and Civica the Uncle of Verus He went with her himself as far as to Brindisi in Naples and had intended to see her over the Water if the Discourses of some as if he had desired to Challenge to himself the glory of finishing the War and upon that account was for going into Syria had not called him back to Rome He writ to the Proconsul to take care that she was not interrupted by any in her Journey Whilst these things passed Marcus Antoninus Publick Constitutions made a Law which is an extraordinary security to People in cases concerning their Freedom he was the first that contrived it and it is thus he ordered every Roman Citizen who had a Child born to enter the name of the Child before the Treasurers of the Exchequer within thirty days In the Provinces he erected Publick Notaries before whom the same thing should be done upon the Births there as before the Treasurers of the Exchequer at Rome so that when any Person born in any Province hath a Cause in Hand concerning his Freedom he hath no more to do than to bring from that Province a Testificate of his Birth this corroborated the whole Law concerning Freedoms He made other Laws concerning Bankers and Auctions In divers Causes in which himself especially Great Deference to the Senate was concerned he made the Senate the Judge He ordered that Actions having reference to the Freedom or Servitude of Persons Defunct should be brought within five years from their deaths or be excluded for ever No Prince ever deferred more to the Senate than he He delegated to several of them of the degree of Praetors and Consuls the decision of many Affairs only that their command so far in the Law should be a means to possess them with the greater Honour He admitted several of his Relations into the Senate whom he had made Aediles or Praetors He granted to several Senatours that were poor provided that it was without reproach the Offices of Tribunes and Aediles He made no one a Senatour unless he had a very good knowledge of him In this also he shew'd his respect to them that whenever a Senatour underwent a Tryal for his life he heard him first in private before he tryed him in publick and he suffered none of the Order of the Knights and Gentlemen to assist in such a Case He went constantly as much as possible to the Senate though he had nothing to propose to them if he was at Rome but when he had any thing to propose to them he came in Person to do it if it were out of Campagnia He often assisted in the Courts of Judicature till it was night and never withdrew out of the Senate till the Consul himself dismist it He made the Senate the Judge in cases of Appeals from the Consuls He shew'd himself very diligent upon all Judiciary matters He marked out the Law-days in the Kalendar when Business was to be done and Causes tryed In the whole year they were to the number of two hundred and thirty He first gave the Praetors a power to appoint Guardians to Minors who before were appointed by the Authority of the Consuls which he did to expedite the Actions in that case He regulated the excess of the Publick Expences in Feasts and Games He interposed against the Trade of Informers and when he found them false he branded them He contemned the Accusations which were suggested to him to enrich his Exchequer He contrived many things very Prudently relating to the Publick Stores He made Senatours the Curatours to several Cities to extend so much the more the glory of their Order He relieved the Cities of Italy in a time of great Famine with Corn sent from Rome He looked after every thing that concerned the Magazines of Corn. He moderated the Games of the Gladiatours all manner of ways He diminish'd the Gratuities given to or exacted by the Comedians He took a great care of the Streets of the City and the High-ways He appointed Officers over the Provinces of Italy for the Administration of Justice in the Nature of the Proconsuls which had been before appointed by Hadrian He repeopled Spain which was exhausted by continual Levyes with Colonies from Italy In which contravening the Ordinances of Trajan he expressed himself with great modesty and respect to the memory of that Prince He added other Laws concerning the Tax called Vicessima the Tutelage of Servants Maternal Estates and the succession of the Children unto them He ordered that such Senatours who were Foreigners should however buy themselves a fourth of their Estates in Italy He gave power to the Curatours of the Towns and the Highways either to punish or to remit to the Governour of Rome to be punished such as exacted more from any Persons than what they were justly taxed to As to the rest he rather restored the old Laws than created new ones He had Lawyers always with him by whose Opinion and according to whose Forms he gave Sentence in Law and published his Ordinances Particularly Scaevola was one excellent Lawyer that he much used The People lived under him altogether as Moderation of Antoninus in a Free-City He was extremely well disposed in all things to deter Persons from evil and to invite them to good He rewarded plentifully and pardoned graciously he made them of ill good Men and of good Men he made them extraordinary good He took a Raillery upon these occasions very patiently One Veterasinus who was of an ill Fame begging an honourable Employment of him he advised him to clear himself first from the Censures of the People Veterasinus answering he saw some that were made Praetors that he had fought Prizes with upon the Publick Stage the Emperor took it and said nothing He was not forward to punish If any Praetor had behaved himself in some things ill yet he did not turn him out of his Praetorship but ordered him to remit his Business intirely into the Hands of his Colleague He never in his Judgments favoured the Exchequer in a Matter of Gain when it hath been upon himself to give Sentence He was firm to himself and his purpose and yet his Resolution was set off with Modesty especially where he was even obliged to give repulse After his Brother was returned a Conquerour from Syria the Title of Pater Patria was given to them both For Marcus had in his absence comported himself to all the Senatours and all People well An Oaken or which is otherwise called a Civick Crown was equally presented to them both and Verus desired that Marcus should Triumph with him He desired that the Sons of Marcus should be also called Caesars But such was the great moderation of Marcus that though he joyned in the Triumph in Company with him he relinquished to him intirely when Verus was dead the Title of the Conquerour of the Parthians and stiled himself only the Conquerour of the Germans which was a Title he
that had passed and as for his own part he took his Oath that he would never punish a Senator otherwise than according to the very Sentence of the Senate He proceeded to ease the particular Towns and Magistrates of the Charge of the publick Post and Carriages by ordering them to be maintained out of the Exchequer in fine to omit nothing to make himself to be esteemed he forgave an infinite number of Debts which were due to the Exchequer from private Persons in the City and all over the Country as also he remitted the Arrears of great Sums which were due from the Provinces the Bonds and Registers relating whereunto were all burnt in the Forum of Trajan for a full Security to every one against those Claims He suffered it not that the Estates of Persons condemned should be confiscated into his private Coffers but ordered them all to be return'd into the publick Treasury And as Trajan had begun to provide for the Support of the poor Infants of both Sexes who were not by the Law to be admitted to the general Dole before such an Age so Hadrian enlarged that Munificence and made an Addition to their Pension Unto such of the Senators as were reduc'd but had not consumed their Fortunes by their ill Lives and Debauchery he set out Pensions suitable to their Quality and suitable to the Number of the Children which they had continuing the same to many to their Deaths It was not only to his Favourites to whom he extended his Bounty but to others he generously gave great Things to enable them to acquit themselves in their Offices with Honour To some necessitous Women he allowed Pensions towards their Maintenance The Games of the Gladiators were exhibited Six Days together and a Thousand wild Beasts at his Charge were exposed to be hunted and taken upon the Anniversary of his Birth He chose himself out of the principal Persons His Prudence and Moderation of the Senate an Imperial Council He refused to accept of any other of the Games of the Cirque which were decreed in his Honour than such as those which were celebrated upon his Birth-Day He said many times both in his Discourse and to the Senate That his Government should be such that the World should see it was the Interest of the People which he minded and not his own As he was three times Consul himself so he advanced several Thrice to that Dignity And for the Honor of a Second Consulship he bestowed that upon a