§ 1. I have shown that seditions are the gravest and most frequent evil of the state, something that appeared in both the Roman aristocracy and the Roman democracy. But that I may more strongly arouse the prince to the protection of himself and his empire and to the avoidance of seditions, I have resolved to show this also in the Roman monarchy; for when these things have been read, a prudent prince who loves his fatherland will more easily attend to the cause, remedies, and outcomes of such great evils.
For among a thousand seditions there is none which does not make the prince more cautious, prudent, and moderate by some singular lesson. For the causes of each easily appear. Let us therefore look upon Augustus the prince, who passed the first twelve years in perpetual civil war or fear, and after the victory at Actium and in Egypt endured many seditions and conspiracies. Suetonius, chapter 19: “After this he suppressed tumults and even beginnings of revolutions, and several conspiracies detected by information before they grew strong—different ones at different times: that of the younger Lepidus, then that of Varro Murena and Fannius Caepio, soon that of Marcus Egnatius, then that of Plautius Rufus and Lucius Paulus, husband of his granddaughter. Besides these were Lucius Audasius, accused of forging records and impaired both by age and body; Asinius Epicadus, a half-breed of Parthian stock; and at last Telephus, a woman’s slave employed as a nomenclator. For he was not free from conspiracy and danger even from men of the lowest lot. Audasius and Epicadus had intended to carry off his daughter Julia and grandson Agrippa from the islands on which they were confined; and Telephus, as though dominion were owed to him by fate, had determined to attack both him and the Senate. Indeed, once at night beside his bedchamber a certain sutler from the Illyrian army was caught, after deceiving the doorkeepers, girded with a hunting knife. Whether he was not of sound mind or feigned madness is uncertain; for nothing could be wrung from him by examination.” Behold, besides foreign and civil wars, by how many enemies was the life of the reigning man sought?
Nor did he sustain few rebellions. The same author, chapter 21: “He never punished those who rebelled more frequently or perfidiously with a heavier penalty than that he sold the captives under the condition that they should neither serve in a neighboring region nor be freed within thirty years.” Dio teaches, moreover, in how great fear he lived, for when coming into the Senate he wore a breastplate beneath his clothing. The same Dio, chapter 17: “Many men made plots against Caesar, and especially Gnaeus Cornelius, the son of a daughter of Pompey the Great. Since he was unwilling to kill them, because he understood that he would not be more secure through their death, nor to release them, lest for that reason he incite the rest against himself, he came into so great a state of doubt that he was tormented by cares day and night.”
Since, moreover, we are dealing with a good prince, at least in the judgment of writers, I shall add what Pliny reports concerning him in Book VII, chapter 45: “In the deified Augustus also, whom the whole of mortality names in this assessment, if all things are carefully weighed, great volumes of human fortune are found: rejection in seeking office at the hands of his maternal uncle, and Lepidus preferred contrary to his request; the odium of the proscription; companionship in the triumvirate with the worst citizens, and not even in an equal portion, but with Antony having the weightier share; in the battle of Philippi, illness, flight, and concealment for three days while sick in a marsh—and, as Agrippa and Maecenas acknowledge, water flowing beneath him and his sides swollen; shipwrecks in Sicily, and there too another concealment in a cave; then, in naval flight with the enemy’s hand pressing, prayers to Proculeius that death be brought upon him; anxiety over the Perusine contest; solicitude over the battle at Actium; ruin and terror in the Pannonian war; so many seditions of soldiers; so many doubtful bodily illnesses; the suspected wishes of Marcellus; the shameful sending away of Agrippa; his life sought so many times by plots; the deaths of his children laid to his charge, and griefs sad not merely through bereavement; the adultery of his daughter and counsels of parricide openly disclosed; the insulting secession of his stepson Nero; another adultery, that of his granddaughter. Then so many evils joined together: lack of military pay, the rebellion of Illyricum, a levy of slaves, a scarcity of youth, pestilence in the city, famine and thirst in Italy, a determination to expire and, through fasting for four days, the greater part of death received into his body. Close upon these were the Varian disaster and the foul bruising of his majesty; the repudiation of Postumus Agrippa after his adoption, regret for him after his relegation, then suspicion concerning Fabius and the betrayal of secrets; thereafter the designs of his wife and Tiberius, the final care of his life. In sum, that god—I do not know whether he more attained or merited heaven—departed with the son of his enemy as his heir.” Seneca recounts similar things in On the Brevity of Life, chapter 5, where he indicates that those terrors remained into old age: “He had not yet escaped the plots of these men: his daughter and so many noble youths, bound as if by an oath in adultery, were terrifying his now broken age; and once more a woman was to be feared together with an Antony.”
