anity. [36] One
dangerous maxim, worthy of a tyrant, was remembered and abused by
Caracalla. "To secure the affections of the army, and to esteem the
rest of his subjects as of little moment." [37] But the liberality of the
father had been restrained by prudence, and his indulgence to the troops
was tempered by firmness and authority. The careless profusion of the
son was the policy of one reign, and the inevitable ruin both of the
army and of the empire. The vigor of the soldiers, instead of being
confirmed by the severe discipline of camps, melted away in the luxury
of cities. The excessive increase of their pay and donatives [38]
exhausted the state to enrich the military order, whose modesty in
peace, and service in war, is best secured by an honorable poverty. The
demeanor of Caracalla was haughty and full of pride; but with the troops
he forgot even the proper dignity of his rank, encouraged their insolent
familiarity, and, neglecting the essential duties of a general, affected
to imitate the dress and manners of a common soldier.

[Footnote 36: Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1296.]

[Footnote 37: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1284. Mr. Wotton (Hist. of Rome, p.
330) suspects that this maxim was invented by Caracalla himself, and
attributed to his father.]

[Footnote 38: Dion (l. lxxviii. p. 1343) informs us that the
extraordinary gifts of Caracalla to the army amounted annually to
seventy millions of drachmae (about two millions three hundred and
fifty thousand pounds.) There is another passage in Dion, concerning the
military pay, infinitely curious, were it not obscure, imperfect, and
probably corrupt. The best sense seems to be, that the Praetorian guards
received twelve hundred and fifty drachmae, (forty pounds a year,)
(Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307.) Under the reign of Augustus, they were paid
at the rate of two drachmae, or denarii, per day, 720 a year, (Tacit.
Annal. i. 17.) Domitian, who increased the soldiers' pay one fourth,
must have raised the Praetorians to 960 drachmae, (Gronoviue de Pecunia
Veteri, l. iii. c. 2.) These successive augmentations ruined the empire;
for, with the soldiers' pay, their numbers too were increased. We have
seen the Praetorians alone increased from 10,000 to 50,000 men. Note:
Valois and Reimar have explained in a very simple and probable manner
this passage of Dion, which Gibbon seems to me not to have understood.
He ordered that the soldiers should receive, as the reward of their
services the Pr