adoption of every expedient that might tend to secure a quiet succession to the heir, upon the demise of Augustus. As a subsidiary resource, therefore, the expedient above mentioned was judged highly plausible; and the Roman cabinet indulged the idea of endeavouring to confirm imperial authority by the support of poetical renown. Lampoons against the government were not uncommon even in the time of Augustus; and elegant panegyric on the emperor served to counteract their influence upon the minds of the people. The idea was, perhaps, novel in the time of Augustus; but the history of later ages affords examples of its having been adopted, under different forms of government, with success.
The Roman empire, in the time of Augustus, had attained to a prodigious magnitude; and, in his testament, he recommended to his successors never to exceed the limits which he had prescribed to its extent. On the East it stretched to the Euphrates; on the South to the cataracts of the Nile, the deserts of Africa, and Mount Atlas; on the West to the Atlantic Ocean; and on the North to the Danube and the Rhine; including the best part of the then known world. The Romans, therefore, were not improperly called rerum domini 266, and Rome, pulcherrima rerum 267, maxima rerum 268. Even the historians, Livy and Tacitus, (156) actuated likewise with admiration, bestow magnificent epithets on the capital of their country. The succeeding emperors, in conformity to the advice of Augustus, made few additions to the empire. Trajan, however, subdued Mesopotamia and Armenia, east of the Euphrates, with Dacia, north of the Danube; and after this period the Roman dominion was extended over Britain, as far as the Frith of