Edward Gibbon: History Books, Essays & Autobiographical Writings. Эдвард Гиббон

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Edward Gibbon: History Books, Essays & Autobiographical Writings - Эдвард Гиббон


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target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_e5b30873-1313-50ac-88b0-462ad0a76f14">* Cassius was murdered by his own partisans. Vulcat. Gallic. in Cassio, c. 7. Dion, lxxi. c. 27. — W.]

      Note: See one of the newly discovered passages of Dion Cassius. Marcus wrote to the senate, who urged the execution of the partisans of Cassius, in these words: “I entreat and beseech you to preserve my reign unstained by senatorial blood. None of your order must perish either by your desire or mine.” Mai. Fragm. Vatican. ii. p. 224. — M.]

      Note: It was Tiberius, not Augustus, who first took in this sense the words crimen laesae majestatis. Bachii Trajanus, 27. — W.]

      CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

      The Cruelty, Follies, And Murder Of Commodus — Election Of Pertinax — His Attempts To Reform The State — His Assassination By The Praetorian Guards.

      The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of the father’s virtues. It has been objected to Marcus, that he sacrificed the happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a worthless boy; and that he chose a successor in his own family, rather than in the republic. Nothing however, was neglected by the anxious father, and by the men of virtue and learning whom he summoned to his assistance, to expand the narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to render him worthy of the throne for which he was designed. But the power of instruction is


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