Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/409

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. S85 general of the east, the heroic Probus, boldly declared CHAP, himself the avenger of the senate. The contest, how- '__ ever, was still unequal ; nor could the most able leader, at the head of the effeminate troops of Egypt and Syria, encounter with any hopes of victory the legions of Europe, whose irresistible strength appeared to support the brother of Tacitus. But the fortune and activity of Probus triumphed over every obstacle. The hardy veterans of his rival, accustomed to cold climates, sickened and consumed away in the sultry heats of Cilicia, where the summer proved remarkably unwhole- some. Their numbers were diminished by frequent desertion ; the passes of the mountains were feebly de- fended; Tarsus opened its gates; and the soldiers of Florianus, when they had permitted him to enjoy the imperial title about three months, delivered the empire July. from civil war by the easy sacrifice of a prince whom they despised". The perpetual revolutions of the throne had so per- Their fa- fectly erased every notion of hereditary right, that the ™tJ,n"ob- family of an unfortunate emperor was incapable of ex- scuiity. citing the jealousy of his successors. The children of Tacitus and Florianus were permitted to descend into a private station, and to mingle with the general mass of the people. Their poverty indeed became an ad- ditional safeguard to their innocence. When Tacitus was elected by the senate, he resigned his ample patri- mony to the pubHc service; an act of generosity spe- cious in appearance, but which evidently disclosed his intention of transfiiitting the empire to his descendants. The only consolation of their fallen state, was the re- membrance of transient greatness, and a distant hope, the child of a flattering prophecy, that, at the end of a thousand years, a monarch of the race of Tacitus « Hist. August, p. 231 ; Zosimus, 1. i. p. 68, 59 ; Zonaras, 1. xii. p. 637. Aurelius Victor says, that Probus assumed the empire in Illyricum ; an opinion which (though adopted by a very learned man) would throw that period of history into inextricable confusion. " Hist. August, p. 229. VOL. 1. C C