ANOTHER SYRIAN EMPRESS
To the thoughtful Roman the name of Syria must have suggested an abyss
of corruption, and the extension of the Empire over that swarm of
Asiatic peoples to whom the name was vaguely applied must have seemed
an infelicitous triumph. From the cities of nearer Asia, in which the
senile energies of the older civilizations seemed incapable of rising
above the ministry to vice, luxury, and folly, had come the larger
part of the taint that had infected the blood of Rome. It is therefore
singular to observe that, of the five women whom Syria placed on, or
above, the Roman throne in the third century, four were distinguished
for sobriety of judgment and concern for the common weal. The family
from which the first four of these women sprang is variously described
as “humble” and “noble.” We may reconcile the epithets by a conjecture
that the family which controlled the wealthy shrine of Emesa descended
from some branch of the fallen nobility of the East. Both Soæmias and
Mamæa had married Syrians, and we may assume that Mamæa had done the
same. In those circumstances, the public spirit with which Julia Domna,
Julia Mæsa, and Julia Mamæa used the great influence they had is not a
little remarkable.
Of the three--to whom we must presently add a fourth remarkable woman
of the East--Mamæa had the greatest power, and made the best use of
it. She is not blameless, as we shall see; but even if it be true, as
is commonly said, that she was unduly covetous of money and power, we
must at least admit that she employed them solely to restore peace and
prosperity to the Empire, and prolong the reign of a high-principled
ruler.
Mamæa entered upon her work with all the shrewdness which we have
already recognized in her. Instead of claiming the right, which Soæmias
had enjoyed, to sit in the Senate and sign its decrees, she preserved a
discreet silence when the Senate abolished the innovation, and poured
out their long-repressed annoyance on the memory of its author. The
Senators ostentatiously enjoyed their shadow of power: Mamæa quietly
possessed the substance. She provided the finest preceptors for the
education of her son Alexander, who was in his fourteenth year, and
selected sixteen of the most distinguished Senators and lawyers as a
Council of State. With these she worked energetically and harmoniously
for the renovation of the Empire. The palace was purged of the quaint
and the loathsome officers that she found in it, Rome was relieved of
Ela-gabal and his ghastly ritual, competent officials were substituted
for the ministers to the lust of the late Emperor, and the heavier
taxes of the previous two reigns were remitted or lessened. In this
work, which extends over the thirteen years of the reign of Alexander
Severus, Mæsa had little part. She died soon after the beginning of
this happier era, and Mamæa alone guided the willing hands of her son.
It is remarked by all the authorities that Alexander was singularly
subservient to his mother.
Troops and Senate had been happily united in the elevation of
Alexander, and all the epithets of Imperial dignity were at once
conferred on him. The title of Severus he accepted from the soldiers,
but he declined the name of Antoninus, which the Senate pressed on
him, since that revered name had been so impiously disgraced by his
predecessors. He spontaneously discarded the womanly silks and jewels
of his cousin, covered the rough shirts of Severus with the Roman
toga, and gave equal attention to manly exercises, the lessons of his
tutors, and the wise counsels of his mother. He thus grew into a
handsome and virile youth, with the piercing black eyes of his race,
but with a moderation of temper that delighted his Stoic teachers.
When we read the account of his career in the “Historia Augusta”--an
account that might have been written by a Xenophon or a Fénelon for the
edification of a young prince--we are tempted to feel that, either the
gossipy Lampridius had for the moment a more serious object than the
entertainment of Rome, or Alexander Severus was more virtuous than the
circumstances required.
Mamæa is described by the same writer as “holy, but avaricious.”
Avarice was a not inopportune vice. Elagabalus had squandered the
treasury on his follies; the troops, encouraged by him and by
Caracalla, were becoming more and more exacting; while Mamæa had, by
lightening the taxes, spared the Empire a substantial share of its
contribution. In these circumstances it was prudent to cultivate a
close concern about money, and no single writer ventures to say that
the Empress--the Senate had at once entitled her Augusta--spent much
on her personal service or pleasure. It is said that her zeal for the
accumulation of money was carried to a stage of offensiveness. But
it was necessary for her murderers to detect or invent some vice in
extenuation of their foul deed, and the position in which the charge is
found in the historians reveals that it came from that tainted source.
“Avarice” means little more than that she would not yield to the
improper demands of a demoralized army.
