352 ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE 



mass of people ruled by a chief who was more than a 

 king, save for that title and the absence of a settled 

 hereditary succession. As the city of Rome had thus 

 gradually waned and lost all real sovereignty, so the 

 power of the emperors had waxed and become estab- 

 lished. 



Alexander Severus was compelled to wage war with 

 the Persians, who (in the year 226) revolted, and under 

 their first king, Artaxerxes, occupied the territory of the 

 Parthian kingdom. 



Maximin, by his tyranny having excited universal 

 hatred, was declared a public enemy by the Senate, which 

 named two illustrious Romans, the Gordians (father and 

 son), as emperors only to lose their lives in little more 

 than a month. Then Maximus and Balbinus were de- 

 clared joint emperors, and Maximus, in the ensuing con- 

 test, was murdered with his son at Aquileia (238 A.D.), 

 as were also his successful opponents in the same year. 

 A third Gordian was then made emperor, but was assas- 

 sinated and succeeded by Philip, an Arab raised to 

 power by the soldiery, in the year 244. He celebrated 

 with magnificence public games, and also the thousandth 

 year of Rome's existence. He was defeated in a struggle 

 with Decius who had been a senator, and became 

 emperor 249 A.D. 



Then the Goths (a people who, migrating from further 

 north, occupied Dacia and crossing the Danube invaded 

 the empire) descended into Illyria ; when Decius, after 

 successfully combating them, was drowned, 251 A.D. 

 His successor, Gallus, was slain after a military revolt 

 (in the year 253), and was succeeded by Valerian, who, in 

 about his sixtieth year, was elected by the unanimous 

 voice of the Roman world. He was a man of noble birth, 

 learned, and of mild and unblemished manners, but who 



