Ancient States and Empires

Preparations for violence.

Such a state must prepare the way for violence, and when external dangers came there were not sufficient virtues to meet them. But the decline was gradual, and dangers were still at a distance. Both nature and art were the objects of perpetual panegyric, and the worldly and sensual Romans dreamed only of a millennium of protracted joys.

The last experiment of a constitutional empire was succeeded by undisguised military despotism, and no one now desired or expected the restoration of the republic. The Senate was servile and submissive, the people had no voice in public affairs, and the prefects of the imperial guard were the recognized lieutenants and often masters of the emperors.

Pertinax and Julianus. Severus.

Pertinax succeeded to the sceptre of Commodus, a wise and good man, and great hopes were entertained of a beneficent reign, when they were suddenly blasted by a sedition of the prætorians, only eighty-six days after the death of Commodus, and these guards publicly sold the empire to Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator, at the price of one thousand dollars to each soldier. Such a bargain disgusted the capital, and raised the legions in the provinces to revolt. Each of the three principal armies set up their own candidate, but L. Septimius Severus, who commanded in Illyricum, was the fortunate one, and was confirmed by the Senate. Didius Julianus was murdered after a brief reign of sixty-six days, and the prætorians who had created the scandal were disbanded.

The reign of this general was able and fortunate, although he was cruel and superstitious. His vigor prevented the separation of the empire for a century; but he had powerful rivals in Clodius Albinus, in Britain, and Pescennius Niger, in Syria, both of whom he subdued. At Lyons it is said that one hundred and fifty thousand Romans fought on both sides, when Albinus was killed. The full of Niger at the Hellespont insured the submission of the East, and the victorious emperor penetrated as far as Ctesiphon, and received the submission of Mesopotamia and Arabia. The triumphal arch erected by him celebrated those military successes.

Vigorous rule of Severus.

Having bestowed peace, and restored the dignity of the empire, this martial prince established an undisguised military despotism, and threw aside all deference to the Senate. He created a new guard of prætorian soldiers four times as numerous as the old, which were recruited from the ranks of the barbarians, who thus began to overawe the capital. The commander of this great force was no less a man than the celebrated jurist, Papianus, and he was the prime minister of the emperor. It was during his reign that a violent persecution of the Christians took place, A.D. 200, which called out the famous apology of Tertullian. Severus died in Britain, to which he was summoned by an irruption of Caledonians, A.D. 211, having reigned nineteen years, and with a vigor worthy of Trajan.

Caracalla and Geta.

He left two sons, who are best known by the names of Caracalla and Geta, and both of whom, in their father's lifetime, had been raised to the dignity of Augustus. The oldest son succeeded to the empire, and the year after his elevation murdered his brother in his mother's arms. He also executed Papinian, the prætorian prefect, because he refused to justify the fratricide, together with twenty thousand persons who were the friends of Geta. After this wholesale murder he left his capital, and never returned to it, spending his time in different provinces, which were alternately the scene of his cruelty and rapine, a victim of the foulest superstitions of the East, and arrogant and vainglorious as he was savage. His tyranny became unendurable, and he was murdered by an agent of the prætorian prefect, A.D. 217, Opilius Macrinus, who became the next emperor.

Macrinus.

Macrinus was only elevated to the purple by promising rich donations to the soldiers, for his rank was only that of a knight. He undertook to restore discipline in the army, and the licentious soldiery found a new candidate for the empire in the person of Avitus, of the family of Severus, a beautiful boy of seventeen, who officiated as priest of the sun in Syria, and whose name in history, from the god he served, is called Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus. But Macrinus was at the head of a formidable force, and fought his rival with bravery, but without success. The battle was decided against him, and he was overtaken in flight and put to death, A.D. 218.

Elagabalus. His luxury.

With Elagabalus is associated the most repulsive and loathsome reign of all the emperors. He was guilty of the most shameless obscenities, and the most degrading superstitions. He painted and dressed himself like an Oriental prince; he banqueted in halls hung with cloth of gold, and enriched with jewels; he slept on mattresses stuffed with down found only under the wings of partridges; he dined from tables of pure gold; he danced in public, arrayed in the garb of a Syrian priest; and he collected in his capital all the forms of idolatry and all the hideous abominations which even Grecian paganism despised. This wretch, who insulted every consecrated sentiment, was murdered after a reign of little more than three years, A.D. 222, and his body was thrown into the Tiber, and his memory branded with infamy by the Senate.

