[Illustration: Julius Caesar]
CAESAR
_A SKETCH_
BY
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A.
FORMERLY FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD
_"Pardon, gentles all
The flat unraised spirit that hath dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object."_
--SHAKESPEARE, Henry V.
PREFACE.
I have called this work a "sketch" because the materials do not exist
for a portrait which shall be at once authentic and complete. The
original authorities which are now extant for the life of Caesar are
his own writings, the speeches and letters of Cicero, the eighth book
of the "Commentaries" on the wars in Gaul and the history of the
Alexandrian war, by Aulus Hirtius, the accounts of the African war and
of the war in Spain, composed by persons who were unquestionably
present in those two campaigns. To these must be added the "Leges
Juliae" which are preserved in the Corpus Juris Civilis. Sallust
contributes a speech, and Catullus a poem. A few hints can be gathered
from the Epitome of Livy and the fragments of Varro; and here the
contemporary sources which can be entirely depended upon are brought to
an end.
The secondary group of authorities from which the popular histories of
the time have been chiefly taken are Appian, Plutarch, Suetonius, and
Dion Cassius. Of these the first three were divided from the period
which they describe by nearly a century and a half, Dion Cassius by
more than two centuries. They had means of knowledge which no longer
exist--the writings, for instance, of Asinius Pollio, who was one of
Caesar's officers. But Asinius Pollio's accounts of Caesar's actions,
as reported by Appian, cannot always be reconciled with the
Commentaries; and all these four writers relate incidents as facts
which are sometimes demonstrably false. Suetonius is apparently the
most trustworthy. His narrative, like those of his contemporaries, was
colored by tradition. His biographies of the earlier Caesars betray the
same spirit of animosity against them which taints the credibility of
Tacitus, and prevailed for so many years in aristocratic Roman society.
But Suetonius shows nevertheless an effort at veracity, an antiquarian
curiosity and diligence, and a serious anxiety to tell his story
impartially. Suetonius, in the absence of evidence direct or
presumptive to the contrary, I have felt myself able to follow. The
other three writers I have trusted only when I have found them
partially confirmed by evidence which is better to be relied upon.
The picture which I have drawn will thus be found deficient in many
details which have passed into general acceptance, and I have been
unable to claim for it a higher title than that of an outline drawing.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
Free Constitutions and Imperial Tendencies.--Instructiveness of Roman
History.--Character of Historical Epochs.--The Age of
Caesar.--Spiritual State of Rome.--Contrasts between Ancient and Modern
Civilization.
CHAPTER II.
The Roman Constitution.--Moral Character of the Romans.--Roman
Religion.--Morality and Intellect.--Expansion of Roman Power.--The
Senate.--Roman Slavery.--Effects of Intercourse with Greece.--Patrician
Degeneracy.--The Roman Noble.--Influence of Wealth.--Beginnings of
Discontent.
CHAPTER III.
Tiberius Gracchus.--Decay of the Italian Yeomanry.--Agrarian
Law.--Success and Murder of Gracchus.--Land Commission.--Caius
Gracchus.--Transfer of Judicial Functions from the Senate to the
Equites.--Sempronian Laws.--Free Grants of Corn.--Plans for Extension
of the Franchise.--New Colonies.--Reaction.--Murder of Caius Gracchus
CHAPTER IV.
Victory of the Optimates.--The Moors.--History of Jugurtha.--The Senate
corrupted.--Jugurthine War.--Defeat of the Romans.--Jugurtha comes to
Rome.--Popular Agitation.--The War renewed.--Roman Defeats in Africa
and Gaul.--Caecilius Metellus and Caius Marius.--Marriage of
Marius.--The Caesars.--Marius Consul.--First Notice of Sylla.--Capture
and Death of Jugurtha
CHAPTER V.
