STATE OF THE WORLD IN THE FIRST CENTURY.
The political condition of the world was most melancholy. All power
was concentrated at Rome and in the legions. The most shameful and
degrading scenes were daily enacted. The Roman aristocracy, which
had conquered the world, and which alone of all the people had any
voice in public business under the Cæsars, had abandoned itself to
a Saturnalia of the most outrageous wickedness the human race ever
witnessed. Cæsar and Augustus, in establishing the imperial power,
saw perfectly the necessities of the age. The world was so low in its
political relations, that no other form of government was possible. Now
that Rome had conquered numberless provinces, the ancient constitution,
which was based upon the existence of a privileged patrician class, a
kind of obstinate and malevolent _Tories_, could not continue.[17.1]
But Augustus had signally neglected every suggestion of true policy,
by leaving the future to chance. Destitute of any canon of hereditary
succession, of any settled rules concerning adoption, and of any law
regulating election, Cæsarism was like an enormous load on the deck of
a vessel without ballast. The most terrible shocks were inevitable.
Three times in a century, under Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, the
greatest power that was ever united in one person fell into the hands
of most extravagant and execrable men. Horrors were enacted which have
hardly been surpassed by the monsters of the Mongol dynasties. In that
fatal list of monarchs, one is reduced to apologizing for a Tiberius,
who only attained thorough detestableness towards the close of his
life; and for a Claudius, who was only eccentric, blundering, and
badly advised. Rome became a school of vice and cruelty. It should be
added that the vice came, in a great degree, from the East, from those
parasites of low rank and those infamous men whom Egypt and Syria sent
to Rome,[17.2] and who, profiting by the oppression of the true Romans,
succeeded in attaining great influence over the wretches who governed.
The most disgusting ignominies of the empire, such as the apotheosis
of the emperors and their deification during life, came from the East,
and particularly from Egypt, which was at that period one of the most
corrupt countries on the face of the earth.[17.3]
However, the veritable Roman nature still survived, and nobility of
soul was far from extinct. The lofty traditions of pride and virtue,
which were preserved in a few families, attained the imperial throne
with Nerva, and gave its splendor to the age of the Antonines, of
which Tacitus is the elegant historian. An age in which such true and
noble natures as those of Quintilian, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger
were produced, need not be wholly despaired of. The corruption of the
surface did not extend to the great mass of seriousness and honor
which existed in the better Roman society, and many examples are yet
preserved of devotion to order, duty, peace, and solid integrity. There
were in the noble houses admirable wives and sisters.[17.4] Was there
ever a more touching fate than that of the young and chaste Octavia,
the daughter of Claudius, and wife of Nero, remaining pure in the midst
of infamy, and slain at twenty-two years of age, without having known
a single joy? The epithets "_castissimæ_, _univiræ_," are not at all
rare in the inscriptions.[17.5] Some wives accompanied their husbands
into exile,[17.6] and others shared their noble deaths.[17.7] The
ancient Roman simplicity was not lost. The children were soberly and
carefully brought up. The most noble ladies worked with their own hands
at woollen fabrics,[17.8] and the excesses of the toilet were almost
unknown in the higher families.[17.9]
The excellent statesmen who, so to speak, sprang from the earth under
Trajan, were not improvised. They had served in preceding reigns; but
they had enjoyed but little influence, and had been cast into the
shade by the freedmen and favorite slaves of the Emperor. Thus we
find men of the first ability occupying high posts under Nero. The
framework was good. The accession of bad emperors, disastrous as it
was, could not change at once the general tendency of affairs, and the
principles of the government. The empire, far from being in its decay,
was in the full strength of vigorous youth. Decay will come, but two
centuries later; and, strange to say, under much more worthy monarchs.
