The political weakness of Greece in those days, before the might of Rome, is not greater than the absolute nullity of Greek literature as compared with the richness of the Roman one. The Greeks were then nothing but rhetoricians and grammarians, though these certainly deserve an honourable mention: of poems, there are none worth speaking of; even of epigrammatic talent there never yet was such a dearth: only a few wretched epigrams date from that age. Dionysius of Halicarnassus stands alone as a man distinguished for sense and judgment: it is therefore not to be wondered at, that the Romans in this respect also felt superior to the Greeks; and they did not perhaps feel it as much as they should have done. In the latter days of Augustus, literature again went down hill most rapidly; and under Tiberius it had completely run itself out. Those who were the leaders of taste, and brought on the silver era, were Greek rhetoricians, mostly from the Levant. From old Greece, as far as I know, Plutarch is for many centuries after Polybius the only writer of eminence. PRIVATE LIFE OF AUGUSTUS. AGRIPPA. MÆCENAS. FAMILY CONNEXIONS. BUILDINGS. The very many statues and busts which yet remain of Augustus, bear out the statement of Suetonius, that he was an uncommonly fine man. His _decora facies_ he still had even in his old age; we may trace the likeness in his busts throughout the different periods of his life. He is so beautiful that I very nearly got his bust; but his personal character deterred me. He was however a remarkable man in every respect. What he was reproached with by the ancients, was want of courage; but this is an imputation which is easily made, especially if there is some foundation for it after all; yet there were, on the other hand, instances also in which he undeniably showed courage. In the war of Philippi, there is indeed some ground for such a charge: at Mutina, he perhaps was guilty of treachery; but in the Pompeian war, no reproach of the kind attaches to him. He was a bad general, and had no more luck in the field than he had in his domestic relations. His falseness and cruelty, I have before described; yet he had also his good qualities: he was a friend to his friends, and put up with many things from them; which considering his pride, is very surprising: towards Agrippa and Mæcenas, he was neither faithless nor unthankful. In his domestic relations, he was regardless of character. He had at first been betrothed to Antony’s stepdaughter Clodia, but the match was broken off; then he married Scribonia, who bore him Julia of unhappy notoriety; and then he put her away, and compelled Tib. Claudius Nero, who had once been proscribed as a partisan of Brutus, and who was also one of the best of the family of the Claudii, to give up to him Livia. Livia, whose ambition and thirst of power for her own family knew no bounds, and who