Alexander Severus.

The prætorians, who now controlled the State, offered the purple to his cousin, Alexander Severus, grand-nephew of Septimius Severus, an emperor who adorned those degenerate times, and who resembled the great Aurelius in the severity of his virtues. His prime minister—the prefect of the prætorian guards—was the celebrated Ulpian, the greatest of Roman jurists, and next to him in dignity and power was the historian, Dion Cassius, consul, governor in Africa, and legate in Dalmatia.

His labors.

The great labors of Alexander Severus were to quell the mutinous spirit of the prætorian guards, who reveled in the spoil of the empire; to subdue the Persians; and to repel barbarian inroads on the western frontiers. It was while he was in Thrace that a young barbarian of gigantic stature solicited permission to contend for the prize of wrestling. Sixteen of the stoutest Roman soldiers he successively overthrew, and he was permitted to enlist among the troops. The next day he attracted the notice of the emperor, and again contended successfully with seven of the Roman champions, and received, at the hand of the emperor, a gold collar and a place in the body-guard. He rose, step by step, till appointed to discipline the recruits of the army of the Rhine. He became the favorite of the army, and was saluted as imperator. Severus fled to his tent, and was assassinated, A.D. 235.

Maximin. His cruelties.

The savage, Maximin, who now governed the empire, ruled like a barbarian, as he was, disdaining all culture, and hostile to all refinements. Confiscations, exile, or death awaited the few illustrious men who adorned the age. Only brute force was recognized as a claim to imperial favor. The sole object of Maximin was to secure the favor of the soldiers, barbarians like himself, whom he propitiated with exorbitant donations, extorted by fines and confiscations, and derived from the sack of temples. He lived in the camp, and knew nothing of the cities he ruled.

Gordianus. Death of Maximin. Philip.

Such outrages of course provoked rebellion, and M. Antonius Gordianus, the proconsul of Africa, a descendant of the Gracchi and of Trajan, distinguished for wealth and culture, was proclaimed emperor, at the age of eighty, who associated with him, in the government, his son. The Senate confirmed the Gordians, who fixed their court at Carthage, but Maximin suppressed the insurrection, and proceeded to Rome to satisfy his vengeance. The Senate, in despair, conferred the purple on two members of their own body, Maximus, an able soldier, and Balbinus, a poet and orator. The prætorians supported their claims, and Maximin was assassinated in his tent, A.D. 238. But the new emperors had scarcely given promise of a wise administration, before they in turn were assassinated by the prætorians, and Gordian, a grandson of the first of that name, was elevated to the imperial dignity. He, again, was soon murdered in a mutiny of the soldiers, who elected Philip as his successor, A.D. 244. This emperor, whose reign was marked by the celebration of the secular games with unwonted magnificence, to commemorate the one thousand years since Rome was founded, was put to death by the prætorian guards the following year, and the dignity of Augustus was conferred on Decius.

Persecution of the Christians. Ravages of the Goths.

His reign is memorable for a savage persecution of the Christians, and the victories of the Goths, who, in the preceding reign, had penetrated to Dacia, and conquered Mœsia. The next twenty years were mournful and disgraceful. The emperor marched against these barbarians in person, but was defeated by them in Thrace, and lost his life at a place called Abrutum, A.D. 251. The Goths continued their ravages along the coasts of the Euxine, and made themselves masters of the Crimea. They then sailed, with a large fleet, to the northern parts of the Euxine, took Pityus and Trapezus, attacked the wealthy cities of the Thracian Bosphorus, conquered Chalcedon, Nicomedia, and Nice, and retreated laden with spoil. The next year, with five hundred boats, they pursued their destructive navigation, destroyed Cyzicus, crossed the Ægean, landed at Athens, plundered Thebes, Argos, Corinth and Sparta, advanced to the coasts of Epirus, and devastated the whole Illyrian peninsula. In their ravages they destroyed the famous temple of Ephesus, and, wearied with plunder, returned through Mœsia to their own settlements beyond the Danube.

Successive emperors. Gallienus.

