ROMAN EMPERORS

PHILIP (244–249) DECIUS (249-251) GALLUS (2511-253) EMILIANIS (253) VALERIAN (253-260) GALLIENUS (253-268) CLAUDIUS II GOTHICUS (268-270) AURELIAN (270-275) ZENOBIA (270-272)

 

 

PHILIP

 

Philip having succeeded by the means I have already mentioned in getting himself named emperor by the soldiers, was anxious to obtain the confirmation of the senate without delay. He wrote to that body, and demanded it of them, disguising his crime in regard to Gordian, and saying, as I observed before, that the young prince died of sickness. The senate, either really deceived, or pretending to be so, joined their suffrage to that of the troops, and by one and the same resolution decreed divine honours to Gordian, and to Philip all the titles of the imperial power.

If such a writer as Zonaras deserved any credit, we should sav, that the senate did not comply so readily with Philip’s desire, that they began withal hereby choosing successively two emperors, Marcus, a philosopher by profession, and Severus Hostilianus, both of whom died within a very few days after their election; and that these sudden deaths reduced the senate, now destitute of resources, which they would otherwise have had recourse to against Philip, to acknowledge him at length for emperor. But the authority of Zonaras is very weak; his account is very improbable; and if it contains any truth, we, with M. Tillemont, will restrict it to the following circumstances. There are extant medals of an M. Marcius, and of an L. Aurelius Severus Hostilianus, with the title of Augustus. Let us suppose then, that among the many usurpers who started up in the different provinces of the empire, before and after the time we are now speaking of, there were two who bore the names mentioned by Zonaras; and that it was so much the more easy to give them an imaginary place in history, as they were very little known, having only had a weak party, and a prosperity of but a few days continuance.

Philip, also, in the very beginning of his reign took another useful precaution to secure the sceptre in his hands: by making his son, who was of the same name with himself, and then only seven years of age, his associate in the empire, under the title of Caesar.

The necessity of his affairs called him to Rome, there to establish his authority: and in these circumstances, he thought it was needless to push war against Sapor, especially as he must be dispirited with the losses he had suffered. Philip concluded a peace with the king of Persia, who, reflecting upon the situation he was in, willingly accepted of it. The emperor then led back the Roman army to Syria

It  is there that writers place the strongest proof of the pretended Christianity of Philip, who they say, being at Antioch at the feast of Easter, de­sired to come to the church to partake of the holy mysteries, and being repulsed by the bishop, St Babylas, on account of his crimes, and the murder of Gordian, he submitted to a public penance. After what we have said concerning the notion of Philip’s being a Christian, it is easy to judge what degree of credit ought to be given to this story of his penance; which, besides, is not fully and exactly related by any ancient author. To make out an account of it any way tolerable, they have been obliged to patch several evidences together, and to supply and alter the one by the other. The shortest and safest course is not to admit of a perplexed and ill supported narrative. We have no great temptation to torture history in order to claim such a Christian.

Philip, who had studied to gain the affection of he the troops by large donatives; upon his arrival at Rome, endeavoured to sooth the senate and the nobles by caresses, an affable, and popular behaviour, and an air of perfect moderation. At the same time, being attentive to the material affairs of the state, he took all necessary precautions, and committed the important trusts of the empire to safe hands. He gave the command of the troops in Syria to his brother Priscus, and that of the forces in Maesia and Macedonia to his father­in-law. Severianus, judging himself then pretty safe, and desiring to raise his reputation by the splendour and glory of arms ; he marched in person against the Carpians, a people whom I have already had occasion to mention, and whom it may now be proper to describe more fully.

The Carpians, as their name seems to imply, inhabited originally the mountains called Carputhes by the ancients, and which are now named the Carpuch mountains, and separate Hungary and Transylvania from Poland. Those people, bordering on the Sarmatians, and encouraged by the example of the Goths, who often made successful incursions into the Roman territories, wanted to imitate them. They are mentioned in history for the first time under Alexander Severus. At least it is to the reign of that prince, that M. Tillemont refers an embassy of the Carpathians, an account of which we have in the extracts of Peter Patricius, and which, for its singularity, deserves to have a place here.

Tullius Menophilus, probably the same who afterwards defended the city of Aquileia against Maximin, as we have already observed, commanded, at the time we are now speaking of in Maesia; and being a vigilant and active general, he kept his troops always in action, and made them practice their exercise every day. The Carpians knowing that the Goths drew a large stipend from the Romans, became equally greedy and enterprising, and sent ambassadors to Menophilus, demanding likewise a pension. Menophilus had received notice of the purport of their embassy, and knowing their stubborn haughtiness, he resolved to humble it by his contemptuous treatment of them. Accordingly, after they were arrived in his camp, he suffered several days to pass without giving them an audience; letting them only sec his soldiers perform their exercise, that those barbarians might conceive the higher idea of the strength of body, and expertness of the Romans. At length he sent for them; and being seated upon a vary high tribunal, with the tallest and best made men of his whole army on each side of him, he heard the speech of the ambassadors with a seeming inattention, appearing busied with other matters, and talking to those that were next him, as if he had been obliged to think of much more im­portant concerns, than those of the Carpians. The barbarians, piqued at his haughty behaviour, reduced their intended harangue to these few words.

 Why do the Goths receive so much money from you, while we receive none”. Menophilus answered them, “The Roman emperor possesses great riches, and he gives part of them to those who beg it of him.” “Well then, replied the ambassadors, let him number us among those who beg of him, and let him give money to us as well as to the Goths, for we are better than them.” Menophilus, after smiling at their rustic simplicity, told them, that he would give the emperor an account of their demand, and that they might return at the end of four months for an answer; They did hot fail to come at the time appointed; but Menophilus put them off for three months longer :and at the end of those three months his answer was: “The emperor will not enter into any engagements with you: but if you want a present of money, go to Rome, throw yourselves at his feet, and perhaps his goodness will be moved by your prayers.” The Carpians then perceived that they were trifled with, and made a jest of: but yet, for the three years that Menophilus governed at Maesia, they never dared to make the least disturbance.

They made an incursion into Moesia in the reign of Maximus and Balbinus, and the latter of these emperors was on the point of marching against them when he was slain.       

No farther mention is made of the Carpians until the period we are now treating of, that is to  say, till the reign of Philip, in the beginning of which Zosimus relates, that they ravaged the territories on the Danube. Philip marched thither, gave them battle, defeated them, and obliged them to shut themselves up in a fortress where he besieged them. The besieged perceiving, from the top of their walls, a great number of their country men, who had rallied and formed themselves into a body after their flight, made a sally upon the Romans, doubtless in hopes of being as­sisted by their comrades, and of forcing the enemy to raise the siege: but the success of this at­tempt not answering their expectation, they sued for peace, and easily obtained it. Philip then returned conqueror to Rome.

This prince never dropped his design of establishing himself solidly upon the throne, and perpetuating the imperial dignity in his family. In the fourth year of his reign, he took his son, who was then only ten years of age, for his colleague in the consulship, and before the end of the year, he declared him Augustus. The following year he named him consul for the second time, with himself: but by these premature honours, he only rendered the destruction of his son more certain, whenever the child should happen to be deprived of his protection.

On the twenty-first day of April of this same year 248, ended the thousandth year since the foundation of Rome, according to the calculation of Varro, which has been chiefly followed. This epoch was celebrated by secular games, although they had been given by Severus only 48 years before. The celebration of these games, in which all the pomp of the pagan superstition was displayed, is a direct proof of the public profession which the emperor Philip made of his attachment to idolatry. It is a violation of all probability, to suppose, without any evidence, that the emperor could celebrate them without taking part, in the sacrifices that accompanied them, or rather which were the essential part of them, and the very foundation of the whole festival.

To increase the magnificence of these games, he made use of all the ornaments that had been provided for the solemnity of Gordian’s triumph over the Persians. Capitolinus tells us the number of animals which were either shown to the people on this occasion, or made to fight for their amusement; namely, thirty-two elephants, ten elks, ten tigers, sixty tame lions, and thirty tame tigers; ten hyaenas, ten lions of a singular kind; ten camels, somewhat resembling a leopard; twenty wild asses, and as many wild horses; an hippopotamus, and a rhinoceros. A thousand couple of gladiators were also exhibited in shows. Philip’s secular games appear to have been the last that were ever celebrated in Rome. Aurelius Victor, who saw the following hundredth year, complains that it passed without being consecrat­ed by that religious ceremony, which he believed to be of great virtue for securing the tranquillity of the empire. Zosimus also makes the same com­plaint, and even with greater warmth.

Philip, soon after this solemnity, published an edict which does him great honour. He prohibited the practice of the crime against nature; which was publicly permitted at Rome, upon paying a small tribute to the public treasury. He did not indeed wholly abolish this crime; but he took away the stain of its being tolerated and authorized, which was an infamy to the government. Alexander Severus durst not attempt this reformation. Philip executed it, and his edict subsisted in all its force, and had no occasion to be renewed,

Hitherto the reign of Philip had been very quiet, and as far as we can conjecture from the small which our authors furnish us with, this calm may be attributed to the prudence of the prince, who seems to have been a penetrating and expert politician. He, however, committed an error in suffering his brother Priscus to abuse the power he was entrusted with in the East. The arrogance of that commander, and his tyrannical oppressions in raising the taxes, occasioned an insur­rection. Rebellions, in those times, were generally carried at once to the utmost height, and the smallest seditions immediately produced the nomination of a new emperor. Jotapian, who called himself, and who might really be, a relation of Alexander Severus, was invested with the purple, and proclaimed Augustus. The same causes produced the same effect in Maesia, and the troops in that country declared P. Carvilius Marinus emperor, who was only a centurion.

As to the consequences of these events, which terminated at last in depriving Philip of the empire, and of his life, and in raising Decius to the throne of the Caesars, we have no other information, but that which Zosimus and Zonarus give us; and I cannot prevail with myself to transcribe the absurd accounts of those injudicious writers, who do not even agree with each other. Can anyone believe, that Philip, terrified with the revolt of Jotapian and Marinus, should beg of the senate, either to assist him, or to take the burden of the government off his hands; that Decius, after the ruin of Marinus, being appointed by the emperor to go and take the command of the troops in Maesia, refused that employment, because he plainly foresaw the issue of it, which he even warned Philip of, telling him that it might prove the source of troubles to both of them; that Philip, who certainly did not want understanding, nevertheless forced him to obey; that Decius, being proclaimed em­peror by the troops, upon his arrival in Maesia, opposed his own elevation, and that the soldiers were obliged to put their swords to his throat to make him consent; and to conclude, that the same Decius, when he was marching against Philip, wrote to him not to be alarmed, because he would abdicate whenever he should arrive at Rome? All these circumstances are either invented at pleasure, or they conceal the depths of the ambitious policy of Decius, who must have begun with deceiving his emperor, to succeed afterwards in destroying him.

We shall therefore restrict ourselves to the outlines of the transaction. Jotapian and Marinus perished by their own want of prudence, even in those provinces where they had, for a short space of time, acted the part of sovereigns. The first, however, may have enjoyed his usurped dignity, even during some part of the following reign. Decius, a native of Budalia, a small town of Pannonia, near Sirmium, and who, though to all appearance of an obscure origin, had raised himself, by his merit and talents, to the consulship, and to the rank of one of the first members of the senate, was sent by Philip into Maesia, to punish those who had favoured the enterprise of Macrinus. The soldiers, conscious of their guilt, thought that the best way to escape the punishment due to their rebellion was to hazard a new one, and Decius, who was a man of merit, and looked upon as skilled in the art of war, appeared to them a chief capable of securing the impunity of their former crime. The ambition of Decius augmented this inclination to revolt. He accordingly re­newed with them a crime which he himself ought to have punished; and being proclaimed Augustus by the armies of Maesia and Pannonia, he immediately began his march in order to attack Philip in Italy. Philip met him with a greater number of troops, but he is said to have been less expert in the art of war. Skill got the better of numbers, and the two armies having engaged near Verona, Philip was defeated and slain, either on the field of battle or in the city of Verona, whither he had fled. His defeat and death are dated by M. Tillemont in the year of Christ 249, in one of the months of summer, or in the beginning of autumn. Philip therefore reigned five years and some months. His son was killed at Rome by the praetorian guards as soon as they heard of his father’s misfortune.

A writer relates, that this young prince was of so serious a disposition, and even so melancholy, that, from the time of his being, five years of age, he never laughed, whatever endeavours his attendants could use to excite him thereto; and that at the secular games, having observed his father laugh in a manner that to him appeared immoderate, he gave him a look of scorn. Such a disposition in an infant would be very unnatural, and one can hardly help suspecting at least some ex­aggeration in this account.

The most considerable monument of the reign of Philip is the colony of Philippolis, which he founded in Arabia Petraea, near Bostra, which was his native Country.

In the quarter of Rome beyond the Tyber, he caused a canal to be dug, with a design to conduct the water thither, for the convenience of the inhabitants of that part of the city.

He reunited to the imperial treasury the house of the Gordians, which, as I observed before, had formerly belonged to Pompey. This proceeding seems contrary to the respect which he affected for the memory of his predecessor.

A great fire is said to have happened during his reign, which consumed the theatre of Pompey, and the portico called The hundred Columns.

We find in the Code a law, under his name, which declares that poets have no privilege of enjoying any exemption. This was depriving them of that resource to which the narrowness of their circumstances had often obliged them to apply.

Decius must certainly have paid some respect to the memory of this prince, if what

Eutropius says be true, that the Philips, after their death, were ranked among the gods.

 

DECIUS

 

THE confusion of the time of which I am now writing the history, is very great. There is the history not one date of an event, one epoch of the beginning or end of a reign, and scarcely indeed a single fact, that is not liable to be disputed. Even the writers of the Byzantine history fail us; and there is a chasm among them, from the death of Gordian III to the reign of Valerian. In this labyrinth, M. de Tillemont’s labour is to me a necessary guide without the assistance of which, I would not dare to enter it.

The family of Decius affords us an example of this confusion. The variety of the names of his sons has made some learned men ascribe four to him. Others give him but two. The name of his wife has occasioned many disputes. M. Lebeau, my illustrious coadjutor in the professorship of rhetoric, who, to an exquisite taste in eloquence and poetry, joins a profound Knowledge of antiquity, his informed mee, that the writers the best acquainted with the science of Medals, admit of only two sons of Decius, the he named Q. Herennius Etruscus Messius Decius; and the other C. Valens Hostilianus Messius Quintus; and that as to Decius’s wife she is always called Herennia Etruscilla. This opinion is therefore that which I shall abide by.

Decius was named C. Messius Quintius Trajanus Decius. His family-name seems to have been Messius: for this name is found likewise found upon the medals of his sons. Custom, however, has prevailed to distinguish him by the name of Decius; which is sometimes preceded by that of Trajan. He was born in a village near Sirmium; as I said before, and was the first of the many princes which Illyricum gave to the Roman empire. .

This emperor is very famous in Ecclesiastical history, as a violent persecutor of Christianity. For this reason, Christian authors are not favourable to him. The pagans, on the contrary, load him with praises; which, however, are but lamely supported by facts. His reign was very short; and it must be owned that History has not preserved anything more memorable in it, than the persecution which he exercised against the Christian religion.

With that tod it was that he began his reign, Decius hated the Christians, because Philip had protected them, and he took the very first opportunity to make them feel the effects of that aversion: for it was not until after the middle of the year of Christ 249, that he became peaceable possessor of the empire; and on the twentieth of January 250, pope St Fabian suffered martyrdom. The persecution was ordered by an edict of the emperor; and consequently extended over the whole empire; and as all the provinces were full of Christians, whose numbers had increased prodigiously since the reign of Alexander Severus, the consternation which it spread was universal.

What particularly characterizes this persecu­tion, which is reckoned the seventh is, that the chief aim of the Pagans seems to have been to force the Christians to abjure their religion by the duration of the torments inflicted on them. They were kept a long time in close prisons, where they were used with the utmost barbarity, and put frequently to the rack, in order to weary out their patience, and overcome, by cruel and repeated trials, the fortitude of those who were thought to be prepared to die with pleasure.

Such was in particular the treatment inflicted on Origen, whose high reputation and great name exposed him remarkably to the hatred of the Pagans. This venerable old man, then between sixty-six and sixty-seven years of age, was seized at Caesarea in Palestine, and thrown into prison. The magistrates of that city were equally attentive to make him suffer much, and, at the same time, not to take away his life. The horrors of a dungeon, chains, fetters about his legs, and an iron collar round his neck, with the torments of the rack, and menaces to burn him alive, were put in execution against that zealous and judicious defender of the Christian faith, in hopes of making him apostatize. But the grace of Jesus Christ having sup­ported him under these severe sufferings, he was at length set at liberty, when the persecution ceased, and retired to Tyre, where he died soon after.

St Babylas of Antioch, and St Alexander of Jerusalem died in the prison into which they had been thrown for the name of Christ.

Decius had likewise recourse to another cruel artifice against the Christians, of which indeed his predecessors had set him the example. Concluding that that the people would be most easily overcome when deprived of the assistance of their pastors, he levelled his rage chiefly against the bishops arid priests. He was so sensible how much this policy would contribute to the success of his views, that, for upwards of a year after the death of St Fabian, he hindered the choosing of a successor to that holy pontiff; and even at last, it was entirely owing to the rebellions and wars, which necessarily engrossed all his attention, that the clergy and people of Rome found means to assemble when they elected St Cornelius.

These measures were, undoubtedly, well calculated to answer the end which Decius aimed at; and, in effect, they succeeded so far, that a great number of Christians, weakened and relaxed by a peace of thirty-eight years continuance, which had been disturbed only by Maximin’s transient persecution, sunk under that we are now speaking of. Many sacrificed to idols: others, to reconcile, as they imagined, their conscience with their safety, without actually committing the crime, obtained of the magistrates, by means of a sum of money, a certificate attesting their submission to the emperor’s edict. The wisest of the faithful, particularly the laity, whose condition did not oblige them to remain on the field of battle to oppose the enemy, fearing their own weakness, made use of the permission granted by Christ in the gospel. They fled and dispersed themselves in remote places. The most famous of these illustrious fugitives is St Paul the hermit, who confined himself to the deserts of Thebais, where he remained hid, until God, ninety years after, gave information of him to St Anthony, by an express revelation.

This violent and fatal misfortune was moderated by the divine goodness, in regard to its duration. The great heat of the persecution lasted but a year: and before the end of the year of Christ 250, the confessors, who filled the prisons of Rome, were set at liberty.

It was not the mildness or clemency of Decius which weakened the rage of the persecution; but as I have already said, the necessity of affairs, add the dangers which threatened the state from an invasion of the barbarians. The Goths passed the Danube, and overran Illyricum, Thrace, and Macedonia. L. Priscus, who commanded in those parts (probably the brother of the emperor Philip) was not ashamed to join the armies of the empire. He assumed the purple, and showed what was singular and unheard of—a Roman emperor at the head of an army of Goths. He did not long enjoy his vain title, so basely usurped. He was declared a public enemy by the senate, and killed soon after; how, or by whom, we know not.

Decius, perhaps then personally employed in quieting an insurrection which broke out in Gaul, sent his eldest son, whom he had made Caesar, into Illyricum oppose the ravages of the barbarians. That young prince, after an alternative of good and bad success, was at last worsted, and could not hinder the Goths from taking the city of Philippopolis in Thrace, in which an hundred thousand men are said to have been killed, and from whence the conquerors carried off a great many prisoners of illustrious rank.

The importance of the war increasing daily, Decius, either free from other cares, or judging this the most pressing, went himself into Illyricum; and, if we believe his panegyrist Zosimus, he defeated the Goths in every engagement.

Whilst he made war with success against the barbarians, a new pretender to the throne started up, cither in Rome, or Illyricum; for authors do not agree which of the two it was. Valens caused himself to be proclaimed emperor and perished at the end of a few days.

Gallus, not less ambitious, but more expert than Priscus and Valens, succeeded better in a like enterprise against Decius. He was one of the principal officers of the Roman army; and Decius, after several victories gained over the Goths, purposing to cut off their retreat into their own country, and to extirpate them entirely, that their nation might never more be tempted to invade the Roman territories, charged him to guard the banks of the Danube with a large body of troops, whilst be, with the main army, should pursue them in the rear. The Goths could not have escaped, if they had not been assisted by the treachery of Gallus. That traitor, seized with a passion for reigning, made proposals to them against his master, which were eagerly listened to; and the scheme of laying an ambuscade to surprize and kill Decius was settled between them. The Goths took their post in a great marsh, into which Decius, from his ardour to pursue the conquered, and deceived by the false intelligence of Gallus, advanced without examining it. The marsh was deep and slimy: and the emperor plunging into it with all bis army, found himself instantly attacked by a vast number of enemies. Decius is said to have shown on this melancholy occasion an intrepidity of soul, similar to that which history commends in Crassus in the midst of his misfortunes, when beset in like manner by the Parthians. We are told, that the eldest son of Decius, who had just been raised to the rank of Augustus, being slain in the engagement, this heroic father, far from sinking under his grief, undertook to comfort his troops, and to animate them to act with vigour, by telling them, that the loss of a soldier was not the ruin of an army. His courage was of no avail in this dreadful situation. Sunk in the mud, and pierced with darts by the enemy, who fought at a distance without coming to a close engagement, Decius, his son, and all the Roman army, both soldiers and officers perished, without excepting a single man. Thus the divine justice avenged the blood of the saints, cruelly shed by this violent persecution. Decius reigned little more than two years. His death happened about the end of November, or beginning of December, of the year of Christ 251. He left a son, Hostilianus, who, as we shall see, be­came the sport of the perfidious Gallus.

Decius is said to have built and dedicated the walls of Rome: which plainly means no more than that he rebuilt a part of them, which, of course, required a new dedication. For the walls of cities were a thing sacred, according to the superstitious notions of the Romans. Decius also built baths or thermal, either for his own use, or for the convenience of the public.

This prince had a regard to decency of conduct, and wished for a reformation of manners, if we admit, as true, the account which we find in the life of Valerian, by Trebellius Pollio. We are there told, that Decius, when in Illyricum, wrote to the senate, to order the election of a censor, and that the choice fell upon Valerian, who was afterwards emperor. An attention to an affair of this kind does honour to Decius. But we shall speak of this matter more fully, when we come to the reign or Valerian.

 

GALLUS

 

SUDDEN revolutions, bloody catastrophes, and reigns, so short, that they only pass, at it were, rapidly before our eyes, mark the period of which I am now treating. The Roman empire, at this time, resembled the wretched royalty of the temple of Diana, in the wood of Aricia, which could be held only by a slave who had killed his predecessor. The commanders of the armies, almost all persons of mean extraction, missed no opportunity of depriving the actual possessor of the empire both of his life and dignity, and placed themselves upon his throne, in expectation of a like fate. Philip, Decius, Gallus, whom we are now to speak of, and Emilian who will succeed Gallus, are a proof of what I advance.

 C. Vibius Trebonianus Gallus was proclaimed emperor without difficulty, after the death of Decius by the troops of Moesia and Pannonia. He was a native of the island of Meninga, now Gerbi, on the coast of Africa, and proved himself, by bis conduct, a true son of that perfidious mother. After cutting off Decius by a base and horrid treachery, he pretended to honour his memory, and ordered him and his eldest son to be ranked among the gods. This was a policy constantly practised by all the usurpers of the throne to disguise their crime. Maximin had paid the same compliment to Alexander, Philip paid it to Gordian III, and Decius himself to Philip. Gallus went farther. Though he had a son, known in history by the nae of Volusianus, he adopted Hostilianus, the son of Decius, and conferred upon him the title of Augustus. We may even suspect that he began, with causing Hostilianus to declared Augustus, as being the son of the last empe­ror; and that if was under pretence of becoming his guardian, on account of his minority, that he caus­ed himself to be invested with the titles of the sovereign power. Philip had set him the example of this trick. But however that may have been, certain it is, that Gallus, under a show of honour and goodwill towards Hostilianus, concealed the base and detestable design of murdering him.

He had beep too well served by the Goths to treat them as enemies: and as his interest likewise called him to Rome, he concluded a shameful treaty with them, permitting them to return to their own country with all their booty, and even to carry with them a great number of illustrious prisoners; promising, also to pay them annually a tribute in gold. After haying thus sold the honour of the empire to the barbarians, he repaired to Rome, where he had already been acknowledged: the senate, in those unsettled times, readily submitting to the law of the strongest.

An empire acquired by such means as Gallus made use of, requires activity and vigilance to keep it. Gallus abandoned himself to effeminacy, luxury, and indolence; showing only some small attention to the capital, and neglecting all the rest of his vast monarchy. Accordingly, his reign is scarcely known, except by the miseries which the empire suffered under it, by the ravages of the barbarians, and particularly by a dreadful plague, which  having begun in the year 250, raged with great violence in 252, and continued for ten years after.

Gallus and Volusianus, whom his father had made consul with himself, and Augustus, acquired some honour among the inhabitants of Rome, by the care which they took of the burial of those that were carried off by the distemper, without except­ing even the meanest of the people. But it is not said that they ever thought of seeking for a remedy, or of giving the necessary orders to stop the contagion, and prevent its spreading.

They amused themselves with having recourse to their false gods by sacrifices, which they ordered to be offered up through all the empire : and it is very probable that this was what revived the per­secution against the Christians, who full of zeal for the real welfare of the state, would not add to the anger of the true God, who is the sole arbiter and dispenser of blessings and misfortunes, by joining in those sacrilegious ceremonies. This persecution, which may be looked upon as a con­tinuation of that of Decius, procured the crown of   martyrdom to two holy popes, Cornelius and Lucius.

The plague happened very opportunely, to cloak the execution of Gallus’s designs against the life of Hostilianus. He was afraid that the name of Decius would be a powerful recommendation in favour of this young prince, and that it might in­duce the soldiery to give him the power, as well as the title and honours of the imperial dignity. He therefore sought an opportunity of getting rid of a rival who gave him umbrage. The contagion furnished him with this opportunity. He probably poisoned Hostilianus, and then gave out, that he died of the plague. Perhaps Volusian may not have been raised to the rank of Augustus, until after Hostilianus’s death: and in that case we may reasonably suppose, that the son of Gallus filled the vacant place, and succeeded to the spoils of the son of Decius.

If we believe Zosimus, the barbarians, Scythians, Borans, Burgundians, Carpians, committed as great ravages as the plague in all the provinces of the empire. But the incursions of which that writer speaks, belong rather to the reign of Valerian. That which happened in the time of Gallus, was a new invasion of the Goths, who, whether the tribute which had been promised them had not been exactly paid, or whether from their natural restlessness, passed the Danube, and desolated Maesia, burning its towns and killing its inhabitants, or carrying them away captives, with an immense booty.

