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THE HISTORIANS’ HISTORY OF THE WORLD
[Illustration: MOMMSEN]
THE HISTORIANS’
HISTORY
OF THE WORLD
A comprehensive narrative of the rise and development of nations
as recorded by over two thousand of the great writers of all ages:
edited, with the assistance of a distinguished board of advisers
and contributors, by
HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, LL.D.
[Illustration]
IN TWENTY-FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME VI--THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE
The Outlook Company
New York
The History Association
London
1904
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.
_All rights reserved._
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York
Contributors, and Editorial Revisers.
Prof. Adolf Erman, University of Berlin.
Prof. Joseph Halévy, College of France.
Prof. Thomas K. Cheyne, Oxford University.
Prof. Andrew C. McLaughlin, University of Michigan.
Prof. David H. Müller, University of Vienna.
Prof. Alfred Rambaud, University of Paris.
Prof. Eduard Meyer, University of Berlin.
Dr. James T. Shotwell, Columbia University.
Prof. Theodor Nöldeke, University of Strasburg.
Prof. Albert B. Hart, Harvard University.
Dr. Paul Brönnle, Royal Asiatic Society.
Dr. James Gairdner, C.B., London.
Prof. Ulrich von Wilamowitz Möllendorff, University of Berlin.
Prof. H. Marnali, University of Budapest.
Dr. G. W. Botsford, Columbia University.
Prof. Julius Wellhausen, University of Göttingen.
Prof. Franz R. von Krones, University of Graz.
Prof. Wilhelm Soltau, Zabern University.
Prof. R. W. Rogers, Drew Theological Seminary.
Prof. A. Vambéry, University of Budapest.
Prof. Otto Hirschfeld, University of Berlin.
Baron Bernardo di San Severino Quaranta, London.
Prof. F. York Powell, Oxford University.
Dr. John P. Peters, New York.
Dr. S. Rappoport, School of Oriental Languages, Paris.
Prof. Hermann Diels, University of Berlin.
Prof. C. W. C. Oman, Oxford University.
Prof. I. Goldziher, University of Vienna.
Prof. E. C. Fleming, University of West Virginia.
Prof. R. Koser, University of Berlin.
CONTENTS
VOLUME VI
THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE
PAGE
THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE: A SKETCH, by Dr. Otto Hirschfeld 1
INTRODUCTION
THE SCOPE, THE SOURCES AND THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORY OF IMPERIAL
ROME 15
CHAPTER XXIX
THE EMPIRE AND THE PROVINCES (15 B.C.-14 A.D.) 25
Augustus makes Egypt his private province, 43. Administration
of the provinces, 47. Army and navy under Augustus, 49.
CHAPTER XXX
THE GERMAN PEOPLE AND THE EMPIRE (16 B.C.-19 A.D.) 56
The German War of Independence against Rome, 59. The battle
of Teutoburg Forest, 64. The campaigns of Germanicus, 69.
Victories of Germanicus, 71. Gruesome relics in Teutoburg
Forest, 72. The return march, 72. Battling with Arminius, 74.
Germanicus recalled to Rome, 76. End of Marboduus and Arminius,
76.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE AGE OF AUGUSTUS: ASPECTS OF ITS CIVILISATION (30 B.C.-14 A.D.) 78
Empire is peace, 78. Comparison between Augustus and Napoleon
III, 80. The Roman Empire compared with modern England, 84. The
Roman constitution, 86. Augustus named imperator for life, 87.
The imperator named Princeps Senatus and Pontifex Maximus, 88.
Tightening the reins of power, 90. Panem et Circenses: Food
and games, 91. Pauperising the masses, 92. Games: Gladiatorial
contests, 94. Races and theatricals, 96. Novum seculum: The
new birth for Rome, 97. Literature of the Golden Age, 101.
Merivale’s estimate of Livy, 107. Livy as the artistic limner
of the Roman people, 109. The spirit of the times, 112.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE LAST YEARS OF AUGUSTUS (21 B.C.-14 A.D.) 116
The personal characteristics of Augustus, 120. A brief résumé
of the character and influence of Augustus, 129.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS OF AUGUSTUS: TIBERIUS, CALIGULA, AND
CLAUDIUS (14-54 A.D.) 133
Tiberius (Tiberius Claudius Nero Cæsar), 133. Expeditions
of Germanicus; victory of Idistavisus, 134. Early years of
successful government by Tiberius, 134. Death of Germanicus;
external affairs, 136. Internal government, 142. Velleius
Paterculus eulogises Tiberius, 148. The fall of Sejanus, 151.
Tacitus describes the last days of Tiberius, 154. Suetonius
characterises Tiberius, 156. Merivale’s estimate of Tiberius,
157. The character of the times, 159. Caligula (Caius Julius
Cæsar Caligula), 160. Suetonius describes Caligula, 163.
Claudius (Tiberius Claudius Drusus Cæsar), 168. The misdeeds
of Messallina described by Tacitus, 171. The intrigues of
Agrippina, 176. Tacitus describes the murder of Claudius, 178.
The character of Claudius, 179. The living Claudius eulogised
by Seneca, 180. The dead Claudius satirised by Seneca, 181.
CHAPTER XXXIV
NERO: LAST EMPEROR OF THE HOUSE OF CÆSAR (54-68 A.D.) 184
Nero (Claudius Cæsar Drusus Germanicus), 184. Corbulo and
the East, 186. The Roman province of Britain, 188. The war
with Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, 190. Britain again a
peaceful province, 193. Burrus and Seneca, 194. Octavia put
to death, 196. The great fire at Rome; persecution of the
Christians, 199. Conspiracy met by cruelty and persecution,
202. Personal characteristics of Nero, according to Suetonius,
206. Merivale’s estimate of Nero and his times, 208. Nero in
Greece, 215. Nero’s return to Italy and triumphant entry into
Rome, 218. Discontent in the provinces, 219. Galba is saluted
imperator by his soldiers, 220. The death of Nero, 223.
CHAPTER XXXV
GALBA, OTHO, VITELLIUS, AND THE THREE FLAVIANS (68-96 A.D.) 225
Galba (Servius Sulpicius Galba), 225. Otho (M. Salvius Otho),
226. Vitellius (Aulus Vitellius), 228. Vespasian (T. Flavius
Sabinus Vespasianus), 231. Vespasian performs miracles and
sees a vision, according to Tacitus, 232. Vespasian returns
to Rome, 233. Titus continues the Jewish war, 234. Josephus
describes the return of Titus and the triumph, 236. The empire
in peace, 240. Banishment and death of Helvidius, 241. Sabinus
and Epponina, 242. The character and end of Vespasian, 243. A
classical estimate of Vespasian, 244. Personality of Vespasian,
246. Titus (T. Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus II), 247. The
destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, 250. Pliny’s account
of the eruption, 253. Agricola in Britain, 255. The death of
Titus, 255. Domitian (Titus Flavius Domitianus), 257. Suetonius
on the death and character of Domitian, 261. A retrospective
glance over the government of the first century of Empire, 262.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE FIVE GOOD EMPERORS: NERVA TO MARCUS AURELIUS (96-180 A.D.) 267
Nerva (M. Cocceius Nerva), 267. Trajan (M. Ulpius Trajanus
Crinitus), 268. The first Dacian war, 269. Trajan dictates
terms to Decebalus, 271. The second Dacian war, 273. Oriental
campaigns and death of Trajan, 274. The correspondence of
Pliny and Trajan, 276. Trajan’s column, 277. Hadrian (P.
Ælius Hadrianus), 280. The varied endowments of Hadrian, 281.
Hadrian’s tours, 282. Hadrian as builder and administrative
reformer, 284. Personal traits and last days of Hadrian, 286.
Renan’s estimate of Hadrian, 288. Hadrian as patron of the
arts, 289. Antoninus (Titus Aurelius Antoninus Pius), 290.
Renan’s characterisation of Antoninus, 292. Marcus Aurelius (M.
Ælius Aurelius Antoninus), 294. The plague and the death of
Verus, 296. Border wars, 296. The revolt of Avidius, 299. An
imperial tour and a triumph, 300. Last campaigns and death of
Aurelius, 303. Merivale compares Aurelius and Alfred the Great,
305. Gibbon’s estimate of Marcus Aurelius and of the age of the
Antonines, 305.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE PAGAN CREEDS AND THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY 307
Stoicism and the Empire, 308. Christians and the Empire, 313.
The Christian and the Jew, 315. Religious assemblies of the
Christians, 317. Christianity and the law, 318. The infancy
of the Church, 320. Persecutions under Nero, 321. Persecution
under Trajan and the Antonines, 324.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
ASPECTS OF CIVILISATION OF THE FIRST TWO CENTURIES OF THE EMPIRE 329
The spirit of the times, 329. Manners and customs, 335.
Suppers and banquets, 339. The circles, 342. Public readings,
345. Libraries and book-making, 346. The ceremony of a Roman
marriage, 349. The status of women, 352. Paternal authority
and adoption: The slavery of children, 356. The institution of
slavery, 359. Games and recreations, 367. The Roman theatre
and amphitheatre, 370. Sheppard’s estimate of the gladiatorial
contest, 375.
CHAPTER XXXIX
A HALF CENTURY OF DECLINE: COMMODUS TO ALEXANDER SEVERUS
(161-235 A.D.) 377
Commodus, 378. Cruelties and death of Commodus, 379. Pertinax
(P. Helvius Pertinax), 382. Julianus (M. Didius Severus
Julianus), 383. Severus (L. Septimius Severus), 385. Conquests
of Severus, 387. Caracalla (M. Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla),
391. Macrinus (M. Opilius Macrinus), 393. Elagabalus (Narius
Avibus Bassianus), 395. Dion Cassius on the accession and reign
of Elagabalus, 396. Alexander Severus (M. Aurelius Alexander
Severus), 400. Renan’s characterisation of the period, 403.
CHAPTER XL
CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED: THE SECOND HALF OF THE THIRD CENTURY
OF EMPIRE (235-285 A.D.) 406
Maximin (C. Julius Verus Maximinus), 408. Rival emperors and
the death of Maximin, 409. Pupienus (M. Clodius Pupienus
Maximus), Balbinus (D. Cælius Balbinus), and Gordian (M.
