the celebrated wall, bearing his name (Vallum Adriani), from the Tyne to Solway Frith.

His reign was only marked by one war, but that was an atrocious one. Adrian wished to force the Jews to give up their worship, and their eternal hope of vengeance, promised by Jehovah to their race. He cancelled the name of Jerusalem, substituting that of Elia Capitolina, raised altars there to the pagan deities, and forbade the practice of Jewish rites. The Jews feared the loss both of their faith and of their nationality. Headed by Barkochebas, Son of the Star (A.D. 133), who passed himself off as the expected Messiah, they rose in insurrection. The horrors of this Jewish war equalled those of the time of Vespasian; 582,000 Jews perished, all Judæa was laid waste, and the remainder of the people reduced to slavery.

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In home matters Adrian did much to reform the administration, the army, and Rome. He also embellished the provinces. Order and regularity were restored in the administration. "Man, you are saved," he said to one of his enemies whom he met at his accession. One day that he refused to listen to a poor woman: Why art thou emperor ?" she asked, whereupon he gave her a patient hearing. Posts had hitherto been supported by the towns; he took the expense on himself, he cancelled all the debts to the treasury since sixteen years back, and burned the registers in the Forum. Adrian made the government more monarchical, he separated the public functions from those of the state, the palace, and the army, giving the magistrates the precedence, and assigning to the military the last place. To carry out affairs he established four chanceries (scrinia), and the prefects of the prætorium formed a kind of superior ministry. Like Augustus he united the most eminent lawyers to form a kind of privy council, which was finally invested with legislative authority, so that the decrees of the senate fell into desuetude. Salvius Julius, by order of the emperor, formed a sort of code called to perpetuate edicts to supersede the chaotic mass of enactments now in force.

Adrian reorganized the army and gave it an example of sobriety, courage, and patience, walking himself twenty miles a day bareheaded in the midst of the troops, and living on their food. His activity led him to all parts of the empire. His journeys took up eleven years, from A.D. 121 to 132. He left on all hands proofs of his munificence. Nismes, in France, owes to Adrian its splendid amphitheatre, which could hold 24,000 spectators. At Rome he built the Moles Adriani, now the Castel St. Angelo,

and he erected many other sumptuous edifices, including that delicious Adrian's Villa, a museum of art near Tivoli. On medals he was therefore flattered as restitutor orbis.

He may have shown a little foolish vanity in wishing to shine in all arts and sciences, and turning his hand to various literary efforts, but those tastes and pursuits are refreshing after the atrocious pastimes of Nero and Domitian. He encouraged industry, commerce, and the slaves, but he committed the grave error of continuing the persecutions against the Christians.

He had also moral defects, and an irascible temper, and he did not scruple to put to death those suspected or convicted of plotting against him, especially in the latter years of his reign. This applies to Servianus, his brother-in-law, and the grandson of this victim.

Adrian died at Baix, July 12, A.D. 138.

CHAPTER XLV.

ANTONINUS PIUS (A.D. 138—161).

THE ancestors of Antoninus Pius were natives of Nismes, in Gaul. Under Adrian he had been made proconsul of Asia, and then adopted, on condition that, in his turn, he would adopt. Marcus Aurelius, and Lucius, the son of Ælius Verus.

Under the twenty-three years' reign of Antoninus Pius, the empire enjoyed a profound peace, due both to the virtue and moderation of the emperor, and also to the excellent administration of Adrian. His reputation extended so far that princes of the East, of India and Bactriana, solicited his arbitration, and his contemporaries gave him the noble surname of Father of the Human Race. He only gave appointments to just and experienced men, and he let them remain in their posts till their death, if he could not supersede them by better men. By practising a prudent economy, he was able to found a number of useful institutions. himself lived simply, accessible to every one, and ready to attend to all just complaints. An apology of Christianity, by the philosopher Justin Martyr, obtained tolerance and protection for the persecuted Church.

He

Antoninus did not wage any war, and left the provinces to the care of his able lieutenants. One fact gives an idea of his moderation. A deputation arrived at Rome from some bar

barians, demanding to be received as subjects of the empire. They were refused. This was the polity of Augustus and of Adrian, and it secured the happiness of one hundred million of inhabitants, a result so noble that Antoninus could not do better than follow it. But this peaceful spirit involved the neglect of military virtues. The soldiers, no longer inured to arms, were devoted to the bath and to festivities, where their heads were crowned with flowers.

MARCUS AURELIUS, THE PHILOSOPHER (A.D. 161-180).

When Antoninus Pius felt himself dying, he caused the golden statue of Victory to be carried into the apartment of his adopted son, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, surnamed the Philosopher. This emperor undertook to carry out the polity of his three predecessors. He ordered that the burial of the poor should be at the expense of the state, and issued a code of laws for the provinces-the Provincial Edict.