multitude of Persons The Third time that himself was Consul he officiated it no longer than Four Months but yet he often sat in Person in Judgment He never was absent from the Senate when he was either in Town or nigh the Town upon the Solemn Days of meeting He carried the Honour of His Respect for the Senate the Senate so high and made such a Difficulty of creating Senators that when he created Tatianus who was a Captain of the Guards and had had all the Ornaments given him of a Consul he told him That he had nothing in his Power to confer upon him that was a greater Honour He did not give leave to those of the Order of the Knights and Gentlemen to sit in Judgment either without or with him in a Cause which concerned the Life of a Senator altho' until then it had been the Custom that when the Emperor takes the Cognisance of a Cause in Person he call'd not only the Senators but the Roman Gentlemen unto his Assistance and pronounced Sentence according to the Opinions of all together In fine he proceeded even to execrate those Princes who had had a lesser Consideration for the Senators than they ought He retained so great a respect for Servianus his Sister's Husband who had been Twice Consul before him that he always went out of his Chamber to meet him coming and he created him a Consul the Third time without his solicitations for it the Honour whereof was imperfect in nothing but this that he did not take him to be his own Colleague in that Third Consulship In the mean time this is yet to be remembred His Imperfections of this Prince that he abandoned a great many Provinces which had been by Trajan acquired to the Empire and the Theatre which had been built by Trajan in the Campus Martius he destroyed contrary to the desires of all the World And certainly these things seemed to be so much the worse as he knew very well himself that they were displeasing and yet he pretended that in doing them he accomplished the Orders which had been left him by Trajan He was willing when he became weary of the Power of Tatianus the Captain of the Guards who had been formerly his Tutor to have had him murdered but that which call'd him off from those Thoughts was he had already a great deal of ill will upon him upon the occasion of the Murder of those Four Consular Persons before-mentioned the Odium whereof he endeavoured to throw upon Tatianus At length Tatianus of his own accord laid down his Commission which Hadrian conferred upon Turbo Similes the other Captain of the Guards laid down his which Hadrian conferred upon Septimius Clarus Nevertheless those two Tatianus and Similes were Persons who very well might have deserved his utmost Favour After this he went a Progress into His Affability and Complaisance Campania where he endeavoured to oblige all Places into which he came with the Kindnesses he did them and the Largesses which he bestowed amongst them admitting every where the Gentlemen of Estates and Quality to the Honour of his Friendship At Rome he repair'd often in Person into the Courts of the Praetors and the Consuls He honoured his Ministers with his Company at their Houses When they were Sick he visited them Twice or Thrice a Day He visited some when Sick who were no more than Servants that he had manumitted Comforting them in their Infirmities and Assisting them with his Counsels He received his Friends to his Table and was as Easy always with them as if he was a private Man The Honours which he bestowed upon his Mother-in-Law at her Death were the greatest that were possible in the Games of the Gladiators which he exhibited and in all other Rites whereby he shewed his Duty to her Then he went into Gallia where he signalized He goes into Gaul and Germany himself by his great Bounties and his forwardness to Relieve all Persons that were in Necessity and Want From thence he went into Germany and tho' he was one who was a greater Lover of Peace than War yet here he Exercised the Soldiers as if he was immediately making ready for a War He inculcated to them the Precepts of Patience to His demeanor towards the Soldiery teach them to be hardy and to be able to suffer He gave them in himself a Model of the Life of a Soldier visited them in their Tents Eat and
Sestertiums amongst the Soldiers and the Games of the Cirque Celebrated so that nothing was omitted to be done in order to proclaim a publick Joy and his Interest with Hadrian became His Behaviour in his Province in fine so great that he alone obtained from him whatever he desired upon the least Letter which he wrote to him Nor was he wanting to the Province to which Hadrian preferred him For although he might not arise to the fame of a Governourâ— of the highest Form yet he managed his Affairs so well or rather so fortunately that he was esteemed to come up to the next step to that Character but on the other Hand he was so sickly and so feeble that Hadrian soon repented himself of his Adoption and perhaps if he could he would willingly have removed him again if he had lived out of the Royal Family because he was often placing his thoughts on others whom he might admit to the same Some who have been very diligent to Collect the Life of Hadrian pretend to say that Hadrian understood very well the Nativity of Verus and not so much approving him for a Person to make an Emperour of he had Adopted him rather to serve his Pleasures and to satisfie a certain Passion which he had conceived for him and what upon this occasion was acted betwixt him and Verus was kept secret under an Oath Indeed that Hadrian was really skilful in the Science of Astrology is what is so fully attested by Marius Maximus that he says that he Calculated the future Passages of all the days of his own life to the very hour in which he dyed It is besides certain enough that Hadrian hath many times applied to Verus out of Virgil these words Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata nec ultra Esse sinent The Fates will he shall but to th' World be shown And from its earnest Grasp be hurried soon Walking one day in his Garden he was pleased very much with repeating these words and a learned Man being with him in which sort of Conversation he delighted because it was popular who desired to add as it is in Virgil Nimium vobis Romana Propago Visa potens superi propria haec si dona fuissent To th' Gods the Roman Power would seem too great If their own Sway they could perpetuate Hadrian replyed that that part of the Character did not consist with the Fate of Verus and then he added himself as follows Manibus date lilia plenis Purpureos spargam flores animamque nepot is His saltem accumulem donis fungar inani Munere Come hither bring Handfuls of Lilies Flow'rs of purple hew Upon his baleful Corps I 'le freely strew With these poor Gifts I 'le please his fleeting Ghost Vainly bestow'd alas on one for ever lost Another time he expressed himself concerning him thus and laughed I have Adopted my self a God and not a Son Nor was the Event different from the Horoscope which he had drawn of it For when Aelius Verus was returned from his Province and had provided himself a very fine Oration which is now Extant whether it was of his own Composing or that his Secretaries or his Rhetoricians did it for him in which upon the Calends of January he was to have return'd his thanks to Hadrian for the honour which he had done him he instead of that died upon His Death that very day and it was forbidden by Hadrian to observe the Mourning for him then because of the Vows and the Congratulations intervening which are the peculiar business Dedicated to the first day of January He was one who passed his time in a course His Character of Pleasure and had been instructed in Letters but more acceptable unto Hadrian at least as some would have it more for the sake of his Beauty than any thing else He had not been long at the Court His private life as it was not admirable nor much to be commended for his Virtues so neither was it much subject to be reproached He was mindful of the Family into which he was Adopted Went always neat and proper in his Dress had the Meen and Air of a Prince an obliging Aspect a handsome way of expressing himself ready at the making of a Verse and no unfit Person for the Service of the State Those who have written his life have made mention of a great many Pleasures which he His Pleasures delighted in and which although they are not infamous yet perhaps he was a little too much addicted to them The Oglio of Pheasants Brawn c. which was Hadrians great Dish is said to have been of the invention first of Aelius Verus And another sort of Pleasure of his invention was this he made himself a Bed with four Heads to it that is to every Quarter of it a Head with Curtains all about of fine Net-work and strewing it full of the Leaves of pick'd Roses there he lay enjoying his Concubines and his Company covered with a Sheet of Flowers and perfumed with the Odours of Persia He had always the Books of Ovid's Amorum upon the Bed with him together with Martial the Epigrammatist who he said was his Virgil. And not to omit