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THE TITLES OF

[CH. III being revered by the senate and the people in his human cha racter, and wisely left to his successor the care of his public deification. A regular custom was introduced, that on the decease of every emperor who had neither lived nor died like a tyrant, the senate by a solemn decree should place him in the number of the gods; and the ceremonies of his apotheosis were blended with those of his funeral. This legal, and, as it should seem, injudicious profanation, so abhorrent to our stricter principles, was received with a very faint murmur,* by the easy nature of polytheism; but it was received as an institution, not of religion, but of policy. We should disgrace the virtues of the Antonines, by comparing them with the vices of Hercules or Jupiter. Even the characters of Cæsar or Augustus were far superior to to those of the popular deities. But it was the misfortune of the former to live in an enlightened age, and their actions were too faithfully recorded to admit of such a mixture of fable and mystery, as the devotion of the vulgar requires. As soon as their divinity was established by law, it sunk into oblivion, without contributing either to their own fame, or to the dignity of succeeding princes.†

retreat of his Sabine cottage; and he proved the sincerity of all that he professed, by rejecting the lucrative post of private secretary, offered to him by Augustus. These are not the characteristics of a courtier. ED.] * See Cicero in Philippic. 1, 6. Julian in Cæsaribus. Inque Deum templis jurabit Roma per umbras, is the indignant expression of Lucan; but it is a patriotic, rather than a devout, indignation.

+ [This is much too vague. The successors of Alexander were not the first deified sovereigns. Many early Egyptian kings and queens were adored as gods. The Greek Olympus was peopled by divinities translated from earthly thrones. Romulus himself had received the honours of an apotheosis, long before Alexander and his successors. (Livy, lib. i. c. 16.) The homage paid to Roman provincial governors by raising temples and altars to them, must not be confounded with the apotheosis of the emperors. It was a reverential tribute offered by grateful men to the virtues of their benefactors, not a religious worship, for it had neither priests nor sacrifices. Augustus was severely blamed, for having allowed divine honours to be paid to him in the provinces. (Tac. Ann. 1, 10.) He would not have incurred such consure had he not done more than had been done by the governors. The apotheosis of deceased emperors was, at least, as often a parade of pride as a device of policy. It was not reserved for good rulers alone; some tyrants also shared it. But the former, as for instance the Antonines, were even more devoutly worshipped than the old gods themselves. As Gibbon was so dissatisfied with Van Dale, he might have consulted

In the consideration of the imperial government, we have frequently mentioned the artful founder, under his wellknown title of Augustus, which was not, however, conferred upon him till the edifice was almost completed. The obscure name of Octavianus he derived from a mean family in the ittle town of Aricia.* It was stained with the blood of the proscription; and he was desirous, had it been possible, to erase all memory of his former life. The illustrious surname of Cæsar he had assumed, as the adopted son of the dictator; but he had too much good sense either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared, with that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to dignity their minister with a new appellation; and after a serious discussion, that of Augustus was chosen, among several others, as being the most expressive of the character of peace and sanctity, which he uniformly affected.† Augustus was therefore a personal,-Cæsar, a family distinction. The former should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was be

the far better work of Schöpflin, De Consecratione Imperatorum Romanorum. (See his Commentationes historicæ et critica. Basle, 4to. 1741, p. 1-84.) Both learning and taste are there combined in his treatment of the subject.-WENCK.] [Had not the eastern practice of deification its earliest form in avatars, by which celestial beings were brought down to assume or inhabit mortal forms, or stamp an image of themselves" on a divine progeny? This may be traced from very ancient times to later periods, and in many religions.-ED.] [Octavian (simply C. Octavius, before his adoption by Cæsar, then C. Julius Cæsar Octavianus after it) was not of a mean family," but of one holding equestrian rank. His father, C. Octavius, was a man of large property, had been prætor, governor of Macedonia, had been saluted by the title of "Imperator," and was on the eve of the consulship when he died. The mother of Octavius was Attia, daughter of M. Attius Balbus, who had also served the office of prætor. M. Antony reproached Octavius with having been born at Aricia, which however was a municipal town of some extent, and Cicero's triumphant reply (Philip. 3, c. 6) showed that it was no disgrace to be a native there.— WENCK.] [Gibbon, by the term "mean family," meant on the paternal side, where the descent of Octavius has never been traced higher than his father. All his nobility was derived from his mother, who was the daughter of Julia, the sister of Julius Cæsar. This was the tie that connected him with the Julian race, and probably raised his father to the distinctions pointed out by M. Wenck. The flattery of Virgil found a progenitor for the Attii, in Atys, one of the youthful companions of Ascanius,-"genus unde Atii duxere Latini," (n. 5, 568,) but he could' invent no ancestor for the Octavii.-ED.] Dion Cassius, L 53,

F710, with the curious annotations of Reimar.

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[CH. III, stowed; and however the latter was diffused by adoption and female alliance, Nero was the last prince who could allego any hereditary claim to the honours of the Julian line. But, at the time of his death, the practice of a century had inseparably connected those appellations with the imperial dignity, and they have been preserved by a long succession of emperors, Romans, Greeks, Frauks, and Germans, from the fall of the republic to the present time. A distinction. was, however, soon introduced. The sacred title of Augustus was always reserved for the monarch, whilst the name of Cæsar was more freely communicated to his relations; and, from the reign of Hadrian at least, was appropriated to the second person in the state, who was considered as the presumptive heir of the empire.*

The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he had destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant. A cool head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted him, at the age of nineteen, to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which he never afterwards 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. When he framed the

[The princes who by birth or adoption belonged to the family, took the name of Cæsar. After the death of Nero this name first designated the imperial dignity itself, and afterwards the destined successor. The period, when it was first used in the latter signification, is by no means certain. Bach (Hist. Jurisp. Rom. p. 304) affirms, on the authority of Tacitus (Hist. 1, 15) and Suetonius (Galba, 17), that Piso Licinianus received the title of Cæsar from Galba, and that this was the origin of its use; but these historians merely say, that Piso was adopted by Galba, as his successor, and make no mention of the name of Cæsar, which appears to have been unknown to them as a title. Aurelius Victor (in Traj. p. 348, ed. Arntzen) says, that Hadrian first received it at the time of his adoption; but as that event itself is doubtful, and as it is very improbable, if it did take place, that Trajan would have invented, on his death-bed, a new title for him who was to succeed him, it is most likely that Elius Verus, when adopted by Hadrian, was the first to whom it was given. (Spartian, in Elio Vero, c. 1 and 2.)-WENCK.] + As Octavianus advanced to the banquet of the Cæsars, his colour changed like that of the cameleon; pale at first, then red, afterwards black; he at last assumed the mild livery of Venus and the Graces. (Cæsara, p. 309.) This image, employed by Julian, in his ingenious

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 honour 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, 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 reassume its long-forgotten rights. When the throne was vacant by the murder of Caligula, the consuls convoked that assembly in the Capitol, condemned the memory of the Cæsars, gave the watchword 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

* Two

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. centuries after the establishment of monarchy, the Emperor Marcus Antoninus recommends the character of Brutus as a perfect model of Roman virtue,

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OBEDIENCE OF THE ARMIES.

CH. IIL

prætorian guards had resolved. The stupid Claudius, brotner of Germanicus, was already in their camp, invested with the imperial purple, and prepared to support his election by 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.*

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 fondest 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 between the emperor and the army, boldly claimed their allegiance, as the first magistrate of the republic.+

During a long period of two hundred and twenty years, from the establishment 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

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. +Augustus restored the ancient severity of discipline. After the civil wars, he dropped the endearing 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. Anrai. 1.)