in which they
obtained a signal victory over the Germans. The kind cruelty of Commodus
united them in death.

The tyrant's rage, after having shed the noblest blood of the senate, at
length recoiled on the principal instrument of his cruelty. While
Commodus was immersed in blood and luxury, he devolved the detail of the
public business on Perennis, a servile and ambitious minister, who had
obtained his post by the murder of his predecessor, but who possessed a
considerable share of vigor and ability. By acts of extortion and the
forfeited estates of the nobles sacrificed to his avarice he had
accumulated an immense treasure. The praetorian guards were under his
immediate command; and his son, who already discovered a military
genius, was at the head of the Illyrian legions. Perennis aspired to the
empire; or what, in the eyes of Commodus, amounted to the same crime, he
was capable of aspiring to it, had he not been prevented, surprised, and
put to death.

The fall of a minister is a very trifling incident in the general
history of the empire; but it was hastened by an extraordinary
circumstance, which proved how much the nerves of discipline were
already relaxed. The legions of Britain, discontented with the
administration of Perennis, formed a deputation of fifteen hundred
select men, with instructions to march to Rome and lay their complaints
before the Emperor. These military petitioners, by their own determined
behavior, by inflaming the divisions of the guards, by exaggerating the
strength of the British army, and by alarming the fears of Commodus,
exacted and obtained the minister's death, as the only redress of their
grievances. This presumption of a distant army, and their discovery of
the weakness of government, were a sure presage of the most dreadful
convulsions.

The negligence of the public administration was betrayed, soon
afterward, by a new disorder, which arose from the smallest beginnings.
A spirit of desertion began to prevail among the troops; and the
deserters, instead of seeking their safety in flight or concealment,
infested the highways. Maternus, a private soldier, of a daring boldness
above his station, collected those bands of robbers into a little army,
set open the prisons, invited the slaves to assert their freedom, and
plundered with impunity the rich and defenceless cities of Gaul and
Spain. The governors of the provinces, who had long been the spectators,
and perhaps the partners, o