mperor, that
the latter was ignorant how far he abused his powers: at length,
being informed of it, he began to limit his authority. The marriage of
Plautilla with Caracalla was unfortunate; and the prince who had been
forced to consent to it, menaced the father and the daughter with death
when he should come to the throne. It was feared, after that, that
Plautianus would avail himself of the power which he still possessed,
against the Imperial family; and Severus caused him to be assassinated
in his presence, upon the pretext of a conspiracy, which Dion considers
fictitious.--W. This note is not, perhaps, very necessary and does not
contain the whole facts. Dion considers the conspiracy the invention of
Caracalla, by whose command, almost by whose hand, Plautianus was slain
in the presence of Severus.--M.]

[Footnote 69: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1274.
Herodian, l. iii. p. 122, 129. The grammarian of Alexander seems, as is
not unusual, much better acquainted with this mysterious transaction,
and more assured of the guilt of Plautianus than the Roman senator
ventures to be.]

Till the reign of Severus, the virtue and even the good sense of the
emperors had been distinguished by their zeal or affected reverence for
the senate, and by a tender regard to the nice frame of civil policy
instituted by Augustus. But the youth of Severus had been trained in the
implicit obedience of camps, and his riper years spent in the despotism
of military command. His haughty and inflexible spirit could not
discover, or would not acknowledge, the advantage of preserving an
intermediate power, however imaginary, between the emperor and the army.
He disdained to profess himself the servant of an assembly that detested
his person and trembled at his frown; he issued his commands, where his
requests would have proved as effectual; assumed the conduct and style
of a sovereign and a conqueror, and exercised, without disguise, the
whole legislative, as well as the executive power.

The victory over the senate was easy and inglorious. Every eye and every
passion were directed to the supreme magistrate, who possessed the arms
and treasure of the state; whilst the senate, neither elected by the
people, nor guarded by military force, nor animated by public spirit,
rested its declining authority on the frail and crumbling basis of
ancient opinion. The fine theory of a republic insensibly vanished, and
made way for the more natural and substantial feelings