Antonius Gordianus), 411. Philip (M. Julius Philippus),
412. Decius (C. Messius Quintus Trajanus Decius), 413.
Gallus (C. Vibius Trebonianus Gallus), 414. Æmilianus (C.
Julius Æmilianus), 414. Valerian (P. Licinius Valerianus)
and Gallienus (P. Licinius Gallienus), 415. Gallienus (P.
Licinius Gallienus), 417. The thirty tyrants, 418. Claudius (M.
Aurelius Claudius), 420. Aurelian (L. Domitius Aurelianus),
421. Aurelian walls Rome and invades the East, 422. Zosimus
describes the defeat of Zenobia, 423. The fall of Palmyra,
424. Aurelian quells revolts; attempts reforms; is murdered,
426. Tacitus (M. Claudius Tacitus), 427. Probus (M. Aurelius
Probus), 428. The Isaurian robbers, 430. Carus, Numerianus and
Carinus, 431.
CHAPTER XLI
NEW HOPE FOR THE EMPIRE: THE AGE OF DIOCLETIAN AND CONSTANTINE
(286-337 A.D.) 433
Diocletian appoints Maximian Co-Regent, 433. The fourfold
division of power, 434. Diocletian persecutes the Christians,
436. Abdication of Diocletian and Maximian; the two new Cæsars,
437. Strife among the rulers, 438. Constantine wars with
Maxentius, 439. Struggle between Constantine and Licinius, 442.
The long truce between the emperors: Reforms of Constantine,
445. Constantine and Licinius again at war, 447. Constantine
besieges Byzantium, 448. Constantine, sole ruler, founds
Constantinople, 450. The old metropolis and the new: Rome and
Constantinople, 453. Character of Constantine the Great, 454.
Constantine and Crispus, 457. The heirs of Constantine, 460.
The aged Constantine and the Samaritans, 462. Last days of
Constantine, 465.
CHAPTER XLII
THE SUCCESSORS OF CONSTANTINE TO THE DEATH OF JULIAN (337-363 A.D.) 466
War of the Brother Emperors, 469. Constantius and Magnentius,
470. Constantius sole emperor, 472. The fate of Gallus, 476.
Constantius and Julian, 477. The Quadian and Sarmatian
wars, 478. Sapor’s invasion of Mesopotamia, 479. Julian in
Gaul, 481. Julian repulses the Alamanni and the Franks, 483.
Expedition beyond the Rhine, 485. Julian as civic ruler, 486.
The jealousy of Constantius, 488. Julian acclaimed Augustus,
491. Constantius versus Julian, 493. The death of Constantius;
Julian sole emperor, 497. The religion of Julian, 498. Julian
invades the East, 499. A battle by the Tigris, 503. The pursuit
of Sapor, 505. Julian’s death, 508.
CHAPTER XLIII
JOVIAN TO THEODOSIUS (363-395 A.D.) 510
Election of Jovian (Flavius Claudius Jovianus), 510. Sapor
assails the Romans, 511. The humiliation of the Romans, 512.
Valentinian and Valens, 516. Invasion of the Goths in the
East; battle of Hadrianopolis and death of Valens, 520. Valens
marches against the Goths, 523. Theodosius named Augustus,
525. Virtues of Theodosius, 528. Tumult in Antioch, 529. The
sedition of Thessalonica, 531. Theodosius and Ambrose, 532.
Last days of Theodosius, 534.
CHAPTER XLIV
THE DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE (395-408 A.D.) 535
Arcadius and Honorius succeed Theodosius, 535. Alaric invades
Greece, 543.
CHAPTER XLV
THE GOTHS IN ITALY (408-423 A.D.) 550
Alaric invades Italy, 550. Honorius retires to Ravenna; Attalus
named Emperor, 556. Attalus deposed; Rome sacked by Alaric,
559. Death of Alaric; succession of Atawulf, 564. Constantine
and Gerontius; Constantius, 566.
CHAPTER XLVI
THE HUNS AND THE VANDALS (423-455 A.D.) 572
The Gothic historian Jordanes on the battle of Châlons, 587.
The invasion of Italy; the foundation of Venice, 591. The
retreat of Attila, 592.
CHAPTER XLVII
THE FALL OF ROME (430-476 A.D.) 598
The Barbarian Emperor-makers, 610. A review of the Barbarian
advance, 618. A fulfilled augury, 623. Breysig’s observations
on the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, 623.
APPENDIX A
HISTORY IN OUTLINE OF SOME LESSER NATIONS OF ASIA MINOR (283
B.C.-17 A.D.) 626
APPENDIX B
THE ROMAN STATE AND THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH 629
BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS 643
A GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY 645
[Illustration: ROMAN TROPHIES]
THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE: A SKETCH
WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE PRESENT WORK
BY DR. OTTO HIRSCHFELD
Professor of Ancient History in the University of Berlin
The words “The Age of the Roman Empire is a period better abused than
known,” written by Theodor Mommsen half a century ago, no longer contain
a truth. To his own illuminative and epoch-making works we owe it, in
the first instance, that this period, so long unduly neglected and
depreciated, has come into the foreground of research within the last
decade or two, and has enchained the interest of the educated world
far beyond the narrow circle of professed scholars. Edward Gibbon, the
only great historian who had previously turned his attention to this
particular field, and whose genius built up the brilliant _Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire_ on the sure foundation laid ready to his
hand by the vast industry of the French scholar Le Nain de Tillemont,
chose to confine himself, as the title of his work declares, to giving
a description of the period of its decay. By so doing he did much to
confirm, though he did not originate, the idea that the whole epoch of
the Roman Empire must be regarded as a period of deterioration, and
that the utmost to which it can lay claim is an interest of somewhat
pathological character, as being the connecting-link between antique
and mediæval times, and between the pagan and the Christian world. And
when we look upon the picture sketched by that incomparable painter
of the earlier days of the empire, Tacitus, where scarcely a gleam of
light illumines the gloomy scene, we may well feel justified in the
opinion that the only office of this period is to set forth to us the
death-struggle of classical antiquity, and that no fresh fructifying
seeds could spring from this process of corruption.
And, as a matter of fact, it cannot be denied that even the best days
of the Empire can hardly with truth be spoken of as the prime of Rome.
There is a dearth of great names, such as abound in the history of Greece
and the early history of Rome. Julius Cæsar, the last truly imposing
figure among the Romans, does not belong to it; he laid the foundations
of this new world, but he was not destined to finish his work, and not
one of his successors came up to the standard of this great prototype.
Individual character falls into the background during the empire, even
the individuality of the Roman people; its history becomes the history
of the antique world, and an account of the period between the reigns of
Augustus and Constantine can, in its essence, be nothing other than the
history of the world for the first three centuries after Christ.
THE WEALTH OF ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS
It is easy to understand how Niebuhr, whose enthusiastic and lifelong
labours were devoted to the history of ancient Rome, should have coldly
turned aside from the period of imperial rule and cherished no desire to
carry his history beyond the fall of the republic. Certainly it would
be unjust to judge of his attitude towards the first-named period from
the brief lecture with which he concluded his lectures on Roman history,
but we shall nevertheless do no injustice to his undying merits by
maintaining that in his heart of hearts he felt no sympathy with it. For
it is not possible to conjure up a mental picture of the civilisation and
condition of the empire from the scanty and imperfect records of literary
tradition, a tradition that is not sufficient even for the first century,
and fails us almost completely with regard to the second, and even more
with regard to the third. Nothing can make up for this deficiency except
an exhaustive study of monuments, and, more especially, of inscriptions,
but this _Dis Manibus_ literature, as he was pleased to call it, was a
thing which Niebuhr, in spite of his many years of residence in Rome,
neither cared for nor understood. For this we can hardly blame him,
because, while the subject of coins had received admirable treatment at
the hands of Joseph Eckhel, the inscriptions were hardly accessible for
scientific purposes till long after Niebuhr’s death.
It is difficult for a later generation to realise the condition of
epigraphic research before the critical compilation of the _Corpus
inscriptionum Latinarum_ had put an end to the frightful state of things
that prevailed in this study, discredited as it was by all sorts of
forgeries. But when we see the insuperable difficulties with which a
scholar of the first rank, like Bartolommeo Borghesi, had to contend
in collecting and sifting the boundless abundance of materials for the
researches on the subject of the history of the empire, which he planned
on so vast a scale and carried through with such admirable acumen; when
we see how the chief work of his life came to nought for lack of any firm
standing-ground whatsoever, we can easily understand that Niebuhr should
have preferred not to venture on such dangerous ground.
From every part of the earth where Roman feet have trod, these direct
witnesses to the past arise from the grave in almost disquieting
abundance: the inexhaustible soil of Rome and its immediate vicinity has
already yielded more than thirty-five thousand stones; we possess more
than thirty thousand from other parts of Italy; and the number of those
bestowed upon us by Africa, which was not opened up to research until the
last century, is hardly smaller. Again, the Illyrian provinces, Dalmatia
first and foremost, but Roumania, Bulgaria, and Servia, all in their
degree, and even Bosnia, almost unknown ground till a short time ago,
have become rich mines of discovery in our own days, thanks to increased
facilities of communication and to the civilisation which has made its
way into those countries.
There is, no doubt, much chaff that has attained to an unmerited
longevity in these stone archives, much that we would willingly let
go by the board. But one thing is certain: that only out of these
materials--which of late have been singularly supplemented by the masses
of papyri discovered in Egypt--can a history of the Roman Empire be
constructed; and that any one who addresses himself to the solution of a
problem of this kind without exact knowledge of them, though he were as
great a man as Leopold von Ranke, must fall far short of the goal within
reach. What can be done with such materials has been shown by Mommsen in
the masterly description of the provinces from the time of Cæsar to the
reign of Diocletian, given in the fifth volume of his _History of Rome_,
a volume which not only forms a worthy sequel to those which preceded it,
but in many respects marks an advance upon them, and makes us all the
more painfully aware of the gap which we dare scarcely hope to see filled
by his master hand.
