An Imperial Savage

We have now reached the period in which began the decline and fall of

the Roman empire. Its story is crowded with events, but lacks those

dramatic and romantic incidents which give such interest to the history

of early Rome. Now good emperors ruled, now bad ones followed, now peace

prevailed, now war raged; the story grows monotonous as we advance. The

reigns of virtuous emperors yield much to commend but little to

des ribe; those of wicked emperors repel us by their enormities and

disgust us by their follies. We must end our tales with a few selections

from the long and somewhat dreary list.






After Vespasian came to the throne, a period of nearly two centuries

elapsed during most of which Rome was governed by men of virtue and

ability, though cursed for a time by the reigns of the cruel Domitian,

the dissolute Commodus, the base Caracalla, and the foolish Elagabalus.

Fortunately, none of the monsters who disgraced the empire reigned long.

Assassination purified the throne. The total length of reign of the

cruel monarchs of Rome covered no long space of time, though they occupy

a great space in history.



We have now to tell how the patrician families of Rome lost their hold

upon the throne, and a barbarian peasant became lord and master of this

vast empire, of which his ancestors of a few generations before had

perhaps scarcely heard. The story is an interesting one, and well worth

repeating.



Just after the year 200 A.D. the emperor Septimius Severus, father of

the notorious Caracalla, while returning from an expedition to the East,

halted in Thrace to celebrate, with military games, the birthday of

Geta, his youngest son. The spectacle was an enticing one, and the

country-people for many miles round gathered in crowds to gaze upon

their sovereign and behold the promised sports.



Among those who came was a young barbarian of such gigantic stature and

great muscular development as to excite the attention of all who saw

him. In a rude dialect, which those who heard could barely understand,

he asked if he might take part in the wrestling exercises and contend

for the prize. This the officers would not permit. For a Roman soldier

to be overthrown by a Thracian peasant, as seemed likely to be the

result, would be a disgrace not to be risked. But he might try, if he

would, with the camp followers, some of the stoutest of whom were chosen

to contend with him. Of these he laid no less than sixteen, in

succession, on the ground.



Here was a man worth having in the ranks. Some gifts were given him, and

he was told that he might enlist, if he chose; a privilege he was quick

to accept. The next day the peasant, happy in the thought of being a

soldier, was seen among a crowd of recruits, dancing and exulting in

rustic fashion, while his head towered above them all.



The emperor, who was passing in the march, looked at him with interest

and approval, and as he rode onward the new recruit ran up to his horse,

and followed him on foot during a long and rapid journey without the

least appearance of fatigue.



This remarkable endurance astonished Severus. "Thracian," he said, "are

you prepared to wrestle after your race?"



"Ready and willing," answered the youth, with alacrity.



Some of the strongest soldiers of the army were now selected and pitted

against him, and he overthrew seven of them in rapid succession. The

emperor, delighted with this matchless display of vigor and agility,

presented him with a golden collar in reward, and ordered that he should

be placed in the horse-guards that formed his personal escort.



The new recruit, Maximin by name, was a true barbarian, though born in

the empire. His father was a Goth, his mother of the nation of the

Alani. But he had judgment and shrewdness, and a valor equal to his

strength, and soon advanced in the favor of the emperor, who was a good

judge of merit. Fierce and impetuous by nature, experience of the world

taught him to restrain these qualities, and he advanced in position

until he attained the rank of centurion.



After the death of Severus the Thracian served with equal fidelity under

his son Caracalla, whose favor and esteem he won. During the short

reign of the profligate and effeminate Elagabalus, Maximin withdrew

from the court, but he returned when Alexander Severus, one of the

noblest of Roman emperors, came to the throne. The new monarch was

familiar with his ability and the incidents of his unusual career, and

raised him to the responsible post of tribune of the fourth legion,

which, under his rigid care, soon became the best disciplined in the

whole army. He was the favorite of the soldiers under his command, who

bestowed on their gigantic leader the names of Ajax and Hercules, and

rejoiced as he steadily rose in rank under the discriminating judgment

of the emperor. Step by step he was advanced until he reached the

highest rank in the army, and, but for the evident marks of his savage

origin, the emperor might have given his own sister in marriage to the

son of his favorite general.



