Select Observations of Roman Emperors 2, Title page – Dedication
SELECT AND CHOYCE OBSERVATIONS, Containing all the Romane EMPEROURS. The first eighteen By EDWARD LEIGH M. A. of Magdalene-Hall in OXFORD, The others added by his Son HENRY LEIGH, M. A. also of the same House.
Certain Choyce French Proverbs, Alphabetically disposed and Englished added also by the same EDWARD LEIGH.
LONDON. Printed by ROGER DANIEL, for JOHN WILLIAMS at the sign of the Crown in St Paul's Church-yard, 1657.
TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL and his loving Father HENRY LEGH Esquire.
Loving Father:
HOW much I am obliged unto you both for my being and well-being, I desire now to testifie unto the world; for though to requite your love and bounty, be not within the sphear of my Activity, yet since the Apostle*Quicquid est, quod dat Patri Filius, utique minus est, quia hanc ipsam dandi facultatem Patri debet. Seneca lib. 3. de Beneficiis. Patribus & D…is non possumus retribuere aequali…. Arist. 8. Ethic. foreign 1 Tim. 5. 4 commandeth Children to learn to requite their Parents, and Nature it self hath taught the unreasonable *The fow which teacheth children to requite their Parents is the Stork from foreign natural affection, and she is called foreign: hence commeth foreign when children study to requite their Parents.Creatures this lesson, I shall endeavour, (God assisting me with his grace) to pay that three-fold debt, of reverence, obedience, and gratitude, which all children owe to their Parents: As Aeschines therefore, when he saw his fellow-Schollers give great gifts to Socrates (being poor, and having nothing else to bestow) did give himself to Socrates, professing to be wholly devoted unto him: so I shall ever devote my self unto your service, to whom (next under God) I owe my self, and those abilities I have, both natural, and which through Gods blessing upon your liberal education, by a double apprentiship in two*Magdalen-Hall in Oxford, and the Middle Temple in London. famous and flourishing Societies I have acquired. To expresse therefore my due observance, and gratefull recognition of your former care, and cost, and withal to give you some account of the fruitful spending of my time, I here present unto you some Choyce Observations concerning the tvvelve first Caesars, Emperours of Rome. A work (as I conceive) both delightful, and useful, and therefore to you (I hope) not unwelcome; as Geographers express the whole world in a little Map, so have I laboured Graphically to describe these great Monarchs of the world in a little model, neither strictly tying my self to any one Historian, nor relating all the passages of their lives, but excerping out of the most principal *Tertul. Euseb. Eccles. Hill. Iosephus, Plutarch. Taciti Hist. & Annal. Aurel. Vict. Eutropius, Pliny, Solimis, Seneca, Macrob. Saturn. Suetonius, with Casaub. Animadvers. Eras. Apotheg. & Chili…d.Authors, such things of them as were most memorable. Amongst all which Writers (though I confesse Tacitus his stile is elegant, & full of wise sē tentious *Est orati… Taciti … rum in mod…m arguta, & prudentiae plena Bodin. l. 4. de Method. Histor.Apotheg.) I have chiefly followed Suet. 1. because my worthy*Mr. William Pemble. Tutor (whosememory I shall ever honour) made choice especially (of that History to read to his Pupils. 2 Because his Phrase is pure & polite, and himself a faithful Historian: Of whom it is recorded (as I think) by Erasmus, that he wrote the lives of the Romane Emperours, prorsus ea libertate, quaipsi vixerunt, with the same freedom that they lived. Alex. ab Alex. Genial. dier. lib. 1. c 1. calleth him sincerissimum. Scriptorem, and Ludov. *Su…tonius Tranquillus Graecorum & Latinorum Scriptorum diligentissimus, atque incorruptissiimus, res duod…cim C…sarum videtur mihi integerrimè exponere qui in optimi… Principibus nec vitia, nec suspiciones vitiorum tacet: in pessimi… vero colores virtutum non di… simulat. Ludov. Vives de tradend. Discipl. lib. 5 Tranquillè & aequaliter Fluit, rebus que unicè addictu, orationis ornamenta non negligens, sed securus praeterit, & tamen hunc ipsum ornatum velut umbram …on id agens trahit. Famian: Strada, lib. 2 Prol…s. Histor.Vives, incorruptissimum. And I desire to write as freely and unpartially of them, since I may say of them all, as Tacitus doth of some of them, that they were Mihi nec beneficio nec injuria cogniti; only I shall herein fail, that I write not of these Emperours Stylo Imperatorio, with a high and lofty stile. Iulius Caesar is here placed in the forefront, he being the first Emperour. For this title was at the first given unto him, that had fought valiantly for his Country and slain many enemies; Iulius *Nature meant Caesar for a Conquerour, when she gave him both such courage, and such courtesie, both which put Marius into amaze. They which durst speak to him, (said he) were ignorant of his greatnesse; and they which durst not, were so of his goodnesse.Caesar (having brought the greatest part of the then known world into the subjectiō of the Romans) was the first that was saluted by the title of absolute Emperour, and all the Emperours succeeding were called Imperatores & Caesares from him, Mat. 22. 21. Dunbar in his fifth Century of Epigrammes hath these verses of Iulius Caesars and Pope Gregories reforming the Kalender.
