Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/332

 310 THE DECLINE AND FALL pope the sublime prerogative of creating kings and assembling councils. The oracle of the civil law, the learned Bartolus, was a pensioner of Charles the Fourth ; and his school resounded with the doctrine that the Roman emperor was the rightful sovereign of the earth, from the rising to the setting sun. The contrary opinion was condemned, not as an error, but as an heresy, since even the gospel had pronounced, " And there went forth a decree from Ca?sar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed". ^'^■' Contract of If wc annihilate the interval of time and space between and modesty Augustus and Charles, strong and striking will be the contrast """' "^ between the two Caesars : the Bohemian, who concealed his weakness under the mask of ostentation, and the Roman, who disguised his strength under the semblance of modesty. At the head of his victorious legions, in his reign over the sea and land, from the Nile and Euphrates to the Atlantic ocean, Augustus professed himself the servant of the state and the equal of his fellow-citizens. The conqueror of Rome and her provinces assumed the popular and legal form of a censor, a consul, and a tribune. His will was the law of mankind, but, in the declaration of his laws, he borrowed the voice of the senate and people ; and, from their decrees, their master ac- cepted and renewed his temporary commission to administer the republic. In his dress, his domestics,!'''^ his titles, in all the offices of social life, Augustus maintained the character of a private Roman ; and his most artful flatterers respected the secret of his absolute and perpetual monarchy. '84 Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. io8. '"■'Six thousand urns have been discovered of che slaves and freedmen of Augustus and I.ivia. So minute was the division of office that one slave was appointed to weigh the wool which was spun by the empress's maids, another for the care of her lap-dog, &c. (Camere Sepolchrale, &c. by Bianchini. Extract of his work, in the Bibliothfeque Italique, torn. iv. p. 175. His Eloge, by Fontenelle, torn. vi. p. 356). But these servants were of the same rank, and possibly not more numerous than those of Pollio or Lentulus. They only prove the general riches of the citv.