Antoninus+Pius,+a+Good+Emperor

Historia Augusta, Life of Antoninus Pius, 7-9:

The board of Antoninus Pius was rich yet never open to criticism, frugal yet not stingy; his table was furnished by his own slaves, his own fowlers and fishers and hunters. 6 A bath, which he had previously used himself, he opened to the people without charge, nor did he himself depart in any way from the manner of life to which he had been accustomed when a private man. 7 He took away salaries from a number of men who held obvious sinecures, saying there was nothing meaner, nay more unfeeling, than the man who nibbled at the revenues of the state without giving any service in return; 8 for the same reason, also, he reduced the salary of Mesomedes, the lyric poet. The budgets of all the provinces and the sources of revenue he knew exceedingly well. 9 He settled his private fortune on his daughter, but presented the income of it to the state. 10 Indeed, the superfluous trappings of royal state and even the crown-lands he sold, living on his own private estates and varying his residence according to the season. 11 Nor did he undertake any expedition other than the visiting of his lands in Campania, averring that the equipage of an emperor, even of one over frugal, was a burdensome thing to the provinces. 12 And yet he was regarded with immense respect by all nations, for, making his residence in the city, as he did, for the purpose of being in a central location, he was able to receive messages from every quarter with equal speed.

8 He gave largess to the people, and, in addition, a donation to the soldiers, and founded an order of destitute girls, called Faustinianae in honour of Faustina. 2 Of the public works that were constructed by him the following remain to‑day: the temple of Hadrian[|54] at Rome, so called in honour of his father, the Graecostadium, restored by him after its burning, the Amphitheatre, repaired by him, the tomb of Hadrian, the temple of Agrippa, and the Pons Sublicius 3 also the Pharus, the port at Caieta, and the port at Tarracina, all of which he restored, the bath at Ostia, the aqueduct at Antium, and the temples at Lanuvium. 4 Besides all this, he helped many communities to erect new buildings and to restore the old; and he even gave pecuniary aid to Roman magistrates and senators to assist them in the performance of their duties.

5 He declined legacies from those who had children of their own and was the first to establish the rule that bequests made under fear of penalty should not be valid. 6 Never did he appoint a successor to a worthy magistrate while yet alive, except in the case of Orfitus, the prefect of the city, and then only at his own request. 7 For under him Gavius Maximus, a very stern man, reached his twentieth year of service as prefect of the guard; he was succeeded by Tattius Maximus,8 and at his death Antoninus appointed two men in his place, Fabius Cornelius Repentinus and Furius Victorinus, 9 the former of whom, however, was ruined by the scandalous tale that he had gained his office by the favour of the Emperor's mistress. 10 So rigidly did he adhere to his resolve that no senator should be executed in his reign, that a confessed parricide was merely marooned on a desert island, and that only because it was against the laws of nature to let such a one live. 11 He relieved a scarcity of wine and oil and wheat with loss to his own private treasury, by buying these and distributing them to the people free.

9 The following misfortunes and prodigies occurred in his reign: the famine, which we have just mentioned, the collapse of the Circus, an earthquake whereby towns of Rhodes and of Asia were destroyed — all of which, however, the Emperor restored in splendid fashion, — and a fire at Rome which consumed three hundred and forty tenements and dwellings. 2 The town of Narbonne, the city of Antioch, and the forum of Carthage also burned. 3 Besides, the Tiber flooded its banks, a comet was seen, a two-headed child was born, and a woman gave birth to quintuplets. 4 There was seen, moreover, in Arabia, a crested serpent larger than the usual size, which ate itself from the tail to the middle; and also in Arabia there was a pestilence, while in Moesia barley sprouted from the tops of trees. 5 And besides all this, in Arabia four lions grew tame and of their own accord yielded themselves to capture.