The prosperity of Rome revived, and a profound peace reigned throughout the world.  At the same time, Severus was guilty of two acts which were detrimental to the future interests of the republic.  He relaxed the discipline of the army, increased their pay beyond the example of former times, re-established the Praetorian guards, who had been abolished for their transaction with Julian, and welded more firmly the chains of tyranny by filling the senate with his creatures.  At the age of sixty-five in the year 211, he expired at York of a disorder which was aggravated by the labours of a campaign against the Caledonians.

Severus recommended concord to his sons, Caracalla and Geta, and his sons to the army.  The government of the civilised world was entrusted to the hands of brothers who were implacable enemies.  A latent civil war brooded in the city, and hardly more than a year passed before the assassins of Caracalla put an end to an impossible situation by murdering Geta.  Twenty thousand persons of both sexes suffered death under the vague appellation of the friends of Geta.  The fears of Macrinus, the controller of the civil affairs of the Praetorian prefecture, brought about his death in the neighbourhood of Carrhae in Syria on April 8, 217.

For a little more than a year his successor governed the empire, but the necessary step of reforming the army brought about his ruin.  On June 7, 218, he succumbed to the superior fortune of Elagabulus, the grandson of Severus, a youth trained in all the superstitions and vices of the East.

Under this sovereign Rome was prostituted to the vilest vices of which human nature is capable.  The sum of his infamy was reached when the master of the Roman world affected to copy the dress and manners of the female sex.  The shame and disgust of the soldiers resulted in his murder on March 10, 222, and the proclamation of his cousin, Alexander Severus.

Again the necessity of restoring discipline within the army led to the ruin of the emperor, and, despite thirteen years of just and moderate government, Alexander was murdered in his tent on March 19, 235, on the banks of the Rhine, and Maximin, his chief lieutenant, a Thracian, reigned in his stead.

IV.—­Tyranny and Disaster

Fear of contempt, for his origin was mean and barbarian, made Maximin one of the cruellest tyrants that ever oppressed the Roman world.  During the three years of his reign he disdained to visit either Rome or Italy, but from the banks of the Rhine and the Danube oppressed the whole state, and trampled on every principle of law and justice.  The tyrant’s avarice ruined not only private citizens, but seized the municipal funds of the cities, and stripped the very temples of their gold and silver offerings.

Maximus and Balbinus, on July 9, 237, were declared emperors.  The Emperor Maximus advanced to meet the furious tyrant, but the stroke of domestic conspiracy prevented the further eruption of civil war.  Maximin and his son were murdered by their disappointed troops in front of Aquileia.