S94 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1794. 



in a manner impious to doubt his 

 guilt. 



On whom does the authority of 

 this legend rrst ? As appears to 

 me, on the authority of Suetonius 

 alone. The careful peruser of Ta- 

 citus will, 1 think, agree with me, 

 that he did not behevc the tale; he 

 wrote before Suetonius, and pos- 

 sessed earlier and better channels of 

 enquiry. Suetonius was secretary 

 to Adrian, whose reign was pre- 

 ceded by the death of Tacitus.* 

 The next author who mentions the 

 charge wth confidence is Dio Cas- 

 sius, who lived in the reign of 

 Alexander Severus, two hundred 

 years after the event ; no testimony 

 can go beyond its iirst original; the 

 tribe of servile copyers add not a 

 jot of weight to the evidence. 



Aurclius Victor, Eutropius, Mar- 

 cus Aurelius Cassiodorus, and Jor- 

 nandes, the only subsequent Latin 

 writers who repeat the clamour, 

 merely echo the assertions of Sue- 

 tonius and Dio. They could tiot 

 be much better judges of the mat- 

 ter than we at this day, had they 

 even taken the trouble to weigh the 

 evidence. Aurelius Victor and 

 Eutropius lived at a period three 

 hundred years distant from the time 

 of the conflagration, in the reigns 

 of Julian and Valentinian ; Cassio- 

 dorus was consul under Theodoric, 

 and born in 476 ; and .Tornande*, 

 i n Justinian's age, was secretary- to 

 a king of the Goths. As to the 

 principal modern writers who assert 

 and insist on the fact, and parti- 

 cularly the ecclesiastical historians, 

 Xiphilinus, Vitranius, and Sulpi- 

 cius, though they lived earlier than 

 Fleury, who in the present century 



supports thdr opinion, their asser- 

 tions can have no more weight than 

 his, nor their knowledge of the 

 facts be greater than ours. Xiphi- 

 lir.us was the professed abridger of 

 Dio Cassius. Dio repeated from 

 Suetonius, and upon the foundation 

 of Suetonius*s authority the whole 

 fabnc must ultimately depend. If 

 any thing has been add*d, it has 

 probably been the work of exube- 

 rant imapinaiion, like that of Kar- 

 holtus, of Hamburgh, a modern ec- 

 clesiastical writer, who represents 

 the emperor at a banquet sending 

 forth troops of incendiaries, and 

 sitting to liear at intenals the trir 

 umpiiant tale of their horrid ex- 

 ploits, a picture of which he could 

 not have found the least trait in any 

 ancient historian. It remains only 

 to observe, that Suetonius, the fa- 

 ther of this tale, could not have 

 been unwittingly deceived into this 

 assertion. 



Thus have I endeavoured to scru- 

 tinize, in this instance, the accu- 

 racy and authenticity of Suetonius, 

 \\hich may be a clue to his general 

 character as a writer, the only ob- 

 ject perhaps which could have justi- 

 fied my calhng the attention of this 

 revered assembly to a question so 

 remote, and seemingly so uninter 

 resting. Always, as I have said, 

 has that historian appeared to me 

 to be over-rated ; tlie indecency of 

 his descriptions has been often con- 

 denmed, aiid it was well observed, 

 that Suetonius wrote the lives of the 

 emperors with the same licentious- 

 ness with which they lived. Were 

 I to compare Suetonius with any 

 writer of our own time, in point ot 

 credit due tohis narration, I would 



As is gtnerally supposed. 



scarce!)' 



