continues, as far as can be done in modern times, the ancient sway of
Rome, irradiating round so much of the globe, by commerce, literature,
art, science, industry, dominance of political ideas, the influence
of the Latin world, making tributaries to Latin culture of barbarous
peoples, and nations too young for leadership or grown too old; and
France has inherited the pre-eminence in wines, although it lies at
the farthest confines of the vine-bearing zone, beyond which the tree
of Bacchus refuses to live. Do you realise that in all the wide belt
of earth where vineyards flourish, only the dry hills of Champagne
ripen the delicious effervescent wine that refigures in modern
civilisation--at least for those who are fond of wine--the nectar of
the gods? And this, while effervescent wines are made in innumerable
parts of the world and many are so good that one wonders if it were
not possible for them, manufactured with care, placed in sightly
bottles, and sold at as high a price as the most famous French
Champagne, to dispute a part of the admiration that the devotees of
Bacchus render to the French wine. Ah, they do not scintillate before
the eyes of the world as symbols of gay intoxication like the others,
for through those bottles passes no ray of the glory and prestige of
France! An historian fond of paradoxes might affirm, and with great
likelihood, what does not appear at first glance: that the great
brands of French Champagne would not be sold so dear if the French
Revolution had been suppressed by the European coalition, and if
France, overcome in the terrible trial, had been enchained by the
absolute monarchies of Europe like a dangerous beast. It would even
be possible to declare that the reputation of Champagne is rooted, not
only in the ground where the grapes are cultivated, and preserved in
the vast cellars where the precious crops are stored, but in all
the historic tradition of France, in all that which has given France
worldly glory and power: the victorious wars, the distant conquests,
the colonies, the literature, the art, the science, the money capital,
and the spirit--cosmopolitan, expansive, dynamic--of its history.
It would be possible to declare that it makes and pours into all the
world its precious wine by that same virtue, intimate, national,
and historic, by which it created the encyclopædia and made the
Revolution, let Napoleon loose on Europe and founded the Empire,
wrote so many famous books and built on the banks of the Seine the
marvellous universal city, where all the forces of modern civilisation
are gathered together and hold each other in equilibrium: aristocracy
and democracy, the cosmopolite spirit and the spirit of nationality,
money and science, war and fashion, art and religion. If France
had not had its great history, Champagne would have remained an
effervescing wine of modest household use that the peasants place
every year in barrels for their own family consumption or to sell in
the vicinity of the city of Rheims.
Social Development of the Roman Empire.
Augustus died the twenty-third of August of the year 14 A.D., saying
to Livia, as she embraced him: "Adieu, Livia, remember our long life."
Suetonius adds that, before dying, he had asked the friends who
had come to salute him, if he seemed to them "_mimum vitæ commode
transegisse"_--to have acted well his life's comedy. In this famous
phrase many historians have seen a confession, an acknowledgment of
the long rôle of deceit that the unsurpassable actor had played to
his public. What a mistake! If Augustus did pronounce that famous
sentence, he meant to say quite another thing. An erudite German has
demonstrated with the help of many texts that the ancient writers,
and especially the stoic philosophers, commonly compared life to a
theatrical representation, divided into different acts and with an
inevitable epilogue, death, without intending to say that it was a
thing little serious or not true. They only meant that life is an
action, which has a natural sequence from beginning to end, like a
theatrical representation. There is then no need to translate the
expression of Augustus "the play"--that is, the deceit--"is ended,"
but rather "the drama"--the work committed by destiny--"is finished."
The drama was ended, and what a drama! It is difficult to find in
history a longer and more troubled career than that known by Augustus
for nearly sixty years, from the far-away days when, young, handsome,
full of ambition and daring, he had come to Rome, throwing himself
head first into the frightful turmoil let loose by the murder of
Cæsar, to that tranquil death, the death of a great wise man, in the
midst of the _pax Romana_, now spread from end to end of the Empire!
After so many tragic catastrophies had struck his class and his
family, _Euthanasia_--the death of the happy--descended for the first
time since the passing of Lucullus, to close the eyes of a great
Roman.
