of theological rancor; nor was it confined by the chains of any
speculative system. The devout polytheist, though fondly attached
to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different
religions of the earth. Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream
or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey,
perpetually disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief,
and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin texture of
the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but not
discordant materials. As soon as it was allowed that sages and
heroes, who had lived or who had died for the benefit of their
country, were exalted to a state of power and immortality, it was
universally confessed, that they deserved, if not the adoration,
at least the reverence, of all mankind. The deities of a thousand
groves and a thousand streams possessed, in peace, their local
and respective influence; nor could the Romans who deprecated the
wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his
offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers
of nature, the planets, and the elements were the same throughout
the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were
inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory. Every
virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative; every
art and profession its patron, whose attributes, in the most
distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived from the
character of their peculiar votaries. A republic of gods of such
opposite tempers and interests required, in every system, the
moderating hand of a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of
knowledge and flattery, was gradually invested with the sublime
perfections of an Eternal Parent, and an Omnipotent Monarch. Such
was the mild spirit of antiquity, that the nations were less
attentive to the difference, than to the resemblance, of their
religious worship. The Greek, the Roman, and the Barbarian, as
they met before their respective altars, easily persuaded
themselves, that under various names, and with various
ceremonies, they adored the same deities. The elegant mythology
of Homer gave a beautiful, and almost a regular form, to the
polytheism of the ancient world.
The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from the nature
of man, rather than from that of God. They meditated, however, on
the Divine Nature, as a very curious and important speculation;
and in the profound inquiry, they displayed the strength and
weakness of the human understanding. Of the four most celebrated
schools, the Stoics and the Platonists endeavored to reconcile
the jaring interests of reason and piety. They have left us the
most sublime proofs of the existence and perfections of the first
cause; but, as it was impossible for them to conceive the
creation of matter, the workman in the Stoic philosophy was not
sufficiently distinguished from the work; whilst, on the
contrary, the spiritual God of Plato and his disciples resembled
an idea, rather than a substance. The opinions of the Academics
and Epicureans were of a less religious cast; but whilst the
modest science of the former induced them to doubt, the positive
ignorance of the latter urged them to deny, the providence of a
Supreme Ruler. The spirit of inquiry, prompted by emulation, and
supported by freedom, had divided the public teachers of
philosophy into a variety of contending sects; but the ingenious
youth, who, from every part, resorted to Athens, and the other
seats of learning in the Roman empire, were alike instructed in
every school to reject and to despise the religion of the
multitude. How, indeed, was it possible that a philosopher should
accept, as divine truths, the idle tales of the poets, and the
incoherent traditions of antiquity; or that he should adore, as
gods, those imperfect beings whom he must have despised, as men?
Against such unworthy adversaries, Cicero condescended to employ
the arms of reason and eloquence; but the satire of Lucian was a
much more adequate, as well as more efficacious, weapon. We may
be well assured, that a writer, conversant with the world, would
never have ventured to expose the gods of his country to public
ridicule, had they not already been the objects of secret
contempt among the polished and enlightened orders of society.
Notwithstanding the fashionable irreligion which prevailed in the
age of the Antonines, both the interest of the priests and the
credulity of the people were sufficiently respected. In their
writings and conversation, the philosophers of antiquity asserted
the independent dignity of reason; but they resigned their
actions to the commands of law and of custom. Viewing, with a
smile of pity and indulgence, the various errors of the vulgar,
they diligently practised the ceremonies of their fathers,
devoutly frequented the temples of the gods; and sometimes
condescending to act a part on the theatre of superstition, they
concealed the sentiments of an atheist under the sacerdotal
robes. Reasoners of such a temper were scarcely inclined to
wrangle about their respective modes of faith, or of worship. It
was indifferent to them what shape the folly of the multitude
might choose to assume; and they approached with the same inward
contempt, and the same external reverence, the altars of the
Libyan, the Olympian, or the Capitoline Jupiter.
It is not easy to conceive from what motives a spirit of
persecution could introduce itself into the Roman councils. The
magistrates could not be actuated by a blind, though honest
bigotry, since the magistrates were themselves philosophers; and
the schools of Athens had given laws to the senate. They could
not be impelled by ambition or avarice, as the temporal and
ecclesiastical powers were united in the same hands. The pontiffs
were chosen among the most illustrious of the senators; and the
office of Supreme Pontiff was constantly exercised by the
emperors themselves. They knew and valued the advantages of
religion, as it is connected with civil government. They
encouraged the public festivals which humanize the manners of the
people. They managed the arts of divination as a convenient
instrument of policy; and they respected, as the firmest bond of
society, the useful persuasion, that, either in this or in a
future life, the crime of perjury is most assuredly punished by
the avenging gods. But whilst they acknowledged the general
advantages of religion, they were convinced that the various
modes of worship contributed alike to the same salutary purposes;
and that, in every country, the form of superstition, which had
received the sanction of time and experience, was the best
adapted to the climate, and to its inhabitants. Avarice and taste
very frequently despoiled the vanquished nations of the elegant
statues of their gods, and the rich ornaments of their temples;
but, in the exercise of the religion which they derived from
their ancestors, they uniformly experienced the indulgence, and
even protection, of the Roman conquerors. The province of Gaul
seems, and indeed only seems, an exception to this universal
toleration. Under the specious pretext of abolishing human
sacrifices, the emperors Tiberius and Claudius suppressed the
dangerous power of the Druids: but the priests themselves, their
gods and their altars, subsisted in peaceful obscurity till the
final destruction of Paganism.
Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was incessantly filled
with subjects and strangers from every part of the world, who all
introduced and enjoyed the favorite superstitions of their native
country. Every city in the empire was justified in maintaining
the purity of its ancient ceremonies; and the Roman senate, using
the common privilege, sometimes interposed, to check this
inundation of foreign rites. * The Egyptian superstition, of all
the most contemptible and abject, was frequently prohibited: the
temples of Serapis and Isis demolished, and their worshippers
banished from Rome and Italy. But the zeal of fanaticism
prevailed over the cold and feeble efforts of policy. The exiles
returned, the proselytes multiplied, the temples were restored
with increasing splendor, and Isis and Serapis at length assumed
their place among the Roman Deities. Nor was this indulgence a
departure from the old maxims of government. In the purest ages
of the commonwealth, Cybele and Æsculapius had been invited by
solemn embassies; and it was customary to tempt the protectors of
besieged cities, by the promise of more distinguished honors than
they possessed in their native country. Rome gradually became the
common temple of her subjects; and the freedom of the city was
bestowed on all the gods of mankind.
II. The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture,
the pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the fortune,
and hastened the ruin, of Athens and Sparta. The aspiring genius
of Rome sacrificed vanity to ambition, and deemed it more
prudent, as well as honorable, to adopt virtue and merit for her
own wheresoever they were found, among slaves or strangers,
enemies or barbarians. During the most flourishing æra of the
Athenian commonwealth, the number of citizens gradually decreased
from about thirty to twenty-one thousand. If, on the contrary, we
study the growth of the Roman republic, we may discover, that,
notwithstanding the incessant demands of wars and colonies, the
citizens, who, in the first census of Servius Tullius, amounted
to no more than eighty-three thousand, were multiplied, before
the commencement of the social war, to the number of four hundred
and sixty-three thousand men, able to bear arms in the service of
their country. When the allies of Rome claimed an equal share of
honors and privileges, the senate indeed preferred the chance of
arms to an ignominious concession. The Samnites and the Lucanians
paid the severe penalty of their rashness; but the rest of the
Italian states, as they successively returned to their duty, were
admitted into the bosom of the republic, and soon contributed to
the ruin of public freedom. Under a democratical government, the
citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers
will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed
to an unwieldy multitude. But when the popular assemblies had
been suppressed by the administration of the emperors, the
conquerors were distinguished from the vanquished nations, only
as the first and most honorable order of subjects; and their
increase, however rapid, was no longer exposed to the same
dangers. Yet the wisest princes, who adopted the maxims of
Augustus, guarded with the strictest care the dignity of the
Roman name, and diffused the freedom of the city with a prudent
liberality.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part II.
Till the privileges of Romans had been progressively extended to
all the inhabitants of the empire, an important distinction was
preserved between Italy and the provinces. The former was
esteemed the centre of public unity, and the firm basis of the
constitution. Italy claimed the birth, or at least the residence,
of the emperors and the senate. The estates of the Italians were
exempt from taxes, their persons from the arbitrary jurisdiction
of governors. Their municipal corporations, formed after the
perfect model of the capital, * were intrusted, under the
immediate eye of the supreme power, with the execution of the
laws. From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, all
the natives of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial
distinctions were obliterated, and they insensibly coalesced into
one great nation, united by language, manners, and civil
institutions, and equal to the weight of a powerful empire. The
republic gloried in her generous policy, and was frequently
rewarded by the merit and services of her adopted sons. Had she
always confined the distinction of Romans to the ancient families
within the walls of the city, that immortal name would have been
deprived of some of its noblest ornaments. Virgil was a native of
Mantua; Horace was inclined to doubt whether he should call
himself an Apulian or a Lucanian; it was in Padua that an
historian was found worthy to record the majestic series of Roman
victories. The patriot family of the Catos emerged from Tusculum;
and the little town of Arpinum claimed the double honor of
producing Marius and Cicero, the former of whom deserved, after
Romulus and Camillus, to be styled the Third Founder of Rome; and
the latter, after saving his country from the designs of
Catiline, enabled her to contend with Athens for the palm of
eloquence.
The provinces of the empire (as they have been described in the
preceding chapter) were destitute of any public force, or
constitutional freedom. In Etruria, in Greece, and in Gaul, it
was the first care of the senate to dissolve those dangerous
confederacies, which taught mankind that, as the Roman arms
prevailed by division, they might be resisted by union. Those
princes, whom the ostentation of gratitude or generosity
permitted for a while to hold a precarious sceptre, were
dismissed from their thrones, as soon as they had performed their
appointed task of fashioning to the yoke the vanquished nations.
The free states and cities which had embraced the cause of Rome
were rewarded with a nominal alliance, and insensibly sunk into
real servitude. The public authority was everywhere exercised by
the ministers of the senate and of the emperors, and that
authority was absolute, and without control. But the same
salutary maxims of government, which had secured the peace and
obedience of Italy were extended to the most distant conquests. A
nation of Romans was gradually formed in the provinces, by the
double expedient of introducing colonies, and of admitting the
most faithful and deserving of the provincials to the freedom of
Rome.
