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IV.

Pertinax found a nobler way of condemning CHAP. his predecessor's memory, by the contrast of his own virtues with the vices of Commodus. On Virtues of the day of his accession, he resigned over to his Pertinax wife and son his whole private fortune, that they might have no pretence to solicit favours at the expence of the state. of the state. He refused to flatter the vanity of the former with the title of Augusta; or to corrupt the inexperienced youth of the latter by the rank of Cæsar. Accurately distinguishing between the duties of a parent and those of a sovereign, he educated his son with a severe simplicity, which, while it gave him no assured prospect of the throne, might in time have rendered him worthy of it. In public, the behaviour of Pertinax was grave and affable. He lived with the virtuous part of the senate (and, in a private station, he had been acquainted with the true character of each individual), without either pride or jealousy; considered them as friends and companions, with whom he had shared the dangers of the tyranny, and with whom he wished to enjoy the security of the present time. He very frequently invited them to familiar entertainments, the frugality of which was ridiculed by those who remembered and regretted the luxurious prodigality of Commodus.c

с

* Dion (1. lxxiii, p. 1223) speaks of these entertainments, as ▲ senator who had supped with the emperor. Capitolinus (Hist. Aus ust. p. 58), like a slave, who had received his intelligence from one of the scullions.

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CHAP.
IV.

vours to

state.

To heal, as far as it was possible, the wounds inflicted by the hand of tyranny, was the pleasHe endea ing, but melancholy, task of Pertinax. The reform the innocent victims, who yet survived, were recalled from exile, released from prison, and restored to the full possession of their honours and fortunes. The unburied bodies of murdered senators (for the cruelty of Commodus endeavoured to extend itself beyond death) were deposited in the sepulchres of their ancestors; their memory was justified; and every consolation was bestowed on their ruined and afflicted families. Among these consolations, one of the most grateful was the punishment of the delators; the common enemies of their master, of virtue, and of their country. Yet even in the inquisition of these legal assasins, Pertinax proceeded with a steady temper, which gave every thing to justice, and nothing to popular prejudice and resentment.

His regulations,

The finances of the state demanded the most vigilant care of the emperor. Though every measure of injustice and extortion had been adopted, which could collect the property of the subject into the coffers of the prince, the rapaciousness of Commodus had been so very inadequate to his extravagance, that, upon his death, no more than eight thousand pounds were found in the exhausted treasury, to defray the current expences of government, and to discharge the pressing demand of a liberal donative, which

Decies. The blameless economy of Pius left his successors a treasure of vicies septies millies, above two-and-twenty millions ster ling. Dion, 1. lxxiii, p. 1231.

66

IV.

the new emperor had been obliged to promise to CHAP. the prætorian guards. Yet, under these distressed circumstances, Pertinax had the generous firmness to remit all the oppressive taxes invented by Commodus, and to cancel all the unjust claims of the treasury; declaring, in a decree of the senate," that he was better satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to ac“quire riches by the ways of tyranny and dis"honour." Economy and industry he considered as the pure and genuine sources of wealth; and from them he soon derived a copious supply for the public necessities. The expence of the household was immediately reduced to one half. All the instruments of luxury, Pertinax exposed to public auction, gold and silver plate, chariots of a singular construction, a superfluous wardrobe of silk and embroidery, and a great number of beautiful slaves of both sexes; excepting only, with attentive humanity, those who were born in a state of freedom, and had been ravished from the arms of their weeping parents. At the same time that he obliged the worthless favourites of the tyrant to resign a part of their ill-gotten wealth, he satisfied the just creditors of the state, and unexpectedly discharged the long arrears of honest services. He removed the oppressive restrictions which had been laid upon commerce, and granted all the uncultivated

• Besides the design of converting these useless ornaments into money, Dion (1. lxxiii, p. 1229) assigns two secret motives of Pertinax. He wished to expose the vices of Commodus, and to discover by the purchasers those who most resembled him.

CHAP. lands in Italy and the provinces, to those who IV. would improve them; with an exemption from tribute, during the term of ten years.'

and popularity.

Discontent of the prætorians.

Such an uniform conduct had already secured to Pertinax the noblest reward of a sovereign, the love and esteem of his people. Those who remembered the virtues of Marcus, were happy to contemplate, in their new emperor, the features of that bright original, and flattered themselves, that they should long enjoy the benign influence of his administration. A hasty zeal to reform the corrupted state, accompanied with less prudence than might have been expected from the years and experience of Pertinax, proved fatal to himself and to his country. His honest indiscretion united against him the servile crowd, who found their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred the favour of a tyrant to the inexorable equality of the laws.

Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of the prætorian guards betrayed their inward dissatisfaction. They had reluctantly submitted to Pertinax, they dreaded the strictness of the ancient discipline, which he was preparing to restore, and they regretted the li cence of the former reign. Their discontents were secretly fomented by Lætus their prefect, who found, when it was too late, that his new emperor would reward a servant, but would not

f Though Capitolinus has picked up many idle tales of the private life of Pertinax, he joins with Dion and Herodian in admiring his public conduct.

Leges rem surdum, inexorabilem esse. T. Liv. ii, 3.

IV.

vented.

be ruled by a favourite. On the third day of his CHAP. reign, the soldiers seized on a noble senator, with a design to carry him to the camp, and to invest him with the imperial purple. Instead of being dazzled by the dangerous honour, the affrighted victim escaped from their violence, and took refuge at the feet of Pertinax. A short time after-A conspiwards, Sosius Falco, one of the consuls of the racy preyear, a rash youth," but of an ancient and opulent family, listened to the voice of ambition; and a conspiracy was formed during a short absence of Pertinax, which was crushed by his sudden return to Rome, and his resolute behaviour. Falco was on the point of being justly condemned to death as a public enemy, had he not been saved by the earnest and sincere entreaties of the injured emperor, who conjured the senate, that the purity of his reign might not be stained by the blood even of a guilty senator.

Pertinax

by the

ans,

March

These disappointments served only to irritate Murder of the rage of the prætorian guards. On the twenty-eighth of March, eighty-six days only prætoriafter the death of Commodus, a general sedition A. D. 193, broke out in the camp, which the officers wanted 28th. either power or inclination to suppress. Two or three hundred of the most desperate soldiers marched at noon-day with arms in their hands and fury in their looks, towards the imperial palace. The gates were thrown open by their companions

b If we credit Capitolinus (which is rather difficult), Falco behaved with the most petulant indecency to Pertinax, on the day of his accession. The wise emperor only admonished him of his youth and inexperience. Hist. August. p. 55.

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