ht to the senate: it was
deduced from the ancient principles of the republic. Gibbon appears to
infer, from the passage of Suetonius, that the senate, according to its
ancient right, punished Nero with death. The words, however, more
majerum refer not to the decree of the senate, but to the kind of death,
which was taken from an old law of Romulus. (See Victor. Epit. Ed.
Artzen p. 484, n. 7.)--W.]

Pertinax found a nobler way of condemning his predecessor's memory; by
the contrast of his own virtues with the vices of Commodus. On the day
of his accession, he resigned over to his wife and son his whole private
fortune; that they might have no pretence to solicit favors at the
expense of the state. He refused to flatter the vanity of the former
with the title of Augusta; or to corrupt the inexperienced youth of
the latter by the rank of Caesar. Accurately distinguishing between the
duties of a parent and those of a sovereign, he educated his son with a
severe simplicity, which, while it gave him no assured prospect of the
throne, might in time have rendered him worthy of it. In public, the
behavior of Pertinax was grave and affable. He lived with the virtuous
part of the senate, (and, in a private station, he had been acquainted
with the true character of each individual,) without either pride or
jealousy; considered them as friends and companions, with whom he had
shared the danger of the tyranny, and with whom he wished to enjoy
the security of the present time. He very frequently invited them to
familiar entertainments, the frugality of which was ridiculed by those
who remembered and regretted the luxurious prodigality of Commodus. [49]

[Footnote 49: Dion (l. lxxiii. p. 1223) speaks of these entertainments,
as a senator who had supped with the emperor; Capitolinus, (Hist.
August. p. 58,) like a slave, who had received his intelligence from one
the scullions.]

To heal, as far as I was possible, the wounds inflicted
by the hand of tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task of
Pertinax. The innocent victims, who yet survived, were recalled from
exile, released from prison, and restored to the full possession of
their honors and fortunes. The unburied bodies of murdered senators (for
the cruelty of Commodus endeavored to extend itself beyond death)
were deposited in the sepulchres of their ancestors; their memory
was justified and every consolation was bestowed on their ruined and
afflicted families. Among these