Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/397

CHAP. Xl.

men of the mint, Aurelian used his victory with unrelenting rigour^[1]/ He was naturally of a severe disposition. A peasant and a soldier, his nerves yield- ed not easily to the impressions of sympathy, and he could sustain without emotion the sight of tortures and death. Trained from his earliest youth in the exercise of arms, he set too small a value on the life of a citizen, chastised by military execution the slight- est offences, and transferred the stern discipline of the camp into the civil administration of the laws. His love of justice often became a blind and furious passion ; and whenever he deemed his own or the public safety endangered, he disregarded the rules of evidence, and the proportion of punishments. The unprovoked rebellion with which the Romans rewarded his services, exasperated his haughty spirit. The noblest families of the capital were involved in the guilt or suspicion of this dark conspiracy. A hasty spirit of revenge urged the bloody prosecution, and it proved fatal to one of the nephews of the emperor. The executioners (if we may use the expression of a contemporary poet) were fatigued, the prisons were crowded, and the unhappy senate lamented the death or absence of its most illustrious members^[2]. Nor was the pride of Aurelian less offensive to that assembly than his cruelty. Ignorant or impatient of the restraints of civil institutions, he disdained to hold his power by any other title than that of the sword, and governed by right of conquest an empire which he had saved and subdued^[3].

He marches into the east, and is assasinated. It was observed by one of the most sagacious of the Roman princes, that the talents of his predecessor Aurelian, were better suited to the command of an

1. Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 222 ; the two Victors ; Eutropius, ix. 14: Zosimus (I. i. p. 43.) mentions only three senators, and places their death before the eastern war.
2. Nulla catenati feralis pompa senatils
   Carnificum lassabit opus ; nee carcere pleno
   Infelix raros numerabit curia patres.
   Calphurn. Eclog. i. 60.
   
   
3. According to the younger Victor he sometimes wore the diadem. Deus and Dominus appear on his medals.