XXI. (140) Perhaps some people who would not have opened their mouths then will say now: “They were accustomed to pay respect to the good deeds done by their governors rather than to their governors themselves, because the emperors are greater than the Ptolemies, both in their dignities and in their fortunes, and are justly entitled to receive higher honours.” (141) Then, O ye most foolish of all mankind! that I may not be compelled to utter any thing disrespectful of blasphemous, why did you never think Tiberius, who was emperor before Gaius, who indeed was the cause that Gaius ever became emperor, who himself enjoyed the supreme power by land and sea for three and twenty years, and who never allowed any seed of war to smoulder or to raise its head, either in Greece or in the territory of the barbarians, and who bestowed peace and the blessings of peace up to the end of his life with a rich and most bounteous hand and mind upon the whole empire and the whole world; why, I say, did you not consider him worthy of similar honour? (142) Was he inferior in birth? No; he was of the most noble blood by both parents. Was he inferior in his education? Who, of all the men who flourished in his time, was either more prudent or more eloquent? Or in his age? What king or emperor ever lived to more prosperous old age than he? Moreover, he, even while he was still a young man, was called the old man as a mark of respect because of his exceeding wisdom. This man, though he was so wise, and so good, and so great, was passed over and disregarded by you. (143) Again, why did you not pay similar honour to him who exceeded the common race of human nature in every virtue, who, by reason of the greatness of his absolute power and his own excellence, was the first man to be called Augustus, not receiving the title after another by a succession of blood as a part of his inheritance, but who was himself the origin of his successors, having that title and honour? He who first became emperor, when all the affairs of the state were in disorder and confusion; (144) for the islands were in a state of war against the continents, and the continents were contending with the islands for the pre-eminence in honour, each having for their leaders and champions the most powerful and eminent of the Romans who were in office. And then again, great sections of Asia were contending against Europe, and Europe against Asia, for the chief power and dominion; {9}{he alludes here to the war between Caesar and Pompey. Pompey had been governor of Syria, and Virgil speaks of him as relying on his eastern forces, Aen. 6.832 (as it is translated by Dryden)–“The pair you see in equal armour shine, / Now, friends below, in close embraces join; / But when they leave the shady realms of night, / And clothed in bodies breathe your upper light, / With mortal hate each other shall pursue, / What wars, what wounds, what slaughter shall ensue. / From Alpine heights the father first descends, / His daughter’s husband in the plain attends, / His daughter’s husband arms his eastern friends.”} the European and Asiatic nations rising up from the extremities of the earth, and waging terrible wars against one another over all the earth, and over every sea, with enormous armaments, so that very nearly the whole race of mankind would have been destroyed by mutual slaughter and made utterly to disappear, if it had not been for one man and leader, Augustus, by whose means they were brought to a better state, and therefore we may justly call him the averter of evil. (145) This is Caesar, who calmed the storms which were raging in every direction, who healed the common diseases which were afflicting both Greeks and barbarians, who descended from the south and from the east, and ran on and penetrated as far as the north and the west, in such a way as to fill all the neighbouring districts and waters with unexpected miseries. (146) This is he who did not only loosen but utterly abolish the bonds in which the whole of the habitable world was previously bound and weighed down. This is he who destroyed both the evident and the unseen wars which arose from the attacks of robbers. This is he who rendered the sea free from the vessels of pirates, and filled it with Merchantmen.{10}{he is attributing an honour to Augustus which does not belong to him. It was Pompey who cleared the sea of pirates.} (147) This is he who gave freedom to every city, who brought disorder into order, who civilized and made obedient and harmonious, nations which before his time were unsociable, hostile, and brutal. This is he who increased Greece by many Greeces, and who Greecised the regions of the barbarians in their most important divisions: the guardian of peace, the distributor to every man of what was suited to him, the man who proffered to all the citizens favours with the most ungrudging liberality, who never once in his whole life concealed or reserved for himself any thing that was good or excellent.
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