Under these circumstances, Domitian, a very young man hardly twenty,
seized upon the government in the absence of his father: his elder
brother Titus remained in Judæa, and it was a long time before Vespasian
came to Rome. Many ruthless deeds were done in the meanwhile, rather
from personal vengeance than party motives. Although Vespasian himself
had many good qualities indeed, his party was no better than the
opposite one; just as it was in the latter part of the thirty years’
war, when the Swedish, French, and Imperial armies were equally lawless
and destructive. The dismal history of these little men is wonderfully
told by a great one, who, however, makes none of them his hero.
Vespasian came to Rome very late, which had led to not a few bad
consequences: the city was all this while under the rule of a most
profligate and tyrannical youth, who showed himself even then to be what
he afterwards turned out. Some of the senators, especially Helvidius
Priscus,—a man who, however, was not at all in keeping with his
time,—allowed themselves to be drawn into an altogether ill-timed
“_fronde_” against the government, a plot alike unfortunate for
themselves, for Vespasian, and for the empire. Under these
circumstances, a feeling began to gain ground in Gaul, the symptoms of
which already displayed themselves before. As early as in the reign of
the emperor Tiberius, there had been a most senseless rising of the Ædui
under Julius Sacrovir; then came that of Vindex, in which a national
Gallic feeling manifested itself, being very likely the reason why
Virginius Rufus had him murdered and his army of Gauls scattered: the
act of that Roman general thus appears morally in a very bad light. The
death of Vindex must be looked upon as an event, which did not quell the
national spirit of the Gauls, but rather kindled it still more. We have
not indeed any complete or adequate notion of the state of Gaul under
the Romans: that country cannot possibly have been otherwise than in a
thriving condition, even from the times of Cæsar; of southern Gaul, this
is certain. All our knowledge of Gaul is limited to the few things said
about it in history, and to what we are told in Pliny and Strabo: these
two, however, only speak of the _civitates_, without making any mention
whatever of the smaller places; and they leave us without the least
information as to their internal affairs. Here we trace them merely from
the beginning of Tacitus’ account; for otherwise they are not to be met
with in history until the end of the third century, which is treated of
by the wretched _Scriptores historiæ Augustæ_: the itineraries also give
only a few places on some of the high roads. For this reason, Gaul on
our maps looks like a newly cultivated country with a few towns: this,
however, is merely the accidental effect of the scantiness of our
information. The East, on the other hand, being constantly spoken of in
history from the Macedonian era down to the fifth, and sixth centuries,
the maps of Asia Minor and Syria are dotted all over with towns. Gaul
was under the Romans a well tilled and thickly peopled country: there
are found in many parts of France ruins of very considerable towns, the
names of which are quite uncertain or altogether unknown. Thus a short
time ago, in the neighbourhood of Montbeliard, magnificent ruins were
discovered of a place which very likely is only to be met with in an
itinerary, and even there with a doubtful name only: the excavations
near Valenciennes, and in Normandy and elsewhere, betoken towns of great
extent, and evidently of much population. To fill up the gaps of the
geography of ancient Gaul, one should keep to the documents of the
Merovingian and Carolingian periods, in which the places had Latin and
Gaulish names of old date: for then there were no new towns built, as it
was a time of destruction. The population of Gaul had been nearly
annihilated by the Cimbric wars, and afterwards it had again severely
suffered under Cæsar; but for one hundred and ten years, there had been
peace, during which the population in so favoured a land must have
doubled or trebled. We are not to suppose that there was the same
prosperity as in France in the German countries along the banks of the
Rhine; for these were undoubtedly far behind in civilization: they were
very like Germany Proper, being densely peopled, and having many
villages, but hardly any towns. Their population has most incorrectly
been reckoned with that of Gaul; but it was thoroughly German ever since
the times of Cæsar, perhaps even much earlier still; it never belonged
to Gaul, except politically under the Romans. A boundary line had been
settled between the Romans and the Germans,—probably by treaties,—namely
the country between the Meuse and the Waal, the _insula Batavorum_,
which was subject to the Romans: there was a Roman garrison there, but
the natives had not yet adopted the Roman language and manners. From
these Batavians the rebellion of Civilis arose, which spread over the
German provinces of the Roman empire and over France, the Lingones
taking the lead. The insurrection was very dangerous, as the German
tribes on the right bank of the Rhine declared for it; some of them more
actively, and others more sluggishly, being hindered only by their own
division and dissensions, and by all sorts of jealousies and petty
quarrels. The Roman generals, on the other hand, opposed them with great
resolution. Still less union than among the Germans with each other, was
there between the Germans and Gauls; whereas the Gauls and Romans were
much more akin, as the great men among the Gauls had adopted the Roman
language, and Roman manners generally prevailed among them. How the
rebellion ended, we do not exactly know, as Tacitus’ histories are
broken off just here: that the insurgents were put down, is self-evident
from the condition in which they were afterwards; and it is also
expressly told us by Xiphilinus. Domitian, even before the arrival of
Vespasian, took upon himself the command in those parts; but he had no
share in the subjugation of the rebels, which was accomplished by the
generals of his father.
