Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/394

 570 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, the slow majesty of the procession ascended not the capitol before the ninth hour ; and it was already dark when the emperor returned to the palace. The festival was protracted by theatrical representations, the games of the circus, the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval engagements. Liberal donatives were distributed to the army and people, and several institutions, agreeable or beneficial to the city, contri- buted to perpetuate the glory of Aurelian. A consi- derable portion of his oriental spoils was consecrated to the gods of Rome ; the capitol, and every other tem- ple, glittered with the offerings of his ostentatious piety ; and the temple of the sun alone received above fifteen thousand pounds of gold''. This last was a magnificent structure, erected by the emperor on the side of the Quirinal hill, and dedicated, soon after the triumph, to that deity whom Aurelian adored as the parent of his life and fortunes. His mother had been an inferior priestess in a chapel of the sun : a peculiar devotion to the god of light, was a sentiment which the fortunate peasant imbibed in his infancy; and every step of his elevation, every victory of his reign, fortified superstition by gratitude ^ He sup- The arms of Aurelian had vanquished the foreign seditfont ^"^ domestic foes of the repubhc. We are assured, Rome. that, by his salutary rigour, crimes and factions, mis- chievous arts and pernicious connivance, the luxuriant growth of a feeble and oppressive government, were eradicated throughout the Roman world ^ But if we attentively reflect how much swifter is the progress of corruption than its cure, and if we remember that the years abandoned to public disorders exceeded the months allotted to the martial reign of Aurelian ; we 1 Vopiscus in Hist. August. 222 ; Zosimus, 1. i. p. 56. He placed in it the images of Belus and of the sun, which he had brought from Palmyra. It was dedicated in the fourth year of his reign, (Euseb. in Chron.) but was most assuredly begun immediately on his accession. •■ See in the Augustan History, p. 210, the omens of his fortune. His de- votion to the sun appears in his letters, on his medals, and is mentioned in the Caesars of Julian. Commentaire de Spanheim, p. 109. ^ Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 221.