No small storms shook Tiberius in a marvelous manner. First, the Gallic legions disturbed his accession when they called Germanicus emperor and detained his son Caligula. While Germanicus lived, Tiberius restrained his vices, Dio says. At last Germanicus and Drusus were removed, when the seditions in Pannonia and Germany had been settled. Meanwhile Libo Drusus, in part convicted of revolution, was killed; Clemens, a slave of Agrippa, stirred up sedition. There was war and revolt in Africa. Piso and Sentius, governor of Syria, disagreed and fought a civil war. The whole life of Tiberius thereafter was a slaughterhouse, until, when sick, he was suffocated by Macro. Caligula, ruling for a brief time, removed tumults.
More seditions and treasons harassed Claudius. Suetonius, chapter 13: “Nor, however, did he remain altogether exempt from plots; rather, he was assailed both by individuals, by a faction, and finally by civil war. A man of the plebs was found at midnight beside his bedchamber with a dagger. Two men of the equestrian order were found awaiting him in public, one with a sword-cane and the other with a hunting knife: the one had conspired to attack him as he departed from the theater, the other while he sacrificed at the temple of Mars. Asinius Gallus and Statilius Corvinus, grandsons of the orators Pollio and Messala, had conspired to effect a revolution, having taken to themselves his own freedmen and slaves. Furius Camillus Scribonianus, legate of Dalmatia, stirred up civil war; but within the fifth day he was suppressed, and the legions which had changed their oath were converted by religious scruple to repentance after, when the march to the new emperor had been announced, by a certain chance and divine act neither could the eagle be adorned nor could the standards be pulled up and moved.”
And chapter 35 shows from his fear the disposition of the Romans: “But nothing was so characteristic as that he was timid and distrustful. In the first days of his reign, although—as we have said—he was a boaster of civil liberty, he did not dare enter banquets unless spearmen with lances stood around him and soldiers performed the part of servants. Nor did he visit anyone sick unless the bedroom had first been explored and the mattresses and bedclothes felt and shaken out. During the remainder of the time he always set searchers over those who came to salute him, and indeed over all, and the most severe. For only late and with difficulty did he relax the rule that women and boys and girls wearing the bordered toga should not be handled, and that pen-cases or stylus-cases should not be taken from every attendant or secretary. When Camillus, in a civil movement, not doubting that he could be terrified even without war, ordered him by an insulting, menacing, and contumacious letter to yield the empire and pass an idle life in private affairs, he deliberated, after summoning the leading men, whether he should obey.” Chapter 36: “Certain plots rashly reported terrified him so greatly that he attempted to lay down the empire. When a certain man, as I related above, was caught with a weapon beside him as he sacrificed,
he hastily summoned the Senate through heralds and lamented with tears and shouting his condition, in which nothing was safe anywhere; and for a long time he abstained from appearing in public. He cast away even his most ardent love for Messalina, not so much because of the indignity of the insults as through fear of danger, since he believed that the empire was being acquired for her adulterer’s son. At that time, trembling in a foul manner, he fled to the camp, asking along the entire road nothing except whether the empire was safe for him.”
Nero also, agitated by many seditions, at last, having been judged a public enemy, destroyed himself by his own hand. The first sedition blazed forth at Puteoli. Tacitus, Book XIII. Then there was a graver one in Britain because of the plunder and avarice of the governors, and another because of Octavia, Tacitus, Book XIII. Finally, amid many conspiracies he was killed almost while awaiting vengeance. The world was then thrown into confusion while Galba, Vindex, and Nymphidius sought the empire, and while Otho, Piso, and Vitellius attempted everything against the fatherland, until Vespasian was carried up to the empire.
