OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

1*29

ape condemned to everlasting infamy. During chap.

fourscore years (excepting only the short and--

doubtful respite of Vespasian’s reign*) Rome groaned beneath an unremitting tyranny, whichexterminated the ancient families of the repub-lic, and was fatal to almost every virtue, andevery talent, that arose in that unhappy period.

Under the reign of these monsters, the slavery Peculiarof the Romans was accompanied with two pecu-liar cirumstances, the one occasioned by their ™ e a r n t s h ”“;former liberty, the other by their extensive con-tyrants,quests, which rendered their condition morecompletely wretched than that of the victims oftyranny in any other age or country. Fromthese causes were derived, 1. The exquisitesensibility of the sufferers ; and, 2. The impos-sibility of escaping from the hand of the op-pressor.

i. WhenPersia was governed by the descend- insensibu

O y jj^ Of* th

ants of Sefi, a race of princes, whose wanton orientals",cruelty often stained their divan, their table, andtheir bed, with the blood of their favourites,there is a saying recorded of a young nobleman,that he never departed from the sultan’s pre-sence, without satisfying himself whether hishead was still on his shoulders. The experienceof every day might almost justify the scepticismof Rustan. f Yet the fatal sword, suspendedabove him by a single thread, seems not to have

* The execution of Helvidins Priscus, and of the virtuous Eponina,disgraced the reign of Vespasian .

f Voyage de Chardin en Perse, vol. iii, p. 298.

VOL. I, K