Eustace, John Cretwode: A classical tour through Italy An. MDCCCII (Vol. 4): 3. ed., rev. and enl (London: J. Mawman, 1815)

APPENDIX 419
walls of the city 5 and it is highly probable that
a far greater portion of the elegance and of the
urbanity, as well as of the simplicity and the
modesty of Augustus’s family, might have been
observed in the palace of Urbanus or Zephyrinus,
than in the courts of Caracalla or Ileliogabalus,
This observation is still more applicable to the
Pontiffs and Emperors of the succeeding cen-
turies, as the latter, from Diocletian downwards,
had assumed the luxury and the cumbrous
pomp* of Asiatic despots, insomuch that the
court of Constantinople, bore a much nearer re-
semblance in dress and ceremonial to that of
Artaxerxes, than to that of Augustus. We may
therefore easily imagine, that the manners of
Gregory the Great and of his clergy were, not-
withstanding the misfortunes of the times, far
more Roman, that is, more manly, more simple,
and for that reason more majestic, than those of
Justiniam This natural politeness still conti-
nued to be the honorable distinction of the pon-
tifical court, till the ninth century, when the
visits of the French sovereigns to Rome, and
o x

* See Eusebius’s description of the dress of Constantine,,
when he appeared in the Council of Nice>—De Vita Con-
stantini„ lib, iii. Kf<p. i.

E E 2