Marcus Aurelius shared the title of augustus with Lucius Verus, his son-in-law, and his adopted brother; a man given up to pleasure, and who did not afford any useful help to the emperor. Sent to the East against the Parthians, he gave himself up to low pursuits, while Aridius Cassius, an excellent officer, carried on the war victoriously (A.D. 165). Then came a cruel plague which laid waste Rome, and the Germans were preparing for an attack at the time that earthquakes were visiting the empire.

But Marcus Aurelius was a stoical philosopher on the throne. He was not intimidated by these troubles, having learnt early to subject his body to his soul, his passions to reason. To him, virtue was the only good, vice, the only evil; all the rest was indifferent. In the midst of the danger of a war against the Marcomanni, on the banks of the Danube, he wrote the admirable maxims of stoical wisdom in the twelve books of his work, entitled, Els sauróv (To Himself). Severe to himself, just and benevolent to others, except the Christians, whom he persecuted, Marcus Aurelius found in his unnatural son a continual cause of sorrow. His wife, the young Faustina, appears also to have been a very ill-conducted person, though her husband praises her highly in his book.

In the light of philosophy Marcus Aurelius looked on war as a disgrace and a calamity. But when the necessity of a legitimate defence put arms in his hands, he showed a superior courage. His wars took him among the Germans and the Sarmatians

first, and afterwards to Syria. Rome heard with terror that the Germans had crossed the Danube, and invaded Pannonia and Illyria, and advanced to near Aquileia. It was the first of the Germanic invasions. The two emperors marched together to meet them. They then fell back with 100,000 captives. By sowing divisions, Marcus Aurelius obtained a respite of some years. On returning from this expedition, Marcus was delivered from his colleague Verus, who died. The Germans, who had not been conquered, appeared again before Aquileia. To find the money necessary for this war, the emperor sold all the valuables of the imperial palace. The legions had been so weakened by peace, famine, pestilence, and other causes that the slaves and gladiators, and even barbarians, had to be armed (A.D. 172). The Germans fell back, but the emperor, seeing it was necessary to strike a decisive blow, attacked the Marcomanni and Quadi in their own country, and ran a great danger there. He was saved by a storm of rain, mixed with thunder and lightning, an event that is connected with the Christian tradition of the Fulminating Legion.

Hurrying to Syria, where an insurrection had broken out under Cassius, he found on his arrival that his soldiers had put Cassius to death, and, writing to the senate, the emperor was. able to make the noble remark: "This revolt has at least only cost the lives of those who fell in the first tumult." The emperor was on the road to encounter a new insurrection of the Marcomanni, Alani, and Goths (A.D. 178), when death overtook him on March 7, A.D. 180, at Vindolona (Vienna).

COMMODUS (A.D. 180-182).

When Marcus Aurelius had been placed among the gods, as was customary, he was succeeded by his son, Lucius Commodus Antoninus. The latter was only nineteen years old, but the culpable weakness of his father had suffered various vices to strike deep root in his soul, and he was nothing but a stupid tyrant. He made haste to conclude a peace with the Marcomanni and Quadi, and more than 20,000 barbarians entered the service of the empire, a disastrous step, leading eventually to consequences fatal to Rome.

Henceforth the barbarians were initiated into all the tactics of the Roman legions. Hastening back from the Danube to Rome, Commodus gave himself up to all the low pleasures of the circus, which he only varied with his mad passion for hunting. He

was seen to fight 735 times, and each time to receive his wages as a gladiator. Care was taken, of course, that his antagonist should be armed only with a wooden sword, and should fall in the contest. He was often satisfied to play the part of coachman in the circus. His only ambition was to resemble Hercules, and he had himself struck on the coins in the likeness of that demigod.

Perennis, prefect of the guard, was first charged with the whole care of government, but he was murdered by the soldiers (A.D. 186). Cleander, a Phrygian, took his place, and turned everything into money. Posts, sentences, everything was sold. Three years after, this detested favourite was killed in a sedition. Henceforth the cruelty of Commodus knew no limits. Accordingly, his friends tried to get rid of him, and a murderer paid by his sister, Lucilla, widow of Varus, had sprung upon him with the words: "The senate sends thee this dagger." In A.D. 187 a deserter and bandit chief had, from Spain and Gaul, made an appointment to all his people to meet at Rome and get rid of the tyrant.

He was denounced by an accomplice and executed. Then Commodus, served by informers, and afraid of all, launched sentences of condemnation against the most virtuous men, his relations, and even the great lawyer, Salvius Julianus. He gave all licence to the prætorians, and kept hostages of the governors of provinces that they might not declare against him. One night, though warned, he passed among the worst company and gladiators, and was writing a proscription list in his note-book, including Lotus, prefect of the guard, and Electus, his chamberlain, when, falling to sleep, a child took up the list, and by chance showed it to one of the proscribed. His fate was then sealed. After his bath he was given a poisoned goblet, and as it did not take effect he was strangled by the hands of a strong young athlete (Dec. 31, A.D. 192). The senate caused his memory to be condemned. But the prætorians were sure to avenge him.

OUR space forbids us to give more than a summary of these, many of whom ruled only a few months. The first was Pertinax,