ion. Sometimes they were covered with wax and other combustible
materials, after which a sharp stake was put under their chin, to make
them stand upright, and they were burnt alive, to give light to the
spectators.

In the person of Nero, it is observed by Suetonius, the race of the
Caesars became extinct; a race rendered illustrious by the first and
second emperors, but which their successors no less disgraced. The
despotism of Julius Caesar, though haughty and imperious, was liberal and
humane: that of Augustus, if we exclude a few instances of vindictive
severity towards individuals, was mild and conciliating; but the reigns
of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero (for we except Claudius from part of the
censure), while discriminated from each other by some peculiar
circumstances, exhibited the most flagrant acts of licentiousness and
perverted authority. The most abominable lust, the most extravagant
luxury, the most shameful rapaciousness, and the most inhuman cruelty,
constitute the general characteristics of those capricious and detestable
tyrants. Repeated experience now clearly refuted the opinion of
Augustus, that he had introduced amongst the Romans the best form of
government: but while we make this observation, it is proper to remark,
that, had he even restored the republic, there is reason to believe that
the nation would again have been soon distracted with internal divisions,
and a perpetual succession of civil wars. The manners of the people were
become too dissolute to be restrained by the authority of elective and
temporary magistrates; and the Romans were hastening to that fatal period
when general and great corruption, with its attendant debility, would
render them an easy prey to any foreign invaders.

But the odious government of the emperors was not the only grievance
under which the people laboured in those disastrous times: patrician
avarice concurred with imperial rapacity to increase the sufferings of
the nation. The senators, even during the commonwealth, had become
openly corrupt in the dispensation of public justice; and under the
government of the emperors pernicious abuse was practised to a yet
greater extent. That class being now, equally with other Roman citizens,
dependent on the sovereign power, their sentiments of duty and (386)
honour were degraded by the loss of their former dignity; and being
likewise deprived of the lucrative governments of provinces, to which
they had annually