THE MEANING OF IMPERIAL ROMAN HISTORY
What is the secret of the vivid interest which the Roman Empire awakens
even in the minds of those who feel little drawn towards the study of
antiquity? It is, in the first place, undoubtedly because this period
is in many respects more modern in character than any other of ancient
times; far more so than the Byzantine Empire or the Middle Ages. It is a
period of transition, in which vast revolutions came about in politics
and religion and the seed of a new civilisation was sown. Its true
significance is not to be found in the creation of a world-wide empire.
Republican Rome had already subdued the East in her inexorable advance;
Macedonia and Greece, Syria, Asia, Africa, and, finally, Egypt, had
fallen into her hands before the setting up of the imperial throne.
In the West, again, Spain and the south of Gaul had long been Roman when
Julius Cæsar started on the campaign which decided the future of Europe,
and pushed the Roman frontier forward from the Rhone to the Rhine. The
sway of Rome already extended over all the coasts of the Mediterranean,
and the accessions made to her dominions during the period of imperial
rule were comparatively insignificant. The Danubian and Alpine provinces
were won for the Roman Empire by Augustus, Britain was conquered by
Claudius, Dacia and Arabia by Trajan, beside the conquests which his
successor immediately relinquished. Germania and the kingdom of Parthia
permanently withstood the Roman onset, and the construction of the Upper
Germanic and Rætian _Limes_ by Domitian was an official recognition of
the invincibility of the Germanic barbarians. The counsel of resignation,
given by Augustus to his successors out of the fulness of his own bitter
experience, warning them to keep the empire within its natural frontiers,
_i.e._, the Rhine, Danube, and Euphrates, was practically followed by
them, and Hadrian did unquestionably right in breaking altogether with
his predecessor’s policy of expansion and refusing to expose the waning
might of the empire to a continuous struggle to which it was no longer
equal.
The great work of the empire, therefore, was not to conquer a world
but to weld one into an organic whole, to foster civilisation where it
existed and to be the instrument of Græco-Roman civilisation amongst the
almost absolutely uncivilised nations admitted into the _Orbis Romanus_:
and up to a certain point it actually accomplished this pacific mission,
which proceeded with hardly a pause even under the worst of tyrants. Its
task, however, varied greatly in various parts of its world-wide field.
In the East, permeated with Greek culture, though by no means
denationalised, the Romans scarcely made an attempt to enter into
competition with this superior civilising agency, and, except as the
medium of expression of the Roman magistrates, the Roman language played
a very subordinate part there.
The art and literature which flourished in this soil during the days
of empire are, with insignificant exceptions, as Greek in form and
substance as in the preceding centuries. In the great centres of culture
in the East, in Antioch and Alexandria, the Roman government and the
Roman army have left visible traces, but there is nothing to lead us
to suppose that they profoundly affected, far less metamorphosed, the
Græco-Oriental character of those cities. Ephesus, the capital of Asia
and the seat of the Roman government, was no more Romanised than Ancyra
or Pergamus. The only exception is Berytus, “the Latin island in the
sea of Oriental Hellenism”; there, in the Colonia Julia Augusta Felix,
where the colonists were Roman legionaries, grew up the famous school
of jurisprudence, where Ulpian, the great jurist of Syrian descent,
may have had his training; a school which ministered abundant material
to the editors of the Codex Theodosianus, and whence professors were
summoned by Justinian to co-operate with him in the compilation of the
code which cast Roman law into its final shape. In general, the Roman
Empire received much from the East both of good and evil, but gave it
practically no fresh intellectual impulse; its chief contribution to
Græco-Oriental civilisation was the establishment of order, the guarantee
of personal safety, and the advancement of material prosperity.
ROMAN INFLUENCE IN THE WEST
The case was very different in the West, where Rome was called upon to
accomplish a great civilising mission, and where the ground had been
prepared for her in very few places by an indigenous civilisation. In the
south of Gaul, indeed, the Greek colony of Massilia had for six centuries
been spreading the Greek language and character, Greek coinage and
customs, by means of its factories, which extended as far as to Spain,
and a home had thus been won for Hellenism on this favoured coast, as in
southern Italy. Cæsar, with the far-seeing policy that no sentimental
considerations were suffered to confuse, was the first to break the
dominion of the Greek city, which had so long been in close alliance with
Rome, and so to point the way to the systematic Romanisation of southern
Gaul.
The Phœnician and Iberian civilisation of Africa and Spain was even less
capable of withstanding the irresistible advance of Rome. The names of
cities and individuals have indeed survived there as witnesses to the
past, and the Phœnician language held its ground in private life for
centuries, but the Roman language and Roman customs made a conquest of
both Africa and Spain in the course of the period of imperial rule. The
same holds good, and in the same degree, of Dalmatia and Noricum, less
decidedly of Rætia and the Alpine provinces. In Mœsia, where a vigorous
Greek civilisation had made itself at home in the trading stations on the
Black Sea, the process of Romanisation was not completely successful,
and in the northeastern parts of Pannonia it was never seriously taken
in hand. But even Dacia, though occupied at so late a date, and though
the colonists settled there after the extermination or expulsion of
its previous inhabitants were not Italians, but settlers from the most
diverse parts of the Roman Empire, was permeated with Roman civilisation
to an extent which is positively astonishing under the circumstances.
In Britain alone the Romanising process proved altogether futile, in
spite of the exertions of Agricola, and the country remained permanently
a great military camp, in which the development of town life never
advanced beyond the rudimentary stage. Even in Gaul, which had been
conquered by Cæsar, it proceeded with varying success in the various
parts of the country, making most headway in Aquitaine, though not
till late, and less even in middle Gaul, where the Roman colony of
Lugdunum, the metropolis of the three Gallic provinces, alone reflected
the image of Rome in the north. But even at Augustodunum (Autun), which
was a centre of learning in the early days of the empire no less than
at the point of transition from the third century to the fourth, Roman
civilisation reached the lower ranks of the population as little as
in other parts of Gaul. Moreover, in the Gallic provinces, which were
conquered by Cæsar but not organised by his far-seeing political genius,
the old civitates and pagi were not superseded, as in the Narbonensis, by
the Italian municipal system, and the Celtic language did not wholly die
out in middle Gaul till the time of the Franks.
The civilisation of western Belgica was even more meagre; while in
the eastern portions of the country, in the fertile valleys of the
Moselle and Saar, thickly studded with villas, we come upon a curious
mixed Gallico-Roman civilisation of which the graceful descriptions of
Ausonius and the lifelike sculptures of the Igel column, and the Neumagen
bas-relief afford us a lively picture.
Trèves, above all, bears witness to the vigour of Roman civilisation in
these parts, though it did not attain its full development until the
fourth century. The Romanising of Gaul would no doubt have proceeded far
more energetically had not the country been emptied of Roman troops from
the time it was conquered. The immense efficacy of the Roman legions as
agents of civilisation has been demonstrated--even more clearly than on
the Danube--on the banks of the Rhine, where the Roman civilisation which
centred about the great camp-cities struck deep root, although it had not
strength to survive the fierce storms of the wandering nations which have
since raged over that region.
The value of the Roman work of civilisation was most profoundly realised
by those who witnessed it in their own country, and no writer has given
more eloquent expression to this feeling than a late Gallic poet in the
verses in which he extols the blessings of Roman rule:
“Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam:
Profuit invitis, te dominante, capi;
Cumque offers victis propria consortia juris,
Urbem fecisti, quod prius Orbis erat.”
But what Rome did for these countries was repaid her a hundred-fold.
No country took so prominent a part in the literature of the empire
as Spain. She gave birth to the two Senecas, to Lucan, Martial, and
Quintilian (not to speak of lesser men): that is to say to the originator
of modern prose and the champion of Ciceronian classicism. From Africa
come the versatile Apuleius and the pedantic Fronto, as well as the
eloquent apologists of Christianity, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine.
Gaul early exercised a strong influence on the development of rhetoric,
and in the latter days of the empire became a seat of Roman poetic art
and study. Even more striking is the fact that Spain and Africa gave
birth to Trajan, Hadrian, and Septimius Severus, men who, widely as they
differed in character and purpose, were the principal factors in the
evolution of the empire.
CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES OF THE EMPIRE
Had the age of the empire been merely a period of decay, it certainly
would not have had the strength to accomplish a work of civilisation
which is practically operative in Latin countries to this day. And as
a matter of fact, nothing can be less correct than such an assertion,
witnessing, as it does, to a very slight acquaintance with the period in
question. Rather must we say that republican Rome would not have been
equal to the task; a new empire had to arise, upon a fresh basis, stable
at home and strong abroad, assuring and guaranteeing legal protection
and security throughout the world, in order to accomplish this pacific
mission. The Roman body politic was in the throes of dissolution; in a
peaceful reign of half a century Augustus created it anew, and if his
work does not bear the stamp of genius, if we cannot exonerate it from
the charge of a certain incompleteness, yet with slight modifications it
held the Roman empire together for three centuries, and stood the test of
practical working. Had Julius Cæsar lived longer, had he been destined
to see the realisation of his great projects, he would no doubt have
built up a work of greater genius and more homogeneous character, but it
is an open question whether it would have proved equally lasting after
the death of its creator. Great men make the history of the world, and
determine the course of events, but the potent and arbitrary personality,
which would fain conjure present and future to serve its will, imposes
fetters on the course of subsequent development which later generations
cannot and will not endure.
Augustus gave Rome a new system of government--an imperial system. The
old Roman constitution, originally intended for a city, admirable as it
was, could no longer serve as the basis of a state that had become a
world-wide empire; it had, moreover, been completely shattered in the
conflicts of the last century of the republic. To restore the republic
was impossible, its obsequies had been celebrated on the fields of
Pharsalia and Philippi. After the battle of Actium, which merely decided
whether the name of the emperor should be Antonius or Octavian, and,
possibly, whether the centre of the new empire should lie in the East or
the West, the only question which could arise was that of the form, not
of the essential character, of the new creation.