Caesar Gregoriusque annum dum jure reformant,
Deformant regnires sine jure, sui:
Scilicet antiqui facies à Caesare regni
Versa est, à Papa Pristina religio:
Malo reformari civilem à Caesare stammam.
Malo reformatam Gregoriique fidem.
The Emperours after Iulius Caesar were called Augusti from Octavius, the second Romane Caesar, who revived the good lawes, and reformed the bad. But the Emperours succeeding him, having more …are to be great then good, rather raged then reigned, and the decrees of some of them, viz. Tiberius and Caligula, are witily termed furores non judicia. Quatuor Principes ferro interempti (saith Tacitus in his History) four of these Emperours were slain with the Sword, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian: which three first Plutarch compareth (in regard of their short reign) to Kings in a Tragedy, which last no longer then the time that they are represented on the stage, Iulius Caesar, and Caligula were also slain, Claudius, and Titus were poisoned, Nero slew himself,*Augustus Caesar dyed in a Complement; Livia, Conjugii nostri memor, vive, & vale. Tiberius in dissimulation; as Tacitus saith of him. Iam Tiberium vires & corpus, non Dissimulatio deserebans. Vespas…an in a Iest, sitting upon the stool, Vt …to D…u… …io. Galba with a sentence, Feri, sixe re si… … Romani; holding forth his Ne…k, … last Essayes in 4. … Augustus dyed in a complement, Tiberius in dissimulation, Galba with a sentence, Vespasian with a jest, yet he died peaceably in his Bed, which no Emperour since Augustus ever did. The*Macrob. lib. 1. in som…. Scipion. Heathens shadowed the sting of conscience by the Eagle or Vulture that feed upon the heart of Prometheus, and by the three Virgins which they called Furies, following men in a hideo…s form, with burning torches in their hands, which some of the worst of these Heathen Emperours really felt after their bloody cruelties, and verified that old*Timeo incustoditos aditus, timeo & ipsos custodes. Maxime, he must needs fear many, whom many fear.*See in the Book of him, and Domitian. Caligula (though he contemned the gods, as they called them) yet at the least thundering and lightening would run under his bed, and cover his head.*Dion in Nerone. Nero that monster of Mankind having killed his Mother Agrit…ina, could never after endure the worm and sting of conscience for his foul fact,Our English Chronicles report of King Richard the third, that having imbrued his hands in the Blood of two Orient Princes, he never after had quiet in his mind, his body was privily fenced, his hand ever upon his Dagger, his countenance grimme and gastly, his sleep unquiet, for he rather slumbred than slept. The night before the Battel fought in Bosworth-Field, he dreamed a terrible dream. Credo non erat so…lum, sed Consei…ntia scelerum. Polyd. Virgil. but confessed that he was often haunted with the apparition of his mothers Ghost, and tormented also with scourges, and burning torches of the Furies. We may take notice of many Morall vertues also in the best of these Heathens, Julius Caesar, Augustus Vespasian, and Titus that mirrour of humanity, and see in them the truth of that old Maxime, Magistratus virum indicat, a place sheweth the man, and it sheweth some to be better, some to be worse. It was said of Caligula, that there was never better servant and worse Master: Omnium consensu capax Imperii, nisi imperasset, saith Tacitus of Galba: but of Vespasian he saith, Solus Imperatorum Vespasianus mutatus in melius. But least I should be upbraided with the City of Myndus, for making my Porch too bigge, here will I cast Anchor, ever remaining.
Your dutiful Sonne to command EDWARD LEIGH.