OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

171

flower of the Italian youth, h and trained in the chap.

exercise of arms and virtue, were the genuine__

representatives of the people, and the best en-titled to elect the military chief of the republic.

These assertions, however defective in reason,became unanswerable, when the fierce praeto-rians increased their weight, by throwing, likethe barbarian conqueror of Rome , their swordsinto the scale . 1

The praitorians had violated the sanctity of They offerthe throne, by the atrocious murder of Perti-to'alef 1IVnax; they dishonoured the majesty of it, bytheir subsequent conduct. The camp waswithout a leader, for even the prefect Lactus,who had excited the tempest, prudently de-clined the public indignation. Amidst the wilddisorder Sulpicianus, the emperor’s father-in-

> law 7 , and governor of the city, who had beensent to the camp on the first alarm of mutiny,was endeavouring to calm the fury of the mul-titude, when he was silenced by the clamorousreturn of the murderers, bearing on a lance thehead of Pertinax . Though history has accus-tomed us to observe every principle and everypassion yielding to the imperious dictates ofambition, it is scarcely credible that in thesemoments of horror, Sulpicianus should haveaspired to ascend a throne polluted with the

> 11 They were originally recruited in Latium, Etruria , and the oldcolonies (Tacit. Anna!, iv, 5). The emperor Otho compliments theirvanity, with the flattering titles of Italise Alumni, Romana vere juven-tus. Tacit. Hist, i, 84.

* In the siege of Rome by the Gauls. See Livy, v. 48. Plutarch inCamil. p. 143.