good service in the wars he was bountiful and magnificent, and was no
less sparing and moderate in inflicting punishment. The Lusitanians
having sent for Sertorius, he left Africa, and being made general, with
absolute authority, he put all in order among them, and brought the
neighboring parts of Spain into subjection. Most of the tribes
voluntarily submitted themselves, won by the fame of his clemency and of
his courage; and to some extent also, he availed himself of cunning
artifices of his own devising to impose on them, and gain influence over
them.
Among which certainly that of the hind was not the least. Spanus, a
countryman who lived in those parts, meeting by chance a hind that had
recently calved flying from the hunters, let the dam go, and pursuing
the fawn took it, being wonderfully pleased with the rarity of the
color, which was all milk white. At that time Sertorius was living in
the neighborhood, and accepted gladly any presents of fruits, fowl, or
venison that the country afforded, and rewarded liberally those who
presented them.
The countryman brought him his young hind, which he took and was well
pleased with at first sight; but when in time he made it so tame and
gentle that it would come when he called, and follow him wherever he
went, and could endure the noise and tumult of the camp, knowing well
that uncivilized people are naturally prone to superstition, by little
and little he raised it to something supernatural, saying it was given
him by the goddess Diana, and that it revealed to him many secrets.
If he had received private intelligence that the enemies had made an
incursion into any part of the district under his command, or had
solicited any city to revolt, he pretended that the hind had informed
him of it in his sleep, and charged him to keep his forces in readiness.
Or, again, if he had notice that any of the commanders under him had got
a victory, he would hide the messengers and bring forth the hind crowned
with flowers, for joy of the good news that was to come, and would
encourage them to rejoice and sacrifice to the gods for the good account
they should soon receive of their prosperous success.
He was also highly honored for his introducing discipline and good order
among them, for he altered their furious mode of fighting, and brought
them to make use of Roman armor, taught them to keep their ranks, and
observe signals and watch-words; and out of a confused number of thieves
and robbers he constituted a well-disciplined army. That which delighted
them most, however, was the care he took of their children. He sent for
all the boys of noblest parentage out of all their tribes, and placed
them in the great city of Osca, where he appointed masters to instruct
them in the Latin and Greek learning.
His method of conducting the war against the Romans showed his military
skill and foresight. By rapidly assaulting them, by alarming them on all
sides, by ensnaring, circumventing, and laying ambushes for them, he cut
off all provisions by land, while with his piratical vessels he kept all
the coast in awe and hindered their supplies by sea. He thus forced the
Roman generals to dislodge and to separate from one another at the last;
Metellus departed into Gaul and Pompey wintered among the Vaccæans in a
wretched condition, where, being in extreme want of money, he wrote a
letter to the senate, to let them know that if they did not speedily
supply him he must draw off his army. To these extremities the chiefest
and most powerful commanders of the age were brought by the skill of
Sertorius; and it was the common opinion in Rome that he would be in
Italy before Pompey.
Sertorius showed the loftiness of his temper in calling together all the
Roman senators who had fled from Rome and had come and resided with him,
giving them the name of a senate. Out of these he chose prætors and
quæstors, and adorned his government with all the Roman laws and
institutions, and though he made use of the arms, riches, and cities of
the Spaniards, yet he never would even in word remit to them the
imperial authority, but set Roman officers and commanders over them,
intimating his purpose to restore liberty to the Romans, not to raise up
the Spaniards’ power against them.
He was a sincere lover of his country and had a great desire to return
home; but in his adverse fortune he showed undaunted courage, and
behaved himself toward his enemies in a manner free from all dejection
and mean spiritedness. In his prosperity and the height of his victories
he sent word to Metellus and Pompey that he was ready to lay down his
arms and lead a private life if he were allowed to return home,
declaring that he had rather live as the meanest citizen in Rome than,
exiled from it, be supreme commander of all other cities together.
