sion.
The most considerable of the provincials, who, without any dislike to
the fortunate candidate, had obeyed the governor under whose authority
they were accidentally placed, were punished by death, exile, and
especially by the confiscation of their estates. Many cities of the
East were stripped of their ancient honors, and obliged to pay, into the
treasury of Severus, four times the amount of the sums contributed by
them for the service of Niger. [56]

[Footnote 56: Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1250.]

Till the final decision of the war, the cruelty of Severus was, in some
measure, restrained by the uncertainty of the event, and his pretended
reverence for the senate. The head of Albinus, accompanied with a
menacing letter, announced to the Romans that he was resolved to spare
none of the adherents of his unfortunate competitors. He was irritated
by the just auspicion that he had never possessed the affections of the
senate, and he concealed his old malevolence under the recent discovery
of some treasonable correspondences. Thirty-five senators, however,
accused of having favored the party of Albinus, he freely pardoned, and,
by his subsequent behavior, endeavored to convince them, that he had
forgotten, as well as forgiven, their supposed offences. But, at the
same time, he condemned forty-one [57] other senators, whose names
history has recorded; their wives, children, and clients attended them
in death, [571] and the noblest provincials of Spain and Gaul were involved
in the same ruin. [572] Such rigid justice--for so he termed it--was, in
the opinion of Severus, the only conduct capable of insuring peace to
the people or stability to the prince; and he condescended slightly to
lament, that to be mild, it was necessary that he should first be cruel.
[58]

[Footnote 57: Dion, (l. lxxv. p. 1264;) only twenty-nine senators
are mentioned by him, but forty-one are named in the Augustan History,
p. 69, among whom were six of the name of Pescennius. Herodian (l. iii.
p. 115) speaks in general of the cruelties of Severus.]

[Footnote 571: Wenck denies that there is any authority for this massacre
of the wives of the senators. He adds, that only the children and
relatives of Niger and Albinus were put to death. This is true of the
family of Albinus, whose bodies were thrown into the Rhone; those of
Niger, according to Lampridius, were sent into exile, but afterwards put
to death. Among the partisans of Albinus who were put to d