Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/107

Rh pleted. The obscure name of Octavianus, he derived from a mean family, in the little town of Aricia. It was stained with the blood of the proscription ; and he was desirous, had it been possible, to erase all memory of his former life. The illustrious surname of Caesar, he had assumed as the adopted son of the dictator ; but he had too much good sense, either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared, with that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate, to dignify their minister with a new appellation : and after a very serious discussion, that of Augustus was chosen among several others, as being the most expressive of the character of peace and sanctity, which he uniformly affected. Augustus was therefore a personal, Ccesar a family distinction. The former should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was bestowed ; and, however the latter was diffused by adoption and female alHance, Nero was the last prince who could allege any hereditary claim to the honours of the Julian line. But at the time of his death, the practice of a century had inseparably connected those appellations with the imperial dignity, and they have been preserved by a long succession of emperors, Romans, Greeks, Franks, and Germans, from the fall of the republic to the present time. A distinction was, however, soon introduced. The sacred title of Augustus was always reserved for the monarch, whilst the name of Caesar was more freely communicated to his relations ; and, from the reign of Hadrian, at least, was appropriated to the second person in the state, who was considered as the presumptive heir of the empire.

The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he had destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant. A cool head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted him, at the age of nineteen, to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which he never afterwards laid aside. With the same hand, and pro-