ment of these hopes twenty-five years later in the reign of Caligula? In the following year, Augustus, now in his seventy-fifth year, accepted the imperium for a fifth decennial period. At the same time Tiberius was finally assured of the succession by the renewal of his tribunitian power, with a share of the emperor's proconsular authority in the provinces. Augustus now withdrew almost entirely from public life, and even excused himself from the entertainments of the Senators and Knights, his assiduous presence at which had indicated his desire to maintain social equality. All state affairs were discussed in private with his councillors, whose number was raised from fifteen to twenty; and the Senate, at which his attendance altogether ceased, was only asked to confirm those measures which were likely to be unpopular. It seemed as if the astute policy of the emperor were using the changes, for which he could plead the infirmities of age, as the means of preparing a more despotic power for his successor. one object of his public life, next to his own aggrandizement,—the peace and security of the empire,-he doubtless thought would be best promoted by such a course; but his keen insight into the morose determination of Tiberius is said to have drawn from him the reflection "Alas for my people! to be ground between jaws that move so slowly and relentlessly!" To the very last, it was thought that he might give a share of the succession to Germanicus or Agrippa Postumus, and the affection which he was said to have exhibited on the occasion of a visit to his banished grandson roused the jealousy of Livia, and sealed Agrippa's fate. The Augustus was one of those men whose rare fortune it is to have a plan of life which they are able to carry out consistently to the end. With the same calm resolution with which the youth of nineteen had set out from Illyria to avenge his adoptive father's murder and to claim his inheritance, the old man of threescore and sixteen prepared to close his long career of dominion over the world. His last public act was to hold a census of the empire, the third since his accession to power, which showed him to be the master of 4,197,000 Roman citizens. The time that still remained to him was occupied in compiling a record of his whole career of fifty-eight years, which was engraved on bronze tablets and laid up in the Roman archives. Copies appear to have been set up after his death in various cities of the empire; and the document has been preserved for us by such a copy, engraved on marble, in parallel columns, in the porch of a temple of Augustus A.D. 14.] THE MONUMENT OF ANCYRA. 355 and Rome at Ancyra (now Angora), in Galatia.* "Commencing with his nineteenth year, it bears witness to his filial piety in doing justice on his father's murderers; it touches lightly upon the proscriptions, and vaunts the unanimity of all good citizens in his favour, when 500,000 Romans arrayed themselves under the banner of the triumvir. It records his assignment of lands to the veterans, and the triumphs and ovations decreed him by the Senate. It signalizes his prudence in civil affairs, in revising the Senate, in multiplying the Patricians, and in three times holding a lustrum of the people. It enumerates the magistracies and priesthoods conferred upon him, and boasts of his thrice closing the temple of Janus. His liberality is commemorated in his various largesses both of corn and money, and the vast contributions he made from his private treasures to relieve the burdens of his subjects. His magnificence is made to appear in the temples and public structures he built or caused to be built; in his halls. and forums, his colonnades and aqueducts; nor less in the glorious spectacles he exhibited, and the multitude of beasts he hunted in the amphitheatre. The patriotism of Octavian shone conspicuous in his overthrow of the pirate Sextus, with his crew of fugitive slaves. Italy, it is added, swore allegiance to him of her own accord, and every province in succession followed her example. Under his auspices the empire had reached the Elbe, a Roman fleet had navigated the Northern Ocean, the Pannonians and Illyrians had been reduced, the Cimbric Chersonese had sought his friendship and alliance. No nation had been attacked by him without provocation. He had added Egypt to the dominions of Rome; Armenia, with dignified moderation, he had refrained from adding. He had planted Roman colonies in every province. Finally, he had received back from the Parthians the captured standards of Crassus. For all these merits, and others more particularly enumerated, he had been honoured with the laurel wreath and the civil crown; he had received from the Senate the title of AUGUSTUS, and had been hailed by popular acclamation as the FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY.-Such are the most interesting From the place of its discovery, it is known as the Monumentum Ancyranum; but some fragments of a Greek copy have also been found at Apollonia in Pisidia. Its title is "Rerum gestarum divi Augusti exemplar subjectum ;' and it is composed in the first person, beginning, "Annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato consilio et privata impensa comparavi." It is not uninteresting to compare the style and contents of the document with the "Behistun Inscription" containing the record, also in the first person, of the acts of the second founder of the Persian Empire. (See Vol. I. p. 298.) statements of this extraordinary document; but to judge of the marvellous sobriety and dignity of its tone, the suppressed anticipation of immortal glory which it discovers, the reader must refer to the work itself. Certainly, whatever we may think of the merits of Augustus, no deed of his life became him so well as the preparation he made for quitting it."