Books: The Old Roman World

J >> John Lord >> The Old Roman World

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[Sidenote: Necessity of revolution.]

[Sidenote: Imperial Rule.]

Historians generally have regarded the revolution, which changed the
republic to a monarchy, as salutary in its influences for several
generations. The empire was never so splendid as under the Caesars. The
energies of the people were directed into peaceful and industrial
channels. A new public policy was inaugurated by Augustus--to preserve
rather than extend the limits of the empire. The world enjoyed peace,
and the rich consoled themselves with riches. Society was established
upon a new basis, and was no longer rent by factions and parties.
Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace, nor were the provinces
ransacked and devastated to provide for the means of carrying on war. So
long as men did not oppose the government they were safe from
molestation, and were left to pursue their business and pleasure in
their own way. Wealth rapidly increased, and all mechanical arts, and
all elegant pleasures. Temples became more magnificent, and the city was
changed from brick to marble. Palaces arose upon the hills, and shops
were erected in the valleys. There were fewer riots and mobs and public
disturbances. Public amusements were systematized and enlarged, and the
people indulged with sports, spectacles, and luxuries. Rome became a
still greater centre of wealth and art as well as of political power.
The city increased in population and beautiful structures. The emperors
were great patrons of every thing calculated to dazzle the eyes of their
subjects, whether amusements, or palaces, or baths, or aqueducts, or
triumphal monuments. Artists and scholars flocked to the great emporium,
as well as merchants and foreign princes. Nor was imperial cruelty often
visited on the humble classes. It was the policy of the emperors to
amuse and flatter the people, while they deprived them of political
rights. But social life was free. All were at liberty to seek their
pleasures and gains. All were proud of their metropolis, with its gilded
glories and its fascinating pleasures. The city was probably supplied
with better water, and could rely with more certainty on the necessaries
of life, than under the old regime. The people had better baths, and
larger houses, and cheaper corn. The government, for a time, was
splendidly administered, even by tyrants. Outrages, extortions, and
disturbances were punished. Order reigned, and tranquillity, and outward
and technical justice. All classes felt secure. They could sleep without
fear of robbery or assassination. And all trades flourished. Art was
patronized magnificently, and every opportunity was offered for making
and for spending fortunes. In short, all the arguments which can be
adduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war and violence,
and the strife of factions and general insecurity of life and property,
can be urged to show that the change, if inevitable, was beneficial in
its immediate effects.

[Sidenote: Despotism of the emperors.]

[Sidenote: Tyranny of the emperors.]

Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition of
things which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties were
prostrated forever. Tyrants, armed with absolute and irresponsible
power, ruled over the empire; nor could their tyranny end but with their
lives. Noble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. The times were
unfavorable to the development of genius, except in those ways which
subserved the interests of the government. Under the emperors we read of
no more great orators like Cicero, battling for human rights, and
defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed. Nor was there
liberty of speech in the Senate. The usual jealousy of tyrants was
awakened to every emancipating influence on the people. They were now
amused with shows and spectacles, but could not make their voices heard
regarding public injuries. The people were absolutely in the hands of
iron masters. So was the Senate. So were all orders and conditions of
men. One man reigned supreme. His will was law. Resistance to it was
vain. It was treason to find fault with any public acts. From the
Pillars of Hercules to the Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all classes
and orders. No one could fly from the agents and ministers of the
empire. He was the vicegerent of the Almighty, worshiped as a deity,
undisputed master of the lives and liberties of one hundred and twenty
millions of people. There was no restraint on his inclinations. He could
do whatever he pleased, without rebuke and without fear. No general or
senator or governor could screen himself from his vengeance. He
controlled the army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internal
administration of the empire, and the religious worship of the people.
All offices and honors and emoluments emanated from him. All opposition
ceased, and all conspired to elevate still higher that supreme arbiter
of fortune whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt was
madness, and treason absurdity. And so perfect was the mechanism of the
government that the emperor had time for his private pleasures. It was
never administered with greater rigor than when Tiberius secluded
himself in his guarded villa. And a timid, or weak, or irresolute
emperor was as much to be feared as a monster, since he was surrounded
with minions who might be unscrupulous. Nor was the imperial power
exercised to check the gigantic social evils of the empire,--those which
were gradually but surely undermining the virtues on which strength is
based. They did not seek to prevent irreligion, luxury, slavery, and
usury, the encroachments of the rich upon the poor, the tyranny of
foolish fashions, demoralizing sports and pleasures, money-making, and
all the follies which lax principles of morality allowed. They fed the
rabble with com and oil and wine, and thus encouraged idleness and
dissipation. The world never saw a more rapid retrograde in human
rights, or a greater prostration of liberties. Taxes were imposed
according to the pleasure or necessities of the government. Provincial
governors became still more rapacious and cruel. Judges hesitated to
decide against the government. A vile example was presented to the
people in their rulers. The emperors squandered immense sums on their
private pleasures, and set public opinion at defiance. Patriotism, in
its most enlarged sense, became an impossibility. All lofty spirits were
crushed. Corruption, in all forms of administration, fearfully
increased, for there was no safeguard. Women became debased from the
pernicious influences of a corrupt and unblushing court. Adultery,
divorce, and infanticide became still more common. The emperors thought
more of securing their own power and indulging their own passions than
of the public good. The humiliating conviction was fastened upon all
classes that liberty was extinguished, and that they were slaves to an
irresponsible power. There are those who are found to applaud a
despotism; but despotism presupposes the absence of the power of self-
government, and the necessity of severe and rigorous measures. It
presupposes the tendency to crime and violence, that men are brutes and
must be coerced like wild beasts. We are warranted in assuming a very
low condition of society when despotism became a necessity.
Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are wise
and just; but, practically, as men are, despotisms are cruel and
revengeful. There are great and glorious exceptions; but it cannot be
denied that society is mournful when tyrants bear rule. And it is seldom
that society improves under them, without very powerful religious
influences. It generally grows worse and worse. Despotism implies
slavery, and slavery is the worst condition of mankind,--doubtless a
wholesome discipline, under certain circumstances, yet still a great
calamity.

