tion. He engaged restlessly in philosophical studies, and passed from one phase of thought to another, unable to find satisfaction in any. Manichæism first enthralled him. Its doctrine of two principles, one of good and one of evil, seemed to answer to the wild confusion of his own heart, and the conflict of higher and lower impulses which raged within him. It seemed to solve the mysteries which perplexed him in his own experience and in the world. He became a member of the sect, and entered into the class of auditors. His ambition was to be received among the number of the Elect, and so get to the heart of what he believed to be their higher knowledge. But falling in with Faustus, a distinguished Manichæan bishop and disputant, and entering into discussion with him, he was greatly disappointed. The system lost its attraction for him; he gradually became disgusted, and abandoned it. But before this he had left Carthage, shocked with the licence of the students, and had betaken himself for a time to Rome in the pursuit of his profession. There he also soon became dissatisfied, and accepted an invitation to proceed to Milan, where the people were in search of a teacher of rhetoric. He travelled thither at the public expense, and was welcomed by friends who already seem to have recognised his distinction (Confess., i. 16). At Milan the conflict of his mind in search of truth still continued. He was now in his thirtieth year, and for eleven years he had been seeking for mental rest, unable to find it. 'To-morrow," he said to himself, "I shall find it it will appear manifestly, and I shall grasp it" (Confess., vi. 18). But it still eluded his grasp, and he sunk back again into despondency. The way, however, was being prepared for his conversion. Ambrose was bishop of Milan, and, although he had a weak voice, was noted for his eloquence. Augustine was attracted by his reputation, and went to hear the famous Christian preacher in order, as he himself relates (Confess., v. 23), "to see whether his eloquence answered what was reported of it. I hung on his words attentively," he adds, "but of the matter I was but an unconcerned and contemptuous hearer." He confesses his delight so far: "The bishop's eloquence was more full of knowledge, yet in manner less pleasurable and soothing, than that of Faustus." He wished an opportunity of conversation with him, but this was not easily found. Ambrose had no leisure for philosophic discussion He was accessible to all who sought him, but never for a moment free from study or the cares of duty. "Augustine used to enter, as all persons might, without being announced; but after staying for a while, afraid of interrupting him, he departed again." He continued, however, to hear Ambrose preach, and gradually the gospel of divine truth and grace was received into his heart. First Plato and then St Paul opened his mind to higher thoughts, and at length certain words of the latter were driven home with irresistible force to his conscience. He was busy with his friend Alypius in studying the Pauline epistles. His struggle of mind became intolerable; the thought of divine purity fighting in his heart with the love of the world and of the flesh. He burst into an incontrollable flood of tears and rushed out into his garden, flinging himself under a fig tree that he might allow his tears to have full vent, and pour out his heart to God. Suddenly he seemed to hear a voice calling upon him to consult the divine oracle, "Take up and read, take up and read." He left off weeping, rose up, and sought the volume where Alypius was sitting, and opening it read in silence the following passage: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof" (Rom. xiii. 13, 14). He adds, "I had neither desire nor need to read farther. As I finished the sentence, as though the light of peace had been poured into my heart, all the shadows of doubt dispersed. Thus hast Thou converted me to Thee, so as no longer to seek either for wife or other hope of the world, standing fast in that rule of faith in which Thou so many years before hadst revealed me to my mother" (Confess., viii. 30). After his conversion, which is supposed to have occurred in the summer of 386, Augustine gave up his profession as a teacher of rhetoric, and retired to a friend's house in the country, in order to prepare himself for baptism. His religious opinions were still to some extent unformed, and even his habits by no means altogether such as his great change demanded. He mentions, for example, that during this time he broke himself off a habit of profane swearing, and in other ways sought to discipline his character and conduct for the reception of the sacred rite. He received baptism in Easter following, in his thirty-third year; and along with him his son Adeodatus and his friend Alypius were admitted to the Christian church. Monica, his mother, had rejoined him, and at length rejoiced in the fulfilment of her prayers. Dying before his return to his native country, her last hours were gladdened by his Christian sympathy. She implored him to lay her body anywhere, but wherever he might be to remember her "at the altar of the Lord," a devout duty which he invites others to share with him, so that her last request may, "through the prayers of many," receive a more abundant fulfilment. Augustine went back to Rome for a short period and then returned to his native city, where he took up his abode in retirement, forming, with some friends who joined him in devotion, a small religious community, which looked to him as its head. They had all things in