Emilian, by birth a Moor, and of very low extraction, but who, nevertheless, had been consul, perhaps already twice, commanded at this time the Roman troops in Moesia. This general understood the art of war; and his ambition told him, that he was as worthy of the empire as Gallus. He thought that he had only to achieve some glorious exploit, in order to merit it; and observing, that his troops were discouraged, he endeavoured to rouse their former ardour, not only by urging to them motives of duty and honour, but also, by promising that they should have the pension which was ignominiously paid to the barbarians. This argument succeeded. His soldiers, flattered with such hopes did wonders. They defeated the Goths in Moesia, and even pursued them into their own country, beyond the Danube, where they engaged them again, cut their army in pieces, and recovered all the booty which had been carried off from the Roman province. The conqueror Emilian was proclaimed emperor by his army. He lost no time to make good his pretensions, but hastened his march to Italy.

Gallus, in great consternation, sent Valerian to the Rhine, to bring him the legions of Gaul and Germany; whilst be himself advanced against the enemy, at the head of the troops he then had with him. The two armies met near Interamna, now Terni, in Umbria; and that of Gallus, finding itself much inferior, and besides, having no great esteem for its chief, put an end to the strife, by killing him and his son, and coming voluntarily over to Emilian.

Gallus had reigned about two years. Emilian was not the first rival that rose up against him. One M. Aufidius Perperna Licinianus had taken the title of Augustus some time before: but his ill connected enterprise was stifled in its birth.

 

EMILIAN.

 

C. or M. Julius Emilianus, whom we shall call only Emilian, made but a very short appearance upon the stage, his reign not lasting four months. He ought, however, to be ranked among the emperors, since he was acknowledged by the senate, who, after having declared him a public enemy at the request of Gallus, conferred upon him all the titles of the imperial power, now that they saw him conqueror. Emilian had taken care to conciliate the affection of that body, by letters sent from Illyricum immediately after his election by the army. He therein declared, that he looked upon himself as the lieutenant of the senate, to whom he would leave the whole authority of the government, restricting himself to the command of the armies. He promised to establish peace in the empire, by delivering Thrace, and the neigh­bouring provinces, from the incursion of the barbarians, and by making war against the Persians, who began again to disturb the East by some acts of hostility. We may easily believe, that this submissive language, which expressed such good intentions, had already made a favourable impression upon the Senate, and that his subsequent success determined their suffrages.

Emilian kept his word, at least in part. He conducted himself in Rome, with great modesty and mildness, and his behaviour was so extreme popular, as to be mistaken by the soldiery for meanness of spirit, and forgetfulness of his rank. Fear may perhaps have some share in his great show of moderation: for he had not one moment of peace. He was no sooner delivered from Gallus, than he saw another more formidable rival rise up against him in the person of Valerian.

This senator had long held an illustrious rank in Rome, and enjoyed a very great reputation. Gallus had ordered him, as I observed before, to bring him the troops from Gaul and Germany to defend him against Emilian. Valerian performed his commission faithfully: but before he could rejoin his master, this last was killed. It was in Rhaetia that he learnt the news of Gallus’s death: and the army which he was then conducting, seeing a leader of great reputation at their head, and disdaining the obscurity of Emilian’s birth, seized the occasion which offered of making an emperor, and proclaimed Valerian, Augustus. It is not said, whether Valerian himself had any share in this determination of the soldiers, or whether he made any shew of opposing it. He was judicious enough not to be very desirous of the empire, and frank enough to comply with the desires of those that chose him, with a good grace, and without any hypocritical reluctance. He therefore put himself at their head, and marched towards Rome. But he had no occasion to fight.

Emilian experienced the same fate as Gallus. His soldiers had a great esteem for the enemy’s general, than for their own emperor: and at the same time, they were sensible of the inequality of their forces. They therefore resolved to rid themselves of Emilian; and accordingly they killed him at Spoleto, whither he had advanced to meet his adversary. Valerian, conqueror with­out having drawn his sword, or perhaps even seen the camp of his antagonist, was unanimously ac­knowledged throughout the whole empire.

VALERIAN.

 

Never did any prince ascend the throne with a better reputation than Valerian, nor with more sincere and more universal congratulations from all orders of the state. Born of an illustrious family, tried in all civil and military employments, the weight of which he had supported with dignity; he had arrived at the highest degree of consideration and fame that a private person could possibly aspire to. Though honoured with the consular dignity, possessed of the first rank among all the senators, and appointed the deputy of Gordians to the senate, when they were elected emperors in Africa; all this did him still less honour, than the manner in which he was chosen censor.

Since the establishment of the imperial power, the authority of the censorship had almost always been united to the supreme authority. Paulus and Plancus were the two last private persons who bore that office together, about twenty-two years before the common Christian aera; Augustus be­ing then in peaceable possession of the empire. Claudius made Vitellius his associate in the func­tions of censor: but since that time, the emperors had always reserved to themselves the exercise of that office, though they did not usually take the title of it. Decius, purely out of zeal for the reformation of manners, thought it would be most proper to commit that important trust to some private person, who, not having any other object in view, might apply himself wholly to it; and accordingly, without fearing to disconnect it from the imperial power, he wrote to the senate, whilst he was in Illyricum, engaged in a war against the Goths, ordering them to appoint a censor.

As soon as the praetor, who presided in the as­sembly during the absence of the two Decii, both emperors and consuls, had read the orders which he had received, there was no need of any deliberation. Every one, unanimous in favour of Valerian, instantly cried out, “Valerian’s life is a perpetual censorship. To him, who is better than all others, it belongs to judge all others. Valerian, from his infancy, has been a respectable censor, by the integrity of his conduct; a wise senator, modest, and sedate; a friend to the good, and an enemy to oppressors; making war against vice. We will have him for oar censo; him we propose to imitate. More illustrious by his merit, than by the nobleness of his blood; his conduct shows innocency of manners, and a sublimity of sentiments. He is a matchless example, and venerable antiquity is revived in him.” These acclamations, often reiterated, at length concluded with the declaration of the general, consent. “We are all of this opinion,” cried they; and this was the form of the decree of the senate.

Valerian was then with the army. Decius no sooner received the decree of the senate, than he sent for him; and in presence of the chief officers of his court, which he had assembled, he notified to him his election, giving him at the same time an account of the extent of the authority of his office. “Valerian, said he, you have reason to think yourself happy in being honoured, as you are, by the suffrages of the senate; or rather in possessing all their esteem, all their affection, and all their hearts. Receive the authority of censor, which you alone are capable of exercising worthily, and which the Roman republic confers upon you over all its members, to judge their conduct. You are to decide who are worthy to keep or to acquire the rank of senators; you are to restore the Equestrian order to its ancient splendour; you are to take cognizance of the public revenues, and you are to grant the leases of them. The troops are to be subject to inspection; you are to judge even the judges themselves, the officers of our palace, and those who hold the greatest places in the state. In a word, except the prefect of the city, the consuls in office, the king the sacrifices, and the chief vestal, provided she faithfully preserves her honour; all ranks, and every private person, are to be subject to your control; and even those who are exempt from it, are nevertheless not to fail to make it their duty to please you.”

Valerian, far from being dazzled with the splendour of so high a post, conferred upon him in so flattering a manner, felt only its weight, and begged to be excused from accepting it. “Great and venerable emperor, said he, do not force me to undertake that which suits only with your august dignity. The censorship is an imperial function, which a private person cannot execute. As to myself in particular, I am thoroughly sensible how much I am unequal to so high an office. I even know not but that the situation of affairs may render it impracticable for me: and in the state in which I see mankind at present, I scarcely believe them capable of reformation.”

Here our author stops, without informing us whether Valerian’s excuses were received, or whether Decius constrained him to take the censorship. It is evident, however, from the transactions which followed, that even if Valerian was censor, he can­not have exercised that authority long; for Decius perished soon after; and a strict censorship would have been very ill-timed under Gallus, who abandoned himself to effeminacy and indolence.

Such was Valerian, when he was raised to the empire. The senate and the people of the provinces joyfully approved of the choice of the soldiery; and if every individual had been indulged with the liberty of naming an emperor, Valerian would have been sure of all their suffrages. This merit, so universally esteemed, was, however, not found equal to the imperial dignity. Valerian, though he had distinguished himself in inferior employments, was not able to support the sovereign authority: so that we may justly apply to him what Tacitus says of Galba, that while he was a private person, he appeared superior to a private station; and if he had never been emperor, he would have been unanimously judged worthy of the empire.

If probity were sufficient for the government of a vast monarchy, Valerian would doubtless have been a great prince. He had an uncommon simplicity of manners, was upright, and of an open disposition. He loved justice, was careful not to oppress the people, and not only listened readily to good counsels, but honoured those who gave them. He even possessed a qualification of great importance in a sovereign prince; he loved to prefer merit: and it is remarked, that a great many military officers whom he employed in high commands, either became emperors, or, having usurped the sovereign power, acted in such a manner, that the only thing they could be blamed for, was the illegal means by which they had assumed that dignity.

The qualities we have mentioned are truly worthy of great praise : but the art of governing requires also talents which Valerian had not; a superiority of views, firmness of courage, activity of execution, a knowledge of the depths of the human heart, and a wise distrust of the snares of the crafty. Valerian had a very confined understanding, was weak, slow, and credulous; and in consequence of these defects, his reign was one continued series of misfortunes, and ended at last in a most ignominious catastrophe.

It is true, the empire was in a most deplorable situation when Valerian took the reins of government. The intestine divisions of the Romans; the continual dethroning of emperors, who fell almost as soon as they were made the frontiers left exposed by the necessity which the armies were under, of causing the princes, whom they had chosen, to be acknowledged in Rome; the care which those princes themselves were obliged to take, in order to establish their infant authority, and, if possible, prevent revolts: so many united causes weakened the state exceedingly, and exposed it to the prey of the barbarians. The Germans became extremely formidable on the Rhine; the Goths, the Burgundians, the Carpians, were dreaded on the Danube; other Scythian nations overrun and ravaged Asia; and the Persians attacked the provinces of the East. The immense extent of the empire seemed only to furnish an opportunity for fresh wars and new enemies. A few years afterwards, Claudius II, Aurelian, Probus, triumphed over equal, and even greater obstacles and dangers: but the superiority of their genius furnished them with resources, which the weak Valerian knew not either how to find or how to use.

At the same time that Valerian was acknowledged by the senate, his son Gallienus, who was then at Rome, was declared Caesar. Valerian now made him Augustus, and thereby raised to an equality with himself a youth of about eighteen or twenty years of age, who, with a good understanding, had the worst and basest heart that ever was known in history. As Valerian’s family was very numerous, it may not be improper to give some account of it here, in order to throws light upon what we shall hereafter have, occasion to say.

Valerian, whom inscriptions call P. Licinius Valerianus, was twice married. By his first marriage he had P. Licinius Gallienus, this last name being borrowed from his grandfather by the mother’s side, who was an illustrious man in the republic. Valerian’s second wife was Mariniana, who is only known by the medals which declare her apotheosis. By her he had two sons, both of whom were Augusti, Valerian the younger, and Egnatius. These princes had children, who are not known in history. Gallienus married Salonina, and had by her at least two sons, both of whom bore, together with other names, that of Saloninus, and were honoured with the title of Caesar. We call the one Valerian, and the other Saloninus.

The emperor Valerian, seeing himself upon a throne attacked on every side, took measures for opposing his enemies. He sent his son Gallienus into Gaul to oppose the Germans, whilst he himself undertook to repel the Scythians, who desolated Illyricum and Asia.

Gallienus was but young for the commission his father entrusted him with. However, though he was not deficient in military courage, as he was in sentiments of honour and virtue, Valerian gave him only the name and honours of general, and joined to him, as his counsellor and conductor, Posthumus, who was well skilled in the art of war, and who afterwards assumed the title of Augustus, and reigned with glory in Gaul. He had thoughts of giving this commission to Aurelian, who was afterwards emperor: but he feared the consequences of his too great severity. “My son,” said he, in a letter to a friend, who was surprized at the preference given to Posthumus, “is yet very young, and but a child. There is a great deal of levity in this manner of thinking and acting. I was apprehensive, I confess, lest Aurelian, whose severity is well known, should carry his rigour too far in regard to him.” Gallienus, directed by Posthumus, was successful against the Germans. These Germans, as they are here called, were probably Franks, who, about this time, when they were first known to exist, are often spoken of under a name then more common. Some learned men refer to the time we are now speaking, the advantage which Aurelian gained over them when he was only a tribune. But that event, in our opinion, belongs more properly to the reign of Gordian III, under which we have accordingly placed it. It is probable that Aurelian, whom Valerian himself, in one of his letters, calls the Restorer of Gaul, had arrived to a higher rank under this prince; that he commanded a detachment of the army under Gallienus and Posthumus, and that he signalized his command by some victory of greater note than his first exploits. Some medals inform us of a victory over the Germans, which procured Gallienus the title of Germanicus Maximus.

Gallienus, to secure the tranquillity of Gaul, joined a negotiation to his arms; and, after humbling the pride of the Germans, in several engagements, he made an alliance with one of their princes, who not only agreed never more to pass the Rhine himself, but also engaged to hinder his countrymen from passing it.

This is all the account we are able to give of what Gallienus did in Gaul during the reign of his father; or rather, of what Aurelian and Posthumus did under his name. Zonaras says, that Gallienus distinguished himself likewise by a very signal exploit in Italy. With ten thousand men, according to that writer, he defeated three hundred thousand Germans, near Milan. The thing is hardly credible; and even the little likelihood of truth that may seem to be in it, ought to be referred to a later period.

The war was carried on with equal vigour in Illyricum. The nations bordering upon the Danube had overran all that vast country, and ravaged it with great cruelty. Valerian, who had proceeded to Byzantium, in order to be nearer the enemy, employed against them several generals, the most illustrious of whom were Claudius and Aurelian, both afterwards emperors. Aurelian in particular, gained a great victory over the Goths; as a reward for which he was honoured with the consulship.

Probus, who likewise rose afterwards to the imperial dignity, was then too young to be able to command in chief: but he already distinguished himself by all the excellent qualities of a noble soul, and by his military valour. Valerian had made him tribune before the usual age, and he had no reason to repent of that action. In a battle against the Sarmatians and the Quadi, Probus performed prodigies of valour, and merited a civic crown, by delivering out of the hands of the barbarians, Valerius Flaccus, a young man of high birth, and related to the emperor.

Illyricum being thus secured against the incursions of the Goths, by the exploits of these great men, the emperor next attended to the security of Asia Minor, which was become a prey to swarms of other barbarians nations of Scythia, among whom are mentioned in particular the Borans. Their ravages first began on the side of Phasis and Colchis, whether they arrived by sea. They had no vessels of their own, but they borrowed them from the inhabitants of Bosphorus. Zosimus observes, that whilst the small state of Bosphorus had its own hereditary kings, those princes, who were allies and friends of the Romans, and traded with them, and received presents from them, hindered the Scythians from invading the territories of the empire : but that the sceptre having fallen into unworthy hands, by the extinction of the royal family; the new sovereigns, being but ill established, and wanting courage, were afraid of the menaces of the Scythians, and not content with allowing them a passage, furnished them also with ships. The Borans, (for it is of that Scythian nation we are now speaking) no sooner landed in Colchis, than they sent back their ships, and immediately overrunning all the low country, pillaged and ravaged it in a barbarous manner. They afterwards dared even to attack Pityanta, a fortified city, which defended the frontiers of the empire on that side. Successianus, commander of the place, and a brave officer, being seconded by good troops which he had under him, received the enemy so warmly that he quickly took from them all hopes of succeeding in their enterprise. He defeated and pursued them, and the Borans having lost great numbers of their men, thought themselves very happy in escaping to their own country on board some vessels which they found on the coast, and took possession of by force.

The inhabitants of Pityanta, and all the neighbouring country, thought themselves wholly delivered: but the barbarians they had to deal with, being always restless and always rapacious; having nothing to attach them to their own country; accustomed to wander without a fixed habitation, carrying with them all that they possessed; and stimulated by the hopes of booty; were not to be discouraged by disasters. When beaten, they again returned to the charge; and by following this practice with unwearied perseverance, they at last effected the ruin of the Roman empire.

The Borans were hardly got back to their own country, when they prepared for a new invasion. They again obtained vessels from the people of Bosphorus, and upon their arrival at Phasis they kept them, in order to secure their retreat in case of need. They began with attacking a temple of Diana, which was in those parts, and the royal city of Aeeta, the father of Medea, so famous in fable. Though repulsed with loss, they were not discouraged, but proceeded on, and presented themselves before Pityanta. Unfortunately, Successianus was no longer in that city. Valerian, who was drawn to Antioch by the necessity of opposing the Persians, had sent for that officer thither, appointed him praetorian prefect, and proposed to make use of his advice in conducting the war in the east. Pityanta was badly defended: the Borans took it by storm, plundered it, and making themselves masters of the vessels which they found in the harbour, they added them to their fleet, put to sea, and proceeding forwards, arrived before Trebizond, a very strong city, surrounded with a double wall, and defended by a garrison of upwards of ten thousand men.

Barbarians, who had not the least knowledge of the difficult art of besieging towns, could never have taken this city by force. They would not have flattered themselves with such a thought, says the historian, even in their dreams. The negligence of the garrison procured them a success, which otherwise, was as far above their hopes as it surpassed their abilities. The Roman officers and soldiers, trusting to their superiority, and despising the ignorance of the enemy, did not keep themselves on their guard, took no precaution, and thought only of making merry and diverting themselves. The Borans being informed of their security, scaled the walls during the night, and at once made themselves masters of Trebizond. The garrison, as cowardly as it was badly disciplined, went out at the gate next the land, and left, the inhabitants to the discretion of the conquerors, who found an immense booty: the city was rich of itself, and the people from all the country round had carried thither, as to a secure fortress, all their most valuable effects. The Borans reaped the advantage of this; and after having plundered and sacked the city, they even made incursions into the inland country, as appears by the canonical epistle of St Gregory Thaumaturgus, then bishop of Neocaesarea. After thus seizing the riches of Pontus, with which they loaded their ships, they returned in triumph to their own country.

This success was a strong temptation to the other Scythian nations bordering upon the Borans. Resolving to imitate the lucrative example of their neighbours, they raised a land army, and formed a fleet. In the building of their vessels, the art of which they were entirely ignorant of, they employed Romans who were among them, cither as prisoners, or led thither by trade.

As to the direction of their route, the eastern side of Pontus having been ransacked by the Borans, and consequently not promising any considerable booty to those who should come after them; the Scythians of whom we are now speaking turned towards the west. They set out in the beginning of the winter from the neighbourhood of the Tanais. The land army and the fleet, proceeding in concert, kept along the western coast of the Euxine sea. It is probable that the land forces passed the Danube on the ice, and that it was for this reason that winter had been chosen for the time of their departure.

Arriving near Byzantium, they passed by that city, which perhaps appeared to them too strong or too well guarded: but they crossed the Strait, partly in their own vessels, and partly in barks which they had picked up along the coast, particularly in a great marsh not far from Byzantium; and upon their landing in Asia, they surprised Chalcedon. This city had a garrison more numerous than the troops that attacked it. But the barbarians had spread such a terror, that the Roman soldiers fled shamefully even before they had seen the enemy. The Scythians entered Chalcedon without the least resistance: and the facility of the conquest, joined to the booty which they took, animated their courage and increased their greediness.

They accordingly advanced towards Nicomedia, whither they were invited by a traitor, whom Zosimus calls Chrysogonus. This city was as easily taken as Chalcedon; and the plunder of it would have been much more considerable, if the greatest part of the inhabitants had not fled, before the arrival of the barbarians, and carried off with them all their most valuable effects. The Scythians, however, found in it what might have sufficiently satisfied their avarice: but continuing their ravages, they plundered also the cities of Nice, Cius, and Prusa. They wanted still to advance as far as Cyzicus: but the river Rhyndacus, suddenly overflowing, through heavy rains which had fallen, stopped their course: they went back the way they came, burnt Nicomedia and Nice, which they had before contented themselves with plundering, and having reached the sea, they reimbarked, and carried all their booty into their own country.

The ravaging of such a province as Bithynia, and of so many considerable cities, without any Roman troops making the least opposition to the barbarians, either during their incursions or in their retreat, is far from doing honour to the go­vernment of Valerian, and proves too clearly the negligence and sluggish slowness of which historians accuse him. Antioch was all this while his place of residence. He, indeed, sent Felix to guard Byzantium; and at length took the field himself, and advanced as far as Cappadocia, from whence, being probably informed there of the retreat of the Scythians, he returned back, without having done any one thing, except a great deal of damage to the people over whose lands he passed.

To the incursions of the barbarians, who ravaged the finest provinces of the empire, was added another dreadful scourge, the plague, which had already, for several years, desolated the cities, the country, and the armies; and to complete the disasters of the Romans, Valerian went in search of a fatal and shameful end in the war against the Persians.

Since the victories gained by Gordian III over the Persians, and the peace concluded with them by Philip, there had not been any open war between the two empires. Not that the peace was very religiously observed by Sapor. Mention is made of some acts of hostility committed by that prince against the Romans in the time of Gallus. Zonaras speaks of one Tiridates, king of Armenia, then dethroned by the Persians, and by his own sons who had joined the enemy. But it was under the reign of Valerian, and by the assistance of the traitor Cyriades, that Sapor threw aside the mask, and renewed the war with more violence than ever.

Cyriades, son of a father of the same name, who seems to have been a great lord in Syria, having incurred his parent’s displeasure by his bad con­duct and mad extravagances, afterwards robbed him, carried off a great quantity of gold and silver, and fled into the Persian territories. He went to the court of Sapor, and exhorted him to attack the Romans; representing to him, without doubt, how favourable the opportunity was to make good his ancient pretensions against an empire, actually governed by a weak prince, and invaded on all sides by the barbarians. He had also his own views and interests in this scheme, as will appear by what follows. Sapor’s ambition inclined him to listen eagerly to such a proposal. He took the field: perhaps also encouraged by the intelligence which Cyriades kept up in the countries subject to the Romans. He entered Mesopotamia, where he took Nisibis and Carrhae; and penetrated into Syria, where he surprised Antioch.

The inhabitants of that great city were far from thinking of any such misfortune. Abandoning themselves to their taste for pleasures and shows, they were actually at the theatre, amusing themselves with seeing a pantomime and his wife, who were acting a farse to divert them; when, on a sudden, the woman turning about, cried out, “Either I dream, or I see the Persians.” She saw them in fact: for they had by that time taken possession of the city, the inhabitants of which had never once conceived the least idea of providing for their defence. They sacked it, and plundered the adjacent country.

After this conquest, the Persians might easily have advanced into Asia Minor, and have subdued it: but their army was loaded with an immense booty, of which they thought it most advisable to secure the possession by carrying it into their own country.

Cyriades, having completed his crimes by parricide, a traitor to his country, and the murderer of his father, resolved at last to reap the fruit of his wickedness. Remaining in Syria, he decorated himself with the title of Caesar, and afterwards with that of Augustus. But this splendour, purchased by so many execrable deeds, was but of short duration. After enjoying it a little more than a year, he was killed by his followers. If one may be allowed to suppose, that his name ought to be substituted in the text of Ammianus Marcellinus instead of that of Mareades, which is not unlike, and which may perhaps be a corruption of it; in that case, it was the Persians themselves who did justice on that wretch after they had served themselves by his villany. Marcellinus assures us that Mareades, a citizen of Antioch, who had admitted them into that city, was burnt alive by them.

Cyriades was dead when Valerian, led into the east by the war against the Persians, arrived at Antioch. His first care was to repair that city, which the enemy had in a great measure ruined; and it is probably in consequence of that benefit, that the title of Restorer of the East, which so little suited with his misfortunes, is given him on some medals.

Valerian passed a considerable time in the east; but we cannot say what he did there before his last disaster. All that we know of it, is reduced to the repairing of Antioch, of which we have just spoken, and to the slow motion which he made to go and drive the Scythians from Bithynia, which they had quitted before he arrived in Cappadocia.

At length, obliged to go to the assistance of Edessa, which Sapor besieged, and encouraged by the vigorous resistance made by the garrison of the place, Valerian passed the Euphrates and entered Mesopotamia. He ventured an engagement, the issue of which was fatal to him. The blame of this is thrown upon the treachery of a general, in whom the emperor had an entire confidence, which the other abused, by persuading him to engage in a place where neither the valour nor good discipline of the Roman troops could be of any service to them. This general is, doubtless, Macrian, of whom we shall have occasion to speak fully. Valerian whose natural timidity was increased by his defeat, sued for peace to Sapor, who was himself on the point of purchasing it with large sums of money. Sapor, who meditated a piece of treachery, sent back the Roman ambassadors, telling them, that he desired to treat with their emperor in person. Valerian was so imprudent as to expose himself to an interview without being sufficiently guarded: and the Persians, taking ad­vantage of his weak credulity, suddenly surrounded him and made him prisoner. Such is the most probable and best supported account that we find of this melancholy and shameful transaction, of which, after M. Tillemont, we fix the date to the year 260.

Every one knows the base and shocking treatment which this unhappy prince met with during his long captivity. He was loaded with greater indignities than were offered even to the meanest slaves.

His haughty conqueror carried him about everywhere in his retinue, loaded with chains, and at the same time clad in the imperial purple, the splendour of which embittered the thought of his misery,and when Sapor wanted to mount his horse, the unfortunate Valerian was obliged to bend to the ground, that insolent master might use his neck as a footstool. To this so cruel indignity the barbarous king often added insulting speeches, observing with a contemptuous smile, that this was triumphing in reality, and not in resemblance only, as the Romans did. But the most cutting of all Valerian’s misfortunes was the base and criminal indifference of an ungrateful son, who, seated upon the throne of the Caesars, left his father in this deplorable situation, without making the least effort to rescue him from it. The only mark of regard that Gallienus showed him, was his placing him among the gods, upon a false report of his death. In this too, it is observed, that it was against his inclination, and merely to satisfy the desires of the people and senate, that he paid him even that re­spect prescribed by custom, and as frivolous in itself, as it was ridiculous and misplaced for one in his condition.

The ignominy of the captive prince did not end with his life. He languished in that shocking slavery at least three years; some say nine; and after he was dead, Sapor ordered his body to be flead, his skin to be painted red, and to be stuffed so as to preserve the human form, and in that condition to be hung up in a temple, as an eternal monument of the disgrace of the Romans: and when he received ambassadors from Rome he showed them that extremely mortifying sight, to teach them, said he, to humble their pride.

All Christian authors have looked upon Valerian’s catastrophe, as an effect of the divine vengeance for the blood of the just and the saints, which that emperor shed, though otherwise naturally inclined to good. I say that he was naturally of a good disposition; and of this we have a proof from his different letters, which the writers of the Byzantine history, have transmitted to us in the lives of Macrian, Balistus, Claudius II Aurelius, and Probus. We see, through all of them, a prince, who honestly and candidly does justice to merit. He even shows in them sometimes he­roic sentiments, worthy of the ancient times of Rome. I shall instance only one circumstance, relative to Aurelian.