[Sidenote: Augustus.]

The Roman world was fortunate in having such a man as Augustus for
supreme ruler, after all liberties were subverted. He was one of the
wisest and greatest of the emperors. He inaugurated the policy of his
successors, from which the immediate ones did not far depart. He was
careful, in the first place, to disguise his powers, and offend the
moral sentiments of the people as little as possible. He met with but
little opposition in his usurpation, for the most independent of the
nobles had perished in the wars, and the rest consulted their interests.
He selected the ablest and most popular men in the city to be his
favorite ministers--Maecenas and Agrippa. His policy was peace. He
declined the coronary gold proffered by the Italian states. He was
profuse in his generosity, without additional burdens on the state, for,
as the heir of Caesar, he came into possession of eight hundred and fifty
millions of dollars, the amount which the Dictator had amassed from the
spoils of war. He was but thirty-three years of age, in the prime of his
strength and courage. He purged the Senate of unworthy members, and
restored the appearance of its ancient dignity. He took a census of the
Roman people. He increased the largesses of corn. He showed confidence
in the people whom he himself deceived. He was modest in his demeanor,
like Pericles at Athens. He visited the provinces and settled their
difficulties. He appointed able men as governors, and perpetuated a
standing army. He repaired the public edifices, and adorned the city.

But he gradually assumed all the great offices of the state. He clothed
himself with the powers and the badges of the consuls, the praenomen of
imperator, the functions of perpetual dictator. He exacted the military
oath from the whole mass of the people. He became _princeps
senatus_. He claimed the prerogatives of the tribunes, which gave to
him inviolability, with the right of protection and pardon. He was also
invested with the illustrious dignity of the supreme pontificate. As the
Senate and the people continued to meet still for the purpose of
legislation, he controlled the same by assuming the initiative, of
proposing the laws. He took occasion to give to his edicts, in his
consular or tribunitian capacity, a perpetual force; and his rescripts
or replies which issued from his council chamber, were registered as
laws. He was released from the laws, and claimed the name of Caesar. The
people were deprived of the election of magistrates. All officers of the
government were his tools, and through them he controlled all public
affairs. The prefect of the city became virtually his minister and
lieutenant. Even the proconsuls received their appointment from him.
Thus he became supreme arbiter of all fortunes, the fountain of all
influence, the centre of all power, absolute over the lives and fortunes
of all classes of men. Strange that the people should have submitted to
such monstrous usurpations, although decently veiled under the names of
the old offices of the republic. But they had become degenerate. They
wished for peace and leisure. They felt the uselessness of any
independent authority, and resigned themselves to a condition which the
Romans two centuries earlier would have felt to be intolerable.

[Sidenote: General character of the emperors.]