common, as in the early church, and fasting and prayer, Scripture reading and almsgiving, formed their regular occupations. Their mode of life was not formally monastic according to any special rule, but the experience of this time of seclusion was, no doubt, the basis of that monastic system which Augus tine afterwards sketched, and which derived from him its name Solitary monasticism had sprang up in the Egyptian deserts before this. The life of 'St Anthony by Athanasius had widely diffused the fervour for religious solitariness, and greatly touched Augustine at this period of his profession. It did not remain for him, therefore, to originate the monastic idea; but the association of monks in communities under a definite order and head received a special impulse both from. Ambrose and his illustrious convert. As may be imagined, the fame of such a convert in such a position soon spread, and invitations to a more active ecclesiastical life came to him from many quarters. He shrank from the responsibility, but his destiny was not to be avoided. After three years spent in retirement he took a journey to Hippo, to see a Christian friend, who desired to converse with him as to his design of quitting the world and devoting himself to a religious life. He was the less reluctant to make this journey, because there being already a bishop at Hippo he hoped to escape all solicitation. But although the Christian community there had a bishop, they wanted a presbyter; and Augustine being present at the meeting called to choose a presbyter, the people unanimously chose him. He burst into tears, and would fain have escaped; but the church could not spare his services. He was ordained to the presbyterate, and in a few years afterwards he was made coadjutor to the bishop, and finally became sole bishop of the see. Henceforth Augustine's life is filled up with his ecclesiastical labours, and is more marked by the series of his numerous writings and the great controversies in which they engaged him than by anything else. Already he had distinguished himself as an author. He had written several The third controversy in which Augustine engaged was the most important, and the most intimately associated with his distinctive greatness as a theologian. As may be supposed, from the conflicts through which he had passed, the bishop of Hippo was intensely interested in what may be called the anthropological aspects of the great Christian idea of redemption. He had himself been brought out of darkness into "marvellous light,” only by entering into the depths of his own soul, and finding, after many struggles, that there was no power but divine grace, as revealed in the life and death of the Son of God, which could bring rest to human weariness, or pardon and peace for human guilt. He had found human nature in his own case too weak and sinful to find any good for itself. In God alone he had found good. This deep sense of human sinfulness coloured all his theology, and gave to it at once its depth philosophical treatises; he had combated the scepticism of | have been productive of much disaster in the history of the New Academy (Contra Academicos libri tres, 386 A.D.); Christianity. he had treated of the "Blessed Life" (De vita beata, 386) and of the "Immortality of the Soul" (De Immortalitate Anima, 387); he had defended the church against the Manichæans, whose doctrines he had formerly professed. "When I was at Rome," he says (Retract., i. 7), "after my baptism, and could not hear in silence the vaunting of the Manichæans over true Christians, to whom they are not to be compared, I wrote two books, one on The Morals of the Catholic Church, and the other on The Morals of the Manichaans." These tracts or pamphlets, for they are little more, were written in the year 388, about two years after his conversion. Later, in 395, and again in 400, he pursued the controversy with the Manichæans, making an elaborate reply, in the latter year, to his old associate and friend Faustus. The reply was provoked by an attack made by Faustus on the Catholic faith, which the "brethren" invited Augustine to answer. This he did characteristically and energetically by giving in succession 'the opinions of Faustus, as if stated by himself," and his own in response. It was natural that the Manichæan heresy, which had so long enslaved his own mind, should have first exercised Augustine's great powers as a theological thinker and disputant. He was able from his own experience to give force to his arguments for the unity of creation and of spiritual life, and to strengthen the mind of the Christian church in its last struggle with that dualistic spirit which had animated and moulded in succession so many forms of thought at variance with Christianity. But the time was one of almost universal ecclesiastical and intellectual excitement; and so powerful a mental activity as his was naturally drawn forth in all directions. Following his writings against the Manichæans come those against the Donatists. This controversy was one which strongly interested him, involving as it did the whole question of the constitution of the church and the idea of catholic order, to which the circumstances of the age gave special prominence. The Donatist schism sprang out of the Diocletian persecutions in the beginning of the century. A party in the Church of Carthage, fired with fanatical zeal on behalf of those who had distinguished themselves by resistance to the imperial mandates and courted martyrdom, resented deeply the appointment of a bishop of moderate opinions, whose consecration