At his beginning tumults received Vespasian as victor: Mucianus was a rival; Sabinus an aspirant to empire; Alienus and Marcellus, after forming a conspiracy, laid plots. The Batavians under the leadership of Civilis revolted, expelled the Roman garrisons, and overthrew fortresses. Piso was killed in Africa, and a tumult arose from it. In Gaul the Treveri and Lingones revolted; all Gaul wavered; the legions inclined to revolt and swore allegiance to the Gauls. The war in Judaea also, a province long since pacified, must be judged a civil war.
Scarcely any sedition afflicted Titus, who ruled for a brief time and was dear to the people; his brother had to be guarded against, by whom he is even said to have been killed. Domitian, always fearful, was killed by conspirators. Nerva saw no peace in his one year. At the beginning he was compelled to thank the brave men who had killed Domitian, to whom he was especially favorable; but when the soldiers had killed those men contrary to the emperor’s command, he was compelled to thank the killers of his friends. And so he was so cast down in spirit that he himself pursued his lot with tears; therefore he declared Trajan Caesar and added: τίσειαν Δαναοὶ ἐμὰ δάκρυα. “May the Danaans pay for my tears.” For he accomplished nothing in his command except to lament his unhappiness, elude the conspirators, and adopt Trajan.
Trajan, numbered among the best princes, had peaceful beginnings, except that it was necessary to fight rather frequently against the revolting Dacians; but his end was altogether pitiable. For when peoples revolted and stirred up sedition in Syria, Egypt, and Cyprus, and when the Jews raged monstrously against the Greeks, the whole empire, especially in the East, being disturbed, he died of more than one disease.
As soon as Hadrian obtained the principate, he killed those who plotted against him—Celsus, Nigrinus, and Lucius—because they were said to have laid plots against him during a hunt. When about to die he was also savage from suspicion and at the very end even greedy for death, fearing plots.
In the time of the Antonines the state was quieter; nevertheless Cassius, and then others, harassed the Philosopher, until he died by poison.
But the crimes and seditions of Commodus made compensation for this peace, whatever it was. Perennis attempted to remove him; Quadratus conspired; Maternus stripped him; at last he was killed by his most trusted men. Pertinax followed, who, betrayed by an associate, was killed through sedition. Soon Julianus, lest a cause of discords be lacking, bought the empire with money; Niger was chosen emperor; Severus removed them both. Although he was victor in the civil wars, he by no means administered the kingdom without disasters and seditions: Niger, Albinus, Plautianus, Britain, Saturninus, and finally his sons rendered everything turbulent and deadly, now by wars, now by deceits. He left the empire to discordant brothers, of whom one, Caracalla, soon killed the other, Geta, and was himself killed by Macrinus, in accordance with his deserts but with great loss to the state. Macrinus was killed by Elagabalus; the latter by a seditious army. Alexander, after treating the revolt of Ovinius lightly, was betrayed to Maximinus and indeed by the army.
Maximinus suffered the gravest seditions: from the Africans, Titus, Gordian, Maximus, Balbinus, and finally his own soldiers; he was killed with torture and mockery. The soldiers also butchered Maximus and Balbinus. Soon the Senate substituted Marcianus and Severus Hostilianus for Gordian; Philip killed Gordian, and Decius Philip. Thus at that time there were more seditions, continuous and bloody. When Valens had harassed Decius, Gallus betrayed him to the barbarians. The soldiers slaughtered Gallus and Volusianus, and after three months of rule killed Aemilianus, whom they had chosen.
The state was no better or quieter under Valerian, and most wretched under Gallienus, under whom one body, divided into thirty battle lines, fought against itself. The tyrants were, on the authority of Trebellius: Cyriades; the elder and younger Postumus; Lollianus; the elder and younger Victorinus; Marius; Ingenuus; Regillianus; Aureolus; both Mariani; Quietus; Odaenathus; Herodes; Maeonius; Ballista; the two Valentes; Piso; Aemilianus; Saturninus; the two Tetrici; Trebellianus; Herennianus; Timolaus; Celsus; Zenobia; Victoria or Victorina; Titus; and Censorinus. The empire was publicly agitated by so many movements; for I omit the seditions of certain cities as private evils.