There is no better means of giving an idea of the mission of the Roman
Empire in the world than to summarise the life and work of this famous
personage. Augustus has been in our century somewhat the victim of
Napoleon I. The extraordinary course of events at the beginning of
the nineteenth century made so vivid an impression on succeeding
generations, that for the whole of the century people have been able
to admire only the great agitators, men whose lives are filled with
storm and clamorous action. Compared with that of Napoleon or of
Cæsar, the figure of Augustus is simple and colourless. The Roman
peace, in the midst of which he died, was his work only very
indirectly. Augustus had wearied his whole life in reorganising
the finances and the army, in crushing the revolts of the European
provinces, in defending the boundaries of the Rhine and the Danube,
in making effective in Rome, as far as he could, the old aristocratic
constitution. All intent on this service, a serious and difficult
one, he never dreamed of regenerating the Empire by a powerful
administration. Even if he had wished it, he would not have had the
means--men and money.
For the past century, the vastness and power of the administration
that governed the Empire has been greatly admired. Without discussing
many things possible on this point, it must be observed that this
judgment does not apply to the times of Augustus and Tiberius, because
then this administration did not exist. During the first fifty years
of the Empire, the provinces were all governed, as under the Republic,
by proconsuls or proprætors, each accompanied by a quæstor, a few
subordinate officials, freedmen, friends, and slaves. A few dozen of
men governed the provinces, as vast as states. Augustus added to this
rudimentary administration but one organ, the procurator, chosen from
freedmen or knights, charged with overseeing the collection of tribute
and expenses; that is, caring for the interests, not of the provinces,
but of Rome. Consequently, the government was weak and inactive in all
the provinces.
Whoever fancies the government of Rome modelled after the type of
modern governments, invading, omnipotent, omnipresent, deceives
himself. There were sent into the provinces nobles belonging to rich
and noted families, who had therefore no need to rob the subjects
too much; and these men ruled, making use of the laws, customs,
institutions, families of nobles, of each place, exactly as England
now does in many parts of its Empire. As in general these governors
were not possessed of any great activity, they did not meddle much in
the internal affairs of the subject peoples. To preserve the unity of
the Empire and the supremacy of Italy against all enemies, within and
without; to exploit reasonably this supremacy; for the rest, to let
every people live as best pleased it: such was the policy of Augustus
and of Tiberius, the policy of the first century A.D. In short, this
was but the idea of the old aristocratic party, adapted to the new
times.
So the Roman Government gave itself little concern at this time for
the provinces, nor did it build in them any considerable public work.
It did not construct roads, nor canals, nor harbours, except when
they were necessary to the metropolis; for example, Agrippa made
the network of Gallic roads; Augustus opened the first three great
highways that crossed the Alps. It would be a mistake to suppose that
these important constructions were designed to favour the progress
of Gallic commerce; they were strategic highways made to defend the
Rhine. As gradually Gaul grew rich, Rome had to recognise that the
weak garrisons, set apart in the year 27 for the defence of the Rhine
and the Danube, were insufficient. It would have been necessary to
increase the army, but the finances were in bad condition. Augustus
then thought to base defence on the principle that the immense
frontiers could not all be assailed at the same time, and therefore he
constructed some great military roads across the Alps and Gaul, to be
able to collect the soldiery rapidly from all parts of the Empire at
any point menaced, on the Rhine or on the Danube.
The imperial policy of Augustus and that of Tiberius, who applied the
same principles with still greater vigour, was above all a negative
policy. Accordingly, it could please only those denying as useful to
progress another kind of men, the great agitators of the masses. Shall
we therefore conclude that Augustus and Tiberius were useless? So
doing, we should run the risk of misunderstanding all the history of
the Roman conquest. By merely comprehending the value of the apparent
inactivity of Augustus and Tiberius, one can understand the essence of
the policy of world expansion initiated by the Roman aristocracy after
the Second Punic War. At the beginning, this policy was pre-eminently
destructive. Everywhere Rome either destroyed or weakened, not
nations or peoples, but republics, monarchies, theocracies,
principalities--that is, the political superstructures that framed the
different states, great or small; everywhere it put in place of these
superstructures the weak authority of its governors, of the Senate, of
its own prestige; everywhere it left intact or gave greater freedom to
the elementary forms of human association, the family, the tribe, the
city.
