penetrate the social condition of the people, the more we feel disgust
and pity supplanting all feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman
empire especially, which had gathered into its strong embrace the whole
world, and was the natural inheritor of all the achievements of all the
nations, in its shame and degradation suggests melancholy feelings in
reference to the destiny of man, so far as his happiness and welfare
depend upon his own unaided efforts.
It is a sad picture of oppression, injustice, crime, and wretchedness
which I have now to present. Glory is succeeded by shame, strength by
weakness, and virtue by vice. The condition of the mass is deplorable,
and even the great and fortunate shine in a false and fictitious light.
We see laws, theoretically good, practically perverted, and selfishness
and egotism the mainsprings of life; we see energies misdirected, and
art corrupted. All noble aspirations have fled, and the good and the
wise retire from active life in despair and misanthropy. Poets flatter
the tyrants who trample on human rights, while sensuality and luxurious
pleasure absorb the depraved thoughts of a perverse generation.
The first thing which arrests our attention as we survey the civilized
countries of the old world, is the imperial despotism of Rome. The
empire indeed enjoyed quietude, and society was no longer rent by
factions and parties. Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace,
nor were the provinces ransacked and devastated to provide for the
means of carrying on war. So long as men did not oppose the government
they were safe from molestation, and were left to pursue their business
and pleasure in their own way. Imperial cruelty was not often visited on
the humble classes. It was the policy of the emperors to amuse and
flatter the people, while depriving them of political rights. Hence
social life was free. All were at liberty to seek their pleasures and
gains; all were proud of their metropolis, with its gilded glories and
its fascinating pleasures. Outrages, extortions, and disturbances were
punished. Order reigned, and all classes felt secure; they could sleep
without fear of robbery or assassination. In short, all the arguments
which can be adduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war
and violence, show that it was beneficial in its immediate effects.
Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition of
things which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties were
prostrated forever; noble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. Under
the Emperors we read of no more great orators like Cicero, battling for
human rights and defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed.
Nor was there liberty of speech even in the Senate. It was treason to
find fault with any public acts. From the Pillars of Hercules to the
Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all classes and orders. No one could
fly from the agents and ministers of the Emperor; he controlled the
army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internal administration of the
empire, and the religious worship of the people; all offices, honors,
and emoluments emanated from him. All influences conspired to elevate
the man whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt was
madness, and treason absurdity. Nor did the Emperors attempt to check
the gigantic social evils of the empire. They did not seek to prevent
irreligion, luxury, slavery, and usury, the encroachments of the rich
upon the poor, the tyranny of foolish fashions, demoralizing sports and
pleasures, money-making, and all the follies which lax principles of
morality allowed; they fed the rabble with corn, oil, and wine, and thus
encouraged idleness and dissipation. The world never saw a more rapid
retrogression in human rights, or a greater prostration of liberties.
Taxes were imposed according to the pleasure or necessities of the
government. Provincial governors became still more rapacious and cruel;
judges hesitated to decide against the government. Patriotism, in its
most enlarged sense, became an impossibility; all lofty spirits were
crushed. Corruption in all forms of administration fearfully increased,
for there was no safeguard against it.
Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are
wise and just; but practically, as men are, despotisms are generally
cruel and revengeful. Despotism implies slavery, and slavery is the
worst condition of mankind.
It cannot be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, who
would have ornamented any age or country. Titus, Hadrian, Marcus
Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus,
Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well as
talents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. Marcus
Aurelius was one of the purest and noblest characters of antiquity.
Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most illustrious
sovereigns that ever wore a crown,--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, with
William III., with Gustavus Adolphus.
But it matters not whether the Emperors were good or bad, if the régime
to which they consecrated their energies was exerted to crush the
liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism, whether brilliant or
disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde step in civilization; it implied
the extinction of patriotism and the general degradation of the people,
and would have been impossible in the days of Cato, Scipio, or Metellus.
If we turn from the Emperors to the class which before the dictatorship
of Julius Caesar had the ascendency in the State, and for several
centuries the supreme power, we shall find but little that is
flattering to a nation or to humanity. Under the Emperors the
aristocracy had degenerated in morals as well as influence. They still
retained their enormous fortunes, originally acquired as governors of
provinces, and continually increased by fortunate marriages and
speculations. Indeed, nothing was more marked and melancholy at Rome
than the vast disproportion in fortunes. In the better days of the
republic, property was more equally divided; the citizens were not
ambitious for more land than they could conveniently cultivate. But the
lands, obtained by conquest, gradually fell into the possession of
powerful families. The classes of society widened as great fortunes were
accumulated; pride of wealth kept pace with pride of ancestry; and when
plebeian families had obtained great estates, they were amalgamated with
the old aristocracy. The equestrian order, founded substantially on
wealth, grew daily in importance. Knights ultimately rivalled senatorial
families. Even freedmen in an age of commercial speculation became
powerful for their riches. The pursuit of money became a passion, and
the rich assumed all the importance and consideration which had once
been bestowed upon those who had rendered great public services.
