Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/128

CHAP. IV.
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towards the senate.of fear and hatred against the whole body of the senate. Those whom he had dreaded as importunate ministers, he now suspected as secret enemies. The delators, a race of men discouraged, and almost extinguished, under the former reigns, again became formidable, as soon as they discovered that the emperor was desirous of finding disaffection and treason in the senate. That assembly, whom Marcus had ever considered as the great council of the nation, was composed of the most distinguished of the Romans; and distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers ; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit ; and the friendship of the father always ensured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate ; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse.

The Quintilian brothers. Of these innocent victims of tyranny, none died more lamented than the two brothers of the Quintilian family, Maximus and Condianus ; whose fraternal love has saved their names from oblivion, and endeared their memory to posterity. Their studies and their occupations, their pursuits and their pleasures, were still the same. In the enjoyment of a great estate they never admitted the idea of a separate interest; some fragments are now extant of a treatise which they composed in common; and in every action of life it was observed, that their two bodies were animated by one soul. The Antonines, who valued their virtues, and delighted in their union, raised them, in the same year, to the consulship; and Marcus afterwards intrusted to their joint care, the civil administration of Greece, and a great military command, in which they obtained a signal victory over the Ger-