He resolved to reward the services of that general, which were very great, with the honours of the consulship. But that high post then required enormous expenses, especially for the games which it was necessary to give to the people, and Aurelian was poor. This circumstance was, in Valerian’s opinion, far from being an obstacle to the promotion of a subject who merited esteem for his personal qualities. On the contrary, it rather appeared to him a recommendation and an additional qualification; and accordingly, writing to Aurelian to notify to him his nomination, he told him, that the treasury should defray the expenses, which the scantiness of his fortune was not able to support. “For, added he, those who remain poor, while they serve the republic, are most worthy of praise; and none deserve more than they to be assisted by the state.” Valerian sent orders for that purpose to the keeper of the public treasure, and the letter began with these beautiful words: “Aurelian, on account of his poverty, which renders him truly great in our eyes, and greater than others, is not able to support the expense of the consulship, which we have conferred upon him : therefore, “ &c….” The emperor then regulates at full length all that was to be furnished on that occa­sion.

Aurelian, who did not choose to raise a fortune by unlawful means, acquired one in an honourable way, being adopted at the same time by Ulpius Crinitus, a rich man of consular dignity, who had no children; and the goodness of Valerian was so great, that he thanked Ulpius for this adoption, as if it had been an action in which his own interest was immediately concerned.

The Christians, at first, experienced the mildness and goodness of this prince. None of his predecessors, says St Dionysius of Alexandria, quoted by Eusebius, had shown them so much humanity and even affection. The imperial palace was filled with Christians, and it might almost be looked upon as a church of the true God. It was an external impression that changed his opinion in regard to them.

Macrian, a man of mean extraction, but immense ambition; addicted to magic, and consequently a great enemy to the Christians; endowed with talents, both for war and the administration of civil affairs, had gained the emperor’s confidence. The miseries of the state, desolated at the same time by a plague, and by the ravages of the barbarians, seemed to him a favourable opportunity to rivet his ascendency over the emperor’s weak mind, then sunk with grief, and inclined to superstition. He taught him, and made him practise magical sacrifices, as a sure means of averting the miseries which afflicted the state: and soon after he persuaded him, that the Christians were the cause of the public calamities, not only by their not adoring the gods that were revered by all nations, but also by their daring even to blas­pheme them.

This occasioned the eighth persecution, which was ordered by an edict of Valerian. It was general, and very cruel, especially against the bishops and priests, without however sparing private Christians. During the three years and an half that it continued, that is to say, from the year 257, to the captivity of Valerian in 260, it crowned a great number of martyrs. Among these were, at Rome, S. Sixtus the Pope, and St Laurence his deacon: St Cyprian at Carthage; and several other holy bishops in all parts of the empire. St Dionysius of Alexandria was only banished; and after Valerian was taken by the Persians, he returned to his church. We see by the history of this persecution, that the burying-grounds were the places where the Christians generally assembled. They were driven from thence by an order of the em­peror, and deprived of the possession of them.

Whilst Christianity was persecuted by the Romans, it extended itself among the barbarous nations who made war upon them. The Goths and other Scythian nations, in the ravages which they practised in Illyricum, Thrace, and different pro­vinces of Asia, as we have related, carried off a great number of prisoners, among whom were several holy priests. These illustrious captives, by the splendour of their virtues, by their patience under the calamities which they suffered, and by the miracles which God wrought at their intercession, quickly drew the respect of their masters to the worship they professed. From a respect for the Christian religion the barbarians proceeded to a desire of embracing it. Great numbers of them were baptised, but not all. The superstitions of idolatry prevailed among them for along time, and gave several martyrs to the church.

Sozomen, from whom we have this account, says, that the German nations on the Rhine, began also then to be converted to the Christian faith. But we do not find in the history of France any traces of Christianity among the Franks, before the conversion of Clovis.

 

GALLIENUS

 

GALLIENUS, who had already been Augustus with his father for seven years, became of right sole head of the empire by the captivity of Valerian, without there being any need either of the deliberation of the senate or proclamation of the soldiers. Valerian, his brother, had been named Caesar by their common father, in the year 255. Another Valerian, his eldest son, had also been honoured with the same title for about a year. This family, therefore, was distinguished in all its branches with the honours of supreme majesty while its founder groaned under the hardest and most ignominious slavery.

Gallienus was taken up with quite other thoughts than those of revenging his father. Far from thinking of rescuing him from the hands of Persians, he looked upon Valerian’s misfortune as a piece of good luck to himself. The whole empire was thrown into consternation by so melancholy an event. Even the barbarians were affected with it. We have, in Capitolinus, the letters of three kings, allies of Sapor, written to that prince, to persuade him to set his prisoner at liberty. The Iberians, the Albanians, and several other people of those countries, offered their assistance to the Romans to deliver Valerian from his captivity. Gallienus however, in the midst of all these testimonies of grief and sensibility, not only remained indifferent, but even rejoiced at being freed from a censor, whose gravity and severity, had kept his pleasure under some restraint.

He took care indeed not to profess this dispo­sition of mind: on the contrary, he affected the philosopher; and when he was first informed of Valerian’s captivity, pretending to imitate the example of that wise man, who, upon the news of the death of his son slain in battle, only said, “I knew that my son was mortal;” he only pronounced this sentence, “I knew that my father was liable to the accidents of fortune:” and he found a flatterer base enough to praise on this occasion, the constancy and fortitude of the prince. At other times Gallienus would say with great coolness, that Valerian’s misfortune was glorious to him, as he had fallen into it only by an excess of candour, openness, and honesty. But none were ignorant of the hollowness of these fine speeches, which, to the extinction of all feeling and sentiment, only added the shame of hypocrisy.

This single circumstance, this criminal insensibility, unmasks his character, and is sufficient to discover a vicious heart, and a judgment intent upon trifles. For it was the love of pleasure, a taste for shows, for licentiousness and debauchery, which, filling the soul of Gallienus, left no room in it for the sentiments of nature orthose of honour. This prince as I have already observed, did not want for understanding, nor liveliness of imagination. His mind was cultivated. He wrote well either in prose or verse, and some of his poetry has been preserved, which shows both the elegance of his stile, and his little regard to modesty. Besides this, he has never been reproached with timidity or fear. We shall see him march boldly against those rivals who disputed their sovereignty, and not be scrupulous in hazarding his person : but it was necessity only that could drag him from pleasures, diversions, and indolence; and when he was no longer spurred by his personal interest, he sunk again into indecent luxury and shameful sloth.

He observed no bounds in them. Like Caligula and Nero, he disguised himself, to frequent in the night, taverns and places of debauchery; and his ordinary company were the corruptors of youth, and players. His meals were extravagant, and his table was surrounded with immodest women. He kept a seraglio of a great number of concubines, among whom the first rank was held by one Pipa, or Pipara, the daughter of Attalus, king of the Marcomanni, to whom Gallienus yielded a province to purchase his daughter.

To his effeminacy he joined the most extravagant degree of pomp. His clothes degenerated into a foreign luxury, both as to their form, and the precious stones with which he set off the splendour of the richest stuffs. He wanted to erect to himself upon the Esquiline hill, a colossal statue, with the attributes of the sun. This statue was to have been more than twice the height of the ancient colossus raised by Nero, and consecrated to the sun by Vespasian. But Gallienus had not time to complete that piece of childish vanity; and his successors, Claudius and Aurelian, had too much sense and judgment, not to perceive the ridiculousness of it, or to desire ever to have it finished.

He valued himself upon his refinements in luxury. In the spring, he built apartments with the leaves of roses. He erected forts, the walls of which were made of fruits ranged in an artful manner. He forced nature to preserve grapes for three years, to have melons in the middle of winter, and fresh figs and all kinds of fruits in the sea­sons that were not proper for producing them. He bathed six or seven times a-day in summer, and at least twice a-day in winter. Wines of every kind were provided for his table, and he never drank of the same sort twice at any one meal.

It was chiefly after he became sole master of the empire, that he gave an entire loose to his vices; though they had appeared long before. When he first assumed the reins of government, his character was already established; and the rebels, who immediately after rose up against him, loaded him with the same approaches which he merited during the whole remaining part of his reign.

His pleasures were his principal occupation : and yet no prince ever had more serious or more difficult affairs to manage than Gallienus. All kinds of evils poured at once upon the empire. The barbarians of the North, and the Persians, continued their decisions and hostilities in Gaul, Illyricum, Thrace, Greece, Asia, and the East. Within the empire, every general of an army aspired to the throne and usurped the rights of sovereignty. In Sicily, the ancient calamity of tte revolt of the slaves was renewed. The plague continued to desolate the capital and the provinces, and was sometimes so violent as to carry, off five thousand persons in a day in Rome only. Dearth, famine, and earthquakes, at Rome, in Asia, and in Africa; seditions in the cities; and, in a word, all manner of calamities, combined to threaten the empire with approaching ruin; whilst Gallienus minded nothing but his diversions. The loss of the finest provinces never gave him the least concern. Being told one day that Egypt had revolted : “Well, said he, cannot we do without the linen of Egypt?” When Asia was ravaged by terrible earthquakes and the incursions of the Scythians, he was not at all more moved, but only observed, that they must then do without aphro-nitre. This was a kind of nitre different from ours, which the ancients made use of in their baths. Upon losing Gaul, he burst into a laugh, and said, “is the republic ruined because we can have no more Arras cloth?” Such a degree of insensibility is not only next to incredible, but I believe, unparalleled in history. The present only touched Gallienus, who, provided his pleasures were not disturbed, would have seen the whole universe overturned, without being in the least affected. It is not to be wondered at, if the reign of such a prince proved a tissue of misfor­tunes, as will appear by the account of it, which I shall give as fully as the deficiency of the ma­terials that are now extant will permit.

Sapor, having conquered the Roman army in Mesopotamia, and made the emperor prisoner, improved those great advantages. He again entered Syria, and retook Antioch. He then advanced to Cilicia, where he made himself master of Tarsus; and still proceeding forwards, he arrived, at, and besieged Caesarea in Cappadocia. That city, which was strong and contained four hundred thousand inhabitants, stopped the Persians for some time. Demosthenes, the governor of it, being judicious and active as well as brave, made a good defence; and Sapor would probably have been baffled in this attempt, if it had not been for the intelligence given him by a physician of the city, who seems to have been taken prisoner in a sally. This unhappy physician was put to the torture, and made to suffer such extreme pain, that, to deliver himself from it, he discovered to the besiegers a weak part of the place. The Persians, by that means, took Caesarea by surprise, and rushing into the city in prodigious numbers, exercised all manner of cruelties upon its wretched inhabitants. Their troops had particular orders to take Demosthenes alive, whom Sapor doubtless wanted to sacrifice to his revenge. But the brave governor, after gallantly defending the place, did not forget himself. Mounting his horse, with his naked sword in his hand, he threw himself into the midst of a body of the enemy, who were endeavouring to surround him. He slew some, drove off others, and cutting his way through the middle of the Persians, escaped captivity and death.

Sapor, in this same expedition, overrun Lycaonia as a conqueror, and laid siege to Pompeiopolis in Cilicia; so that it could be no longer doubted but that he intended to revive the pretentions of his father Artaxerxes, to conquer all Asia-Minor, and to allow of no other bounds to his dominions, than those of the ancient empire of the great Cyrus. Two generals, Balista and Odenatus, stopped, however his ambitious projects, and forced him to retire, and confine himself to his own territories.

Balista had acquired great honour in the highest military commands under Valerian. He was an alert and sensible man, proper both for counsel and for action, and particularly ingenious at expedients for supplying an army with provisions. Valerian, in a letter which has been preserved by Trebellius Pollio, commends him much for the advices he had received from him on that subject, showing how the troops might be plentifully supplied, without distressing the provinces. To ac­complish that double object, Balista proposed, that nothing should be required from the people but what was the produce of their country; and that, to avoid the expense of waggons and carriages, the winter quarters of the troops, and their route, should be settled in such manner that the commodities might be consumed on the spot where they were produced. Being also attentive to good order, to the advantage of the service, and to the lessening of the charges of the government, Balista advised Valerian not to suffer any supernumerary officers or soldiers among the troops: for as the military profession was then very lucrative, many people engaged in it, merely to reap its emoluments, without doing the requisite duty : and that abuse, upon the advice of Balista, was reformed by Valerian.

This prudent, and at the same time brave officer, was the first who retrieved the affairs of the Romans in the East, where they had been reduced to the most deplorable situation by Valerian’s misfortune. At first, every thing yielded, as I have said, to the victor, who had even pushed his conquests very far. Balista re-assembled the un­fortunate remains of the Roman troops, and formed them into an army. With these forces, little capable in appearance of performing great exploits, he began with saving Pompeiopolis, which was besieged by the Persians. After that first success he continued to harass Sapor, until he forced him to abandon his conquests, and, keeping always in his rear, drove him to the Euphrates.

There he was seconded, or relieved, by Odenatus; whose example shows, that small enemies ought not to be slighted even by the greatest monarchs. Odenatus was prince of Palmyra, or chief of a tribe of Saracens, who possessed the country in the neighbourhood of that city, and who were allies of the Romans. Being hardened from his infancy by the continual exercise of hunting, by all kinds of fatigues, by the rain, the sun, and the dust, he had acquired a robust body, suited to the courage of his soul. Having attached his fortune, as I said before, to that of the Romans, he at first thought that Valerian’s ruin would also be his. Stunned by the severe and unexpected blow, he wrote to Sapor, imploring his clemency and friendship. But the haughty monarch, finding fault with Odenatus’s not having come in person to ask pardon, sent back his deputies With ignominy, ordered his presents to be thrown into the river, and threatened to teach him in what manner a man like hint ought to treat with a king of Persia. “If he would obtain any mitigation of his punishment, added he, let him come with his hands tied behind him, and throw himself at my feet. Unless he does this, he, his family, and his country, shall surely perish.” Odenatus, destitute of all assistance from others, found in himself sufficient resources. He assembled what troops he could, and, encouraged by Balista’s success, when Sapor had repassed the Euphrates, he ventured to attack him, and succeeded so well, that he threw his army into disorder, seized and carried off his treasures, and, which the Persian valued still more, his concubines. After Odenatus’s victory, Nisibis, Carrhae, and all Mesopotamia, returned to their obedience to the Romans. But Sapor was not completely vanquished, as he still remained master of, and carried into his own kingdom, Valerian, and a multitude of other pri­soners taken in the several provinces into which he had carried the war.

History observes, that he treated them with the most shocking inhumanity. He allowed them only just food enough to keep them from starving; nor had they a sufficiency of water, but were led to drink, once a-day, like cattle. His cruelty towards them was great, that, in his way back to Persia, coming to a place where the road was intersected by a ditch, difficult to pass, he ordered as many of these unhappy people to be murdered, and their bodies to be thrown into the trench, as filled it up to a level with the ground on each side, for his troops to go over. Whatever horror such barbarity may inspire, it is not to be wondered at in Sapor, after the treatment which he made Valerian himself suffer.

Odenatus wished earnestly to deliver the unhappy emperor from his hard and shameful captivity. He entered the territories of the king of Persia, besieged Ctesiphon, and had the advantage in several engagements, in which he made some illustrious Satraps prisoners. But he could not accomplish what he would have looked upon as his chief glory and Valerian remained until his death in the hands of his proud and merciless master.

Odenatus’s fidelity was not less constant and inviolable towards the son, than his ardour was great, though ineffectual, for the delivery of the father. It is remarkable that this Saracen prince, in the midst of his victories, always acknowledged Gallienus. He sent him the Persian Satraps whom he had made prisoners in different battles; and having received from him the title of general of the Roman forces in the East, he exercised that command no otherwise, than in subordination to the prince who had conferred it upon him.

 Balista did not act upon such noble principles: for as soon as he had driven the Persians from Roman territories, he entered into a confederacy with a rebellious subject, to raise the latter to the throne of their common master.

Gallienus was in Gaul, according to Zosimus, employed in the war against the Germans, when his father's disaster happened. Thinking only how he might take advantage of it, in order to indulge himself more freely in pleasure, which alone touched his abject soul; he neither gave any orders for the war against the Persians, nor did the army in the east scarce ever hear of him. This negligence furnished a fine opportunity, and a plausible pretence to the ambitious Macrian, who, after having betrayed Valerian, undertook to wrest the empire from his son.

Macrian was universally esteemed for his superior talents, both as a statesman, and as a warrior. Valerian, as I said before, had placed all his confidence in him, insomuch, as to appoint him inspector-general and commander over all the Roman soldiery: and when he informed the senate of this promotion, he enumerated to them the glorious exploits by which Macrian had repeatedly distinguished himself in all the provinces of the empire, from his infancy to his old age. Besides these advantages, this general or minister, which ever one may choose to call him, possessed immense riches, probably the fruit of his rapine and injustice : for he was not born to any fortune. But then, as now, none inquired by what means any man had got his riches: it was sufficient that he had them : and Macrian’s money enabled him to satisfy the greediness of the soldiers, by giving them ample largesses. The only thing against him was his age, which was far advanced. But the artful politician turned this obstacle into an advantage. Having two sons, in the flower of their youth, brave and intrepid in war, and who had behaved remarkably in the rank of military tribunes, to which they had been promoted by Valerian; he pleaded the weakness of his own age, in order that they might be named emperors with him. The affair was managed thus:

Balista and Macrian assembled a council, consisting of the principal officers of the army: and there Balista, laying down as an indisputable fact, that it was necessary to choose an emperor, declared, that he was not influenced by any personal interest, that he did not pretend to the sovereign power, and that his wishes were for Macrian. This last then stood up and addressed the assembly in these words, artfully calculated to bring them to the point he aimed at. “I confess, said he, that the empire does want a head: and I wish it was in my power to assist the republic, and to remove from the government him who is a disgrace to it. But I am old; I can no longer bear the fatigue of riding; and the unusual care which my bad state of health obliges me now to take of myself, would be such an avocation as might prove detrimental to the welfare of the state. We must have youth; nor ought we to be attached to one alone. Two or three brave young men, by taking the administration of different provinces, according to the exigency of affairs, will restore the republic, which Valerian by his misfortune, and Gallienus by his unworthy conduct, have almost entirely ruined.” Balista, with whom Macrian certainly acted in concert, catching at this proposal, immediately replied : “We trust the republic to your prudence. Take your two sons lor your associates in the government. Independent of all other considerations, they have too much merit to live with safety under Gallienus.” All were of the same opinion : not one attempted to assert the rights of the lawful prince, who was universally hated and despised : and Macrian, upon his accepting the offer of the empire for himself and his sons, promised a donative to the soldiers, continued Balista in the office of praetorian prefect, which had been given him by Valerian, and ended with threatening to make the base and effeminate Gallienus feel what sort of officers his father had employed. The soldiers applauded the resolution of the council. Macrian was proclaimed emper­or with his two sons, the eldest of whom bore the same name as himself, and the other was called Quietus.

It is said in Eusebius, who is therein followed by Zonaras, that Macrian, not being able to wear the imperial ornaments, because he was maimed and lame, transmitted them to his sons. But if he did not clothe himself, at least generally, with the ensigns of the sovereign dignity, it is very certain that he exercised its power.

By usurping it, he placed himself in a situation much less than splendid. Though Asia had declared in his favour, his strength was far from make that such as could secure him from danger; for part of these was encompassed by enemies on all sides. In the East  he feared Odenatus, who was then making war for Gallienus against Sapor with considerable success. In the west, he was not acknowledged at all. Forming his plan in consequence of this double object, he marched in person towards Greece and Italy, with his eldest son, and the greatest of his forces; and left Quietus and Balista in Syria, to oppose Odenatus.

Before he set out, and in order to prepare his way, he judged it necessary to get rid of Valens, proconsul of Achaia, whom he looked upon as a rival, jealous of his grandeur. He gave this commission to Piso one of the most illustrious members of the senate. This order produced two new emperors or usurpers; for emperors were made then with greater ease, than the mayor of a town is chosen now-a-days: and, accordingly, their fall was often as sudden as their rise.

Valens, being informed that Piso was sent to kill him, assumed the purple. Piso, on his side, finding he could not surprize Valens, and fearing his vengeance, caused himself to be proclaimed emperor by the handful of soldiers that accompanied him: and as it was in Thessaly that he received the titles of the imperial power, he took occasion from thence, without any sort of prece­dent, to give himself the surname of Thessalicus. His fortune, or rather the shadow which he had embraced, vanished in a moment. It cost Valens only the trouble of ordering some of his troops to go and kill Piso; and he himself was killed soon after by his own soldiers.

This Valens was the nephew, or grand-nephew, of another Valens, who revolted against Decius, and of whom we have already spoken.

Great encomiums are given to the probity of Piso, who, say his panegyrists, worthy to be the heir of the ancient Piso, was a living picture of the austere virtue so much admired in them in the times of the republican government. Valens, continue they, his enemy, and his murderer, said himself, that he should be punished in hell, for taking away the life of so good a man : to which is added, that the senate decreed him divine honours. I give all this just as I find it in my author, without pretending to warrant the truth of what he says : for indeed, it must be owned, that Piso’s attachment to Macrian, his undertaking to kill Valens, and the manner in which he made himself emperor, do not at all agree with that high idea which some writers would fain give us of his virtue.

The feeble oppositions formed by Valens and Piso were defeated in a moment, without giving Macrian the least disturbance. But he met with difficulties, dangers, and at last death, in the war which he carried into Illyricum; that province, which had been the theatre of great commotions, being perfectly quiet and united, and defended by a powerful army, when he attacked it.

In the beginning of Gallienus’ reign, Illyricum was ravaged by the Sarmatians. Ingenuus, a brave warrior, who commanded in Pannonia, and was extremely beloved by his troops, checked the incursions of those barbarians. But fearing lest even the glory of these successes should give umbrage to a prince who was an enemy to merit, he usurped the  place of him whose jealousies alarmed him, and made his troops invest him with the imperial purple. Gallienus flew into a violent rage, and his anger giving him courage, he left Gaul, marched into Illyricum, gave the rebel battle near Mursa, in Pannopia, and gained the victory. Ingenuus was either killed on the field of battle, or killed himself soon after for fear of falling into the hands of a merciless conqueror.

Gallienus indulged his revenge with all the cruelty an abject soul. He spared none. Both the soldiers and the inhabitants of the country were extirpated. I do not believe that more barbarous, more inhuman orders were ever given by any man, than those that were contained in a letter which he wrote on this occasion, and which one cannot read without shuddering with horror. I shall give! it here, as it has been transmitted to us by Trebellius Pollio.

“Gallienus to Verianus. I shall not be pleased with you, if you put to death only those who bear arms, and whom the fate of war might have carried off. All the males should be massacred, if old men and children could be put to death without giving room to blame us. I order you to kill whoever has spoken ill of me. Tear, kill, and drag in pieces. Think as I do; and observe what is said in this letter, written with my own hand.”

Would a Scythian man-eater speak otherwise than this prince immersed in luxury?

His horrid cruelty immediately produced a new rebellion. The troops and the people of Moesia, covered with the blood of their comrades and relations, and fearing the like treatment for themselves, raised Regillianus to the throne, that he might be their defender.

Regillianus was of Decian origin, descended, as it is said, from the family of Decebalus, that king of the Dacians who was so famous under Domitian and Trajan. His skill in war procured him the important employment of commander of the frontier of Illyricum; and in that station he gained a great victory over the barbarians near the city of Scupi in Moesia. Trebellius pretends that he owed the empire to a sort of pun which some of the soldiers made upon his name, by deriving it from that of Rex, King. But even, if there be any foundation for this story, his success was, doubtless, owing solely to the then state of affairs, of which 1 have taken notice. Regillianus did not long enjoy the title of emperor. A sedition, which broke out in his army, and which began among the auxiliary troops of the barbarians, cut him off before Macrian reached Illyricum.

Macrian was opposed there by Aureolus, whose situation and conduct cannot easily be ascertained from any monuments that now remain relative thereto. It is pretty certain that he commanded Gallienus’s cavalry in the battle against Ingenuus, and that he had a great share in the victory. It is probable that the emperor placed him at the head of the army destined to fight Macrian. But whether Aureolus revolted then, and assumed the purple, as Trebellius supposes, seems doubtful. His open defection seems rather to belong to a considerably later time. Not that I would be thought to mean that he ever was submissive to Gallienus’s orders. Facts give us room to think, that though he still continued to command the army which had been intrusted to him, and to acknowledge Gallienus nominally, yet he always kept himself independent.

At the same time that he retained the title of Gallienus’s general, he had himself a general, who was subordinate to him. Domitian, who pretended to belong to the family of the emperor Domitian, and to be descended from Domitilla the sis­ter of the prince, commanded Aureolus’s troops, and, under his auspices, conquered Macrian in a pitched battle. This action was not in itself decisive. Of forty-five thousand which Macrian had brought into the field, thirty thousand still remained under his banners. But in civil wars, a change of sides is often brought about with great ease, and very little scruple. The conquered troops, whether from discouragement for their late defeat, or whether they were gained over by Aureolus’s intrigues, abandoned their leader; and he was forced to beg, as a favour, of the very persons who betrayed him, to kill him and his son, that he might avoid the disgrace of captivity, and of an ignominious death.

His ruin brought on that of his second son Quietus, whom he had left in the east. This young prince found himself between two formidable enemies, Aureolus the conqueror of his father, and Odenatus, who was returning in triumph from his glorious expedition against Sapor. This last, being the nearest, was most to be feared. He immediately entered Syria, and Quietus was obliged to shut himself up in Emesa, with Balista. Odenatus besieged them, and they had no way to escape. But Balista, whose head was fertile in expedients, and who did not pique himself upon his fidelity when it exposed him to danger, knowing that the person of Quietus was what Odenatus aimed at, resolved to make his peace by sacrificing that unfortunate young prince: and, accordingly, he persuaded the inhabitants of Emesa to kill him, and throw his body over their walls. Odenatus, satisfied with this, raised the siege: and Balista, then master of the city, seized the treasures which Macrian had left there, and with the help of that rich booty, caused himself to be proclaimed emperor, by the soldiers under his command. His shadow of an empire must have been confined within very narrow bounds : for Odenatus was such a neighbour as would not suffer him to extend them far. He bore the title of emperor, however, about three years, without doing any one exploit that we know of in all that time; at the end of which Odenatus, persisting in his zeal for Gallienus, found means to bribe a soldier who killed the rebel in his tent.

Thus the affairs of the east began to acquire some stability. That extensive country remained in peace and quiet, through the valour and good conduct of Odenatus, who repulsed its foreign enemies, and suppressed its internal divisions. He was the continual scourge of Sapor, whom he ceased not to harass by repeated attacks, and whom he twice made tremble in Ctesiphon. He would have attacked Macrian, if this last had not gone to. Illyricum, there to seek his death. He destroyed two usurpers, Quietus and Balista; and, which is much to his praise, in the midst of so many examples of rebellion, he was constantly faithful to Gallienus. I do not examine whether that fidelity proceeded from an absolutely disinterested motive. Certain it is, that he never deviated from it. Odenatus’s ambition kept within the bounds of his duty: and though he might have arrogated to himself the greatest honours; he chose rather to receive them, as a recompense, from the hand of him who was the lawful distributer of them.

