invested with the government of Lucania, and Aurelian, who
soon admitted the abdicated monarch to his friendship and conversation,
familiarly asked him, Whether it were not more desirable to administer a
province of Italy, than to reign beyond the Alps. The son long continued
a respectable member of the senate; nor was there any one of the Roman
nobility more esteemed by Aurelian, as well as by his successors.

So long and so various was the pomp of Aurelian's triumph, that although
it opened with the dawn of day, the slow majesty of the procession
ascended not the Capitol before the ninth hour; and it was already dark
when the emperor returned to the palace. The festival was protracted by
theatrical representations, the games of the circus, the hunting of wild
beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval engagements. Liberal donatives
were distributed to the army and people, and several institutions,
agreeable or beneficial to the city, contributed to perpetuate the
glory of Aurelian. A considerable portion of his oriental spoils was
consecrated to the gods of Rome; the Capitol, and every other temple,
glittered with the offerings of his ostentatious piety; and the temple
of the Sun alone received above fifteen thousand pounds of gold. This
last was a magnificent structure, erected by the emperor on the side of
the Quirinal hill, and dedicated, soon after the triumph, to that deity
whom Aurelian adored as the parent of his life and fortunes. His mother
had been an inferior priestess in a chapel of the Sun; a peculiar
devotion to the god of Light was a sentiment which the fortunate peasant
imbibed in his infancy; and every step of his elevation, every victory
of his reign, fortified superstition by gratitude.

The arms of Aurelian had vanquished the foreign and domestic foes of
the republic. We are assured, that, by his salutary rigor, crimes and
factions, mischievous arts and pernicious connivance, the luxurious
growth of a feeble and oppressive government, were eradicated throughout
the Roman world. But if we attentively reflect how much swifter is the
progress of corruption than its cure, and if we remember that the
years abandoned to public disorders exceeded the months allotted to the
martial reign of Aurelian, we must confess that a few short intervals
of peace were insufficient for the arduous work of reformation. Even his
attempt to restore the integrity of the coin was opposed by a formidable
insurrection. The empe