I should have preferred to leave the Roman world at the height of its grandeur, when the whole vast territory was enjoying prosperity, if not peace, under the virtuous and benevolent Antonines. In that way this book would best create the true impression of Rome, not as a lamentable failure, but as the conspicuous success which it assuredly was. But as the reader will probably follow the old Greek maxim and desire to see the end before recording a judgment, a few pages are added containing a very brief summary of the closing scenes. It is necessary to notice that even the closing scenes cover a period of two hundred years, and that this progress is not even yet entirely downhill. They include good and bad reigns, periods of prosperity as well as disaster. Here again the impression of pessimism which we get from reading the account of the Empire is due to the historians as much as to the history. Lampridius and the other writers of the Augustan History are small-minded writers who label the various princes as good or bad largely according to their treatment of the senate. The Augustan historians are trained in the school of Suetonius, they dwell upon gossip and can form no large political judgments. Very little of the gossip is authentic. If they have decided to revile an emperor they repeat the scandals narrated by Suetonius about Tiberius or Nero. It is only in their accounts of military action that they can be trusted, and this fact creates a false preponderance of warfare in the annals of the period.