Ann. Dom. 81, &c. affections of all people, that he was generally styled, "the love and delight of man- A. M. 4085, kind." His notion was, that "no man ought to depart sorrowful from the presence of &c. or 5492. a prince;" and therefore he never sent any away with an unpleasing answer: And so strong a propensity had he to do good, that being told one night by those about him, that he had done nothing for any person that day, with a sorrowful countenance he replied, “ O my friends, I have lost a day!" A sentence worthy of an emperor, and fit tọ be retained in the memory of all princes. 66 His first step towards gaining the hearts of his subjects, and his happy government of the empire, was his moderating his passions, and bridling his strong inclinations, particularly by withdrawing himself from the beautiful Berenice, and sending her away, notwithstanding their mutual loves; and by dismissing several persons who had formerly been the chief instruments of his pleasures, rightly judging them unbecoming the dignity and majesty of his present office. After this he proceeded, with a better grace and authority, in the great affairs of the state, and particularly in regulating and reforming several mischiefs which had not been perfectly removed in his father's reign. All informers, promoters, and petty-foggers, the bane of society and the pests of the city, he took care to exterminate, by causing some to be sold for slaves, and others to be transported to uninhabited islands; and to put a farther stop to the corruptions and tediousness of law-suits, he prohibited, among other things, that the same case should be tried by several laws, or that the estate of any dead person should be claimed after such a precise number of years. The same activity in repairing ancient buildings, and erecting new ones; the same freedom of conversation, magnificence of living, generosity to friends, clemency to enemies, encouragement to men of learning, and courtesy to all, that his father had shewn, Titus was not forgetful to imitate; so that if ever a people may be said to be happy under any prince, the Romans were certainly so under him: And yet in his short reign, there happened some misfortunes and calamities, no less astonishing than deplorable, viz. a most dreadful eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which, being accompanied with violent earthquakes, ruined many cities, and even threw its ashes into distant countries, and to Rome in such quantities, that the sun was darkened for many days together; in the year following, a prodigious fire in Rome, which lasted three days and nights incessantly, consumed the capitol, the pantheon, and several other temples, the library of Augustus, and many more noble buildings; and this followed by a dangerous pestilence, supposed to be occasioned by the ashes of Mount Vesuvius, in which there commonly died ten thousand every day. In all which miseries, Titus behaved himself not only with the care and regard of a prince, but also with the tenderness and compassion of a father. But heaven had determined that so good an emperor should not long bless sa corrupt an age, and a people so flagitious as the Romans were then become; for, after a lingering illness, he died in the 41st year of his age, and the third of his reign, not without suspicion of poison from his brother Domitian; and as soon as his death was known, a general grief and sadness appeared in all the city, which, in a short time, spread itself * Of his great clemency we have these remarkable instances,-Two of the Patrician degree, being convicted of treason for aspiring to the empire, he inflicted no punishment upon them, but only privately admonished them to desist, mildly telling them, that the empire was given by Providence, and that it was in vain for them to commit a villany in hopes of obtain ing it. The same night he entertained them at supper, and, the next day at a spectacle of gladiators, placed them by himself, and when the combatants wea pons, according to custom, were presented to him, he publicly desired their judgment and approbation.- A. M. 4086, over every province, to the utmost bounds of the empire, and made him in all parts be &c. or 5492. lamented, as though the world had been deprived of a perpetual protector. Ann. Dom. 82. &c. The great respect which all had for Titus and his father, caused his brother Domitian to succeed him in the empire without any opposition, notwithstanding the ill opinion which many had justly conceived of him. In the beginning of his reign, however, he behaved with great moderation, concealed his vicious inclinations, and did several commendable things to gain the good will and affections of the people. So far was he from shewing any tendency to cruelty and bloodshed, that he was determined, by a public edict, to forbid the sacrificing of oxen; and so far from any signs of avarice or parsi. mony, that he acted very generously upon all occasions, and made it the chief topic of his advice to those that were about him, to avoid rapine and sordidness. In rebuilding several stately and noble fabrics which had been destroyed by the fire in his brother's reign; in exhibiting a sea-fight on a vast lake dug for that purpose, and by great numbers of ships, almost amounting