Ancient States and Empires

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE CLIMAX OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

On the extinction of the Julian line, a new class of emperors succeeded, by whom the prosperity of the empire was greatly advanced. We have now to fall back on Niebuhr, Gibbon, and the Roman historians, and also make more use of Smith's digest of these authors. But so much ground still remains to go over, that we can only allude to salient points, and our notice of succeeding emperors must be brief.

Galba.

The empire was now to be the prize of successful soldiers, and Galba, at the age of seventy-three, was saluted imperator by the legions before the death of Nero, A.D. 68, and acknowledged by the Senate soon after. There is nothing memorable in his short reign of a few months, and he was succeeded by Otho, who only reigned three months, and he was succeeded by Vitellius, who was removed by violent death, like Galba and Otho. These three emperors left no mark, and were gluttons and sensualists, who excited nothing but contempt; soldiers of fortune—only respectable in inferior rank.

Vespasian proclaimed emperor.

On the first of July, A.D. 69, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, of humble family, arose, as general, to the highest honors of the State, and was first proclaimed emperor at Alexandria, at the close of the Jewish war, which he conducted to a successful issue. A brief contest with Vitellius secured his recognition by the Senate, and the first of the Flavian line began to reign—a man of great talents and virtues. On the fall of Jerusalem, his son Titus returned to Rome, and celebrated a joint triumph with his father, and the gates of the temple of Janus were shut,—the first time since Augustus,—and universal peace was proclaimed.

His first acts. Titus.

One of the first acts of the new emperor was to purify the Senate, reduced to two hundred members, soon followed by the restoration of the finances. He rebuilt the capitol, erected the temple of Peace, the new forum, the baths of Titus, and the Coliseum. He extended a generous patronage to letters, and under his reign Quintilian, the great rhetorician, and Pliny, the naturalist, flourished. It was in the ninth year of his reign that an eruption of Vesuvius occurred, when Herculaneum and Pompeii were destroyed, to witness which Pliny lost his life. Vespasian had associated with himself his son Titus in the government, and died, after a reign of ten years, exhausted by the cares of empire; and Titus quietly succeeded him, but reigned only for two years and a quarter, and was succeeded by his brother, Domitian, a man of some ability, but cruel, like Nero. He was ten years younger than Titus, and was thirty years of age when proclaimed emperor by the prætorians, and accepted by the Senate, A.D. 81. At first he was a reformer, but soon was stained by the most odious vices. He continued the vast architectural works of his father and brother, and patronized learning.

Domitian. Conquest of Britain.

It was during the reign of Domitian that Britain was finally conquered by Agricola, who was recalled by the jealousy of the emperor, after a series of successes which gave him immortality. The reduction of this island did not seriously commence until the reign of Claudius. By Nero, Suetonius Paulinus was sent to Britain, and under him Agricola took his first lessons of soldiership. Under Vespasian he commanded the twentieth legion in Britain, and was the twelfth Roman general sent to the island. On his return to Rome he was made consul, and Britain was assigned to him as his province, where he remained seven years, until he had extended his conquests to the Grampian Hills. He taught the Britons the arts and luxuries of civilized life, to settle in towns, and to build houses and temples. Among the foes he encountered, the most celebrated was Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, on the eastern coast, who led the incredible number of two hundred and forty thousand against the Roman legions, but was defeated, with the loss of eighty thousand,—some atonement for the seventy thousand Romans, and their allies, who had been slain at Londinium, when Suetonius Paulinus commanded.

Persecution of Christians.

The year of Agricola's recall, A.D. 84, forms the epoch of the undisguised tyranny which Domitian subsequently exercised. The reign of informers and proscriptions recommenced, and many illustrious men were executed for insufficient reasons. The Christians were persecuted, and the philosophers were banished, and yet he received the most fulsome flattery from the poet Martial. The tyrant lived in seclusion, in his Alban villa, and was finally assassinated, after a reign of fifteen years, A.D. 96.

Nerva.

On his death a new era of prosperity and glory was inaugurated, by the election of Nerva, and for five successive reigns the Roman world was governed with virtue and ability. It is the golden era of Roman history, praised by Gibbon and admired by all historians, during which the eyes of contemporaries saw nothing but to panegyrize.

Death of Nerva.

Marcus Cocceius Nerva was the great-grandson of a minister of Octavius, and was born in Umbria. He was consul with Vespasian, A.D. 71, and with Domitian, in A.D. 90, and was far advanced in life when chosen by the Senate. The public events of his short but beneficent reign are unimportant. He relieved poverty, diminished the expenses of the State, and set, in his own life, an example of republican simplicity. But he did not reign long enough to have his character tested. He died in sixteen months after his elevation to the purple. His chief work was to create a title for his successor, for he assumed the right of adoption, and made choice of Trajan, without regard to his own kin, then at the head of the armies of Germany.