His negotiations with Mithridates further argue the greatness of his
mind. For when Mithridates, recovering himself from his overthrow by
Sylla--like a strong wrestler that gets up to try another fall--was
again endeavoring to re-establish his power in Asia, at this time the
great fame of Sertorius was celebrated in all places. Accordingly,
Mithridates sends messengers into Spain with letters and instructions
and commission to promise ships and money toward the charge of the war
if Sertorius would confirm his pretensions on Asia, and authorize him to
possess all that he had surrendered to the Romans in his treaty with
Sylla.
Sertorius would by no means agree to it; declaring that King Mithridates
should exercise all royal power and authority over Bithynia and
Cappadocia--countries accustomed to a monarchical government and not
belonging to Rome--but that he could never consent that he should seize
or detain a province which, by the justest right and title, was
possessed by the Romans. For he looked upon it as his duty to enlarge
the Roman possessions by his conquering arms, and not to increase his
power by the diminution of Roman territories.
When this was related to Mithridates he was struck with amazement, and
said to his intimate friends: “What will Sertorius enjoin on us to do
when he comes to be seated in the Palatium at Rome, who, at present,
when he is driven out to the borders of the Atlantic Sea, sets bounds to
our kingdoms in the East, and threatens us with war if we attempt the
recovery of Asia?”
[Illustration: JULIUS CÆSAR.]
JULIUS CÆSAR.
BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.
[A Roman general and statesman and founder of the empire, though
its first ruler was Octavianus, his nephew and adopted son, who
mounted the throne under the name of Augustus Cæsar. Born 100 B.C.,
assassinated in the senate-house 44 B.C. By many historians and
critics Julius Cæsar is regarded as the greatest man who lived
before the Christian era.]
In person Cæsar was tall and slight. His features were more refined than
was usual in Roman faces; the forehead was wide and high, the nose large
and thin, the lips full, the eyes dark gray, like an eagle’s, the neck
extremely thick and sinewy. His complexion was pale. His beard and
mustache were kept carefully shaved. His hair was short and naturally
scanty, falling off toward the end of his life, and leaving him
partially bald. His voice, especially when he spoke in public, was high
and shrill. His health was uniformly good, until his last year when he
became subject to epileptic fits.
He was a great bather, and scrupulously neat in his habits, abstemious
in his food, and careless in what it consisted, rarely or never touching
wine, and noting sobriety as the highest of qualities in describing any
new people. He was an athlete in early life, admirable in all manly
exercises, and especially in riding. From his boyhood it was observed of
him that he was the truest of friends, that he avoided quarrels, and was
easily appeased when offended. In manner he was quiet and
gentleman-like, with the natural courtesy of high breeding.
Like Cicero, Cæsar entered public life at the bar. It was by accident
that he took up the profession of the soldier; yet, perhaps, no
commander who ever lived showed greater military genius. The conquest of
Gaul was effected by a force numerically insignificant, which was
worked with the precision of a machine. The variety of uses to which it
was capable of being turned implied, in the first place, extraordinary
forethought in the selection of materials. Men whose nominal duty was
merely to fight were engineers, architects, and mechanics of the highest
order. In a few hours they could extemporize an impregnable fortress on
the highest hill-side. They bridged the Rhine in a week. They built a
fleet in a month.
The legions at Alesia held twice their number pinned within their works,
while they kept at bay the whole force of insurgent Gaul by scientific
superiority. The machine, which was thus perfect, was composed of human
beings who required supplies of tools and arms and clothes and food and
shelter; and for all these it depended on the forethought of its
commander. Maps there were none. Countries entirely unknown had to be
surveyed; routes had to be laid out; the depths and courses of rivers,
the character of mountain-passes had all to be ascertained. Allies had
to be found in tribes as yet unheard of.
He was rash, but with a calculated rashness which the event never failed
to justify. His greatest successes were due to the rapidity of his
movements, which brought him to the enemy before they heard of his
approach. No obstacles stopped him when he had a definite end in view.