Claudius received these affairs, and through the revolt of the Egyptians came into danger of losing everything. He killed the tyrant Quintillus; Victorinus, and finally Aurelius as victor, were among the factions. Aurelian seemed more moderate, but because he was savage against the senators he was harassed by the greatest discords. The Palmyrenes revolted from him and were torn out by the roots, to the great grief of all because they had had grave causes for rebelling. Under the same emperor Firmus, Quintillus the brother of Claudius, and other traitors were butchered through the entrails of the state. The Alexandrians rebelled; and lest any evil be lacking, the war of the mint-workers arose, of whom about seven thousand were slain. It has sometimes come into my mind to marvel how men were able to live amid continual evils.
After Aurelian was killed by his intimates, Tacitus was made emperor and not long afterwards was slain; then came Probus and Florianus, of whom the latter was quickly killed. The former, harassed by the revolt of his familiar Saturninus, the sedition of the Britains, the madness of the Lydian robber, the tumult of Ptolemais in the Thebaid, the tyranny of the Franks in Sicily and the capture of Syracuse, the audacity of the Roman gladiators, and the treason of Proculus and Bonosus at Agrippina, was butchered by the army. Hence Carus for a short time, and then Numerian, seized the empire. Diocletian fought against these men; Carinus stood on another side, who had slaughtered the emperor Julianus and fell only after many battles. Diocletian, anxious at the multitude of seditions and rebellions, associated Maximian with himself. Meanwhile there were various tumults, but three principal ones: those of Carausius in Britain, Julianus in Africa, and Achilleus in Egypt. But what had been established for pacifying and protecting
the state—that several men should be called Caesars—was almost its destruction. Never was the state torn more foully than by the wars among the three Galerii, Constantius, Maxentius, Licinius, Alexander, and Constantine; and unless the torn members of the empire had fallen back into the hands of a moderate and religious emperor, by whom they might be cherished, there would without doubt have been an end of so great a mass, so gravely shaken.
§ 2. Thus the empire was restless, turbulent, divided, and raging against itself down to Constantine and Christian times. Nor was it altogether pacified thereafter. Constantine, victor over all seditions and civil wars, by his authority and piety restrained the wicked somewhat, so that all could breathe again. But in the time of his sons it returned to its customs. Constans killed his brother Constantine; Dalmatius Caesar was put to death, and other famous and well-deserving men. Magnentius was declared emperor as a jest; Constans was killed. Nor was there one sedition or a simple evil: Vetranio seized tyranny in Illyricum; Silvanus in Gaul, which was wholly in tumult; Nepotianus at Rome put on the Augustan insignia. Julian carried off the palm among these, who, after Constantius died, striving to extend the empire which he had seized, almost betrayed it.
Then indeed under Jovian and in the beginnings of Valentinian there was peace from sedition through fear of the external enemy. But when Valens reigned impiously, Procopius brought the greatest disaster. Then in the times of Theodosius and Gratian followed the immense wars of Maximus and Eugenius. Under the sons of Theodosius, Arcadius and Honorius, amid the arms of the barbarians there were Stilicho, Rufinus, Eutropius, Gainas, Tribigild, Gildo, and Alaric; then, after Arcadius died, Attalus, Heraclianus, John the Notary, Castinus, Boniface, and the seditions and revolts of Britain and Spain. Under the younger Valentinian there was Aetius and Maximus. The emperors who followed thereafter were the mockeries and chattels of their own men: Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Severus, and Anthemius, who were the chattels of Ricimer; and they perished by sword and poison when they had scarcely tasted the sweetness of command.
And so the remnants of the Western Empire changed their emperor almost from year to year. For those who followed—Olybrius, Glycerius, Nepos, and Augustulus—were placed upon and cast down from the throne partly at the decision of Aspar and Ardaburius, partly at that of others; while meanwhile the state was worn down by the ambition of weak princes. For although they were unequal to conquering the enemy, they nevertheless stirred up the gravest seditions at home. This, therefore, was the appearance of the Roman Empire; this the constancy of discords and theater of seditions. It ought to warn all princes and counselors to take care that all seeds of tumults and hatreds be removed.