were governed by means of his Legati. On the death of Lepidus in B.C.
13, he succeeded him as Pontifex Maximus, and thus became the head of
the Roman religion. While he thus united in his own person all the great
offices of state, he still allowed the Consuls, Praetors, and other
magistrates of the Republic to be annually elected. "In a few words, the
system of Imperial government, as it was instituted by Octavian, and
maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and that
of the people, may be defined as an absolute government, disguised by
the form of a commonwealth. The masters of the Roman world surrounded
their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength; and
humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the Senate,
whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed."[73]

[Footnote 72: Antony retaliated by sending Octavia a bill of divorce.]

[Footnote 73: Gibbon.]

[Illustration: Map of the Provinces of the Roman Empire.]

[Illustration: Horace.]

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF ROMAN LITERATURE, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO
THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS.

For many centuries after the foundation of the city the Romans can
hardly be said to have had any literature at all. There may have
existed, at an early period, some songs or ballads, recounting, in rude
strains,[74] the exploits of the heroes of Roman story, but all trace of
these has disappeared. It was not till the conquest of the Greek cities
in Southern Italy, shortly before the First Punic War, that we can date
the commencement of the Roman literature. It began with the Drama.
Dramatic exhibitions were first introduced at Rome from Etruria in B.C.
363, on the occasion of a severe pestilence, in order to avert the anger
of the gods. But these exhibitions were only pantomimic scenes to the
music of the flute, without any song or dialogue. It was not till B.C.
240 that a drama with a regular plot was performed at Rome. Its author
was M. LIVIUS ANDRONICUS, a native of Magna Graecia, who was taken
prisoner at the capture of Tarentum, and carried to Rome, where he
became the slave of M. Livius Salinator. He was afterward set free, and,
according to Roman practice, took the gentilic name of his master. He
acquired at Rome a perfect knowledge of the Latin language, and wrote
both tragedies and comedies, which were borrowed, or, rather, translated
from the Greek. He also wrote an Odyssey in the Saturnian metr