[14] Decor.... perficitur statione,.... cum Jovi Fulguri, et Cœlo, et Soli, et Lunæ ædificia sub divo hypæthraque constituentur. Horum enim deorum et species et effectus in aperto mundo atque lucenti præsentes videmus.--Vitruv. de Architect. p. 6. de Laet. Antwerp. CHAPTER III. THE REDUCTION OF BRITAIN BY THE ROMANS. The death of Cæsar, and the civil wars which ensued, afforded foreign nations some respite from the Roman ambition. Augustus, having restored peace to mankind, seems to have made it a settled maxim of his reign not to extend the Empire. He found himself at the head of a new monarchy; and he was more solicitous to confirm it by the institutions of sound policy than to extend the bounds of its dominion. In consequence of this plan Britain was neglected. Tiberius came a regular successor to an established government. But his politics were dictated rather by his character than his situation. He was a lawful prince, and he acted on the maxims of an usurper. Having made it a rule never to remove far from the capital, and jealous of every reputation which seemed too great for the measure of a subject, he neither undertook any enterprise of moment in his own person nor cared to commit the conduct of it to another. There was little in a British triumph that could affect a temper like that of Tiberius. His successor, Caligula, was not influenced by this, nor indeed by any regular system; for, having undertaken an expedition to Britain without any determinate view, he abandoned it on the point of execution without reason. And adding ridicule to his disgrace, his soldiers returned to Rome loaded with shells. These spoils he displayed as the ornaments of a triumph which he celebrated over the Ocean,--if in all these particulars we may trust to the historians of that time, who relate things almost incredible of the folly of their masters and the patience of the Roman people.