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age was unable to stem the torrent of public disorders, which had multiplied under the long tyranny of his predecessor; after a short reign of sixteen months, he adopted Trajan his successor, a prince possessed of every talent and virtue that can adorn a sovereign. Happy in his private life, and universally respected, he died after a reign of nineteen years, A. D. 117. His kinsman Adrian succeeded, under whom the empire flourished in peace and prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted the military discipline, and visited all his provinces in person. He died, after a reign of twentytwo years, and left the Roman throne to Titus Aurelius Antoninus, an amiable as well as a good man. He restored the ancient dignity and authority of the senate; and, after a glorious reign of twenty-two years, died, A. D. 161, having adopted Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, a virtuous, wise, and philosophic prince. died, after a reign of nineteen years.

He

"If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus," the son of the late emperor Marcus, a wretch, in whose mind every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct. This hated tyrant, after having oppressed his subjects thirteen years, perished by poison, given him by his favourite concubine, Marcia. The vacant throne was instantly filled by Pertinax, præfect of the city, an ancient senator, of consular rank, whose conspicuous merit had broken through the obscurity of his birth, and raised him to the first honours of the state. The hasty zeal of this virtuous prince to reform the corrupted state, proved fatal to himself and to his country. The soldiers, dreading the strictness of the ancient discipline, which he was preparing to restore, and regretting the licence of the former reign, raised a general sedition; and on the

Gibbon.

eighty-sixth day only after the death of Commodus, Pertinax fell by the hand of one of his guards.

The empire was now openly exposed to sale by the prætorian guards, and purchased by Didius Julianus. The provinces revolted; and new competitors offering their claims, Severus, the highest bidder, was hailed Augustus, and Julianus was beheaded by a sentence of the senate, as a common criminal, after having purchased, with an immense treasure, an anxious and precarious reign of only sixty-six days. Having obtained the purple by means of cruelty and bloodshed, Severus secured himself in the government, by inculcating the principles of despotism and passive obedience. His will was the law of the empire. The senate no longer possessed the shadow of authority in the civil or military department; so that Severus may be considered as the principal author of the decline of the Roman empire. He made an expedition into Britain, with the design of completing the long-attempted conquest of that island, and expired at York, in the 65th year of his life, and in the 18th of a glorious and successful reign, A. D. 211.

From this period we behold a train of emperors, vicious or impotent; either wilfully guilty, or unable to assert the dignity of their station. The empire itself gradually decayed, harrassed on all sides by powerful invaders, and convulsed by the furious contests of domestic foes. On the death of Severus, Caracalla and Geta, his sons, agreed to divide the empire. Such a divided form of government would have proved a source of discord between the most affectionate brothers. It was impossible that it could long subsist between two implacable enemies. It was visible that one only could reign, and the other must fall. The unfortunate Geta was assassinated, and Caracalla, after a series of cruelties, was murdered, in the sixth year of his reign. Such was the end of a monster, whose life disgraced human

nature.

The disorders of the empire, which began with Commodus, continued for about a century, till the accession of Dioclesian; we will therefore pass over the unin

structive reigns of Heliogabalus, Maximinus, Gordianus, Decius, Galbus, &c.

Dioclesian, like Augustus, may be considered as the founder of a new empire. As his reign was more illustrious than that of any of his predecessors, so was his birth more abject and obscure. His parents had been slaves; nor was he himself distinguished by any other name than that which he derived from a small town in Dalmatia, from whence his mother deduced her origin. The strong claims of merit procured his elevation. The first considerable action of his reign was, to divide the wide extent of the imperial dominions into four governments, over which presided two emperors, Dioclesian and Maximian; and two Cæsars, Galerius and Constantius: a ruinous plan of policy, which nothing but the superior genius of Dioclesian could support. The northern Germanic nations now began to invade the empire. Peace being restored, Dioclesian, in the 21st year of his reign, and his colleague, Maximian, abdicated the empire.