Trajan.

The new emperor, one of the most illustrious that ever reigned at Rome, was born in Spain, A.D. 52, and had spent his life in the camp. He had a tall and commanding form, was social and genial in his habits, and inspired universal respect. No better choice could have been made. He entered his capital without pomp, unattended by guards, distinguished only for the dignity of his bearing, allowing free access to his person, and paying vows to the gods of his country. His wife, Plotina, bore herself as the spouse of a simple senator, and his sister, Marciana, exhibited a demeanor equally commendable.

The Dacian war. Gladiatorial sports. The Forum Trajanum.

The great external event of his reign was the war against the Dacians, and their country was the last which the Romans subdued in Europe. They belonged to the Thracian group of nations, and were identical with the Getæ. They inhabited the country which was bordered on the south by the Danube and Mœsia. They were engaged in frequent wars with the Romans, and obtained a decided advantage, in the reign of Domitian, under their king Decebalus. The honor of the empire was so far tarnished as to pay a tribute to Dacia, but Trajan resolved to wipe away the disgrace, and headed himself an expedition into this distant country, A.D. 101, with eighty thousand veterans, subdued Decebalus, and added Dacia to the provinces of the empire. He built a bridge over the Danube, on solid stone piers, about two hundred and twenty miles below the modern Belgrade, which was a remarkable architectural work, four thousand five hundred and seventy feet in length. Enough treasures were secured by the conquest of Dacia to defray the expenses of the war, and of the celebrated triumph which commemorated his victories. At the games instituted in honor of this conquest, eleven thousand beasts were slain, and ten thousand gladiators fought in the Flavian Amphitheatre. The column on which his victories were represented still remains to perpetuate his magnificence, with its two thousand five hundred figures in bas-relief, winding in a spiral band around it from the base to the summit—one of the most interesting relics of antiquity. Near this column were erected the Forum Trajanum, and the Basilica Ulpia, the former one thousand one hundred feet long, and the basilica connected with it, surrounded with colonnades, and filled with colossal statues. This enormous structure covered more ground than the Flavian Amphitheatre, and was built by the celebrated Apollodorus, of Damascus. It filled the whole space between the Capitoline and the Quirinal. The double colonnade which surrounded it was one of the most beautiful works of art in the world.

On the conquest of Dacia, Trajan devoted himself to the internal administration of his vast empire. He maintained the dignity of the Senate, and allowed the laws to take their course. He was untiring in his efforts to provide for the material wants of his subjects, and in developing the resources of the empire, nor did he rule by oppressive exactions.

The Parthian expedition. Death of Trajan.

After seven years of wise administration, he again was called into the field to extend the eastern frontier of the empire. His efforts were directed against Armenia and Parthia. He reduced the former to a Roman province, and advanced into those Caucasian regions where no Roman imperator had preceded him, except Pompey, receiving the submission of Iberians and Albanians. To overthrow Parthia was now his object, and he advanced across the Tigris to Ctesiphon. In the Parthian capital he was saluted as imperator; but, oppressed with gloom and enfeebled by sickness, he did not presume to reach, as he had aspired, the limits of the Macedonian conquest. He was too old for such work. He returned to Antioch, sickened, and died in Cilicia, August, A.D. 117, after a prosperous and even glorious reign of nineteen and a half years. But he had the satisfaction of having raised the empire to a state of unparalleled prosperity, and of having extended its limits on the east and on the west to the farthest point it ever reached.

Hadrian.

Publius Ælius Hadrian succeeded this great emperor, and was born in Rome A.D. 76, and was a son of the first cousin of Trajan. He made extraordinary attainments as a youth, and served honorably in the armies of his country, especially during the Dacian wars. At twenty-five he was quæstor, at thirty-one he was prætor, and in the following year was made consul, for the forms of the old republic were maintained under the emperors. He was adopted by Trajan, and left at the head of the army at Antioch at the age of forty-two, when Trajan died on his way to Rome. He was at once proclaimed emperor by the army, and its choice was confirmed by the Senate.

His warlike expeditions.

