a steady and rapid course, he passed, without difficulty,
the defiles of the Apennine, received into his party the troops and
ambassadors sent to retard his progress, and made a short halt at
Interamnia, about seventy miles from Rome. His victory was already
secure, but the despair of the Praetorians might have rendered it bloody;
and Severus had the laudable ambition of ascending the throne without
drawing the sword. His emissaries, dispersed in the capital, assured the
guards, that provided they would abandon their worthless prince, and the
perpetrators of the murder of Pertinax, to the justice of the conqueror,
he would no longer consider that melancholy event as the act of the
whole body. The faithless Praetorians, whose resistance was supported
only by sullen obstinacy, gladly complied with the easy conditions,
seized the greatest part of the assassins, and signified to the senate,
that they no longer defended the cause of Julian. That assembly,
convoked by the consul, unanimously acknowledged Severus as lawful
emperor, decreed divine honors to Pertinax, and pronounced a sentence
of deposition and death against his unfortunate successor. Julian was
conducted into a private apartment of the baths of the palace, and
beheaded as a common criminal, after having purchased, with an immense
treasure, an anxious and precarious reign of only sixty-six days. The
almost incredible expedition of Severus, who, in so short a space of
time, conducted a numerous army from the banks of the Danube to those
of the Tyber, proves at once the plenty of provisions produced by
agriculture and commerce, the goodness of the roads, the discipline of
the legions, and the indolent, subdued temper of the provinces.

The first cares of Severus were bestowed on two measures the one
dictated by policy, the other by decency; the revenge, and the honors,
due to the memory of Pertinax. Before the new emperor entered Rome, he
issued his commands to the Praetorian guards, directing them to wait his
arrival on a large plain near the city, without arms, but in the habits
of ceremony, in which they were accustomed to attend their sovereign. He
was obeyed by those haughty troops, whose contrition was the effect of
their just terrors. A chosen part of the Illyrian army encompassed them
with levelled spears. Incapable of flight or resistance, they expected
their fate in silent consternation. Severus mounted the tribunal,
sternly reproached them with perfidy a