During this raid, the son of Decius, Hostilianus, reigned in conjunction with Gallus, one of the generals of Decius, but were put to death by Æmilianus, governor of Pannonia and Mœsia, who had succeeded in gaining a victory over the new and terrible enemy. He was in turn overthrown by Valerianus—a nobleman of great distinction, who signalized himself by considerable military ability, and who associated with himself in the empire his son, Gallienus, A.D. 253, whose frivolities were an offset to the virtues of his father. Valerian was taken prisoner by Sapor, king of Persia, and shortly after died, and the Roman world relapsed under the sway of his son, and at a time of great calamity, memorable for the successes of the Goths, and the direst pestilence which had ever visited the empire. Gallienus—not without accomplishments, but utterly unfit to govern an empire in the stormy times which witnessed the fierce irruptions of the Goths—was slain by a conspiracy of his officers, A.D. 268.

Gothic invasions. Defeat of the barbarians.

The empire was now threatened by barbarians, and wasted by pestilence, and distracted by rebellions and riots. It was on the verge of ruin; but the ruin was averted for one hundred years by a succession of great princes, who traced their origin to the martial province of Illyricum. The first of these emperors was Claudius, one of the generals of Gallienus, and was fifty-four years of age when invested with the purple. He led the armies of the waning empire against the Alemanni, who had invaded Italy, and drove them beyond the Alps. But a fiercer tribe of Germanic barbarians remained to be subdued or repelled—those who had devastated Greece—the Goths. They again appeared upon the Euxine with a fleet, variously estimated from two thousand to six thousand vessels, carrying three hundred and twenty thousand men. A division of this vast, but undisciplined force, invaded Crete and Cyprus, but the main body ravaged Macedonia, and undertook the siege of Thessalonica. Claudius advanced to meet them, and gained at Naissus a complete victory, where fifty thousand of the barbarians perished. A desultory war followed in Thrace, Macedonia, and Mœsia, which resulted in the destruction of the Gothic fleet, and an immense booty in captives and cattle.

Aurelian. Zenobia. Palmyra. Zenobia taken captive.

Claudius survived this great, but not decisive victory, but two years, and was carried off by pestilence, at Sirmiun, A.D. 270; but not until he had designated for his successor a still greater man—the celebrated Aurelian, whose father had been a peasant. Every day of his short reign was filled with wonders. He put an end to the Gothic war, chastised the Germans who invaded Italy, recovered Gaul, Britain, and Spain, defeated the Alemanni, who devastated the empire from the Po to the Danube, destroyed the proud monarchy which Zenobia had built up in the deserts of the East, took the queen captive, and carried her to Rome, where he celebrated the most magnificent triumph which the world had seen since the days of Pompey and Cæsar. This celebrated woman, equaling Cleopatra in beauty, and Boadicea in valor, and blending the popular manners of the Roman princes with the stately pomp of Oriental kings, had retired, on her defeat, to the beautiful city which Solomon had built, shaded with palms, and ornamented with palaces. There, in that Tadmor of the wilderness, Palmyra, the capital of her empire, which embraced a large part of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, she had cultivated the learning of the Greeks, and the Oriental tongues of the countries she ruled, excelling equally in the chase and in war, the most truly accomplished woman of antiquity,—sprung, like Cleopatra, from the Greek kings of Egypt. Among her counselors was the celebrated Longinus—the most conspicuous ornament of the last age of Greek classic literature, and a philosopher who taught the wisdom of Plato. When Palmyra was taken by Aurelian, this great man, who had stimulated Zenobia in her rebellion, was executed, without uttering a word of complaint, together with the people of the city, with remorseless barbarity, and the city of Solomon became an inconsiderable Arab town. The queen, who had fled, was pursued and taken, and graced the magnificent triumph of the martial emperor. The captive queen was made to precede the triumphal chariot, on foot, loaded with fetters of gold, and arrayed in the most gorgeous dress of her former empire. She was not executed, but permitted to reside in the capital in the state of princes.

Triumph of Aurelian.

This great and brilliant triumph—one of the last glories of the setting sun of Roman greatness—seemed to augur the restoration of the empire. The emperor was sanguine, and boasted that all external danger had passed away. But in a few months he was summoned to meet new enemies in the East, and he was murdered by a conspiracy of his officers, probably in revenge for the cruelties and massacres he had inflicted at Rome. In one of his reforms a sedition arose, and was quelled inexorably by the slaughter of seven thousand of the soldiers, besides a large number of the leading nobles.

Tacitus.

