History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1
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Title: History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1
Author: Edward Gibbon
Commentator: Henry Hart Milman
Release date: June 7, 2008 [eBook #890]
Most recently updated: June 22, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/890
Credits: Produced by David Reed, Dale R. Fredrickson and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE — VOLUME 1 ***
Produced by David Reed, Dale R. Fredrickson and David Widger
HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Volume 1
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
CONTENTS
Introduction Preface By The Editor Preface Of The Author Preface To
The First Volume
Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The Antoninies.—Part
I. Part II. Part III.
Introduction—The Extent And Military Force Of The Empire In The Age Of
The Antonines.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
I. Part II. Part III. Part IV.
Of The Union And Internal Prosperity Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of
The Antonines.
Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part I.
Part II.
Of The Constitution Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of The Antonines.
Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part I.
Part II.
The Cruelty, Follies, And Murder Of Commodus. Election Of Pertinax—His
Attempts To Reform The State—His Assassination By The Prætorian Guards.
Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part I. Part II.
Public Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus By The Prætorian
Guards—Clodius Albinus In Britain, Pescennius Niger In Syria, And
Septimius Severus In Pannonia, Declare Against The Murderers Of
Pertinax—Civil Wars And Victory Of Severus Over His Three
Rivals—Relaxation Of Discipline—New Maxims Of Government.
Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
Macrinus.—Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV.
The Death Of Severus.—Tyranny Of Caracalla.—Usurpation Of
Macrinus.—Follies Of Elagabalus.—Virtues Of Alexander
Severus.—Licentiousness Of The Army.—General State Of The Roman
Finances.
Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
Maximin.—Part I. Part II. Part III.
The Elevation And Tyranny Of Maximin.—Rebellion In Africa And Italy,
Under The Authority Of The Senate.—Civil Wars And Seditions.—Violent
Deaths Of Maximin And His Son, Of Maximus And Balbinus, And Of The
Three Gordians.—Usurpation And Secular Games Of Philip.
Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The Monarchy.—Part I.
Part II.
Of The State Of Persia After The Restoration Of The Monarchy By
Artaxerxes.
Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part I. Part II.
Part III.
The State Of Germany Till The Invasion Of The Barbarians In The Time Of
The Emperor Decius.
Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
Gallienus.—Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV.
The Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian, And Gallienus.—The
General Irruption Of The Barbarians.—The Thirty Tyrants.
Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part I. Part II.
Part III.
Reign Of Claudius.—Defeat Of The Goths.—Victories, Triumph, And Death
Of Aurelian.
Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part I.
Part II. Part III.
Conduct Of The Army And Senate After The Death Of Aurelian.— Reigns Of
Tacitus, Probus, Carus, And His Sons.
Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And This Three Associates.—Part I.
Part II. Part III. Part IV.
The Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates, Maximian, Galerius,
And Constantius.—General Reestablishment Of Order And Tranquillity.—The
Persian War, Victory, And Triumph.— The New Form Of
Administration.—Abdication And Retirement Of Diocletian And Maximian.
Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
Empire.—Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV.
Troubles After The Abdication Of Diocletian.—Death Of
Constantius.—Elevation Of Constantine And Maxentius. Six Emperors At
The Same Time.—Death Of Maximian And Galerius. —Victories Of
Constantine Over Maxentius And Licinus.— Reunion Of The Empire Under
The Authority Of Constantine.
Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part I. Part II.
Part III. Part IV. Part V. Part VI. Part VII. Part VIII.
Part IX.
The Progress Of The Christian Religion, And The Sentiments, Manners,
Numbers, And Condition Of The Primitive Christians.
Introduction
Preface By The Editor.
The great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student of
history. The literature of Europe offers no substitute for “The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” It has obtained undisputed
possession, as rightful occupant, of the vast period which it
comprehends. However some subjects, which it embraces, may have
undergone more complete investigation, on the general view of the
whole period, this history is the sole undisputed authority to
which all defer, and from which few appeal to the original
writers, or to more modern compilers. The inherent interest of
the subject, the inexhaustible labor employed upon it; the
immense condensation of matter; the luminous arrangement; the
general accuracy; the style, which, however monotonous from its
uniform stateliness, and sometimes wearisome from its elaborate
art, is throughout vigorous, animated, often picturesque, always
commands attention, always conveys its meaning with emphatic
energy, describes with singular breadth and fidelity, and
generalizes with unrivalled felicity of expression; all these
high qualifications have secured, and seem likely to secure, its
permanent place in historic literature.
This vast design of Gibbon, the magnificent whole into which he
has cast the decay and ruin of the ancient civilization, the
formation and birth of the new order of things, will of itself,
independent of the laborious execution of his immense plan,
render “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” an
unapproachable subject to the future historian:* in the eloquent
language of his recent French editor, M. Guizot:—
“The gradual decline of the most extraordinary dominion which has
ever invaded and oppressed the world; the fall of that immense
empire, erected on the ruins of so many kingdoms, republics, and
states both barbarous and civilized; and forming in its turn, by
its dismemberment, a multitude of states, republics, and
kingdoms; the annihilation of the religion of Greece and Rome;
the birth and the progress of the two new religions which have
shared the most beautiful regions of the earth; the decrepitude
of the ancient world, the spectacle of its expiring glory and
degenerate manners; the infancy of the modern world, the picture
of its first progress, of the new direction given to the mind and
character of man—such a subject must necessarily fix the
attention and excite the interest of men, who cannot behold with
indifference those memorable epochs, during which, in the fine
language of Corneille—
‘Un grand destin commence, un grand destin s’achève.’”
This extent and harmony of design is unquestionably that which
distinguishes the work of Gibbon from all other great historical
compositions. He has first bridged the abyss between ancient and
modern times, and connected together the two great worlds of
history. The great advantage which the classical historians
possess over those of modern times is in unity of plan, of course
greatly facilitated by the narrower sphere to which their
researches were confined. Except Herodotus, the great historians
of Greece—we exclude the more modern compilers, like Diodorus
Siculus—limited themselves to a single period, or at least to the
contracted sphere of Grecian affairs. As far as the _Barbarians_
trespassed within the Grecian boundary, or were necessarily
mingled up with Grecian politics, they were admitted into the
pale of Grecian history; but to Thucydides and to Xenophon,
excepting in the Persian inroad of the latter, Greece was the
world. Natural unity confined their narrative almost to
chronological order, the episodes were of rare occurrence and
extremely brief. To the Roman historians the course was equally
clear and defined. Rome was their centre of unity; and the
uniformity with which the circle of the Roman dominion spread
around, the regularity with which their civil polity expanded,
forced, as it were, upon the Roman historian that plan which
Polybius announces as the subject of his history, the means and
the manner by which the whole world became subject to the Roman
sway. How different the complicated politics of the European
kingdoms! Every national history, to be complete, must, in a
certain sense, be the history of Europe; there is no knowing to
how remote a quarter it may be necessary to trace our most
domestic events; from a country, how apparently disconnected, may
originate the impulse which gives its direction to the whole
course of affairs.
In imitation of his classical models, Gibbon places _Rome_ as the
cardinal point from which his inquiries diverge, and to which
they bear constant reference; yet how immeasurable the space over
which those inquiries range! how complicated, how confused, how
apparently inextricable the causes which tend to the decline of
the Roman empire! how countless the nations which swarm forth, in
mingling and indistinct hordes, constantly changing the
geographical limits—incessantly confounding the natural
boundaries! At first sight, the whole period, the whole state of
the world, seems to offer no more secure footing to an historical
adventurer than the chaos of Milton—to be in a state of
irreclaimable disorder, best described in the language of the
poet:—
“A dark Illimitable ocean, without bound, Without dimension, where
length, breadth, and height, And time, and place, are lost: where
eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy,
amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.”
We feel that the unity and harmony of narrative, which shall
comprehend this period of social disorganization, must be
ascribed entirely to the skill and luminous disposition of the
historian. It is in this sublime Gothic architecture of his work,
in which the boundless range, the infinite variety, the, at first
sight, incongruous gorgeousness of the separate parts,
nevertheless are all subordinate to one main and predominant
idea, that Gibbon is unrivalled. We cannot but admire the manner
in which he masses his materials, and arranges his facts in
successive groups, not according to chronological order, but to
their moral or political connection; the distinctness with which
he marks his periods of gradually increasing decay; and the skill
with which, though advancing on separate parallels of history, he
shows the common tendency of the slower or more rapid religious
or civil innovations. However these principles of composition may
demand more than ordinary attention on the part of the reader,
they can alone impress upon the memory the real course, and the
relative importance of the events. Whoever would justly
appreciate the superiority of Gibbon’s lucid arrangement, should
attempt to make his way through the regular but wearisome annals
of Tillemont, or even the less ponderous volumes of Le Beau. Both
these writers adhere, almost entirely, to chronological order;
the consequence is, that we are twenty times called upon to break
off, and resume the thread of six or eight wars in different
parts of the empire; to suspend the operations of a military
expedition for a court intrigue; to hurry away from a siege to a
council; and the same page places us in the middle of a campaign
against the barbarians, and in the depths of the Monophysite
controversy. In Gibbon it is not always easy to bear in mind the
exact dates but the course of events is ever clear and distinct;
like a skilful general, though his troops advance from the most
remote and opposite quarters, they are constantly bearing down
and concentrating themselves on one point—that which is still
occupied by the name, and by the waning power of Rome. Whether he
traces the progress of hostile religions, or leads from the
shores of the Baltic, or the verge of the Chinese empire, the
successive hosts of barbarians—though one wave has hardly burst
and discharged itself, before another swells up and
approaches—all is made to flow in the same direction, and the
impression which each makes upon the tottering fabric of the
Roman greatness, connects their distant movements, and measures
the relative importance assigned to them in the panoramic
history. The more peaceful and didactic episodes on the
development of the Roman law, or even on the details of
ecclesiastical history, interpose themselves as resting-places or
divisions between the periods of barbaric invasion. In short,
though distracted first by the two capitals, and afterwards by
the formal partition of the empire, the extraordinary felicity of
arrangement maintains an order and a regular progression. As our
horizon expands to reveal to us the gathering tempests which are
forming far beyond the boundaries of the civilized world—as we
follow their successive approach to the trembling frontier—the
compressed and receding line is still distinctly visible; though
gradually dismembered and the broken fragments assuming the form
of regular states and kingdoms, the real relation of those
kingdoms to the empire is maintained and defined; and even when
the Roman dominion has shrunk into little more than the province
of Thrace—when the name of Rome, confined, in Italy, to the walls
of the city—yet it is still the memory, the shade of the Roman
greatness, which extends over the wide sphere into which the
historian expands his later narrative; the whole blends into the
unity, and is manifestly essential to the double catastrophe of
his tragic drama.
