Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/179

CHAP. VI.
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Contrast of the Caledonians and Romans.by the most ingenious researches of modern criticism ^[1]: but if we could with safety indulge the pleasing supposition, that Fingal lived, and that Ossian sung, the striking contrast of the situation and manners of the contending nations might amuse a philosophic mind. The parallel would be little to the advantage of the more civiHzed people, if we compared the unrelenting revenge of Severus with the generous clemency of Fingal ; the timid and brutal cruelty of Caracalla, with the bravery, the tenderness, the elegant genius of Ossian ; the mercenary chiefs who, from motives of fear or interest, served under the imperial standard, with the freeborn warriors who started to arms at the voice of the king of Morven ; if, in a word, we contemplate the untutored Caledonians, glowing with the warm virtues of nature, and the degenerate Romans, polluted with the mean vices of wealth and slavery.

Ambition of Caracalla.The declining health and last illness of Severus inflamed the wild ambition and black passions of Caracalla's soul. Impatient of any delay or division of empire, he attempted, more than once, to shorten the small remainder of his father's days, and endeavoured, but without success, to excite a mutiny among the troops^[2]. The old emperor had often censured the misguided lenity of Marcus, who, by a single act of justice, might have saved the Romans from the tyranny of his worthless son. Placed in the same situation, he experienced how easily the rigour of a judge dissolves away in the tenderness of a parent. He deliberated, he threatened, but he could not punish ; and this last and only instance of mercy, was more fatal to the em-

1. That the Caracul of Ossian is the Caracalla of the Roman history, is, perhaps, the only point of British antiquity in which Mr. Macpherson and Mr. Whitaker are of the same opinion ; and yet the opinion is not without difficulty. In the Caledonian war, the son of Severus was known only by the appellation of Antoninus; and it may seem strange, that the highland bard should describe him by a nickname, invented four years afterwards, scarcely used by the Romans till after the death of that emperor, and seldom employed by the most ancient historians. See Dion, 1. Ixxvii. p. 1317. Hist. August, p. 89; Aurel. Victor ; Euseb. in Chron. ad ann. 214.
2. Dion, 1. Ixxvi. p. 1282; Hist. August, p. 71 ; Aurel. Victor.