adoptive father Antoninus Pius. Studying philosophy and practising
self-command, he emulated and surpassed the virtues of the self-denying
leaders of his sect, and only broke through the rule he imposed
on himself of clemency and mildness, when he found philosophy in
danger of being counted a vain deceit, and the active duties of human
brotherhood preferred to the theoretic rhapsodies on the same subject
with which his works were filled. Times began to change. Men were
dissatisfied with the unsubstantial dream of Platonist and Stoic. There
were symptoms of an approaching alteration in human affairs, which
perplexed the thoughtful and gave promise of impunity to the bad.
Perhaps a man who, clothed in the imperial purple, bestowed so much
study on the intellectual niceties of the Sophists, and endeavoured
to keep his mind in a fit state for abstract speculation by scourging
and starving his body, was not so fitted for the approaching crisis
as a rougher and less contemplative nature would have been. Britain
was in commotion, there were tumults on the Rhine, and in Armenia the
Parthians cut the Roman legions to pieces. And scarcely were those
troubles settled and punished, when a worse calamity befell the Roman
empire. Its inviolability became a boast of the past. The fearful
passions for conquest and rapine of the border-barbarians were roused.
Barbaric cohorts encamped on the fields of Italy, and the hosts of wild
men from the forests of the North pillaged the heaped-up treasures
of the garden of the world. The emperor flew to the scene of danger,
but the fatal word had been said. Italy was accessible from the Alps
and from the sea; and, though a bloody defeat at Aquileia flung back
the invaders, disordered and dispirited, over the mountains they had
descended with such hopes, the struggle was but begun. The barbarians
felt their power, and the old institutions of Rome were insufficient
to resist future attacks. But to the aid of the old Roman institutions
a new institution came, an institution which was destined to repel the
barbarians by overcoming barbarism itself, and save the dignity of
Rome by giving it the protection of the Cross. But at present--that
is, during the reign of the philosophic Marcus Aurelius--a persecution
raged against the Christians which seemed to render hopeless all
chance of their success. The mild laws of Trajan and Adrian, and
the favourable decrees of Antoninus Pius, were set aside by the
contemptuous enmity of this explorer of the mysterious heights of
virtue, which occasionally carried him out of sight of the lower but
more important duties of life. An unsocial tribe the Christians were,
who rigorously shut their eyes to the beauties of abstract perfection,
and preferred the plain orders of the gospel to the most ambitious
periods of the emperor. But the persecution of a sect so small and so
obscure as the Christian was at that time, is scarcely perceptible as
a diminution of the sum of human happiness secured to the world by
the gentleness and equity which regulated all his actions. Here is an
example of the way in which he treated rebels against his authority.
An insurrection broke out in Syria and the East, headed by a pretended
descendant of the patriot Cassius, who had conspired against Julius
Cæsar. The emperor hurried to meet him--some say to resign the empire
into his hands, to prevent the effusion of blood; but the usurper died
in an obscure commotion, and nothing was left but to take vengeance
on his adherents. This is the letter the conqueror wrote to the
Senate:--"I beseech you, conscript Fathers! not to punish the guilty
with too much rigour. Let no Senator be put to death. Let the banished
return to their country. I wish I could give back their lives to those
who have died in this quarrel. Revenge is unworthy of an emperor. You
will pardon, therefore, the children of Cassius, his son-in-law, and
his wife. Pardon, did I say? Ah! what crime have they committed? Let
them live in safety, let them retain all that Cassius possessed. Let
them live in whatever place they choose, to be a monument of your
clemency and mine."
In such hands as these the fortune of mankind was safe. A pity
that the father's feelings got the better of his judgment in the
choice of his successor. It is the one blot on his otherwise perfect
disinterestedness. In dying, with such a monster as Commodus ready
to leap into his seat, he must have felt how inexpressibly valuable
his life would be to the Roman people. He perhaps saw the danger to
which he exposed the world; for he committed his son to the care of
his wisest counsellors, and begged him to continue the same course of
government he had pursued. Perhaps he was tired of life, perhaps he
sought refuge in his self-denying philosophy from the prospect he saw
before him of a state of perpetual struggle and eventual overthrow.
When the Tribune came for the last time to ask the watchword of the
day, "Go to the rising sun," he said; "for me, I am just going to set."
