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public declarations of the great army. Alexan- chap.

der had sufficient time to awaken a faint sense_

of loyalty among his troops; but their reluctantprofessions of fidelity quickly vanished on theappearance of Maximin, who declared himselfthe friend and advocate of the military order,and was unanimously acknowledged emperor ofthe Romans by the applauding legions. The sonof Mamsea, betrayed and deserted, withdrewinto his tent, desirous at least to conceal his ap-proaching fate from the insults of the multitude.

He was soon followed by a tribune and somecenturions, the ministers of death; but insteadof receiving with manly resolution the inevitablestroke, his unavailing cries and entreaties dis-graced the last moments of his life, and con-verted into contempt some portion of the justpity which his innocence and misfortunes mustinspire. His mother Mamaia , whose pride andavarice he loudly accused as the cause of hisruin, perished with her son. The most faithfulof his friends were sacrificed to the first fury ofthe soldiers. Others were reserved for the moredeliberate cruelty of the usurper; and those whoexperienced the mildesttreatment, werestrippedof their employments, and ignominiously drivenfrom the court and army. f

The former tyrants, Caligula and Nero , Com- Tyrannymodus and Caracalla , were all dissolute and un-n,i,!f axi "experienced youths, 8 educated in the purple, and

f Herodian , 1. vi, p. 223-227.

E Caligula, the eldest of the four, was only twenty-five years of agewhen he ascended the throne; Caracalla was twenty-three, Commodusnineteen, and Nero no more than seventeen.