prompted him, at the age of nineteen, to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which he never a terwards laid aside. With the same hand, and probably with the same temper, he signed the proscription of Cicero, and the pardon of Cinna. His virtues, and even his vices, were artificial; and according to the various dictates of his interest, he was at first the enemy, and at last the father of the Roman world.(1) When he framed the artful system of the Imperial authority, his moderation was inspired by his fears. He wished to deceive the people by an image of civil liberty, and the armies by an image of civil government. I. The death of Cæsar was ever before his eyes. He had lavished wealth and honours on his adherents; but the most favoured friends of his uncle were in the number of the conspirators. The fidelity of the legions might defend his authority against open rebellion; but their vigilance could not secure his person from the dagger of a determined republican; and the Romans, who revered the memory of Brutus,(2) would applaud the imitation of his virtue. Cæsar had provoked his fate, as much by the ostentation of his power, as by his power itself. The consul or the tribune might have reigned in peace. The title of king had armed the Romans against his life. Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured, that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom. A feeble senate and enervated people cheerfully acquiesced in the pleasing illusion, as long as it was supported by the virtue, or even by the prudence, of the successors of Augustus. It was a motive of self-preservation, not a principle of liberty, that animated the conspirators against Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. They attacked the person of the tyrant, without aiming their blow at the authority of the emperor.

There appears, indeed, one memorable occasion, in which the senate, after seventy years of patience, made an ineffectual attempt to re-assume its long forgotten rights. When the throne was vacant by the murder of Caligula, the consuls convoked the assembly in the Capitol, condemned the memory of the Cæsars, gave the watch-word liberty to the few cohorts who faintly adhered to their standard, and during eight and forty hours acted as the independent chiefs of a free commonwealth. But while they deliberated, the Prætorian guards had resolved. The stupid Claudius, brother of Germanicus, was already in their camp, invested with the Imperial purple, and prepared to support his election by arms. The dream of liberty was at an end; and the senate awoke to all the horrors of inevitable servitude. Deserted by the people, and threatened by a military force, that feeble assembly was compelled to ratify the choice of the Prætorians, and to embrace the benefit of an amnesty, which Claudius had the prudence to offer, and the generosity to observe.(3)

II. The insolence of the armies inspired Augustus with fears of a still more alarming nature. The despair of the citizens could only attempt, what the power of the soldiers, was, at any time, able to execute. How precarious was his own authority over men whom he had taught to violate every social duty! He had heard their seditious clamours; he dreaded their calmer moments of reflection. One revolution had been purchased by immense rewards; but a second revolution might double those rewards. The troops professed the strongest attachment to the house of Cæsar; but the attachments of the multitude are capricious and inconstant. Augustus summoned to his aid, whatever remained in those fierce minds, of Roman prejudices; enforced the rigour of discipline by the sanction of law; and interposing the majesty of the senate,

(1) As Octavianus advanced to the banquet of the Caesars, his colour changed like that of the Chameleon; pale at first, then red, afterwards black, he at last assumed the mild livery of Venus and the graces (Cæsars, p. 309). This image employed by Julian, in his ingenious fiction, is just and elegant; but when he considers this change of character as real, and ascribes it to the power of philosophy, he does too much honour to philosophy, and to Octavianus.

(2) Two centuries after the establishment of monarchy, the emperor Marcus Antoninus recommends the character of Brutus as a perfect model of Roman virtue.

(3) It is much to be regretted that we have lost the part of Tacitus, which treated of that transaction. We are forced to content ourselves with the popular rumours of Josephus, and the imperfect hints of Dion and Suetonius.

between the emperor and the army, boldly claimed their allegiance, as the first magistrate of the republic.(1)

During a long period of two hundred and twenty years, from the establish.ment of this artful system to the death of Commodus, the dangers inherent to a military government were, in a great measure, suspended. The soldiers were seldom roused to that fatal sense of their own strength, and of the weakness of the civil authority, which was, before and afterwards, productive of such dreadful calamities. Caligula and Domitian were assassinated in their palace by their own domestics: the convulsions which agitated Rome on the death of the former, were confined to the walls of the city. But Nero involved the whole empire in his ruin. In the space of eighteen months, four princes perished by the sword; and the Roman world was shaken by the fury of the contending armies. Excepting only this short, though violent, eruption of military license, the two centuries from Augustus to Commodus passed away unstained with civil blood, and undisturbed by revolutions. The emperor was elected by the authority of the senate, and the consent of the soldiers.(2) The legions respected their oath of fidelity; and it requires a minute inspection of the Roman annals to discover three inconsiderable rebellions, which were all suppressed in a few months, and without even the hazard of a battle.(3)