And here the history of the Second Century should close. It is painful
to go back again to the hideous scenes of anarchy and crime from which
we have been delivered so long. What must the sage counsellors, the
chosen companions and equals in age of the Antonines, have thought
when all at once the face of affairs, which they must have believed
eternal, was changed?--when the noblest and wisest in the land were
again thrown heedlessly into the arena without trial?--when spies
watched every meal, and the ferocious murderer on the throne seemed to
gloat over the struggles of his victims? Yet, if they had reflected
on the inevitable course of events, they must have seen that a
government depending on the character of one man could never be relied
on. Where, indeed, could any element of security be found? The very
ground-work of society was overthrown. There was no independent body
erect amid the general prostration at the footstool of the emperor.
Local self-government had ceased except in name. All the towns which
hitherto had been subordinate to Rome, but endowed at the same time
with privileges which were worth defending, had been absorbed into the
great whirlpool of imperial centralization, and were admitted to the
rights of Roman citizenship,--now of little value, since it embraced
every quarter of the empire. Jupiter and Juno, and the herd of effete
gods and goddesses, if they had ever held any practical influence
over the minds of men, had long sunk into contempt, except in so far
as their rich establishments were defended by persons interested in
their maintenance, and the processions and gaudy display of a foul and
meretricious worship were pleasing to the depraved taste of the mob.
But the religious principle, as a motive of action, or as a point of
combination, was at an end. Augurs were still appointed, and laughed
at the uselessness of their office; oracles were still uttered, and
ridiculed as the offspring of ignorance and imposture; conflicting
deities fought for pre-eminence, or compromised their differences by an
amalgamation of their altars, and perhaps a division of their estates.
It was against this state of society the early Fathers directed their
warnings and denunciations. The world did certainly lie in darkness,
and it was indispensable to warn the followers of Christ not to be
conformed to the fashion of that fleeting time. Some, to escape the
contagion of this miserable condition, when men were without hope, and
without even the wretched consolation which a belief in a false god
would have given them, fled to the wilds and caves. Hermits escaped
equally the perils of sin and the hostility of the heathen. Believers
were exhorted to flee from contamination, and some took the words
in their literal meaning. But not all. Many remained, and fought the
good fight in the front of the battle, as became the soldiers of the
cross. In the midst of the anarchy and degradation which characterized
the last years of the century, a society was surely and steadily
advancing towards its full development, bound by rules in the midst
of the helplessness of external law, and combined by strong faith,
in a world of utter unbelief--an empire within an empire--soon to be
the only specimen left either of government or mutual obligation, and
finally to absorb into its fresh and still-spreading organization the
withered and impotent authority which had at first seen in it its enemy
and destroyer, and found it at last its refuge and support. Yet at
this very time the empire had never appeared so strong. By a stroke of
policy, which the event proved to be injudicious, Marcus Aurelius, in
the hope of diminishing the number of his enemies, had converted many
thousands of the barbarians into his subjects. They had settlements
assigned them within the charmed ring. What they had not been able to
obtain by the sword was now assured to them by treaty. But the unity of
the Roman empire by this means was destroyed. Men were admitted within
the citadel who had no reverence implanted in them from their earliest
years for the majesty of the Roman name. They saw the riches contained
in the stronghold, and were only anxious to open the gates to their
countrymen who were still outside the walls.
But before we enter on the downward course, and since we are now
arrived at the period of the greatest apparent force and extent of the
Roman empire, let us see what it consisted of, and what was the real
amount of its power.
Viewed in comparison with some of the monarchies of the present day,
neither its extent of territory, nor amount of population, nor number
of soldiers, is very surprising. The Queen of England reigns over more
subjects, and commands far mightier fleets and armies, than any of
the Roman emperors. The empire of Russia is more extensive, and yet
the historians of a few generations ago are lost in admiration of the
power of Rome. The whole military force of the empire amounted to four
hundred and fifty thousand men. The total number of vessels did not
exceed a thousand. But see what were the advantages Rome possessed in
the compactness of its territory and the unity of its government. The
great Mediterranean Sea, peopled and cultivated on both its shores, was
but a peaceful lake, on which the Roman galley had no enemy to fear,
and the merchant-ship dreaded nothing but the winds and waves. There
were no fortresses to be garrisoned on what are now the boundaries of
jealous or hostile kingdoms. If the great circuit of the Roman State
could be protected from barbarian inroads, the internal defence of all
that vast enclosure could be left to the civil power. If the Black Sea
and the Sea of Azoff could be kept clear of piratical adventurers, the
broad highway of the Mediterranean was safe. A squadron near Gibraltar,
a squadron at the Dardanelles, and the tribes which might possibly
venture in from the ocean--the tribes which, slipping down from the
Don or the Dnieper, might thread their way through the Hellespont and
emerge into the Egean--were caught at their first appearance; and when
the wisdom of the Romans had guarded the mouths of the Danube from the
descent, in canoe or coracle, of the wild settlers on its upper banks,
the peace and commerce of the whole empire were secured. With modern
Europe the case is very different. There are boundaries to be guarded
which occupy more soldiers than the territories are worth. Lines are