Of the immediate successors of Augustus, none equaled him in moderation
or talents. And with the exception of Titus and Vespasian, the emperors
who comprised the Julian family, were stained with great vices. Some
were monsters; others were madmen. But, as a whole, they were not
deficient in natural ability. Some had great executive talents, like
Tiberius--a man of vast experience. But he was a cruel and remorseless
tyrant, full of jealousy and vindictive hatred. Still, amid disgraceful
pleasures, he devoted himself to the cares of office, and exhibited the
virtues of domestic economy. Nor did he take pleasure in the sports of
the circus and the theatre, like most of his successors. But he
destroyed all who stood in his way, as most tyrants do. Nor did he spare
his own relatives. He was sensual and intemperate in his habits, and all
looked to him with awe and trepidation. There was a perfect reign of
terror at Rome during his latter days, and every body rejoiced when the
tyrant died.

[Sidenote: Caligula.]

Caligula, who succeeded Tiberius, belonged to the race of madmen. He put
to death some of the most eminent Romans, in order to seize on their
estates. He repudiated his wife; he expressed the wish that Rome had but
one neck, that it could be annihilated by a blow; he used to invite his
favorite horse to supper, setting before him gilded corn and wine in
golden goblets; he wasted immense sums in useless works; he took away
the last shadow of power from the people; he impoverished Italy by
senseless extravagance; he wantonly destroyed his soldiers by whole
companies; he was doubtless as insane as he was cruel, luxurious,
rapacious, and prodigal; he adorned the poops of galleys with precious
stones, and constructed arduous works with no other purpose than
caprice; he often dressed like a woman, and generally appeared with a
golden beard; he devoted himself to fencing, driving, singing, and
dancing, and was ruled by gladiators, charioteers, and actors. Such was
the man to whom was intrusted the guardianship of an empire. No wonder
he was removed by assassination.

[Sidenote: Claudius.]

His successor was Claudius, made emperor by the Praetorians. He took
Augustus for his model, was well disposed, and contributed greatly to
the embellishment of the capital. But he was gluttonous and intemperate,
and subject to the influence of women and favorites. He was feeble in
mind and body. He was married to one of the worst women in history, and
Messalina has passed into a synonym for infamy. By this woman he was
influenced, and her unblushing effrontery and disgraceful intrigues made
the reign unfortunate. She trafficked in the great offices of the state,
and sacrificed the best blood of the class to which she belonged.
Claudius was also governed by freedmen, who performed such offices as
Louis XV. intrusted to his noble vassals. Claudius resembled this
inglorious monarch in many respects, and his reign was as disastrous on
the morals of the people. When the death of his wife was announced to
him at the banquet, he called for wine, and listened to songs and music.
But she was succeeded by a worse woman, Agrippina, and the marriage of
the emperor with his niece, was a scandal as well as a misfortune. Pliny
mentions having seen this empress in a sea-fight on the Fucine Lake,
clothed in a soldier's cloak. Daughter of an imperator, sister of
another, and consort of a third, she is best known as the mother of
Nero, and the patroness of every thing that was shameful in the follies
of the times. That an emperor should wed and be ruled by two such
infamous women, indicates either weakness or depravity, and both
qualities are equally fatal to the welfare of the state over which he
was called to rule.

[Sidenote: Nero.]

The supreme power then fell into the hands of Nero. He gave the promise
of virtue and ability, and Seneca condescended to the most flattering
panegyrics; but the prospects of ruling beneficently were soon clouded
by the most disgraceful enormities. He destroyed all who were offensive
to those who ruled him, even Seneca who had been his tutor. Lost to all
dignity and decency, he indulged in the most licentious riots,
disguising himself like a slave, and committing midnight assaults. He
killed his mother and his aunt, and divorced his wife. He sung songs on
the public stage, and was more ambitious of being a good flute-player
than a public benefactor. It is even said that he fiddled when Rome was
devastated by a fearful conflagration. He built a palace, which covered
entirely Mount Esquiline, the vestibule of which contained a colossal
statue of himself, one hundred and twenty feet high. His gardens were
the scenes of barbarities, and his banqueting halls of orgies which were
a reproach to humanity. He wasted the empire by enormous contributions,
and even plundered the temples of his own capital. His wife, Poppaea,
died of a kick which she received from this monster, because she had
petulantly reproved him. Longinus, an eminent lawyer, Lucan the poet,
and Petronius the satirist, alike, were victims of his hatred. This last
of the Caesars, allied by blood to the imperial house of Julius, killed
himself in his thirty-first year, to prevent assassination, to the
universal joy of the Roman world, without having done a great deed, or
evinced a single virtue. Flute-playing and chariot races were his main
diversions, and every public interest was sacrificed to his pleasures,
or his vengeance--a man delighting in evil for its own sake.