As the wealth of the world flowed naturally to the capital, Rome became
a city of princes, whose fortunes were almost incredible. It took
eighty thousand dollars a year to support the ordinary senatorial
dignity. Some senators owned whole provinces. Trimalchio, a rich
freedman whom Petronius ridiculed, could afford to lose thirty millions
of sesterces in a single voyage without sensibly diminishing his
fortune. Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, possessed a fortune
of three hundred millions of sesterces. Seneca, the philosopher, amassed
an enormous fortune.
As the Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, they
accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living
which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of
the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the
days of the greatest corruption. They had around them regular courts of
parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as
their chamberlains and stewards. Carving was taught in celebrated
schools, and the masters of this sublime art were held in higher
estimation than philosophers or poets. Says Juvenal,--
"To such perfection now is carving brought,
That different gestures by our curious men
Are used for different dishes, hare or hen."
Their entertainments were accompanied with everything which could
flatter vanity or excite the passions; musicians, male and female
dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and
gladiators exhibited, while the guests reclined at table after the
fashion of the Orientals. The tables were made of Thuja-root, with claws
of ivory or Delian bronze. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six
hundred and fifty pounds for his banqueting-table. Gluttony was carried
to such a point that the sea and earth scarcely sufficed to set off
their tables; they ate as delicacies water-rats and white worms. Fish
were the chief object of the Roman epicures, of which the _mullus_, the
_rhombus_, and the _asellus_ were the most valued; it is recorded that a
mullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousand
sesterces. Oysters from the Lucrine Lake were in great demand; snails
were fattened in ponds for cooking, while the villas of the rich had
their piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peacocks and
pheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although the
absurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatest
favorite was the wild boar,--the chief dish of a grand _coena_,--coming
whole upon the table; and the practised gourmand pretended to
distinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, the
very names of which excite disgust, were used at fashionable banquets,
and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his
"Epigrams" to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet.
The extravagance of that period almost surpasses belief. Cicero and
Pompey one day surprised Lucullus at one of his ordinary banquets, when
he expected no guests, and even that cost fifty thousand
drachmas,--about four thousand dollars; his table-couches were of
purple, and his vessels glittered with jewels. The halls of Heliogabalus
were hung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his table and plate
were of pure gold; his couches were of massive silver, and his
mattresses, covered with carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with
down found only under the wings of partridges. His suppers never cost
less than one hundred thousand sesterces. Crassus paid one hundred
thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting-rooms were strewed with
lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred
millions of sesterces in debauchery and gluttony; having only ten
millions left, he ended his life with poison, thinking he might die of
hunger. Things were valued for their cost and rarity rather than their
real value. Enormous prices were paid for carp, the favorite dish of the
Romans as of the Chinese. Drusillus, a freedman of Claudius, caused a
dish to be made of five hundred pounds weight of silver. Vitellius had
one made of such prodigious size that he was obliged to build a furnace
on purpose for it; and at a feast which he gave in honor of this dish,
it was filled with the livers of the scarrus (fish), the brains of
peacocks, the tongues of parrots, and the roes of lampreys caught in the
Carpathian Sea.
The nobles squandered money equally on their banquets, their stables,
and their dress; and it was to their crimes, says Juvenal, that they
were indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables, and their
fine old plate.
Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked
this noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians
and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity.
The sole result of friendship with a great man was a meal, at which
flattery and sycophancy were expected; but the best wine was drunk by
the host, instead of by the guest. Provinces were ransacked for fish and
fowl and game for the tables of the great, and sensualism was thought to
be no reproach. They violated the laws of chastity and decorum; they
scourged to death their slaves; they degraded their wives and sisters;
they patronized the most demoralizing sports; they enriched themselves
by usury and monopolies; they practised no generosity, except at their
banquets, when ostentation balanced their avarice; they measured
everything by the money-standard; they had no taste for literature, but
they rewarded sculptors and painters who prostituted art to their vanity
or passions; they had no reverence for religion, and ridiculed the gods.
Their distinguishing vices were meanness and servility, the pursuit of
money by every artifice, the absence of honor, and unblushing
sensuality.
Gibbon has eloquently abridged the remarks of Ammianus Marcellinus
respecting these people:--
"They contend with each other in the empty vanity of titles and
surnames. They affect to multiply their likenesses in statues of bronze
or marble; nor are they satisfied unless these statues are covered with
plates of gold. They boast of the rent-rolls of their estates; they
measure their rank and consequence by the loftiness of their chariots
and the weighty magnificence of their dress; their long robes of silk
and purple float in the wind, and as they are agitated by art or
accident they discover the under garments, the rich tunics embroidered
with the figures of various animals. Followed by a train of fifty
servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the streets as if
they travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is
boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are
continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs.
Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, they assume, on
their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and maintain a
haughty demeanor, which perhaps might have been excused in the great
Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes these heroes
undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates in Italy,
and procure themselves, by servile hands, the amusements of the chase.