Gallienus, who had so many obligations to him, was sensible of them, and rewarded his services. Odenatus, as I have already said, was originally prince of Palmyra, or chief of a tribe of Saracens. He took the title of king, according to Trebellius, at the time of his preparing for his first expedition against Sapor. But I rather think he had received before, from Valerian, to whom he was attached. After Macrian’s revolt, Gallienus appointed Odenatus commander in chief of the Roman forces in the east: and lastly, to reward his constant fidelity in a proper manner, he created him Augustus, with the advice of his brother Valerian, and his relation Lucillus. He likewise caused money to be coined, on which the conqueror of Sapor was represented dragging after him the Persians loaded with chains. The promotion of Odenatus was applauded by the whole empire, and is mentioned in history as the best thing that Gallienus ever did. Odenatus communicated his new title, and the honours thereunto belonging, to the celebrated Zenobia his wife, and to all his numerous family, of whom we shall have ocasion to speak more fully. This account shews how un­justly Trebellius has called Odenatus an usurper: since it is very plain, that he did not assume the supreme honours illegally, but was invested with them by the authority of him who had a right to confer them.

Gallienus reaped the fruits of Odenatus’s labours without giving himself the least personal trouble. He likewise claimed the glory of them. Odenatus conquered the Persians: but Gallienus triumphed for the victory. It was after the defeat and death of Macrian and his sons, that the emperor, thinking himself secure from all future danger, resolved not only to return to his former course of pleasures, which the war had interrupted; but also to give a magnificent feast, as a mark of victory and peace.

This triumph was in itself ridiculous; and the captivity of Valerian rendered it so indecent and ignominious, that it drew a most bitter reproach upon Gallienus even during the ceremony. Troops of sham prisoners, that is to say, of men whom nobody knew, disguised like Sarmatians, Goths, Franks, and Persians, formed a numerous train of seeming captives, who were led on with great pomp and pageantry. Some wags, going up to a group of pretended Persians, examined them very attentively, one after the other, looking eagerly in their faces : and when they were asked what they wanted; “We are looking, answered they, for the emperor’s father.” Gallienus, being informed of this, was so nettled at the joke, that he ordered the imprudent authors of it to be burnt.

His triumph was accompanied with all sorts of games, races in the circus, hunting in the presence of the people, theatrical entertainments, and combats of wrestlers and gladiators. Eating, drinking, and diverting himself, were Gallienus’s sole study; and all his talk was, “What have we for dinner? What diversions are got ready? What play is to be acted ? How many gladiators are to fight today?”

Soon after his triumph, or perhaps at the same time, Gallienus made magnificent rejoicings to celebrate the tenth year of his reign, which had begun with that of his father. I think I cannot find a more proper place than this, to mention two puerilities, which show the frivolous and trifling turn of mind of this emperor.

In the games which he gave to the people, a bull of enormous size was exhibited, which a hunter was to engage until he killed it either with javelins or arrows. The inexpert hunter shot ten times at the animal without wounding it. Upon this the emperor decreed him the crown : and as the spectators murmured at his bestowing the reward so improperly, he ordered the herald to call out with a loud voice: “To miss a bull so often, is a very difficult thing.”

The other story is of the same stamp. A merchant sold the empress false jewels instead of true; and the princess, extremely incensed, insisted on his being punished with exemplary rigour. Gallienus threatened the fellow terribly, and ordered him to be carried into the circus, as if to be exposed to a furious lion. The criminal expected instant death: when those that had the charge of him, by private orders from the emperor, instead of a lion, turned a capon out against him. The people laughed heartily, and Gallienus did the same, crying out, “The biter is bit.”

There may, perhaps, be a sort of wit, but certainly there is no kind of dignity in these jokes. What idea can be formed of a prince who amused himself with such fooleries, whilst every thing round him was going to ruin? For, not to repeat what I have already said of the plague, earthquakes, and other calamities, the barbarians who invaded the empire, and the usurpers who started up in it, seemed to have entered into an agreement to tear the state to pieces.

I have already named several usurpers, but have not yet mentioned them all. Egypt, Africa, Isauria, and Gaul, had their several pretenders to the throne. I shall take another opportunity to speak of Gaul, which was not desolated, but saved by those who rose up in it against Gallienus, and made themselves masters of that country.

In Egypt, Emilian was in a manner forced by the circumstances of things to assume the imperial purple. He had been praefect of Egypt for some years, and, as such, in consequence of Valerian’s orders, he persecuted the Christians of Alexandria, and St Dionysius their bishop. Under the reign of Gallienus, being continued in the same office, he was attacked by a furious sedition, the cause of which was one of the most trivial that can possibly be imagined. A slave bragging that he was better shod than a soldier he happened to be in company with, the soldier grew angry, and beat him. The inhabitants of Alexandria, the most seditious, the most restless, and the most turbulent of all people, took the slaves part: the soldiers gathered about their comrade, words ensued, both parties grew warm, and a sedition was kindled up in an instant. If this sedition be the same with that of which the St Dionysius I have just been speaking of gives us an account, as I am much inclined to think, it was carried to the most violent height, and became a real war. All communications between the different quar­ters of the city was cut off, and it was easier, says that saint, to go from one end of the world to the other, than from Alexandria to Alexandria. The streets were filled with blood. The dead bodies, remaining unburied, exhaled an infection which corrupted the air, and brought on the plague. Emilian endeavoured in vain to appease the people. They were exasperated against him, and attacked him with stones and darts : upon which the prefect, to avert the imminent danger that threatened him, declared himself emperor. He knew that he should please all Egypt by delivering it from the yoke of Gallienus, who was hated and despised there, as well as in all other places. In effect, the people and the soldiers immediately reunited to acknowledge his sovereign authority. The other cities of Egypt followed the example of the capital: or, if any of them hesitated, Emilian soon reduced them by taking possession of the public granaries from whence they drew their subsistence.

He governed the country for some time with prudence and vigour. He visited Egypt and Thebais, and restored tranquillity and good order wherever he went. He checked the incursions of the barbarians, whether Arabs or Ethiopians, and was preparing to carry the war into India, says the historian, that is to say, into Ethiopia, when he himself was attacked by Theodotus, an Egyptian, to whom Gallienus had committed the execution of his vengeance. History observes that the emperor had thought of giving Theodotus the rank of proconsul: but that he was hindered from it by an ancient superstition, which prevailed among the Romans so far back as in the times of Cicero and Pompey, and likewise by certain pretended oracles which threatened the republic with great calamities, and promised liberty to Egypt, if ever a Roman general, preceded by the consular fasces, should enter that country with an army.

A battle was fought between Emilian and Theodotus in which the former was conquered. M. Tillemont supposes that, after his defeat, he retired to Bruchium, a large and beautiful quarter of Alexandria, and there sustained a siege, which is that mentioned by St Dionysius of Alexandria, and in which St Anatolius and St Eusebius, both afterwards bishops of Laodicea, were admired for their ingenuous charity in comforting and relieving the unhappy besieged, who perished with hunger.

They both held a very distinguished rank in the city of Alexandria, and were intimately connected by the bonds of Christian friendship. They were, however separated on this occasion. Anatolius was shut up in Bruchium; and Eusebius, who remained with the Romans, had some interest even with their general, who, according to our supposition, was Theodotus. Famine began to prey upon the besieged, when Anatolius, moved with compassion for their wants and misery, applied privately to Eusebius, desiring him to ob­tain from the Roman general an amnesty for those who should leave the city and surrender them­selves to him. His request being granted, and a council being held soon after, he immediately pro­posed surrendering the place, and making peace with the besiegers. The answer was, that no peace should be made. “If that be the case, replied he, and you are determined to hold out to the last extremity, it will be prudent to turn out all useless mouths, who only consume the remainder of our provisions.” This advice was approved of; and Anatolius, being charged to see it executed, caused first the Christians to go out, then those among the Gentiles, whose sex or age entitled them most to pity, and afterwards numbers of others disguised like women. Eusebius received them like a tender father and a charitable physician, and furnished them with all necessary food, taking care at the same time not to overload their stomachs, weakened and extenuated by long fasting.

Whatever may be the precise date of this edifying action, of which I have thought it incumbent on me not to deprive my readers; Emilian who has occasioned my mentioning it, met with a very melancholy fate. He was taken by Theodotus, and sent to Gallienus, who, treating him as the ancient Romans did the kings and generals that were their prisoners, ordered him to be strangled in prison. The almost uninterrupted chain of misfortunes which fell upon Alexandria, so depopulated that the great city, that after these calamities, the number of its inhabitants from four to fourscore years of age, was not equal to that which had used to be reckoned before of those who were between forty and seventy. This difference was known by the registers that were kept for the gratuitous distributions of corn.

Africa likewise revolted against Gallienus, and had its usurper, though but for a very little while. The proconsul Vibius Passienus, and Fabius Pompeianus who was charged with the defence of the  frontiers of Libya, having concerted measures with the emperor’s cousin, Galliena, undertook to raise to the sovereign dignity an old officer named Celsus, who had retired from the service, and lived in the country. He was admired for his size, and esteemed for his probity. As the insurrection was sudden, the rebels, not having any purple at hand to clothe their emperor with, took the robe of the goddess worshipped at Carthage, under the name of Celestis, or Urania. Celsus only appeared upon the stage, and was killed at the end of seven days. After his death, his body was insulted with the utmost inhumanity; being thrown to hungry dogs by the inhabitants of Sicca, who had remained faithful to Gallienus, and who hung his effigy upon a cross : a new kind of ignominy, never before inflicted upon any one who had borne the name of Caesar.

It is astonishing to what degree the once so majestic tittle of Roman emperor was now degraded and debased. Trebellianus, an Isaurian by birth, a robber by profession, and justly called by his enemies a captain of thieves, stilled himself emperor, and caused money to be coined in bis name, with the addition of that august title. Whilst he kept to the mountains, which were inaccessible to every one except the natives of the country, he was able to defend himself: but Causiloleus, the brother of Theodotus of whom we have been speaking, being sent against him by Gallienus, drew him down into a plain, where he defeated and killed him.

The incursions of the Isaurians did not end with him. They continued their old practice of descending suddenly from their mountains, plundering the low country, and carrying off their booty with the same diligence to their fortresses. Powerful emperors tried in vain either to drive them from their holds, or to block them up in them. Though repulsed for a time, they always returned to the charge, and still continued their depredations even after the reign of Constantius the son of Constantine: so that they were in fact a small state of robbers, who subsisted independent of, and at enmity with all others, in the middle of one of the finest countries of the Roman empire. They could boast of antiquity; for their ancestors had carried on the very same trade in the time of the famous war of the pirates, which Pompey ended. An illustrious Roman general then took the surname of Isauricus, in consequence of his exploits against them.

Saturninus usurped the titles and honours of the_; imperial power, whilst Gallienus was emperor: but we cannot sav in what country he reigned. We only know that the army which he commanded, incensed at the shameful conduct of the emperor, raised his general to the empire. He is said to have told the soldiers, whilst they were clothing him with the purple, that they had lost a good general, and made a bad emperor. A sensible expression; but which does not seem to have been applicable to him. Saturninus was very capable of governing well, if he had the qualities which the historian gives him; skill in war proved by his victories over the barbarians; singular prudence, uncommon dignity of behaviour; a remarkable mildness and affability of temper, and at the same time great steadiness in maintaining discipline among the troops. To this steadiness, which the licentiousness of the soldiers could not brook, he owed his ruin. It drew upon him their hatred, and he was killed by the very persons who had elected him.

The barbarians, as I said before, ravaged the empire, at the same time that the usurpers dismembered it: but in the East, Odenatus stopped and even conquered the Persians. In Gaul, Posthumus, who caused himself to be acknowledged emperor there, as I shall hereafter relate, kept the German nations within bounds. The middle of the empire, the defence of which depended upon Gallienus, because no usurper had been able to establish himself solidly there, suffered dreadful calamities, occasioned by the Sarmatians, the Scythians, and the Goths.

Italy was the first province which they attacked. Whilst Valerian perished in Mesopotamia, and Gallienus was yet in Gaul, the Scythians or Goths (for these names are often used one for the other in the history of the times we are now speaking of) having formed a numerous army of the different people of their nation, divided their forces. One part of them fell upon Illyricum : the other penetrated into Italy, and put even Rome in danger. The senate greatly alarmed, had recourse to such expedients as were within their reach. To the city cohorts they joined the best and handsomest men among the people, whom they obliged to take up arms: by which means they assembled an army superior in number to the barba­rians, and which so far awed them, as to prevent their approaching the capital: but they overran all Italy, and ravaged it in a most shocking manner.

The other body of Scythians, who had chosen Illyricum for the theatre of their exploits, entered Thrace and Macedonia, and even laid siege to Thessalonica. All Greece, of which that city was the key, trembled. The Athenians rebuilt their walls, which, for near four hundred years past, had remained in the ruinous condition to which they were reduced by Sylla. The inhabitants of Peloponnesus barred their isthmus by a wall from sea to sea. The Goths could not take Thessalonica, which defended itself with tolerable ease against the barbarians, who did not like the fatigues of a siege so well as ravaging an open country. They spread themselves, however, over Epirus, Acarnania, and Boeotia, amassed a vast booty there, and then set out for their own country.

As soon as Gallienus was informed of the invasion of Italy by the Scythians, he left Gaul; if there be any truth in what Zosimus relates of a great exploit of this prince against the Germans near Milan, it probably belongs to this time. We are not told that Gallienus did any thing to drive the Scythians out of Italy. Perhaps they had left that country before he arrived there.

He was afterwards obliged to go into Illyricum, whither he was called by two wars, the one civil, and the other foreign, both carried on at the same time : these were, the rebellion of Ingenuus, and the hostilities of the Scythians. We know that he conquered Ingenuus in a pitched battle. As to the Scythians, if they did not retire voluntarily into their own country, but were driven back beyond the Danube by the Roman arms, the honour of that advantage belongs to Ingenuus, to Regillianus, to Aureolus, who were brave warriors, and commanded great armies upon the spot, rather than to Gallienus, of whom no mention is made in history on this occasion.

The defeat of Macrian, who fought and was likewise conquered in Illyricum, was also the work of Aureolus : and I do not see that any share of what was done in that country can be given to Gallienus, except the cruel vengeance which he took on Byzantium, for which Trebellius, who relates it, does not assign any motive. But we may conjecture, with some probability, that the inhabitants of that city had favoured Macrian’s passage into Europe, and that it was for this reason that Gallienus, now conqueror, treated them as enemies. As the Byzantines mistrusted him, they at first shut their gates against him. He got admittance, however, upon a promise of acting with moderation and clemency: but the moment he was master of the place, he basely broke his word, and caused both the garrison and the inhabitants to be massacred: all were cut off: and at the time when Trebellius wrote, there was no longer any ancient family in Byzantium, except those of which an accidental absence, occasioned either by business or pleasure, or by their being employed in the armies, had saved some remains.

This bloody execution coincides nearly with the time of the feasts which Gallienus gave on account of his tenth year. His cruelties against his subjects, and his pleasures, occupied him alternately; whilst the barbarians renewed their incursions, without being discouraged by their former losses.

It is very difficult, not to say impossible, to fix the precise dates, and distinguish the particular circumstances of their different invasions, which never ceased during all the reign of Gallienus. Their events were always nearly alike, and we have no knowledge of them but through the channel of inaccurate writers, and ignorant abbreviators, who murder facts, and confound names, times, and places. The general idea that results from their same accounts, is, that all the provinces of Illyricum and Asia Minor, the islands of the Aegean sea, and Greece itself, were continually exposed to the ravages of the Scythian and German nations, who poured in both by sea and land sometimes passing the Danube, sometimes entering by the mouth of that great river, and sometimes crossing the Euxine sea; and in the engagements which they fought, were sometimes victorious, and sometimes defeated, but never daunted or destroyed. We find in particular, that the temple of Diana of Ephesus was plundered and burnt by the barbarians; that ancient Ilium, always unfortunate, suffered from them the same calamities as were brought upon it many ages before by the Greeks; that they also sacked the city of Chalcedon, and reduced it to so deplorable a condition, that, three hundred years after, it still retained marks of their fury; that all Trajan’s conquests beyond the Danube were recovered from the Romans, and became again the property of the barbarians.

The Heruli appear here for the first time in history; Syncellus gives us a sort of particular account of their expedition. Only I cannot comprehend how he brings from the Palus Maeotis, a nation that was always German. But be that as it may, the following is his account, with the addition of some circumstances borrowed from Trebellius. The Heruli sailing out of the Palus Maeotis with five hundred vessels, took to the right, and made themselves masters of Byzantium, and of Chrysopolis, which is on the other side of the straits. There they fought a battle, the success of which was not favourable to them; but did not however hinder them from continuing their route.

They made descents at Cyzicus, and several other places which they ravaged. They likewise plundered the islands of Lemnos and Scyras; and afterwards, crossing over into Greece, overrun all Peloponnesus. The cities of Corinth, Sparta and Argos, were plundered, and Athens would have suffered the same fate, had it not been for the valour of Dixippus, who, cultivating equally both learning and arms, was an excellent warrior, as well as a famous writer. That brave Athenian, putting himself at the head of his countrymen, waited for the barbarians in a narrow pass, where, aided by the advantage of his situation, he defeated them, and saved his country. In their retreat, they plundered the rest of Greece, Boeotia, Epirus, and without doubt Thessaly also, which lay in their road. At length, having crossed Macedonia, and part of Thrace, they met, near the river Nessus, the emperor Gallienus, who had marched to the assistance of the invaded provinces. This prince gave them battle, and killed three thousand of their men, which, joined probably to other circumstances, the particulars whereof are not explained, induced the Herulian commander, Naulobates, to sue for peace from the Romans. It was granted him, and if we believe Syncellus, Gallienus made him consul. In this case, Naulobates must be reckoned the first barbarian who arrived at the supreme magistracy of Rome.

Our authors likewise speak of another irruption of barbarians, by the way of Heraclea, a famous city of Pontus. The Scythians, having got possession of that important place, overrun Galatia, and Cappadocia, and there practised their usual ravages. The brave Odenatus, who was just returned from his second expedition against Sapor, in which he had again besieged, and according to Syncellus, even taken the royal city of Ctesiphon, wanted to give Asia its revenge for the insults of those robbers, as he had put the east in a state no longer to fear the Persians. He advanced as far as Cappadocia: but the barbarians, not thinking proper to wait his coining, hastened back to Heraclea, and from thence returned by sea to their own country. This swarm might come from the Palus Maeotis; which is probably what has occasioned Syncellus’s mistake concerning the Heruli.

Odenatus did not long survive this new proof of his zeal in defence of the Roman empire. This worthy prince perished by domestic treachery; and Zenobia his wife, that famous heroine, is not exempt from suspicions in regard to this heinous crime.

Odenatus had by a former wife a son named Herod, whom he was particularly fond of, and preferred before his other children, born of Zenobia. Herod, however, little deserved the affections of such a father as Odenatus. This young prince is known in history only by his Asiatic luxury and effeminate manners: and his father, who ought to have checked that inclination, encouraged it by his blind complaisance. After his first victories over Sapor, he made his son a present, not only of the concubines of the king of Persia whom he had made prisoners, but also of all the riches he had amassed in his expedition, gold, rich stuffs, diamonds and jewels. Zenobia could not brook the preference which Odenatus gave to his eldest son over the children he had by her: and it is not improbable that she joined her resentment to that of Odenatus’s nephew, Maeonius, who was exaspe­rated against his uncle on a very trifling account.

In a party of hunting, Maeonius, from an over forward vivacity, was the first who shot at the beast; and though forbid by Odenatus, he repeated the same mark of disrespect two or three times. Odenatus, displeased at his behaviour, ordered his horse to be taken from him; which was a great affront among those people; and Maeonius having suffered his passion to hurry him so far as to threaten the emperor, drew upon himself at length a more rigorous treatment, and was put in irons. He resolved to be revenged; and the better to succeed therein, he dissembled his resent­ment, applied humbly to Herod, and begged, of him to obtain his pardon. But he was no sooner set at liberty, than he entered into a conspiracy against his uncle, and against his deliverer: and laying hold of the opportunity of a feast which Odenatus gave to celebrate his birthday, he attacked him in the midst of the joy of the entertainment, and killed him and his son. This tragic scene happened at Emesa, and is placed by M. Tillemont under the year of Christ 267.

Ambition was probably joined with revenge in the heart of Maeonius. Odenatus, as I said before, had been declared Augustus by Gallienus and his son Herod enjoyed the same honours. Their murderer usurped them, and caused himself to be proclaimed emperor. But he was far from being capable of replacing Odenatus. His voluptuous life, spent in continual debauchery, rendered him extremely despicable, and he was soon killed by the soldiers who had elected him. Thus Zenobia reaped all the fruit of Maionius’s crime: and this presumption, joined to that which arises from her jealousy of Herod, has made her be accused of having entered into the conspiracy of the assassins of her husband. It is a pity that so black a stain should be found in the life of a princess otherwise distinguished by the most shining ta­lents, and who alone hindered the East from feeling the loss of Odenatus. We shall defer speaking more fully of her, until the reign of Aurelian, who made war upon her, and conquered her. In the meantime, we shall only observe, that Zenobia, having taken possession of the sovereign power after the death of her husband, was not acknowledged by Gallienus; that this prince, having lest his friend Odenatus, on whom he had depended for the management of the war against the Persians, and for avenging his father’s cause, seemed to intend to make a personal effort, and to take upon himself the conduct of the affairs of the East, that he assembled an army, the command of which he gave to Heraclian, who, instead of making war upon the Persians, attacked Zenobia, and being defeated by her, was obliged to return with the shattered remains of his broken army.

The year in which Odenatus perished was that of the death of Posthumus who reigned seven years in Gaul, and who was the bulwark of the empire in the West, as Odenatus had been in the East.

We have seen that Valerian, full of esteem for Posthumus, trusted to him the conduct of his the son, and the command in Gaul. Gallienus, after his father’s disaster, imitated partly the same plan. Being obliged to march against the Scythians, who threatened Rome and desolated Illyricum, he left in Gaul Valerian Caesar, his eldest son, who was then very young: but he separated the two employments of governor of the prince and commander of the troops. He committed the guardianship of his son to Silvanus, leaving to Posthumus only the care of what belonged to the war.

It is not improbable that this regulation displeased Posthumus, and that his discontent began to stagger his fidelity. What is certain, is that a misunderstanding arose between the two deposi­taries of the divided authority, and that it soon broke out.

A body of Germans having passed the Rhine, and, according to the custom of the barbarians, ravaged the Gaulish territories; Posthumus fell upon those robbers, defeated them, took away their booty, and, not without design, distributed it among his soldiers. Silvanus claimed this booty as his right, and ordered it to be sent to Cologne, where the prince was. We may judge of the turbulence of the troops on this occasion, and how ill they took it that the fruits of their victory should be snatched out of their hands. Posthumus inflamed matters still more, by pretending that he could not help obeying: and when he once saw the fire of sedition thoroughly kindled, he threw aside the mask, put himself at the head of the mutineers, and marched in an hostile manner towards Cologne, demanding, with violent me­naces, that the prince and his governor should be delivered up to him. The soldiers within the city, sensible of their inability to oppose an army, preferred their safety to their duty: and Posthumus no sooner had his victims in his power, than he put them to death, and caused himself to be proclaimed Augustus.

This event happened soon after Gallienus’s departure, and seems to belong to the year in which he began to reign alone. Valerian was ranked among the gods by a decree of the senate, made by order of the emperor, who at the same time gave the title of Caesar to his second son Saloninus.

Nothing can be more criminal than the means by which Posthumus raised himself to the sovereign power: but he exercised it in such a manner as might be a model even to princes whose authority is founded upon the most legal title. Uniting every civil and military virtue, he rendered the people happy at home, and defended them against foreign enemies. He made discipline reign in the armies, justice in the tribunals, and good order and tranquillity in all the countries that obeyed him. Ambition was his only vice: and after he had once attained the height of his wishes, we no longer see any thing in him but what deserves esteem.

Not satisfied with barely hindering the Germans from penetrating into Gaul, he passed the Rhine in person, and built forts at proper distances from each other on the territories of the barbarians, to keep them in awe even in their own country. What is more: we find that after he had conquered those fierce nations by his arms, he gained their esteem and confidence by his virtues; for they furnished him with succours in the wars he had to maintain against Gallienus, as appears by his having both Germans and Franks among his auxiliaries.

I know not whether it was the impossibility of committing their usual ravages in Gaul that induced the Franks to carry their arms into Spain. That extensive country likewise submitted to the laws of Posthumus: but this prince not residing there, and being divided between the necessity of securing the borders of the Rhine, and of defend­ing himself against the repeated attacks of Gallienus, he could not extend his protection and as­sistance to the more distant provinces. It was by sea that the Franks attacked Spain; for the German, as well as the Scythian nations, braved the dangers of very long and very hazardous voyages in small barks. The Franks of whom I am now speaking, passed the Straits, and dividing themselves into two bodies, one made a descent upon Africa, and the other upon Spain. These last advanced as far as the Ebro, took Tarragona, and sacked that metropolis of hither Spain in so terrible a manner, that it bore the marks of their outrages an hundred and fifty years after. The ravages of the Franks were not a transitory calamity with regard to Spain, for their descents and inroads in that country were continued without ceasing for upwards of twelve years.

Gallienus did not leave Posthumus in peaceable possession of Gaul. He attacked him twice in person: first, immediately after Macrian was conquered; and the second time, two years after. In both these expeditions he was accompanied by Aureolus, who, without taking the title of emperor, kept, as I before observed, an army under his command. If Gallienus had been faithfully served by him, he would have remained completely conqueror : for Posthumus having been defeated in a general battle, Aureolus, who pretended to pursue him, might, if he had pleased, have overtaken him, and have made him prisoner. But he purposely let him escape, because it was not his interest that Gallienus should become too powerful. There were therefore other battles, and sieges of towns, in one of which Gallienus was wounded by an arrow. The cure of his wound was tedious, and probably gave him a disgust for this war, in which he likewise met with so much the more and greater difficulties, as the people . were inclined to favour his enemy. He therefore gave it up, and from this time Posthumus governed Gaul, as quietly, as if he had been its lawful sovereign. .

In the war against Gallienus he had received services from Victorinus, whom, if we believe Trebellius, he had even associated with himself in the government, and taken for his colleague. But it seems to us, scarcely possible, that Posthumus, who had a son, on whom he conferred the titles of Caesar and Augustus, should grant the same honours to a stranger, to make him thereby his rival and that of his son. We rather think that Victorinus acted under Posthumus as his principal lieutenant, and did not assume the power of sovereign until after his death.

Posthumus enjoyed an uninterrupted tranquillity for three years. But usurpers seldom end their days in peace: their own example is turned against themselves. Lollianus, or Lelianus, thinking himself not less worthy of the empire than Posthumus, revolted, and, though conquered in battle, occasioned the ruin of his conqueror. For Posthumus’s soldiers insisting strongly upon plundering the city of Mayence, which had entered into the rebellion, and not being able to obtain the consent of their chief, to whose character and principles such violences were no ways suited; the whole army mutinied, and killed him and his son.