“Wheresoever the Roman conquers, he inhabits,” is a very just
observation of Seneca, confirmed by history and experience. The
natives of Italy, allured by pleasure or by interest, hastened to
enjoy the advantages of victory; and we may remark, that, about
forty years after the reduction of Asia, eighty thousand Romans
were massacred in one day, by the cruel orders of Mithridates.
These voluntary exiles were engaged, for the most part, in the
occupations of commerce, agriculture, and the farm of the
revenue. But after the legions were rendered permanent by the
emperors, the provinces were peopled by a race of soldiers; and
the veterans, whether they received the reward of their service
in land or in money, usually settled with their families in the
country, where they had honorably spent their youth. Throughout
the empire, but more particularly in the western parts, the most
fertile districts, and the most convenient situations, were
reserved for the establishment of colonies; some of which were of
a civil, and others of a military nature. In their manners and
internal policy, the colonies formed a perfect representation of
their great parent; and they were soon endeared to the natives by
the ties of friendship and alliance, they effectually diffused a
reverence for the Roman name, and a desire, which was seldom
disappointed, of sharing, in due time, its honors and advantages.
The municipal cities insensibly equalled the rank and splendor of
the colonies; and in the reign of Hadrian, it was disputed which
was the preferable condition, of those societies which had issued
from, or those which had been received into, the bosom of Rome.
The right of Latium, as it was called, * conferred on the cities
to which it had been granted, a more partial favor. The
magistrates only, at the expiration of their office, assumed the
quality of Roman citizens; but as those offices were annual, in a
few years they circulated round the principal families. Those of
the provincials who were permitted to bear arms in the legions;
those who exercised any civil employment; all, in a word, who
performed any public service, or displayed any personal talents,
were rewarded with a present, whose value was continually
diminished by the increasing liberality of the emperors. Yet
even, in the age of the Antonines, when the freedom of the city
had been bestowed on the greater number of their subjects, it was
still accompanied with very solid advantages. The bulk of the
people acquired, with that title, the benefit of the Roman laws,
particularly in the interesting articles of marriage, testaments,
and inheritances; and the road of fortune was open to those whose
pretensions were seconded by favor or merit. The grandsons of the
Gauls, who had besieged Julius Cæsar in Alesia, commanded
legions, governed provinces, and were admitted into the senate of
Rome. Their ambition, instead of disturbing the tranquillity of
the state, was intimately connected with its safety and
greatness.
So sensible were the Romans of the influence of language over
national manners, that it was their most serious care to extend,
with the progress of their arms, the use of the Latin tongue. The
ancient dialects of Italy, the Sabine, the Etruscan, and the
Venetian, sunk into oblivion; but in the provinces, the east was
less docile than the west to the voice of its victorious
preceptors. This obvious difference marked the two portions of
the empire with a distinction of colors, which, though it was in
some degree concealed during the meridian splendor of prosperity,
became gradually more visible, as the shades of night descended
upon the Roman world. The western countries were civilized by the
same hands which subdued them. As soon as the barbarians were
reconciled to obedience, their minds were open to any new
impressions of knowledge and politeness. The language of Virgil
and Cicero, though with some inevitable mixture of corruption,
was so universally adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and
Pannonia, that the faint traces of the Punic or Celtic idioms
were preserved only in the mountains, or among the peasants.
Education and study insensibly inspired the natives of those
countries with the sentiments of Romans; and Italy gave fashions,
as well as laws, to her Latin provincials. They solicited with
more ardor, and obtained with more facility, the freedom and
honors of the state; supported the national dignity in letters
and in arms; and at length, in the person of Trajan, produced an
emperor whom the Scipios would not have disowned for their
countryman. The situation of the Greeks was very different from
that of the barbarians. The former had been long since civilized
and corrupted. They had too much taste to relinquish their
language, and too much vanity to adopt any foreign institutions.
Still preserving the prejudices, after they had lost the virtues,
of their ancestors, they affected to despise the unpolished
manners of the Roman conquerors, whilst they were compelled to
respect their superior wisdom and power. Nor was the influence of
the Grecian language and sentiments confined to the narrow limits
of that once celebrated country. Their empire, by the progress of
colonies and conquest, had been diffused from the Adriatic to the
Euphrates and the Nile. Asia was covered with Greek cities, and
the long reign of the Macedonian kings had introduced a silent
revolution into Syria and Egypt. In their pompous courts, those
princes united the elegance of Athens with the luxury of the
East, and the example of the court was imitated, at an humble
distance, by the higher ranks of their subjects. Such was the
general division of the Roman empire into the Latin and Greek
languages. To these we may add a third distinction for the body
of the natives in Syria, and especially in Egypt, the use of
their ancient dialects, by secluding them from the commerce of
mankind, checked the improvements of those barbarians. The
slothful effeminacy of the former exposed them to the contempt,
the sullen ferociousness of the latter excited the aversion, of
the conquerors. Those nations had submitted to the Roman power,
but they seldom desired or deserved the freedom of the city: and
it was remarked, that more than two hundred and thirty years
elapsed after the ruin of the Ptolemies, before an Egyptian was
admitted into the senate of Rome.
It is a just though trite observation, that victorious Rome was
herself subdued by the arts of Greece. Those immortal writers who
still command the admiration of modern Europe, soon became the
favorite object of study and imitation in Italy and the western
provinces. But the elegant amusements of the Romans were not
suffered to interfere with their sound maxims of policy. Whilst
they acknowledged the charms of the Greek, they asserted the
dignity of the Latin tongue, and the exclusive use of the latter
was inflexibly maintained in the administration of civil as well
as military government. The two languages exercised at the same
time their separate jurisdiction throughout the empire: the
former, as the natural idiom of science; the latter, as the legal
dialect of public transactions. Those who united letters with
business were equally conversant with both; and it was almost
impossible, in any province, to find a Roman subject, of a
liberal education, who was at once a stranger to the Greek and to
the Latin language.
It was by such institutions that the nations of the empire
insensibly melted away into the Roman name and people. But there
still remained, in the centre of every province and of every
family, an unhappy condition of men who endured the weight,
without sharing the benefits, of society. In the free states of
antiquity, the domestic slaves were exposed to the wanton rigor
of despotism. The perfect settlement of the Roman empire was
preceded by ages of violence and rapine. The slaves consisted,
for the most part, of barbarian captives, * taken in thousands by
the chance of war, purchased at a vile price, accustomed to a
life of independence, and impatient to break and to revenge their
fetters. Against such internal enemies, whose desperate
insurrections had more than once reduced the republic to the
brink of destruction, the most severe regulations, and the most
cruel treatment, seemed almost justified by the great law of
self-preservation. But when the principal nations of Europe,
Asia, and Africa were united under the laws of one sovereign, the
source of foreign supplies flowed with much less abundance, and
the Romans were reduced to the milder but more tedious method of
propagation. * In their numerous families, and particularly in
their country estates, they encouraged the marriage of their
slaves. The sentiments of nature, the habits of education, and
the possession of a dependent species of property, contributed to
alleviate the hardships of servitude. The existence of a slave
became an object of greater value, and though his happiness still
depended on the temper and circumstances of the master, the
humanity of the latter, instead of being restrained by fear, was
encouraged by the sense of his own interest. The progress of
manners was accelerated by the virtue or policy of the emperors;
and by the edicts of Hadrian and the Antonines, the protection of
the laws was extended to the most abject part of mankind. The
jurisdiction of life and death over the slaves, a power long
exercised and often abused, was taken out of private hands, and
reserved to the magistrates alone. The subterraneous prisons were
abolished; and, upon a just complaint of intolerable treatment,
the injured slave obtained either his deliverance, or a less
cruel master.
Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition, was not denied
to the Roman slave; and if he had any opportunity of rendering
himself either useful or agreeable, he might very naturally
expect that the diligence and fidelity of a few years would be
rewarded with the inestimable gift of freedom. The benevolence of
the master was so frequently prompted by the meaner suggestions
of vanity and avarice, that the laws found it more necessary to
restrain than to encourage a profuse and undistinguishing
liberality, which might degenerate into a very dangerous abuse.
It was a maxim of ancient jurisprudence, that a slave had not any
country of his own; he acquired with his liberty an admission
into the political society of which his patron was a member. The
consequences of this maxim would have prostituted the privileges
of the Roman city to a mean and promiscuous multitude. Some
seasonable exceptions were therefore provided; and the honorable
distinction was confined to such slaves only as, for just causes,
and with the approbation of the magistrate, should receive a
solemn and legal manumission. Even these chosen freedmen obtained
no more than the private rights of citizens, and were rigorously
excluded from civil or military honors. Whatever might be the
merit or fortune of their sons, _they_ likewise were esteemed
unworthy of a seat in the senate; nor were the traces of a
servile origin allowed to be completely obliterated till the
third or fourth generation. Without destroying the distinction of
ranks, a distant prospect of freedom and honors was presented,
even to those whom pride and prejudice almost disdained to number
among the human species.
It was once proposed to discriminate the slaves by a peculiar
habit; but it was justly apprehended that there might be some
danger in acquainting them with their own numbers. Without
interpreting, in their utmost strictness, the liberal
appellations of legions and myriads, we may venture to pronounce,
that the proportion of slaves, who were valued as property, was
more considerable than that of servants, who can be computed only
as an expense. The youths of a promising genius were instructed
in the arts and sciences, and their price was ascertained by the
degree of their skill and talents. Almost every profession,
either liberal or mechanical, might be found in the household of
an opulent senator. The ministers of pomp and sensuality were
multiplied beyond the conception of modern luxury. It was more
for the interest of the merchant or manufacturer to purchase,
than to hire his workmen; and in the country, slaves were
employed as the cheapest and most laborious instruments of
agriculture. To confirm the general observation, and to display
the multitude of slaves, we might allege a variety of particular
instances. It was discovered, on a very melancholy occasion, that
four hundred slaves were maintained in a single palace of Rome.
