and places of exercise, for the use of the people.23 He flatter- CHAP, ed himself that the Romans, dazzled and amused by this appa- IV. rent liberality, would be less affected by the bloody scenes which were daily exhibited: that they would forget the death of Byrrhus, a senator to whose superior merit the late emperor had granted one of his daughters; and that they would forgive the execution of Arius Antoninus, the last representative of the name and virtues of the Antonines. The former, with more integrity than prudence, had attempted to disclose, to his brother-in-law, the true character of Cleander. An equitable sentence pronounced by the latter, when proconsul of Asia, against a worthless creature of the favourite, proved fatal to him.24 After the fall of Perennis, the terrors of Commodus had, for a short time, assumed the appearance of a return to virtue. He repealed the most odious of his acts, loaded his memory with the public execration, and ascribed to the pernicious counsels of that wicked minister, all the errors of his inexperienced youth. But his repentance lasted only thirty days; and, under Cleander's tyranny, the administration of Perennis was often regretted.

and death

der,

Pestilence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of Selition the calamities of Rome.25 The first could be only imputed to o Cleanthe just indignation of the gods; but a monopoly of corn, sup- A. D. 189. ported by the riches and power of the minister, was considered as the immediate cause of the second. The popular discontent, after it had long circulated in whispers, broke out in the assembled circus. The people quitted their favourite amusements, for the more delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed in crowds towards a palace in the suburbs, one of the emperor's retirements, and demanded, with angry clamours, the head of the public enemy. Cleander, who commanded the Prætorian guards, ordered a body of cavalry to sally forth, and disperse the seditious multitude. The multitude fled with precipitation toward the city; several were slain, and many more were trampled to death: but when the cavalry entered the streets, their pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and darts from the roofs and windows of the houses. The foot guards, who

26

27

23 Dion, 1. lxxii. p. 12, 13. Herodian, 1. i. p. 29. Hist. August. p. 52. These baths were situated near the Porta Capena. See Nardina Roma Antica, p. 79. 24 Hist. August. p. 48.

25 Herodian, 1. i. p. 28. Dion, I. Ixxii. p. 1215. The latter says, that two thousand persons died every day at Rome during a considerable length of time. 26 Tuncque primum tres præfecti prætorio fuêre: inter quos libertinus. From some remains of modesty, Cleander declined the title, whilst he assumed the powers of Prætorian prefect. As the other freedmen were styled from their several departments, a rationibus, ab epistolis; Cleander called himself a pugione, as intrusted with the defence of his master's person. Salmasius and Casaubon seem to have talked very idly upon this passage.

27. Οι της πολέας πεζω σρατιώται, Herodian, T. i. p. 31. It is doubtful whether be means the Prætorian infantry, or the cohortes urbanæ, a body of six thousand men, but whose rank and discipline were not equal to their numbers. Neiher Tillemont nor Wotton choose to decide this question.

IV.

CHAP. had been long jealous of the prerogatives and insolence of the Prætorian cavalry, embraced the party of the people. The ~tumult became a regular engagement, and threatened a general massacre. The Prætorians, at length, gave way, oppressed with numbers; and the tide of popular fury returned with redoubled violence against the gates of the palace, where Commodus lay, dissolved in luxury, and alone unconscious of the civil war. It was death to approach his person with the unwelcome news. He would have perished in this supine security, had not two women, his elder sister Fadilla, and Marcia, the most favoured of his concubines, ventured to break into his presence. Bathed in tears, and with dishevelled hair, they threw themselves at his feet; and with all the pressing eloquence of fear, discovered to the affrighted emperor, the crimes of the minister, the rage of the people, and the impending ruin, which, in a few minutes, would burst over his palace and person. Commodus started from his dream of pleasure, and commanded that the head of Cleander should be thrown out to the people. The desired spectacle instantly appeased the tumult; and the son of Marcus might even yet have regained the affection and confidence of his subjects. 28

Dissolute

But every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in pleasures of Commodus. the mind of Commodus. Whilst he thus abandoned the reins of empire to these unworthy favourites, he valued nothing in sovereign power, except the unbounded license of indulging his sensual appetites. His hours were spent in a seraglio of three hundred beautiful women, and as many boys, of every rank, and of every province; and wherever the arts of seduction proved ineffectual, the brutal lover had recourse to violence. The ancient historians have expatiated on these abandoned scenes of prostitution, which scorned every restraint of nature or modesty; but it would not be easy to translate their too faithful descriptions into the decency of modern language. The intervals of lust were filled up with the basest amusements. The influence of a polite age, and the labour of an attentive education, had never been able to infuse into his rude and brutish mind, the least tincture of learning; and he was the first of the Roman emperors totally devoid of taste for the pleasures of the understanding. Nero himself excelled, or affected to excel, in the elegant arts of music and poetry; nor should we despise his pursuits, had he not converted the pleasing relaxation of a leisure hour into the serious business and ambition of his life. But Commodus, from his earliest infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was rational or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the populace; the

