between Rome and Parthia, the rope being supplied by the kingdom of
Armenia. The Augustan policy of filling the oriental thrones with
princes trained at Rome was not a great success. You might learn bad
lessons at court; you might even learn to know Rome without learning
to love or fear her. The princes sent to Armenia or Parthia were
unstable allies and the ordinary course of events was for the Romans
to send out a king to Armenia and for the Parthians to depose him.
Again it was left for Trajan to attack this problem in the old Roman
fashion; when the usual submissive embassy arrived, Trajan answered,
as a Metellus might have done, that he wanted deeds not words, and he
led his army on. Trajan found the Eastern legions, whose headquarters
were at Antioch, already civilianised and orientalised so that they
had become useless for fighting. At this time there were four legions
in Syria, one in Judæa and one in the new province of Cappadocia.
The first task was to restore discipline and energy to these troops.
Then, without bloodshed, in A.D. 115 Armenia was declared a province.
Parthia, distracted by civil war, was overrun, its capital Ctesiphon
easily taken by siege. Mesopotamia was made a province, and to Parthia
was given a new king. The client kingdom of Adiabene became a third new
province under the name of Assyria. This meant that the Tigris became
the eastern frontier instead of the Euphrates. Unfortunately these
conquests had been too easily achieved, largely through the temporary
dissensions of the Parthians, who accordingly failed to experience
the salutary discipline of real defeat. Trajan died on his way home,
and Hadrian, who was more of a statesman than a warrior, reversed his
predecessor’s policy. He surrendered the three new provinces and even
acquiesced in the Parthians’ choice of a king of their own in place of
the Roman nominee. The only new provinces of Trajan’s creation which
Hadrian retained were Dacia and Arabia.
Although their military force was contemptible, their spiritual zeal
made the Jews the most difficult people to govern in the whole empire.
Worshipping their Jealous God with fierce ardour, they could not
join in the Cæsar-worship which was the outward sign of loyalty and
patriotism throughout the Roman world. Moreover the Semitic question
had already begun to vex the soul of Europe. Throughout the East and
especially in the trade centres such as Antioch, Alexandria, and
Cyrene there were already large communities of Jews who lived on the
usual terms of deep-rooted racial animosity with their neighbours.
It is only fair to the Roman government to admit that it tried to
conciliate its difficult subjects. Though the vanity of Caligula led
him to accept the suggestion of erecting a colossal statue of him
in the Temple at Jerusalem, yet when the philosopher Philo and his
fellow-ambassadors came over to plead against the outrage the emperor
good-humouredly remarked that if people refused to worship him it was
more their misfortune than their fault. As a rule the Roman procurators
who administered Galilee and Judæa were almost too tolerant of Jewish
fanaticism. The Jews were exempt from military service: their Sabbaths
were respected. A Roman soldier who tore a book of the law was put
to death. It was useless to argue with such sects as the Zealots and
Assassins. The Anti-Semite spirit broke out into massacres. In Cæsarea,
Damascus, and elsewhere the Gentiles slew the Jews; in Alexandria and
Cyrene the Jews slaughtered the Gentiles. In Jerusalem the Romans had
to face violent discord between the rival factions, and naturally they
sided with the more tolerant and moderate Sadducees against the stern
Pharisees and the smaller sects of extremists. In A.D. 66 matters came
to a crisis. A Roman garrison was attacked and destroyed: the army
which came from Syria to avenge them was repulsed with slaughter. This
occurred while the Emperor Nero was on one of his theatrical tours
in Greece, and in the next year Vespasian was sent with an army of
three legions and auxiliaries which increased its numbers to more than
50,000. During the death of Nero and the short reigns of his three
successors, Vespasian was gradually subduing Palestine and driving the
irreconcilables before him into Jerusalem. Vespasian himself became
emperor and it was left to his son Titus to finish the tragedy. The
siege of Jerusalem (A.D. 70) was one of the most difficult tasks which
the Romans ever had to face. In addition to its natural strength there
were six lines of fortification to be overcome one by one, and each was
defended with all the grim tenacity of which the Semite race is capable
when it is on the defensive. Five months the great siege lasted, and
at the end Jerusalem was a heap of ruins. Some of the temple treasures
were saved for the Roman triumph, and the Arch of Titus still shows
us the famous seven-branched golden candlestick being carried up
to the temple of Capitoline Jove.[66] It is said that one million
Jews perished in the siege and 100,000 more were sold into slavery.
