These two great names open the history of the period in which the liberty finally gives way to the servitude of Rome. It is so, not merely because the counsels of Mæcenas and Agrippa enabled Cæsar to conciliate the different classes of his subjects, but chiefly because the principal of these classes are singularly represented in the chosen servants of their common sovereign. The only powers which seemed to find an opportunity for development in the present universal prostration were partly those inherent in the Romans as lovers of war or dominion, and partly those to which they now inclined as lovers of luxury. Without enumerating the common people or the still inferior orders by whom the empire was inhabited, there appear to have been two divisions amongst the more eminent Romans; one being that of the military or the political, the other that of the literary or the luxurious individuals, to whom any thing like note or genius yet belonged.

Vipsanius Agrippa, already mentioned as the able general through whose exertions Pompey was driven from Sicily and Antony routed at Actium, is described, not only as the energetic soldier, but also as the active magistrate, ornamenting the city, amusing the citizens, and turning his popularity and his liberality to his own advantage, at the same time that he never neglected the service of his sovereign. Caius Cilnius Mæcenas, of higher birth, but content to re

6 Hor., Carm., I. 1; Sat., I. 6. 3. Propert., Eleg., III. 9. He believed, or pretended to believe,

himself sprung from the Lucumos of Etruria.

main amongst the Knights, early devoted himself to Cæsar, and was early trusted in return. He served in the negotiations with Antony, in the commissions from Cæsar's camps to the city, and was finally employed to govern Italy in his master's absence.10 But when the season of conflict and peril passed, Mæcenas gave up his life, rather than his leisure, to the luxurious delights which he much preferred to any lofty but toilsome dignities. He was the votary of wealth, indulgence, and intellectual culture, in blending which he escaped from the deeper sensualities of his times, without rising to any high spirituality, of which, however, the contemporary poems and histories were also totally devoid. A song, such as could then be written or comprehended, touched his fancy, if it had no power to reach his soul; and the breeze that breathed through his gardens on the Esquiline was a joy, though fresh to the senses alone of the lordly voluptuary. His learning and his luxury, nevertheless, allowed him to be humane; and it was to the compassion of Mæcenas that Cæsar listened, when he turned a deaf ear to his own natural barbarity.

Mæcenas and Agrippa were together charged with the government of Rome after the battle at Actium; ' and their authority had not yet, perhaps, been resumed by Cæsar when he asked them whether he had better lay down his power or retain it in defiance of the superannuated liberties of his country. Agrippa,

7" Mæcenatis erunt vera tropa fides." Propert., Eleg., III. 9. 34. 8 App., Bell. Civ., V. 64, 92.

9 Ibid., 99, 112.

10 Dion Cass., XLIX. 16. Tac., Ann., VI. 11.

11 Dion Cass., LI. 3.

ambitious and energetic, exhorted him to restore the Commonwealth; while Mæcenas, indolent and voluptuous, pleaded for the establishment rather than the abandonment of a single sovereignty.12 There can be no doubt that Cæsar would have kept possession of his supremacy, although both his counsellors had united in imploring him to relinquish it; and it is equally certain, that, in following the advice which Mæcenas is reported to have given, he obeyed the Will that had humbled his generation to inactivity and servitude.

of

The imperial authority rose, like an exhalation, from the rent and bleeding soil of Rome. It seemed, however, to wear so many shapes before the eyes those who watched its ascension, as to task the whole political vocabulary of its subjects that it might be rightly named. The title of Emperor, conferred upon Cæsar the year of his return,13 was shortly followed by that of Father of his Country 14 and the yet more venerable 15 appellation of Augustus, or the August, by which he was afterwards addressed, as if the epithet distinguished him sufficiently from common men. Other titles were successively added, as though the power of the Emperor were running too freely for

12 See the long discourses, undoubtedly founded upon some that were actually delivered to Cæsar, in the fifty-second book of Dion Cassius.