Birth of Cicero.--The Cimbri and Teutons.--German Immigration into
Gaul.--Great Defeat of the Romans on the Rhone.--Wanderings of the
Cimbri.--Attempted Invasion of Italy.--Battle of Aix.--Destruction of
the Teutons.--Defeat of the Cimbri on the Po.--Reform in the Roman
Army.--Popular Disturbances in Rome.--Murder of Memmius.--Murder of
Saturninus and Glaucia
CHAPTER VI.
Birth and Childhood of Julius Caesar.--Italian Franchise.--Discontent
of the Italians.--Action of the Land Laws.--The Social War.--Partial
Concessions.--Sylla and Marius.--Mithridates of Pontus.--First Mission
of Sylla into Asia.
CHAPTER VII.
War with Mithridates.--Massacre of Italians in Asia.--Invasion of
Greece.--Impotence and Corruption of the Senate.--End of the Social
War.--Sylla appointed to the Asiatic Command.--The Assembly transfer
the Command to Marius.--Sylla marches on Rome.--Flight of
Marius.--Change of the Constitution.--Sylla sails for the East.--Four
Years' Absence.--Defeat of Mithridates.--Contemporary Incidents at
Rome.--Counter Revolution.--Consulship of Cinna.--Return of
Marius.--Capitulation of Rome.--Massacre of Patricians and
Equites.--Triumph of Democracy.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Young Caesar.--Connection with Marius.--Intimacy with the
Ciceros.--Marriage of Caesar with the Daughter of
Cinna.--Sertorius.--Death of Cinna.--Consulships of Norbanus and
Scipio.--Sylla's Return.--First Appearance of Pompey.--Civil
War.--Victory of Sylla.--The Dictatorship and the
Proscription.--Destruction of the Popular Party and Murder of the
Popular Leaders.--General Character of Aristocratic Revolutions.--The
Constitution remodelled.--Concentration of Power in the
Senate.--Sylla's General Policy.--The Army.--Flight of Sertorius to
Spain.--Pompey and Sylla.--Caesar refuses to divorce his Wife at
Sylla's Order.--Danger of Caesar.--His Pardon.--Growing Consequence of
Cicero.--Defence of Roscius.--Sylla's Abdication and Death
CHAPTER IX.
Sertorius in Spain.--Warning of Cicero to the Patricians.--Leading
Aristocrats.--Caesar with the Army in the East.--Nicomedes of
Bithynia.--The Bithynian Scandal.--Conspiracy of Lepidus.--Caesar
returns to Rome.--Defeat of Lepidus.--Prosecution of Dolabella.--Caesar
taken by Pirates.--Senatorial Corruption.--Universal Disorder.--Civil
War in Spain.--Growth of Mediterranean Piracy.--Connivance of the
Senate.--Provincial Administration.--Verres in Sicily.--Prosecuted by
Cicero.--Second War with Mithridates.--First Success of
Lucullus.--Failure of Lucullus, and the Cause of it.--Avarice of Roman
Commanders.--The Gladiators.--The Servile War.--Results of the Change
in the Constitution introduced by Sylla
CHAPTER X.
Caesar Military Tribune.--Becomes known as a Speaker.--Is made
Quaestor.--Speech at his Aunt's Funeral.--Consulship of Pompey and
Crassus.--Caesar marries Pompey's Cousin.--Mission to
Spain.--Restoration of the Powers of the Tribunes.--The Equites and the
Senate.--The Pirates.--Food Supplies cut off from Rome.--The Gabinian
Law.--Resistance of the Patricians.--Suppression of the Pirates by
Pompey.--The Manilian Law.--Speech of Cicero.--Recall of
Lucullus.--Pompey sent to command in Asia.--Defeat and Death of
Mithridates.--Conquest of Asia by Pompey
CHAPTER XI.