There can be no doubt that Julius Cæsar would have ascended the throne of
Rome as absolute imperator after his return from the Parthian expedition,
and Octavian as well had it in his power to claim sovereignty without
limitation of any kind, for the whole army and fleet were under his
command; but he rested content with a more modest title and took the
reins of government, not as imperator but as princeps. He did not found a
monarchy but a diarchy, as it has been aptly styled, in which the power
was to be permanently divided between the emperor and the senate. It was
a compromise with the old republic, a voluntary constitutional limitation
of the sovereign prerogative by which all the rights pertaining to the
people and the senate--legislation no less than legal jurisdiction, the
right of coinage no less than the levy of taxation, the disposal of the
revenue and expenditure of the state, and finally (after the accession of
Tiberius and ostensibly in compliance with a clause in the testamentary
dispositions of Augustus), the appointment of magistrates--were to
appertain, under well-defined rules, in part to the princeps and in part
to the senate. The empire was to be elective, as the old Roman monarchy
had been; the nomination to the throne was to proceed from the senate,
but on the other hand the supreme command of the army and fleet was
vested in the emperor in virtue of his proconsular authority, which
extended over all parts of the empire outside the limits of the city of
Rome. The legions were quartered in the provinces under his jurisdiction,
while in those governed by the senate, with a few exceptions which soon
ceased to be, all that the governors had at their disposal was a very
moderate force of auxiliary troops.
[Illustration: ROMAN TROPHIES]
We have no reason to doubt the honesty of Augustus’ intentions, but it
is obvious that all the prerogatives of the senate insured it a fair
share in the government only so long as the sovereign chose to respect
them. The reign of terror under his successors sufficed to set in the
most glaring light the absolute impotence of the senate when opposed to
a despot, and overturned the neatly balanced system of Augustus. It is
easier, we cannot but confess, to blame the author of this system and to
demonstrate its impracticability than to put a better in its place. For
can it be supposed that if Augustus had set up an absolute monarchy such
as Cæsar contemplated, the Romans would have been spared the tyranny of a
Caligula or a Nero? Again, if Augustus had handed over to the senate even
a share in the command of the army, would the empire have been so much as
possible, or would he not immediately have conjured up the demon of civil
war? Nor was the co-operation of the senate in the government altogether
a failure; it proved salutary under emperors such as Nerva and his
successors. The history of all ages goes to prove that chartered rights
are of no avail against despots, and what guarantee is there in modern
monarchies for the maintenance of a constitution confirmed by oath,
except the conscience of the sovereign, and, even more, the steadfast
will of the nation, which will endure no curtailment of its rights?
UNFULFILLED POSSIBILITIES
But the Roman nation existed no more, and in the senate under the empire
a Cineas would now have seen, not a council of kings, but, like the
emperor Tiberius, an assemblage of men prepared to brook any form of
servitude. If it had been possible to give legal representation to the
Roman citizens in Italy and the romanised provinces, the system devised
by Augustus might have been destined to enjoy a longer lease of life.
The emperor Claudius, who had some sensible ideas intermingled with his
follies, would have admitted Gauls of noble birth to the senate, as
Julius Cæsar had done. We can read in Tacitus of the vehement opposition
with which this proposal was received by the senators, who would not
hear of any diminution of their exclusive class privileges; and even
the Spaniard Seneca has nothing but angry scorn for the defunct emperor
who wanted to make the whole world a present of the rights of Roman
citizenship and “to see all Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, and Britons, in the
toga.”
And yet this would have been the only way to infuse fresh sap into
the decaying organism, to maintain the vital forces of the senate,
to establish the government of the empire on a broader basis, and to
bind the nations which had been subdued by the sword to the empire
with indissoluble ties. It is true that by the so-called _jus Latii_
which Vespasian bestowed upon the whole of Spain as a testimony to the
Romanisation of the country, the magistrates, and after the second
century the town-councillors, of such cities as did not enjoy full rights
of citizenship, were admitted to the ranks of Roman citizens, a very
sensible measure, though of benefit to a limited circle only, by which
the best elements of provincial society became Roman citizens.
Full rights of citizenship were also bestowed on the peregrine soldiers
when they entered the oriental legions, and on the Vigiles at Rome, and
the soldiers of the fleet and auxiliary forces on their discharge. But
from the reign of Antoninus Pius onwards this important privilege was not
accorded, as before, to the children of these soldiers, but churlishly
confined, with few exceptions, to the men themselves; and the bestowal
consequently lost its virtue as an agency for the assimilation of the
population of the empire; and when, two hundred years after the death
of Augustus, the son of the emperor Septimius Severus, who himself
had broken with all the national traditions of Rome, granted Roman
citizenship to all subjects of the empire, as we are informed (though by
authorities which greatly exaggerate the scope of the measure), it was
no longer felt as a political privilege but as the outcome of a greedy
financial policy.
REFORMS OF AUGUSTUS
The reorganisation of the government by Augustus, open to criticism
as it is in many respects, was a blessing to the Roman Empire. The
view which prevailed under the republic, that the provinces had been
conquered only to be sucked dry by senators and knights, governors and
tax-farmers, in league or in rivalry of greed (we have one example out
of hundreds in Verres, condemned to immortality by the eloquence of
Cicero), this view was laid aside with the advent of the empire, and even
if extortion did not wholly cease in the senatorial provinces, yet the
provincial administration of the first two centuries A.D. is infinitely
superior to the systematic spoliation of the republic. The governors are
no longer masters armed with absolute authority, constrained to extort
money as fast as possible from the provincials committed to their charge
in order to meet debts contracted by their own extravagance and, more
especially, by that bribery of the populace which was indispensable to
their advancement. They are officials under strict control, drawing
from the government salaries fully sufficient to their needs. It was
a measure imperatively called for by the altered circumstances of the
time and fraught with most important consequences to create, as Augustus
did, a class of salaried imperial officials and definitively break with
the high-minded but wrong-headed principle of the republic by which
the higher posts were bestowed as honorary appointments, and none but
subordinate officials were paid, thus branding the latter with the stigma
of servitude.
It is true that the cautious reformer adopted into his new system
of government the old names and the offices which had come down
from republican times, with the exception of the censorship and the
dictatorship, which last had long been obsolete. But these were intended
from the outset to lead but a phantom existence and to take no part in
the great task of imperial administration. Augustus drew his own body of
officials from the knightly class, and under the unpretentious titles of
procurator and præfect practically committed the whole administration of
the empire to their hands, reserving, apart from certain distinguished
sinecures in Rome and Italy for the senators the præfecture of the city,
all the great governorships except Egypt, and the highest commands in the
army. The handsome salaries--varying in the later days of the empire from
£600 to £3,600 ($3,000 to $18,000)--and the great influence attached to
the procuratorial career, which opened the way to the lofty positions of
præfect of Egypt and commander of the prætorian guards at Rome, rendered
the service very desirable and highly esteemed.
While the high-born magistrates of the republic entered upon their one
year’s tenure of office without any training whatsoever, and were, of
course, obliged to rely upon the knowledge and trustworthiness of the
permanent staff of clerks, recorders and cashiers in their department,
there grew up under the empire a professional class of government
officials who, schooled by years of experience and continuance in
office and supported by a numerous staff recruited from the imperial
freedmen and slaves, were in a position to cope with the requirements of
a world-wide empire. These procurators, some as governors-in-chief of
the smaller imperial provinces, some as assistants to the governors of
the greater, watched over the interests of the public exchequer and the
emperor’s private property, or looked after the imperial buildings and
aqueducts, the imperial games, the mint, the corn supply of Rome and the
alimentary institutions, the legacies left to the emperors, their castles
and demesnes in Italy and abroad--in short, everything that fell within
the vast and ever widening sphere of imperial government. Meanwhile the
exchequer of the senate dwindled and dwindled, till it finally came to be
merely the exchequer of the city of Rome.
_Taxation Reforms_
The government department which underwent the most important change was
that of taxation. And there, again, Augustus with the co-operation of his
loyal colleague and friend Agrippa carried out the decisive reform which
stood the test of time till at least the middle of the second century
in spite of mismanagement and the exactions of despots, and secured the
prosperity of the empire during that period. While the indirect taxes,
the _vectigalia_, continued in the main to be levied on the easy but (for
the state and still more for its subjects) unprofitable plan of farming
them out to companies of publicans, which had come down from republican
days--though the publicans were now placed under the strict supervision
of the imperial procurators--the _tributa_, which was assessed according
to a fixed scale partly in money and partly in kind, the poll-tax and
the land-tax were thenceforth levied directly by government officials,
and the extortionate tax-farmers were finally banished from this most
important branch of the public service.
A necessary condition of such a reform was an accurate knowledge of the
empire and its taxable capacity. The census of the whole world did not
take place at one and the same time, as the apostle Luke supposed, but
the census of Palestine which he records certainly formed part of the
survey of the Roman Empire which was gradually proceeded with in the
early days of imperial rule, and by which the extent of the country,
the nature of the soil, and the number and social position of its
inhabitants, were ascertained as a basis for taxation and recruiting. In
an inscription found at Berytus an officer records that by the command
of Quirinus, who as governor of Syria took the census of Palestine
mentioned by St. Luke, he had ascertained the number of citizens in
Apamea in Syria; and numbers of his comrades must in like manner have
been employed on this troublesome business in every part of the empire.
According to these statistics the land-tax and the poll-tax, the chief
sources of revenue in the empire, were assessed. The latter affected
only those who did not possess full rights of citizenship and was always
regarded as a mark of subjection in consequence; the burden of the former
fell upon all land in the provinces unless by the _jus Italicum_, which
was most sparingly conferred, it was placed on the same footing as the
soil of Italy, which was exempted from the tax. But even Italian soil
ultimately lost its immunity from taxation; and the introduction of the
land tax into Italy, which formed part of Diocletian’s reform in this
department, marks the reduction of this country, privileged above all
others in the constitution of Augustus, to the level of the provinces.
Unfortunately taxation in the early days of the empire is one of the
most obscure of subjects, as our sources of information yield nothing
much until the reign of Diocletian. But the great discoveries of papyri
and quantities of receipt-shards (the so-called _ostraca_) recently made
in Egypt have already thrown some light upon the widely extended and
complicated administration of the country, and we may hope for further
instruction from the land of the Ptolemies, which exercised a stronger
influence than any other upon the administration of the Roman Empire.
