Upon which a
continental writer comments thus: "Never before or since have three such
words issued from the lips of woman; and in truth, one knows not which
most to abominate or to admire--the aspiring princess, or the loving
mother. Meantime, in these few words lies naked to the day, in its whole
hideous deformity, the very essence of Romanism and the imperatorial
power, and one might here consider the mother of Nero as the impersonation
of that monstrous condition."
This is true: _Occidat dum imperet_, was the watchword and very cognizance
of the Roman imperator. But almost equally it was his watchword--
_Occidatur dum imperet_. Doing or suffering, the Caesars were almost
equally involved in bloodshed; very few that were not murderers, and
nearly all were themselves murdered.
The empire, then, must be regarded as the primary object of our interest;
and it is in this way only that any secondary interest arises for the
emperors. Now, with respect to the empire, the first question which
presents itself is,--Whence, that is, from what causes and from what era,
we are to date its decline? Gibbon, as we all know, dates it from the
reign of Commodus; but certainly upon no sufficient, or even plausible
grounds.
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