But these emperors would be more properly classed with
the five who succeed them--Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines;
after whom comes the young ruffian, Commodus, another Caligula or Nero,
from whose short and infamous reign Gibbon takes up his tale of the
decline of the empire. And this classification would probably have
prevailed, had not the very curious work of Suetonius, whose own life and
period of observation determined the series and cycle of his subjects, led
to a different distribution. But as it is evident that, in the succession
of the first twelve Caesars, the six latter have no connection whatever by
descent, collaterally, or otherwise, with the six first, it would be a
more logical distribution to combine them according to the fortunes of the
state itself, and the succession of its prosperity through the several
stages of splendor, declension, revival, and final decay. Under this
arrangement, the first seventeen would belong to the first stage; Commodus
would open the second; Aurelian down to Constantine or Julian would fill
the third; and Jovian to Augustulus would bring up the melancholy rear.
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