Jerusalem became merely the camp of the Tenth Legion. All Judæa became
one province, and the scattered Jews were only allowed to keep their
privileges on condition of registering their names and paying a fee of
two denarii every year for their licence.
But this awful lesson had not quenched the fire of Jewish patriotism
nor killed their hopes of an earthly Messiah who should restore
the kingdom of David. Once again under Hadrian there was a Jewish
rebellion stimulated by the fact that the emperor forbade the rite of
circumcision and decreed the foundation of a Roman colony at Jerusalem
with a temple to Jupiter on Mount Zion. The revolt was stamped out with
merciless severity and the Jews were scattered for ever.
The only other noteworthy addition to the Roman Empire was Mauretania
(Morocco), which was incorporated as a province by Caligula. The motive
alleged was the emperor’s desire to possess himself of the treasures of
Ptolemy, its king.
On the whole, then, we can see that the Roman Empire had almost reached
its natural limits. It had seized as much as it could govern, and
now, with the exception of the Parthian kingdom, all that lay outside
its frontiers was naked barbarism. So the centre grew more and more
unwarlike, while the legions had little to occupy their minds except
the speculation whether their particular general had a chance of
the purple. For this reason alone the Cæsars were loth to embark on
conquests, unless like Trajan they were willing to neglect everything
else and undertake the campaigns in person. A victorious general was
always to be dreaded by his master.
THE PRINCIPATE
At first sight the position of the princeps, who was absolute lord of
this world, is one of immense and terrible power. But earthly power
has its natural limits in human weakness. The weak or wicked emperors
were generally the servants of their favourites, male or female, or
they lived under fear of the legions. Without their bureaux they were
helpless, and the bureaux in the skilled hands of Roman knights or
Greek freedmen were acquiring the real power. But it is astonishing how
much actual work was done by the more conscientious Cæsars. In Pliny’s
letters we see what minute details were referred by a provincial
governor to his master and how minutely they were answered. The answers
may be, and no doubt sometimes are, the composition of secretaries, but
there is a personal note in them which often suggests the emperor’s
own dictation. Probably Trajan was exceptionally industrious and Pliny
exceptionally meticulous. Nevertheless it looks as if a strong emperor
actually ruled this vast domain. It is one of the merits of despotism
that the monarch’s power increases automatically with his virtues
and capacity. A Caligula could not do so much harm: an Augustus, a
Claudius, a Trajan, or a Hadrian might benefit millions of mankind. I
think it is clear that they did so. The insane work of slaughter, which
is all that interests the ordinary historian, had almost ceased. All
over the world the markets were full, the workshops were noisy with
hammers, the seas were thronged with ships, the great highways busy
with travellers. Justice was strong and even-handed. Taxes were low
and equitably assessed. For the most part men had liberty to go their
own ways and worship their own gods. From the accession of Augustus
to the death of Antoninus Pius--and with a few intervals one might
safely go further--the world was enjoying one of its golden periods of
prosperity. It is unhistorical to look ahead and pronounce this happy
world to be already doomed.
Yet, on the other hand, it is idle to deny the unsound spots in this
imposing fabric of empire. The weakness was at the centre. The Roman
aristocracy was gay and splendid, but not happy or secure. The ghost of
the Republic still haunted her streets. To make a necessary repetition:
if Augustus had been succeeded by a son as wise and tactful as himself,
and if the throne had then passed to a third generation with the
soldierly qualities of Trajan and the statesmanship of Diocletian,
the Empire might have taken shape as a strong hereditary monarchy
with a senate co-operating heartily, and an army obeying loyally.
