Essays Political, Social, and Religious Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1900 Excerpt: ... Four Lectures delivered at the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, February, 1855. ADVERTISEMENT. I must remind the readers of these lectures that they are lectures on a period of history, and not a substantive historical work. Were they the latter, I should have conceived it my duty to support the statements made in them by references, not merely to the original authorities on which they are based, but also to the modern writers to whom I am indebted for any of the views embodied in them. Such as they are, I have thought they might dispense with this addition. For convenience sake I have placed a short chronological table before each lecture. London, March 26th, 1855. Introduction--The position of the subject--Early life of Augustus--State of the frontiers of the empire at his accession, after Actium--His foreign policy--The extent of the empire, and the variety of its component parts--The object of the imperial system--The administration of Augustus and its principles--The office of Pontifex Maximus and the Tribunitian power--Tiberius and his three successors--Vespasian--Trajan--His change of policy and conquests--Hadrian--His administration--Antoninus Pius--M. Aurelius--Conclusion. I have to treat of the history of Rome from the settlement of its monarchy under Augustus to the extinction of the Empire of the West under Augustulus--a period of 507 years; from the battle of Actium, thirty-one years before the Christian era, down to the year 476 of that era. But in dealing with this period, there are two great subjects excluded: the one is the literature of Rome, the second is the history of Christianity. It is the political and social aspect of the period named to which these lectures c attention; of the other two, the first may second cannot be so; both...