But the amplitude, the magnificence, or the harmony of design,
are, though imposing, yet unworthy claims on our admiration,
unless the details are filled up with correctness and accuracy.
No writer has been more severely tried on this point than Gibbon.
He has undergone the triple scrutiny of theological zeal
quickened by just resentment, of literary emulation, and of that
mean and invidious vanity which delights in detecting errors in
writers of established fame. On the result of the trial, we may
be permitted to summon competent witnesses before we deliver our
own judgment.
M. Guizot, in his preface, after stating that in France and
Germany, as well as in England, in the most enlightened countries
of Europe, Gibbon is constantly cited as an authority, thus
proceeds:—
“I have had occasion, during my labors, to consult the writings
of philosophers, who have treated on the finances of the Roman
empire; of scholars, who have investigated the chronology; of
theologians, who have searched the depths of ecclesiastical
history; of writers on law, who have studied with care the Roman
jurisprudence; of Orientalists, who have occupied themselves with
the Arabians and the Koran; of modern historians, who have
entered upon extensive researches touching the crusades and their
influence; each of these writers has remarked and pointed out, in
the ‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ some
negligences, some false or imperfect views, some omissions, which
it is impossible not to suppose voluntary; they have rectified
some facts, combated with advantage some assertions; but in
general they have taken the researches and the ideas of Gibbon,
as points of departure, or as proofs of the researches or of the
new opinions which they have advanced.”
M. Guizot goes on to state his own impressions on reading
Gibbon’s history, and no authority will have greater weight with
those to whom the extent and accuracy of his historical
researches are known:—
“After a first rapid perusal, which allowed me to feel nothing
but the interest of a narrative, always animated, and,
notwithstanding its extent and the variety of objects which it
makes to pass before the view, always perspicuous, I entered upon
a minute examination of the details of which it was composed; and
the opinion which I then formed was, I confess, singularly
severe. I discovered, in certain chapters, errors which appeared
to me sufficiently important and numerous to make me believe that
they had been written with extreme negligence; in others, I was
struck with a certain tinge of partiality and prejudice, which
imparted to the exposition of the facts that want of truth and
justice, which the English express by their happy term
_misrepresentation_. Some imperfect (_tronquées_) quotations;
some passages, omitted unintentionally or designedly cast a
suspicion on the honesty (_bonne foi_) of the author; and his
violation of the first law of history—increased to my eye by the
prolonged attention with which I occupied myself with every
phrase, every note, every reflection—caused me to form upon the
whole work, a judgment far too rigorous. After having finished my
labors, I allowed some time to elapse before I reviewed the
whole. A second attentive and regular perusal of the entire work,
of the notes of the author, and of those which I had thought it
right to subjoin, showed me how much I had exaggerated the
importance of the reproaches which Gibbon really deserved; I was
struck with the same errors, the same partiality on certain
subjects; but I had been far from doing adequate justice to the
immensity of his researches, the variety of his knowledge, and
above all, to that truly philosophical discrimination (_justesse
d’esprit_) which judges the past as it would judge the present;
which does not permit itself to be blinded by the clouds which
time gathers around the dead, and which prevent us from seeing
that, under the toga, as under the modern dress, in the senate as
in our councils, men were what they still are, and that events
took place eighteen centuries ago, as they take place in our
days. I then felt that his book, in spite of its faults, will
always be a noble work—and that we may correct his errors and
combat his prejudices, without ceasing to admit that few men have
combined, if we are not to say in so high a degree, at least in a
manner so complete, and so well regulated, the necessary
qualifications for a writer of history.”
The present editor has followed the track of Gibbon through many
parts of his work; he has read his authorities with constant
reference to his pages, and must pronounce his deliberate
judgment, in terms of the highest admiration as to his general
accuracy. Many of his seeming errors are almost inevitable from
the close condensation of his matter. From the immense range of
his history, it was sometimes necessary to compress into a single
sentence, a whole vague and diffuse page of a Byzantine
chronicler. Perhaps something of importance may have thus
escaped, and his expressions may not quite contain the whole
substance of the passage from which they are taken. His limits,
at times, compel him to sketch; where that is the case, it is not
fair to expect the full details of the finished picture. At times
he can only deal with important results; and in his account of a
war, it sometimes requires great attention to discover that the
events which seem to be comprehended in a single campaign, occupy
several years. But this admirable skill in selecting and giving
prominence to the points which are of real weight and
importance—this distribution of light and shade—though perhaps it
may occasionally betray him into vague and imperfect statements,
is one of the highest excellencies of Gibbon’s historic manner.
It is the more striking, when we pass from the works of his chief
authorities, where, after laboring through long, minute, and
wearisome descriptions of the accessary and subordinate
circumstances, a single unmarked and undistinguished sentence,
which we may overlook from the inattention of fatigue, contains
the great moral and political result.
Gibbon’s method of arrangement, though on the whole most
favorable to the clear comprehension of the events, leads
likewise to apparent inaccuracy. That which we expect to find in
one part is reserved for another. The estimate which we are to
form, depends on the accurate balance of statements in remote
parts of the work; and we have sometimes to correct and modify
opinions, formed from one chapter by those of another. Yet, on
the other hand, it is astonishing how rarely we detect
contradiction; the mind of the author has already harmonized the
whole result to truth and probability; the general impression is
almost invariably the same. The quotations of Gibbon have
likewise been called in question;—I have, _in general_, been more
inclined to admire their exactitude, than to complain of their
indistinctness, or incompleteness. Where they are imperfect, it
is commonly from the study of brevity, and rather from the desire
of compressing the substance of his notes into pointed and
emphatic sentences, than from dishonesty, or uncandid suppression
of truth.
These observations apply more particularly to the accuracy and
fidelity of the historian as to his facts; his inferences, of
course, are more liable to exception. It is almost impossible to
trace the line between unfairness and unfaithfulness; between
intentional misrepresentation and undesigned false coloring. The
relative magnitude and importance of events must, in some
respect, depend upon the mind before which they are presented;
the estimate of character, on the habits and feelings of the
reader. Christians, like M. Guizot and ourselves, will see some
things, and some persons, in a different light from the historian
of the Decline and Fall. We may deplore the bias of his mind; we
may ourselves be on our guard against the danger of being misled,
and be anxious to warn less wary readers against the same perils;
but we must not confound this secret and unconscious departure
from truth, with the deliberate violation of that veracity which
is the only title of an historian to our confidence. Gibbon, it
may be fearlessly asserted, is rarely chargeable even with the
suppression of any material fact, which bears upon individual
character; he may, with apparently invidious hostility, enhance
the errors and crimes, and disparage the virtues of certain
persons; yet, in general, he leaves us the materials for forming
a fairer judgment; and if he is not exempt from his own
prejudices, perhaps we might write _passions_, yet it must be
candidly acknowledged, that his philosophical bigotry is not more
unjust than the theological partialities of those ecclesiastical
writers who were before in undisputed possession of this province
of history.
We are thus naturally led to that great misrepresentation which
pervades his history—his false estimate of the nature and
influence of Christianity.
But on this subject some preliminary caution is necessary, lest
that should be expected from a new edition, which it is
impossible that it should completely accomplish. We must first be
prepared with the only sound preservative against the false
impression likely to be produced by the perusal of Gibbon; and we
must see clearly the real cause of that false impression. The
former of these cautions will be briefly suggested in its proper
place, but it may be as well to state it, here, somewhat more at
length. The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair impression
produced by his two memorable chapters, consists in his
confounding together, in one indistinguishable mass, the _origin_
and _apostolic_ propagation of the new religion, with its _later_
progress. No argument for the divine authority of Christianity
has been urged with greater force, or traced with higher
eloquence, than that deduced from its primary development,
explicable on no other hypothesis than a heavenly origin, and
from its rapid extension through great part of the Roman empire.
But this argument—one, when confined within reasonable limits, of
unanswerable force—becomes more feeble and disputable in
proportion as it recedes from the birthplace, as it were, of the
religion. The further Christianity advanced, the more causes
purely human were enlisted in its favor; nor can it be doubted
that those developed with such artful exclusiveness by Gibbon did
concur most essentially to its establishment. It is in the
Christian dispensation, as in the material world. In both it is
as the great First Cause, that the Deity is most undeniably
manifest. When once launched in regular motion upon the bosom of
space, and endowed with all their properties and relations of
weight and mutual attraction, the heavenly bodies appear to
pursue their courses according to secondary laws, which account
for all their sublime regularity. So Christianity proclaims its
Divine Author chiefly in its first origin and development. When
it had once received its impulse from above—when it had once been
infused into the minds of its first teachers—when it had gained
full possession of the reason and affections of the favored
few—it _might be_—and to the Protestant, the rational Christian,
it is impossible to define _when_ it really _was_—left to make
its way by its native force, under the ordinary secret agencies
of all-ruling Providence. The main question, the _divine origin
of the religion_, was dexterously eluded, or speciously conceded
by Gibbon; his plan enabled him to commence his account, in most
parts, _below the apostolic times_; and it was only by the
strength of the dark coloring with which he brought out the
failings and the follies of the succeeding ages, that a shadow of
doubt and suspicion was thrown back upon the primitive period of
Christianity.