His sceptre descended to Tacitus, A.D. 275, a descendant of the great historian: a man, says Niebuhr, “who was great in every thing that could distinguish a senator; he possessed immense property, of which he made a brilliant use; he was a man of unblemished character; he possessed the knowledge of a statesman, and had, in his youth, shown great military skill.” Scarcely was he inaugurated as emperor before he marched against the Alans, a Scythian tribe, who had ravaged Pontus, Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Galatea. He, however, lost his life amid the hardships of his first campaign, at the age of seventy-five, and after a brief reign of six months.

Probus. His warlike career.

The veteran general, M. Aurelius Probus, the commander of the Eastern provinces, was proclaimed emperor by the legions, although originally of peasant rank. He was forty-five years of age, and united the military greatness of Aurelian with political prudence, in all respects the best choice which could have been made, and one of the best and greatest of all the emperors. His six years of administration were marked by uninterrupted successes, and he won a fame equal to that of the ancient heroes. He restored peace and order in all the provinces; he broke the power of the Sarmatians; he secured the alliance of the Goths; he drove the Isaurians to their strongholds among their inaccessible mountains; he chastised the rebellious cities of Egypt; he delivered Gaul from the Germanic barbarians; he drove the Franks to their morasses at the mouth of the Rhine; he vanquished the Burgundians who had wandered in quest of booty from the banks of the Oder; he defeated the Lygii, a fierce tribe on the borders of Silesia; he extended his victories to the Elbe, and erected a wall, two hundred miles in length, from the Danube to the Rhine; so that “there was not left,” says Gibbon, “in all the provinces, a hostile barbarian, or tyrant, or even a robber.” After having destroyed four hundred thousand of the barbarians, he returned to his capital to celebrate a triumph, which equaled in splendor that of Aurelian. He, too, fancied that all external enemies were subdued forever, and that Rome should henceforth rejoice in eternal peace. But scarcely had the pæans of victory been sung by a triumphant and infatuated people, when he was assassinated in a mutiny of his own troops, whom he had compelled to labor in draining the marshes around Sirmium, A.D. 282.

Carus.

The soldiers, repenting the act as soon as it was done, conferred the purple on the prætorian prefect, and notified the Senate of its choice. And the choice was a good one; and the new emperor, Carus, at sixty years of age, conferring the title of Cæsar upon his two sons, Carinus and Numerianus, whom he left to govern the West, hastened against the Sarmatians, who had overrun Illyricum. Successful in his objects, he advanced, in the depth of winter, through Thrace and Asia Minor to the confines of Persia. The Persian king, wishing to avert the storm, sent his ambassadors to the imperial camp, and found the emperor seated on the grass, dining from peas and bacon, in all the simplicity of the early successors of Mohammed. But before he could advance beyond the Tigris, his tent was struck by lightning, and he was killed, on Christmas day, A.D. 283.

Carinus.

Carinus and Numerian succeeded to the vacant throne. The former, at Rome, disgraced his trust by indolence and shameless vices; while the latter, in the camp, was unfit, though virtuous, to control the turbulent soldiers, and was found murdered in his bed the very day that Carinus celebrated the games with unusual magnificence.

Diocletian.

The army raised C. Valerius Diocletianus to the vacant dignity, and his first act was to execute the murderer of Numerian. His next was to encounter Carinus in battle, who was slain, A.D. 285, and Diocletian—perhaps the greatest emperor after Augustus—reigned alone. Diocletian is, however, rendered infamous in ecclesiastical history, as the most bitter of all the persecutors of the Christians, now a large and growing body; but he was a man of the most distinguished abilities, though of obscure birth, in a little Dalmatian town. He commenced his illustrious reign at the age of thirty-nine, and reigned twenty years,—more as a statesman than warrior,—politic, judicious, indefatigable in business, and steady in his purposes.

Important political changes.

This emperor inaugurated a new era, and a new policy of government. The cares of State in a disordered age, when the empire was threatened on every side by hostile barbarians, and disgraced by insurrections and tumults, induced Diocletian to associate with himself three colleagues, who had won fame in the wars of Aurelian and Carus. Maximian, Galerius, and Constantine—one of whom had the dignity of Augustus, and two that of Cæsar.