to complete fleets; in celebrating the great games and feasts called Secular, of all others the most magnificent, as happening but once in a hundred years; in representing all those shows and spectacles that had ever been known in Rome, besides many more that were newly invented; in the many sumptuous banquets and entertainments that he made, the large donatives which he distributed, and the valuable things which he threw among the common people by way of missilia; in these, and such like things as he knew would captivate the esteem of the vulgar, he was as expensive and ambitious as any of his predecessors: Nor was he defective in some other things, which justly deserve the commendations of all men. He was diligent for a while in the administration of justice, and would many times sit himself in an extraordinary manner in the courts of judicature. He severely punished all such judges and counsellors as were corrupt and acted for bribes; and in this regard kept so watchful an eye upon the city magistrates and governors of provinces, that there was never known more equity and modesty among the great officers than in his reign. He suppressed such libels and defamatory writings as any ways reflected upon persons of quality of either sex ; but then he expected that persons of quality should comport themselves according to their character, and for this reason, turned a senator out of the house, purely for his immoderate delight in buffoonery and dancing, judging that those things were below the dignity of that venerable order. From such women of distinction as were scandalous in their lives, he took away the privilege of litters, and their capacities of legacies and inheritance; and struck a Roman knight out of the list of the judges, for receiving his wife after she had been repudiated for adultery. The castration of children he utterly prohibited, and moderated the prices of eunuchs; but the whoredoms of the vestal virgins he punished without mercy. Such as were convicted but once, suffered death as ordinary malefactors; but others were buried alive, according to the ancient custom, and their associate male criminals scourged to death. These, and the like memorable acts of justice, have been highly applauded by many; but in most of them he used such pride and elation, and shewed himself so excessively vain-glorious, as gave almost evident tokens of his future enormities. After the many conquests which his great general Agricola obtained for him over *This Agricola, having first conquered Galgacus, the great commander of the Britons, went as far as the Orcades, and subdued them. He was the first who discovered Britain to be an island, and in the fourth year of Domitian reduced it into an entire and civilized province: Of all which he wrote a plain account to the emperor, without any amplifying ternis: But as the emperor was uneasy to see his own glory eclipsed by a private person, his letters were received with a show of great joy, but in reality * with no small concern. In a short time after this Domitian recalled him from Britain, under pretence of giving him the lieutenancy of Syria; but when Agricola perceived with what coldness he was received, to prevent farther inconvencies he retired from court, and for ever after gave himself up to an unactive course of life, though his death (which hap pened in a few years) was not without suspicion of poison by Domitian's procurement. Echard's Roman History in the Life of Domitian. &c. or 5196. Ann. Dom. 85, &c. the Britons, and the reduction of the Sarmatians, Dacians, and the Catti, a people in A. M. 4089, Germany, for which he vainly assumed the sirname of Germanicus, his pride and impiety, as well as cruelty and brutishness, became insufferable. He not only caused his statues in the capitol to be made of pure gold and silver, to which the people, in great crowds, came to sacrifice continually; but his ambition carried him so far as to assume divine honours: For, as he styled himself the son of Pallas or Minerva, so he decreed that no man should presume to call him, either in writing or discourse, by any other title than that of OUR LORD or OUR GOD. This monstrous arrogancy brought him into all kinds of enormities, and was the fatal fore-runner of many excessive cruelties, whereby he destroyed great numbers of all sorts, without mercy or consideration. Many illustrious senators, who had some of them been consuls, under pretence of practising against the state, he put to death; some of them in their banishments, and all without the privilege of making their defence. Multitudes of others he ordered to be executed upon very slight and trifling occasions; Ælius Lamia, for his making use of jests, though they were old and innocent; Salveus Coceanus, for celebrating the nativity of Otho the emperor; Salustius Lucullus, for suffering a new sort of lances to be called Lucullas, after his own name; and Junius Rusticus, for publishing a writing in commendation of Pætus Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus, two philosophers; upon which occasion he banished all the philosophers and mathematicians out of Rome and Italy; and, among these, the celebrated stoic Epictetus. The cruelty of these proceedings, and some personal affronts received from