denied their faith, and who now confessed it contrary to the expectation
of the Gentiles. Those who, having been privately questioned, declared
themselves Christians were added to the number of the martyrs. Those in
whom appeared no vestige of faith and no fear of God, remained without
the pale of the Church. When they were dealing with those who had been
reunited to it, one Alexander, a Phrygian by nation, a physician by
profession, who had for many years been dwelling in Gaul, a man well
known to all for his love of God and open preaching of the faith, took
his place in the hall of judgment, exhorting by signs all who filled it
to confess their faith, even as if he had been called in to deliver
them of it. The multitude, enraged to see that those who had at first
denied turned round and proclaimed their faith, cried out against
Alexander, whom they accused of the conversion.
"The governor forthwith asked him what he was, and at the answer, 'I am
a Christian,' condemned him to the beasts. On the morrow Alexander was
again brought up, together with Attalus, whom the governor, to please
the people, had once more condemned to the beasts. After they had both
suffered in the Amphitheatre all the torments that could be devised,
they were put to the sword. Alexander uttered not a complaint, not a
word; he had the air of one who was talking inwardly with God. Attalus,
seated on an iron seat, and waiting for the fire to consume his body,
said, in Latin, to the people: 'See what ye are doing; it is in truth
devouring men; as for us, we devour not men, and we do no evil at all.'
He was asked what was the name of God: 'God,' said he, 'is not like us
mortals; he hath no name.'
"After all these martyrs, on the last day of the shows, Blandina was
again brought up, together with a young lad, named Ponticus, about
fifteen years old. They had been brought up every day before that they
might see the tortures of their brethren. When they were called upon to
swear by the altars of the Gentiles, they remained firm in their faith,
making no account of those pretended gods, and so great was the fury of
the multitude against them that no pity was shown for the age of the
child or the sex of the woman. Tortures were heaped upon them; they were
made to pass through every kind of torment, but the desired end was not
gained.
"Supported by the exhortations of his sister, who was seen and heard by
the Gentiles, Ponticus, after having endured all magnanimously, gave up
the ghost. Blandina, last of all--like a noble mother that hath roused
the courage of her sons for the fight, and sent them forth to conquer
for their king--passed once more through all the tortures they had
suffered, anxious to go and rejoin them, and rejoicing at each step
toward death. At length, after she had undergone fire, the talons of
beasts, and agonizing aspersion, she was wrapped in a network and thrown
to a bull that tossed her in the air; she was already unconscious of
all that befell her, and seemed altogether taken up with watching for
the blessings that Christ had in store for her. Even the Gentiles
allowed that never a woman had suffered so much or so long.
"Still their fury and their cruelty toward the saints were not appeased.
They devised another way of raging against them; they cast to the dogs
the bodies of those who had died of suffocation in prison, and watched
night and day that none of our brethren might come and bury them. As for
what remained of the martyrs' half-mangled or devoured corpses, they
left them exposed under a guard of soldiers, coming to look on them with
insulting eyes, and saying: 'Where is now their God? Of what use to them
was this religion for which they laid down their lives?' We were
overcome with grief that we were not able to bury these poor corpses;
nor the darkness of night, nor gold, nor prayers could help us to
succeed therein. After being thus exposed for six days in the open air,
given over to all manner of outrage, the corpses of the martyrs were at
last burned, reduced to ashes, and cast hither and thither by the
infidels upon the waters of the Rhone, that there might be left no trace
of them on earth. They acted as if they had been more mighty than God,
and could rob our brethren of their resurrection: ''Tis in that hope,'
said they, 'that these folk bring among us a new and strange religion,
that they set at naught the most painful torments, and that they go
joyfully to face death: let us see if they will rise again, if their God
will come to their aid and will be able to tear them from our hands.'"
It is not without a painful effort that, even after so many centuries,
we can resign ourselves to be witnesses, in imagination only, of such a
spectacle. We can scarce believe that among men of the same period and
the same city so much ferocity could be displayed in opposition to so
much courage, the passion for barbarity against the passion for virtue.
