he Roman commander was Ulpius
Marcellus, a harsh but devoted officer, who fared like a common
soldier, and insisted on the strictest vigilance, being himself "the
most sleepless of generals."[268] The British Army, accordingly, swore
by him, and were minded to proclaim him Emperor,[2] a matter which
all but cost him his life at the hands of Commodus; who, however,
contented himself with assuming, like Claudius, the title of
Britannicus, in virtue of this success.[2] The further precaution was
taken of cashiering not only Ulpius but all the superior officers
of this dangerous army; men of lower rank and less influence being
substituted. The soldiers, however, defeated the design by breaking
out into open mutiny, and tearing to pieces the "enemy of the Army,"
Perennis, Praefect of the Praetorian Guards, who had been sent from
Rome (A.D. 185) to carry out the reform.[269]

E. 2.--This episode shows us how great a solidarity the Army of
Britain had by this time developed. It was always the policy of
Imperial Rome to recruit the forces stationed throughout the Provinces
not from the natives around them, but from those of distant regions.
Inscriptions tell that the British Legions were chiefly composed of
Spaniards, Aquitanians, Gauls, Frisians, Dalmatians, and Dacians;
while from the 'Notitia' we know that, in the 5th century, such
distant countries as Mauretania, Libya, and even Assyria,[270]
furnished contingents. Britons, in turn, served in Gaul, Spain,
Illyria, Egypt, and Armenia, as well as in Rome itself.

E. 3.--The outburst which led to the slaughter of Perennis was but the
dawn of a long era of military turbulence in Britain. First came the
suppression of the revolt A.D. 187 by the new Legate,[271] Pertinax,
who, at the peril of his life, refused the purple offered him by the
mutineers,[272] and drafted fifteen hundred of the ringleaders into
the Italian service of Commodus;[273] then Commodus died (A.D. 192),
and Pertinax became one of the various pretenders to the Imperial
throne; then followed his murder by Julianus, while Albinus succeeded
to his pretensions as well as to his British government; then that of
Julianus by Severus; then the desperate struggle between Albinus and
Severus for the Empire; the crushing defeat (A.D. 197) of the British
Army at Lyons, the death of Albinus,[274] and the final recognition of
Severus[275] as the acknowledged ruler of the whole Roman world.

E. 4.--Of all the Roman Empero