(4) Which felicity of times under learned princes (to keep still
the law of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected examples)
doth best appear in the age which passed from the death of
Domitianus the emperor until the reign of Commodus; comprehending a
succession of six princes, all learned, or singular favourers and
advancers of learning, which age for temporal respects was the most
happy and flourishing that ever the Roman Empire (which then was a
model of the world) enjoyed--a matter revealed and prefigured unto
Domitian in a dream the night before he was slain: for he thought
there was grown behind upon his shoulders a neck and a head of gold,
which came accordingly to pass in those golden times which
succeeded; of which princes we will make some commemoration;
wherein, although the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought
fitter for a declamation than agreeable to a treatise infolded as
this is, yet, because it is pertinent to the point in hand--Neque
semper arcum tendit Apollo--and to name them only were too naked and
cursory, I will not omit it altogether.
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