The same number of four hundred belonged to an estate which an
African widow, of a very private condition, resigned to her son,
whilst she reserved for herself a much larger share of her
property. A freedman, under the name of Augustus, though his
fortune had suffered great losses in the civil wars, left behind
him three thousand six hundred yoke of oxen, two hundred and
fifty thousand head of smaller cattle, and what was almost
included in the description of cattle, four thousand one hundred
and sixteen slaves.
The number of subjects who acknowledged the laws of Rome, of
citizens, of provincials, and of slaves, cannot now be fixed with
such a degree of accuracy, as the importance of the object would
deserve. We are informed, that when the Emperor Claudius
exercised the office of censor, he took an account of six
millions nine hundred and forty-five thousand Roman citizens,
who, with the proportion of women and children, must have
amounted to about twenty millions of souls. The multitude of
subjects of an inferior rank was uncertain and fluctuating. But,
after weighing with attention every circumstance which could
influence the balance, it seems probable that there existed, in
the time of Claudius, about twice as many provincials as there
were citizens, of either sex, and of every age; and that the
slaves were at least equal in number to the free inhabitants of
the Roman world. * The total amount of this imperfect calculation
would rise to about one hundred and twenty millions of persons; a
degree of population which possibly exceeds that of modern
Europe, and forms the most numerous society that has ever been
united under the same system of government.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part III.
Domestic peace and union were the natural consequences of the
moderate and comprehensive policy embraced by the Romans. If we
turn our eyes towards the monarchies of Asia, we shall behold
despotism in the centre, and weakness in the extremities; the
collection of the revenue, or the administration of justice,
enforced by the presence of an army; hostile barbarians
established in the heart of the country, hereditary satraps
usurping the dominion of the provinces, and subjects inclined to
rebellion, though incapable of freedom. But the obedience of the
Roman world was uniform, voluntary, and permanent. The vanquished
nations, blended into one great people, resigned the hope, nay,
even the wish, of resuming their independence, and scarcely
considered their own existence as distinct from the existence of
Rome. The established authority of the emperors pervaded without
an effort the wide extent of their dominions, and was exercised
with the same facility on the banks of the Thames, or of the
Nile, as on those of the Tyber. The legions were destined to
serve against the public enemy, and the civil magistrate seldom
required the aid of a military force. In this state of general
security, the leisure, as well as opulence, both of the prince
and people, were devoted to improve and to adorn the Roman
empire.
Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by
the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few
have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism! And yet, even
the majestic ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the
provinces, would be sufficient to prove that those countries were
once the seat of a polite and powerful empire. Their greatness
alone, or their beauty, might deserve our attention: but they are
rendered more interesting, by two important circumstances, which
connect the agreeable history of the arts with the more useful
history of human manners. Many of those works were erected at
private expense, and almost all were intended for public benefit.
It is natural to suppose that the greatest number, as well as the
most considerable of the Roman edifices, were raised by the
emperors, who possessed so unbounded a command both of men and
money. Augustus was accustomed to boast that he had found his
capital of brick, and that he had left it of marble. The strict
economy of Vespasian was the source of his magnificence. The
works of Trajan bear the stamp of his genius. The public
monuments with which Hadrian adorned every province of the
empire, were executed not only by his orders, but under his
immediate inspection. He was himself an artist; and he loved the
arts, as they conduced to the glory of the monarch. They were
encouraged by the Antonines, as they contributed to the happiness
of the people. But if the emperors were the first, they were not
the only architects of their dominions. Their example was
universally imitated by their principal subjects, who were not
afraid of declaring to the world that they had spirit to
conceive, and wealth to accomplish, the noblest undertakings.
Scarcely had the proud structure of the Coliseum been dedicated
at Rome, before the edifices, of a smaller scale indeed, but of
the same design and materials, were erected for the use, and at
the expense, of the cities of Capua and Verona. The inscription
of the stupendous bridge of Alcantara attests that it was thrown
over the Tagus by the contribution of a few Lusitanian
communities. When Pliny was intrusted with the government of
Bithynia and Pontus, provinces by no means the richest or most
considerable of the empire, he found the cities within his
jurisdiction striving with each other in every useful and
ornamental work, that might deserve the curiosity of strangers,
or the gratitude of their citizens. It was the duty of the
proconsul to supply their deficiencies, to direct their taste,
and sometimes to moderate their emulation. The opulent senators
of Rome and the provinces esteemed it an honor, and almost an
obligation, to adorn the splendor of their age and country; and
the influence of fashion very frequently supplied the want of
taste or generosity. Among a crowd of these private benefactors,
we may select Herodes Atticus, an Athenian citizen, who lived in
the age of the Antonines. Whatever might be the motive of his
conduct, his magnificence would have been worthy of the greatest
kings.
The family of Herod, at least after it had been favored by
fortune, was lineally descended from Cimon and Miltiades, Theseus
and Cecrops, Æacus and Jupiter. But the posterity of so many gods
and heroes was fallen into the most abject state. His grandfather
had suffered by the hands of justice, and Julius Atticus, his
father, must have ended his life in poverty and contempt, had he
not discovered an immense treasure buried under an old house, the
last remains of his patrimony. According to the rigor of the law,
the emperor might have asserted his claim, and the prudent
Atticus prevented, by a frank confession, the officiousness of
informers. But the equitable Nerva, who then filled the throne,
refused to accept any part of it, and commanded him to use,
without scruple, the present of fortune. The cautious Athenian
still insisted, that the treasure was too considerable for a
subject, and that he knew not how to _use it_. _Abuse it then_,
replied the monarch, with a good-natured peevishness; for it is
your own. Many will be of opinion, that Atticus literally obeyed
the emperor’s last instructions; since he expended the greatest
part of his fortune, which was much increased by an advantageous
marriage, in the service of the public. He had obtained for his
son Herod the prefecture of the free cities of Asia; and the
young magistrate, observing that the town of Troas was
indifferently supplied with water, obtained from the munificence
of Hadrian three hundred myriads of drachms, (about a hundred
thousand pounds,) for the construction of a new aqueduct. But in
the execution of the work, the charge amounted to more than
double the estimate, and the officers of the revenue began to
murmur, till the generous Atticus silenced their complaints, by
requesting that he might be permitted to take upon himself the
whole additional expense.
The ablest preceptors of Greece and Asia had been invited by
liberal rewards to direct the education of young Herod. Their
pupil soon became a celebrated orator, according to the useless
rhetoric of that age, which, confining itself to the schools,
disdained to visit either the Forum or the Senate. He was honored
with the consulship at Rome: but the greatest part of his life
was spent in a philosophic retirement at Athens, and his adjacent
villas; perpetually surrounded by sophists, who acknowledged,
without reluctance, the superiority of a rich and generous rival.
The monuments of his genius have perished; some considerable
ruins still preserve the fame of his taste and munificence:
modern travellers have measured the remains of the stadium which
he constructed at Athens. It was six hundred feet in length,
built entirely of white marble, capable of admitting the whole
body of the people, and finished in four years, whilst Herod was
president of the Athenian games. To the memory of his wife
Regilla he dedicated a theatre, scarcely to be paralleled in the
empire: no wood except cedar, very curiously carved, was employed
in any part of the building. The Odeum, * designed by Pericles
for musical performances, and the rehearsal of new tragedies, had
been a trophy of the victory of the arts over barbaric greatness;
as the timbers employed in the construction consisted chiefly of
the masts of the Persian vessels. Notwithstanding the repairs
bestowed on that ancient edifice by a king of Cappadocia, it was
again fallen to decay. Herod restored its ancient beauty and
magnificence. Nor was the liberality of that illustrious citizen
confined to the walls of Athens. The most splendid ornaments
bestowed on the temple of Neptune in the Isthmus, a theatre at
Corinth, a stadium at Delphi, a bath at Thermopylæ, and an
aqueduct at Canusium in Italy, were insufficient to exhaust his
treasures. The people of Epirus, Thessaly, Euboea, Boeotia, and
Peloponnesus, experienced his favors; and many inscriptions of
the cities of Greece and Asia gratefully style Herodes Atticus
their patron and benefactor.
In the commonwealths of Athens and Rome, the modest simplicity of
private houses announced the equal condition of freedom; whilst
the sovereignty of the people was represented in the majestic
edifices designed to the public use; nor was this republican
spirit totally extinguished by the introduction of wealth and
monarchy. It was in works of national honor and benefit, that the
most virtuous of the emperors affected to display their
magnificence. The golden palace of Nero excited a just
indignation, but the vast extent of ground which had been usurped
by his selfish luxury was more nobly filled under the succeeding
reigns by the Coliseum, the baths of Titus, the Claudian portico,
and the temples dedicated to the goddess of Peace, and to the
genius of Rome. These monuments of architecture, the property of
the Roman people, were adorned with the most beautiful
productions of Grecian painting and sculpture; and in the temple
of Peace, a very curious library was open to the curiosity of the
learned. * At a small distance from thence was situated the Forum
of Trajan. It was surrounded by a lofty portico, in the form of a
quadrangle, into which four triumphal arches opened a noble and
spacious entrance: in the centre arose a column of marble, whose
height, of one hundred and ten feet, denoted the elevation of the
hill that had been cut away. This column, which still subsists in
its ancient beauty, exhibited an exact representation of the
Dacian victories of its founder. The veteran soldier contemplated
the story of his own campaigns, and by an easy illusion of
national vanity, the peaceful citizen associated himself to the
honors of the triumph. All the other quarters of the capital, and
all the provinces of the empire, were embellished by the same
liberal spirit of public magnificence, and were filled with
amphitheatres, theatres, temples, porticoes, triumphal arches,
baths and aqueducts, all variously conducive to the health, the
devotion, and the pleasures of the meanest citizen. The last
mentioned of those edifices deserve our peculiar attention. The
boldness of the enterprise, the solidity of the execution, and
the uses to which they were subservient, rank the aqueducts among
the noblest monuments of Roman genius and power. The aqueducts of
the capital claim a just preeminence; but the curious traveller,
who, without the light of history, should examine those of
Spoleto, of Metz, or of Segovia, would very naturally conclude
that those provincial towns had formerly been the residence of
some potent monarch. The solitudes of Asia and Africa were once
covered with flourishing cities, whose populousness, and even
whose existence, was derived from such artificial supplies of a
perennial stream of fresh water.