But that was not fated so. Tiberius was too proud to play the comedy
as Augustus had done: instead he made enemies of the aristocracy and
became suspicious and tyrannical. When they lampooned and abused him,
he turned into a despot. Cremutius Cordus, the historian, was executed
for calling Cassius “the last of the Romans.” At last Tiberius withdrew
himself in gloomy despair and left the government in the hands of an
unscrupulous intriguer, the knight Sejanus, who still further harried
and alienated the nobles. It is hard to know the truth about Gaius, so
palpably is his story written by satirists. He may have been mad. The
adulation which surrounded the Cæsars was enough to turn the head of a
vain youth. He was certainly extravagant and increased his unpopularity
by taxes upon litigants and prostitutes. It was the officers of the
prætorian guard who conspired to assassinate him.
Claudius was chosen by the bodyguard who had murdered his predecessor
and he bought their allegiance with £120 apiece. He was the uncle of
Caligula, but no process of adoption had lifted him into the royal
house. Still he was the grandson of Livia and his assumption of the
name “Cæsar” passed without comment. Claudius set Augustus before him
as his model and in all things he was careful to return to republican
precedents. He took the office of censor for the revision of the
senate-roll. He increased the patriciate, encouraged the State religion
and by personal attention improved the administration of justice. The
cause of most of the trouble during the preceding reigns had been the
practice of “delation.” Even under the Republic criminal prosecutions
had been the easiest method of obtaining political notoriety. Tiberius
and Gaius had added the motive of pecuniary gain. Claudius now repealed
the obnoxious laws of treason, punished the laying of information and
forbade slaves to give evidence against their masters. By the repeal
of the treason laws Claudius had almost ceased to be a monarch, and he
was careful to revive the old legislative processes of the republic. On
the other hand, under Claudius the power of the bureaucracy was greatly
increased, and the affairs of the Empire were principally conducted by
the three powerful Greek secretaries.
On the death of Claudius--when the emperors died in their beds poison
was invariably alleged--Nero succeeded almost as a matter of course.
His mother Agrippina had secured his succession by having him raised to
honour just as had been done for Tiberius by Augustus. He had already
been styled “Prince of the Youth,” designated for the consulship and
endowed with the proconsular power. There was, however, a possible
rival in the young Britannicus, and Nero was chosen by the prætorian
guard just as clearly as Claudius. During the first five years, when
the young prince was engaged in enjoying himself under the guidance of
the philosopher Seneca, the senate had nothing to fear, and the Roman
state enjoyed its liberty, but when Tigellinus, the wicked prefect of
the guard, gained his evil ascendancy over the mind of Nero there were
some prosecutions of influential senators which made the whole senate
tremble. Yet, even in these worst days of the worst of emperors, good
administration proceeded. Nero himself made an interesting proposal
for the abolition of customs in the Empire and, indeed, may fairly be
called “The Father of Free Trade.” But the capitalist class succeeded
in suppressing the proposal. The duties on corn were, however, reduced
and the collection of taxes carefully regulated. Charges of extortion
against tax-collectors were given precedence in the law courts, a
measure of justice beyond anything that the modern state has attempted.
It was much more the dancing and singing of the _princeps_ than the
extortions of Tigellinus and the judicial murders of noblemen which
caused the unpopularity which brought Nero to his doom. Among the
many who fell victims to the ferocity of Tigellinus--for Nero himself
was probably harmless enough--were two genuine Republicans of the
old school, men who were genuine believers in the Stoic faith and
who kept the birthdays of Brutus and Cassius as annual feasts. It is
probable that genuine opposition of this sort was far from rare among
the aristocracy of the Empire. Writers like Lucan and Tacitus were
evidently in sympathy with it, and though Thrasea Pætus and Barea
Soranus are famous for the Stoic deaths they died, yet they were only
two out of many who lived wholly on the memory of the Republic.
Nero’s fall was caused directly by the defection of the prætorian
guards, whose allegiance had been bought in the name of Galba. Nero was
the last member of the Julio-Claudian family, and at his death the last
shadow of dynastic claim passed away. The succession of the principate
became a mere scramble in which the strongest or the luckiest or the
heaviest briber won the day. Pretenders sprang up against Galba,
several of the armies put forward their generals as competitors for the
throne; and Galba himself had not even enough generosity to pay the
bribes by which he had secured his throne. Thus the year 69 was a year
of incessant civil war. Galba was murdered in the streets of Rome; Otho
was defeated in battle near Bedriacum and slain in his camp, Vitellius;
the choice of the legions in Germany, reigned from April to December,
when Rome was once more occupied by a citizen army. The legions of
Syria, seeing that their fellow-soldiers of Spain and Germany had
already made their generals into emperors, had determined to take a
hand in the game, and now Vespasian came as the fourth Cæsar in the
space of a single year.