So for two centuries Rome continued in Orient and Occident to suppress
bureaucracies, to dismiss or reduce armies, to close royal palaces,
to limit the power of priestly castes or republican oligarchies,
substituting for all these complicated organisations a proconsul
with some dozens of vicegerent secretaries and attendants. The
last enterprise of this policy, which I should be tempted to
call "state-devouring," was the destruction of the dynasty of the
Ptolemies, in Egypt. Without doubt, the suppression of so many
states, continued for two centuries, could not be accomplished without
terrible upheavals. It would be useless to repaint here the grim
picture of the last century of the Republic; sufficient to say, the
grandiosity of this convulsion has hindered most people from seeing
that the state-devouring policy of Rome included in itself, by the
side of the forces of dissolution, beneficent, creative forces, able
to bring about a new birth. If this policy had not degenerated into
an unbridled sacking, it could have effectuated everywhere notable
economies in the expenses of government that were borne by the poorer
classes, suppressing as it did so many armies, courts, bureaucracies,
wars. It is clear that Rome would have been able to gather in on
all sides, especially in the Orient, considerable tribute, merely
by taking from the various peoples much less than the cost of their
preceding monarchies and continuous wars. Moreover, Rome established
with the conquests throughout the immense Empire what we would call
a régime of free exchange; made neighbours of territories formerly
separated by constant wars, unsafe communication, and international
anarchy; and rendered possible the opening up of mines and forests
hitherto inaccessible.
The apparent inactivity of Augustus and Tiberius was simply the
ultimate and most beneficent phase of the state-devouring policy of
Rome, that in which, the destructive forces exhausted, the creative
forces began to act. Augustus and Tiberius only prolonged indefinitely
by means of expedients that mediocre order and that partial
tranquillity re-established after Actium by the general weariness;
but exactly for this reason were they so useful to the world. In
this peace, in this mediocre order, the policy of expansion of Rome,
finally rid of all the destructive forces, matured all the benefits
inherent within it. Finally, after a frightful crisis, the world
was able to enjoy a liberty and an autonomy such as it had never
previously enjoyed and which perhaps it will never again in an equal
degree of civilisation and in so great an extension.
The Empire then covered Spain, France, Belgium, a part of Germany and
Austria, Switzerland and Italy, the Balkanic countries, Greece, Asia
Minor, Syria, Palestine, a part of Arabia, Egypt, and all northern
Africa. I do not believe that the political _personnel_ that made up
the central government of this enormous Empire ever comprised more
than 2000 men. The army charged with defending so many territories
numbered about 200,000 men--fewer than the present army of Italy
alone. The effects of this order of things were soon to be seen; in
all the Mediterranean basin there began a rapid and universal economic
expansion, which, on a smaller scale, might remind one of what Europe
and America have seen in the nineteenth century. New lands were
cultivated, new mines opened, new wares manufactured, exports sent
into regions formerly closed or unknown; and every new source of
wealth, creating new riches, made labour and commerce progress.
Foremost among all nations of the Empire, at the centre, Italy rapidly
consolidated its fortune and its domination. After the mad plundering
of the times of Cæsar, followed methodical exploiting. Italy attracted
to itself by the power of political leadership the precious metals and
wares of luxury from every part of the Empire; the largest quantity
of these things passed through Rome, before being scattered throughout
the peninsula in exchange for the agricultural and industrial products
of Italy, consumed in the capital. Consequently the middle classes and
many cities grew rich, especially the cities of the Campania, Pompeii,
Herculaneum, Naples, Pozzuoli, through which passed all the trade
between Italy and Egypt. In addition, Italy found an abundant source
of income in the exportation of wine and oil.
