irty
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, Saturninus; in Isauria,
Trebellianus; Piso in Thessaly; Valens in Achaia; AEmilianus in Egypt;
and Celsus in Africa. * 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 mark the
condition of the times, and the manners of the men, their pretensions,
their motives, their fate, and their destructive consequences of their
usurpation.

It is sufficiently known, that the odious appellation of Tyrant was
often employed by the ancients to express the illegal seizure of
supreme power, without any reference to the abuse of it. Several of the
pretenders, who raised the standard of rebellion against the emperor
Gallienus, were shining models of virtue, and almost all possessed a
considerable share of vigor and ability. Their merit had recommended
them to the favor of Valerian, and gradually promoted them to the most
important commands of the empire. The generals, who assumed the title of
Augustus, were either respected by their troops for their able conduct
and severe discipline, or admired for valor and success in war, or
beloved for frankness and generosity. The field of victory was often
the scene of their election; and even the armorer Marius, the most
contemptible of all the candidates for the purple, was distinguished,
however by intrepid courage, matchless strength, and blunt honesty. His
mean and recent trade cast, indeed, an air of ridicule on his elevation;
* but his birth could not be more obscure than was that of the greater
part of his rivals, who were born of peasants, and enlisted in the army
as private soldiers. In times of confusion, every active ge