emperors Quotes

“After a war of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island [of Britain] submitted to the Roman yoke.”

“The emperors, if we except those tyrants whose capricious folly violated every law of nature and decency, disdained that pomp and ceremony which might offend their countrymen, but could add nothing to their real power.”

“Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.”

“It was dangerous to trust the sincerity of Augustus; to seem to distrust it was still more dangerous.”

“The emperors, as the first ministers of the republic, were exempted from the obligation and penalty of many inconvenient laws: they were authorized to convoke the senate, to make several motions in the same day, to recommend candidates for the honors of the state, to enlarge the bounds of the city, to employ the revenue at their discretion, to declare peace and war, to ratify treaties; and by a most comprehensive clause, they were empowered to execute whatsoever they should judge advantageous to the empire, and agreeable to the majesty of things private or public, human of divine.”

“No-Emperors may let their memories lie even more readily than poets and historians.”

″‘He must have gone off his head,’ said Publius. ‘If Caius’ father sees it, there will be trouble!′ The boys threw anxious glances at the senator’s house. Vinicius took the worship of the gods very seriously, and was a great admirer of the Emperor.”