Orientis-, Valerian had already his own Praetorian Prefect in the East and, as early as 258, the armies of East and West were separated—if only for a time. The new capitals of the Tetrarchy (Nicomedia and Antioch, on the one hand, Milan, Treves and Sirmium, on the other) justified themselves in practice as early as our period. In contrast to all this, the process of the complete unification of religion, of politics, administration, poli­tical economy, etc. is at least as old: it begins to mature about the middle of the third century.

Military developments tell the same story, and it has been made clear that the invasions of the Germans were only a secondary result of this weakening. Like a human body that is ageing, the mighty organism of the Empire sank into a feverish condition, marked by that acceleration of the course of events that has been observed, and followed by heavy blows from every side. The move­ments of the army, famine and devastation brought on that fearful plague that raged from Gallus to the death of Claudius and con­tributed largely, with the wars, towards the destruction of such romanized elements as might have had in them the power to survive.

There was often no scope for any really free initiative on the part of the rulers. To take, for example, the laws of the period, one finds nothing but regulations to alleviate the time’s distress or the enforcement of compulsory rules, no independent legislation. The administration likewise was turned from its normal functioning by wars, requisitioning, or persecutions of the Christians. New milestones often reflect no lively activity in road-making, but simply advertise loyalty in the face of the constant pronuncia- mentos². But it is no accident that Gallienus after 260 found himself obliged wholly to abandon road-making. Money and labour alike were monopolized by the wars.

But, despite limits set by the trend of things, the life and pros­perity of millions still depended on whether the Emperor won or lost his battles, whether he adopted the necessary measures or not at a crisis: the part played by the individual must not be under­estimated. The activity of the ruler was, indeed, at this time confined to the few main problems of existence. Apart from Gallienus the emperors were no more than military adventurers, the rebels of yesterday. Yet, finding themselves faced by tasks that transcended normal human capacity, they lived at the highest tension and speed only to die, for the most part, by the sword.

In judging the achievements of the emperors, must be con­sidered only those chief actors who had a real historical role and mission.

Decius was a native of Southern Pannonia. But he is not to be confused with his successors, who sprang from that province and were simple soldiers. His family had certainly owned great possessions; his wife came of a distinguished Italian family. Not only did he pass through the normal senatorial career, but he rose to its highest dignities, he was consul and City Prefect. His administration was not successful: rivals rose against him in Gaul, Rome and the East. As a general he was a failure—a failure that made possible and provoked the terrible invasions by the Germans. His attacks on the Church were not such as to break its power, but only to shed blood and create mischief. And yet his whole activity shows his iron hardness, still seen in his portraits. In his campaign against the Christians, in his persistence after his failures against Kniva, in his heroic death, the same abundant energy is revealed. It was not without good reason that he was named ‘reparator disciplinae militaris.’ His extraordinary force of will, his sincere loyalty to the Senate and his death on the field of honour have transfigured his person and ensured the vigorous survival of his conception of Roman conservatism and of his political methods. His reliance on the Illyrians, as representatives of a constructive patriotism, was justified by the future.

Trebonianus Gallus came of an old Etruscan family of Perusia and, as governor of Lower Moesia, was assisted by accident to the throne. His slackness must have been in part responsible for the ill-success of the campaigns of Decius after whose death he seems (to judge by what Dexippus tells us) to have taken no serious steps to check the German invasions. His listless reign contri­buted largely to mature the ill results of the disaster of Abrittus. Nor did the revolt of Aemilianus have any other result.

It was a further misfortune for the Empire that Valerian was now able to seize the throne. He had already (in 253) had a brilliant career; in 238 he had been a notable defender of the Senate and, later, as confidant of Decius, had taken a share in administration at Rome during his absence. His rule was generally acclaimed with high hopes. At the beginning he did indeed strive to restore order and it seems that he really was a good administrator; the whole management of the persecution of the Christians suggests the skilful politician. It is probable enough that history would have had much good to say of him, had his feeble hands held the reins of power in a time blessed with peace. But the ageing Emperor was quite unequal to those military tasks that faced him. For eight years in the East he had no triumphs to chronicle save over the Christians,—against Germans and Persians he was too irresolute and weak; in the end, his own hesitancy and impotence betrayed him into the hands of Shapur.