History of Catiline.--A Candidate for the Consulship.--Catiline and
Cicero.--Cicero chosen Consul.--Attaches Himself to the Senatorial
Party.--Caesar elected Aedile.--Conducts an Inquiry into the Syllan
Proscriptions.--Prosecution of Rabirius.--Caesar becomes Pontifex
Maximus--and Praetor.--Cicero's Conduct as Consul.--Proposed Agrarian
Law.--Resisted by Cicero.--Catiline again stands for the
Consulship.--Violent Language in the Senate.--Threatened
Revolution.--Catiline again defeated.--The Conspiracy.--Warnings sent
to Cicero.--Meeting at Catiline's House.--Speech of Cicero in the
Senate.--Cataline joins an Army of Insurrection in Etruria.--His
Fellow-conspirators.--Correspondence with the Allobroges.--Letters read
in the Senate.--The Conspirators seized.--Debate upon their
Fate.--Speech of Caesar.--Caesar on a Future State.--Speech of
Cato--and of Cicero.--The Conspirators executed untried.--Death of
Catiline.
CHAPTER XII.
Preparations for the Return of Pompey.--Scene in the Forum.--Cato and
Metellus.--Caesar suspended from the Praetorship.--Caesar supports
Pompey.--Scandals against Caesar's Private Life.--General Character of
them.--Festival of the Bona Dea.--Publius Clodius enters Caesar's House
dressed as a Woman.--Prosecution and Trial of Clodius.--His Acquittal,
and the Reason of it.--Successes of Caesar as Propraetor in
Spain.--Conquest of Lusitania.--Return of Pompey to Italy.--First
Speech in the Senate.--Precarious Position of Cicero.--Cato and the
Equites.--Caesar elected Consul.--Revival of the Democratic
Party.--Anticipated Agrarian Law.--Uneasiness of Cicero.
CHAPTER XIII.
The Consulship of Caesar.--Character of his Intended Legislation.--The
Land Act first proposed in the Senate.--Violent Opposition.--Caesar
appeals to the Assembly.--Interference of the Second Consul
Bibulus.--The Land Act submitted to the People.--Pompey and Crassus
support it.--Bibulus interposes, but without Success.--The Act
carried--and other Laws.--The Senate no longer being
Consulted.--General Purpose of the Leges Juliae.--Caesar appointed to
Command in Gaul for Five Years.--His Object in accepting that
Province.--Condition of Gaul, and the Dangers to be apprehended from
it.--Alliance of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus.--The
Dynasts.--Indignation of the Aristocracy.--Threats to repeal Caesar's
Laws.--Necessity of Controlling Cicero and Cato.--Clodius is made
Tribune.--Prosecution of Cicero for Illegal Acts when Consul.--Cicero's
Friends forsake him.--He flies, and is banished.
CHAPTER XIV.
Caesar's Military Narrative.--Divisions of Gaul.--Distribution of
Population.--The Celts.--Degree of Civilization.--Tribal System.--The
Druids.--The AEdui and the Sequani.--Roman and German
Parties.--Intended Migration of the Helvetii.--Composition of Caesar's
Army.--He goes to Gaul.--Checks the Helvetii.--Returns to Italy for
Larger Forces.--The Helvetii on the Saône.--Defeated, and sent back to
Switzerland.--Invasion of Gaul by Ariovistus.--Caesar invites him to a
Conference.--He refuses.--Alarm in the Roman Army.--Caesar marches
against Ariovistus.--Interview between them.--Treachery of the Roman
Senate.--Great Battle at Colmar.--Defeat and Annihilation of the
Germans.--End of the First Campaign.--Confederacy among the
Belgae.--Battle on the Aisne.--War with the Nervii.--Battle of
Maubeuge.--Capture of Namur.--The Belgae conquered.--Submission of
Brittany.--End of the Second Campaign.
CHAPTER XV.