Vespasian reigned for more than nine years, and his rule was thoroughly
beneficial. It is difficult to judge of him, as Tacitus fails us here.
Suetonius is a very sorry painter of character, and his opinions are of
as little worth as those of the _Scriptores historiæ Augustæ_: in fact,
he has no turn whatever for writing history. He is a learned man, and he
does not write badly; but he cannot take a wide view. The earlier times
are better handled by him; for there he had books before him: without
books, however, he was not able to do much; and thus the times which he
had seen himself, or about which he had been told by those who had seen
them, are the very worst written. His work was certainly published
before Tacitus’ _Historiæ_ came out; for had he had them before his
eyes, he could not possibly have described the anarchy after Nero’s
death in so wretched a way: it must have been a work of his youth, and
not indeed of the time when he was secretary of state under Hadrian. We
are in a sad plight here, and moreover the materials for the history of
the emperors are throughout very bad: if we had Dio, we should be all
right; but we only have the pitiful abridgment of Xiphilinus. We can
therefore only dwell on single traits.
Suetonius praises Vespasian, and yet he tells us things which either do
away with the praise, or which ought not to have been recorded, as they
were mere rumours: when we compare both of these statements together, we
are justly astonished, and therefore feel uncertain on more than one
point. Thus much may we look upon as borne out by facts. Vespasian was
wanting in the higher qualities of the soul, nor had he such a heart as
Trajan had; but he was still a very worthy person for the time in which
he lived, being an honest and just man, especially in a negative sense,
and one who was not guilty of tyranny: only some isolated instances of
extortion are mentioned of him. His morals were as spotless as could
ever have been expected in times like those. After the death of his
first wife, he lived in a sort of left-handed marriage with a woman of
low estate, to whom he, however, granted all the honours of a lawful
wife, and with whom he was happy: she must indeed have been an excellent
woman. He quite loathed the debauchery and the awfully vulgar and
wasteful gluttony which had become so common among the Romans: luxury
had then thrown itself into the fashion of extravagant feasts, got up at
the maddest cost. Vespasian, on the contrary, who had kept his old
simple tastes unaltered, reclaimed his subjects, as well by his example
as by the open expression of his disgust, from this way of living: he
thus brought about a reform in Roman life which is remarkable in
history: Never again did this reckless prodigality become as rife among
the Romans, as it had been in the times before Vespasian: it is true, as
we see from Ammianus’ excellent description, that in the fourth century
it was again to be found among the great men; but Vespasian had struck
at the roots of it. He ruled the state with great care and
conscientiousness, putting down every sort of waste, and getting the
confused finances in order: he showed no mistrust towards the governors,
though, on the other hand, he would uphold the provinces against them.