arbitrarily fixed across the centre of a plain, or along the summit
of a mountain, which it is a case of war to pass. Belgium defends
her flats with a hundred thousand men, and the marshes of Holland
are secured by sixty thousand Dutch. The State of Dessau in Germany,
threatens its neighbours with fifteen hundred soldiers, while Reuss
guards its dignity and independence with three hundred infantry and
fifty horse. But the Great Powers, as they are called, take away from
the peaceable and remunerative employments of trade or agriculture an
amount of labour which would be an incalculable increase to the riches
and happiness of the world. The aggregate soldiery of Europe is upwards
of five millions of men,--just eleven times the largest calculation
of the Roman legions. The ships of Europe--to the smaller of which
the greatest galleys of the ancient world would scarcely serve as
tenders--amount to 2113. The number of guns they carry, against which
there is nothing we can take as a measure of value in ancient warfare,
but which are now the greatest and surest criterions of military power,
amounts to 45,367. But this does not give so clear a view of the
alteration in relative power as is yielded by an inspection of some
of the separate items. Gaul, included within the Rhine, was kept in
order by six or seven legions. The French empire has on foot an army of
six hundred and fifty thousand men, and a fleet of four hundred sail.
Britain, which was garrisoned by thirty thousand men, had, in 1855, an
army at home and abroad of six hundred and sixty thousand men, and a
fleet of five hundred and ninety-one ships of war, with an armament of
seventeen thousand guns. The disjointed States which now constitute the
Empire of Austria, and which occupied eight legions in their defence,
are now in possession of an army of six hundred thousand men; and
Prussia, whose array exceeds half a million of soldiers, was unheard of
except in the discussions of geographers.[A]
[A.D. 181.]
With the death of the excellent Marcus Aurelius the golden age came to
a close. Commodus sat on the throne, and renewed the wildest atrocities
of the previous century. Nero was not more cruel--Domitian was not so
reckless of human life. He fought in the arena against weakly-armed
adversaries, and slew them without remorse. He polluted the whole
city with blood, and made money by selling permissions to murder.
Thirteen years exhausted the patience of the world, and a justifiable
assassination put an end to his life. There was an old man of the
name of Pertinax, originally a nickname derived from his obstinate or
pertinacious disposition, who now made his appearance on the throne
and perished in three months. It chanced that a certain rich man of
the name of Didius was giving a supper the night of the murder to some
friends. The dishes were rich, and the wine delicious. Inspired by
the good cheer, the guests said, "Why don't you buy the empire? The
soldiers have proclaimed that they will give it to the highest bidder."
Didius knew the amount of his treasure, and was ambitious: he got up
from table and hurried to the Prætorian camp. On the way he met the
mutilated body of the murdered Pertinax, dragged through the streets
with savage exultation. Nothing daunted, he arrived at the soldiers'
tents. Another had been before him--Sulpician, the father-in-law and
friend of the late emperor. A bribe had been offered to each soldier,
so large that they were about to conclude the bargain; but Didius bade
many sesterces more. The greedy soldiery looked from one to the other,
and shouted with delight, as each new advance was made. [A.D. 193.] At
last Sulpician was silent, and Didius had purchased the Roman world at
the price of upwards of £200 to each soldier of the Prætorian guard. He
entered the palace in state, and concluded the supper, which had been
interrupted at his own house, on the viands prepared for Pertinax. But
the excitement of the auction-room was too pleasant to be left to the
troops in Rome. Offers were made to the legions in all the provinces,
and Didius was threatened on every side. Even the distant garrisons of
Britain named a candidate for the throne; and Claudius Albinus assumed
the imperial purple, and crossed over into Gaul. More irritated still,
the army in Syria elected its general, Pescennius Niger, emperor, and
he prepared to dispute the prize; but quietly, steadily, with stern
face and unrelenting heart, advancing from province to province,
keeping his forces in strict subjection, and laying claim to supreme
authority by the mere strength of his indomitable will, came forward
Septimius Severus, and both the pretenders saw that their fate was
sealed. Illyria and Gaul recognised his title at once. Albinus was
happy to accept from him the subordinate title of Cæsar, and to rule as
his lieutenant. Didius, whose bargain turned out rather ill, besought
him to be content with half the empire. Severus slew the messengers
who brought this proposition, and advanced in grim silence. The Senate
assembled, and, by way of a pleasant reception for the Illyrian chief,
requested Didius to prepare for death. The executioners found him
clinging to life with unmanly tenacity, and killed him when he had
reigned but seventy days. One other competitor remained, the general of
the Syrian army--the closest friend of Severus, but now separated from
him by the great temptation of an empire in dispute. This was Niger,
from whom an obstinate resistance was expected, as he was equally
famous for his courage and his skill. But fortune was on the side of
Severus. Niger was conquered after a short struggle, and his head
presented to the victor. Was Albinus still to live, and approach so
near the throne as to have the rank of Cæsar? Assassins were employed
to murder him, but he escaped their assault. The treachery of Severus
brought many supporters to his rival. The Roman armies were ranged
in hostile camps. Severus again was fortunate, and Albinus, dashing
towards him to engage in combat, was slain before his eyes. He watched
his dying agonies for some time, and then forced his horse to trample
on the corpse. A man of harsh, implacable nature--not so much cruel as
impenetrable to human feelings, and perhaps forming a just estimate
of the favourable effect upon his fortunes of a disposition so calm,
and yet so relentless. The Prætorians found they had appointed their
master, and put the sword into his hand. He used it without remorse.
