Perennis, he declared, had been a slave of the vilest origin
and had won his freedom and the favor of the Palace authorities and of the
Emperor not by merit but by rank favoritism. He maintained that Perennis,
as Prefect of the Palace, had gained such an ascendancy over Commodus that
besides his proper duties as guardian of the Emperor's personal safety,
surely a charge sufficiently heavy to burden any one man and sufficiently
honorable to satisfy any reasonable man, his master had been enticed into
entrusting to Perennis the management of the entire Empire, so that he
alone controlled promotions in and appointments to the navy, army and
treasury services. In this capacity, as sole minister and representative
of the sovereign, Perennis had enriched himself by taking bribes from all
from whom he could extort bribes. By his venality he had gone far towards
ruining the navy and army, which were by now more than half officered by
hopeless incompetents who had bought their appointments. As a result the
legionaries garrisoning the lines along the Euphrates, the Carpathians,
the Danube, the Rhine and the Wall, since they were badly led, had
suffered undeserved mishandling from the barbarians attacking them; and
even the garrisons of mountain districts like Armenia, Pisidia, and
Lusitania had been mauled by the bands of outlaws.
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