Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/153

CHAP. V.
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The armies of Britain Syria, and Pannonia declare against Julian.of the frontiers to assert the violated majesty of the Roman empire.

The pubhc discontent was soon diffused from the centre to the frontiers of the empire. The armies of Britain, of Syria, and of Illyricum, lamented the death of Pertinax, in whose company, or under whose command, they had so often fought and conquered. They received with surprise, with indignation, and perhaps with envy, the extraordinary intelHgence, that the pretorians had disposed of the empire by public auction; and they sternly refused to ratify the ignominious bargain. Their immediate and unanimous revolt was fatal to Julian, but it was fatal at the same time to the public peace ; as the generals of the respective armies, Clodius Albinus, Pescennius Niger, and Septimius Severus, were still more anxious to succeed than to revenge the murdered Pertinax. Their forces were exactly balanced. Each of them was at the head of three legions^[1], with a numerous train of auxiharies; and however different in their characters, they were all soldiers of experience and capacity.

Clodius Albinus in Britain.Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain, surpassed both his competitors in the nobihty of his extraction, which he derived from some of the most illustrious names of the old republic^[2]. But the branch from whence he claimed his descent was sunk into mean circumstances, and transplanted into a remote province. It is difficult to form a just idea of his true character. Under the philosophic cloak of austerity, he stands accused of concealing most of the vices which degrade human nature^[3]. But his accusers are those venal writers who adored the fortune of Severus, and trampled on the ashes of an unsuccessful rival. Virtue, or the appearances of virtue, recommended Albinus to the confidence

1. Dion, 1. Ixxili. p. 1235.
2. The Posthumian and the Cejonian ; the former of whom was raised to the consulship in the fifth year after its institution.
3. Spartianus, in his undigested collections, mixes up all the virtues and all the vices that enter into the human composition, and bestows them on the same object. Such, indeed, are many of the characters in the Augustan History.