When we reflect that both her parents were Syrians, we notice with
some surprise that the portrait-bust of Mamæa has a singularly Roman
face; and in her strength, solidity, and sobriety she recalls the old
Roman type rather than accords with the general conception of a Syrian
woman. She had the defect of her type, and an incident that occurred
early in her reign is regarded as a grave betrayal of it. It is not
at all clear, however, that Mamæa acted with the “jealous cruelty”
which Gibbon sees in her conduct. For the wife of her son she had
chosen Sallustia Barbia Orbiana--we find the name on coins, though the
historians do not give it--daughter of the Senator Sallustius Macrinus.
Alexander, not an exacting husband, seems to have lived happily with
his bride, and her father was promoted to the rank of Cæsar. Before
long, however, we find Macrinus executed on a charge of treason, and
his daughter banished to Africa.
Gibbon believes, on the authority of Dio, that this was entirely due
to Mamæa’s unwillingness to share the power and the affection of
her son with another woman. The word of an historian and a member
of the Senate, whom we may almost describe as an eye-witness, must
assuredly have weight, yet we cannot ignore the assertion of the other
authorities that Macrinus was betrayed into acts which easily bore
the construction of treason. We may recall Merivale’s just warning,
on another occasion, that a contemporary Roman writer is particularly
apt to reproduce the unsubstantial gossip of his day. Herodian, who
nevertheless believes that Macrinus had no treasonable intention, says
that Mamæa was so cruel to Orbiana that the girl went in tears to her
father, and he repaired to the Prætorian camp with bitter complaints
against Mamæa. Such a course very strongly suggests a treasonable
design. The troops, chafing under the rule of Mamæa and her son, whom
they eventually murdered, were notoriously discontented; and flying
to the camp was commonly the first overt act in a plot to displace
the ruling Emperor. When we further find that Lampridius (“Historia
Augusta”) says, on the authority of Dexippus, an Athenian writer of
the succeeding generation, that Macrinus was expressly attempting
to replace Alexander, we must at least suspend our censures. We
know nothing of the character of Macrinus and his daughter, and are
therefore unable to say how far Mamæa’s interpretation of their conduct
may have been influenced by her feelings, and how far her harsh
treatment of Orbiana may have been justified.
The charge against her is further weakened by a circumstance that
Gibbon has overlooked. Lampridius says that Alexander married Memnia,
the daughter of the ex-consul Sulpicius, and speaks incidentally
of “his boys.” It seems, then, that the jealousy of Mamæa did not
prevent Alexander from marrying again, and that Memnia must have
shared the palace with the Empress-mother for a number of years. Of
her character we know nothing, except that, together with Mamæa, she
remonstrated with Alexander on account of his excessive affability with
his subjects. No guards, it seems, barred the entrance of the palace
against them. The austere character of the life which adorned it was
the only test of the integrity of those who approached him. After a
day of exertion he would spend the evening in the refining enjoyment
of letters or the exercise of his musical skill. He sang and played
well, but guarded his Imperial dignity by admitting none to hear him
except his young sons. Actors and gladiators he avoided, nor would he
spend much in exhibiting their skill to the public. His one luxury was
a remarkable collection of birds, which included 20,000 doves; his
one weakness a delight in the puny and almost bloodless combats of
partridges, kittens, or pups. His baths were of cold water, and his
table was regulated by the most minute directions, admitting even the
slight luxury of a goose only on festive occasions. When a string of
costly pearls was presented to Memnia, he ordered that they should be
sold, and, when no purchaser could be found in Rome, he hung them upon
the statue of Venus in the temple.
[Illustration: JULIA MAMÆA
BUST IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM]
From such details as these we may construct a picture of the quiet
and temperate life of Alexander’s palace, and we shall be disposed to
think lightly of the quarrels which are said to have disturbed the
relations of mother and son. We can hardly believe that one so frugal
as Alexander would profess much indignation at his mother’s assiduous
nursing of the treasury, nor can we suppose that Mamæa greatly resented
the young monarch’s accessibility to his subjects. Their frugality,
indeed, must not be exaggerated, as they were generous in gifts.
Instead of sending men to extort their incomes from the provinces
in which they took office, Alexander provided them, when they
left Rome, with an outfit so complete as to include a concubine. His
deference to his mother may, in fact, be said to be the only consistent
charge against him. The Emperor Julian (“The Cæsars”) insinuates that
he showed a mediocrity of intelligence in allowing his mother to
accumulate money, instead of prudently spending it. In a sense Julian
was right; though it was not weakness of intelligence, but severity
of principle, that restrained Alexander and Mamæa from this prudent
expenditure. Had they lavished their funds upon the troops, the history
of Rome during the next ten years might have run differently.
