fal more deeply than all the conquests of the Goths or the CHAP. Persians.

172

X.

Alexandria

II. The foundation of Alexandria was a noble design, at once conceived and executed by the son of Philip. The beautiful Tumults of and regular form of that great city, second only to Rome itself, comprehended a circumference of fifteen miles ;170 it was peopled by three hundred thousand free inhabitants, besides at least an equal number of slaves. 171 The lucrative trade of Arabia and India flowed through the port of Alexandria to the capital and provinces of the empire. Idleness was unknown. Some were employed in blowing of glass, others in weaving of linen, others again manufacturing the papyrus. Either sex, and every age, was engaged in the pursuits of industry, nor did even the blind or the lame want occupations suited to their condition. But the people of Alexandria, a various mixture of nations, united the vanity and inconstancy of the Greeks, with the superstition and obstinacy of the Egyptians. The most trifling occasion, a transient scarcity of flesh or lentils, the neglect of an accustomed salutation, a mistake of precedency in the public baths, or even a religious dispute,175 were at any time sufficient to kindle a sedition among that vast multitude, whose resentments were furious and implacable.174 After the captivity of Valerian and the insolence of his son had relaxed the authority of the laws, the Alexandrians abandoned themselves to the ungoverned rage of their passions, and their unhappy country was the theatre of a civil war, which continued (with a few short and auspicious truces) above twelve years. 175 All intercourse was cut off between the several quarters of the afflicted city, every street was polluted with blood, every building of strength converted into a citadel; nor did the tumults subside, till a considerable part of Alexandria was irretrievably ruined. The spacious and magnificent district of Bruchion, with its palaces and museum, the residence of the kings and philosophers of Egypt, is described above a century afterward, as already reduced to its present state of dreary solitude, tra

of the Isar

III. The obscure rebellion of Trebellianus, who assumed Rebellion the purple in Isauria, a petty province of Asia Minor, was at-rians. tended with strange and memorable consequences. The pageant of royalty was soon destroyed by an officer of Gallienus; but his followers, despairing of mercy, resolved to shake off

170 Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 10.

171 Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 590, Edit. Wesseling.

172 See a very curious letter of Hadrian in the Augustan History, p. 245. 173 Such as the sacrilegious murder of a divine cat.

See Diodor. Sicul. I. i.

174 Hist. August. p. 195. This long and terrible sedition was first occasioned

by a dispute between a soldier and a townsman about a pair of shoes.

175 Dionysius apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vol. vii. p. 21. Ammian. xxii. 16.

176 Scaliger. Animadver. ad Euseb. Chron. p. 258. Three dissertations of M. Bonamy, in the Mem. de l'Academie, tom. ix,

CHAP. their allegiance, not only to the emperor, but to the empire, X. and suddenly returned to the savage manners, from which they had never perfectly been reclaimed. Their craggy rocks, a branch of the wide-extended Taurus, protected their inaccessible retreat. The tillage of some fertile valleys" supplied them with necessaries, and a habit of rapine with the luxuries of life. In the heart of the Roman monarchy, the Isaurians long continued a nation of wild barbarians. Succeeding princes, unable to reduce them to obedience either by arms or policy, were compelled to acknowledge their weakness, by surrounding the hostile and independent spot, with a strong chain of fortifications, which often proved insufficient to restrain the incursions of these domestic foes. The Isaurians gradually extending their territory to the sea-coast, subdued the western and mountainous part of Cilicia, formerly the nest of those daring pirates, against whom the republic had once been obliged to exert its utmost force, under the conduct of the great Pompey. 17

Famine and pestijence.

Diminution of the hu

cies.

78

Fa

Our habits of thinking so fondly connect the order of the universe with the fate of man, that this gloomy period of history has been decorated with inundations, earthquakes, uncommon meteors, preternatural darkness, and a crowd of prodigies, fictitious or exaggerated. But a long and general famine was a calamity of a more serious kind. It was the inevitable consequence of rapine and oppression, which extirpated the produce of the present, and the hope of future harvests mine is almost always followed by epidemical diseases, the effect of scanty and unwholesome food Other causes, must however have contributed to the furious plague, which, from the year two hundred and fifty, to the year two hundred and sixty-five, raged without interruption in every province, every city, and almost every family, of the Roman empire. During some time five thousand persons died daily in Rome, and many towns that had escaped the hands of the barbarians, were entirely depopulated.'

