spiracy of jealous husbands, whose revenge would have appeared more justifiable, had they spared the innocence of his son. After the murder of so many valiant princes, it is somewhat remarkable that a female for a long time controlled the fierce legions of Gaul, and still more singular that she was the mother of the unfortunate Victorinus. The arts and treasures of Victoria enabled her successfully to place Marius and Tetricus on the throne, and to reign with a manly vigour under the name of those dependent emperors. Money of copper, of silver, and of gold, was coined in her name; she assumed the titles of Augusta and Mother of the Camps: her power ended only with her life; but her life was perhaps shortened by the ingratitude of Tetricus.[1]
The reign and defeat of TetricusWhen, at the instigation of his ambitious patroness, Tetricus[2] assumed the ensigns of royalty, he was governor of the peaceful province of Aquitaine, an employment suited to his character and education. He reigned four or five years over Gaul, Spain, and Britain, the slave and sovereign of a licentious army, whom he dreaded and by whom he was despised. The valour and fortune of Aurelian at length opened the prospect of a deliverance. He ventured to disclose his melancholy situation, and conjured the emperor to hasten to the relief of his unhappy A.D. 271, summerrival. Had this secret correspondence reached the ears of the soldiers, it would most probably have cost Tetricus his life; nor could he resign the sceptre of the West without committing an act of treason against himself. He affected the appearances of a civil war, led his forces into the field against Aurelian, posted them in the most disadvantageous manner, betrayed his own counsels to the enemy, and with a few chosen friends deserted in the beginning of the action The rebel legions, though disordered and dismayed by the unexpected treachery of their chief, defended themselves with a desperate valour, till they were cut in pieces almost to a man, in this bloody and memorable battle, which was fought near Chalons in Champagne.[3]
- ↑ Pollio assigns her an article among the thirty tyrants. Hist. Aug. p. 200 [xxvi. 31. As for Marius, see Appendix 18.]
- ↑ [Gaius Pius (?) Esuvius Tetricus. He made his son his colleague, compare Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 1106, and Burdigala (owing to his Aquitanian connexions) his capital.]
- ↑ Pollio in Hist. August p. 196. Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 220 [xxiv. 24; xxvi. 32]. The two Victors, in the lives of Gallienus and Aurelian. Eutropius, ix. 13. Euseb. in Chron. Of all these writers, only the two last (but with strong probability) place the fall of Tetricus before that of Zenobia. M. de Boze (in the Academy of Inscriptions, tom, xxx.) does not wish, and Tillemont (tom. iii. p. 1189)
