to the
licentiousness of the times, we may venture from strong indications to
pronounce, that, as a moralist, his principles were virtuous. It is
observed of this author, by Pliny the Younger, that, though his
compositions might, perhaps, not obtain immortality, he wrote as if they
would. [Aeterna, quae scripsit, non erunt fortasse: ille tamen scripsit
tanquam futura.] The character which Martial gives of his epigrams, is
just and comprehensive:

Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura,
Quae legis: hic aliter non fit, Avite, liber.

Some are good, some indifferent, and some again still worse;
Such, Avitus, you will find is a common case with verse.

THE END OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

FOOTNOTES:

[795] A.U.C. 804.

[796] A street, in the sixth region of Rome, so called, probably, from a
remarkable specimen of this beautiful shrub which had made free growth on
the spot.

[797] VITELLIUS, c. xv.

[798] Tacitus (Hist. iii.) differs from Suetonius, saying that Domitian
took refuge with a client of his father's near the Velabrum. Perhaps he
found it more safe afterwards to cross the Tiber.

[799] One of Domitian's coins bears on the reverse a captive female and
soldier, with GERMANIA DEVICTA.

[800] VESPASIAN, c. xii; TITUS, c. vi.

[801] Such excavations had been made by Julius and by Augustus [AUG.
xliii.], and the seats for the spectators fitted up with timber in a rude
way. That was on the other side of the Tiber. The Naumachia of Domitian
occupies the site of the present Piazza d'Espagna, and was larger and
more ornamented.

[802] A.U.C. 841. See AUGUSTUS, c. xxxi.

[803] This feast was held in December. Plutarch informs us that it was
instituted in commemoration of the seventh hill being included in the
city bounds.

[804] The Capitol had been burnt, for the third time, in the great fire
mentioned TITUS, c. viii. The first fire happened in the Marian war,
after which it was rebuilt by Pompey, the second in the reign of
Vitellius.

[805] This forum, commenced by Domitian and completed by Nerva, adjoined
the Roman Forum and that of Augustus, mentioned in c. xxix. of his life.
From its communicating with the two others, it was called Transitorium.
Part of the wall which bounded it still remains, of a great height, and
144 paces long. It is composed of square masses of freestone, very
large, and without any cement; and it is not carried in a straight