13 Dion Cass., LII. 41. See Dion's account of the imperial power in LIII. 17, 18-22. 14 Suet., Aug., 58.

15 The more noble name of Augustus." Becker, Gallus, p. 16. "Sanctius et reverentius visum est nomen Augusti, ut scilicet jam tum dum colit terras, ipso nomine et titulo consecraretur." Last words in Florus. See Ovid., Fast., I. 590, 599.

its first moulds; and the offices of Perpetual Proconsul, Perpetual Tribune, Perpetual Consul, and Chief Pontiff 16 were hurriedly added to those already bestowed. The desire to invest the imperial majesty with the ancient badges of the Commonwealth was rather that of Augustus himself than that of the hasty multitude. He remembered his uncle's fate, provoked, as it may have seemed, by a wish to be called king; and sooner than risk his authority and his life, Augustus would have sunk every name, even that of Cæsar, which he bore, in the simple title of a Roman on whom his too easy countrymen had thrown the burden of their cares. Five separate times," therefore, he chose to enact the part of wishing to resign his toils and dignities; but so winning was his assumed humility that the power he would never really have laid down dilated to vaster proportions, and more, apparently, to the delight of the subjects than of the sovereign. The administration of the Emperor, at once so crafty and so timid, extended over the Senate as its Prince,18 over the assemblies as their Tribune or presiding magistrate,19 over the revenues,20 the elections," the laws,22 the legions,23 and

16 Dion Cass., LIII. 28, LIV. 10, 27. Suet., Aug., 58. Note

19.

17 Dion Cass., LIII. 11, 16, etc. The hypocrisy of the edict quoted by Suet., Aug., 28, is yet more striking.

18 Dion Cass., LIII. 1.

19 Ibid., 21, 32. Suet., Aug., 27. Tac., Ann., I. 9, III. 56.

20 See Gibbon, Decline and Fall, Ch. VI.

21 Dion Cass., LIII. 21, LV. 34. Suet., Aug., 56.

22 Suet., Aug., 27, 34.

23 Numbering 450,000 men. Ibid., 26. Dion Cass., LV. 23, 24. Niebuhr's Lectures on Rom. Hist., LIV. The number of citizens, A. C. 29, was 4,164,000.

the provinces; 24 and, finally, over himself, on his being formally exempted from all the laws, both new and old.25 To the immediate service and protection of an authority so accumulated and a person so sacred a body-guard of Prætorian Cohorts, so called, was chosen from the flower of the army.26 It was as the corner-stone of the whole huge fabric of the Empire, thus deeply and thus silently founded.

To aid, but not to control, the Emperor in his vast authority, a certain number of counsellors were, at first semiannually and then annually, selected from the Senate.27 This body, which Augustus, acting as Censor, with Agrippa for a colleague, had reduced in numbers, and subjected to some new methods of appointment,28 was more than ever submissive. But he accepted the privilege of consulting it at any time and under any form; 29 and in return, he preserved the aspect and the deference which were grateful, though they might not be due, to the successors of those who had resisted Hannibal and for a moment supported Cicero. So successfully was this tone preserved on the part of the Emperor, that there were

24 Divided, indeed, between the Emperor and the Senate, but his power extended over all. Dion Cass., LIII. 12, 13, 32. See Gibbon again, Ch. I.

25 Dion Cass., LIII. 28, LIV. 10. See Heinecc., Antiq. Rom. Jur., pp. 78 et seq.

26 Suet., Aug., 49. Tac., Ann., IV. 5. Dion Cass., LIII. 11, LV.

27 Dion Cass., LIII. 21, LVI. 28. The adopted sons, and the step-son, Tiberius, of the Emperor were afterwards added to these counsellors.. 28 Suet., Aug., 35. Dion Cass., LII. 42, LIV. 13, 14, 17, 26, 35, LV. 13.

34.

29 Dion Cass., LIII. 28. Cf. LV.