Cicero and Clodius.--Position and Character of Clodius.--Cato sent to
Cyprus.--Attempted Recall of Cicero defeated by Clodius.--Fight in the
Forum.--Pardon and Return of Cicero.--Moderate Speech to the
People.--Violence in the Senate.--Abuse of Piso and Gabinius.--Coldness
of the Senate toward Cicero.--Restoration of Cicero's
House.--Interfered with by Clodius.--Factions of Clodius and
Milo.--Ptolemy Auletes expelled by his Subjects.--Appeals to Rome for
Help.--Alexandrian Envoys assassinated.--Clodius elected aedile.--Fight
in the Forum.--Parties in Rome.--Situation of Cicero.--Rally of the
Aristocracy.--Attempt to repeal the Leges Juliae.--Conference at
Lucca.--Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus.--Cicero deserts the
Senate.--Explains his Motives.--Confirmation of the Ordinances of
Lucca.--Pompey and Crassus Consuls.--Caesar's Command prolonged for
Five Additional Years.--Rejoicings in Rome.--Spectacle in the
Amphitheater.
CHAPTER XVI.
Revolt of the Veneti.--Fleet prepared in the Loire.--Sea-fight at
Quiberon.--Reduction of Normandy and of Aquitaine.--Complete Conquest
of Gaul.--Fresh Arrival of Germans over the Lower Rhine.--Caesar orders
them to retire, and promises them Lands elsewhere.--They refuse to
go--and are destroyed.--Bridge over the Rhine.--Caesar invades
Germany.--Returns after a Short Inroad.--First Expedition into
Britain.--Caesar lands at Deal, or Walmer.--Storm and Injury to the
Fleet.--Approach of the Equinox.--Further Prosecution of the Enterprise
postponed till the following Year.--Caesar goes to Italy for the
Winter.--Large Naval Preparations.--Return of Spring.--Alarm on the
Moselle.--Fleet collects at Boulogne.--Caesar sails for Britain a
Second Time.--Lands at Deal.--Second and more Destructive Storm.--Ships
repaired, and placed out of Danger.--Caesar marches through
Kent.--Crosses the Thames, and reaches St. Albans.--Goes no further,
and returns to Gaul.--Object of the Invasion of Britain.--Description
of the Country and People.
CHAPTER XVII.
Distribution of the Legions after the Return from Britain.--Conspiracy
among the Gallic Chiefs.--Rising of the Eburones.--Destruction of
Sabinus, and a Division of the Roman Army.--Danger of Quintus
Cicero.--Relieved by Caesar in Person.--General Disturbance.--Labienus
attacked at Lavacherie.--Defeats and kills Induciomarus.--Second
Conquest of the Belgae.--Caesar again crosses the Rhine.--Quintus
Cicero in Danger a Second Time.--Courage of a Roman
Officer.--Punishment of the Revolted Chiefs.--Execution of Acco.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Correspondence of Cicero with Caesar.--Intimacy with Pompey and
Crassus.--Attacks on Piso and Gabinius.---Cicero compelled to defend
Gabinius--and Vatinius.--Dissatisfaction with his Position.--Corruption
at the Consular Elections.--Public Scandal.--Caesar and Pompey.--Deaths
of Aurelia and Julia.--Catastrophe in the East.--Overthrow and Death of
Crassus.--Intrigue to detach Pompey from Caesar.---Milo a Candidate for
the Consulship.--Murder of Clodius.--Burning of the
Senate-house.--Trial and Exile of Milo.--Fresh Engagements with
Caesar.--Promise of the Consulship at the End of his Term in Gaul.
CHAPTER XIX.
Last Revolt of Gaul.--Massacre of Romans at
Gien.--Vercingetorix.--Effect on the Celts of the Disturbances at
Rome.--Caesar crosses the Cevennes.--Defeats the Arverni.--Joins his
Army on the Seine.--Takes Gien, Nevers, and Bourges.--Fails at
Gergovia.--Rapid March to Sens.--Labienus at Paris.--Battle of the
Vingeanne.--Siege of Alesia.--Caesar's Double Lines.--Arrival of the
Relieving Army of Gauls.--First Battle on the Plain.--Second
Battle.--Great Defeat of the Gauls.--Surrender of Alesia.--Campaign
against the Carnutes and the Bellovaci.--Rising on the
Dordogne.--Capture of Uxellodunum.--Caesar at Arras.--Completion of the
Conquest.
CHAPTER XX.
