in the Forum of Trajan of the Goods of his Houshold He sold the Vessels of Gold Crystal and Myrrh the Royal Services Rich Garments of his Wife 's which were embroidered with Gold and several Jewels which were laid up in the Cabinet of Hadrian The Sale continued Two Months and such a considerable Sum was produced by it that having prosecuted the Reliques of the Marcomannick War with it according to his desire he gave the Buyers the Liberty to return if they pleased their Purchases and take their Money again But whether they did or no he was satisfied and allowed Gentlemen to have their Tables as splendid as himself In the publick Shews which he gave the People at his Triumph he was so Magnificent that he exposed a Hundred Lions together to be shot to death with Arrows Having therefore Reigned to the general Love of all the People who called him by the endearing Terms of sometimes their Brother sometimes Father sometimes Son as every one's Age was he died in the Eighteenth Year Death of Antoninu◠of his Empire and the Sixty First of his Age. The Love of him amongst all the People appear'd on the Day of his interment Because none thought him then an Object to be lamented but assured themselves that as he had been formed and lent them by the Gods so he was returned to the Gods Before his Funeral was well finished a thing which never was known to be done before nor since the Senate and the People in one Body upon the place pronounced him a Propitious Deity This great Man who was so Excellent himself and so ally'd to the Gods both in his Life and Death left a Son Commodus who was so ill on the other hand that it had been happy he had never had him Nay it was a small thing that Persons of all Ages Sexes Conditions and Dignities honoured Marcus as a God for he was judged Sacrilegious whoever had not his Image in his House if his fortune permitted him To this day in many Families the Statues of Marcus Antoninus stand amongst the Houshold Deities and some Persons have firmly and publickly averred that he hath predicted many future and true thing to them in Dreams A Temple was erected to him and an Order of Priests of his own Name appointed him with all other things which to consecrated Persons have ever been ascribed by Antiquity Some say and it is not unlikely that Commodus Antoninus his Successor and his Son was a sort of an Adulterous Birth the Story whereof is represented commonly thus Faustina Story of the Birth of Commodus the Wife of Marcus and formerly the Daughter of Antoninus Pius seeing one Day the Gladiators enter the Amphitheatre fell in love with one of them to that degree that she laboured under a long Sickness upon it till at last she confessed the Cause to her Husband Marcus advised with the Magicians whose Counsel it was to put to Death that Gladiator and that Faustina should wash her Secrets with his Blood and then lie with her Husband This was done and her Love cured But Commodus was born after it more a Gladiator than a Prince because when he was Emperor he fought almost a Thousand Combats with the Gladiators in the publick view of the People as we shall have occasion to say in his Life And that which makes this Story the more credible is this Son of so Holy a Father was a Man of those profligate Manners that no common Sword-player Actor Baiter of Beasts nor in fine no one tho' of the sink of all Shame and Wickedness was like him Others say that he was absolutely a Bastard and that Faustina when she was at the Port of Gajetta chose herself there by the Eye the Seamen generally working naked what Men she saw were the best provided both out of the Sea-men and the Gladiators wherefore Marcus Antoninus was advised by one if he would not punish her by Death to divorce her To which he answered If I divorce my Wife I must return her her Dower But her Dower was the Empire which he had received from her Father who had adopted him at the desire of Hadrian Certainly the Virtue the Integrity the Tranquillity the Piety of a good Prince is a thing of that prevalence that the ill Character not so much as of the nearest Relation can defame him And so it was with Marcus Antoninus who persevering still in his own virtuous way and not changing in any thing upon the whispers or calumnies of the People neither his Gladiator-Son was a prejudice to him nor his impure Consort He is as he hath ever been esteemed a God to this Day and particularly by you O most Sacred Emperor Dioclesian who have a Veneration for him even above the rest of your Gods and are pleased often to say That you chiefly wish yourself like him in his Life and the Clemency which he always exercised tho' should Plato return into the World again he could not parallel him with all his Philosophy The things that passed under Marcus Antoninus after the Death of Verus were these First the Body of Verus was brought to Rome and interred in the Sepulchre of his Ancestors and Ver 〈…〉 made a God Then Marcus thanked the Senate for having Consecrated his Brother but intimated at the same time As if the Counsels by which the Parthians were overcome had been much owing to himself and that now he would govern as it were upon a new and better Foundation The Senate took it in the Sense which Marcus meant and seemed to congratulate that Verus was departed this Life However Marcus provided very honourably for Verus's Sisters Relations and Servants Indeed he was very Curious of his Reputation and enquired always what every one said of him and corrected himself accordingly in such things as they seemed to blame him for with reason Going to the War in Germany he re-married his Daughter to Claudius Pompeianus the Eldest Son of a Roman Knight of a Family of the City of Antioch but not of the highest Nobility He afterwards made him Twice Consul in consideration that his Daughter was so much his Superior which Match however did neither please her nor her Mother The Moors laying waste almost all Spain he Tumults c. quelled employed his Lieutenants against them who reduced them In Egypt the Robbers about the Parts called Bucolia committing divers great Disorders they were also reduced by Avidius Cassius who afterwards set himself up for the Empire About this time Marcus Antoninus whilst he was at his Retreat at Palestrina lost his Son called Verus Caesar of the Age of Seven Years by lancing a Tumour which he had under his Ear. The Mourning for whom was kept but Five Days and then he applied himself again to the publick Business It was the time of the Celebration of the Games of Jupiter which he would not suffer to be interrupted by a more solemn Mourning so he only ordered
going to meet the Enemy commanded the usual Sacrifices to be offered to the Gods the whole Army to be purged and all the Soldiers to burn Incense which this Legion being Christians refusing they were decimated once that is every tenth Man drawn out and put to death But this could not alter their Principles They were decimated a second time but neither so were they to be removed from their Religion Then they were surrounded by the Army and all slain in their own Camp at a Place called Agaunum in Gallia whither they were retired the distance of eight Miles from the Camp of Maximian but assuring him that excusing them their Religion they were always ready to return unto his Camp again and to Act as bravely as any against the Enemy It was by the Hands and Labours of the Christian Soldiers that Maximian raised those immense Structures of the Baths of Dioclesian at Rome the Baths of his own Name at Carthage the Palace at Aquileia and the Amphitheatre at Verona For he condemned them to any the most servile Offices As he assisted upon the fifteenth of the Kalends of May in the Year 301. at the Games of the Cirque the Populace who knew very well that they could not do any thing to oblige him more cryed Let the Christians be cut off and repeated it twelve times May it please your Majesty let there be no Christians They repeated this ten times Therefore Eugenius Hermogenianus the Captain of the Guards proposed the Matter to the Senate who resolving it in the Affirmative Maximian issued out his Rescript for their Excision directed to Venustianus the day before the Kalends of May. In the next place came out the General Edict of Dioclesian to Abolish the Assemblies of the Christians in all places wheresoever they were to raze their Churches to the ground to burn their Scriptures to secure their Ecclesiasticks to deprive them of all Honours Offices and Liberties and by all the means imaginable to force them to comply to the Worship of the Gods Infinite Numbers upon this in all Parts perished In Aegypt alone 140000 were Martyred and 700000 Banished Columns were set up over all the Roman Empire in the Names of Dioclesian and Maximian and sometimes Dioclesian and Galerius vainly boasting that they had extinguished the Christian Name Whereas on the contrary they had propagated it and confirmed it For the Blood of the Martyrs was the Seed of the Church and the Christians surmounted all this with a Virtue never to be forgotten never to be expressed Dioclesian himself lived to know that his Enterprize was impracticable He fell into a Melancholy quitted the Purple which others have so dearly bought Created Galerius at Nicomedia Emperor in his stead and retired for his own part to the City of Salona in Dalmatia where after a Private Life of 9 Years Death of Dioclesian he died some say he Poisoned himself and the Romans consecrated him a God He had reigned 20 Years and lived to the Age of 68. Maximian at the perswasion of Dioclesian concurred with him in this his last unprecedented Action They both Abdicated the Empire in a day Maximian created in his stead Constantius Emperor at Milan and went and lived a Private Life in the Province of Lucania Maximian and resumes till the Romans perswaded him to resume his Dignity again in order to determine a great Quarrel that was arisen betwixt Maxentius his Son and Severus the Kinsman of Galerius Maximian endeavour'd in like manner to have perswaded Dioclesian to have resumed his former Dignity again also But Dioclesian detested it and said I wish you could see my Gardens that I have Planted with my own hand at Salona you would never have thought this a thing to be proposed to me However Maximian put himself at the Head of an Army and went to the Siege of Ravenna and getting Severus by Treachery within his Power he slew him whose Body was interred afterwards in the Sepulchre of Gallienus upon the Appian Way 9 Miles from Rome Quitting the Army when this Work was done because he was not overwelcome to Command it longer he visited Dioclesian at Salona and then went into Gallia where he matched his Daughter Fausta unto the Emperor Constantine the Son of Constantius by Helena who had succeeded to the Powers of his Father But yet as he was at Treves it was found that he practised his Arts upon the Soldiers with a design if he could to expel Constantine and possess himself of the Empire a-new Constantine was advertised of it by Fausta and pursuing him as far as to Marseilles he besieged him took him and ordered him to be Strangled and his Body was interred at His Death Milan He had reigned 18 Years and lived to the Age of 60. He was born at Sirmish in Sclavonia of mean Parents His Wife was Eutropia a Syrian Woman by whom he had Issue Maxentius and Fausta He was a very Rough Stern and Barbarian-like Man but a great Soldier and a faithful Friend to Dioclesian and one that had been his old Companion in Arms. And he was Incontinent and Treacherous THE A. Christi CCCIV. Lives and Reigns OF THE EMPERORS Flavius Constantius Chlorus AND Galerius Maximianus Armentarius BY J. BERNARD THERE is the less to be spoken of these two Princes in this place because a great part of their Actions hath been represented already in the Account of the Emperors fore-going under whom they served and who advanced them successively to the Dignity first of Caesars and then of Emperors Therefore I shall only here take notice that at the same time that they were created Caesars they were obliged to put away their Wives to whom they were already married and to re-marry for a Tye of Affinity into the Families of Dioclesian and Maximian Constantius dismissed himself from Helena by whom he had had Constantine who was afterwards the Emperor Constantine the Great and he remarried to Theodora who was Daughter-in-Law to Maximian In like manner Galerius re-married to Valeria who was the Daughter of Dioclesian but she did not live long with him and to consecrate her Memory to futurity after her Death her Father imposed her Name on a part of Pannonia which he called the Province of Valeria and also he gave her Name to a City situated upon the Banks of the Danube Constantius was the Son of a Daughter of Crispus who was the Brother of the Emperor Claudius He was created the Caesar properly to Maximian to whom he succeeded in the Government of the West and Galerius was the Caesar properly to Dioclesian to whom he succeeded in the Empire of the East But as Constantius was a Prince endowed with all the fine and good Qualities in the World it is certain that he neither when he was a Caesar not when Emperor dipped his Hands in the Blood of the Christians which all the other Three laboured to spill with so much greediness He could not indeed
his Death he ordered Servianus who was Ninety Years old as I said to be kill'd only because he should not out-live him and as he imagined gain the Empire Many others for pretended Offences he ordered likewise to be so served but Antoninus preserved them Dying he spoke these Verses Animula vagula blandula Hospes comesque corporis Quae nunc abibis in loca Pallidula rigida nudula Nec ut soles dabis jocos That is My little fluttering flattering Soul My Body's constant Guest and Mate To what gloomy Place dost go Pale and numm'd and stript of all No more to jest as thou hast wont He was the Author of some Greek Verses of this sort which were not much better He lived Seventy Two Years Five Months and Seventeen Days and reigned Twenty One Years and Eleven Months He was tall and well His Personage made as to his Person his Hair naturally Curling a long Beard which covered some Spots which he had upon his Face and of a robust Constitution He rid and walked very well exercised himself constantly at Arms and the Javelin often hunted and hath kill'd a Lion with his own hand his Friends hunted in Company with him At his Banquets he had the divertisements of Tragedies Comedies Dancing Musicians Rehearsers and Poets He built a House at the City of Tivoli which was an extraordinary Structure and gave the Names of the Lycaeum Academia Prytanaeum Canopus Paecile and Tempe which are the most Famous Names of Places abroad together with others of the Provinces unto the several Parts of it and that he might leave nothing undone to adorn it he represented in another Part in Painting the Infernal Regions The Signs which fore-shew'd his Death were these As he was in his Prayers His Death fore-shewed on the last Anniversary of his Birth recommending Antoninus his Son to the Gods the Lappet of his Robe which he threw over his Head slipt down of it self and left him uncovered A Ring which had his Effigies cut upon it fell in like manner of it self off his Finger The Day before that there came one I know not who scrieking and crying into the Senate none of the Senate understood what he said but yet Hadrian was moved at him as if he had said something concerning his Death Speaking to the Senate instead of post filii mei mortem after the Death of my Son which he intended to say he said post mortem meam after my Death He dreamt that he had asked and had obtained of his Father a Potion to make him sleep Another time that he was