Again and again by his own efforts he recovered a day that was half
lost. He once seized a panic-stricken standard-bearer, turned him
around, and told him that he had mistaken the direction of the enemy.
Yet he was singularly careful of his soldiers. He rarely fought a battle
at a disadvantage. When a gallant action was performed, he knew by whom
it had been done, and every soldier, however humble, might feel assured
that if he deserved praise he would have it. The army was Cæsar’s
family. In discipline, he was lenient to ordinary faults, and not
careful to make curious inquiries into such things. He liked his men to
enjoy themselves. Military mistakes in his officers he always endeavored
to excuse, never blaming them for misfortunes unless there had been a
defect of courage as well as of judgment.
Cicero has said of Cæsar’s oratory that he surpassed those who had
practiced no other art. His praise of him as a man of letters is yet
more delicately and gracefully emphatic. Most of his writings are lost;
but there remain seven books of commentaries on the wars in Gaul (the
eighth was added by another hand) and three books on the civil war,
containing an account of its causes and history. Of these it was that
Cicero said, in an admirable image, that fools might think to improve on
them, but that no wise man would try it; they were bare of ornament, the
dress of style dispensed with, like an undraped human figure in all its
lines as nature made it. In his composition, as in his actions, Cæsar is
entirely simple. He indulges in no images, no labored descriptions, no
conventional reflections. His art is unconscious, as the highest art
always is.
Of Cæsar it may be said that he came into the world at a special time
and for a special object. The old religions were dead from the Pillars
of Hercules to the Euphrates and the Nile, and the principles on which
human society had been constructed were dead also. There remained of
spiritual conviction only the common and human sense of justice and
morality; and out of this sense some ordered system of government had to
be constructed, under which quiet men could live and labor and eat the
fruit of their industry. Under a rule of this material kind there can be
no enthusiasm, no chivalry, no saintly aspirations, no patriotism of the
heroic type. It was not to last forever. A new life was about to dawn
for mankind.
Poetry and faith and devotion were to spring again out of the seeds
which were sleeping in the heart of humanity. But the life which is to
endure grows slowly; and as the soil must be prepared before the wheat
can be sown, so before the Kingdom of Heaven could throw up its shoots,
there was needed a kingdom of this world where the nations were neither
torn in pieces by violence, nor were rushing after false ideals and
spurious ambitions. Such a kingdom was the empire of the Cæsars, a
kingdom where peaceful men could work, think, and speak as they pleased,
and travel freely among provinces ruled for the most part by Gallios[13]
who protected life and property, and forbade fanatics to tear each other
to pieces for their religious opinions.
“It is not lawful for us to put any man to death,” was the complaint of
the Jewish priests to the Roman governor. Had Europe and Asia been
covered with independent nations, each with a local religion represented
in its ruling powers, Christianity must have been stifled in its cradle.
If St. Paul had escaped the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, he would have been
torn to death by the silversmiths at Ephesus. The appeal to Cæsar’s
judgment-seat was the shield of his mission, and alone made possible his
success.
And this spirit which confined government to its simple duties, while it
left opinion unfettered, was specially present in Julius Cæsar himself.
From cant of all kinds he was totally free. He was a friend of the
people, but indulged in no enthusiasm for liberty. He never dilated on
the beauties of virtue, or complimented, as Cicero did, a Providence in
which he did not believe. He was too sincere to stoop to unreality. He
held to the facts of this life and to his own convictions; and as he
found no reason for supposing that there was a life beyond the grave, he
did not pretend to expect it. He respected the religion of the Roman
state as an institution established by the laws.
He encouraged or left unmolested the creeds and practices of the
uncounted sects and tribes who were gathered under the eagles. But his
own writings contain nothing to indicate that he himself had any
religious belief at all. He saw no evidence that the gods practically
interfered in human affairs. He never pretended that Jupiter was on his
side. He thanked his soldiers after a victory, but he did not order _Te
Deums_ to be sung for it; and in the absence of these conventionalisms
he perhaps showed more real reverence than he could have displayed by
the freest use of the formulas of piety. He fought his battles to
establish some tolerable degree of justice in the government of this
world; and he succeeded though he was murdered for doing it.