had been performed, they alleged, by a traditor. They set up, in consequence, a bishop of their own, of the name of Majorinus, succeeded in 315 by Donatus. The party made great pretensions to purity of discipline, and rapidly rose in popular favour, notwithstanding a decision given against them both by the bishop of Rome and by the Emperor Contantine, to whom they personally appealed. Augustine was strongly moved by the lawlessness of the party, and launched forth a series of writings against them, the most important of which survive, though some are lost. Amongst these are Seven Books on Baptism, and a lengthened answer, in three books, to Fetilian, bishop of Cirta, who was the most eminent theologian amongst the Donatist divines. At a somewhat later period, about 417, he wrote a treatise concerning the correction of the Donatists (De Correctione Donatistarum), "for the sake of those," he says in his Retractations, ii. c. 48, "who were not willing that the Donatists should be subjected to the correction of the imperial laws." In these writings, while vigorously maintaining the validity of the Catholic Church as it then stood in the Roman world, and the necessity for moderation in the exercise of church discipline, Augustine yet gave currency, in his zeal against the Donatists, to certain maxims as to the duty of the civil power to control schism, which were of evil omen, and its profound and sympathetic adaptation to all who feel the reality of sin-and that tinge of darkness and exaggeration which as surely have repelled others. When the expres sion Augustinianism is used, it points especially to those opinions of the great teacher which were evoked in the Pelagian controversy, to which he devoted the most mature and powerful period of his life. His opponents in this controversy were Pelagius, from whom it derives its name, and Cœlestius and Julianus, pupils of the former. Pelagius was a British monk. Augustine calls him Brito ; and Jerome points to his Scottish descent, in such terms, however, as to leave it uncertain whether he was a native of Scotland or Ireland (habet progeniem Scotia gentis de Britannorum vicinią). He was a man of blameless character, devoted to the reformation of society, full of enthusiasm, and that confidence in the natural impulses of humanity which often accompanies philanthropic enthusiasm. Travelling to Rome about the beginning of the 5th century, he took up his abode for a time there, and soon made himself conspicuous by his activity and opinions. His pupil Cœlestius carried out the views of his master with a more outspoken logic, and was at length arraigned before the bishop of Carthage for the following, amongst other, heretical opinions :-(1.) That Adam's sin was purely personal, and affected none but himself; (2.) That each man, consequently, is born with powers as incorrupt as those of Adam, and only falls into sin under the force of temptation and evil example; (3.) That children who die in infancy, being untainted by sin, are saved without baptism. Views such as these were obviously in conflict with the whole course of Augustine's experience, as well as with his interpretation of the catholic doctrine of the church. And when his attention was drawn to them by the trial and excommunication of Cœlestius, he undertook their refutation, first of all, in three books on Forgiveness of Sins and Baptism; addressed to his friend Marcellinus, in which he vindicated the necessity of the baptism of infants because of original sin and the grace of God by which we are justified (Retract., ii. c. 23). This was in 412. In the same year he addressed a further treatise to the same person, "My beloved son Marcellinus," on The Spirit and the Letter. Three years later he composed two further treatises on Nature and Grace, and the relation of the Human to the Divine Righteousness. The controversy was continued during many years in no fewer than fifteen treatises. Upon no subject did Augustine bestow more of his intellectual strength, and in relation to no other have his views so deeply and permanently affected the course of Christian thought. Even those who most usually agree with his theological stand-point will hardly deny that, while he did much in these writings to vindicate divine truth and to expound the true relations of the divine and human. he also, here as elsewhere, was hurried into extreme expressions as to the absoluteness of divine grace and the extent of human corruption. Like his great disciple in a later age-Luther-Augustine was prone to emphasise the side of truth which he had most realised in his own experience, and, in contradistinction to the Pelagian exaltation of human nature, to depreciate its capabilities beyond measure. There are few thoughtful minds who would not concede the deeper truthfulness of Augustine's spiritual and theological analysis, in comparison with that of his opponent, as well as its greater consistency with Scripture; but there are also few who would now be disposed to identify themselves with the dogmatism of the orthodox bishop any more than with the dogmatism of the heretical monk. And on one particular point, which more or less runs through all the controversy-the salvation of infants-the Christian consciousness, in its later and higher growth, may be said to have pronounced itself decisively on the side of the monk rather than of the bishop. In addition to these controversial writings, which mark the great epochs of Augustine's life and ecclesiastical activity after his settlement as a bishop at Hippo, he was the author of other works, some of them