'These feeble material forces in an empire which was never
without some war seem marvellous when we compare them with
the burdensome armaments of modern powers, and the enormous
sacrifices imposed upon them in time of profound peace,
merely to maintain their position with regard to foreign
countries, and assure the tranquillity of their
States.'--('Les Césars,' vol. ii. 305.)
The contrast is, indeed, remarkable. A very large portion of the old
Roman Empire no longer forms part of the modern civilised world. The
remainder probably maintained, before the outbreak of the present war,
about 3,000,000 of men under arms, none of whom were employed (like
the armies of ancient Rome) in defending the frontier of a civilised
land against the incursions of warlike barbarous neighbours, but all
in jealously watching the power of neighbouring States and maintaining
a balance--how effectually the events of the last year have but too
plainly shown--or in holding down the struggles of revolutionary
parties at home.
To point the contrast, M. de Champagny shows that the army which
guarded each province of the Empire was composed of natives of the
country in which it was stationed. Roman citizens they no doubt were,
but citizens of provincial extraction, posted to defend in arms on
behalf of Rome the very land which their fathers, only a few
generations back, had defended against her. To this very day neither
France nor England has ventured to imitate this liberal policy.
Ireland is garrisoned by soldiers of English birth, and Breton
conscripts, in times of profound peace, were sent to fulfil their time
of service at Lyons and Paris.
It need hardly be said that the rule which was thus maintained, cannot
have been felt to be severe or oppressive by the subjugated people.
Our author traces the institutions by which the people in the
conquered provinces were gradually assimilated to the conquerors. We
have no space to follow him in detail. The principle was to leave each
nation in possession of its own laws and institutions, and to preserve
to the cities the right of self-government. The degrees of liberty
were different in different cases. In many cases the only restriction
was that they abandoned the right of making war and peace, engaging to
hold as their friends and enemies all whom Rome so held.
'No doubt when Rome was a party this liberty shrank into
small dimensions. The ancient institutions of the peoples
were reduced to the dimensions of municipal charters, their
magistrates became lieutenants of police, their areopagus
an _hôtel de ville_. But still, conquered Athens retained
its areopagus, the Greek cities had still their senates,
their popular assemblies, Marseilles retained that
constitution which had been so much admired by Cicero. Some
cities, such as Marseilles, Nismes, and Sparta, were not
merely free, but sovereign; others remained under their own
laws. Leagues which really meant anything, powerful
confederations, had been dissolved, but when Greece, in
memory of its ancient amphictyonic councils, met at Elis or
Olympia to hold dances in honour of her gods, when all the
Ionian peoples gathered in the Temple of the Panionium for
sacrifices and games, these innocent memorials of a common
origin or of hereditary alliances mattered nothing to Rome.
More than this, the towns of Caria, or the three and twenty
cities of Lycia, assembled their deputies not only for
feasts and games, but to deliberate upon their affairs,
and, provided they did not discuss peace or war, these
traces of political liberty gave no offence to the
liberalism of Rome. Rome had a marvellous power of
perceiving how much of independence would suffice to
content nations without being dangerous; and I doubt
whether any free and sovereign city of our modern Europe,
Cracow for instance [a note added here gives the date of
the first publication of the passage, 1842], is so
completely mistress at home, as Rhodes and Cizicus were
allowed to be under Augustus; whether there is any senate
so much respected as the curia of Tarragona or the council
of six hundred at Marseilles; or a burgomaster whose powers
of police are so sovereign as those of the suffete at
Carthage or the archion at Athens were allowed to be.'
('Les Césars,' vol. ii. 338.)
But while leaving the conquered cities in possession of their ancient
laws and government, Rome introduced in the midst of every province
Latin and Roman franchises, which were given sometimes to old,
sometimes to newly-founded cities. Each of these colonies afforded
many steps, by which the members of the conquered countries might
ascend, more or less completely, to the privileges of the Roman
citizen, and thus the ambition of becoming Romans quickly supplanted
the aspirations after political independence, which could hardly fail
to remain among a newly-conquered people. While enlarging upon this
remarkable characteristic of the Roman system of government over
conquered nations, M. de Champagny introduces a curious episode, into
which we may venture to follow him, and in which he contrasts the
French and English systems in the government of foreign dependencies.