Bibulus in Syria.--Approaching Term of Caesar's Government.--Threats of
Impeachment.--Caesar to be Consul or not to be Consul?--Caesar's
Political Ambition.--Hatred felt toward him by the Aristocracy.--Two
Legions taken from him on Pretense of Service against the
Parthians.--Caesar to be recalled before the Expiration of his
Government.--Senatorial Intrigues.--Curio deserts the Senate.--Labienus
deserts Caesar.--Cicero in Cilicia.--Returns to Rome.--Pompey
determined on War.--Cicero's Uncertainties.--Resolution of the Senate
and Consuls.--Caesar recalled.--Alarm in Rome.--Alternative
Schemes.--Letters of Cicero.--Caesar's Crime in the Eyes of the
Optimates.
CHAPTER XXI.
Caesar appeals to his Army.--The Tribunes join him at Rimini.--Panic
and Flight of the Senate.--Incapacity of Pompey.--Fresh
Negotiations.--Advance of Caesar.--The Country Districts refuse to arm
against him.--Capture of Corfinium.--Release of the Prisoners.--Offers
of Caesar.--Continued Hesitation of Cicero.--Advises Pompey to make
Peace.--Pompey, with the Senate and Consuls, flies to Greece.--Cicero's
Reflections.--Pompey to be another Sylla.--Caesar Mortal, and may die
by more Means than one.
CHAPTER XXII.
Pompey's Army in Spain.--Caesar at Rome.--Departure for
Spain.--Marseilles refuses to receive him.--Siege of
Marseilles.--Defeat of Pompey's Lieutenants at Lerida.--The whole Army
made Prisoners.--Surrender of Varro.--Marseilles taken.--Defeat of
Curio by King Juba in Africa.--Caesar named Dictator.--Confusion in
Rome.--Caesar at Brindisi.--Crosses to Greece in Midwinter.--Again
offers Peace.--Pompey's Fleet in the Adriatic.--Death of
Bibulus.--Failure of Negotiations.--Caelius and Milo killed.--Arrival
of Antony in Greece with the Second Division of Caesar's Army.--Siege
of Durazzo.--Defeat and Retreat of Caesar.--The Senate and
Pompey.--Pursuit of Caesar.--Battle of Pharsalia.--Flight of
Pompey.--The Camp taken.--Complete Overthrow of the Senatorial
Faction.--Cicero on the Situation once more.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Pompey flies to Egypt.--State of Parties in Egypt.--Murder of
Pompey.--His Character.--Caesar follows him to Alexandria.--Rising in
the City.--Caesar besieged in the Palace.--Desperate Fighting.--Arrival
of Mithridates of Pergamus.--Battle near Cairo, and Death of the Young
Ptolemy.--Cleopatra.--The Detention of Caesar enables the Optimates to
rally.--Ill Conduct of Caesar's Officers in Spain.--War with
Pharnaces.--Battle of Zela, and Settlement of Asia Minor.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Aristocracy raise an Army in Africa.--Supported by Juba.--Pharsalia
not to end the War.--Caesar again in Rome.--Restores Order.--Mutiny in
Caesar's Army.--The Mutineers submit.--Caesar lands in
Africa.--Difficulties of the Campaign.--Battle of Thapsus.--No more
Pardons.--Afranius and Faustus Sylla put to Death.--Cato kills himself
at Utica.--Scipio killed.--Juba and Petreius die on each other's
Swords.--A Scene in Caesar's Camp.
CHAPTER XXV.