In its political phase, the situation was analogous to that of France,
which, deprived by the Revolution of any established rule for the
succession--has yet passed through so many perilous changes without
greatly injuring its internal organization or its national strength. In
its moral aspect, the period under consideration may be compared to the
eighteenth century, an epoch entirely corrupt, if we form our judgment
from the memoirs, manuscripts, literature, and anecdotes of the time,
but in which, nevertheless, some families maintained the greatest
austerity of morals.[17.10]
Philosophy joined hands with the better families of Rome, and resisted
nobly. The Stoic school produced the lofty characters of Cremutius
Cordus, Thraseas, Arria, Helvidius Priscus, Annæus Cornutus, and
Musonius Rufus, admirable masters of aristocratic virtue. The rigidity
and exaggeration of this school arose from the horrible cruelty of the
Cæsars. The continual thought of a good man was how to inure himself
to suffering, and prepare himself for death.[17.11] Lucan, in bad
taste, and Persius with superior talent, both gave utterance to the
loftiest sentiments of a great soul. Seneca the philosopher, Pliny
the Elder, and Papirius Fabianus, kept up a high standard of science
and philosophy. Every one did not yield; there were a few wise men
left. Too often, however, they had no resource but death. The ignoble
portions of humanity at times got the upper hand. Then madness and
cruelty ruled the hour, and made of Rome a veritable hell.[17.12]
The government, although so fearfully unstable at Rome, was much better
in the provinces. At a distance the shocks which agitated the capital
were hardly felt. In spite of its defects, the Roman administration was
far superior to the kingdoms and commonwealths it had supplanted. The
time for sovereign municipalities had long gone by. Those little States
had destroyed themselves by their egotism, their jealousies, and their
ignorance or neglect of individual freedom. The ancient life of Greece,
all struggle, all external, no longer satisfied any one. It had been
glorious in its day, but that brilliant democratic Olympus of demi-gods
had lost its freshness, and become dry, cold, unmeaning, vain,
superficial, and lacking in both head and heart. Hence the success of
the Macedonian rule, and afterwards of the Roman. The empire had not
yet fallen into the error of excessive centralization. Until the time
of Diocletian, the provinces and cities enjoyed much liberty. Kingdoms
almost independent existed in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Lesser
Armenia, and Thrace, under the protection of Rome. These kingdoms
became factious after Caligula, only because the profound policy of
Augustus concerning them was diverged from in succeeding reigns.[17.13]
The numerous free cities were governed according to their own laws, and
had the legislative power and magistracy of autonomic States. Until the
third century their municipal decrees commenced with the formula, "The
Senate and People of ----".[17.14] The theatres were not simply places
for scenic amusement, but were foci of opinion and discussion. Most of
the towns were, in different ways, little commonwealths. The municipal
spirit was very strong.[17.15] They had lost only the power to declare
war, a fatal power which made the world a field of carnage. "The
benefits conferred by Rome upon mankind," were the theme of adulatory
addresses everywhere, to which, however, it would be unjust to deny
some sincerity.[17.16] The doctrine of "the Peace of Rome,"[17.17]
the idea of a vast democracy organized under Roman protection, lay at
the bottom of all political speculations.[17.18] A Greek rhetorician
displays vast erudition in proving that Roman glory should be claimed
by all the branches of the Hellenic race as a common patrimony.[17.19]
In regard to Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt, we may say that the Roman
conquest did not destroy any of their liberties. Those nations had
either been already long dead to political life, or had never enjoyed
it.
Finally, in spite of the extortions of governors and of the violence
which is inseparable from despotic sway, the world had in many
respects never been so well off. An administration coming from a
remote centre was so great an advantage, that even the rapacious
Prætors of the latter days of the Republic had failed to render it
unpopular. The Julian law had also narrowed down the scope of abuses
and peculations. The follies or cruelties of the emperor, except under
Nero, reached only the Roman aristocracy and the immediate followers
of the prince. Never had men who did not care to busy themselves
about politics been able to live more at ease. The ancient republics,
in which every one was compelled to take part in the factions, were
very uncomfortable places of residence.[17.20] There was continually
going on some disorganization or proscription. But under the empire
the time seemed made expressly for great proselytisms which should
overrule both the quarrels of neighborhoods and the rivalry of
dynasties. Attacks on liberty were much more frequently owing to the
remnants of the provincial or communal authority than to the Roman
administration.[17.21] Of this truth we have had and shall have many
occasions to take note.
For those of the conquered countries where political privileges
had been unknown for ages, and which lost nothing but the right of
destroying themselves by continual wars, the empire was such an era of
prosperity and well-being as they had never before experienced; and we
may add, without being paradoxical, that it was also for them an era of
liberty.[17.22] On the one hand, a freedom of commerce and industry,
of which the Grecian States had no conception, became possible. On the
other hand, the new _régime_ could not but be favorable to freedom of
thought. This freedom is always greater under a monarchy than under
the rule of jealous and narrow-minded citizens, and it was unknown in
the ancient republics. The Greeks accomplished great things without
it, thanks to the incomparable force of their genius; but we must
not forget that Athens had a complete inquisition.[17.23] The Chief
Inquisitor was represented by the archon, and the Holy Office by the
royal portico whence issued the accusations of "impiety." These were
numerous, and it is in this kind of causes that we find the Attic
orators most frequently engaged. Not only philosophic heresies, such
as the denial of a God or of Providence, but the slightest infractions
of the rules of municipal worship, the preaching of foreign religions,
and the most puerile departures from the absurdly strict legislation
concerning the mysteries, were crimes punishable by death. The gods
at whom Aristophanes scoffed on the stage, could sometimes slay. They
slew Socrates, and almost Alcibiades; and they persecuted Anaxagoras,
Protagoras, Theodorus, Diagoras of Melos, Prodicus of Ceos, Stilpo,
Aristotle, Theophrastus, Aspasia, and Euripides.[17.24] Liberty of
thought was, in fact, the fruit of the kingdoms which arose out of
the Macedonian conquests. An Attalus and a Ptolemy first allowed the
thinker those liberties which none of the old republics had permitted.