He terrified the boldest with his imperturbable stillness; he summoned
the seditious soldiery to wait on him at his camp. They were to come
without arms, without their military dress, almost like suppliants,
certainly not like the ferocious libertines they had been when they
had sold the empire at the highest price. "Whoever of you wishes to
live," said Severus, frowning coldly, "will depart from this, and
never come within thirty leagues of Rome. Take their horses," he added
to the other troops who had surrounded the Prætorians, "take their
accoutrements, and chase them out of my sight." Did the Senate receive
a milder treatment? On sending them the head of Albinus, he had written
to the Conscript Fathers alarming them with the most dreadful threats.
And now the time of execution had come. He made them an oration in
praise of the proscriptions of Marius and Sylla, and forced them to
deify the tyrant Commodus, who had hated them all his life. He then
gave a signal to his train, and the streets ran with blood. All who
had borne high office, all who were of distinguished birth, all who
were famous for their wealth or popular with the citizens, were put
to death. He crossed over to England and repressed a sedition there.
His son Caracalla accompanied him, and commenced his career of warlike
ardour and frightful ferocity, which can only be explained on the
ground of his being mad. He tried even to murder his father, in open
day, in the sight of the soldiers. He was stealing upon the old man,
when a cry from the legion made him turn round. His inflexible eye fell
upon Caracalla--the sword dropped from his unfilial hand--and dreadful
anticipations of vengeance filled the assembly. The son was pardoned,
but his accomplices, whether truly or falsely accused, perished by
cruel deaths. At last the emperor felt his end approach. He summoned
his sons Caracalla and Geta into his presence, recommended them to live
in unity, and ended by the advice which has become the standing maxim
of military despots, "Be generous to the soldiers, and trample on all
beside."
With this hideous incarnation of unpitying firmness on the
throne--hopeless of the future, and with dangers accumulating on every
side, the Second Century came to an end, leaving the amazing contrast
between its miserable close and the long period of its prosperity by
which it will be remembered in all succeeding time.
THIRD CENTURY.
Emperors.
A.D.
SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS--(_continued._) Fifth Persecution of the
Christians.
211. CARACALLA and GETA.
217. MACRINUS.
218. HELIOGABALUS.
222. ALEXANDER SEVERUS.
235. MAXIMIN. Sixth Persecution.
238. MAXIMUS and BALBINUS
238. GORDIAN.
244. PHILIP THE ARABIAN.
249. DECIUS. Seventh Persecution.
251. VIBIUS.
251. GALLUS.
254. VALERIAN. Eighth Persecution.
260. GALLIEN.
268. CLAUDIUS THE SECOND.
270. AURELIAN. Ninth Persecution.
275. TACITUS.
276. FLORIAN.
277. PROBUS.
278. CARUS.
278. CARINUS and NUMERIAN.
284. DIOCLETIAN and MAXIMIAN. Tenth and Last Persecution.
Authors.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, DION CASSIUS, ORIGEN, CYPRIAN, PLOTINUS,
LONGINUS, HIPPOLITUS PORTUENSIS, JULIUS AFRICANUS CELSUS, ORIGEN.
THE THIRD CENTURY.
ANARCHY AND CONFUSION--GROWTH OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
We are now in the twelfth year of the Third Century. Septimius Severus
has died at York, and Caracalla is let loose like a famished tiger
upon Rome. He invites his brother Geta to meet him to settle some
family feud in the apartment of their mother, and stabs him in her
arms. The rest of his reign is worthy of this beginning, and it would
be fatiguing and perplexing to the memory to record his other acts.
