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more inclination than ability to learn the liberal arts, his own want 

 of talents did not render him less an encoiirager of those who pos- 

 sessed them. As to his wife Julia Domna, Gibbon says, that "she 

 had applied herself to letters and philosophy with some success, and 

 the most splendid reputation. She was thepatronessof every art, and 

 the friend of every man of genius." She sought by acts of liberality 

 to mitigate the odium of dishonouring her husband's bed; and 

 though abandoned to the indulgence of her licentious passions, she 

 did not forget what she owed to her country and the advancement of 

 learning. She procured the rights of Roman citizens for Emessa, 

 the city of her birth. She induced Philostratus to undertake the life 

 of Apollonius ; and by her continued generosity to the literati, se- 

 cured the fame of which she was solicitous. 



Of such a woman, a young and accomplished poet might reason- 

 ably expect the countenance. And if we take into the account that 

 her sister Julia Maesa was married to Julius Avitus, a native of 

 Apamea, a city familiar to Oppian, may it not be fairly con- 

 jectured, especially as he had given proofs of his poetical talent 

 prior to his exile, that his name was not unknown to the Roman 

 court before he appeared there in person, and that he had some 

 reason for indulging the hope of being received and heard with 

 candour and liberality ? 



That a taste for literature and the fine arts continued to be cul- 

 tivated at Rome, and patronized by the reigning families long after 

 the Augustan age, is evident to every reader of history. A taste 

 for them became the fashion, and those who had it not, affected to 

 have it. But the splendor of the age when Cicero spoke, and 

 Virgil and Ovid sang, has attracted most eyes so forcibly, that 

 they have been dazzled by its brilliancy, almost into blindness to all 

 succeeding excellence. The honor bestowed on the past, weakens 



