shed a baleful influence on the progress of science throughout the
empire, and literature languished during the present reign, in the same
proportion as it had flourished in the preceding. It is doubtful whether
such a change might not have happened in some degree, even had the
government of Tiberius been equally mild with that of his predecessor.
The prodigious fame of the writers of the Augustan age, by repressing
emulation, tended to a general diminution of the efforts of genius for
some time; while the banishment of Ovid, it is probable, and the capital
punishment of a subsequent poet, for censuring the character of
Agamemnon, operated towards the farther discouragement of poetical
exertions. There now existed no circumstance to counterbalance these
disadvantages. Genius no longer found a patron either in the emperor or
his minister; and the gates of the palace were shut against all who
cultivated the elegant pursuits of the Muses. Panders, catamites,
assassins, wretches stained with every crime, were the constant
attendants, as the only fit companions, of the tyrant who now occupied
the throne. We are informed, however, that even this emperor had a taste
for the liberal arts, and that he composed a lyric poem upon the death of
Lucius Caesar, with some Greek poems in imitation of Euphorion, Rhianus,
and Parthenius. But none of these has been transmitted to posterity: and
if we should form an opinion of them upon the principle of Catullus, that
to be a good poet one ought to be a good man, there is little reason to
regret that they have perished.

We meet with no poetical production in this reign; and of prose writers
the number is inconsiderable, as will appear from the following account
of them.----

VELLEIUS PATERCULUS was born of an equestrian family in Campania, and
served as a military tribune under Tiberius, in his expeditions in Gaul