The Roman empire continued the same policy. There was, indeed, under
the empire more than one arbitrary decree against the philosophers,
but it was always called forth by their entering into political
schemes.[17.25] We may search in vain the Roman law before Constantine
for a single passage against freedom of thought; and the history of
the imperial government furnishes no instance of a prosecution for
entertaining an abstract doctrine. No scientific man was molested.
Men like Galen, Lucan, and Plotinus, who would have gone to the stake
in the Middle Age, lived tranquilly under the protection of the law.
The empire inaugurated liberty in this respect; it extinguished the
despotic sovereignty of the family, the town, and the tribe, and
replaced or tempered it by that of the State. But despotic power is the
more vexatious the narrower its sphere of action. The old republics
and the Feudal system oppressed individuals much more than did the
state. The empire at times persecuted Christianity most severely, but
at least it did not arrest its progress.[17.26] Republics, however,
would have overcome the new faith. Even Judaism would have smothered
it, but for the pressure of Roman authority. The Roman magistrates were
all that hindered the Pharisees from destroying Christianity at the
outset.[17.27]
Expanded ideas of universal brotherhood and a sympathy with humanity
at large, derived for the most part from the Stoic philosophy,[17.28]
were the results of the broader system of authority and the less
confined education which had now assumed control.[17.29] Men dreamed
of a new era and of new worlds.[17.30] The public wealth was great,
and notwithstanding the imperfect economic doctrines of the day, was
considerably diffused. Morals were not what is often imagined. At
Rome, it is true, every kind of vice paraded itself with revolting
cynicism,[17.31] and the public shows in particular had introduced a
frightful degree of corruption. Some countries, Egypt for example,
had sounded the lowest depths of infamy. But in most of the provinces
there was a middle class in which good-nature, conjugal fidelity,
probity, and the domestic virtues, were generally practised.[17.32]
Is there anywhere an ideal of domestic life among the honest
citizens of small towns more charming than that presented to us by
Plutarch? What kindness, what gentle manners, what chaste and amiable
simplicity![17.33] Chæronea was evidently not the only place where life
was so pure and innocent.
The popular tendencies were yet somewhat cruel even outside of Rome;
perhaps as the remnant of antique manners, which were everywhere
sanguinary, perhaps as the special effect of Roman severity. But a
marked improvement in this respect was taking place. What pure or
gentle sentiment, what impression of melancholy tenderness had not
received its finest expression from the pens of Virgil and Tibullus?
The world was losing its ancient rigidity and acquiring softness and
sensibility. Maxims of common humanity became current,[17.34] and
the Stoics earnestly taught the abstract notions of equality and the
rights of man.[17.35] Woman, under the dotal system of Roman law, was
becoming more and more her own mistress. The treatment of slaves was
improving;[17.36] Seneca admitted his to his own table.[17.37] The
slave was no longer that grotesque and malignant creature which Latin
comedy introduced to excite laughter, and which Cato recommended to be
treated as a beast of burden.[17.38] The times had changed. The slave
was now morally equal to his master, and was admitted to be capable
of virtue, fidelity, and devotion, of which he had given abundant
proofs.[17.39] Prejudices of birth were becoming effaced.[17.40]
Many just and humane laws were enacted, even under the worst
emperors.[17.41] Tiberius was a skilful financier, and established upon
an excellent basis a system of public credit.[17.42] Nero introduced
into the taxation, which had previously been unequal and barbarous,
some improvements which throw discredit even on our own times.[17.43]
The progress of the theory of legislation was also considerable,
although the death-penalty was still absurdly general. Charity to the
poor, and sympathy for all, became virtues.[17.44]
The theatre was a most insupportable scandal to decent citizens,
and one of the chief causes which excited the antipathy of Jews and
Judaized people of every kind against the profane civilization of the
age. To their eyes, those vast inclosures were gigantic _cloacæ_ in
which all the vices were collected. While the lower benches applauded,
in the upper were often displayed disgust and horror. The gladiatorial
spectacles established themselves with difficulty in the provinces. At
least the Hellenic provinces repelled them, and generally adhered to
the ancient Grecian games.[17.45] Bloody sports always retained in the
East distinct marks of Roman origin.[17.46]
The Athenians having one day debated the introduction of these
barbarous sports in imitation of Corinth,[17.47] a philosopher arose
