The cruelty, follies and murder of Commodus. Election Of Pertinax. His attempts to reform the state. His assasination by the Praetorian Guard.
Indulgence of Marcus
THE mildness of Marcus, which the rigid discipline of the
Stoics was unable to eradicate, formed, at the same time,
the most amiable, and the only defective, part of his
character. His excellent understanding was often deceived by
the unsuspecting goodness of his heart. Artful men, who
study the passions of princes, and conceal their own,
approached his person in the disguise of philosophic
sanctity, and acquired riches and honours by affecting to
despise them.(1) His excessive indulgence to his brother, his
wife, and his son, exceeded the bounds of private virtue,
and became a public injury, by the example and consequences
of their vices.
To his wife
Faustina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has
been as much celebrated for her gallantries as for her
beauty. The grave simplicity of the philosopher was
ill-calculated to engage her wanton levity, or to fix that
unbounded passion for variety, which often discovered
personal merit in the meanest of mankind.(2) The Cupid of the
ancients was, in general, a very sensual deity; and the
amour's of an empress, as they exact on her side the
plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much
sentimental delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire
who seemed ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of
Faustina; which, according to the prejudices of every age,
reflected some disgrace on the injured husband. He promoted
several of her lovers to posts of honour and profit,(3) and
during a connection of thirty years, invariably gave her
proofs of the most tender confidence, and of a respect which
ended not with her life. In his Meditations, he thanks the
gods, who had bestowed on him a wife, so faithful, so
gentle, and of such a wonderful simplicity of manners.(4) The
obsequious senate, at his earnest request, declared her a
goddess. She was represented in her temples, with the
attributes of Juno, Venus, and Ceres; and it was decreed,
that on the day of their nuptials, the youth of either sex
should pay their vows before the altar of their chaste
patroness. (5)
To his son Commodus
The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the
purity of the father's virtues. It has been objected to
Marcus, that he sacrificed the happiness of millions to a
fond partiality for a worthless boy, and that he chose a
successor in his own family, rather than in the republic.
Nothing, however, was neglected by the anxious father, and
by the men of virtue and learning whom he summoned to his
assistance, to expand the narrow mind of young Commodus, to
correct his growing vices, and to render him worthy of the
throne, for which he was designed. But the power of
instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those
happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous. The
distasteful lesson of a grave philosopher was in a moment
obliterated by the whispers of a profligate favourite, and
Marcus himself blasted the fruits of this laboured
education, by admitting his son, at the age of fourteen or
fifteen, to a full participation of the Imperial power. He
lived but four years afterwards; but he lived long enough to
repent a rash measure, which raised the impetuous youth
above the restraint of reason and authority.
Accession of the emperor Commodus
Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of
society are produced by the restraints which the necessary,
but unequal, laws of property have imposed on the appetites
of mankind, by confining to a few the possession of those
objects that are coveted by many. Of all our passions and
appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and
unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the
submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord,
the laws of society lose their force, and their place is
seldom supplied by those of humanity. The ardour of
contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success,
the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers,
all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice
of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has
been stained with civil blood; but these motives will not
account for the unprovoked cruelties of Commodus, who had
nothing to wish and everything to enjoy. The beloved son of
Marcus succeeded (A.D. 180) to his father, amidst the
acclamations of the senate and armies, (6) and when he ascended the throne the happy youth saw round him neither competitor
to remove nor enemies to punish. In this calm elevated
station it was surely natural that he should prefer the love
of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories of his
five predecessors, to the ignominious fate of Nero and
Domitian.
Character of Commodus
Yet Commodus was not, as he has been represented, a tiger
born with an insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable,
from his infancy, of the most inhuman actions. (7) Nature had
formed him of a weak, rather than a wicked, disposition. His
simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave of his
attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty,
which at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated
into habit, and at length became the ruling passion of his
soul. (8)
He returns to Rome
Upon the death of his father, Commodus found himself
embarrassed with the command of a great army, and the
conduct of a difficult war against the Quadi and Marcomanni.