We might say much more concerning the reforms by which Augustus and
his successors transformed the character of the whole empire; of the
organisation of the standing army practically created by Cæsar, which
in manifold formations compassed about the motley population of the
universal empire of Rome with a firm bond; of the imperial coinage which
made the denarius and the Roman gold piece legal tender throughout the
Roman world and either did away with local coinage or restricted it to
private circulation in the place where it was struck (with the sole
exception of Egypt, which occupied a peculiar position in this as in
other respects); of the institution of an imperial post, which, though
it served almost exclusively the purposes of the magistrates and was
long a heavy burden on the provincials, is nevertheless a landmark in
the history of international communication; of the opening up of remote
provinces by the extended network of roads, on the milestones of which
nearly all the emperors since Augustus inscribed their names, especially
Trajan, Hadrian, Severus, and Caracalla; of the alimentary institutions
originated by Nerva (one of the few government institutions for the
public welfare in ancient times), which were intended to subserve both
the maintenance of the citizen class and the furtherance of agriculture
in Italy. We should gladly dwell upon the further development of Roman
law by the council of state organised by Hadrian, after Augustus the
greatest reformer on the imperial throne, and on the redaction of the
_edictum perpetuum_ carried out at his command by Salvius Julianus, whose
full name and career we have but recently learned from an inscription
found in Africa, which paved the way for a common law for the whole
empire and prepared the great age of jurisprudence at the beginning
of the third century, when the springs of creative power in art and
literature were almost wholly dried up. But within the narrow limits of
this brief survey we must refrain from this, as from a description of
the prosperity and decline of the highly developed municipal life of the
period, and a sketch of the history of the empire at home and abroad,
and of its intellectual life. One question, however, cannot be left
altogether without answer--the question of the attitude of the imperial
government towards alien religions, and, above all, towards Christianity.
A detailed examination of the position of Christianity in the Roman
Empire by the authority best qualified to speak on the subject[1] will be
found in another part of this work, and I can therefore confine myself in
this place to a brief notice.
THE EMPIRE AND THE PAGAN CREED
Paganism is essentially tolerant, and the Romans always extended a
full measure of this toleration to the religions of the nations they
conquered. The early custom of transferring to Rome the tutelary divinity
of any conquered city in the vicinity is a practical expression of the
view that any addition to the Roman pantheon (which had begun to grow
into a Græco-Roman pantheon by the admittance of Apollo and the Sibyls
and had actually been such since the war with Hannibal) must be regarded
simply as an addition to the divine patrons of Rome. In the main this
view was adhered to under the empire, although Augustus formulated more
definitely the idea of a Roman state religion and closed the circle
of gods to whom worship was due on the part of the state. But we have
evidence of the spirit of tolerance and the capacity for assimilation
characteristic of the age in the wide dissemination of the Egyptian cults
of Isis and Serapis, especially in the upper ranks of society, and still
more in the worship--deep rooted among the masses and spread abroad over
the greatest part of the earth--of the Persian Mithras, whom Diocletian
and his co-regents praised in the great Danubian camp of Caruntum as
the patron of their dominion. Even the Phœnician gods of Africa and the
Celtic gods of Gaul and the Danube provinces were allowed to survive by
identification with Roman divinities of a somewhat similar character, and
in the outlandish surnames bestowed upon the latter; although the names
of the great Celtic divinities disappear from the monuments--a matter in
which the government undoubtedly had a hand. So many barbarians, says
Lucian the scoffer, have made their way into Olympus that they have
ousted the old gods from their places, and ambrosia and nectar have
become scanty by reason of the crowd of topers; and he makes Zeus resolve
upon a thorough clearance, in order unrelentingly to thrust forth from
Olympus all who could not prove their title to that divine abode, even
though they had a great temple on earth and there enjoyed divine honours.
In view of the lengths to which the Romans carried the principle of
giving free course to every religion within the empire so long as its
professors did not come into conflict with the government officials or
tend to form hotbeds of political intrigue, such as were the schools of
the Druids, how did it come to pass that the Christian religion, and to
a less extent the Jewish religion also, were assailed as hostile and
dangerous to the state?
It is the collision between monotheism and polytheism, between the
worship of God and--from the Jewish and Christian point of view--the
worship of idols. The great crime which Tacitus lays to the charge of the
Jews, that which brought upon the Christian the imputation of atheism,
was contempt for the gods, _i.e._, the gods of the Roman state. And this
denial was not only aimed at the gods of the Roman pantheon; it applied
in equal measure to the emperor-god, to whom all subjects of the empire,
whatever other religion they professed, were bound to erect altars and
temples in the capitals of the provinces, and everywhere do sacrifice;
who, conjointly with and above all other gods, in both East and West,
demanded that supreme veneration which constituted the touch-stone of
loyalty. To refuse this was necessarily regarded as high treason, as
_crimen læsæ majestatis_, and prosecuted as such. It is true that the
monotheistic Jews, after the destruction of their national independence,
were allowed by law to exercise their own religion on condition of paying
the temple dues in future to the Capitoline Jupiter, and penalties
were attached only to conversion to the Jewish religion, especially in
the case of Roman citizens. But it is evident that they very skilfully
contrived to avoid an open rupture with the worship of the emperor no
less than with the national religion of Rome; for history has no record
of Jewish martyrs who suffered death for their faith under the empire.
[Illustration: ROMAN TROPHIES]
THE EMPIRE AND CHRISTIANITY
It was otherwise with Christianity; from the outset, and more
particularly after the ministry of Paul, the great Apostle of the
Gentiles, which determined the whole course of its subsequent
development, it had come forward as a universal religion, circumscribed
by no limitations of nationality and gaining proselytes throughout the
whole world, an _ecclesia militans_, resolved to break down all barriers
set up by human power and the rulers of this world in order to bear the
new faith to victory. Here no lasting compromise was possible. After
the reign of Trajan he who did not deny the faith and adore the pagan
gods and the image of the emperor had to pay the penalty of an obduracy
incomprehensible to the Roman magistrates, by death as a traitor.
Singularly enough, it was this emperor, so averse to persecution and
self-deification, who outlawed Christianity in the Roman Empire by the
verdict that the Christians should not be hunted out, but, when informed
against and convicted, should be punished unless they renounced their
faith; and most of his successors--though not without exceptions, among
whom Hadrian, Severus Alexander, and Philip must be numbered--adopted
the same line. It may be that even then they had a presage of the danger
to the Roman state that would arise from this international religion
which had originated in the East, which declared all men, even slaves,
to be equal before God, and was in its essence socialistic; at least
it is difficult to explain on any other grounds the profound hatred to
which Tacitus, the greatest intellect of his time, gives vent in his
description of the prosecution of Christians under Nero.
As a matter of fact the spread of Christianity in Asia had by that time
attained considerable proportions, as is evident from the report sent by
Pliny to Trajan and from other records; and as early as the reign of
Domitian it had made its way in Rome even to the steps of the throne. But
there was certainly no man then living who would have thought it possible
that this despised religion of the poor was destined to conquer the
world-wide empire, and this disdain is the only explanation we can find
for the fact that the first general persecution of the Christians--for
the local outbreaks of persecution under Marcus Aurelius, Severus,
and Maximinus, confined as they were to a narrow circle, cannot be so
called--did not take place until about the middle of the third century.
Tertullian may have described too grandiloquently the enormous advance of
Christianity throughout the empire; it is nevertheless beyond controversy
that by the beginning of the third century it had become a power which
serious-minded rulers, solicitous for the maintenance of a national
empire, might well imagine that their duty to their country required them
to extirpate with fire and sword. In this spirit Decius waged war against
Christianity, and so did Diocletian, who assumed the surname of Jovius,
after the supreme divinity of Rome, as patron of the national paganism.
But it was a hopeless struggle; only ten years later Constantine made his
peace with the Christian church by the Milan edict of toleration, and
shortly before his death he received baptism.
With Constantine the history of ancient Rome comes to an end; the
transference of the capital to Byzantium was the outward visible sign
that the Roman Empire was no more. The process of dissolution had long
been at work; symptoms thereof come to light as early as the first
century, and are frightfully apparent under the weak emperor Marcus,
whose melancholy _Contemplations_ breathe the utter hopelessness of a
world scourged by war and pestilence. The real dissolution of the Roman
world, however, did not take place until the middle of the third century.
The empire, assailed by barbarians and rent asunder by internal feuds,
became the sport of ambitious generals who in Gaul, Mœsia, and Pannonia,
placed themselves at the head of their barbarian troops; the time of
the so-called Thirty Tyrants witnesses the speedy disintegration of the
recently united West.
INEVITABLE DECAY
Nor could the strong emperors from the Danubian provinces check the
process of decay. Poverty fell upon the cities of Italy and the
provinces, whose material prosperity and patriotic devotion had been the
most pleasing pictures offered by the good days of the Roman Empire;
seats in the town council and municipal offices, once passionately
striven after as the goal of civic ambition, as the election placards at
Pompeii testify, now found no candidates because upon their occupants
rested the responsibility of raising taxes it was impossible to pay; the
way was paved for the compulsory hereditary tenure of posts and trades
indispensable to the government. Agriculture was ruined, and documents
dating from the third century and the end of the second, which have
been recently brought to light in parts of the empire remote from one
another, describe with affecting laments the want and hardships endured
by colonists and small landholders in the vast imperial demesnes. The
currency was debased, silver coins had depreciated to mere tokens,
salaries had to be paid for the most part in kind, public credit was
destroyed.
The desolation of the land, no longer tilled in consequence of the
uncertainty of possession amidst disorders within and without; a steady
decrease of the population of Italy and the provinces from the end of
the second century onwards; famine, and a prodigious rise in the cost
of all the necessaries of life, which it was a hopeless undertaking to
check by any imperial regulation of prices, are the sign-manual of the
time. The army, from which Italians had long since disappeared, liberally
interspersed with barbarian elements and no longer held together by any
interest in the empire and in an emperor who was never the same for long
together, was no longer capable of coping with the Goths and Alamanni
who ravaged the Roman provinces in all directions; the right bank of the
Rhine and the Limes Germanicus and Limes Ræticus, laboriously erected
and fortified with ramparts and castellae, fell a prey to the Germans in
the middle of the third century. A Roman emperor meets a shameful death
in captivity among the Parthians; Dacia, Trajan’s hard-won conquest,
has to be abandoned and its inhabitants, who were spared by the enemy,
transplanted to the southern bank of the Danube.
