The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)Gibbon, Edward
History
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Indexes; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
was indifferently supplied with water, obtained from the
munificence of Hadrian three hundred myriads of drachms, (about a
hundred thousand pounds,) for the construction of a new aqueduct.
But in the execution of the work, the charge amounted to more
than double the estimate, and the officers of the revenue began
to murmur, till the generous Atticus silenced their complaints,
by requesting that he might be permitted to take upon himself the
whole additional expense. 68
67 (return) [ Hadrian afterwards made a very equitable
regulation, which divided all treasure-trove between the right of
property and that of discovery. Hist. August. p. 9.]
68 (return) [ Philostrat. in Vit. Sophist. l. ii. p. 548.]
The ablest preceptors of Greece and Asia had been invited by
liberal rewards to direct the education of young Herod. Their
pupil soon became a celebrated orator, according to the useless
rhetoric of that age, which, confining itself to the schools,
disdained to visit either the Forum or the Senate.
He was honored with the consulship at Rome: but the greatest part
of his life was spent in a philosophic retirement at Athens, and
his adjacent villas; perpetually surrounded by sophists, who
acknowledged, without reluctance, the superiority of a rich and
generous rival. 69 The monuments of his genius have perished;
some considerable ruins still preserve the fame of his taste and
munificence: modern travellers have measured the remains of the
stadium which he constructed at Athens. It was six hundred feet
in length, built entirely of white marble, capable of admitting
the whole body of the people, and finished in four years, whilst
Herod was president of the Athenian games. To the memory of his
wife Regilla he dedicated a theatre, scarcely to be paralleled in
the empire: no wood except cedar, very curiously carved, was
employed in any part of the building. The Odeum, 691 designed by
Pericles for musical performances, and the rehearsal of new
tragedies, had been a trophy of the victory of the arts over
barbaric greatness; as the timbers employed in the construction
consisted chiefly of the masts of the Persian vessels.
Notwithstanding the repairs bestowed on that ancient edifice by a
king of Cappadocia, it was again fallen to decay. Herod restored
its ancient beauty and magnificence. Nor was the liberality of
that illustrious citizen confined to the walls of Athens. The
most splendid ornaments bestowed on the temple of Neptune in the
Isthmus, a theatre at Corinth, a stadium at Delphi, a bath at
Thermopylæ, and an aqueduct at Canusium in Italy, were
insufficient to exhaust his treasures. The people of Epirus,
Thessaly, Eubœa, Bœotia, and Peloponnesus, experienced his
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