[Illustration:
Caius Julius Cæsar = Aurelia
|
+------------------+-----+
| |
Julius Cæsar Julia = Atius Balbus
|
Atia = Octavius
|
+----------------------+---+
| |
Scribonia = Octavian AUGUSTUS = Livia Octavia = Mark Antony
1st wife | 2d wife, divorced |
| from T.Cl. Nero |
| | +--------+
| +-------+-----------+ |
| | | |
| Vipsania = TIBERIUS = Julia Drusus I = Antonia
+----+ 1st wife 2d wife |
| |
Marcellus = Julia = Agrippa |
1st Husband | 2d Husband |
TIBERIUS | |
3d Husband | +------+--------------------+-----+
| | | |
+------------+ | Lavilla Messalina = CLAUDIUS = Agrippina II
| | 5th wife 6th wife
| |
Agrippina I = Germanicus
|
+---+----------+
| |
Caius CALIGULA Agrippina II = Cnæus Domitius
|
|
Lucius Domitius NERO
THE JULIAN FAMILY
Showing the relationship of the Five Emperors
AUGUSTUS,--the son of Julius Cæsar’s niece,--was the first Emperor.
He was succeeded by his stepson, TIBERIUS; Tiberius by his brother’s
grandson, CALIGULA; Caligula by his uncle, CLAUDIUS; and Claudius by
his brother’s grandson,--who was also his own stepson,--NERO.]
UNDER CÆSARS’ SHADOW
[Illustration]
[Illustration: AUGUSTUS AS EMPEROR
_Frontispiece_]
UNDER CÆSARS’
SHADOW
BY
HENRY FRANCIS COLBY, D.D.
_Illustrated_
[Illustration]
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
440 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
MCMXVIII
Copyright, 1918, by
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 9
CHAPTER
I CÆSAR AUGUSTUS 11
II TIBERIUS: THE CÆSAR OF CHRIST’S MINISTRY 49
III CALIGULA, THE MADCAP 71
IV CLAUDIUS, THE STOLID 83
V NERO, THE CRUEL 102
POSTSCRIPT 135
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE JULIAN FAMILY _Facing Half-Title_
AUGUSTUS AS EMPEROR _Frontispiece_
_Facing page_
JULIUS CÆSAR 11
MARK ANTONY 16
CICERO 24
ALTAR OF PEACE 37
THE CRYPTOPORTICUS 39
TIBERIUS 49
DRUSUS 54
CALIGULA 71
CLAUDIUS 83
CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT 90
NERO 102
AGRIPPINA II AND NERO 112
POPPÆA 115
SENECA 121
NOMENTANA BRIDGE 129
PREFACE
Like ruler, like people! Kings and emperors are conspicuous specimens
of the character of their times. They are centers around which revolve
the prevailing tastes and passions of men. They also influence and
control the minds of their subjects. If we would know the spirit of any
period of history, we need only to fix our gaze upon the individuals in
power at that time.
If we would ascertain, therefore, what sort of a world it was into
which Jesus Christ came; how impossible it was that He should be its
natural and merely human product; against what a dark background of
selfishness and tyranny, immorality, and vice His heavenly purity and
self-sacrificing love shone forth; what cynical materialism and infidel
philosophy, what coarse stolidity and bitter malice He had to meet, and
what hindrances and persecutions His cause, in the persons of His early
followers, had to contend with, we cannot do better than to study the
lives of the Roman emperors of the first century. This is the reason
for presenting here some sketches of the careers of Augustus, Tiberius,
Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, and for asking what relics can still be
found of their times and of their work. To contemplate some material
object that they respectively touched or planned or builded,--some
hoary ruin or crumbling fragment of temple, palace, aqueduct, or
sepulcher,--seems to bring us into closer relation with them and
to make more real to us those great dramatic figures, which would
otherwise be but dim shadows of the past.
* * * * *
The illustrations in this volume are taken from photographs by
Anderson, the unsurpassed photographer so well known in Rome.
H. F. C.
[Illustration: JULIUS CÆSAR]
UNDER CÆSARS’ SHADOW
CHAPTER I
CÆSAR AUGUSTUS
We read in the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel that “it came to pass
in those days that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus that
all the world should be enrolled.” The common version of the New
Testament says, “taxed.” But the revised version, following more
closely the original Greek, says, “enrolled.” It was what we call at
the present day a registration, made in order that none should escape
the subsequent taxation.
The sacred narrative continues. “All went to enroll themselves, every
one to his own city.” Dr. James Stalker remarks:
“This does not seem a very thrilling fact with which to begin
the Christmas story; it seems, even, prosaic. But when the stern
emperor’s edict went forth there was one young woman’s heart which
thrilled with the keenest dread. That was the heart of Mary of
Nazareth, called of God to be the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It meant for her a long hard journey of eighty miles, in the winter
season, over the mountains and along the roughest paths; it meant
that she must suffer pain and privation when she was frail in body
and anxious in mind, and all because she could not escape going to
Bethlehem to be enrolled. For she and her husband Joseph were both
direct descendants of Israel’s best-beloved King, David, and must
obey the law requiring people to go back to the city from which
their family had first come and be enrolled and taxed there. So
there was nothing for her but to set out on the difficult journey,
this sweet and gentle maiden with her crown of supreme honor from
God and her burden of human anxiety and pain.”
We can imagine one subject of the conversation between her and Joseph
on the way. Their poverty and obscurity had hidden from public notice
the fact of their lineage, so direct from David. But all the Jews
were wont to preserve with great care everything pertaining to their
genealogies, and it was especially the case with those whose certainty
of Davidic descent gave them ground for hoping that the Messiah would
appear in their own line. We may believe that Joseph took with him
a copy of the official family records, those that Matthew and Luke
have preserved for us, and that he pleased himself and Mary along
the toilsome way with the thought that now their specially honorable
descent would have to be in some measure publicly recognized. Cæsar
Augustus himself had not so good a patent of nobility as had they.
Although the dark shadow of that monarch was about to fall, by reason
of this decree for enrollment, across the very beginning of the holy
Child’s life, they were afterward to realize that God’s providence
had been leading them and had caused human government to become an
involuntary agent for bringing about the fulfillment of the prophecy
that the Messiah should be born in Bethlehem.