his other though more inconsiderable Actions he gave his Lackeys and his Courriers Wings to their Cloaths like so many Cupids and he called them by the names of the Winds One he called Boreas another Notus another Aquilo or Circius and so of the rest and he made them run perpetually and unmercifully He told his Wife when she complained it is said to him of the liberties which he took with other Women A Wife was a Name of Honour but not of Pleasure you will give me leave Madam to have my Pleasures therefore elsewhere His Son was Antoninus Verus who was Adopted at the same time with Mareus Antoninus which two Verus and Marcus Reigning in Conjunction afterwards with one another are they who are called the Duo Augusti in the Calendars of the Consuls Some of which Calendars have taken the Consulships of the Duo Augusti for the Aera from which they Commence their Accounts of the Consuls At the time of his Adoption Hadrian spent an Infinite deal of Money upon the Soldiers and the People But when he saw him so sickly and so far gone in health that he had not the force left to manage a Shield I have lost says he the four thousand Sestertiums which I spent upon the Soldiers and the People I have lean'd my self against a falling Wall and upon a Man who is so far from being able to support the weight of the State that he is no support to my self This it seems he spoke to an Officer of the Houshold who repeated it again till it came to the Ears of Aelius Verus who growing every day worse and worse with the concern to be sensible that he was so despair'd of Hadrian turned that Officer for discovering it out of his
had from a War of his own So they carried the Children of Marcus of either Sex in the Triumph with them even his Virgin-Daughters and they beheld the Games which were Celebrated upon the occasion with their triumphal Habits upon them Amongst other remarkable things of the Pity of Marcus it is not fit to forget this that he ordered Feather-beds to be spread under the Rope-dancers after an accidental fall of a Boy from the Rope which is the reason that we have a Custom of hanging a Net under them at this day Whilst the Parthian War was yet on Foot War with the Marcomanni another War kindled with the Marcomanni in Germany which was suspended a good while by the Art of the Officers upon the Frontiers that it should not trouble us till the Oriental War was over It was five years from the beginning of that War to the return of Verus At whose return Marcus declared to the Senate that as he had sometime before given them Intimations of a War in Germany so it was necessary that now both the Emperours in Person should repair to it Now the terrour of this Marcomannick War was so great that Marcus was obliged to send for Priests from all parts to dispatch the vast number of Sacrifices which were vowed and offered upon this occasion He Celebrated all the Sacred Foreign Rites that were ever seen at Rome and purged the City of Rome all manner of ways and Celebrated the Feasts of Lectisternia seven days together A Pestilence at the same time prevailed A great Plague which was so great that the dead were carried off in Carts and Wagons This obliged the two Princes to make strict Laws concerning Burials and Sepulchres in which they provided that it should not be at the Liberty of Persons to build their Sepulchres in what place they pleased which is still in force at this day Many thousands dyed of this Pestilence several of the Nobility whereof the most considerable had their Statues set up by Marcus Antoninus Who in his great Clemency took that care of the Common People that he ordered them to be buried upon his own Expence The Marcomanni and their Confederates being now actually in Arms and putting all things into Confusion the two Emperours arrayed in their Military Apparel set forward together upon the Expedition Their March had no small effect with it as soon as they came but as far as to Aquileia For the Kings of the Enemy for the most part not only retreated with their Men but put to death the Authors of their Insurrection The Quadi whose King was dead said that they would not confirm the Person his Successour who had been Created in his place till our Emperours approved him others sent Ambassadours to them to ask their Pardon for their disobedience so that Verus his Opinion who had set out much against his will in the beginning was for returning back to Rome especially having lost the Captain of the Guards Furius Victorinus and a part of the Army But Marcus believing that the Barbarians dissembled and that both their Retreat and the other things which they did were only out of a fear of being oppressed with the weight of so great a Force he declared himself to be for pursuing the War Therefore they marched on and crossed the Alpes having settled all things in order for the safety of Italy and Illyricum However Verus was urgent for going back to Rome to which Marcus at last consented and that the Senate should have notice given them of it by Letter But as they were afterwards upon the Road in the Coach together Verus was Death of Verus suddenly taken with an Apoplexy and died Marcus was so little affected for his part with those Pleasures which were the real Reason of Verus his desire to return to Rome that he both Read and hearkned to any one's Business and signed Orders whilst he hath been at the shews of the Cirque which made the People they say sometimes pass their Railleries upon him Geminas and Agaclytus two manumitted Servants of Verus had a great Influence over their Master But yet Marcus dissembled and even excused the Faults of Verus tho' they displeased him never so much He deified him after his Death He provided honourably for his Aunts and his Sisters He appointed a great many Sacrifices to his Honour He appointed his Priests and gave him all the other Respects which are paid to the Gods But as there is no Prince but is subject to the most outragious Censure Marcus was for all this represented as if he had either poysoned Verus by a Knife invenom'd on one side with which he cut a piece of a Sacrifice and gave Verus the invenomed part to eat whilst he reserved the sound to himself or at least that he killed him by his Physician Posidipâ—us by letting him Blood unseasonably After the Death of Verus Avidius Cassius revolted from Marcus Tho' Marcus was so indulging to Verus his Relations and all that belonged to him that he did them all the Honours that it was possible Commodus his Son Commodus declared Caesar as wicked and profligate as he was received from him the Title of Caesar the Dignity of the Priesthood the Title of Emperor a share â—n the Triumph with him and the Consulship At the same time the Father attended the Triumphal Chariot of the Son on Foot in the Cirque Now when Marcus reigned alone after the Death of Verus he was much more easie and more abundant in good Actions than he could be before because he was hindered with the Errours of his Brother He was one for his own Part of that Tranquillity of Mind that he never changed his Countenance either with Sorrow or Joy following exactly the Precepts of the Stoick Philosophy which he had learnt from all the best Masters and which he had diligently collected from all Parts Hadrian would have made him his immediate Successour had not his Minority theâ— hindred it Nevertheless he chose him for one whom he obliged Pius to adopt that a he was deserving of the Roman Empire iâ— should sooner or later certainly come to him So he treated the Provinces with a great deal of Moderation and Goodness and managed his Affairs happily against the Germans He went through with the Marcomannick War End of the Marcomannic War than which a greater hath not been known in any Age with a Bravery equally extraordinary as the Success and this at a time when a grievous Pestilence swept away many Thousands of the People and the Army The Marcomanni the Sarmatians the Vandals the Quadi being extinguished by him he delivered the Country of Pannonia out of its Servitude for which he triumphed at Rome and his Son Commodus with him whom he had created Caesar He had exhausted all his Coffers upon this War and because he could not persuade himself to command any thing from the Provinces to over-charge them he made an Auction
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