It speaks well for the solidity of the imperial system as organised by
Augustus that it survived the shock of such events as these. It proves
that the system was everything and the man little or nothing.
The new Emperor Vespasian, who succeeded after all this turmoil, was
different from his predecessors in that he had two grown-up sons
ready to succeed him. It is said that Mucianus, a still more powerful
Eastern general, had surrendered his claims because he was childless.
If so, it was nobly and wisely done. Vespasian was able and willing
to restore the machinery of the Augustan principate. He was himself
frankly a humble Sabine with no claims of birth. He was firm but not
oppressive towards the senate, and he kept control over the prætorian
guard by appointing Titus, his son, to its command. He also established
the succession beyond doubt by making Titus his consort. Vespasian and
Titus were elected consuls year by year. Vespasian’s principal work was
to restore the financial credit of the government. Unfortunately the
two sons, Titus, and then Domitian, who followed him upon the throne
and with him make up the “Flavian” dynasty, were scarcely worthy of
their father. Titus was “the darling of the human race,” generous and
mild to the senators, but too fond of his popularity to be a strong
ruler, and Domitian was a genuine tyrant. With his autocratic system of
rule he was naturally oppressive to the aristocracy, and his name is
in consequence written on the pages of history as that of a monster of
cruelty. Domitian certainly made constitutional changes which rendered
the monarchy a more open fact. He took the consulship for ten years to
come, he became censor and drew up the senate-roll to suit his fancy,
he refused the usual request of the senators that the emperor should
admit that he had no power to condemn a senator to death. Also he
openly spurned the proud senators and permitted the servile modes of
address which Augustus and other emperors had forbidden.
These high-handed proceedings made the senators hate and plot against
him. Plots were followed by executions, and Domitian gradually became
more and more tyrannical. More of the Stoic Republican party were
executed, and the odious practice of delation came once more into
vogue. At last there was a successful plot organised in the palace, and
Domitian fell to the dagger.
With the three succeeding emperors, Nerva (96-98), Trajan (98-117), and
Hadrian (117-138), we have a series of genuine constitutional rulers
who show the system of the principate at its best. The excellent figure
which these rulers cut on the page of history is not wholly unconnected
with the fact that we have now passed beyond the region illuminated
by the satire of Tacitus and the tittle-tattle of Suetonius. Their
deeds speak for them. In Nerva we have the senate’s choice of a ruler,
elderly, blameless, but decidedly weak. Had he not died in less than
two years, he could easily have brought the throne of the Cæsars
down to the ground. Knowing his own weakness, Nerva had adopted the
foremost soldier of his day as his heir, and Trajan, beloved of the
soldiers and ready to purchase the love of the Rome rabble, succeeded
without a murmur. He spent most of his reign in the camp. In the camp
he died, and the succession was by no means clear when Hadrian, a
kinsman though a distant one, had the courage to seize and the luck to
hold the imperial power. All these three emperors granted the senate’s
claim that the emperor should not have the power to condemn a senator
to death, and in some aspects the senate seemed to have regained much
of its old independence. But Trajan was too masterful and Hadrian
too ubiquitous to leave any real scope for senatorial initiative. It
was really under these benevolent despots that the Dyarchy ceased
to have any significance. As usual the benevolence of the despot
was the most fatal enemy to liberty. Not only in Rome but even in
the municipalities of Italy politics were ceasing to have any real
meaning, and men of standing had to be coerced into taking part in the
comedy. The bureaucracy of the imperial palace now governed the world,
and the better it governed the more quickly did the life-blood of the
Roman world run dry in its veins. We now find imperial “curators” and
accountants going up and down the provinces to set their finances
in order. Whenever there is trouble in any corner of the earth, an
imperial “corrector” travels down from Rome by the admirable system
of imperial posts to set it right. Where, of old, a local squire,
the patronus of the municipality, would leave a charitable legacy
for the maintenance and education of poor children, the state with
its admirable system of “alimenta” was beginning to assume the
responsibility. The state had its Development Fund which made loans
on mortgage at very low interest, generally 5 but sometimes 2½ per
cent., to small farmers, and the interest was applied to orphanages
