Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/351

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 3^7 and severe discipline, or admired for valour and sue- CHAP, cess in war, or beloved for frankness and generosity. ' The field of victory was often the scene of their elec- tion; and even the armourer Marius, the most con- temptible of all the candidates for the purple, was distinguished however by intrepid courage, matchless strength, and blunt honesty y. His mean and recent trade cast indeed an air of ridicule on his elevation; but his birth could not be more obscure than was that Their ob- of the greater part of his rivals, who were born of pea- sants, and enlisted in the army as private soldiers. In times of confusion, every active genius finds the place assigned him by nature : in a general state of war, mi- litary merit is the road to glory and to greatness. Of the nineteen tyrants, Tetricus only was a senator ; Piso alone was a noble. The blood of Numa, through twenty-eight successive generations, ran in the veins of Calphurnius Piso^, who, by female alliances, claimed a right of exhibiting in his house the images of Crassus and of the great Pompey ^. His ancestors had been repeatedly dignified with all the honours which the commonwealth could bestow; and of all the ancient families of Rome, the Calphurnian alone had survived the tyranny of the Cagsars. The personal qualities of Piso added new lustre to his race. The usurper Va- lens, by whose order he was killed, confessed, with deep remorse, that even an enemy ought to have re- spected the sanctity of Piso ; and although he died in arms against Gallienus, the senate, with the emperor's generous permission, decreed the triumphal ornaments to the memory of so virtuous a rebel ^. y See the speech of Marius in the Augustan History, p. 197. The acci- dental identity of names was the only circumstance that could tempt PoUio to imitate Sallust. Poet. V. 291. with Dacier's and Sanadon's notes. may venture to change paterna into muterna. In every generation, from Augustus to Alexander Severus, one or more Pisos appear as consuls. A Piso was deemed worthy of the throne by Augustus: Tacit. Annal. i. 13. A second headed a formidable conspiracy against Nero ; and a third was adopted, and declared Caesar by Galba. •» Hist. August, p. 195. The senate, in a moment of enthusiasm, seems to have presumed on the approbation of Gallienus.
 * Vos, O Pompilius sanguis ! is Horace's address to the Pisos : see Art.
 * Tacit. Annal. xv. 48 ; Hist. i. 15. In the former of these passages we