Senate was very sweet and prudent He thanked them that they had admitted him to Administer in Conjunction with them the Soveraign Power and for the Honor they had done not only to himself but to his Wife and his Daughter He accepted from them the Title of the Father of the Country but he refused to have his Statue set up in Silver which they offered him Going from the Senate again to the Capitol the Populace made a stop to him till they were forced aside partly by Blows with Sword in Hand and partly by good Words and promises of Money From thence he went to the Publick Games in the Cirque where the People Crowding themselves indifferently into all the Seats redoubled their outragious Reproaches against him and called aloud upon Pescennius Niger who was said to have already taken upon him the quality of the Emperor to come to the Succour of the City of Rome yet all this took he quietly and appeared to be of an extraordinary sweet Temper all the time of his Reign The People inveighed no less bitterly against the Soldiers who had kill'd Pertinax they said for Money To conciliate therefore the favour of these People several things which Commodus had well appointed and Pertinax had abolished Didius Julianus restored again He spoke nothing neither good nor bad as to Pertinax himself which seemed to several to be very strange but the only reason why he was silent of his Honor was the fear of the Soldiers who had killed him Now Julianus had no apprehension of any Opposition being made to him on the side either of the Forces in Great Britain or those in Illyricum But fearing especially those in Syria which were commanded by Pescennius Niger he sent a Centurion thither with Orders to cut him off Hereupon Pescennius Niger Niger and Severus revolt in Syria and Septimius Severus in Illyricum revolted from Julianus with the Armies under their Commands Being told of the latter from whom he had suspected nothing he came in Anger to the Senate and caused him to be declared an Enemy and the Soldiers with him unless they deserted him by such a day to whom Messengers were sent at the same time from the Senate to persuade them to renounce Severus and adhere to Julianus Amonst whom was Vespronius Candidus who was a great Senior in the Rank of the Consuls but hated of old by the Soldiers because of his Severities Valerius Catulinus was sent in the Quality of Successor to Severus as if it was an easie thing to be the Successor of a Man who had an Army to defend him Together with these was sent Aquilius the Centurion a known Assassin who having already murdered many Senators might try his Hand once again and do no less to Severus In the mean time Didius Julianus ordered the Guards to be exercised and their Camp to be refortified But as the Soldiers were become idle and dissolute by being accustomed to the Luxuries of Rome it was very much against their wills that they were brought to their Arms insomuch that they hired others for Money to supply their places and do their duties in their steads Septimius Severus took his march towards the City of Rome with the Army under his Command whilst the People there every day more both hated and derided Julianus Nor was he able to do any good upon the Soldiers of the Guards and thinking that Laetus was a Favourer of the Cause of Severus he ungratefully commanded him to be killed who was one that had formerly saved his life from the Hands of Commodus and Martia he commanded to be killed with him But whilst these things were in passing Severus possessed himself of the Fleet and City of Ravenna and the Embassadors of the Senate that had promised this Succour to Julianus changed sides and engag'd on the part of Severus Also Tullius Crispinus the Captain of the Guards who had been sent to make Head against his Troops received a defeat and returned back by Rome When Julianus saw all this he proposed to the Senate that the Vestal Virgins and all the Priests together with the Senate should march forth to meet the Army of Severus Arrayed all in their several Habits and should conjure and persuade him fairly to desist his Hostilities A vain thing indeed to suppose of an Army of desperate Soldiers Therefore Faustinus Quintillus an Augur and a Consul took the liberty to contradict him in that Proposal and boldly said to which many of the Senators gave their consents That a Man was not fit to Command who could not resist his Adversary by force of Arms. Julianus in great Anger sent for Soldiers out of the Camp to force the Senate into a Compliance with him or Massacre them upon the place But neither did this take For certainly it was very unreasonable that when the Senate had adjudged Severus an Enemy upon the account of Julianus the same Julianus should turn such a Butcherer of the Senate So he came to the Senate with another and a better Proposal which was that there might be an Act for the participation of the Empire betwixt Severus declar'd Partner in the Empire Severus and him and this was done immediately Every one now called to mind an Omen of all this which came from the Mouth of Julianus himself when he had the Empire given him For when the Consul had said in the name of the Senate I order Didius Julianus to be proclaimed Emperor Julianus prompted and corrected him thus say Didius Julianus Severus that is because Severus was a third name which he took from his Grandfather and Great Grandfather Some indeed deny that there was any such Order of his as that of murdering the Senate who had been so kind to him But however that is after passing that Act he sent immediately Tullius Crispinus his Captain of the Guards to Complement Severus He also Created Veturius Macrinus another Captain of the Guards because he understood that Severus had sent Letters to make him one In the mean time the People said aloud and Severus suspected as much that this Peace was but a Feint and that Tullius Crispinus was sent to him rather with private Orders to kill him So Severus with the advice of his Army chose to be his declared Enemy rather than his Partner and accordingly he writ to a great many Persons in Rome his Friends who secretly received and dispatched his Orders As for the rest Julianus tried all sorts of things by the Magicians that could be devised to mitigate the hatred of the People or to bridle the Arms of the Enemy And certainly the Magicians offered such Sacrifices for him upon this occasion as were by no means consonant to the Rites of the Romans They tried their Charms in Profane Verses and other Charms which they do with a Looking-glass but yet all went ill on the side of Julianus and all that they discovered from them was the coming in of the one and the
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
to be your own and certainly they very well suit with the happy Inclinations of your Majesty After then Varius Antoninus Heliogabalus was in the possession of the Empire he sent his Accounts of it to Rome where all the Orders of the Nobility Gentry and People being elevated at the Name of an Antoninus which seemed in him to be restored not as it was in Antoninus Diadumenus in Title only but also in Blood because he writ himself the Son of Antoninus Caracallus There was great Joy made for him and this was yet further increased by those good Apprehensions which Men generally have of a New Prince who succeeds after a Tyrant and by that great Affection that they are then prone to express but which yet is not lasting unless where iâ— meets with an extraordinary deal of Virtue for its support because many indifferent Princes have soon lost it again So when the Letter of Heliogabalus was read in the Senate they received it with as many Acclamations of Joy and Kindness to him as on the other hand they inveighed against Macrinus and his Son All were willing to declare him Emperor and industrious to believe him a worthy Antoninus as the wishes of Men are apt to impose upon their Credulity and what they desire that it should be true they love to make themselves believe that it is so But he was no sooner come to Rome to omit the Comes to Rome things which he did in the Provinces but he set up the Worship of his God Heliogabalus which he had brought with him out of Syria He built upon Mount Palatine near the Palace a Temple to him into which he was altogether for removing the Image of the great Mother of the Gods Cybele the Vestal Fire the Palladium or Image of Pallas the Sacred Shields and all the Holy Utensils of the Romans not being willing that any other God should be worshipped at Rome but his own He said that he would command the Worship of the Jews the Samaritans and the Christians to be thither also transferred that the Mysteries of all Religions should be contained within the Temple and applied to the Honour of Heliogabalus The first day afterwards that the Senate sat His Mother sits with the Senate he caused his Mother to be admitted as a Member of that Assembly who was called in and came and took her place by the Seats of the Consuls and was present at the passing of a Decree of the Senate Indeed he is the only Person of all the Emperors whose Reign hath given us a Senatress a Woman to come into the Senate to act as a Man He also created a little Senate of Women which met on Collis Quirinalis whose Decrees assembled under the Direction of Semiamira and the Laws that they made concerning the Ladies are very diverting They made Laws What Cloaths every one should wear who should give place to whom who salute whom who go in a Coach who ride upon a Horse who upon an Ass who go in a Litter drawn by Mules who to be drawn by Oxen who carried in a Chair and whether the Chair should be of Leather or inlaid with Bone or Brass or Ivory or Damaskt with Silver and who should wear Gold or Jewels at their Shoes Whilst he wintered in the City of Nicomedia