Fortunately it is not required; nor is it necessary to follow minutely
the course of his successors. What we require is only a general view of
the proceedings of this century, and that can be gained without wading
through all the blood and horrors with which the throne of the world is
surrounded. Conclusive evidence was obtained in this century that the
organization of Roman government was defective in securing the first
necessities of civilized life. When we talk of civilization, we are too
apt to limit the meaning of the word to its mere embellishments, such
as arts and sciences; but the true distinction between it and barbarism
is, that the one presents a state of society under the protection of
just and well-administered law, and the other is left to the chance
government of brute force. There was now great wealth in Rome--great
luxury--a high admiration of painting, poetry, and sculpture--much
learning, and probably infinite refinement of manners and address. But
it was not a civilized state. Life was of no value--property was not
secure. A series of madmen seized supreme authority, and overthrew all
the distinctions between right and wrong. Murder was legalized, and
rapine openly encouraged. It is a sort of satisfaction to perceive that
few of those atrocious malefactors escaped altogether the punishment
of their crimes. If Caracalla slays his brother and orders a peaceable
province to be destroyed, there is a Macrinus at hand to put the
monster to death. [A.D. 218.] But Macrinus, relying on the goodness
of his intentions, neglects the soldiery, and is supplanted by a boy
of seventeen--so handsome that he won the admiration of the rudest of
the legionaries, and so gentle and captivating in his manners that
he strengthened the effect his beauty had produced. He was priest of
the Temple of the Sun at Emesa in Phoenicia; and by the arts of
his grandmother, who was sister to one of the former empresses, and
the report that she cunningly spread abroad that he was the son of
their favourite Caracalla, the affection of the dissolute soldiery
knew no bounds. Macrinus was soon slaughtered, and the long-haired
priest of Baal seated on the throne of the Cæsars, under the name
of Heliogabalus. As might be expected, the sudden alteration in
his fortunes was fatal to his character. All the excesses of his
predecessors were surpassed. His extravagance rapidly exhausted the
resources of the empire. His floors were spread with gold-dust. His
dresses, jewels, and golden ornaments were never worn twice, but went
to his slaves and parasites. He created his grandmother a member
of the Senate, with rank next after the consuls; and established a
rival Senate, composed of ladies, presided over by his mother. Their
jurisdiction was not very hurtful to the State, for it only extended
to dresses and precedence of ranks, and the etiquette to be observed
in visiting each other. But the evil dispositions of the emperor were
shown in other ways. He had a cousin of the name of Alexander, and
entertained an unbounded jealousy of his popularity with the soldiers.
Attempts at poison and direct assassination were resorted to in vain.
The public sympathy began to rise in his favour. The Prætorians
formally took him under their protection; and when Heliogabalus,
reckless of their menaces, again attempted the life of Alexander, the
troops revolted, proclaimed death to the infatuated emperor, and slew
him and his mother at the same time.
[A.D. 222.]
Alexander was now enthroned--a youth of sixteen; gifted with higher
qualities than the debased century in which he lived could altogether
appreciate. But the origin of his noblest sentiments is traced to
the teaching he had received from his mother, in which the precepts
of Christianity were not omitted. When he appointed the governor of
a province, he published his name some time before, and requested
if any one knew of a disqualification, to have it sent in for his
consideration. "It is thus the Christians appoint their pastors,"
he said, "and I will do the same with my representatives." When his
justice, moderation, and equity were fully recognised, the beauty of
the quotation, which was continually in his mouth, was admired by all,
even though they were ignorant of the book it came from: "Do unto
others as you would that they should do unto you." He trusted the
wisest of his counsellors, the great legalists of the empire, with the
introduction of new laws to curb the wickedness of the time. But the
multiplicity of laws proves the decline of states. In the ancient Rome
of the kings and earlier consuls, the statutes were contained in forty
decisions, which were afterwards enlarged into the laws of the Twelve
Tables, consisting of one hundred and fifty texts. The profligacy of
some emperors, the vanity of others, had loaded the statute-book with
an innumerable mass of edicts, senatus-consultums, prætorial rescripts,
and customary laws. It was impossible to extract order or regularity
from such a chaos of conflicting rules. The great work was left for
a later prince; at present we can only praise the goodness of the
emperor's intention. But Alexander, justly called Severus, from the
simplicity of his life and manners, has held the throne too long. The
Prætorians have been thirteen years without the donation consequent on
a new accession.