of life, which left not a moment for vice or folly, is a better
proof of the wisdom and justice of Alexander's government, than all the
trifling details preserved in the compilation of Lampridius. Since the
accession of Commodus, the Roman world had experienced, during the term
of forty years, the successive and various vices of four tyrants. From
the death of Elagabalus, it enjoyed an auspicious calm of thirteen
years. [711] The provinces, relieved from the oppressive taxes invented by
Caracalla and his pretended son, flourished in peace and prosperity,
under the administration of magistrates, who were convinced by
experience that to deserve the love of the subjects, was their best and
only method of obtaining the favor of their sovereign. While some gentle
restraints were imposed on the innocent luxury of the Roman people, the
price of provisions and the interest of money, were reduced by the
paternal care of Alexander, whose prudent liberality, without
distressing the industrious, supplied the wants and amusements of the
populace. The dignity, the freedom, the authority of the senate was
restored; and every virtuous senator might approach the person of the
emperor without a fear and without a blush.

[Footnote 711: Wenck observes that Gibbon, enchanted with the virtue of
Alexander has heightened, particularly in this sentence, its effect on
the state of the world. His own account, which follows, of the
insurrections and foreign wars, is not in harmony with this beautiful
picture.--M.]

The name of Antoninus,
ennobled by the virtues of Pius and Marcus, had been communicated by
adoption to the dissolute Verus, and by descent to the cruel Commodus.
It became the honorable appellation of the sons of Severus, was bestowed
on young Diadumenianus, and at length prostituted to the infamy of the
high priest of Emesa. Alexander, though pressed by the studied, and,
perhaps, sincere importunity of the senate, nobly refused the borrowed
lustre of a name; whilst in his whole conduct he labored to restore the
glories and felicity of the age of the genuine Antonines. [72]

[Footnote 72: See, in the Hist. August. p. 116, 117, the whole contest
between Alexander and the senate, extracted from the journals of that
assembly. It happened on the sixth of March, probably of the year 223,
when the Romans had enjoyed, almost a twelvemonth, the blessings of his
reign. Before the appellation of Antoninus was offered him as a title of
honor,