d in a distant honorable
command, when he received a confidential letter from the emperor,
acquainting him of the treasonable designs of some discontented
generals, and authorizing him to declare himself the guardian and
successor of the throne, by assuming the title and ensigns of Caesar.
The governor of Britain wisely declined the dangerous honor, which would
have marked him for the jealousy, or involved him in the approaching
ruin, of Commodus. He courted power by nobler, or, at least, by more
specious arts. On a premature report of the death of the emperor,
he assembled his troops; and, in an eloquent discourse, deplored the
inevitable mischiefs of despotism, described the happiness and glory
which their ancestors had enjoyed under the consular government, and
declared his firm resolution to reinstate the senate and people in
their legal authority. This popular harangue was answered by the loud
acclamations of the British legions, and received at Rome with a secret
murmur of applause. Safe in the possession of his little world, and in
the command of an army less distinguished indeed for discipline than for
numbers and valor, Albinus braved the menaces of Commodus, maintained
towards Pertinax a stately ambiguous reserve, and instantly declared
against the usurpation of Julian. The convulsions of the capital
added new weight to his sentiments, or rather to his professions of
patriotism. A regard to decency induced him to decline the lofty titles
of Augustus and Emperor; and he imitated perhaps the example of Galba,
who, on a similar occasion, had styled himself the Lieutenant of the
senate and people.

Personal merit alone had raised Pescennius Niger, from an obscure birth
and station, to the government of Syria; a lucrative and important
command, which in times of civil confusion gave him a near prospect of
the throne. Yet his parts seem to have been better suited to the second
than to the first rank; he was an unequal rival, though he might have
approved himself an excellent lieutenant, to Severus, who afterwards
displayed the greatness of his mind by adopting several useful
institutions from a vanquished enemy. In his government Niger acquired
the esteem of the soldiers and the love of the provincials. His rigid
discipline foritfied the valor and confirmed the obedience of the
former, whilst the voluptuous Syrians were less delighted with the mild
firmness of his administration, than with the affability of his mann