The Historians' History of the World 06

The citizen had almost ceased to wield the sword. Even the prætorians were recruited from Italy, not from Rome herself; and among them thousands were doubtless foreign born, the offscourings of the provinces, who had thrown themselves on the shores of Italy to seek their fortunes in a sphere abandoned by the indolence of their masters. The prætorian, like the proletary of the city, was highly cherished by the emperor. He had his rights and privileges which raised him above every other military conscript. While the legionary served at ten asses

a day for thirty or forty years, exposed to the risks of war, fatigue, and climate, nor regained his liberty and safety till age had blanched his hair and stiffened his limbs, the prætorian lived quietly at Rome under the lax discipline of a stative camp; he enjoyed double pay, and claimed dismissal after sixteen years’ service. He had his regular dole of corn, his occasional largess, his extraordinary donative whenever an opportunity had occurred to prove his fidelity. Tiberius, on the fall of Sejanus, had given him 1000 asses

; Claudius had paid for the purple with a sum of 150,000,000 of sesterces; Nero had followed these examples, and established them as the rule of the succession; on the overthrow of Piso’s conspiracy he had requited his prætorians with 2000 sesterces apiece. Thus caressed, the favoured cohorts of the guard became the firmest support of the prince, their creature, and under the sway of military traditions, from which even they were not exempt, regarded their oath of allegiance with strict fidelity. This fidelity, indeed, they considered due to the imperator himself rather than to the senate and people, whom they equally despised; they were satisfied with the power of making the Cæsars, and as yet were far from conceiving in their minds the idea of unmaking them again.

But far different was the case with the legions in the provinces. The legionary was still less Roman than the prætorian. If to a great extent the recruits for the frontier camps were still levied from the class which possessed the nominal franchise of the city, yet these citizens were themselves, for the most part, new-enfranchised provincials; they had received Latin or Roman rights as a boon from the emperor, or perhaps purchased them for the sake of their fiscal immunities. Romans in blood or even Italians the legionaries no longer were. They were supported by ample levies of auxiliaries, avowedly of foreign extraction, generally transferred from their homes to a camp at a far distant station; Silures and Brigantes to the Danube; Tungri and Suevi to the borders of Wales; Iberians to the Euphrates; Numidians to the Rhine. Amidst the clang of dissonant languages that resounded through the camp the Latin was the least heard and understood.

Yet the word of command was still Roman, and the chief officers were Roman also; the affections of this soldiery, long estranged from the emperor and the senate, were attached to the tribune and the legatus; and the murmurs of the nobles at home, which moved the sympathy of their kinsmen on the frontier, met a deep response in the devotion of these sons of the eagles to their accustomed leaders. The vast distance of the great camps of the empire from one another, and the frequent change of their officers, together with the motives of jealousy which the emperors nourished between them, helped to prevent these legions from joining in a common cause when disaffection menaced an outbreak in any particular quarter. They made some partial attempts to supplant the prætorians by carrying one of their own chiefs to power; but every endeavour of the kind had been hitherto baffled by the want of concert among them. More success was to attend the efforts in the near future.