ud on the legions of the frontiers to assert
the violated majesty of the Roman empire. The public discontent was soon
diffused from the centre to the frontiers of the empire. The armies of
Britain, of Syria, and of Illyricum, lamented the death of Pertinax,
in whose company, or under whose command, they had so often fought and
conquered. They received with surprise, with indignation, and perhaps
with envy, the extraordinary intelligence, that the Praetorians had
disposed of the empire by public auction; and they sternly refused to
ratify the ignominious bargain. Their immediate and unanimous revolt was
fatal to Julian, but it was fatal at the same time to the public peace,
as the generals of the respective armies, Clodius Albinus, Pescennius
Niger, and Septimius Severus, were still more anxious to succeed than to
revenge the murdered Pertinax. Their forces were exactly balanced. Each
of them was at the head of three legions, [15] with a numerous train of
auxiliaries; and however different in their characters, they were all
soldiers of experience and capacity.

[Footnote 15: Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1235.]

Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain, surpassed both his competitors in
the nobility of his extraction, which he derived from some of the most
illustrious names of the old republic. [16] But the branch from which he
claimed his descent was sunk into mean circumstances, and transplanted
into a remote province. It is difficult to form a just idea of his true
character. Under the philosophic cloak of austerity, he stands accused
of concealing most of the vices which degrade human nature. [17] But his
accusers are those venal writers who adored the fortune of Severus,
and trampled on the ashes of an unsuccessful rival. Virtue, or the
appearances of virtue, recommended Albinus to the confidence and good
opinion of Marcus; and his preserving with the son the same interest
which he had acquired with the father, is a proof at least that he was
possessed of a very flexible disposition. The favor of a tyrant does
not always suppose a want of merit in the object of it; he may, without
intending it, reward a man of worth and ability, or he may find such a
man useful to his own service. It does not appear that Albinus served
the son of Marcus, either as the minister of his cruelties, or even as
the associate of his pleasures. He was employed in a distant honorable
command, when he received a confidential letter from the emperor,
acqua