(9) The servile and profligate youths whom Marcus had
banished, soon regained their station and influence about
the new emperor. They exaggerated the hardships and dangers
of a campaign in the wild countries beyond the Danube; and
they assured the indolent prince, that the terror of his
name and the arms of his lieutenants would be sufficient to
complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians; or to
impose such conditions as were more advantageous than any
conquest. By a dexterous application to his sensual
appetites, they compared the tranquillity, the splendour,
the refined pleasures of Rome, with the tumult of a
Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leisure nor materials
for luxury. (10) Commodus listened to the pleasing advice; but
whilst he hesitated between his own inclination and the awe
which he still retained for his father's counsellors, the
summer insensibly elapsed, and his triumphal entry into the
capital was deferred till the autumn. His graceful person, (11)
popular address, and imagined virtues, attracted the public
favour; the honourable peace which he had recently granted
to the barbarians diffused an universal joy; (12) his
impatience to revisit Rome was fondly ascribed to the love
of his country; and his dissolute course of amusements was
faintly condemned in a prince of nineteen years of age.
During the three first years of his reign, the forms, and even the spirit, of the old administration were maintained by those faithful counsellors, to whom Marcus had recommended his son, and for whose wisdom and integrity Commodus still entertained a reluctant esteem. The young prince and his profligate favourites revelled in all the licence of sovereign power; but his hands were yet unstained with blood; and he had even displayed a generosity of sentiment, which might perhaps have ripened into solid virtue.(13) A fatal incident decided his fluctuating character.
Is wounded by an assassin
One evening (A.D. 183), as the emperor was returning to the
palace through a dark and narrow portico in the
amphitheatre,(14) an assassin, who waited his passage, rushed
upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, "The senate
sent you this." The menace prevented the deed; the assassin
was seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the
authors of the conspiracy. It had been formed, not in the
state, but within the walls of the palace. Lucilla, the
emperor's sister, and widow of Lucius Verus, impatient of
the second rank, and jealous of the reigning empress, had
armed the murderer against her brother's life. she had not
ventured to communicate the black design to her second
husband Claudius Pompeianus, a senator of distinguished
merit and unshaken loyalty; but among the crowd of her
lovers (for she imitated the manners of Faustina), she found
men of desperate fortunes and wild ambition, who were
prepared to serve her more violent as well as her tender
passions. The conspirators experienced the rigour of
justice, and the abandoned princess was punished, first with
exile, and afterwards with death. (15)
Hatred and cruelty of Commodus towards the senate
But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of
Commodus, and left an indelible impression of fear and
hatred against the whole body of the senate. Those whom he
had dreaded as importunate ministers, he now suspected as
secret enemies. The Delators, a race of men discouraged, and
almost extinguished, under the former reigns, again became
formidable, as soon as they discovered that the emperor was
desirous of finding disaffection and treason in the senate.
That assembly, whom Marcus had ever considered as the great
council of the nation, was composed of the most
distinguished of the Romans and distinction of every kind
soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated
the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit
censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important
services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the
friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the
son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to
condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was
attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge
his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he
became incapable of pity or remorse.
The Quintillian brothers
Of these innocent victims of tyranny, none died more
lamented than the two brothers of the Quintilian family,
Maximus and Condianus; whose fraternal love has saved their
names from oblivion, and endeared their memory to posterity.
Their studies and their occupations, their pursuits and
their pleasures, were still the same. In the enjoyment of a
great estate, they never admitted the idea of a separate
interest; some fragments are now extant of a treatise which
they composed in common; and in every action of life it was
observed that their two bodies were animated by one soul.
