170

THE DECLINE AND FALL

chap, different in their characters, they were all sol*

_7^_diers of experience and capacity.

ciodius Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain , sur-Britai'n P assec ^ both his competitors in the nobility of hisextraction, which he derived from some of themost illustrious names of the old republic.' 1But the branch from whence he claimed hisdescent, was sunk into mean circumstances, andtransplanted into a remote province. It is dif-ficult to form a just idea of his true character.Under the philosophic cloak of austerity, hestands accused of concealing most of the viceswhich degrade human nature/ But his accu-sers are those venal winters who adored the for-tune of Severus, and trampled on the ashes ofan unsuccessful rival. Virtue , or the appear-ances of virtue, recommended Albinus to theconfidence and good opinion of Marcus; andhis preserving Avith the son the same interestAvhich he had acquired with the father, is aproof at least that he Avas possessed of a veryflexible disposition. The favour of a tyrantdoes not aUvays suppose a want of merit in theobject of it; he may, Avithout intending it, re-ward a man of Avorth and ability, or he mayfind such a man useful to his own service. Itdoes not appear that Albinus served the son ofMarcus, either as the minister of his cruelties,

q The Posthumian and the Cejonian, the former of whom was raisedto the consulship in the fifth year after its institution.

r Spartianns, in his undigested collections, mixes up all the virtuesand all the vices that enter into the human composition, and bestowsthem on the same object. Such, indeed, are many of the characters inthe Augustan history