Yet the feelings of a refined soul were unknown to him: he did nothing
to foster intellect, and he had an antipathy to men of education and
philosophers, as well as to those who were something more than mere men
of business: these he considered as useless, and even had a hostile
feeling against them. Helvidius Priscus, who personally and
intellectually, by his mind and his acquirements, certainly was one of
the first men of Rome, professed to be of the Stoic philosophy. The
Roman Stoics had a spice of republicanism in them which was ill suited
to the age; and this gave birth to an unpardonable petulance, which
could lead to no good. Helvidius was blind to the good qualities of
Vespasian, and gave himself up to an utterly useless opposition. In this
he cannot be excused; but what is worst of all, Vespasian conceived such
a spite against him, that he had him put to death: it was the most noble
blood of the Roman state which he then shed. Otherwise he kept himself
pure from blood: on several occasions, when he had received no such
provocation, he even showed himself truly mild. He was also grateful,
and overlooked a great deal in Mucianus and others. Antonius Primus
likewise lost his life, but deservedly: he had made the revolution for
Vespasian that he might thus rule the Roman empire himself; and when he
did not find this answer, he plotted against him. Suetonius particularly
charges Vespasian with avarice; yet it is by no means certain whether
there is any truth in this. He is said to have declared that the state
wanted for its support _quadringinties millies_, that is to say, two
thousand millions of dollars. This seems quite absurd. Even if we
conceive all the countries of the empire as it was then, to have been as
thriving as France and Italy are now, it seems scarcely possible that
such a sum should have been raised. Nor can we understand what it should
have been wanted for, although there was an army of about four hundred
thousand men, and these received treble pay, a _denarius_ a day. That
number cannot be correct. It is true that he spent much in building; but
building is not after all one of the necessary expenses of the state. In
the reign of Vespasian, very great works were completed in Rome and
elsewhere: nor were they merely what could not be dispensed with; but
such also was their magnificence that they were a lasting honour to the
empire, like the Colosseum and the temple of Peace. This does not agree
with his _sordidissima avaritia_; and such facts are to be set against
the anecdotes of Suetonius. Vespasian died when upwards of sixty-nine.
The government had in reality been carried on under him by his son
Titus, who on his return from Jerusalem had reached his thirty-second
year. Vespasian himself felt no vocation for it. Titus may have had the
guilt of many of the unrighteous deeds which were done in Vespasian’s
reign, however strange the contrast may seem between his own rule and
this administration: before his father’s death, he was very unpopular;
people looked upon him but with fear and dread. What was afterwards so
much praised in him, so that he was even called _deliciæ generis
humani_, was after all nothing but his openhandedness: he seems to have
wished to gladden the hearts of those about him by his liberality, and
to load them with presents. In this way he employed the treasures
hoarded up by his father, who had kept for himself the management of the
finances. Perhaps there is no ruler who has done more real good to the
Roman world than Vespasian. One of his fine qualities was the openness
of his disposition: owing to this he placed full trust in Titus, made
him _præfectus prætorio_, and quite gave up to him a part of the
government. How very different this is from the behaviour of eastern
princes, who always utterly mistrust their sons! Titus was by no means
popular: some violent and also cruel deeds are laid to his charge;
Cæcina, for instance, who played a great part among the Vitellians, was
killed by his orders. Yet it is said that proofs of a conspiracy of his
against the house of Vespasian had been discovered.
The fears which people had entertained of Titus, were not justified
during his reign. With his accession his whole bearing changed; and the
leading features in his character were benevolence and affability, which
in a prince are always prized much higher than any other quality: let a
prince be kind to those about him, and he may forget all his other
duties. His father had been exceedingly frugal; Titus, on the contrary,
was generous, even profuse. The former had spent great sums on buildings
only: he had restored Rome; he had altered the senseless edifices of
Nero, the golden house in particular; and he had built the huge
Colosseum, which, although destined for a dismal purpose, was quite to
the taste of the Roman populace. Vespasian did not live to see the
dedication of the Colosseum, which was celebrated by Titus only. The
extravagance displayed in it, had none of the old simple grandeur; but
as was the case in the whole time of the emperors, and even in the last
stage of the republic, there was something whimsical and repulsive about
it. Goethe has a very nice remark on this subject in the _Farbenlehre_
(Science of Colours).[43] Even women had to fight to death as
gladiators; but Titus’ humanity did not reach so far as this.
His reign was perfect tranquillity abroad, and great comfort in Rome;
but it was visited with calamities. There was an immense fire in the
city, besides the catastrophe of Herculanum and Pompeii, when Vesuvius,
which had been quiet since the time of the Greek settlements, all at
once began to throw up fire—fortunately for us.
The love of the people for Titus was the more decided, as they were by
no means mistaken with regard to Domitian.
