Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

310 THE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH.generals who during the reign of Gallienus assumethe purple in various provinces, are all slain.During eighty-two years Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus,and Marcus, all at a mature time of life,adopted by the actual ruler to succeed, had governeda stable empire : but now it passes withina shorter period of time, the term of a single humanlife, nay a term in one case embraced by a singlereign,2 into twenty-five different hands. And indeedit seemed after the capture of the EmperorValerian by the Persians, as if that great confederacy,which had just celebrated the thousandthanniversary of the imperial city's foundation, wasabout to break up and be resolved into its componentparts. At one moment two great princesses,Victoria and Zenobia, worthy even by theavowal of Romans to wear the Roman diadem,were on the point of establishing the one an empireof the Gauls in the West, the other an empireof the East embracing just those countries whichAntony had ruled with Cleopatra at his side. Asuccession of great generals, all from the provinceof Illyricum, at last saves the empire and reassertsits unity. But the forty-nine years following themurder of Alexander Severus are filled by thestruggles of twenty sovereigns and nineteen pretendersto sovereignty, scarcely any of whom reignso much as five years. Many of them are rulersof great"ability and remarkable energy. Claudius,2 The reign of Louis XIV.