1	fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrain, and the two Antonines. It is the design of this, and of the two succeeding chapters, to describe the prosperous condition of their empire; and after- wards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall; a revolution which will ever be remembered, and is still felt by
2	reserved for Augustus to relinquish the ambitious design of subduing the whole earth, and to introduce a spirit of moderation into the public councils. Inclined to peace by his temper and situation, it was very easy for him to discover that Rome, in her present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of
3	the undertaking became every day more difficult, the event more doubtful, and the possession more precarious, and less beneficial. The experience of Augustus added weight to these salutary reflec- tions, and effectually convinced him that, by the prudent vigor of
4	his counsels, it would be easy to secure every concession which the safety or the dignity of Rome might require from the most formidable barbarians. Instead of exposing his person or his legions to the arrows of the Parthinians, he obtained, by a honor-
5	able treaty, the restitution of the standards and prisoners which had been taken in the defeat of Crassus. His gen- erals, in the early part of his reign, attempted the reduction of Ethiopia and Arabia Felix. They marched near a thou-
6	sand miles to the south of the tropic; but the heat of the climate soon repelled the invaders, and protected the unwarlike natives of those sequestered regions
7	The northern countries of Europe scarcely de- served the expense and labor of conquest. The forests and morasses of Germany were
8	filled with a hardy race of barbarians who despised life when it was separated from freedom; and though, on the first
9	attack, the seemed to yield to the weight of the Roman power, they soon, by a signal