splendid as well as important dignities of supreme pontiff, and of
censor. By the former he acquired the management of the religion, and
by the latter a legal inspection over the manners and fortunes, of the
Roman people. If so many distinct and independent powers did not exactly
unite with each other, the complaisance of the senate was prepared to
supply every deficiency by the most ample and extraordinary concessions.
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.

When all the various powers of executive government were committed to
the Imperial magistrate, the ordinary magistrates of the commonwealth
languished in obscurity, without vigor, and almost without business. The
names and forms of the ancient administration were preserved by Augustus
with the most anxious care. The usual number of consuls, praetors,
and tribunes, were annually invested with their respective ensigns
of office, and continued to discharge some of their least important
functions. Those honors still attracted the vain ambition of the Romans;
and the emperors themselves, though invested for life with the powers of
the consul ship, frequently aspired to the title of that annual dignity,
which they condescended to share with the most illustrious of their
fellow-citizens. In the election of these magistrates, the people,
during the reign of Augustus, were permitted to expose all the
inconveniences of a wild democracy. That artful prince, instead of
discovering the least symptom of impatience, humbly solicited their
suffrages for himself or his friends, and scrupulously practised all the
duties of an ordinary candidate. But we may venture to ascribe to
his councils the first measure of the succeeding reign, by which the
elections were transferred to the senate. The assemblies of the people
were forever abolished, and the emperors were delivered from a dangerous
multitude, who, without restoring liberty, might have dis