The Antonines, who valued their virtues, and delighted in
their union, raised them, in the same year, to the
consulship; and Marcus afterwards intrusted to their joint
care the civil administration of Greece, and a great
military command, in which they obtained a signal victory
over the Germans. The kind cruelty of Commodus united them
in death. (16)
The minister Perennis
The tyrant's rage, after having shed the noblest blood of
the senate, at length recoiled on the principal instrument
of his cruelty. Whilst Commodus was immersed in blood and
luxury, he devolved the detail of the public business on
Perennis; a servile and ambitious minister, who had obtained
his post by the murder of his predecessor, but who possessed
a considerable share of vigour and ability. By acts of
extortion, and the forfeited estates of the nobles
sacrificed to his avarice, he had accumulated an immense
treasure. The Praetorian guards were under his immediate
command; and his son, who already discovered a military
genius, was at the head of the Illyrian legions. Perennis
aspired to the empire; or what, in the eyes of Commodus,
amounted to the same crime, he was capable of aspiring to
it, had he not been prevented, surprised, and (A.D. 186) put
to death. The fall of a minister is a very trifling incident
in the general history of the empire; but it was hastened by
an extraordinary circumstance, which proved how much the
nerves of discipline were already relaxed. The legions of
Britain, discontented with the administration of Perennis,
formed a deputation of fifteen hundred select men, with
instructions to march to Rome, and lay their complaints
before the emperor. These military petitioners, by their own
determined behaviour, by inflaming the divisions of the
guards, by exaggerating the strength of the British army,
and by alarming the fears of Commodus, exacted and obtained
the minister's death, as the only redress of their
grievances. (17) This presumption of a distant army, and their
discovery of the weakness of government, was a sure presage
of the most dreadful convulsions.
Revolt of Maternus
The negligence of the public administration was betrayed
soon afterwards by a new disorder which arose from the
smallest beginnings. A spirit of desertion began to prevail
among the troops; and the deserters, instead of seeking
their flight in safety or concealment, infested the
highways. Maternus, a private soldier, of a daring boldness
above his station, collected these bands of robbers into a
little army, set open the prisons, invited the slaves to
assert their freedom, and plundered with impunity the rich
and defenceless cities of Gaul and Spain. The governors of
the provinces, who had long been the spectators, and perhaps
the partners, of his depredations, were, at length, roused
from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of
the emperor. Maternus found that he was encompassed, and
foresaw that he must be overpowered. A great effort of
despair was his last resource. He ordered his followers to
disperse, to pass the Alps in small parties and various
disguises, and to assemble at Rome, during the licentious
tumult of the festival of Cybele. (18) To murder Commodus, and
to ascend the vacant throne, was the ambition of no vulgar
robber. His measures were so ably concerted, that his
concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome. The
envy of an accomplice discovered and ruined this singular
enterprise, in the moment when it was ripe for execution. (19)
The minister Cleander
Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind from a
vain persuasion that those who have no dependence, except on
their favour, will have no attachment, except to the person
of their benefactor. Cleander, the successor of Perennis,
was a Phrygian by birth; of a nation, over whose stubborn,
but servile temper, blows only could prevail. (20) He had been
sent from his native country to Rome, in the capacity of a
slave. As a slave he entered the Imperial palace, rendered
himself useful to his master's passions, and rapidly
ascended to the most exalted station which a subject could
enjoy. His influence over the mind of Commodus was much
greater than that of his predecessor; for Cleander was
devoid of any ability or virtue which could inspire the
emperor with envy or distrust. Avarice was the reigning
passion of his soul, and the great principle of his
administration. The rank of Consul, of Patrician, of
Senator, was exposed to public sale; and it would have been
considered as disaffection if any one had refused to
purchase these empty and disgraceful honours with the
greatest part of his fortune. (21) In the lucrative provincial
employments, the minister shared with the governor the
spoils of the people. The execution of the laws was venal
and arbitrary. A wealthy criminal might obtain, not only the
reversal of the sentence by which he was justly condemned;
but might likewise inflict whatever punishment he pleased on
the accuser, the witnesses, and the judge.
His avarice and cruelty
By these means, Cleander, in the space of three years, had
accumulated more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by
any freedman. (22) Commodus was perfectly satisfied with the
magnificent presents which the artful courtier laid at his
feet in the most seasonable moments. To divert the public
envy, Cleander, under the emperors name, erected baths,
porticos, and places of exercise, for the use of the people.