Rejoicings in Rome.--Caesar Dictator for the Year.--Reforms the
Constitution.--Reforms the Calendar--and the Criminal
Law.--Dissatisfaction of Cicero.--Last Efforts in Spain of Labienus and
the Young Pompeys.--Caesar goes thither in Person, accompanied by
Octavius.--Caesar's Last Battle at Munda.--Death of Labienus.--Capture
of Cordova.--Close of the Civil War.--General Reflections.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Caesar once more in Rome.--General Amnesty.--The Surviving Optimates
pretend to submit.--Increase in the Number of Senators.--Introduction
of Foreigners.--New Colonies.--Carthage.--Corinth.--Sumptuary
Regulations.--Digest of the Law.--Intended Parthian War.--Honors heaped
on Caesar.--The Object of them.--Caesar's Indifference.--Some
Consolations.--Hears of Conspiracies, but disregards
them.--Speculations of Cicero in the Last Stage of the War.--Speech in
the Senate.--A Contrast, and the Meaning of it.--The Kingship.--Antony
offers Caesar the Crown, which Caesar refuses.--The Assassins.--Who
they were.--Brutus and Cassius.--Two Officers of Caesar's among
them.--Warnings.--Meeting of the Conspirators.--Caesar's Last
Evening.--The Ides of March.--The Senate-house.--Caesar killed.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Consternation in Rome.--The Conspirators in the Capitol.--Unforeseen
Difficulties.--Speech of Cicero.--Caesar's Funeral.--Speech of
Antony.--Fury of the People.--The Funeral Pile in the Forum.--The King
is dead, but the Monarchy survives.--Fruitlessness of the
Murder.--Octavius and Antony.--Union of Octavius, Antony, and
Lepidus.--Proscription of the Assassins.--Philippi, and the end of
Brutus and Cassius.--Death of Cicero.--His Character.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
General Remarks on Caesar.--Mythological Tendencies.--Supposed
Profligacy of Caesar.--Nature of the
Evidence.--Servilia.--Cleopatra.--Personal Appearance of Caesar.--His
Manners in Private Life.--Considerations upon him as a Politician, a
Soldier, and a Man of Letters.--Practical Justice his Chief Aim as a
Politician.--Universality of Military Genius.--Devotion of his Army to
him, how deserved.--Art of reconciling Conquered Peoples.--General
Scrupulousness and Leniency.--Oratorical and Literary Style.--Cicero's
Description of it.--His Lost Works.--Cato's Judgment on the Civil
War.--How Caesar should be estimated.--Legend of Charles V.--Spiritual
Condition of the Age in which Caesar lived.--His Work on Earth to
establish Order and Good Government, to make possible the Introduction
of Christianity.--A Parallel.
CAESAR: A SKETCH
CHAPTER I.
To the student of political history, and to the English student above
all others, the conversion of the Roman Republic into a military empire
commands a peculiar interest. Notwithstanding many differences, the
English and the Romans essentially resemble one another. The early
Romans possessed the faculty of self-government beyond any people of
whom we have historical knowledge, with the one exception of ourselves.
In virtue of their temporal freedom, they became the most powerful
nation in the known world; and their liberties perished only when Rome
became the mistress of conquered races, to whom she was unable or
unwilling to extend her privileges. If England was similarly supreme,
if all rival powers were eclipsed by her or laid under her feet, the
Imperial tendencies, which are as strongly marked in us as our love of
liberty, might lead us over the same course to the same end. If there
be one lesson which history clearly teaches, it is this, that free
nations cannot govern subject provinces. If they are unable or
unwilling to admit their dependencies to share their own constitution,
the constitution itself will fall in pieces from mere incompetence for
its duties.
We talk often foolishly of the necessities of things, and we blame
circumstances for the consequences of our own follies and vices; but
there are faults which are not faults of will, but faults of mere
inadequacy to some unforeseen position. Human nature is equal to much,
but not to everything. It can rise to altitudes where it is alike
unable to sustain itself or to retire from them to a safer elevation.
Yet when the field is open it pushes forward, and moderation in the
pursuit of greatness is never learnt and never will be learnt. Men of
genius are governed by their instinct; they follow where instinct leads
them; and the public life of a nation is but the life of successive
generations of statesmen, whose horizon is bounded, and who act from
day to day as immediate interests suggest. The popular leader of the
hour sees some present difficulty or present opportunity of
distinction. He deals with each question as it arises, leaving future
consequences to those who are to come after him. The situation changes
from period to period, and tendencies are generated with an
accelerating force, which, when once established, can never be
reversed. When the control of reason is once removed, the catastrophe
is no longer distant, and then nations, like all organized creations,
all forms of life, from the meanest flower to the highest human
institution, pass through the inevitably recurring stages of growth and
transformation and decay. A commonwealth, says Cicero, ought to be
immortal, and for ever to renew its youth. Yet commonwealths have
proved as unenduring as any other natural object:
Everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
And this huge state presenteth nought but shows,
Whereon the stars in silent influence comment.