Nevertheless, such is history; and it should be represented as it really
was: first of all, for truth's sake; then for the due appreciation of
virtue and all it costs of effort and sacrifice; and, lastly, for the
purpose of showing what obstacles have to be surmounted, what struggles
endured, and what sufferings borne, when the question is the
accomplishment of great moral and social reforms. Marcus Aurelius was,
without any doubt, a virtuous ruler, and one who had it in his heart to
be just and humane; but he was an absolute ruler, that is to say, one
fed entirely on his own ideas, very ill-informed about the facts on
which he had to decide, and without a free public to warn him of the
errors of his ideas or the practical results of his decrees. He ordered
the persecution of the Christians without knowing what the Christians
were or what the persecution would be, and this conscientious
philosopher let loose at Lyons, against the most conscientious of
subjects, the zealous servility of his agents, and the atrocious
passions of the mob.
The persecution of the Christians did not stop at Lyons or with Marcus
Aurelius; it became, during the third century, the common practice of
the emperors in all parts of the empire: from A.D. 202 to 312, under the
reigns of Septimius Severus, Maximinus the First, Decius, Valerian,
Aurelian, Diocletian, Maximian, and Galerius, there are reckoned six
great general persecutions, without counting others more circumscribed
or less severe. The emperors Alexander Severus, Philip the Arabian, and
Constantius Chlorus were almost the only exceptions to this cruel
system; and nearly always, wherever it was in force, the pagan mob, in
its brutality or fanatical superstition, added to imperial rigor its own
atrocious and cynical excesses.
But Christian zeal was superior in perseverance and efficacy to pagan
persecution. St. Pothinus the Martyr was succeeded as bishop at Lyons by
St. Irenæus, the most learned, most judicious, and most illustrious of
the early heads of the Church in Gaul. Originally from Asia Minor,
probably from Smyrna, he had migrated to Gaul, at what particular date
is not known, and had settled as a simple priest in the diocese of
Lyons, where it was not long before he exercised vast influence, as well
on the spot as also during certain missions intrusted to him, and among
them one, they say, to the pope, St. Eleutherius, at Rome.
While bishop of Lyons, from A.D. 177 to 202, he employed the
five-and-twenty years in propagating the Christian faith in Gaul, and in
defending, by his writings, the Christian doctrines against the discord
to which they had already been subjected in the East, and which was
beginning to penetrate the West.
In 202, during the persecution instituted by Septimius Severus, St.
Irenæus crowned by martyrdom his active and influential life. It was in
his episcopate that there began what may be called the swarm of
Christian missionaries who, toward the end of the second and during the
third century, spread over the whole of Gaul, preaching the faith and
forming churches. Some went from Lyons at the instigation of St.
Irenæus; others from Rome, especially under the pontificate of Pope St.
Fabian, himself martyred in 249; St. Felix and St. Fortunatus to
Valence, St. Ferréol to Besançon, St. Marcellus to Châlons-sur-Saône,
St. Benignus to Dijon, St. Trophimus to Arles, St. Paul to Narbonne, St.
Saturninus to Toulouse, St. Martial to Limoges, St. Andéol and St.
Privatus to the Cévennes, St. Austremoine to Clermont-Ferrand, St.
Galian to Tours, St. Denis to Paris, and so many others that their names
are scarcely known beyond the pages of erudite historians, or the very
spots where they preached, struggled, and conquered, often at the price
of their lives.
Such were the founders of the faith and of the Christian Church in
France. At the commencement of the fourth century their work was, if not
accomplished, at any rate triumphant; and when, A.D. 312, Constantine
declared himself a Christian, he confirmed the fact of the conquest of
the Roman world, and of Gaul in particular, by Christianity. No doubt
the majority of the inhabitants were not as yet Christians; but it was
clear that the Christians were in the ascendant and had command of the
future.
Of the two grand elements which were to meet together on the ruins of
Roman society, for the formation of modern society, the moral element,
the Christian religion, had already taken possession of souls; the
devastated territory awaited the coming of new peoples, known to history
under the general name of Germans, whom the Romans called the
Barbarians.
BEGINNING OF ROME'S DECLINE: COMMODUS
A.D. 180
EDWARD GIBBON
That a ruler of such noble character as the Roman philosopher
Marcus Aurelius should have had for his son and successor a man
like Commodus is one of the strange contrasts of history. The
succession of Commodus, marking as it does the beginning of the
decline of the great empire, may be regarded as one of the most
critical moments in the existence of Rome. How folly and cruelty,
shameless vice and unbridled ferocity, may be associated in the
same character has often been illustrated in the careers of the
world's rulers, and nowhere more conspicuously than in some of the
Roman emperors; and in the case of Commodus the combination of
these qualities led to acts which involved not only the Emperor
himself, but also the empire over which he ruled, in fatal
consequences.