From an early period in the reign of Alexander the attitude of the
troops cast a shadow over the palace and the Empire. Five successive
Emperors, besides earlier ones, had received the purple from the hands
of the troops, and had been compelled either to refrain from pressing
the necessary discipline upon them, or to compensate the rigours of
discipline with excessive rewards. The soldiers became conscious of
their power, and sufficiently demoralized to abuse it. Less exercise
and more pay led to a lamentable enervation; and the filling of the
ranks from the more distant peoples, who had not contributed to the
making of the Empire and were insensible to its prestige, dissolved in
the legions the old spirit of nationality. From the lonely forests, the
frozen hills, or the blistering deserts of the frontiers, they sought
ever to be withdrawn to the comforts and pleasures of the cities. And
when they found that a fresh effort was being made to restrict their
indulgences and restore the earlier discipline, when they reflected
that it was only the feeble hands of a woman and a youth that would
enforce this austerity, they broke into sullen murmurs of discontent.
The most dangerous part of the army was the extensive regiment of
Prætorian Guards, which, from its camp at the walls, overshadowed
Rome with its power. Over these men Mamæa had placed a civilian, the
distinguished jurist Domitius Ulpianus. It was natural that Ulpian
should wish to extend to the guards the valuable reforms which he was
introducing into every department of the State; equally natural that
the soldiers should chafe under his discipline. The citizens took the
part of Ulpian and Mamæa, who protected him, and the irritation at
last erupted in a bloody struggle, in which the populace fought for
three days against the soldiers in the streets of Rome. The quarrel
was arrested, but some time afterwards--not in the fight, as Gibbon
says--the angry guards put an end to the reforms of Ulpian. The
statesman fled before them into the palace, and sought the protection
of the Emperor; but the insolent guards penetrated the sanctuary of the
royal house with drawn swords, and murdered, in Alexander’s presence,
the most eminent and enlightened of his counsellors. The provincial
troops were giving little less concern. We take our leave at this stage
of the historian Dio. His work closes with a mournful lament of the
condition of the army, and a just presentiment of impending calamity.
He too had endeavoured to enforce discipline on the legions, and had
found the authority of the Emperor insufficient to protect him from
their murderous resentment.
As if this lamentable situation had been communicated to the countless
peoples who pressed eagerly against the barriers of the Empire, we
find a new boldness arising amongst them, and a serious beginning of
those raids which will at last put the mighty power under the heel of
the barbarian. The tragedy of the fall of Rome reaches a more certain
stage. It is a singular and melancholy reflection that Rome suffered
most under its most virtuous rulers. During the reign of Marcus
Aurelius the gods had seemed to make a war upon virtue. The new Stoic
and his virtuous mother were destined to see the enemies gathering
fiercely about their enfeebled frontiers, and to perish tragically in a
futile effort to repel them.
The gravest trouble arose in the East. The ancient kingdom of Persia
revived, and its vigorous rulers determined to regain the provinces
which Greece and Rome had shorn from their once vast empire.
Alexander, and probably Mamæa, went to the East. If we may believe
the panegyrist of Alexander in the “Historia Augusta,” he displayed
an admirable firmness in enforcing discipline upon the troops when
he arrived at Antioch. Gathering their sullen and spoiled officers
from the haunts of Antioch and the licentious groves of the suburb
of Daphne, he punished a number of them severely, boldly confronted
the drawn swords of their demoralized followers, and set the legions
in motion against the Persians. But the plan of the campaign was
injudicious, and the execution weak. The Romans suffered a heavy
reverse, and, before they could recover and check the advancing spirit
of the Persians, Alexander was recalled to Europe with the news that
the Germanic tribes were bursting through the northern frontier.
From the sunny lands of their native East the Emperor and his mother
passed, in the year 234, to the banks of the Rhine. They had passed
through Rome, where the citizens were easily persuaded to celebrate his
triumph over the Persians. From the Capitol they had carried the young
Emperor on their shoulders to his palace, his chariot with its four
elephants walking behind them, and a great wave of enthusiasm went with
him as he started for Gaul. He was now in his twenty-sixth year, and
Mamæa must have felt that he was at the beginning of a glorious career.
They little suspected that they were going to meet their deaths at the
hands of their own troops.
