" His
tenderness and consideration, indeed, were extended to all classes, and
all relations, of his subjects; even to those who stood in the shadow of
his public displeasure as State delinquents, or as the most atrocious
criminals. To the children of great treasury defaulters, he returned the
confiscated estates of their fathers, deducting only what might repair the
public loss. And so resolutely did he refuse to shed the blood of any in
the senatorial order, to whom he conceived himself more especially bound
in paternal ties, that even a parricide, whom the laws would not suffer to
live, was simply exposed upon a desert island.
Little indeed did Pius want of being a perfect Christian, in heart and in
practice. Yet all this display of goodness and merciful indulgence, nay,
all his munificence, would have availed him little with the people at
large, had he neglected to furnish shows and exhibitions in the arena of
suitable magnificence. Luckily for his reputation, he exceeded the general
standard of imperial splendor not less as the patron of the amphitheatre
than in his more important functions.
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