in Epitom.]

As soon as Hadrian's passion was either gratified or disappointed, he
resolved to deserve the thanks of posterity, by placing the most exalted
merit on the Roman throne. His discerning eye easily discovered a
senator about fifty years of age, clameless in all the offices of life;
and a youth of about seventeen, whose riper years opened a fair prospect
of every virtue: the elder of these was declared the son and successor
of Hadrian, on condition, however, that he himself should immediately
adopt the younger. The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now
peaking,) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same
invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. Although Pius had two sons, [42]
he preferred the welfare of Rome to the interest of his family, gave his
daughter Faustina, in marriage to young Marcus, obtained from the senate
the tribunitian and proconsular powers, and, with a noble disdain, or
rather ignorance of jealousy, associated him to all the labors of
government. Marcus, on the other hand, revered the character of his
benefactor, loved him as a parent, obeyed him as his sovereign, [43]
and, after he was no more, regulated his own administration by the
example and maxims of his predecessor. Their united reigns are possibly
the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was
the sole object of government.

[Footnote 42: Without the help of medals and inscriptions, we should be
ignorant of this fact, so honorable to the memory of Pius. Note: Gibbon
attributes to Antoninus Pius a merit which he either did not possess, or
was not in a situation to display.

1. He was adopted only on the condition that he would adopt, in his
turn, Marcus Aurelius and L. Verus.

2. His two sons died children, and one of them, M. Galerius, alone,
appears to have survived, for a few years, his father's coronation.
Gibbon is also mistaken when he says (note 42) that "without the help
of medals and inscriptions, we should be ignorant that Antoninus had
two sons." Capitolinus says expressly, (c. 1,) Filii mares duo,
duae-foeminae; we only owe their names to the medals. Pagi. Cont. Baron,
i. 33, edit Paris.--W.]

[Footnote 43: During the twenty-three years of Pius's reign, Marcus was
only two nights absent from the palace, and even those were at different
times. Hist. August. p. 25.]

Titus Antoninus Pius has been justly denominated a second Numa. The
same love of religion, justice, and p