Hic Populus Romanus erit."
[Footnote: Blackwell, in his Court of Augustus, vol. i. p. 382, when
noticing these lines upon occasion of the murder of Cicero, in the final
proscription under the last triumvirate, comments thus: "Those of the
greatest and truly Roman spirit had been murdered in the field by Julius
Caesar; the rest were now massacred in the city by his son and successors;
in their room came Syrians, Cappadocians, Phrygians, and other
enfranchised slaves from the conquered nations;"--"these in half a century
had sunk so low, that Tiberius pronounced her very senators to be
_homines ad sermtutem natos_, men born to be slaves."]

Probably in the time of Nero, not one man in six was of pure Roman
descent. [Footnote: Suetonius indeed pretends that Augustus, personally at
least, struggled against this ruinous practice--thinking it a matter of
the highest moment, "Sincerum atque ab omni colluvione peregrini et
servilis sanguinis incorruptum servare populum." And Horace is ready with
his flatteries on the same topic, lib. 3, Od. 6. But the facts are against
them; for the question is not what Augustus did in his own person, (which
at most could not operate very widely except by the example,) but what he
permitted to be done. Now there was a practice familiar to those times;
that when a congiary or any other popular liberality was announced,
multitudes were enfranchised by avaricious masters in order to make them
capable of the bounty, (as citizens,) and yet under the condition of
transferring to their emancipators whatsoever they should receive; _ina
ton daemosios d domenon siton lambanontes chata maena--pherosi tois
dedochasi taen eleutherian_ says Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in order
that after receiving the corn given publicly in every month, they might
carry it to those who had bestowed upon them their freedom. In a case,
then, where an extensive practice of this kind was exposed to Augustus,
and publicly reproved by him, how did he proceed? Did he reject the new-