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128
THE DECLINE AND FALL
balance of favour, conferred on both the rank of Augustus, with the revered name of Antoninus; and for the first time Three emperors the Roman world beheld three emperors.[1] Yet even this equal conduct served only to inflame the contest, whilst the fierce Caracalla asserted the right of primogeniture, and the milder Geta courted the affections of the people and the soldiers. In the anguish of a disappointed father, Severus foretold that the weaker of his sons would fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who, in his turn, would be ruined by his own vices.[2]
The Caledonian war, A.D. 208 In these circumstances the intelligence of a war in Britain, and of an invasion of the province by the barbarians of the North, was received with pleasure by Severus. Though the vigilance of his lieutenants might have been sufficient to repel the distant enemy, he resolved to embrace the honourable pretext of withdrawing his sons from the luxury of Rome, which enervated their minds and irritated their passions, and of inuring their youth to the toils of war and government. Notwithstanding his advanced age (for he was above threescore), and his gout, which obliged him to be carried in a litter, he transported himself in person into that remote island, attended by his two sons, his whole court, and a formidable army. He immediately passed the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus, and entered the enemy's country, with the design of completing the long-attempted conquest of Britain. He penetrated to the northern extremity of the island without meeting an enemy. But the concealed ambuscades of the Caledonians, who hung unseen on the rear and flanks of his army, the coldness of the climate, and the severity of a winter march across the hills and morasses of Scotland, are reported to have cost the Romans above fifty- ↑ The elevation of Caracalla is fixed by the accurate M. de Tillemont to the year 198; the association of Geta, to the year 208. [Caracalla (the proper form is Caracallus) was made Cæsar in 196 at Viminacium, imperator under the name M. Aurelius Antoninus in 197, and finally Augustus with "tribunician power" in 198 (in the tenth year of his age). It is to be observed that on his first elevation Severus associated his name with the memory of Pertinax, and he appears on inscriptions as L. Septimius Severus Pertinax Augustus. But afterwards he resolved to affiliate his family to the more august house of the Antonines. In Imperial style he was the son of Marcus and brother of Commodus; both he and his sons were Antonines. He even thought of perpetuating Antoninus (like Augustus) as a synonym of the Imperial title. See Spartianus, Geta. ii. 2, in animo habuit Severus ut omnes deinceps principes quemadmodum Augusti, ita etiam Antonini dicerentur idque amore Marci, &c. As for the association of Geta as Augustus, it must be placed in Sept. or Oct. 209 A.D.; cp. Corp. Ins. Att. iii. p. 9.]
- ↑ Herodian, 1. iii. p. 130 [13]. The lives of Caracalla and Geta, in the Augustan History.