and moved that they should first raze to the ground the altar of
Pity.[17.48] Thus it happened that one of the most profound sentiments
of the primitive Christians, and one, too, which produced the most
extended results, was detestation of the theatre, the stadium, the
gymnasium; that is to say, of all the public resorts which gave its
distinctive character to a Grecian or Roman city. Ancient civilization
was a public civilization. Its affairs were transacted in the open air
in presence of the assembled citizens. It was the inversion of our
system, in which life is private, and is inclosed within the walls of
our dwellings. The theatre was the offspring of the _agora_ and the
_forum_. The anathema against the theatre rebounded against society in
general. A bitter rivalry grew up between the Church and the public
games. The slave, driven away from the latter, betook himself to the
former. I have never seated myself in those melancholy arenas, which
are always the best-preserved relics of an ancient city, without seeing
in imagination the struggle of the two systems. Here, the honest and
humble citizen, already half a Christian, sitting in the first row,
covering his face and going away ashamed; there, the philosopher,
rising suddenly and openly reproaching the assemblage with its
baseness.[17.49] These examples were rare in the first century, but the
protest was beginning to make itself heard,[17.50] and the theatre was
receiving more and more reprobation.[17.51]
The laws and administrative regulations of the empire were as yet
a veritable chaos. Central despotism, municipal and provincial
franchises, administrative caprice and the self-will of commonalties,
jostled each other in the strangest manner. But religious liberty was a
gainer by these conflicts. The complete unity of administration, which
was established at about the time of Trajan, proved much more fatal
to the rising faith than the irregular, careless, and poorly-policed
system of the Cæsars.
Institutions of public charity, founded on the doctrine that the State
owes paternal duties to its subjects, were not much developed until
after the reigns of Nerva and Trajan.[17.52] A few traces of them,
however, are found in the first century.[17.53] There were already
charities for children,[17.54] distributions of food to the poor,
fixed rates for the sale of bread with indemnity provided for the
tradesmen, precautions in regard to supply of provisions, assurance
against pirates, and orders enabling persons to buy grain at reduced
prices.[17.55] All the emperors, without exception, manifested the
greatest solicitude on these topics, which may indeed be called
subordinate, but which at certain times rule everything else. In remote
antiquity there was not much need of public charity. The world was
young and strong, and required no hospital. The good and simple Homeric
morality, according to which the guest and the beggar are sent by Jove,
is the morality of strong and cheerful youth.[17.56] Greece, in her
classic age, enounced the most touching maxims of pity and benevolence,
without connecting with them any conception of sadness or social
misfortune.[17.57] Man was yet at that epoch healthy and happy; how
could he look forward and provide against evil days!
But in respect to institutions for mutual assistance, the Greeks
were far in advance of the Romans.[17.58] Not a solitary liberal or
benevolent arrangement was ever devised by that cruel aristocracy
which, as long as the republic endured, wielded such an oppressive
authority.
At the epoch we are now considering, the colossal fortunes and luxury
of the nobility, the vast agglomerations of people at certain points,
and above all the peculiar and implacable hard-heartedness of the
Romans, had caused the rise of pauperism.[17.59] The indulgence of
some of the emperors to the Roman mob had aggravated this evil.
The public distributions of corn encouraged idleness and vice, and
provided no remedy for misery. In this, as in many other things, the
Oriental world was superior. The Jews possessed real institutions
of charity. The Egyptian temples seem to have sometimes had a fund
for the poor.[17.60] The male and female colleges of the Serapeum at
Memphis were also to some extent charitable establishments.[17.61] The
terrible crisis through which humanity was passing in the capital was
scarcely perceived in distant provinces where the mode of life remained
simple. The reproach of having poisoned the whole earth, the likening
of Rome to a harlot who had made the earth drunk with the wine of her
fornication, was in many respects just.[17.62] The provinces were
better than Rome; or more properly, the impure elements which gathered
together from all quarters into the metropolis, made her a sink of
iniquity, in which the old Roman virtues were smothered, and the good
seed brought from elsewhere grew with difficulty.
The intellectual condition of the different parts of the empire was
quite unsatisfactory. In this respect there had been a real decline.
