Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/300

 ANTONINUS. ed again in perfon ; but Lucius Verus was feized with an apople&ic fit, and died at Altinum. In 170, Antoninus made vaft preparations againft the Germans, and carried on the war with great vigour. Dur- ing this war, in 174 a very extraordinary event is faid to have happened, which, according to Dion Cafiius, was as -it>. Ixxi- follows: Antoninus's army being blocked up by the Quadi, in a very diladvantageous place, where there was no .poffi- bility of procuring water; and in this fituation, being worn out with fatigue and wounds, opprefled with-heat and thirft, and incapable of retiring or engaging the enemy, inftantly the fky was covered with clouds, and there fell a vaft quan- tity of rain. The Roman army were about to quench their third; when the enemy came upon them with fuch fury, that they mult certainly have been defeated, had it not been for a fhower of hail, accompanied with a fiorm of thunder and lightning, which fell upon the enemy, without the leafc annoyance to the Romans, who by this means gained the victory [c]. In 175, Antoninus made a treaty with feveral nations of Germany. Soon after Avidius Camus, governor of Syria, revolted from the emperor: this infurredtion, how- ever, was fupprefled by the death of Caflius, who was killed by a centurion named Anthony. Antoninus behaved with great lenity towards thole who had been engaged for Caffius : he would not put to death, nor imprifon, nor even fit in judgement himfelf upon any of the fenators engaged in Dion. CafTthis revolt; but he referred them to the fenate, fixing a day for their appearance, as if it had been only a civil aiFair. He wrote alfo to the fenate, defning them to a& with indulgence rather than feverity ; not to (hed the blood of any fenator or perfon of quality, or of any other perfon whatfoever, but to allow this honour to his reig-n, that even under the misrbr- O ' tune of a rebellion, none had loft their lives, except in the firft heat of the tumult: " And I wifb," laid he, " that I [c] The pagans as we'l as Chrifti- the Melitene legion ; and, as a mark ans, according to Mo Tillemont p. 611. of ciliinclion, we aie told that they art. xvi. have acknowledged the truth received the title of the Thundering Le. of this prodigy, bui have greatly differed gion fiom Antoninus. (Eufeb. Eccle<", as to the caufe of fuch miraculous evsrt, Hift. lib. v. cap. 5.) Mr. Moylc, in the former alcribinj it, fome to one the fecond volume of his works, has magician and feme to another: In An- endeavoured to explode this (lory of the toninus's Pi.'lar, the glory is afcribed to Thundering Legion, ub'ch occafioned Jupiter the god of rain and thunder. But Mr. Whifton to publifh an anhver, in the Chiifrians affirmed, that God grant- jys.6, intitled " Of the Thundering Le- ed this favourat the prajer of iheChr ft- " gion ;" or, of the miraculous DeFiver- ian lold.ers jn the Roman army, who ame of Marcus Antoninus and hu Army, rc laic to have compofed the twelfth or upon the Pjaycis of the Chritfians. li cculil