Now who was this Cæsar Augustus, that is assumed to have had so great
authority in the whole world that at his bidding a registration had to
be taken in every part of it? He was no less than the first sole master
of Rome’s united empire, one of the most conspicuous figures in the
history of the human race.
He had ascended the throne as the climax of a series of very startling
and tragic events. Julius Cæsar,--that man so wonderful alike for
military genius, political sagacity, and literary skill, to whom first
the Roman Senate gave the imposing title of _Imperator_, and who, if
he had lived longer, would probably have become all that this title
later grew to mean,--had been assassinated by a group of conspirators
at Rome in the year 44 before the beginning of the Christian era. These
assassins claimed that they were doing a great service to the state
by delivering it from the schemes of so ambitious a man; but none can
deny that jealousy was among the motives that impelled them to commit
the bloody deed, which took place in the building in the Campus Martius
where the Senate that year convened, adjoining the Theater of Pompey,
and we are told that it was at the feet of great Pompey’s statue that
Cæsar fell. Mark Antony, who had been his colleague in the consulship
and in the control of the army, dramatically pronounced a funeral
oration after Cæsar’s death from the _rostra_ in the Forum and then
endeavored to make himself the successor to Cæsar’s remarkable power
and popularity.
But just then a new and strong competitor for the military and
political leadership appeared in the person of a young man only
nineteen years of age, who is the subject of this sketch.
The name of this young man was at that time Caius Octavius. He was the
son of a Roman noble of the same name and of his wife Atia,--who was
a niece of Julius Cæsar. They lived in a modest home on the Palatine
Hill. Caius Octavius was also Julius Cæsar’s adopted son, and had been
chiefly educated under his provision and direction. Moreover, Cæsar had
designated him as his heir.
Caius Octavius proposed, therefore, now to become the great dictator’s
successor and avenger. He assumed the longer name, Caius Julius Cæsar
Octavianus, and artfully secured,--first of all,--a pledge from a large
part of the army to support and obey him. He found a great helper to
his ambitions in the most distinguished statesman of that day, Marcus
Vipsanius Agrippa. Marcus Tullius Cicero also welcomed Octavianus to
Rome, especially as he saw in this young aspirant a rival to Mark
Antony, whom Cicero intensely hated. Indeed, that famous orator made
exciting speeches against Mark Antony, which greatly impaired the
influence of that commander.
Soon there was civil war. Octavian, as we may now call him, was on one
side, Mark Antony on the other. In two battles the latter was defeated.
He barely escaped with his life; and so Octavian now attained unto the
superior authority, imposing his will upon the government and securing
his proclamation as consul on the 22d of September, forty-three years
before Christ.
Having reached this stage of success, Octavian began to plan the
securing of the humiliation of Brutus and Cassius, who had taken part
in the assassination of Julius Cæsar, and who, with their comrades,
called themselves “liberators,” in view of their opposition to the
concentration of power in one man. To rid himself of annoyance by
them, Octavian needed all the help he could get. He now, therefore,
took a most amazing step and one that betrayed his utter lack (at that
time) of moral principle. He changed his attitude toward Mark Antony,
conciliated his friendship, and actually succeeded in forming an
agreement with him and with another ambitious competitor named Lepidus,
who had also been a prominent military officer.
These three met together for three days on a small island in the river
Rhenus, and there agreed to be a “triumvirate,” as they called it,
for the reconstitution of the commonwealth. This triumvirate, which
was to last for five years, was a most high-handed conspiracy,--an
insult to the dignity of the Roman senate, a violation of many
previous professions and alliances, and a tyranny over the rights of
private citizens. Three hundred senators and two thousand knights were
arbitrarily proscribed by the three usurpers of power. The estates of
these victims were plundered and many of them were hunted to their
deaths.
Each one of the triumvirate in this arrangement sacrificed some one of
his friends to please the others. Thus, Octavian himself outraged all
feelings of honor and justice by allowing Marcus Tullius Cicero, whose
influence and advocacy had done great things in his behalf, to be put
to death. This was a concession to Mark Antony,--or rather, to Mark
Antony’s wife Fulvia, who, it is said, had cherished a bitter grudge
against Cicero and now triumphantly and dramatically thrust a needle
into the once eloquent tongue of the murdered man, when his bleeding
head was exposed to view in the Forum. It was a horrible satisfaction
of cruel spite!
The combined forces of Octavian and Antony soon met those of Brutus
and Cassius in the famous battle of Philippi in Macedonia, a city far
away from Rome, but made more memorable later by the imprisonment and
deliverance there of the Christian missionaries Paul and Silas. As the
result of their humiliating defeat in that battle, both Brutus and
Cassius committed suicide. This was in November, forty-two years before
Christ.
[Illustration: MARK ANTONY]
Octavian returned to Italy to receive great honors at Rome, and Mark
Antony remained to be the ostentatious ruler of the East. But the
latter soon became infatuated with the notorious Cleopatra, the
queen of Egypt.
This woman played a large part in the case. She had come to Mark
Antony at Tarsus in Cilicia to win him back from the wrath he had
manifested because she had not sent aid to him and Octavian in their
war against Brutus and Cassius. She made her appearance before him in
the most sensational manner. In the summer of the year 41 B. C. she
sailed up the river Cydnus in Asia Minor, on which the city of Tarsus,
the capital of Cilicia, was situated. She was reclining upon a gilded
couch, under a stately canopy, upon the deck of her galley, which was
propelled by silver oars and purple sails. She was personating the
goddess Venus, attended by the Graces and fanned by Cupids. Pipes and
lutes discoursed delightful music and the air was perfumed with sweet
odors. The Apostle Paul, when he was a youth at Tarsus, doubtless
heard related this strange incident that had taken place in his native
city two generations before his time. Mark Antony disgracefully
became Cleopatra’s complete slave and, carried away by her insidious
allurements, he yielded to her capricious dictation in many atrocious
acts of oppression and cruelty.
