صفحة 166 من 310

And this being an ancient custom, it cannot be called a new

principality, because there are none of those difficulties in it

that are met with in new ones; for although the prince is new,

the constitution of the state is old, and it is framed so as to

receive him as if he were its hereditary lord.

But returning to the subject of our discourse, I say that whoever

will consider it will acknowledge that either hatred or contempt

has been fatal to the above-named emperors, and it will be

recognized also how it happened that, a number of them acting in

one way and a number in another, only one in each way came to a

happy end and the rest to unhappy ones. Because it would have

been useless and dangerous for Pertinax and Alexander, being new

princes, to imitate Marcus, who was heir to the principality; and

likewise it would have been utterly destructive to Caracalla,

Commodus, and Maximinus to have imitated Severus, they not having

sufficient valour to enable them to tread in his footsteps.