rant or impatient of the restraints of civil
institutions, he disdained to hold his power by any other title than
that of the sword, and governed by right of conquest an empire which he
had saved and subdued.

It was observed by one of the most sagacious of the Roman princes,
that the talents of his predecessor Aurelian were better suited to the
command of an army, than to the government of an empire. Conscious of
the character in which nature and experience had enabled him to excel,
he again took the field a few months after his triumph. It was expedient
to exercise the restless temper of the legions in some foreign war, and
the Persian monarch, exulting in the shame of Valerian, still braved
with impunity the offended majesty of Rome. At the head of an army, less
formidable by its numbers than by its discipline and valor, the emperor
advanced as far as the Straits which divide Europe from Asia. He there
experienced that the most absolute power is a weak defence against the
effects of despair. He had threatened one of his secretaries who was
accused of extortion; and it was known that he seldom threatened in
vain. The last hope which remained for the criminal, was to involve some
of the principal officers of the army in his danger, or at least in his
fears. Artfully counterfeiting his master's hand, he showed them, in
a long and bloody list, their own names devoted to death. Without
suspecting or examining the fraud, they resolved to secure their lives
by the murder of the emperor. On his march, between Byzanthium and
Heraclea, Aurelian was suddenly attacked by the conspirators, whose
stations gave them a right to surround his person, and after a short
resistance, fell by the hand of Mucapor, a general whom he had always
loved and trusted. He died regretted by the army, detested by the
senate, but universally acknowledged as a warlike and fortunate prince,
the useful, though severe reformer of a degenerate state.

Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.--Part I.

Conduct Of The Army And Senate After The Death Of Aurelian.--
Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus, And His Sons.

Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors, that, whatever
might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the same. A life of
pleasure or virtue, of severity or mildness, of indolence or glory,
alike led to an untimely grave; and almost every reign is closed by the
same disgusting repetition of treason a