in Bithynia which was before his coming to Rome he carried himself so lewdly there being carnally enter'd by Men and grunting at the Work like a Sow that is brimmed that the Soldiers soon repented themselves of having conspired against Opilius Macrinus to make this Person a Prince and then turned their Thoughts upon Alexander a Cousin-German of Heliogabalus whom the Senate had created Caesar upon the Death of Macrinus For who indeed could endure to see a Prince more than bestial leaving no concavity His Bestiality of his Body unpolluted by those he loved And coming afterwards to Rome he made it his great Business to be furnished with Men out of all Parts that were the best provided for his purpose He had the Comedy of Paris performed in his Apartments in which himself acted the part of the Venus and suddenly his Cloaths falling down to his Heels and leaving his Body all naked he put himself into a Posture fit for his Associates to make their lewd Approaches He made himself to be drawn in the figure of a Venus with a delicate Face and all his Body smooth and thought it the greatest Happiness of his Life to be tempting and agreeable to the Lusts of more and more Men. Himself his Servants and his Pimps one His base Government with another made a common Sale of the Degree and Places of Honour and the Places of Power and Command He created any one indifferently a Senator for Money without regard to Age Estate or Birth The Military Offices of Captains Tribunes and Generals were sold as also the Governments of the Provinces and the Offices of the Houshold Two Coach-men whom he took out of the Cirque that is Protogenes and Gordius he made the great Companions of his Life and his Privadoes to every thing he did He took several into the Court out of both the Theatre and the Amphitheatre where they had been Players Charioteers or Gladiators only because their Bodies promised him to the Eye something filthy that pleased him He loved a Youth called Hierocles so that he used to kiss what it is immodest to name in him and said That it was to celebrate a Game to the Goddess Flora. He committed Incest upon His Incest and Sacrilege a Vestal Nun. He profaned the most Holy Rites and Mysteries of the Romans breaking into the Sacristies of their Temples and carrying all things away thence into that of his own God He would have extinguished the perpetual Vestal Fire Nor was he only this upon the Religions of the Romans but all the World over he desired to have no other God worshipped but Heliogabalus He broke into the Sanctuary of the Temple of the Goddess Vesta polluted as he was with all kind of Filthiness and his Company as bad and as vicious as he to take from thence the inviolable Image of Pallas He thought that he had really carried off the Jar which is consecrated to the Temple and the Rites of the Goddess Cybele but only the superior of the Virgins belonging to that Goddess had shewn him a false one in the room of the true and finding nothing in it that was extraordinary he broke it in pieces So he also seized upon an Image of Pallas which was adorned with Gold but which he likewise mistook for the true Palladium and he placed it in the Temple of his own God He initiated himself in the Rites of the Goddess Cybele and was washed in Bull 's Blood only to get an opportunity by the means to steal away the Image of that Goddess and other Sacred Utensils that are kept altogether lockt up He tossed his Head and his Hair
one's suffrage was asked which they writ down one after another time being allowed them first to examine things very well and to weigh what they had to say because no one should complain that he had been obliged to give his Judgment upon such Matters of Importance without a due premeditation Then he had this Custom that if it was a thing of Right to be tr 〈…〉 ted upon he called only the Learned and the Eloquent Doctors to speak to it But if it was a Military Affair he sent for the old Officers and Soldiers Men skilled in War and Encampments and the Situation of places and together with those he particularly advised with such as understood that History of whom he enquired what had at any time been done in the like rencounters by the antient Emperors or other great Captains whether at home or abroad If at any time he happened to see a Man who lay under the Character of having robbed the Province under his Government he was ready with his Fingers as it were says Encolpius who was one that was very familiar with him to pull out his Eyes he had such a hatred to that baseness To which Septimius adds that altho' they had not been as yet convicted yet he had such an aversion to them for the Scandal only that if he saw them by any sudden Accident the Commotion he was in would set him vomiting and all his Face on a Fire and he would not be able to speak for some time And certainly as one called Septimius Arabinus who had been tried for this but acquitted in the Reign of Heliogabalus came one day in Company with some of the Senators to salute him he no sooner saw him but he cried O ye supreme Powers O Jupiter O ye immortal Gods Is Arabinus alive and a Senator It may be he hopes for the same favour from me that he had from Heliogabalus But I am sorry he takes me to be such a Fool. The Complement in saluting hiâ— was â—ery plain and by his own Name Hail Alexander If any one had pretended to do or say any thing that was sweeter than the Custom was to be he was sent away as a Flatterer if the place permitted it or he was laught at sufficiently in case that his Condition did not make him subject to a greater Affront He ordered to all the Senators as they had saluted him Chairs to sit down But he declared to admit none to pay their Reverences to him in this kind but Persons of Honesty and good Repute forbidding all such as knew themselves to be otherwise by the common Crier to come near him for if he once discovered them it should cost them their Lives He refused to be adored as Heliogabalus was after the manner of the Kings of Persia The most corrupt Magistrates he said always complain the most of Poverty thinking by that means to conceal the Crimes of their Briberies and ill Lives This he said often and it was his real Sentiment To which he added a known Observation upon this Subject That he who takes away a great deal and gives but a little to Vouchers to speak for him will however always be safe He chose himself one Captain of the Guards His Deference to the Senate and appointed a Governour of the City of Rome entirely by the Advice of the Senate He made a second Captain of the Guards of one who had retired out of the way purposely to avoid it saying The unwillingness of a Man to accept of Commands in the State was the best Recommendation to them He never created a Senator without the Concurrence to it of all the Members of that House that were present whose Votes were asked round after Testimonies given of the Life and Manners of the Party to be chosen by grave Persons who if they falsified were to be degraded and cast into the lowest Class of all the People and sometimes condemned as in Cases of Perjury to lose their Estates and be banished for ever without Mercy He created no Men Senators but upon great Recommendations saying That a Man ought to be very considerable th 〈…〉 is worthy to be so advanced and he never neither advanced the Sons of infranchised Servants to be Gentlemen because he said The Order of the Gentry was the Seminary of the Senate He was a Prince of that great Temper that His excellent Temper he never suffered his Servants to part with him when once they were placed He was so courteous and so gracious to every body that he visited when sick his Friends of whatever Condition they were He desired every one to speak their Sentiments freely to him and he hearkened to what they said patiently and ordered things according to their Advices as much as in Justice it was possible And if any thing by them had not been done so well as it ought he convinced them of it but it was without haughtiness and without bitterness He obliged them all to sit down upon Chairs by him and informed himself always about the absent In fine his Mother Mammaea and Memmia his Wife who was the Daughter of Sulpitius of the Consular Order and the Grand-Daughter of Catulus objected to him his too great Civility and told him It weakned his Sovereign Power and rendred it despicable to which he answered That on the contrary it was the way to live long and with safety He passed no day without doing something that was sweet obliging and pious but yet with that measure as not to exhaust the publick Coffers Rarely any Estates were confiscated into the Exchequer in his Time He remitted the Tribute to several Cities towards their publick Buildings He lent Money out of the Exchequer at four in the hundred And to a great many poor he lent them Money without use to purchase themselves Grounds under the condition of paying the Debt only in the Product He added to his Captains of the Guards the Senatorial Dignity His Care of his Soldiery which had seldom or never at all been done before in other times because it was inconsistent then to be a Captain of the Guards and a Senator as Marius Maximus hath often observed But Alexander Severus was willing that his Captains of the Guards should be Senators for this reason because no body should have the Power to judge a Senator but who was himself a Senator He had the Muster-Rolls of his Armies in all Parts always in his Cabinet by him and when he was alone he was reviewing their Accounts Numbers Actions Officers Stations and Appointments so that where-ever they were he had a perfect knowledge of them and upon occasion he mentioned a great many of their Names He kept a Register of all such as merited to be considered for their Services He refreshed his Memory of things by looking into his own Memoirs in which he set down the dates and who and what every one was and upon whose recommendation promoted He assisted the