oppressed by a Lion After his Death a great many Persons spoke very hard things against him The Senate would have made void his Acts neither had he been deifyed but that Antoninus begged it who not only did this but built a Temple to him at Pozzulo and instituted in his Honour Games to be celebrated every Five Years and appointed him his Priests and Fraternities with all other things belonging to the Service of a God Upon which account it was as many think at least and as I have already intimated that the Title of the Pious was given to Antoninus THE LIFE OF Aelius Verus Caesar BY AELIUS SPARTIANUS TO THE EMPEROR DIOCLESIAN AELIUS SPARTIANUS his Slave wisheth Health AS it is my Design Sir humbly to lay at the Feet of your Majesty who are the greatest of so many Princes an Account not only of those who have sate upon the Roman Throne before you as I have already done in the Princes from Julius Caesar down unto Hadrina but of those also who either have been honoured with the Title of Caesars or upon any other Account have had the Reputation to be proposed for the Crown although they did not afterwards succeed to it I cannot omit here the Life especially of Aelius Verus Caesar who was incorporated into the Royal Family by the adoption of Hadrian but enjoy'd the Name only of a Caesar and did not live to be Emperor And because there is but little to be said of him and the Preface ought not to be long in a such small Narration as this I immediately proceed Cejonius Commodus or as he is otherwise called Aelius Verus was adopted by Hadrian when the Maladies of that Prince increasing upon him with his Age pressed him to appoint his Successour after his return from his many Travels about the World His Life affords us nothing that is more memorable than this to wit His Quality as a Caesar given him not by a last Will and Testament as formerly it The signification of Caesar had descended nor yet was it given him in the manner in which the Adoption of Trajan was by Nerva but so as in our time Maximianus and Constantius have been created Caesars by your Majesty that is to signify they are as it were the Princes of the Blood and the appointed Heirs of the Empire And because it may be fit that something here should be said concerning the Name of Caesar the Opinion of the most Learned about it is That he who was the first called so was either called Caesar from an Elephant which in the Language of the Moors is called Caesa which he bravely slew in the Field or because his Mother dying in her Labour with him he was Ventre Caeso natus cut out of her Belly or because he was born cum magna Caesarie with much Hair upon his Head or because oculis Caesiis viguerit he had Grey Eyes which were bright and vigorous to a Miracle However it is it was certainly a happy Necessity that was the occasion of a Name so famous which is like to be as Eterternal as the World The person of whom we at present speak receiv'd it in virtue of his Adoption by Hadrian His Father was Cejonius Commodus whom others call Verus others Lucius Aurelius others Annius All his His Ancestors his Wife Ancestours were Persons of good Quality whose Original for the most part was out of the Country of Hetruria or the City Faenza Of which Family we shall have an occasion to speak more fully hereafter in the Life of Lucius Aurelius Cejonius Commodus Verus Antoninus the Son of this Verus whom Antoninus the Pious was commanded to Adopt For in that Life will be contained every thing which concerns the Stem of this House as it gives an account of a Prince who hath a great many more things to be said of him than this here So Aelius Verus being Adopted by Hadrian â—n â—he time as I have said that he was very weak and was necessarily to think of a Successour and being presently made a Praetor â—pon it and appointed to be the President of Pannonia he was in the next place Created Consul and in regard that he was the Person design'd for the Empire he was appointed to be Consul a second time A Largess was given to the People upon the occasion of his Adoption and three thousand
hath exposed a Hundred Lions together at one Shew His behaviour towards his Friends in his Reign was just the same as before when he was a private Person and neither they not his Servants whom he manumitted pretended to make any Gain to themselves of their Interest in him particularly he was very strict with the Latter He was much delighted with His Recreations the Diversions of the Comedians and in Fishing Hunting Walking and Talking with his Ministers to whose Entertainments he went and sometimes to the Feasts of the Vintage He gave Honours and Recompences in Money in the Provinces to the Rhetoricians and the Philosophers The Speeches which are extant under his Name are said by many to have been of the Composition of another but Marius Maximus says they are truly his own He made Entertainments for his Friends in particular and in publick He never Sacrificed by a Proxy unless he was Sick When he desired any Honour for himself or his Sons he did all things as a private Candidate in the same Case He dined with his Ministers many times at their Houses He went one time to see the House of Omulus where admiring the Porphyry-Pillars which he had and asking him from whence he procured them Omulus said When you came Sir into a Strangers House you are to be both Dumb and Deaf He took this patiently as he did a great many other Jests of the same Person He made divers Laws in which he served His Laws himself of the best Lawyers of his time who were Vinidius Verus Salvius Valens Volusius Metianus Ulpius Marcellus and Jabolenus He put an end to whatever Seditions in any Part arose not by Force and Cruelty but by the Modesty and the Gravity of his Judgments He prohibited the burying of the Dead within the City He limited the Expences of the Games of the Gladiators He facilitated things for the convenience of Travelling with all the Care he could He gave Reasons for every thing he did either to the Senate or in his Edicts He died in his Seventieth Year but was His Death as much lamented then as if it had been in the flower of his Age And the manner of his Death they say was this he had eaten with great Appetite at Supper of the Cheese which is made upon the Alps but he brought it up again in the Night and the next Day was taken with a Fever the third Day being worse he recommended the Empire and the Care of his Daughter unto Marcus Antoninus in the presence of the Court. Then he ordered the Golden Image of Fortune which always stands in the Emperor's Bed-Chamber to be removed out of his Room into that of Marcus Antoninus Then he gave the word to the Tribune which was Equanimity and turning himself as it were to sleep he died at his own Seat at Laurium He was light-headed in his Fever at which times all his Discourse was concerning the State and the Kings who had given him an occasion of Displeasure He left his Paternal Estate to his Daughter and Legacies by his Will to all his Domesticks He was tall and graceful but being apt to His Personage stoop a little in his old Age he then wore a pair of Bodice on purpose to keep himself strait In a morning when he grew in years before he was visited he eat a little dry Bread for his Health He spoke a little broad but yet agreeably enough The Senate made him a God in which all People were forward to concur with them because his Goodness Clemency Wit and Sanctimony were universally esteemed They decreed him all the Honours which had ever been bestowed upon the best Princes They appointed him an Order of Priests of his own Name a Temple and the Honour of the Games of the Cirque He was absolutely the only one of all the Emperors who lived without having ever shed the Blood either of Citizen or Enemy and as his Reign was attended with the same Felicity and Goodness the same Security and Religiousness with that of Numa Pompilius he may very well be put in the Comparison with that Prince He reigned Twenty Three Years THE A. Christi CLXII Life and Reign OF THE EMPEROR Marcus Aurelius Antoninus The PHILOSOPHER BY JULIUS CAPITOLINUS Addressed to the EMPEROR DIOCLESIAN MArcus Antoninus was a Lover of Wisdom a Philosophical Man all his time and the best as to the Sanctity of his Life of all the Emperors before him His Father was Annius Verus who died in his Praetorship His Extraction His Grandfather was another Annius Verus who was twice Consul and the Governour of the City of Rome having been admitted amongst the Patricians by Vespasian and Titus when they were Censours His Uncle by his Father's side was Annius Libo a Consul the Empress Galeria Faustina was his Aunt his Mother was Domitia Calvilla the Daughter of Calvisius Tullus who was twice Consul his Father's Grandfather was Annius Verus originally of Succubae in Spain who was a Praetor and a Senator his Mother's Grandfather was Catilius Severus who was twice Consul and Governour of Rome his Grandmother by his Father's side was Rupilia Faustina the Daughter of Rupilius Bonus who was a Consul also Marcus Antoninus was born at Rome upon Mount Caelius in the Gardens 〈…〉 e the Sixth of the Calends of May under the Consulships of his Grandfather and Augur which was then the Second Consulship of his Grandfather His Family if we carry it up to the highest is proved to partake of the Blood of Numa Pompilius by his Father's side according to Marius Maximus and by his Mother's to come from Malennius a King of the antient Salentini in Naples who was the Son of Dasumnus who built Lopiae He was brought up where he was born and partly in the House of his Grandfather Verus hard by the Lateran Palace He had a Sister who was younger than he called Annia Cornificia His Wife was Annia Faustina who was his Cousin German by his Mother's side At first his Name was Annius Verus from his Father and his Grandfather Hadrian called him Annius Verissimus because of the Integrity of his Temper But afterwards he re-assured his first Name again of Annius Verus because his Grandfather his Father dying adopted him and educated him He was from his first Infancy grave and serious and after he was out of those Years in which Children are in the hands of the Women His Education he was delivered to the Tuition of great Masters who prepared his way for Philosophy His Masters to teach him his first Elements of Letters were Euphorion the Grammarian Geminus a Comedian and Andron who was both a Musician and a Geometrician As these Three were they who laid the Foundation for him to 〈…〉 eed to all other Learning so he ever had 〈◊〉 â—n very great Respect His Masters to teach him Grammar were for the Greek Alexander for the Latin Trosius Aper Pollio and Eutychius
and Venerable Stile of Antoninus became much the less beloved for his sake He as we are told built besides the Portico which is at Rome with very great Splendor in which there are represented the memorable Exploits of Severus his Father The Signs fore-running the Death of the Signs fore-running his Death Emperor Septimius Severus were these He dreamt that he was carried up to Heaven in a Chariot drawn by four Eagles and enrich'd with precious Stones and I know not what large humane Form flying before him that as he was elevated in the Air he display'd the Numbers Eighty Nine beyond which Age precisely he did not live for he was already old when he came to the Empire Then that he continued a long time alone and destitute of help in a great Circle by himself till at last fearing to fall to Earth again he saw himself called by Jupiter and placed amongst the Antoninusses One day whilst the Games of the Cirque were celebrating as there were three Figures of Victory with Palms in their hands placed according to Custom upon the Platform where the Emperor's Throne is that in the middle bearing a Globe on which was inscribed the Name of Severus was blown down with a blast of Wind to the Ground and there lay The other which was inscribed with the Name of Geta fell and was broken to pieces but that which was inscribed with the Name of Bassianus stood but with much ado and lost its Palm-branch in the Wind. After he had finished his Wall or Trench in Great Britain and was returning to the next Garrison victorious having hereby assured the Peace of that Country for ever he was thinking in his mind what sort of Omen he should meet with upon it a Black-moor who was of the Number of his Soldiers and who was a famous Droll always ready to make some pleasant piece of Rallery presents himself before him with a Crown in his hand made of Cypress Severus in anger commanded him immediately to retire out of his sight being sensibly touched with the double ill Omen of his Hew and the Matter of his Crown In the mean time said the Man Your Majesty hath been all Things and conquered all Things noâ— be a God Being afterwards returned to the City of York and going to discharge his Devotion he was conducted by a mistake of an Augur into a Temple of Bellona and next the Beasts which were presented to him to Sacrifice were black But he refusing to Sacrifice in that colour retired to the Palace and the same black Victims being left neglected by the Priests went after him as far as to the Gates of the Palace In a great many Cities there are Works His public Works which he ordered to be done which are excellent but particularly at Rome all the publick Edifices which were decaying by old Age and the course of time he restored and which was a great Action in him without scarce ever inscribing his own Name upon one of them but every where continuing upon them the Names of their antient Founders At his Death he left in the publick Stores Corn to serve for Seven Years to come at the rate of expending Seventy Five Thousand Modii a day whereof each Modius was a Peck and half And for Oyl he left such a Quantity as was sufficient not only for the City of Rome but all Italy upon occasion for Five Years They say that his last Words were these I found the State when I received it every where in Disturbance I leave it in Peace even to the Britains Old and Lame as I am I leave the Empire firm to my Sons if they are good But in a feeble Condition for them if they are bad The last Watch-word which he ordered to be given to the Tribune was Laboremus let us take Pains as that of Pertinax the first day that he was admitted to the Empire was Militemus let us fight He had designed a second Royal Image of Fortune to be made and added to that which always stands in the Emperor's Chambers and is used to accompany them in all Places where they go he desired to leave of those most sacred Figures to each of his Sons one But when he found himself pressed with the approaching hour of his Death it is said he ordered that that Image of Fortune which there was should be carried alternatively into the Chambers of his Two Sons but Bassianus Antoninus slighted that Order even before he had killed his Brother His Body was brought from Great Britain to Rome where it was received with the greatest Reverence of all the Provinces though some say it was only his Ashes which were brought to Rome reposed in a little Urn of Gold which was interred in the Sepulchre of the Antoninusses and that the Body was burnt upon the place where he died When he built the Septizonium he had no other Design in it but to make appear the Magnificence of his Work to the Eyes of those who particularly should come out of his Native Country of Africa and if he had not been prevented it is supposed he would have made a stately Intrado from thence to the Palace Royal as afterward the Emperor Alexander Severus would have done but that the Soothsayers prohibited him for Reasons in their Art THE A Christi CXCIV LIFE OF PESCENNIUS NIGER Dedicated to the EMPEROR DIOCLESIAN BY AELIUS SPARTIANUS IT is a difficult thing and such as we rarely see done to publish to the World a just Account of Persons who die under the Notion of Rebels and Usurpers by being Conquered and because they are concluded â—o by another Person 's Victory All the Circumstances of such are scarce ever fully expressed in the Monuments and the Annals of the Antients for that which is great of them and to their Honours is either generally depraved and turned another way or it is suppressed Neither is there so much Care taken to seek into the things that concern their Origine and their Lives as to recount their Ends. For when they have brought them to that and told the War in which they were overcome and how they suffer'd for the boldness of their Attempts they persuade themselves they have said enough about them Thus Pesceâ—nius His Extraction Niger was as some say born of very ordinary as others of honourable Parents that is the latter say that his Father was An 〈…〉 Fuscus his Mother Lampridia his Grandfather the Curator of the Town of Aquino according to which his Family was of the Equestrian Order but yet this is a thing which 〈…〉 this day others will dispute His Instruction in Letters was but indifferent no more thaâ— was his Estate His manner of Life was moderate his Temper hot enough but particularly of an unbridled Passion to Liberty Hâ— was a long time a Centurion and afterward through several other Commands in the Waâ— came to be the General of the Forces 〈…〉 Syria unto which