High mental culture is not as independent of political circumstances
as is private morality. Besides, the progress of high mental culture
and that of morality are not exactly parallel. Marcus Aurelius was
certainly a better man than all the old Greek philosophers. Yet his
positive notions in regard to the realities of the universe were
inferior to those of Aristotle and Epicurus; for he believed at
times in dreams and omens, and in the gods as complete and distinct
personalities. The world was then undergoing a moral improvement
and an intellectual decline. From Tiberius to Nerva this decline
is very perceptible. The Greek genius, with a force, originality,
and copiousness which have never been equalled, had in the course
of several centuries created the rational encyclopædia, the normal
discipline of the mind. This wonderful movement commenced with Thales,
and the earliest Ionian schools (600 years before Christ), and was
stopped about B.C. 120. The last survivors of these five centuries of
intellectual progress, Apollonius of Perga, Eratosthenes, Aristarchus,
Hero, Archimedes, Hipparchus, Chrysippus, Carneades, and Panetius, had
departed, leaving no successors. Only Posidonius and a few astronomers
kept up the ancient reputation of Alexandria, Rhodes, and Pergamus.
Greece, however fertile in creative genius, had not extracted from her
science and philosophy any system of popular instruction or remedy
against superstition. Possessing admirable scientific institutes,
Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece herself were at the same time given over
to the most senseless credulity. But if science does not succeed in
getting the upper hand over superstition, superstition will extinguish
science. Between these two opposing forces, the combat is to the death.
Italy, while adopting Greek science, had for a time inspired it
with a new sentiment. Lucretius had furnished the model of the great
philosophic poem, at once a hymn and a blasphemy, by turns imparting
serenity and despair, and imbued with that profound view of human
destiny which was always wanting in the Greeks, who, childlike as
they were, took life so gaily that they never dreamed of cursing the
Gods, or of accusing nature of injustice and treachery towards man.
Graver thoughts occurred to the Latin philosophers. But Rome as well
as Greece failed to make science the basis of popular education. While
Cicero, with exquisite taste, was transferring into a polished form
the ideas he borrowed from the Greeks; while Lucretius was composing
his wonderful poem; while Horace was avowing his frank infidelity in
the ear of Augustus, who expressed no surprise; while Ovid, one of the
most pleasing poets of the time, was treating venerable traditions
after the manner of an elegant free-thinker; and while the great
Stoics were developing the practical results of Greek philosophy,
the silliest chimeras met with full credence, and the belief in the
marvellous was unbounded. Never were people more ready for prophecies
and prodigies.[17.63] The eclectic deism of Cicero,[17.64] perfected
by Seneca,[17.65] remained the creed of a few cultivated minds, but
exercised no influence on the age.
Down to Vespasian, the empire had nothing which can be called public
instruction.[17.66] What it afterwards possessed was confined to a
few dry grammatical exercises, and the general decline became rather
accelerated than retarded. The last days of the republic and the reign
of Augustus, witnessed one of the most brilliant literary epochs
that has ever occurred. But after the death of the great emperor, the
decline may as properly be called sudden as rapid. The intelligent
and cultivated society in which had moved Cicero, Atticus, Cæsar,
Mæcenas, Agrippa, and Pollio, had vanished like a dream. Doubtless
enlightened men remained; men familiar with the learning of their
day, and occupying high positions, such as Lucilius, Pliny, Gallio,
and the Senecas, with the literary circle which gathered around them.
The body of Roman law, which is codified philosophy, which is Greek
rationalism reduced to practice, continued its majestic growth. The
noble Roman families had preserved a basis of purer religion and a
horror of what they called "superstition."[17.67] The geographers,
Strabo and Pomponius Mela; the physician and encyclopædist, Celsus;
the botanist, Dioscorides; the jurist, Sempronius Proculus--were able
and liberal men. But these were exceptions; leaving out a few thousand
enlightened persons, the world was immersed in profound ignorance of
the laws of nature.[17.68] Credulity was a universal malady.[17.69]
Literary culture was dwindling into a mere rhetorical shell, which
contained no kernel. The essentially moral and practical turn which
philosophy had taken, banished profound speculation. Human knowledge,
if we except geography, made no advances. The schooled and lettered
amateur replaced the creative and original student. Here was felt the
fatal influence of the great defect in Roman character. That race,
so mighty to command, was secondary in genius. The most cultivated
Romans, Lucretius, Vitruvius, Celsus, Pliny, Seneca, were, so far
as regards positive knowledge, the pupils of the Greeks. Too often,
indeed, it was second-rate Greek learning which they reproduced in
a second-rate style.[17.70] Rome never possessed a great scientific
school. Charlatanism reigned there almost supreme. Finally the Latin
literature, which certainly displayed some admirable qualities,
flourished during only a brief period, and never made its way beyond
the occidental world.[17.71]
Greece fortunately continued faithful to her genius. The prodigious
splendor of Roman power had dazzled and stunned, but not annihilated
it. In fifty years more we shall find her reconquering the world,
giving again her laws to thought, and sharing the throne of the
Antonines. But at this period Greece herself was passing through one
of her intervals of lassitude. Genius was scarce, and original science
inferior to what it had been in preceding ages, and to what it would
be in the following. The Alexandrian school, which had been declining
for nearly two centuries, but still at Cæsar's era could furnish a
Sosigenes, was now dumb.
