them aside only as his power began to cement and to knit together after
the battle of Actium; and that the memory and the prudential tradition of
this plan survived in the imperial family so long as itself survived.
Amongst other anecdotes of the same tendency, two are recorded of Nero,
the emperor in whom expired the line of the original Caesars, which
strengthen us in a belief of what is otherwise in itself so probable.
Nero, in his first distractions, upon receiving the fatal tidings of the
revolt in Gaul, when reviewing all possible plans of escape from the
impending danger, thought at intervals of throwing himself on the
protection of the barbarous King Vologesus. And twenty years afterwards,
when the Pseudo-Nero appeared, he found a strenuous champion and protector
in the king of the Parthians. Possibly, had an opportunity offered for
searching the Parthian chancery, some treaty would have been found binding
the kings of Parthia, from the age of Augustus through some generations
downwards, in requital of services there specified, or of treasures
lodged, to secure a perpetual asylum to the prosperity of the Julian
family.

The cruelties of Augustus were perhaps equal in atrocity to any which are
recorded; and the equivocal apology for those acts (one which might as
well be used to aggravate as to palliate the case) is, that they were not
prompted by a ferocious nature, but by calculating policy. He once
actually slaughtered upon an altar, a large body of his prisoners; and
such was the contempt with which he was regarded by some of that number,
that, when led out to death, they saluted their other proscriber, Anthony,
with military honors, acknowledging merit even in an enemy, but Augustus
they passed with scornful silence, or with loud reproaches. Too certainly
no man has ever contended for empire with unsullied conscience, or laid
pure hands upon the ark of so magnificent a prize. Every friend to
Augustus must have wished that the twelve years of his struggle might for