Towards the end of the third century the cities in Gaul were surrounded
with substantial walls, Rome itself had to be fortified against
the attacks of the barbarians, and was once more provided with a
circumvallation, as in the days of hoary antiquity, by one of the most
vigorous of her rulers. Diocletian ceased to make the Eternal City his
capital, and realised in practice the idea of division into an Oriental
and Occidental world which had stirred the minds of men three centuries
before. His successor put a final end to the Roman Empire; but all he had
to do was to bury the dead.
FOOTNOTES
[1] [See Professor Harnack’s article on Church and State on page 629.]
[Illustration: ROMAN TROPHIES]
[Illustration]
BOOK II
THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE
_INTRODUCTION_
THE SCOPE, THE SOURCES, AND THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORY OF ROME UNDER
THE EMPERORS
Professor Hirschfeld has pointed out that there is a general
misconception as to the true meaning of later Roman history and that the
time of the Roman Empire is, in reality, by no means exclusively a period
of decline. In point of fact, there were long periods of imperial history
when the glory of Rome, as measured by its seeming material prosperity,
by the splendour of its conquests, and the wide range of its domination,
was at its height. But two prominent factors, among others, have served
to befog the view in considering this period. In the first place, the
fact that the form of government is held to have changed from the
republican to the monarchial system with the accession of Augustus, has
led to a prejudice for or against the age on the part of a good share of
writers who have considered the subject. In the second place the invasion
of Christianity during the decline of the empire has introduced a feature
even more prejudicial to candid discussion.
Yet, broadly considered, neither of these elements should have had much
weight for the historian. In the modern sense of the word the Roman
commonwealth was never a democracy. From first to last, a chief share
of its population consisted of slaves and of the residents of subject
states. There was, indeed, a semblance of representative government; but
this, it must be remembered, was continued under the empire. Indeed, it
cannot be too often pointed out that the accession to power of Augustus
and his immediate successors did not nominally imply a marked change of
government. We shall have occasion to point out again and again that the
“emperor” was not a royal ruler in the modern sense of the word. The very
fact that the right of hereditary succession was never recognised,--such
succession being accomplished rather by subterfuge than as a legal
usage,--in itself shows a sharp line of demarcation between the alleged
royal houses of the Roman Empire and the rulers of actual monarchies. In
a word, the Roman Empire occupied an altogether anomalous position, and
the power which the imperator gradually usurped, through which he came
finally to have all the influence of a royal despot, was attained through
such gradual and subtle advances that contemporary observers scarcely
realised the transition through which they were passing. We shall see
that the senate still holds its nominal power, and that year by year for
centuries to come, consuls are elected as the nominal government leaders.
Nevertheless, it is commonly held that posterity has made no mistake in
fixing upon the date of the accession of Augustus as a turning-point in
the history of the Roman commonwealth. However fully the old forms may
have been held to, it is only now that the people in effect submit to
a permanent dictator. The office of dictator, as such, had indeed been
abolished on the motion of Mark Antony; but the cæsars managed, under
cover of old names and with the ostensible observance of old laws, to
usurp dictatorial power. There was an actual, even if not a nominal,
change of government. This change of government, however, did not
coincide with any sudden decline in Roman power. On the contrary, as
just intimated, the Roman influence under the early cæsars reached out
to its widest influence and attained its maximum importance. Certainly,
the epochs which by common consent are known as the golden and the silver
ages of Roman literature--the time, that is to say, of Augustus and his
immediate successors--cannot well be thought of as periods of great
national degeneration. And again the time of the five good emperors has
by common consent of the historians been looked on as among the happiest
periods of Roman history. In a word the first two centuries of Roman
imperial history are by no means to be considered as constituting an
epoch of steady decline. That a decline set in after the death of Marcus
Aurelius, some causes of which were operative much earlier, is, however,
equally little in question. Looking over the whole sweep of later Roman
history it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that the empire was
doomed almost from the day of its inception, notwithstanding its early
period of power. But when one attempts to point out the elements that
were operative as causes of this seemingly predestined overthrow, one
enters at once upon dangerous and debatable ground. At the very outset,
as already intimated, the prejudices of the historian are enlisted _pro_
or _con_ by the question of the influence of Christianity as a factor in
accelerating or retarding the decay of Rome’s greatness.
Critics have never tired of hurling diatribes at Gibbon, because his
studies led him to the conclusion that Christianity was a detrimental
force in its bearing on the Roman Empire. Yet many more recent
authorities have been led to the same conclusion, and it is difficult
to say why this estimate need cause umbrage to anyone, whatever his
religious prejudices. The Roman commonwealth was a body politic which,
following the course of all human institutions, must sooner or later
have been overthrown. In the broader view it does not seem greatly to
matter whether or not Christianity contributed to this result. That the
Christians were an inharmonious element in the state can hardly be in
question. As such, they cannot well be supposed to have contributed to
communal progress. But there were obvious sources of disruption which
seem so much more important that one may well be excused for doubting
whether the influence of the early Christians in this connection was more
than infinitesimal for good or evil. Without attempting a comprehensive
view of the subject--which, indeed, would be quite impossible within
present spacial limits--it is sufficient to point out such pervading
influences as the prevalence of slavery, the growing wealth of the few
and the almost universal pauperism of the many fostered by the paternal
government, and the decrease of population, particularly among the best
classes, as abnormal elements in a body politic, the influence of which
sooner or later must make themselves felt disastrously.
Perhaps as important as any of these internal elements of dissolution was
that ever-present and ever-developing external menace, the growing power
of the barbarian nations. The position of any nation in the historical
scale always depends largely upon the relative positions of its neighbour
states. Rome early subjugated the other Italian states and then in turn,
Sicily, Carthage, and Greece. She held a dominating influence over the
nations of the Orient; or, at least, if they held their ground on their
own territory, she made it impossible for them to think of invading
Europe. Meantime, at the north and west there were no civilised nations
to enter into competition with her, much less to dispute her supremacy.
For some centuries the peoples of northern Europe could be regarded by
Rome only as more or less productive barbarians, interesting solely in
proportion as they were sufficiently productive to be worth robbing. But
as time went on these northern peoples learned rapidly through contact
with the civilisation of Rome. They were, in fact, people who were far
removed from barbarism in the modern acceptance of the term. It is
possible (the question is still in doubt) that they were of common stock
with the Romans; and if their residence in a relatively inhospitable
clime had retarded their progress towards advanced civilisation, it had
not taken from them the racial potentialities of rapid development under
more favourable influences; while, at the same time, the very harshness
of their environment had developed in them a vigour of constitution, a
tenacity of purpose, and a fearless audacity of mind that were to make
them presently most dangerous rivals. It was during the later days of
the commonwealth and the earlier days of the empire that these rugged
northern peoples were receiving their lessons in Roman civilisation--that
is to say, in the art of war, with its attendant sequels of pillage and
plundering.[2] Those were hard lessons which the legions of the cæsars
gave to the peoples of the north, but their recipients proved apt pupils.
Even in the time of Augustus a German host in the Teutoberg Forest
retaliated upon the hosts of Varus in a manner that must have brought
Rome to a startling realisation of hitherto unsuspected possibilities of
disaster.
It has been pointed out that the one hope for the regeneration of Rome
under these conditions lay in the possibility of incorporating the
various ethnic elements of its wide territories into one harmonious
whole. In other words, could Rome in the early day have seen the
desirability--as here and there a far-sighted statesman did perhaps
see--of granting Roman citizenship to the large-bodied and fertile-minded
races of the north, removing thus a prominent barrier to racial
intermingling, the result might have been something quite different. We
have noted again and again that it is the mixed races that build the
great civilisations and crowd forward on the road of human progress.
The Roman of the early day had the blood of many races in his veins,
but twenty-five or thirty generations of rather close inbreeding had
produced a race which eminently needed new blood from without. Yet the
whole theory of Roman citizenship set its face against the introduction
of this revivifying element. The new blood made itself felt presently, to
be sure, and the armies came to be recruited from the provinces. After
a time it came to pass that the leaders--the emperors even--were no
longer Romans in the old sense of the word. They came from Spain, from
Illyricum, and from Asia Minor. Finally the tide of influence swept so
strongly in the direction of Illyricum that the seat of Roman influence
was transferred to the East, and the Roman Empire entered a new phase
of existence. The regeneration was effected, in a measure, by the
civilisation of the new Rome in the East; but this was the development of
an offspring state rather than the regeneration of the old commonwealth
itself. Then in the West the northern barbarians, grown stronger and
stronger, came down at last in successive hordes and made themselves
masters of Italy, including Rome itself. With their coming and their
final conquests the history of old Rome as a world empire terminates.
It is the sweep of events of the five hundred years from the accession
of Augustus the first emperor to the overthrow of Romulus Augustulus
the last emperor that we have to follow in the present volume. Let us
consider in a few words the sources that have preserved the record of
this most interesting sequence of events.
[Illustration]
THE SOURCES OF IMPERIAL HISTORY
Reference has already been made to the importance of the monumental
inscriptions. For the imperial history these assumed proportions not at
all matched by the earlier periods. It was customary for the emperors to
issue edicts that were widely copied throughout the provinces, and, owing
to the relative recency of these inscriptions a great number of them have
been preserved.
As a rule, these inscriptions have only incidental importance in the way
of fixing dates or establishing details as to the economic history. On
the other hand, such a tablet as the Monumentum Ancyranum gives important
information as to the life of Augustus, and such pictorial presentations
as occur on the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius are of the utmost
importance in reproducing the life-history of the period. For mere
matters of chronology--having also wider implications on occasion--the
large series of coins and medals is of inestimable importance. Without
these various inscriptions, as has been said, many details of imperial
history now perfectly established must have remained insoluble.