“The theologian,” says Gibbon, “may indulge the pleasing task of
describing religion as she descended from heaven, arrayed in her
native purity; a more melancholy duty is imposed upon the
historian:—he must discover the inevitable mixture of error and
corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon earth
among a weak and degenerate race of beings.” Divest this passage
of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the subsequent tone of the
whole disquisition, and it might commence a Christian history
written in the most Christian spirit of candor. But as the
historian, by seeming to respect, yet by dexterously confounding
the limits of the sacred land, contrived to insinuate that it was
an Utopia which had no existence but in the imagination of the
theologian—as he _suggested_ rather than affirmed that the days
of Christian purity were a kind of poetic golden age;—so the
theologian, by venturing too far into the domain of the
historian, has been perpetually obliged to contest points on
which he had little chance of victory—to deny facts established
on unshaken evidence—and thence, to retire, if not with the shame
of defeat, yet with but doubtful and imperfect success.
Paley, with his intuitive sagacity, saw through the difficulty of
answering Gibbon by the ordinary arts of controversy; his
emphatic sentence, “Who can refute a sneer?” contains as much
truth as point. But full and pregnant as this phrase is, it is
not quite the whole truth; it is the tone in which the progress
of Christianity is traced, in _comparison_ with the rest of the
splendid and prodigally ornamented work, which is the radical
defect in the “Decline and Fall.” Christianity alone receives no
embellishment from the magic of Gibbon’s language; his
imagination is dead to its moral dignity; it is kept down by a
general zone of jealous disparagement, or neutralized by a
painfully elaborate exposition of its darker and degenerate
periods. There are occasions, indeed, when its pure and exalted
humanity, when its manifestly beneficial influence, can compel
even him, as it were, to fairness, and kindle his unguarded
eloquence to its usual fervor; but, in general, he soon relapses
into a frigid apathy; _affects_ an ostentatiously severe
impartiality; notes all the faults of Christians in every age
with bitter and almost malignant sarcasm; reluctantly, and with
exception and reservation, admits their claim to admiration. This
inextricable bias appears even to influence his manner of
composition. While all the other assailants of the Roman empire,
whether warlike or religious, the Goth, the Hun, the Arab, the
Tartar, Alaric and Attila, Mahomet, and Zengis, and Tamerlane,
are each introduced upon the scene almost with dramatic
animation—their progress related in a full, complete, and
unbroken narrative—the triumph of Christianity alone takes the
form of a cold and critical disquisition. The successes of
barbarous energy and brute force call forth all the consummate
skill of composition; while the moral triumphs of Christian
benevolence—the tranquil heroism of endurance, the blameless
purity, the contempt of guilty fame and of honors destructive to
the human race, which, had they assumed the proud name of
philosophy, would have been blazoned in his brightest words,
because they own religion as their principle—sink into narrow
asceticism. The _glories_ of Christianity, in short, touch on no
chord in the heart of the writer; his imagination remains
unkindled; his words, though they maintain their stately and
measured march, have become cool, argumentative, and inanimate.
Who would obscure one hue of that gorgeous coloring in which
Gibbon has invested the dying forms of Paganism, or darken one
paragraph in his splendid view of the rise and progress of
Mahometanism? But who would not have wished that the same equal
justice had been done to Christianity; that its real character
and deeply penetrating influence had been traced with the same
philosophical sagacity, and represented with more sober, as would
become its quiet course, and perhaps less picturesque, but still
with lively and attractive, descriptiveness? He might have thrown
aside, with the same scorn, the mass of ecclesiastical fiction
which envelops the early history of the church, stripped off the
legendary romance, and brought out the facts in their primitive
nakedness and simplicity—if he had but allowed those facts the
benefit of the glowing eloquence which he denied to them alone.
He might have annihilated the whole fabric of post-apostolic
miracles, if he had left uninjured by sarcastic insinuation those
of the New Testament; he might have cashiered, with Dodwell, the
whole host of martyrs, which owe their existence to the prodigal
invention of later days, had he but bestowed fair room, and dwelt
with his ordinary energy on the sufferings of the genuine
witnesses to the truth of Christianity, the Polycarps, or the
martyrs of Vienne.
And indeed, if, after all, the view of the early progress of
Christianity be melancholy and humiliating we must beware lest we
charge the whole of this on the infidelity of the historian. It
is idle, it is disingenuous, to deny or to dissemble the early
depravations of Christianity, its gradual but rapid departure
from its primitive simplicity and purity, still more, from its
spirit of universal love. It may be no unsalutary lesson to the
Christian world, that this silent, this unavoidable, perhaps, yet
fatal change shall have been drawn by an impartial, or even an
hostile hand. The Christianity of every age may take warning,
lest by its own narrow views, its want of wisdom, and its want of
charity, it give the same advantage to the future unfriendly
historian, and disparage the cause of true religion.
The design of the present edition is partly corrective, partly
supplementary: corrective, by notes, which point out (it is
hoped, in a perfectly candid and dispassionate spirit with no
desire but to establish the truth) such inaccuracies or
misstatements as may have been detected, particularly with regard
to Christianity; and which thus, with the previous caution, may
counteract to a considerable extent the unfair and unfavorable
impression created against rational religion: supplementary, by
adding such additional information as the editor’s reading may
have been able to furnish, from original documents or books, not
accessible at the time when Gibbon wrote.
The work originated in the editor’s habit of noting on the margin
of his copy of Gibbon references to such authors as had
discovered errors, or thrown new light on the subjects treated by
Gibbon. These had grown to some extent, and seemed to him likely
to be of use to others. The annotations of M. Guizot also
appeared to him worthy of being better known to the English
public than they were likely to be, as appended to the French
translation.
The chief works from which the editor has derived his materials
are, I. The French translation, with notes by M. Guizot; 2d
edition, Paris, 1828. The editor has translated almost all the
notes of M. Guizot. Where he has not altogether agreed with him,
his respect for the learning and judgment of that writer has, in
general, induced him to retain the statement from which he has
ventured to differ, with the grounds on which he formed his own
opinion. In the notes on Christianity, he has retained all those
of M. Guizot, with his own, from the conviction, that on such a
subject, to many, the authority of a French statesman, a
Protestant, and a rational and sincere Christian, would appear
more independent and unbiassed, and therefore be more commanding,
than that of an English clergyman.
The editor has not scrupled to transfer the notes of M. Guizot to
the present work. The well-known zeal for knowledge, displayed in
all the writings of that distinguished historian, has led to the
natural inference, that he would not be displeased at the attempt
to make them of use to the English readers of Gibbon. The notes
of M. Guizot are signed with the letter G.
II. The German translation, with the notes of Wenck.
Unfortunately this learned translator died, after having
completed only the first volume; the rest of the work was
executed by a very inferior hand.
The notes of Wenck are extremely valuable; many of them have been
adopted by M. Guizot; they are distinguished by the letter W.*
III. The new edition of Le Beau’s “Histoire du Bas Empire, with
notes by M. St. Martin, and M. Brosset.” That distinguished
Armenian scholar, M. St. Martin (now, unhappily, deceased) had
added much information from Oriental writers, particularly from
those of Armenia, as well as from more general sources. Many of
his observations have been found as applicable to the work of
Gibbon as to that of Le Beau.
IV. The editor has consulted the various answers made to Gibbon
on the first appearance of his work; he must confess, with little
profit. They were, in general, hastily compiled by inferior and
now forgotten writers, with the exception of Bishop Watson, whose
able apology is rather a general argument, than an examination of
misstatements. The name of Milner stands higher with a certain
class of readers, but will not carry much weight with the severe
investigator of history.
V. Some few classical works and fragments have come to light,
since the appearance of Gibbon’s History, and have been noticed
in their respective places; and much use has been made, in the
latter volumes particularly, of the increase to our stores of
Oriental literature. The editor cannot, indeed, pretend to have
followed his author, in these gleanings, over the whole vast
field of his inquiries; he may have overlooked or may not have
been able to command some works, which might have thrown still
further light on these subjects; but he trusts that what he has
adduced will be of use to the student of historic truth.
The editor would further observe, that with regard to some other
objectionable passages, which do not involve misstatement or
inaccuracy, he has intentionally abstained from directing
particular attention towards them by any special protest.
The editor’s notes are marked M.
A considerable part of the quotations (some of which in the later
editions had fallen into great confusion) have been verified, and
have been corrected by the latest and best editions of the
authors.
June, 1845.
In this new edition, the text and the notes have been carefully
revised, the latter by the editor.
Some additional notes have been subjoined, distinguished by the
signature M. 1845.
Preface Of The Author.
It is not my intention to detain the reader by expatiating on the
variety or the importance of the subject, which I have undertaken
to treat; since the merit of the choice would serve to render the
weakness of the execution still more apparent, and still less
excusable. But as I have presumed to lay before the public a
first volume only of the History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire, it will, perhaps, be expected that I should
explain, in a few words, the nature and limits of my general
plan.
