and of its degradation by the enfranchisement of numerous slaves, no longer bore a resemblance to the commonalty of the better days of the republic. It was factious and turbulent, and at the same time mean and servile. A body of disciplined troops was therefore always at hand to repress its excesses, and Augustus sought at the same time to keep it in good temper by gifts and entertainments. The greatest care was taken that the supply of corn from the provinces should be regular and abundant. In times of scarcity Augustus gave corn gratis, or at a very low price, to the people; he also frequently made distributions of money (congiaria) among them; and in the Forum, the Circus, the Amphitheatre, the Septa, and other public places, he entertained them with shows of all kinds. Sometimes they were assembled to witness the bloody combats of gladiators, or the less cruel contests of wrestlers; at others they were amused with chariot or foot races, or the hunting and slaughter of wild beasts fetched from various parts of the empire. even the crocodiles of the Nile being brought to Rome to gratify the populace with the sight of their expiring agonies. On one occasion, a large lake was dug in the Field of Mars, for the exhibition of a naval combat. At the same time, Augustus endeavored to purify and elevate the character of the people of Rome, by throwing difficulties in the way of manumission, and by granting citizenship very sparingly to strangers.*

To adorn and improve the city was another great object with Augustus, and he effected so much by his own exertions and the coöperation of his friends, that when dying he could boast that he had found the city built of brick, and left it built of marble.† Thus he built (726) a temple of Apollo on the Palatine, with a portico and a library, and a temple of Jupiter Tonans on the capitol. He also made a new Forum with a temple in it of Mars Ultor. Others of his works bore the names of his wife and the other members of his family. Such were the portico of Livia and that of Octavia, the theatre of Marcellus, and the portico and basili

*Suet. Oct. 40. [The idea of " purifying and elevating their character" by such exclusive and ungenerous means as these, while their lowest propensities were daily fed and nourished by brutal combats such as have been named, savors somewhat of a satire on all that is truly pure, and lofty, and noble, in the character of a people.-J. T. S.] t Id. ib. 28. Dion, lvi. 30. [This was a somewhat more effectual means of elevating their character. It was, at any rate, refining their taste, which is a great step towards elevating character. — J. T. S.]

ca of Caius and Lucius. Tiberius built the temples of Concord and of Castor and Pollux; Marcius Philippus that of Hercules of the Muses; Munatius Plancus that of Saturn; L. Cornificius that of Diana. Asinius Pollio built the hall or court (atrium) of Liberty, and Statilius Taurus a magnificent amphitheatre. The works of Agrippa have been already enumerated.

To secure the city against inundations, Augustus cleared out and widened the bed of the Tiber. He first divided the city into wards or quarters, (regiones,) fourteen in number, and subdivided into streets, (vici,) with officers over them, chosen out of the inhabitants by lot. He established a body of watchmen and firemen to prevent the conflagrations which: were so frequent. He caused all the great public roads to be repaired and kept in order. As the confusion and license of the civil wars had, as is usually the case, given origin to illegal associations, and to the formation of bands of robbers, (grassatores,) he took every care to suppress them. He therefore, as his uncle had done, dissolved all guilds but the ancient ones, and he disposed guards in proper stations for the prevention of highway robbery. He caused all the slavehouses (ergastula) throughout Italy to be visited and examined, it having been the practice to kidnap travellers, (freemen and slaves alike,) and shut them up and make them work in these prisons. In order to facilitate the administration of justice, he added upwards of thirty days to the ordinary court-days, and he increased the number of the decuries of jurors, and reduced the legal age of jurymen from five-andtwenty to twenty years. He himself sat constantly to hear causes and administer justice.

Every wise sovereign will be desirous to see a proper sense of religion prevalent among his subjects. Augustus accordingly turned his serious attention to this important subject. He rebuilt or repaired the temples which had been burnt or had fallen; he reëstablished and reformed various ancient institutions which had gone out of use, such as the augury of health, the flamen dialis, the secular games, the Lupercal rites, &c. He increased the number and the honors and privileges of the priesthoods, particularly that of the Vestal Virgins; he caused all the soothsaying books which were current, to the number of upwards of two thousand, to be collected and burnt, only retaining the Sibylline oracles,*

[For an excellent account of the Sibylline oracles, see Prideaux's Connection of the Old and New Testament, under the year 13.-J. T.S.]

E

which he had carefully revised and placed in two cases under the statue of the Palatine Apollo. His efforts, however, remained without effect; infidelity and its constant concomitant, immorality, were spread too widely for him or any human legislator to be able to check them, and the polytheism of Greece and Rome was destined to fall before a far purer system of faith and doctrine.

