ctor in Epitom. Victor
Junior in Caesar. Eutrop. ix ll. Euseb. in Chron.]

The pestilence which swept away such numbers of the barbarians, at
length proved fatal to their conqueror. After a short but glorious
reign of two years, Claudius expired at Sirmium, amidst the tears and
acclamations of his subjects. In his last illness, he convened the
principal officers of the state and army, and in their presence
recommended Aurelian, [14] one of his generals, as the most deserving of
the throne, and the best qualified to execute the great design which he
himself had been permitted only to undertake. The virtues of Claudius,
his valor, affability, justice, and temperance, his love of fame and of
his country, place him in that short list of emperors who added lustre
to the Roman purple. Those virtues, however, were celebrated with
peculiar zeal and complacency by the courtly writers of the age of
Constantine, who was the great grandson of Crispus, the elder brother
of Claudius. The voice of flattery was soon taught to repeat, that gods,
who so hastily had snatched Claudius from the earth, rewarded his merit
and piety by the perpetual establishment of the empire in his family.
[15]

[Footnote 14: According to Zonaras, (l. xii. p. 638,) Claudius,
before his death, invested him with the purple; but this singular fact
is rather contradicted than confirmed by other writers.]

[Footnote 15: See the Life of Claudius by Pollio, and the Orations of
Mamertinus, Eumenius, and Julian. See likewise the Caesars of Julian
p. 318. In Julian it was not adulation, but superstition and vanity.]

Notwithstanding these oracles, the greatness of the Flavian family (a
name which it had pleased them to assume) was deferred above twenty
years, and the elevation of Claudius occasioned the immediate ruin
of his brother Quintilius, who possessed not sufficient moderation or
courage to descend into the private station to which the patriotism
of the late emperor had condemned him. Without delay or reflection, he
assumed the purple at Aquileia, where he commanded a considerable force;
and though his reign lasted only seventeen days, [151] he had time to
obtain the sanction of the senate, and to experience a mutiny of the
troops.

As soon as he was informed that the great army of the Danube had
invested the well-known valor of Aurelian with Imperial power, he sunk
under the fame and merit of his rival; and ordering his veins to be
opened, prudently with