In elective monarchies, the vacancy of the throne is a moment big with danger and mischief. The Roman emperors, desirous to spare the legions that interval of suspense, and the temptation of an irregular choice, invested their designed successor with so large a share of present power, as should enable him, after their decease, to assume the remainder, without suffering the empire to perceive the change of masters. Thus Augustus, after all his fairer prospects had been snatched from him by untimely deaths, rested his last hopes on Tiberius, obtained for his adopted son the censorial and tribunitian powers, and dictated a law, by which the future prince was invested with an authority equal to his own, over the provinces and the armies.(4) Thus Vespasian subdued the generous mind of his eldest son. Titus was adored by the eastern legions, which, under his command, had recently achieved the conquest of Judea. His power was dreaded, and, as his virtues were clouded by the intemperance of youth, his designs were suspected. Instead of listening to such unworthy suspicions, the prudent monarch associated Titus to the full powers of the Imperial dignity; and the grateful son ever approved himself the humble and faith ful minister of so indulgent a father.(5)

The good sense of Vespasian engaged him indeed to embrace every mea sure that might confirm his recent and precarious elevation. The military oath, and the fidelity of the troops, had been consecrated, by the habits of a hundred years, to the name and family of the Cæsars; and although that family had been continued only by the fictitious rite of adoption, the Romans still revered, in the person of Nero, the grandson of Germanicus, and the lineal successor of Augustus. It was not without reluctance and remorse, that the Prætorian guards had been persuaded to abandon the cause of the tyrant.(6) The rapid downfal of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, taught the armies to consider the emperors as the creatures of their will, and the instruments of their license. The birth of Vespasian was mean; his grandfather had been a private soldier, his father a petty officer of the revenue ;(7) his own merit had raised him, in an

(1) Augustus restored the ancient severity of discipline. After the civil wars, he dropped the endear. ing name of Fellow-Soldiers, and called them only Soldiers (Sueton. in August, c. 25). See the use Tiberius made of the senate in the mutiny of the Pannonian legions (Tacit Annal. i).

(2) These words seem to have been the constitutional language. See Tacit. Annal. xiii. 4.† (3) The first was Camillus Scribonianus, who took up arms in Dalmatia against Claudius, and was deserted by his own troops in five days. The second, L. Antonius, in Germany, who rebelled against Domitian; and the third, Avidius Cassius, in the reign of M. Antoninus. The two last reigned but a few months, and were cut off by their own adherents. We may observe, that both Camillus and Cassius coloured their ambition with the design of restoring the republic; a task, said Cassius, peculiarly reserved for his name and family.

(4) Velleius Paterculus, 1. il. c. 121. Sueton. in Tiber c. 20.

(5) Sueton. in Tit. c. 6. Plin. in Præfat. Hist. Natur.

(6) This idea is frequently and strongly inculcated by Tacitus. See Hist. I. 5. 16. ii. 76.

The emperor Vespasian, with his usual good sense, laughed at the Genealogists, who deduced his

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

advanced age, to the empire; but his merit was rather useful than shining, and
his virtues were disgraced by a strict and even sordid parsimony. Such a
prince consulted his true interest by the association of a son, whose more splen-
did and amiable character might turn the public attention, from the obscure
origin, to the future glories of the Flavian house. Under the mild administra-
tion of Titus, the Roman world enjoyed a transient felicity, and his beloved
memory served to protect, above fifteen years, the vices of his brother Domitian
Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins of Domitiar
before he discovered that his feeble age was unable to stem the torrent of public:
disorders, which had multiplied under the long tyranny of his predecessor
His mild disposition was respected by the good; but the degenerate Romans
required a more vigorous character, whose justice should strike terror into
the guilty. Though he had several relations, he fixed his choice on a stranger.
He adopted Trajan, then about forty years of age, and who commanded a
powerful army in the Lower Germany; and immediately, by a decree of the
senate, declared him his colleague and successor in the empire.(1) It is sin-
cerely to be lamented, that while we are fatigued with the disgustful relation
of Nero's crimes and follies, we are reduced to collect the actions of Trajan
from the glimmerings of an abridgment, or the doubtful light of a panegyric.
There remains, however, one panegyric far removed beyond the suspicion of
flattery. Above two hundred and fifty years after the death of Trajan, the
senate, in pouring out the customary acclamations on the accession of a new
emperor, wished that he might surpass the felicity of Augustus, and the virtue
of Trajan. (2)