TRAJAN.
BY CHARLES MERIVALE.
[M. Ulpius Trajanus, successor as Roman emperor to Nerva, born A.D.
53, ascended the throne 99; died 118. One of the most illustrious
among those who wore the Roman purple, his reign was distinguished
as much by happiness and prosperity as by lofty virtues. As a
soldier, Trajan subdued the Dacians, completed the conquest of
Germany and Sarmatia, annexed Armenia to the empire, and subdued
the Parthians to the Roman yoke. His civic administration was no
less notable than his military conquests and organization.]
The princely prodigality of Trajan’s taste was defrayed by the plunder
or the tribute of conquered enemies, and seems to have laid at least no
extraordinary burden on his subjects. His rage for building had the
further merit of being directed for the most part to works of public
utility and interest. He built for the gods, the senate, and the people,
and not for himself; he restored the palaces, enlarged the halls and
places of public resort; but he was content himself with the palaces of
his predecessors. A writer three centuries later declares of Trajan that
he built the world over; and the wide diffusion and long continuance of
his fame beyond that of so many others of the imperial series may be
partly attributed to the constant recurrence of his name conspicuously
inscribed on the most solid and best known monuments of the empire.
The care of this wise and liberal ruler extended from the harbors,
aqueducts, and bridges to the general repair of the highways of the
empire. He was the great improver, though not the inventor of the system
of posts on the chief roads, which formed a striking feature of Roman
civilization as an instrument for combining the remotest provinces under
a central organization.
The legislation of this popular emperor is marked generally by a special
consideration for Italian interests. The measures by which he secured a
constant supply of grain from the provinces, exempting its exportation
from all duties, and stimulating the growers at one extremity of the
empire to relieve the deficiencies of another, were directed to the
maintenance of abundance in Rome and Italy. Thus, on the casual failure
of the harvest in Egypt, her empty granaries were at once replenished
from the superfluous stores of Gaul, Spain, or Africa.
Though Trajan’s mind did not rise to wide and liberal views for the
advantages of the provinces, he neglected no favorable opportunity for
the benefit of particular localities. His hand was open to bestow
endowments and largesses, to relieve public calamities, to increase
public enjoyments, to repair the ravages of earthquakes and tempests, to
construct roads and canals, theatres and aqueducts. The activity
displayed through the empire in works of this unproductive nature shows
a great command of money, an abundant currency, easy means of
transacting business, ample resources of labor, and well devised schemes
of combining and unfolding them. Judicious economy went ever hand in
hand with genuine magnificence.
The monuments of Roman jurisprudence contain many examples of Trajan’s
legislation. Like the great statesmen of the republic, he returned from
the camp to the city to take his seat daily on the tribunals with the
ablest judges for his assessors. He heard appeals from the highest
courts throughout his dominion, and the final sentence he pronounced
assumed the validity of a legal enactment. The clemency of Trajan was as
conspicuous as his love of justice, and to him is ascribed the noble
sentiment, that it is better that the guilty should escape than the
innocent suffer.
The justice, the modesty, the unwearied application of Trajan were
deservedly celebrated, no less than his valor in war and his conduct in
political affairs. But a great part of his amazing popularity was owing,
no doubt, to his genial demeanor and to the affection inspired by his
qualities as a friend and associate. The remains still existing of his
correspondence in the letters of Pliny bring out not only the manners of
the time, but in some degree the character of the prince also; and bear
ample testimony to his minute vigilance and unwearied application, his
anxiety for his subjects’ well-being, the ease with which he conducted
his intercourse with his friends, and the ease with which he inspired
them in return.
Trajan’s letters bespeak the polished gentleman no less than the
statesman. He was fond of society, and of educated and literary society.