The memorable series of revolutions, which in the course of about
thirteen centuries gradually undermined, and at length destroyed,
the solid fabric of human greatness, may, with some propriety, be
divided into the three following periods:
I. The first of these periods may be traced from the age of
Trajan and the Antonines, when the Roman monarchy, having
attained its full strength and maturity, began to verge towards
its decline; and will extend to the subversion of the Western
Empire, by the barbarians of Germany and Scythia, the rude
ancestors of the most polished nations of modern Europe. This
extraordinary revolution, which subjected Rome to the power of a
Gothic conqueror, was completed about the beginning of the sixth
century.
II. The second period of the Decline and Fall of Rome may be
supposed to commence with the reign of Justinian, who, by his
laws, as well as by his victories, restored a transient splendor
to the Eastern Empire. It will comprehend the invasion of Italy
by the Lombards; the conquest of the Asiatic and African
provinces by the Arabs, who embraced the religion of Mahomet; the
revolt of the Roman people against the feeble princes of
Constantinople; and the elevation of Charlemagne, who, in the
year eight hundred, established the second, or German Empire of
the West.
III. The last and longest of these periods includes about six
centuries and a half; from the revival of the Western Empire,
till the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, and the
extinction of a degenerate race of princes, who continued to
assume the titles of Cæsar and Augustus, after their dominions
were contracted to the limits of a single city; in which the
language, as well as manners, of the ancient Romans, had been
long since forgotten. The writer who should undertake to relate
the events of this period, would find himself obliged to enter
into the general history of the Crusades, as far as they
contributed to the ruin of the Greek Empire; and he would
scarcely be able to restrain his curiosity from making some
inquiry into the state of the city of Rome, during the darkness
and confusion of the middle ages.
As I have ventured, perhaps too hastily, to commit to the press a
work which in every sense of the word, deserves the epithet of
imperfect. I consider myself as contracting an engagement to
finish, most probably in a second volume, the first of these
memorable periods; and to deliver to the Public the complete
History of the Decline and Fall of Rome, from the age of the
Antonines to the subversion of the Western Empire. With regard to
the subsequent periods, though I may entertain some hopes, I dare
not presume to give any assurances. The execution of the
extensive plan which I have described, would connect the ancient
and modern history of the world; but it would require many years
of health, of leisure, and of perseverance.
BENTINCK STREET, _February_ 1, 1776.
P. S. The entire History, which is now published, of the Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, abundantly discharges
my engagements with the Public. Perhaps their favorable opinion
may encourage me to prosecute a work, which, however laborious it
may seem, is the most agreeable occupation of my leisure hours.
BENTINCK STREET, _March_ 1, 1781.
An Author easily persuades himself that the public opinion is
still favorable to his labors; and I have now embraced the
serious resolution of proceeding to the last period of my
original design, and of the Roman Empire, the taking of
Constantinople by the Turks, in the year one thousand four
hundred and fifty-three. The most patient Reader, who computes
that three ponderous volumes have been already employed on the
events of four centuries, may, perhaps, be alarmed at the long
prospect of nine hundred years. But it is not my intention to
expatiate with the same minuteness on the whole series of the
Byzantine history. At our entrance into this period, the reign of
Justinian, and the conquests of the Mahometans, will deserve and
detain our attention, and the last age of Constantinople (the
Crusades and the Turks) is connected with the revolutions of
Modern Europe. From the seventh to the eleventh century, the
obscure interval will be supplied by a concise narrative of such
facts as may still appear either interesting or important.
BENTINCK STREET, _March_ 1, 1782.
Preface To The First Volume.
Diligence and accuracy are the only merits which an historical
writer may ascribe to himself; if any merit, indeed, can be
assumed from the performance of an indispensable duty. I may
therefore be allowed to say, that I have carefully examined all
the original materials that could illustrate the subject which I
had undertaken to treat. Should I ever complete the extensive
design which has been sketched out in the Preface, I might
perhaps conclude it with a critical account of the authors
consulted during the progress of the whole work; and however such
an attempt might incur the censure of ostentation, I am persuaded
that it would be susceptible of entertainment, as well as
information.
At present I shall content myself with a single observation. The
biographers, who, under the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine,
composed, or rather compiled, the lives of the Emperors, from
Hadrian to the sons of Carus, are usually mentioned under the
names of Ælius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Ælius Lampridius,
Vulcatius Gallicanus, Trebellius Pollio and Flavius Vopiscus. But
there is so much perplexity in the titles of the MSS., and so
many disputes have arisen among the critics (see Fabricius,
Biblioth. Latin. l. iii. c. 6) concerning their number, their
names, and their respective property, that for the most part I
have quoted them without distinction, under the general and
well-known title of the _Augustan History._
Preface To The Fourth Volume Of The Original Quarto Edition.
I now discharge my promise, and complete my design, of writing
the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, both in
the West and the East. The whole period extends from the age of
Trajan and the Antonines, to the taking of Constantinople by
Mahomet the Second; and includes a review of the Crusades, and
the state of Rome during the middle ages. Since the publication
of the first volume, twelve years have elapsed; twelve years,
according to my wish, “of health, of leisure, and of
perseverance.” I may now congratulate my deliverance from a long
and laborious service, and my satisfaction will be pure and
perfect, if the public favor should be extended to the conclusion
of my work.
It was my first intention to have collected, under one view, the
numerous authors, of every age and language, from whom I have
derived the materials of this history; and I am still convinced
that the apparent ostentation would be more than compensated by
real use. If I have renounced this idea, if I have declined an
undertaking which had obtained the approbation of a
master-artist,* my excuse may be found in the extreme difficulty
of assigning a proper measure to such a catalogue. A naked list
of names and editions would not be satisfactory either to myself
or my readers: the characters of the principal Authors of the
Roman and Byzantine History have been occasionally connected with
the events which they describe; a more copious and critical
inquiry might indeed deserve, but it would demand, an elaborate
volume, which might swell by degrees into a general library of
historical writers. For the present, I shall content myself with
renewing my serious protestation, that I have always endeavored
to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a
sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and
that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully
marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact
were reduced to depend.
I shall soon revisit the banks of the Lake of Lausanne, a country
which I have known and loved from my early youth. Under a mild
government, amidst a beauteous landscape, in a life of leisure
and independence, and among a people of easy and elegant manners,
I have enjoyed, and may again hope to enjoy, the varied pleasures
of retirement and society. But I shall ever glory in the name and
character of an Englishman: I am proud of my birth in a free and
enlightened country; and the approbation of that country is the
best and most honorable reward of my labors. Were I ambitious of
any other Patron than the Public, I would inscribe this work to a
Statesman, who, in a long, a stormy, and at length an unfortunate
administration, had many political opponents, almost without a
personal enemy; who has retained, in his fall from power, many
faithful and disinterested friends; and who, under the pressure
of severe infirmity, enjoys the lively vigor of his mind, and the
felicity of his incomparable temper. Lord North will permit me to
express the feelings of friendship in the language of truth: but
even truth and friendship should be silent, if he still dispensed
the favors of the crown.
In a remote solitude, vanity may still whisper in my ear, that my
readers, perhaps, may inquire whether, in the conclusion of the
present work, I am now taking an everlasting farewell. They shall
hear all that I know myself, and all that I could reveal to the
most intimate friend. The motives of action or silence are now
equally balanced; nor can I pronounce, in my most secret
thoughts, on which side the scale will preponderate. I cannot
dissemble that six quartos must have tried, and may have
exhausted, the indulgence of the Public; that, in the repetition
of similar attempts, a successful Author has much more to lose
than he can hope to gain; that I am now descending into the vale
of years; and that the most respectable of my countrymen, the men
whom I aspire to imitate, have resigned the pen of history about
the same period of their lives. Yet I consider that the annals of
ancient and modern times may afford many rich and interesting
subjects; that I am still possessed of health and leisure; that
by the practice of writing, some skill and facility must be
acquired; and that, in the ardent pursuit of truth and knowledge,
I am not conscious of decay. To an active mind, indolence is more
painful than labor; and the first months of my liberty will be
occupied and amused in the excursions of curiosity and taste. By
such temptations, I have been sometimes seduced from the rigid
duty even of a pleasing and voluntary task: but my time will now
be my own; and in the use or abuse of independence, I shall no
longer fear my own reproaches or those of my friends. I am fairly
entitled to a year of jubilee: next summer and the following
winter will rapidly pass away; and experience only can determine
whether I shall still prefer the freedom and variety of study to
the design and composition of a regular work, which animates,
while it confines, the daily application of the Author. Caprice
and accident may influence my choice; but the dexterity of
self-love will contrive to applaud either active industry or
philosophic repose.
_Downing_ Street_, May 1, 1788._
P. S. I shall embrace this opportunity of introducing two
_verbal_ remarks, which have not conveniently offered themselves
to my notice. 1. As often as I use the definitions of _beyond_
the Alps, the Rhine, the Danube, &c., I generally suppose myself
at Rome, and afterwards at Constantinople; without observing
whether this relative geography may agree with the local, but
variable, situation of the reader, or the historian. 2. In proper
names of foreign, and especially of Oriental origin, it should be
always our aim to express, in our English version, a faithful
copy of the original. But this rule, which is founded on a just
regard to uniformity and truth, must often be relaxed; and the
exceptions will be limited or enlarged by the custom of the
language and the taste of the interpreter. Our alphabets may be
often defective; a harsh sound, an uncouth spelling, might offend
the ear or the eye of our countrymen; and some words, notoriously
corrupt, are fixed, and, as it were, naturalized in the vulgar
tongue. The prophet _Mohammed_ can no longer be stripped of the
famous, though improper, appellation of Mahomet: the well-known
cities of Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo, would almost be lost in
the strange descriptions of _Haleb_, _Demashk_, and _Al Cahira_:
the titles and offices of the Ottoman empire are fashioned by the
practice of three hundred years; and we are pleased to blend the
three Chinese monosyllables, _Con-fû-tzee_, in the respectable
name of Confucius, or even to adopt the Portuguese corruption of
Mandarin. But I would vary the use of Zoroaster and _Zerdusht_,
as I drew my information from Greece or Persia: since our
connection with India, the genuine _Timour_ is restored to the
throne of Tamerlane: our most correct writers have retrenched the
_Al_, the superfluous article, from the Koran; and we escape an
ambiguous termination, by adopting _Moslem_ instead of Musulman,
in the plural number. In these, and in a thousand examples, the
shades of distinction are often minute; and I can feel, where I
cannot explain, the motives of my choice.
Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
Antoninies.—Part I.
Introduction—The Extent And Military Force Of The Empire In The Age Of
The Antonines.
In the second century of the Christian Æra, the empire of Rome
comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most
civilized portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive
monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor.
The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had
gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful
inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and
luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with
decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the
sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the
executive powers of government. During a happy period of more
than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by
the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two
Antonines. It is the design of this, and of the two succeeding
chapters, to describe the prosperous condition of their empire;
and afterwards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the
most important circumstances of its decline and fall; a
revolution which will ever be remembered, and is still felt by
the nations of the earth.
The principal conquests of the Romans were achieved under the
republic; and the emperors, for the most part, were satisfied
with preserving those dominions which had been acquired by the
policy of the senate, the active emulations of the consuls, and
the martial enthusiasm of the people. The seven first centuries
were filled with a rapid succession of triumphs; but it was
reserved for Augustus to relinquish the ambitious design of
subduing the whole earth, and to introduce a spirit of moderation
into the public councils. Inclined to peace by his temper and
situation, it was easy for him to discover that Rome, in her
present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear
from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of remote
wars, the undertaking became every day more difficult, the event
more doubtful, and the possession more precarious, and less
beneficial. The experience of Augustus added weight to these
salutary reflections, and effectually convinced him that, by the
prudent vigor of his counsels, it would be easy to secure every
concession which the safety or the dignity of Rome might require
from the most formidable barbarians. Instead of exposing his
person and his legions to the arrows of the Parthians, he
obtained, by an honorable treaty, the restitution of the
standards and prisoners which had been taken in the defeat of
Crassus.
His generals, in the early part of his reign, attempted the
reduction of Ethiopia and Arabia Felix. They marched near a
thousand miles to the south of the tropic; but the heat of the
climate soon repelled the invaders, and protected the un-warlike
natives of those sequestered regions. The northern countries of
Europe scarcely deserved the expense and labor of conquest. The
forests and morasses of Germany were filled with a hardy race of
barbarians, who despised life when it was separated from freedom;
and though, on the first attack, they seemed to yield to the
weight of the Roman power, they soon, by a signal act of despair,
regained their independence, and reminded Augustus of the
vicissitude of fortune. On the death of that emperor, his
testament was publicly read in the senate. He bequeathed, as a
valuable legacy to his successors, the advice of confining the
empire within those limits which nature seemed to have placed as
its permanent bulwarks and boundaries: on the west, the Atlantic
Ocean; the Rhine and Danube on the north; the Euphrates on the
east; and towards the south, the sandy deserts of Arabia and
Africa.
Happily for the repose of mankind, the moderate system
recommended by the wisdom of Augustus, was adopted by the fears
and vices of his immediate successors. Engaged in the pursuit of
pleasure, or in the exercise of tyranny, the first Cæsars seldom
showed themselves to the armies, or to the provinces; nor were
they disposed to suffer, that those triumphs which _their_
indolence neglected, should be usurped by the conduct and valor
of their lieutenants. The military fame of a subject was
considered as an insolent invasion of the Imperial prerogative;
and it became the duty, as well as interest, of every Roman
general, to guard the frontiers intrusted to his care, without
aspiring to conquests which might have proved no less fatal to
himself than to the vanquished barbarians.
The only accession which the Roman empire received, during the
first century of the Christian Æra, was the province of Britain.
In this single instance, the successors of Cæsar and Augustus
were persuaded to follow the example of the former, rather than
the precept of the latter. The proximity of its situation to the
coast of Gaul seemed to invite their arms; the pleasing though
doubtful intelligence of a pearl fishery attracted their avarice;
and as Britain was viewed in the light of a distinct and
insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed any exception to
the general system of continental measures. After a war of about
forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the
most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the
emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the
Roman yoke. The various tribes of Britain possessed valor without
conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union.
They took up arms with savage fierceness; they laid them down, or
turned them against each other, with wild inconsistency; and
while they fought singly, they were successively subdued. Neither
the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the despair of Boadicea, nor the
fanaticism of the Druids, could avert the slavery of their
country, or resist the steady progress of the Imperial generals,
who maintained the national glory, when the throne was disgraced
by the weakest, or the most vicious of mankind. At the very time
when Domitian, confined to his palace, felt the terrors which he
inspired, his legions, under the command of the virtuous
Agricola, defeated the collected force of the Caledonians, at the
foot of the Grampian Hills; and his fleets, venturing to explore
an unknown and dangerous navigation, displayed the Roman arms
round every part of the island. The conquest of Britain was
considered as already achieved; and it was the design of Agricola
to complete and insure his success, by the easy reduction of
Ireland, for which, in his opinion, one legion and a few
auxiliaries were sufficient. The western isle might be improved
into a valuable possession, and the Britons would wear their
chains with the less reluctance, if the prospect and example of
freedom were on every side removed from before their eyes.
But the superior merit of Agricola soon occasioned his removal
from the government of Britain; and forever disappointed this
rational, though extensive scheme of conquest. Before his
departure, the prudent general had provided for security as well
as for dominion. He had observed, that the island is almost
divided into two unequal parts by the opposite gulfs, or, as they
are now called, the Friths of Scotland. Across the narrow
interval of about forty miles, he had drawn a line of military
stations, which was afterwards fortified, in the reign of
Antoninus Pius, by a turf rampart, erected on foundations of
stone. This wall of Antoninus, at a small distance beyond the
modern cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, was fixed as the limit of
the Roman province. The native Caledonians preserved, in the
northern extremity of the island, their wild independence, for
which they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their
valor. Their incursions were frequently repelled and chastised;
but their country was never subdued. The masters of the fairest
and most wealthy climates of the globe turned with contempt from
gloomy hills, assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes
concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over
which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked
barbarians.
Such was the state of the Roman frontiers, and such the maxims of
Imperial policy, from the death of Augustus to the accession of
Trajan. That virtuous and active prince had received the
education of a soldier, and possessed the talents of a general.
The peaceful system of his predecessors was interrupted by scenes
of war and conquest; and the legions, after a long interval,
beheld a military emperor at their head. The first exploits of
Trajan were against the Dacians, the most warlike of men, who
dwelt beyond the Danube, and who, during the reign of Domitian,
had insulted, with impunity, the Majesty of Rome. To the strength
and fierceness of barbarians they added a contempt for life,
which was derived from a warm persuasion of the immortality and
transmigration of the soul. Decebalus, the Dacian king, approved
himself a rival not unworthy of Trajan; nor did he despair of his
own and the public fortune, till, by the confession of his
enemies, he had exhausted every resource both of valor and
policy. This memorable war, with a very short suspension of
hostilities, lasted five years; and as the emperor could exert,
without control, the whole force of the state, it was terminated
by an absolute submission of the barbarians. The new province of
Dacia, which formed a second exception to the precept of
Augustus, was about thirteen hundred miles in circumference. Its
natural boundaries were the Niester, the Teyss or Tibiscus, the
Lower Danube, and the Euxine Sea. The vestiges of a military road
may still be traced from the banks of the Danube to the
neighborhood of Bender, a place famous in modern history, and the
actual frontier of the Turkish and Russian empires.
Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall
continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than
on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be
the vice of the most exalted characters. The praises of
Alexander, transmitted by a succession of poets and historians,
had kindled a dangerous emulation in the mind of Trajan. Like
him, the Roman emperor undertook an expedition against the
nations of the East; but he lamented with a sigh, that his
advanced age scarcely left him any hopes of equalling the renown
of the son of Philip. Yet the success of Trajan, however
transient, was rapid and specious. The degenerate Parthians,
broken by intestine discord, fled before his arms. He descended
the River Tigris in triumph, from the mountains of Armenia to the
Persian Gulf. He enjoyed the honor of being the first, as he was
the last, of the Roman generals, who ever navigated that remote
sea. His fleets ravaged the coast of Arabia; and Trajan vainly
flattered himself that he was approaching towards the confines of
India. Every day the astonished senate received the intelligence
of new names and new nations, that acknowledged his sway. They
were informed that the kings of Bosphorus, Colchos, Iberia,
Albania, Osrhoene, and even the Parthian monarch himself, had
accepted their diadems from the hands of the emperor; that the
independent tribes of the Median and Carduchian hills had
implored his protection; and that the rich countries of Armenia,
Mesopotamia, and Assyria, were reduced into the state of
provinces. But the death of Trajan soon clouded the splendid
prospect; and it was justly to be dreaded, that so many distant
nations would throw off the unaccustomed yoke, when they were no
longer restrained by the powerful hand which had imposed it.
Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
Antoninies.—Part II.
It was an ancient tradition, that when the Capitol was founded by
one of the Roman kings, the god Terminus (who presided over
boundaries, and was represented, according to the fashion of that
age, by a large stone) alone, among all the inferior deities,
refused to yield his place to Jupiter himself. A favorable
inference was drawn from his obstinacy, which was interpreted by
the augurs as a sure presage that the boundaries of the Roman
power would never recede. During many ages, the prediction, as it
is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment. But though
Terminus had resisted the Majesty of Jupiter, he submitted to the
authority of the emperor Hadrian. The resignation of all the
eastern conquests of Trajan was the first measure of his reign.