Posthumus reigned seven years, and was killed in the beginning of the year of Christ 267. Besides Gaul, he kept, as I said before, Spain, under his laws, and it is probable that Britain likewise obeyed him. Gaul then set the example to those two neighbouring provinces, and the three together formed a kind of detached department; which, when the empire was afterwards divided among several princes, often became the particular lot of one of them. The origin of Posthumus was obscure : his merit was what raised him. He had been once consul before he usurped the im­perial power; and during his reign he assumed three consulships: but neither of these last is marked in the Fasti, because they were not acknowledged at Rome, which obeyed Gallienus.

The son of Posthumus, who bore the same name with himself, is known in history only by the titles of Caesar and Augustus, which he received from  his father, and by his fatal death, which he probably met with when but a youth. It is said, that he was eloquent, and that some of his declamations have been judged worthy of a place among those which are ascribed to Quintilian.

Upon the death of Posthumus, Gaul did not submit to Gallienus; but, violently agitated by powerful contending parties, it had no less than four princes or usurpers in the space of one year. Laelianus took the advantage of his conqueror’s misfortunes. The troops who had killed Posthumus could not take any step more suited to their interests, than to proclaim him emperor on whom their late master had made war. Laelianus then entered into possession of the prerogatives of the imperial power; and he must have enjoyed them some months, as he is said to have repaired the castles which Posthumus had built beyond the Rhine in the country of the barbarians, and which, upon the news of his death, were taken and demolished by the Germans.

Victorinus, who had enjoyed the principal authority under Posthumus, could not bear to see Laelianus usurp his spoils. It is probable that he likewise tampered with some of the troops, and that having prevailed upon them to proclaim him emperor, he attacked Laelianus, defeated, and killed him.       

He was very capable, by his talents and his many virtues, to supply the loss of Posthumus, and to settle the state of Gaul, at least for a time. One single vice proved his ruin. A contemporary writer expressed himself on this subject in the following manner: “I find no prince, said that author, preferable to Victorinus : neither Trajan for military merit, nor Titus Antoninus for clemency, nor Nerva, for the qualities which procure respect, nor Pertinax or Severus for steadiness in command and exactness in maintaining military discipline. Bat his debauchery and unbounded passion for women, effaced entirely all this glory in him : and it is improper to praise the virtues of a prince whose death is looked upon by every one as a justly deserved punishment.”

Victorinus used violence to satisfy his brutality; and after several excesses of this kind, a subaltern officer of one of the courts of justice, whose wife he had abused, formed at last a conspiracy against him, and assassinated him at Cologne. Victorinus not dying instantly of his wound; by the advice of his mother Victoria or Victorina, he named his son Caesar before he expired. But he thereby only hastened the destruction of that son, who was murdered by the troops immediately after the death of his father. They were both buried near Cologne ; and on their small tomb was only the following dishonourable inscription: “Here lye the two Victorini, who were usurpers.”

Victoria was a woman of an enterprizing spirit, and had been decorated, probably by her son, with the titles of Augusta, and of mother of the camps and armies. Instead of setting up for the vacant empire herself, by which she would perhaps only have shown her ambition, without succeeding in the attempt, she chose rather to give it to another. Her choice fell upon an ignoble subject, whom she doubtless hoped, for that very reason, to govern the more easily. She caused one Marius, by trade an armourer, and afterwards a soldier, who had advanced himself in the service by his valour, to be elected. This adventurer well deserved his fortune, if it be true that he was the same Marius, who, according to Aimonius, con­quered and killed Chrocus king of the Alemanni, the author and conductor of a violent irruption into Gaul, and of a thousand outrages committed by the barbarians whom he commanded. Trebellius says nothing of this remarkable transaction, but contents himself with giving the speech which Marius made after his election, and in which, far from blushing at the meanness of his former condition, he makes a boast of it, prides himself in having always handled iron, and extols his harp and laborious life far above the effeminacy of Gallienus. He reigned but three days, at the end of which he was killed by a soldier who had formerly worked in his shop, and for whom the new emperor had shewn some scorn and contempt. The exasperated soldier ran him through with his sword, saying by way of insult: “This sword is one of thy own making.” Surprizing things are related of the strength of body of ' this Marius, whose fingers are said to have been . as hard as the iron upon which he employed them.

By the death of Marius, Victoria did not lose her credit: she even preserved it so far as to be able to make another emperor. But she now pitched upon a person more capable than the former to procure respect and obedience. She cast her eyes upon Tetricus, her relation, a Roman senator of illustrious birth, and who was then go­vernor of Aquitania. Tetricus, being elected by the soldiers, assumed the purple with the title of Augustus at Bourdeaux, and gave that of Caesar to his son. The state of Gaul began to resume a regular form under this prince, who reigned there six years, until he was conquered by Aurelian, as we shall hereafter relate. Victoria died a considerable time before the fall of Tetricus. She enjoyed the honours of the supreme rank as long as she lived. Money was coined at Treves, marked with her head and name. But all this pomp and splendour was of short duration : for death, either natural, or, as some think, hastened by violence, buried all her grandeur in the tomb.

I return to Gallienus, of whom the reader will observe that little has been said in the history of his reign. We left him in Illyricum, conqueror of the Heruli, with whom he made peace. He afterwards attacked the Goths, who overran that country, and over whom he gained some advantage. But at the same time he received the disagreeable news of the revolt of Aureolus, whom he had left in Italy, near Milan, to watch the motions of those who had the upper hand in Gaul, and to prevent their passing the Alps.

Aureolus, as we have seen, affected independence almost from the beginning of Gallienus’s reign. Though at the head of an army which acknowledged no other orders than his, he had seconded the emperor in his war against Posthumus; but at the same time he indeed broke his fidelity towards him, and hindered him from conquering. Remaining in Italy, whilst Gallienus went to fight the barbarians in Illyricum, he grew tired of his equivocal situation, which was a kind of middle state between the subject and the sovereign; and to unite the title to the reality of power, which he already possessed to a great degree, this obscure upstart, by birth a Dacian, and by his first profession a shepherd, caused himself to be proclaimed emperor by his soldiers.

This news obliged Gallienus to leave Illyricum; he left there Marcian and Claudius, two brave and experienced officers, to command in his stead. They did their duty well against the barbarians, whom they conquered, and reduced to such distress, that they thought they should be happy if they could but get back with safety to their own country. Claudius was for pursuing and utterly extirpating them : but Marcian, who had other views, opposed this advice, and thereby gave them an opportunity of returning soon after with greater force than they had ever before brought against the empire. Claudius and Marcian having driven the barbarians out of Illyricum, rejoined Gallienus, not to serve him, but to take away his empire and his life.

They found that prince besieging Milan, where Aureolus, after being defeated in a battle, had shut himself up. They entered into a conspiracy with the pretorian prefect Heraclian, who was returned from the East; and they agreed together that they ought to deliver the republic from an emperor, whose conduct loaded it with shame and infamy. Some say that they were induced to take this resolution from an apprehension of danger to themselves and that this apprehension was artfully raised by Aureolus, who caused a list to be thrown into the camp of the besiegers, containing the names of the principal officers of the army, as persons marked out for death by Gallienus. This report may have been spread by the friends of Claudius, who wanted to make him appear less criminal, and in some measure to clear him of the stain of having conspired against his lawful prince, from whom he had never received anything but favours. Trebellius goes farther, and formally denies that Claudius had any share in the death of his predecessor. But in this he is convicted of flattery, both from the want of probability in what he relates, and by the contrary testimony of other writers. His plea in favour of Claudius, is the very plea of Claudius himself, who concealed his intrigue, who wanted not to be thought the murderer of Gallienus, and who, having had the address to procure an oppor­tunity of absenting himself, was at Ticinum, now Pavia, when that prince was killed before Milan.

The three chiefs of tile conspiracy seem likewise to have settled among themselves the choice of a successor to Gallienus. Neither of them wanted for ambition: but the superiority of Claudius’s merit determined them in his favour: whether from esteem for him, or because they foresaw the difficulty of uniting the suffrages of the soldiers in favour of any other, we shall not pretend to say.

When the plan was formed and settled, they pitched upon one Cecrops, who commanded the Dalmatian horse, to execute it; which he did in the following manner. While Gallienus was at table, or according to others, in bed, a false alarm was given him, purporting, that the besieged were making a vigorous sally. This prince had courage, as I have more than once observed. He started up immediately, and, without waiting until he was completely armed, or even staying for his guards, he mounted his horse, and rode, slightly attended, towards the place which had been pointed out to him. As he was going on, Ce­crops himself, or one of his men, shot Gallienus with an arrow, through the back. The emperor fell from his horse, and those about him carried him to his tent, where he died a few hours after.

The flatterers of the family of Constantine, which derived its principal splendour from Clau­dius, have here invented a new fable. They tell us that Gallienus, finding his end draw near, sent the imperial ornaments to Claudius. A supposition manifestly absurd: Gallienus having at that very time a brother who was Augustus, and a son who was Caesar.

The one was named Valerian, and the other Saloninus; and they were both killed by those whose interest it was to extinguish the imperial line. Claudius, who ought to be looked upon as the son of the author of their death, affected to confer the last honours upon Valerian, and to raise a tomb after him near Milan, upon which was engraved his name with the title of emperor. Saloninus perishd at Rome in the commotion we are going to speak of. Neither of these princes did anything memorable; nor are they scarce mentioned in his­tory but on account of their death. It is only observed, that Valerian did not approve of his brother’s dissolute manners. All else that we know concerning him, that is to say, his advising Gallienus to create Odenatus, Augustus, speaks moderation and solid sense.

Gallienus reigned fifteen years, if we reckon from the time when he received the title of Augustus; but only eight from that in which the captivity of his father put him in full possession of the impe­rial power. He was killed in the month of March of the year of Christ 268. All his posterity did not perish with him; for some of his descendants were living at the time when Trebellius wrote.

His death occasioned murmurs among the troops. They had hated and despised him whilst living, and when he was dead they heaped praises upon him, not from any alteration in their sentiments concerning him; but from their usual greediness of plunder, which they hoped to satisfy by taking this opportunity to raise fresh disturbances. In­terest was the sole motive of their complaints, and interest pacified them. Twenty pieces of gold which Marcian promised to each of the soldiers, immediately rendered Gallienus what they had always thought him : they declared him an usurper and unanimously elected Claudius emperor.

 At Rome, the news of the death of Gallienus was received with such transports of joy as bordered even upon madness. The senate and the people united in loading his memory with curses. His ministers and relations were the victims of the public hatred. The mob fell upon them, threw them from the top of the Tarpeian rock, and treated their dead bodies with the utmost ignominy. The whole city was in aflame: and Claudius, now emperor, was obliged to exert his authority in order to stop the riot, of which he feared the consequences. He sent orders to spare the friends and family of Gallienus; and carrying his policy beyond all bounds of decency and rea­son, he insisted that this prince, who had disgraced humanity, should be ranked among the gods. As he foresaw that the senate would be extremely unwilling to pass such a decree, he availed himself of the power of the soldiery, whose dispositions he again changed, so far as to persuade them to demand divine honours for the very man they had but just before declared a vile usurper. The senate thereupon ordered the deifying of Gallienus; joining ignominy to sacrilege, and profaning at the same ,time the majesty of the Supreme Being, and the glory of good princes, of whose virtue this honour had been the reward.

I know not whether any thing can be more capable of vilifying all human praise, and of rendering it despicable, than to see it thus prostituted upon such a prince as Gallienus. We have a monument of this wretched adulation still subsist­ing in a triumphal arch erected to his honour, the inscription of which imports, that his invincible valour was surpassed only by his piety: cujus invicta tirlus sola pietate superata est. What valour, what piety, were those of Gallienus, who, on one hand, minded nothing but luxury and pleasure, and, on the other, was the most ungrateful and most un­natural son that ever existed!

Whilst altars were erected to Gallienus, his death remained unrevenged. Strange inconsistency! But those who made him a god, were the very persons who had killed him.

It is no wonder that Gallienus was as much hated as he was despised. To the shameful vices of indolence, effeminacy, and every kind of debauchery, he added cruelty. Besides the example we have already given of this, the historian of his life assures us, that he often ordered three or four thousand soldiers to be massacred at once. This was his way of appeasing the seditions, which the vileness of his behaviour frequently occasioned.

The senate had a particular motive of hatred against him. This prince who was even sensible himself that he debased the throne, was jealous of every man of merit: and seeing tyrants and usurpers rise on all sides, he thought he took a wise precaution in excluding the senators from all military employments; lest the splendour of their dignity, backed by the command of an armed force, should raise their courage, and at the same time facilitate to them the means of invading the sovereign power. Thus this august assembly, which had furnished the state with all its generals and commanders ever since the foundation of Rome, lost that glorious prerogative: and instead of uniting, as it had always done before, military­ merit to the legislative power, it was reduced to the sole civil functions of the government, not less useful indeed, though less brilliant than the other. This gave rise to a distinction never before heard of among the Romans. The civil and the military began to form two separate bodies, from either of which there was no transition to the other.

This innovation highly incensed the senators : and they revenged themselves, as we have seen, upon the memory of Gallienus, and upon his family. But an habit of ease and quiet has bewitching charms. They soon grew used to it : and though they might, without the least difficulty, have obtained from the succeeding emperors, some of whom were truly valuable princes, the repeal of this prohibition of Gallienus; they preferred the tranquillity they enjoyed, to the dangers of war and the storms of sedition, and seemed to take for their motto. Less fame but more security.

All orders of the state were dissatisfied with Gallienus. The Christians alone had reason to speak well of him. As soon as he was master of the empire, he stopped the persecution which his father had raised against them, and ordered the burying-grounds and religious places of which they had been dispossessed, to be restored to them. It would be hard to assign the motive that rendered him thus favourable to the Christians: but one may, perhaps, not unreasonably conjecture, that his hatred of Macrian, who, all powerful under Valerian, had revolted almost immediately after his master’s misfortune, induced Gallienus to protect those to whom that minister, and afterwards usurper, was a declared enemy, to destroy his work, and to calm the persecution of which he was the author.

We may easily judge that learning did not flourish under so unsettled and violently disturbed reign. The muses delight in peace, and are silenced by the din of arms. Not but that the prince courted them personally, and wrote as well as his contemporaries in prose and in verse, though only upon trivial subjects. His esteem for the fine arts inspired him with an affection for Athens, which had always been their habitation and center. Full of this idea, he insisted on being made a citizen and first magistrate of that city, and on being ranked among the Areopagites. Vain and trifling cares for a prince to be taken up with, whilst his dominions were falling to ruin! I say the same, and with still greater reason, of the favour he was disposed to grant to the Platonic philosopher Plotinus, whose brain was filled with wild and singular notions, and who deserves less to be esteemed for the elevation of his thoughts, than to be despised for his idle turn of mind. Plotinus had taken it into his head to realize the idle system of Plato’s republic : and Gallienus was ready to assist him in that chimera, by rebuilding for him a city in Campania, which the philosopher was to govern according to the Platonic laws. Some jealous courtiers, says Porphyry, dissuaded the emperor from executing this design. There needed only common sense to make him reject it.

We see by this, that the protection which Gallienus granted to learning was of a piece with the rest of his vain, capricious and effeminate character: and therefore it is no wonder that, thwarted as it also was by the difficulty of the times, it never produced any solid benefit. We know of very few works, except those of Plotinus, that were composed during this reign: and if we regret the loss of any of those which we find quoted by other writers, it is only because they might have thrown some light upon the history of these times. There is, according to  Casaubon, in several libraries, a treatise upon the machines of war used by the ancients, the author of which, one Athenaeus, a Byzantine, seems to have been the engineer of that name who was employed by Gallienus, with his countryman Cleodamus, to fortify the towns of Thrace and Illyricum, which were exposed to the incursions and attacks of the Scythians.

No reign is fuller than that of Gallienus, of events which are interwoven with each other, and of which the complicated narrative forms a kind of labyrinth not easy to be pursued. I doubt the reader will have perceived it but too much, notwithstanding the clue I have endeavoured to lend him. The method I have followed in order to throw some light upon the subject, has been to divide the general object nearly into three parts, one of which comprehends what passed in the east, and especially the exploits of Odenatus; the second, what relates to Gaul and the adjacent provinces; and the third, the troubles and wars of the middle countries, whether occasioned by incursions of the barbarians, or by the rebellions of usurpers. Gallienus himself acted no where but in Italy, Illyricum and Gaul. He had scarcely any more influence in the events of the other parts of the empire, than if he had not been emperor. The commotions in Egypt and Africa, are a kind of detach­ed events, and have little connection with the rest.

This whole period of history would be very interesting, if any account of it had been transmitted to us by a good hand. Never were seen so many under this vicissitudes, so many revolutions, nor, I will venture to say, so many talents and so many virtues at any one time. Almost all the persons known in the history of the reign of Gallienus under the name of tyrants, or usurpers, were men of merit, skilled in the art of war, perfectly capable of conducting great affairs, and often estimable also for their moral virtues. Odenatus and Posthumus are proofs of this. It is an old observation, that times of trouble and confusion are the most favourable to talents. No sera in the Roman history was more fruitful of great men, than the latter times of the republic, and those of Gallienus: nor did France ever produce so many heroes at once, as during her wars with the English, under Charles VII and during the fury of those for which religion was made the pretence. In such melancholy times merit pierces easily, because it is greatly wanted; and it acquires perfection, by struggling with difficulties. Such is the deplorable condition of the human race. Men must be wretched, before the talents which do them the greatest honour can find a field wherein to display themselves.

Trebellius, in writing the history of the usurpers that arose under the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, fixed their number at thirty, from a fancy for which I shall not pretend to assign any reason: and to complete that number, he included in it Odenatus, whose promotion was legal; a former Valens, who revolted under Decius; children, whose age could not permit them to act scenes of this nature ; and two women, Zenobia, and Victoria. He was laughed at for inserting women in a catalogue of usurpers : upon which, to satisfy his critics, and at the same time keep to his favourite number of thirty, he afterwards added two other usurpers, the one prior, and the other posterior to Gallienus; the former having rebelled in the time of Maximin, and the latter in that of Claudius. If we examine things properly, we shall find under Gallienus eighteen usurpers, including Zenobia, whose boldness and am­bition entitle her to a place among that set of restless mortals. I have reckoned them up at the end of the Principal Events of this reign.

 

CLAUDIUS II THE GOTHICUS

 

WE have already had frequent occasion to mention Claudius, before he was raised to the empire. It will be proper now to make the reader better acquainted with him.

His names were M. Aurelius Claudius; to which are sometimes added those of Valerius and Flavius. History calls him Claudius as being the second emperor of that name: and he is also surnamed the Gothic, on account of a great victory which he gained over the Goths.

His origin is little known; and all that we can say of it with any certainty, is, that he was born in Illyricum. We are not told who was his father. Some have supposed him to be a natural son of one of the Gordians, without saying any thing farther. As the house of Constantine, which acknowledged him for its author, was interested in extolling him, flatterers were not wanting who framed a genealogy for him which went up to Dardanus and the ancient kings of Troy. The truth is, that he was of the number of those whose merit is their nobility.

Claudius had not any children : but he had two brothers, Quintillus and Crispus. Quintillus succeeded him, but reigned only a few days. Crispus was the father of a daughter called Claudia, who married Eutropius, one of the most illustrious lords of the Dardanian nation. Of this marriage was born Constantius Chlorus, father of the great Constantine. Constantius was therefore grand-nephew to Claudius, and probably owed his name to one of this emperor’s sisters, who was called Constantina.

Claudius began to appear under Decius, in the quality of tribune, and had a great share in his esteem. Decius, after bestowing high commendations on him, intrusted him with the important charge of defending the Strait of Thermopylae, and the entrance of Peloponnesus, against the barbarians. Valerian had an equal regard for him and, after trying him in several subaltern posts, at last raised him to the chief command of Illyricum. He intended to make him consul: but his sudden fall prevented the execution of that design. Claudius, thus esteemed by good princes, was feared by Gallienus, who was a bad one. This we find by a letter of his, in which he seems alarmed at Claudius’s complaining of him. He desires that great care may be taken to appease him, and that dexterously, by the intervention of other people, acting as if of their own accord, for fear of his flying to extremities if he suspected that his sovereign as informed of his dissatisfaction. We are not told what was the issue of this affair: but we know that Claudius did not trust Gallienus. He undoubtedly followed the advice which he gave to Regillianus, always to be upon his guard against the jealous mistrusts of the prince whom they both served.

Gallienus, notwithstanding his doubts and apprehensions of Claudius, employed him, and that usefully. He was accompanied by him in his first expedition against Posthumus; and, as we have already seen, when he left Illyricum in, order to march against Aureolus, he committed to him and Marcian the care of making war upon the Goths. Claudius succeeded; and if his counsel had been followed, those barbarians would probably have been extirpated, This success revived the esteem and affection which the senate had always had for him; and nothing can be more honourable than the acclamations and applause which that assembly bestowed upon him with a kind of transport, wishing in particular that the prince might love him as much as he deserved: which plainly shews that Gallienus’s prejudices against him were no secret.

His acquiring the throne by the murder of his emperor and of all the imperial family, was odious and criminal: and he himself was very sensible of it, since he endeavoured, as we observed before, to wipe off that stain, by concealing the share he had in the death of Gallienus. We therefore shall not, with Julian the apostate, commend the rectitude of the means by which Claudius raised himself to the empire: but we may say with truth, that this is the only blot in his whole life, which, in every other respect, deserves all the praise that is justly due to real magnanimity, true patriotism, a strict love of justice, a noble simplicity of manners, bravery and good conduct in war, and a wise and gentle government in peace. Zonaras gives us an instance of the great equity of this prince, in an affair in which his own interest was concerned. Gallienus had often taken from one, to give to another: and Claudius, when emperor, showed a readiness to redress those injustices. A woman went to him with a petition, setting forth that he himself possessed a piece of land which had been taken from her contrary to all right and reason. Finding her allegation true, he answered, “The wrong which Claudius did you when he was a private man, and not charged with the care of seeing the laws executed: Claudius, now emperor, redresses and accordingly he ordered the land to be restored to her.” The same justice prevailed throughout all his reign, which unfortunately, was too short.

His first care, after the troops had acknow­ledges him, was to write to the senate. His messenger arrived at Rome on the twenty-fourth of March, and the senators, assembling immediately, confirmed with joy the nomination of the army.

If we may judge of the manner in which the decrees of the senate were now passed, by the acts which we find in the writers of the Byzantine history; the suffrages of that once so grave and august assembly would seem to be given at this tithe with greater eagerness than decency; the assent of its members being expressed by their repeating the same words sixty or eighty times running. Thus for example, on the occasion we are speaking of, the senators cried out sixty times, “Claudius Augustus, may the gods preserve you for our happiness!” forty times, “Claudius Augustus, we always wished to have you for our emperor, or such an emperor as you and eighty times, “Claudius Augustus, we believe we shall find in you a father, a brother, a friend : you are a good senator : the empire acknowledges you for its worthy head.” I pass over the rest, not to tire the reader. But I cannot help observing, that this way of determining the most important affairs, wants dignity, and is liable to great inconveniencies.

Claudius, before he went to Rome, thought it necessary to get rid of Aureolus, who still held out in Milan. This rival of the new emperor’s power, after the death of Gallienus, made proposals to his successor, demanding his alliance, and to be acknowledged as his colleague. But Cladius, far from inclining to any such terms, after answering him, “That none but Gallienus, who had reason to be afraid, could think of entering into an agreement of that kind,” sent to Rome an edict addressed to the people, and a speech which was to be read in the senate, declaring Aureolus an usurper and a tyrant. Aureolus, unable to obtain peace, resolved to fight, and was conquered. He seems to have been taken prisoner, and it is certain that he was killed. The circumstances of his death are variously related. Some say, that he was killed contrary to Claudius’s order; and others, that it was by his com­mand. Some impute the execution of the deed to the soldiers; and others lay it to the charge of Aurelian, who was afterwards emperor. The truth is, however, easily distinguished through this obscu­rity. Claudius undoubtedly desired the death of Aureolus; but, that he might be thought merciful, he would not order it. He therefore pretended to be inclined to spare a conquered enemy, and underhand stirred up Aurelian and the soldiers, to destroy him. Claudius cannot be absolutely blamed for providing for his own safety by the death of a rival. But the dissimulation which he practised on this occasion was surely beneath him. He even carried it farther; by ordering the last honours to be paid to the man whom he had deprived of life, and a monument to be erected to him, with an epitaph in Greek, which is still extant, and which declares his pretended design to save the unfortunate Aureolus, if the soldiers had not prevented it. This tomb was between Milan and Bergamo, in a place upon the river Adda, called Pons Aureoli, which still retains some traces of the name of Aureolus in its present appellation of Pontirolo.

If we believe the epitome of Aurelius Victor, Claudius gained a great victory over the Alamanni, near the lake of Guarda, before he went to Rome. M. de Tillemont supports the account of that abbreviator by some conjectures. It is pretty extraordinary that Trebellius, who wrote rather a panegyric than an history of Claudius, and who, the better to celebrate him, has taken particular care to swell his stile, should omit a fact of this importance, so glorious to the prince whose praises were his theme.

Claudius, conqueror of Aureolus, and perhaps of the Alamanni also, went at length to Rome, to enjoy the congratulations and applause of his capital, which thought itself happy in having him for emperor. In the month of January that next ensued after his accession to the empire, he took a second consulship: which proves his having held that office once before. Of this, however, we have not any monument. For though Valerian had intended to make him consul several years sooner; that design was not put in execution, as appears by the senate’s desiring the consulship for Claudius, a few months before the death of Gallienus, is a reward for his exploits against the Goths. Claudius must therefore have named himself consul for the first time, in the interval between the decease of Gallienus and the then next month of January.

There is room to think that he stayed some months at Rome; and that to this time of tranquillity belongs what Trebellius says of the government of this prince, who enacted several wise and prudent laws, and showed his zeal tor justice by punishing wilfully corrupt judges with exemplary severity; and his mildness, by pretending not to see faults that were committed without design.

But he was soon forced to quit these pacific cares. The empire was in a violent situation, which necessarily required the melancholy remedy of war and arms. Tetricus occupied the provinces of the West. Zenobia, in the East, not satisfied with the territories which her husband Odenatus had possessed, extended her dominion by conquest, and forced Egypt to acknowledge her laws. The middle provinces were harassed by incursions of the northern nations. It was not possible for Claudius to attack so many enemies at once : and he immediately judged that Zenobia, being the most distant, ought not to be the first object of his attention. Nor did he hesitate between Tetricus and the Goths. “Tetricus, said he, is my enemy : the Goths are the enemies of the state.” He therefore fixed his views upon the barbarians, and resolved to begin with driving them out of the empire.

