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II.

CHA P. Tiberius and Claudius fuppreffed the dangerous power of the Druids"; but the priests themselves, their gods and their altars, fubfifted in peaceful obfcurity till the final destruction of Paganism

At Rome.

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Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was inceffantly filled with fubjects and ftrangers from every part of the world 13, who all introduced and enjoyed the favourite fuperftitions of their native country14. Every city in the empire was justified in maintaining the purity of its ancient ceremonies; and, the Roman senate using the common privilege, fometimes interpofed to check this inundation of foreign rites. The Egyptian fuperftition, of all the most contemptible and abject, was frequently prohibited; the temples of Serapis and Ifis demolished, and their worshippers banished from Rome and Italy1. But the zeal of fanaticifm prevailed over the cold and feeble efforts of policy. The exiles returned, the profelytes multiplied, the temples were restored with increasing splendor, and Ifis

"Sueton. in Claud.-Plin. Hift. Nat. xxx. I.

12 Pelloutier Hiftoire des Celtes, tom. vi. p. 230-252.
13 Seneca Confolat. ad Helviam, p. 74. Edit. Lipf.
14 Dionyfius Halicarn. Antiquitat. Roman. l.ii.

15 In the year of Rome 701, the temple of Ifis and Serapis was demolished by the order of the Senate (Dion Caffius, 1. xl. p. 252.), and even by the hands of the conful (Valerius Maximus, 1. 3.). After the death of Cæfar, it was reftored at the public expence (Dion. I. xlvii. p. 501.). When Augustus was in Egypt, he revered the majesty of Serapis (Dion, 1. li. p. 647.); but in the Pomarium of Rome, and a mile round it, he prohibited the worship of the Egyptian gods (Dion, 1. liii. p. 679. l. liv. p. 735.). They remained, however, very fashionable under his reign (Ovid. de Art. Amand. l. 1.) and that of his fucceffor, till the juftice of Tiberius was provoked to fome acts of severity. (See Tacit. Annal. ii. 85. Joseph. Antiquit. 1. xviii. c. 3.)

and

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and Serapis at length affumed their place among CHA P. the Roman deities". Nor was this indulgence a departure from the old maxims of government. In the pureft ages of the commonwealth, Cybele and Æfculapius had been invited by folemn embaffies"; and it was cuftomary to tempt the protectors of befieged cities, by the promise of more diftinguished honours than they poffeffed in their native country Rome gradually be

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came the common temple of her fubjects; and the freedom of the city was bestowed on all the gods of mankind ".

II. The narrow policy of preferving, without Freedom any foreign mixture, the pure blood of the an- of Rome. cient citizens, had checked the fortune, and

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haftened the ruin of Athens and Sparta. The afpiring genius of Rome facrificed vanity to ambition, and deemed it more prudent, as well as honourable, to adopt virtue and merit for her own wherefoever they were found, among flaves or ftrangers, enemies or barbarians 20. During the most flourishing æra of the Athenian commonwealth, the number of citizens gradually decreased from about thirty" to twenty-one

16 Tertullian in Apologetic. c. 6. p. 74. Edit. Havercamp. I am

inclined to attribute their establishment to the devotion of the Flavian family.

17 See Livy, 1. xi. and xxix.

18 Macrob. Saturnalia, 1. iii. c. 9. He gives us a form of evo

cation.

19 Minutius Fælix in Octavio, p.54. Arnobius, 1. vi. p. 115.

20 Tacit. Annal. xi. 24. The Orbis Romanus of the learned Spanheim is a complete history of the progreffive admiffion of Latium, Italy, and the provinces, to the freedom of Rome.

"Herodotus, v. 97. It fhould feem, however, that he followed a large and popular estimation.

