In all the offices of life, they affected to confound themselves with their subjects, and maintained with them an equal intercourse of visits and entertainments.

Their habit, their palace, their table, were suited only to the rank of an opulent senator.

Their family, however numerous or splendid, was composed entirely of their domestic slaves and freedmen.

[20] Augustus or Trajan would have blushed at employing the meanest of the Romans in those menial offices, which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of Britain.] [Footnote 20: A weak prince will always be governed by his domestics.
The power of slaves aggravated the shame of the Romans; and the senate paid court to a Pallas or a Narcissus.

There is a chance that a modern favorite may be a gentleman.] The deification of the emperors [21] is the only instance in which they departed from their accustomed prudence and modesty.