Before Chrift 20. 121 



peace. The Ethiopian ambafladors were fent by Petronius, the Roman 

 general, to Auguftus, then in the ifland of Samos, who remitted the tri- 

 bute demanded by his general, the colledion of which he probably 

 thought impradicable : but he feems to have retained fome kind of 

 fuperiority, at leaft upon the coaft, as we not only find that the mer- 

 chants of Egypt immediately opened a new trade with the Troglodytes, 

 an Ethiopian nation, occupying the weft coafl of the Red fea ; {^Strabo, 

 L. xvn,pp. 1 149, 1176] but alfo, that the Romans, at leaft foon after 

 this time, levied a cuftom duty on the coaft of the Red fea, as far as the 

 Ocean, [P/i/i. L. vi, c. 22] which may be prefumed to be on the weft 

 fide of it, in confequence of the treaty concluded with the Ethiopian 

 ambaftadors at Samos, as the fruftrated expedition againft the rich com- 

 mercial part of Arabia fhows, that it could not be (as fome have fup- 

 pofed) on the fliore of that country. 



20 — An Indian prince, called Porus, is faid to have fent amballlidors 

 to Auguftus, who received them in the ifland of Samos. This is fup- 

 pofed to be a fecond embafly from the fame prince, who had fent thofe 

 who traveled to Spain. [Nicol. Damafcen ap. Strah. L. xv, p. 1 047 ; and 

 fee p. 1006.] 



19 — Virgil, the chief of the Roman poets, had flattered Auguftus fo 

 fuccefsfully, that, according to his commentator and biographer, Servius, 

 he died worth £%o,'j2^ of our modern fterling money. Was there ever 

 any other poet half as rich } 



13 — Auguftus raifed the dayly pay of the Roman foldiers to five 

 pence of our modern money : but thole who guarded the facred perfon 

 of the emperor were rewarded with twelve pence. About the fame 

 time wheat coft from i/i i to 2/6 a buftiel, as appears from one of Ci- 

 cero's fpeeches againft Verres. 



A. D. 14 — The remarkably-long reign of Auguftus was terminated 

 by a natural death ; a termination which fell to the lot of Icarcely any 

 other emperor before the elevation of the Flavian family. After he 

 found himfelf eftablifhed fole monarch of the Roman empire by the 

 deftrudion of all his competitors and their adherents, he endeavoured 

 to make the people forget his ufurpation by an affected moderation in 

 the ufe of his power, and by aipecious appearance of attention to their 

 happinefs in every thing which did not interfere with his own fuprem- 

 acy. The embellifliment of Rome in his reign is exprefled by a well 

 known faying of his, that ' he found it a city of brick, and Ihould leave 

 ' it a city of marble.' He may be called the father of the Roman im- 

 perial navy ; for which he appointed Ravenna, in the Adriatic fea, as 

 the principal ftation of the eaftern fquadron, and Milenum, in the Gulf 

 of Naples, of the weftern. Somefmaller divifions were alfo ftationed in 

 the Euxine fea, on the fouth coaft of Gaul, and between the north 

 coaft of Gaul and Britain. It muft be acknowleged, that his navy was 



Vol. I. (^ 



