catastrophe; philosophy might console the days of a few indignant
citizens; good Emperors might attempt to raise barriers against
corruption,--still, nothing, according to natural laws, could save the
empire. Even Christianity could not arrest the ruin. It had converted
thousands, and had sowed the seeds of future and better civilizations.
It was sent, however, not to save a decayed and demoralized empire, but
the world itself. Not until the Germanic barbarians, with their nobler
elements of character, had taken possession of the seats of the old
civilization, were the real triumphs of Christianity seen. Had the Roman
empire continued longer, Christianity might have become still more
corrupted; in the prevailing degeneracy it certainly could not save what
was not worth preserving. The strong grasp which Rome had laid upon the
splendors of all the ancient Pagan Civilizations was to be relaxed.
Antiquity had lived out its life. The empire of the Caesars was doomed.
Retributive justice must march on in its majestic course. The empire had
accomplished its mission; the time came for it to die. The Sibylline
oracle must needs be fulfilled: "O haughty Rome, the divine chastisement
shall come upon thee; fire shall consume thee; thy wealth shall perish;
foxes and wolves shall dwell among thy ruins: and then what land that
thou hast enslaved shall be thy ally, and which of thy gods shall save
thee? For there shall be confusion over the face of the whole earth, and
the fall of cities shall come."
* * * * *
AUTHORITIES.
Mr. Merivale has written fully on the condition of the empire. Gibbon
has occasional paragraphs which show the condition of Roman society.
Lyman's Life of the Emperors should be read, and also DeQuincey's Lives
of the Caesars. See also Niebuhr, Arnold, Mommsen, and Curtius, though
these writers have chiefly confined themselves to republican Rome. But
if one would get the truest and most vivid description, he must read the
Roman poets, especially Juvenal and Martial. The work of Petronius is
too indecent to be read. Ammianus Marcellinus gives us some striking
pictures of the later Romans. Suetonius, in his lives of the Caesars,
furnishes many facts. Becker's Gallus is a fine description of Roman
habits and customs. Lucian does not describe Roman manners, but he aims
his sarcasm at the hollowness of Roman life, as do the great satirists
generally. These can all be had in translations.