There followed a period of disagreement and bloody conflict between
Octavian and Mark Antony. It was connected with the appropriation of
private lands in Italy in order to reward Octavian’s soldiers. The
principal event in that short civil war was the siege and capture of
the strong hill-town of Perusia (the modern Perugia), where an old
Roman gateway still bears the name of the Arch of Augustus. I strayed
out of that gate, I remember, on my visit to Perugia and looked up
at the massive stones that frowned upon the modern intruder. At the
period of history of which we are speaking Mark Antony was still in the
East, but his brother, Lucius Antonius, leading an army in his behalf,
occupied this famous old hill-town. Octavian encamped around it, and
finally subdued it by siege and famine. It was only saved from plunder
by his soldiers, after his capture of it, because it was set on fire by
one of its own citizens, although many of these were put to death by
the relentless victor.
In order to offset the injury to his prospects caused by this defeat
of his brother and to carry out plots which he had been making with
his allies in Italy, Mark Antony crossed the Mediterranean sea
from the East, invaded Italy, and expected to fight with Octavian.
But these plans were frustrated, because his soldiers and those of
Octavian, having fought together at Philippi, were not enthusiastic
for any such engagement with each other. Negotiations followed. A new
treaty was made at Brundusium on the Adriatic coast. A new division
of the world was mapped out between the two leaders, and the treaty
was supposed to be confirmed by a notable marriage that then took
place. This was between Mark Antony, whose wife Fulvia had died,
and Octavia, the sister of Octavian. It was celebrated with great
pomp and joy. Fond hopes were entertained on the occasion for an era
of great peace and prosperity. The poet Virgil is thought to have
celebrated this treaty of Brundusium in his famous Fourth Eclogue.
In glowing language,--reminding us of the metaphors, if not of the
spirit of Old Testament Messianic predictions,--he speaks of the
birth of a predestined boy who should inaugurate a reign of peace and
blessedness on earth. Exactly what boy he meant has been a subject
of much discussion. Some Christians of the Middle Ages in their zeal
claimed that he meant Jesus, the Christ; and, as he refers to the Sibyl
of Cumæ as having foretold the happy period, her name, in a later age,
was curiously coupled in the old Latin hymn “Dies Iræ” with that of the
psalmist David as giving her prophetic testimony:
Teste David cum Sibylla.[1]
[1] As David and the Sibyl say.
And so, Raphael and Michaelangelo both depicted her as a prophetess
in their Christian frescoes, now to be seen in Rome. There were so
many Jews in Rome in Virgil’s time that he may have read the prophecy
of Isaiah and may have caught something of his imagery; but it is
not probable that in his lines he expresses anything more than an
optimistic pagan’s general hope of a glorious prince and a brighter
day.
After the festivities of his marriage with Octavia, Antony went back to
his eastern domain, with larger projects and many promises. But it was
not long before his profligate tastes again manifested themselves. Not
even the thought of the noble character of his new wife, Octavia, could
restrain him. He went on from one great folly to another. Although
he came back once to southern Italy and renewed with Octavian, at
Tarentum, the terms of “the triumvirate” for another five years, it was
all in vain. The wily Cleopatra had again established her influence
over him. Finally, at her instigation, he placed himself at the head
of an oriental fleet and army and prepared to meet the forces of
Octavian. The decisive battle between them was fought on the sea at
Actium, northwest of Greece, on the 2d of September, B. C. 41. Antony
was completely routed. He narrowly made his escape on the galley of
Cleopatra, which opportunely appeared upon the scene for his rescue.
Almost immediately, in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, both he and his
infamous enchantress perished tragically by suicide.
Thus Octavian became the sole master of practically the whole world.
Great success had been achieved by his army over the Parthians in the
far East. Herod the Great, an Idumæan, was confirmed about this time in
his authority as King of Judea.
Jerusalem had been captured by the Roman general Pompey, in 63 B. C.,
and Judea had then become a part of the Roman province of Syria. The
Roman control of it had, however, been intermitted until this time,
when Herod entered it and reigned triumphantly. Several other important
cities were also added to his domain. But it was only as a subject
of Rome that he had this power. He was supported in his authority by
the army of Octavian, and was expected to obey every beck and motion
made to him by that emperor. His administration of the affairs of that
country was vigorous and splendid, though it was characterized by
revolting cruelties. It is interesting in this connection to remember
how in early Old Testament days Esau had sold his birthright to Jacob,
who henceforth supplanted him. There had often, since that day, been
enmity between the children of Esau and the children of Jacob. Now,
for a time, this prince from Edom, a descendant of Esau, sat upon the
throne of Judea and reigned over the posterity of Jacob, albeit he was
overshadowed and controlled, as we have seen, by Octavian--a mightier
potentate than himself.
It was when Herod was king at Jerusalem in this way,--fawning
upon the favor of Octavian and fearing to incur that monarch’s
displeasure,--that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem.
The Messiah, whom prophets had foretold and whom the Jews were longing
for, made His advent in the humblest way. The Prince of Peace came
as a little child into a world of awful selfishness and cruelty
and conflict. Herod must have died not long after that event. The
sufferings of his final illness are thought to have exasperated his
anxiety and cruelty and perhaps were among the causes which led to his
ordering the slaughter, as described by Matthew, of the few young male
infants in the village of Bethlehem, the number not being large enough
to make the Jewish historian Josephus record the incident alongside
of Herod’s other and more extensive iniquities. While that ruler
alienated the affections of the Jews, yet he professed to be a Jew in
religion and, with scrupulous care, rebuilt the temple at Jerusalem,
which temple continued to stand during the ministry of Jesus and of
the Apostles. After the death of Herod there was made among his sons
a distribution of the provinces of Palestine by the emperor Octavian.
It was because of fear of one of these sons, Archelaus, who ruled
in Judea, that Joseph and Mary, returning with the young child from
Egypt, did not go to Bethlehem, but turned aside and went to Nazareth
in Galilee. Sextus, the son of Pompey, who had commanded a piratical
fleet on the Mediterranean, intercepting ships bound from Alexandria
to Italy, was conquered by the forces of Octavian and was slain. The
reputed son of Julius Cæsar and Cleopatra, Cæsarion by name, was also
put to death.
Octavian was now made _Imperator_, and Censor of the Empire for life.
