OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

135

CHAP. IV.

The cruelty, follies, and murder of Commodus .—Election of Pertinax. —His attempts to re-form the state.—His assassination by the prae-torian guards.

The mildness of Marcus, which the rigid chap.discipline of the stoics was unable to eradicate, IV -formed, at the same time, the most amiable, inl-and the only defective, part of his character. |J“ r c c e u " fHis excellent understanding was often deceivedby the unsuspecting goodness of his heart. Art-ful men, who study the passions of princes, andconceal their own, approached his person in thedisguise of philosophic sanctity, and acquiredriches and honours by affecting to despise them.*

His excessive indulgence to his brother, his wife,and his son, exceeded the bounds of private vir-tue, and became a public injury, by the exampleand consequences of their vices.

Faustina, the daughter of Pius, and the wife to his wifeof Marcus, has been as much celebrated for her Faustina ’>gallantries as for her beauty. The grave sim-plicity of the philosopher was ill calculated toengage her wanton levity, or to fix that un-bounded passion for variety, which often disco-vered personal merit in the meanest of man-

* See the Complaints of Avidius Cassius , Hist. August, p. 45. Theseare, it is true, the complaints of faction; but even faction exaggerates,rather than invents.