He says:--
'The Frenchman is a contrast to the Roman; his conquests
are merely military, and are therefore transient in
comparison with those of the Roman, which were always
political. The Frenchman is a much better master, because
more sociable, more humane, but he always wishes to show
that he is master, officially, prominently, forcibly. There
is wanting to him a sort of reserve, both towards others
and himself. Instead of disguising his power he makes a
point of letting it be seen, felt, touched, and thus he
makes it annoying or compromises it. He never understands
the importance of some things which appear very small, but
which touch the heart of a foreigner; he laughs at him as
he does at himself; he insists that people should be like
him. He wishes to enforce on them his own laws, his
manners, his language, nay, his vices. He wants them all to
be adopted at once, not gradually, but by force, openly,
without delay. All this of course as a benefit--but what
insults people more than anything else, is a benefit
imposed by force. He is unpopular without being the least
conscious of it, having no suspicion that he has been
tyrannical, and sincerely believes that he is securing the
happiness of the people whom he is deeply irritating, till
all of a sudden his power is overthrown by a storm which he
never thought of expecting. It was thus that India slipped
out of our hands in a few years. In a few months all
Germany roused herself for the great contest of 1813. In a
single day the bells of Palermo gave freedom to Sicily. No
French conquest has ever been lasting.
'On the other hand we are reminded by this Roman invasion
and colonization, so active, so obstinate, so universal, of
the incessant and indefatigable advance of English
colonization.'
He attributes this to the manner in which the English have allowed
the conquered to retain their own institutions, customs, practices,
and religion, thus making the fact of conquest as little evident as
possible.
'England, like Rome, does not pride itself on making its
own language and its own laws universal. The _Prætor
peregrinus_ at Rome judged all peoples according to their
national laws. The Lord Chancellor in London judges the
Canadian according to French law, the inhabitant of Jersey
according to the customs of Normandy, of the Isle of France
(Mauritius) according to the Code Napoleon, the Indian
according to the law of Manou. The social system of England
is no more forced on strangers than the social system of
Rome; the Mussulman is not obliged to drink its ale, nor
the Hindoo to attend its church. All it demands is the
right of introducing itself, and introduce itself it does,
whole and entire, without modifying or conforming itself,
retaining its proud isolation and disdainful peculiarity.
This is the course of nations endowed alike with the spirit
of conquest and of conservatism. Rome and England have kept
their conquests, because their conquest has always been
intelligent and politic, because among them the statesman
has always been master of the warrior, when it has not
happened that the warrior himself was a statesman.' ('Les
Césars,' vol. ii. 333.)
Our first impression in reading this passage was that the author had
done more than justice to the wisdom of the English people. On second
thoughts, however, we believe what he says to be substantially true.
There are obvious exceptions on both sides. For instance, nothing can
be more remarkable than the manner in which France has succeeded in
attaching to herself the German provinces, stolen by Louis XIV. less
than two centuries ago; while, on the other hand, England has held
Ireland at least since the accession of James I., partially since
Henry II., and has never managed for a single day to attach it to
herself. The last case is explained, because England, however it may
be accounted for, adopted in Ireland exactly the opposite course to
that described by M. de Champagny, and forced her own institutions
upon a people for whom they were quite unfit. Mr. Gladstone evidently
hopes that it is not too late to reconcile Ireland, by allowing it (as
the Romans certainly would have done) to be governed by Irish ideas.
The loss of the English colonies in America is another instance, for
which M. de Champagny, we think, imperfectly accounts. The other
instances he mentions seem in point. We do not believe that Frenchmen
would have allowed the people of India to retain their institutions,
manners, &c., as they have actually done under English government. As
for Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche Comté, it is to be observed that
they were not held as dependencies, but were at once made an integral
part of France: and we believe that M. de Montalembert was right in
the opinion he expressed, that they had remained intensely
anti-French, until after the great Revolution, which for the first
time melted down the whole of France into one nationality. This may
easily be accounted for. Englishmen who think of that revolution are
apt to remember only the hideous crimes by which it was sullied. To
the French peasants, and perhaps more especially in the German
provinces, the revolution meant the abolition of the feudal system; a
system always oppressive to all classes, and most of all to those
lower classes on whom the whole weight of the enormous structure
rested and pressed.