better known and even more important. His great work, the most elaborate, and in some respects the most significant, that came from his pen, is The City of God. It is designed as a great apologetic treatise in vindication of Christianity and the Christian church, the latter conceived as rising in the form of a new civic order on the crumbling ruins of the Roman empire, but it is also, perhaps, the earliest contribution to the philosophy of history, as it is a repertory throughout of his cherished theological opinions. This work and his Confessions are, probably, those by which he is best known, the one as the highest expression of his thought, and the other as the best monument of his living piety and Christian experience. The City of God was begun in 413, and continued to be issued in its several portions for a period of thirteen years, or till 426. The Confessions were written shortly after he became a bishop, about 397, and give a vivid sketch of his early career. To the devout utterances and aspirations of a great soul they add the charm of personal disclosure, and have never ceased to excite admiration in all spirits of kindred piety. His systematic treatise on The Trinity, which extends to fifteen books, and occupied him for nearly thirty years, must not be passed over. "I began," he says (Retract., ii. 15), as a very young man, and have published in my old age some books concerning the Trinity." This important dogmatic work, unlike most of his dogmatic writings, was not provoked by any special controversial emergency, but grew up silently during this long period in the author's mind. This has given it something more of completeness and organic arrangement than is usual with him, if it has also led him into the prolonged discussion of various analogies, more curious than apt in their bearing on the doctrine which he expounds. The exegetical writings of Augustine, his lengthened Commentary on St John and on the Sermon on the Mount, &c.,-and then his Letters, remain to be mentioned. The former have a value from his insight into the deeper spiritual meanings of Scripture, but hardly for their exegetical characteristics. The latter are full of interest in reference to many points in the ecclesiastical history of the time, and his relation to contemporary theologians like Jerome. They have neither the liveliness nor variety of interest, however, which belong to the letters of Jerome himself. The closing years of the great bishop were full of sorrow. The Vandals, who had been gradualy enclosing the Roman empire, appeared before the gates of Hippo, and laid siege to it. Augustine was ill with his last illness, and could only pray for his fellow-citizens. He passed away during the progress of the siege, on the 28th of August 430, at the age of seventy-five, and was spared the indignity of seeing the city in the hands of the enemy. The character of Augustine, both as a man and a theologian, has been briefly indicated in the course of our sketch. Little remains to be added without entering into discussions too extended for our space. None can deny the greatness of Augustine's soul-his enthusiasm, his unceasing search after truth, his affectionateness, his ardour, his self-devotion. And even those who may doubt the soundness or value of some of his dogmatic conclusions, cannot hesitate to acknowledge the depth of his spiritual convictions, and the strength, solidity, and penetration with which he handled the most difficult questions, and wrought all the elements of his experience and of his profound Scriptural knowledge into a great system of Christian thought. The best complete edition of Augustine's writings is that of the Benedictines, in 11 vols. folio, published at Paris, 1679-1800, and reprinted in 1836-38 in 22 half-volumes. Tillemont, in his Ecclesiastical History, has devoted a quarto volume to his life and writings. Two extensive monographs have appeared on him; the one by Kloth, a Roman Catholic (Aachen, 1840), and the other by Bindemann, a Protestant (Berlin, 1844, 1855). See also Ritter's Hist. of Christian Philosophy, vol. i.; Böhringer's Hist. of the Church; Dr P. Schaff's St Augustine (Berlin, New York, and London, 1854); Nourrisson, La Philosophie de S. Augustine (Paris, 1866); A. Dorner, Augustinus (Berlin, 1872); Neander's Church History; Mozley's Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, 1855; Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art. (J. T.) AUGUSTINE, or AUSTIN, ST, the first archbishop of Canterbury, was originally a monk in the Benedictine convent of St Andrew at Rome, and was educated under the famous Gregory, afterwards Pope Gregory L., by whom he was sent to Britain with forty monks of the same order, to carry out the favourite project of converting the English to Christianity. The missionaries set out with much reluctance, for the journey was long and perilous, and on the way they endeavoured to persuade the Pope to allow them to return. His orders, however, were peremptory; they proceeded, therefore, on their journey, and at last landed, some time in the year 596, on the isle of Thanet. Having sent interpreters to explain their mission to King Ethelbert, whose queen, Bertha, was a Christian, they received from him permission to preach and to make converts. He treated them with great favour, held a public conference with them, and assigned them a residence at Durovernum, now Canterbury. His own conversion to the Christian faith, which took place shortly afterwards, had a powerful influence with his subjects, who joined the new church in great numbers. Augustine, seeing