Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/400

 376 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, ours as fear and perhaps esteem could extort, they ' Uberally poured forth on the memory of their deceased sovereign. Such acknowledgements as gratitude could inspire, they returned to the faithful armies of the re- public, who entertained so just a sense of the legal authority of the senate in the choice of an emperor. Yet, notwithstanding this flattering appeal, the most prudent of the assembly declined exposing their safety and dignity to the caprice of an armed multitude. The strength of the legions was, indeed, a pledge of their sincerity, since those who may command are seldom reduced to the necessity of dissembling; but could it naturally be expected, that a hasty repentance would correct the inveterate habits of fourscore years? Should the soldiers relapse into their accustomed seditions, their insolence might disgrace the majesty of the senate, and prove fatal to the object of its choice. Motives like these dictated a decree, by which the election of a new emperor was referred to the suffrage of the mili- tary order. A.D.275. The contention that ensued is one of the best at- A^peaceful ^^^ted, but most improbable events in the history of interreg- mankind ^ The troops, as if satiated with the exercise eight of power, again conjured the senate to invest one of its months. Q^^rn body with the imperial purple. The senate still persisted in its refusal ; the army in its request. The reciprocal offer was pressed and rejected at least three times; and whilst the obstinate modesty of either party was resolved to receive a master from the hands of the other, eight months insensibly elapsed: an amazing period of tranquil anarchy, during which the Roman world remained without a sovereign, without an usurp- er, and without a sedition. The generals and ma- gistrates appointed by Aurelian continued to execute their ordinary functions; and it is observed, that a proconsul of Asia was the only considerable person '' Vopiscus, our principal authority, wrote at Rome, sixteen years only after the death of Aurelian ; and, besides the recent notoriety of the facts, constantly draws his materials from the journals of the senate, and the ori- ginal papers of the Ulpian library. Zosimus and Zonaras appear as ignorant of this transaction as they were in general of the Roman constitution.