The space from the death of Augustus to the accession of Trajan must,
then, be classed as a period of temporary degradation for the human
intellect. The ancient world had by no means uttered its last word, but
the bitter trials through which it was passing took from it both voice
and courage. When brighter days return, and genius shall be delivered
from the terrible sway of the Cæsars, she will take heart again.
Epictetus, Plutarch, Dionysius the golden-mouthed, Quintilian, Tacitus,
Pliny the Younger, Juvenal, Rufus of Ephesus, Aretæus, Galen, Ptolemy,
Hypsicles, Theon, and Lucan, will renew the palmy days of Greece; not
that inimitable Greece which existed but once for the simultaneous
delight and despair of all who love the beautiful, but a Greece still
fruitful and abounding, which will mingle her own gifts with the Roman
genius, and produce works of novelty and originality yet able to charm
the world.
The general taste was bad. Great Greek writers were wanting; and the
Latin writers extant, except the satirist Persius, are of an ordinary
type. Excessive declamation spoiled everything. The rule by which
the public judged intellectual productions was nearly the same as it
is now. Only brilliancy was looked for. Language ceased to be the
simple vestment of thought, deriving all its elegance from its perfect
adaptation to the idea sought to be expressed. Language began to be
cultivated for its own sake. The aim of an author in his writings was
to display his own talent. The excellence of a recitation or public
reading was measured by the number of passages which excited applause.
The cardinal principle that in art everything should serve as ornament,
but that anything inserted expressly as ornament is bad, was entirely
forgotten. It was a very literary period, as they say. Hardly anything
was talked of but eloquence and style; and after all, nearly everybody
wrote incorrectly, and there was not a solitary orator. The true orator
and writer are not those who make speaking or writing their trade.
At the theatre, the principal actor absorbed attention, and dramas
were suppressed in order that brilliant passages might be recited.
The literary fashion of the day was a silly _dilettantism_, a foolish
vanity which led everybody to affect talent, and which did not stop
short of the imperial throne. Hence extreme insipidity and interminable
"Theseids," or dramas written to be read in literary circles; and hence
a dreary desert of poetical commonplace, which can be compared only to
the epics and classic tragedies of sixty years ago.
Stoicism itself could not escape this disease, or at least it did
not before Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius succeeded in clothing its
doctrines in an elegant vesture. What strange productions are those
tragedies of Seneca, in which the loftiest sentiments are expressed
in the most wearisome style of literary quackery! indices at once of
moral advancement and of an irremediable decline of taste. We are
compelled to say the same of Lucan. The tension of mind which resulted
naturally from the eminently tragic character of the epoch, gave
rise to a species of inflation, in which state the only anxiety was
to win applause by brilliant sentences. Something analogous to this
happened amongst us during the Revolution; and the most terrible crisis
which ever existed produced scarcely anything but a schoolmaster's
literature, crammed with declamation. We must not, however, stop at
this point. New ideas are sometimes expressed with much ostentation.
The style of Seneca is sober, simple, and pure, in comparison with that
of St. Augustine. But we forgive the latter his detestable style and
insipid conceits, in return for his noble sentiments.
At all events this cultivation, which was in many respects noble and
superior, did not extend to the people. This would have been a minor
deprivation, if the people had had at least some religious nourishment,
something similar to that which the Church provides for the lowest
grades of modern society. But religion was at a very low ebb in all
parts of the empire. The wise policy of Rome had left unmolested the
ancient forms of worship, prohibiting only those observances which
were inhuman,[17.72] seditious, or injurious to others.[17.73] She
had spread over them all a sort of official varnish, which gave them
some general resemblance, and blended them, good and bad, together.
Unfortunately these old creeds, though very diverse in origin, had one
common characteristic. It was equally impossible for any and all of
them to provide theological instruction, applied morality, edifying
preaching, or a pastoral ministry productive of good among the people.
The pagan temple was never what the synagogue and the Church were in
their best days--that is, a common home, school, inn, hospital, and
refuge for the poor.[17.74] It was only a chilly cell which the people
seldom entered, and where they never learned anything.