Rufus was one who when he commanded in Germany and had overcome Vindex in the time of Nero had been often importuned by the Army to take upon him the Empire which he refused In Honour whereof it was written afterwards upon his Tomb when he died That overthrowing Vindex he had asserted the Empire not to himself but to his Countrey whose Service signifying he had intirely regarded without any Ambition in it of his own Nerva comported himself in his Reign in that manner that he sometime said He had done nothing to make him think but that he could resign the Empire and lead a private Life again in Safety Calphurnius Crassus of the famous Family of the Crassi had with some others confederated Conspiracy against him in a Plot against him which he was made acquainted with to them unknown He observed them and placed them by his own Person at a Shew of the Combats of the Gladiators in the Cirque where he took up the Weapons as if it were only to see if they were sharp as is usual and then he gave them out of his Hand into the Hands of the Conspirators What think you says he will not these do Are they not sharp enough He intended this as a secret Reflection to them of his knowledge of that Design of theirs and at the same time he seemed to shew such a Neglect of his Life as if he did not care tho' they killed him upon the place The Captain of the Guards under him was Casperius Aelianus who was the same before under Domitian This Officer set the Soldiers against Nerva and work'd them to a heighth that they demanded the Heads of several that were about his Person to which Nerva opposed himself so that stripping bare his Bosom and offering it bare to them in a Passion says he Take my Life not theirs However this did not save them for as many as Casperius Aelianus had mark'd out fell a Sacrifice to the Pleasure of the Guards The Age of Nerva was one thing which lost him much Respect After this Action of the Guards he went to the Capitol and declared He adopts Trajan his Adoption of Marcus Ulpius Trajan with a loud Voice thus Together with my hearty Wishes for the Prosperity of the Senate and People of Rome and that what I do may be Happy to them and my self I make Marcus Ulpius Trajan my Son Then he created him in the Senate his Caesar which is the Title of a Person when he is chosen to succeed in the Empire and having done this he wrote to Trajan who at that time commanded in Germany with his own Hand amongst other things a Greek Verse out of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which he seemed to signifie that he left it to him to do him Justice and to revenge him of that Mutiny of the Guards Thus Trajan was appointed to succeed to the Empire even in preference to Nerva's own Relations whereof there were some whom he might have so honoured if he had not been a Man who regarded the Good of the Publick above the Consideration of his Blood Nor did it incline him the less to what he did to know that Trajan was a Spaniard neither an Italian nor of Italian born Parents and that no Alien as he was had ever possessed the Roman Empire before For he considered That it was the Worth and not the Countrey of any one that was the thing which he ought to respect After which Nerva died having Reigned one Year four Months and nine Days And lived sixty His Death five Years ten Months and ten Days Dio Cassius Lib. 67. AS Nerva was a Person of very great Worth and Honour he was offered the Empire before Domitian was killed by the same Party who to save their Lives because they found that they were privately mark'd out for the Slaughter by Domitian made themselves the Masters of the Life of that Prince He was also as much under Danger from that Prince as they which made him the more easy to be persuaded to accept their Offer and to run their hazards For the Astrologers with whom Domitian had advised about the Nativities of Great Men had accused Nerva as one that was to be suspected of having an Eye upon the Empire And as Domitian put several upon that account to Death even of Men who perhaps never flattered themselves with those hopes so he had put to Death Nerva if it had not been for a kinder Astrologer than the rest who to save him said That it was good to let him alone in a few days he would die of himself That which above all things deserves to be Proclus his Prognostication admired is one Larginus Proclus had said publickly in Germany that upon a certain a day which he named Domitian should die for which the Governour of the Province sent him up to Rome where he was brought before Domitian and still he continued to say the same thing He was condemned for 't and to be executed the day after that Domitian had out-lived the Danger but Domitian was killed upon that very day and Larginus Proclus escaped and received a Reward from Nerva of four thousand Crowns Aur. Vict. Epitome NERVA was born at the City of Narni which is under the States of the Church in Italy Presently after he had accepted the Empire there was a rumour that Domitian was not killed but living and was coming to him which put him into that Fright that he changed colour was struck Dumb and could scarce stand upon his Feet till he was assured of the contrary again and received a Confirmation of the Death of Domitian All the Punishment that he took of the Conspirator Calphurnius Crassus was he banish'd him and his Wife to Taranto in Naples for which the Senate blamed his Clemency When the Guards demanded the Heads of those who were so dear to him about his Person the Passion which he was in was so great that it cast him into a Vomiting and Loosness they were dear to him for this reason because as they were those who had taken off Domitian so they were the Authors of the Election of himself to the Empire His Body was interred in the Sepulchre of Augustus THE A. Christi XCIX Life and Reign OF THE EMPEROR Marcus Ulpius Trajan BY DIO CASSIUS Rom. Hist Lib. 68. TRAJAN before he was Emperor had a Dream which seemed to tell him that the Senate of Rome had Chose him and Seal'd him as it were for their own A Person in the like Dress and Trajan ' s Dream Form of one that in Picture the Senate is represented by that is in a Robe of State guarded with purple a Vest purled with large Knaps of purple a Crown upon his Head a little elderly came to him he dream'd and with a Seal which he had in a Ring sealed him now on the right and now on the left Breast He wrote to the Senate after
than were known to them so much as by Name as they continually understood by his Accounts They set up in his Honor a Triumphal Arch in his own Forum and the Citizens prepared themselves to go a great way to meet him at his return to Rome But he never came thither nor was the End of his Actions suitable to his Beginnings because what he had Conquered he lost again In the time that he was Sailing for his Pleasure upon the Indian Ocean all his Conquests A general Revolt were chang'd and revolted and the Garrisons which he had left amongst them were either turned out or killed It was nothing but the Fame of the Indian Ocean which had drawn him thither together with his Honour for the Memory of Alexander the Great to whom he had sometime sacrificed in the House in which he dyed at Babylon But as he met with nothing worthy of that Fame Fables and Prospects of Ruins were his only Entertainments He was as yet on Board when the News was brought to him of the revolt of his Conquests against whom he dispatched Lucius and Maximus Maximus was deseated and killed Lucius acquitted himself very well and amongst other things recovered the City of Nisibis Storm'd Plundered and Burnt the City of Rhoa whilst Erycius Clarus and Julius Alexander took and burnt the City of Seleucia In the mean time fearing lest the Parthians of Ctesiphon should attempt something Trajan was willing to oblige them by giving them instead of a Roman Governour a King of their own He Assembled when Trajan gives a King to the Parthians he came to Ctesiphon all the Romans and all the Parthians that were there into a large Plain and raising himself upon a high Throne and glorying in the great Actions that he had done he appointed Parthamaspates King of the Parthians and put the Crown upon him Then he came into Arabia to Reduce Expedition against the Hagarens there the People called the Hagarens who had also Revolted Their Town is neither Great nor Rich but the Country adjoyning to it is for the most part a Desart without Water which it seldom hath and then it is naught without Wood and without Forage all which make it impossible for a great number of Men to lye long before it defended as it also is by the heats of the Sun to which it is exposed So it was neither taken by Trajan then nor by Severus afterwards though they both made Breaches in part of the Walls Trajan disguised himself and Headed a Body of Horse up to the Walls in Person but his Horse returned in an ill Condition to the Camp and himself escaped very narrowly For the Barbarians believing it was he by his Age and Presence shot at him and killed a Horseman that was next him It Thundered and Lightened Rainbows appeared in the Clouds Storms of Hail and Wind fell upon the Romans when they made their Attacks The Flyes rendred their Victuals and their Drink nauseous So Trajan raised the Siege and fell sick not long after About this time the Jews about Cyrene in Jewish Barbarity Africa Commanded by one Andrew whom they had set up over them committed great Slaughters upon both the Romans and Grecians They Eat their Flesh made themselves Garlands of their Guts washed themselves in their Blood and Cloathed themselves in their Skins They sawed many in Two from the Head with Saws They threw others to Wild Beasts They forced others to fight till they kill'd one another About two hundred and twenty thousand Persons were destroyed by this means They did the like in Egypt and in the Island of Cyprus under the Command of Artemion where two hundred and forty thousand Persons more were destroy'd For which reason it is that it is forbidden a Jew to set foot upon that Island even though by Storm he is driven upon it he is to be put to death At length they were reduced under Obedience Jews quell'd again as by others so particularly by Lucius who was sent against them by Trajan Trajan was resolved to have carried the War anew into Mesopotamia if his sickness increasing upon him had not obliged him to set Sail towards Italy and to commit to Publius Aelius Hadrian the Command of the Army in Syria And now all the Pains that had been taken and all the Dangers which had been run by the Romans in the Conquest of Armenia the greatest part of Mesopotamia and the Parthians became in vain for the Parthians turn'd off King Parthamespates of the appointment of Trajan and betook themselves to be Governed by their own Measures Trajan suspected in his own mind that he was poisoned but others say that he had been used every year to void Blood downward and that this Evacuation had stopped that he had a Dead Palsie upon him and was insensible in a part of his Body and that he was all over Dropsical He came as far as to the City Iclenos which is otherwise called Trajanople Death of Trajan from him in Cilicia in the Lesser Asia and there immediately dyed having Reigned nineteen Years six Months and fifteen Days Dio Cass lib. 67. HE had been Consul in Conjunction with Acilius Glabrio in the Reign of Domitian and then received some Omens of his future Reign Dio Cass lib. 69. HE was a Native of the same Town in Spain with Hadrian whose Guardian he was and to whom he married his Niece He dyed without Children and his Ashes were interred in the Column of his own Work Eutrop. Cassiodor Victor THE Town in Spain at which Trajan was born was Old Sevil in the Lower Andaluzia He lived sixty three Years nine Months and four Days He was Proclaim'd Emperor at Cologne in Germany The Height of his Column was one hundred and forty or one hundred forty and four Feet The Younger Pliny born at the City of Comâ— in the Dutchy of Milan who was a famous Orator and Historian flourished in his time who has left us a Panegyric on this Emperor pronounc'd by him the first day of his Consulship THE A. Christi CXVIII Life and Reign OF THE EMPEROR Publius Aelius Hadrian Written by AELIUS SPARTIANUS And Addressed to the EMPEROR DIOCLESIAN IF we take the Original of the Emperor His Extraction Hadrian at the highest it is to be derived from the Antient People of the Marca d' Ancona and particularly from the Town of Adria in Italy which was the Place which his Ancestors were of before they removed into Spain where as himself says in the Account which he writes of his own Life they settled in Sevilla la Viegia or Old Sevile in the times of the Scipio's His more immediate Descent was from that Family in Spain Aelius Hadrian Afer was his Father who was Cousin-German to the Emperor Trajan His Mother was Domitia Paulina who was Originally of Cadiz His Sister Paulina married Servianus His Wife was Sabina and his great Grand-father's Grand-father