Ilis ignolow sports.

rance and

28 Dion Cassius, 1. lxxii. p. 1215. Herodian, 1. i. p. 32. Hist. August. p. 48. 29 Sororibus suis constupratis. Ipsas concubinas suas sub oculis suis stuprari jubebat. Nec irruentium in se juvenum carebat infamiâ, omni parte corporis atque ore in sexum utrumque pollutus. Hist. Aug. p. 47.

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

IV.

sports of the circus and amphitheatre, the combats of gladia- CHAP. tors, and the hunting of wild beasts. The masters in every branch of learning, whom Marcus provided for his son, were heard with inattention and disgust; whilst the Moors and Parthians, who taught him to dart the javelin and to shoot with the bow, found a disciple who delighted in his application, and soon equated the most skilful of his instructers, in the steadiness of the eye, and the dexterity of the hand.

wild beasts

The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their mas-Hunting of ter's vices, applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of flattery reminded him, that by exploits of the same nature, by the defeat of the Nemean lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar of Erymanthus, the Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among the gods, and an immortal memory among men. They only forgot to observe, that, in the first ages of society, when the fiercer animals often dispute with man the possession of an unsettled country, a successful war against those savages is one of the most innocent and beneficial labours of heroism. In the civilized state of the Roman empire, the wild beasts had long since retired from the face of man, and the neighbourhood of populous cities. To surprise them in their solitary haunts, and to transport them to Rome, that they might be slain in pomp by the hand of an emperor, was an enterprise equally ridiculous for the prince, and oppressive for the people.30 Ignorant of these distinctions, Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious resemblance, and styled himself (as we still read on his medals)31 the Roman Hercules. The club and the lion's hide were placed by the side of the throne, among the ensigns of sovereignty; and statues were erected, in which Commodus was represented in the character, and with the attributes, of the god, whose valour and dexterity he endeavoured to emulate in the daily course of his ferocious amusements.$2

displays hi

amphithe

atre.

Elated with these praises, which gradually extinguished the Commodes innate sense of shame, Commodus resolved to exhibit, before skill in the the eyes of the Roman people, those exercises, which till then he had decently confined within the walls of his palace, and to the presence of a few favourites. On the appointed day, the various motives of flattery, fear, and curiosity, attracted to the amphitheatre an innumerable multitude of spectators; and some degree of applause was deservedly bestowed on the un

So The African lions, when pressed by hunger, infested the open villages and cultivated country; and they infested them with impunity. The royal beast was reserved for the pleasures of the emperor and the capital; and the unfortunate peasant, who killed one of them, though in his own defence, in curred a very heavy penalty. This extraordinary game law was mitigated by Honorius, and finally repealed by Justinian. Codex Theodos. tom. v. p. 92, et Comment. Gothofred.

S1 Spanheim de Numismat. Dissertat. xii. tom. ii. p. 493.

32 Dion, l. xxii. p. 1216. Hist. August. p. 49.

VOL. I.

9

CHAP. common skill of the Imperial performer. Whether he aimed IV. at the head or heart of the animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With arrows, whose point was shaped into the form of a crescent, Commodus often intercepted the rapid career, and cut asunder the long bony neck of the ostrich.33 A panther was let loose; and the archer waited till he had leaped upon a trembling malefactor. In the same instant, the shaft flew, the beast dropped dead, and the man remained unhurt. The dens of the amphitheatre disgorged at once a hundred lions; a hundred darts from the unerring hand of Commodus laid them dead as they ran raging round the Arena. Neither the huge bulk of the elephant, nor the scaly hide of the rhinoceros, could defend them from his stroke. Ethiopia and India yielded their most extraordinary productions; and several animals were slain in the amphitheatre, which had been seen only in the representations of art, or perhaps of fancy.34 In all these exhibitions, the securest precautions were used to protect the person of the Roman Hercules from the desperate spring of any savage; who might possibly disregard the dignity of the emperor, and the sanctity of the god.35

Acts as a

gladiator.