* The still unsettled state of the Rhenish and Danubian frontiers shared the latest thoughts of Augustus with this retrospect of his life. Germanicus had already returned to his command upon the Rhine; and Tiberius set out for Illyricum, where there was disaffection among the legions, as well as danger from the barbarians. It was the middle of summer, the season when the emperor usually left Rome for Campania, and he accompanied Tiberius as far as Beneventum. The journey had, however, been broken in consequence of an attack of dysentery, which Augustus had contracted through exposure to the night air at Astura; and on his arrival at Nola in Campania, he was seized with a fatal relapse. Messengers were instantly sent after Tiberius, who had already set sail from Brundisium, and it is uncertain whether he found the emperor still alive, or whether Livia kept the event secret till her son's arrival. With a full consciousness of his approaching end, the last concern of Augustus was to know whether it caused any popular excitement. He then collected himself to meet death with the self-possession which had governed all his life. He asked for a mirror, and saw that his grey hair and beard were so arranged as to give decent composure to his faded features. Then, looking round upon his friends, he uttered his farewell to the world in the words with which the actors were wont to claim applause for a well-played drama just before the curtain fell. He asked them if he had played his part well in the comedy of life, and added a quotation from the epilogue of a Greek play : : "If all is well, withhold not your applause, But all with cheerful pleasure clap your hands." After an enquiry concerning a sick grandchild of Tiberius, he fell back into the arms of Livia, and spent his last breath in words of affection for the wife, who had played her part in the comedy so well, that the Romans believed her capable of hastening her husband's end to ensure the succession of her son. The ancient biographer of the Cæsars tells us that whenever Augustus heard * Merivale, Vol. iv. pp. 374-5. A.D. 14.] DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. 357 that a man had had a swift and painless death, he prayed for himself and his friends the like euthanasia; and in this too he followed the opinion of Julius, that the best death is that which is least expected. "He obtained"-the modern historian observes -"the euthanasia he had always desired, very different, but not less in harmony with his character, from that of his predecessor." It would be a profanation of the noblest instincts of our nature and of the pure teaching of a self-denying faith, to compare the calmness of such an end with the deaths of a Cato or a Washington. It sufficed for him and for those who believe that the Cæsars are the true Messiahs. But morality refuses to be debarred from investigating the authority by which they set themselves above their fellow-men, and history tries their work, not by its immediate success, but by its permanent results, results which now remain to be described in the dark annals of the emperors who succeeded to the power of Augustus over the world, without inheriting his ability to command themselves. The judgment to be passed upon his deeds is perfectly distinct from the acknowledgment of those great ends of which he was the unconscious minister; and the despots who claim to be honoured as if such ends were their merit, may be answered in the words of the prophet to Cyrus, which solve the whole mystery of their career-"I guided thee, though thou hast not known Me." Augustus died on the 19th of August, A.D. 14, within thirtyfive days of his seventy-seventh birthday (Sept. 23), after a reign of nearly forty-four years from the battle of Actium, or fifty-six from the triumvirate. - CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DEGENERACY OF THE CÆSARS; AND THE FLAVIAN DYNASTY. A.D. 14 TO A.D. 96. "Rome shall perish-write that word Perish, hopeless and abhorred, Deep in ruin as in guilt."-CowPER. TACITUS AND THE HISTORY OF THE CÆSARS-ACCESSION, CHARACTER, AND FIRST ACTS OF CESSION OF CAIUS CESAR (CALIGULA)— THE space of fourscore years from the accession of Tiberius to the fall of Domitian includes the accomplishment of the mission of the Saviour of the world, and the end of the Jewish dispensation by the destruction of Jerusalem. In all other aspects, it is one of the most repulsive in the annals of the human race. A few brilliant deeds of arms, and a few noble characters-like Germanicus, Drusus, and Agricola-relieve the story of the degradation of the Roman world under rulers in whom the monstrous growth of vice and cruelty engendered by irresponsible power culminates in an insanity which might excite our pity, did it not aggravate the sufferings of the people: "Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi." There is a curiosity of horror, for which the repulsive biogra |