One of the commanders on the Rhine was a gigantic and powerful
barbarian, half Goth and half Alan, of the name of Maximinus. More than
eight feet in height, with a thumb so large that he wore his wife’s
bracelet on it as a ring, the giant had made his way in the army by
sheer strength. A man who could eat forty pounds of meat in a day,
drink a proportionate quantity of wine, and fell you with a finger, had
the respect of the barbarian soldiers. Elagabalus had repelled him,
when he sought office, with salacious questions about his strength;
Alexander had eagerly welcomed him, and put him in command of the
younger troops. But Alexander had afterwards refused him an honour,
which Mamæa desired to confer on him, and he probably heard this. He
had given his son a good Roman education, and Mamæa thought that the
young man was a suitable match for her daughter Theoclea. Alexander
protested that his sister would find the father-in-law too boorish, and
the young Maximinus, now a tall, handsome, cultivated, and dissolute
noble, married a granddaughter of Antoninus Pius, Junia Fadilla.
Whether this affront was remembered, or whether Maximinus acted
from mere ambition, we cannot say. He began, in any case, to spread
discontent in the army. When Alexander practically bought peace from
the barbarians, instead of conducting a vigorous campaign against
them, the whispers were changed into open murmuring. These effeminate
Syrians, it was said, were unable to endure the sturdy North, and were
eager to return to the East. The Emperor was a maudlin youth, who
could not act without his mother’s permission. He had abandoned the
war against Persia in order to return to her side, and he was again
sacrificing the honour of Rome out of regard for her comfort. Her
palace at Rome was full of hoarded treasure, while the hard-worked
soldiers were insufficiently paid. These complaints circulated freely
in the camp during the long German winter. A lavish distribution
of money might have defeated the plot of Maximinus, and a speedy
retirement to Rome would certainly have saved the lives of the Emperor
and Empress. But they remained in camp until the middle of March, 235,
and then the end came.
They were at, or in the neighbourhood of, the small frontier town which
is now known as Mainz. One morning, when Maximinus rode out to control
the exercises, he was greeted with the name of Emperor. He feigned
surprise and reluctance, but the soldiers--probably in pursuance of
an arranged plan--drew their swords, and threatened to kill him if he
did not take the power from the hands of the effeminate Syrians. He
consented, promised a liberal donation in honour of his accession, and
said that all punishments that had been inflicted on the soldiers would
be remitted. He then led them toward the tent of Alexander. The young
Emperor came out to meet them, and made an appeal that seems to have
divided the followers of the usurper, as they went away to their tents.
At night, however, the guards at the Imperial tent announced that the
mutinous troops were gathering about it. Alexander rushed out, and
called upon the loyal soldiers to defend him, making a tardy promise
of money and concessions. Many of them came to his side, but at last
the massive figure of Maximinus was seen to approach at the head of a
strong body of troops. For the last time the soldiers were urged to
choose between the strong, generous man and the avaricious woman and
her child. Alexander saw the faithful few pass sullenly to the side
of Maximinus, and he returned to his tent. It is said that the last
moments were spent in a violent quarrel between mother and son about
the responsibility for the disaster. There was little time for it. The
soldiers of Maximinus entered at once, and slew Mamæa, Alexander, and
their few remaining friends.
A popular and spirited work of the fourth century described “the deaths
of the persecutors,” or the terrible fate which befell every Emperor
who persecuted the Christians. No fate in the terrible series of
Imperial calamities was so tragic as that of Alexander, though he had
favoured the Christians, and had cherished a bust of Christ among those
of the heroes and sages in his _lararium_. No other Empress in the long
line of murdered women so little deserved a violent death as Julia
Mamæa. During the fourteen years of her son’s reign she had solely
studied the welfare of the Empire. The one charge that her murderers
could bring against her was that she had hoarded money instead of
spending it on, or giving it to, the troops. On public buildings,
public works, and civic administration she had spent freely; she, or
Alexander, had even expended large sums in providing surer sustenance
and more effective transport for the troops themselves. The charge
is little, if at all, more than a cowardly subterfuge. But it needed
half-a-dozen strong and unselfish generals to restore the efficiency
and docility of the legions, and they were not to be found. We pass
into a period of anarchy, in which Emperors and Empresses rise and
wither like mushrooms, and Rome stumbles blindly onward towards its
doom. In that period of confusion, when every section of the army makes
its Emperor, only two dominant personalities are found, and they are
two Empresses of barbaric origin.