(23) He flattered himself that the Romans, dazzled and amused
by this apparent liberality, would be less affected by the
bloody scenes which were daily exhibited; that they would
forget the death of Byrrhus, a senator to whose superior
merit the late emperor had granted one of his daughters; and
that they would forgive the execution of Arrius Antoninus,
the last representative of the name and virtues of the
Antonines. The former, with more integrity than prudence,
had attempted to disclose, to his brother-in-law, the true
character of Cleander. An equitable sentence pronounced by
the latter, when Proconsul of Asia, against a worthless
creature of the favourite, proved fatal to him. (24) After the
fall of Perennis, the terrors of Commodus had, for a short
time, assumed the appearance of a return to virtue. He
repealed the most odious of his acts, loaded his memory with
the public execration, and ascribed to the pernicious
counsels of that wicked minister, all the errors of his
inexperienced youth. But his repentance lasted only thirty
days; and, under Cleander's tyranny, the administration of
Perennis was often regretted.
Sedition and death of Cleander
Pestilence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of
the calamities of Rome. (25) The first could be only imputed
to the just indignation of the gods; but (A.D. 189) a
monopoly of corn, supported by the riches and power of the
minister, was considered as the immediate cause of the
second. The popular discontent, after it had long circulated
in whispers, broke out in the assembled circus. The people
quitted their favourite amusements for the more delicious
pleasure of revenge, rushed in crowds towards a palace in
the suburbs, one of the emperor's retirements, and demanded,
with angry clamours, the head of the public enemy. Cleander,
who commanded the Praetorian guards, (26) ordered a body of
cavalry to sally forth, and disperse the seditious
multitude. The multitude fled with precipitation towards the
city; several were slain, and many more were trampled to
death: but when the cavalry entered the streets, their
pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and darts from the
roofs and windows of the houses. The foot guards (27) who had
been long jealous of the prerogatives and insolence of the
Praetorian cavalry, embraced the party of the people. The
tumult became a regular engagement, and threatened a general
massacre. The Praetorians, at length, gave way, oppressed
with numbers; and the tide of popular fury returned with
redoubled violence against the gates of the palace, where
Commodus lay, dissolved in luxury; and alone unconscious of
the civil war. It was death to approach his person with the
unwelcome news. He would have perished in this supine
security, had not two women, his elder sister Fadilla, and
Marcia, the most favoured of his concubines, ventured to
break into his presence. Bathed in tears, and with
dishevelled hair they threw themselves at his feet; and with
all the pressing eloquence of fear, discovered to the
affrighted emperor, the crimes of the minister, the rage of
the people, and the impending ruin, which, in a few minutes,
would burst over his palace and person. Commodus started
from his dream of pleasure, and commanded that the head of
Cleander should be thrown out to the people. The desired
spectacle instantly appeased the tumult; and the son of
Marcus might even yet have regained the affection and
confidence of his outraged subjects. (28)
Dissolute pleasures of Commodus
But every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in
the mind of Commodus. Whilst he thus abandoned the reins of
empire to these unworthy favourites, he valued nothing in
sovereign power, except the unbounded licence of indulging
his sensual appetites. His hours were spent in a seraglio of
three hundred beautiful women, and as many boys, of every
rank, and of every province; and, wherever the arts of
seduction proved ineffectual, the brutal lover had recourse
to violence. The ancient historians (29) have expatiated on these abandoned scenes of prostitution, which scorned every
restraint of nature or modesty; but it would not be easy to
translate their too faithful descriptions into the decency
of modern language. The intervals of lust were filled up
His ignorance and low sports. with the basest amusements. The influence of a polite age, and the labour of an attentive education, had never been able to infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of learning; and he was the first of the Roman
emperors totally devoid of taste for the pleasures of the
understanding. Nero himself excelled, or affected to excel,
in the elegant arts of music and poetry; nor should we
despise his pursuits had he not converted the pleasing
relaxation of a leisure hour into the serious business and
ambition of his life. But Commodus, from his earliest
infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was rational or
liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the
populace; the sports of the circus and amphitheatre, the
combats of gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts. The
masters in every branch of learning, whom Marcus provided
for his son, were heard with inattention and disgust; whilst
the Moors and Parthians, who taught him to dart the javelin
and to shoot with the bow, found a disciple who delighted in
his application, and soon equalled the most skilful of his
instructors, in the steadiness of the eye, and the dexterity
of the hand.