and had much loved He was much pleased with the Verse of Horace He read very much also the Life of Alexander the Great whom he endeavoured to imitate but in whom he condemned his Drinking and his Cruelty towards his Friends if yet those Imputations upon him are true because there are good Authors that do defend him as to the one and the other to whom this Prince gave a great Credit After Reading he moderately employed himself in Exercises of the Body as Wrestling Tennis His bodily Exercises Running or Fencing Then he was anointed and afterwards put himself into the Bath which was seldom or never a Bath of warm Water but of the natural Waters of cold Baths where he continued about an hour Fasting he drank about a Pint and a half of cold Spring-Water Then when he had done with the Bath he took a Breakfast upon Bread and Milk and Eggs and Wine After this when the hour of Dinner was come he dined Sometimes he deferred to eat till Supper but for the most part he dined And he was often served with the Oglio which was the great Dish of Hadrian and which Marius Maximus hath mentioned in his account of the Life of that Prince In the Afternoon he bestowed himself constantly to the reading and signing of Letters and Orders to one part or other in which he was attended by his Secretaries and the Masters of the Requests whom if they could not conveniently stand by reason of their indisposition he permitted to sit down whilst the Clerks read over to him the things that they had writ to which he added with his own hand what he thought convenient and changed some Terms for others that he thought were more elegant and more just After these were dispatched he admitted the Company of all his Friends together and spoke to them all but he saw none of them ever alone but his Captain of the Guards and particularly Ulpian whom he had always had near him to give him Light in the knowledge that he professed of the things that concern Law and Justice If he admitted any other privately to him yet it was by the introduction of Ulpian Virgil he said was the Plato of the Poets He had the Images of him and Cicero in his second or lesser Oratory together with that of Achilles and others of other great Men. But for that of Alexander the Great he had consecrated him amongst the Gods of his chief Oratory and the best Persons whom he more especially honoured there He never did an Injury to any of his Friends nor to any of the Officers of State or Servants of his Houshold He always deferred the Judgment of particular Affairs to the Captains of the Guards And a Captain of the Guards he said who hath done any thing to deserve to lose his place ought rather to be secured and arraigned than to be dismissed If at any time he discharged an Officer he ordered it to be accompanied with a Complement That the State thanked him for his Service At the same time he failed not to gratify him in that manner that he might live afterwards a private Life with Credit He furnished him with Grounds Oxen Horses Corn Iron Materials to build himself a House and Marble to adorn it and Labourers to assist him Silver or Gold he seldom gave to any unless it was to the Soldiers saying It would be a Crime in him who was the publick Steward of the People to employ that in superfluities or upon the Pleasures of himself or others which the Provinces had contributed to serve the Necessities of the State He remitted the City of Rome the Duties His Kindness to the City of Rome which upon certain accounts they were to pay into the Exchequer and particularly the Duty which they were to pay to him according to Custom upon the occasion of his elevation to the Empire He constituted fourteen Curators to the several Quarters of the City out of the Persons of the Consular Order whom together with the Governour of the City he ordered to take the Cognizance of the Civil Causes in such sort that all of them or the greater part should be present when any thing was to be done He distributed all the Vintners Victuallers Regraters Hosiers and generally the Persons of all Crafts into Companies and Corporations to whom he appointed Governours and Officers to judge in the Dispatches that might arise amongst them in the Matter of their several Crafts and Professions He never gave to the Players those Gratuities which other Emperors have done He made a difficulty to pay them their Salaries and he took away from them the rich Cloaths which had been given them by Heliogabalus His band of Archers or Pensioners who were a Guard used for Pomp and Shew more than for Service he cloathed not with rich but yet proper and convenient Habits without superfluity nor were his Standards or other Royal Habiliments rich saying It was not for a Prince to seek his esteem in fine Cloaths but to recommend his Reign by Actions of Virtue and Bravery As for himself he wore the coarse shagged Coats of the Emperor Septimius Severus and Wastcoats all plain with no other embroidery of Gold at them and only a single Border of purple In his publick Entertainments he knew not Moderation of his public Entertainments what it was to be served in Vessels of Gold His Cups were ordinary but always very neat All the Silver-service of his Table never exceeded the quantity of two hundred Pound in weight The Dwarfs of either Sex the Jesters the Singers the Actors the Mimicks that had before retained to the Court he gave away amongst the People And for such of them as were of no use he ordered them to be sent to places where they were maintained at the publick Expence because they should not be troublesome in the way of Beggars The Eunuchs whom Heliogabalus had made his great Companions in Lewdness and had promoted them to high Offices he distributed amongst his Ministers with this Order that if for the future they did not return to good Manners it should be lawful for them to put them to death without attending the Authority of the Magistrate Women of a Licentious Life of whom he had heard that the number was prodigious he ordered to be sold and the Burdashes banished with whom that Pest Heliogabalus had taken his infamous and abominable Pleasures Not a Servant in his time at a publick Banquet appeared in a Coat embroidered with Gold To his private Table he admitted either Ulpian or some other Learned Men whose Conversation he said was not only a Pleasure to him but it was Food to his Mind At other times when he eat alone he had a Book with him upon the Table where he read and generally it was some Greek Book though he read also in the Latin Poets His publick Banquets were performed with the same simplicity as his private Repasts and
stand before the Street of the Sacra Via but is since taken into the Temple of Faustina which hath this Inscription upon it To Gallienus Junior Saloninus Now let us proceed to the Thirty Tyrants or Pretended Emperors who set themselves up in the time of Gallienus the First I shall be short upon them Some were Persons of no small Merit and did a great deal of good to the Publick But others of them deserve not much to employ our Time and Pains And we have already observed several things concerning them in the Life foregoing The Grandfather Gallienus was a considederable Man in the State in his time THE From CCLIV To CCLXIX Thirty Tyrants OR Pretended EMPERORS Who set themselves up against Valerian the First AND Gallienus the First By TREBELLIUS POLLIO I Come now with the Reader 's Pardon for the plain and familiar way in which I write to those Thirty Pretended Emperors or Revolters who set up themselves for the Empire in several parts of the World in opposition to Valerian and Gallienus I shall put them all together and the two Empresses with them for not the Men only but the Women pretended to revolt against Gallienus and I shall be the shorter upon them because I would not repeat the things that have been already mentioned concerning them and because some of them were Persons so obscure that there is little or no Notice taken nor any certain Account given of them in either the Greek or Latin Historians I. CYRIADES CYRIADES was one who first Plundered and then ran away with a great deal of Gold and Silver from his Father of the same