Domitian, made Lucius Antonius, governor of the Upper Germany, raise a dangerous rebellion in those parts, and, being commander of a numerous army, usurp the title of emperor. The success of this insurrection remained a long while doubtful, and became daily more formidable to Domitian, who had so much lost the love of his people, till at length his general Normandus dexterously surprised Antonius, just when a sudden overflowing of the Rhine had stopped the arrival of his German auxiliaries, and destroyed both him and his army. After this victory and success Domitian's cruelty increased, shewing no kind of mercy to those who had been of the adverse party. Nay, that he might thoroughly revenge himself, and discover all their accomplices, he invented new kinds of tortures, and, in this particular, exceeded Nero himself, that whereas Nero was satisfied in commanding executions to be done at a distance, he took pleasure in beholding his cruelties exercised before his eyes, which at length indeed became his only diversion. It can scarce be thought that a prince, who, in some respects, surpassed even Nero himself in his vices and cruelties, should in the least come behind him in his hatred of the church of God; and therefore we need less wonder, that in the fourteenth year of his reign we find him raising the second general persecution of the Christians, in which, by his letters and bloody edicts, he caused the death and banishment of infinite numbers, both in Rome and other places; in which (among other eminent Christians) St John, after his miraculous escape out of the cauldron of flaming oil, was banished to the island Patmos; Antipas was put to death at Pergamus; Timothy at Ephesus; and Dionysius the Areopagite at Athens: in which he not only destroyed the heads of the church, but proceeded to the execution of his own relations, insomuch, that he put to death his cousin-german Flavius Clemens, in the very year that he was consul; banished the consul's wife, Domitilla, to Pandataria, and a niece of the same name to Pontia, for no other crime but their embracing Christianity. By these cruel and bloody practices Domitian became odious to the greatest part of his subjects, and exceeding terrible to the * senate and nobility, insomuch, that * One evening, having made a kind and solemn invitation of the greatest part of the senate to a pu blic entertainment, at the entrance of his palace he Ann. Dom. 96, &c. A, M 4100, some of the chief of them, merely for the preservation of their own lives, were forced &c. or 5407. into designs against his. For when his wife Domitia, in searching into his black table-book, which he kept purposely for cruel and bloody designs, found her own name there, with many of the chief officers of his household; to them she shewed the book, thereby to excite them to concert measures for his dispatch. A conspiracy was accordingly formed, in which the principals were Parthenius his chamberlain, and Stephanus his steward, who, for several days, wore a dagger wrapt up in wool in his left arm, pretending an accidental hurt in that place. As therefore the emperor was going to his bath, Parthenius, pretending that there was in his chamber a person who had a matter to impart to him, of too great importance to be safely deferred, drew him aside thither, where Stephanus, under pretence of discovering a conspiracy to him, presented him with a list of several names; which while the emperor was reading with horror and astonishment, he struck the dagger into his groin; but before he could give him a second wound, the emperor closed with him, and with great violence threw him to the ground, where, while they were struggling together, Parthenius, Maximus, Clodianus, and other conspirators, who were of his own household, came furiously upon him, and in the forty-fifth year of his age, and fifteenth of his reign, with several wounds dispatched him. Upon the death of Domitian the Roman senate, after some small consultation, made choice of Cocceius Nerva to succeed him. He was born in Crete, and was the first emperor who was neither of a Roman nor Italian family; but was, at this time, for his many virtues, experience, and age, a person of the greatest reputation and esteem in Rome. At his accession to the empire, he took care to rescind the odious acts and decrees of his predecessor. He recalled the Christians, who from Rome and other cities were banished in the late reign, and permitted them a free exercise of their religion. He shewed the same kindness and humanity to all others who had been unjustly treated by his predecessor, and restored whatever of their goods could be found about the imperial palaces. He released and discharged all the cities of the empire from the severe taxes and impositions which Vespasian and Domitian had laid upon them. He made a distribution among all the people of Rome, much larger than any of his predecessors had done. He purchased estates to be divided among decayed citizens, and had the sons of the poorer sort brought up at his own charges: And, above all, he conferred great favours, and bestowed large gifts upon his friends and relations, upon men of learning and liberal sciences, whereof he was a great encourager. Nor was the clemency of this prince any ways inferior to his