[Sidenote: Galba.]

Nero was succeeded by Galba, who also was governed by favorites. He was
a great glutton, exceedingly parsimonious, and very unpopular. In the
early stages of his life, he appeared equal to the trust and dignity
reposed in him; but when he gained the sovereignty, he proved deficient
in those qualities requisite to wield it. Tacitus sums up his character
in a sentence. "He appeared superior to his rank before he was emperor,
and would have always been considered worthy of the supreme power, if he
had not obtained it." He was assassinated after a brief reign.

[Sidenote: Otho.]

His successor, Otho, finding himself unequal to the position to which he
was elevated, ended his life by suicide. Vitellius, who wore the purple
next to him, is celebrated for cruelty and gluttony, and was removed by
assassination. Titus and Vespasian were honorable exceptions to the
tyrants and sensualists that had reigned since Augustus, but Domitian
surpassed all his predecessors in unrelenting cruelty. He banished all
philosophers from Rome and Italy, and violently persecuted the
Christians, and was dissolute and lewd in his private habits. He also
met a violent death from the assassin's dagger, the only way that
infamous monsters could be hurled from power. Yet such was the fulsome
flattery to which he and all the emperors were accustomed, that Martial
addressed this monster, preeminent of all in wickedness and cruelty,--

"To conquer ardent, and to triumph shy,
Fair Victory named him from the polar sky.
Fanes to the gods, to men he manners gave;
Rest to the sword, and respite to the brave;
So high could ne'er Herculean power aspire:
The god should bend his looks to the Tarpeian fire."
[Footnote: Book ix. 101. ]

[Sidenote: The latter emperors.]

Of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, I will not speak, since
they were great exceptions to those who generally ruled at Rome. Their
virtues and their talents are justly eulogized by all historians. Great
in war, and greater in peace, they were ornaments of humanity. Under
their sway, the empire was prosperous and happy. Their greatness almost
atoned for the weakness and wickedness of their predecessors. If such
men as they could have ruled at Rome, the imperial regime would have
been the greatest blessing. But with them expired the prosperity of the
empire, and they were succeeded by despots, whose vices equaled those of
Nero and Vitellius. Commodus, Caracalla, Elagabalus, Maximin, Philip,
Gallienus, are enrolled on the catalogue of those who have obtained an
infamous immortality. At last no virtue or talent on the part of the
few emperors who really labored for the good of the state, could arrest
the increasing corruption. The empire was doomed when Constantine
removed the seat of government to Constantinople. Forty-four sovereigns
reigned at Rome from Julius to Constantine, in a period of little more
than three hundred and fifty years, of whom twenty were removed by
assassination. What a commentary on imperial despotism! In spite of the
virtues of such men as Trajan and the Antonines, the history of the
emperors is a loathsome chapter of human depravity, and of its awful
retribution. Never were greater powers exercised by single men, and
never were they more signally abused. From the time of Augustus those
virtues which give glory to society steadily declined. The reigns of the
emperors were fatal to all moral elevation, and even to genius, as in
the latter days of Louis XIV. The great lights which illuminated the
Augustan age, disappeared, without any to take their place. Under the
emperors there are fewer great names than for one hundred years before
the death of Cicero. Eloquence, poetry, and philosophy were alike
eclipsed. Noble aspirations were repressed by the all-powerful and
irresistible despotism.

The tyranny of these emperors was rendered endurable by the general
familiarity with cruelty. In every Roman palace, the slave was chained
to the doorway; thongs hung upon the stairs, and the marks of violence
on the faces of the domestics impressed the great that they were despots
themselves. They were accustomed to the sight of blood in the sports of
the amphitheatre. They ruled as tyrants in the provinces they governed.

But it must be allowed that the system of education was left untrammeled
by the government, provided politics were not introduced; and it
produced men of letters, if not practical statesmen. It sharpened the
intellect and enlivened thought. The text-books of the schools were the
most famous compositions of republican Greece, and the favorite subjects
of declamation were the glories of the free men of antiquity. Nor was
there any restriction placed upon writing or publication analogous to
our modern censorship of the press, and many of the emperors, like
Claudius and Hadrian, were patrons of literature. Even the stoical
philosophers who tried to persuade the emperor that he was a slave, were
endured, since they did not attempt to deprive him of sovereignty.