I observed before, in the last year of the reign of Gallienus, that Claudius wanted to pursue the Goths after he had conquered them ; but that his colleague Marcian opposed it, and let them escape. The facility with which they carried at least part of their booty into their own country, induced them to return, in much greater numbers. All the people which composed their nation, uniting, formed an army of three hundred and twenty thousand fighting men, and a fleet of two thousand sail. The general rendezvous was at the mouth of the river Tyras, now called the Niester. There this terrible multitude embarked, and, keeping close to the shore, attempted a first descent at Tomi, a place rendered famous by the banishment of Ovid, and a second at Marcianopolis; but both without much success. Upon their arrival in the Bosphoran strait, the Goths suffered greatly from the rapidity of the currents, which, confined within a narrow space, drove their vessels against each other with such violence, that their pilots were not able to manage them. Many of them perished with their cargoes and crews. But this did not hinder the barbarians from attacking Byzantium; from whence, being repulsed with loss, they continued their rout towards Asia and attacked Cyzicus. Here again they succeeded no better than before: but yet, persisting in their enterprise, and still hoping to make themselves amends in Greece and Macedonia, they crossed the Hellespont, and landed at mount Athos. After careening their vessels there, they steered for the gulph of Thessalonica, to which city they laid siege, as they also did to Cassandraea, which was not far off. While the main body of their army carried on these two sieges, their fleet, doubtless divided into several squadrons, ravaged the coasts of Thessaly, and of all Greece, the islands of Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus, and the maritime parts of Pamphylia. Wherever they landed the country was plundered: but the cities defended themselves in such a manner that not one of them was taken, except Athens, of which Zonaras says, they made themselves masters. That writer mentions a singular anecdote on this occasion. The Goths, says he, finding a great number of books in that city, which was the mother of learning, were going to burn them all, out of mere ferocity and savageness of disposition, and had already heaped them up in piles, when one of them, affecting greater wisdom than the rest, told his countrymen they ought to spare them, because it was owing to the reading of those books that the Greeks neglected the art of war, and became easy of conquest. This Goth did not know that the culture of learning never hindered either Alexander or Caesar from becoming the greatest of warriors. The barbarians did not keep their conquest long. Cleodemus, an Athenian, who had made his escape before the place of his nativity was sacked, assembled a few forces, fell suddenly upon them, cut several of the enemies to pieces, and made the rest betake themselves to flight.

In the meantime the sieges of Cassandraea and Thessalonica were carried on briskly. The Goths battered both those cities with engines, of which they had learned the use in their long wars against the Romans, and were ready to take them when Claudius arrived.

This prince had taken the necessary time to make such an armament as should enable him to attack these formidable enemies with advantage, and at last succeeded therein, though not without great difficulty, because, as he himself observed in one his letters to the senate, Tetricus possessed he best provinces of the empire, Gaul and Spain, and Zenobia was mistress of the light troops, and all the most expert archers. However, notwithstanding these obstacles, he raised a great force, and upon his arrival, the barbarians raised the siege of the two places which they had long pressed very closely.

They then moved farther up into the country, to Pelagonia, a province situated on the north of Macedonia. Claudius followed them thither: but as they had greatly the start of him, and continued bending their march towards the Danube, he could not come up with them until he reached Naissus, now Nissa in Servia. There he engaged them, in a battle which was long and obstinately disputed. The Romans gave way in several places : but at length a detachment of their army, going round by roads which seemed impassable, fell upon the rear and flank of their enemies. This unexpected attack decided the victory, and the Goths were forced to retreat, after leaving fifty thousand of their men killed upon the spot.

Claudius now completed what Marcian had hindered him from executing two years before. Resolving totally to extirpate the remains of the vanquished army of his enemies, he instantly pursued them. The Goths, on their side, without being intimidated by the vast slaughter they had suffered, rallied their shattered forces; and fencing themselves, according to their custom, with their waggons and baggage, they made a brave defence from behind this kind of rampart, which, however, was at last forced, and the Romans, besides an immense booty, took a prodigious number of prisoners. Those that escaped this second disaster, formed again, and fell back towards Macedonia; upon which Claudius, in order to surround them, sent his cavalry forward, whilst he with his infantry followed them behind. The fierceness and valour of the barbarians was so great, that, even in the deplorable condition to which so many disasters had reduced them, they still put their conquerors in danger. They fell upon the Roman infantry with such fury, that they threw it into disorder, cut part of it in pieces, and would probably have defeated the rest, if the horse, wheeling round, had not forced them to retreat. They then took shelter in the passes of mount Haemus, where famine and sickness completed their destruction. Their fleet after scouring the seas, returned to Macedonia, laden with booty, in order to rejoin the army it had left there. But that army was then destroyed: and the troops on board the fleet, either hoping to retrieve the losses their nation had sustained, or flattering themselves that they should be able to prevent its total ruin, landed; by which they only increased their disaster. Their ships, abandoned by their defenders, perished and were sunk; and the men themselves, unable to penetrate into an enemy’s country, where every thing opposed them, were forced to disband and sepa­rate; in which condition they were either killed, taken prisoners, or carried off by a contagious distemper which broke out among them. Thus, of all this numerous army of barbarians only a fee stragglers escaped, who, a few days after the death of Claudius, plundered Anchiala, (a city of Thrace upon the Euxine Sea, Nicopolis lay farther up the country, at the foot of mount Haemus), and made a fruitless attempt upon Nicopolis.

We know nothing more concerning this celebrated exploit of Claudius, which well deserved to be recorded by abler historians, more sensible of its importance, and more capable of relating its several circumstances and events. Claudius himself gives us a pretty just, but general idea of it, in a letter which I shall here transcribe. “Claudius to Brocchus. (This Brocchus was commander of Illyricum.) We have destroyed three hundred and twenty thousand Goths, and sunk two thousand ships. The rivers are covered with bucklers, and the shores with large swords and small lances. The plains are hid under heaps of dead. Every road is stained with blood. The great intrenchment, formed by a multitude of waggons linked together, has been abandoned. We have taken so many women prisoners, that every soldier in our army can claim two or three for his own slaves.” Claudius’s letter, which seems intended only to point out the extraordinary circumstances of the victory, speaks of none but female captives. History informs us farther, that there were kings and queens among the prisoners; and that the number of soldiers and subaltern officers who fell into the hands of the conquerors was so great, that after enrolling many of them among the Roman troops, there still remained enough to supply the provinces with a sufficiency of slaves for the culture of their lands: so that these Goths, from savage warriors becoming laborious husbandmen, were of service to their masters, at the same time that they perpetuated the triumph of Claudius.

This victory may therefore justly be compared to the greatest that was ever gained by any Roman general or emperor: and Claudius, most deservedly, took for it the surname of the Gothic, by which he is frequently distinguished in history.

Some writers have thought to enhance his glory by fabulously pretending that, like another Decius, he devoted himself to his country before he engaged the barbarians. But Trebellius’s silence is a sufficient refutation of this anecdotic, which, besides, does not agree with facts that are known and well attested.

Aurelian distinguished himself in the war against the Goths, in which he had an important command. He engaged the enemy several times, with considerable advantage: and the officers of the horse having attacked the barbarians rashly, without waiting for orders; Claudius thought he could not better guard against such inconveniences for the future, than by giving them, for their colonel-general, the same Aurelian, whose severity in maintaining discipline was known and feared.

Quintillus, the emperor’s brother, was also employed in this war: but we know nothing farther of him, nor has history recorded any exploit of his performing.

Claudius, wholly intent upon the war against the Goths, which he justly considered as the most dangerous to the state, suffered other matters to take Claudius their course until such time as he should be at liberty to attend to them also. It cannot be doubted but that, after conquering the barbarians, he would have turned his arms against Zenobia, who, as I observed before, had added Egypt to her other dominions. Nor can it be supposed that he would have abandoned that noble portion of the empire, Gaul, to Tetricus; besides whom, now rebels, called Bagaudes, desolated that country, and even dared to besiege the capital of the Eduans. The besieged had applied to Claudius, imploring his assistance: and we may imagine how grating it must have been to this magnanimous prince, not to be able immediately to comply with their just request, and to see the Eduans forced to open their gates to the enemy after a siege of seven months. Such interesting objects could not but stimulate Claudius’s courage; whilst his extraordinary qualities insured him success. It is highly probable that he would have finished the great work which his successor Aurelian accomplished, of reuniting to the empire all the members which had been separated from it, if he had lived. But death prevented him.

I said before, that a contagious distemper completed the ruin of the army of the Goths. The same infection spread to the Roman army. Claudius was seized with it, and died at Sirmium, in the third year of his reign, and the fifty-sixth of his age.

This prince has been justly praised for possessing, like Trajan, great talents and great virtues. Nothing would be wanting to crown his glory, if his merit had undergone the trial of a longer reign, and he had behaved in the peaceable pos­session of the empire, as well as he did in times of trouble and danger.

He was regretted by the senate, the people, and the army; and was ranked among the gods. That honour, than which nothing can be more mad and impious, was now become a mere matter of form.

But the public affection for his memory was shown by more uncommon honours, which custom had not vilified. The senate consecrated to him a bust of gold in the usual place of its assemblies. The people erected to him a statue of gold, ten feet high, in the capitol, facing the temple of Jupiter; and the tribunal for harangues was decorated with a pillar, on the top of which stood his statue in silver, weighing fifteen hundred Roman pounds.

Notwithstanding the great and good qualities of this prince, a rival was set up against him. Censorinus, a senator of considerable rank and distinction, who had retired into the country on account of a wound which had lamed him, was proclaimed Augustus, probably in Italy, by the troops which guarded that country. Trebellius, from whom we have this account, does not tell us, what were the motives which induced the soldiery to take this step, nor in what manner it was transacted: nei­ther docs he say, whether they were instigated by Censorinus, or whether they forced him to obey their will. But however that may have been, they soon grew tired of him, and thinking him too severe, killed him at the end of seven days. He was buried near Bologna, and his epitaph, setting forth all the titles with which he had been decorated in his life, ended with these words: “He was happy in all things whilst a private man, but a most unhappy emperor.” His relations, struck with grief and fear after this melancholy event, retired, some into Thrace, and some into Bithynia, where his family still subsisted at the time when Trebellius wrote.

In the beginning of the third year of Claudius, died Plotinus, the master of Porphyry, who has written his life. He was a famous professor of the Platonic philosophy, which was then in vogue, and which, bewildering its followers in abstruse speculations,  almost lost sight of that solid and essential object, the reformation of manners. Men who, under a specious title, troubled themselves so little about what is really useful, little deserve that we should trouble ourselves about them.

 

AURELIAN.

 

IMMEDIATELY after the death of Claudius II, Aurelian was elected to the empire by the legions of Illyricum. But he had instantly a rival. Claudius’s brother Quintillus commanded a body of troops near Aquileia, destined, without doubt, to hinder the barbarians, who were in arms in the neighbouring countries, from penetrating into Italy. When the news of the death of Claudius reached these troops, they thought no one worthier to succeed him than Quintillus, who was accordingly acknowledged emperor: not by hereditary right, as Trebellius expressly observes ; but on account of his probity and the gentleness of his manners. Some have said, that the senate joined its suffrages to that of the soldiers. 

It was not for the good of the empire that Quintillus should remain its sovereign, if it be true, as Zonaras says, with some probability, that he was a weak man, incapable of conducting great affairs. In effect, he was extremely terrified when he learned that Aurelian had been declared emperor at Sirmium. He harangued his troops, however, and exhorted them to remain faithful to him: but they, sensible of the difference of merit between the two competitors abandoned Quintillus, who, finding himself destitute of all resource, by the advice of his friends had his veins opened, after he had reigned only seventeen days. This account of his death is more probable than that of Trebellius, who, always zealous for the glory of the house of Claudius, says that Quintillus’s severity was what incensed the soldiers, and that he fell by their fury, a victim to his zeal for the maintenance of discipline, like Pertinax and Galba. Aurelian, delivered from this rival, did not envy him the honour of an apotheosis. The medals of Quintillus show that he was ranked among the gods.

Aurelian, who by this means remained sole and peaceable possessor of the empire, was, like many of his predecessors, a soldier of fortune, whose merit had made amends for the obscurity of his birth. He was born in one of the provinces of Illyricum, either Pannonia, Dacia, or Moesia. We know not the name or condition of his father, any otherwise than that the epitome of Victor says of him, that he cultivated the lands which a Roman senator, called Aurelius, possessed in the country where he lived. His mother was priestess of the sun in her village: and he always retained a singular veneration for that planet, which he worshipped as his tutelar deity, and as the greatest of the gods. She also pretended to divination. But we do not find by any thing we know of her son, that he was in the least given to this last weakness.

Aurelian, quick of mind, and robust of body, showed from his infancy a passion for war, which was so strong in him, that he never suffered a day to pass without exercising himself at shooting with the bow, throwing the javelin, or some other military operation. This taste remained all his life: for even after he was emperor, he tired several horses every day with hard riding. He entered into the army as soon as his age would permit; and was so extremely ardent and ready to draw his sword, that to distinguish him from another officer of the same name who served in the same corps, he was called Aurelian, sword in hand. This personal bravery was displayed, not at the expense of his fellow citizens by fighting duels with them, but at that of the enemies of the state. He is said to have killed, with his own hand, forty-eight Sarmatians in one day, and nine hundred and fifty within some days after. We observed elsewhere, that he was the first Roman who fought against the Franks, and had the honour of conquering them.

His valour made the troops esteem him, and they celebrated it in their rude songs: but at the same time his severity made them fear him. We may judge with what rigour he insisted on a strict observance of military discipline, by the following letter which he wrote, when tribune, to an officer whom we may call his lieutenant-colonel. “If, says he, you would advance yourself in the army, or rather if you would live, hinder the soldiers from stealing. Let not any one rob the peasant of his poultry; let him not touch a sheep which does not belong to him; let him not spoil the corn upon the ground, nor even take a bunch of grapes that is not his own. Suffer not those who are under you to extort oil, salt, or wood. Let them be content with their allowances. If they would have any thing more, it is by the blood of their enemies that they ought to acquire it, and not by the tears of the subjects of the empire.” Aurelian then enters into a pretty long detail concerning their armour, their dress, and the proper care of their horses and mules : after which he adds: “Let them serve one another mutually, as if they were each others slaves. Let them not consult diviners: let them respect the honour of the women in whose houses they lodge; and if any one raises a quarrel, let him suffer the bastinado.” Such were the laws which Aurelian prescribed; of which he insisted on the literal observance; and which none could violate with impunity. Being informed that a soldier had committed adultery with his landlord’s wife, he ordered the criminal to be quartered, by fastening his legs and arms to four branches of trees bent down for that purpose, and afterwards let go in such manner as to tear him asunder. This punishment seems cruel, and doubtless is so. But great evils require violent remedies: and the writer of Aurelian’s life observes, that his inexorable severity succeeded; and that the soldiers, finding what commander they had to deal with, took care to mend their manners and avoid those faults of which the punishment was sure and rigorous.

I observed before that the emperor Valerian feared lest his son might be hurt by Aurelian’s severity. But notwithstanding that, he did ample justice to the extraordinary merit of this great warrior, and took a pleasure in employing him in the most brilliant and most difficult affairs. He charged him with the care of visiting all the Roman camps, as inspector and reformer; gave him the command of Illyricum under Ulpius Crinitus, whose infirmities rendered him incapable of acting; sent him ambassador to Persia; and lastly made him consul, when, on account of his glorious poverty, he ordered the public treasury to defray the expenses which that high office then required.

This consulship of Aurelian has been mentioned elsewhere: but I cannot omit here a judicious and useful reflection which the historian of his life makes on this occasion. We lately saw, says Vopiscus, the consul Furius Placidus spend such vast sums upon the games which he exhibited in the circus, that he seemed rather to be giving away rich estates, than distributing suitable rewards to charioteers. All good men were grieved at it: for things are now come to such a pass that the consulship is bestowed, not upon the man, but upon his riches. Those happy times are past in which dignities were the recompense of merit; and the present will degenerate still more and more by that ostentatious pomp which is intended to catch the eyes of the multitude.

Aurelian probably took possession of the consulship on the twenty second of May of the year of Christ 258, two years before Valerian’s misfortune. No mention is made of him under Gallienus; either because that prince had removed him out of jealousy and hatred of his merit, or because he himself scorned to serve the most indolent and most despicable of men. Under Claudius, who was a friend to, and a just estimator of virtue, Aurelian began to appear again. He helped that emperor to destroy Aureolus, and, after shining greatly in the war against the Goths, was judged, as I said before, worthy to succeed him.

After the death of Quintillus, he went with all speed to Rome, there to be acknowledged: and according to the custom of new princes, he showed a tendency to mildness, and a readiness to listen the counsels that should be offered him. A senator who thought to please him by commending his severity, which sometimes amounted to cruelty, told him that the way to reign securely would be to use both steel and gold: steel against those who should fail in their duty towards him, and gold to reward his faithful servants. This sycophant was justly requited for his base advice, being himself the very first that suffered by Aurelian’s steel.

This prince could not stay long at Rome, but was soon obliged to return into Pannonia, which the Goths, notwithstanding the late dreadful defeat of their vast army, threatened with a new invasion. To hinder them from penetrating far, he wisely ordered the inhabitants of the country to send all their com, cattle, and provisions, to the cities, there to be taken care of; that the barbarians might not only be disappointed of their expected plunder, but also be stopped in their career by want of the necessaries of life. These measures might perhaps have sufficed, if the Romans had been at liberty to wait the event. But Italy was at the same time menaced by a formidable league of the German nations, who were preparing to enter that country in an hostile manner. Aurelian was therefore obliged to hasten against the Goths, who had passed the Danube. The two armies engaged, and the battle lasted until night, without any decisive advantage on either side: but in the night, the barbarians retreated and repassed the river, from the other side of which they sent deputies to sue for peace, which was granted them.

Italy stood in need of his presence to awe the German confederacy I have just spoken of. Four of these nations, whose names we are acquainted with, were the Alamanni, the Marcomanni, the Juthongi, and the Vandals. It is not easy to determine whether these people acted in concert, or each of them separately; and it is perhaps still more difficult to form a connected narrative out of the detached scraps which we find in different authors concerning Aurelian’s exploits against them. All that can be said on this head must necessarily be intermixed with perplexity and doubt.

The first seat of the war seems to have been the country bordering upon the Danube, where Aurelian having gained some advantage over the Juthongi in particular, these people agreed to send him an embassy, to propose peace. This step of submission was accompanied with haughtiness; their ambassadors being ordered not to speak in the humble stile of a conquered nation, but to offer their friendship and alliance, on the express condition of their receiving again the pensions which the Romans had used to pay them.

Aurelian, knowing their instructions, thought to awe and intimidate them by the formidable, magnificence of his appearance. When they were arrived in his camp, he did not give them audience immediately, but deferred it until the next day. All the Roman troops were then drawn up under arms, and ranged as if for battle. The emperor, cloathed with purple, ascended a lofty tribunal. All the principal officers surrounded him on horseback, forming a semi-circular avenue to his throne; and behind him appeared the standards and eagles of the legions, the golden images of the prince, and tables on which were written the names of the legions in letters of gold; the whole supported by spears of silver. The ambassadors of the Juthongi were, in effect, struck with wonder and admiration at the sight of this pompous splendour. They remained for some time silent: but recovering from their first surprize, they at length spoke, and not with less haughtiness than they had been directed to use.

They said, that if they desired peace, it was not because they had met with a small check which had scarcely hurt them, but because they believed that peace and alliance between them and the Romans would be of mutual service to both nations. They boasted of their strength, which, said they, the Romans had experienced under Gallienus; and pretended that if they were forced to fight again, the same success would still accompany their arms. They warned Aurelian not to trust to fortune, nor depend too much upon a slight advantage, owing to particular circumstances, and which might be followed by a greater reverse. And lastly they declared, that in return for their alliance, which they offered to the Romans, who would be greatly benefited thereby, they expected and insisted on the renewal of their for­mer pensions, without which they should become equally irreconcilable and invincible enemies.

Aurelian was fully determined not to grant the Juthongi any part of their demand, and therefore might easily have signified his resolution to them in few words. But his historian has thought proper to lend him a very long answer, containing particularly great encomiums on the prudence which directed all the operations of the Romans, widely different from the barbarians, who, always impetuous in their attacks, were always weakened by a first miscarriage. He reproached the Juthongi with having violated their treaties, and inferred from thence that it ill became them to demand as a tribute w hat was in fact only a voluntary gratuity, or recompense for their former services. He concluded with declaring that he was resolved to take vengeance on them for their insults, by ravaging their, country with fire and sword: and as an earnest of what they were to expect, he instanced, according to this speech thus made for him, the example of the three hundred thousand Goths lately conquered and extirpated by the Romans.

The embassy of the Juthongi having proved unsuccessful, war and arms were of course recurred to: and if we would endeavour to connect facts we must be obliged to suppose that the Juthongi did in common with the Marcomanni, and perhaps the Alamanni and Vandals, what Vopiscus relates of the Marcomanni only. We shall use the word barbarians, which includes them all.

Aurelian, proud of the advantage I have mentioned, and of having made the Juthongi desire a renewal of their ancient treaties, formed the design, not of driving the barbarians back to their own country, but of destroying them, as Claudius had done, by cutting off their retreat. To that end he placed himself behind them, hemming them in between his army and Italy. His plan was well concerted, and must in all probability have been attended with success, if the barriers of Italy had been well guarded. But they were not sufficiently secured. The barbarians forced them, and penetrated on the side of Milan. Rome was immediately alarmed, and all the evils which Italy had suffered under Gallienus were again apprehended. The fears of the people even produced some seditions, which Aurelian afterwards punished with his usual rigour.

He pursued the barbarians, and came up with them near Placentia. But always more eager to attack the enemy, than careful to defend himself, he fell into a snare which they had laid for him in the woods. His army was attacked towards the evening, and entirely defeated, with such loss as it was feared would bring on the ruin of the empire.

Aurelian himself began then to be afraid. He wrote to the senate, ordering the books of the Sibyls to be consulted. This, indeed, had been thought of the moment the barbarians entered Italy: but some flatterers had opposed it, saying, that the prince’s valour was such as rendered it needless to implore the assistance of the gods. Aurelian, sensible of his danger, blamed this way of thinking, in his letter to the senate; and declared that there could be no shame in conquering with the assistance of the divinity. A remedy for the present evils was therefore sought for in the oracles of the Sibyls, and all the superstitious practices which the priests of Apollo and the pontiffs pretended to find recommended there, and which resembled those of which we have seen several examples in the history of the republic, were carefully observed and executed: such, among others, were lustrations of the city and country, hymns sung by two choirs of children whose fathers and mothers were living, and sacrifices of various kinds. It is remarkable, that Aurelian, in offering whatever is necessary for the celebration of these feasts, promises to send prisoners of whatever nation may be desired. A proof that the cruel and impious custom of sacrificing human victims was practised at Rome as long as idolatry prevailed in that city.

Vopiscus ascribes the return of Aurelian’s good fortune to these wretched and criminal superstitions. The truth is that this prince, being a good warrior, and warned by his miscarriages to proceed with more circumspection, regained the superiority over the barbarians, who had advanced. as far as Fano near the river Metaurus. There he defeated them, and forced them to return back towards the country from whence they came. He gained a second victory over them near Placentia, and a third in the plains of Ticinum, now Pavia. By this means he drove them quite out of Italy: and there is room to think that he even pursued them beyond the Alps, if we may ascribe to this time, as M. de Tillemont does with great probability, what Dexippus relates concerning the Vandals.

These people, having been conquered by the Romans in a great battle, sued for peace. To end their kings had an interview with the emperor, who would not come to any final agreement with them until he knew the sentiments of his army, a circumstance which shows to what degree even the haughtiest and most resolute of the Roman emperors were then dependant on the soldiery. Aurelian therefore assembled his troops, and laid before them the treaty proposed by the Vandal kings. The soldiers, weary of a war in which they had experienced so many vicissitudes, declared that they chose to rest satisfied with the property they then enjoyed, without running any farther hazard: upon which the treaty was settled, and peace concluded. The Vandals engaged to return to their own country: and Aurelian undertook to furnish them with provisions until they reached the Danube. The kings of the Vandals gave their own children, and those of the principal chiefs of the army as hostages for the performance of their promise; and two thousand of their cavalry enlisted among the Roman troops. Most of the Vandals retired quietly: but some of them going out of their road as they were crossing the territories of the empire, in hopes of plunder; the Roman commander who was directed to escort their march, fell upon them with his troops, and killed five hundred of them: of which their kings were so far from complaining, that they ordered the ringleader of these marauders to be shot to death with arrows. Aurelian, thus freed from the Vandals, led his army back into Italy, which the Juthongi were again preparing to invade. But their menaces were not put in execution, at least that we know of, and Italy enjoyed perfect peace during all the rest of Aurelian’s reign. This important war was ended in the year of Christ 271, that is to say, in about twelve months after it began.

Aurelian returned to Rome, not with the satisfaction of a conqueror who goes to his capital to enjoy the applause due to his exploits, but with the resentment of an offended prince, who breathes revenge. I have already observed, that the unsuccessful beginning of the war occasioned some seditions at Rome; the cause of which Aurelian,in his own mind, imputed to the artful practices of ambitious men who privately aspired to the sovereignty. Whether this suspicion was grounded, is more than we can say. But among those that were put to death on this account, we find a Domitian; possibly the same who had assumed the title of Augustus, as we find by some medals; or a general of that name, mentioned in history, who defeated Macrian in the reign of Gallienus, and pretended to belong to the family of Vespasian. These, however, are only mere conjectures, entirely unnoticed by Vopiscus, who though always ready to praise Aurelian, owns that he behaved on this occasion with greater rigour than a prince more inclined to mercy need nave done: and that he shed the blood of several illustrious senators upon the bare, and often groundless, accusation of a single witness, whose own character was, sometimes, very bad. The public hatred became the just reward of this cruelty. Aurelian was esteemed for his great abilities, both in the management of war, and the government of the state : but none could love him; and he at last experienced, as we shall see, what a prince ought to fear who is feared by all.

The repeated dangers to which Rome had been exposed by the incursions of the barbarians, were a warning to Aurelian to put it in a state of defence. For five hundred years past, that is to say, since the wars of Hannibal, that city had not had cause to fear any foreign enemy. Far from trembling for her own safety, she had extended the terror of her name and arms to the extremities of the world. But in the meanwhile her fortifications had been neglected, and her walls had perished. Aurelian undertook to rebuild and fortify them according to the method then in use : and at the same time he extended the limits of the city to the circumference of fifty miles. Though he did not live to complete this great work, which his successor Probus finished, it nevertheless bore his name, and is marked accordingly in M. d’Anville’s plan of Rome prefixed to M. Rollin’s Roman History.

But these were not Aurelian’s principal cares. His great object, after having secured Italy by the defeat of the barbarians, was to re-unite. the empire all the vast territories which had been dismembered from it through the negligence and indolence of Gallienus. Tetricus, who held Gaul, did not seem to be at all enterprizing, and therefore the war against him might be deferred without fear or danger. Zenobia, an active prin­cess, ardent, and ambitious, after having added Egypt to the dominions which Odenatus possessed, extended her pretensions and her arms to Bithynia. Aurelian judged it most advisable to begin with her, and to reconquer the countries over which she reigned in despite of the Romans. It may not be improper here to give some account of this heroine, whose humiliation and de­feat was Aurelian’s greatest glory.