36

But the meanest of the populace were affected with shame and indignation when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists as a gladiator, and glory in a profession which the laws and manners of the Romans had branded with the justest note of infamy.s He chose the habit and arms of the Secutor, whose combat with the Retiarius formed one of the most lively scenes in the bloody sports of the amphitheatre. The Secutor was armed with an helmet, sword and buckler; his naked antagonist had only a large net and a trident; with the one he endeavoured to entangle, with the other to despatch his enemy. If he missed the first throw, he was obliged to fly from the pursuit of the Secutor, till he had prepared his net for a second cast.37 The emperor fought in this character seven hundred and thirtyfive several times. These glorious achievements were carefully recorded in the public acts of the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance of infamy, he received from the

33

The ostrich's neck is three feet long, and composed of seventeen vertebræ. See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle.

34 Commodus killed a cameleopardalis or giraffe (Dion, 1. Ixxii. p. 1211,) the tallest, the most gentle, and the most useless of the large quadrupeds. This singular animal, a native only of the interior parts of Africa, has not been seen in Europe since the revival of letters; and though M. de Buffon (Hist. Naturelle, tom. xiii.) has endeavoured to describe, he has not ventured to deli neate, the Giraffe.

35 Herodian, l. i. p. 37. Hist. August. p. 50.

36 The virtuous and even the wise princes forbade the senators and knights to embrace this scandalous profession, under pain of infamy, or what was more dreaded by those profligate wretches, of exile. The tyrants allured them to dishonour by threats and rewards. Nero once produced, in the Arena, forty senators and sixty knights. See Lipsius, Saturnalia, 1. ii. c. 2. He has happily corrected a passage of Suetonius, in Nerone, c. 12.

37 Lipsius, I. ii. c. 7, 8. Juvenal, in the eighth satire, gives a picturesque description of this combat.

IV.

and extra

common fund of gladiators, a stipend so exorbitant, that it be- CHAP. came a new and most ignominious tax upon the Roman people.38 It may be easily supposed, that in these engagements the master of the world was always successful in the amphitheatre his victories were not often sanguinary; but when he exercised his skill in the school of gladiators, or his own palace, his wretched antagonists were frequently honoured with a mortal wound from the hand of Commodus and obliged to seal their flattery with their blood.39 He now disdained the appellation His infamy of Hercules. The name of Paulus, a celebrated Secutur, vagance. was the only one which delighted his ear. It was inscribed on his colossal statues, and repeated in the redoubled acclamations40 of the mournful and applauding senate." Claudius Pompeianus, the virtuous husband of Lucilla, was the only senator who asserted the honour of his rank. As a father he permitted his sons to consult their safety by attending the amphitheatre. As a Roman, he declared, that his own life was in the emperor's hands, but that he would never behold the son of Marcus prostituting his person and dignity. Notwithstanding his manly resolution, Pompeianus escaped the resentment of the tyrant, and with his honour, had the good fortune to preserve his life.42

Commodus had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amidst the acclamations of a flattering court, he was unable to disguise, from himself, that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of every man of sense and virtue in his empire. His ferocious spirit was irritated by the consciousness of that hatred, by the envy of every kind of merit, by the just apprehension of danger, and by the habit of slaughter, which he contracted in his daily amusements. History has preserved a long list of consular senators sacrificed to his wanton suspicion, which sought out, with peculiar anxiety, those unfortunate persons connected, however remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without sparing even the ministers of his crimes Conspiracy or pleasures. His cruelty proved at last fatal to himself. of his doHe had shed with impunity the noblest blood of Rome he perished as soon as he was dreaded by his own domestics.

$3

38 Hist. August. p. 50. Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1220. He received for each time, decies, about 8000!. sterling.

39 Victor tells us, that Čommodus only allowed his antagonists a leaden weapon, dreading most probably the consequences of their despair.

40 They were obliged to repeat six hundred and twenty-six times, Paulus. first of the Secutors, &c.

41 Dion, I. lxxii. p. 1221. He speaks of his own baseness and danger.

42 He mixed, however, some prudence with his courage, and passed the greatest part of his time in a country retirement: alleging his advanced age, and the weakness of his eyes. "I never saw him in the senate," says Dion, "except during the short reign of Pertinax." All his infirmities had suddenly left him, and they returned as suddenly upon the murder of that excellent prince. Dion. I. Izxiii. p. 1227.

45 The præfects were changed almost hourly or daily; and the caprice of Commodus was often fatal to his most favourite chamberlains. Hist. August. p. 46. 51.

mestics.