ons
sterling. Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1231.]

[Footnote 51: Besides the design of converting these useless ornaments
into money, Dion (l. lxxiii. p. 1229) assigns two secret motives of
Pertinax. He wished to expose the vices of Commodus, and to discover by
the purchasers those who most resembled him.]

[Footnote 52: Though Capitolinus has picked up many idle tales of the
private life of Pertinax, he joins with Dion and Herodian in admiring
his public conduct.]

Such a uniform conduct had already secured to Pertinax the noblest
reward of a sovereign, the love and esteem of his people.

Those who remembered the virtues of Marcus were happy to contemplate in
their new emperor the features of that bright original; and flattered
themselves, that they should long enjoy the benign influence of his
administration. A hasty zeal to reform the corrupted state, accompanied
with less prudence than might have been expected from the years and
experience of Pertinax, proved fatal to himself and to his country.
His honest indiscretion united against him the servile crowd, who found
their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred the
favor of a tyrant to the inexorable equality of the laws. [53]

[Footnote 53: Leges, rem surdam, inexorabilem esse. T. Liv. ii. 3.]

Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of the
Praetorian guards betrayed their inward dissatisfaction. They had
reluctantly submitted to Pertinax; they dreaded the strictness of
the ancient discipline, which he was preparing to restore; and they
regretted the license of the former reign. Their discontents were
secretly fomented by Laetus, their praefect, who found, when it was
too late, that his new emperor would reward a servant, but would not be
ruled by a favorite. On the third day of his reign, the soldiers seized
on a noble senator, with a design to carry him to the camp, and to
invest him with the Imperial purple. Instead of being dazzled by the
dangerous honor, the affrighted victim escaped from their violence, and
took refuge at the feet of Pertinax. A short time afterwards, Sosius
Falco, one of the consuls of the year, a rash youth, [54] but of an
ancient and opulent family, listened to the voice of ambition; and a
conspiracy was formed during a short absence of Pertinax, which was
crushed by his sudden return to Rome, and his resolute behavior. Falco
was on the point of being justly condemned to death as a public enemy
had he not