eriod of a
thousand years from the foundation of Rome. Every circumstance of the
secular games was skillfully adapted to inspire the superstitious mind
with deep and solemn reverence. The long interval between them exceeded
the term of human life; and as none of the spectators had already seen
them, none could flatter themselves with the expectation of beholding
them a second time. The mystic sacrifices were performed, during three
nights, on the banks of the Tyber; and the Campus Martius resounded
with music and dances, and was illuminated with innumerable lamps and
torches. Slaves and strangers were excluded from any participation in
these national ceremonies. A chorus of twenty-seven youths, and as many
virgins, of noble families, and whose parents were both alive, implored
the propitious gods in favor of the present, and for the hope of the
rising generation; requesting, in religious hymns, that according to the
faith of their ancient oracles, they would still maintain the virtue,
the felicity, and the empire of the Roman people. The magnificence of
Philip's shows and entertainments dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The
devout were employed in the rites of superstition, whilst the reflecting
few revolved in their anxious minds the past history and the future fate
of the empire.

Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds and outlaws, fortified
himself on the hills near the Tyber, ten centuries had already elapsed.
During the four first ages, the Romans, in the laborious school of
poverty, had acquired the virtues of war and government: by the vigorous
exertion of those virtues, and by the assistance of fortune, they had
obtained, in the course of the three succeeding centuries, an absolute
empire over many countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three
hundred years had been consumed in apparent prosperity and internal
decline. The nation of soldiers, magistrates, and legislators, who
composed the thirty-five tribes of the Roman people, were dissolved into
the common mass of mankind, and confounded with the millions of servile
provincials, who had received the name, without adopting the spirit, of
Romans. A mercenary army, levied among the subjects and barbarians of
the frontier, was the only order of men who preserved and abused their
independence. By their tumultuary election, a Syrian, a Goth, or an
Arab, was exalted to the throne of Rome, and invested with despotic
power over the conquests and over th