THE DECLINE AND FALL

and the great officers of the empire are allsubject to your tribunal. None are exempt-ed, excepting only the ordinary consuls, 11 theprefect of the city, the king of the sacrifices,and (as long as she preserves her chastity in-violate) the eldest of the vestal virgins. Eventhese few, who may not dread the severity,will anxiously solicit the esteem, of the Ro-man censor.” 1

A magistrate, invested with such extensivecabiffand P owers > would have appeared not so much thewithout minister as the colleague of his sovereign. 5Valerian justly dreaded an elevation so full ofenvy and of suspicion. He modestly urged thealarming greatness of the trust, his own insuf-ficiency, and the incurable corruption of thetimes. He artfully insinuated, that the office ofcensor was inseparable from the imperial dignity,and that the feeble hands of a subject were un-equal to the support of such an immense weightof cares and of power. 1 The approaching eventof war soon put an end to the prosecution of aproject so specious but so impracticable; andwhilst it preserved Valerian from the danger,saved the emperor Decius from the disappoint-ment which would most probably have attended

q Yet, in spite of this exemption, Pompey appeared before that tri-bunal during his consulship. The occasion indeed was equally singu-lar and honourable. Plutarch in Pomp. p. 630.

r See the original speech, in the Augustan Hist. p. 173,174.

5 This transaction might deceive Zonaras , who supposes that Vale-rian was actually declared the colleague of Decius , 1. xii, p. 625.

' Hist. August, p. 174. The emperor’s reply is omitted.

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