Zenobia called herself a descendant of the kings of Egypt, and decorated her pedigree with the names of the Ptolomy’s and Cleopatra’s from whom she pretended to derive her origin. She had all the graces of her sex, beauty and regularity of features, fine eyes, and teeth as white as pearls: only the heat of the climate where she was born, had given her a somewhat brown complexion. With the embellishments of her sex, she likewise possessed its foibles, the love of dress, of money, and of show. Her court resembled that of the kings of Persia, and, like them, she made her subjects worship her. Her chastity, which was such that she declined even the lawful use of marriage for any other than the immediate end ordained by the Creator, deserves great praise. She had several children by her husband Odenatus, three of whom are known in history: Herennianus, Timolaus, and Vaballath. Their mother certainly had her reasons for giving these three princes names borrowed from three different languages; the first Latin, the second Greek, and the third Syrian or Arabic.

By the qualities of the heart and mind, Zenobia was raised above her sex. She had all the virtues and all the vices of an hero: ambition, intrepidity, thirst of conquest, courage in danger, perseverance in labour, extensive views, dignity and authority of command. She always spoke in high terms of Dido, Semiramis, and Cleopatra, and resembled them by her talents. Her dress was a mixture of feminine luxury and military grandeur. From the time of Odenatus’s death, she wore, with the diadem, an imperial coat of mail, richly adorned with jewels. She harangued her soldiers, with a helmet on her head, and her arm naked. Accustomed, like her husband, to the fatigues of hunting, she was a stranger to all personal indulgence and affected delicacy. When she went in a carriage, the plainest and roughest was that which pleased her most: but she generally rode on horseback. Sometimes she walked, even journeys of several miles. Though she was very sober, yet, as the necessity of her affairs required her being often in the company of men, she drank as they did; and even in her grand entertainments she kept pace with her gener­als and the Persian and Armenian lords. Skilful in the art of governing, she knew how to blend rigour and indulgence, according to the merits and exigency of the case; and notwithstanding her natural inclination to accumulate, she spared no cost when money was necessary for the execution of her designs.  

This princess loved learning, and even cultivated it herself. She had with her the celebrated Longinus, who instructed her in the knowledge of the Greeks. Besides her mother-tongue, which was the Syrian, she spoke the Egyptian language perfectly, was well acquainted with the Greek, and understood the Latin, though, not being sufficiently mistress of it to speak it with ease, she never used it. But she made her sons, whom she treated on the footing of Roman emperors, always speak Latin, that being the language of the empire. She studied history, which is the school of princes; particularly that of her own country, and of the Ptolomy’s, whom she reckoned among her ancestors : and that her ideas of it might be the more complete and permanent, she herself wrote an abridgment of history. She read the Roman history in the Greek authors who have written it.

Zenobia is thought to have had a great share in the brilliant exploits by which Odenatus humbled the pride of Sapor. But she is highly criminal, if it be true, as there seems to be but too much reason to suspect, that she turned against her son-in­law, and even against her husband, that intrepid boldness which did her so much honour when dis­played against armed enemies. After the death of Odenatus, she took possession of the plenitude of power under the name of her sons, each of whom she decorated with the title of Augustus; and by the death of Maeonius, who had hoped to reap the spoils of his prince whom he assassinated, and who enjoyed the fruit of his crime but for a very short time, she found herself sole queen and empress of the east. Gallienus’s feeble efforts to disturb her, were easily defeated. Under Claudius, she did more: for she enlarged her domi­nions: and whilst that prince, sufficiently employed in stemming the torrent of the Goths, kept peace with her, that he might not have too many enemies upon his hands at once; she took advantage of the opportunity, and conquered Egypt.

This acquisition was not made without difficulties and battles. Zenobia had secured a party in that country, by the means of Timagenes, an Egyptian, who was in her service; and to back it, she sent thither her general Zabdas at the head of seventy thousand Palmyrenes and Syrians. The greater part of the Egyptian nation had, however, not been gained over by Timagenes. On the con­trary, we find that the old hatred of the Egyptians against the Syrians revived on this occasion, and that they met Zabdas with an army of fifty thousand men. A battle was fought: the Egyptians were conquered: and Zabdas, thinking the work done, left only five thousand men in the country, and returned with the rest of his forces.

Just at this time Probus, or rather Probatus, was chasing the ships of the Goths at sea, in consequence of the orders he had received from Claudius: but learning the revolution in Egypt, he repaired immediately thither, and, reanimating the courage of the conquered nation, which suffered impatiently the yoke of the Palmyrenes, (for by that name we shall call, as the ancient authors do, all those that obeyed Zenobia) he easily delivered that country from the five thousand men which Zabdas had left there, and Egypt returned with joy to its allegiance to the Roman emperor.

This advantage was of short duration. The Palmyrenes returned to the charge, and, though defeated at first in a great battle, at last regained an entire superiority: for the conquerors having possessed themselves of a mountain near Babylon, a city within a small distance of the Nile, in hopes of cutting off the retreat of the Palmyrenes; Timagenes, who was born in that country and knew it extremely well, found means, by private roads with which he was acquainted, to gain the summit of the hill, from whence falling suddenly upon the enemies, he entirely defeated them. Probatus was taken prisoner, and killed himself out of despair. Egypt then destitute of forces and of a chief, remained obedient to Zenobia, who reigned over it in peace.

Whilst her arms prospered in Egypt, all the nations bordering upon Palmyra were awed by her authority, and the terror of her name. The Saracens, the Arabs, and the Armenians respected her, and did not dare to stir.

This ambitious queen seems even to have formed the design of subjecting the whole Roman empire to her power, and, like Cleopatra, whose descendant she called herself, to have entertained thoughts of dictating her laws in the capitol. It was doubtless in this view that she endeavoured to make an alliance with Victoria, whose influence was very great in Gaul, in order to attack Rome on both sides at once, on the east and on the west. This plan miscarrying, either by the death of Victoria, or by some other accident, Zenobia still kept up her pretensions; and towards the latter end of the reign of Claudius, and in the beginning of that of Aurelian, she gained ground in Asia Minor. Cappadocia, and even Bithynia had already acknowledged her sovereignty, and the passage is very short from thence to Europe.

It was time that Aurelian should stop her progress; which he made it his first care to do, as soon as he had secured the tranquillity of the west. In the second year of his reign, he set out from Rome to march against Zenobia, taking his rout through Illyricum, and rooting out the latent seeds of discord wherever he passed. In Dalmatia, he destroyed the usurper Septimius, who had caused himself to be proclaimed Augustus by the soldiers un­der his command, and whom those very soldiers, either intimidated or bribed by Aurelian, killed within a few days. Advancing into Illyricum, he defeated several parties of barbarians, and after­wards passed the Danube to encounter Cannabas or Cannabald, king of the Goths, whom he conquered, and killed in battle, with five thousand of his men. He likewise gained some advantages in Thrace over other barbarians who ravaged that country; and in this manner he arrived at Byzantium.

As soon as he had crossed the Strait, Bithynia submitted without resisting. Ancyra, the metropolis of Galatia, likewise opened her gates to him. Tyana stopped him in Cappadocia; which threw him into such a passion, that he swore he would not leave a dog alive in the city: that was his expression. Accordingly he prepared to be­siege it. But one of its inhabitants, whose name was Heraclammon, thinking it madness to pretend to hold out against an imperial army commanded by the prince in person, and fearing to be enveloped in the disaster of his country, chose rather to save himself, as he hoped, by betraying it. He let Aurelian into the city, and at once put him in possession of it.

Aurelian behaved on this occasion like a great prince, doing justice, and at the same time showing mercy. Heraclammon’s treason, though useful to him, did not appear the less odious: and being sensible that he could never trust the man who had betrayed his own country, he made him suffer the just punishment of his crime, by ordering some of his soldiers to kill him privately. Careful, however, not to exceed the bounds of a just severity, and to avoid even the suspicion of avarice, he spared the children of a guilty father, and gave them their parent’s estate, which was very considerable.

It was a great comfort to the unfortunate Tyanians to be revenged of the traitor by the hand of their conqueror, besides which, they themselves experienced the clemency of Aurelian, whom the unexpected facility of the conquest had probably soothed. Heraclammon was the only one among them that perished. No other lost either life or fortune. The Roman soldiers, remembering the expression which had escaped their emperor, desired leave to plunder the city and massacre all its inhabitants. “That, said Aurelian, is not what I swore. Go, kill all the dogs.” By this favourable construction he mercifully eluded the apparent meaning of his rash vow; and the Roman troops were so strictly disciplined under him, that they obeyed without murmuring, though dis­appointed in their hopes of a rich booty.

The historian of this emperor introduces here the marvellous. He ascribes Aurelian’s mildness towards the people of Tyana to an apparition of the philosopher Apollonius, who, interesting himself in behalf of his country, appeared to the emperor in a dream, and speaking to him, not in Greek, though that was his mother tongue, but in Latin, to be the better understood by him to whom he spoke, repeated thrice these words: “Aurelian! If you would conquer, spare my fellow-citizens.” The author of this story believed all the fables that have been related concerning Apollonius: and it cost him no great trouble to add this to so many others.

The same writer, in the detail he gives us of the manner in which the city was taken, introduces a circumstance, which, though not of the same kind as the miraculous dream of which I have been speaking, will find little more credit with judicious readers. He says, that the traitor pointed out to Aurelian a place where he could easily climb up to the top of toe wall: that he accordingly did climb up in his purple coat of mail; and showing himself from thence both to the besieged and the besiegers, filled the city with terror, and his own people with joy, and by that means became master of the place. Can any one believe that a general, and an emperor, should thus wantonly expose himself for what the lowest officer in his army could have done full as well?

Zenobia, either less quick in her motions than Aurelian, or unwilling to remove too far from the center of her dominions, waited for the enemy at the entrance of Syria, where she had assembled great forces. Antioch was her place of arms: and when she knew that the Roman emperor was marched thither, she sent against him her general Zabdas at the head of a powerful army. A great battle was fought by the horse of each side near Immae, a town of Syria, at some distance from Antioch. Aurelian feared the heavy-armed cavalry of the orientals, though they had never seem­ed formidable to any but the ancient Romans; and to conquer them, he had recourse to a stratagem. He ordered his horse to fly before that of the enemy, until such time as the latter should be fatigued and exhausted by the pursuit, and then to face about and charge them. This artifice, so common in war, succeeded. The Palmyrenes eagerly pursued the Romans, whose flight was only feigned: and when these last perceived that their adversaries were quite spent, overcome with heat, and scarce able to bear the weight of their arms, they turned upon them, attacked them vigorously, put them in disorder, felled them to the ground, and trampled to death under the feet of their horses even more than they killed with the sword. In this battle an officer called Pompeianus, and surnamed Francus, the Frank, distinguished himself greatly. This surname seems to indicate that he was a Frank by origin, though his name is Roman.

Zabdas, having thus lost that part of his forces in which he confided most, retreated towards Antioch, and in order to gain admittance into that city, which he doubted whether the inhabitants would otherwise grant him, he caused it to be reported upon the road, that he was conqueror, and had taken the Roman emperor prisoner. He carried with him in fact, as captive, in the middle of his troops, a man decorated with the imperial ornaments, and not unlike Aurelian in shape and age. He entered Antioch under favour of this deceit: and having informed Zenobia of what had happened, they both left the city in the night, taking with them all the Palmyrene troops, and made the best of their way to Emesa, there to prepare to sustain a new attack.

Aurelian, who did not expect Zabdas’s retreat, marched out of his camp the day after this engagement of the horse; in order to come to a general battle. But finding that his enemies were gone, he pursued them, and arrived at Antioch, from whence the fear of his severity had driven away great part of its inhabitants. Their alarm was groundless; for Aurelian immediately declared that he looked upon what they had done, as effect of necessity, and not of any ill-will towards him or the empire: and in consequence of this, he ordered proclamation to be made in all the neighbouring cities, assuring the fugitives that they might return with perfect safety. They did so; and Antioch was soon repeopled.

When Zenobia fled from Antioch, she left a body of troops upon an eminence which commanded the famous suburbs called Daphne. Her design probably was to stop Aurelian’s pursuit, until she could have time to look about her, and be ready to give him a proper reception. In effect, Aure­lian was obliged to fight these troops before he could dislodge them from their advantageous and important post: after which, continuing his march towards Emesa, he made himself master of Apamaea, Larissa, and Arethusa, which lay in his way, and which voluntarily opened their gates to him. Upon his arrival near Emesa, he found the Palmyrene army waiting for him under the walls of that city. We are not told the number of Aurelian’s troops : but in all probability they at least equalled, if they did not surpass, those of Zenobia; and great part of them consisted of Europeans inured to war by their several frequent engagements with the barbarians of the north. Others of them were Asiatics, among whom Zosimus mentions the soldiers of Palestine, who, besides the usual armour of other troops, had great clubs and poles, of which they made admirable use in the time of action.

The two armies were not long in presence of each other before they engaged, and the victory was obstinately disputed. The Palmyrene cavalry gained a complete advantage over that of the Romans. It was more numerous: and the Romans having made a movement in order to extend their front, to prevent being surrounded, the enemy’s horse, which attacked them at that very instant, easily broke their disordered ranks, and put them to flight. But at the same time, they made the rest of their army lose the fruit of this happy beginning, by amusing themselves with pursuing the fugitives. The Roman infantry, whose strength was invincible, seeing that of the orientals deprived of the assistance of its horse, advanced against it, and put it in disorder. Then it was that the troops of Palestine did excellent service, by knocking down with their heavy clubs, men covered with iron, whose swords and darts could not easily pierce. The cavalry of the Romans, reanimated by the courage and success of their infantry, rallied and formed a­new, and Aurelian gained a decisive victory. The Palmyrenes left the field of battle strewed with their dead: and such of them as escaped took shelter in Emesa. Zenobia having collected together the shattered remains of her army, held a council to consult what was best to be done. She could not depend upon the affection of the people of Emesa, who were all Romans in their hearts and inclinations; and a speedy remedy was requisite to guard against farther danger from Aurelian, who was not of a temper to leave his victory imperfect. She therefore determined to remove farther, and shut herself up in Palmyra, her capital, a strong city, well provided, and able to bear a long siege, during which she hoped to find fresh resources, and to retrieve her fortune by dint of perseverance.

The battle of Emesa is so great an event, that the account of it could not fail to be established with somewhat of the marvellous. Vopiscus relates, that in the beginning of the action, whilst the cavalry gave way and quitted the fight, a divinity, of august form, far above the condition of mortals, was seen to exhort the infantry to advance and attack the enemy. The same writer adds, that Aurelian, after the victory, entering Emesa, where he was received with joy, and thinking it incumbent on him to repair directly to the temple of the god Elagabal, to pay to him the duties of religion, immediately knew again, in the form under which that god was worshipped, the divine object which had been so serviceable to him in the battle. It is not an easy matter to conceive the possibility of this resemblance: for the divine object, as it is called, which exhorted the Roman soldiers to fight, doubtless appeared in a human shape; and the god Elagabal was a stone of conic form. But Vopiscus does not mind such trifling distinctions. He says that Aurelian, struck with this wonderful resemblance, instantly found that he owed his victory to the protection of this god, and that in consequence thereof he adorned the temple of Emesa with rich offerings, and afterwards built a magnificent temple to the sun, which was the same as Elagabal, in Rome. It is true that Aurelian signalized his superstitious piety towards the sun in every shape. But, as we observed before, he had imbibed in his infancy a veneration for that planet, of which his mother was priestess: and a speech of his, made in the time of Valerian, shows us how faithfully he had preserved those first impressions by which he had been taught to look upon the sun as the sure and visible god.

Aurelian immediately pursued Zenobia. In his march from Emesa to Palmyra, he was harassed by the Arabs, who, robbers by profession, accustomed to live by plunder, and quick as lightning in their attacks and retreats, followed then the very same trade as they do now. Such enemies, though very troublesome, were not able to obstruct Aure­lian’s progress. He arrived before Palmyra, and prepared to besiege it, in order to end the war by the reduction of that place.

The city of Palmyra, very famous in antiquity, and of which some magnificent ruins still remain, was founded by Solomon, according to the testimony of Josephus, who assures us that the city called Thadmor in the original text of the Scriptures, is the same with Palmyra. Its situation rendered it strong and important, being in the middle of a fertile track of land, well watered with excellent springs, and entirely surrounded by arid and uncultivated deserts : so that, to use Pliny’s ex­pression, it was in a manner separated by nature from the rest of the world. Thus placed between two great empires, that of the Parthians, and afterwards of the Persians on the east, and that of the Romans on the west, it preserved itself, merely through the excellence of its situation, independent of both; was always courted by them when they quarrelled or went to war, and had never been reduced by either. Under Odenatus and Zenobia it rose to its highest pitch of grandeur, and became the capital of a vast empire.

Zenobia took care not only to make it a rich city, but to provide it well with all necessaries for war. This is attested by Aurelian, in a letter which he wrote whilst he was besieging it. “One would hardly believe, says that prince, what quantities of arrows, darts, and stones for annoying an enemy, there are in Palmyra. Every part of its walls is defended with three or four engines for hurling those stones, whilst others throw out fire : in short, no kind of military stores is wanting in the place, than which none ever was better prepared to make a long and vigorous resistance.”

Aurelian, foreseeing how difficult it would be to  take Palmyra by force, resolved to try the gentler means of negotiation. He probably flattered himself that his presence in the country, backed by a victorious army, might have damped Zenobia’s courage, and disposed her to prefer the assurance of a mild and favourable treatment to the hazards of war. Upon this supposition, he sent her a letter couched in the following terms: “Aurelian, emperor, and restorer of the Roman power in the east, to Zenobia and all that are engaged in her cause. You ought to have taken of your own accord the step which I now order by this letter. I command you to surrender yourselves to me, upon my promising, as I am graciously pleased to do, that I will permit you to live. You, Zenobia, in particular, shall spend your life quietly in the place where I will settle you with the advice of the senate. You shall deliver up to the Roman people all your jewels, gold, silver, silk, horses, and camels. I will continue the Palmyrenes in all the rights they have hitherto enjoyed.”

This letter had not the effect which Aurelian expected. Zenobia was too resolute to think of a voluntary degradation : and accordingly she replied in a stile as haughty as that in which she was addressed.

The following was her answer: “Zenobia, queen of the east, to Aurelian Augustus. Never did any one demand by letter, what you require. It is by the strength of arms that wars are ended. You would have me surrender, as if you did not know that Cleopatra, formerly, preferred death to servitude, even though attended with the greatest mitigations. We expect immediate assistance from the Persians: the Saracens and the Armenians are for us. A few Arabian robbers have defeated your army, Aurelian. What then will be the case when the forces of our allies shall have joined us? You will surely then lay aside that haughtiness with which you command me to submit, as if you was already conqueror.”

Zenobia’s answer leaving no hopes of a voluntary submission; Aurelian, determined to force her, formed the siege of Palmyra, in the course of which he behaved like a brave and experienced commander. He took great care to have his army well supplied with all necessaries; and as he was encamped in a barren country, he ordered all the people round about it, that were under his obedience, to bring him daily plenty of provisions. He defeated the Persians who were coming to the assistance of the besieged; and, partly by persuasion, partly by force, made the Saracens and Armenians change sides and join him. He fought in person in several engage­ments, and in one of them was wounded by an arrow.

The Palmyrenes defended themselves at first with such advantage, that they even insulted their besiegers, ironically advising them not to attempt impossibilities. One of them attacking the emperor with abusive words, was justly punished for his daring insolence : for whilst he was indulging himself in impertinent bravadoes, a Persian archer, who was near Aurelian, said to him: “If you approve of it, my lord, I will chastise that fellow for his impudence.” Which Aurelian having agreed to, the Persian placed some of his comrades before him whilst he bent his bow, and then let fly an arrow which instantly brought down the Palmyrene, who fell from the walls, dead, in the midst of the Romans.

The siege lasted a great while, and nothing but the want of provisions could at last get the better of Zenobia’s resistance : though even then she disdained to submit to the conqueror. To avoid this, she resolved to fly to the territories of the Persians, to solicit their assistance : and accordingly she mounted one of her swiftest camels, and reached the Euphrates, which was only a day’s journey from Palmyra. But Aurelian, being im­mediately informed of her flight, sent after her a detachment of his horse, which overtook her just as she had stepped into a boat to cross the river. The Romans seized her, and carried her to the emperor, who, upon her being presented to him, asked her with an angry voice, how she had dared to insult the Roman emperors. Her answer was flattering, but neither mean nor timid. “I acknowledge you for emperor, said she to him; you who know how to conquer: but Gallienus, and others like him, never seemed to me worthy of that name.” 

According to Zosimus, the Palmyrenes did not all agree to surrender their city to Aurelian even after he had taken Zenobia. But it is more probable that she, at the time of her leaving them, had exhorted them to hold out until she should return with assistance from the Persians; and that having lost all hopes by her being made prisoner, they embraced the only remaining remedy, and implored the mercy of the conqueror. Aurelian, moved by their prayers, granted them life and liberty, and contented himself with stripping them of their riches.

Thus master of Palmyra, and thinking his authority sufficiently established in it, Aurelian turned to Emesa, and there ordered Zenobia and her adherents to be tried by a court, at which he himself presided. The Roman soldiers demanded her death: and if we believe Zosimus, she purchased her life by meanly laying all the blame of the war upon her counsellors and ministers. For my part, I rather prefer Vopiscus’s account according to which this princess owed her life to the generosity of Aurelian, who thought it would be an inglorious action to put to death a woman who was become his captive. He likewise judged that the Roman empire was under an obligation to Zenobia, whose courage and good conduct had preserved the provinces of the east from being attacked by the Persians. And lastly, his vanity was flattered with the thought of having his triumph graced by the presence of so illustrious a prisoner: for he valued himself much upon his victory, and was highly offended at some who said that the conquering of a woman was no great exploit. Such a woman as Zenobia justly seemed preferable to many men. He therefore spared the life of this princess, and extended the same mercy to her third son Vaballath. As to the two others, Herennianus and Timolaus, authors differ greatly concerning them. Some, contrary to all probability, say they were put to death by Aurelian ; and others, that they died a natural death; whilst others again pretended that they were led in triumph with their mother. All we know of them with any certainty, is that they had reigned with their mother, and that Timolaus was a great proficient for his age in the Latin eloquence. In other respects they are but little known, and Vaballath is the only one of Zenobia’s sons of whom antiquity makes any mention after Aurelian’s triumph.

The principal persons of Zenobia’s court, and particularly those to whom the first undertaking of the war was imputed, or who had assisted in carrying it on, were not treated with the same indulgence as their queen. Aurelian ordered them either to be put to death directly, or to be kept until he crossed the Thracian Bosphorus, and then to be drowned in the sea.

Among those who perished at Emesa, was the celebrated Longinus, whose death reflects shame of  him that ordered it. He excelled in rhetoric and philosophy, and we still have in his well known treatise of the sublime, an indisputable proof of his superior merit. His crime was that he had drawn up the letter which Zenobia sent in answer to Aurelian’s command to her to surrender. Can Longinus be deemed guilty for having entered into the spirit of the queen whose secretary he was? He suffered death with great fortitude, even endeavouring himself to comfort those whom his melancholy fate filled with pity and indignation.

Whilst Aurelian made war upon Zenobia in the East, his lieutenant Probus reconquered Egypt from her. This general, who afterwards became emperor, had triumphed over all the efforts of the Palmyrenes, who had fought bravely to defend their conquest, but had not been able to resist the superior force and merit of their enemy. Aurelian, having thus reunited to the Roman empire all that Zenobia had dismembered from it, set out on his return to Europe.

He had crossed the Bosphorus, and even defeated some parties of Carpians who were over-running Thrace, when he learned that the Palmyrenes had revolted. One Apsaeus, who had been attached to Zenobia, and had escaped Aurelian’s inquiries and revenge, returning to Palmyra, exhorted its inhabitants to shake off their yoke, and was listened to. They sounded Marcellinus, who commanded in Mesopotamia, and endeavoured to prevail upon him to assume the purple. But he, faithful to his prince, put them off from time to time, whilst he informed Aurelian of what was passing; until at last, growing weary of his delays, they massacred the Roman garrison that was in their city, with its commander Sandarion, and proclaimed emperor a relation of Zenobia, who is called Achilleus by Vopiscus, and Antiochus by Zosimus.

Aurelian, always ready, turned back immediately upon the receipt of this news, and arrived at Antioch before the Palmyrenes heard of his having left Europe. Astonished at this amazing dispatch, they opened their gates to him without attempting to resist. But this forced submission did not save them from the rigorous chastisement which Aurelian thought justly due to their rebellion. The city was delivered up to the fury of the soldiers, who plundered and sacked it, and shed torrents of blood, without respecting either sex or age. This dreadful execution lasted several days: at the end of which Aurelian, at last satisfied, ordered his troops to cease their rage against the deplorable remains of a late most flourishing people. The usurper of the purple seemed to him too mean an object to be deprived of life : nor would he destroy the buildings of the city for the fault of their wretched inhabitants : so far from it, that he ordered the temple of the sun, which the greedy soldiers had robbed of its ornaments and riches, to be restored to its former magnificence and splendour. Palmyra then was not destroyed: but it suffered greatly, and did not recover from this severe disaster until a long time after. It remained in a state of ruin and desolation, until Justinian repaired and fortified it new, to make it a barrier against the incursions of the Saracens.

Aurelian, after having punished Palmyra, had Egypt again to reduce, which had revolted at the same time. The author of this rebellion was Firmus, an old friend and ally of Zenobia, who, seeing the power of that queen destroyed, had taken advantage of the conqueror’s absence, and of the fickleness of the Alexandrians, ever fond of novelty, to get himself proclaimed Augustus. His riches facilitated the success of his enterprize. Great part of the paper manufactures of Egypt belonged to him, and he traded by sea to India, and received from each of these branches a vast income. His allies allies were the Blemmyes and the Saracens, both warlike nations, and he himself was a man of parts and resolution, capable of conducting great affairs. Aurelian went from Mesopotamia to Egypt to fight him. The war was not long, nor the event doubtful. Aurelian himself speaking of it in an edict addressed to the Roman people, says: “We have put to flight the Egyptian robber, Firmus : we have besieged him, taken him, and made him expire on the rack.”

The last words of the fragment of this edict, which Vopiscus has preserved, are remarkable, and show that the Romans were now absolutely no better than an idle and voluptuous people. So greatly had they degenerated from their pristine glory! After acquainting them that the supplies of corn from Egypt, which Firmus had suppressed, would be sent regularly for the future, Aurelian adds: “I will take care that Rome shall not be disturbed by any uneasiness. Follow your diversions, your games, and your races in circus. The care of the public is our business : let pleasure be yours.”

Firmus cannot have reigned longer than a few months. Both his ambitious elevation and his fall happened within the course of the year of Christ 273, which is also that in which Zenobia was taken prisoner, and Palmyra was sacked. Surprizing things are told of the strength of body of this usurper, and of the capacity of his stomach for eating and drinking. Such as are curious of those details, may find them in Vopiscus.

