of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced
to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the
military spirit evaporated. The citizens received laws and covenants
from the will of their sovereign, and trusted for their defence to a
mercenary army. Of their ancient freedom nothing remained except the
name, and that Augustus, sensible that mankind is governed by names, was
careful to preserve.

It was by the will of the senate the emperor ruled. It was from the
senate that he received the ancient titles of the republic--of consul,
tribune, pontiff, and censor. Even his title of _imperator_ was decreed
him, according to the custom of the republic, only for a period of ten
years. But this specious pretence, which was preserved until the last
days of the empire, did not mask the real autocratic authority of the
emperor. The fact that he nominated citizens to the senate was proof, if
proof were needed, that the independence of that body was destroyed; for
the principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost when the
legislative power is nominated by the executive.

Moreover, the dependence of the emperor on the legions completely
subverted the civil authority. To keep the military power, which had
given him his position, from undermining it, Augustus had summoned to
his aid whatever remained in the fierce minds of his soldiers of Roman
prejudices, and interposing the majesty of the senate between the
emperor and the army, boldly claimed their allegiance as the first
magistrate of the republic. During a period of 220 years, the dangers
inherent to a military government were in a great measure suspended by
this artful system. The soldiers were seldom roused to that fatal sense
of their own strength and of the weakness of the civil authority which
afterwards was productive of such terrible calamities.

The emperors Caligula and Domitian were assassinated in their palace by
their own domestics. The Roman world, it is true, was shaken by the
events that followed the death of Nero, when, in the space of eighteen
months, four princes perished by the sword. But, excepting this violent
eruption of military licence, the two centuries from Augustus to
Commodus passed away unstained with civil blood and undisturbed by
revolution. The Roman citizens might groan under the tyranny, from which
they could not hope to escape, of the unrelenting Tiberius, the furious
Caligula, the profligate and cruel Ner