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clamour, merely echo the aflertions of Suetonius and Dio. They 

 could not be much better judges of the matter than we at this 

 day, had they even taken the trouble to weigh the evidence. 

 Aurelius Vidor and Eutropius lived at a period three hundred 

 years diftant from the time of the conflagration, in the reigns of 

 Julian and Valentinian ; Cafllodorus was conful under Theodoric, 

 and born in 476 ; and Jornandes, in Juftinian's age, was fecretary 

 to a king of the Goths* As to the principal modern writers 

 who affert and infill on the fad, and particularly the ecclefiaftical 

 hiflorians, Xiphilinus, Vitranius and Sulpicius, though they lived 

 earlier than Fleury, who in the prefent century fupports their 

 opinion, their aflertions can have no more weight than his, nor 

 their knowledge of the fads be greater than ours. Xiphilinus 

 was the profeflTed abridger of Dio. Cafllus. Dio. repeated from 

 Suetonius, and upon the foundation of Suetonius's authority 

 the whole fabric muft ultimately depend. If any thing has 

 been added, it has probably been the work of exuberant imagina- 

 tion, like that of Karholtus of Hamburgh, a modern ecclefiaftical 

 writer, who reprefents the Emperor at a banquet fending forth 

 troops of incendiaries, and fitting to hear at intervals the trium- 

 phant tale of their horrid exploits, a pidure of which he could 

 not have found the leafl: trait in any ancient hiftorian. It re- 

 mains only to obferve, that Suetonius, the father of this tale, 

 could not have been unwittingly deceived into this aflTertion. 



Thus have I endeavoured to fcrutinize, in this inftance, the 

 accuracy and authenticity of Suetonius, which may be a clue 

 to his general charader as a writer, the only objed perhaps which 



could 