He entered upon his reign with matured knowledge and experience, and sought the development of the empire rather than its extension beyond the Euphrates. He therefore withdrew his armies from Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Parthia, and returned to Rome to celebrate, in Trajan's name, a magnificent triumph, and by employing the spoils of war in largesses and remission of taxes. Averse to the extension of the empire, he still aimed to secure its limits from hostile inroads, and was thus led to repel invasions in Dacia and Britain. He marched at the head of his legions, bareheaded and on foot, as far as Mœsia, and in another campaign through Gaul to the Rhine, and then crossed over to Britain, and secured the northern frontier, by a wall sixty-eight and a half miles in length, against the Caledonians. He then returned to Gaul, passed through Spain, crossed the straits to Mauritania, threatened by the Moors, restored tranquillity, and then advanced to the frontiers of Parthia. He then returned through Asia Minor, and across the Ægean to Athens, and commenced the splendid works with which he adorned the intellectual capital of the empire. Before returning to Rome, he visited Carthage and Sicily.

Hadrian visits the provinces.

Five years later, he made a second progress through the empire, which lasted ten years, with some intervals, spent in his capital, residing chiefly at Athens, constructing great architectural works, and holding converse with philosophers and scholars. During this period he visited Alexandria, whose schools were rivaled only by those of Athens, studying the fantastic philosophy of the Gnostics, and probably examining the Christian system. He ascended the Nile as far as Thebes, and then repaired to Antioch, and returned to Rome through Asia Minor. In his progress, he not merely informed himself of the condition of the empire, but corrected abuses, and made the Roman rule tolerable.

His public works.

His remaining years were spent at Rome, diligently administrating the affairs of his vast government, founding libraries and schools, and decorating his capital with magnificent structures. His temple of Venus at Rome was the largest ever erected in the city, and his mausoleum, stripped of its ornaments, now forms the Castle of St. Angelo. Next to the Coliseum, it was the grandest architectural monument in Rome. He also built a villa at Tivoli, whose remains are among the most interesting which seventeen centuries have preserved.

This good emperor made a noble choice for his successor, Titus Aurelius Antonius, and soon after died childless, A.D. 138, after a peaceful reign of twenty-one years, in which, says Merivale, “he reconciled, with eminent success, things hitherto found irreconcilable: a contented army and a peaceful frontier; an abundant treasury with lavish expenditure; a free Senate and stable monarchy; and all this without the lustre of a great military reputation, the foil of an odious predecessor, or disgust at recent civil commotions. He recognized, in theory, both conquerors and conquered as one people, and greeted in person every race among his subjects.” He had personal defects of character, but his reign is one of the best of the imperial series, and marked the crowning age of Roman civilization.

Antonius Pius. Death of Antonius. His eulogy.

Antonius Pius, his successor, had less ability, but a still more faultless character. He sprung from the ranks of the nobility; was consul in the third year of Hadrian, and was prefect of Asia until his adoption, when he took up his residence in Rome, and never left its neighborhood during the remainder of his life. His peaceful reign is barren of external events, but fruitful in the peace and security of his subjects, and the only drawback in his happiness was the licentious character of his wife, who bore him two sons and two daughters. The sons died before his elevation, but one of his daughters married M. Annius Verus, whom he adopted as his successor, and associated with him in the government of the empire. He died after a reign of twenty-three years, and was buried in the mausoleum of Hadrian, which he completed. His character is thus drawn by his son-in-law and successor, Marcus Aurelius: “In my father, I noticed mildness of manner with firmness of resolution, contempt of vainglory, industry in business, and accessibility of person. He knew how to relax, as well as when to labor. From him I learned to acquiesce in every fortune, to exercise foresight in public affairs, to rise superior to vulgar praises, to worship the gods without superstition, to serve mankind without ambition, to be sober and steadfast, to be content with little, to be no sophist or dreaming bookworm, to be practical and active, to be neat and cheerful, to be temperate, modest in dress, and indifferent to the beauty of slaves and furniture, not to be led away by novelties, yet to render honor to true philosophers.” What a picture of a heathen emperor, drawn by a pagan philosopher!—the single purpose of ruling for the happiness of their subjects, and realizing the idea of a paternal government, and this in one of the most corrupt periods of Roman society.

Marcus Aurelius.

Marcus Aurelius, like Trajan and Hadrian, derived his origin from Spain, but was born in Italy. His features are the most conspicuously preserved in the repositories of ancient art, as his name is the most honorably enshrined on the pages of history—the noblest and most august type of the ancient rulers of the world, far transcending any Jewish king in the severity of his virtues, and the elevation of his soul. His life was modeled on the strictest discipline of the stoical philosophy, of which he was the brightest ornament. He was nearly forty years of age on the death of his father-in-law, although for twenty-three years he had sat side by side with him on the tribunals of the State. His reign, therefore, was virtually a long one, and he was devoted to all the duties which his station imposed. He was great as ruler, as he was profound as a philosopher.

