OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

265

his death. The arts of attendance and flattery chap.

were formed into a most lucrative science; those_

who professed it acquiredapeculiarappellation;and the whole city, according to the lively de-scriptions of satire, was divided between twoparties, the hunters and their game . 0 Yet, whileso many unjust and extravagant wills wereevery day dictated by cunning, and subscribedby folly, a few were the result of rational esteemand virtuous gratitude. Cicero , who had sooften defended the lives and fortunes of his fel-low-citizens, was rewarded with legacies to theamount of an hundred and seventy thousandpounds ; p nor do the friends of the youngerPliny seem to have been less generous to thatamiable orator. q Whatever was the motive ofthe testator, the treasury claimed, without dis-tinction, the twentieth part of his estate; and inthe course of two or three generations, the wholeproperty of the subject must have graduallypassed through the coffers of the state.

In the first and golden years of the reign of R eg uia-Nero, that prince, from a desire of popularity, empero ^ 6and perhaps from a blind impulse of benevo-lence, conceived a wish of abolishing the op-pression of the customs and excise. The wisestsenators applauded his magnanimity; but they

0 Horat. 1. ii, sat. v. Petron. c. 116, &c. Plin. 1. ii, epist. 20.p Cicero in Philipp, ii, c. 16.

q See his epistles. Every such will gave him an occasion of display-ing his reverence to the dead, and his justice to the living. He recon-ciled both, in his behaviour to a son who had been disinherited by hismother (v. 1).