the success of his labours, crossed to France, and received consecration at Arles. He then despatched messengers to the Pope to inform him of what had been done, and to propose for his consideration certain practical difficulties that had arisen. They brought back the pallium, with which Augustine was consecrated as first archbishop of Canterbury, and certain vestments and utensils for the new churches. Gregory also gave most prudent counsel for dealing with the new converts, strongly advising the archbishop to make the change of faith, so far as ceremonial went, as gradual as possible, and not on any account to wound the feelings of the people by destroying their temples, but rather to consecrate them afresh, and use them for Christian worship. Augustine passed the remainder of his life principally at Canterbury, where he died, probably in 607, on the 26th May. See Lives of the English Saints, No. III. 1847, and Mrs Jameson's Legends of the Monastic Orders. AUGUSTINIANS, a monastic order of the Roman Catholic Church, claiming to have received its rule from St Augustine. See ABBEY and MONASTICISM, AUGUSTOVO, a city in Russian Poland, in the government of Suvalki, situated on the river Netta, near a lake, which abounds in fish. It was founded in 1557 by Sigismund II. (Augustus), and is laid out in a very regular manner, with a large market-place. It carries on a large trade in cattle and horses, and manufactures linen and huckaback. Population, 9383. AUGUSTUS AND THE AUGUSTAN AGE. The name of Augustus was the title of honour given by the Romans to the emperor Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus, or, as he was originally designated, Caius Octavius. This title was intended to be hereditary in his family, but all the succeeding Cæsars or emperors of Rome continued to adopt it, long after they had ceased to be connected with the first Augustus by blood. The era of Augustus formed an illustrious epoch in Roman history, and was distinguished for its splendid attainments in arts and arms, and more especially in literature. The Romans in later times looked back to the age of Augustus with great complacency, as the most prosperous and the most distinguished in their annals. The name of the "Augustan Age" has been specially applied to it in modern times, and the same title has been given, with more or less justice, to certain epochs in modern history as the highest compliment to their glory. The reign of Louis XIV. is called the Augustan age of France; the reign of Anne, the Augustan age of England. Caius Octavius was the son of a noble Roman of the same name, of the plebeian order. The father had married Atia, the daughter of Julia, sister to the great C. Julius Cesar, who was accordingly great-uncle to the young Octavius. Cæsar, the dictator, having no son of his own, took an interest in this youth, caused him to be enrolled among the Patricians, and bred him with a view to the highest honours of the republic. Already, in his eighteenth year, he had chosen him for his "master of the horse," but this was a merely nominal distinction. The young man was sent to carry on his education at the camp at Apollonia in Illyricum, and there, at the age of nineteen, he heard of his great kinsman's assassination (44 B.C.) He had already become a favourite with the soldiers, who offered to escort him to Rome, and follow his fortunes. But this he declined, and crossed over alone to Italy. On landing he learnt that Cæsar had made him his heir and adopted him into the Julian gens, whereby he acquired the designation of C. Julius Cæsar Octavianus. The inheritance was a perilous one; his mother and others would have dissuaded him from accepting it, but he, confident in his abilities, declared at once that he would undertake its obligations, and discharge the sums bequeathed by the dictator to the Roman people. M. Antonius had possessed himself of Caesar's papers and effects, and made light of his young nephew's pretensions. The liberators paid him little regard, and dispersed to their respective provinces. Cicero, much charmed at the attitude of Antonius, hoped to make use of him, and flattered him to the utmost, with the expectation, however, of getting rid of him as soon as he had served his purpose. Octavianus conducted himself with consummate adroitness, making use of all competitors for power, but assisting none. Considerable forces attached themselves to him. The senate, when it armed the consuls against Antonius, called upon him for assistance; and he took part in the campaign in which Antonius was defeated at Mutina, but both the consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, slain. The soldiers of Octavianus demanded the consulship for him, and the senate, though now much alarmed, could not prevent his election. He now effected a junction with Antonius, who quickly overthrew the power of the republican party in their stronghold, the Cisalpine provinces, with the death of Decimus Brutus, the ablest of the liberators. Thereupon Octavianus and Antonius, taking Lepidus into union with them, met on the river Rhenus near Bononia, and proclaimed themselves a triumvirate for the reconstitution of the commonwealth. They divided the western provinces among them, the east being held for the republic by M. Brutus and Cassius. They drew up a list of proscribed citizens, entered Rome together, and caused the assassination of three hundred senators and two thousand knights. They further con. fiscated the territories of many cities throughout Italy, and divided them among their soldiers. Cicero was murdered at