590 WIVES OF THE C.ESAKS. 



Amoris ? The testimony of ancient authors would lead us to con- 

 clude that Ovid had unfortunately seen Augustus, the reformer of 

 the morals of his country, in an act of incest. It was important to a 

 prince, who aimed at the correction of the vices of his people, to ex- 

 tinguish such a light as Ovid could have thrown upon his own ; and, 

 accordingly, a Roman knight, without the forms of law, was con- 

 demned to the severity* and distance of a Scythian exile ; hardly can 

 it be supposed for the exuberant effusions of the " Ars Amoris," 

 since the verses of his flatterer, Horace, are replete with naked 

 thoughts, obscene expressions, and detestable proposals, which sup- 

 ply an accurate criterion of the distorted passions of the poet and the 

 prince. We may admire the government of Augustus, the choice of 

 an Agrippa or Mecaenas, the peace and happiness which, after a ca- 

 reer of avarice, duplicity, treachery, and bloodshed, he introduced to 

 Rome. He abandoned cruelty, it is true, when cruelty was useless. 

 Such is the language of encomiasts. This is, surely, meagre praise ; 

 and Seneca observed of him with admirable point, " Clementiam non 

 voco lassam crudeliiatem." There is not an instance of the clemency 

 of Augustus on creditable record. The anedote of Cinna is, perhaps, 

 a fabrication, clumsily contrived, and totally belied by a notorious 

 discrepancy. Dion Cassius places the event in Rome, and Seneca in 

 Gaul. The solitary specimen is, therefore, doubtful at the best. But 

 the facts of incest and adultery of his repudiation of Scribonia, on 

 the day of her delivery of Julia the proscription of three hundred 

 senators, of two thousand knights, and of many heads of families of 

 plebeian order, whose riches were their crime of executions ordered 

 in the very moment of festivity of the cruel murder of Caesarion, 

 whom he had acknowledged as the king of Egypt of the bloody 

 outrage on the praetor, Quintus Gallius, who was put to torture, and 

 afterwards delivered to the executioner, though not before his eyes 

 were plucked from their sockets by the hands of the " divine Au- 

 gustus," are established on irrefutable evidence. These are facts 

 which constitute a character beyond the slavish flattery of parasites, 

 and bring a blush of shame and indignation on the cheek of manli- 

 ness and virtue. Augustus was by nature cold and cruel ; when 

 Mecaenas saw him on the judgment-seat proceeding to an act of 

 vengeful condemnation, he wrote upon his tablets, which he passed 

 to him, " Surge, Carnifex :" the rebuke prevailed, and several citizens 

 were saved from death by the bold humanity of the disgusted 

 minister. 



A wise and comprehensive policy, the encouragement, perhaps the 

 love of letters, and the eventful moderation of a life expended for 

 the most part in pursuit of lust, ambition, and revenge, will chal- 

 lenge the applause of an impartial mind and such applause must 

 readily be granted to Augustus Caesar ; but he never can engross the 

 boundless admiration which flattery and folly have bestowed on him. 

 The monstrous vices of an unnatural sensualist his avarice and 



* A reader, curious af the fate of Ovid, will be gratified with Angelas Poli- 

 tian's elegant and tender elegy " de Exilio et Morte Ovidii." 