To Aurelian’s war against Firmus, or to that of Probus a little before in Egypt, may be referred the destruction of Bruchium, a great quarter of Alexandria, which, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, was ruined under Aurelian, and remained deserted ever after.

Aurelian, conqueror of Palmyra and of Egypt, returned into the West, to complete, by the reduction of Gaul, the reunion of all the parts had been dismembered from the empire. He succeeded easily in this expedition, being assisted by the very person against whom he made the war.

Tetricus had reigned six years over Gaul, Spain, and Britain; or rather he bore the title of emperor in those provinces, without having much power. Continually exposed to the murmurs and seditions of troops mutinous of themselves, and rendered still more so by one Faustinus, of whom we know nothing farther, he was grown so weary of the violent agitations in which he passed his life, and of the dangers which surrounded him incessantly, that he longed to return to his first private station, but could not obtain even that satisfaction. His name was necessary to the rebels, to cover their pretensions. Thus tyrannized by those who called themselves his subjects, he implored Aurelian’s assistance, using in his letter to him on that occasion this half line of Virgil: “Invincible prince, deliver me from these evils.” Aurelian did not want any great invi­tation to go to Gaul, than which nothing could please him more. Tetricus made a show of intending to fight, and the two armies met near Chalon on the Marne: but as soon as the battle began Tetricus and son went over to Aurelian, and put themselves in his power. The rebels, though abandoned by their leader, persisted in their obstinacy, and fought; but with vast disadvantage: for having no regular or fixed command among them, they were soon thrown into disorder, and cut in pieces or dispersed, so that Aurelian remained completely victorious. The fate of this battle determined the war. All the countries un­der Tetricus submitted to Aurelian: and after a kind of schism of thirteen years, that is to say, from the usurpation of Posthumus, Gaul, Spain, and Britain again acknowledged the laws of Rome.

Gaul, thus recovered by Aurelian, was also protected by him against the Germans or Franks, whom he drove beyond the Rhine. The inhabitants of Lyons were most severely punished by him; but we know not for what reason.

Aurelian had made the most of every moment of his reign; nor would it be easy to name any prince that ever did such great things in so short time. In the year of his accession to the throne, which was the 270th of Christ, and the following, he made war upon the barbarians of the North, and drove the Alamanni and their allies out of Italy. In 272, he marched into the East, gained three victories over Zenobia, and besieged her in Palmyra. The year 273, is so full of exploits, that one can hardly conceive how Aurelian could possibly perform them all within that space. Zeno­bia stopped in her flight, and brought back prisoner; Palmyra taken; the Carpians beaten in Thrace; a second revolt of Palmyra severely punished; Egypt reconquered from Firmus; and Gaul reunited to the empire by the battle of Châlons and the surrender of Tetricus: all this Aurelian did in one year. But this vast success unfortunately swelled his heart with pride; the too usual attendant on great prosperity.

In the beginning of his reign his deportment was remarkably modest; such as showed that he did not forget either the obscurity of his origin, or the mediocrity of his first fortune. He did not make his grandeur consist in the magnificence his equipages; nor did he, when emperor, dress his slaves otherwise than before his elevation. His wife and daughter managed his domestic affairs with all the regularity of a private family. He never wore any garment made of silk; and when the empress desired one day to have a robe of that sort, he refused it her, saying: “May the gods forbid that I should ever purchase a dress which would cost its weight in gold.” For such was then the enormous price of silk. No delicacies spread their table: but it was plain and decent. The simplicity which lie observed with respect to himself and his family, extended to his conduct towards others, and even to his regulations for the public. He gave to his friends, but with moderation: his intention being to set them above want, but not to expose them to envy by loading them with riches. He forbid all superfluous ornaments in the dress of men, but allowed them to the weaker sex. As eunuchs were much in fashion in great families, and for that reason very dear, he fixed the number which each might have according to its rank and dignity: and he once had thoughts of forbidding gold to be used for lace or gilding, by which so much of that valuable metal is lost to society.

His great successes altered this plain and just way of thinking. After he had conquered Zenobia and all the nations that went to her assistance, Persians, Armenians, Saracens, his head grew giddy, and he showed, says his historian, more pride and arrogance. He imitated the pomp and luxury of the orientals whom he had vanquished, grew fond of magnificence in dress, and wore cloth of gold enriched with jewels. He received, as a great present, a robe of Indian purple, which was sent him him by the king of Persia, and which surpassed in splendour all that were made in the west. It was probably then that he assumed the diadem, unknown before to any of the Roman emperors, if we except Caligula and Heliogabalus; the former of whom was dissuaded from wearing it by being told that he was much above the rank of kings, and the other never dared to put it on but in his own palace: whereas Aurelian appeared in public with the diadem, and was represented with it upon his coins. I cannot think he wore the Tiara, though Vopiscus seems to say he did. But it is very pro­bable that it was this prince who first introduced into the Roman armies the custom of having figures of dragons for their standards. Such were used among the Persians; and Aurelian might like them, not only as having a more terrifying aspect, but also as being more glaring and pompous than those of the Roman soldiery. They are often mentioned in later times.

Aurelian having abated of his first severity in regard to himself, likewise favoured the increase of luxury among his subjects. He permitted both the senators and their wives, and even the soldiers, to wear and use ornaments which had been prohibited before. But the detail of such matters does not belong to my subject.

This prince was naturally haughty: and it is not to be wondered at if his victories made him more so. After his return to Europe, having defeated some of the Carpians in Thrace, the senate decreed him the surname of Carpicus. But he rejected with scorn a title borrowed from so insignificant a nation, whilst the bore the much more famous ones of Gothicus, Sarmaticus, Parthicus, Palmyrenicus, Armeniacus and Adiabeticus, and even laughed at the senate, in one of his letters to them, for thinking to honour him by the addition of so trifling a name. The truth is, and it appears by his medals, that he wanted to be called Lord and God: a sacrilegious usurpation, of which Domitian alone, among all his predecessors, had set him the example. This was indisputably the height of arrogance as well as of impiety. But the Pagans were accustomed to treat their gods so familiarly, that it may perhaps seem still more surprising that Aurelian should so far despise and trample upon the rules of human decency, as to lead in triumph Tetricus, a Roman, a senator, a consular, whom all these titles ought to have exempted from such ignominy, and who, besides, had not been reduced by force of arms, but had submitted voluntarily to him, as to a friend and deliverer.

Aurelian was justly intitled to a triumph, and all the magnificence which he displayed in it might have been proper enough, had he not been guilty of the injustice and insolent cruelty I have just mentioned towards Tetricus. The following is the description which Vopiscus gives us of this triumph.

Three royal chariots graced its splendour. The first was that of Odenatus, shining with gold, silver, and precious stones. Another, equally superb, had been given to Aurelian by the king of Persia. The third had been made for Zenobia, who, in the height of her prosperity, when she flattered herself with thoughts of becoming mistress of Rome, intended it for her triumphant entry into that city: little foreseeing that it would be her fate to follow that very chariot, as a captive. Vopiscus mentions a fourth chariot, less magnificent, without doubt,  than any of the former, but not less singular. This was the chariot of the king of the Goths, drawn by four stags. Aurelian, who had taken it in battle, made his triumphant entry in it, according to the authors quoted by this historian, and upon his arrival at the capitol sacrificed the four stags, in consequence of a vow he had made to that effect. According to Zonoras, Aurelian’s chariot was drawn by four elephants.

A great number of wild beasts brought from dis­tant countries, such as elephants, lions, leopards, tigers, elks, and camels, formed part of this pom­pous show; after which marched eight hundred couple of gladiators, destined, probably, to fight at the games that were to be given afterwards. As to the beasts, the historian observes that Au­relian made presents of them, after his triumph, to several private persons, that the public might not be put to the expense of keeping them.

A vast train of foreigners, of all the nations of the world, preceded the triumpher’s chariot, divided, so far as we can guess at the meaning of an author who expresses himself very badly, into two classes, the one consisting of ambassadors, the other of captives. Before the ambassadors, who came from the Blemmyes, the Auxumites, the inhabitants of Arabia Felix, the Indians, the Bactrians, the Saracens, and the Persians, were carried the presents which their masters offered to the emperor. The prisoners, Goths, Alans, Roxolans, Sarmatians, Franks, Suevi, Vandals, Germans, marched sorrowfully, with their hands tied behind them. Among this last division were also some of the principal people of Palmyra, whose lives Aurelian had spared; and numbers of Egyptian rebels. Ten women, who had been taken fighting among the Goths in the dress of men, likewise made their appearance, under the name of Amazons : and that all these various nations might be the more easily distinguished, their several names, written in large letters, and fixed to the top of pikes, were carried before them.

The march of the prisoners was closed by Tetricus and Zenobia, both magnificently adorned. Tetricus had on the imperial robe of purple, over a rich Gaulish dress. He was accompanied by his son, to whom he had communicated the title of emperor in Gaul. Zenobia was so loaded with diamonds, jewels, and ornaments of all sorts, that she could scarcely bear their weight; but was often obliged to stop. The chains of gold round her ancles, wrists, and neck, were supported by some of her guards. Her children, both sons and daughters, walked on each side of her.

After these were carried the crowns of gold which the cities and nations of the empire had sent to the triumpher, according to custom: and,

Lastly, Aurelian himself appeared, in his chariot, followed by his troops dressed in splendid attire, and by all the orders and companies of the city of Rome with their respective ornaments and banners. Among these the senate held the first rank, fuller of admiration for the conqueror’s victories, than of esteem for his person. The senators knew that Aurelian did not love them; and his treatment of Tetricus, who was one of their members, seemed to them a reflection upon their whole body.

So numerous a procession could not but move very slowly. It was the ninth hour of the day (three o’clock in the afternoon) when Aurelian arrived at the capitol, and he did not get back to his palace until pretty late at night.

Aurelian having satisfied his vanity by leading Tetricus and Zenobia in triumph, treated them in other respects humanely and generously. He assigned Zenobia a pleasant and convenient retreat in the territory of Tibur, not far from Adrian’s villa, where she spent the rest of her days living like a Roman lady. Some writers say that he married her to a senator; and that from this marriage is­sued the Roman posterity of Zenobia, which subsisted with honour at the time when Eutropius wrote. But that posterity may, with equal probability, be supposed to have proceeded from her daughters, whom Aurelian married, according to Zonaras, to illustrious citizens of Rome.

To conclude what I have to say of this princess, I shall add here, after, M. de. Tillemont, that St Athanasius took her to be a Jewess, meaning, without doubt, in respect of her religion; and that, according to Theodoret, it was to please her that Paul of Samosata, whom she patronised, professed opinions very like those of the Jews concerning the person of Jesus Christ, saying that he was only a mere man, who had nothing in his nature superior to other men, nor was distinguished, from them any otherwise than by a more abundant participation of the divine grace.

I have already observed that Herennianus and Timolaus, the two eldest of Zenobia’s sons make but little figure in history, and seem to have died when very young. The case is not quite the same with regard to Vaballath, whose name we find on medals, joined to that of Aurelian Augustus: from whence it may reasonably be conjectured, that Aurelian, after leading him in triumph, gave him some small territory, which he enjoyed under that emperor’s protection.

As to Tetricus, Aurelian not only restored him to the senatorial dignity, but appointed Visitor and reformer of Lucania, and of great part of Italy : and upon giving him this post, he said to him pleasantly enough, that it was better to govern a canton of Italy, than to reign in Gaul. At the same time he treated him with great distinction, calling him his colleague, and giving him sometimes even the name of emperor. Tetricus the son likewise enjoyed all the honours he could lawfully desire. He lived with his father in a magnificent house in Rome in which they caused their story to be painted in Mosaic. Aurelian was represented giving them the robe Praetexta, which was then the dress of the senators; and receiving from them the scepter, the crown, and the other ornaments of the imperial dignity. We are told, that when the work was finished, they invited Aurelian to dine with them, and see this painting. Both of them were wise enough to forget entirely the high rank from which they had fallen: and the consequence of their modest behaviour was that they lived quietly, free from danger, and greatly respected by Aurelian and his successors. Scaliger, upon the strength of some of their medals, on which found the word Consecratio, asserts that divine honours were decreed them after their death. But it is scarcely probable that an apotheosis should be granted to men who died in a private station, and were no way related to the reigning family: and I believe the thing is without example, at least on the part of the Roman senate. It is not impossible but that some of the Gauls, over whom the Tetricus’s had reigned, might take that method to express their gratitude and respect to their memory.

The public rejoicings, races in the circus, theatrical entertainments, combats of gladiators, hunting of wild beasts, and representations of sea-fights, were continued for several days after Aurelian’s triumph. Not that this prince was himself fond of any of those diversions: for he seldom was present at them. Pantomimes were what pleased him most; and he was delighted to see a professed glutton devour incredible quantities of victuals, such as eating at one meal a whole boar, a lamb, a sucking pig, and drink a barrel of wine poured down his throat through a funnel. We may judge by this specimen, that Aurelian’s pleasures were not over delicate; though he suited himself to the taste of the people in the public diversions which he gave. About this time he instituted to perpetuity solemn games and combats in honour of the sun.

The festivals for his triumph were accompanied with largesses, particularly of bread ready baked instead of raw corn that used to be given before. What occasioned this change, was as follows. Aurelian, who probably then thought of introducing it, in order to please the people by saving them the expense and trouble of making their bread, promised, when he set out for the war in the East, that if he returned conqueror he would distribute to the citizens crowns of two pounds weight. The people, always greedy, imagined they should receive crowns of gold. But all the riches of the state would not have been sufficient for such a largess. On his return, he explained his meaning, and let the citizens know that he would give them daily two pound loaves, made of fine flower, in the shape of crowns. This weight answered to the quantity of corn which had used to be distributed: and Aurelian soon after added to it another ounce, to defray which, Egypt was subjected to a new tax upon glass, flax, paper, and other products of that country. Highly pleased with himself for this augmentation, as appears by one of his letters which we have, he looked upon it as an acquisition of great glory to his reign, and had the strict observance of it extremely at heart: “for, said he, nothing is more loving than the Roman people, when they are well fed.”

Aurelian, likewise established a distribution of pork, and thought of adding to it a largess of wine. His design was to buy of such persons as should be disposed to sell them, some of the uncultivated lands of Etruria, to plant them with vines, which were to be cultivated by prisoners of war of the barbarous nations he had conquered, and to devote their produce to the use of the Roman citizens. However, he did not execute this design ; being either prevented by death, or dissuaded from it by his pretorian prefect, who represented to him, that if he gave the people wine, the next step must be to give them fowls.

This observation is very just: and every one, I believe, must be sensible that these extraordinary largesses, introduced by the Roman emperors in order to gain the love of the people, could not but encourage idleness and extinguish industry. The people, without doubt, must live: but for their own sakes and for that of the state, they ought to live by their labour. Yet the abuse of these dis­tributions increased daily : and under some of the following emperors three pounds of bread, or thirty six ounces (for the Roman pounds consisted of twelve ounces) were given every day to each of the citizens.

Besides these stated largesses, Aurelian gave three extraordinary ones. He made the people presents even of cloaths, of white vests with sleeves, the wearing of which was looked upon in ancient times as an act of effeminacy; of vests made of African and Egyptian flax; and of hand­kerchiefs, which the citizens made use of at the games of the circus, to express, by waving or shaking them, which of the champions or racers they interested themselves for; instead of shaking their togas, or gowns, as they had used to do before on these occasions.

Aurelian’s liberality was not confined to the people of Rome. He generously remitted all old debts due to the state and burnt publicly in Trajan’s square all the deeds and writings relative thereto, that the debtors might never be molested on that account. He desired that every one should enjoy perfect tranquillity under his government: the better to secure which, and at once to stop all prosecutions of those who had carried arms against him, he published a general amnesty. He suppressed, with uncommon vigour, that pest of society, informers, who, under pretence of zeal for the interests of the exchequer, harassed and oppressed numbers of private persons: and all public exhortation was punished with the utmost rigour. In short, Aurelian was a just prince. It is pity that his severity was carried too far.

Inclination, and not necessity, was his motive. This appears from his choosing to be present when any of his slaves were punished, instead of commit­ting that disagreeable office to one of his domes­tics; and from his often inflicting punishments greater than the offence deserved: as when he passed sentence of death for an adultery committed by a woman-slave with a man of the same condition, though the laws did not look upon any contract between slaves as equivalent to marriage. The action was undoubtedly wrong  but surely it did not deserve so severe a punishment, because it was authorized.

His severity, or, to speak perhaps more properly, his cruelty, was not confined to men of low condition only. Senators were frequently the object of it; and he is even accused of having sometimes charged innocent persons with false imputations of conspiracy and rebellion, in order to have a pretence for taking away their lives. This censure of Aurelian may perhaps have arisen from what the historian John of Antioch relates, of several senators being put to death as guilty of corresponding with Zenobia. The sedition raised by the managers of the mint at Rome, may likewise have given Aurelian occasion to exercise his rigour upon persons of great distinction : for it became a down­right war, and it can hardly be supposed to have attained the height which history says it did, without the assistance of some powerful men.

These managers, or directors of the mint, having villainously debased the current coin, and fearing without doubt, the just punishment of their crimes, rebelled, and were headed by one Felicissimus, who, from being the emperor’s slave, was become keeper of the imperial treasury. We may judge how formidable this faction must have been, since nothing less than an army could get the better of it. A bloody battle was fought within the walls of Rome, in which the seditious were conquered; but not until after they had killed seven thousand of the emperor’s troops. Aurelian punished this rebellion with excessive severity; and perhaps his vengeance may have extended to several noblemen, whom their friends have represented as innocent. He is even charged with having put to death his own nephew, the son of his sister, without any just cause : but the writers who mention this, do not explain themselves any farther. All these facts are known to us but by halves: for which reason we can neither justify nor absolute­ly condemn Aurelian: though it must be owned that he has been looked upon, both during his life and after his death, as a cruel and bloody prince, that he in fact struck off many heads; and that, in consequence thereof, he was feared and hated by the senate, whose pedagogue the people called him.

What ought, after all, to keep us from too hastily arraigning the memory of Aurelian, is that he proved himself estimable not only by his exploits in war, but also by several actions well suiting a good government in civil affairs. Of this we have already mentioned some instances: but the subject is not exhausted. After he had quashed the sedi­tion of the coiners, he called in all the bad money they had circulated, and issued good in lieu of it. He likewise made several regulations for the welfare of the state; and though few of them have reached our times, yet, besides those before spoken of, we know that he forbid the keeping of concubines of free condition : by which we may judge of his care to preserve decency of manners. He respected the public order so much as to let even his own slaves be tried by the common courts of justice if they were accused of any crime.

He took great care that Rome should be well supplied with provisions and to render this the more easy and certain, he established companies of mariners upon the Nile and the Tiber. His capital was indebted to him for several works of great use to its citizens. I have mentioned his rebuilding and fortifying the walls of Rome. He made stately quays on each side of the Tiber, and cleared the bed of that river where its navigation was obstructed. And all this he did in a very short reign, disturbed by almost continual wars. He had other views, of which his too sudden death prevented the execution. Of this number were public baths, which he intended to build on the other side of the Tiber, and a fine square which he began in Ostia.

He loved magnificence; and he built in Rome, in honour of his favourite divinity, the sun, a noble temple, in which he consecrated fifteen thousand pound weight of gold. All the temples of the city were enriched with his offerings, and the capitol in particular was filled with the gifts he had received from the barbarians conquered by his arms. Vopiscus mentions also revenues and emoluments of his appointing in favour of the pontiffs: in which there is nothing improbable. But I cannot believe upon the bare authority of that writer, that so grave and severe a prince ever thought of re-establishing the senate of women instituted by Heliogabalus. Such a design does not suit with the character of Aurelian.

The pacific cares of which I have been speaking, busied him only for a short time after his triumph. Loving always to be employed in action, he went into Gaul, where his presence soon prevented the rise of a rebellion which threatened to disturb the tranquillity of that province. It is thought to have been in this journey that he re-built and enlarged the ancient city of Genaubum on the Loire, and gave it his name, which it still retains to this day, though somewhat disfigured. He called it Aurellianum, from whence has been formed by corruption the word Orleans. It became from that time a city of much greater importance than it ever was before; having until then held only the second rank among the places of the Carnunti, that is to say of the people who inhibited the country now called pais Chartrain. To the same emperor, and to the same time, is ascribed the founding of Dijon, which, in its origin, was only a castle, and not a city.

Aurelian went from Gaul into Vindelicia, which was infested by barbarians, perhaps the Alamanni. He drove them from thence, restored peace to the country, and advanced into Illyricum, where he did a thing, dictated indeed by prudence, but which it is somewhat surprising that a prince of his brave and warlike disposition should resolve on. Despairing of being able to keep that part of Dacia which Trajan had conquered beyond the Danube, he abandoned it; removing its inhabitants to the right hand side of the river, into a part of Moesia, situated exactly in the middle of that province: so that Aurelian’s new Dacia cut Moesia in two. In this Dacia stood the city of Sardica, famous in the Ecclesiastical history of the fourth century for a great council held there. By this means Aurelian contracted the boundaries of the Roman empire, in making the Danube its barrier on that side: and this is a farther instance, which may be added to those I have mentioned elsewhere, of the necessity the god Terminus was under of retrograding, even in the time of Pagan Rome; and an additional answer to the invectives which the worshippers of idols vented against Christianity on account of Jovian’s treaty with the Persians.

Among the inhabitants with which Aurelian peopled his new Dacia, there probably was a number of Carpians : for we are told that he removed part of that nation into the territories of the empire, where Diocletian afterwards settled them all.

From thence Aurelian prepared to march into Asia and the east, to make war upon the Persians: for which we can assign no cause, unless it be, that having pacified and re-united the whole empire under his laws, he thought he had a right to take advantage of the prosperous situation of his affairs, and of his great strength, to avenge the captivity and sufferings of Valerian. It is true that the Persians, by sending succours to Zenobia, had furnished the Roman emperor with a reason for attacking them. But he certainly must have made some agreement with them after that event, since he received from their king a chariot, and other presents, which formed part of the ornaments of his triumph. After he had vanquished Zenobia, Gaul still remained to be reconquered; and this was doubtless the consideration which made him defer showing his resentment against the Persians: but when all his enemies were subdued, he thought it time to take satisfaction for the insolence with which Sapor had treated the Roman name.

That prince was not upon the Persian throne at the time we are now speaking of. He died towards the end of the year of Christ 271, after a reign of thirty-one years, and was succeeded by his son Hormisdas, who reigned but one year, and was replaced by Vararanes, who reigned at least three years. It was therefore against this last that Aurelian thought of making war, when an unex­pected death put an end to his reign.

His excessive severity occasioned the conspiracy by which he perished. In the beginning of the year of Christ 275, he was at Caenophrurium in Thrace, between Heraclea and Byzantium, waiting only for fair weather to cross the strait and take the field. There, he had some reason to be dissatisfied with Mnesthaeus, one of his secretaries, whom, justly suspecting him of rapine and extortion, he threatened to punish. Mnesthaeus, well knowing that Aurelian never menaced in vain, resolved to prevent him; and to that end devised a dark and horrid plot. Counterfeiting the emperor’s hand, which he had long practised, he drew up, in imitation of his writing, a list of the principal officers of the army, as if doomed to death by Aurelian; mixing with them the names of several persons who were known to have just cause to fear the prince’s anger, and, as a farther confirmation of what he said, his own. Those who were set down in this fatal list, be­ing well acquainted with Aurelian’s rigour, and never suspecting it to be forged, concerted together, and watching the opportunity of the emperor’s going out slightly guarded, fell upon him and killed him. Mucapor, a man of consequence, as we may judge from a letter of Aurelian’s writing to him, which Vopiscus has preserved, headed the conspirators, and gave his master the fatal blow with his own hand.

Thus fell, by the treachery of his own people, a prince who may be looked upon as a hero; who, in a few years, completed the great work of re-uniting every part of the empire under one head; who restored military discipline among his troops, whose views were great and noble with regard to government; and to whose charge no blame can be laid, except his inexorable severity. But that only fault brought him to a tragical and untimely end, and has hurt his reputation with posterity. Aurelian was, in Diocletian’s opinion, a prince rather necessary to the empire, than good and praiseworthy; rather a general than an emperor: and no encomium is given him without adding, that he was a stranger to clemency, that first of virtues in a sovereign; nor without taxing him with cruelty and love of blood. I have already observed that this part of his character has, perhaps, been exaggerated; and that there is room to think that those whom he put to death were guilty of seditious practices or designs. But the shedding of illustrious blood always leaves a stain upon him that sheds it, unless the guilt of the criminal be proved beyond all doubt by a due and regular trial.

The senate did not much regret Aurelian : the people who had received great largesses from him, were concerned for his death : the army, in the midst of which he was killed, avenged him. Mnesthaeus, the principal author of the murder, was exposed to wild beasts. Among the other conspirators, the soldiers made a distinction, not thinking it just to confound those who had been blinded by false fears, with the wretches whose deliberate wickedness admitted of no excuse. Several of these last were put to death immediately. The army spared those whom their high rank, or the consideration of their having been deceived by false reports, seemed to render in some degree objects of mercy. The troops, however, could not resolve upon choosing a new emperor from among themselves, but referred that important deliberation to the senate, as we shall soon relate more fully. In the mean time they raised a monument to Aurelian upon the spot where he was killed, and desired the senate to tank him among the gods which was readily agreed to.

Aurelian reigned near five years, and left at his death an only daughter, whose son, of the same name as his grandfather, had been proconsul of Cilicia, and lived retired in Sicily at the time when Vopiscus wrote, that is to say, under Diocletian.

The Christians did not at first feel Aurelian’s rigour. On the contrary, we are told of a fact which proves that he heard them, and did them the same justice as to his other subjects. Paul Samosata, bishop of Antioch, having been deposed for his errors by a council which was held in that very city, obstinately refused to quit the episcopal mansion, and maintained himself in it by force against Domnus, whom the council had appointed for his successor. The bishops had recourse to Aurelian, that their sentence might be put in execution: and that prince, to whom Zenobia’s having protected Paul of Samosata could be no great recommendation, examined the affair, and determined it very equitably; ordering, that the house which belonged to the bishopric should be inhabited by the person whom the bishops of Italy and the bishop of Rome acknowledged.

Aurelian afterwards altered his way of thinking with respect to the Christians, and was just ready to issue a bloody edict against them, when death cut him off. We do not find that this edict was published. But nevertheless, the prince’s well known design brought on a persecution, which is reckoned the ninth, and which crowned several martyrs, whose history may be seen in M. de Tillemont.

The most celebrated writer under Aurelian was Longinus, of whom I have spoken sufficiently. Amelius, a Platonic philosopher, disciple of Plotinus, and intimately connected with Porphyry, who had studied under the same master, likewise acquired some reputation in these times. I have quoted Dexippus more than once, both as a warrior and an historian. Vopiscus mentions his having seen a journal of the life and actions of Aurelian, of which he made use in composing the his­tory of that prince. But he does not say by whom it was written.