The Roman worship was perhaps the least objectionable of those which
were yet practised. In it, purity of soul and body was considered
a part of religion.[17.75] By its gravity, its decency, and its
austerity, this form of worship, leaving out a few extravagances
similar to our Carnival, was far superior to the grotesque and
sometimes absurd ceremonies which were secretly introduced by those
seized with the mania for Oriental customs. Still, the affectation
with which the Roman patricians distinguished "_religion_"--that
is, their own rites--from those of foreigners, which they called
"_superstition_," cannot but appear to us puerile enough.[17.76] All
the pagan forms of worship were essentially superstitious. The peasant
who, in modern times, drops his penny into the contribution-box of
a holy chapel, who invokes his saint in behalf of his oxen or his
horses, or who drinks certain waters to cure certain diseases, is so
far forth a pagan. Nearly all our superstitions are the remains of a
religion anterior to Christianity, and which it has not yet succeeded
in completely rooting out. If one would find at this day the image of
paganism, he may seek it in some secluded village lying hid in the
recesses of some unfrequented province.
The heathen religions, having no guardians but the varying traditions
of the people and a few greedy sacristans, could not fail to degenerate
into adulation.[17.77] Augustus, although with some reserve, permitted
worship of himself in some of the provinces during his lifetime.[17.78]
Tiberius allowed the decision in his own presence, of the ignoble
competition of the cities of Asia, which disputed among themselves the
honor of building a temple to him.[17.79] The extravagant impieties
of Caligula produced no reaction.[17.80] Outside of Judaism there did
not seem to be a single priest manly enough to resist such follies.
Sprung for the most part from a primitive worship of the forces of
nature, transformed over and over again by mixtures of all sorts, and
by popular imagination, the pagan religions were confined by their
antecedents. They could not afford what they never contained--the idea
of real divinity, or popular instruction. The fathers of the Church
occasion a smile when they animadvert upon the misdeeds of Saturn as
a father, and of Jupiter as a husband. But it was certainly much more
absurd to erect Jupiter (_i.e._ the atmosphere) into a moral divinity,
who commanded, forbade, rewarded, and punished. In a state of society
which was aspiring to possess a catechism, what could be done with a
worship like that of Venus, which arose out of a social necessity of
the early Phœnician navigation in the Mediterranean sea, but became
in time an outrage on what was becoming more and more regarded as the
essence of religion.
On every side, in fact, an energetic tendency was manifested towards
a monotheistic religion, which should provide divine command as a
foundation of morality. There occurs in this manner a crisis when
the naturalistic religions have become reduced to mere childishness
and the grimaces of jugglers, and can no longer answer the wants of
society. Then humanity requires a moral and philosophical religion.
Buddhism and Zoroasterism responded to this requirement in India and
Persia. Orphism and the Mysteries had attempted the same thing in the
Grecian world without achieving a lasting success. At the period we
are considering, the problem presented itself to the entire world with
solemn universality and imposing grandeur.
Greece, it is true, formed an exception in this respect. Hellenism
was much less worn out than the other religions of the empire.
Plutarch, in his little Bœotian town, lived in the practice of
Hellenism--tranquil, happy, and contented as a child, and with a
religious conscience entirely undisturbed. In him we see no trace of a
crisis; of distraction, uneasiness, or fear of impending revolution.
But it was only the Greek mind which was capable of such childlike
serenity. Always pleased with herself, proud of her past and of that
brilliant mythology, all of whose sacred places lay within her borders,
Greece did not participate in the internal disquiet of the world. She
alone did not invite Christianity; she alone would have preferred to
do without it, and she alone made pretensions of doing better.[17.81]
This was the result of the everlasting youthfulness, patriotic
feeling, and unconquerable gaiety which always marked the genuine
son of Hellas, and which to this day render the Greek a stranger to
the profound anxieties which prey upon us. Hellenism was thus in a
condition to attempt a _renaissance_, which no other religion existing
at the time could hope for. In the second, third, and fourth centuries
of our era, Hellenism had formed itself into an organized system of
religion, by means of a welding, as it were, of the old mythology and
the Grecian philosophy; and what with its miracle-working sages, its
old writers elevated to the ranks of prophets, and its legends about
Pythagoras and Apollonius, set up a competition with Christianity,
which, though it ultimately failed, was yet one of the most dangerous
obstacles that the religion of Jesus found in its way.
