T<35

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

be ruled by a favourite. On the third day of ci ™p.his reign, the soldiers seized on a noble senator,with a design to carry him to the camp, and toinvest him with the imperial purple. Insteadof being dazzled by the dangerous honour, theaffrighted victim escaped from their violence,and took refuge at the feet of Pertinax . A a compi-short time afterwards, Sosius Falco, one of theconsuls of the year, a rash youth, h but of anancient and opulent family, listened to the voiceof ambition; and a conspiracy was formed dur-ing a short absence of Pertinax , which wascrushed by his sudden return to Rome , and hisresolute behaviour. Falco was on the point ofbeing justly condemned to death as a publicenemy, had he not been saved by the earnestand sincere entreaties of the injured emperor,who conjured the senate, that the purity of hisreign might not be stained by the blood of aguilty senator.

These disappointments served only to irritate M^iofthe rage of the praetorian guards. On the by the'twenty-eighth of March, eighty-six days only a,',^ 0 "after the death of Commodus , a general seditionbroke out in the camp, which the officers wanted 28tl1 -either power or inclination to suppress. Twoor three hundred of the most desperate soldiersmarched at noon-day with arms in their handsand fury in their looks, towards the imperialpalace. The gates were thrown open by their

h If we credit Capitolimis (which is rather difficult), Falco behavedwith the most petulant indecency to Pertinax , on the day of his acces-sion. The wise emperor only admonished him of his youth and inex-perience. Hist. August, p. 55.