Hunting of wild beasts
The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master's
vices, applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious
voice of flattery reminded him that by exploits of the same
nature, by the defeat of the Nemaen lion and the slaughter
of the wild boar of Erymanthus, the Grecian Hercules had
acquired a place among the gods, and an immortal memory
among men. They only forgot to observe, that, in the first
ages of society, when the fiercer animals often dispute with
man the possession of an unsettled country, a successful war
against those savages is one of the most innocent and
beneficial labours of heroism. In the civilised state of the
Roman empire, the wild beasts had long since retired from
the face of man, and the neighbourhood of populous cities.
To surprise them in their solitary haunts, and to transport
them to Rome, that they might be slain in pomp by the hand
of an emperor, was an enterprise equally ridiculous for the
prince, and oppressive for the people.(30) Ignorant of these
distinctions, Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious
resemblance, and styled himself (as we still read on his
medals (31)) the Roman Hercules. The club and the lion's hide were placed by the side of the throne, amongst the ensigns
of sovereignty; and statues were erected, in which Commodus
was represented in the character, and with the attributes,
of the god, whose valour and dexterity he endeavoured to
emulate in the daily course of his ferocious amusements. (32)
Commodus displays his skill in the amphitheatre
Elated with these praises, which gradually extinguished the
innate sense of shame, Commodus resolved to exhibit, before
the eyes of the Roman people, those exercises, which till
then he had decently confined within the walls of his
palace, and to the presence of a few favourites. On the
appointed day, the various motives of flattery, fear, and
curiosity, attracted to the amphitheatre an innumerable
multitude of spectators: and some degree of applause was
deservedly bestowed on the uncommon skill of the Imperial
performer. Whether he aimed at the head or heart of the
animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With arrows,
whose point was shaped into the form of a crescent, Commodus
often intercepted the rapid career, and cut asunder the long
bony neck of the ostrich. (33) A panther was let loose; and
the archer waited till he had leaped upon a trembling
malefactor. In the same instant the shaft flew, the beast
dropped dead, and the man remained unhurt. The dens of the
amphitheatre disgorged at once a hundred lions; a hundred
darts from the unerring hand of Commodus laid them dead as
they ran raging around the Arena. Neither the huge bulk of
the elephant, nor the scaly hide of the rhinoceros, could
defend them from his stroke. Ethiopia and India yielded
their most extraordinary productions; and several animals
were slain in the amphitheatre, which had been seen only in
the representations of art, or perhaps of fancy. (34) In all
these exhibitions, the securest precautions were used to
protect the person of the Roman Hercules from the desperate
spring of any savage; who might possibly disregard the
dignity of the emperor, and the sanctity of the god. (35)
Acts as a gladiator
But the meanest of the populace were affected with shame and
indignation when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists
as a gladiator, and glory in a profession which the laws and
manners of the Romans had branded with the justest note of
infamy.(36) He chose the habit and arms of the Secutor, whose
combat with the Retiarius formed one of the most lively
scenes in the bloody sports of the amphitheatre. The Secutor
was armed with an helmet, sword, and buckler; his naked
antagonist had only a large net and a trident; with the one
he endeavoured to entangle, with the other to dispatch, his
enemy. If he missed the first throw, he was obliged to fly
from the pursuit of the Secutor, till he had prepared his
net for a second cast.(37) The emperor fought in this
character seven hundred and thirty-five times. These
glorious achievements were carefully recorded in the public
acts of the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance
of infamy, he received from the common fund of gladiators, a
stipend so exorbitant, that it became a new and most
ignominious tax upon the Roman people.(38) It may be easily
supposed that in these engagements the master of the world
was always successful: in the amphitheatre his victories
were not often sanguinary; but when he exercised his skill
in the school of gladiators, or his own palace, his wretched
antagonists were frequently honoured with a mortal wound
from the hand of Commodus, and obliged to seal their
flattery with their blood. (39) He now disdained the
appellation of Hercules. The name of Paulus, a celebrated
His infamy Secutor, was the only one which delighted his ear. It was and inscribed on his colossal statues, and repeated in the extravagance redoubled acclamations (40) of the mournful and applauding senate. (41) Claudius Pompeianus, the virtuous husband of Lucilla, was the only senator who asserted the honour of his rank. As a father, he permitted his sons to consult their safety by attending the amphitheatre. As a Roman, he
declared, that his own life was in the emperor's hands, but that he would never behold the son of Marcus prostituting his person and dignity. Notwithstanding his manly resolution, Pompeianus escaped the resentment of the tyrant, and with his honour had the good fortune to preserve his
life. (42)
Cospiracy of his domestics
Commodus had now attained the summit of vice and infamy.