Nevertheless, "as the heavens are high above the earth, so is wisdom
above folly." Goethe compares life to a game at whist, where the cards
are dealt out by destiny, and the rules of the game are fixed: subject
to these conditions, the players are left to win or lose, according to
their skill or want of skill. The life of a nation, like the life of a
man, may be prolonged in honor into the fulness of its time, or it may
perish prematurely, for want of guidance, by violence or internal
disorders. And thus the history of national revolutions is to
statesmanship what the pathology of disease is to the art of medicine.
The physician cannot arrest the coming on of age. Where disease has
laid hold upon the constitution he cannot expel it. But he may check
the progress of the evil if he can recognize the symptoms in time. He
can save life at the cost of an unsound limb. He can tell us how to
preserve our health when we have it; he can warn us of the conditions
under which particular disorders will have us at disadvantage. And so
with nations: amidst the endless variety of circumstances there are
constant phenomena which give notice of approaching danger; there are
courses of action which have uniformly produced the same results; and
the wise politicians are those who have learnt from experience the real
tendencies of things, unmisled by superficial differences, who can shun
the rocks where others have been wrecked, or from foresight of what is
coming can be cool when the peril is upon them.
For these reasons, the fall of the Roman Republic is exceptionally
instructive to us. A constitutional government the most enduring and
the most powerful that ever existed was put on its trial, and found
wanting. We see it in its growth; we see the causes which undermined
its strength. We see attempts to check the growing mischief fail, and
we see why they failed. And we see, finally, when nothing seemed so
likely as complete dissolution, the whole system changed by a violent
operation, and the dying patient's life protracted for further
centuries of power and usefulness.
Again, irrespective of the direct teaching which we may gather from
them, particular epochs in history have the charm for us which dramas
have--periods when the great actors on the stage of life stand before
us with the distinctness with which they appear in the creations of a
poet. There have not been many such periods; for to see the past, it is
not enough for us to be able to look at it through the eyes of
contemporaries; these contemporaries themselves must have been parties
to the scenes which they describe. They must have had full
opportunities of knowledge. They must have had eyes which could see
things in their true proportions. They must have had, in addition, the
rare literary powers which can convey to others through the medium of
language an exact picture of their own minds; and such happy
combinations occur but occasionally in thousands of years. Generation
after generation passes by, and is crumbled into sand as rocks are
crumbled by the sea. Each brought with it its heroes and its villains,
its triumphs and its sorrows; but the history is formless legend,
incredible and unintelligible; the figures of the actors are indistinct
as the rude ballad or ruder inscription, which may be the only
authentic record of them. We do not see the men and women, we see only
the outlines of them which have been woven into tradition as they
appeared to the loves or hatreds of passionate admirers or enemies. Of
such times we know nothing, save the broad results as they are measured
from century to century, with here and there some indestructible
pebble, some law, some fragment of remarkable poetry which has resisted
decomposition. These periods are the proper subject of the philosophic
historian, and to him we leave them. But there are others, a few, at
which intellectual activity was as great as it is now, with its written
records surviving, in which the passions, the opinions, the ambitions
of the age are all before us, where the actors in the great drama speak
their own thoughts in their own words, where we hear their enemies
denounce them and their friends praise them; where we are ourselves
plunged amidst the hopes and fears of the hour, to feel the conflicting
emotions and to sympathize in the struggles which again seem to live:
and here philosophy is at fault. Philosophy, when we are face to face
with real men, is as powerless as over the Iliad or King Lear. The
overmastering human interest transcends explanation. We do not sit in
judgment on the right or the wrong; we do not seek out causes to
account for what takes place, feeling too conscious of the inadequacy
of our analysis. We see human beings possessed by different impulses,
and working out a pre-ordained result, as the subtle forces drive each
along the path marked out for him; and history becomes the more
impressive to us where it least immediately instructs.