Maximian, associated with Diocletian, with the rank of Augustus, had been also an Illyrian peasant, and was assigned to the government of the western provinces, while Diocletian retained that of the eastern. Maximum established the seat of his government at Milan, giving a death-blow to the Senate, which, though still mentioned honorably by name, was henceforth severed from the imperial court. The empire had been ruled by soldiers ever since pressing dangers had made it apparent that only men of martial virtues could preserve it from the barbarians. But now the most undisguised military rule, uninfluenced by old constitutional form, was the only recognized authority, and the warlike emperors, bred in the camp, had a disdain of the ancient capital, as well as great repugnance to the enervated prætorian soldiers, who made and unmade emperors, whose privileges were abolished forever. Milan was selected for the seat of imperial government, from its proximity to the frontier, perpetually menaced by the barbarians; and this city, before a mere military post, now assumed the splendor of an imperial city, and was defended by a double wall.

New seat of government. Oriental pomp of Diocletian.

Diocletian made choice, at first, of Nicomedia, the old capital of the Bithynian kings, as the seat of his Eastern government, equally distant from the Danube and the Euphrates. He assumed the manner and state of an Oriental monarch. He wore a diadem set with pearls, and a robe of silk and gold instead of the simple toga with its purple stripe. His shoes were studded with precious stones, and his court was marked by Oriental ceremonials. His person was difficult of access, and the avenues to his palace were guarded by various classes of officers. No one could approach him without falling prostrate in adoration, and he was addressed as “My lord the emperor.” But he did not live in Oriental seclusion, and was perpetually called away by pressing dangers.

Galerius and Constantius.

The Cæsars Galerius and Constantius were sent to govern the provinces on the frontiers; the former, from his capital, Sirmium, in Illyricum, watched the whole frontier of the Danube; the latter spent his time in Britain. Galerius was adopted by Diocletian, and received his daughter Valeria in marriage; while Constantius was adopted by Maximian, and married his daughter Theodora.

The division of the empire under these four princes nearly corresponded with the prefectures which Constantine subsequently established, and which were deemed necessary to preserve the empire from dissolution—a dissolution inevitable, had it not been for the great emperors whom the necessities of the empire had raised up, but whose ruin was only for a time averted. Not even able generals and good emperors could save the corrupted empire. It was doomed. Vice had prepared the way for violence. The four emperors, who now labored to prevent a catastrophe, were engaged in perpetual conflicts, and through their united efforts peace was restored throughout the empire, and the last triumph that Rome ever saw was celebrated by them.

Persecution of Christians. The reason of their persecution.

Only one more enemy, to the eye of Diocletian, remained to be subdued, and this was Christianity. But this enemy was unconquerable. Silently, surely, without pomp, and without art, the new religion had made its way, against all opposition, prejudice, and hatred, from Jews and pagans alike, and was now a power in the empire. The followers of the hated sect were, however, from the humble classes, and but few great men had arisen among them, and even these were unimportant to the view of philosophers and rulers. The believers formed an esoteric circle, and were lofty, stern, and hostile to all the existing institutions of society. They formed an imperium in imperio, but did not aim, at this time, to reach political power. They were scattered throughout the great cities of the empire, and were ruled by their bishops and ministers. They did not make war on men, but on their ideas and habits and customs. They avoided all external conflicts, and contended with devils and passions. But government distrusted and disliked them, and sought at different times to exterminate them. There had already been nine signal persecutions from the time of Nero, and yet they had constantly increased in numbers and influence. But now a more serious attack was to be made upon them by the emperors, provoked, probably, by the refusal of some Christians to take the military oath, and serve in the armies, on conscientious principles: but interpreted by those in authority as disloyalty in a great national crisis. The mind of the emperor was alienated; and both Galerius and Diocletian resolved that a religion which seemed hostile to the political relations of the empire, should be suppressed. A decree was issued to destroy all the Christian churches, to confiscate their property, to burn the sacred writings, to deprive Christians of their civil rights, and even to doom them to death. The decree which was publicly exhibited in Nicomedia, was torn down by a Christian, who expressed the bitterest detestation of the tyrannical governors. The fires which broke out in the palace were ascribed to the Christians, and the command was finally issued to imprison all the ministers of religion, and punish those who protected them. A persecution which has had no parallel in history, was extended to all parts of the empire. The whole civil power, goaded by the old priests of paganism, was employed in searching out victims, and all classes of Christians were virtually tormented and murdered. The earth groaned for ten years under the sad calamity, and there was apparently no hope. But whether scourged, or lacerated, or imprisoned, or burned, the martyrs showed patience, faith, and moral heroism, and invoked death to show its sting, and the grave its victory.