The Historians' History of the World 06

At the time when Macrianus claimed the empire, P. Valerius Valens, the governor of Greece, finding that that usurper, who was resolved on his destruction, had sent L. Calpurnius Piso against him, assumed the purple in his own defence. Piso, being forced to retire into Thessaly, caused himself to be proclaimed emperor there; but few joined him, and he was slain by a party of soldiers sent against him by Valens, who was himself shortly after put to death by his own troops. Both Valens and Piso were men of high character, especially the latter, to whom the senate decreed divine honours, and respecting whom Valens himself said that he would not be able to account to the gods below for having ordered Piso, though his enemy, to be slain, a man whose like the Roman Republic did not then possess.

C. Annius Trebellianus declared himself independent in Isauria, and T. Cornelius Celsus was proclaimed emperor in Africa; but both speedily perished (265). Among the calamities of this reign was an insurrection of the slaves in Sicily, similar to those in the time of the republic.

While his empire was thus torn asunder, Gallienus thought only of indulgence, and the loss of a province only gave him occasion for a joke. When Egypt revolted, “Well,” said he, “cannot we do without Egyptian linen?” So when Gaul was lost, he asked if the republic could not be secure without cloaks from Arras. He was content to retain Italy, satisfied with a nominal sovereignty over the rest of the empire; and whenever this seat of dominion was menaced, he exhibited in its defence the vigour and personal courage which he really possessed.

Gaul and Illyricum were the quarters from which Italy had most to apprehend. Gallienus therefore headed his troops against Postumus, and when D. Lælius Ingenuus revolted in Pannonia, he marched against him, defeated and slew him, and made the most cruel use of his victory to deter others (260). Q. Nonius Regalianus, who afterwards revolted in the same country, was slain by his own soldiers (263); but when Aureolus was induced to assume the purple (267) the Illyrian legions advanced and made themselves masters of Mediolanum (the modern Milan). Gallienus, shaking off sloth, appeared at the head of his troops; the hostile armies encountered on the banks of the Addua, and Aureolus was defeated, wounded, and forced to shut himself up in Mediolanum. During the siege a conspiracy was formed against the emperor by some of the principal officers of his army, and one night as he was sitting at table a report was spread that Aureolus had made a sally. Gallienus instantly threw himself on horseback to hasten to the point of danger, and in the dark he received a mortal wound from an unknown hand.

We now enter on a series of emperors of a new order. Born nearly all in humble stations, and natives of the province of Illyricum, they rose by merit through the gradations of military service, attained the empire in general without crime, maintained its dignity, and checked or punished the inroads of the barbarians. This series commences with the death of Gallienus and terminates with that of Licinius, embracing a period of somewhat more than half a century, and marked, as we shall find, by most important changes in the Roman Empire. [Thus the military revolution now begins to bear good fruit.]

Claudius (M. Aurelius Claudius), 268-270 A.D.

[268-270 A.D.]

The murmurs of the soldiers on the death of Gallienus were easily stilled by the promise of a donative of twenty pieces of gold a man. To justify themselves in the eyes of the world, the conspirators resolved to bestow the empire on one who should form an advantageous contrast to its late unworthy possessor, and they fixed on M. Aurelius Claudius, who commanded a division of the army at Ticinum (modern Pavia). The soldiers, the senate, and the people alike approved their choice, and Claudius assumed the purple with universal approbation.

This excellent man, in whose praise writers of all parties are agreed, was a native of Illyricum, born apparently in humble circumstances. His merit raised him through the inferior gradations of the army; he attracted the notice of the emperor Decius, and the discerning Valerian made him general of the Illyrian frontier, with an assurance of the consulate.