Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/185

CHAP. VI.
_____offices of the state; and, by his salutary influence, guided the emperor's steps in the paths of justice and moderation. In full assurance of his virtue and abilities, Severus, on his death-bed, had conjured him to watch over the prosperity and union of the imperial family^[1]. The honest labours of Papinian served only to inflame the hatred which Caracalla had already conceived against his father's minister. After the murder of Geta, the prefect was commanded to exert the powers of his skill and eloquence in a studied apology for that atrocious deed. The philosophic Seneca had condescended to compose a similar epistle to the senate, in the name of the son and assassin of Agrippina^[2]: "That it was easier to commit than to justify a parricide," was the glorious reply of Papinian^[3], who did not hesitate between the loss of life and that of honour. Such intrepid virtue, which had escaped pure and unsullied from the intrigues of courts, the habits of business, and the arts of his profession, reflects more lustre on the memory of Papinian, than all his great employments, his numerous writings, and the superior reputation as a lawyer, which he has preserved through every age of the Roman jurisprudence^[4].

His tyranny extended over the whole empire.It had hitherto been the peculiar felicity of the Romans, and m the worst of times their consolation, that the virtue of the emperors was active, and their vice indolent. Augustus, Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus, visited their extensive dominions in person; and their progress was marked by acts of wisdom and beneficence. The tyranny of Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian, who resided almost constantly at Rome, or in the adjacent villas, was confined to the senatorial and equestrian orders^[5]. But Caracalla was the common enemy of mankind. He left the capital (and he never A.D. 213.

1. It is said that Papinian was himself a relation of the empress Julia.
2. Tacit. Annal. xiv. ii.
3. Hist. August, p. 88.
4. With regard to Papinian, see Heineccii Hist. Juris Romani, 1. 330, etc.
5. Tiberius and Domitian never moved from the neighbourhood of Rome. Nero made a short journey into Greece. Et laudatorum principum usus ex aiquo quamvis procul agentibus. Saevi proximis ingruunt. Tacit. Hist, iv. 75.