WIVES OF THE C.KSARS. 143 



The affliction of Augustus arid Octavia was profound and lasting. 

 Julia, on the contrary, with difficulty bore the usual seclusion con- 

 sequent on the condition of her recent loss. Marcellus never was 

 the object of her fancy, much less of her love. She was unwilling to 

 dissimulate, and happy to be free from such restraints as absolute ne- 

 cessity enjoined ; and being in the height of beauty and desire, she 

 panted for the hour which would release her from retirement, and 

 place her in the world of pleasure, with the independent privilege 

 of widowhood. 



The Augustan age is celebrated for its genius and refinement, and 

 if the latter fatally conduced to the extinction of the masculine sim- 

 plicity and hardy virtues which inspired the commonwealth, it 

 softened the austerity of manners, and rendered the incipient empire 

 of the Romans famous for voluptuous pleasure. Private life was 

 thoroughly involved in all the artificial forms of a mature and power- 

 ful people ;* exotic luxury and opulence, the fruit of foreign conquest, 

 had infected the conservative frugality of ancient times, and public 

 morals had so fearfully degenerated, that Caesar himself, an instance 

 of laciviousness, was led by the exuberance of vulgar vice derived 

 from the examples of the great to legislate for the amendment of 

 the national depravity. f A state of sensual license, intellectual 

 splendour, and luxurious profusion was adapted to the ruling passions 

 of the warm, the spiritual, and beauteous Julia. Rome, no longer 

 torn by civil discord or molested by external war, comprised within 

 its spacious bounds the richest and most illustrious of her citizens. 

 At times, she was the residence of foreign kings ; at all times of the 

 potentates of foreign states, which sought the amity, solicited the 

 arbitration, or implored the favour of Augustus and the Roman 

 people. The individual simplicity of Caesar was artfully conceived, 

 and rendered more impressive by the costly ostentation of subservient 

 flatterers. His court derived its moral tone from the propensities of its 

 imperial chief; Augustus was himself an amorous and wanton prince ; 



* " Namque ut opes nimias mundo fortuna subacto 

 Intulit, et rebus mores cessere secundis, 

 Prsedaque et hostiles luxum suasere rapinse ; 

 Non auro, tectisve modus ; mensasque priores 

 Adspernata fames : cultus gestare decoros 

 Vix nuribus rapuere mares : fecunda virorum 

 Paupertas fugitur ; totoque accersitur orbe, 

 Quo gens quseque peril. Tune longos jungere fines 

 Agrorum, et quondam duro sulcata Camilli 

 Vomere, et antiques Curiorum passa ligones 

 Longa sub ignotis extendere rura Colonis." 



Lucan. Pharsal. 1. 1. 



f Legem tulit (Augustus) de adulteris capitali supplicio afficiendis. Romani 

 adulteras fsemirias, quamvis aliqua damnatione, nulla tamen rnorte plectebant." 

 Div. Augustin 1. 3. de civitat. Dei. cap. 5. On which passage Ludov. Vives 

 remarks : "Ante Csesarem Augustum nihil legibus in adulteros fuisse cautum ; 

 ipsum vero primum eos capitali supplicio afficiendos decrevisse et hoc ipsum 

 praxi ostendit : Nam Proculum, libertum sibi charissimum, propter adulterium 

 capitali supplicio affecit." Sueton in August. Cujacius refers the capital punish- 

 ment of adultery to Constantius and Constans : " Primi Constantius et Constans, 

 non Constantinus, id capitale fecerunt. 