With such vividness, with such transparent clearness, the age stands
before us of Cato and Pompey, of Cicero and Julius Caesar; the more
distinctly because it was an age in so many ways the counterpart of our
own, the blossoming period of the old civilization, when the intellect
was trained to the highest point which it could reach, and on the great
subjects of human interest, on morals and politics, on poetry and art,
even on religion itself and the speculative problems of life, men
thought as we think, doubted where we doubt, argued as we argue,
aspired and struggled after the same objects. It was an age of material
progress and material civilization; an age of civil liberty and
intellectual culture; an age of pamphlets and epigrams, of salons and
of dinner-parties, of senatorial majorities and electoral corruption.
The highest offices of state were open in theory to the meanest
citizen; they were confined, in fact, to those who had the longest
purses, or the most ready use of the tongue on popular platforms.
Distinctions of birth had been exchanged for distinctions of wealth.
The struggles between plebeians and patricians for equality of
privilege were over, and a new division had been formed between the
party of property and a party who desired a change in the structure of
society. The free cultivators were disappearing from the soil. Italy
was being absorbed into vast estates, held by a few favored families
and cultivated by slaves, while the old agricultural population was
driven off the land, and was crowded into towns. The rich were
extravagant, for life had ceased to have practical interest, except for
its material pleasures; the occupation of the higher classes was to
obtain money without labor, and to spend it in idle enjoyment.
Patriotism survived on the lips, but patriotism meant the ascendency of
the party which would maintain the existing order of things, or would
overthrow it for a more equal distribution of the good things which
alone were valued. Religion, once the foundation of the laws and rule
of personal conduct, had subsided into opinion. The educated, in their
hearts, disbelieved it. Temples were still built with increasing
splendor; the established forms were scrupulously observed. Public men
spoke conventionally of Providence, that they might throw on their
opponents the odium of impiety; but of genuine belief that life had any
serious meaning, there was none remaining beyond the circle of the
silent, patient, ignorant multitude. The whole spiritual atmosphere was
saturated with cant--cant moral, cant political, cant religious; an
affectation of high principle which had ceased to touch the conduct,
and flowed on in an increasing volume of insincere and unreal speech.
The truest thinkers were those who, like Lucretius, spoke frankly out
their real convictions, declared that Providence was a dream, and that
man and the world he lived in were material phenomena, generated by
natural forces out of cosmic atoms, and into atoms to be again resolved.
Tendencies now in operation may a few generations hence land modern
society in similar conclusions, unless other convictions revive
meanwhile and get the mastery of them; of which possibility no more
need be said than this, that unless there be such a revival in some
shape or other, the forces, whatever they be, which control the forms
in which human things adjust themselves, will make an end again, as
they made an end before, of what are called free institutions. Popular
forms of government are possible only when individual men can govern
their own lives on moral principles, and when duty is of more
importance than pleasure, and justice than material expediency. Rome at
any rate had grown ripe for judgment. The shape which the judgment
assumed was due perhaps, in a measure, to a condition which has no
longer a parallel among us. The men and women by whom the hard work of
the world was done were chiefly slaves, and those who constitute the
driving force of revolutions in modern Europe lay then outside society,
unable and perhaps uncaring to affect its fate. No change then possible
would much influence the prospects of the unhappy bondsmen. The triumph
of the party of the constitution would bring no liberty to them. That
their masters should fall like themselves under the authority of a
higher master could not much distress them. Their sympathies, if they
had any, would go with those nearest their own rank, the emancipated
slaves and the sons of those who were emancipated; and they, and the
poor free citizens everywhere, were to a man on the side which was
considered and was called the side of "the people," and was, in fact,
the side of despotism.