John informs us, that "authority was given to Death and Hades to kill by wild beasts upon the fourth of the earth." In commenting upon this, Mr. Elliott says: "There is just one of the destroying agencies mentioned in the vision that is passed over without notice by the historian -- that of the wild beasts of the earth." This idea of Mr. Elliott’s is quite a mistaken one; and he is led into the assumption by supposing that the theria which we agree to render wild beasts, or beasts of prey, are quadrupeds and reptiles. He enters into an argument to show, that these creatures must have been extensively employed in the service of Death and Hades, as one of the plagues with which the land was then afflicted, because one Arnobius about A.D. 296, says: "Men complain, there are now sent us from the gods pestilence, drouths, wars, scarcities, locusts, hail and other things noxious to man; but, was it not so in ancient times also?" Again: "If every species of corn be now devoured by locusts, or if floods destroy the human race, was it not so before? Were there not wars with wild beasts, and battles with lions, and destruction from venomous snakes, before our time?" The christians, who were able to "see" the fourth seal while being fulfilled, were, no doubt, arguing that the calamities of the times were sent upon the pagan world by the displeasure of "the Lamb;" which caused Arnobius to rebut the idea with the above argument, beyond which our contemporaries have not advanced. There may have been trouble with beasts of this kind in parts of the empire. But, I am satisfied that they were wild beasts of a different sort sent "to kill upon a fourth of the earth."

Paul in Titus i. 12, styles the Cretans kaka theria, evil wild beasts. They had all the characteristics of men without understanding in divine things, who, the Spirit testifies, are "as the beasts that perish." Apocalyptically, this term is used emblematically for the wild savage men who should invade the empire, and carry death and destruction into the central "fourth of the earth" itself. Instead of Gibbon passing over the plague of wild beasts unnoticed, the tenth chapter of his history is a remarkable illustration of the fulfilment of this specification of the seal. We learn from him, that the "wild beasts of the earth" were the Franks, the Alemanni, the Goths, and the Persians; comprehending adventurers of less considerable tribes, whose obscure and uncouth names would only serve to oppress the memory and perplex the attention of the reader.

Illustrative of this part of the seal, we learn from this historian that from the celebration of the secular games by Philip in A.D. 248, to the death of Gallienus, A.D. 268, there elapsed twenty years of shame and misfortune. During that calamitous period, every instant of time was marked, every province of the Roman earth was afflicted by barbarous invaders and military tyrants, the "wild beasts of the earth;" and the ruined empire seemed to approach the last and fatal moment of its dissolution. Gibbon had no understanding of this seal, and all his sympathies were with the adversaries of the christians. He cannot therefore be suspected of giving a prophetic coloring to the history of these twenty years. He speaks of the empire as ruined, and death-stricken, and of being in the article of death -- the last and fatal moment of dissolution. Let the empire, then, be represented by a horse, with what color should we paint him; and what kind of a rider should be placed upon him; and by what name should he be called; in order to represent on canvas the state of the dominion as history reveals it? The only answer is, that no hieroglyphic would be so appropriate as that given to John a hundred and fifty years before in the imagery of the fourth seal.

In the fifth year of his reign, retribution fell upon the head of Philip for the murder of the third Gordian. A senator named Decius, whom he had sent to quell a military insurrection in Maesia, was saluted Augustus by the insurgents; upon this he marched them into "the fourth of the earth," and there met Philip in battle near Verona, under the inspiration of "Death and Hades who followed with him." Philip went down into Hades there, by sword or dagger; while in Rome his son and associate was hurried after him by the sanguinary praetorians.