He restored to the Parthians the election of an independent
sovereign; withdrew the Roman garrisons from the provinces of
Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria; and, in compliance with the
precept of Augustus, once more established the Euphrates as the
frontier of the empire. Censure, which arraigns the public
actions and the private motives of princes, has ascribed to envy,
a conduct which might be attributed to the prudence and
moderation of Hadrian. The various character of that emperor,
capable, by turns, of the meanest and the most generous
sentiments, may afford some color to the suspicion. It was,
however, scarcely in his power to place the superiority of his
predecessor in a more conspicuous light, than by thus confessing
himself unequal to the task of defending the conquests of Trajan.
The martial and ambitious spirit of Trajan formed a very singular
contrast with the moderation of his successor. The restless
activity of Hadrian was not less remarkable when compared with
the gentle repose of Antoninus Pius. The life of the former was
almost a perpetual journey; and as he possessed the various
talents of the soldier, the statesman, and the scholar, he
gratified his curiosity in the discharge of his duty. Careless of
the difference of seasons and of climates, he marched on foot,
and bare-headed, over the snows of Caledonia, and the sultry
plains of the Upper Egypt; nor was there a province of the empire
which, in the course of his reign, was not honored with the
presence of the monarch. But the tranquil life of Antoninus Pius
was spent in the bosom of Italy, and, during the twenty-three
years that he directed the public administration, the longest
journeys of that amiable prince extended no farther than from his
palace in Rome to the retirement of his Lanuvian villa.
Notwithstanding this difference in their personal conduct, the
general system of Augustus was equally adopted and uniformly
pursued by Hadrian and by the two Antonines. They persisted in
the design of maintaining the dignity of the empire, without
attempting to enlarge its limits. By every honorable expedient
they invited the friendship of the barbarians; and endeavored to
convince mankind that the Roman power, raised above the
temptation of conquest, was actuated only by the love of order
and justice. During a long period of forty-three years, their
virtuous labors were crowned with success; and if we except a few
slight hostilities, that served to exercise the legions of the
frontier, the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius offer the fair
prospect of universal peace. The Roman name was revered among the
most remote nations of the earth. The fiercest barbarians
frequently submitted their differences to the arbitration of the
emperor; and we are informed by a contemporary historian that he
had seen ambassadors who were refused the honor which they came
to solicit of being admitted into the rank of subjects.
The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the
moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant
preparation for war; and while justice regulated their conduct,
they announced to the nations on their confines, that they were
as little disposed to endure, as to offer an injury. The military
strength, which it had been sufficient for Hadrian and the elder
Antoninus to display, was exerted against the Parthians and the
Germans by the emperor Marcus. The hostilities of the barbarians
provoked the resentment of that philosophic monarch, and, in the
prosecution of a just defence, Marcus and his generals obtained
many signal victories, both on the Euphrates and on the Danube.
The military establishment of the Roman empire, which thus
assured either its tranquillity or success, will now become the
proper and important object of our attention.
In the purer ages of the commonwealth, the use of arms was
reserved for those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a
property to defend, and some share in enacting those laws, which
it was their interest as well as duty to maintain. But in
proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest,
war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a
trade. The legions themselves, even at the time when they were
recruited in the most distant provinces, were supposed to consist
of Roman citizens. That distinction was generally considered,
either as a legal qualification or as a proper recompense for the
soldier; but a more serious regard was paid to the essential
merit of age, strength, and military stature. In all levies, a
just preference was given to the climates of the North over those
of the South: the race of men born to the exercise of arms was
sought for in the country rather than in cities; and it was very
reasonably presumed, that the hardy occupations of smiths,
carpenters, and huntsmen, would supply more vigor and resolution
than the sedentary trades which are employed in the service of
luxury. After every qualification of property had been laid
aside, the armies of the Roman emperors were still commanded, for
the most part, by officers of liberal birth and education; but
the common soldiers, like the mercenary troops of modern Europe,
were drawn from the meanest, and very frequently from the most
profligate, of mankind.
That public virtue, which among the ancients was denominated
patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in
the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which
we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions
of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble
impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it
became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a
different, but not less forcible nature—honor and religion. The
peasant, or mechanic, imbibed the useful prejudice that he was
advanced to the more dignified profession of arms, in which his
rank and reputation would depend on his own valor; and that,
although the prowess of a private soldier must often escape the
notice of fame, his own behavior might sometimes confer glory or
disgrace on the company, the legion, or even the army, to whose
honors he was associated. On his first entrance into the service,
an oath was administered to him with every circumstance of
solemnity. He promised never to desert his standard, to submit
his own will to the commands of his leaders, and to sacrifice his
life for the safety of the emperor and the empire. The attachment
of the Roman troops to their standards was inspired by the united
influence of religion and of honor. The golden eagle, which
glittered in the front of the legion, was the object of their
fondest devotion; nor was it esteemed less impious than it was
ignominious, to abandon that sacred ensign in the hour of danger.
These motives, which derived their strength from the imagination,
were enforced by fears and hopes of a more substantial kind.
Regular pay, occasional donatives, and a stated recompense, after
the appointed time of service, alleviated the hardships of the
military life, whilst, on the other hand, it was impossible for
cowardice or disobedience to escape the severest punishment. The
centurions were authorized to chastise with blows, the generals
had a right to punish with death; and it was an inflexible maxim
of Roman discipline, that a good soldier should dread his
officers far more than the enemy. From such laudable arts did the
valor of the Imperial troops receive a degree of firmness and
docility unattainable by the impetuous and irregular passions of
barbarians.
And yet so sensible were the Romans of the imperfection of valor
without skill and practice, that, in their language, the name of
an army was borrowed from the word which signified exercise.
Military exercises were the important and unremitted object of
their discipline. The recruits and young soldiers were constantly
trained, both in the morning and in the evening, nor was age or
knowledge allowed to excuse the veterans from the daily
repetition of what they had completely learnt. Large sheds were
erected in the winter-quarters of the troops, that their useful
labors might not receive any interruption from the most
tempestuous weather; and it was carefully observed, that the arms
destined to this imitation of war, should be of double the weight
which was required in real action. It is not the purpose of this
work to enter into any minute description of the Roman exercises.
We shall only remark, that they comprehended whatever could add
strength to the body, activity to the limbs, or grace to the
motions. The soldiers were diligently instructed to march, to
run, to leap, to swim, to carry heavy burdens, to handle every
species of arms that was used either for offence or for defence,
either in distant engagement or in a closer onset; to form a
variety of evolutions; and to move to the sound of flutes in the
Pyrrhic or martial dance. In the midst of peace, the Roman troops
familiarized themselves with the practice of war; and it is
prettily remarked by an ancient historian who had fought against
them, that the effusion of blood was the only circumstance which
distinguished a field of battle from a field of exercise.* It was
the policy of the ablest generals, and even of the emperors
themselves, to encourage these military studies by their presence
and example; and we are informed that Hadrian, as well as Trajan,
frequently condescended to instruct the unexperienced soldiers,
to reward the diligent, and sometimes to dispute with them the
prize of superior strength or dexterity. Under the reigns of
those princes, the science of tactics was cultivated with
success; and as long as the empire retained any vigor, their
military instructions were respected as the most perfect model of
Roman discipline.
Nine centuries of war had gradually introduced into the service
many alterations and improvements. The legions, as they are
described by Polybius, in the time of the Punic wars, differed
very materially from those which achieved the victories of Cæsar,
or defended the monarchy of Hadrian and the Antonines. The
constitution of the Imperial legion may be described in a few
words. The heavy-armed infantry, which composed its principal
strength, was divided into ten cohorts, and fifty-five companies,
under the orders of a correspondent number of tribunes and
centurions. The first cohort, which always claimed the post of
honor and the custody of the eagle, was formed of eleven hundred
and five soldiers, the most approved for valor and fidelity. The
remaining nine cohorts consisted each of five hundred and
fifty-five; and the whole body of legionary infantry amounted to
six thousand one hundred men. Their arms were uniform, and
admirably adapted to the nature of their service: an open helmet,
with a lofty crest; a breastplate, or coat of mail; greaves on
their legs, and an ample buckler on their left arm. The buckler
was of an oblong and concave figure, four feet in length, and two
and a half in breadth, framed of a light wood, covered with a
bull’s hide, and strongly guarded with plates of brass. Besides a
lighter spear, the legionary soldier grasped in his right hand
the formidable _pilum_, a ponderous javelin, whose utmost length
was about six feet, and which was terminated by a massy
triangular point of steel of eighteen inches. This instrument was
indeed much inferior to our modern fire-arms; since it was
exhausted by a single discharge, at the distance of only ten or
twelve paces. Yet when it was launched by a firm and skilful
hand, there was not any cavalry that durst venture within its
reach, nor any shield or corselet that could sustain the
impetuosity of its weight. As soon as the Roman had darted his
_pilum_, he drew his sword, and rushed forwards to close with the
enemy. His sword was a short well-tempered Spanish blade, that
carried a double edge, and was alike suited to the purpose of
striking or of pushing; but the soldier was always instructed to
prefer the latter use of his weapon, as his own body remained
less exposed, whilst he inflicted a more dangerous wound on his
adversary. The legion was usually drawn up eight deep; and the
regular distance of three feet was left between the files as well
as ranks. A body of troops, habituated to preserve this open
order, in a long front and a rapid charge, found themselves
prepared to execute every disposition which the circumstances of
war, or the skill of their leader, might suggest. The soldier
possessed a free space for his arms and motions, and sufficient
intervals were allowed, through which seasonable reinforcements
might be introduced to the relief of the exhausted combatants.