He was proud of being known to associate with the learned, and felt
himself complimented when he bestowed on the rhetorician Dion the
compliment of carrying him in his own chariot. That such refinement of
taste was not incompatible with excess in the indulgences of the table
was the fault of the times, and more particularly of the habits of camp
life to which he had been accustomed. Intemperance was always a Roman
vice.
The affability of the prince, and the freedom with which he exchanged
with his nobles all the offices of ordinary courtesy and hospitality,
bathing, supping, or hunting as an equal in their company, constituted
one of his greatest charms in the eyes of a jealous patriciate which had
seen its masters too often engrossed by the flatteries of freedmen and
still viler associates.
But Trajan enjoyed also the distinction dear in Roman eyes of a fine
figure and a noble countenance. In stature he exceeded the common
height, and on public occasions, when he loved to walk bareheaded in the
midst of the senators, his gray hairs gleamed conspicuously above the
crowd. His features, as we may trace them unmistakably on his
innumerable busts and medals, were regular; and his face was the last of
the imperial series that retained the true Roman type--not in the
aquiline nose only, but in the broad and low forehead, the angular chin,
the firm, compressed lips, and generally in the stern compactness of its
structure.
The thick and straight-cut hair, smoothed over the brow without a curl
or parting, marks the simplicity of the man’s character in a voluptuous
age which delighted in the culture of flowing or frizzed locks. But the
most interesting characteristic of the figure I have so vividly before
me is the look of painful thought, which seems to indicate a constant
sense of overwhelming responsibilities, honorably and bravely borne,
yet, notwithstanding much assumed cheerfulness and self-abandonment,
ever irritating the nerves and weighing upon the conscience.
THE ANTONINES.
BY EDWARD GIBBON.
[Titus Antoninus Pius, born 86 A.D., mounted the throne 138, died
161; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, adopted son and successor of the
preceding, born 121 A.D., mounted the throne 161, died 180. The
first of the Antonines was born of a respectable family, settled in
Gaul, became pro-consul of Asia under Hadrian, afterward of a
division of Italy, and was selected by Hadrian as his successor on
account of his ability and virtues. Marcus Aurelius was
distinguished not only as general and administrator, as a ruler of
the most exemplary and noble character, but his name has descended
to modern ages as that of the royal philosopher. His “Meditations”
constitute one of the Roman classics.]
Under Hadrian’s reign the empire flourished in peace and prosperity. He
encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, assisted military discipline,
and visited all his provinces in person. His vast and active genius was
equally suited to the most enlarged views and the minute details of
civil policy. But the ruling passions of his soul were curiosity and
vanity. As they prevailed and as they were attracted by different
objects, Hadrian was by turns an excellent prince, a ridiculous sophist,
and a jealous tyrant. The general tenor of his conduct deserved praise
for its equity and moderation. Yet in the first days of his reign he put
to death four consular senators, his personal enemies, and men who had
been deemed worthy of empire; and the tediousness of a painful illness
at last made him peevish and cruel.
The senate doubted whether they should pronounce him a god or a tyrant,
and the honors decreed to his memory were granted to the prayers of the
pious Antonines. The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a
successor. After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished
merit whom he esteemed and hated, he adopted Ælius Verus, a gay and
voluptuous nobleman, recommended by uncommon beauty. But while Hadrian
was delighting himself with his own applause and the acclamations of the
soldiers, whose consent had been secured by an immense donative, the new
Cæsar was reft from imperial friendship by an untimely death.
He left only one son. Hadrian recommended the boy to the gratitude of
the Antonines. He was adopted by Pius, and on the accession of Marcus
was invested with an equal share of sovereign power. Among the many
vices of this younger Verus, he possessed one virtue--a dutiful
reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he willingly abandoned the
ruder cares of empire. The philosophic emperor dissembled his follies,
lamented his early death, and cast a decent veil over his memory.