Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/167

CHAP. V.
_____of the principal oiRcers of Niger, who despaired of, or who disdained a pardon, had thrown themselves into this last refuge : the fortifications were esteemed impregnable ; and, in the defence of the place, a celebrated engineer displayed all the mechanic powers known to the ancients^[1]. Byzantium at length surrendered to famine. The magistrates and soldiers were put to the sword, the walls demolished, the privileges suppressed, and the destined capital of the east subsisted only as an open village, subject to the, insulting jurisdiction of Perinthus. The historian Dion, who had admired the flourishing, and lamented the desolate state of Byzantium, accused the revenge of Severus, for depriving the Roman people of the strongest bulwark against the barbarians of Pontus and Asia^[2]. The truth of this observation was but too well justified in the succeeding age, when the Gothic fleets covered the Euxine, and passed through the undefended Bosphorus into the centre of the Mediterranean.

Deaths of Niger and Albinus.Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to death in their flight from the field of battle. Their fate excited neither surprise nor compassion. They had staked their lives against the chance of empire, and suffered what they would have inflicted ; nor did Severus claim the arrogant superiority of suffering his rivals to live in a private station. But his unforgiving Cruel consequences of the civil wars.temper, stimulated by avarice, indulged a spirit of revenge, where there was no room for apprehension. The most considerable of the provincials, who, without any dislike to the fortunate candidate, had obeyed the governor under whose authority they were accidentally placed, were punished by death, exile, and espe-

1. The engineer's name was Priscus. His skill saved his life, and he was taken into the service of the conqueror. For the particular facts of the siege, consult Dion Cassius, (1. Ixxv. p. 1251.) and Herodian, (1. iii. p. 95.) for the theory of it, the fanciful chevalier de Folard may be looked into. See Polybe, torn. i. p. 76.
2. Notwithstanding the authority of Spartianus and some modern Greeks, we may be assured, from Dion and Herodian, that Byzantium, many years after the death of Severus, lay in ruins.