OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

279

with the sound of treason, his cruelty was un-bounded and unrelenting. A conspiracy againsthis life was either discovered or imagined, andMagnus, a consular senator, was named as theprincipal author of it. Without a witness, with-out a trial, and without an opportunity of de-fence, Magnus, with four thousand of his sup-posed accomplices, were put to death. Italy andthe wholeempire were infested with innumerablespies and informers. On the slightest accusation,the first of the Roman nobles, who had governedprovinces, commanded armies, and been adornedwith the consular and triumphal ornaments, werechained on the public carriages, and hurriedaway to the emperor’s presence. Confiscation,exile, or simple death, were esteemed uncommoninstances of his lenity. Some of the unfortunatesufferers he ordered to be sewed up in the hidesof slaughtered animals, others to be exposed towild beasts, others again to be beaten to deathwith clubs. During the three years of his reign,he disdained to visit either Rome or Italy . Hiscamp, occasionally removed from the banks ofthe Rhine to those of the Danube , was the seatof his stern despotism, which trampled on everyprinciple of law and j ustice, and was supportedby the avowed power of the sword. k No man

k The wife of Maximin, by insinuating wise counsels with femalegentleness, sometimes brought baek the tyrant to the way of truth andhumanity. See Ammianns Marcellinus, 1. xiv, c. 1, where he alludesto the fact, which he had more fully related under the reign of theGordians. We may collect from the medals, that Paulina was filenameof this benevolent empress; and from the title of Diva, that she diedbefore Maximin. (Valesius ad loc. cit. Ammian .) Spanheim de U. etP. N. tom. ii, p. 300.

CHAP.

VII.