The tactics of the Greeks and Macedonians were formed on very
different principles. The strength of the phalanx depended on
sixteen ranks of long pikes, wedged together in the closest
array. But it was soon discovered by reflection, as well as by
the event, that the strength of the phalanx was unable to contend
with the activity of the legion.
The cavalry, without which the force of the legion would have
remained imperfect, was divided into ten troops or squadrons; the
first, as the companion of the first cohort, consisted of a
hundred and thirty-two men; whilst each of the other nine
amounted only to sixty-six. The entire establishment formed a
regiment, if we may use the modern expression, of seven hundred
and twenty-six horse, naturally connected with its respective
legion, but occasionally separated to act in the line, and to
compose a part of the wings of the army. The cavalry of the
emperors was no longer composed, like that of the ancient
republic, of the noblest youths of Rome and Italy, who, by
performing their military service on horseback, prepared
themselves for the offices of senator and consul; and solicited,
by deeds of valor, the future suffrages of their countrymen.
Since the alteration of manners and government, the most wealthy
of the equestrian order were engaged in the administration of
justice, and of the revenue; and whenever they embraced the
profession of arms, they were immediately intrusted with a troop
of horse, or a cohort of foot. Trajan and Hadrian formed their
cavalry from the same provinces, and the same class of their
subjects, which recruited the ranks of the legion. The horses
were bred, for the most part, in Spain or Cappadocia. The Roman
troopers despised the complete armor with which the cavalry of
the East was encumbered. _Their_ more useful arms consisted in a
helmet, an oblong shield, light boots, and a coat of mail. A
javelin, and a long broad sword, were their principal weapons of
offence. The use of lances and of iron maces they seem to have
borrowed from the barbarians.
The safety and honor of the empire was principally intrusted to
the legions, but the policy of Rome condescended to adopt every
useful instrument of war. Considerable levies were regularly made
among the provincials, who had not yet deserved the honorable
distinction of Romans. Many dependent princes and communities,
dispersed round the frontiers, were permitted, for a while, to
hold their freedom and security by the tenure of military
service. Even select troops of hostile barbarians were frequently
compelled or persuaded to consume their dangerous valor in remote
climates, and for the benefit of the state. All these were
included under the general name of auxiliaries; and howsoever
they might vary according to the difference of times and
circumstances, their numbers were seldom much inferior to those
of the legions themselves. Among the auxiliaries, the bravest and
most faithful bands were placed under the command of præfects and
centurions, and severely trained in the arts of Roman discipline;
but the far greater part retained those arms, to which the nature
of their country, or their early habits of life, more peculiarly
adapted them. By this institution, each legion, to whom a certain
proportion of auxiliaries was allotted, contained within itself
every species of lighter troops, and of missile weapons; and was
capable of encountering every nation, with the advantages of its
respective arms and discipline. Nor was the legion destitute of
what, in modern language, would be styled a train of artillery.
It consisted in ten military engines of the largest, and
fifty-five of a smaller size; but all of which, either in an
oblique or horizontal manner, discharged stones and darts with
irresistible violence.
Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
Antoninies.—Part III.
The camp of a Roman legion presented the appearance of a
fortified city. As soon as the space was marked out, the pioneers
carefully levelled the ground, and removed every impediment that
might interrupt its perfect regularity. Its form was an exact
quadrangle; and we may calculate, that a square of about seven
hundred yards was sufficient for the encampment of twenty
thousand Romans; though a similar number of our own troops would
expose to the enemy a front of more than treble that extent. In
the midst of the camp, the prætorium, or general’s quarters, rose
above the others; the cavalry, the infantry, and the auxiliaries
occupied their respective stations; the streets were broad and
perfectly straight, and a vacant space of two hundred feet was
left on all sides between the tents and the rampart. The rampart
itself was usually twelve feet high, armed with a line of strong
and intricate palisades, and defended by a ditch of twelve feet
in depth as well as in breadth. This important labor was
performed by the hands of the legionaries themselves; to whom the
use of the spade and the pickaxe was no less familiar than that
of the sword or _pilum_. Active valor may often be the present of
nature; but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of habit
and discipline.
Whenever the trumpet gave the signal of departure, the camp was
almost instantly broke up, and the troops fell into their ranks
without delay or confusion. Besides their arms, which the
legionaries scarcely considered as an encumbrance, they were
laden with their kitchen furniture, the instruments of
fortification, and the provision of many days. Under this weight,
which would oppress the delicacy of a modern soldier, they were
trained by a regular step to advance, in about six hours, near
twenty miles. On the appearance of an enemy, they threw aside
their baggage, and by easy and rapid evolutions converted the
column of march into an order of battle. The slingers and archers
skirmished in the front; the auxiliaries formed the first line,
and were seconded or sustained by the strength of the legions;
the cavalry covered the flanks, and the military engines were
placed in the rear.
Such were the arts of war, by which the Roman emperors defended
their extensive conquests, and preserved a military spirit, at a
time when every other virtue was oppressed by luxury and
despotism. If, in the consideration of their armies, we pass from
their discipline to their numbers, we shall not find it easy to
define them with any tolerable accuracy. We may compute, however,
that the legion, which was itself a body of six thousand eight
hundred and thirty-one Romans, might, with its attendant
auxiliaries, amount to about twelve thousand five hundred men.
The peace establishment of Hadrian and his successors was
composed of no less than thirty of these formidable brigades; and
most probably formed a standing force of three hundred and
seventy-five thousand men. Instead of being confined within the
walls of fortified cities, which the Romans considered as the
refuge of weakness or pusillanimity, the legions were encamped on
the banks of the great rivers, and along the frontiers of the
barbarians. As their stations, for the most part, remained fixed
and permanent, we may venture to describe the distribution of the
troops. Three legions were sufficient for Britain. The principal
strength lay upon the Rhine and Danube, and consisted of sixteen
legions, in the following proportions: two in the Lower, and
three in the Upper Germany; one in Rhætia, one in Noricum, four
in Pannonia, three in Mæsia, and two in Dacia. The defence of the
Euphrates was intrusted to eight legions, six of whom were
planted in Syria, and the other two in Cappadocia. With regard to
Egypt, Africa, and Spain, as they were far removed from any
important scene of war, a single legion maintained the domestic
tranquillity of each of those great provinces. Even Italy was not
left destitute of a military force. Above twenty thousand chosen
soldiers, distinguished by the titles of City Cohorts and
Prætorian Guards, watched over the safety of the monarch and the
capital. As the authors of almost every revolution that
distracted the empire, the Prætorians will, very soon, and very
loudly, demand our attention; but, in their arms and
institutions, we cannot find any circumstance which discriminated
them from the legions, unless it were a more splendid appearance,
and a less rigid discipline.
The navy maintained by the emperors might seem inadequate to
their greatness; but it was fully sufficient for every useful
purpose of government. The ambition of the Romans was confined to
the land; nor was that warlike people ever actuated by the
enterprising spirit which had prompted the navigators of Tyre, of
Carthage, and even of Marseilles, to enlarge the bounds of the
world, and to explore the most remote coasts of the ocean. To the
Romans the ocean remained an object of terror rather than of
curiosity; the whole extent of the Mediterranean, after the
destruction of Carthage, and the extirpation of the pirates, was
included within their provinces. The policy of the emperors was
directed only to preserve the peaceful dominion of that sea, and
to protect the commerce of their subjects. With these moderate
views, Augustus stationed two permanent fleets in the most
convenient ports of Italy, the one at Ravenna, on the Adriatic,
the other at Misenum, in the Bay of Naples. Experience seems at
length to have convinced the ancients, that as soon as their
galleys exceeded two, or at the most three ranks of oars, they
were suited rather for vain pomp than for real service. Augustus
himself, in the victory of Actium, had seen the superiority of
his own light frigates (they were called Liburnians) over the
lofty but unwieldy castles of his rival. Of these Liburnians he
composed the two fleets of Ravenna and Misenum, destined to
command, the one the eastern, the other the western division of
the Mediterranean; and to each of the squadrons he attached a
body of several thousand marines. Besides these two ports, which
may be considered as the principal seats of the Roman navy, a
very considerable force was stationed at Frejus, on the coast of
Provence, and the Euxine was guarded by forty ships, and three
thousand soldiers. To all these we add the fleet which preserved
the communication between Gaul and Britain, and a great number of
vessels constantly maintained on the Rhine and Danube, to harass
the country, or to intercept the passage of the barbarians. If we
review this general state of the Imperial forces; of the cavalry
as well as infantry; of the legions, the auxiliaries, the guards,
and the navy; the most liberal computation will not allow us to
fix the entire establishment by sea and by land at more than four
hundred and fifty thousand men: a military power, which, however
formidable it may seem, was equalled by a monarch of the last
century, whose kingdom was confined within a single province of
the Roman empire.
We have attempted to explain the spirit which moderated, and the
strength which supported, the power of Hadrian and the Antonines.
We shall now endeavor, with clearness and precision, to describe
the provinces once united under their sway, but, at present,
divided into so many independent and hostile states.
Spain, the western extremity of the empire, of Europe, and of the
ancient world, has, in every age, invariably preserved the same
natural limits; the Pyrenæan Mountains, the Mediterranean, and
the Atlantic Ocean. That great peninsula, at present so unequally
divided between two sovereigns, was distributed by Augustus into
three provinces, Lusitania, Bætica, and Tarraconensis. The
kingdom of Portugal now fills the place of the warlike country of
the Lusitanians; and the loss sustained by the former on the side
of the East, is compensated by an accession of territory towards
the North. The confines of Grenada and Andalusia correspond with
those of ancient Bætica. The remainder of Spain, Gallicia, and
the Asturias, Biscay, and Navarre, Leon, and the two Castiles,
Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, and Arragon, all contributed to form
the third and most considerable of the Roman governments, which,
from the name of its capital, was styled the province of
Tarragona. Of the native barbarians, the Celtiberians were the
most powerful, as the Cantabrians and Asturians proved the most
obstinate. Confident in the strength of their mountains, they
were the last who submitted to the arms of Rome, and the first
who threw off the yoke of the Arabs.