But we must return to the Roman Empire. By the system we have
described it avoided what is ever the most grinding of tyrannies, the
domination of race over race. The conquered races, while retaining
their national institutions, very easily attained a place among the
Romans themselves, and before long, felt that the Empire and all it
contained was their own. Before the fall of the Republic, all Italians
either enjoyed the full privileges of Romans or knew that they could
very easily obtain them. Julius Cæsar had no sooner conquered Gaul
than he admitted some Gauls to the senate. This seems to have been
premature, and they are said to have been excluded from it by
Augustus. But the policy was steadily continued. Claudius, who was an
antiquarian, made a well-known speech on the occasion of admitting
more Gauls to the honour. Later we find men of almost every province
in the highest offices, and even attaining the imperial dignity.
The great proof of the wisdom of this system was in its working. The
civilized world was under the dominion of a single city; and yet there
was no example of any national revolt, except in the one instance of
Judæa; nay, conquered countries deprecated as the greatest of evils
separation from the Roman Empire. The 'groans of Britain' when the
Romans withdrew from her are well known. But the Gauls afforded a
still stronger example. They were among the most warlike and restless
of all ancient nations. Their very name had been the greatest terror
Rome ever knew. They were made subjects of Rome, after an heroic and
desperate resistance, in which a million of them perished, only fifty
years before the Christian era. How soon they were left without the
presence of any controlling Roman force we are not informed. Such,
unquestionably, must have been their ordinary position, to say the
least, long before the death of Nero, only one hundred and eighteen
years later (A.D. 68). In the civil commotions which followed, almost
the whole Roman force (itself, as we have already seen, composed of
natives, and employed not to enforce obedience, but to protect the
frontier against invasion) was withdrawn into Italy. A small number of
enterprising Gauls thought this a favourable opportunity for restoring
the national independence. What, however, is most remarkable is, that
it does not seem for one moment to have suggested itself, even to
them, to abolish the Roman or restore the ancient national
institutions. Their hope was to separate themselves from Italy, and
set up a Roman Empire, whose seat should be in Gaul. It seems to have
been owing to this circumstance, that the small remains of the
legionary soldiers still left in the country joined in the
movement--an event quite without example. For several months Gaul was
to all intents and purposes independent, yet its internal affairs and
government seem to have gone on without the least change. The
provincials, left wholly to themselves, convened at Treves a general
assembly of all the Gallic nations, and this assembly determined,
after full discussion, that Gaul should remain a province of the Roman
Empire.
And this was the voluntary resolution of a nation celebrated all over
the world for its warlike courage, and which had been conquered by
Rome less than one hundred and twenty years before. It seems
impossible that anything could more clearly have demonstrated that the
Empire of Rome over the conquered provinces was maintained, not by
force, but by the free will of the provincials.
M. de Champagny gives it as his deliberate opinion that the Roman
Empire, during the first two centuries, is to be regarded as 'a
federation of free nations under an absolute monarch.' He has a most
interesting chapter ('Antonines,' book iv. ch. 11) on the liberties of
the Roman Empire, in which he especially compares them with those of
the nations of modern Europe. It was published under the reign of
Louis Philippe, and is doubly interesting to English readers, both for
the contrast which it establishes between the Roman Empire and the
most free Continental States; and also because it throws much
undesigned light upon the immense difference between the meaning
attached to the word liberty in France and in England. He deliberately
declares, and, we think, proves, that a subject had much greater
personal freedom under the Antonines than under any of the most free
Continental kingdoms. Of political liberty, he says the moderns have
much more--the free press, the right of voting, the tribune (_i.e._,
the power of addressing a public legislative assembly), charters,
constitutions, _habeas corpus_.
'And yet I venture to doubt whether Europe in the
nineteenth century, at the present moment, is much more
free than the ancient world, even under the Roman Empire
(of course I do not include the slaves).... We, the proud
citizens of a Parliamentary monarchy, who have made
revolutions when we were called _subjects_--subjects
nevertheless we were and still are, every day of our lives.
