roops, had been consecrated, by the
habits of a hundred years, to the name and family of the Caesars; and
although that family had been continued only by the fictitious rite of
adoption, the Romans still revered, in the person of Nero, the grandson
of Germanicus, and the lineal successor of Augustus. It was not without
reluctance and remorse, that the praetorian guards had been persuaded to
abandon the cause of the tyrant. The rapid downfall of Galba, Otho, and
Vitellus, taught the armies to consider the emperors as the creatures of
their will, and the instruments of their license. The birth of Vespasian
was mean: his grandfather had been a private soldier, his father a petty
officer of the revenue; his own merit had raised him, in an advanced
age, to the empire; but his merit was rather useful than shining, and
his virtues were disgraced by a strict and even sordid parsimony. Such
a prince consulted his true interest by the association of a son, whose
more splendid and amiable character might turn the public attention from
the obscure origin, to the future glories, of the Flavian house. Under
the mild administration of Titus, the Roman world enjoyed a transient
felicity, and his beloved memory served to protect, above fifteen years,
the vices of his brother Domitian.

Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins of Domitian,
before he discovered that his feeble age was unable to stem the torrent
of public disorders, which had multiplied under the long tyranny of his
predecessor. His mild disposition was respected by the good; but the
degenerate Romans required a more vigorous character, whose justice
should strike terror into the guilty. Though he had several relations,
he fixed his choice on a stranger. He adopted Trajan, then about forty
years of age, and who commanded a powerful army in the Lower Germany;
and immediately, by a decree of the senate, declared him his colleague
and successor in the empire. It is sincerely to be lamented, that
whilst we are fatigued with the disgustful relation of Nero's crimes
and follies, we are reduced to collect the actions of Trajan from the
glimmerings of an abridgment, or the doubtful light of a panegyric.
There remains, however, one panegyric far removed beyond the suspicion
of flattery. Above two hundred and fifty years after the death of
Trajan, the senate, in pouring out the customary acclamations on the
accession of a new emperor, wished that he might surpass the