As soon as Dioclesian and Maximian had resigned the purple, their station was filled by the two Cæsars, Galerius and Constantius, who immediately assumed the title of Augustus. Constantius dying soon after, in the imperial palace at York, his son Constantine was proclaimed in Britain, who, after the death of Galerius, and the defeat of several competitors for the throne, became sole master of the Roman world. He removed the seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium, which he enlarged and beautified with the most magnificent edifices, and gave it the title of Constantinople. Italy was desolated by the change. Robbed of its wealth and inhabitants, it sunk into a state of the most annihilating languor; changed into a garden by an Asiatic pomp, and crowded with villas, now deserted by their voluptuous owners, this once fertile country was unable to maintain itself. Constantine enjoyed an uninterrupted flow of private as well as public felicity, till the 30th year of his reign, when he ended his memorable life at

the palace of Aquyrion, in the suburbs of Nicomedia, whither he had retired for the benefit of the air.

CHAPTER X.

ROME.

Final Division of the Empire between the Sons of Constantine.-Establishment of the Goths in Italy.— Charlemagne, Emperor of the West.-Fall of the Eastern Empire.

We are now arrived at a dreary and melancholy period of the Roman history. Rome, now in her old age, is become a languishing, decrepid, and worn-out body, which glories, notwithstanding, in the greatness of an august name, whose dignity she is no longer able to support. Rome herself is a prey to barbarous nations. Both east and north join to share her spoils.

On the death of Constantine the Great, a new division of the provinces took place between his three sons, Constantine, Constantius and Constans. Constantine, the eldest, obtained, with a certain pre-eminence of rank, the possession of the new capital, which bore his own name and that of his father. Thrace, and the countries of the east, were allotted for the patrimony of Constantius; and Constans was acknowledged the lawful sovereign of Italy, Africa, and the western Illyrium. After this partition of the empire, three years had scarcely elapsed, before the sons of Constantine seemed impatient to convince mankind how unqualified they were to govern the dominions intrusted to them. They murmured about the limits of their shares of the empire. Intestine wars arose, and Constantine was slain by the troops of Constans, who soon after met the same fate.The divided provinces were again united by Constantius, who reigned thirty-eight years: a prince composed of pride and weakness, of superstition and cruelty.

Julian succeeded. From his hatred of Christianity, and artful policy to extirpate that religion, he has been called the Apostate. His civil administration was excellent. He fell in battle at the age of thirty-one, A. D. 363.-Jovian, who was no more than first domestic to Julian, was immediately invested with the imperial ornaments by the soldiers. This prince died suddenly, after eating a plentiful, perhaps an intemperate, supper.

The throne of the Roman world remained ten days without a master; when Valentinian, a native of Cibalis, in Pannonia, who from an obscure condition raised himself, by matchless strength and dexterity, to the military commands of Africa and Britain, was elected by the soldiers. In his reign, the fierce inhabitants of the vast countries in the north of Europe abandoned their own forests and mountains in quest of new settlements. Valentinian was succeeded by his son Gratian, and his brother Valens. On the death of Valens, who was kil led by the Goths, A. D. 378, Gratian invested Theodosius with the empire of the eastern provinces. Valentinian II. succeeded his father Gratian in the western; who being put to death, Theodosius reigned solely over the empires of the east and west.

The final division of the Roman empire now took place between the sons of Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius, who after the death of their father were saluted, by the unanimous consent of mankind, as the lawful emperors of the east and west. Arcadius, in the east, reigned over 'Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, from the Lower Danube to the confines of Persia and Ethiopia. Honorius, in the west, assumed the government of Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain. The eastern empire subsisted for many ages; but the western soon became the prey of barbarians.

The frail and mouldering edifice of the republic is now hastening to its fall. Under the reign of Honorius, the Gothic army invaded Italy; and Alaric, their king, formed the siege of Rome. This unfortunate city gradually experienced the distress of scarcity, and at length the horrid calamities of famine. Their last re

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