In short, having at last emerged from revolution, the peoples of Italy
rallied around Rome and the imperial power, united and relatively
content. At the same time, the provinces began among themselves, about
Italy, a great interchange of merchandise, men, ideas, customs,
across the Mediterranean. Rome and Italy were invaded by a crowd
of Orientals, slaves, freedmen, merchants, artisans, _litterati_,
artists, acrobats, poets, adventurers; and contemporaneously with Rome
and Italy, the agricultural provinces of the West, especially those
along the Danube. Rome did not conquer the barbarous provinces of
Europe for itself alone; it conquered them also for the East, which,
in Mesia, Dalmatia, Pannonia, among those barbarians growing civilised
and eager to live in cities, found customers for their industries in
articles of luxury, for their artists, teachers of literature, and
propagandists of religion.
We are therefore able to explain to ourselves why, beginning from the
time of Augustus, all the industrial cities of the Orient--Pergamon,
Laodicea, Ephesus, Ierapolis, Tyre, Sidon, Alexandria--entered upon
an era of new and refulgent prosperity. Finally, we add the singular
enriching of two nations, whose names return anew united for the last
time, Egypt and Gaul. To all the numerous sources of Gallic wealth
there is to be added yet another, the importance of which is easier
to understand after what I have said on the development of the
Empire. Pliny tells us that all Gaul wove linen sails. The progress of
navigation, a consequence of the progress of commerce, much increased
the demand for linen sail-cloth, something that explains the spread of
flax cultivation in Gaul and the profit derived from it.
As to Egypt, it not only found in the pacified empire new outlets for
its old industries, but also succeeded in engaging a large part of the
new commerce with the extreme Orient, which was at this time greatly
on the increase. From India and China were imported pearls, diamonds,
silk fabrics; for the use of these wares gained largely during
this century, as it has done in recent times in Europe and America;
perfumes were also imported, and rice, which served as a medicament
and to prepare dishes of luxury.
The unity of the Empire was due far more to this great economic
development that began under Augustus than to the political action
of the early emperors. Little by little, imperial interests became
so numerous and so considerable that Rome saw the effort necessary
to keep up the unity diminish. Everywhere, even in the most distant
regions, powerful minorities formed that worked for Rome and against
old separating, anti-uniting forces, against old traditions and local
patriotism alike. The wealthy classes everywhere became in a special
way wholly favourable to Rome. Therefore there is no more serious
mistake than regarding the Roman Empire as the exclusive work of a
government: it was in truth created by two diverse forces, operating
one after the other--each in its own time, for both were necessary: a
force of destruction--the state-devouring policy of Rome; a force of
reconstruction--the economic unification. The annihilation of states,
without which there would have been no economic unification, was the
work of the government and the armies. It was the politicians of the
Senate that destroyed so many states by wars and diplomatic intrigues;
but the economic unification was made chiefly by the infinitely
little--the peasant, the artisan, the educated man--the nameless many,
that lived and worked and passed away, leaving hardly trace or record.
These unknown that laboured, each seeking his own personal happiness,
contributed to create the Empire as much as did the great statesmen
and generals. For this reason I can never regard without a certain
emotion the mutilated inscriptions in the museums, chance salvage from
the great shipwreck of the ancient world, that have preserved the name
of some land-owner, or merchant, or physician, or freedman. Lo!
what remains of these generations of obscure workers, who were the
indispensable collaborators of the great statesmen and diplomatists of
Rome, and without whom the political world of Rome would have been but
a gigantic enterprise of military brigandage!
The great historic merit of Augustus and of Tiberius is that they
presided over the passage from the destructive to the reorganising
phase with their wise, prudent, apparently inactive policy. The
transition, like all transitions, was difficult; the disintegrating
forces were not yet exhausted; the upbuilding forces were still very
weak; the world of the time was in unstable equilibrium, violent
perturbations certainly yet possible. Without doubt, it is hard to say
what would have happened if, instead of being governed by the policy
of Augustus, the world had fallen into the hands of an adventurous
oligarchy like that which gathered around Alexander the Great; but we
can at least affirm that the sagacity and prudence of Augustus, which
twenty centuries afterward appear as inactivity, did much to avoid
such disturbances, the consequences of which, in a world so exhausted,
would have been grave.
