effected it, by resolutely demanding the punishment of all those who had
been concerned in his assassination. On the other hand, the senate was
so overjoyed, that they met in all haste, and in a full assembly reviled
his memory in the most bitter terms; ordering ladders to be brought in,
and his shields and images to be pulled down before their eyes, and
dashed in pieces upon the floor of the senate-house passing at the same
time a decree to obliterate his titles every where, and abolish all
memory of him. A few months before he was slain, a raven on the Capitol
uttered these words: "All will be well." Some person gave the following
interpretation of this prodigy:

(498) Nuper Tarpeio quae sedit culmine cornix.
"Est bene," non potuit dicere; dixit, "Erit."

Late croaked a raven from Tarpeia's height,
"All is not yet, but shall be, right."

They say likewise that Domitian dreamed that a golden hump grew out of
the back of his neck, which he considered as a certain sign of happy days
for the empire after him. Such an auspicious change indeed shortly
afterwards took place, through the justice and moderation of the
succeeding emperors.

* * * * * *

If we view Domitian in the different lights in which he is represented,
during his lifetime and after his decease, his character and conduct
discover a greater diversity than is commonly observed in the objects of
historical detail. But as posthumous character is always the most just,
its decisive verdict affords the surest criterion by which this
variegated emperor must be estimated by impartial posterity. According
to this rule, it is beyond a doubt that his vices were more predominant
than his virtues: and when we follow him into his closet, for some time
after his accession, when he was thirty years of age, the frivolity of
his daily employment, in the killing of flies, exhibits an instance of
dissipation, which surpasses all that has been recorded of his imperial
predecessors. The encouragement, however, which the first Vespasian had
shown to literature, continued to operate during the present reign; and
we behold the first fruits of its auspicious influence in the valuable
treatise of QUINTILIAN.

Of the life of this celebrated writer, little is known upon any authority
that has a title to much credit. We learn, however, that he was the son
of a lawyer in the service of some of the preceding emperors, and was
born in