Nevertheless, after giving full credit to the inscriptions as sources of
history, the fact remains that for most of the important incidents that
go to make up the story, and for practically all the picturesque details
of political history, the manuscripts are still our chief sources. The
authors whose works have come down to us are relatively few in number,
and may be briefly listed here in a few words. For the earliest imperial
period we have the master historian Tacitus, the biographer Suetonius,
the courtier Velleius Paterculus, and the statesman Dion Cassius. As
auxiliary sources the writings of Martial, Valerius Maximus, Pliny, and
the _Jewish Wars_ of Josephus are to be mentioned. For the middle period
of imperial history Dion Cassius and Herodian, supplemented by Aurelius
Victor and the other epitomators, and by the so-called Augustan histories
or biographies, are our chief sources. After they fail us, Zosimus and
Ammianus Marcellinus have the field practically to themselves, gaps
in their work being supplied, as before, by the outline histories.
Details as to these writers will be furnished, as usual, in our general
bibliography.
[Illustration]
THE FIRST CENTURY OF EMPIRE: AUGUSTUS TO NERO (30 B.C.-68 A.D.)
29. Temple of Janus closed for the third time. 28. Senate reduced in
numbers. 27. Octavian lays down his powers; is given the proconsular
imperium for ten years, and made commander-in-chief of all the forces
with the right of levying troops, and making war and peace. He receives
the title of Augustus. Provinces divided into senatorial (where no
army was required) and imperial where troops were maintained. 23.
Proconsular imperium conferred on Augustus with possession of the
tribunicia potestas. 20. War against the Parthian king, Phraates.
Tigranes reinstated in his kingdom of Armenia. 19. Cantabri and Astures
(in Spain) subdued. 15. Rætia and Noricum subjugated by Drusus and
Tiberius and included among the Roman provinces. 12-9. Campaigns of
Drusus in Germany and subjugation of Pannonia by Tiberius. 4 B.C. Birth
of Jesus. 4 A.D. Augustus adopts his stepson Tiberius. 9. Illyricum,
having rebelled, is reduced by Tiberius. Arminius, the chief of the
Cherusci, a German tribe, annihilates a Roman army under Quintilius
Varus. 14. =Tiberius=, emperor. Germanicus, nephew of Tiberius, quells
the revolted legions on the Rhine and makes war on the German tribe of
the Marsi. 15. Germanicus invades Germany a second time and captures
the wife of Arminius (Hermann). 16. Battle of the Campus Idistavisus.
Arminius defeated by Germanicus. 17. Recall and death of Germanicus. 23.
Prætorian cohorts collected into one camp outside Rome on the suggestion
of Sejanus, who now exercises great influence over Tiberius. 31. Sejanus
put to death with many of his friends. 37. =Caligula= succeeds Tiberius.
41. Murder of Caligula. =Claudius= succeeds. 42. Mauretania becomes a
Roman province. 43-47. Britain subdued by Plautius and Vespasian. 43.
Lycia becomes a province. 44. Judea becomes a province. 54. Claudius
poisoned by his wife Agrippina and succeeded by her son =Nero=. 55. Nero
poisons his step-brother Britannicus. 58. Domitius Corbulo sent against
the Parthians and Armenians. 59. Agrippina murdered by Nero’s orders. 61.
Suetonius Paulinus represses the revolt of Boadicea in Britain. 62. Nero
murders his wife Octavia. 63. Parthians and Armenians renew the war. The
Parthians finally sue for peace. The king of Armenia acknowledges his
vassalage to Rome. 64. Destruction of great part of Rome by fire, said to
have been started by Nero’s command, but attributed by him to the Jews
and Christians. First persecution of the Christians. 65. Piso conspires
against Nero. The plot is discovered. 66. First Jewish War. Vespasian
sent to conduct it. 68. Gaul and Spain revolt against Nero, who commits
suicide.
[Illustration]
THE SECOND CENTURY OF EMPIRE: GALBA TO MARCUS AURELIUS (68-180 A.D.)
68. =Galba=, =Otho=, and =Vitellius= succeed each other as emperors.
69. =Vespasian=, the first Flavian emperor, proclaimed by the soldiers.
Vitellius put to death. The aristocratic body purified and replenished.
Official worship restored. Public works executed. Reforms in the army
and the finances, and the administration generally. Batavian revolt
under Claudius Civilis. 70. Fall of Jerusalem. Batavian revolt quelled
by Cerealis. 71. Cerealis becomes governor of Britain. 78. Agricola
begins his campaigns in Britain. 79. =Titus=, the second Flavian emperor.
Pompeii and Herculaneum destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius. 80.
Agricola reaches the Solway Firth. 81. =Domitian=, the third Flavian
emperor. 83. War with the Chatti. 84. Caledonians under Galgacus defeated
by Agricola, who completes the conquest of Britain. 86. Dacian invasion
of Mœsia. 87. Dacians defeat a Roman army. 90. Peace with the Dacians.
93. Antonius Saturninus, governor of upper Germany, revolts. The
rebellion is put down and his papers are destroyed. Domitian executes
the supposed accomplices of Saturninus and begins a series of cruelties.
Philosophers expelled from Rome. Persecutions of Jews and Christians. 96.
=Nerva= succeeds on the murder of Domitian, and introduces a policy of
mildness. 98. =Trajan=, emperor. 101-102. Dacians attacked and overthrown
by Trajan. 106. Dacians finally subdued by Trajan. Their country becomes
a Roman province. 114. Parthian War undertaken to prevent the Parthian
king from securing the Armenian crown to his family. 116. Parthian War
ends with the incorporation of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria amongst
the Roman provinces. Trajan dies on his return. Many public works were
executed in this reign. 117. =Hadrian=, emperor. He abandons Trajan’s
recent conquests. 118. Mœsia invaded by the Sarmatians and Roxolani.
Hadrian concludes peace with the Roxolani. The Sarmatian War continues
for a long time. 120-127. Hadrian makes a tour through the provinces.
121. Hadrian’s wall built in Britain. 132. _Edictum perpetuum_, or
compilation of the edictal laws of the prætors. 132-135. Second Jewish
War, beginning with the revolt of Simon Bar Kosiba. Many buildings
were erected in Hadrian’s reign. 138. =Antoninus Pius=, emperor. He
promotes the internal prosperity of the empire, and protects it against
foreign attacks. 139. British revolt suppressed by Lollius Urbicus.
Wall of Antoninus (Graham’s Dyke) built. 161. =Marcus Aurelius= and
=Lucius Verus=, joint emperors. 162-165. Parthian War. It terminates
in the restoration of Armenia to its lawful sovereign and the cession
of Mesopotamia to Rome. 163. Christian persecution. 166. A barbarian
coalition of the Marcomanni and other tribes threatens the empire. Both
emperors take the field against them. 169. Lucius Verus dies. 174.
Victory over the Quadi. Miracle of the Thundering Legion. 175. Avidius
Cassius proclaims himself emperor, and makes himself master of all Asia
within Mount Taurus. He is assassinated. 178. War with the Marcomanni
renewed.
[Illustration]
THE THIRD CENTURY OF EMPIRE: COMMODUS TO CLAUDIUS II (180-270 A.D.)
180. =Commodus.= Peace concluded with the barbarians. 183. Lucilla,
Commodus’ sister, conspires against him. In punishing this conspiracy
he begins his career of cruelty. 193. =Pertinax= made emperor on the
murder of Commodus. He attempts to restore discipline and is murdered
in his turn. =Didius Julianus= buys the empire of the prætorians. The
legions in Syria, Illyricum, and Britain each proclaim a rival emperor.
=L. Septimius Severus= marches on Rome. Murder of Julianus. Severus
recognised in Rome. 194. Battle of Issus. Severus defeats his rival
Pescennius Niger. 196. Byzantium taken by Severus. Clodius Albinus
made emperor by the army in Gaul. 197. Battle of Lugdunum. Clodius
defeated. 198. Parthian War. 202. Christian persecution. 208. Caledonia
overrun by Severus, who loses many of his men. 210. Wall of Severus in
Britain completed. 211. =Caracalla=, emperor. Alexandrians massacred.
212. =Geta=, co-ruler and brother of Caracalla, murdered by him. Wars
in Dacia and on the Rhine. 217. =Macrinus=, emperor. 218. =Elagabalus=
(=Heliogabalus=) made emperor by the soldiers. Defeat and execution
of Macrinus. Julia Mæsa and Julia Soæmias, grandmother and mother of
Elagabalus, rule. 222. =Severus Alexander=, emperor. 231. Persian
War. 235. =Maximinus Thrax=, emperor. 236. Invasion of Germany. 237.
=Gordianus I= and =II= proclaimed emperors in Africa. Defeat and death of
the Gordiani. 238. =Pupienus Maximus=, =Cælius Balbinus=, and =Gordianus
III=. Maximinus Thrax, Pupienus, and Balbinus killed. 242. Sapor, king of
Persia, defeated by Gordianus III. 244. =Philip=, the Arabian, murders
and succeeds Gordianus. 249. =Decius= made emperor by the Mœsian and
Pannonian legions. Battle of Verona. Philip defeated and slain. 250.
Christian persecution. Bishops of Rome, Antioch, and Jerusalem martyred.
Battle of Abricium. Decius defeated and slain by the Goths. 251. =Gallus=
and =Hostilianus=, emperors. 252. Pestilence throughout the greater part
of the empire. This lasted fifteen years. 253. =Æmilianus=, emperor.
254. =Valerianus=, emperor. The Goths and Burgundians invade Mœsia and
Pannonia. The Franks appear in Gaul. 259. Sapor invades Syria and takes
Antioch. Valerian drives him back but is captured and enslaved. 260.
=Gallienus=, Valerian’s son and co-ruler, sole emperor. Ingenuus and
Regalianus proclaimed emperors. Odenathus of Palmyra drives the Persians
back. 261. Macrianus, Valens, and Calpurnius Piso proclaimed emperors.
262. Aureolus proclaimed emperor. The Persians capture Antioch. 264.
Odenathus declared Augustus. 265. Postumus repels the Gauls. 267. Death
of Odenathus, succeeded by his wife Zenobia. Death of Postumus. Tetricus
assumes the empire in Gaul. Age of the Thirty Tyrants. 268. Gallienus
slain by the machinations of Aureolus. =Claudius II=, emperor. 269.
