OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 131

The minds of the Romans were very differ- chap.ently prepared for slavery. Oppressed beneaththe weight of their own corruption and of mili- Know-tary violence, they for a long while preserved thesentiments, or at least the ideas, of their free- oftheRo “born ancestors. The education of Helvidius andThrasea, of Tacitus and Pliny , was the same asthat of Cato and Cicero . From Grecian phi-losophy, they had imbibed the justest and mostliberal notions of the dignity of human nature,and the origin of civil society. The history oftheir own country had taught them to revere afree, a virtuous, and a victorious commonwealth;to abhor the successful crimes of Caesar and Au-gustus ; and inwardly to despise those tyrantswhom they adored with the most abject flattery.

As magistrates and senators, they were admittedinto the great council, which had once dictatedlaws to the earth, whose name still gave a sanc-tion to the acts of the monarch, and whose autho-rity was so often prostituted to the vilest pur-poses of tyranny. Tiberius , and those emperorswho adopted his maxims, attempted to disguisetheir murders by the formalities of justice, andperhaps enjoyed a secret pleasure in renderingthe senate their accomplice as well as their vic-tim. By this assembly, the last of the Romanswere condemned for imaginary crimes and realvirtues. Their infamous accusers assumed thelanguage of independ ent patriots, who arraigneda dangerous citizen before the tribunal of hiscountry; and the public service was rewarded

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