of the Mountain Aetna from thence to view the Rising Sun how various they say it appears there in its Colours in the Nature of those of the Rainbow From Sicily he came home to Rome and from Rome he crossed the Sea again into Africa leaving many Marks of his Liberality upon the Provinces of that Country so that one may say that scarce never hath there been a Prince known to Travel over so much Land and with so much dispatch as he He had no sooner returned back to Rome out of Africa but he set upon a New Voyage into the East and took his way through Athens The Works which he had begun at Athens he now finished and dedicated amongst the rest the Temple and the Altar of Jupiter Olympius In Asia as he travelled he likewise Consecrated Temples there which abide as so many Memorials of his Name Whilst he was in Cappadocia he admitted a Number of the People of that Country into the Service of his Army He invited the Princes and the Kings of the Dominions where he came to joyn in Friendship with him Particularly he invited to his Friendship Chosroes the King of Parthia to whom he returned his Daughter that Trajan had formerly taken Captive promising the same as to a Chair of State which had been then likewise taken and carried away in that War He received those Kings when they came so generously and treated them in that manner that others who staid away upon the Account especially of Pharismanes who insolently slighted him might have an occasion to repent themselves As he traversed the Provinces he punished some Procurators and some Presidents of them for their Malversations so severely that they said he had a mind certainly to encourage Accusers to appear against them He had a great Displeasure against the People of Antioch wherefore it was in his Thoughts to separate Syria from Phoenicia that Antioch should not be said to be the Metropolis of so many Cities The Jews about this time broke into a War because they were forbidden to Circumcise themselves He went upon the Mountain Lison which is near Antioch in the Night for the Curiosity of observing from thence the Rising-Sun Jupiter was worshipped upon that Mountain to whom as Hadrian was Sacrificing there a violent Storm arose with Thunder and Lightning which blasted both the Victim and the Priest He traversed Arabia and came to the City of Pelusium or Belvais in Egypt The Tomb of Pompey which is at this City being decayed he rebuilt it with greater Magnificence As he was sailing upon the Nile his dear Antinous died for whom he wept with all the tenderness and the weakness of a Woman His Grief for Antinous weeping for her Husband There are several reports about that Youth Some say that he devoted himself a Sacrifice for Hadrian Others that he was what his Beauty might probably incite him to be and the too great Pleasure which Hadrian took in a Burdash However it was the Grecians at the desire of Hadrian made a God of him and we are told of Oracles which have been uttered by him but they are rather some supposed Compositions of Hadrian who was excellent at Verse and indeed at all sorts of the Belles Lettres For he had a great Hand at Arithmetick Geometry and Painting He understood Musick and played perfectly well upon many Instruments and Sung Loving his Pleasures so excessively as he did he could not but Compose many Poems of his Amours Together with which he was a Master in the matter of Arms had the Military Art in perfection and was skilled at the Weapons of the Gladiatours He was a Person equally Severe and Pleasant Affable and Grave Active and Considerate Close and Liberal Cruel and Merciful in all things ever various He enriched his Friends though they never did ask him any favour and to others upon their asking he denyed nothing But yet he was easie to give ear to every Tale which was but whispered concerning them And this was the occasion that almost all those whom either he had dearly loved or whom he had raised to the highest Honours were afterwards treated by him as Enemies His Severity and Injustice as was Tatianus Nepos and Septimius Clarus Thus also Eudaemon who had once been Privy to all his Counsels and his Confident in the very Affair of his aspiring to the Empire was reduced by him to extreme Beggery He constrained Polyaenus and Marcellus to murder themselves He made the most notorious defamatory Libels upon Heliodorus He suffered Tatianus under a pretence of his being in a Conspiracy against him to be Arraigned and Proscribed He persecuted Numidius Quadratus Catilius Severus and Turbo very grievously He put to death Servianus his Sisters Husband when he was in his Ninetieth Year only because he would be sure that he should not out-live him In fine he Persecuted without remission both his Servants and his Soldiers As ready as he was at his Compositions always in Prose and Verse and skilled in all the Liberal Arts he yet laught at the Publick Professors of the Arts and triumphed over them entered many times into Solemn Disputes with all of them together and with all the Philosophers only for the Glory of Composing better Books or better Verses than they He excepted once particularly against a Word which was used by Favorinus who modestly submitting himself to him in it but being blamed by his Friends for yielding the Cause so in a Word for which there was sufficient Authority to be produced out of good Authors Favorinus made a very pleasant Jest upon it Says he My Friends you are much mistaken if you do not allow me to believe him to be a Learneder Man than us all who is the Master of Thirty Legions So fond was he of his Glory as to this Talent that he writ his own Life and afterwards gave it to his Servants that were Scholars to publish it only under their Names Thus the Books under the name of Phlegon are Hadrians The Catachriani are his which are extremely obscure pieces in imitation of Antimachus The Poet Florus having written to him thus as follows Ego nolo Caesar esse Ambulare per Britannos Scythicas pati Pruinas That is I desire not to be Caesar To Ramble amongst the Britains And be starved with the Frosts of Scythia He answered him again thus Ego nolo Florus esse Ambulare per Tabernas Latitare per popinas Culices pati rotundos That is I desire not to be Florus To Ramble amongst the Taverns Skulk about the Eating-Houses And be stung to death with Gnats He took more delight in the Antient Writings His Learning than the Modern and was pleased with making Declamations He preferred Cato to Cicero Ennius to Virgil and Caelius to Salust the like Judgement he passed upon Homer and Plato He pretended to understand Judicial Astrology so very well that upon the Calends of January in the Evening he would constantly set
Proculus of Sicca in Africa His-Masters to teach him Rhetorick were for the Greek Annius Marcus Caninius Celer and Herodes Atticus for the Latin Fronto Cornelius amongst all which he had a particular Respect for Fronto and desired the Senate to set up his Statue and Proculus he advanced to be a Proconsul He applied himself extremely to the Study of Philosophy whilst he was but yet a Youth In his Twelfth Year he entred And Proficiency himself amongst the Philosophers wore their Habit practised their Severities studied as they did lay upon the Ground and was with great Difficulty persuaded by his Mother to make use of an ordinary Couch Commodus whose Daughter it was designed that he should marry was another of his Masters and also Apollonius a Stoick Philosopher of Chalcis in Syria Such was his great Love to the Study of Philosophy that after his adoption into the Imperial Family he went himself to the House of Apollonius to learn there of him He likewise went to hear the Dictates of Sextus a Philosopher of Chaeronea in Beotia and the Kinsman of Plutarch as also Junius Rusticus Claudius Maximus and Cinsia Catullus all Stoicks For the Peripatetick Philosophy he heard Claudius Severus Amongst these he had particularly a Respect His Respect for his Preceptors for Junius Rusticus and followed him being one who was not only excellent at the Stoick Philosophy but a very understanding Person besides whether in Peace or War With him he communicated all his publick and private Counsels He saluted him always before he did the Captain of the Guards He made him twice Consul and after his Death desired the Senate to set up his Statue He had that great Honour for his other Masters that he set up their Images in Gold in his Closet and visited their Sepulchres which he adorned with Crowns and Victims and Flowers To all this he studied the Law in which he heard the Dictates of Lucius Volusius Metianus In fine the Labour and the Travel which he bestowed in Study really affected his Health his excess in it was the only Fault of his Youth He went often to the Declamations at the Publick Schools His fellow Students whom he more particularly loved were Sejus Fuscianus and Aufidius Victorinus of the Senatorian Families and Baebius Longus and Calenus of the Gentlemen to whom he was very generous and such as he could not for the condition of their lives prefer to Employments he inriched by other means He was Educated in some sort in the bosome of Hadrian who called him as I have said Annius Verissimus and at six years of Age conferred a mark of Honour upon him and at eight years of Age put him into the College of the Priests of Mars in which he passed through the several Functions and Offices of that Order not without receiving an Omen there of his succession to the Empire He put on the Roman that is the Man's Gown in his fifteenth year and presently the He is Contracted Daughter of Lucius Cejonius Commodus was Contracted to him according to the last Will of Hadrian He was left the Governour of Rome in the interim whilst the Consuls went to the Sacrifices of the Latinae Feriae upon Mount Alban In which honour he acquitted himself to the general Approbation He released all his Paternal Estate to his Sister His Mother would have advised him to divide it only but he said he was contented with the Estate of his Grandfather and if she pleased she also might give his Sister her Estate to make her the better match for her Husband He had so much complaisance for others that he suffered himself to be persuaded sometimes against his will to go either to the Chases of the Amphitheatre or the Plays of the Stage or other Shews He learnt Painting in which his Master was Diognetus He His Exercises and Character loved the Games of Fencing Wrestling Running Fowling and Hunting for Exercise He played at the Ball. But above all these things the study of Philosophy gained his Heart and rendred him perfectly grave and serious Not but that yet he was in all respects obliging and courteous to every one especially his Friends and such as were but in the least known to him So that he was Reserved without Opiniatrety Modest without Flatness and Grave without Austereness This being his Character when Hadrian after the death of Aelius Verus Caesar was to chuse some other Person to be his Successour in the Empire which this Youth was not Proper for as yet upon the account of his Age being then only eighteen years old he Adopted Antoninus the Pious who was Uncle to him under a condition that Pius should Adopt Marcus and that Marcus should Adopt Lucius Commodus Verus Marcus received His Adoption the News of his Adoption more with a Consternation than Joy and when he was ordered to be removed into a House of Hadrian's it was with an unwilling mind that he took his leave of that of his Mother Insomuch that his Servants asking him why he came so sad into the Royal Family he reasoned with them upon the Evils which are contained in the life of a Prince Then he began first to be called instead of Annius Marcus Aurelius because by the Right of his Adoption he was Translated into the Aurelian Family that is into that of Antoninus Pius This was in the eighteenth year of his Age under the Second Consulship of Antoninus his now Father and the Senate dispensing with him as to that Age at the request of Hadrian he was made a Quaestor He paid to all his Relations after he was Adopted the same Respects altogether as before He observed his Studies as much and was as good a Husband of his Expences and he resigned himself wholly both to act speak and think according to the instructions of his Father When Hadrian dyed at Baiae and Pius was also gone thither to remove his Body to Rome Marcus Antoninus was left at Rome to order the Funeral Obsequies of his Grandfather and being then Quaestor he exhibited to the People the Games of the Gladiatours Now Hadrian had ordered when he Adopted Antoninus Pius that Pius should Marry his Daughter to Verus the Son of Aelius Verus Caesar and that the Daughter of Lucius Cejonius Commodus should Marry Marcus Antoninus But Verus was not as yet of an Age for that Daughter Therefore when Hadrian was dead it was thought fit by Pius and his Empress to break off the Match of Marcus Antoninus with the Daughter of Commodus and to Marry their own Daughter Faustina to him to which Marcus consented Hereupon Pius advanced him from a Quaestor to be Consul in Conjunction with himself and gave him the Title of Caesar He made him one of the six Seviri and honoured him with his presence at his Publick Games He appointed his Apartments in the Court and ordered him to be there attended contrary to his own Inclination with all Pomp and
time that did every thing Whom he would he put to Death others he plundered He subverted all the Laws and whatever he took he put it into his own Pocket As for Commodus he first ravished and then killed his Sister His Incests Lucilla He violated in like manner the rest of his own Sisters and lay with a Cousin-German of his Fathers and gave the Names of his Mother and of his own Wife to one of his Concubines which Lady he afterwards taking great with another Man he turned her off banished her and then killed her Yet he hath other times commanded his own Concubines to be enjoyed by others in his sight nor was he without the most scandalous use of Boys He corrupted himself with both the Sexes in every part of his Body even to his Mouth Claudius Pompeianus whose Son had gone into the Chamber to him with the Poinyard was set upon as if it were by Thieves at this time and killed Many other Senators were without Law or Judgment upon them executed and some rich Ladies Others in the Provinces were for their Riches first falsly accused then plundered or killed And if they wanted a Crime to fasten upon them it was enough to say that they had refused to assign the Inheritance of their Estates to the Emperor The Affairs of Sarmatia about this time passed very well which Perennis attributed to the Conduct of his Son there when indeed the Honour of it was due to the other Commanders But at last this Perennis who was Perennis slain so Omnipotent in the Government having displaced some Senatours to put in others who were of the Equestrian Order to command in the Army that served in the War in Great Britain and the thing being remonstrated against by their Deputies he was on a sudden declared an Enemy of the Army and delivered up to be torn in pieces by the Soldiers and Cleander one of the Officers of the Bed-Chamber was appointed to succeed in his place Then after the Death of Perennis and his Son who was also killed Commodus rescinded several of his Acts as if they had not been done by his Order and as if he was re-establishing all things in their first Estate But he could not hold on this shew and pretence of Repentance above Thirty Days committing worse things afterwards by the Ministry of Cleander than he had before by Cleander succeeds in his Ministry that of Perennis It was in his Ministry only that Cleander had succeeded to Perennis For as for his Place of Captain of the Guards Niger had that and possessed it they say but six hours For the Captains of the Guards were changed daily and hourly Commodus carrying himself in every thing now worse than he had done before Martius Quartus was Captain of the Guards five Days the rest that followed after him were either retained or put to Death at the Pleasure of Cleander by whose Authority manumitted Slaves were brought into the Senate and made Patricians We had then Five and Twenty Consuls in One Year which was never known before The Governments of all the Provinces were sold For Cleander made a Sale of every thing for Money He re-called what Exiles he pleased and put them into Offices and rescinded the Acts of the Courts He prevailed so much over the Weakness of Commodus that when Byrrhus who was Commodus's Sister's Husband took the Liberty to blame his Ministry and to tell Commodus what had been done he made no more but charged him with High-Treason in Revenge for it upon which he put him to Death and many others with him who had stood in the Defence of him Amongst the rest was Aebutianus the Captain of the Guards in whose place Cleander himself succeeded in Conjunction with Two others of his own nomination which was the first time that there were Three Captains of the Guards