This does not mean that all of the forms of a republic were at once
destroyed, but that the government was administered in the spirit of
an absolute monarchy.
Octavian retained the family name of Cæsar, which was also assumed by
his successors, as an official designation, even when they belonged to
other lines of descent; just as are the modern titles of “Kaiser” in
Germany and “Czar” in Russia, which are, indeed, derived from the Roman
name.
Octavian was a man of great ambition and had overcome the violence
and perfidy of others by often using their own methods. He was
reserved in speech and bearing, and was somewhat simple in his manner
of living. He had a large degree of coolness and self-control. He
was shrewd, politic, and far-seeing in adapting means to his ends.
He gathered all the lines of power into his hands almost before the
people realized that he was doing it. We are told that he had under
his direct management “the disposal of revenues, the movements of the
army, the execution of the laws, the administration of internal reforms
and the adjustment of foreign relations.” First the senators then the
plebians yielded to him many of their long-cherished rights. Under his
management the famed Republic became an empire; and he was the emperor
indeed. His dominions extended from the Atlantic to Arabia and from the
islands of Britain to the sands of Africa.
[Illustration: CICERO]
While Rome had been conquering the world she had been losing her
liberties at home. Nothing had really been left of liberty except its
name. But it must be admitted that, intense and stern as Octavian was
in grasping after power, he showed wise moderation in its exercise. He
reconciled the people to the loss of their freedom by securing to them
greater material prosperity and many exciting amusements. He expended
great sums on public roads and splendid buildings, sewers, reservoirs,
bridges, quays, parks, gardens, and public offices in great profusion.
Many of his associates followed his example and erected costly
edifices, ornamented with columns and statues in marble and bronze. It
was his boast that he had found Rome built of brick and would leave it
made of marble. He patronized the arts and the sciences. He gathered
around him men of brilliant talents,--statesmen, orators, philosophers,
historians, painters, sculptors and poets. Vipsanius Agrippa, his prime
minister, Mæcenas, Cicero, Livy, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, besides many
lesser lights, distinguished his reign and adorned his court. What the
age of Pericles was to Greece and that of Elizabeth was to England
the reign of this man was to the Roman empire. In religion he was not
much more than a stoic philosopher, but he recognized the value of a
religious faith among the people and so was glad to encourage them in
the maintenance of pagan altars and temples, many of which he built.
It is said that in the year 28 B. C. not less than eighty-two temples
were rebuilt in Rome itself. He erected and restored the temple
of Apollo upon the Palatine, and near it he established a splendid
library. The Senate decreed that he should have the then unique title
of AUGUSTUS,--THE AUGUST ONE. It was a title that Octavian’s successors
tried to retain, but it has become his own special and superb
designation in the pages of history, so that we now often forget that
it was really only an adjective and not his proper name. The eighth
month in the year was called August, in his honor, just as the seventh
month had been called July, in honor of Julius Cæsar.
Augustus, as we must now call him, was the Cæsar for whom was named
the city of Cæsarea, which Herod the Great built on the seacoast of
Palestine, to be the political capital of that country, and which the
book of the Acts has led us to associate later with the centurion
Cornelius, in whose house the Apostle Peter preached. It was the home
city of the Evangelist Philip and his four daughters (Acts xxi:8, 9)
and the scene of Paul’s great speeches before the Roman governors,
Felix and his wife Drusilla, Festus, and King Agrippa II, and his
sister, Bernice. (Acts xxiv:24; xxv:13.) Herod, as another act of
obsequious flattery, also built a marble temple to Augustus at Paneas,
at one of the sources of the Jordan, near the base of Mount Hermon, at
the place that his son Herod Philip II, the tetrarch, afterward rebuilt
and called,--from the emperor and himself,--Cæsarea Philippi, whither
Jesus Christ once came during his ministry, the most northern point he
ever visited, and held one of the most significant conversations with
his disciples.
My memory recalls with great pleasure the day when a little group of
tourists in Palestine (one of which I had the privilege of being),
there pitched after a weary day’s journey their white tents, amid
desolation and fragmentary ruins, and gazed upon the spring waters
rushing, fresh and cold, from the venerated cave under the hill. Around
this cave some architectural niches for statues are cut into the
natural rock, but the statues have long since disappeared. Its original
name of Paneas, derived from the rustic god Pan, is now corrupted into
Baneas. A massive castle of the crusaders frowns down from a great
height, but in the valley only wrecks of man’s ambitious structures
make a pathetic contrast with the beauties of nature. It was in that
region, probably, on one of the foothills of Mount Hermon, that the
Transfiguration took place.
If we turn to consider the family life of the Emperor Augustus, we
learn that after one or two betrothals in his early youth, which
engagements were not followed up, he married a lady of high rank
named Scribonia, by whom he had one child, a daughter, named Julia.
Afterward, when he was known as Octavian, and was one of the triumvirs,
he either fell desperately in love with another man’s wife or he was
swayed by his intense ambition at the time to ally himself with the
aristocratic families of Rome. At any rate, he divorced Scribonia
and carried off as his wife Livia Drusilla, who was the wife of a
prominent citizen, Tiberius Claudius Nero. By him Livia had one son,
who afterward became the Emperor Tiberius. She was soon to be the
mother of another, the celebrated general Drusus. So far was Tiberius
Claudius Nero from resisting her divorce from him to marry Augustus,
that, it is said, he gave her a dowry and was present at the wedding.
Some historians, indeed, think that it was in accordance with his own
plans. He was old and infirm. His wife was only nineteen and he may
have been glad to provide for her marriage, possibly, with the young
and rising triumvir, and thus conciliate him to a better treatment of
the aristocratic party.
However this may have been, it illustrates the loose Roman views of
marriage in that day. It put Livia in a strange and trying position.
Her own father had been among those aristocrats whom the triumvirs
had proscribed and hunted. He had fought with Brutus and Cassius and
had died by his own hand after being defeated with them by the army
of Augustus at the battle of Philippi. Two years before this marriage
Livia had fled from Italy with her husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, to
escape the vengeance of Octavian. Now she leaves the former to become
the wife of the latter. She had to turn away for a time from her own
son Tiberius and, three months later, when her child Drusus was born
in the home of Augustus, this second son was sent to the house of his
father, Tiberius Claudius Nero.