His antithesis—and the contrast grew more and more pro­nounced—is to be seen in his son Gallienus. At the age of about 35 Gallienus was raised by the Senate to the rank of Augustus at his father’s request. But his greatness was first seen when he succeeded in mastering the chaos that followed on his father’s captivity. Nor did he stop there: with sure hand he gripped the mechanism of State and society, to carry through those essential reforms that secured their continuance. Though himself of high birth he had the courage to make a clearance of the desidia of the senators. It was no accident that the Pannonians, who till 261 had been obstinately disloyal to him, thenceforward served him faithfully to the grave and after; he opened up to them the road to the highest positions. Even earlier than this began his far- reaching re-organization of the army, in which like a pioneer he showed the way for the future. With unerring insight he chose out and promoted the great generals of the next age. At the same time he deliberately furthered the reaction that was setting in to defend the ancient culture. As for the Christians, his intention was to fight them with the weapons of enlightenment; in Rome, Athens and Syria philosophers and men of letters are encouraged by him to work to this end. Art turns back, if only for a moment, from its modern primitivism to the classical tradition of the Antonine period.

He had certainly enjoyed a good education. His amazing energy and readiness, which was acclaimed as ‘alacritas Augusti,’ carried him again and again over a succession of terrible blows and alarms to a swift and right decision. It was the same elasticity and energy that made him leap up and rush out, when his murderers lured him out on the pretext that the enemy were at hand. His achievements as general were above the ordinary. For seven years he beat back the attacks of the Germans of the Rhine; he repelled the hordes of Alemanni from Italy and checked the Heruli and Goths in 268. He overcame his own talented but disloyal generals, such as Postumus and Aureolus, and also Ingenuus and Regalianus.

In chivalrous fashion he challenged Postumus to a duel, so that, instead of thousands, only one of the two should fall. ‘I am no gladiator’ is the answer of Postumus. But Gallienus could not be as merciless as his successors, the soldiers, who ruled ‘manu ad ferrum’. He called a halt to the massacre of the Christians. Ever benevolent and ready to help, he never repulsed a petitioner; he even forgave those who little deserved it. Yet this leniency had its evil consequences; such as the abuses of the monetarii in Rome, His dearly loved wife, Salonina, the patroness of Plotinus, accompanied him wherever he went. Even up to the death of her husband she was with him in his camp.

Augustus was his model. But, just as the artistic reaction of his age failed to achieve the imitation of Augustan art and could get no farther back than the baroque of the Antonines, so did the spirit of the Rome of Augustus at which he aimed end in the Hellenic patriotism of those Greek men of letters who based themselves on ideas current in the second century. Amidst bloodshed and dissolution he sighed for the glories of the older days: Athens was his Mecca. His contemporaries did not under­stand him. His kindred and friends were butchered when he fell. Even before his death misfortune had ever attended him. But through a crisis of supreme terror he ensured the continuity of the development of the Empire. He is no type, like the rest, no mere representative of a kind, but an individual. Between Hadrian and Julian he stands as a pillar of Greek culture, which thanks to him still exerts its influence on us. Like Caesar and Augustus, like Trajan and Hadrian, like Diocletian and Constantine, Decius and he form a pair of opposites, who together point the way to the future. As Diocletian returned to the principles of Decius, so did Constantine realize the ideas of Gallienus, even if unconsciously drawing the same consequences from a more advanced stage of the historical development.

Claudius, whose heroic qualities were highly esteemed by Gallienus and whose career was advanced under him up to the supreme command of the equites, already belongs with his successors to those great soldiers of Illyricum, who with unprecedented energy won back the peace and unity of the Empire. His supreme achievement was the final repulse of the Gothic onslaught in 268, after chequered fighting. This simple, but in­telligent and experienced, man had no time in his short period of rule to display any ideas of his own. His co-operation with the Senate alone indicates to us a general direction in his policy.