THE DECLINE AND FALL
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chap, correct the vices, of the emperor. The military__’_force was a blind and irresistible instrument of
oppression; and the corruption of Roman man-ners would always supply flatterers eager toapplaud, and ministers prepared to serve, thefear or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, oftheir masters.
These gloomy apprehensions had been al-ready justified by the experience of the Ro-mans. The annals of the emperors exhibit astrong and various picture of human nature,which we should vainly seek among the mixedand doubtful characters of modern history. Inthe conduct of those monarchs we may tracethe utmost lines of vice and virtue; the mostexalted perfection, and the meanest degeneracyof our own species. The golden age of Trajan and the Antonines had been preceded by anage of iron. It is almost supefluous to enume-rate the unworthy successors of Augustus .Their unparalleled vices, and the splendidtheatre on which they were acted, have savedthem from oblivion. The dark unrelenting Ti-berius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Clau-dius, the profligate and cruel Nero , the beastlyVitellius, d and the timid inhuman Domitian ,
i
d Vitellius consumed in mere eating, at least six millions of ourmoney in about seven months. It is not easy to express his vices withdignity, or even decency. Tacitus fairly calls him a hog, but it is bysubstituting to a coarse word a very fine image. u At Vitellius , urn-“ braculis hortorum abditus, ut ignava animalia, quibus si cibum sug-“ geras jacent torpentque, prasterita, instantia, futura, pari oblivione“ dimiserat. Atquc ilium nemore Aricino desidem ct marcentem,” &c.Tacit. Hist, iii, 30, ii, 95, Sueton. in Vitell. c. 13. Dion Cassius . Llxv, p 1002.