(Hist. Aug. p. 198) an ingenious
and natural solution. Galliena was first cousin to the emperor. By
delivering Africa from the usurper Celsus, she deserved the title of
Augusta. On a medal in the French king's collection, we read a similar
inscription of Faustina Augusta round the head of Marcus Aurelius.
With regard to the Ubique Pax, it is easily explained by the vanity of
Gallienus, who seized, perhaps, the occasion of some momentary calm. See
Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, Janvier, 1700, p. 21--34.]

[Footnote 156: This singular character has, I believe, been fairly
transmitted to us. The reign of his immediate successor was short and
busy; and the historians who wrote before the elevation of the family of
Constantine could not have the most remote interest to misrepresent the
character of Gallienus.]

At the time when the reins of government were held with so loose a hand,
it is not surprising, that a crowd of usurpers should start up in every
province of the empire against the son of Valerian. It was probably some
ingenious fancy, of comparing the thirty tyrants of Rome with the thirty
tyrants of Athens, that induced the writers of the Augustan History to
select that celebrated number, which has been gradually received into
a popular appellation. [157] But in every light the parallel is idle and
defective. What resemblance can we discover between a council of thirty
persons, the united oppressors of a single city, and an uncertain list
of independent rivals, who rose and fell in irregular succession through
the extent of a vast empire? Nor can the number of thirty be completed,
unless we include in the account the women and children who were honored
with the Imperial title. The reign of Gallienus, distracted as it was,
produced only nineteen pretenders to the throne: Cyriades, Macrianus,
Balista, Odenathus, and Zenobia, in the East; in Gaul, and the western
provinces, Posthumus, Lollianus, Victorinus, and his mother Victoria,
Marius, and Tetricus; in Illyricum and the confines of the Danube,
Ingenuus, Regillianus, and Aureolus; in Pontus, [158] Saturninus; in
Isauria, Trebellianus; Piso in Thessaly; Valens in Achaia; Aemilianus in
Egypt; and Celsus in Africa. [1581] To illustrate the obscure monuments of
the life and death of each individual, would prove a laborious task,
alike barren of instruction and of amusement. We may content ourselves
with investigating some general characters, that most strongly m