and the education of the poor. Nerva has the credit for introducing
this splendid system of public charity and Hadrian developed it. It
was Hadrian also who gave the finishing touches to the organisation
of the civil service as a close bureaucracy entirely divorced from
the military profession. This service was chiefly in the hands of the
knights, and it ranged in a carefully graded hierarchy of officialdom
down from the three principal Secretaries of State, the Finance
Minister, the Chief Secretary, and the Minister of Petitions, down to
the Fiscal Advocates who looked after local revenue. Though the Roman
Empire is often represented as groaning under the weight of taxation,
and no doubt the more extravagant emperors did amass heavy liabilities,
yet Hadrian, who followed an emperor extravagant both in warfare and
building, was able to remit about nine millions sterling of arrears due
to the fisc. He also introduced a system of periodical reassessments
and gave the fullest liberty for his tenants-in-chief to appeal against
the collectors. Hadrian it was, also, who really introduced the system
of installing a junior colleague in the Empire, a plan which Augustus
had foreshadowed in his elevation of Tiberius. This plan produced one
of the firmest dynasties which ever held the imperial throne, namely,
the Antonines, Marcus Aurelius, Titus, Antoninus Pius, and Commodus,
who ruled from Hadrian’s death in 138 to 192. The age of the first two
Antonines is considered by Gibbon and many others to be the culmination
of the Roman imperial system.
Two facts of very great importance stand out from this hasty review of
the principate during its first two centuries. In the first place, it
is still, in the strict constitutional sense, a compromise. The theory
of the constitution had not changed since Augustus, if, indeed, it had
ever changed. It is still a Republic--_Respublica Romana_--governed
by senate, consuls, tribunes, and an intermittent public assembly.
There is, as there nearly always had been, a _princeps_, that is,
leading citizen, a man raised by personal eminence and prestige far
above his colleagues. Certain powers are delegated to him by the
state. Above all he is master of the legions because he has consular
or proconsular authority over all the provinces where troops are
stationed. There still remained certain theoretical limitations to his
power. He could not, for example, impose a tax on Rome or Italy by his
own authority. But the feebleness and sycophancy of the senate and
magistracy made him actually omnipotent. When a certain senator was
pointed out by Cæsar’s freedman as an enemy to Cæsar the doomed man
was set upon by his colleagues and stabbed to death with their pens in
the senate-house. It is true that this sycophancy was not altogether
the fault of the senate. Under the tyrannical emperors like Tiberius,
Nero, and Domitian, emperors who encouraged the “delator,” no senator’s
life was secure. At a frown from Cæsar it was customary to go home
and open one’s veins after writing a complimentary will in which one
bequeathed everything to that best of rulers. This sort of behaviour
led inevitably to the growth of the monarchy. The emperor was the one
person who dared to act, and the more capable and well-intentioned the
ruler, the more closely were the fetters riveted around the necks
of the Roman People. The silent growth of bureaucracy, of which the
historians have little to tell us, but which we can gather from the
inscriptions of the period, is both the symptom and the cause of this
increasing power of the principate.
In the second place, it is important to notice that although the
city of Rome was growing marvellously in riches and splendour, she
was losing her old domination in the world, and becoming the capital
instead of the mistress of the Empire. The magistracies of the city had
almost ceased to have any importance except as inferior grades on the
road to proconsulships. Italy herself was sinking into the position of
one among the provinces of the Empire, and with the growth of Hadrian’s
centralised system of imperial administration even the provinces were
losing their significance as units of government. It seems impossible
that almost the whole of Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa
could ever have been governed by one man or even one bureau. Yet it
was almost achieved by the Roman Empire. The world-state was almost a
fact, and a few more Trajans and Hadrians would have accomplished it.
The city-state idea, as a unit of patriotism, still flourished. But
with the great roads stretching like railways to the four corners of
the earth, and the imperial officers travelling along them, with the
legions massed along the frontiers and men recruited in Spain sent to
serve in Britain, the sense of territory, from which the modern state
was to arise, began to develop itself.
IMPERIAL ROME