the demand of Antonius. The remnant of the republican party took refuge either with Brutus and Cassius in the East, or with Sextus Pompeius, who had made himself master of the seas. Octavianus and Antonius crossed the Adriatic in 42 B.C. to reduce the last defenders of the republic. Brutus and Cassius were defeated, and fell at the battle of Philippi. War soon broke out between the victors, the chief incident of which was the siege and capture by famine of Perusia, and the alleged sacrifice of three hundred of its defenders by the young Cæsar at the altar of his uncle. But peace was again made between them. Antonius married Octavia, his rival's sister, and took for himself the eastern half of the empire, leaving the west to Cæsar. Lepidus was reduced to the single province of Africa. Meanwhile Sextus Pompeius made himself formidable by cutting off the supplies of grain from Rome. The triumvirs were obliged to concede to him the islands in the western Mediterranean. But Octavianus could not allow the capital to be kept in alarm for its daily sustenance. He picked a quarrel with Sextus, and when his colleagues failed to support him, undertook to attack him alone. Antonius, indeed, came at last to his aid, in return for military assistance in the campaign he meditated in the East. But Octavianus was well served by the commander of his fleet, M. Vipsanius Agrippa. Sextus was completely routed, and driven into Asia, where he perished soon afterwards. Lepidus was an object of contempt to all parties, and Octavianus and Antonius remained to fight for supreme power. The alliance of Antonius with Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, alienated the Romans from him. They now gladly accepted the heir of Cæsar as the true successor of the most illustrious of their heroes. It was felt almost universally that the empire required a single head, and that repose could only be assured by the sovereignty of the chief of its armies. The battle of Actium, followed by the death of Antonius, 31 B.C., raised the victor to universal empire. Nevertheless, Octavianus did not hasten to assume his position. He first regulated the affairs of Egypt, which he annexed to the Roman dominions, then lingered for a time in Greece, and entered upon a fifth consulship at Samos, 29 B.C. On his return to Rome he distributed the vast sums he had accumulated among the people and the soldiers, while he soothed the pride of the nobles by maintaining unchanged the outward show of republican government. Of his personal history from this period there remains little to be said. He continued to reside almost constantly at Rome and in the neighbourhood, making one expedition into Spain, 27 B.C., and a journey through Greece in 21, on which occasion he advanced into Syria, and received back the standards taken by the Parthians from Crassus. In 16 B.C. he went to Gaul to regulate the affairs of that province, an expedition which he repeated, 9 B.C. But from thenceforth he intrusted the defence of the position to his lieutenants, and more especially to the young princes of his own family. The empire continued to enjoy profound internal tranquillity. More than one plot was formed against the head of the state by some of the discontented nobility, but these were discovered and disconcerted; and when it was evident that they met with no favour from the people generally, he could afford to treat them with a signal clemency, which | seems to have secured him from any further attempts. The serenity and placability which he displayed in his latter years forms a marked contrast to his jealousy and ferocity at an earlier period; and the character of the Emperor Augustus Cæsar has been a problem to historians in consequence. The life of the emperor was prolonged to the year 14 A.D. He died at Nola in his seventy-fifth year, after holding supreme power in the state for nearly half a century. further, at least, than might be necessary for his main object. He caused himself to be appointed censor, not for one but for five years, in order to give him full time to revise the list of senators, to supply the fearful gaps in the ranks of the old nobility, and to expel such members, and many they were, who seemed unworthy, from their foreign extraction, their low birth, their scanty means, or their bad character, to have a place in that august assembly. The irregularities of the epoch which he hoped now to close had filled its benches with personages who degraded the order in the eyes of genuine citizens. The nobles and good citizens generally hailed this revision with deep satisfaction. It accorded with the national taste as well as with historical traditions. From the individual resentments it provoked, it was an act of some personal danger to the censor; but the danger was more than repaid by the popularity attend. ing upon it, which was enhanced to the utmost by the liberality with which provision was made for raising some of the poor but honourable members of the order to the standard of property now to be required of them. During the years which had intervened between his accepting the inheritance of Cæsar, and his attaining to Cæsar's undivided sovereignty, the young aspirant had been meditating how to secure the retention of his power. At first, excited by fears for his own personal safety, and urged by the examples of party leaders around him, and of others who had gone before him, he plunged into a career of wholesale bloodshed, and cut off without scruple every public man from whose principles or whose passions he night have cause of apprehension. A large