brothers. It was impossible that it could
long subsist between two implacable enemies, who neither desired nor
could trust a reconciliation. It was visible that one only could reign,
and that the other must fall; and each of them, judging of his rival's
designs by his own, guarded his life with the most jealous vigilance
from the repeated attacks of poison or the sword. Their rapid journey
through Gaul and Italy, during which they never ate at the same table,
or slept in the same house, displayed to the provinces the odious
spectacle of fraternal discord. On their arrival at Rome, they
immediately divided the vast extent of the imperial palace. [18] No
communication was allowed between their apartments; the doors and
passages were diligently fortified, and guards posted and relieved with
the same strictness as in a besieged place. The emperors met only in
public, in the presence of their afflicted mother; and each surrounded
by a numerous train of armed followers. Even on these occasions of
ceremony, the dissimulation of courts could ill disguise the rancor of
their hearts. [19]

[Footnote 18: Mr. Hume is justly surprised at a passage of Herodian, (l.
iv. p. 139,) who, on this occasion, represents the Imperial palace as
equal in extent to the rest of Rome. The whole region of the Palatine
Mount, on which it was built, occupied, at most, a circumference of
eleven or twelve thousand feet, (see the Notitia and Victor, in
Nardini's Roma Antica.) But we should recollect that the opulent
senators had almost surrounded the city with their extensive gardens and
suburb palaces, the greatest part of which had been gradually
confiscated by the emperors. If Geta resided in the gardens that bore
his name on the Janiculum, and if Caracalla inhabited the gardens of
Maecenas on the Esquiline, the rival brothers were separated from each
other by the distance of several miles; and yet the intermediate space
was filled by the Imperial gardens of Sallust, of Lucullus, of Agrippa,
of Domitian, of Caius, &c., all skirting round the city, and all
connected with each other, and with the palace, by bridges thrown over
the Tiber and the streets. But this explanation of Herodian would
require, though it ill deserves, a particular dissertation, illustrated
by a map of ancient Rome. (Hume, Essay on Populousness of Ancient
Nations.--M.)]

[Footnote 19: Herodian, l. iv. p. 139]

This latent civil war already distracted the whole government, when