Name into Persia To whom his Luxury and his ill Manners had been before a great Affliction because his Father was a good old Gentleman of quite another Life In Persia he joined and entred himself into the Service of Sapores the King whom he stirred up to make a War upon the Romans This War was first of all Conducted by Odomastes a Persian General and next by King Sapores in Person The Cities of Antioch and Caesarea Philippi were taken From the latter Cyriades assumed to himself the Title of Caesar which afterwards was improved into that of Emperor and all the East shook at the Terror or at least the Audaciousness of his Arms. Some say that he killed his own Father others deny it However it is when the Emperor Valerian came to the Persian War against Sapores this Cyriades was killed by his own Men. His Desertion and Flight his Parricide and great Luxury are the only Memorable things of him 2. POSTHVMIVS POSTHUMIUS was a very Great Man in War and as Virtuous in Peace and in all his Life and Actions of so grave and strict a Behaviour that when Gallienus establish'd his Son Saloninus Gallienus a Youth in the Government of Gaâ—lia he committed him to the care of Posthumiâ—s as his Guardian and as one whom he desired to be the Institutor of his Princely Accomâ—lishments Some say that Posthumius afterwards broke his Trust and killed Saloninus as the way to his own rise to the Government of Ga 〈…〉 ia in his place But it seems to be more true and more agreeable to the Manners of Posthâ—mius to believe that the Gauls vehemently haâ—ing Gallienus the Father and not enduring to have a Boy over them which the Son was set the Soldiers upon him to kill him and then made Posthumius Emperor All the Army there and all the Gauls embraced with joy the Government of Posthumius He behaved himself so well amongst them seven Years that he attained the Title of The Restorer of Gallia whilst Gallienus in the mean time followed his Luxury and his Riot and was a slave to the Amours of a Barbarian Woman At length Gallienus came against him and received a Wound with the shot of an Arrow The whole Nation of all the Gauls could not but extremely love him becaused he deliver'd them from the power of the German Invaders and restored the State of Gallia unto its Pristine security But yet as the Gauls are naturally a People fond of Novelties Posthumius upon the occasion of his Rigour was killed through the means of Lollianus who rebelled against him and Lollianus was set up Emperor by the Gauls in his stead The Judgment of the Emperor Valerian concerning the Merits of Posthumius when he made him the President of Gallia appears by this Letter WE have made Posthumius the Commander on the Quarter beyond the Rhine and the President of Gallia A Man the fittest for the Temper of that Nation He will keep the Camp the Courts of Judicature the Tribunals every particular Person in Order and in their proper Rights and he will maintain his own Dignity He is one whom I do most particularly admire and in my opinion deserving a Great Post I doubt not but you will thank me for him If I am mistaken in him you may assure your selves there is no where in the World to be found a Person that I can wholly approve I have made his Son a Tribune over thâ— Gallia Narbonensis who is a Youth that will â—ne day approve himself worthy of the Exampâ—â— of his Father 3. Posthumius Junior THis Posthumius the Son of the precedent was made by his Father first a Caesar and then Emperor with him in which Honour he died at the same time with his Father in the Rebellion of Lollianus The only Memorable thing of him is that he was a Master of so much Eloquence that his Controversial Declamations are said to be inserted into Quintilian who is the most Acute Orator of all the Romans of that kind as with the least reading in him any one will see immediately 4. LOLLIANVS BY the Rebellion of this Person it was that the Valiant Posthumius was killed after he had retrieved and secured the Interest of the Roman Empire in Gallia which were in danger to be lost under the Luxury of Gallienus Lollianus was a Valiant Man himself But yet the sense of his Rebellion made his Authority the less amongst the Gauls However he was not unprofitable to the Publick For he not only Reform'd several of the Cities of Gallia but likewise the Castles which Posthumius in his seven Years Reign had built upon the Enemies Country and which after his death the Germans by a sudden Irruption plundered and burnt he rebuilt and then he was killed by his own Soldiers only because they thought him too Assiduous and put too much Labour upon them Thus first of all Posthumius then Lollianus after him Victorinus then Tetricus to say nothing of Marius arose to be the Assertors of the Roman Name in Gallia I believe they were all given from Heaven for that purpose whilst Gallienus with his unheard of Luxury neglected the State at that rate that had the Germans broken out upon us in the same manner in consort with the Goths and Persians so that all had conspired to our ruin
and Wood for the Bath unless he goes into the Publick Baths And for other things which for their minuteness cannot be specified here you will furnish him with them according to discretion that is so as to give him the things themselves in Specie and not according to the Value of them If any thing of all this cannot be had at any place let it not be Accounted nor the Price of it be allowed in Money I have particularly appointed him all this Provision and Equipage not as a Tribune but as a General because he is a Man who deserves to have this and greater Honours shewn him A Letter of the Emperor Valerian to Ablavius Muraena the Captain of the Guards CLAUDIUS of whom you complained and said the Senate and the People did the same that he was still a Tribune and not preferred to Command Armies to cease your Complaints is made the General of all the Province of Illyricum He hath under his Command the Armies of Thrace Moesia Dalmatia Pannonia and Dacia I think him so great a Man he may expect that I shall make him a Consul and if it is agreeable to his mind to be so a Captain of my Guards I assure you I have appointed him as great a Salary as is allowed to the Governour of Aegypt And the same Cloaths as I give to the Proconsul of Africa and as much Money as the Chief Justice of Illyricum receives and as many Officers as I allow to my self in every City whereby all the World may see the Esteem which I have for him A Letter of the Emperor Decius concerning Claudius Decius to Messala the President of Achaia wisheth Health AFter some other things says he Claudius the Tribune is a very fine Young Man a stout Soldier and a faithful Servant He is fit for the Service of either the Camp or the Senate or the Court. We have order'd him to the Streights of Thermopylae and to take care of the Peloponnese Knowing no Person who can acquit himself better than he of the Charge which we give him You will furnish him with a Draught of 200 of the Dardarian Horse 100 Cuirassiers 160 Light Horse 60 of the Cretian Archers and 1000 well-Arm'd Men of the New Recruits who are very fit to be put under his Command because there is no Person that hath more Zeal more Valour more Prudence than be A Letter of the Emperor Gallienus NOthing troubles me more than what you have intimated That Claudius my Kinsman and my Friend is very Angry upon some Suggestions against me which are most of them false I desire you therefore my Venustus as you are faithful to me by the means of Gratus and Heremianus to reconcile him again unknown to the Army in Dacia who are out of Order already for fear they should break out worse I have sent a Present which you will take care that it be well Accepted and not to let him know that I understand his Resentments lest he think me angry at him and a seeming necessity should oblige him to betake himself to the last Measures I have sent him two Cups of Silver of three Pound weight set with Precious Stones Two Cups of Gold of three Pound weight set also with Precious Stones A Bason of Silver of twenty Pound weight engraven with clusters of the Berries of Ivy A Charger of Silver of thirty Pound weight wrought in the Vine Leaf Another great Plate of Silver of 23 Pound weight wrought in the Ivy Leaf Another Serving-Dish in Silver of 20 Pound weight with a Man a Fishing represented upon it Two Pots of Silver inlaid with Gold of the weight of 6 Pound and other lesser Vessels of Silver to the weight of 25 Pound Ten Aegyptian Cups of several sorts of exquisite Work Two Cloaks of right Purple Bordered all about Sixteen several Vests One White Tunick of Silk wrought with three Ounces of Gold Three pair of Buskins of the Parthian Mode Ten Dalmatian little Girdles One Cloak of the Dardanian Mode One Illvrian Coat One French Cloak Two good Thick Ruggs Four Spanish Handkerchiefs 150 Valerian's in Gold and 300 Salonin's To this I shall only add the Judgment of the Senate and the High Acclamations which they gave him whilst yet a Private Person upon The high Approbation of him by the Senate the News of