gal, 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 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.

In the consideration of the imperial government, we have frequently mentioned the artful founder under his wellknown title of Augustus, which was not, however,

Titles of Augustus and Cæsar.

conferred upon him till the edifice was almost com

pleted. The obscure name of Octavianus he derived from a mean family in the little 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 goodsense either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared, with that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to dignify their minister with a new appellation; and after a very 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.25 a.

24 See Cicero in Philippic. i. 6. Julian in Cæsaribus. Inque Deûm templis jurabit Roma per umbras, is the indignant expression of Lucan; but it is a patriotic rather than a devout indignation.

25 Dion Cassius, 1. liii. [c. 16] p. 710, with the curious Annotations of Reimar.

a This title expressed something more. It recognized him as a being of a divine nature, and, on this account, entitled to the passive obedience of his subjects. Hence Dion says (liii. 16), Αὔγουστος, ὡς καὶ πλεῖόν τι ἢ κατὰ ἀνθρώπOVÇ ŵv, ÉπEKλýŋ; and Vegetius (ii. 5) expresses still more clearly the full im

Augustus was therefore a personal, Caesar a family distinction. The former should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was bestowed; and however the latter was diffused by adoption and female alliance, Nero was the last prince who could allege any hereditary claim to the honors 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, Franks, 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.a

Character

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 tyand policy of rant. A cool head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowAugustus. ardly 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

port of the words "Nam imperatori, cum Augusti nomen accepit, tanquam præsenti et corporali deo fidelis est præstanda devotio et impendendus pervigil famulatus."-S.

The princes who by their birth or their adoption belonged to the family of the Cæsars, took the name of Cæsar. After the death of Nero this name designated the imperial dignity itself, and, afterwards, the appointed successor. The time at which it was employed in the latter sense cannot be fixed with certainty. Bach (Hist. Jurisprud. Rom. 304) affirms from Tacitus, H. i. 15, and Suetonius, Galba 17, that Galba conferred on Piso Licinianus the title of Cæsar, and from that time the term had this meaning: but these two historians simply say that he appointed Piso his successor, and do not mention the word Cæsar. Aurelius Victor (in Traj. [§ 11] p. 348, ed. Artzen) says that Hadrian first received this title on his adoption; but as the adoption of Hadrian is still doubtful, and, besides this, as Trajan on his death-bed was not likely to have created a new title for his successor, it is more probable that Elius Verus was the first who was called Cæsar, when adopted by Hadrian. Spart. in Elio Vero. [c. 1].—W.

was at first the enemy, and at last the father, of the Roman world." 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 honors on his adherents; but the most

Image of liberty for the people.

favored 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 by even 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.

26 As Octavianus advanced to the banquet of the Cæsars, his color 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 honor to philosophy and to Octavianus.

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

In a very ingenious essay Gibbon has ventured to call in question the preeminent virtue of Brutus. Misc. Works, iv. 95.-M.

Attempt of the senate after the death of Caligula.

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 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 bene fit of an amnesty, which Claudius had the prudence to offer, and the generosity to observe."

Image of government for the armies.

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 clamors; 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 rigor of discipline by the sanction of law; and, interposing the majesty of the senate between the

28 It is much to be regretted that we have lost the part of Tacitus which treat. ed of that transaction. We are forced to content ourselves with the popular ru mors of Josephus, and the imperfect hints of Dion and Suetonius.

emperor and the army, boldly claimed their allegiance as the first magistrate of the republic."

Their obedience.

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 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." The legions respected their oath of fidelity; and it requires a minute inspection of the Roman annals to dis

29 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. Annal. i. [c. 25]).

30 These words seem to have been the constitutional language. See Tacit. Annal. xiii. 4.b

a Caligula perished by a conspiracy formed by the officers of the Prætorian troops, and Domitian would not, perhaps, have been assassinated without the participation of the two chiefs of that guard in his death.-W.

Claudius was obliged

This panegyric on the soldiery is rather too liberal. to purchase their consent to his coronation: the presents which he made, and those which the prætorians received on other occasions, considerably embarrassed the finances. Moreover, this formidable guard favored, in general, the cruelties of the tyrants. The distant revolts were more frequent than Gibbon thinks: already, under Tiberius, the legions of Germany would have seditiously constrained Germanicus to assume the imperial purple. On the revolt of Claudius Civilis, under Vespasian, the legions of Gaul murdered their general, and offered their assistance to the Gauls, who were in insurrection. Julius Sabinus made himself be proclaimed emperor, etc. The wars, the merit, and the severe discipline of Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines, established, for some time, a greater degree of subordination.-W.