Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - All six volumes with an active table of contents (Annotated) (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 537-39 | Added on Sunday, March 25, 2012, 12:29 PM That public virtue, which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - All six volumes with an active table of contents (Annotated) (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 551-53 | Added on Sunday, March 25, 2012, 12:31 PM it was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline, that a good soldier should dread his officers far more than the enemy. From such laudable arts did the valor of the Imperial troops receive a degree of firmness and docility unattainable by the impetuous and irregular passions of barbarians. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - All six volumes with an active table of contents (Annotated) (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 989-96 | Added on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 07:24 PM The opinions of the Academics and Epicureans were of a less religious cast; but whilst the modest science of the former induced them to doubt, the positive ignorance of the latter urged them to deny, the providence of a Supreme Ruler. The spirit of inquiry, prompted by emulation, and supported by freedom, had divided the public teachers of philosophy into a variety of contending sects; but the ingenious youth, who, from every part, resorted to Athens, and the other seats of learning in the Roman empire, were alike instructed in every school to reject and to despise the religion of the multitude. How, indeed, was it possible that a philosopher should accept, as divine truths, the idle tales of the poets, and the incoherent traditions of antiquity; or that he should adore, as gods, those imperfect beings whom he must have despised, as men? Against such unworthy adversaries, Cicero condescended to employ the arms of reason and eloquence; but the satire of Lucian was a much more adequate, as well as more efficacious, weapon. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - All six volumes with an active table of contents (Annotated) (Edward Gibbon) - Bookmark Loc. 1077 | Added on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 07:34 PM ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 971-74 | Added on Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 03:22 PM But the equitable Nerva, who then filled the throne, refused to accept any part of it, and commanded him to use, without scruple, the present of fortune. The cautious Athenian still insisted, that the treasure was too considerable for a subject, and that he knew not how to use it. Abuse it then, replied the monarch, with a good-natured peevishness; for it is your own. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1061-64 | Added on Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 03:35 PM The coasts of Italy are, in general, destitute of safe harbors; but human industry had corrected the deficiencies of nature; and the artificial port of Ostia, in particular, situate at the mouth of the Tyber, and formed by the emperor Claudius, was a useful monument of Roman greatness. From this port, which was only sixteen miles from the capital, a favorable breeze frequently carried vessels in seven days to the columns of Hercules, and in nine or ten, to Alexandria in Egypt. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1098-1101 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 12:31 PM But in the present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can correct the unequal distribution of property. The diligent mechanic, and the skilful artist, who have obtained no share in the division of the earth, receive a voluntary tax from the possessors of land; and the latter are prompted, by a sense of interest, to improve those estates, with whose produce they may purchase additional pleasures. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1156-57 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 05:35 PM The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1167-73 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 05:37 PM The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state, in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, is intrusted with the execution of the laws, the management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But, unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people. * A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1286-91 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 05:57 PM By declaring themselves the protectors of the people, Marius and Cæsar had subverted the constitution of their country. But as soon as the senate had been humbled and disarmed, such an assembly, consisting of five or six hundred persons, was found a much more tractable and useful instrument of dominion. It was on the dignity of the senate that Augustus and his successors founded their new empire; and they affected, on every occasion, to adopt the language and principles of Patricians. In the administration of their own powers, they frequently consulted the great national council, and seemed to refer to its decision the most important concerns of peace and war. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1338-40 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 06:07 PM A distinction was, however, soon introduced. The sacred title of Augustus was always reserved for the monarch, whilst the name of Cæsar was more freely communicated to his relations; and, from the reign of Hadrian, at least, was appropriated to the second person in the state, who was considered as the presumptive heir of the empire. * ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1348-57 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 06:10 PM The death of Cæsar was ever before his eyes. He had lavished wealth and honors on his adherents; but the most favored friends of his uncle were in the number of the conspirators. The fidelity of the legions might defend his authority against open rebellion; but their vigilance could not secure his person from the dagger of a determined republican; and the Romans, who revered the memory of Brutus, would applaud the imitation of his virtue. Cæsar had provoked his fate, as much as by the ostentation of his power, as by his power itself. The consul or the tribune might have reigned in peace. The title of king had armed the Romans against his life. Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom. A feeble senate and enervated people cheerfully acquiesced in the pleasing illusion, as long as it was supported by the virtue, or even by the prudence, of the successors of Augustus. It was a motive of self-preservation, not a principle of liberty, that animated the conspirators against Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. They attacked the person of the tyrant, without aiming their blow at the authority of the emperor. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1358-63 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 06:12 PM There appears, indeed, one memorable occasion, in which the senate, after seventy years of patience, made an ineffectual attempt to re-assume its long-forgotten rights. When the throne was vacant by the murder of Caligula, the consuls convoked that assembly in the Capitol, condemned the memory of the Cæsars, gave the watchword liberty to the few cohorts who faintly adhered to their standard, and during eight-and-forty hours acted as the independent chiefs of a free commonwealth. But while they deliberated, the prætorian guards had resolved. The stupid Claudius, brother of Germanicus, was already in their camp, invested with the Imperial purple, and prepared to support his election by arms. The dream of liberty was at an end; and the senate awoke to all the horrors of inevitable servitude. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1374-79 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 06:14 PM During a long period of two hundred and twenty years from the establishment of this artful system to the death of Commodus, the dangers inherent to a military government were, in a great measure, suspended. The soldiers were seldom roused to that fatal sense of their own strength, and of the weakness of the civil authority, which was, before and afterwards, productive of such dreadful calamities. Caligula and Domitian were assassinated in their palace by their own domestics: * the convulsions which agitated Rome on the death of the former, were confined to the walls of the city. But Nero involved the whole empire in his ruin. In the space of eighteen months, four princes perished by the sword; and the Roman world was shaken by the fury of the contending armies. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1380-81 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 06:14 PM The emperor was elected by the authority of the senate, and the consent of the soldiers. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1457-59 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 06:28 PM 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. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1474-79 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 06:31 PM The golden age of Trajan and the Antonines had been preceded by an age of iron. It is almost superfluous to enumerate the unworthy successors of Augustus. Their unparalleled vices, and the splendid theatre on which they were acted, have saved them from oblivion. The dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius, and the timid, inhuman Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy. During fourscore years (excepting only the short and doubtful respite of Vespasian's reign) Rome groaned beneath an unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient families of the republic, and was fatal to almost every virtue and every talent that arose in that unhappy period. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1512-20 | Added on Thursday, March 29, 2012, 06:38 PM The object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of his dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of the Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. The slave of Imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drags his gilded chain in Rome and the senate, or to were out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen bank of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing, except the ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of fierce manners and unknown language, or dependent kings, who would gladly purchase the emperor's protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious fugitive. "Wherever you are," said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, "remember that you are equally within the power of the conqueror." ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1523-24 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 08:00 AM His excellent understanding was often deceived by the unsuspecting goodness of his heart. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1537-39 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 08:06 AM The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of the father's virtues. It has been objected to Marcus, that he sacrificed the happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a worthless boy; and that he chose a successor in his own family, rather than in the republic. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1543-44 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 08:06 AM he lived long enough to repent a rash measure, ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1547-48 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 08:07 AM Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1547-49 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 08:15 AM Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1550-51 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 08:15 AM From such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood; but these motives will not account for the unprovoked cruelties of Commodus, who had nothing to wish and every thing to enjoy. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1574-76 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 08:20 AM One evening, as the emperor was returning to the palace, through a dark and narrow portico in the amphitheatre, an assassin, who waited his passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, "The senate sends you this." The menace prevented the deed; the assassin was seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors of the conspiracy. It had been formed, not in the state, but within the walls of the palace. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1582-83 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 08:22 AM But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body of the senate. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Bookmark Loc. 1597 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 11:13 AM ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1609-18 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:03 PM The negligence of the public administration was betrayed, soon afterwards, by a new disorder, which arose from the smallest beginnings. A spirit of desertion began to prevail among the troops: and the deserters, instead of seeking their safety in flight or concealment, infested the highways. Maternus, a private soldier, of a daring boldness above his station, collected these bands of robbers into a little army, set open the prisons, invited the slaves to assert their freedom, and plundered with impunity the rich and defenceless cities of Gaul and Spain. The governors of the provinces, who had long been the spectators, and perhaps the partners, of his depredations, were, at length, roused from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of the emperor. Maternus found that he was encompassed, and foresaw that he must be overpowered. A great effort of despair was his last resource. He ordered his followers to disperse, to pass the Alps in small parties and various disguises, and to assemble at Rome, during the licentious tumult of the festival of Cybele. To murder Commodus, and to ascend the vacant throne, was the ambition of no vulgar robber. His measures were so ably concerted that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome. The envy of an accomplice discovered and ruined this singular enterprise, in a moment when it was ripe for execution. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1619-20 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:04 PM Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind, from a vain persuasion, that those who have no dependence, except on their favor, will have no attachment, except to the person of their benefactor. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1657-70 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:12 PM But every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in the mind of Commodus. Whilst he thus abandoned the reins of empire to these unworthy favorites, 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 labor 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 sports of the circus and amphitheatre, the combats of gladiators, 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 equalled the most skilful of his instructors in the steadiness of the eye and the dexterity of the ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1671 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:13 PM The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master's vices, applauded these ignoble pursuits. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1683-91 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:16 PM 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 uncommon skill of the Imperial performer. Whether he aimed 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 crescent, Commodus often intercepted the rapid career, and cut asunder the long, bony neck of the ostrich. 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 run raging round the Arena. Neither the huge bulk of the elephant, nor the scaly hide of the rhinoceros, could defend them from his stroke. Æthiopia 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. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1693-1701 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:18 PM 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. 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 a helmet, sword, and buckler; his naked antagonist had only a large net and a trident; with the one he endeavored 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. The emperor fought in this character seven hundred and thirty-five 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 common fund of gladiators a stipend so exorbitant that it became a new and most ignominious tax upon the Roman people. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1752-54 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:25 PM it. These effusions of impotent rage against a dead emperor, whom the senate had flattered when alive with the most abject servility, betrayed a just but ungenerous spirit of revenge. The legality of these decrees was, however, supported by the principles of the Imperial constitution. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1754-57 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:25 PM To censure, to depose, or to punish with death, the first magistrate of the republic, who had abused his delegated trust, was the ancient and undoubted prerogative of the Roman senate; but the feeble assembly was obliged to content itself with inflicting on a fallen tyrant that public justice, from which, during his life and reign, he had been shielded by the strong arm of military despotism. * ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1796-1802 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:30 PM On the third day of his 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 honor, the affrighted victim escaped from their violence, and took refuge at the feet of Pertinax. A short time afterwards, Sosius Falco, one of the consuls of the year, 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 behavior. 