We have already spoken of the exertions made by Augustus to overcome the prevalent aversion to marriage. The principal cause of this was the extreme dissoluteness of manners at the time, exceeding any thing known in modern days; but poverty prevented many a man of noble birth from undertaking the charge of supporting a wife and family, and the court which was paid by greedy legacy-hunters to the rich and childless * had charms for many of both sexes. The promotion of marriage had always been an object of attention with the Roman government. One of the questions invariably put to each person by the censors was, whether he was married or not; and there was a fine, named uxorium, laid on old bachelors. Cæsar the dictator had sought to encourage marriage by offering rewards; but the first law on the subject was the Julian De maritandis ordinibus of 736, and, this having proved ineffectual, a new and more comprehensive law, embracing all the provisions of the Julian, and named the "Papia-Poppaan," (from the consuls M. Papius and Q. Poppaus,) was passed in the year 762.†

The principal heads of this law were, 1. All persons except senators might marry freedwomen. 2. No maiden was to be betrothed under the age of ten years. 3. Widows were allowed to remain single two years, divorced women a year and a half, before contracting a second marriage. 4. Those who had children were to have various honors and advantages, such as better seats at the public spectacles, the preference when candidates for honors and in the allotment of the provinces, immunity from guardianship and other personal burdens, etc. etc. 5. Bachelors could receive no legacies except from their nearest relations, and the childless only the half of what was left them. 6. A woman whose guilt was the cause of a divorce was to lose her dower.

The evil, however, was too deeply seated to be eradicated by law, and it still remained a subject of complaint. Of as

* See Horace, Sat. ii. 5.

See Dion, lvi. 1-10. He remarks that neither of the consuls had wife or child.

little avail was the sumptuary law which he caused to be enacted; he even failed in his desire to bring the toga again into general use.*

Such were the principal civil regulations made during the reign of Augustus. The changes in the military system were

also considerable.

In Rome, as in all the ancient republics, the army had been nothing more than a burgher militia, in which every freeman of the military age was required to serve when called on. The long foreign wars, however, in which Rome was afterwards engaged, gradually converted the original militia into a standing army, and war became a profession, as in modern times. The character of the soldier had also deteriorated since the change in the mode of enlistment made by C. Marius; and the Roman soldiery, further demoralized by the various civil wars, stood no higher in moral worth than the mercenary troops of modern Europe. The extent of the Roman empire, with warlike nations on its frontiers, could only be guarded by a regular standing army, disciplined and always in readiness to take the field. Accordingly, in the speech which Dion ascribes to Mæcenas, we find that statesman thus advising Augustus:† "The soldiers must be kept up, immortal, citizens, subjects, and allies, in some places more, in some less, through each nation as need may require, and be always in arms, and always engaged in military exercises; having their winter quarters in the most suitable places, and serving for a limited period, so as to have some part of their life to themselves before old age. For, living so far away from the frontiers of the empire, and having enemies dwelling on every side of us, we could not have troops ready for any sudden emergency; but if we allow all who are of the suitable age, to possess arms and to practise military exercises, they will be always raising factions and civil wars; and again, if we prohibit them to do so, and then call upon them to serve on any occasion, we shall run the risk of having none but raw and undisciplined troops. I there

* The lacerna, a kind of military great-coat of a dark color and with a hood to it, was generally worn instead of the toga. Augustus one day seeing, as he sat on his tribunal in the Forum, a number of the people thus habited, cried out in indignation: "En

Romanos rerum dominos, gentemque togatam,"

and gave orders to the ædiles henceforth not to admit any one without a toga into the Forum or Circus. Suet. Oct. 40.

† Dion, lii. 27.

fore give it as my opinion that all the rest should live without arms or camps, while the most able-bodied and necessitous should be selected and disciplined; for these will fight the better, having nothing else to occupy them; and the others can devote themselves more entirely to agriculture, navigation, and the other arts of peace, not being called on to serve personally, and having others to protect them; and that portion of the population which is the strongest and most vigorous, and the most likely to live by robbery, will be supported at its ease, and all the rest will live free from danger."

It was therefore determined that the legions should be immortal, i. e. that the army should henceforth be a standing one. The legions were to be twenty-five in number, which we find thus stationed at the time of Augustus's death: * On the Rhenish frontier eight; in Spain three; in Africa one; in Egypt two; in Syria four; in Pannonia three; in Mœsia two, and two more in Dalmatia for the protection of Italy. Attached to each of these divisions was a body of troops termed auxiliaries, furnished by the different states subject to, or in alliance with the empire; and, as in the old days of the republic, their number nearly equalled that of the legions. The legion at this time contained 6100 infantry and 726 horse; the twenty-five legions, therefore, mustered, when complete, 170,000 men; to which adding as many more for the auxiliaries, we have a sum total of 340,000 men. These, however, did not form the whole military force of the empire; there was a body of 10,000 guards, divided into nine cohorts, named Prætorian, and three Urban cohorts, containing 6000 men. These two last bodies were always recruited in Etruria, Umbria, Latium, and the ancient Roman colonies. They had double pay, and their period of service was shorter than that of the legionaries. Augustus allowed only three of the cohorts to remain in the city; the rest were distributed through the towns in the vicinity. There were two commanders of the

* Dion, lv. 23. Tac. Ann. iv. 5. It is for the ninth year of Tiberius that this last furnishes us with the distribution of the legions given in the text; but there had been no alteration of any account since the time of Augustus.

"Neque multo secus in iis virium." Tac. Ann. iv. 5.

Tac. ut supra. Dion (lv. 24) says 10 Prætorian and 4 Urban cohorts.

§ Suet. Oct. 49; the three would seem to be the Urban cohorts, thus confirming the numbers given by Tacitus.