together and one of those was a late Slave made free But at length Cleander also met with that end that his Life deserved For having by Treachery and upon false Accusations condemned and put to Death Arrius Antoninus the Proconsul of Asia in favour of Atallus at which the People were so incensed that Commodus could not sustain the Envy that it had brought upon him he was delivered up as a Sacrifice to the People and Apolaustus Cleander slain and others of his Creatures about the Court were killed with him Amongst other things that he had done he gave himself the Liberty to use his Master 's own Concubines by whom he had Children who after his Death were killed together with their Mothers His Successours were Julianius and Regillus who were afterwards also killed by Commodus The same Fate befel Servilius and Duillius with all that belonged to them Then he killed Antius Lupus Petronius Mamertinus Suras and Antoninus who was his Sisterâ—s Son by Mamertinus Then he put to Death six others at once who had all been Consuls to wit Allius Fuscus Celius Felix Luceius Torquatus Lartius Euripianus Valerius Bassianus and Pactumeius Magnus together with all those that belonged to them In Asia he put to Death Sulpitius Crassus the Proconsul Julius Proculus and Claudius Lucanus a Consul He put to Death Faustina Annia his Father 's Cousin-German in Achaia and an infinite Number of others He had marked out Fourteen others ready for the Slaughter then when his own time came and when the Roman Empire with all its Power was no longer able to sustain his Weight Now whilst these things past the Senate in secret Derision of him upon his making his Mother's Gallant a Consul called him the Commodus flatter'd by the Senate Pious Commodus and when he had cut off Perennis they called him the Happy Commodus So this Pious this Happy Commodus to add to the many Murders that he had committed daily as if he was a New Sylla contrived and invented a Plot upon himself for an occasion still of Murdering more By flattery they stiled him likewise Conquerour of the Britains when the Britains would have set up an Emperor against him They called him the Roman Hercules because he had slain Wild Beasts in the Amphitheatre at Lavinia which was a common Exploit with him He arrived to that degree of Vanity that he would have the City of Rome to be called the Colony of Commodus which was a thing that he was put upon amidst his Gallantries with Martia his Mistress He drove in Person the Chariots in the Races in the Cirque He appeared in publick in a Dalmatick which is an effeminate Habit and gave the Signal to the Chariots to start When he signified his Pleasure to the Senate about New Naming the City of Rome Colonia Commodiana they pretended not only willingly to accept the Proposition but called by derision their own Assembly the House of Commodus and him nothing less than a Hercules and a God He once pretended that he would make a Voyage into Africa but it was for no other end
Papinian said that to accuse the Innocent who had been murdered was in the nature of another Murder But all this however does not very well agree Because it was not for the Captain of the Guards to form the Emperor's Speeches and then it is certain that Papinian was for no other reason killed but as he was a Fautor of Geta. As the Soldiers were hurrying him away to his Execution he said That he should be very imprudent who was the Captain of the Guards after him if he did not severely revenge the Cruelty that was shewn to his place Which was afterwards done For Macrinus his Successor was the Author of the Death of Bassianus and was afterwards himself made Emperor in the Camp whose Son Diadumenus was immediately new named Antoninus Diadumenus to gratify the Soldiers because the name of an Antoninus was so dear to them Bassianus Antoninus Caracallus lived Forty Three Years and reigned Six He was Nobly buried and left a Son who was afterwards called Varius Antoninus Heliogabalus the dear Name of Antoninus being so fixt in the Hearts of Men that it was no more to be removed than that of Augustus from the Person of the Emperor He was a Prince of ill manners and crueller than his too cruel Father He eat and drank freely but was hated by his Servants and by all the Men of the Sword only the Guards The Works which he left His publie Works behind him at Rome were the famous Baths of his own Name in which there is one Room so Curious that the Architects say it is altogether inimitable He left also a Portico of the Name of his Father representing the principal Actions of his Father's Life with his Wars and Triumphs He received the Name of Caracallus from a Garment so called which he first brought up and gave to the People of Rome for a Bounty He repaired the Via Nova which is below his Baths so well that you will scarce find a Street in Rome that is fairer than it He erected stately Temples in all places to the Honour of the Goddess Isis whose Sacrifices he celebrated with much greater Reverence than ever had been used before at Rome His Body was interred in the Sepulchre of the Antoninus's that the same place should receive his Reliques which had given him that Name It is now fit that I should relate how it is said that he came to marry his Mother-in-Law Julia she was very handsome and as she happen'd one day in negligence to discover her Body a little naked Ah Madam said he to â—er I would if I might Sir said she again If you please you can you are an Emperor and to give Laws to all the World and not take them from any He no sooner had understood the sense of those Words but his unbridled Passion led him to resolve upon the accomplishment of the Crime and so he really celebrated those Nuptials with her which His incestuous Marriage were in effect the same as to take to Wife his own Mother and to add Incest with his Mother to the Murder of his Brother It will not be improper here to remark a very picquant thing which was said of him As he had ascribed to himself the Titles in his stile of Germanicus Parthicus Arabicus and Alemannicus because of his Conquests over the Germans and those other Nations Helvius Pertinax the Son of the Emperor Pertinax smiling said His Majesty might be pleased to add Geticus Maximus In which word Geticus there is an equivocation with a double relation to Geta his Brother whom he had killed and with relation to the Goths called Getae whom he had overcome in some running Fights in his passage into the East The Death of Geta was prognosticated by several Prodigies as we shall shew by and by in his own Life which follows In the mean time we shall only observe farther that formerly when the Army had proposed Bassianus Antoninus to march at the Head of them in the place of Severus his Father who was so sick of the Gout that he could not well follow the War Severus was then for putting to death th 〈…〉 his Son Bassianus if the Captains of the Guards had not over-persuaded him against it On the contrary others say that the Captains of the Guards were for punishing Bassianus with Death but that his Father was against it because he was not willing that the foolish Rashness of a young Man should be resented so severely as for his own Father to kill him when the Soldiers rather were the great occasions of the Crime However it is this most cruel Prince Bassianus Antoninus Caracallus who in a word was a Parricide Incestuous an Enemy of his Father Mother and Brother was yet by Macrinus that killed him out of fear of the Soldiers and especially those of the Guards after his Death made a God A Temple was given him and an Order of Priests appointed to serve him Even the Temple of Faustina built by Marcus Antoninus at the Foot of the Mountain Taurus was re-dedicated to him and his Son Antoninus Heliogabalus translated the same again afterwards to either Jupiter Syrius or the Sun or himself but to which of the Three I cannot very well assert THE LIFE OF ANTONINVS GETA BY AELIUS SPARTIANUS Dedicated to the EMPEROR Constantine the Great IMP. CAES. P. SEPT GETA PIVS AVG. IMP. CAES. M. OPEL. SEV MACRINVS AVG M OPEL. ANTONINVS DIADVMENIANVS CAES IMP. CAES. MAVR ANTONINVS PIVS AVG. IMP. CAES. MAVR SEV ALEXANDER AVG. MAXIMINVS PIVS AVG. GERM. P. 318. Vol. 1. His other name of Geta was what he had from either his Father's Brother or from his Grandfather whose names were Geta. There were yet other reasons for the addition of that name of Antoninus to this of Geta. Severus would have had it to be a Rule that all Princes in the time to come should be Entitled Antonini in the same manner as they are Augusti Which was the effect of his great love to the Emperor Marcus Antoninus whose Son he was pleased to call himself and whose Wisdom and the Precepts of his Philosophy he always endeavoured to imitate And not only the effect of his love to that Prince who was an Antoninus but by Adoption but of his Love and Honour also to Antoninus Pius the Successour of Hadrian by reason that it was Antoninus Pius who had preferred him from a Practicer in the Law to be the Keeper of the Exchequer which was a happy Rise to him and which had opened him the way to those great Advantages that afterwards he came to attain unto who thought therefore that he could not borrow a name from any Prince better than from one whose Reign had been so happy nor a name more honourable than that that had already run through four Emperors Being skilful in the Doctrine of Astrology as many of the Africans generally are he said one day because he knew the Nativity of Geta I admire
Rome and the Princes of the whole Race of Mankind to whom and to whose Censures I have ever submitted my self and have religiously endeavoured to approve my Carriage and Actions And although I may take a great deal of confidence in the Testimonies which have been giveâ— given of me by the Princes the Predecessors to you yet it is the Gravity of your Judgments which will carry the greatest Weight with me and in which I shall choose to Glory The Gods long continue the Felicity of your Reigns to the Roman World As Scipio the Conqueror of Carthage it is said pray'd That the Gods would preserve the State in the Condition in which it then was because there could not be a better so when I reflect upon you and upon the Establishment which you have made of the Empire which was Tottering till you came unto it I can only pray that the Gods would preserve the same to you in that State wherein your selves have placed it Under these two Princes there was a War betwixt the Carpi and the People of Moesia About the same time commenced the War of the Scythians and the ruin of Istria Dexippus gives great Commendations of Balbinus he says that he resisted the Soldiers when he was killed with a Couragious Mind not fearing Death and that he was one who was well instructed in all things But as to Maximus he does not agree to the Characters which is given him by most other Grecian Historians A SUPPLEMENT OF THE EMPERORS FROM Gordianus the Third UNTO Valerian the First FRom the Death of Gordianus the Third unto the beginning of the Reign of Valerian it is accounted to be about Nine or at the most Ten Years In which short time these Fifteen following Princes of whom we have little left upon History besides their Names successively carried and lost the Empire of Rome I. Marcus The Senate upon the News of the Death of Gordianus immediately exerted their own Right and created Marcus Emperor according to Zonaras He was of their own Order a Venerable Person addicted to the study of Wisdom and Philosophy But he soon fell sick and died in the Palace at Rome II. Severus Hostilianus After Marcus the Senate by their Suffrages according to Zonaras also set up this Prince who likewise had the fortune to fall sick soon after and died III. Marcus Julius Philip the Father This was the Person who was the Author of the Murder of Gordianus the Third He associated his Son with him in the Empire His Wife was Marcia Otacilia Severa who it is thought was an occasion being her self instructed in the Christian Religion that her Husband was Favourable to the Christians IV. Marcus Julius Philip the Son He was otherwise called Caius Julius Saturninus Philippus But after his Assumption to the Empire by his Father he took the same Names with him They reigned together five some say six Years V. Jotapianus This Person set up himself for the Empire in Syria in the time of the Philips But was soon oppressed again and ended his Pretences with his Life VI. Marinus Some call him Publius Carvilius Marinus He was set Emperor up by the Legions in Garrison in Pannonia or Maesia at the same time that Jotapian made his Pretences in the East and was killed soon after VII Meslius Quintus Trajanus Decius the Father The Army in Illyricum advanced this Prince in opposition to the Philips He engaged the Emperor Philip the Father in a Battel at the City of Verona and slew him there Philip the Son was killed at Rome VIII Decius the Son He was called Quintus Herennius Etruscus Meslius Decius He reigned in conjunction with his Father IX Caius Valens Hostilianus Some Medals and Antient Inscriptions mention him and he is supposed to have set up himself against the Decii as did the two following But neither the Greek nor the Latin Historians are found to say any thing of him X. Lucius Priscus He was the President of Macedonia when he was set up to be Emperor against the Decii XI Valens Licinianus This is the same whom Trebellius Pollio makes the Nineteenth in his Catalogue and Account of the 30 Tyrants He had much of the Love of the People XII Caius Vibius Trebonianus Gallus the Father IMP. CAES. C VIBIVS TREBONIANVS GALVS AVG IMP. CAES. C. VIB. VOLVSIANVS AVG. IMP. CAES. AEMILLIANVS P. F. AVG. IMP. C. P. LIC. VALERIANVS AVG. IMP. C. P. LIC. GALLIENVS AVG. IMP. C. M. CASS. LAT. POSTVMVS AVG. P. 97. Vol. 11 XIII Vibius Volusianus his Son These two succeeded together to the Empire after the Decii with whom some joyn a Third namely XIV Hostilianus Perpenna He was preferred to the Empire by the Senate in the time that Gallus and his Son were Created by the Army XV. Caius Julius Aemilianus This Prince was Created by the Legions in Maesia and after the death of Gallus and his Son who were killed by their own Soldiers he reigned the space of three Months and governed the Empire with a deal of Prudence Then dying of a sickness he left it vacant to the Emperor Valerian In fine the History of these Princes and of the whole Interval from Gordianus the Third to Valerian is inveloped in so much Darkness that certainly it is very difficult to find any one place in which the Antient Writers are of any Agreement amongst themselves THE A. Christi CCLIV EMPEROR Valerian the First BY TREBELLIUS POLLIO VALERIAN was in the Province of Rhaetia when the Army set him up to be Emperor with the unanimous consent and approbation of the Senate and the People He was a Man of an Honourable Birth the Son of Valerius and he was one who in his time had passed through all the Gradual Offices and Honours of the State with great applause which paved the Way for him to the Throne To let you see the Esteem which the Publick Respect of the Senate to him had of his Merits and how well he stood in the opinion of the most Noble Senate at the time when he was chosen to be a Censor I will give you the Act of the Senate which passed for his Election Upon the sixth of the Kalends of November the Year in which the two Decii were the Consuls the Senate having received from those Princes Letters in which they left it to the Senate's Power to appoint a Person to the Place of a Censor met for the purpose in the Temple of Castor and Pollux and the Motion being made and the Question put whom they should Choose instead of waiting to be asked their Votes severally according to the Custom they all cried with one Voice in the absence of Valerian who was then in the Field with the Emperors The Life of Valerian is a continued Censorship As his Manners are Better than all the World besides so let him be the Judge of the Manners of all the World Let him judge of the Crimes of the Senate who hath none of his own