We may readily believe, that the father of his country hesitated whether he ought to intrust the various and doubtful character of his kinsman Hadrian with Sovereign power. In his last moments, the arts of the empress Plotina either fixed the irresolution of Trajan, or boldly supposed a fictitious adoption; (3) the truth of which could not be safely disputed, and Hadrian was peaceably acknowledged as his lawful successor. Under his reign, as has been already mentioned, the empire flourished in peace and prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted military discipline, and visited all his provinces in person. His vast and active genius, was equally suited to the most enlarged views, and the minute details of civil policy. But the ruling passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity. As they prevailed, and as they were attracted by different objects, Hadrian was, by turns, an excellent prince, a ridiculous sophist, and a jealous tyrant. The general tenor of his conduct deserved praise for its equity and moderation. Yet in the first days of his reign he put to death four consular senators, his personal enemies, and men who had been judged worthy of empire; and the tediousness of a painful illness rendered him, at last, peevish and cruel. The senate doubted whether they should pronounce him a god or a tyrant; and the honours decreed to his memory were granted to the prayers of the pious Antoninus.(4)

The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor. After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished merit, whom he esteemed and hated, he adopted Ælius Verus, a gay and voluptuous nobleman, recommended by uncommon beauty to the lover of Antinous.(5) But while Hadrian was delighting himself with his own applause, and the acclamations of the soldiers,

family from Flavius, the founder of Reate (his native country), and one of the companions of Hercules Suet. in Vespasian, c. 12.

(1) Dion, I. Ixvii. p. 1121. Plin. Secund. in panegyric.

(2) Felicior Augusto, melior Trajano. Eutrop. viii. 5,

(3) Dion (1. xix. p. 1249.) affirms the whole to have been a fiction, on the authority of his father, who being governor of the province where Trajan died, had very good opportunities of sifting this mysterious transaction. Yet Dodwell (Prælect. Camden, xvii.) has maintained, that Hadrian was called to the cer tain hope of the empire, during the lifetime of Trajan.

(5) The deification of Antinous, his medals, statues, temples, city, oracles, and constellation, are well known, and still dishonour the memory of Hadrian. Yet we may remark, that of the first fifteen emperors, Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely correct. For the honours of Antinous, see Spanheim, Commentaire sur les Cæsars de Julien. p. 80.

4

whose consent had been secured by an immense donative, the new Cæsar(11 was ravished from his embraces by an untimely death. He left only one son. Hadrian commended the boy to the gratitude of the Antonines. He was adopted by Pius, and, on the accession of Marcus, was invested with an equal share of sovereign power. Among the many vices of this younger Verus, he possessed one virtue; a dutiful reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he willingly abandoned the ruder cares of empire. The philosophic emperor dissembled his follies, lamented his early death, and cast a decent veil over his memory.

As soon as Hadrian's passion was either gratified or disappointed, he resolved to deserve the thanks of posterity, by placing the most exalted merit on the Roman throne. His discerning eye easily discovered a senator about fifty years of age, blameless in all the offices of life, and a youth of about seventeen, whose riper years opened the fair prospect of every virtue: the elder of these was declared the son and successor of Hadrian, on condition, however, that he himself should immediately adopt the younger. The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. Although Pius had two sons,(2) he preferred the welfare of Rome to the interest of his family, gave his daughter Faustina in marriage to young Marcus, obtained from the senate the tribunitian and proconsular powers, and with a noble disdain, or rather ignorance of jealousy, associated him to all the labours of government. Marcus, on the other hand, revered the character of his benefactor, loved him as a parent, obeyed him as his sovereign,(3) and, after he was no more, regulated his own administration by the example and maxims of his predecessor. Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.

