VI.

faithful troops. Geta had been the favourite of C H A P. the foldiers; but complaint was useless, revenge was dangerous, and they ftill reverenced the fon of Severus. Their difcontent died away in idle murmurs, and Caracalla foon convinced them of the justice of his caufe, by diftributing in one lavish donative the accumulated treasures of his father's reign 23. The real fentiments of the foldiers alone were of importance to his power or fafety. Their declaration in his favour commanded the dutiful profeffions of the fenate. The obfequious affembly was always prepared to ratify the decifion of fortune; but as Caracalla wished to affuage the first emotions of public indignation, the name of Geta was mentioned with decency, and he received the funeral honours of a Roman emperor 24. Pofterity, in pity to his miffortune, has caft a veil over his vices. We confider that young prince as the innocent victim of his brother's ambition, without recollecting that he himself wanted power, rather than inclination, to confummate the fame attempts of revenge and murder.

of Cara

The crime went not unpunished. Neither Remorse business, nor pleasure, nor flattery, could defend and cruelty Caracalla from the ftings of a guilty confcience; calla. and he confeffed, in the anguifh of a tortured mind, that his difordered fancy often beheld the angry forms of his father and his brother rifing

23 Herodian, 1. iv. p. 148. Dion, 1. lxxvii. p.1289.

24 Geta was placed among the gods. Sit divus, dum non fit vivus, faid his brother. Hift. Auguft. p. 91. Some marks of Geta's confecration are still found upon medals.

VI.

CHA P. into life, to threaten and upbraid him 25. The confcioufnefs of his crime fhould have induced him to convince mankind, by the virtues of his reign, that the bloody deed had been the involuntary effect of fatal neceffity. But the repentance of Caracalla only prompted him to remove from the world whatever could remind him of his guilt, or recal the memory of his murdered brother. On his return from the fenate to the palace, he found his mother in the company of feveral noble matrons, weeping over the untimely fate of her younger fon. The jealous Emperor threatened them with inftant death; the fentence was executed against Fadilla, the laft remaining daughter of the Emperor Marcus; and even the afflicted Julia was obliged to filence her lamentations, to fupprefs her fighs, and to receive the affaffin with finiles of joy and approbation. It was computed that, under the vague appellation of the friends of Geta, above twenty thousand perfons of both fexes fuffered death, His guards and freedmen, the ministers of his ferious bufinefs, and the companions of his loofer hours, those who by his intereft had been promoted to any commands in the army or provinces, with the long-connected chain of their dependents, were included in the profcription; which endeavoured to reach every one who had maintained the finalleft correfpondence with Geta, who lamented his death, or who even mentioned his name 26,

Helvius

25 Dion, 1. lxxvii. p. 1307. 26 Dion, 1. lxxvii. p. 1290. Herodian, 1. iv. p. 150. Dion (p. 1298.) fays, that the comic poets no longer durft employ the

name

VI.

Helvius Pertinax, fon to the prince of that name, CHA P. loft his life by an unfeafonable witticifm 27. It was a fufficient crime of Thrafea Prifcus to be defcended from a family in which the love of liberty feemed an hereditary quality 28. The particular caufes of calumny and fufpicion were at length exhaufted; and when a fenator was accused of being a fecret enemy to the government, the Emperor was fatisfied with the general proof that he was a man of property and virtue. From this well-grounded principle he frequently drew the most bloody inferences.

The execution of fo many innocent citizens Death of was bewailed by the fecret tears of their friends Papinian. and families. The death of Papinian, the Prætorian præfect, was lamented as a public calamity. During the last seven years of Severus, he had exercised the most important offices of the state, and, by his falutary influence, guided the Emperor's fteps in the paths of justice and moderation. In full affurance of his virtues and abilities, Severus, on his death-bed, had conjured him to watch over the profperity and union

name of Geta in their plays, and that the estates of those who mentioned it in their teftaments were confifcated.

27 Caracalla had affumed the names of several conquered nations; Pertinax obferved, that the name of Geticus (he had obtained fome advantage of the Goths or Geta) would be a proper addition to Parthicus, Alemannicus, &c. Hift. August. p. 89.

28 Dion, 1. lxxvii. p. 1291. He was probably defcended from Helvidius Prifcus, and Thrafea Pætus, thofe patriots, whofe firm, but useless and unfeasonable virtue, has been immortalized by Tacitus.

of

VI.

30

CHAP. of the Imperial family". The honeft labours of Papinian ferved only to inflame the hatred which Caracalla had already conceived against his father's minifter. After the murder of Geta, the Præfect was commanded to exert the powers of his fkill and eloquence in a studied apology for that atrocious deed. The philofophic Seneca had condefcended to compofe a fimilar epiftle to the fenate, in the name of the fon and affaffin of Agrippina 3°; "That it was easier to commit "than to justify a parricide," was the glorious reply of Papinian ", who did not hefitate between the lofs of life and that of honour. Such intrepid virtue, which had efcaped pure and unfullied from the intrigues of courts, the habits of business, and the arts of his profeffion, reflects more luftre on the memory of Papinian, than all his great employments, his numerous writings, and the fuperior reputation as a lawyer, which he has preferved through every age of the Roman jurifprudence 32.

His tyran

It had hitherto been the peculiar felicity of the ny extend- Romans, and in the worft of times their conwhole em- folation, that the virtue of the emperors was

ed over the

pire.

active, and their vice indolent. Auguftus, Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus, vifited their extenfive dominions in perfon, and their progress was marked by acts of wisdom and beneficence.

29 It is faid that Papinian was himself a relation of the Empres Julia. 31 Hift. Auguft. p. 88.

3 Tacit. Annal. xiv. 2.

32 With regard to Papinian, fee Heineccius's Hiftoria Juris Romani,

1. 330, &c.

The

VI.

The tyranny of Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian, CHA P. who refided almoft conftantly at Rome, or in the adjacent villas, was confined to the fenatorial and equestrian orders 33. But Caracalla was the common enemy of mankind. He left the capital (and he never returned to it) about a year A.D. 213. after the murder of Geta. The reft of his reign was spent in the feveral provinces of the empire, particularly those of the East, and every province was by turns the fcene of his rapine and cruelty. The fenators, compelled by fear to attend his capricious motions, were obliged to provide daily entertainments at an immenfe expence, which he abandoned with contempt to his guards; and to erect, in every city, magnificent palaces and theatres, which he either difdained to vifit, or ordered to be immediately thrown down. The moft wealthy families were ruined by partial fines and confiscations, and the great body of his fubjects oppreffed by ingenious and aggravated taxes 34. In the midft of peace, and upon the flighteft provocation, he iffued his commands, at Alexandria in Egypt, for a general maffacre. From a fecure poft in the temple of Serapis, he viewed and directed the flaughter of many thousand citizens, as well as ftrangers, without diftinguishing either the number or the crime of the fufferers; fince, as he coolly in

33 Tiberius and Domitian never moved from the neighbourhood of Rome. Nero made a fhort journey into Greece. "Et laudatorum Principum ufus ex æquo quamvis procul agentibus. Sævi proximis ingruunt." Tacit. Hift. iv. 75.

34 Dion, I. lxxvii. p. 1294.

formed