We were and are unable to go from Paris to Neuilly; or to
dine more than twenty together; or to have in our
portmanteau three copies of the same tract; or to lend a
book to a friend; or to put a patch of mortar on our own
house, if it stands in a street; or to kill a partridge, or
to plant a tree near a roadside; or to dig coal out of our
own land; or to teach three or four children to read; or to
gather our neighbours for prayer; or to have an oratory in
our house (what is it that constitutes an oratory?); or to
bleed a sick man; or to sell him a medicine; or (in some
countries) to be married; or to do any one of a thousand
other things, which it would fill volumes to enumerate;
without permission from the Government, which permission,
we are carefully told, is always, and in its very nature,
subject to be recalled. In three cases out of four, indeed,
the Government does not either authorise or forbid; it
tolerates. We live by toleration. We are born, we have a
home, a family, we bring up our children, we have a God, we
have a religion, all by the indulgent and merciful, but
always revocable, toleration of the ruling power. Of all
things that man does there is only one over which the
Government has no authority. We are allowed to die without
its permission. Still, we do need it in order to allow us
to be buried. At certain moments we have sovereign power
over great and public matters, but in small matters of
private life we are subjects, nay, inferior to subjects.
Unluckily, these small matters make up our life, and these
private matters are just the things important in
life.'--('Antonines,' vol. ii. 182.)
This passage brings out in strong light the substantial difference
between our own system and that of the Continental nations. In France,
notwithstanding the passionate demand for liberty which has been
uttered from time to time, we sincerely believe there neither now is
nor ever has been any party which has ever desired what we mean by
liberty, or even understood what it is; and hence, numerous as have
been its revolutions, there is one point on which every government in
France, at least since the days of Richelieu, has been of one mind.
No one of them has respected what we mean by 'personal liberty.' No
one has seriously thought of leaving men to do what they like, as long
as they do not interfere with the liberty and rights of their
neighbour. In this there has been no substantial difference between
the _ancien régime_, the republic, the first empire, the monarchy of
the restoration, the monarchy of July, the second republic, the second
empire, the government of defence. We see no reason to hope that the
system to be authorised by the Assembly just elected will, in this
respect, differ from any of its predecessors. But this is not a thing
peculiar to France. We doubt whether it is not carried even farther in
Germany. We believe the Continental State which, in this respect, is
most like England, to be Switzerland. If Englishmen are wise they will
be on the watch to prevent the gradual introduction of this
Continental system. It is evil, not merely because it needlessly
limits and interferes with the liberty which is the choicest of the
natural gifts of God to man, but because by accustoming men to walk in
leading strings it gradually makes them incapable of walking without
them. A Prussian in England last winter expressed strong misgivings
whether it would be right to skate, because the Government had not yet
authorised it. We have known a Roman gentleman of our own day complain
of the Pope's Government, because he had never been taught to swim.
These things, ludicrous as they are, are symptoms of a very serious
evil, they show that men have been treated like children until their
minds have become childish. Mr. Göschen, some years back, said that he
saw great danger of the same system gradually creeping in among
ourselves. It was likely to come, he said, not because the Government
is anxious to interfere, but because there is a continual tendency on
the part of the people to call for its interference. We shall do well
to sacrifice something of uniformity and energy in many departments,
if they can only be obtained by the sacrifice of liberty. The very
fact that political power has lately been extended so much more widely
among us increases instead of diminishing the danger. Classes long
shut out from political power naturally feel much more eager for
equality than for liberty. In France it is this passion for equality
that makes personal liberty almost hopeless. Under the Roman Empire
equality was never dreamed of. The cities of the same province might
be divided into half a dozen classes, each of which had different
degrees of self-government. But there was none in which a man could so
little do what he liked as in modern Paris. M. de Champagny accounts
for this:--
'The liberties of the Roman Empire consisted not in its
laws, but in something greater or less than laws--in facts,
and these facts may be summed up in one. The art of
government was not then brought to perfection as it is now.
There was more freedom because there was less civilization.