it There is no Antient Family to be found now there to represent the Nobility and the Antiquity of its former People but what perhaps hath sprung from some Person or other who escaped the slaughter by being at that time absent on his business or in the service of the War After the Peace with Aureolus Gallienus with the assistance of him and Claudius as his General who was afterwards Emperor and who is the Head of the Family of Constantius the Caesar began the War afresh against Posthumius in Gallia Posthumius was assisted with many succours from the Celtae and the Franks and being joined by Victorinus whom he had made Partner with him in his pretended Empire he marched to the Battel against Gallienus They fought several times with variety of success on both sides The Victory at last Posthumius defeated fell to Gallienus who it is to be owned had sudden Valour which came hot upon him when he was in a Choler and well provoked In this Choler he went next to revenge himself of Byzantium where he did not expect to be received within the Walls But upon Conditions he was The day after he first disarmed and then put all the Garrison and Town in cold blood to the Sword contrary to his Faith and the Promises that he had made them About the same time the Scythians in Asia were beaten by the Valour and the Conduct of the Roman Commanders there and obliged to retire from their Incursions Winged with these Successes Gallienus flew Gallienus his return to Rome with great speed to Rome and Convocating the Senate he Instituted and Celebrated his Decennial Games the Pomp and the Pleasures whereof were as Exquisite as they were New He went to the Capitol in a Procession of the Senators in their Robes the Gentry the Soldiers clad in White all the People Slaves a very great many and Women marching before with Wax Tapers and Lamps in their hands These were preceded by a hundred white Oxen yoaked two and two with their Horns gilt and Cloths of Silk thrown over their Backs of divers Colours which made a great Show In like manner marched two hundred pure white Lambs Ten Elephants that were then at Rome One thousand two hundred Gladiators pompously dressed in Cloaths embroider'd with Gold such as the Ladies of Quality wear Two hundred tam'd Wild Beasts of several kinds very finely adorned Chariots full of Mimicks and all sorts of Players Pugils fighting but not with true but counterfeit Weapons Drolls playing the Anticks and others imitating the Gestures and Looks of the Cyclops which was wonderful All the Streets resounded with Acclamations and the Plays and the Noise In the midst amongst the Senators marched Gallienus himself in a Triumphal Gown and Tunick accompanied with all the Priests in their Robes There were five hundred Spears of Gold born on each side one hundred Standards the Standards of the Colleges of the Priests the Arms and Ensigns of the Temples and all the Legions Then went also separate Bodies of Men representing Captives of Vanquish'd Nations as Goths Sarmatians Franks and Persians to the number of no less than two hundred in a Body And with this Pomp did Gallienus vainly think to elude and put upon the People of Rome who nevertheless seeing through the disguise one Man favoured Posthumius another Regillianus another Aureolus another Aemilian and another Saturninus as they fancied Great lamentation was made for the Captivity of Valerian the Father and it was admired that his own Son should leave him so unrevenged when strangers and foreign Potentates had been ready to vindicate him But nothing of this moved Gallienus his heart was stupified with his Pleasures All his discourse to those that were about him was What have we for Dinner What are the Diversions that are prepared to day What will be the Play to morrow What are the Races to be run in the Cirque The Procession being over and the Hecatombs being offered to the Gods Gallienus returned to the Court where there was an Entertainment which when finished he appointed the other days for the publick Pastimes One thing I must not omit and that is an unlucky Jest which was made upon the Procession Amongst the pretended Captives which were ridiculously led in Triumph there was a Body of supposed Persians As this Body was marching some Drolls that had a mind to be pleasant came in amongst them and sought and look'd all about and viewed every ones Face and wondred and were very inquisitive till at last they were asked what they would have and what was it they wanted Say they we would see the Emperor's Father This coming to the ears of Gallienus no regard either to his Father or to Pity or his own shame could prevail with him but he ordered the Men to be burnt The People resented their deaths beyond expectation very ill and the Soldiers worse who were so troubled that they reveng'd it upon Gallienus himself not long after In the Year that Gallienus and Saturninus Success of Oednatus against the Persians were the Consuls Odenatus King of the Palmyreni in Syria whose Valiant Actions spoke him worthy to be the Emperor of all the East as indeed he was and so he declared himself because Gallienus minded either nothing or only his Luxuries and his Follies took up the War against Persia to revenge the Captivity of Valerian which was so little regarded by Gallienus his Son He presently possessed himself of the Cities of Nisibis and Charrae by the Surrender of the Inhabitants who blamed Gallienus for his Neglect Yet was not Odenatus wanting in his Respect to Gallienus neither He sent the Great Men of the Persians whom he took Prisoners to Rome to him to give him the opportunity of insulting over their Misery in their turn which he did in a Triumph though the Victory was not his own but Odenatus's and still he mentioned nothing of his Father nor upon the report which came of his Death but which proved afterwards false did he Deifie him till he was constrained to it Odenatus advanced to the City of Ctesiphon and besieged it with a multitude of the Persians therein He laid all the Country about waste and killed innumerable of the Enemy All the Great Men of the Persians out of all the Provinces flew to this Siege for the common defence They Fought Fortune was a long time various and the Victory hard in getting But however it fell at last on the side of Odenatus who as he had no other end in the War but to deliver Valerian so he daily pushed for it but the Circumstances of Places in a strange Country incumbred the good Prince with great difficulties Whilst these things passed in Persia the Scythians broke in into Cappadocia which they Ravaged and having made themselves Masters of some Towns after the War was a long time doubtful they withdrew from thence into Bithynia Therefore the Soldiers were at this time for
had deserved no such usage from him were incensed at his supposed Ingratitude So mingling their Complaints and Sorrows together the one with the other they fell upon him suddenly at the place before-mentioned upon the Road and killed him This was the end of the Emperor Aurelian A Prince not properly so good as his Reign was of use and necessary to retrieve the Repose of the Empire When the matter afterwards came to be discovered how fraudulently the Conspiracy was procured to kill him the Persons themselves that had agreed to it built him a great Sepulchre and Dedicated a Temple to him and set up his Statues at the place of his Death And Mnestheus was tied to a stake and given to be devoured by Wild Beasts which is signified upon the place by Marble Statues of Mnestheus done in the Habit in which he was executed and set up on each side of the Sepulchre of Aurelian The Senate regretted his Death very much and the People of Rome more who commonly said that Aurelian was the Tutor of the Senate He reigned six Years wanting a few Days and for his great Actions was deified Not to omit any thing that I meet within History that relates to him many say that Quintillus the Brother of Claudius who when Death of Quintillus the News came to him of the Death of Claudius was in a Garrison in Italy assumed the Empire upon that News to succeed his Brother But when afterwards he found that Aurelian was chosen Emperor by all the Army and that when he harangued against the pretences of Aurelian to his own Soldiers they did not much care to hear him he cut his Veins himself and died the Twentieth day of his Reign Aurelian did this Service to the whole Empire that he purged away all professed Lewdness Irreligion and wicked Arts. He cleared it of Factions His Justice pursued the false Moniers or Coiners who to defend themselves joyned together in a Body and made a sort of a War under the encouragement of Felicissimus a Receiver within the Walls of Rome But Aurelian reduced them with a high hand it cost him the Lives of seven Thousand of his Soldiers to do it upon which occasion he writ this Letter to his Father by Adoption Ulpius Crinitus who was then the third time Consul The Emperor Aurelian to his Father Ulpius Crinitus AS if it is in a manner my Fate to meet with aggravations of difficulties in every thing that I enterprise a Sedition 〈…〉 the Walls of Rome hath risen to a very sad 〈…〉 〈…〉 Moniers or false Coiners at the suggestion of 〈…〉 licissimus the last of Slaves whom I made a Receiver of the Exchequer pretended to rebel They are suppressed but with the loss of Seven Thousand of my Men killed by them so that I may see I have no Victory given me by the immortal Gods which does not cost me dear Aurelian tho' he had made Tetricus a subject of his Triumph bestowed upon him afterwards the Government of the Province of Lucania in Italy and continued his Son in the Senate The Temple which he built to his particular Deity the Sun was most magnificent He His publick Managements extended the Walls of the City of Rome so that that they were almost fifty Miles in compass He was a severe Enemy to Delators and false Accusers of the Innocent The publick Registers of Proscriptions and Forseitures to the Exchequer he ordered for the common Security to be burnt in the Forum of Trajan and he granted an Act of Amnesty for the past Offences committed against the State the Example whereof was taken from that of the Athenians which Cicero mentions in his Philippicks The Magistrates of the Provinces who appeared to be guilty of Bribery and Extortion he severely prosecuted not with regard to them or himself as Soldiers but he laid upon them greater and more tormenting Punishments He bestowed much Gold and Jewels upon the Temple of the Sun Seeing the Provinces 〈…〉 Illyricum and Moesia laid waste by th◠〈…〉 sions of the Barbarians he withd 〈…〉 the Roman Forces and Subjects out of Dacia which Trajan had added to the Empire on the other side of the Danube and relinquishing a Country that he despaired to keep he planted the said Forces and People in Moesia and he gave the Name of the Aurelian Dacia to that Province that now divides betwixt the Upper and Lower Moesia It is said that he was so cruel as to charge several Senators with pretended Treasons and Conspiracies falsly only to have an occasion to cut them off Some add that it was a Sister's Son and not a Daughter which he killed Others that he killed his Sister's Son and Daughter both The Senate and the Army what with the Gravity of the one and the prudent Submission of the other made a great Difficulty of choosing a new Emperor to fill the Throne vacant by the Death of Aurelian The Army referred the choice to the Senate because they thought that they ought to avoid those who had been concerned in the Murder of so worthy a Prince The Senate on the other hand referred the Choice to the Army knowing that the Soldiers do not always take very well those Emperors that the Senate puts upon them This was disputed betwixt them three times so that for six Months the Roman World was without an Emperor and all Persons in the interim continued in their Governments and Offices as they were before excepting that the Senate made Falconius Probus the Proconsul of Asia in the place of Aurelius Fuscus It will not be unpleasant to see the Letter which the Army wrote to the Senate upon this subject it was this The Valiant and Victorious Army to the Senate and People of Rome AUrelian our Emperor through the Fraud of one Man and the surprizing Mistake of a mixture of others good and bad that were drawn in by him is killed You will please our good Lords and Fathers to make Aurelian a God and to send us a Person out of your own Body to be our Prince whom in your Judgments you shall think deserves to be so For we as concerning those that have either wilfully or ignorantly been led to commit this Fact will not suffer any of them to reign over us The Senate met upon the third Day of the Nones of February and being sat Aurelius Gordianus the Consul motion'd them to consider this Letter which was arrived from the Army The Letter was read The eldest Senator who was to deliver his Opinion the first was Tacitus who spoke thus The same who was afterwards by the Consent of all made the Successour to Aurelian Fathers of the Senate WELL had the immortal Gods consulted the Happiness of the World had they made the Persons of good Men invulnerable that such as meditate base Murder in their wicked Hearts could have had no Power to hurt them Then had we enjoyed our Emperor Aurelian longer who was one of the