And if at any time, especially on a hot day, they have the courage to
sail in their gilded galleys from the Lucrine Lake to their elegant
villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cargeta, they compare these
expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander; yet should a fly
presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should
a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded chink, they deplore their
intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that they were
not born in the regions of eternal darkness. In the exercise of domestic
jurisdiction they express an exquisite sensibility for any personal
injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of mankind. When
they have called for warm water, should a slave be tardy in his
obedience, he is chastised with a hundred lashes; should he commit a
wilful murder, his master will mildly observe that he is a worthless
fellow, and shall be punished if he repeat the offence. If a foreigner
of no contemptible rank be introduced to these senators, he is welcomed
with such warm professions that he retires charmed with their
affability; but when he repeats his visit, he is surprised and mortified
to find that his name, his person, and his country are forgotten. The
modest, the sober, and the learned are rarely invited to their sumptuous
banquets, only the most worthless of mankind,--parasites who applaud
every look and gesture, who gaze with rapture on marble columns and
variegated pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance
which he is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the
Roman table the birds, the squirrels, the fish, which appear of uncommon
size, are contemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned
to attest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method of
introduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is a
sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, if
placed at a supper below a magistrate, displays in his countenance a
surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when
refused the praetorship. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the
attention of the nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the
advantages of study; and the only books they peruse are the 'Satires of
Juvenal,' or the fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The libraries
they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary
sepulchres, from the light of day; but the costly instruments of the
theatre--flutes and hydraulic organs--are constructed for their use. In
their palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to
that of the mind. The suspicion of a malady is of sufficient weight to
excuse the visits of the most intimate friends. The prospect of gain
will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment of
arrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance or
legacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of the
Romans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury
often reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. When
they wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the
slaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume
the royal and tragic declamations of the grandsons of Hercules. If the
demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant to
maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent creditor, who
is seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of the
whole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superstition which
disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the
productions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of
victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and this
superstition is observed among those very sceptics who impiously deny or
doubt the existence of a celestial power."
Such, in the latter days of the empire, was the leading class at Rome,
and probably also in the cities which aped the fashions of the capital.
Frivolity and luxury loosened all the ties of society. They were bound
up in themselves, and had no care for the people except as they might
extract more money from them.
As for the miserable class whom the patricians oppressed, their
condition became worse every day from the accession of the Emperors. The
plebeians had ever disdained those arts which now occupied the middle
classes; these were intrusted to slaves. Originally, they employed
themselves upon the lands which had been obtained by conquest; but these
lands were gradually absorbed or usurped by the large proprietors. The
small farmers, oppressed with debt and usury, parted with their lands to
their wealthy creditors. Even in the time of Cicero, it was computed
that there were only about two thousand citizens possessed of
independent property. These two thousand persons owned the world; the
rest were dependent and powerless, and would have perished but for
largesses. Monthly distributions of corn were converted into daily
allowance for bread. The people were amused with games and festivals,
fed like slaves, and of course lost at last even the semblance of
manliness and independence. They loitered in the public streets, and
dissipated in gaming their miserable pittance; they spent the hours of
the night in the lowest resorts of crime and misery; they expired in
wretched apartments without attracting the attention of government;
pestilence, famine, and squalid misery thinned their ranks, and they
would have been annihilated but for constant accession to their numbers
from the provinces.
In the busy streets of Rome might be seen adventurers from all parts of
the world, disgraced by all the various vices of their respective
countries. They had no education, and but small religious advantages;
they were held in terror by both priests and nobles,--the priest
terrifying them with Egyptian sorceries, the nobles crushing them by
iron weight; like lazzaroni, they lived in the streets, or were crowded
into filthy tenements; a gladiatorial show delighted them, but the
circus was their peculiar joy,--here they sought to drown the
consciousness of their squalid degradation; they were sold into slavery
for trifling debts; they had no homes. The poor man had no ambition or
hope; his wife was a slave; his children were precocious demons, whose
prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughter was the howl of
pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of premature iniquity, whose
beauty was the squalor of disease and filth; he fled from a wife in whom
he had no trust, from children in whom he had no hope, from brothers for
whom he felt no sympathy, from parents for whom he felt no reverence;
the circus was his home, the fights of wild beasts were his consolation;
the future was a blank, death was the release from suffering. There were
no hospitals for the sick and the old, except one on an island in the
Tiber; the old and helpless were left to die, unpitied and unconsoled.
Suicide was so common that it attracted no attention.
Superstition culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests and
devotees of all the countries that it governed,--"the dark-skinned
daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees of
the Persian Mithras; emasculated Asiatics; priests of Cybele, with their
wild dances and discordant cries; worshippers of the great goddess
Diana; barbarian captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians,
Jews, Chaldaean astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers.... The crowds
which flocked to Rome from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
brought with them practices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of
initiation, the tricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets
and charms, the riddles of emblematical idolatry with which the
superstition of the East abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who
had neither the energy for a moral belief nor the boldness requisite for
logical scepticism."