Not to say that Cæsar had neither telegraphs nor railroads,
he had not even any system of administration. This was his
first want. He had no hierarchy of functionaries, depending
upon each other, each subject to be promoted or dismissed
by some other, or by the common master.... Then (a second
want), he neither had nor could have a police; all he had
was a set of volunteer spies, called _delators_,
inconvenient and even dangerous instruments. The heart of
Tiberius would have bounded at the very idea of a great
system of administrative _délation_ and _espionage_ [thank
God English writers are compelled to use Latin or French
words to express a thought so foreign to our manners]
organised from above, and extending its branches everywhere
below, such as that for which I believe we are indebted to
M. de Sartines.[2] His heart would have bounded, but his
purse would have failed, for (his third want) Cæsar had no
budget. The art of finance was in its infancy. Those vast
regions, on an average as rich as they are now, and which
now pay to their actual sovereigns, without much complaint,
at least two hundred millions sterling, did not produce to
Cæsar sixteen millions sterling, and inasmuch as the
contributions which produced these sixteen millions had to
pass through the hands of some fifty thousand publicans and
agents of finance, the contributors, who paid perhaps twice
as much as the Emperor received, cried out fearfully.
Lastly, if Cæsar, wishing to compel his people, had brought
on any serious rising, he would have had no means of
putting it down, for (a fourth want) Cæsar, having no
budget, had no army. Those countries, which now furnish not
less than three millions of soldiers, in those days,
without being much less populous than they are now, did not
furnish more than 300,000 men, and these 300,000 were
absorbed by the guard on the frontiers. There were whole
provinces without a single soldier. This Empire, without
administration, without police, without budget, without
army, would make the lowest clerk in the prefecture of
police, the prefecture of the Seine, the offices of the
Minister of War, or the Minister of Finance, shrug his
shoulders at its poverty--military, fiscal, and
administrative--I know that. But what would have been
thought of our monarchies, so well constituted, so
vigilant, so rich, so powerfully armed, I do not say by the
clerks, but by the subjects of the Roman
Empire?'--('Anton.,' vol. ii. p. 185.)
We heartily wish we had space to give the whole of the chapter from
which we have made these extracts. The author proves in detail that
under the Empire there was liberty of property, municipal liberty,
liberty of association, liberty of worship (except for the
Christians), liberty of education, liberty of speech. This last, M. de
Champagny most truly says, was far more general at Rome under Trajan
than under Louis Philippe at Paris. 'That liberty of the tongue was
the liberty of every man: what is our liberty of the press than the
liberty of two hundred journalists?' It was this that made Tacitus
exclaim, 'Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quæ velis, et quæ
sentias licet dicere.' The effect of this was that
'A modern European, as soon as he goes out of his own door
and begins to act, to think, to live, among his fellows,
must take for granted that everything is forbidden except
what is expressly authorized. Under the Roman Empire,
everything not expressly forbidden was understood to be
authorized. Above all, intellectual liberty was complete.
Every one talked, listened, gave and received information
publicly as he pleased. Doctrines spread. Schools of
thought raised themselves without interference of authority
until it felt itself in danger, not from the general
independence of thought (that misgiving had not yet come
into anyone's mind), but from the special character of some
teaching which arrested its attention. Even when the
Imperial Government made up its mind to be severe, its
rigour might often be averted, sometimes even paralyzed, by
the municipal authority, which alone was on the spot and in
activity in the interior of each great city. It was thus
that the Christian teachers and apologists presented
themselves as "philosophers," for, as a general rule,
philosophers were at liberty to teach what they thought
fit.'
No wonder that centuries of peace, free government of each city and
nation under its own immemorial laws and customs, and taxation little
more than nominal, led to the mighty public works, the very ruins of
which are still the wonders of the world--the roads, 'massy causeways,
whose foundations were beneath the surface, their surface many feet
above it'--the system of navigable rivers and canals which made
communication through the whole world (as it then was) easier and
swifter than it ever was in England before the time of the generation
not yet passed away. M. de Champagny quotes the words of Tertullian:--
'The world itself is opened up, and becomes from day to day
more civilized, and increases the sum of human enjoyment.
Every place is reached, has been made known, is full of
business. Solitudes, famous of old, have changed their
aspects under the richest cultivation. The plough has
levelled forests, and the beasts that prey on man have
given place to those that serve him. Corn waves on the
sea-shores; rocks are opened out into roads, marshes are
drained, cities are more numerous now than villages in
former times. The island has lost its savageness, and the
cliff its desolation. Houses spring up everywhere, and men
to dwell in them. On all sides are government and life.
What better proof can we have of the multiplication of our
race than that man has become a drug, while the very
elements scarcely meet our needs; our wants outrun the
supplies; and the complaint is general that we have
exhausted Nature herself.'[3]