Domitian was a bad son and a bad brother, and there is no doubt of his
having sought the life of his father and his brother; especially of the
latter, who, however, never tried to avenge himself upon him, and even
treated him with confidence. Domitian is one of those men, who are too
lightly thought of because they are bad. What he is reproached with may
be true, that he showed himself a coward in war; although this is still
problematical: that his boundless vanity led to no corresponding
achievements, is certain; his cruelty, his falseness, are beyond a
doubt; yet for all that he ought not to be estimated too low. He was a
very accomplished man, and of a decided talent for literature.
Rutgertsius has already remarked, that the paraphrase of the _Phænomena_
of Aratus commonly ascribed to Germanicus, is by Domitian, who as
emperor had taken the name of Cæsar Germanicus, as it was more
illustrious than that of the Flavii. That it cannot have been the
adopted son of Tiberius, is evident from the way in which the poet
speaks of his father, whom he introduces as a ruler, and as one who had
had the apotheosis. I believe that the poem was written in the time of
Titus. It is very respectable as to its general composition, poor as the
subject is. Moreover, although Quintilian may have said too much in what
he tells us of Domitian, and this exaggeration may have been slavish and
in the court-style of despotism; still he certainly would not from mere
flattery have praised what was thoroughly worthless. Domitian had a
taste for Roman literature, which has done good: he established the
great endowment for rhetoricians which Quinctilian received, and he
instituted the _Agon Capitolinus_ in which poets were crowned: Roman
literature, therefore, took a fresh start in his time. Not to speak of
Tacitus, who was then a youth, and of Pliny, the younger,—however little
one may admire him,—who was growing up (many well educated people of his
day wrote as well as he did); there is Statius belonging to that age,
whose _Silvæ_ are among the most agreeable works of antiquity which are
left to us, there is Juvenal, who was also one of the greatest minds,
but who bore a deadly hatred to Domitian. We see from Domitian’s poem,
that he was against the false taste of his times. He slighted Statius;
yet for this we are not so much to accuse him of partiality, as to
acknowledge the correctness of his judgment. Statius is great in his
little poems, which are some of those genuine effusions which are tinged
with the true spirit of the country: one enjoys them particularly, when
one reads them in Italy. But his Thebais is a cold, laboured poem, quite
bombastic and unbearable: it is the one with which he did not win the
Capitoline prize.
As all wasteful prodigality had been rooted out under Vespasian, and
Roman life had been brought back to frugality, the good consequences
were lasting, and Domitian also kept in this path. He was by no means a
spendthrift, being profuse only to the army, the pay of which he raised
to four hundred and eighty denarii, and that, it seems, from cowardice:
for this he tried to make up by lessening the number of the troops,
which was not at all suited to the circumstances of the times. In the
East indeed there was profound peace with the Parthians, weakness having
manifested itself among them, as is always the case in Asia when states
have reached a certain point of greatness: the Parthians, therefore,
left the Romans unmolested, as long as these did not attack them. War
was, however, waging on the northern frontier. Tacitus’ Agricola throws
some light on this; it is one of the greatest masterpieces of biography
which we have from antiquity. Agricola completed the conquest of
Britain: he went beyond the two Firths against the Highland hills, and
built a fleet with which he sailed round Scotland, and visited the
Orkney islands. This is the brilliant military epoch of Domitian. To
this circumnavigation of Scotland the statue of Oceanus seems to refer,
which all through the middle ages lay at the entrance of the _Forum
Martium_.[44] A statue of the Rhine likewise belongs to the time of
Domitian.
In his earliest youth, in the days of the insurrection of Civilis,
Domitian had been in Gaul; as emperor, he conducted a war against the
Chatti in the country about the Mayne. Could one but rely here on the
medals, and on the flatteries of Martial, he got the surname of
Germanicus most rightfully; but the historians all agree in this, that
with regard to those victories the nation was imposed upon. Yet even
then the war may not have been without advantage to the Romans. Certain
it is that the Germans on the right bank of the Rhine were not able to
make head against their legions; nor is it to be wondered at: for an
ill-trained militia could not stand its ground against the Romans, and
moreover the unhallowed dissensions among the Germans were as
mischievous as ever. War was likewise waged on the banks of the Austrian
Danube, where nations such as the Marcomanni and the Sueves, of which we
have heard nothing for a long space of time, again make their appearance
feebly allied with Slavonic tribes; and indeed they showed themselves to
be formidable.
