As
respected the army, this was matter of peculiar praise, because peculiarly
disinterested; for his foreign policy was pacific; [Footnote:
"Expeditiones sub eo," says Spartian, "graves nullae fuerunt. Bella etiam
silentio pene transacta." But he does not the less add, "A militibus,
propter curam exercitus nimiam, multum amatus est."] he made no new
conquests; and he retired from the old ones of Trajan, where they could
not have been maintained without disproportionate bloodshed, or a jealousy
beyond the value of the stake. In this point of his administration he took
Augustus for his model; as again in his care of the army, in his
occasional bounties, and in his paternal solicitude for their comforts, he
looked rather to the example of Julius. Him also he imitated in his
affability and in his ambitious courtesies; one instance of which, as
blending an artifice of political subtlety and simulation with a
remarkable exertion of memory, it may be well to mention. The custom was,
in canvassing the citizens of Rome, that the candidate should address
every voter by his name; it was a fiction of republican etiquette, that
every man participating in the political privileges of the State must be
personally known to public aspirants.
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