on regained their station and influence about the new
Emperor. They exaggerated the hardships and dangers of a campaign in the
wild countries beyond the Danube; and they assured the indolent prince
that the terror of his name and the arms of his lieutenants would be
sufficient to complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians, or to
impose such conditions as were more advantageous than any conquest. By a
dexterous application to his sensual appetites they compared the
tranquillity, the splendor, the refined pleasures of Rome with the
tumult of a Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leisure nor materials
for luxury. Commodus listened to the pleasing advice, but while he
hesitated between his own inclination and the awe which he still
retained for his father's counsellors, the summer insensibly elapsed,
and his triumphal entry into the capital was deferred till the autumn.
His graceful person, popular address, and imagined virtues attracted the
public favor; the honorable peace which he had recently granted to the
barbarians diffused a universal joy; his impatience to revisit Rome was
fondly ascribed to the love of his country; and his dissolute course of
amusements was faintly condemned in a prince of nineteen years of age.

During the three first years of his reign the forms, and even the
spirit, of the old administration were maintained by those faithful
counsellors to whom Marcus had recommended his son, and for whose wisdom
and integrity Commodus still entertained a reluctant esteem. The young
prince and his profligate favorites revelled in all the license of
sovereign power; but his hands were yet unstained with blood; and he had
even displayed a generosity of sentiment which might perhaps have
ripened into solid virtue.[47] A fatal incident decided his fluctuating
character.

One evening, as the Emperor was returning to the palace through a dark
and narrow portico in the Amphitheatre, an assassin, who waited his
passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, "_The
senate sends you this_." The menace prevented the deed; the assassin was
seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors of the
conspiracy. It had been formed, not in the state, but within the walls
of the palace. Lucilla, the Emperor's sister, and widow of Lucius Verus,
impatient of the second rank, and jealous of the reigning empress, had
armed the murderer against her brother's life. She had not ventured to
communicate