We have computed the inhabitants, and contemplated the public
works, of the Roman empire. The observation of the number and
greatness of its cities will serve to confirm the former, and to
multiply the latter. It may not be unpleasing to collect a few
scattered instances relative to that subject without forgetting,
however, that from the vanity of nations and the poverty of
language, the vague appellation of city has been indifferently
bestowed on Rome and upon Laurentum.
I. _Ancient_ Italy is said to have contained eleven hundred and
ninety-seven cities; and for whatsoever æra of antiquity the
expression might be intended, there is not any reason to believe
the country less populous in the age of the Antonines, than in
that of Romulus. The petty states of Latium were contained within
the metropolis of the empire, by whose superior influence they
had been attracted. * Those parts of Italy which have so long
languished under the lazy tyranny of priests and viceroys, had
been afflicted only by the more tolerable calamities of war; and
the first symptoms of decay which they experienced, were amply
compensated by the rapid improvements of the Cisalpine Gaul. The
splendor of Verona may be traced in its remains: yet Verona was
less celebrated than Aquileia or Padua, Milan or Ravenna. II. The
spirit of improvement had passed the Alps, and been felt even in
the woods of Britain, which were gradually cleared away to open a
free space for convenient and elegant habitations. York was the
seat of government; London was already enriched by commerce; and
Bath was celebrated for the salutary effects of its medicinal
waters. Gaul could boast of her twelve hundred cities; and
though, in the northern parts, many of them, without excepting
Paris itself, were little more than the rude and imperfect
townships of a rising people, the southern provinces imitated the
wealth and elegance of Italy. Many were the cities of Gaul,
Marseilles, Arles, Nismes, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Bourdeaux, Autun,
Vienna, Lyons, Langres, and Treves, whose ancient condition might
sustain an equal, and perhaps advantageous comparison with their
present state. With regard to Spain, that country flourished as a
province, and has declined as a kingdom. Exhausted by the abuse
of her strength, by America, and by superstition, her pride might
possibly be confounded, if we required such a list of three
hundred and sixty cities, as Pliny has exhibited under the reign
of Vespasian. III. Three hundred African cities had once
acknowledged the authority of Carthage, nor is it likely that
their numbers diminished under the administration of the
emperors: Carthage itself rose with new splendor from its ashes;
and that capital, as well as Capua and Corinth, soon recovered
all the advantages which can be separated from independent
sovereignty. IV. The provinces of the East present the contrast
of Roman magnificence with Turkish barbarism. The ruins of
antiquity scattered over uncultivated fields, and ascribed, by
ignorance, to the power of magic, scarcely afford a shelter to
the oppressed peasant or wandering Arab. Under the reign of the
Cæsars, the proper Asia alone contained five hundred populous
cities, enriched with all the gifts of nature, and adorned with
all the refinements of art. Eleven cities of Asia had once
disputed the honor of dedicating a temple of Tiberius, and their
respective merits were examined by the senate. Four of them were
immediately rejected as unequal to the burden; and among these
was Laodicea, whose splendor is still displayed in its ruins.
Laodicea collected a very considerable revenue from its flocks of
sheep, celebrated for the fineness of their wool, and had
received, a little before the contest, a legacy of above four
hundred thousand pounds by the testament of a generous citizen.
If such was the poverty of Laodicea, what must have been the
wealth of those cities, whose claim appeared preferable, and
particularly of Pergamus, of Smyrna, and of Ephesus, who so long
disputed with each other the titular primacy of Asia? The
capitals of Syria and Egypt held a still superior rank in the
empire; Antioch and Alexandria looked down with disdain on a
crowd of dependent cities, and yielded, with reluctance, to the
majesty of Rome itself.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part IV.
All these cities were connected with each other, and with the
capital, by the public highways, which, issuing from the Forum of
Rome, traversed Italy, pervaded the provinces, and were
terminated only by the frontiers of the empire. If we carefully
trace the distance from the wall of Antoninus to Rome, and from
thence to Jerusalem, it will be found that the great chain of
communication, from the north-west to the south-east point of the
empire, was drawn out to the length of four thousand and eighty
Roman miles. The public roads were accurately divided by
mile-stones, and ran in a direct line from one city to another,
with very little respect for the obstacles either of nature or
private property. Mountains were perforated, and bold arches
thrown over the broadest and most rapid streams. The middle part
of the road was raised into a terrace which commanded the
adjacent country, consisted of several strata of sand, gravel,
and cement, and was paved with large stones, or, in some places
near the capital, with granite. Such was the solid construction
of the Roman highways, whose firmness has not entirely yielded to
the effort of fifteen centuries. They united the subjects of the
most distant provinces by an easy and familiar intercourse; but
their primary object had been to facilitate the marches of the
legions; nor was any country considered as completely subdued,
till it had been rendered, in all its parts, pervious to the arms
and authority of the conqueror. The advantage of receiving the
earliest intelligence, and of conveying their orders with
celerity, induced the emperors to establish, throughout their
extensive dominions, the regular institution of posts. Houses
were everywhere erected at the distance only of five or six
miles; each of them was constantly provided with forty horses,
and by the help of these relays, it was easy to travel a hundred
miles in a day along the Roman roads. * The use of posts was
allowed to those who claimed it by an Imperial mandate; but
though originally intended for the public service, it was
sometimes indulged to the business or conveniency of private
citizens. Nor was the communication of the Roman empire less free
and open by sea than it was by land. The provinces surrounded and
enclosed the Mediterranean: and Italy, in the shape of an immense
promontory, advanced into the midst of that great lake. The
coasts of Italy are, in general, destitute of safe harbors; but
human industry had corrected the deficiencies of nature; and the
artificial port of Ostia, in particular, situate at the mouth of
the Tyber, and formed by the emperor Claudius, was a useful
monument of Roman greatness. From this port, which was only
sixteen miles from the capital, a favorable breeze frequently
carried vessels in seven days to the columns of Hercules, and in
nine or ten, to Alexandria in Egypt.
Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to
extensive empire, the power of Rome was attended with some
beneficial consequences to mankind; and the same freedom of
intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise the
improvements, of social life. In the more remote ages of
antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The East was in the
immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the West was
inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained
agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown. Under the
protection of an established government, the productions of
happier climates, and the industry of more civilized nations,
were gradually introduced into the western countries of Europe;
and the natives were encouraged, by an open and profitable
commerce, to multiply the former, as well as to improve the
latter. It would be almost impossible to enumerate all the
articles, either of the animal or the vegetable reign, which were
successively imported into Europe from Asia and Egypt: but it
will not be unworthy of the dignity, and much less of the
utility, of an historical work, slightly to touch on a few of the
principal heads. 1. Almost all the flowers, the herbs, and the
fruits, that grow in our European gardens, are of foreign
extraction, which, in many cases, is betrayed even by their
names: the apple was a native of Italy, and when the Romans had
tasted the richer flavor of the apricot, the peach, the
pomegranate, the citron, and the orange, they contented
themselves with applying to all these new fruits the common
denomination of apple, discriminating them from each other by the
additional epithet of their country. 2. In the time of Homer, the
vine grew wild in the island of Sicily, and most probably in the
adjacent continent; but it was not improved by the skill, nor did
it afford a liquor grateful to the taste, of the savage
inhabitants. A thousand years afterwards, Italy could boast, that
of the fourscore most generous and celebrated wines, more than
two thirds were produced from her soil. The blessing was soon
communicated to the Narbonnese province of Gaul; but so intense
was the cold to the north of the Cevennes, that, in the time of
Strabo, it was thought impossible to ripen the grapes in those
parts of Gaul. This difficulty, however, was gradually
vanquished; and there is some reason to believe, that the
vineyards of Burgundy are as old as the age of the Antonines. 3.
The olive, in the western world, followed the progress of peace,
of which it was considered as the symbol. Two centuries after the
foundation of Rome, both Italy and Africa were strangers to that
useful plant: it was naturalized in those countries; and at
length carried into the heart of Spain and Gaul. The timid errors
of the ancients, that it required a certain degree of heat, and
could only flourish in the neighborhood of the sea, were
insensibly exploded by industry and experience. 4. The
cultivation of flax was transported from Egypt to Gaul, and
enriched the whole country, however it might impoverish the
particular lands on which it was sown. 5. The use of artificial
grasses became familiar to the farmers both of Italy and the
provinces, particularly the Lucerne, which derived its name and
origin from Media. The assured supply of wholesome and plentiful
food for the cattle during winter, multiplied the number of the
docks and herds, which in their turn contributed to the fertility
of the soil. To all these improvements may be added an assiduous
attention to mines and fisheries, which, by employing a multitude
of laborious hands, serve to increase the pleasures of the rich
and the subsistence of the poor. The elegant treatise of
Columella describes the advanced state of the Spanish husbandry
under the reign of Tiberius; and it may be observed, that those
famines, which so frequently afflicted the infant republic, were
seldom or never experienced by the extensive empire of Rome. The
accidental scarcity, in any single province, was immediately
relieved by the plenty of its more fortunate neighbors.
Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures; since the
productions of nature are the materials of art. Under the Roman
empire, the labor of an industrious and ingenious people was
variously, but incessantly, employed in the service of the rich.
In their dress, their table, their houses, and their furniture,
the favorites of fortune united every refinement of conveniency,
of elegance, and of splendor, whatever could soothe their pride
or gratify their sensuality. Such refinements, under the odious
name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of
every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue,
as well as happiness, of mankind, if all possessed the
necessaries, and none the superfluities, of life. But in the
present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may
proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can
correct the unequal distribution of property. The diligent
mechanic, and the skilful artist, who have obtained no share in
the division of the earth, receive a voluntary tax from the
possessors of land; and the latter are prompted, by a sense of
interest, to improve those estates, with whose produce they may
purchase additional pleasures. This operation, the particular
effects of which are felt in every society, acted with much more
diffusive energy in the Roman world. The provinces would soon
have been exhausted of their wealth, if the manufactures and
commerce of luxury had not insensibly restored to the industrious
subjects the sums which were exacted from them by the arms and
authority of Rome. As long as the circulation was confined within
the bounds of the empire, it impressed the political machine with
a new degree of activity, and its consequences, sometimes
beneficial, could never become pernicious.