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thou

CHA P. thousand". If, on the contrary, we study the

II.

growth of the Roman republic, we may dif cover, that, notwithstanding the inceffant demands of wars and colonies, the citizens, who, in the first cenfus of Servius Tullius, amounted to no more than eighty-three thousand, were multiplied, before the commencement of the focial war, to the number of four hundred and fixty-three thoufand men, able to bear arms in the fervice of their country 23. When the allies of Rome claimed an equal fhare of honours and privileges, the fenate indeed preferred the chance of arms to an ignominious conceffion. The Samnites and the Lucanians paid the fevere penalty of their rashness; but the reft of the Italian ftates, as they fucceffively returned to their duty, were admitted into the bofom of the republic 24, and foon contributed to the ruin of public freedom. Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of fovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards loft, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude. But when the popular affemblies had been fuppreffed by the adminif tration of the emperors, the conquerors were distinguished from the vanquished nations, only as the first and most honourable order of fubjects; and their increase, however rapid, was no longer expofed to the fame dangers. Yet

22 Athenæus, Deipnosophist, l. vi, p. 272. Edit. Cafaubon. Meurfius de Fortunâ Atticâ, c. 4.

23 See a very accurate collection of the numbers of each Luftrum in M. de Beaufort, Republique Romaine, l.iv. c. 4.

24

Appian. de Bell. Civil. 1. i. Velleius Paterculus. l.ii. c. 15, 16, 17.

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the wifeft princes, who adopted the maxims of c H A P. Auguftus, guarded with the ftrictest care the dignity of the Roman name, and diffused the freedom of the city with a prudent liberality 25.

Till the privileges of Romans had been pro- Italy. greffively extended to all the inhabitants of the empire, an important diftinction was preserved between Italy and the provinces. The former was esteemed the centre of public unity, and the firm basis of the conftitution. Italy claimed the birth, or at least the refidence, of the emperors and the fenate 26. The eftates of the Italians were exempt from taxes, their perfons from the arbitrary jurifdiction of governors. Their municipal corporations, formed after the perfect model of the capital, were intrusted under the immediate eye of the fupreme power, with the execution of the laws. From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, all the natives of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial diftinctions were obliterated, and they infenfibly coalefced into one great nation, united by language, manners, and civil inftitutions, and equal to the weight of a powerful empire. The republic gloried in her generous policy, and was frequently rewarded by the merit and fervices of

25 Mæcenas had advised him to declare, by one edict, all his subjects citizens. But we may justly suspect that the historian Dion was the author of a counfel, fo much adapted to the practice of his own age, and fo little to that of Auguftus.

26 The fenators were obliged to have one-third of their own landed property in Italy. See Plin. 1. vi. ep. 19. The qualification was reduced by Marcus to one-fourth. Since the reign of Trajan, Italy had funk nearer to the level of the provinces.

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II.

CHA P. her adopted fons. Had fhe always confined the diftinction of Romans to the ancient families within the walls of the city, that immortal name would have been deprived of fome of its nobleft ornaments. Virgil was a native of Mantua; Horace was inclined to doubt whether he should call himself an Apulian or a Lucanian: it was in Padua that an hiftorian was found worthy to record the majeftic feries of Roman victories. The patriot family of the Catos emerged from Tufculum; and the little town of Arpinum claimed the double honour of producing Marius and Cicero, the former of whom deferved, after Romulus and Camillus, to be ftyled the Third Founder of Rome; and the latter, after faving his country from the defigns of Catiline, enabled her to contend with Athens for the palm of eloquence 2.

The provinces.

The provinces of the empire (as they have been defcribed in the preceding chapter) were deftitute of any public force, or constitutional freedom. In Etruria, in Greece2, and in Gaul, it was the first care of the fenate to diffolve thofe dangerous confederacies, which taught mankind, that as the Roman arms prevailed by divifion,

27 The first part of the Verona Illuftrata of the Marquis Maffei, gives the clearest and most comprehenfive view of the state of Italy under the Cæfars.

28 See Paufanias, 1. vii. The Romans condefcended to restore the names of thofe affemblies, when they could no longer be dan gerous.

29 They are frequently mentioned by Cæfar. The Abbé Dubos attempts, with very little fuccefs, to prove that the affemblies of Gaul were continued under the emperors. Hiftoire de l'Etabliffement de la Monarchie Françoise, l.i. c.4.

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