Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/397

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 373 men of the mint, Aurelian used his victory with un- CHAP, relenting rigour ^ He was naturally of a severe ^^' disposition. A peasant and a soldier, his nerves yield- ed not easily to the impressions of sympathy, and he could sustain without emotion the sight of tortures and death. Trained from his earliest youth in the exercise of arms, he set too small a value on the life of a citizen, chastised by military execution the slight- est offences, and transferred the stern discipline of the camp into the civil administration of the laws. His love of justice often became a blind and furious pas- sion ; and whenever he deemed his own or the public safety endangered, he disregarded the rules of evi- dence, and the proportion of punishments. The un- provoked rebellion with which the Romans rewarded his services, exasperated his haughty spirit. The no- blest families of the capital were involved in the guilt or suspicion of this dark conspiracy. A hasty spirit of revenge urged the bloody prosecution, and it proved fatal to one of the nephews of the emperor. The exe- cutioners (if we may use the expression of a contem- porary poet) were fatigued, the prisons were crowded, and the unhappy senate lamented the death or absence of its most illustrious members ''. Nor was the pride of Aurelian less offensive to that assembly than his cruelty. Ignorant or impatient of the restraints of civil institutions, he disdained to hold his power by any other title than that of the sword, and governed by right of conquest an empire which he had saved and subdued''. It was observed by one of the most sagacious of the He marches Roman princes, that the talents of his predecessor andisass?s- Aurelian, were better suited to the command of an sinated. ^ Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 222 ; the two Victors ; Eutropius, ix. 14 : Zosimus (I. i. p. 43.) mentions only three senators, and places their death before the eastern war. Carnificum lassabit opus ; nee carcere pleno Infelix raros numerabit curia patres. Calphurn. Eclog. i. 60. •» According to the younger Victor he sometimes wore the diadem. Deus and Dominus appear on his medals.
 * Nulla catenati feralis pompa senatils