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. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1803-13 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:34 PM These disappointments served only to irritate the rage of the Prætorian guards. On the twenty-eighth of March, eighty-six days only after the death of Commodus, a general sedition broke out in the camp, which the officers wanted either power or inclination to suppress. Two or three hundred of the most desperate soldiers marched at noonday, with arms in their hands and fury in their looks, towards the Imperial palace. The gates were thrown open by their companions upon guard, and by the domestics of the old court, who had already formed a secret conspiracy against the life of the too virtuous emperor. On the news of their approach, Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment, advanced to meet his assassins; and recalled to their minds his own innocence, and the sanctity of their recent oath. For a few moments they stood in silent suspense, ashamed of their atrocious design, and awed by the venerable aspect and majestic firmness of their sovereign, till at length, the despair of pardon reviving their fury, a barbarian of the country of Tongress levelled the first blow against Pertinax, who was instantly despatched with a multitude of wounds. His head, separated from his body, and placed on a lance, was carried in triumph to the Prætorian camp, in the sight of a mournful and indignant people, who lamented the unworthy fate of that excellent prince, and the transient blessings of a reign, the memory of which could serve only to aggravate their approaching misfortunes. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1856-59 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:45 PM He had already begun to use the only effectual argument, and to treat for the Imperial dignity; but the more prudent of the Prætorians, apprehensive that, in this private contract, they should not obtain a just price for so valuable a commodity, ran out upon the ramparts; and, with a loud voice, proclaimed that the Roman world was to be disposed of to the best bidder by public auction. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1856-65 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:46 PM He had already begun to use the only effectual argument, and to treat for the Imperial dignity; but the more prudent of the Prætorians, apprehensive that, in this private contract, they should not obtain a just price for so valuable a commodity, ran out upon the ramparts; and, with a loud voice, proclaimed that the Roman world was to be disposed of to the best bidder by public auction. This infamous offer, the most insolent excess of military license, diffused a universal grief, shame, and indignation throughout the city. It reached at length the ears of Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator, who, regardless of the public calamities, was indulging himself in the luxury of the table. His wife and his daughter, his freedmen and his parasites, easily convinced him that he deserved the throne, and earnestly conjured him to embrace so fortunate an opportunity. The vain old man hastened to the Prætorian camp, where Sulpicianus was still in treaty with the guards, and began to bid against him from the foot of the rampart. The unworthy negotiation was transacted by faithful emissaries, who passed alternately from one candidate to the other, and acquainted each of them with the offers of his rival. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1869-72 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:47 PM It was now incumbent on the Prætorians to fulfil the conditions of the sale. They placed their new sovereign, whom they served and despised, in the centre of their ranks, surrounded him on every side with their shields, and conducted him in close order of battle through the deserted streets of the city. The senate was commanded to assemble; and those who had been the distinguished friends of Pertinax, or the personal enemies of Julian, found it necessary to affect a more than common share of satisfaction at this happy revolution. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1881-87 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:49 PM He had reason to tremble. On the throne of the world he found himself without a friend, and even without an adherent. The guards themselves were ashamed of the prince whom their avarice had persuaded them to accept; nor was there a citizen who did not consider his elevation with horror, as the last insult on the Roman name. The nobility, whose conspicuous station, and ample possessions, exacted the strictest caution, dissembled their sentiments, and met the affected civility of the emperor with smiles of complacency and professions of duty. But the people, secure in their numbers and obscurity, gave a free vent to their passions. The streets and public places of Rome resounded with clamors and imprecations. The enraged multitude affronted the person of Julian, rejected his liberality, and, conscious of the impotence of their own resentment, they called aloud on the legions of the frontiers to assert the violated majesty of the Roman empire. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1891-95 | Added on Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:50 PM Their immediate and unanimous revolt was fatal to Julian, but it was fatal at the same time to the public peace, as the generals of the respective armies, Clodius Albinus, Pescennius Niger, and Septimius Severus, were still more anxious to succeed than to revenge the murdered Pertinax. Their forces were exactly balanced. Each of them was at the head of three legions, with a numerous train of auxiliaries; and however different in their characters, they were all soldiers of experience and capacity. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 1981-84 | Added on Thursday, April 05, 2012, 04:10 PM That assembly, convoked by the consul, unanimously acknowledged Severus as lawful emperor, decreed divine honors to Pertinax, and pronounced a sentence of deposition and death against his unfortunate successor. Julian was conducted into a private apartment of the baths of the palace, and beheaded as a common criminal, after having purchased, with an immense treasure, an anxious and precarious reign of only sixty-six days. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2042-44 | Added on Thursday, April 05, 2012, 07:14 PM The fame and person of Severus appeared, during a few moments, irrecoverably lost, till that warlike prince rallied his fainting troops, and led them on to a decisive victory. The war was finished by that memorable day. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2081-86 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 04:13 AM Thirty-five senators, however, accused of having favored the party of Albinus, he freely pardoned, and, by his subsequent behavior, endeavored to convince them, that he had forgotten, as well as forgiven, their supposed offences. But, at the same time, he condemned forty-one other senators, whose names history has recorded; their wives, children, and clients attended them in death, * and the noblest provincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the same ruin. Such rigid justice—for so he termed it—was, in the opinion of Severus, the only conduct capable of insuring peace to the people or stability to the prince; and he condescended slightly to lament, that to be mild, it was necessary that he should first be cruel. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2091-94 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 04:14 AM In the administration of justice, the judgments of the emperor were characterized by attention, discernment, and impartiality; and whenever he deviated from the strict line of equity, it was generally in favor of the poor and oppressed; not so much indeed from any sense of humanity, as from the natural propensity of a despot to humble the pride of greatness, and to sink all his subjects to the same common level of absolute dependence. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2111-13 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 04:20 AM The Prætorians, who murdered their emperor and sold the empire, had received the just punishment of their treason; but the necessary, though dangerous, institution of guards was soon restored on a new model by Severus, and increased to four times the ancient number. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2121-24 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 05:12 AM The command of these favored and formidable troops soon became the first office of the empire. As the government degenerated into military despotism, the Prætorian Præfect, who in his origin had been a simple captain of the guards, * was placed not only at the head of the army, but of the finances, and even of the law. In every department of administration, he represented the person, and exercised the authority, of the emperor. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2145-47 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 05:19 AM The lawyers and historians concurred in teaching, that the Imperial authority was held, not by the delegated commission, but by the irrevocable resignation of the senate; that the emperor was freed from the restraint of civil laws, could command by his arbitrary will the lives and fortunes of his subjects, and might dispose of the empire as of his private patrimony. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2207-11 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 06:48 AM The declining health and last illness of Severus inflamed the wild ambition and black passions of Caracalla's soul. Impatient of any delay or division of empire, he attempted, more than once, to shorten the small remainder of his father's days, and endeavored, but without success, to excite a mutiny among the troops. The old emperor had often censured the misguided lenity of Marcus, who, by a single act of justice, might have saved the Romans from the tyranny of his worthless son. Placed in the same situation, he experienced how easily the rigor of a judge dissolves away in the tenderness of a parent. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2213-17 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 06:49 AM He expired at York in the sixty-fifth year of his life, and in the eighteenth of a glorious and successful reign. In his last moments he recommended concord to his sons, and his sons to the army. The salutary advice never reached the heart, or even the understanding, of the impetuous youths; but the more obedient troops, mindful of their oath of allegiance, and of the authority of their deceased master, resisted the solicitations of Caracalla, and proclaimed both brothers emperors of Rome. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2220-28 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 06:50 AM 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, who neither desired nor could trust a reconciliation. It was visible that one only could reign, and that the other must fall; and each of them, judging of his rival's designs by his own, guarded his life with the most jealous vigilance from the repeated attacks of poison or the sword. Their rapid journey through Gaul and Italy, during which they never ate at the same table, or slept in the same house, displayed to the provinces the odious spectacle of fraternal discord. On their arrival at Rome, they immediately divided the vast extent of the imperial palace. No communication was allowed between their apartments; the doors and passages were diligently fortified, and guards posted and relieved with the same strictness as in a besieged place. The emperors met only in public, in the presence of their afflicted mother; and each surrounded by a numerous train of armed followers. Even on these occasions of ceremony, the dissimulation of courts could ill disguise the rancor of their hearts. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2228-37 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 06:51 AM This latent civil war already distracted the whole government, when a scheme was suggested that seemed of mutual benefit to the hostile brothers. It was proposed, that since it was impossible to reconcile their minds, they should separate their interest, and divide the empire between them. The conditions of the treaty were already drawn with some accuracy. It was agreed that Caracalla, as the elder brother should remain in possession of Europe and the western Africa; and that he should relinquish the sovereignty of Asia and Egypt to Geta, who might fix his residence at Alexandria or Antioch, cities little inferior to Rome itself in wealth and greatness; that numerous armies should be constantly encamped on either side of the Thracian Bosphorus, to guard the frontiers of the rival monarchies; and that the senators of European extraction should acknowledge the sovereign of Rome, whilst the natives of Asia followed the emperor of the East. The tears of the empress Julia interrupted the negotiation, the first idea of which had filled every Roman breast with surprise and indignation. The mighty mass of conquest was so intimately united by the hand of time and policy, that it required the most forcible violence to rend it asunder. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2239-49 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 06:52 AM Had the treaty been carried into execution, the sovereign of Europe might soon have been the conqueror of Asia; but Caracalla obtained an easier, though a more guilty, victory. He artfully listened to his mother's entreaties, and consented to meet his brother in her apartment, on terms of peace and reconciliation. In the midst of their conversation, some centurions, who had contrived to conceal themselves, rushed with drawn swords upon the unfortunate Geta. His distracted mother strove to protect him in her arms; but, in the unavailing struggle, she was wounded in the hand, and covered with the blood of her younger son, while she saw the elder animating and assisting the fury of the assassins. As soon as the deed was perpetrated, Caracalla, with hasty steps, and horror in his countenance, ran towards the Prætorian camp, as his only refuge, and threw himself on the ground before the statues of the tutelar deities. The soldiers attempted to raise and comfort him. In broken and disordered words he informed them of his imminent danger, and fortunate escape; insinuating that he had prevented the designs of his enemy, and declared his resolution to live and die with his faithful troops. Geta had been the favorite of the soldiers; but complaint was useless, revenge was dangerous, and they still reverenced the son of Severus. Their discontent died away in idle murmurs, and Caracalla soon convinced them of the justice of his cause, by distributing in one lavish donative the accumulated treasures of his father's reign. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2255-57 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 06:53 AM The crime went not unpunished. Neither business, nor pleasure, nor flattery, could defend Caracalla from the stings of a guilty conscience; and he confessed, in the anguish of a tortured mind, that his disordered fancy often beheld the angry forms of his father and his brother rising into life, to threaten and upbraid him. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2294-97 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 07:05 AM The wise instructions of Severus never made any lasting impression on the mind of his son, who, although not destitute of imagination and eloquence, was equally devoid of judgment and humanity. One dangerous maxim, worthy of a tyrant, was remembered and abused by Caracalla. "To secure the affections of the army, and to esteem the rest of his subjects as of little moment." ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2300-2302 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 07:12 AM The demeanor of Caracalla was haughty and full of pride; but with the troops he forgot even the proper dignity of his rank, encouraged their insolent familiarity, and, neglecting the essential duties of a general, affected to imitate the dress and manners of a common soldier. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2315-20 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 11:56 AM Macrinus read his fate, and resolved to prevent it. He inflamed the discontents of some inferior officers, and employed the hand of Martialis, a desperate soldier, who had been refused the rank of centurion. The devotion of Caracalla prompted him to make a pilgrimage from Edessa to the celebrated temple of the Moon at Carrhæ. * He was attended by a body of cavalry: but having stopped on the road for some necessary occasion, his guards preserved a respectful distance, and Martialis, approaching his person under a presence of duty, stabbed him with a dagger. The bold assassin was instantly killed by a Scythian archer of the Imperial guard. Such was the end of a monster whose life disgraced human nature, and whose reign accused the patience of the ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2340-44 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 11:59 AM and to arraign the nasty choice of the army. It had hitherto been considered as a fundamental maxim of the constitution, that the emperor must be always chosen in the senate, and the sovereign power, no longer exercised by the whole body, was always delegated to one of its members. But Macrinus was not a senator. The sudden elevation of the Prætorian præfects betrayed the meanness of their origin; and the equestrian order was still in possession of that great office, which commanded with arbitrary sway the lives and fortunes of the senate. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2351-56 | Added on Friday, April 06, 2012, 12:01 PM a whisper that circulated in the camp, disclosed the fatal secret of the conspiracy against the late emperor, aggravated the guilt of murder by the baseness of hypocrisy, and heightened contempt by detestation. To alienate the soldiers, and to provoke inevitable ruin, the character of a reformer was only wanting; and such was the peculiar hardship of his fate, that Macrinus was compelled to exercise that invidious office. The prodigality of Caracalla had left behind it a long train of ruin and disorder; and if that worthless tyrant had been capable of reflecting on the sure consequences of his own conduct, he would perhaps have enjoyed the dark prospect of the distress and calamities which he bequeathed to his successors. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Note Loc. 2356 | Added on Sunday, April 08, 2012, 09:02 PM circumlocuting wages pay cuts ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2448-52 | Added on Monday, April 09, 2012, 08:35 AM A long train of concubines, and a rapid succession of wives, among whom was a vestal virgin, ravished by force from her sacred asylum, were insufficient to satisfy the impotence of his passions. The master of the Roman world affected to copy the dress and manners of the female sex, preferred the distaff to the sceptre, and dishonored the principal dignities of the empire by distributing them among his numerous lovers; one of whom was publicly invested with the title and authority of the emperor's, or, as he more properly styled himself, of the empress's husband. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2453-55 | Added on Monday, April 09, 2012, 08:41 AM It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have been adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. Yet, confining ourselves to the public scenes displayed before the Roman people, and attested by grave and contemporary historians, their inexpressible infamy surpasses that of any other age or country. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2475-82 | Added on Monday, April 09, 2012, 08:44 AM It was impossible that such a reconciliation should last, or that even the mean soul of Elagabalus could hold an empire on such humiliating terms of dependence. He soon attempted, by a dangerous experiment, to try the temper of the soldiers. The report of the death of Alexander, and the natural suspicion that he had been murdered, inflamed their passions into fury, and the tempest of the camp could only be appeased by the presence and authority of the popular youth. Provoked at this new instance of their affection for his cousin, and their contempt for his person, the emperor ventured to punish some of the leaders of the mutiny. His unseasonable severity proved instantly fatal to his minions, his mother, and himself. Elagabalus was massacred by the indignant Prætorians, his mutilated corpse dragged through the streets of the city, and thrown into the Tiber. His memory was branded with eternal infamy by the senate; the justice of whose decree has been ratified by posterity. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2489-93 | Added on Monday, April 09, 2012, 08:45 AM In every age and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, of the two sexes, has usurped the powers of the state, and confined the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life. In hereditary monarchies, however, and especially in those of modern Europe, the gallant spirit of chivalry, and the law of succession, have accustomed us to allow a singular exception; and a woman is often acknowledged the absolute sovereign of a great kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of exercising the smallest employment, civil or military. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2536-39 | Added on Monday, April 09, 2012, 08:52 AM Such a uniform tenor of life, which left not a moment for vice or folly, is a better proof of the wisdom and justice of Alexander's government, than all the trifling details preserved in the compilation of Lampridius. Since the accession of Commodus, the Roman world had experienced, during the term of forty years, the successive and various vices of four tyrants. From the death of Elagabalus, it enjoyed an auspicious calm of thirteen years. ========== History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 (Edward Gibbon) - Highlight Loc. 2563-72 | Added on Monday, April 09, 2012, 08:55 AM The Prætorian guards were attached to the youth of Alexander. They loved him as a tender pupil, whom they had saved from a tyrant's fury, and placed on the Imperial throne. That amiable prince was sensible of the obligation; but as his gratitude was restrained within the limits of reason and justice, they soon were more dissatisfied with the virtues of Alexander, than they had ever been with the vices of Elagabalus. Their præfect, the wise Ulpian, was the friend of the laws and of the people; he was considered as the enemy of the soldiers, and to his pernicious counsels every scheme of reformation was imputed. Some trifling accident blew up their discontent into a furious mutiny; and the civil war raged, during three days, in Rome, whilst the life of that excellent minister was defended by the grateful people. Terrified, at length, by the sight of some houses in flames, and by the threats of a general conflagration, the people yielded with a sigh, and left the virtuous but unfortunate Ulpian to his fate. He was pursued into the Imperial palace, and massacred at the feet of his master, who vainly strove to cover him with the purple, and to obtain his pardon from the inexorable soldiers. * Such was the deplorable weakness of government, that the emperor was unable to revenge his murdered friend and his insulted dignity, without stooping to the arts of patience and dissimulation.
