'acquired uncommon skill in the art of forgery, delivered the indolent emperor, with his own consent, from the irksome duty of signing his name. = When the emperor Carus undertook the Per as well as policy, to secure the fortunes of his family, by leaving in the hands of his eldest son the armies and provinces of the VVesl. The in telligence which he soon receivedof the conduct of Carinus, filled him with shame and regret; nor had he concealed his resolution of satisfying the republic by a severe act of justice, and of .adopting, in the place of an unworthy son, the brave and virtuous Constantius, who at that time was governor of Dalmatia. But the elevation of Constantius was for a while deferred ; and as soon as the father's death had released Carinus from the controul of fear or decency, he displayed 'to the Romans the extravagancies of Elagabalus, aggravatcd by the cruelty of Domitian '1. The only merit of the administration of Carinus that history could record or poetry celebrate, was the uncommon splendour with which, in his own and his brother's name, he enhibited the Roman games of the theatre, the circus, and the amphitheatre. More than twenty years afterwards, when the courtiers of Diocletian repre-sisented to their frugal sovereign the fame and po 84- See Calphurnius, Eclog, vii. 43. We may observe, that the spectacles of Probus were (till recent, and that the poet is scconded by the histcrian. 85 The philosopher Montaigne (Essais, l.iii.6.) gives a very just and lively view os Roman magnificence in these spectaclcs. H 3. thousand thousand fallow deer, and a thousand wild boars ; and all this variety of game was abandoned to theriotous impetuofity of the'multitude. The tragedy of the succeeding day confisted in the massacre of an hundred lions, an equal number of lionesses, two hundred leopards, and three hundred bears 36. The collection prepared by the younger Gordian for his triumph, and which his successor exhibited in the secular games, was less remarkable by the number than by the singularity of the animals. Twenty zebras displayed their elegant forms and variegated beauty to the eyes of the Roman people 87. Ten elks, and as many camelopards, the loftiest and most harmless creatures that' wander over the plains of Sarmatia and jEthiopia, were contrasted with thirty Asrican hyaenas, and ten Indian tygers, the most implacable savages of ' the torrid zone. The unoffending strength with which Nature has endowed the greater quadrupeds, was admired in the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus of the Nilega, andssa majestic troop of thirty-two elephants59. 'While the populace gazed with stupid wonder on |