ugustan History, p. 166, from the registers of
the senate; the date is confessedly faulty but the coincidence of the
Apollinatian games enables us to correct it.]

Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of Maximin.--Part II.

The virtues and the reputation of the new emperors justified the most
sanguine hopes of the Romans. The various nature of their talents seemed
to appropriate to each his peculiar department of peace and war, without
leaving room for jealous emulation. Balbinus was an admired orator, a
poet of distinguished fame, and a wise magistrate, who had exercised
with innocence and applause the civil jurisdiction in almost all the
interior provinces of the empire. His birth was noble, [28] his fortune
affluent, his manners liberal and affable. In him the love of pleasure
was corrected by a sense of dignity, nor had the habits of ease deprived
him of a capacity for business. The mind of Maximus was formed in a
rougher mould. By his valor and abilities he had raised himself from
the meanest origin to the first employments of the state and army. His
victories over the Sarmatians and the Germans, the austerity of his
life, and the rigid impartiality of his justice, while he was a Praefect
of the city, commanded the esteem of a people whose affections were
engaged in favor of the more amiable Balbinus. The two colleagues had
both been consuls, (Balbinus had twice enjoyed that honorable office,)
both had been named among the twenty lieutenants of the senate; and
since the one was sixty and the other seventy-four years old, [29] they
had both attained the full maturity of age and experience.

[Footnote 28: He was descended from Cornelius Balbus, a noble Spaniard,
and the adopted son of Theophanes, the Greek historian. Balbus obtained
the freedom of Rome by the favor of Pompey, and preserved it by the
eloquence of Cicero. (See Orat. pro Cornel. Balbo.) The friendship of
Caesar, (to whom he rendered the most important secret services in the
civil war) raised him to the consulship and the pontificate, honors
never yet possessed by a stranger. The nephew of this Balbus triumphed
over the Garamantes. See Dictionnaire de Bayle, au mot Balbus, where he
distinguishes the several persons of that name, and rectifies, with his
usual accuracy, the mistakes of former writers concerning them.]

[Footnote 29: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 622. But little dependence is to
be had on the authority of a modern Gre