kindness and liberality. For, at his first accession to the government, he solemnly swore, that “no senator of Rome should, by his command, be put to death;" which oath he so religiously observed, that when two of that order had conspired against his life, he used no kind of severity against them; but first sending for them, "to let them see that he was not ignorant of their traiterous designs," he carried them with him to the public theatre, placed them on each side of him, and presenting each with a sword, told them be niously conducted, and locked up in a spacious hall, waiting, their fears were increased by an entertainment of many naked persons with their bodies all over blackened, who entered the hall with drawn swords in one hand, and flaming torches in the other. The guests, at this dreadful appearance, expected nothing but immediate death; when suddenly the naked persons, after they had danced some time about them, set open the doors, and told them, that "the emperor gave all the company leave to withdraw." Echard's Roman History, in the Life of Domitian. fore all the people, " that they might experience the goodness of the weapons upon his A. M. 4102, body;" for so confident was he of his own innocence, that he often said, "That though he should quit the empire, and return to a private life, he had done nothing that could cause him to fear any man." But notwithstanding all this, he had not sat long upon the throne before the soldiers, who in the late reign had been indulged in all manner of licentiousness, began to be mutinous upon the account of Domitian's murder, resolving to fall upon and destroy all those who had any concern in his assassination: So that the emperor, finding himself insufficient to withstand their fury, and perceiving that his age and infir mities had impaired his authority over them, was resolved to adopt some worthy person for his successor, who should be able both to support him while he lived, and govern the empire after his decease. Though he had many considerable friends and relations of his own, who hoped for this high promotion, yet, like a just and ge nerous prince, he sought only the public good, and wisely made choice of Ulpius Trajanus, an utter stranger to his family, but the greatest and most deserving person of bis age. This determination he accordingly put in execution; and having, with the usual solemnities, adopted him in the capitol, and made him Cæsar in the senate, he immediately sent ambassadors to him at Cologn, (for at that time he was governor of the Lower Germany) with the ensigns and arms of the empire. This proved so great a curb to the licentiousness and mutinies of the soldiers, that from thenceforward they continued in a perfect quietness and obedience. But Nerva lived not long to enjoy the benefit of this happy choice; for about three months after, falling into a violent passion against a senator, named Regulus, he put himself into such disorder, that by reason of the feebleness of his body, and lowness of his spirits, he fell into a fever, which in the sixty-sixth year of his age, and the second of his reign, carried him off. Upon the death of Nerva, Trajan was joyfully received (as emperor) at Rome, both by the senate and people. He was a Spaniard by birth, of an illustrious family, born in a town called Italica, not far from the city of Seville; and being now above two and forty years of age, of a strong body, and vigorous mind, happily tempered between the warmth of youth and the experience of old age, he was in all respects qualified for the greatest attempts and the noblest enterprises. In the beginning of his reign, he was blessed with the hapiness of having the greatest master of his age, that admirable philosopher and biographer, Plutarch, by whose wise instructions, added to his own abilities, he pursued the administration of his government, with that moderation and justice, and that wisdom and magnanimity, as raised both the love and admiration of all men. At his first entering into the senate, he declared publicly," That no good man, by his command, should ever suffer death or disgrace;" which he confirmed by a solemn oath, and inviolably observed it through his whole reign. His first step was, to reform the laws that were defective, and to put in execution those that were good; to take care that equity and justice were strictly and faithfully administered in all cases; to advance the most worthy and virtuous men to the highest posts, and to reclaim such as were otherwise with gentleness and clemency: but as mutiny in an army was a matter of dangerous consequence, the Pætorian cohorts and their commanders, who had raised the sedition against Nerva, he sent for and disbanded without any farther punishment, (as some say) though others affirm that he put several of them to death. The informers, promoters, and petti-foggers, who had done great mischiefs in former reigns, he utterly exterminated; and put down the pantomimes, farce-players, and buffoons, as effeminate diversions, and unbecoming the Roman gravity: but he rebuilt the grand cirque, wherein more manly exercises were performed, much larger and more beautiful than it was before, with an inscription, signifying, "That it was to make it &c. or 5509. Ann. Dom. 98, &c. |