do not doubt but you are Happy The Authority of Creating the Emperor is returned to the Senate Together with which it is Decreed that all Appeals shall be made to the Governour of the City of Rome In the same manner they writ to the Cities of Antioch Aquileia Milan Alexandria Thessalonica Corinth and Athens These were the Publick Letters The following are Private ones from particular Senators to their Friends Autronius Tiberianus to Autronius Justus his Father wisheth Health My Good Father NOW it is for you to come to be present and give your Suffrage in the Senate its Authority being encreased to the degree of which it was in the former Times We now make our Princes Name and Constitute our Emperors Therefore pray be careful to recover your Health and come and bear a part with the Senate in its Antient Glory The Right of Creating the Proconsuls and ordering the Proconsular Provinces is remitted to us and the Appeals of all Magistrates and Officers are returned into the hands of the Governour of the City of Rome Claudius Capellianus to Cereius Maecianus his Uncle wisheth Health WHAT we have always so much wished for we have now gained good Sir The Senate is returned to its Antient State We make our Princes and dispose of the Governments of the Proconsular Provinces Thanks to the Roman Army They have shewn themselves truly Romans and have restored to us the Power which hath been ever our due Leave Baja and Pozzuoli and your Retreat there Come to the Town come to the Senate Rome Flourishes and so does the whole State We now appoint our Emperors We make our Princes We who have begun to make them can disallow them too A word to the Wise is enough It would be too long to adjoyn all the Letters of this kind which I have seen and read I only say this that all the Senators were so elated with Joy for the return of their Antient Power that in their Houses they all slew their Sacrifices and exposed their Images and cloathed themselves in White and Feasted as if they thought that the days of their happy Forefathers were revived upon them All the Murderers of Aurelian as well the better as the worse after Tacitus was settled in the Empire he made it his business to put to death notwithstanding the baseness of that Murder had been already revenged in the Execution of Mnestheus the chief contriver of it The Barbarians on the side of the Lake Maeotis in great numbers made an Eruption But Tacitus partly by force and other means obliged them to retire In fine the chief Glory of the Reign of Tacitus was in the manner of his Elevation For the time that he lived afterwards being so short what liberty had he for any thing that is Great So that what Cicero says That it is more for our Honour to have it told how a Man hath managed a Consulship than how he came by it it takes no place here Tacitus dyed in the sixth Month of his Reign some say of a Sickness some that he was killed by the Soldiers It is certain that he was oppressed with Factions and this work'd much upon his Mind and Spirits He was both Born and made Emperor in the Month of September For which reason he had a fancy to change the Name of that Month to his own His Brother Florianus succeeded him He scarce gave the People of Rome a Largess in all his six Months His Picture is drawn in five several Dresses upon a Table in the House of the Quintilii in a Gown in a Vest in Armour in a Cloak and in a Hunting Habit. The Presages of his Reign were these In the Temple of Sylvanus one in a Fit of Frenzy in which the Priests delivered their Oracles stretching out his Arms cryed with all his force The Purple of Tacitus The Purple of Tacitus seven Omens of his Reign and Death times A Vine which used to bring forth white Grapes the Year that he came to the Empire began to bring forth Purple colour'd Grapes several other such things changed to that Colour The Presages of his Death were That his Father's Sepulchre flew open of it self his Mother's Ghost appeared in the day-time both to him and to Florianus just as if she was Living All the Gods in the Oratory of his House whether by an Earthquake or some other accident fell down An Image of Apollo which he and Florianus Worshipped was found laid upon the Bed without any hand to put it there known These are things that a great many mention But I conclude this Life THE A. Christi CCLxxviii EMPEROR FLORIANVS By FLAVIUS VOPI 〈…〉 US THere is but little to be said of this Prince more than that being the Brother of the Emperor Tacitus he after his death seized upon the Empire not by the Authority of the Senate but of his own Motion as if the Empire was to go to him by Inheritance though at the same time he knew that his Brother was Conjured in the Senate that when he dyed he should not bequeath the Empire no not to his own Children Florianus had scarce held it two Months but Florianus slain he was killed at the City of Tarsus in Cilicia by his Soldiers hearing that Probus was set up and that all the Army had declared for him Indeed Probus was so great a Man in the matter of War that as the Army had chose him so the Senate wished for him and the People of Rome made open Acclamations to have him Florianus though he had otherwise much in him of the Temper of his Brother was very different from him in this Ambition and this Thirst for the Empire He was profuse besides which his Thrifty Brother blamed in him They both together reigned so short a time that they look almost like two Interrexes acting betwixt the Reigns of Aurelian and Probus Their Statues were set up at Terni in Ombria in Marble thirty Foot high and likewise their Sepulchres did sometime stand there â—pon their own Grounds but they were afterwards struck down with Thunder and Lightning and shattered to pieces I come in the next place to Probus a Prince Conspicuous at home and abroad and Commendation of Probus in whom are united all those great Excellencies which Aurelian Trajan Hadrian the Antonini Alexander Severus and Claudius divided amongst them He came to the Empire with the concurrent Judgment of all Men of goodness He governed it most happily He extinguished the Barbarian Nations in their Incursions together with divers Usurpers who would have set themselves up in his time He was worthy of his Name which the People would have imposed upon him if it had not been his own by his Birth Several say he was promised to the World in the Books of the Sibyls Had he longer lived he had left no Barbarians on the Earth This Tast of so great a Prince I give you here lest as we are dayly hourly
Pursuant to this Distribution Dioclesian repaired to Aegypt and there levelled the Cities of the Thebais to the ground Constantius expelled Carausius out of Gallia whither he was then advanced but as Carausius by flight arrived again in Great Britain he was killed by one of his own Friends and chief Officers Alectus after he had held the Government of that Province almost seven Years and Alectus set up himself in his stead Against whom Constantius prepared a Fleet in order to attack him at once by Sea and Land assisted by Asclepiodotus the Captain of the Guards who overcoming Alectus after he had reign'd about three Years that Victory finished the Reduction of the Island of Great Britain Maximian passing with his Forces into Africa easily drove before him the Quinquegentiani They fled for shelter into their inaccessible Fastnesses but being forced to come to a Battel in the next Season he Vanquish'd them took them Prisoners and disposed of them at his discretion Likewise Galerius obtained a signal Victory in his Division over the Bastarnae and the Sarmatians in which Constantine the Son of Constantius Chlorus by Helena so Nobly signalized his Youth as to take the Sarmatian General Prisoner and bring him alive to Galerius After this Dioclesian Commanded Galerius out of Pannonia into Aegypt and sent him to Encounter the Tyrant Achilleus who was not as yet oppressed there Galerius Engaging and overcoming him about Pelusium or Belvais Achilleus fled for refuge into Alexandria but Galerius followed him and besieged him in Alexandria and obliging that City to surrender to him upon discretion in eight days by the order of Dioclesian it was demolished and exposed to free Plunder and Achilleus was cast to the Wild Beasts The War of Aegypt having detained Dioclesian Egypt reduc'd in those Parts no less than six Years Narses the King of Persia was encouraged in the mean time to commence a new War in the East and to make his Incursions into Mesopotamia and Armenia Wherefore Dioclesian sent Galerius away into the East who came to Antioch with a good Army and had the better of Narses in two Battels But rashly venturing the fortune of a third on a time when his Force was become much reduced he was so well beaten that he lost almost entirely all his Men and with difficulty escaped with his own Life He came to Dioclesian who received him in a manner which was to let him know that he highly resented his Conduct and he was scarce willing to trust him with another Army to give him an opportunity to repair his disgrace However Galerius obtained the leave to try his Fortune once more against Narses and this time he gave the Persians such a rout that he took the Wife Sisters The Persians totally routed and Children of Narses Prisoners and obliged him to a Peace upon the Conditions of returning back to the Romans all the Provinces that he had Usurped from them and to take the Tygris for the Boundary of the Roman Empire Altogether the same Fortune did Constantius meet with in the East of being first overcome by and then of overcoming the Germans They passed the Rhine upon the Ice and gave him such a blow on a sudden that he fled wounded to the next Garrison in that precipitancy and that danger that the Gates being shut he was forced to be haled upon the Walls by a Rope but yet Rallying again presently and engaging the Enemy with some fresh Men and likewise the Germans and a fresh Courage he killed to the number of Sixty thousand of them upon the place These great and repeated Victories elevated the Pride of Dioclesian to a heighth that not contented neither with the Habit which had been usually worn by the Roman Emperors nor with the accustomed Reverences that were paid them he decorated his Person with Jewels and Cloth of Gold he caused his Enamell'd Shoes to be kissed and himself to be Adored and to be called a God and Lord which none of his Predecessors had done since Caligula and Domitian When he triumph'd in great Pomp at Rome in conjunction with Maximian he entitled himself Jovius and Maximian Herculius As if himself was a second Jupiter and Maximian a second Hercules He Triumph'd over the Goths Bastarnae Quadi Sarmatians Aegyptians and Persians Maximian over the Franks Allemans Britains and Mauritanians And their Triumphal Chariot was preceded by the Captive Sisters and Children of the King of Persia This is what hath occurred to me as to the Military part of the Life of Dioclesian For by the loss of the Commentaries of Claudius Eusthenius his Secretary before mention'd by Vopiscus and by the deplorable loss of other the like Originals it is very visible that a great many Particulars of both Dioclesian Maximian Constantius and Galerius are wholly buried in Oblivion To proceed therefore to what remains These two Emperors published an Edict which bears date from Alexandria the day before the Kalends of April and which is directed to Julianus the Proconsul of Africa against the base and infamous Sect as it calls them of the Manichees They order them to be entirely extirpated the Heads and Chieftains of them together with their abominable Writings to be burnt their Followers to be sent to the Mines or otherwise punished with Death and all their Estates to be confiscated into the Treasury As to the Christians they published an Edict in the Year 286. whereby they forbad any Person to be allowed to Buy or Sell or Grind or draw Water who refused to burn Incense before the Statues of the Gods But this Edict The Edict against the Christians touched only for the present the Christians who lived at Rome It is not understood to have been enjoyned to be observed over all the Empire The Fire was kindled by degrees till being continually blown up from the mouths of the Gentile Priests and the Philosophers and others who could not perswade themselves to forego the Trade of the gainful Sacrifices and Idols of the Gentile Religion and there never wanting more and more Fuel to feed the Flame it came at last to an Universal Conflagration The Particulars it is not for this place to recount It is sufficient to say That it was the most Unmerciful Inhumane Dire Outragious Scene of Barbarity that ever the Sun beheld and spilt more blood in a manner that was to the last degree base and dishonourable to the Actors but glorious to the Sufferers than had been spilt before in a thousand Wars A Legion of Thebaean Soldiers who had been employed in Syria against the Persians and Parthians and by having been used to Winter in Palaestine had been brought to embrace the Christian Religion was in the Year 297 Commanded out of the East to serve under Maximian in Gallia The Tribune was Mauricius the Standard-bearer Exuperius and among the rest there was one Candidus a Senator They were a compleat Legion of 6666 Stout Men well appointed So Maximian
contradict the Edicts of those about them but yet he moderated the matter in their Favour as much as possible and the Destruction was always the less where he came Galerius one day urging him on to be as violent upon it as his Brethren he published an Order for all Persons to depart his Court who would not sacrifice But such Christians as for fear and the advantage of staying in his Court complied he blamed and turned out of it and such as had chosen rather to depart than Sacrifice he re-called and retained them saying He could not doubt of their Fidelity to him who were so True to God There is this other Passage that shews the Goodness of Constantius not to be omitted Dioclesian had blamed very much his Negligence and reproached him with being a poor Prince because he had no Money in his Treasury Constantius desired the Envoys who had brought him that Message only to stay a little and they should see more of this matter In the mean time he signified his desire to all his States to furnish him with Money They filled his Coffers immediately and with a Zeal in which every one had an emulation to excel Then shewing to the Envoy of Dioclesian his Riches he said His Subjects Money was all at his Devotion but he never thought it safer than when they were the Keepers of his Treasury Galerius was by his Birth a Dacian of mean Parentage He was called Armentarius because at the first in his Youth he was but a Keeper of Cattel His Mother's Name was Romula from which he took an occasion to call the place of his Birth Romulianus and he pretended to say that his Mother when she conceived of him was impregnated by a Dragon He was of a tyrannical Disposition and much addicted to the Magicks He was particularly bloody upon the Christians of Nicomedia But coming to die by a Disease which consumed his Secret Parts and rotted out his Eyes and parted his Flesh from his Bones he was so sensible of the Hand of God in it that he countermanded the Persecution and begged the Prayers of the Christians unto God for him Whilst the moderate Constantius contented himself with the Administration of no more than Gallia Spain and Great Britain Galerius thought fit to create two Caesars the one to preside over Italy the other to go into the East who were his two Sister's Sons Flavius Valerius Severus and Galerius Maximin In which Promotion pretermitting Constantine the Son of Constantius by Helena who had all along served under him and Constantine together with his Resentments of that suspecting a Design against his Person he made his escape from him and fled into Great Britain to his Father who was arrived there out of Gallia in order to make War upon the Caledonians and the Picts His Father with Joy embraced him and by the Consent of all the Forces appointed and declared him his Successor and presently after that his Father dying at the City of York the Eighth of the Kalends of August in the Year Three Hundred and Six then commenced the Reign of the Emperor Constantine the Great Constantius was Emperor not much above one Year Galerius reigned about six and both had been before thirteen years Caesars They finished the vast Structure of the Baths of Dioclesian which was a Work from the beginning of seven years Galerius did a great deal of good to the Province of Pannonia by cutting down the Woods and converting them into Fields and by opening a Mouth for the Lake Pelso to fall into the Danube He created Licinius Emperor in Conjunction with him towards the end of his Reign and set him over Illyricum and Thrace being one who was his Country-man a Dacian and who had signalized himself well under him in the Wars of Persia And then Gallerius died in the manner which hath been said in the Year three hundred and eleven FINIS A CHRONOLOGY TO BOTH VOLUMES A CHRONOLOGY TO THE First Volume Ann. Christi  96 DOmitian kill'd Sept. 18. NERVA 97 COnspiracy of Calphurnius Crassus against him  Adopteth Trajan 98 Dies Jan. 27. TRAJAN Ann. Christi  100 THE Dacian War of five Years 103 His Bridge over the Danube 104 Arabia reduced by Palmas 105 Decebalus the King of Dacia kills himself 107 Death of Licinius Suras 108 The Parthian Expedition 111 Deposition of Parthamasyris from the Crown of Armenia 112 Armenia Mesopotamia Assyria conquered 114 Rebellion of the Jews  The Forum and Column of Trajan finished 115 Earthquake at Antioch 116 Trajan ' s Voyage on the Red-Sea  Revolt of his Conquests 117 Adopteth Hadrian  Dies Aug 10. HADRIAN Ann. Christi  118 PAlmas Celsus and others killed 119 He relinquishes the Conquests of Trajan 122 Adrianople built 123 Expedition into Great Britain 125 At Athens initiated in the Eleusinian Mysteries 126 Passeth into Africa 127 Again visiteth Athens 129 Erects a Tomb to his Horse 131 Death of Antinous 134 Sepulchrum Hadriani built 136 Adopteth Aelius Verus 137 Aelius Verus dies 138 Hadrian adopteth Antoninus Pius  Dies July 10. ANTONINUS PIUS Ann. Christi  A. C.  139 ADopteth Marcus Antoninus Feb. 25. 141 Repairs the Pons Sublicius at Rome  Death of his Wife Faustina 144 The Britains reduced by Lollius Urbicus 145 The Moors Germans Dacians and Alans reduced 147 Matches his Daughter to Marcus Antoninus  Apollonius the Philosopher of Chalcis invited to Rome 152 An Inundation of the Tyber 156 Attilius Titianus proscribed 161 Death March 6. Marcus Antoninus the Philosopher Ann. Christi  161 ASsociates Verus to him in the Empire  The Parthian War of five Years 162 Agricola sent into Great Britain 166 Commodus declared Caesar Octob. 12. 168 A great Pestilence 169 The Marcomannick War  Death of Verus 174 Victory over the Quadi and Marcomanni 175 The Revolt of Cassius 176 M. Anton. passeth to Athens 177 Triumphs  Commodus declared his Associate in the Empire November 27. 178 Matches Commodus to Crispina 180 Death March 16. COMMODUS Ann. Christi  180 TRriumphs 181 The Ministry of Perennis 183 The Britains reduced by Ulpius Marcellus 184 Attempt of Pompeianus against the Life of Commodus  Lucilla Sister to Commodus put to death 185 The Baths of Commodus built 186 Perennis killed 187 The Ministry of Cleander 190 Cleander killed  Commodus putteth his own Head upon the Coloss of the Sun 192 Acteth Hercules  Death PERTINAX Ann. Christi  126 BORN 167 Defeateth the Germans under the Reign of M. Antoninus 193 His Death March 28. DIDIUS JULIANUS Ann. Christi  193 DEposed and killed June SEVERUS Ann. Christi  194 DEfeats and slays Pescennius Niger 196 Victories in the East  Declares Caracalla Caesar June 1. 198 Overcomes and kills Albinus  Declares Caracalla Emperor with him and Geta Caesar 200 His Expedition against Parthia 202 Edict as to the Christians and Jews 203 Marrieth Caracalla to Plautilla  Triumphs 205 Plautianus killed