A few months after these events, the Emperor Decius was summoned to the Danubian frontier to repel an invasion of wild beasts, rude and warlike barbarians, known in history as the Goths. This is the first considerable occasion in which history mentions that great people, who afterwards broke the Roman power, sacked the capital, and reigned in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. They migrated from Sweden into Prussia, and thence to the Ukraine. From this region they poured through Dacia, now Hungary, and appeared at length under the walls of Marcianopolis, the capital of the second Maesia, now called Bulgaria. A large sum of money ransomed the city; but they soon returned with increased numbers, and scattered devastation over the country. They took Philippopolis, a city of Thrace, by storm; and 100,000 persons were massacred in the sack of that great city. Thus, Death and Hades killed by wild beasts on this first meeting between the Romans and the Goths. Not long after this slaughter, Decius encountered the barbarians in a terrible battle; it was the conflict of despair against grief and rage. The fortune of the day was adverse to the Romans. Their army was irrecoverably lost, and Decius was slain in the overthrow, A.D. 251. He was succeeded by Gallus, and Hostilianus, his only surviving son.

The policy of Gallus was to get these wild beasts out of "the earth" into their native dens at any sacrifice. He consented to leave in their hands the rich fruits of their invasion, an immense booty, and a great number of prisoners of the highest merit and quality. He plentifully supplied their camp with every convenience that could assuage their angry spirits, or facilitate their departure; and even promised to pay them annually a large sum of gold, on condition that they should never afterwards infest the Roman "earth" with their incursions.

This ignominious treaty, although it gave the Romans peace for a year, did not secure their repose. The dangerous secret of the wealth and weakness of the empire had been revealed to the world. New swarms of "wild beasts," encouraged by the success of their brethren, invaded "the earth," and spread desolation through the Illyrian provinces, and, passing into "the fourth of the earth," carried terror to the gates of Rome. The defence of the monarchy, which seemed abandoned by the emperor, was assumed by Aemilianus, governor of Pannonia and Moesia. He attacked them unexpectedly, chased the "wild beasts" beyond the Danube, and distributed the money for the tribute among the soldiers, who forthwith proclaimed him emperor. Gallus hearing of this, advanced to meet him in battle on the plains of Spoleto, about seventy-five miles from Rome. The assassination here of Gallus and his son interrupted briefly the work of Death and Hades killing on the fourth of the earth with sword; these were, however, hewing down the people with a raging pestilence, according to history and the seal, by which Hostilianus had been swept into Hades. The Senate gave a legal sanction to the triumph of Aemilianus over Gallus, and were blindly assured by the victor that he would, in a short time, deliver the Roman Horse from Death and Hades, who were killing and devastating by the wild beasts of the north and east. Of course, he did not give the assurance in these words; but what he said was in substance the same. "Hercules the Victor, and Mars the Avenger," as he is styled in medals struck in honor of him, did not, however, execute his purpose. Death and Hades did not grant him time to fulfil his splendid promises; for less than four months intervened between his victory and his assassination. Valerian at the head of the legions of Gaul and Germany arrived in "the fourth of the earth," with the resolve to avenge the murder of Gallus, by sending Aemilianus and his adherents down into Hades to be devoured with her myriads of worms. The issue was tried by the sword on the plains of Spoleto, and decided against Aemilianus. The fortune of war had spared him. Death and Hades, however, would not be cheated of their prey; and the usual course of the praetorians added him by the assassin’s dagger to the long, but still unfinished, list of victims sacrificed to their avarice and rage.

Valerian was now recognized as emperor; and consulting only his affection or vanity, he immediately associated with him in office his worthless son Gallienus. The whole period of their reigns was one interrupted series of confusion and calamity. This was in strict conformity with the imagery of the seal. The Roman empire was at the same time, and on every side, attacked by the blind fury of foreign invaders, the "wild beasts of the earth," and the wild ambition of domestic usurpers, Death and Hades’ "sword." The Franks broke in upon "the earth." Their rapid devastations spread from the Rhine to the foot of the Pyrenees. Spain was unable to resist. During twelve years it was the arena of destructive hostilities. Taragona was sacked and almost destroyed; and as late as the fifth century, wretched cottages, scattered amidst the ruins of magnificent cities, still recorded the ferocity of these wild beasts from what is now Hesse, Brunswick, and Lunenburgh. From Spain they transported themselves into the Mauritanian province of "the fourth of the earth." The fury of these "wild beasts of the earth" astonished these Roman Africans, who regarded them, from their name, manners, and complexion, as a destroying storm from a world unknown.

