h sought out,
with peculiar anxiety, those unfortunate persons connected, however
remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without sparing even the
ministers of his crimes or pleasures. [43] His cruelty proved at last
fatal to himself. He had shed with impunity the noblest blood of Rome:
he perished as soon as he was dreaded by his own domestics. Marcia,
his favorite concubine, Eclectus, his chamberlain, and Laetus, his
Praetorian praefect, alarmed by the fate of their companions and
predecessors, resolved to prevent the destruction which every hour hung
over their heads, either from the mad caprice of the tyrant, [431] or
the sudden indignation of the people. Marcia seized the occasion of
presenting a draught of wine to her lover, after he had fatigued himself
with hunting some wild beasts. Commodus retired to sleep; but whilst he
was laboring with the effects of poison and drunkenness, a robust youth,
by profession a wrestler, entered his chamber, and strangled him without
resistance. The body was secretly conveyed out of the palace, before the
least suspicion was entertained in the city, or even in the court, of
the emperor's death. Such was the fate of the son of Marcus, and so
easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant, who, by the artificial powers of
government, had oppressed, during thirteen years, so many millions of
subjects, each of whom was equal to their master in personal strength
and personal abilities. [44]

[Footnote 43: The prefects were changed almost hourly or daily; and the
caprice of Commodus was often fatal to his most favored chamberlains.
Hist. August. p. 46, 51.]

[Footnote 431: Commodus had already resolved to massacre them the
following night they determined o anticipate his design. Herod. i.
17.--W.]

[Footnote 44: Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1222. Herodian, l. i. p. 43. Hist.
August. p. 52.]

The measures of he conspirators were conducted with the deliberate
coolness and celerity which the greatness of the occasion required.
They resolved instantly to fill the vacant throne with an emperor whose
character would justify and maintain the action that had been committed.
They fixed on Pertinax, praefect of the city, an ancient senator of
consular rank, whose conspicuous merit had broke through the obscurity
of his birth, and raised him to the first honors of the state. He had
successively governed most of the provinces of the empire; and in all
his great employments, military as well as civil, he had