This vast empire, composed of many different peoples, was under the
rule and subject to the caprice of one man. The form of the
government imposed practically no checks on his power. With such
able emperors as Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius the
State was safe; but the wise men of Rome had foreseen that a tyrant
or weak and inexperienced ruler, under this system, might plunge
the empire into confusion and ruin. Yet they had made no provision
against such a contingency. In the death of such a ruler and the
accession of an abler and juster one lay their only hope of
amelioration.
The course of events during the bloody reign of the degenerate
Commodus was such as surely to forecast the decline of Roman power
and supremacy. In the next hundred years there were twenty-three
emperors, thirteen of whom were murdered by their own soldiers or
servants--a tragic period of cruelty, licentiousness, and decay.
If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world
during which the condition of the human race was most happy and
prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from
the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of
the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of
virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle
hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority
commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration
were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines,
who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering
themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws. Such princes
deserved the honor of restoring the republic, had the Romans of their
days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom.
The labors of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward that
inseparably waited on their success, by the honest pride of virtue, and
by the exquisite delight of beholding the general happiness of which
they were the authors. A just but melancholy reflection imbittered,
however, the noblest of human enjoyments. They must often have
recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the
character of a single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching when
some licentious youth or some jealous tyrant would abuse, to the
destruction, that absolute power which they had exerted for the benefit
of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might
serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the
emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible instrument of
oppression, and the corruption of Roman manners would always supply
flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers prepared to serve, the fear
or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, of their masters.
These gloomy apprehensions had been already justified by the experience
of the Romans. The annals of the emperors exhibit a strong and various
picture of human nature, which we should vainly seek among the mixed and
doubtful characters of modern history. In the conduct of those monarchs
we may trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted
perfection, and the meanest degeneracy of our own species.
The mildness of Marcus Aurelius, which the rigid discipline of the
Stoics was unable to eradicate, formed, at the same time, the most
amiable, and the only defective, part of his character. His excellent
understanding was often deceived by the unsuspecting goodness of his
heart. Artful men, who study the passions of princes, and conceal their
own, approached his person in the disguise of philosophic sanctity, and
acquired riches and honors by affecting to despise them. His excessive
indulgence to his brother,[46] his wife, and his son exceeded the bounds
of private virtue, and became a public injury, by the example and
consequences of their vices.
Faustina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been as much
celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The grave simplicity
of the philosopher was ill-calculated to engage her wanton levity, or to
fix that unbounded passion for variety which often discovered personal
merit in the meanest of mankind. The Cupid of the ancients was, in
general, a very sensual deity; and the amours of an empress, as they
exact on her side the plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much
sentimental delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire who seemed
ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of Faustina, which,
according to the prejudices of every age, reflected some disgrace on the
injured husband. He promoted several of her lovers to posts of honor and
profit, and, during a connection of thirty years, invariably gave her
proofs of the most tender confidence and of a respect which ended not
with her life. In his _Meditations_ he thanks the gods, who had bestowed
on him a wife so faithful, so gentle, and of such a wonderful simplicity
of manners. The obsequious senate, at his earnest request, declared her
a goddess. She was represented in her temples with the attributes of
Juno, Venus, and Ceres; and it was decreed that, on the day of their
nuptials, the youth of either sex should pay their vows before the altar
of their chaste patroness.
The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of the
father's virtues. It has been objected to Marcus that he sacrificed the
happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a worthless boy; and that
he chose a successor in his own family rather than in the empire.
Nothing, however, was neglected by the anxious father, and by the men of
virtue and learning whom he summoned to his assistance, to expand the
narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to
render him worthy of the throne for which he was designed. But the power
of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy
dispositions where it is almost superfluous. The distasteful lesson of
a grave philosopher was, in a moment, obliterated by the whisper of a
profligate favorite; and Marcus himself blasted the fruits of this
labored education by admitting his son, at the age of fourteen or
fifteen, to a full participation of the imperial power. He lived but
four years afterward; but he lived long enough to repent a rash measure
which raised the impetuous youth above the restraint of reason and
authority.
Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are
produced by the restraints which the necessary but unequal laws of
property have imposed on the appetites of mankind by confining to a few
the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our
passions and appetites the love of power is of the most imperious and
unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of
the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose
their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity.