Serene and practical, Livia seems to have accepted the fate assigned
her and endured all the sacrifices it involved. A few years later,
however, when Tiberius Claudius Nero died, he appointed Octavian,--who
had then become the Emperor Augustus,--the guardian of his sons, and
Livia received them back and cared for them with a mother’s devoted
solicitude. She seems truly to have won the admiration if not the
affection of Augustus. He was proud of her ability, her faithfulness,
her household thrift, her wise counsel in the affairs of state. They
lived simply in their house upon the Palatine. It was devoid either
of magnificent display or precious objects of art. The furniture was
exhibited in the second century of our era and was wondered at for its
plainness. She superintended personally the treatment of the wool, its
distribution among the slaves, and its weaving for family use. Augustus
never wore any togas that were otherwise made. Their several villas at
Lanuvium, Palestrina, and Tivoli were all unpretentious. They sometimes
entertained prominent people at dinner, but only on extraordinary
occasions were there six courses served,--usually there being but three.
On one public occasion Augustus made a long speech in which he cited
Livia as a model for the ladies of Rome. He set forth minutely the
details of her household management,--what she did, how she dressed,
at what expense, how she amused herself, and what amusements she
deemed suitable for a person of her position. The Romans regarded her
as the perfect type of an aristocratic lady. She seems to have been
dignified and handsome in person, and thoughtful in spirit. Her two
sons,--Tiberius and Drusus, the stepsons of Augustus,--were also very
popular. Notwithstanding the outrageous wrong of her compelled divorce
from her former husband, many annoyances from her stepdaughter Julia,
and the temptations of a royal court, she maintained a strong and
self-controlled character, and, during a married life of fifty years,
kept to the last the affection of her husband. It is reported that he
said to her at last, as he lay upon his death-bed:
“Preserve the memory of a husband who has loved you very tenderly.”
When asked at one time how she contrived to retain his affection, Dion
Cassius tells us that she significantly replied:
“My secret is very simple: I have made it the study of my life to
please him, and I have never manifested any indiscreet curiosity with
regard to his public or private affairs.”
In all the life of the imperial court, not only in the reign of
Augustus but, as we shall see, in that of her son Tiberius, the able
and tactful management of this commanding lady was an important factor.
But, aside from his regard for Livia and in spite of all his wealth and
power and the flattery of his subjects, Augustus was far from happy.
He had been bereaved by death of many of those whom he esteemed and
loved, such as Drusus, Caius and Lucius Cæsar. He was often the victim
of mortification, sorrow and moroseness. His daughter, Julia, disgraced
him by her immoral conduct. There was always incompatibility between
her and Livia. His grandsons died soon after. He did not take much
delight in the thought of his stepson, Tiberius, as his successor, and
the marriage of Julia to Tiberius did not improve the situation. But
the jealousies and intrigues of his court made for him constant trouble.
In his last days he made a generous will, distributing thereby gifts
to many of those who had served him, including huge donations to the
soldiers, to the public treasury, and to the populace. He also compiled
a list of achievements by which the empire had been benefited under
his reign and for which he had received public honors. This memorial
he intended to be cast in bronze for the doors of the great mausoleum
that he had built in Rome for his burial place. We are indebted for its
preservation, however, to the Galatians, who, inhabiting a province
in the heart of Asia Minor, had erected during the life of Augustus a
temple in his honor at their city of Ancyra, the modern Angora. They
obtained a copy of the memorial and inscribed it upon the walls of the
vestibule of this temple; and there, though greatly marred and broken,
it can be read even at the present day,--a fine record of the great
monarch’s deeds.
It was the propensity of Augustus to use the vast riches at his
disposal for the benefit of the people. Sometimes he distributed freely
corn, wine, and oil and sometimes allowances in money. He asserted that
he spent in gifts what was equivalent to the sum of twenty-six millions
of dollars (American money). To these many other donations must be
added; so that it has been reckoned that his expenditure for the
benefit of the people amounted to ninety-one millions of dollars. Says
Lanciani:
“Were we not in the presence of official statistics and of state
documents, we should hardly feel inclined to believe these enormous
statements.”
Augustus died at Nola in Campania, Italy, August 19, A. D. 14, when
he was nearly seventy-six years of age. Before he died he had a long
conversation with his stepson Tiberius. On the day of his death, when
some friends entered his room, he said to them:
“Do you think that I have acted my part well on the stage of life? If
you are satisfied, give me your applause!”
Soon after, he expired in the arms of his wife Livia.
“His body,” it is said, “was transported from village to village, from
city to city, along the Appian Way by the members of each municipal
council in turn. To avoid the heat, the procession marched only at
night. At the foot of the Alban Hills the whole Roman knighthood had
come out to meet the bearers. Thence, over the last ten miles of the
road, the progress was like a triumphal one, till the bier was placed
in the vestibule of the Palace on the Palatine Hill. Afterwards the
body was carried to the Forum, to the space in front of the Temple of
Julius Cæsar, where from the rostra a panegyric was read by Tiberius.
Another oration was delivered at the opposite end of the Forum by
Drusus, the adopted son of Tiberius. Thence the senators, the high
priests, the knights, the army and a large part of the leading citizens
continued the march by the Via Flaminia to the Ustrinum, or enclosure
for cremation. Officers and men threw on the pyre the decorations which
Augustus had awarded them for bravery, and the torch was applied by the
captains of the legions which he had often led to victory.”
Five days afterward Livia and the chief men of the Equestrian order
gathered up his ashes and bore them to the Mausoleum.
During the lifetime of Augustus he had been venerated as a god in the
provinces; now he was actually worshiped in Rome itself. Adoration was
paid to him in many private homes. He also had a cult, sanctuaries, and
a priesthood assigned to him. Livia became the special priestess of the
new divinity.