his Success against the Goths and Scythians in Illyricum in a Battel in which he and Martianus Engaged them They cryed The most Valiant Claudius we Salute you We Congratulate your Bravery and your Fidelity We unanimously Decree a Statue to be erected to the Honour of Claudius We all desire to have Claudius to be a Consul He hath acted like a Man that loves his Country and his Prince The Antient Roman Warriors did thus You are Happy Claudius in the good Opinion of the Princes We Congratulate your Virtues and desire your Promotion May you Live and be beloved by the Emperor It would be too long to go through all the Elogies which this Great Man deserved Only one thing I ought not to forbear to say more which is That both the Senate and the People Loved him before his Reign in his Reign and after his Reign that certainly neither Trajan nor the Antoninusses nor any other former Prince hath in that respect been so very Happy as he THE A. Christi CCLXXI. Life and Reign OF THE EMPEROR AURELIAN Written by FLAVIUS VOPISCUS UPON the Festival of the Goddess Cybele which is a time that with us we know is very pleasant and full of all Mirth and Freedom both in our Words and Actions the honourable the Governour of the City of Rome Junius Tiberianus Occasion of the Author's writing this Life whom I cannot mention but with a particular Respect took me with him after the Ceremony of the Day was over in his Chariot from the Palace to the Gardens of Varius and as his Mind was then at ease and free from the Cares and the Thoughts of the publick Affairs he did me the Honour to Entain me with a great many things and especially about the Lives of the Roman Emperors Passing by the Temple of the Sun which had been built by the Emperor Aurelian from whom Junius Tiberianus derived in part his own Blood and Family he ask'd me what Person had writ the Life of that Prince I told him I had read his History by some Greek Authors but never by any Roman At which he sighed and said Amongst the Antients not a Thersites nor a Sinon nor any remarkable tho' a monstrous sort of a Man appeared but we know him very well and his Character is recorded to Posterity And shall the Memory of so renowned and so incomparable a Prince as Aurelian be forgotten by whom the whole World was regained to the Obedience of the Romans God deliver us from this folly If I mistake not we have a Journal of this Prince by us and his Wars digested in a due order of
a Thousand Sarmatians ha 〈…〉 faln by our Hand a Thousand a Thousand a Thousand a Thousand a Thousand Persians â—ext shall yield to our Command He made himself to be so feared by the Soldiers His strict Discipline under him that after he had once with great severity corrected a Fault none dared â—o commit it again He punished the Adulâ—ery of a Soldier that had lain with his Landâ—ord's Wife in this unheard of manner He caused two Trees to be forcibly bent downward and to the Heads of them he tied the poor Man's Feet and then on a sudden he â—et both the Trees fly up again which tore him alive in Two and part of him was left hanging by the one Tree and part by the other this Thing struck a great Terror into all A Letter of Aurelian to his Lieutenant concerning the Discipline which he would have to be kept among the Soldiers says thus AS you ever hope to be your self a Commander of a Legion nay as you d 〈…〉 e but to preserve your own Life in Safety bridle the Licentiousness of Soldiers Let not a Man steal a Chicken nor touch a Sheep nor take away a Grape nor waste the Corn which is another's Let no Man exact either Oyl or Salt or Firing but be content with his allowance and let him take his Prey upon the Enemy and not force the Tears of the Subjects of the Roman Empire Let all their Arms be kept clean and bright and sharp and their Shooes and Cloaths in good order and let them keep Money in their Pockets and not spend it all at the Sutlers Let every Man have his Collar his Bracelet and his Ring and look after his own Horse and not sell his Beast's Provision from him and let him take care in his turn of the Baggage Let them all be ready to assist one another Let the Physicians take nothing of them for their Cure when sick Let them give nothing to the Soothsayer Let them live virtuously in their Quarters and he that creates Disturbances let him be beaten Next follows a Letter of the Emperor Valerian concerning Aurelian This Letter lately found in the Ulpian Library amongst the publick Records and I thought it proper to be taken as it is The Emperor Valerian to Antoninus Gallus the Consul YOU blame me in your kind Letter to me for committing my Son Gallienus rather to the care of Posthumius than to Aurelian because you think that both the Boy and the Army would be the best under the latter as the severer Person But you will not long be of this mind â—f you consider well how great the Severity of Aurelian is He hath too much of it He is â—xcessive He is grievous which does not agree so well with these present times I protest before all the Gods I was afraid that if my Son had done any thing amiss as Boys are naturally prone â—o do he would have been too severe upon him for it and no more have spared him than another There is another Letter of the Emperor Valerian which is full of the Praises of Aurelian and which I have met with amongst the Records of the Governour of the City of Rome It is written upon the occasion of Aurelian's coming to Rome to appoint his Salary during his stay there The Emperor Valerian to Cejonius Albinus the Governour of the City of Rome WE should be glad out of our Love to every individual Person who is faithfâ—â— and zealous in the Service of the State to allâ—â— them much greater Salaries than what their placâ— demands especially when their Lives render râ—commendable the Honour that they possess Bâ—cause there ought to be a Regard I think had to Merit over and above the Profits of a m 〈…〉 Commission But the Necessities of the Publicâ— make it so at present that I can give to n 〈…〉 out of the Stores of the Empire more than their Order and their Quality requires Aurelian 〈…〉 a Man of great Capacity and Bravery whom I have appointed to inspect and regulate all our Camps and Garrisons My self and the whole Empire by the common Confession of the whole Army is so much indebted to him that scarce any Presents can be made worthy of him or toâ— great for his Merit For is he not in all respectâ— Illustrious and to be compared to the Corvini and the Scipio's of former times He is the Deliverer of Illyricum He is a Restorer of Gallia He is a Commander deserving the Imitation of all the World And yet I can add nothing to the acknowledgment which is due to the Services of so great a Person besides what the Condition of the publick Affairs and the well-government thereof will permit me You will â—herefore dear Sir take care to appoint for his â—se during his abode at Rome per diem sixteen Loaves of the best Bread forty Loaves â—f the Camp-bread forty Quarts of Wine for â—he Table a couple of Pullets half a Pig â—hirty Pounds of Pork forty Pounds of Beef â—ne Quart of the best Oyl one Quart of â—ther Oyl one Quart of Pickle Herbs and Roots as much as he wants And to distinguish â—im however in something extraordinary you â—ay supply him with Forage for his Horses as 〈…〉 ng as he stays at Rome To himself in Moâ—ey towards his Expences you shall give every â—ay two Antoninusses in Gold fifty Philips in â—ilver and a hundred Penies in Brass The rest 〈…〉 all be supplied by the Officers of the Treasury These things may perhaps by some be â—hought frivolous and too light to be taken â—otice of here but Curiosity which neglects â—othing will be my excuse Aurelian at several times commanded divers Annies likewise he was Tribune successively â—o a great many Legions and he was Lieutenant upon several occasions to almost forty Commanders and Tribunes that is to command their Forces for them in their sickness â—r absence He supplied the Command of â—lpius Crinitus in his sickness who was one â—hat derived himself from Trajan and was â—eally a very brave Man and much like that Prince Aurelian and Ulpius Crinitus have their Pictures both together set up in the Temple of the Sun The Emperor Valerian designed to advance the latter to the degree of a Caesar In the place therefore of this Person Aurelian headed his Army against the Enemy He beat the Enemy and re-established the limits of the Empire and took a great Booty He enriched the Province of Thrace with the Cattel Horses and Slaves that he took He adorned the Palace of Rome with the Trophies of his Victory He brought in five hundred Slaves two thousand Cows a thousand Horse ten thousand Sheep fifteen thousand Goatâ— into one place in the Country belonging to the Emperor Valerian Upon which Ulpi 〈…〉 Crinitus publickly thank'd Valerian as he was in the Baths at Byzantium for the Honour which his Majesty had done him by giving him Aurelian to be his Lieutenant and at the same
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
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