The captivity of Valerian was lamented by all but his son, who felt himself relieved by it from the restraint imposed on him by his father's virtue. He even affected to act the philosopher on the occasion, saying in imitation of Xenophon, "I knew that my father was mortal;" but he never made any attempt to procure his liberty, and he abandoned himself without restraint to sensual indulgence. The reign of Gallienus is termed the Time of the Thirty Tyrants. This word seems to have recovered its ancient Grecian sense, and to have merely signified prince, or rather usurper, that is one who claims the supreme power already held by another. The tyrants of this time were in general men of excellent character, who had been placed in the command of armies by Valerian, and were invested with the purple by their soldiers often against their will. The number of these usurpers who rose and fell in succession did not exceed eighteen or nineteen, but some very fanciful analogy led to a comparison of them with the Thirty of Athens, and in the Augustan History an effort is made by including women and children to raise them to that number. The East, Illyricum, Gaul, Greece and Egypt were the places in which these tyrants appeared. We will notice them in order. After the defeat of Valerian, Sapor conferred the title of emperor on a person named Cyriades, the son of a citizen of Antioch. This vassal forthwith conducted the Persian troops to the pillage of his native city, and so rapid and so secret was their march that they surprised the Antiochenes while engaged at the theatre. The massacre and devastation usual in the East ensued. The Persian monarch then poured his troops into Cilicia, took and plundered Tarsus and other towns; then crossing Mount Taurus, he laid siege to Cæsarea in Cappadocia, a city with 400,000 inhabitants. It was stoutly defended for some time, but treachery at length delivered it into the hands of the Persians, and massacre and pillage followed. Sapor now spread his ravages on all sides; but the Roman troops having rallied under the command of Ser. Anicius Ballista, who had been prætorian prefect, checked his ca reer, and as he was retiring toward his own states, he found himself assailed by an unexpected enemy. Soon after the defeat and capture of Valerian, a train of camels laden with presents entered the camp of Sapor. They were accompanied by a letter from Odenatus, a wealthy citizen of Palmyra (the ancient Tadmor), containing an assurance that he had never acted against the Persians. Sapor, enraged at such insolence (as he deemed it), tore the letter, flung the gifts into the river, and declared that he would exterminate the insolent writer and his family unless he came before his throne with his hands bound behind his back. Odenatus at once resolved to join the Romans; he collected a force chiefly composed of the Bedoweens or Arabs of the Desert, over whom he had great influence. He hovered about the Persian army, and attacking it at the passage of the Euphrates, carried off much treasure, and some of the women of the Great King, who was forced to seek safety in a precipitate retreat. Odenatus made himself master of all Mesopotamia, and he even passed the Tigris and made an attempt on Ctesiphon (261). Gallienus gave him the title of his general of the East, and Odenatus himself took soon after that of king of Palmyra. The Roman troops in the East meantime being resolved not to submit to Gallienus, were deliberating on whom they would bestow the purple. Acting under the advice of Ballista, they fixed on the prætorian prefect, M. Fulvius Macrianus, a man of great military talents, and what was perhaps of more importance in their eyes, extremely wealthy. Macrianus conferred the office of prætorian prefect on Ballista, and leaving with him his younger son and a part of the army to defend the East, he put himself at the head of 45,000 inen, and taking with him his elder son, set out for Europe (262). On the borders of Illyricum he was encountered by M'.Acilius Aureolus the governor (or as some say the tyrant) of that province, and in the battle which ensued himself and his son were slain, and his troops surrendered. After the death of Macrianus, Ballista assumed the purple, but he was slain by order of Odenatus, whom Gallienus (264), with the full consent of the senate and people of Rome, had made his associate in the empire, giving him the titles of Cæsar, Augustus, and all the other tokens of sovereignty. Tib. Cestius Æmilianus, who commanded in Egypt, assumed the purple in that province (262), in consequence it is said of a sedition in the most turbulent city of Alexandria; but he was defeated the following year, taken prisoner, and sent to Gallienus, who caused him to be strangled. It was in Gaul that the usurpers had most success. As soon as Gallienus left that country (260), the general M. Cassius Latienus Postumus was proclaimed emperor, and his authority appears to have been acknowledged in both Spain and Britain. He is described as a man of most noble and upright character; he administered justice impartially, and he defended the frontier against the Germans with valour and success. Possessed of the affections of the people, he easily maintained himself against all the efforts of