_Quis Parthum paveat? Quis gelidum Scythen
Quis, Germania quos horrida parturit
Fetus, incolumi Caesare?_

The frontiers of the Empire, and its richest provinces, had been obtained
for the most part in the long wars of the Republic. The conquest of Gaul,
and the establishment of the Empire, was achieved by Julius Caesar; and to
him, the civilised world is indebted for that majestic "Roman Peace,"
under which it lived and prospered for nearly nineteen centuries: the
Eastern Empire was maintained in Constantinople, until 1453; and the
Empire of the West continued, though in waning splendour, until the last
Caesar abdicated his throne at the order of Napoleon. The nations of
modern Europe were developed out of the ruin of Caesar's Empire; and from
that, the more civilised among them have obtained the politer share of
their laws, their institutions, and their language: and to Caesar, we are
indebted for those inestimable treasures of antiquity, which the Roman
Empire and the Roman Church have preserved from the barbarians, and have
handed on for the delight and the instruction of modern times. There are
those, who can perceive in Caesar nothing but a demagogue, and a tyrant;
and in the regeneration of the Commonwealth, nothing but a vulgar crime:
among these, I am sorry to inscribe the name of Thomas Gordon. The
supporters of this view are generally misled, by the specious allurements
of the term "Republic." Tiberius, it may be, was not a perfect ruler, and
other sovereigns were even more ferocious; but the excesses of the most
reckless Emperor are hardly to be compared to the wholesale massacres and
spoliations, which attended the last agonies of the expiring Commonwealth.
After the Macedonian and Asiatic wars, we find a turbulent and servile
crowd, instead of the old families and tribes of Roman citizens; instead
of allies, oppressed and plundered provinces; instead of the heroes of the