But it is no easy task to confine luxury within the limits of an
empire. The most remote countries of the ancient world were
ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests of
Scythia afforded some valuable furs. Amber was brought over land
from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube; and the barbarians
were astonished at the price which they received in exchange for
so useless a commodity. There was a considerable demand for
Babylonian carpets, and other manufactures of the East; but the
most important and unpopular branch of foreign trade was carried
on with Arabia and India. Every year, about the time of the
summer solstice, a fleet of a hundred and twenty vessels sailed
from Myos-hormos, a port of Egypt, on the Red Sea. By the
periodical assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean
in about forty days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of
Ceylon, was the usual term of their navigation, and it was in
those markets that the merchants from the more remote countries
of Asia expected their arrival. The return of the fleet of Egypt
was fixed to the months of December or January; and as soon as
their rich cargo had been transported on the backs of camels,
from the Red Sea to the Nile, and had descended that river as far
as Alexandria, it was poured, without delay, into the capital of
the empire. The objects of oriental traffic were splendid and
trifling; silk, a pound of which was esteemed not inferior in
value to a pound of gold; precious stones, among which the pearl
claimed the first rank after the diamond; and a variety of
aromatics, that were consumed in religious worship and the pomp
of funerals. The labor and risk of the voyage was rewarded with
almost incredible profit; but the profit was made upon Roman
subjects, and a few individuals were enriched at the expense of
the public. As the natives of Arabia and India were contented
with the productions and manufactures of their own country,
silver, on the side of the Romans, was the principal, if not the
only * instrument of commerce. It was a complaint worthy of the
gravity of the senate, that, in the purchase of female ornaments,
the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away to foreign
and hostile nations. The annual loss is computed, by a writer of
an inquisitive but censorious temper, at upwards of eight hundred
thousand pounds sterling. Such was the style of discontent,
brooding over the dark prospect of approaching poverty. And yet,
if we compare the proportion between gold and silver, as it stood
in the time of Pliny, and as it was fixed in the reign of
Constantine, we shall discover within that period a very
considerable increase. There is not the least reason to suppose
that gold was become more scarce; it is therefore evident that
silver was grown more common; that whatever might be the amount
of the Indian and Arabian exports, they were far from exhausting
the wealth of the Roman world; and that the produce of the mines
abundantly supplied the demands of commerce.
Notwithstanding the propensity of mankind to exalt the past, and
to depreciate the present, the tranquil and prosperous state of
the empire was warmly felt, and honestly confessed, by the
provincials as well as Romans. “They acknowledged that the true
principles of social life, laws, agriculture, and science, which
had been first invented by the wisdom of Athens, were now firmly
established by the power of Rome, under whose auspicious
influence the fiercest barbarians were united by an equal
government and common language. They affirm, that with the
improvement of arts, the human species were visibly multiplied.
They celebrate the increasing splendor of the cities, the
beautiful face of the country, cultivated and adorned like an
immense garden; and the long festival of peace which was enjoyed
by so many nations, forgetful of the ancient animosities, and
delivered from the apprehension of future danger.” Whatever
suspicions may be suggested by the air of rhetoric and
declamation, which seems to prevail in these passages, the
substance of them is perfectly agreeable to historic truth.
It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should
discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and
corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the
Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of
the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same
level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military
spirit evaporated. The natives of Europe were brave and robust.
Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum supplied the legions with
excellent soldiers, and constituted the real strength of the
monarchy. Their personal valor remained, but they no longer
possessed that public courage which is nourished by the love of
independence, the sense of national honor, the presence of
danger, and the habit of command. They received laws and
governors from the will of their sovereign, and trusted for their
defence to a mercenary army. The posterity of their boldest
leaders was contented with the rank of citizens and subjects. The
most aspiring spirits resorted to the court or standard of the
emperors; and the deserted provinces, deprived of political
strength or union, insensibly sunk into the languid indifference
of private life.
The love of letters, almost inseparable from peace and
refinement, was fashionable among the subjects of Hadrian and the
Antonines, who were themselves men of learning and curiosity. It
was diffused over the whole extent of their empire; the most
northern tribes of Britons had acquired a taste for rhetoric;
Homer as well as Virgil were transcribed and studied on the banks
of the Rhine and Danube; and the most liberal rewards sought out
the faintest glimmerings of literary merit. The sciences of
physic and astronomy were successfully cultivated by the Greeks;
the observations of Ptolemy and the writings of Galen are studied
by those who have improved their discoveries and corrected their
errors; but if we except the inimitable Lucian, this age of
indolence passed away without having produced a single writer of
original genius, or who excelled in the arts of elegant
composition.* The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and
Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems,
transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples
to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the
powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind. The beauties of
the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own,
inspired only cold and servile imitations: or if any ventured to
deviate from those models, they deviated at the same time from
good sense and propriety. On the revival of letters, the youthful
vigor of the imagination, after a long repose, national
emulation, a new religion, new languages, and a new world, called
forth the genius of Europe. But the provincials of Rome, trained
by a uniform artificial foreign education, were engaged in a very
unequal competition with those bold ancients, who, by expressing
their genuine feelings in their native tongue, had already
occupied every place of honor. The name of Poet was almost
forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of
critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of
learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the
corruption of taste.
The sublime Longinus, who, in somewhat a later period, and in the
court of a Syrian queen, preserved the spirit of ancient Athens,
observes and laments this degeneracy of his contemporaries, which
debased their sentiments, enervated their courage, and depressed
their talents. “In the same manner,” says he, “as some children
always remain pygmies, whose infant limbs have been too closely
confined, thus our tender minds, fettered by the prejudices and
habits of a just servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or
to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the
ancients; who, living under a popular government, wrote with the
same freedom as they acted.” This diminutive stature of mankind,
if we pursue the metaphor, was daily sinking below the old
standard, and the Roman world was indeed peopled by a race of
pygmies; when the fierce giants of the north broke in, and mended
the puny breed. They restored a manly spirit of freedom; and
after the revolution of ten centuries, freedom became the happy
parent of taste and science.
Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
I.
Of The Constitution Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of The Antonines.
The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state,
in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be
distinguished, is intrusted with the execution of the laws, the
management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But,
unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant
guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon
degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy, in an age
of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights
of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne
and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been
seen on the side of the people. * A martial nobility and stubborn
commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected
into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of
preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring
prince.
Every barrier of the Roman constitution had been levelled by the
vast ambition of the dictator; every fence had been extirpated by
the cruel hand of the triumvir. After the victory of Actium, the
fate of the Roman world depended on the will of Octavianus,
surnamed Cæsar, by his uncle’s adoption, and afterwards Augustus,
by the flattery of the senate. The conqueror was at the head of
forty-four veteran legions, conscious of their own strength, and
of the weakness of the constitution, habituated, during twenty
years’ civil war, to every act of blood and violence, and
passionately devoted to the house of Cæsar, from whence alone
they had received, and expected the most lavish rewards. The
provinces, long oppressed by the ministers of the republic,
sighed for the government of a single person, who would be the
master, not the accomplice, of those petty tyrants. The people of
Rome, viewing, with a secret pleasure, the humiliation of the
aristocracy, demanded only bread and public shows; and were
supplied with both by the liberal hand of Augustus. The rich and
polite Italians, who had almost universally embraced the
philosophy of Epicurus, enjoyed the present blessings of ease and
tranquillity, and suffered not the pleasing dream to be
interrupted by the memory of their old tumultuous freedom. With
its power, the senate had lost its dignity; many of the most
noble families were extinct. The republicans of spirit and
ability had perished in the field of battle, or in the
proscription . The door of the assembly had been designedly left
open, for a mixed multitude of more than a thousand persons, who
reflected disgrace upon their rank, instead of deriving honor
from it.
The reformation of the senate was one of the first steps in which
Augustus laid aside the tyrant, and professed himself the father
of his country. He was elected censor; and, in concert with his
faithful Agrippa, he examined the list of the senators, expelled
a few members, * whose vices or whose obstinacy required a public
example, persuaded near two hundred to prevent the shame of an
expulsion by a voluntary retreat, raised the qualification of a
senator to about ten thousand pounds, created a sufficient number
of patrician families, and accepted for himself the honorable
title of Prince of the Senate, which had always been bestowed, by
the censors, on the citizen the most eminent for his honors and
services. But whilst he thus restored the dignity, he destroyed
the independence, of the senate. The principles of a free
constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power
is nominated by the executive.
Before an assembly thus modelled and prepared, Augustus
pronounced a studied oration, which displayed his patriotism, and
disguised his ambition. “He lamented, yet excused, his past
conduct. Filial piety had required at his hands the revenge of
his father’s murder; the humanity of his own nature had sometimes
given way to the stern laws of necessity, and to a forced
connection with two unworthy colleagues: as long as Antony lived,
the republic forbade him to abandon her to a degenerate Roman,
and a barbarian queen. He was now at liberty to satisfy his duty
and his inclination. He solemnly restored the senate and people
to all their ancient rights; and wished only to mingle with the
crowd of his fellow-citizens, and to share the blessings which he
had obtained for his country.”
It would require the pen of Tacitus (if Tacitus had assisted at
this assembly) to describe the various emotions of the senate,
those that were suppressed, and those that were affected. It was
dangerous to trust the sincerity of Augustus; to seem to distrust
it was still more dangerous. The respective advantages of
monarchy and a republic have often divided speculative inquirers;
the present greatness of the Roman state, the corruption of
manners, and the license of the soldiers, supplied new arguments
to the advocates of monarchy; and these general views of
government were again warped by the hopes and fears of each
individual. Amidst this confusion of sentiments, the answer of
the senate was unanimous and decisive. They refused to accept the
resignation of Augustus; they conjured him not to desert the
republic, which he had saved. After a decent resistance, the
crafty tyrant submitted to the orders of the senate; and
consented to receive the government of the provinces, and the
general command of the Roman armies, under the well-known names
of Proconsul and Imperator. But he would receive them only for
ten years. Even before the expiration of that period, he hope
that the wounds of civil discord would be completely healed, and
that the republic, restored to its pristine health and vigor,
would no longer require the dangerous interposition of so
extraordinary a magistrate. The memory of this comedy, repeated
several times during the life of Augustus, was preserved to the
last ages of the empire, by the peculiar pomp with which the
perpetual monarchs of Rome always solemnized the tenth years of
their reign.