Amidst the acclamations of a flattering court, he was unable
to disguise, from himself, that he had deserved the contempt
and hatred of every man of sense and virtue in his empire.
His ferocious spirit was irritated by the consciousness of
that hatred, by the envy of every kind of merit, by the just
apprehension of danger, and by the habit of slaughter, which
he contracted in his daily amusements. History has preserved
a long list of consular senators sacrificed to his wanton
suspicion, which sought out, with peculiar anxiety, those
unfortunate persons connected, however remotely, with the
family of the Antonines, without sparing even the ministers
of his crimes or pleasures. (43) His cruelty proved at last
fatal to himself. He had shed with impunity the noblest
blood of Rome: he perished as soon as he was dreaded by his
own domestics. Marcia his favourite concubine, Eclectus his
chamberlain, and Laetus his Praetorian praefect, alarmed by
the fate of their companions and predecessors, resolved to
prevent the destruction which every hour hung over their
heads, either from the mad caprice of the tyrant, or the
sudden indignation of the people. Death of Commodus A.D. 192 31st December Marcia seized the occasion
of presenting a draught of wine to her lover, after he had
fatigued himself with hunting some wild beasts. Commodus retired to sleep; but whilst he was labouring with the effects of poison and drunkenness, a robust youth, by profession a wrestler, entered his chamber, and strangled
him without resistance. The body was secretly conveyed out of the palace, before the least suspicion was entertained in the city, or even in the court, of the emperor's death. Such was the fate of the son of Marcus, and so easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant, who, by the artificial powers of
government, had oppressed, during thirteen years, so many millions of subjects, each of whom was equal to their master in personal strength and personal abilities. (44)
Choice of Pertinax for emperor
The measures of the conspirators were conducted with the deliberate coolness and celerity which the greatness of the occasion required. They resolved instantly to fill the vacant throne with an emperor whose character would justify and maintain the action that had been committed. They fixed on Pertinax, prefect of the city, an ancient senator of rank, whose conspicuous merit had broke through the obscurity of his birth, and raised him to the first honours of the state. He had successively governed most of the provinces of the empire; and in all his great employments, military as well as civil, he had uniformly distinguished
himself by the firmness, the prudence, and the integrity of his conduct. (45) He now remained almost alone of the friends and ministers of Marcus; and when, at a late hour of the night, he was awakened with the news, that the chamberlain and the praefect were at his door, he received them with intrepid resignation, and desired they would execute their master's orders. Instead of death, they offered him the throne of the Roman world. During some moments he distrusted their intentions and assurances. Convinced at length of the death of Commodus, he accepted the purple with a sincere reluctance, the natural effect of his knowledge both of the duties and of the dangers of the supreme rank. (46)
He is acknowledged by the Praetorian guards
Laetus conducted without delay his new emperor to the camp of
the Praetorians, diffusing at the same time through the city
a seasonable report that Commodus died suddenly of an
apoplexy; and that the virtuous Pertinax had already
succeeded to the throne. The guards were rather surprised
than pleased with the suspicious death of a prince whose
indulgence and liberality they alone had experienced; but
the emergency of the occasion, the authority of their
praefect, the reputation of Pertinax, and the clamours of
the people, obliged them to stifle their secret discontents,
to accept the donative promised of the new emperor, to swear
allegiance to him, and with joyful acclamations and laurels
in their hands to conduct him to the senate-house, that the
military consent might be ratified by the civil authority.