Nor is it correct to believe that this policy was easy. Moderation
and passivity, even when good for the governed, rust and waste away
governments, which must always be doing something, even if it be only
making mistakes. In fact, while supreme power usually brings return
and much return to him who exercises it, especially in monarchies, it
cost instead, and unjustly, to Augustus and Tiberius. Augustus had to
offer to the monster, as Tiberius called the Empire, almost all his
family, beginning with the beloved Julia, and had to spend for the
state almost all his fortune. We know that although in the last twenty
years of his life he received by many bequests a sum amounting to a
billion and four hundred million sesterces, he left his heirs only one
hundred and fifty million sesterces, all the rest having been spent by
him for the Republic: this was the singular civil list of this curious
monarch, who, instead of fleecing his subjects, spent for them almost
all he had. It is vain to speak of Tiberius: the Empire cost him the
only thing that perhaps he held dear, his fame. A philosophic history
would be wrong in not recognising the grandeur of these sacrifices,
which are the last glory of the Roman nobility. The old political
spirit of the Roman nobility gave to Augustus and Tiberius the
strength to make these sacrifices, and they probably saved ancient
civilisation from a most difficult crisis.
It may be observed that Augustus and Tiberius worked for the Empire
and the future without realising it. Far from understanding that the
economic progress of their time would unify the Empire better than
could their laws and their legions, they feared it; they believed
that it would everywhere diffuse "corruption," even in the armies,
and therefore weaken the imperial power of resistance against the
barbarians on the Rhine and the Danube. The German peril--the future
had luminously to demonstrate it--was much less than Augustus and
Tiberius believed. In other words, the first two emperors thought that
the unity of the Empire would be maintained by a vigorous, solid army,
while the economic progress, which spread "corruption," appeared to
them to put it to risk.
Exactly the opposite happened; the army continued to decay,
notwithstanding the desperate efforts of Tiberius, while the inner
force of economic interests held the countries well bound together.
It is impossible to oppose this course of reasoning, in itself most
accurate; but what conclusion is to be drawn from it? In the chaotic
conflict of passions and interests that make up the world, the deeds
of a man or a party are not useful in proportion to the objective
truth of the ideas acted out, or to the success attained. Their
usefulness depends upon the direction of the effort, on the ends it
proposes, on the results it obtains. There are men and parties of whom
one might say, they were right to be wrong, when chimerical ideas
and mistakes have sustained their courage to carry out an effective
effort; there are others, instead, of whom it might be said that they
were wrong to be right, when their clear vision of present and past
kept them from accomplishing some painful but necessary duty.
Certainly the old Roman traditions were destined to be overwhelmed
by the invasion of Oriental ideas and habits; but what might not
have happened if every one had understood this from the very times of
Augustus; if then no one had opposed the invasion of Orientalism; if
mysticism and the monarchy of divine right had transformed Italy or
the Empire within fifty years instead of three centuries? I should
not at all hesitate to affirm that certain errors are in certain
conjunctions much wiser than the corresponding verities. There is
nothing more useful in life than resistance, though apparently futile,
against social forces fated to perish, because these, struggling on to
the very end, always succeed in imposing a part of themselves on the
victorious power, and the result is always better than a complete
and unantagonised victory of the opposing force. To the obstinate
resistance with which republican principles combated Asiatic monarchy
in Rome, we must even to-day render thanks for the fact that Europe
was not condemned, like Asia, to carry the eternal yoke of semidivine
absolutism, even in dynastic regimes. What social force destined to
perish would still have power to struggle if it clearly foresaw its
inevitable future dissolution; if it did not fortify itself a little
with some deluding vision of its own future?