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OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
139
CHAP. V.
_____found in the intercourse, of private life. In the latter, they discover a want of courage ; in the other, only a defect of power: and, as it is impossible for the most able statesmen to subdue millions of followers and enemies by their own personal strength ; the world, under the name of policy, seems to have granted them a very liberal indulgence of craft and dissimulation. Yet the arts of Severus cannot be justified by the most Arts of Severusample privileges of state reason. He promised only to betray, he flattered only to ruin ; and however he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from the inconvenient obligation[1].
- ↑ Herodian, 1. ii. p. 85.
- ↑ Whilst Severus was very dangerously ill, it was industriously given out, that he intended to appoint Niger and Albinus his successors. As he could not be sincere with respect to both, he might not be so with regard to either. Yet Severus carried his hypocrisy so far, as to profess that intention in the memoirs of his own life.