This attempt had not yet been made in the time of the Cæsars. The
first philosophers who endeavored to bring about the alliance between
philosophy and paganism, were Euphrates of Tyre, Apollonius of Tyana,
and Plutarch, at the close of the century. Euphrates of Tyre is but
little known to us. Legend has so completely disguised the plot of
the real life of Apollonius, that it is impossible to say whether he
should be considered the founder of a religion, a sage, or a charlatan.
As to Plutarch, he was not so much an original thinker and innovator
as a moderate reformer, who wished to bring the world to one mind by
rendering philosophy a little timid and religion at least one-half
rational. He has nothing of the character of Porphyry or Julian.
The attempts of the Stoics at allegorical exegesis were very
feeble.[17.82] Mysteries like those of Bacchus, in which the
immortality of the soul was taught through graceful symbols,[17.83]
were confined to certain localities and had no extended influence.
Disbelief in the official religion was general in the enlightened
class.[17.84] Those public men who made the greatest pretension
of upholding it, expended their wit upon it freely in moments of
leisure.[17.85] The immoral doctrine was openly propounded, that the
religious fables were only of use in governing the people, and ought to
be maintained for that purpose.[17.86] The precaution was useless, for
the faith of the people themselves was shaken to the foundation.[17.87]
After the accession of Tiberius, a religious reaction was perceptible.
It would seem that society was shocked at the avowed infidelity of
the Augustan age. The way was prepared for the unlucky attempt of
Julian, and all the superstitions were reinstated for reasons of
state-policy.[17.88] Valerius Maximus affords the first example of a
writer of low rank coming to the relief of cornered theologians; of a
dirty, venal pen put to the service of religion.
But the foreign rites profited the most by this reaction. The serious
movement in favor of the rehabilitation of the Greco-Roman worship did
not develop itself until the second century. At first, the classes
troubled by religious misgivings were attracted towards the Oriental
forms.[17.89] Isis and Serapis were more in favor than ever.[17.90]
Impostors of all sorts thaumaturgists and magicians, profited by the
popular mood, and, as ordinarily takes place when the state-religion is
enfeebled, swarmed on every side.[17.91] We need only refer to the real
or fictitious systems of Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander of Abonoticus,
Perigrinus, and Simon of Gitto.[17.92] Even these errors and chimeræ
were the cry of a world in labor; were the fruitless essays of human
society in search of the truth, and sometimes in its convulsive efforts
unearthing monstrous deformities destined to speedy oblivion.
On the whole, the middle of the first century was one of the worst
epochs of ancient history. Grecian and Roman society had declined
from its former condition, and was far behind the ages which were to
follow. The greatness of the crisis revealed a strange and secret
process going on. Life seemed to have lost its motives; suicide became
common.[17.93] Never had an age presented so dire a struggle between
good and evil. The powers of evil were a terrible despotism which
delivered the world to the hands of monsters and madmen, corruption of
morals arising from the importation of Oriental vices, and the want of
a pure religion and decent public instruction. The powers of good were
on the one side, philosophy fighting with bared breast against tyranny,
defying the monsters of oppression, and three or four times proscribed
in half a century (under Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian);[17.94] on the
other side, the struggles of popular virtue, the legitimate longings
for a better religion, the tendency towards confraternities and
monotheistic creeds, and the recognition of the lower classes which
occurred chiefly under cover of Judaism and Christianity. These two
great protests were far from being accordant. The philosophic party and
the Christian party were not acquainted with each other, and had so
little perception of their common interest that when the philosophers
came into power by the accession of Nerva, they were far from being
favorable to Christianity. In truth, the aim of the Christians was
much more radical. The Stoics, when they became masters of the empire,
reformed it, and presided over a hundred of the happiest years in the
history of man. The Christians, when they became masters of the empire,
ended by destroying it. The heroism of the latter ought not to make us
unmindful of that of the former. Christianity was always unjust towards
pagan virtues, and made it her business to decry the very men who had
fought against the same common enemy. There was as much grandeur in the
struggle of philosophy in the first century as in that of Christianity;
but how unequal has been the recompense. The martyr who overturned
idols with his foot lives in pious legend. Why are not the statues of
Annæus Cornutus, who declared in presence of Nero that the emperor's
writings would never be worth those of Chrysippus[17.95]--of Helvidius
Priscus, who told Vespasian to his face, "It is thine to murder--it
is mine to die!"--[17.96] of Demetrius the Cynic, who answered an
enraged Nero, "You may menace me with death; but nature threatens
you"[17.97]--placed amongst those of the world's heroes whom all love
and to whom every one pays homage? Is humanity so strong in her battle
with vice and depravity, that any school of virtue can repel the aid
of others, and maintain that itself alone has the right to be brave,
lofty, and resigned?