The incautious emperor was nursing a serpent. The favors poured upon the

Thracian peasant failed to secure his fidelity, and only nourished his

ambition. He began to aspire to the highest place in the empire, which

had been won by many soldiers before him. Licentiousness and profligacy

had sapped the strength of the army during the weak preceding reigns,

and Alexander sought earnestly to overcome this corruption and restore

the rigid ancient discipline. It was too great a task for one of his

lenient disposition. The soldiers were furious at his restrictions, many

mutinies broke out, his officers were murdered, his authority was widely

insulted, he could scarcely repress the disorders that broke out in his

immediate presence.



This sentiment in the army offered the opportunity desired by Maximin.

He sent his emissaries among the soldiers to enhance their discontent.

For thirteen years, said these men, Rome had been governed by a weak

Syrian, the slave of his mother and the senate. It was time the empire

had a man at its head, a real soldier, who could add to its glory and

win new treasures for his followers.



Alexander had been engaged in a war with Persia. He had no sooner

returned than an outbreak in Germany forced him to hasten to the Rhine.

Here a large army was assembled, made up in part of new levies, whose

training in the art of war was given to the care of Maximin. The

discipline exacted by Alexander was no more acceptable to the soldiers

here than elsewhere, and the secret agents of the ambitious Thracian

found fertile ground for their insinuations.



At length all was ripe for the outbreak. One day--March 19, 239 A.D.--as

Maximin entered the field of exercise, the troops suddenly saluted him

as emperor, and silenced by violent exclamations his obstinate show of

refusal. The rebels rushed to the tent of Alexander and consummated

their conspiracy by striking him dead. His most faithful friends

perished with him; others were dismissed from court and army; and some

suffered the cruelest treatment from the unfeeling usurper. Thus it was

that the imperial dignity descended from the noblest citizens of Rome to

a peasant of a distant province of barbarian origin. It was one of the

most striking steps in the decline of the empire.



The new emperor was a man of extraordinary physical powers. He is said

to have been more than eight feet in height, while his strength and

appetite were in accordance with his gigantic stature. It is stated that

he could drink seven gallons of wine and eat thirty or forty pounds of

meat in a day, and could move a loaded wagon with his arms, break a

horse's leg with his fist, crumble stones in his hands, and tear up

small trees by the roots. His mental powers did not accord with his

physical ones. He was savage of aspect, ignorant of civilized arts,

destitute of accomplishments, and ruthless in disposition.



He had the virtues of the camp, and these had endeared him to the

soldiers, but his barbarian origin, his savage appearance, and his

rudeness and ignorance were the contempt of cultivated people, and had

gained him many rebuffs in his humbler days. He was now in a position to

revenge himself, not only on the haughty nobles who had treated him with

contempt, but even on former friends who were aware of his mean

origin,--of which he was heartily ashamed. For both these crimes many

were put to death, and the slaughter of several of his former

benefactors has stained the memory of Maximin with the basest

ingratitude.



Rome, in the strange progress of its history, had raised a savage to the

imperial seat, and it suffered accordingly. A scion of the despised

barbarians of the northern forests was now its emperor, and he visited

on the proud citizens of Rome the wrongs of his ancestors. The suspicion

and cruelty of Maximin were unbounded and unrelenting. A consular

senator named Magnus was accused of a conspiracy against his life.

Without trial or opportunity for defence Magnus was put to death, with

no less than four thousand supposed accomplices.



This was but an incident in a frightful reign of terror. The emperor

kept aloof from his capital, but he filled Rome, and the whole empire,

in fact, with spies and informers. The slightest accusation or suspicion

was sufficient for the blood-thirsty tyrant. On a mere unproved charge

Roman nobles of the highest descent--men who had served as consuls,

governed provinces, commanded armies, enjoyed triumphs--were seized,

chained on the public carriages, and borne away to the distant camp of

the low-born tyrant.



