Graham, Alexander: Roman Africa: an outline of the history of the Roman occupation of North Africa ; based chiefly upon inscriptions and monumental remains in that country (London [u.a.], 1902)

222 Roman Africa

barbarian to the end of his career, and whose motto was Nisi
crudelitate imperium non teneri, was productive of infinite harm,
and contributed more to promote the decline of the Empire
than the infamous conduct of Caracalla and Heliogabalus.
Like so many of their predecessors, Maximinus and his son
became the victims of the same men who had raised them to
power. The dagger of the soldier said the last word, and, after
a short interval of a few weeks, the statues raised in honour of
these two Augusti were overthrown and the names of both
father and son held in contempt. Their record in North Africa
is a blank ; for, with the exception of the milliary stones above
referred to, there are no inscriptions indicating one single act of
munificence or thought for the welfare of the vast population
of this great colony. No words can better express the growth
of decay at this period of the Roman Empire than the following
paragraph penned by our great historian.1 ' In the decline of
Empire, A.D. 200-250, the form was still the same, but the
animating vigour and health were fled. The industry of the
people was discouraged and exhausted by a long period of
oppression. The discipline of the legions, which alone, after
the extinction of every other virtue, had propped the greatness
of the State, was corrupted by the ambition, or relaxed by
the weakness, of the Emperors. The strength of the frontiers,
which had always consisted in arms rather than in fortifications,
was insensibly undermined ; and the fairest provinces were left
exposed to the rapaciousness or ambition of the barbarians,
who soon discovered the decline of the Roman Empire.'

There are few names more intimately associated with the
history of Roman Africa than those of the three Gordian
Emperors, whose figures pass too rapidly across the stage at
this period ; and there is no one in the long roll of Emperors
whose actions were so repulsive to the citizens of Rome and the
provinces as those of the savage Maximinus. With a rabble
army he was spreading devastation everywhere in his course,
and seemed to be on the point of assured success when the
legions of Africa declared against him. At that time the pro-
consul of Africa was a noble Roman of distinguished family, a
man of high attainments and commanding universal respect.
It was during the reign of Septimius Severus that the Senate

1 Gibbon, vol. i. p. 329.