Battle of Naissus in Dardania. Claudius defeats the Goths with great
slaughter. Zenobia invades Egypt.
[Illustration]
THE FOURTH CENTURY OF EMPIRE: AURELIAN TO THEODOSIUS (270-395 A.D.)
270. =Aurelian=, called _Restitutor Orbis_, becomes emperor. He defeats
the Goths and makes peace with them. Alamanni invade Umbria and are
defeated by Aurelian in three engagements. 273. Palmyra and its
queen Zenobia taken by Aurelian. Egypt revolts and is subdued. 274.
=Tetricus=, who had maintained himself as emperor in Gaul, Britain, and
Spain, defeated at Châlons. 275. =Tacitus=, emperor. 276. =Probus= and
=Florian=, emperors. They clear Gaul of its German invaders and pursue
them across the Rhine. 282. =Carus=, emperor. Sarmatians defeated.
Persian expedition. 284. =Diocletian=, emperor. He makes Nicomedia in
Bithynia his capital. 285. =Maximian=, joint emperor for administration
of the West. 293. =Constantius Chlorus= and =Galerius= named cæsars.
296. Constantius recovers Britain. Revolt of Egypt suppressed by
Diocletian. Battle of Carrhæ. Galerius defeated by the Persians. 297.
=Galerius= defeats the Persians and makes a treaty securing Mesopotamia
to the Romans. 298. Constantius defeats the Alamanni at Langres. 303.
Christian persecution. 305. Abdication of Diocletian and Maximian.
=Constantius= and =Galerius=, emperors. 306. =Constantine the Great=
succeeds his father Constantius in the rule of Spain, Gaul, and
Britain. =Maxentius= emperor at Rome. =Maximian= resumes the purple.
=Licinius= made emperor. 310. Maximian executed by Constantine. 312.
Defeat and death of Maxentius. 313. Edict of Milan issued by Licinius
and Constantine, inaugurating religious toleration. 314. War between
Licinius and Constantine. 323. Battles of Hadrianopolis and Chalcedon.
Defeat of Licinius. 324. Licinius executed. Constantine sole ruler.
325. First general council at Nicæa. 330. Byzantium, or Constantinople,
becomes the capital of the empire. 337. =Constantine II=, =Constans=,
and =Constantius II= divide the empire. 340. Battle of Aquileia between
Constantine II and Constans. Death of Constantine II. His dominions
fall to Constans. 350. Death of Constans. Revolt of Magnentius. 353.
Constantius II sole emperor. 357. Battle of Argentoratum (Strasburg);
Julian defeats the Alamanni. 361. =Julian, “the Apostate,”= emperor.
362. Edict granting general toleration. 363. Persian War. Julian is
victorious at Ctesiphon, and in other battles, but is at last obliged
to retreat and is killed. =Jovian= emperor. He makes peace with the
Persians, resigning five districts beyond the Tigris. He places
Christianity on an equality with other religions. 364. =Valentinianus
I= and =Valens=, emperors. 367. =Gratianus= emperor for the West. 374.
War with the Quadi. 375. =Valentinian II= reigns conjointly with Gratian
on the death of Valentinian I. 376. Huns and Alans attack the eastern
Goths. Valens permits the Goths to settle in Thrace. 378. Goths threaten
Constantinople. Battle of Hadrianopolis. Goths defeat the Romans with
great slaughter. Death of Valens. 379. =Theodosius the Great=, emperor of
the East. 380. Theodosius becomes a Christian. He successfully continues
the war against the Goths and makes a treaty with them which is followed
by their establishment in Thrace, Phrygia, and Lydia, and the enrolment
of large numbers in the army of the Eastern Empire. 383. =Clemens
Maximus= revolts against Gratian, who is captured and put to death. 387.
Maximus makes himself master of Italy. Theodosius restores Valentinian
II, and puts Maximus to death. 390. Massacre of the inhabitants of
Thessalonica by order of Theodosius in revenge for the murder of
officials. 392. Valentinian II murdered. =Eugenius= emperor of the West.
394. Theodosius defeats Eugenius and becomes the last emperor of the
whole Roman world. 395. Death of Theodosius. =Arcadius= becomes emperor
of the East and =Honorius= of the West.
[Illustration]
THE WESTERN DOMINIONS IN THE FIFTH CENTURY OF EMPIRE (395-476 A.D.)
395. At death of Theodosius the division of the empire becomes permanent.
=Honorius=, aged eleven, rules over the western portion, with Stilicho
as regent. Alaric ravages Thrace. Stilicho proceeds against him. 396.
Second expedition of Stilicho. Alaric escapes into Epirus, and Stilicho
returns to Italy. 397. Revolt of Gildo in Africa, causing scarcity of
food in Rome. He is defeated, and kills himself the following year.
403. Battle of Pollentia ends invasion of Italy by Alaric, begun the
previous year. Retreat of Alaric. 405. Radagaisus with an army of
200,000, composed of Celts, Germans, Sarmatians, and Gauls, invades
Italy. Successfully opposed by Stilicho. Capture and death of Radagaisus.
His army destroyed. 406. The Vandals enter Gaul. 407. Revolt of the
army in Britain. Constantine declared emperor; makes himself master of
the whole of Gaul as far as the Alps. 408. Murder of Stilicho. Alaric
besieges Rome, but retires on payment of money. 409. Alaric, besieging
Rome, has Attalus proclaimed emperor. Revolt of Gerontius in Spain; he
proclaims Maximus emperor. Vandals invade Spain. 410. Alaric takes Rome
and plunders it. Death of Alaric. Succeeded by Atawulf. 411. War between
the usurpers, Constantine and Gerontius. Constantius leads the imperial
forces against the two rebels. Death of Constantine and Gerontius.
412. Jovinus proclaimed emperor in Gaul. Peace between Honorius and
Atawulf. 413. Atawulf slays Jovinus. Heraclianus invades Italy, but is
slain. 415. Death of Atawulf in Spain. Succeeded by Wallia, who, the
following year, makes peace with Honorius. 418. Subjection of Spain by
the Goths after two years’ war. Death of Wallia. Succeeded by Theodoric
I. Aquitania ceded to the Goths. 419. The Suevi and Vandals war in
Spain. 421. Constantius declared augustus, but he is not accepted. 423.
Death of Honorius. 424. John or Joannes seizes the western division.
425. =Valentinian III=, nephew of Honorius, declared augustus. Defeat
and death of the usurper Joannes. Attack on the Goths in Gaul. 428.
War in Gaul continued. The Vandal king, Gunderic, dies, and Genseric
succeeds. 429. Genseric crosses into Africa, on invitation of Boniface,
who has been several years in revolt. 431. War of Boniface with Vandals
ended with capture of Hippo. The Vandals are masters of a large part of
Africa. 432. War between Boniface and Aëtius. Death of Boniface. 434.
Attila becomes king of the Huns. It is said that Honoria, sister of
Valentinian, in disgrace at court, invites him to attack Italy. 435.
Peace with Genseric. War with the Burgundians and Goths in Gaul. 436.
Theodoric besieges Narbo. 437. The war in Gaul continues. Valentinian
marries daughter of Theodosius II. 439. Theodoric defeats Litorius at
Tolosa. Peace with the Goths. 440. Genseric invades Sicily. 444. Attila
murders his brother, Bleda, and succeeds to the full authority. 446. The
Vandals devastate Roman dominions in Spain. The Britons ask aid against
the Saxons. 448. The Suevi ravage Roman dominions in Spain. 451. Attila
invades Gaul. He is defeated at Châlons by Aëtius and Theodoric. Death of
Theodoric, who is succeeded by his son, Torismond. 452. Attila invades
Italy. Siege and capture of Aquileia. Attila retires to Gaul. Death
of Torismond, succeeded by Theodoric II. Leo, bishop of Rome, goes as
ambassador to Attila. 453. Death of Attila. His army is scattered. 455.
Murder of Valentinian by Petronius Maximus. =Maximus= declared emperor.
He marries the widow of Valentinian, who calls Genseric to her aid.
Murder of Maximus as he is preparing to fly from the Vandal. =Avitus=
proclaimed emperor in Gaul by Theodoric II. He is recognised by Marcian
at Constantinople. 457. =Majorian= made emperor by Ricimer, who, the
previous year, has deposed Avitus. 458. Majorian proceeds against the
Vandals and Gauls. 459. Peace between Majorian and Theodoric II, who has
been defeated. 460. Roman fleet destroyed by Genseric at Carthagena.
Peace between Majorian and Genseric. 461. Deposition and murder of
Majorian by Ricimer. Elevation of =Severus=. 462. Vandals ravage Italy.
463. Theodoric II attempts to gain possession of Gaul. Is defeated, but
rules over a large portion of Spain. 465. Death of Severus. No emperor
is appointed, Ricimer keeping power in his own hands. 466. Murder of
Theodoric II by his brother, Euric, who succeeds him. 467. =Anthemius=
appointed emperor by Leo of Constantinople, at Ricimer’s request. 470.
Euric takes Arelate and Massilia, and defeats the Britons. Execution
of the patrician Romanus, who aspires to the empire. 472. War between
Ricimer and Anthemius. Ricimer declares =Olybrius= emperor, and puts
Anthemius to death. Death of Ricimer. Death of Olybrius. 473. =Glycerius=
proclaimed emperor. The Ostrogoths prepare to invade the empire. 474.
Leo sends =Julius Nepos= to reign in the West. Glycerius deposed. Euric
occupies Arverna. Peace between Euric and Nepos. 475. Orestes drives
out Nepos and proclaims his own son, =Romulus Augustulus=, emperor.
476. Odoacer invades Italy. Romulus Augustulus deposed, and Odoacer
acknowledged king of Italy.
The Byzantine Emperor Zeno confers the title of patrician upon Odoacer,
who rules a nominal vicar. “There was thus,” says Bryce, “legally no
extinction of the Western Empire at all, but only a reunion of East and
West.”
FOOTNOTES
[2] This must not be construed as implying that such were the only
lessons of Roman civilisation. See p. 4 _et seq._
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