But Death and Hades had work for their wild beasts to do "upon the fourth of the earth" nearer to the seat of empire. The Alemanni burst into Gaul, upon the rich provinces of which they inflicted severe wounds, and afterwards were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of them crossed the Danube, and penetrated through the Rhaetian Alps into the plains of Lombardy, as far as Ravenna, and displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome. Valerian being in the East, and Gallienus on the Rhine, the hopes and resources of the Romans were in themselves. In the emergency the Senate became courageous, and prepared to meet the foe, who found it prudent to retire, to save the spoil with which they were incumbered. But, under the reigns of these emperors the frontier of the Danube was perpetually infested by the inroads of German and Sarmatian "wild beasts." The Goths renewed their incursions, which were diverted into a new channel. They acquired ships, by which they were enabled to ravage the coasts of Asia Minor. They took Trebizond, and put the inhabitants to the sword. The booty they acquired was immense, and the number of captures incredible. The rich spoils of Trebizond filled a large fleet of ships found in that port. The robust youth of the Black Sea-coast they chained to the oar; and satisfied with the success of their first naval expedition, returned to their new establishments in the kingdom of the Bosphorus.

In their second expedition, they captured Chalcedon, well stored with arms and money; and then proceeded to the plunder of the luxurious and wealthy cities of Bithynia, of which they gave Nice, and Nicomedia to the flames.

In their third naval expedition they made their appearance among the numerous islands of the Aegean Sea, and at length anchored in the Piraeus, five miles distant from Athens, which they sacked. A general conflagration blazed out at the same time in every district of Greece; and the temple of Diana at Ephesus, was finally burned by the Goths. It would be interesting to us to know something of the affairs of Christ’s ecclesia there while these wild beasts of the fourth seal were doing the work of Death and Hades in their midst. It would give them no pain to see this "wonder of the world" in flames. They might regret its destruction as a work of art; but, as a stronghold of superstition, in which Jupiter’s image that fell from heaven, was enthroned, and revered by all Asia and the world, its destruction would afford them much satisfaction. It had been seven times destroyed before, but from this last catastrophe it never recovered; for he that was destined "to conquer" was still "conquering," and consummating the work begun by Paul, who persuaded and turned away much people, not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, saying, that they be no gods which are made with hands (Acts xix. 26). To them, as to us of the household of faith, the destruction of the temple of Diana, and those other temples of St. Peter’s at Rome, and St. Paul’s at London, not from an architectural, but from a scriptural standpoint, would be a glorious earnest of the approaching downfall of the several superstitions they represent. Ephesus was once famous for the bright lamp burning with oil of the spirit in her midst but Nikolaitanism, as an extinguisher, put out the light, and she became dark as the heathen catholicism, fashionable episcopalianism, gloomy presbyterianism, shallow congregationalism, and fanatical methodism, and so forth, of our day: therefore Death and Hades had authority to kill and destroy with wild beasts of the earth; these began their work with wild devastation, and all that remains of Ephesus in our time is a few families of Turks, and a Mohammedan mosque.

While the wild beasts of the north were slaying and plundering the heathens of the Roman earth, a wild beast of the east, by Daniel styled a Bear with three ribs in its mouth, spread devastation and terror on either side of the Euphrates. The Persians, under Sapor their king, had crossed that river in great force. Valerian marched against them, was defeated, and captured with his whole army. Sapor then moved against Antioch, the metropolis of the Roman East. Its splendid buildings, private as well as public, were pillaged or destroyed; and its numerous inhabitants were put to the sword, or led away into captivity. The conquest of Syria and Cilicia scarcely interrupted the progress of the ravenous bear. Sapor invaded Cappadocia, and besieged Caesarea, a city of four hundred thousand inhabitants; many thousands of whom were massacred, and those made prisoners treated with wanton and unrelenting cruelty. In the conquest of Armenia, a state beyond the Roman earth, Sapor treated the people mildly; but when, as one of the wild beasts of Death and Hades, he ravined in "the Great City," he displayed only the stern features of a conqueror. He sought only to leave behind him a wasted desert, while he transported into Persia the survivors and the treasures of the provinces.