We have the knowledge of a very curious circumstance, of men spe- some use perhaps in the melancholy calculation of human calamities. An exact register was kept at Alexandria, of all the citizens entitled to receive the distribution of corn It was found, that the ancient number of those comprised between the ages of forty and seventy, had been equal to the whole sum of claimants, from fourteen to fourscore years of age, who remain

177 Strabo, I. xii. p. 569.

178 Hist. August. p. 197.

179 See Cellarius, Geogr. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 137, upon the limits of Isauria. 180 Hist. August. p. 177.

181 Hist. August. p. 177. Zosimus, I. i. p. 24. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 623. Euseb. Chronicon. Victor in Epitom. Victor in Cesar. Eutropius, ix. 5. Orosius. vii. 21.

ed alive after the reign of Gallienus. 182 Applying this authentic fact to the most correct tables of mortality, it evidently proves that above half the people of Alexandria had perished; and could we venture to extend the analogy to the other provinces, we might suspect, that war, pestilence, and famine, had consumed, in a few years, the moiety of the human species.13

CHAPTER XI.

Reign of Claudius-Defeat of the Goths-Victories, Triumphs, and Death, of Aurelian.

XI.

UNDER the deplorable reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, CHAP. the empire was oppressed and almost destroyed by the soldiers, the tyrants, and the barbarians. It was saved by a series of great princes, who derived their obscure origin from the martial provinces of Illyricum. Within a period of about thirty years, Claudius, Aurelian, Probus, Dioclesian and his colleagues, triumphed over the foreign and domestic enemies of the state, re-established, with the military discipline, the strength of the frontiers, and deserved the glorious title of Restorers of the Roman world.

invades

feated and

Milan.

The removal of an effeminate tyrant made way for a succes- Auroins sion of heroes. The indignation of the people imputed all Italy, is de their calamities to Gallienus, and the far greater part were, in- besieged at deed, the consequence of his dissolute manners and careless administration. He was even destitute of a sense of honour, which so frequently supplies the absence of public virtue; and as long as he was permitted to enjoy the possession of Italy, a victory of the barbarians, the loss of a province, or the rebellion of a general, seldom disturbed the tranquil course of his pleasures. At length a considerable army, stationed on the Upper A., 26 `.. Danube, invested with the imperial purple their leader Aureolus; who disdaining a confined and barren reign over the mountains of Rhætia, passed the Alps, occupied Milan, threatened Rome, and challenged Gallienus to dispute in the field the sovereignty of Italy. The emperor, provoked by the insult, and alarmed by the instant danger, suddenly exerted that latent vigour, which sometimes broke through the indolence of his temper. Forcing himself from the luxury of the palace, he appeared in arms at the head of his legions, and advanced beyond the Po to encounter his competitor. The corrupted name of Pontiro

182 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vii. 21. The fact is taken from the Letters of Dionnysius, who, in the time of those troubles, was bishop of Alexandria.

183 In a great number of parishes 11,000 persons were found between fourteen and eighty; 5365 between forty and seventy. See Buffon, Histoire Natu relle, tom. ii. p. 590.

XI.

CHAP. lo1 still preserves the memory of a bridge over the Adda, which, during the action, must have proved an object of the utmost importance to both armies. The Rhætian usurper, after receiving a total defeat and a dangerous wound, retired into Milan. The siege of that great city was immediately formed; the walls were battered with every engine in use among the ancients; and Aureolus, doubtful of his internal strength, and hopeless of foreign succours, already anticipated the fatal consequences of unsuccessful rebellion.

