All things considered,
in the Rome of that day, where all munificence confined itself to the
direct largesses of a few leading necessaries of life,--a great step was
taken, and the best step, in this lending of money at a low interest,
towards a more refined and beneficial mode of charity.
In his public character, he was perhaps the most patriotic of Roman
emperors, and the purest from all taint of corrupt or indirect ends.
Peculation, embezzlement, or misapplication of the public funds, were
universally corrected: provincial oppressors were exposed and defeated:
the taxes and tributes were diminished; and the public expenses were
thrown as much as possible upon the public estates, and in some instances
upon his own private estates. So far, indeed, did Pius stretch his
sympathy with the poorer classes of his subjects, that on this account
chiefly he resided permanently in the capital--alleging in excuse, partly
that he thus stationed himself in the very centre of his mighty empire, to
which all couriers could come by the shortest radii, but chiefly that he
thus spared the provincialists those burthens which must else have
alighted upon them; "for," said he, "even the slenderest retinue of a
Roman emperor is burthensome to the whole line of its progress.
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