Invasion of the empire. Death of Aurelius.

It was under his illustrious reign that the barbarians formed a general union for the invasion of the Roman world, and struck the first of those fatal blows under which the empire finally succumbed. We have but little information of the long contest with Germans, Sarmatians, Marcomanni, Quadi, and Alani, on the banks of the Danube, who were pressed forward by the Scythian tribes. They were repelled, indeed, but they soon after advanced, with renovated forces, when the empire was weakened by the miserable emperors who succeeded Aurelius. And although this great prince commemorated his victory over the barbarians by a column similar to that of Trajan, still they were far from being subdued, and a disgraceful peace, which followed his death, shows that they were exceedingly formidable. He died at Sirmium, or Vindobona (Vienna), exhausted by incessant wars and the cares of State, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and twentieth of his reign. The concurrent testimony of historians represents this emperor as the loftiest character that ever wielded a sceptre among the nations of antiquity, although we can not forget that he was a persecutor of the Christians.

Commodus.

His son, Commodus, succeeded him, and the thirteen years of his inglorious reign are summed up in conflicts with the Moors, Dacians, and Germans. Skillful generals, by their successes, warded off the attacks of barbarians, but the character and rule of the emperor resembled that of Nero and Domitian. He was weak, cruel, pleasure-seeking, and dissolute. His time was divided between private vices and disgraceful public exhibitions. He fought as a gladiator more than seven hundred times, and against antagonists whose only weapons were tin and lead. He also laid claim to divinity, and was addicted to debasing superstitions. He destroyed the old ministers of his father, and decimated the Senate. All who excited his jealousy, or his covetousness, were put out of the way. He was poisoned by his favorite mistress, Marcia, and the Senate set the brand of infamy on his name. Thus perished the last of the line of the Antonines, even as the Julian line was ended by the assassination of Nero, and the Flavian by that of Domitian, and the empire became once again the prize of the soldier, A. D. 192.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE

Apparent prosperity.

Able or virtuous princes had now ruled the Roman world, with a few exceptions, from Julius Cæsar to Commodus, a period of more than two hundred years. Among these were some odious tyrants, or madmen, who were removed by assassination. But some of these very tyrants governed with ability, and such was the general prosperity, such the wonderful mechanism of government for which the Romans had a genius, that the general condition of the world was better than at any preceding period. All that government could do to preserve and extend civilization was done, on the whole. Despotism was not signally oppressive, and the regime of Augustus, of Vespasian, and Hadrian was generally maintained. The Roman governors, appointed by the emperors, ruled more wisely and beneficently than in the time of the republic. Peace, security, and law reigned, and, in consequence, the population increased, civilization advanced, and wealth was accumulated. The whole empire rejoiced in populous cities, in works of art, in literary culture, and in genial manners. Society was pagan, but attractive, and Rome herself was the resort of travelers, the centre of fashion and glory, the joy and the pride of the whole earth. There were no destructive wars, except on the frontiers; all classes were secure, the face of nature was cultivated and beautiful, and poets sung the praises of civilization such as never existed but in isolated cities and countries.

Great moral changes.

But now we observe the commencement of a great and melancholy change. Prosperity had led to vice, false security, and pride. All classes had become corrupt. Disproportionate fortunes, slavery, and luxury undermined the moral health, and destroyed not only elevation of sentiment but martial virtues. Literature declined in spirit and taste, and was directed to frivolous subjects. Christianity had not become a power sufficiently strong to change or modify the corrupt institutions controlled by the powerful classes. The expensive luxury of the nobles was almost incredible. The most distant provinces were ransacked for game, fish, and fowl for the tables of the great. Usury was practiced at a ruinous rate. Every thing was measured by the money standard. Art was prostituted to please degraded tastes. There was no dignity of character; women were degraded; only passing vanities made any impression on egotistical classes; games and festivals were multiplied; gladiatorial sports outraged humanity; the descendants of the proudest families prided themselves chiefly on their puerile frivolities; the worst rites of paganism were practiced; slaves performed the most important functions; the circus and the theatre were engrossing pleasures; the baths were the resort of the idle and the luxurious, who almost lived in them, and were scenes of disgraceful orgies; great extravagance in dress and ornaments was universal; the pleasures of the table degenerated to riotous excesses; cooks, buffoons, and dancers received more consideration than scholars and philosophers; everybody worshiped the shrine of mammon; all science was directed to utilities that demoralized; sensualism reigned triumphant, and the people lived as if there were no God.