170

CHAP.

V.

Their

specious

claims.

THE DECLINE AND FALL

divert the praetorian bands from these dange-, rous reflections, the firmest and best-establish-ed princes were obliged to mix blandishments *with commands, rewards with punishments, toflatter their pride, indulge their pleasures, con-nive at their irregularities, and to purchase theirprecarious faith by a liberal donative; which,since the elevation of Claudius , was exacted asa legal claim, on the accession of every newemperor/

The advocates of the guards endeavoured tojustify by arguments, the power which they as-serted by arms; and to maintain that, accord-ing to the purest principles of the constitution,their consent was essentially necessary in theappointment of an emperor. The election ofconsuls, of generals, and of magistrates, how-ever it had been recently usurped by the senate,was the ancient and undoubted right of the fRoman people/ But where was the Romanpeople to be found? Not surely amongst themixed multitude of slaves and strangers thatfilled the streets of Rome ; a servile populace,as devoid of spirit as destitute of property.

The defenders of the state, selected from the

f Claudius , raised by the soldiers to the empire, was the first whogave a donative. He gave quirm Oena, £120 (Sueton. in Claud.,c. 10 ;) when Marcus, with his colleague Lucius Veras , took quietpossession of the throne, he gave viesna, £160, to each of the guards.

Hist. August, p. 25. (Dion, 1. lxxiii, p. 1231). We may formsome idea of the amount of these sums, by Hadrian ’s complaint, that *

the promotion of a Caesar had cost him ter millies, two millions and ahalf sterling.

6 Cicero de Legibns, iii, 3. The first book of Livy , and the secondof Dionysius of Halicarnassus , shew the authority of the people, evenin the election of the kings.