considered
as the first distinction among men, it was soon employed by the servile
provincials of the East, in their humble addresses to the Roman throne.
[99] Even the attributes, or at least the titles, of the Divinity, were
usurped by Diocletian and Maximian, who transmitted them to a succession
of Christian emperors. [100] Such extravagant compliments, however, soon
lose their impiety by losing their meaning; and when the ear is once
accustomed to the sound, they are heard with indifference, as vague
though excessive professions of respect.

[Footnote 97: See the 12th dissertation in Spanheim's excellent work de
Usu Numismatum. From medals, inscriptions, and historians, he examines
every title separately, and traces it from Augustus to the moment of its
disappearing.]

[Footnote 98: Pliny (in Panegyr. c. 3, 55, &c.) speaks of Dominus with
execration, as synonymous to Tyrant, and opposite to Prince. And the
same Pliny regularly gives that title (in the tenth book of the
epistles) to his friend rather than master, the virtuous Trajan. This
strange contradiction puzzles the commentators, who think, and the
translators, who can write.]

[Footnote 99: Synesius de Regno, edit. Petav. p. 15. I am indebted for
this quotation to the Abbe de la Bleterie.]

[Footnote 100: Soe Vandale de Consecratione, p. 354, &c. It was
customary for the emperors to mention (in the preamble of laws) their
numen, sacreo majesty, divine oracles, &c. According to Tillemont,
Gregory Nazianzen complains most bitterly of the profanation, especially
when it was practised by an Arian emperor. * Note: In the time of the
republic, says Hegewisch, when the consuls, the praetors, and the other
magistrates appeared in public, to perform the functions of their
office, their dignity was announced both by the symbols which use had
consecrated, and the brilliant cortege by which they were accompanied.
But this dignity belonged to the office, not to the individual; this
pomp belonged to the magistrate, not to the man. * * The consul,
followed, in the comitia, by all the senate, the praetors, the
quaestors, the aediles, the lictors, the apparitors, and the heralds, on
reentering his house, was served only by freedmen and by his slaves. The
first emperors went no further. Tiberius had, for his personal
attendance, only a moderate number of slaves, and a few freedmen.
(Tacit. Ann. iv. 7.) But in proportion as the republican forms
disappeared, one after anoth