There have come down to us, in a remarkable state of preservation, many
statues, medallions, busts, and coins, which have kept for us his face,
his form, and his bearing. In the Hall of Busts in the Vatican Museum
we have that beautiful head which was found at Ostia, at the mouth
of the Tiber, in 1808.[2] It is admired by all, and is always spoken
of as “the Young Augustus.” It represents the future emperor with a
prominent nose, an intellectual forehead, wavy hair, a rounded chin,
and an expression both thoughtful and amiable. What was he thinking
of when the sculptor caught his expression? Had he premonitions of
the successes and responsibilities before him? Our knowledge of his
subsequent career illuminates for us his marble features. They have
an attractive ideality, which we can hardly associate with one who
afterward became such a stern warrior; and we are drawn to him for the
moment with tender sympathy and exalted hopes.
[2] _See_ Frontispiece.
Without stopping to describe other figures of him, it is interesting
to contrast this one with that splendid full-length marble statue,
also in the Vatican, which was not discovered until 1863. It was
found buried in the ruins of the villa of his wife, Livia, seven
miles from Rome. This also bears every mark of being a portrait from
life. How impressive that it has been hidden in the earth for so many
centuries, during which many kingdoms have risen and fallen; and now
it has been brought forth, almost like a resurrection, and we can
stand, as it were, face to face with him! It shows him to us in all
his majesty, late in his career, when he had become the grand master
of the world. He stands in a calm and commanding attitude, bearing
his weight on his right foot, wearing his military breastplate, with
drapery carefully arranged around his hips and thrown over his left
arm. His left hand carries a scepter, while his right is extended as
if he were deliberately addressing his army. The countenance bears the
stamp of much experience and of deep seriousness, if not of anxiety.
He seems to be oppressed by the weight of empire. On his breastplate
or cuirass, which appears to be copied from the metallic original worn
by him, are seen Greek designs, which have been compared with cameos
for the beauty and delicacy of their detail. The central group of these
embossed figures represents a Roman general receiving some military
standards from a conquered foe. It is very probably commemorative of
the victory won by the Roman army over the Parthians about 17 B. C.,
when Augustus had deputed his stepson Tiberius to carry on the campaign
and afterward to secure in a formal manner from Phraates, the king of
the Parthians, those bronze eagles that the Parthians had taken away
from the Roman general Crassus and his soldiers more than thirty years
before. That defeat had been a bitter recollection to the Romans ever
since it occurred, and the restoration of the standards was a matter of
corresponding rejoicing. They were sent to Rome, where they were placed
by Augustus in the Temple of Mars Ultor. It seems probable that this
statue was carved soon after that time, about 17 B. C. On the two sides
of the representation, bent over in sorrow, sit two symbolical figures,
the probable genii of two conquered nations. Near the neck of the
cuirass appears the god Cælus emerging from the clouds, holding a scarf
blown by the wind and arching above his head, while before him Apollo
riding in his chariot reminds us of the figures of Guido’s famous
fresco of Aurora on the ceiling of the Rospigliosi Casino in Rome.[3]
No figure could better personify the conscious gravity of universal
lordship than does this stately statue of Augustus. When first
discovered some portions of it bore traces of coloring. A little cherub
riding upon a dolphin is placed against the right foot, supporting the
work and, by contrast, setting forth its dignity.
[3] It seems at first thought that Guido must have gotten the
suggestion for his group from these figures on the cuirass
of Augustus. But how could he? During Guido’s life this
statue was unknown and lay buried in the ground.
I have spoken of the great buildings erected in the time of Augustus.
Notwithstanding the fact that the medieval Romans made the ancient
ruins of their city such a quarry for building material out of which
to construct their palaces, some evidences of this emperor’s noble
edifices still exist. The Regia, or Royal House (of which now only a
few traces are found), in the Forum, had been the residence of the
rulers of the early Roman kingdom and afterward of the leaders of the
Republic; but, as Augustus had been born upon the Palatine and as that
historic hill afforded a much more spacious and commanding site, the
people,--when they made Augustus Imperator twenty-eight years before
Christ,--there erected for him a splendid palace. Foundations of this
building, which are probably not yet fully excavated, are still to be
seen.
The beautiful mosaic pavements and frescoed walls of some of the
chambers of the house of Livia his wife can also be visited on the
Palatine Hill. This is the only building of its kind in the midst of
the ruined palaces of the emperors. Livia had received it from her
first husband, the father of Tiberius, and to it she retired after the
death of her second husband, Augustus. A flight of six steps descends
to the marble floor, which is laid out in patterns. From this three
chambers can be entered. The paintings upon the plastered walls of
the dining-room and sitting-room are very artistic in design and
coloring. They are among the most ancient paintings in existence. They
represent mythological scenes and characters,--Mercury, Polyphemus,
and Galatea, with fruits, flowers, masks, and sacrificial offerings.
Some of the tints are still bright, and suggest a homelike warmth. The
triclinium or dining-room is recognizable by an inscription.
[Illustration: ALTAR OF PEACE]
Near the Tiber we have the five columns and other parts of the Portico
of Octavia, which was erected by Augustus and dedicated to his sister
Octavia. In the days of the republic, porticoes or open colonnaded
buildings for public resorts had been almost a rarity; but Augustus
introduced a fashion and taste for them. In less than twenty years the
Campus Martius (now covered by modern Rome) is said to have been full
of them. They added much to the architectural splendor of the city. The
Portico of Octavia is said to have had three hundred columns, enclosing
a court with temples to Jupiter and Juno.
The massive architecture of what is left of the Theatre of Marcellus,
in the same region, reminds us of Octavia’s son, to whose memory
Augustus dedicated it. Twelve arches of the outer circular wall are now
used as blacksmiths’ and other shops. The lower story is partly sunk in
the earth. Its columns are much battered. Its arches and capitals are
also badly bruised. In the eleventh century it was used as a fortress.
Afterward a palace was built on the mound of rubbish within it. The
historian Niebuhr, when he was the Russian ambassador, occupied it as
his home.
The temple of Mars Ultor (Avenger) is another of the buildings of
Augustus. Before the battle of Philippi, which was such an important
turning-point in his career, he made a vow that should he be victorious
he would build a temple to Mars the Avenger, because the assassination
of his foster-father Julius Cæsar would be avenged by such a victory
over Brutus and Cassius on that occasion. With the fulfillment of this
vow he combined the construction of a new Forum, or public exchange,
for Rome.
