Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/38

16 THE DECLINE AND FALL Association of Tiberius. A.D. 674, December he must either dread his resentment or despise his patience. This domestic animosity was refined into a generous resolution of seeking a successor, not in his family, but in the republic ; and the artful Sophia recommended Tiberius,'^" his faithful captain of the guards, whose virtues and fortune the emperor miglit cherish as the fruit of his judicious choice. The ceremony of his elevation to the rank of Caesar, or Augustus, was performed in the portico of the palace, in the presence of the patriarch and the senate. Justin collected the remaining strength of his mind and body, but the popular belief that his speech was inspired by the Deity betrays a very humble opinion both of the man and of the times.^^ " You behold," said the emperor, " the ensigns of supreme power. You are about to receive them not from my hand, but from the hand of God. Honour them, and from them you will derive honour. Respect the empress your mother ; you are now her son ; before, you were her servant. Delight not in blood, abstain from revenge, avoid those actions by which I have incurred the public hatred, and consult the expei-ience rather than the example of your predecessor. As a man, I have sinned ; as a sinner, even in this life, I have been severely punished ; but these servants (and he pointed to his ministers), who have abused my confidence and inflamed my passions, will appear with me before the tribunal of Christ. I have been dazzled by the splendour of the diadem : be thou wise and modest ; remember what you have been, remember what you are. You see around us your slaves and your children ; with the authority, assume the tenderness, of a parent. Love your people like yourself ; cultivate the affections, maintain the discipline, of the army ; protect the fortunes of the rich, relieve the necessities of the poor.""- The assembly, in silence and in tears, applauded the counsels, and sympathized with the re- pentance, of their prince ; the patriarch rehearsed the prayers •"" The praise bestowed on princes before their elevation is the purest and most weighty. Corippns has celebrated Tiberius at the time of the accession of Justin (1. i. 212-222). Yet even a captain of the guards might attract the flattery of an African exile. '•'^ Evagrius (1. v. c. 13) has added the reproach to his ministers. He applies this speech to the ceremony when Tiberius was invested with the rank of Caesar. The loose expression, rather than the positive error, of Theophanes, &'c. has delayed it to his Augustan investiture immediately before the death of Justin. ^2 Theophylact Simocatta (1. iii. c. 11) declares that he shall give to posterity tiie speech of Justin as it was pronounced, without attempting to correct the im- perfections of language or rhetoric. Perhaps the vain sophist would have been incapable of producing such sentiments. [John of Ephesus notes that scribes took down Justin's speech in shorthand (iii. 4). Cp. Michael the Syrian, Joirn. Asiat. 1848, Oct. p. 2967.]