Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/47

Rh and Byzantium was in no way affected by it. From this date (A.D. 26) we hear nothing about the city or about the country for a considerable time. Claudius, according to one account, made it from a dependency into a province; but Suetonius, the biographer of the twelve Cæsars, says that this was done in Vespasian's reign from 70 A.D. to 79. He mentions both Byzantium and Thrace as having then been formally constituted into provinces. The city, we should suppose, could not itself have been a separate province; it was probably included either in Thrace or in Asia. Its general condition would remain practically unchanged, and it no doubt continued to enjoy many special privileges.

We now lose sight of Byzantium for a long period. Not till the close of the second century does it again appear in history. The empire was then distracted by civil war. The emperor was himself usually a creature of the soldiery. In 193 A.D., Didius Julianus purchased the rule of the Roman world, by offering to the soldiers of the prætorian guard a higher bounty than his competitor. The wretched man was deserted by them in a few days, and executed by the senate's order. By a decree of the same body, Septimus Severus was called to the empire. The choice, on the whole, was a good one; Severus had shown ability as the governor of one of the divisions of Gaul, and he now held a foremost position, being commander of the legions in Illyria and Pannonia. The army at once accepted him as an emperor. On reaching Rome he made the prætorian