These noble edifices were sometimes in later centuries degraded to
very commonplace uses. The Portico of Octavia, for example, was
for many generations and until lately used as a fish market. The
buildings mentioned were all large and costly constructions. As
Augustus deposited in the Temple of Mars Ultor the rescued standards
of Crassus, so for several generations victorious generals stored away
their insignia in the same place. One of its features was a gallery
of statues of the military heroes whose victories had enlarged the
territory and glory of the empire. The costly pavement of the Forum now
lies twenty feet below the present level of the ground. It requires
an effort of the imagination to reconstruct the ancient scene from
the old, soiled fragments. Yet it can be done by the student of all
the surroundings; and future excavations will reveal much more. For a
people among whom the army and war were so important, the Temple of
Mars was a center of the greatest interest. Its beauty is described
as of the highest sort. Augustus says in his will that the Roman
citizens who fought under his orders numbered five hundred thousand.
At the time of his death one hundred and sixty thousand Roman citizens
were still serving under the flag. The number of men-of-war captured,
burnt or sunk is stated at six hundred.
[Illustration: THE CRYPTOPORTICUS]
But Augustus honored peace no less than war. He thrice took the census
of Rome, showing an increase of the inhabitants from four millions
sixty-three thousand to nearly five millions. In the inscriptions,
already referred to as existing in the ruins of the temple of Angora in
Asia Minor, he tells us that in the year 13 B. C. the Senate ordered
an altar to be built in the Campus Martius to the divinity Pax Augusta
(Augustan Peace), upon which magistrates, priests, and vestal virgins
might offer a yearly sacrifice. In after ages this altar became covered
with rubbish and above the rubbish was accumulated in time a cemetery
belonging to the adjoining church of San Lorenzo in Lucina. But this
cemetery, it is said, was ten feet below the present level of the city.
In the latter part of the thirteenth century, over it and over the
altar of Peace beneath it Cardinal Evesham built a palace, which has
since passed through various hands. In the early part of the sixteenth
century five carved panels of remarkable beauty were brought to light
from this ground. Other pieces were found, but were carried to various
places,--even to Paris, Vienna, and England. It was not until about
the beginning of the present century that it was proved that they
belonged to the famous Augustan Altar of Peace. Excavations have since
been made upon the original site, sixteen feet below the street level.
Vaulted passages have been constructed, so that it is possible to
pass along two sides of the altar’s foundation; and at the end of one
of these passages, practically embedded in earth and rubbish, may be
seen to-day a most beautifully carved panel showing a sacrificial
procession. The altar stood upon a platform three and one-quarter feet
high and measuring nineteen and a half by eleven and one-half feet.
It was approached by steps on four sides. All this was placed in the
midst of a sacred area thirty-eight feet by thirty-five feet, enclosed
by marble walls elaborately carved in relief on both sides. Among the
representations is a procession moving toward a sacrificial scene.
The figures are characterized by great dignity and their drapery is
arranged to produce a graceful effect. Augustus himself and many of the
persons high in rank and power during his reign are grouped as if in
conversation. It is evident that the whole structure was a most highly
wrought and artistic composition, a fitting monument to him whose
boast it was that he had secured unity and peace throughout his empire
and had caused the gates of Janus, the god of war, to be closed for a
long time. Professor James C. Egbert, of Columbia University, in his
description of this altar in the “Records of the Past” for 1906, to
which I am indebted, thus described two of the panels, which are now in
the Uffizzi Gallery at Florence:
In one of these there are two family groups both marked by the
presence of husband and wife. The tall young man on the left is
Drusus, who died B. C. 9, greatly mourned by the emperor and the
people. He wears a military cloak, as he has left his command
in Rhætia to attend the dedication of the altar. His wife, the
beautiful Antonia, stands immediately before him and their
conversation is interrupted by the warning gesture of the figure
between, who calls for silence lest they mar the sanctity of the
occasion. The child at their feet is either Germanicus or the later
emperor, Claudius. The group to the right may be Tiberius and his
wife Julia, whom he, much to his disgust, was compelled to marry
after the death of her former husband, Vipsanius Agrippa. The wife
may be the sister of Antonia in the first group. Then the husband
would be Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the grandfather of Nero.
Vipsanius Agrippa played a very important part in bringing about
the reign of peace and we should expect to find him among the
members of the imperial group. The central figure in another panel
has been recognized as Agrippa because of the distinction suggested
by the repose of the countenance. Some see here a sadness of
expression natural to one who has suffered much. He is preceded by
a young man who bears on his shoulder the official ax, for Agrippa
appears here as a high-priest. The boy grasping his toga is Lucius
Cæsar, his son, and the beautiful woman on his left may be Julia,
his wife, or Vipsania Agrippina, his daughter.
To this description we may add that such graceful and charming
sculptures, with their portraits of leading personages, could not have
been unveiled to the Roman public without awakening great admiration.
To the period of Augustus also belongs the foundation, at least, of the
Pantheon. His prime minister and son-in-law, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa,
erected a temple, twenty-seven years before Christ, at the north end of
the warm baths, which he had established here in the Campus Martius.
It was dedicated to several gods. It has often been repaired and
probably altered and enlarged by restorations. The emperors Hadrian,
Septimius Severus, and Caracalla all contributed to its preservation
and development. In antiquity the portico was reached by five steps,
which are now covered by the rising of the ground. Since A. D. 609 it
has been consecrated as a Christian church. Notwithstanding this, in
A. D. 663 Constans II, emperor at Constantinople, carried away to his
city the gilt-bronze tiles of the roof.
Throughout the middle ages this temple was prized as the palladium and
emblem of Rome. The main part of the building is circular in form,--the
height and diameter of which are said to be equal, each being one
hundred and forty-two feet,--and is composed of that concrete that
the ancient Romans knew how to make so lasting. It is lighted by an
uncovered aperture, thirty feet in diameter, in the center of the dome,
rimmed by an elegant ancient cornice of bronze. The rich columns of
different kinds of marble and the other decorations of the interior
are most imposing, and correspond well with the stately Corinthian
portico which forms the front of the edifice and under which once stood
colossal bronze statues of Augustus and Agrippa.