Without any violation of the principles of the constitution, the
general of the Roman armies might receive and exercise an
authority almost despotic over the soldiers, the enemies, and the
subjects of the republic. With regard to the soldiers, the
jealousy of freedom had, even from the earliest ages of Rome,
given way to the hopes of conquest, and a just sense of military
discipline. The dictator, or consul, had a right to command the
service of the Roman youth; and to punish an obstinate or
cowardly disobedience by the most severe and ignominious
penalties, by striking the offender out of the list of citizens,
by confiscating his property, and by selling his person into
slavery. The most sacred rights of freedom, confirmed by the
Porcian and Sempronian laws, were suspended by the military
engagement. In his camp the general exercised an absolute power
of life and death; his jurisdiction was not confined by any forms
of trial, or rules of proceeding, and the execution of the
sentence was immediate and without appeal. The choice of the
enemies of Rome was regularly decided by the legislative
authority. The most important resolutions of peace and war were
seriously debated in the senate, and solemnly ratified by the
people. But when the arms of the legions were carried to a great
distance from Italy, the general assumed the liberty of directing
them against whatever people, and in whatever manner, they judged
most advantageous for the public service. It was from the
success, not from the justice, of their enterprises, that they
expected the honors of a triumph. In the use of victory,
especially after they were no longer controlled by the
commissioners of the senate, they exercised the most unbounded
despotism. When Pompey commanded in the East, he rewarded his
soldiers and allies, dethroned princes, divided kingdoms, founded
colonies, and distributed the treasures of Mithridates. On his
return to Rome, he obtained, by a single act of the senate and
people, the universal ratification of all his proceedings. Such
was the power over the soldiers, and over the enemies of Rome,
which was either granted to, or assumed by, the generals of the
republic. They were, at the same time, the governors, or rather
monarchs, of the conquered provinces, united the civil with the
military character, administered justice as well as the finances,
and exercised both the executive and legislative power of the
state.
From what has already been observed in the first chapter of this
work, some notion may be formed of the armies and provinces thus
intrusted to the ruling hand of Augustus. But as it was
impossible that he could personally command the regions of so
many distant frontiers, he was indulged by the senate, as Pompey
had already been, in the permission of devolving the execution of
his great office on a sufficient number of lieutenants. In rank
and authority these officers seemed not inferior to the ancient
proconsuls; but their station was dependent and precarious. They
received and held their commissions at the will of a superior, to
whose _auspicious_ influence the merit of their action was
legally attributed. They were the representatives of the emperor.
The emperor alone was the general of the republic, and his
jurisdiction, civil as well as military, extended over all the
conquests of Rome. It was some satisfaction, however, to the
senate, that he always delegated his power to the members of
their body. The imperial lieutenants were of consular or
prætorian dignity; the legions were commanded by senators, and
the præfecture of Egypt was the only important trust committed to
a Roman knight.
Within six days after Augustus had been compelled to accept so
very liberal a grant, he resolved to gratify the pride of the
senate by an easy sacrifice. He represented to them, that they
had enlarged his powers, even beyond that degree which might be
required by the melancholy condition of the times. They had not
permitted him to refuse the laborious command of the armies and
the frontiers; but he must insist on being allowed to restore the
more peaceful and secure provinces to the mild administration of
the civil magistrate. In the division of the provinces, Augustus
provided for his own power and for the dignity of the republic.
The proconsuls of the senate, particularly those of Asia, Greece,
and Africa, enjoyed a more honorable character than the
lieutenants of the emperor, who commanded in Gaul or Syria. The
former were attended by lictors, the latter by soldiers. * A law
was passed, that wherever the emperor was present, his
extraordinary commission should supersede the ordinary
jurisdiction of the governor; a custom was introduced, that the
new conquests belonged to the imperial portion; and it was soon
discovered that the authority of the _Prince_, the favorite
epithet of Augustus, was the same in every part of the empire.
In return for this imaginary concession, Augustus obtained an
important privilege, which rendered him master of Rome and Italy.
By a dangerous exception to the ancient maxims, he was authorized
to preserve his military command, supported by a numerous body of
guards, even in time of peace, and in the heart of the capital.
His command, indeed, was confined to those citizens who were
engaged in the service by the military oath; but such was the
propensity of the Romans to servitude, that the oath was
voluntarily taken by the magistrates, the senators, and the
equestrian order, till the homage of flattery was insensibly
converted into an annual and solemn protestation of fidelity.
Although Augustus considered a military force as the firmest
foundation, he wisely rejected it, as a very odious instrument of
government. It was more agreeable to his temper, as well as to
his policy, to reign under the venerable names of ancient
magistracy, and artfully to collect, in his own person, all the
scattered rays of civil jurisdiction. With this view, he
permitted the senate to confer upon him, for his life, the powers
of the consular and tribunitian offices, which were, in the same
manner, continued to all his successors. The consuls had
succeeded to the kings of Rome, and represented the dignity of
the state. They superintended the ceremonies of religion, levied
and commanded the legions, gave audience to foreign ambassadors,
and presided in the assemblies both of the senate and people. The
general control of the finances was intrusted to their care; and
though they seldom had leisure to administer justice in person,
they were considered as the supreme guardians of law, equity, and
the public peace. Such was their ordinary jurisdiction; but
whenever the senate empowered the first magistrate to consult the
safety of the commonwealth, he was raised by that decree above
the laws, and exercised, in the defence of liberty, a temporary
despotism. The character of the tribunes was, in every respect,
different from that of the consuls. The appearance of the former
was modest and humble; but their persons were sacred and
inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than for
action. They were instituted to defend the oppressed, to pardon
offences, to arraign the enemies of the people, and, when they
judged it necessary, to stop, by a single word, the whole machine
of government. As long as the republic subsisted, the dangerous
influence, which either the consul or the tribune might derive
from their respective jurisdiction, was diminished by several
important restrictions. Their authority expired with the year in
which they were elected; the former office was divided between
two, the latter among ten persons; and, as both in their private
and public interest they were averse to each other, their mutual
conflicts contributed, for the most part, to strengthen rather
than to destroy the balance of the constitution. * But when the
consular and tribunitian powers were united, when they were
vested for life in a single person, when the general of the army
was, at the same time, the minister of the senate and the
representative of the Roman people, it was impossible to resist
the exercise, nor was it easy to define the limits, of his
imperial prerogative.
To these accumulated honors, the policy of Augustus soon added
the splendid as well as important dignities of supreme pontiff,
and of censor. By the former he acquired the management of the
religion, and by the latter a legal inspection over the manners
and fortunes, of the Roman people. If so many distinct and
independent powers did not exactly unite with each other, the
complaisance of the senate was prepared to supply every
deficiency by the most ample and extraordinary concessions. The
emperors, as the first ministers of the republic, were exempted
from the obligation and penalty of many inconvenient laws: they
were authorized to convoke the senate, to make several motions in
the same day, to recommend candidates for the honors of the
state, to enlarge the bounds of the city, to employ the revenue
at their discretion, to declare peace and war, to ratify
treaties; and by a most comprehensive clause, they were empowered
to execute whatsoever they should judge advantageous to the
empire, and agreeable to the majesty of things private or public,
human of divine.
When all the various powers of executive government were
committed to the _Imperial magistrate_, the ordinary magistrates
of the commonwealth languished in obscurity, without vigor, and
almost without business. The names and forms of the ancient
administration were preserved by Augustus with the most anxious
care. The usual number of consuls, prætors, and tribunes, were
annually invested with their respective ensigns of office, and
continued to discharge some of their least important functions.
Those honors still attracted the vain ambition of the Romans; and
the emperors themselves, though invested for life with the powers
of the consulship, frequently aspired to the title of that annual
dignity, which they condescended to share with the most
illustrious of their fellow-citizens. In the election of these
magistrates, the people, during the reign of Augustus, were
permitted to expose all the inconveniences of a wild democracy.
That artful prince, instead of discovering the least symptom of
impatience, humbly solicited their suffrages for himself or his
friends, and scrupulously practised all the duties of an ordinary
candidate. But we may venture to ascribe to his councils the
first measure of the succeeding reign, by which the elections
were transferred to the senate. The assemblies of the people were
forever abolished, and the emperors were delivered from a
dangerous multitude, who, without restoring liberty, might have
disturbed, and perhaps endangered, the established government.
By declaring themselves the protectors of the people, Marius and
Cæsar had subverted the constitution of their country. But as
soon as the senate had been humbled and disarmed, such an
assembly, consisting of five or six hundred persons, was found a
much more tractable and useful instrument of dominion. It was on
the dignity of the senate that Augustus and his successors
founded their new empire; and they affected, on every occasion,
to adopt the language and principles of Patricians. In the
administration of their own powers, they frequently consulted the
great national council, and _seemed_ to refer to its decision the
most important concerns of peace and war. Rome, Italy, and the
internal provinces, were subject to the immediate jurisdiction of
the senate. With regard to civil objects, it was the supreme
court of appeal; with regard to criminal matters, a tribunal,
constituted for the trial of all offences that were committed by
men in any public station, or that affected the peace and majesty
of the Roman people. The exercise of the judicial power became
the most frequent and serious occupation of the senate; and the
important causes that were pleaded before them afforded a last
refuge to the spirit of ancient eloquence. As a council of state,
and as a court of justice, the senate possessed very considerable
prerogatives; but in its legislative capacity, in which it was
supposed virtually to represent the people, the rights of
sovereignty were acknowledged to reside in that assembly. Every
power was derived from their authority, every law was ratified by
their sanction. Their regular meetings were held on three stated
days in every month, the Calends, the Nones, and the Ides. The
debates were conducted with decent freedom; and the emperors
themselves, who gloried in the name of senators, sat, voted, and
divided with their equals.
To resume, in a few words, the system of the Imperial government;
as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes
who understood their own interest and that of the people, it may
be defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a
commonwealth. The masters of the Roman world surrounded their
throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and
humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the
senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed.
The face of the court corresponded with the forms of the
administration. The emperors, if we except those tyrants whose
capricious folly violated every law of nature and decency,
disdained that pomp and ceremony which might offend their
countrymen, but could add nothing to their real power. In all the
offices of life, they affected to confound themselves with their
subjects, and maintained with them an equal intercourse of visits
and entertainments. Their habit, their palace, their table, were
suited only to the rank of an opulent senator. Their family,
however numerous or splendid, was composed entirely of their
domestic slaves and freedmen. Augustus or Trajan would have
blushed at employing the meanest of the Romans in those menial
offices, which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited
monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of
Britain.