accept the Empire 16 44. Death 52. Person and Character 57. Gordianus II. His Death 52. Character when young 54. And in his advanced Age 55. Personage 57. Gordianus III. Declar'd Emperor 59. Marriage 60. Persian Expedition 63. Deposed and Slain 68 69. Character 69. Buildings 70. Epitaph 72. Goths 5 114 292. H. HAdrian 308. Hecatomb 85. Helianus 341. Heliogabalus 5. Hemona 22 35. Heraclammon 220 221. Heraclianus 123. Herennian 164. Herod 123 153. Herodian 14. Hostilianus Perpenna 97. I. JEWS 308. Ingenuus 140. Interregnum 239 250. Jotapiana 95. Isauria 163. Julius Capitolinus 274. Junius Cordus 79. Junius Messala 337. Junius Tiberianus 195. L. LEtters of Alexander Severus 32 40. Of Aurelian 167 202 217 221 224 225 229 237 246. Of Maximin I. 33 49. Of Mysitheus 60 65. Of Gordianus III. 62 64. Of Claudius Julianus 91. Of Belsotus 102. Of Balerus 103. Of Artabasdes 104. Of Valerian 134 149 155 189 191 203 204 206 208 276 277. Of Gallienus I. 141 193 279. Of Claudius 143 182 183 213. Of Decius 192. Of Zenobia 226. Of the Army to the Senate 239. Of the Senate 17 264. Of Antoninus Tiberianus 265. Of Claudius Capellianus 266. Of Tacitus 281. Of Probus 284 285 290 293. Of Hadrian 308. Licinius 73. Lollianus 135. Lots 185. Lucius Priscus 96. M. MAcedon 12. Macrianus 109 110 146 147 149. Magnus 11. Maeonius 153. Manichees 346. Marcia Otacilia Severa 95. Marcus 95. Marinus 96. Marius 138. Marius Maximus 274 301. Martianus 125. Mauricius 43. Maxentius 351. Maximian His Character 335 351. Created Caesar 341. Emperor 342. His Successes in Gallia 341 342. And Africa 344. Triumph 346. Massacres the Thebaean Legion 347. Works 348. Edict against the Christians 349. Abdication 350. Treachery 351. Death ibid. Maximin I. His Extraction 1. Rise 2. Preferment 4. Reception from Heliogabalus 5. And Alexander Severus 6. Strength of Body 7. Proclaimed Emperor 9. Cruelty 9. Expedition against the Germans 13. Rage upon the News of the African Revolt 19 49. Besieges Aquileia 23. Death 24. Measure of his Foot 32. Maximin II. His Beauty 29 31 35. Learning 30. Pride and Conditions 31. Death 24 35. Maximus Declared Emperor 77. His Extraction 79. Person and Manners 80. Reception at Rome 87. Death 89. Memphis 159. Menophilus 23. Mnestheus 234. Moses 177. Mutiny 83. Mysitheus 60 65. N. NNarses 345. Nemesis 83. Nicomachus 226 256. Numerianus His Poetry and Oratory 328. Death 329. O. ODenatus 110 119 122 123 151. Olympius Nemesianus 328. Omens 33 34 199 268. Onesimus 321. P. PAlfrurius 292. Palfurius Suras 128. Palmyra 224 229. Piso 109 157. Philip I. His Rise 66. Declared Emperor 67. Deposes and Kills Gordianus III. 68. Favourable to the Christians 95. Philip II. 95. Pompey M. 39 51. Posthumius 112 116 133 135. Probus His Birth and Parentage 275. Esteem with several Emperors 275 276 277 278 279 280 281. The Praemiums given him 278. Valour 282. Elevation to the Empire 283. Unwillingness to take it 284. Successes against the Barbarians 289 290. 291. Easter Expedition 292. Intestine Troubles 294. Triumph 295. Death 296. Elogium 297 270. Proculus His Extraction and Wealth 312. Death 312. Created Emperor 313. Ptolemais 292. Q. QUietus 109 150. Quinquegentiani 343 344. Quintillus 187 236. R. RAvenna 26. Regillianus 142. Roman Emperors few good 242. Romania 1. Rome in its Thousandth Year 72. Various Fortune under different Princes 320. S. SAbinianus 60. Sabinus 49. Sabinus Julianus 340. Salona 350. Sapores 64 102. Saturninus Tyr. in the time of Gallienus 160. Saturninus Declared Emperor 309 His Sense of the Pe 〈…〉 ls of that Station 308. Death 294 309. Senate Their Act for Constituting the Gordiani Emperors and denouncing Maximin an Enemy 17 46. Their Act for Constituing Maximus and Balbinus Emperos 77. Their Choice of Valerian to be Censor 99. Their Acclamations upon Claudius 179. Their Debate about the Books of the Sibyls 214 215 216. Their Act for the Constituting Tacitus Emperor 253 254 255 256. Their Act in the favour of Probus 286. They Vote the Excision of the Chirstians 349. Senate of Women 248. v. Vol. I. Serapis Serenus Sammonicus 54. Severus Caes 350. Severus Hostilianus 95. Sibyls 63 114 214 215. Sicca 166. Sirmish 197. Speeches of Maximin I. 20 50. Mauricius 43. Senator of the first Voice 75. Vectius Sabinus 76. Decius 100. Valerian 100 209 278. Marius 139. Balists 146. Macrianus 147 148. Aurelian 210. Ulpius Crinitus 210. Tacitus 240 255 260. Velius Cornificius Gordianus 253. Maecius Falconius Nicomachus 256. Aelius Cesetianus 258. Maesius Gallicanus 259. Manlius Statianus 287. Saturninus 308. Suetonius Optatianus 263. Suetonius Tranquillus 79 274 301. Syrians 229. T. TAcit Decree 48. Tacitus His Election to the Empire 254 Unwilling to assume it 259. Managements 261. Moderation and Diet 262. Death 267. Terni 274. Tetricus 161 162 230 232 237. Thebais 343. Thebaean Legion 347. Theodotus 112. Thysdrus 16 43 Tiberian Library 274. Timolaus 165. Titianus 30. Titus Quartinus 12 175. Toxotius 30. Trebellian 163. Trebellius Pollio 197. Trebonianus Gallus 96. Troy 183. Tyana 220. V. VAlens Hostilianus 96. Valens Licinianus 96. Valens Tyr. 109 156 157. Valerian I. His great Esteem with the Senate 98. Censor 99. Captivity 102. Death 105. Valerian II. 106. Valerius Marcellinus 79. Vectius Sabinus 76 78. Verona 348. Vibius Volusianus 97. Victorina 170. Victorinus 137 138. Vitalianus 16 45. Ulpian Library 196 222 259 274 328. Ulpius Crinitus 205. Vulcatius Terentianus 57. W. WOmen's Bravery 36 166 171. Z. ZEnobia 123 166 223 224 226 227 232. FINIS BOOKS Printed for and Sold by Charles Harper at the Flower-de-luce over-against St. Dunstan's-Church in Fleet-street THE Life of our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ An Heroic Poem Dedicated to Her most Sacred Majesty in Ten Books Attempted by Samuel Wesley M. A. each Book illustrated by necessary Notes explaining all the more difficult Matters in the whole History Also a Prefaratory Discourse concerning Heroic Poetry The Second Edition revised by the Author and improved with the Addition of a large Map of the Holy-Land and a Table of the Principal Matters with Sixty Copper-Plates by the celebrated Hand of W. Faithorne Folio The Second and Third Parts of the Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley The Second containing what was written and published by himself in his younger Years re-printed together The Sixth Edition The Third Part containing his Six Books of Plants viz. the First and Second of Herbs the Third and Fourth of Flowers the Fifth and Sixth of Trees now made English by several Hands with necessary Tables to both Parts and divers Poems in praise of the Author Folio Resolves Divine Moral Political With several New Additions in Prose and Verse In this Eleventh Edition References are made to the Poetical Citations heretofore much wanted By Owen Felltham Esq Folio Price 12 s. The Works of the Famous Nicholas Machival Citizen and Secretary of Florence Newly and faithfully Translated into English Fol. Price 15 s. The Whole Duty of Man according to the
cleansed the Lake Fucinus He appointed Four Proconsuls for the Administration of Justice throughout all Italy At his coming into Africa it rained which it not having done in that Country before in five Years this was an occasion that he was very dear to that People Going always in his Travels in all Parts with his Head uncovered and many times in the greatest Showrs and the greatest Colds at last he fell into a Sickness which obliged He sickens him to take to his Bed and being solicitous about the Person whom he should make a Choice of for his Successour his first Thoughts carried him upon Servianus but upon a further Consideration as hath been said he put him to Death together with Fuscus whom he hated upon the account of certain Presages and Prodigies which had happened and which might give Fuscus the Encouragement to dare to hope for the Empire The like jealousie which he was inclined to have of Pletorius Nepos made him that now he hated him as much as before he had loved him Thus he hated also Terentius Gentianus and so much the more as he knew that he was beloved by the Senate In short he had an aversion to every one His Jealousie upon whom he look'd with an Eye of jealousie as if they aspired to the Empire in his place But still he however stifled all the Motions of that Cruelty which was in his Heart till such time as he was brought almost to his last of a Flux of Blood at Tivoli and then he ordered Servianus directly to be put to Death pretending he was one who had affected the Empire having treated the Servants of the Court with Suppers and sat himself down in the Chair which is for the Emperor and courted the Favour of the Soldiers Several others at the same time by his Order either publick or private were put to Death which is the less to be admired because Sabina his own Consort died suddenly after not without a Suspicion of her being Poysoned by him In the next place he took up a Resolution to adopt Cejonius He adopts Aelius Verus Commodus Verus the Son-in Law of Nigrinus the Conspirator before-mentioned being a Youth whose Beauty had formerly recommended him to him So he accordingly did it and called him by the Name and Title of Aelius Verus Caesar how displeasing soever this was to others To honour whose Adoption he gave the Games of the Cirque to the People and bestowed upon both the People and the Soldiers a Free Bounty He made him a Praetor and gave him immediately the Charge of the Province of Pannonia He created him a Consul and furnished his Expences He appointed him a second time Consul till seeing him in so ill a Condition of Health as not to be one likely long to live I have said he depended upon a falling Wall and the Four Thousand Sesterces are lost which I spent upon the People and the Soldiers upon the Adoption of Commodus And indeed Commodus was so ill he was not able so much as to go and return his Thanks to Hadrian in the Senate for the Honour which he had done him And having taken at last a Dose which happened to be Who dies too strong for him his Illness redoubled and he fell into a Sleep in which he died the first Day of January which being a solemn Day for Congratulating the Emperor upon the New Year and of making Oblations to the Gods there was an Order from Hadrian to put off the Mourning on that Day for his Death Aelius Verus Caesar being dead and Hadrian finding himself still worse as to his own Indisposition He adopts Antoninus he adopted next Arrius Antoninus who was afterwards called Antoninus the Pious that is he adopted him upon this Condition that Antoninus should adopt two others who were Annius Verus and Marcus Antoninus who as they were both afterwards Emperors were the first Two that sate upon the Throne together and reigned in Conjunction with one another The reason of giving to Arrius Antoninus the Title of the Pious was because he shew'd himself so careful of his Father-in-Law in his great Years that he led him by the Hand as he went to or came from the Senate or according to others because he was the Occasion of the Preservation of the Lives of several of the Senators when Hadrian was in his Frensie for killing them or lastly because he performed great Honours to the Memory of Hadrian after his Death However it is there were many who regretted the Adoption of Antoninus and especially Catilius Severus the Governour of Rome who was diligently paving himself a way to the Throne which being discovered he was deprived of his Place and another Person put into it Hadrian impatient His Impatience in his Sickness under the last Pangs of Life commanded a Servant to run him through with a Sword Antoninus being made acquainted with this went in to him in Company with the Officers of the Court and beseeching him to take his great Sickness as it was unavoidable with more constancy he was angry at them and commanded that the Discoverer of what he had said to the Servant should be put to Death But Antoninus saved him and said That he should think himself a Parricide if he should suffer Hadrian who had adopted him to be murdered Then he made his last Will not forgetting therein the Interest of the State He endeavoured after he had made his Will to kill himself with his own Hand But the Weapon was wrested from him and this made him perfectly furious He commanded a Physician to give him Poyson who it is said chose to kill himself upon the Place rather than to Poyson his Prince About this time there came a certain Woman who said She had been admonished in a Dream that she should go and advise Hadrian not to kill himself because he would one day recover which she not observing to do as she was ordered she pretended she had been struck blind upon it However she said she was commanded upon the same Errand again and told that when she had done it and had kissed the Feet of Hadrian she should receive her sight so she did it and she received her Sight accordingly after washing her Eyes in the Water of the Temple from whence she came There came out of Pannonia to Hadrian whilst he was in a Fever a Man who also pretended he had been long blind who touching Hadrian not only received his Sight but also Hadrian was quitted of his Fever that is says Marius Maximus These things were all a Fiction of the Contrivance of Antoninus to heal the wounded imagination of Hadrian and divert him from murdering himself Then Hadrian went to Baiae leaving Antoninus at Rome to govern but nothing at that Place doing him good he sent for Antoninus to him and died in his presence at Baiae upon the Sixth Day of the Ides His Death of July A little before