And by the senate A.D. 193 1st January
This important night was now far spent; with the dawn of
day, and (A.D. 193, 1st January) the commencement of the new
year, the senators expected a summons to attend an
ignominious ceremony. In spite of all remonstrances, even of
those of his creatures, who yet preserved any regard for
prudence or decency, Commodus had resolved to pass the night
in the gladiators' school, and from thence to take
possession of the consulship, in the habit and with the
attendance of that infamous crew. On a sudden, before the
break of day, the senate was called together in the temple
of Concord, to meet the guards, and to ratify the election
of a new emperor. For a few minutes they sat in silent
suspense, doubtful of their unexpected deliverance, and
suspicious of the cruel artifices of Commodus; but when at
length they were assured that the tyrant was no more, they
resigned themselves to all the transports of joy and
indignation. Pertinax, who modestly represented the meanness
of his extraction, and pointed out several noble senators
more deserving than himself of the empire, was constrained
by their dutiful violence to ascend the throne, and received
all the titles of Imperial power, confirmed by the most
sincere vows of fidelity. The memory of Commodus declared infamous The memory of Commodus was branded
with eternal infamy. The names of tyrant, of gladiator, of
public enemy, resounded in every corner of the house. They
decreed in tumultuous votes, that his honours should be
reversed, his titles erased from the public monuments, his
statues thrown down, his body dragged with a hook into the
stripping-room of the gladiators, to satiate the public
fury; and they expressed some indignation against those
officious servants who had already presumed to screen his
remains from the justice of the senate. But Pertinax could
not refuse those last rites to the memory of Marcus, and the
tears of his first protector Claudius Pompeianus, who
lamented the cruel fate of his brother-in-law, and lamented
still more that he had deserved it.(47)
Legal jurisdiction of the senate over emperors
These effusions of impotent rage against a dead emperor,
whom the senate had flattered when alive with the most
abject servility, betrayed a just but ungenerous spirit of
revenge. The legality of these decrees was however supported
by the principles of the Imperial constitution. To censure,
to depose, or to punish with death, the first magistrate of
the republic, who had abused his delegated trust, was the
ancient and undoubted prerogative of the Roman senate;(48)
but that feeble assembly was obliged to content itself with
inflicting on a fallen tyrant that public justice, from
which, during his life and reign, he had been shielded by
the strong arm of military despotism.
Virtues of Pertinax
Pertinax found a nobler way of condemning his predecessor's
memory; by the contrast of his own virtues with the vices of
Commodus. On the day of his accession, he resigned over to
his wife and son his whole private fortune; that they might
have no pretence to solicit favours at the expense of the
state. He refused to flatter the vanity of the former with
the title of Augusta; or to corrupt the inexperienced youth
of the latter by the rank of Caesar. Accurately
distinguishing between the duties of a parent and those of a
sovereign, he educated his son with a severe simplicity,
which, while it gave him no assured prospect of the throne,
might in time have rendered him worthy of it. In public, the
behaviour of Pertinax was grave and affable. He lived with
the virtuous part of the senate (and in a private station,
he had been acquainted with the true character of each
individual), without either pride or jealousy; considered
them as friends and companions, with whom he had shared the
dangers of the tyranny, and with whom he wished to enjoy the
security of the present time. He very frequently invited
them to familiar entertainments, the frugality of which was
ridiculed by those who remembered and regretted the
luxurious prodigality of Commodus.(49)
He endeavours to reform the state
To heal, as far as it was possible, the wounds inflicted by
the hand of tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task
of Pertinax. The innocent victims, who yet survived, were
recalled from exile, released from prison, and restored to
the full possession of their honours and fortunes. The
unburied bodies of murdered senators (for the cruelty of
Commodus endeavoured to extend itself beyond death) were
deposited in the sepulchres of their ancestors; their memory
was justified; and every consolation was bestowed on their
ruined and afflicted families. Among these consolations, one
of the most grateful was the punishment of the Delators; the
common enemies of their master, of virtue, and of their
country. Yet even in the inquisition of these legal
assassins, Pertinax proceeded with a steady temper, which
gave everything to justice, and nothing to popular prejudice
and resentment.
His regulations
The finances of the state demanded the most vigilant care of
the emperor. Though every measure of injustice and extortion
had been adopted, which could collect the property of the
subject into the coffers of the prince; the rapaciousness of
Commodus had been so very inadequate to his extravagance,
that, upon his death, no more than eight thousand pounds
were found in the exhausted treasury,(50) to defray the current expenses of government, and to discharge the pressing demand of a liberal donative, which the new emperor
had been obliged to promise to the Praetorian guards. Yet under these distressed circumstances, Pertinax had the generous firmness to remit all the oppressive taxes invented by Commodus, and to cancel all the unjust claims of the treasury; declaring, in a decree of the senate,
"that he was better satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to acquire riches by the ways of tyranny and dishonour."