The deification of the emperors is the only instance in which
they departed from their accustomed prudence and modesty. The
Asiatic Greeks were the first inventors, the successors of
Alexander the first objects, of this servile and impious mode of
adulation. * It was easily transferred from the kings to the
governors of Asia; and the Roman magistrates very frequently were
adored as provincial deities, with the pomp of altars and
temples, of festivals and sacrifices. It was natural that the
emperors should not refuse what the proconsuls had accepted; and
the divine honors which both the one and the other received from
the provinces, attested rather the despotism than the servitude
of Rome. But the conquerors soon imitated the vanquished nations
in the arts of flattery; and the imperious spirit of the first
Cæsar too easily consented to assume, during his lifetime, a
place among the tutelar deities of Rome. The milder temper of his
successor declined so dangerous an ambition, which was never
afterwards revived, except by the madness of Caligula and
Domitian. Augustus permitted indeed some of the provincial cities
to erect temples to his honor, on condition that they should
associate the worship of Rome with that of the sovereign; he
tolerated private superstition, of which he might be the object;
but he contented himself with being revered by the senate and the
people in his human character, and wisely left to his successor
the care of his public deification. A regular custom was
introduced, that on the decease of every emperor who had neither
lived nor died like a tyrant, the senate by a solemn decree
should place him in the number of the gods: and the ceremonies of
his apotheosis were blended with those of his funeral. This
legal, and, as it should seem, injudicious profanation, so
abhorrent to our stricter principles, was received with a very
faint murmur, by the easy nature of Polytheism; but it was
received as an institution, not of religion, but of policy. We
should disgrace the virtues of the Antonines by comparing them
with the vices of Hercules or Jupiter. Even the characters of
Cæsar or Augustus were far superior to those of the popular
deities. But it was the misfortune of the former to live in an
enlightened age, and their actions were too faithfully recorded
to admit of such a mixture of fable and mystery, as the devotion
of the vulgar requires. As soon as their divinity was established
by law, it sunk into oblivion, without contributing either to
their own fame, or to the dignity of succeeding princes.
In the consideration of the Imperial government, we have
frequently mentioned the artful founder, under his well-known
title of Augustus, which was not, however, conferred upon him
till the edifice was almost completed. The obscure name of
Octavianus he derived from a mean family, in the little town of
Aricia. It was stained with the blood of the proscription; and he
was desirous, had it been possible, to erase all memory of his
former life. The illustrious surname of Cæsar he had assumed, as
the adopted son of the dictator: but he had too much good sense,
either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared with
that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to dignify
their minister with a new appellation; and after a serious
discussion, that of Augustus was chosen, among several others, as
being the most expressive of the character of peace and sanctity,
which he uniformly affected. _Augustus_ was therefore a personal,
_Cæsar_ a family distinction. The former should naturally have
expired with the prince on whom it was bestowed; and however the
latter was diffused by adoption and female alliance, Nero was the
last prince who could allege any hereditary claim to the honors
of the Julian line. But, at the time of his death, the practice
of a century had inseparably connected those appellations with
the Imperial dignity, and they have been preserved by a long
succession of emperors, Romans, Greeks, Franks, and Germans, from
the fall of the republic to the present time. A distinction was,
however, soon introduced. The sacred title of Augustus was always
reserved for the monarch, whilst the name of Cæsar was more
freely communicated to his relations; and, from the reign of
Hadrian, at least, was appropriated to the second person in the
state, who was considered as the presumptive heir of the empire.
*
Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
II.
The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he
had destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive
consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant. A cool
head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted
him at the age of nineteen to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which
he never afterwards laid aside. With the same hand, and probably
with the same temper, he signed the proscription of Cicero, and
the pardon of Cinna. His virtues, and even his vices, were
artificial; and according to the various dictates of his
interest, he was at first the enemy, and at last the father, of
the Roman world. When he framed the artful system of the Imperial
authority, his moderation was inspired by his fears. He wished to
deceive the people by an image of civil liberty, and the armies
by an image of civil government.
I. The death of Cæsar was ever before his eyes. He had lavished
wealth and honors on his adherents; but the most favored friends
of his uncle were in the number of the conspirators. The fidelity
of the legions might defend his authority against open rebellion;
but their vigilance could not secure his person from the dagger
of a determined republican; and the Romans, who revered the
memory of Brutus, would applaud the imitation of his virtue.
Cæsar had provoked his fate, as much as by the ostentation of his
power, as by his power itself. The consul or the tribune might
have reigned in peace. The title of king had armed the Romans
against his life. Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed
by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate
and people would submit to slavery, provided they were
respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient
freedom. A feeble senate and enervated people cheerfully
acquiesced in the pleasing illusion, as long as it was supported
by the virtue, or even by the prudence, of the successors of
Augustus. It was a motive of self-preservation, not a principle
of liberty, that animated the conspirators against Caligula,
Nero, and Domitian. They attacked the person of the tyrant,
without aiming their blow at the authority of the emperor.
There appears, indeed, _one_ memorable occasion, in which the
senate, after seventy years of patience, made an ineffectual
attempt to re-assume its long-forgotten rights. When the throne
was vacant by the murder of Caligula, the consuls convoked that
assembly in the Capitol, condemned the memory of the Cæsars, gave
the watchword _liberty_ to the few cohorts who faintly adhered to
their standard, and during eight-and-forty hours acted as the
independent chiefs of a free commonwealth. But while they
deliberated, the prætorian guards had resolved. The stupid
Claudius, brother of Germanicus, was already in their camp,
invested with the Imperial purple, and prepared to support his
election by arms. The dream of liberty was at an end; and the
senate awoke to all the horrors of inevitable servitude. Deserted
by the people, and threatened by a military force, that feeble
assembly was compelled to ratify the choice of the prætorians,
and to embrace the benefit of an amnesty, which Claudius had the
prudence to offer, and the generosity to observe.
II. The insolence of the armies inspired Augustus with fears of a
still more alarming nature. The despair of the citizens could
only attempt, what the power of the soldiers was, at any time,
able to execute. How precarious was his own authority over men
whom he had taught to violate every social duty! He had heard
their seditious clamors; he dreaded their calmer moments of
reflection. One revolution had been purchased by immense rewards;
but a second revolution might double those rewards. The troops
professed the fondest attachment to the house of Cæsar; but the
attachments of the multitude are capricious and inconstant.
Augustus summoned to his aid whatever remained in those fierce
minds of Roman prejudices; enforced the rigor of discipline by
the sanction of law; and, interposing the majesty of the senate
between the emperor and the army, boldly claimed their
allegiance, as the first magistrate of the republic.
During a long period of two hundred and twenty years from the
establishment of this artful system to the death of Commodus, the
dangers inherent to a military government were, in a great
measure, suspended. The soldiers were seldom roused to that fatal
sense of their own strength, and of the weakness of the civil
authority, which was, before and afterwards, productive of such
dreadful calamities. Caligula and Domitian were assassinated in
their palace by their own domestics: * the convulsions which
agitated Rome on the death of the former, were confined to the
walls of the city. But Nero involved the whole empire in his
ruin. In the space of eighteen months, four princes perished by
the sword; and the Roman world was shaken by the fury of the
contending armies. Excepting only this short, though violent
eruption of military license, the two centuries from Augustus to
Commodus passed away unstained with civil blood, and undisturbed
by revolutions. The emperor was elected by the _authority of the
senate, and the consent of the soldiers_. The legions respected
their oath of fidelity; and it requires a minute inspection of
the Roman annals to discover three inconsiderable rebellions,
which were all suppressed in a few months, and without even the
hazard of a battle.
In elective monarchies, the vacancy of the throne is a moment big
with danger and mischief. The Roman emperors, desirous to spare
the legions that interval of suspense, and the temptation of an
irregular choice, invested their designed successor with so large
a share of present power, as should enable him, after their
decease, to assume the remainder, without suffering the empire to
perceive the change of masters. Thus Augustus, after all his
fairer prospects had been snatched from him by untimely deaths,
rested his last hopes on Tiberius, obtained for his adopted son
the censorial and tribunitian powers, and dictated a law, by
which the future prince was invested with an authority equal to
his own, over the provinces and the armies. Thus Vespasian
subdued the generous mind of his eldest son. Titus was adored by
the eastern legions, which, under his command, had recently
achieved the conquest of Judæa. His power was dreaded, and, as
his virtues were clouded by the intemperance of youth, his
designs were suspected. Instead of listening to such unworthy
suspicions, the prudent monarch associated Titus to the full
powers of the Imperial dignity; and the grateful son ever
approved himself the humble and faithful minister of so indulgent
a father.
The good sense of Vespasian engaged him indeed to embrace every
measure that might confirm his recent and precarious elevation.
The military oath, and the fidelity of the troops, had been
consecrated, by the habits of a hundred years, to the name and
family of the Cæsars; and although that family had been continued
only by the fictitious rite of adoption, the Romans still
revered, in the person of Nero, the grandson of Germanicus, and
the lineal successor of Augustus. It was not without reluctance
and remorse, that the prætorian guards had been persuaded to
abandon the cause of the tyrant. The rapid downfall of Galba,
Otho, and Vitellus, taught the armies to consider the emperors as
the creatures of _their_ will, and the instruments of _their_
license. The birth of Vespasian was mean: his grandfather had
been a private soldier, his father a petty officer of the
revenue; his own merit had raised him, in an advanced age, to the
empire; but his merit was rather useful than shining, and his
virtues were disgraced by a strict and even sordid parsimony.
Such a prince consulted his true interest by the association of a
son, whose more splendid and amiable character might turn the
public attention from the obscure origin, to the future glories,
of the Flavian house. Under the mild administration of Titus, the
Roman world enjoyed a transient felicity, and his beloved memory
served to protect, above fifteen years, the vices of his brother
Domitian.
Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins of
Domitian, before he discovered that his feeble age was unable to
stem the torrent of public disorders, which had multiplied under
the long tyranny of his predecessor. His mild disposition was
respected by the good; but the degenerate Romans required a more
vigorous character, whose justice should strike terror into the
guilty. Though he had several relations, he fixed his choice on a
stranger. He adopted Trajan, then about forty years of age, and
who commanded a powerful army in the Lower Germany; and
immediately, by a decree of the senate, declared him his
colleague and successor in the empire. It is sincerely to be
lamented, that whilst we are fatigued with the disgustful
relation of Nero’s crimes and follies, we are reduced to collect
the actions of Trajan from the glimmerings of an abridgment, or
the doubtful light of a panegyric. There remains, however, one
panegyric far removed beyond the suspicion of flattery. Above two
hundred and fifty years after the death of Trajan, the senate, in
pouring out the customary acclamations on the accession of a new
emperor, wished that he might surpass the felicity of Augustus,
and the virtue of Trajan.
We may readily believe, that the father of his country hesitated
whether he ought to intrust the various and doubtful character of
his kinsman Hadrian with sovereign power. In his last moments the
arts of the empress Plotina either fixed the irresolution of
Trajan, or boldly supposed a fictitious adoption; the truth of
which could not be safely disputed, and Hadrian was peaceably
acknowledged as his lawful successor. Under his reign, as has
been already mentioned, the empire flourished in peace and
prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted
military discipline, and visited all his provinces in person. His
vast and active genius was equally suited to the most enlarged
views, and the minute details of civil policy. But the ruling
passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity. As they
prevailed, and as they were attracted by different objects,
Hadrian was, by turns, an excellent prince, a ridiculous sophist,
and a jealous tyrant. The general tenor of his conduct deserved
praise for its equity and moderation. Yet in the first days of
his reign, he put to death four consular senators, his personal
enemies, and men who had been judged worthy of empire; and the
tediousness of a painful illness rendered him, at last, peevish
and cruel. The senate doubted whether they should pronounce him a
god or a tyrant; and the honors decreed to his memory were
granted to the prayers of the pious Antoninus.
The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor.
After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished merit,
whom he esteemed and hated, he adopted Ælius Verus a gay and
voluptuous nobleman, recommended by uncommon beauty to the lover
of Antinous. But whilst Hadrian was delighting himself with his
own applause, and the acclamations of the soldiers, whose consent
had been secured by an immense donative, the new Cæsar was
ravished from his embraces by an untimely death. He left only one
son. Hadrian commended the boy to the gratitude of the Antonines.
He was adopted by Pius; and, on the accession of Marcus, was
invested with an equal share of sovereign power. Among the many
vices of this younger Verus, he possessed one virtue; a dutiful
reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he willingly abandoned
the ruder cares of empire. The philosophic emperor dissembled his
follies, lamented his early death, and cast a decent veil over
his memory.
As soon as Hadrian’s passion was either gratified or
disappointed, he resolved to deserve the thanks of posterity, by
placing the most exalted merit on the Roman throne. His
discerning eye easily discovered a senator about fifty years of
age, blameless in all the offices of life; and a youth of about
seventeen, whose riper years opened a fair prospect of every
virtue: the elder of these was declared the son and successor of
Hadrian, on condition, however, that he himself should
immediately adopt the younger. The two Antonines (for it is of
them that we are now speaking,) governed the Roman world
forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and
virtue. Although Pius had two sons, he preferred the welfare of
Rome to the interest of his family, gave his daughter Faustina,
in marriage to young Marcus, obtained from the senate the
tribunitian and proconsular powers, and, with a noble disdain, or
rather ignorance of jealousy, associated him to all the labors of
government. Marcus, on the other hand, revered the character of
his benefactor, loved him as a parent, obeyed him as his
sovereign, and, after he was no more, regulated his own
administration by the example and maxims of his predecessor.
Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in
which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of
government.
Titus Antoninus Pius has been justly denominated a second Numa.
The same love of religion, justice, and peace, was the
distinguishing characteristic of both princes. But the situation
of the latter opened a much larger field for the exercise of
those virtues. Numa could only prevent a few neighboring villages
from plundering each other’s harvests. Antoninus diffused order
and tranquillity over the greatest part of the earth. His reign
is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials
for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of
the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. In private life,
he was an amiable, as well as a good man. The native simplicity
of his virtue was a stranger to vanity or affectation. He enjoyed
with moderation the conveniences of his fortune, and the innocent
pleasures of society; and the benevolence of his soul displayed
itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.
The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of severer and more
laborious kind. It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned
conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight
lucubration. At the age of twelve years he embraced the rigid
system of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body to his
mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only
good, vice as the only evil, all things external as things
indifferent. His meditations, composed in the tumult of the camp,
are still extant; and he even condescended to give lessons of
philosophy, in a more public manner than was perhaps consistent
with the modesty of sage, or the dignity of an emperor. But his
life was the noblest commentary on the precepts of Zeno. He was
severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others, just
and beneficent to all mankind. He regretted that Avidius Cassius,
who excited a rebellion in Syria, had disappointed him, by a
voluntary death, * of the pleasure of converting an enemy into a
friend; and he justified the sincerity of that sentiment, by
moderating the zeal of the senate against the adherents of the
traitor. War he detested, as the disgrace and calamity of human
nature; but when the necessity of a just defence called upon him
to take up arms, he readily exposed his person to eight winter
campaigns, on the frozen banks of the Danube, the severity of
which was at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution. His
memory was revered by a grateful posterity, and above a century
after his death, many persons preserved the image of Marcus
Antoninus among those of their household gods.
If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the
world, during which the condition of the human race was most
happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that
which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of
Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by
absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The
armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four
successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded
involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were
carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines,
who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with
considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws.
Such princes deserved the honor of restoring the republic, had
the Romans of their days been capable of enjoying a rational
freedom.
The labors of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward
that inseparably waited on their success; by the honest pride of
virtue, and by the exquisite delight of beholding the general
happiness of which they were the authors. A just but melancholy
reflection imbittered, however, the noblest of human enjoyments.
They must often have recollected the instability of a happiness
which depended on the character of single man. The fatal moment
was perhaps approaching, when some licentious youth, or some
jealous tyrant, would abuse, to the destruction, that absolute
power, which they had exerted for the benefit of their people.
The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might serve to
display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the
emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible
instrument of oppression; and the corruption of Roman manners
would always supply flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers
prepared to serve, the fear or the avarice, the lust or the
cruelty, of their master.
These gloomy apprehensions had been already justified by the
experience of the Romans. The annals of the emperors exhibit a
strong and various picture of human nature, which we should
vainly seek among the mixed and doubtful characters of modern
history. In the conduct of those monarchs we may trace the utmost
lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted perfection, and the
meanest degeneracy of our own species. The golden age of Trajan
and the Antonines had been preceded by an age of iron. It is
almost superfluous to enumerate the unworthy successors of
Augustus. Their unparalleled vices, and the splendid theatre on
which they were acted, have saved them from oblivion. The dark,
unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius,
the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius, and the
timid, inhuman Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy.
During fourscore years (excepting only the short and doubtful
respite of Vespasian’s reign) Rome groaned beneath an unremitting
tyranny, which exterminated the ancient families of the republic,
and was fatal to almost every virtue and every talent that arose
in that unhappy period.
Under the reign of these monsters, the slavery of the Romans was
accompanied with two peculiar circumstances, the one occasioned
by their former liberty, the other by their extensive conquests,
which rendered their condition more completely wretched than that
of the victims of tyranny in any other age or country. From these
causes were derived, 1. The exquisite sensibility of the
sufferers; and, 2. The impossibility of escaping from the hand of
the oppressor.
I. When Persia was governed by the descendants of Sefi, a race of
princes whose wanton cruelty often stained their divan, their
table, and their bed, with the blood of their favorites, there is
a saying recorded of a young nobleman, that he never departed
from the sultan’s presence, without satisfying himself whether
his head was still on his shoulders. The experience of every day
might almost justify the scepticism of Rustan. Yet the fatal
sword, suspended above him by a single thread, seems not to have
disturbed the slumbers, or interrupted the tranquillity, of the
Persian. The monarch’s frown, he well knew, could level him with
the dust; but the stroke of lightning or apoplexy might be
equally fatal; and it was the part of a wise man to forget the
inevitable calamities of human life in the enjoyment of the
fleeting hour. He was dignified with the appellation of the
king’s slave; had, perhaps, been purchased from obscure parents,
in a country which he had never known; and was trained up from
his infancy in the severe discipline of the seraglio. His name,
his wealth, his honors, were the gift of a master, who might,
without injustice, resume what he had bestowed. Rustan’s
knowledge, if he possessed any, could only serve to confirm his
habits by prejudices. His language afforded not words for any
form of government, except absolute monarchy. The history of the
East informed him, that such had ever been the condition of
mankind. The Koran, and the interpreters of that divine book,
inculcated to him, that the sultan was the descendant of the
prophet, and the vicegerent of heaven; that patience was the
first virtue of a Mussulman, and unlimited obedience the great
duty of a subject.
The minds of the Romans were very differently prepared for
slavery. Oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption and
of military violence, they for a long while preserved the
sentiments, or at least the ideas, of their free-born ancestors.
The education of Helvidius and Thrasea, of Tacitus and Pliny, was
the same as that of Cato and Cicero. From Grecian philosophy,
they had imbibed the justest and most liberal notions of the
dignity of human nature, and the origin of civil society. The
history of their own country had taught them to revere a free, a
virtuous, and a victorious commonwealth; to abhor the successful
crimes of Cæsar and Augustus; and inwardly to despise those
tyrants whom they adored with the most abject flattery. As
magistrates and senators they were admitted into the great
council, which had once dictated laws to the earth, whose
authority was so often prostituted to the vilest purposes of
tyranny. Tiberius, and those emperors who adopted his maxims,
attempted to disguise their murders by the formalities of
justice, and perhaps enjoyed a secret pleasure in rendering the
senate their accomplice as well as their victim. By this
assembly, the last of the Romans were condemned for imaginary
crimes and real virtues. Their infamous accusers assumed the
language of independent patriots, who arraigned a dangerous
citizen before the tribunal of his country; and the public
service was rewarded by riches and honors. The servile judges
professed to assert the majesty of the commonwealth, violated in
the person of its first magistrate, whose clemency they most
applauded when they trembled the most at his inexorable and
impending cruelty. The tyrant beheld their baseness with just
contempt, and encountered their secret sentiments of detestation
with sincere and avowed hatred for the whole body of the senate.