The most important war under Domitian, was that against the Dacians, the
same race as the ancient Getæ, who as early as Alexander’s time had
driven the Scythian tribes before them. Since Diceneus (in the reign of
Augustus) the great Dacian monarchy in Transylvania, and very likely
almost the whole of Wallachia and part of Moldavia and the Banat, had
arisen. They were rich, owing to their mines; and we see from the column
of Trajan, that they were not at all looked upon as barbarians, but that
they were even held in higher esteem than the Germans: they had
fortified towns and wooden houses, such as are still common in the
Tyrol. Their king Decebalus was a man of much greatness of character,
and worthy of ruling his nation in such critical circumstances. They had
a well organized constitution, and an aristocracy, who by way of
distinction wore either caps or long hair: they were withal a brave and
free people. Since the days of Augustus, they had often threatened the
Roman frontier; and as soon as Rome felt weak, they burst into Mœsia: to
Pannonia, perhaps, they did not come; for the country between the Theiss
and the Danube was nothing but deep marshes. Lower down, towards
Pressburg, it was inhabited partly by Gallic, and partly by German
tribes. Of Domitian’s Dacian wars, we have but very confused accounts;
Xiphilinus and Zonaras entirely pass over the details. We know thus
much, that once at least the Romans suffered a great defeat, and that
the Dacians overran Mœsia. But such wars, even when successfully carried
on, always in the long run became dangerous to these peoples; and
therefore Decebalus concluded a peace in a form which seems to us
humiliating. This does not, however, prove much, as such was the general
custom in wars against the Romans. Domitian could now take the name of
Dacicus, and, after his great losses, return in triumph to Rome.
From the time of this campaign, Domitian’s cruelty displayed itself more
and more. Before this, some individuals had already been put to death
either on suspicion, or because he hated them; an insurrection also had
broken out under L. Antonius Saturninus in _Germania Superior_, that is
to say, Alsace and Suabia, as far as the _limites_: these districts were
covered with Roman troops, and Saturninus had himself proclaimed emperor
by them, but was conquered by L. Appius Maximus, and paid for it with
his life. Domitian’s cruelty was within the bounds of human nature,
being different from that of Caligula and Nero. Caligula was mad, and
Nero very nearly so; they were downright brutes, and their cruelty, to
use an expression of Aristotle’s, was παρὰ φύσιν: to characters like
these, the rules of morality do not apply; they are degenerate specimens
of humanity. Domitian’s cruelty was that of a thoroughly bad man; it
sprang from human passions, from envy, malice, and the mere love of
mischief: avarice there was none in it, as this is rather an eastern
vice. In the senate, at that time, there were men who were worthy of
being the friends of Agricola and Tacitus: Herennius Senecio had written
the life of Helvidius Priscus; Arulenus Rusticus, that of Pætus Thrasea;
and their writings displayed much warmth of heart. Maternus and others
were likewise authors, though perhaps not altogether free from
declamation; but literature had now again some reality in it, and it was
that very reality which gave offence to the tyrant. Then arose the
horrible class of the informers, the description of which is one of the
most interesting things in Pliny’s letters: they were a very different
set from the _delatores_ of Tiberius’ reign. These men are justly
abhorred in a moral point of view; but they were men of intellect, and
some of them of no common talent. The great mass was in the days of
Tiberius much worse than it was now; and so it was, of course, with the
victims: for though the women, as we learn from Juvenal, were still
thoroughly depraved, the men, owing to the length of their training in
the school of hardship, had become better and more energetic. Domitian
was even present at the _delationes_: the informers were ingenious,
well-bred persons, who lived in good society, and also turned their
talents against equally distinguished, but noble-minded people. The time
was awful; it passed, as Tacitus says, in silent dread: the impression
which it made on a great mind, is incomparably described in the
introduction of the Agricola and in the _Historiæ_.
Particularly fearful were the three last years of Domitian. Had his rage
been only directed against the better men, he might have lived longer;
but he also turned it against the bad and fierce ones, against Prætorian
officers and his own wife Domitia, who had offended him, and whom he had
offended. Then was the conspiracy formed against him, and he was stabbed
by the officers of his guards.
He had built the _Forum Palladium_ near the _Forum Augustum_, and
established government offices and courts of Justice there: part of the
wall and the hall are still preserved as monuments of that age. He also
erected many other magnificent buildings.