The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success,
the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers all
contribute to inflame the mind and to silence the voice of pity. From
such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil
blood; but these motives will not account for the unprovoked cruelties
of Commodus, who had nothing to wish and everything to enjoy.
The beloved son of Marcus succeeded to his father, amid the acclamations
of the senate and armies; and when he ascended the throne the happy
youth saw round him neither competitor to remove nor enemies to punish.
In this calm, elevated station it was surely natural that he should
prefer the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories of his
five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and Domitian.
Yet Commodus was not, as he has been represented, a tiger born with an
insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his infancy, of the
most inhuman actions. Nature had formed him of a weak rather than a
wicked disposition. His simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave
of his attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which
at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at
length became the ruling passion of his soul.
Upon the death of his father, Commodus found himself embarrassed with
the command of a great army, and the conduct of a difficult war against
the Quadi and Marcomanni. The servile and profligate youths whom Marcus
had banished soon regained their station and influence about the new
Emperor. They exaggerated the hardships and dangers of a campaign in the
wild countries beyond the Danube; and they assured the indolent prince
that the terror of his name and the arms of his lieutenants would be
sufficient to complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians, or to
impose such conditions as were more advantageous than any conquest. By a
dexterous application to his sensual appetites they compared the
tranquillity, the splendor, the refined pleasures of Rome with the
tumult of a Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leisure nor materials
for luxury. Commodus listened to the pleasing advice, but while he
hesitated between his own inclination and the awe which he still
retained for his father's counsellors, the summer insensibly elapsed,
and his triumphal entry into the capital was deferred till the autumn.
His graceful person, popular address, and imagined virtues attracted the
public favor; the honorable peace which he had recently granted to the
barbarians diffused a universal joy; his impatience to revisit Rome was
fondly ascribed to the love of his country; and his dissolute course of
amusements was faintly condemned in a prince of nineteen years of age.
During the three first years of his reign the forms, and even the
spirit, of the old administration were maintained by those faithful
counsellors to whom Marcus had recommended his son, and for whose wisdom
and integrity Commodus still entertained a reluctant esteem. The young
prince and his profligate favorites revelled in all the license of
sovereign power; but his hands were yet unstained with blood; and he had
even displayed a generosity of sentiment which might perhaps have
ripened into solid virtue.[47] A fatal incident decided his fluctuating
character.
One evening, as the Emperor was returning to the palace through a dark
and narrow portico in the Amphitheatre, an assassin, who waited his
passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, "_The
senate sends you this_." The menace prevented the deed; the assassin was
seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors of the
conspiracy. It had been formed, not in the state, but within the walls
of the palace. Lucilla, the Emperor's sister, and widow of Lucius Verus,
impatient of the second rank, and jealous of the reigning empress, had
armed the murderer against her brother's life. She had not ventured to
communicate the black design to her second husband, Claudius Pompeianus,
a senator of distinguished merit and unshaken loyalty; but among the
crowd of her lovers--for she imitated the manners of Faustina--she found
men of desperate fortunes and wild ambition, who were prepared to serve
her more violent as well as her tender passions. The conspirators
experienced the rigor of justice, and the abandoned princess was
punished, first with exile, and afterward with death.
But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and
left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body
of the senate. Those whom he had dreaded as importunate ministers he now
suspected as secret enemies. The delators, a race of men discouraged and
almost extinguished under the former reigns, again became formidable, as
soon as they discovered that the Emperor was desirous of finding
disaffection and treason in the senate. That assembly, whom Marcus had
ever considered as the great council of the nation, was composed of the
most distinguished of the Romans; and distinction of every kind soon
became criminal. The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of
the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the
irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous
superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured
the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to
condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with
the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate, and when Commodus
had once tasted human blood he became incapable of pity or remorse.
Of these innocent victims of tyranny none died more lamented than the
two brothers of the Quintilian family, Maximus and Condianus, whose
fraternal love has saved their names from oblivion and endeared their
memory to posterity. Their studies and their occupations, their pursuits
and their pleasures, were still the same. In the enjoyment of a great
estate they never admitted the idea of a separate interest: some
fragments are now extant of a treatise which they composed in common;
and in every action of life it was observed that their two bodies were
animated by one soul. The Antonines, who valued their virtues and
delighted in their union, raised them, in the same year, to the
consulship; and Marcus afterward intrusted to their joint care the civil
administration of Greece, and a great military command, in which they
obtained a signal victory over the Germans. The kind cruelty of Commodus
united them in death.