46 The Advancement of Learning 



in deserving of the weal of the subject he did exceed him. 

 For Trajan erected many famous monuments and buildings ; 

 insomuch as Constantine the Great in emulation was wont 

 to call him Parietaria, wall-flower, because his name was 

 upon so many walls: but his buildings and works were 

 more of glory and triumph than use and necessity. But 

 Adrian spent his whole reign, which was peaceable, in a 

 perambulation or survey of the Roman empire; giving 

 order and making assignation where he went, for re-edifying 

 of cities, towns, and forts decayed ; and for cutting of rivers 

 and streams, and for making bridges and passages, and for 

 policing ^ of cities and commonalties with new ordinances 

 and constitutions, and granting new franchises and incor- 

 porations; so that his whole time was a very restoration 

 of all the lapses and decays of former times. 



7. Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince excel- 

 lently learned; and had the patient and subtle wit of a 

 schoolman; insomuch as in common speech, which leaves 

 no virtue untaxed, he was called Cymini Sector,^ a carver 

 or divider of cummin, which is one of the least seeds; such 

 a patience he had and settled spirit to enter into the least 

 and most exact differences of causes; a fruit no doubt of 

 the exceeding tranquillity and serenity of his mind ; which 

 being no ways charged or incumbered, either with fears, 

 remorses, or scruples, but having been noted for a man of 

 the purest goodness, without all fiction or affectation, that 

 hath reigned or lived, made his mind continually present 

 and entire. He likewise approached a degree nearer unto 

 Christianity, and became, as Agrippa said unto St. Paul, 

 half a Christian; 3 holding their religion and law in good 

 opinion, and not only ceasing persecution, but giving way 

 to the advancement of Christians. 



8. There succeeded him the first Divi fratres, the two adop- 

 tive brethren, Lucius Commodus Verus,* (son to MMns 

 Verus, who delighted much in the softer kind of learning, 

 and was wont to call the poet Martial his Virgil,^) and 

 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; whereof the latter, who 



1 Editions 1605 and 1629, pollicing, edition 1633, pollishing. 



• Unum de istis puto qui cuminum secant. Julian, Ctss. So 

 Aristot. Eth. Nic. iv. 3, ets twv SiairpLovriav t6 ifijfuvov, where, however, 

 the phrase is used of the " skinflint," or niggard. 



• Acts xxvi. 28. ' Better known as L. Aurelius Verus. 



• See his life by Spartianus. 