His last resource was an attempt to seduce the loyalty of the besiegers. He scattered libels through their camp, inviting the troops to desert an unworthy master, who sacrificed the public happiness to his luxury, and the lives of his most valuable subjects to the slightest suspicions. The arts of Aureolus diffused fears and discontent among the principal officers of his rival. A conspiracy was formed by Heraclianus, the prætorian præfect, by Marcian, a general of rank and reputation, and by Cecrops, who commanded a numerous body of Dalmatian guards. The death of Gallienus was resolved; and notwithstanding their desire of first terminating the siege of Milan, the extreme danger which accompanied every moment's delay, obliged them to hasten the execution of their daring purpose. At a late hour of the night, but while the emperor still protracted the pleasures of the table, an alarm was suddenly given, that Aureolus, at the head of all his forces, had made a desperate sally from the town; Gallienus, who was never deficient in personal bravery, started from his silken couch, and, without allowing himself time either to put on his armour, or to assemble his guards, he mounted on horseback, and rode full speed A. D. 263, toward the supposed place of the attack. Encompassed by his Death of declared or concealed enemies, he soon, amidst the nocturnal tumult, received a mortal dart from an uncertain hand. Before he expired, a patriotic sentiment rising in the mind of Gallienus, induced him to name a deserving successor, and it was his last request that the imperial ornament should be delivered to Claudius, who then commanded a detached army in the neighbourhood of Pavia. The report at least was diligently propagated, and the order cheerfully obeyed by the conspirators, who had already agreed to place Claudius on the throne. On the first news of the emperor's death, the troops expressed some suspicion and resentment, till the one was removed and the other assuaged, by a donative of twenty pieces of gold to each soldier. They then ratified the election, and acknowledged the merit of their new sovereign.2

March 20.

Gallienus.

1 Pons Aureoli, thirteen miles from Bergamo, and thirty-two from Milan. See Cluver. Italia Antiq. tom. i. p. 245. Near this place, in the year 1703, the obstinate battle of Cassano was fought between the French and Austrians. The excellent relation of the Chevalier de Folard, who was present, gives a very distinct idea of the ground. See Polybe de Folard, tom. iii. p. 223-248.

2 On the death of Gallienus, see Trebellius Pollio in Hist. August. p. 181.

XI.

and eleva

emperor

The obscurity which covered the origin of Claudius, though CHAP it was afterward embellished by some flattering fictions, suffi3 ciently betrays the meanness of his birth. We can only discover that he was a native of one of the provinces bordering on Character the Danube; that his youth was spent in arms, and that his tion of the modest valour attracted the favour and confidence of Decius. Claudius. The senate and people already considered him as an excellent officer, equal to the most important trust; and censured the inattention of Valerian, who suffered him to remain in the subordinate station of a tribune. But it was not long before that emperor distinguished the merit of Claudius, by declaring him general and chief of the Illyrian frontier, with the command of all the troops in Thrace, Mæsia, Dacia, Pannonia, and Dalmatia, the appointments of the præfect of Egypt, the establishment of the proconsul of Africa, and the sure prospect of the consulship. By his victories over the Goths, he deserved from the senate the honour of a statue, and excited the jealous apprehensions of Gallienus. It was impossible that a soldier could esteem so dissolute a sovereign, nor is it easy to conceal a just contempt. Some unguarded expressions which dropped from Claudius, were officially transmitted to the royal ear. The emperor's answer to an officer of confidence, describes in very lively colours his own character and that of the times. "There is not any thing capable of giving me more serious concern, than the intelligence contained in your last despatch; 4 that some malicious suggestions have indisposed toward us the mind of our friend and parent Claudius. As you regard your allegiance, use every means to appease his resentment, but conduct your negotiation with secrecy; let it not reach the knowledge of the Dacian troops; they are already provoked, and it might inflame their fury. I myself have sent him some presents; be it your care that he accept them with pleasure. Above all, let him not suspect that I am made acquainted with his imprudence. The fear of my anger might urge him to desperate counsels."5 The presents which accompanied this humble epistle, in which the monarch solicited a reconciliation with his discontented subject, consisted of a considerable sum of money, a splendid wardrobe, and a valuable service of silver and gold plate. By such arts Gallienus softened the indignation, and dispelled the fears, of his Illyrian general; and, during the remainder of that

Zosimus, l. i. p. 37. Zonaras, 1. xii. p. 634. Eutrop. ix. 11. Aurelius Victor in Epitom. Victor in Cesar. I have compared and blended them all, but have chiefly followed Aurelius Victor, who seems to have had the best memoirs.

3 Some supposed him, oddly enough, to be a bastard of the younger Gordian. Others took advantage of the province of Dardania, to deduce his origin from Dardanus, and the ancient kings of Troy.

4 Notoria, a periodical and official despatch which the emperors received from the frumentarii, or agents dispersed through the provinces. Of these we may speak hereafter.

5 Hist. August. p. 208. Gallienus describes the plate, vestments, &c. likę a man who loved and understood those splendid trifles.