ers,
and the apparent pleasure with which he attended their frequent and
pompous festivals. As soon as the intelligence of the atrocious murder
of Pertinax had reached Antioch, the wishes of Asia invited Niger to
assume the Imperial purple and revenge his death. The legions of the
eastern frontier embraced his cause; the opulent but unarmed provinces,
from the frontiers of AEthiopia to the Hadriatic, cheerfully submitted
to his power; and the kings beyond the Tigris and the Euphrates
congratulated his election, and offered him their homage and services.
The mind of Niger was not capable of receiving this sudden tide of
fortune: he flattered himself that his accession would be undisturbed by
competition and unstained by civil blood; and whilst he enjoyed the vain
pomp of triumph, he neglected to secure the means of victory. Instead of
entering into an effectual negotiation with the powerful armies of
the West, whose resolution might decide, or at least must balance, the
mighty contest; instead of advancing without delay towards Rome and
Italy, where his presence was impatiently expected, Niger trifled
away in the luxury of Antioch those irretrievable moments which were
diligently improved by the decisive activity of Severus.

The country of Pannonia and Dalmatia, which occupied the space between
the Danube and the Hadriatic, was one of the last and most difficult
conquests of the Romans. In the defence of national freedom, two hundred
thousand of these barbarians had once appeared in the field, alarmed
the declining age of Augustus, and exercised the vigilant prudence
of Tiberius at the head of the collected force of the empire. The
Pannonians yielded at length to the arms and institutions of Rome. Their
recent subjection, however, the neighborhood, and even the mixture, of
the unconquered tribes, and perhaps the climate, adapted, as it has
been observed, to the production of great bodies and slow minds, all
contributed to preserve some remains of their original ferocity, and
under the tame and uniform countenance of Roman provincials, the hardy
features of the natives were still to be discerned. Their warlike youth
afforded an inexhaustible supply of recruits to the legions stationed on
the banks of the Danube, and which, from a perpetual warfare against the
Germans and Sarmazans, were deservedly esteemed the best troops in the
service.

The Pannonian army was at this time commanded by Septimius Severus,
a native of A