Why could not this same writer
have thought of one example more, such as that of the priest who told
the Emperor Constantine that _divine Providence, not content with
qualifying him for the empire of the world, had formed virtues in his
soul, which should entitle him to reign in heaven with his only son_.
Thus have flatterers seized the most surprising natural effects to
enhance their hero's glory, and make their court to great men. The poets
of the time of Augustus vied with each other in persuading the world
that the murder of Julius Caesar was the cause of all the prodigies that
followed. Horace, for instance, in one of his odes, attempts to prove
that the overflowings of rivers were reckoned among bad presages; and
pretends that the Tiber had not committed all those ravages, but in
complaisance to his wife Ilia, who was bent on the death of his kinsman
Caesar; and that all the other calamities which subsequently afflicted
or threatened the Roman empire, were the consequences of his
assassination. If Virgil may be credited,[127] the sun was so troubled at
the death of Caesar that it went into deep mourning, and so obscured his
beams, that the world was alarmed lest it never should appear again.
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