Delation  thinned  the  ranks  of  the  Senate,  white  confiscation
enriched  the  treasury.  Justice  was  commonly  bought  and  sold.
The  ministers,  Perennis,  prsetorian  prefect,  and  after  him  Cle-
ander,  a  freedman,  were  suffered  to  enrich  themselves  by  every
nefarious  art,  and  then  successively  sacrificed,  A.D.  186  to  189.
Passing  his  time  in  guilty  pleasures  and  in  the  diversions  of  the


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436  RAWLINSON

amphitheatre,  wherein  "  the  Roman  Hercules  "  exhibited  him-
self as  a  marksman  and  a  gladiator,  Commodus  cared  not  how
the  empire  was  ^vemed,  so  long  as  he  could  amuse  hitnseU  as
he  pleased,  and  remove  by  his  warrants  all  whom  he  suspected
or  feared.  At  length,  some  of  those  whom  he  had  proscribed
and  was  about  to  sacrifice — Marcia,  one  of  his  concubines,  Ec-
lectus,  his  chamberlain,  and  Lxtus,  prefect  of  the  praetorians —
learning  his  intention,  anticipated  their  fate  by  strangling  him
in  his  bedroom.  Commodus  was  murdered,  A.D.  192,  after  he
had  reigned  twelve  years  and  nine  months.
