161-180.] PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS. 175 old man gazed in sorrow at the frantic and raging benches of the spectators, rising above each other; and with his eyes uplifted to heaven, said, 'Away with the godless!' The governor urged him further, 'Swear, and I release thee; blaspheme Christ.' 'Eighty and six years have I served CHRIST,' was his noble reply, and He has never done me an injury. How can I blaspheme my KING and my SAVIOUR?" The Roman officer threatened to expose him to the wild beasts. ""Tis well for me to be speedily released from this miserable life.' He threatened to burn him alive. I fear not the fire that burns for a moment; thou knowest not that which burns for ever and ever.' From the fuel of the baths and other combustibles the vindictive Pagans and Jews collected a hasty yet capacious funeral pile. He was speedily unrobed; he requested not to be nailed to the stake; so he was only bound to it. His prayer was full of faith, hope, and joy, and ended thus—' O true and faithful God, I praise Thee for all Thy mercies; I bless Thee; I glorify Thee, with the eternal and heavenly Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Spirit, be glory now and for ever!' The closing days of the last of the philosophic Emperors were signalized by the worst persecution of his whole reign, against the Christians of Lyons and Vienne in Southern Gaul. Among the victims was the aged Bishop Pothinus, now in his ninetieth year, who died in prison from the illusage he had received from the populace. When one of the frantic rabble demanded with contumelious cries, 'Who is the God of the Christians?' he calmly replied, "Wert thou worthy, thou shouldest know.' An edict from the Emperor, instead of allaying the popular frenzy, heightened it to uncontrollable fury, by directing that those only who denied the faith were to be released; those who persisted in it, condemned to death. It is remarkable that the chief honours 1 6 of this memorable martyrdom were won by the noble constancy of a female slave named Blandina; whose only reply to all the tortures by which the executioners sought to force a confession from her was, 'I am a Christian, and no wickedness is practised among us.' And yet Aurelius Antoninus is lauded by most historians as severe and conscientious towards himself, gentle and merciful towards every one else!' His connivance at the infamous conduct of his wife Faustina, and of his son Commodus, was quite in accordance with the selfish stoicism which boasted of wrapping itself up in its virtue;' reckless of the iniquity in which others might indulge. COMMODUS was only in his twentieth year when he ascended the throne. If the austere Aurelius was the last effort of pagan philosophy to make a perfect man, according to the highest ideal of human reason, the brutal Commodus might appear to retrograde into the savage periods of society. Suffice it to say of his twelve years' reign, that his time was passed in amusements and occupations that had long been consigned by the general contempt and abhorrence, to the meanest of mankind, to barbarians and slaves, and were as debasing to the civilized man as they were unbecoming to the head of the Empire. The courage which he displayed in confronting the hundred lions which were let loose in the arena of the Coliseum, and fell by his shafts (though in fact his person was carefully guarded against real danger), and the skill with which he clave with an arrow the slender neck of the giraffe, might have commanded the applause of his flatterers; but when he appeared daily as a common gladiator, gloried in the acts, and boasted of receiving the pay of a calling so infamous, well might the corrupt Senators recoil from him with shame. And yet, with the monstrous pride peculiarly Roman, Commodus claimed divine worship 180-192.] COMMODUS. 177 as the appropriate deity of gladiators, the Grecian god Hercules, all of whose attributes he usurped, and placed his own head on its images! It is very characteristic of the Roman genius for government, that even whilst this monster cumbered the throne, and disgraced the purple, as he seldom interfered with affairs of State, the imperial legates successfully maintained peace in all the provinces, and there was little mischief done to the Empire. He was even permitted to put to death nearly all his father's friends, and to butcher the best of the Senators as if they were, wild beasts. But his determination to destroy the Consuls, and thus interfere with the State machinery, at length caused his assassination. The Senate ordered his body to be dragged like that of a vile malefactor through the streets, with iron hooks, and cast into the Tiber; but it was, with difficulty, preserved from this indignity, and privately interred in the mausoleum of Hadrian. (See Gibbon, i. 146, 216; ii. 256. Merivale, vii. passim. Schmitz, 349, 613-632. Camulodunum, Archæologia, vol. xxix. Rickman's Life of Telford, p. 24. Pitt's Speeches, ii. 80. Grote, History of Greece, viii. 621, 664. Neander, i. 105. Milman, A.C. ii. 156, 177-seq. Milner's Church History, c. 3. Euseb. 1. iv. 11-13.) CHAPTER VI. 'Turn o'er the leaf and chuse another tale; For you shall find enough both great and small, -CHAUCER. PERTINAX-JULIANUS-NIGER-SEVERUS- -CARACALLA, GETA -MACRINUS-ELAGABULUS-ALEXANDER SEVERUS-MAXIMINUS GORDIANS-BALBI-PHILIPPUS ARABS-DECIUS GALLUS-VALERIANUS-GALLIENUS-CLAUDIUS-AURELIAN -TACITUS-FLORIANUS-CARUS, CARINUS-NUMERIANUS― DIOCLETIAN, MAXIMIAN-CONSTANTIUS, GALERIUS-SEVERUS, MAXIMIN. THE stately march of the Roman Emperors has too long occupied the stage, and engrossed our whole attention. A new scene of war and military glory opens in the history of the Romans, though with spiritual weapons, and for spiritual aims. We have now to witness a mighty struggle between Paganism and Christianity; to behold the aggressive attitude. and jealous policy by which Ancient Romanism, in its vigorous old age, still retained its power in the face of its young and formidable foe. A rapid sketch of the group of Emperors who swayed the sceptre from Commodus to Constantine is necessary for understanding the various scenes through which we shall have now to pass. Besides, my book might be 190-191.] THE EMPIRE PUT UP TO AUCTION. 179 pronounced 'unhistorical,' if I presumed to present to my readers the useful and important information which may be collected from their history, without some of the minute details and figures which 'the scavengers of literature'—as an able Roman writer calls mere annalists-so clamorously require, and uselessly accumulate; forgetful that political economy is not history. The conspirators conducted their measures with such coolness and celerity, that Pertinax, the præfect of the city, and sole surviving friend and minister of Aurelius, an ancient Senator of high character, was conducted to the camp of the Prætorians as the new Emperor, called to the throne by the pretended apoplexy' which carried off Commodus, before the news of his murder had gone abroad. The guards were rather surprised than pleased at the suspicious death of a prince whose indulgence and liberality they alone had experienced; but they accepted the largess which he promised, swore allegiance to him, and, with joyful acclamations and laurels in their hands, conducted him to the Senate-house, that the military consent might be ratified by the civil authority. PERTINAX at once resolutely undertook the melancholy, but pleasing, task of healing the wounds inflicted by the hand of his old master's son. To punish and chase away informers, as the common enemies of their master, of virtue, and of their country, was his first measure. Economy was his next care, for the extravagance of Commodus had lavished all but £8,000 of the £22,000,000 left by Antoninus Pius in the treasury. But when he attempted to restore the ancient discipline in the Prætorian Camp, the soldiers mutinied, murdered him in the eighty-sixth day of his reign; and ran out upon the ramparts, with loud voices proclaiming that the Roman world was to be disposed of to the best bidder by public auction! This infamous offer reached the ears of Didius |