Here they found neither justice nor compassion. Exile, confiscation, and

ordinary execution were mild measures with Maximin. Some of the

unfortunates were clubbed to death, some exposed to wild beasts, some

sewed in the hides of slaughtered animals and left to perish. The worst

enormities of Caligula and Nero were rivalled by this rude soldier, who,

during the three years of his reign, disdained to visit either Rome or

Italy, and permitted no men of high birth, elegant accomplishments, or

knowledge of public business to approach his person. His imperial seat

shifted from a camp on the Rhine to one on the Danube, and his sole idea

of government seems to have been the execution of the suspected.



It was the great that suffered, and to this the people were indifferent.

But they all felt his avarice. The soldiers demanded rewards, and the

empire was drained to supply them. By a single edict all the stored-up

revenue of the cities was taken to supply Maximin's treasury. The

temples were robbed of their treasures, and the statues of gods, heroes,

and emperors were melted down and converted into coin. A general cry of

indignation against this impiety rose throughout the Roman world, and it

was evident that the end of this frightful tyranny was approaching.



An insurrection broke out in Africa. It was supported in Rome. But it

ended in failure, the Gordians, father and son, who headed it, were

slain, and the senate and nobles of Rome fell into mortal terror. They

looked for a frightful retribution from the imperial monster. With the

courage of despair they took the only step that remained: two new

emperors, Maximus and Balbinus, were appointed, and active steps taken

to defend Italy and Rome.



There was no time to be lost. News of these revolutionary movements had

roused in Maximin the rage of a wild beast. All who approached his

person were in danger, even his son and nearest friends. Under his

command was a large, well-disciplined, and experienced army. He was a

soldier of acknowledged valor and military ability. The rebels, with

their hasty levies and untried commanders, had everything to fear.



They took judicious steps. When the troops of Maximin, crossing the

Julian Alps, reached the borders of Italy, they were terrified by the

silence and desolation that prevailed. The villages and open towns had

been abandoned, the bridges destroyed, the cattle driven away, the

provisions removed, the country made a desert. The people had gathered

into the walled cities, which were plentifully provisioned and

garrisoned. The purpose of the senate was to weaken Maximin by famine

and retard him by siege.



The first city assailed was Aquileia, It was fully provisioned and

vigorously defended, the inhabitants preferring death on their walls to

death by the tyrant's order. Yet Rome was in imminent danger. Maximin

might at any moment abandon the siege of a frontier city and march upon

the capital. There was no army capable of opposing him. The fate of Rome

hung upon a thread.



The hand of an assassin cut that thread. The severity of the weather,

the growth of disease, the lack of food, had spread disaffection through

Maximin's army. Ignorant of the true state of affairs, many of the

soldiers feared that the whole empire was in arms against them. The

tyrant, vexed at the obstinate defence of Aquileia, visited his anger on

his men, and roused a stern desire for revenge. The end came soon. A

party of Praetorian guards, in dread for their wives and children, who

were in the camp of Alba, near Rome, broke into sudden revolt, entered

Maximin's tent, and killed him, his son, and the principal ministers of

his tyranny.



The whole army sympathized with this impulsive act. The heads of the

dead, borne on the points of spears, were shown the garrison, and at

once the gates were thrown open, the hungry troops supplied with food,

and a general fraternization took place. Joy in the fall of the tyrant

was universal throughout the empire, the two new emperors entered Rome

in a triumphal procession, people and nobles alike went wild with

enthusiasm, and the belief was entertained that a golden age was to

succeed the age of iron that had come to an end. Yet within three months

afterwards both the new emperors were massacred in the streets of Rome,

and the hoped-for era of happiness and prosperity vanished before the

swelling tide of oppression, demoralization, and decline.