Eutropius, viii. 16.]

Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.--Part I.

Public Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus By The
Praetorian Guards--Clodius Albinus In Britain, Pescennius
Niger In Syria, And Septimius Severus In Pannonia, Declare
Against The Murderers Of Pertinax--Civil Wars And Victory Of
Severus Over His Three Rivals--Relaxation Of Discipline--New
Maxims Of Government.

The power of the sword is more sensibly felt in an extensive monarchy,
than in a small community. It has been calculated by the ablest
politicians, that no state, without being soon exhausted, can maintain
above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness. But
although this relative proportion may be uniform, the influence of the
army over the rest of the society will vary according to the degree of
its positive strength. The advantages of military science and discipline
cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united into
one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men, such a union
would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it would be impracticable;
and the powers of the machine would be alike destroyed by the extreme
minuteness or the excessive weight of its springs. To illustrate this
observation, we need only reflect, that there is no superiority of
natural strength, artificial weapons, or acquired skill, which could
enable one man to keep in constant subjection one hundred of his
fellow-creatures: the tyrant of a single town, or a small district,
would soon discover that a hundred armed followers were a weak defence
against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but a hundred thousand
well-disciplined soldiers will command, with despotic sway, ten millions
of subjects; and a body of ten or fifteen thousand guards will strike
terror into the most numerous populace that ever crowded the streets of
an immense capital. The Praetorian bands, whose licentious fury was the
first symptom and cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely
amounted to the last-mentioned number [1] They derived their institution
from Augustus. That crafty tyrant, sensible that laws might color, but
that arms alone could maintain, his usurped dominion, had gradually
formed this powerful body of guards, in constant readiness to protect
his person, to awe the senate, and either to prevent or to crush the
first motions of rebellion. He distinguished these favored troops by
a d