The captivity of Valerian, A.D. 260, ended only with his death. Being relieved of his paternal colleague’s censorial severity, Gallienus reigned for eight years without restraint. When exasperated, Death and Destruction characterized his rule; till, satiated with blood, or fatigued by resistance, he insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence of his character. Owing to the looseness of his government, a crowd of usurpers started up in every province of the empire against him. These had all been born of peasants and served as soldiers in the ranks, except two. They were Valerian’s lieutenants, who disdained to serve his unworthy son. Of all these nineteen usurpers of imperial power there was not one who enjoyed a life of peace or a natural death. As soon as they were invested with the bloody ensigns of royalty, Death and Hades marked them as theirs. Encompassed with domestic conspiracy, military sedition, and civil war, they trembled on the edge of precipices, over which, sooner or later, they fell, and were inevitably devoured by the cruel and insatiable Hades. Italy, Rome, and the Senate, constantly adhered to the cause of Gallienus. The transitions during this fourth seal-period from the cottage to the throne, and from the throne to the grave, or Hades, were rapid and perpetual. The election of these precarious emperors, their power and their death, were equally destructive to their subjects and adherents. The price of their fatal elevation was instantly paid to their troops, by an immense donative drawn from the bowels of the exhausted people -- the pale horse. When they fell, they involved armies and provinces in their fall. How dreadful and terrible the significance of the saying of this seal, "there was given to Death and Hades authority to kill." Illustrative of this still further, it may be remarked, that there is extant a most savage mandate from Gallienus to one of his ministers after the suppression of Ingenuus, who had assumed the purple in Illyricum. "It is not enough," says he, "that you exterminate such as have appeared in arms: the chance of battle might have served me as effectually. The male sex of every age must be extirpated: provided that, in the execution of the children and old men, you can contrive means to save our reputation. Let every one die who has dropped an expression, who has entertained a thought against me, against me, the son of Valerian, the father and brother of so many princes. Remember that Ingenuus was made emperor: tear, kill, hew in pieces. I write to you with my own hand, and would inspire you with my own feelings."

Such were the "wild beasts" and such the "sword" which, in the period of the fourth seal, dismembered the provinces, and reduced the heathen dominion of Rome to the lowest pitch of disgrace and ruin, from which it seemed impossible that it should ever emerge. There still remain some particular facts which may serve to reflect a strong light on the horrid picture of this seal.

The situation of Sicily preserved it from the "wild beasts of the earth," whose dens were beyond the limit of "the Great City." The sufferings of that once flourishing and still fertile island were inflicted by baser savages within its own limits. A licentious crowd of slaves and peasants reigned for a while over the plundered country and renewed the memory of servile wars of more ancient times. The agriculture of Sicily was ruined; and as the principal estates belonged to the opulent senators of Rome, who often enclosed within a farm the territory of an old republic, this private injury probably affected the capital more deeply than all the conquests of the Goths or the Persians.

After the captivity of Valerian and the insolence of Gallienus had relaxed the authority of the laws, the Alexandrians abandoned themselves to the ungoverned rage of their passions. Philosophical Christianity had done no more for them than it has for Russians or Poles, or for Americans of the North and South. They made their unhappy country the theatre of civil war which continued (with a few short and suspicious truces) above twelve years. This was a commercial city of about six hundred thousand inhabitants on "the fourth of the earth," as well as Sicily. All intercourse between the several quarters of this afflicted city was cut off, every street was polluted with blood, every building of strength was converted into a citadel; nor did the tumult subside till a considerable part of Alexandria was irretrievably ruined, and reduced to a state of dreary solitude.