with a strong and determined hand, and restored public affairs to something like a condition of safety. Septimius Severus was a second Vespasian. After the death of Commodus, the last of the Antonines, everything was again thrown into confusion. Pertinax, a mere puppet in the hands of the troops, reigned for a few months only. Didius Julianus, Pescennius Niger, Albinus, and Septimius Severus were almost simultaneously proclaimed by the legions; but Septimius, an intrepid and energetic general, popular with the troops and feared by the senate, soon triumphed over his rivals, and reigned not ingloriously for eighteen years. He gained the affections of the soldiery by the distribution of great largesses, and yet he restored great strictness of discipline. One of the boldest steps he took was to disband the praetorian guard. He kept the troops constantly employed in foreign and distant expeditions, moving them about from the banks of the Euphrates to the mountains of Scotland; and meanwhile at home he kept down any approach to conspiracies amongst the aristocracy by
