summoned as a witness on trials, and showed no anger when his own evidence
was overborne by stronger on the other side. This disinterested love of
justice, and an integrity, so rare in the great men of Rome, could not but
command the reverence of the people. But their affection, doubtless, was
more conciliated by the freedom with which the emperor accepted
invitations from all quarters, and shared continually in the festal
pleasures of his subjects. This practice, however, he discontinued, or
narrowed, as he advanced in years. Suetonius, who, as a true anecdote-
monger, would solve every thing, and account for every change by some
definite incident, charges this alteration in the emperor's condescensions
upon one particular party at a wedding feast, where the crowd incommoded
him much by their pressure and heat. But, doubtless, it happened to
Augustus as to other men; his spirits failed, and his powers of supporting
fatigue or bustle, as years stole upon him. Changes, coming by insensible
steps, and not willingly acknowledged, for some time escape notice; until
some sudden shock reminds a man forcibly to do that which he has long
meditated in an irresolute way. The marriage banquet may have been the
particular occasion from which Augustus stepped into the habits of old
age, but certainly not the cause of so entire a revolution in his mode of
living.

It might seem to throw some doubt, if not upon the fact, yet at least upon
the sincerity, of his _civism_, that undoubtedly Augustus cultivated
his kingly connections with considerable anxiety. It may have been upon
motives merely political that he kept at Rome the children of nearly all
the kings then known as allies or vassals of the Roman power: a curious
fact, and not generally known. In his own palace were reared a number of
youthful princes; and they were educated jointly with his own children. It
is also upon record, that in many instances the fathers of these princes
spontaneously repaired to Rome, and there assuming the Roman dress--as an