588 WIVES OF THE CAESARS. 



of his colleagues. By way of rendering this union more compact, 

 Octavius was to marry Clodia, the daughter of Fulvia, now married 

 to Mark Antony, and formerly the wife of Publius Clodius. 



Octavius had already been affianced to the daughter of Servilius,* 

 called Isauricus, in consequence of his achievements in the Cilician 

 war. It is uncertain if he cohabited with her ; at all events, their 

 union was of short duration. The alliance, too, of Clodia and Octa- 

 vius was transient and unhappy ; and little of her history is known to 

 us beyond the circumstance attending her repudiation. When Ful- 

 via, her mother, learned the intimate connexion of Mark Antony with 

 Glaphyra, she resolved on the retaliation of his adulterous in- 

 dulgence ; and, in spite of the alliance of her daughter with Octavius, 

 her passion fell upon the youthful triumvir. Fulvia, equally impa- 

 tient in resentment and in love, imparted her propensity to Caesar ; 

 who, not content with the rejection of her overtures, exposed her 

 wantonness in epigrams distributed throughout the city an act of 

 cruelty at once gratuitous and faithless, of which the nature of Octa- 

 vius was notoriously capable. At the same time he dismissed her 

 daughter, and embodied in an act of cold malignity an insult to Mark 

 Antony, to Fulvia, and his wife. 



The memory of Augustusf has been consecrated with undue and 

 prodigal applause. The grateful adulation of the learned has stu- 

 diously adorned his character with more than fanciful devotion j and 

 the enlightened patron of the poets (for such in truth he was) has 

 been transmitted to posterity with praises utterly inapplicable to his 

 character, which partook but little, if at all, of generosity and virtue. 

 But if we separate the keen and cruel politician from the erudite and 

 courteous patron, we have ample reason to concur with the encomiums 

 lavished by the learned on Augustus in the latter character. It may 

 seem invidious to remark, that even here, perhaps, he acted from the 

 ruling motive of his life his interest. Virgil and Horace, notwith- 

 standing their indecent flattery, shed a lustre on their patron's name, 

 which well might recommend him to the admiration of the vulgar. 

 It might possibly beget the pardon of a generation nearly grown to 



* " Sponsam habuerat adolescens P. Servilii Isaurici filiam ; sed reconciliatus 

 post priniam discordiam Antonio * * * privignam ejus Claudiam, Fulviae 

 ex P. Clodio filiam, duxit uxorem vix dum nubilem. Ac simultate cum Fulvia 

 socru exorta, dimisit intactam adhuc, et Virginem." Sueton. in Aug. 62. 



f The impartial, excellent, and cautious Brotier (Stemma Caesaram illus- 

 tratuni 43) in his character of Augustus, has condensed without confounding the 

 testimonies of the ancient writers Suetonius, Tacitus, Florus, Victor, Seneca, 

 and Pliny. Without expatiating on his vices, he adverts to the inferiority of his 

 virtues ; and has given us a masterly and faithful draught of the politician, 

 while he has carefully abstained from a portrait of the man. " Actandum unus 

 Julianarum etiam partium dux reliquus, cuncta, discordiis civilibus fessa, no- 

 mine principis imperium accepit. Tune pacis studiosus, doctorum hominum 

 cultor, egregiarum artium instinctor munificus, omnium animos per annos fer- 

 me quadraginta quatuor sibi adeo devinxit, ut Augustus, pater patrise appella- 

 retur. * * * Vir, si diliginter aestimentur cuncta, fama quam Virtu- 

 tibus Celebratior ; nunquam principatum adepturus, nisi pessimi fuissent Lepi- 

 dus et Antonius, maximus Dictator Caesar, optimus Vipsanius Agrippa. L.au- 

 dandus tamen quod imperium, aliena virtute partum, arte plurima substinuerit, 

 etRomam, rjuam lateritiam acceperat, marmoream reliquerit." 



