they laid the spies (for such they deemed them)
dead at the foot of the altar, and then, advancing to the door of the
senate, imprudently exhorted the multitude to massacre the Praetorians,
as the secret adherents of the tyrant. Those who escaped the first fury
of the tumult took refuge in the camp, which they defended with superior
advantage against the reiterated attacks of the people, assisted by the
numerous bands of gladiators, the property of opulent nobles. The civil
war lasted many days, with infinite loss and confusion on both sides.
When the pipes were broken that supplied the camp with water, the
Praetorians were reduced to intolerable distress; but in their turn they
made desperate sallies into the city, set fire to a great number of
houses, and filled the streets with the blood of the inhabitants. The
emperor Balbinus attempted, by ineffectual edicts and precarious truces,
to reconcile the factions at Rome. But their animosity, though smothered
for a while, burnt with redoubled violence. The soldiers, detesting the
senate and the people, despised the weakness of a prince, who wanted
either the spirit or the power to command the obedience of his subjects.

After the tyrant's death, his formidable army had acknowledged, from
necessity rather than from choice, the authority of Maximus, who
transported himself without delay to the camp before Aquileia. As soon
as he had received their oath of fidelity, he addressed them in terms
full of mildness and moderation; lamented, rather than arraigned the
wild disorders of the times, and assured the soldiers, that of all their
past conduct the senate would remember only their generous desertion of
the tyrant, and their voluntary return to their duty. Maximus enforced
his exhortations by a liberal donative, purified the camp by a solemn
sacrifice of expiation, and then dismissed the legions to their several
provinces, impressed, as he hoped, with a lively sense of gratitude
and obedience. But nothing could reconcile the haughty spirit of the
Praetorians. They attended the emperors on the memorable day of their
public entry into Rome; but amidst the general acclamations, the sullen,
dejected countenance of the guards sufficiently declared that they
considered themselves as the object, rather than the partners, of the
triumph. When the whole body was united in their camp, those who had
served under Maximin, and those who had remained at Rome, insensibly
communicated to each