proportion, perhaps, of the senators and nobles had perished in the The emperor placed himself at the head of this reconstiproscriptions and bloody wars of the triumvirate. Still it tuted body, by assuming the office and title of Princeps could not be expected that the germs of republican sentiment Senatus. The office was indeed little more than nominal; would ever be wholly eradicated. The sense of patriotism it gave the right of proposing measures and of speaking and the sense of interest would not fail to raise up enemies first in the highest legislative assembly of the state, and to the sovereign ruler of the Roman commonwealth. The having been borne in earlier times by some of the most conqueror's first object was to protect himself by force of distinguished of Roman patriots, it carried with it the rearms, his next to soothe the passions of the class from spect and affection of the people. The titular precedence it whose resentment he had most cause of fear, and after that gave was all the more valuable, inasmuch as it might be to raise up another class in direct sympathy with himself conceded without a blush by the sturdiest republican in to balance the power which the first must necessarily retain the senate. But it was the consul who possessed practically in a well-ordered government. It was to the attainment the chief authority in the assembly. Octavianus had been of these three objects that Octavianus directed his organisa- already five times consul, and he shrank from seizing in tion of the commonwealth. perpetuity an office which, according to Roman ideas, differed in nothing from royalty, except that it was elective, and that it was limited to the tenure of a single year. Yet he could hardly afford to yield it to the citizen whom the people might at any time elect to thwart or to rival him. What should he do? He took what was certainly a bold step. It was a manifest innovation upon the forms of the free state when he required from the citizens the perpetual "potestas," or power of the consulship, at the same moment that he resigned the office itself, and suffered consuls to be annually elected to sit, one on each side of him, in the senate. The potestas which was thus conceded to him rendered him the head of the state, both in its legislative and executive departments. When he quitted the city he carried with him into the provinces a proconsular authority, and became to all intents and purposes king for life of the Romans and of their subjects. Even in the senatorial provinces he was now recognised as supreme; and thus it was that in him were centred all the great political functions which had been hitherto divided by the great assembly of the Roman magnates. The powers of the imperator or commander of the Roman army ceased on bis return to the city. He then became once more a plain citizen. If war again arose he must seek his reappointment to command with the usual forms. Cæsar had not trusted his countrymen so far. He had claimed from them the title of imperator in perpetuity. With this title prefixed to his name, he continued to be still the commander of the legions, whether in the city or in the provinces. With this power his successor dared not dispense. On his arrival at Rome from the East he at once required the senate to accord it to him, as to his uncle before him; but he pretended only to ask it for a limited period of five years. At the expiration of that term, however, he assumed it again and again, though each time for ten years only, but never actually relin. quished it to the end of his career. He thus received authority to command the whole force of the state in chief, and the officers who acted under him became simply his lieutenants. If they gained victories, the honours of the triumph were reserved for the imperator "under whose auspices" they were reputed to have served. It followed hat all the provinces on the frontiers, or in which armies were maintained, were placed under the emperor's direct authority, while it was only the central and peaceful portions of the empire that were handed over to the government of the senate. The imperial provinces were administered by the legati Cæsaris, the senatorial by proconsuls. The person of the emperor was thus secured as far as the power of the sword could secure it. But he was anxious that the source of this power should not be too apparent. The second Cæsar wished to maintain the appearance at least of government by the constitutional powers of the republic. The senate had once been practically the ruling power, as far as it was not actually controlled by the masters of the legions. He would not degrade it in its own estimation, or in the estimation of the people, any But the emperor did not limit his views to becoming the chief of the nobles. It was the part of a wary statesman to associate himself not less intimately with the opposite faction, which, under the name of the plebeians, had aimed at securing co-ordinate power with the patricians. The original meaning of these designations had indeed long been lost. The plebeians could boast many families as eminent both for honours and possessions as their haughty rivals. Step by step they had won an equal share with them in political privileges. But the class which still bore the title of plebeian was much more widely extended, and embraced the great mass of the knights and men of business in the city, and also of the citizens settled throughout the provinces. This large class had for more than a century contended with the nobles for the perquisites of office, and their mutual rivalry had |