Gallienus; but he was slain at last (267) in a mutiny of his own soldiers, to whom he had refused the plunder of the city of Mentz, in which a rival emperor had appeared. Postumus had associated with himself in the empire Victorinus, the son of a lady named Aurelia Victoria, who was called the Mother of the Camp, and who had such influence with the troops, we know not how acquired, but probably by her wealth, as to be able to give the purple to whom she pleased. Victorinus being slain by a man whose wife he had violated, a simple armourer, named Marius, wore the purple for two days, at the end of which he was murdered; and Victoria then caused a senator named P. Pivesus Tetricus to be proclaimed emperor, who maintained his power for some years. At the time when Macrianus claimed the empire, P. Valerius Valens, the governor of Greece, finding that that usurper, who was resolved on his destruction, had sent L. Calpurnius Piso against him, assumed the purple in his own defence. Piso being forced to retire into Thessaly, caused himself to be proclaimed emperor there; but few joined him, and he was slain by a party of soldiers sent against him by Valens, who was himself shortly after put to death by his own troops. Both Valens and Piso were men of high character, especially the latter, to whom the senate decreed divine honours, and respecting whom Valens himself said, that "he would not be able to account to the gods below, for having ordered Piso, though his enemy, to be slain, a man whose like the Roman republic did not then possess." C. Annius Trebellianus declared himself independent in Isauria, and T. Cornelius Celsus was proclaimed emperor in Africa; but both speedily perished (265). Among the cala mities of this reign was an insurrection of the slaves in Sicily, similar to those in the time of the republic. While his empire was thus torn asunder, Gallienus thought only of indulgence, and the loss of a province only gave him occasion for a joke. When Egypt revolted, "Well," said he, "cannot we do without Egyptian linen?" So when Gaul was lost, he asked if the republic could not be secure without clokes from Arras. He was content to retain Italy, satisfied with a nominal sovereignty over the rest of the empire; and whenever this seat of dominion was menaced, he exhibited in its defence the vigour and personal courage which he really possessed. Gaul and Illyricum were the quarters from which Italy had most to apprehend: Gallienus therefore headed his troops against Postumus, and when D. Lælius Ingenuus revolted in Pannonia, he marched against him, defeated and slew him, and made the most cruel use of his victory to deter others (260). Q. Nonius Regillianus, who afterwards revolted in the same country, was slain by his own soldiers (263); but when Aureolus was induced to assume the purple (268) the Illyrian legions advanced and made themselves masters of Milan. Gallienus shaking off sloth quickly appeared at the head of his troops; the hostile armies encountered on the banks of the Adda, and Aureolus was defeated, wounded, and forced to shut himself up in Milan. During the siege a conspiracy was formed against the emperor by some of the principal officers of his army, and one night as he was sitting at table a report was spread that Aureolus had made a sally. Gallienus instantly threw himself on horseback to hasten to the point of danger, and in the dark he received a mortal wound from an unknown hand. CHAPTER VII.* CLAUDIUS. AURELIAN. TACITUS. PROBUS. CARUS. CARINUS Claudius.Invasions of the Goths.-Aurelian.-Alemanic War.-War against Zenobia.-Tetricus.-Death of Aurelian.-Tacitus.-His Death. -Probus.-His Military Successes.-His Death.-Carus.-Persian War. -His Death.-Carinus and Numerian.-Death of Numerian.-Election of Diocletian.-Battle of Margus. Born We now enter on a series of emperors of a new order. nearly all in humble stations, and natives of the province of Illyricum, they rose by merit through the gradations of military service, attained the empire in general without crime, maintained its dignity, and checked or punished the inroads of the barbarians. This series commences with the death of Gallienus and terminates with that of Licinius, embracing a period of somewhat more than half a century, and marked, as we shall find, by most important changes in the Roman empire. The murmurs of the soldiers on the death of Gallienus were easily stilled by the promise of a donative of twenty pieces of gold a man. To justify themselves in the eyes of the world, the conspirators resolved to bestow the empire on one who should form an advantageous contrast to its late unworthy possessor, and they fixed on M. Aurelius Claudius, who commanded a division of the army at Pavia. The soldiers, the senate and the people alike approved their choice, and Claudius assumed the purple with universal approbation. This excellent man, in whose praise writers of all parties are agreed, was a native of Illyricum, born apparently in humble circumstances. His merit raised him through the inferior gradations of the army; he attracted the notice of the emperor Decius, and the discerning Valerian made him general of the Illyrian frontier, with an assurance of the consulate. * Authorities: Zosimus, the Augustan History, and Epitomators. |