The five front steps by which it was entered in ancient times, are
now covered by the raising of the ground all around the building. The
entrance is still closed by the ancient massive, bronze doors. In 1632
Pope Urban VIII, one of the Barberini family, took away the bronze
columns and ceiling of the portico to make out of them the elaborate
pillars which support the canopy of the high altar in St. Peter’s,
and also cannon for the Castle of St. Angelo. This occasioned the
circulation of a popular epigram of Pasquin. “What the Barbarians did
not do the Barberini did.”
The Pantheon is the noblest and best preserved building of ancient
Rome,--the only one, indeed, having both its walls and vaulting intact,
and it is still closed by its ancient heavy bronze doors. Lord Byron’s
lines concerning it are well worth quoting because of the conciseness
of his description.
Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime,
Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods
From Jove to Jesus, spared and blessed by time,
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods
Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods
His way through thorns to ashes! Glorious dome,
Shalt thou not last? Time’s scythe and tyrants’ rods
Shiver upon thee, sanctuary and home
Of art and piety, Pantheon, pride of Rome!
It is not strange that it was deemed the most fitting place for the
burial of the great artist, Raphael, and for that of the King of United
Italy, Victor Emmanuel.
Of the former event the poet Rogers says:
When Raphael went,
His heavenly face the mirror of his mind,
His mind a temple for all lovely things
To flock and to inhabit--when he went,
Wrapp’d in his sable cloak, the cloak he wore,
To sleep beneath the venerable dome,
By those attended who in life had loved,
Had worship’d, following in his steps to fame,
’Twas on an April day, when Nature smiles.
All Rome was there.
Victor Emmanuel’s tomb is always covered with wreaths, tributes by the
living to his honor.
The remnants of the great mausoleum of Augustus,--in which not only he
but many of his successors were interred,--are not now sought out by
many except students of antiquities. The last of the emperors buried
here was Nerva. Near the river Tiber, on what was then the Campus
Martius or field of Mars, on a great platform of stone, now beneath the
ground, rose the huge circular building of two stories, in which were
the chambers for the dead. Augustus was buried in the central chamber,
which was covered with a dome. From this radiated fourteen smaller
ones, most of which can now be traced, though in a ruined condition.
Above these was a pyramidal mound of earth in terraces planted with
cypress trees and surmounted with a large statue of the emperor
himself. The whole was surrounded by an attractive park.
For centuries the monument was well known to the people. War,
earthquake and neglect have now made its ruins one of the least
conspicuous sights in Rome, but some will ever find in them a deep
pathetic interest. After some searching I found the entrance to them
not far from the Via Di Ripetta. Upon my application, the custodian,
who was an old woman, admitted me from a sort of court, where I
could look up at a part of the circular exterior and where there
was a fountain at the side. An inscription tablet let into the wall
informs the visitor (in Latin) that here is the western wall of the
mausoleum of Augustus disclosed by the removal of buildings. What
seemed to be electric wires, stretched down along the side of the
building, suggested a curious connection between the beginning of
the first century and the beginning of the twentieth. Within the
structure I paced the corridors, gazed at the arched ceiling, and
could see out through the large windows into the central space. In the
twelfth century the central dome was thrown down by an earthquake.
Afterward the center was used as an open-air arena and was occupied
by a popular circus until a few years ago. At the time of my visit
it was a storehouse for the great plaster models for the sculptures
to be placed on the new monument that was building to the memory of
King Victor Emmanuel. The Egyptian obelisks, forty-five feet high,
which stood before the entrance in the first century, now are to be
found, one of them in front of the Quirinal Palace,--which is the
royal residence,--and the other one in the square by the great church
of Santa Maria Maggiore. Thus, long ago rifled of its contents, the
burial-place of the celebrated master of the ancient world has stood
for centuries, broken and neglected.
Since the time I was there, however, a new interest in it has awakened
and a change has been made. The circular interior has been cleared out,
and furnished with platform and seats. It has become a place again of
public entertainment and is known as The Augustean. Orchestral concerts
of a high order are there performed. In the interlude of the music the
visitor can ponder upon the march of the nineteen centuries which have
passed away since the walls around him were erected.
Augustus had been upon the throne about twenty-four years when Jesus
was born. That holy Child had come to share our lot and to reveal
clearly to men the knowledge of the Heavenly Father at a time when
all its political kingdoms had thus become consolidated by force or
treaty under one name of power, when better conditions and roads
were preparing for the diffusion of Christianity, and when men were
beginning to dream that there might be such a thing as a common loyalty
to one great sovereign. Was it too difficult a step as yet for their
minds to take from the contemplation of a universal dominion to the
doctrine of a universal brotherhood? The quiet and unobserved beginning
of our Lord’s spiritual and gracious mission was thus put in striking
contrast with the outward magnificence of the world’s great conqueror,
and the purely spiritual methods of the Gospel with the noisy forces of
a ponderous army.
When Augustus died Jesus was about eighteen years old. In a time of
such infrequent communication between distant places a quiet town in
Galilee, like Nazareth, would have slight relations with any higher
authority than Herod. Yet Jesus must have often seen in his boyhood
Roman military standards and groups of soldiers. He must have gazed
with eager interest and curiosity upon their strong armor and shining
weapons and watched with wonder their well-ordered movements. Roman
coins must have been familiar objects to him, with their medal and
superscriptions of the reigning monarch. He must have often discussed
with his companions the various pieces of news that came from time
to time from the great metropolis of the Empire. The death of the
emperor in Italy, and the succession of Tiberius to the throne, as
these were announced by couriers throughout the realm, must have
stirred in him many serious reflections and exalted aspirations, many
thrilling purposes of righteous zeal and tender love for men. Along
with his gradual increase of knowledge as to the wide extent of Cæsar’s
magnificent empire, there developed in his mind the sublime conception
of the Kingdom of God, his prophetic vision of its blessed sway, and
his consciousness that he himself was to be the Messianic King.
Never will the thoughtful part of the world finish the study of that
wonderful life, the childhood and the youth of which were among the
things that came to pass in the days of Cæsar Augustus.