Nor could the imperial tyranny be resisted by minds enervated by
indulgence and estranged from all pure aspirations, by the pleasures of
sense. They crouched like dogs under the uplifted arm of masters. They
did not even seek to fly from the tyranny which ground them down.

[Sidenote: Character of the emperors.]

It cannot be denied that, on the whole, this long succession of emperors
was more intellectual and able than oriental dynasties, and even many
occidental ones in the Middle Ages, when the principle of legitimacy was
undisputed. The Roman emperors, as men of talents, favorably compare
with the successors of Mohammed, and the Carlovingian and Merovingian
kings. But if these talents were employed in systematically crushing out
all human rights, the despotism they established became the more
deplorable.

Nor can it be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, who
would have ornamented any age or country. Titus, Hadrian, Marcus
Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus,
Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well as
talents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. Marcus
Aurelius was one of the purest and noblest characters of antiquity.
Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most illustrious
sovereigns that ever wore a crown--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, with
William III., with Gustavus Adolphus.

Of these Roman emperors some stand out as world heroes--greatest among
men--remarkable for executive ability. Julius is the most renowned name
of antiquity. He ranks only with Napoleon Bonaparte in modern times. His
genius was transcendent; and, like Napoleon, he had great traits which
endear him to the world--generosity, magnanimity, and exceeding culture;
orator, historian, and lawyer, as well as statesman and general. But he
overturned the liberties of his country to gratify a mad ambition, and
waded through a sea of blood to the mastership of the world. Augustus
was a profound statesman, and a successful general; but he was stained
with the arts of dissimulation and an intense ambition, and sacrificed
public liberties and rights to cement his power. Even Diocletian, tyrant
and persecutor as he was, was distinguished for masterly abilities, and
was the greatest statesman whom the empire saw, with the exception of
Augustus. Such a despot as Tiberius ruled with justice and ability.
Constantine ranks with the greatest monarchs of antiquity. The vices and
ambition of these men did not dim the lustre of their genius and
abilities.

[Sidenote: The Imperial despotism.]

Their cause was wrong. It matters not whether the emperors were good or
bad, if the regime, to which they consecrated their energies, was
exerted to crush the liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism,
whether brilliant or disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde in the
polity of Rome. It implied the extinction of patriotism, and the general
degradation of the people, or else the fabric of despotism could not
have been erected. It would have been impossible in the days of Cato,
Scipio, or Metellus. It was simply a choice of evils. When nations
emerge from utter barbarism into absolute monarchies, like the ancient
Persians or the modern Russians, we forget the evils of a central power
in the blessings which extend indirectly to the degraded people. But
when a nation loses its liberties, and submits without a struggle to
tyrants, it is a sad spectacle to humanity. The despotism of Louis XIV.
was not disgraceful to the French people, for they never had enjoyed
constitutional liberty. The despotism of Louis Napoleon is mournful,
because the nation had waded through a bloody revolution to achieve the
recognition of great rights and interests, and dreamed that they were
guaranteed. It is a retrograde and not a progress; a reaction of
liberty, which seats Napoleon on the throne of Louis Philippe; even as
the reign of Charles II. is the saddest chapter in English history. If
liberty be a blessing, if it be possible for nations to secure it
permanently, then the regime of the Roman emperors is detestable and
mournful, whatever necessities may have called it into being, since it
annulled all those glorious privileges in which ancient patriots
gloried, and prevented that scope for energies which made Rome mistress
of the world. It was impossible for the empire to grow stronger and
grander. It must needs become weaker and more corrupt, since despotism
did not kindle the ambition of the people, but suppressed their noblest
sentiments, and confined their energies to inglorious pursuits. Men
might acquire more gigantic fortunes under the emperors than in the
times of the republic, and art might be more extensively cultivated, and
luxury and refinement and material pleasures might increase; but public
virtue fled, and those sentiments on which national glory rests vanished
before the absorbing egotism which pervaded all orders and classes. The
imperial despotism may have been needed, and the empire might have
fallen, even if it had not existed; still it was a sad and mournful
necessity, and gives a humiliating view of human greatness. No lover of
liberty can contemplate it without disgust and abhorrence. No
philosopher can view it without drawing melancholy lessons of human
degeneracy--an impressive moral for all ages and nations.