Titus Antoninus Pius has been justly denominated a second Numa. The same love of religion, justice, and peace, was the distinguishing characteristic of both princes. But the situation of the latter opened a much larger field for the exercise of those virtues. Numa could only prevent a few neighbouring villages from plundering each other's harvests. Antoninus diffused order and tranquillity over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. In private life, he was an amiable, as well as a good man. The native simplicity of his virtue was a stranger to vanity or affectation. He enjoyed with moderation, the conveniences of his fortune, and the innocent pleasures of society ;(4) and the benevolence of his soul displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.

The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severer and more laborious kind.(5) It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years he embraced the rigid system of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external, as things indifferent.(6) His meditations, composed in the tumult of a camp, are still extant; and he

(1) Hist. August. p. 13. Aurelius Victor in Epitom.

(2) Without the help of medals and inscriptions, we should be ignorant of this fact, so honourable to the memory of Pius.*

(3) During the twenty-three years of Pius's reign, Marcus was only two nights absent from the palace, and even those were at different times. Hist. August. p. 25.

(4) He was fond of the theatre, and not insensible to the charms of the fair sex. Marcus Antoninus, L 16. Hist. August. p. 20, 21. Julian in Cæsar.

(5) The enemies of Marcus charged him with hypocrisy, and with a want of that simplicity which distinguished Pius and even Verus (Hist. August. 6. 34). This suspicion, unjust as it was, may serve to account for the superior applause bestowed upon personal qualifications in preference to the social virtues. Even Marcus Antoninus has been called a hypocrite; but the wildest skepticism never insinuated that Cæsar might possibly be a coward, or Tully a fool. Wit and valour are qualifications more easily ascertained, than humanity, or the love of justice.

(6) Tacitus has characterized, in a few words, the principles of the portico: Doctore, sapientiæ secutus est, qui sola bona quæ honesta, mala tantum quæ turpia; potentiams nobilitatem, cæteraque extra animusy neque bonis neque malis adnumerant. Tacit. Hist. iv. 5.

even condescended to give lessons of philosophy, in a more public manner, than was perhaps consistent with the modesty of a sage, or the dignity of an emperor.(1) But his life was the noblest commentary on the precepts of Zeno. He was severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfection of others, just and beneficent to all mankind. He regretted that Avidius Cassius, who excited a rebellion in Syria, had disappointed him, by a voluntary death, of the pleasure of converting an enemy into a friend; and he justified the sincerity of that sentiment, by moderating the zeal of the senate against the adh rents of the traitor.(2) War he detested, as the disgrace and calamity of human nature ;+ but when the necessity of a just defence called upon him to take up arms, be readily exposed his person to eight winter campaigns, on the frozen banks of the Danube, the severity of which was at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution. His memory was revered by a grateful posterity, and above a century after his death, many persons preserved the image of Marcus Antoninus among those of their household gods.(3)

If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws. Such princes deserved the honour of restoring the republic, had the Romans of their days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom.

The labours of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward that inseparably waited on their success; by the honest pride of virtue, and by the exquisite delight of beholding the general happiness of which they were the authors. A just, but melancholy reflection embittered, however, the noblest of human enjoyments. They must often have recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the character of a single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching, when some licentious youth, or some jealous tyrant, would abuse, to the destruction, that absolute power, which they had exerted for the benefit of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible instrument of oppression; and the corruption of Roman manners would always supply flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers prepared to serve, the fear or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, of their masters.

These gloomy apprehensions had been already justified by the experience of the Romans. The annals of the emperors exhibit a strong and various pic ture of human nature, which we should vainly seek among the mixed and doubtful characters of modern history. In the conduct of those monarchs we may trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted perfection, and the meanest degeneracy of our own species. The golden age of Trajan and the Antonines had been preceded by an age of iron. It is almost superfluous to enumerate the unworthy successors of Augustus. Their unparalleled vices, and the splendid theatre on which they were acted, have saved them from oblivion. The dark unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius,(4) and the timid inhuman Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy.

(1) Before he went on the second expedition against the Germans, he read lectures of philosophy to the Roman people, during three days. He had already done the same in the cities of Greece and Asia. Hist. August. in Cassio, c. 3.

(2) Dion, I. Ixxi. p. 1190. Hist. August. in Avid. Cassio.‡

(3) Hist. August. in Marc. Antonin. c. 18.

(4) Vitellius consumed, in mere eating, at least six millions of our money, in about seven months. It

Is not easy to express his vices with dignity, or even decency. Tacitus fairly calls him a hog; but it is by