Economy and industry he considered as the pure and genuine sources of wealth; and from them he soon derived a copious supply for the public necessities. The expense of the household was immediately reduced to one half. All the instruments of luxury, Pertinax exposed to public auction, (51) gold and silver plate, chariots of a singular construction, a superfluous wardrobe of silk and embroidery, and a great number of beautiful slaves of both sexes; excepting only, with attentive humanity, those who were born in a state of freedom, and hat been ravished from the arms of their weeping parents. At the same time that he obliged the worthless favourites of the tyrant to resign a part of their ill-gotten wealth, he satisfied the just creditors of the state, and unexpectedly discharged the long arrears of honest services. He removed the oppressive restrictions which had been laid upon commerce, and granted all the uncultivated lands in Italy and the provinces to those who would improve them; with an exemption from tribute, during the term of ten years.(52)
And popularity
Such an uniform conduct had already secured to Pertinax the
noblest reward of a sovereign, the love and esteem of his
people. Those who remembered the virtues of Marcus were
happy to contemplate in their new emperor the features of
that bright original; and flattered themselves that they
should long enjoy the benign influence of his
administration. A hasty zeal to reform the corrupted state,
accompanied with less prudence than might have been expected
from the years and experience of Pertinax, proved fatal to
himself and to his country. His honest indiscretion united
against him the servile crowd, who found their private
benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred the
favour of a tyrant to the inexorable equality of the laws.
(53)
Discontent of the Praetorians
Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of
the Praetorian guards betrayed their inward dissatisfaction.
They had reluctantly submitted to Pertinax; they dreaded the
strictness of the ancient discipline, which he was preparing
to restore; and they regretted the licence of the former
reign. Their discontents were secretly fomented by Laetus
their praefect, who found, when it was too late, that this
new emperor would reward a servant, but would not be ruled
by a favourite. On the third day of his reign the soldiers
seized on a noble senator, with a design to carry him to the
camp, and to invest him with the Imperial purple. Instead of
being dazzled by the dangerous honour, the affrighted victim
escaped from their violence, and took refuge at the feet of
Pertinax. A conspiracy prevented A short time afterwards Sosius Falco, one of the consuls of the year, a rash youth,(54) but of an ancient and opulent family, listened to the voice of ambition; and a
conspiracy was formed during a short absence of Pertinax,
which was crushed by his sudden return to Rome, and his
resolute behaviour. Falco was on the point of being justly
condemned to death as a public enemy, had he not been saved
by the earnest and sincere entreaties of the injured
emperor; who conjured the senate, that the purity of his
reign might not be stained by the blood even of a guilty
senator.
Murder of Pertinax by the Praetorians A.D. 193 March 28th
These disappointments served only to irritate the rage of
the Praetorian guards. On the twenty-eighth of March,
eighty-six days only after the death of Commodus, a general
sedition broke out in the camp, which the officers wanted
either power or inclination to suppress. Two or three
hundred of the most desperate soldiers marched at noon-day,
with arms in their hands and fury in their looks, towards
the Imperial palace. The gates were thrown open by their
companions upon guard; and by the domestics of the old
court, who had already formed a secret Conspiracy against
the life of the too virtuous emperor. On the news of their
approach, Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment,
advanced to meet his assassins, and recalled to their minds
his own innocence, and the sanctity of their recent oath.
For a few moments they stood in silent suspense, ashamed of
their atrocious design, and awed by the venerable aspect and
majestic firmness of their sovereign, till at length the
despair of pardon reviving their fury, a barbarian of the
country of Tongres (55) levelled the first blow against
Pertinax, who was instantly dispatched with a multitude of
wounds. His head separated from his body, and placed on a
lance, was carried in triumph to the Praetorian camp, in the
sight of a mournful and indignant people, who lamented the
unworthy fate of that excellent prince, and the transient
blessings of a reign, the memory of which could serve only
to aggravate their approaching misfortunes.(56)