Ancient Gaul, as it contained the whole country between the
Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine, and the Ocean, was of greater
extent than modern France. To the dominions of that powerful
monarchy, with its recent acquisitions of Alsace and Lorraine, we
must add the duchy of Savoy, the cantons of Switzerland, the four
electorates of the Rhine, and the territories of Liege,
Luxemburgh, Hainault, Flanders, and Brabant. When Augustus gave
laws to the conquests of his father, he introduced a division of
Gaul, equally adapted to the progress of the legions, to the
course of the rivers, and to the principal national distinctions,
which had comprehended above a hundred independent states. The
sea-coast of the Mediterranean, Languedoc, Provence, and
Dauphiné, received their provincial appellation from the colony
of Narbonne. The government of Aquitaine was extended from the
Pyrenees to the Loire. The country between the Loire and the
Seine was styled the Celtic Gaul, and soon borrowed a new
denomination from the celebrated colony of Lugdunum, or Lyons.
The Belgic lay beyond the Seine, and in more ancient times had
been bounded only by the Rhine; but a little before the age of
Cæsar, the Germans, abusing their superiority of valor, had
occupied a considerable portion of the Belgic territory. The
Roman conquerors very eagerly embraced so flattering a
circumstance, and the Gallic frontier of the Rhine, from Basil to
Leyden, received the pompous names of the Upper and the Lower
Germany. Such, under the reign of the Antonines, were the six
provinces of Gaul; the Narbonnese, Aquitaine, the Celtic, or
Lyonnese, the Belgic, and the two Germanies.
We have already had occasion to mention the conquest of Britain,
and to fix the boundary of the Roman Province in this island. It
comprehended all England, Wales, and the Lowlands of Scotland, as
far as the Friths of Dumbarton and Edinburgh. Before Britain lost
her freedom, the country was irregularly divided between thirty
tribes of barbarians, of whom the most considerable were the
Belgæ in the West, the Brigantes in the North, the Silures in
South Wales, and the Iceni in Norfolk and Suffolk. As far as we
can either trace or credit the resemblance of manners and
language, Spain, Gaul, and Britain were peopled by the same hardy
race of savages. Before they yielded to the Roman arms, they
often disputed the field, and often renewed the contest. After
their submission, they constituted the western division of the
European provinces, which extended from the columns of Hercules
to the wall of Antoninus, and from the mouth of the Tagus to the
sources of the Rhine and Danube.
Before the Roman conquest, the country which is now called
Lombardy, was not considered as a part of Italy. It had been
occupied by a powerful colony of Gauls, who, settling themselves
along the banks of the Po, from Piedmont to Romagna, carried
their arms and diffused their name from the Alps to the Apennine.
The Ligurians dwelt on the rocky coast which now forms the
republic of Genoa. Venice was yet unborn; but the territories of
that state, which lie to the east of the Adige, were inhabited by
the Venetians. The middle part of the peninsula, that now
composes the duchy of Tuscany and the ecclesiastical state, was
the ancient seat of the Etruscans and Umbrians; to the former of
whom Italy was indebted for the first rudiments of civilized
life. The Tyber rolled at the foot of the seven hills of Rome,
and the country of the Sabines, the Latins, and the Volsci, from
that river to the frontiers of Naples, was the theatre of her
infant victories. On that celebrated ground the first consuls
deserved triumphs, their successors adorned villas, and their
posterity have erected convents. Capua and Campania possessed the
immediate territory of Naples; the rest of the kingdom was
inhabited by many warlike nations, the Marsi, the Samnites, the
Apulians, and the Lucanians; and the sea-coasts had been covered
by the flourishing colonies of the Greeks. We may remark, that
when Augustus divided Italy into eleven regions, the little
province of Istria was annexed to that seat of Roman sovereignty.
The European provinces of Rome were protected by the course of
the Rhine and the Danube. The latter of those mighty streams,
which rises at the distance of only thirty miles from the former,
flows above thirteen hundred miles, for the most part to the
south-east, collects the tribute of sixty navigable rivers, and
is, at length, through six mouths, received into the Euxine,
which appears scarcely equal to such an accession of waters. The
provinces of the Danube soon acquired the general appellation of
Illyricum, or the Illyrian frontier, and were esteemed the most
warlike of the empire; but they deserve to be more particularly
considered under the names of Rhætia, Noricum, Pannonia,
Dalmatia, Dacia, Mæsia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece.
The province of Rhætia, which soon extinguished the name of the
Vindelicians, extended from the summit of the Alps to the banks
of the Danube; from its source, as far as its conflux with the
Inn. The greatest part of the flat country is subject to the
elector of Bavaria; the city of Augsburg is protected by the
constitution of the German empire; the Grisons are safe in their
mountains, and the country of Tirol is ranked among the numerous
provinces of the house of Austria.
The wide extent of territory which is included between the Inn,
the Danube, and the Save,—Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola,
the Lower Hungary, and Sclavonia,—was known to the ancients under
the names of Noricum and Pannonia. In their original state of
independence, their fierce inhabitants were intimately connected.
Under the Roman government they were frequently united, and they
still remain the patrimony of a single family. They now contain
the residence of a German prince, who styles himself Emperor of
the Romans, and form the centre, as well as strength, of the
Austrian power. It may not be improper to observe, that if we
except Bohemia, Moravia, the northern skirts of Austria, and a
part of Hungary between the Teyss and the Danube, all the other
dominions of the House of Austria were comprised within the
limits of the Roman Empire.
Dalmatia, to which the name of Illyricum more properly belonged,
was a long, but narrow tract, between the Save and the Adriatic.
The best part of the sea-coast, which still retains its ancient
appellation, is a province of the Venetian state, and the seat of
the little republic of Ragusa. The inland parts have assumed the
Sclavonian names of Croatia and Bosnia; the former obeys an
Austrian governor, the latter a Turkish pacha; but the whole
country is still infested by tribes of barbarians, whose savage
independence irregularly marks the doubtful limit of the
Christian and Mahometan power.
After the Danube had received the waters of the Teyss and the
Save, it acquired, at least among the Greeks, the name of Ister.
It formerly divided Mæsia and Dacia, the latter of which, as we
have already seen, was a conquest of Trajan, and the only
province beyond the river. If we inquire into the present state
of those countries, we shall find that, on the left hand of the
Danube, Temeswar and Transylvania have been annexed, after many
revolutions, to the crown of Hungary; whilst the principalities
of Moldavia and Wallachia acknowledge the supremacy of the
Ottoman Porte. On the right hand of the Danube, Mæsia, which,
during the middle ages, was broken into the barbarian kingdoms of
Servia and Bulgaria, is again united in Turkish slavery.
The appellation of Roumelia, which is still bestowed by the Turks
on the extensive countries of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece,
preserves the memory of their ancient state under the Roman
empire. In the time of the Antonines, the martial regions of
Thrace, from the mountains of Hæmus and Rhodope, to the Bosphorus
and the Hellespont, had assumed the form of a province.
Notwithstanding the change of masters and of religion, the new
city of Rome, founded by Constantine on the banks of the
Bosphorus, has ever since remained the capital of a great
monarchy. The kingdom of Macedonia, which, under the reign of
Alexander, gave laws to Asia, derived more solid advantages from
the policy of the two Philips; and with its dependencies of
Epirus and Thessaly, extended from the Ægean to the Ionian Sea.
When we reflect on the fame of Thebes and Argos, of Sparta and
Athens, we can scarcely persuade ourselves, that so many immortal
republics of ancient Greece were lost in a single province of the
Roman empire, which, from the superior influence of the Achæan
league, was usually denominated the province of Achaia.
Such was the state of Europe under the Roman emperors. The
provinces of Asia, without excepting the transient conquests of
Trajan, are all comprehended within the limits of the Turkish
power. But, instead of following the arbitrary divisions of
despotism and ignorance, it will be safer for us, as well as more
agreeable, to observe the indelible characters of nature. The
name of Asia Minor is attributed with some propriety to the
peninsula, which, confined betwixt the Euxine and the
Mediterranean, advances from the Euphrates towards Europe. The
most extensive and flourishing district, westward of Mount Taurus
and the River Halys, was dignified by the Romans with the
exclusive title of Asia. The jurisdiction of that province
extended over the ancient monarchies of Troy, Lydia, and Phrygia,
the maritime countries of the Pamphylians, Lycians, and Carians,
and the Grecian colonies of Ionia, which equalled in arts, though
not in arms, the glory of their parent. The kingdoms of Bithynia
and Pontus possessed the northern side of the peninsula from
Constantinople to Trebizond. On the opposite side, the province
of Cilicia was terminated by the mountains of Syria: the inland
country, separated from the Roman Asia by the River Halys, and
from Armenia by the Euphrates, had once formed the independent
kingdom of Cappadocia. In this place we may observe, that the
northern shores of the Euxine, beyond Trebizond in Asia, and
beyond the Danube in Europe, acknowledged the sovereignty of the
emperors, and received at their hands either tributary princes or
Roman garrisons. Budzak, Crim Tartary, Circassia, and Mingrelia,
are the modern appellations of those savage countries.
Under the successors of Alexander, Syria was the seat of the
Seleucidæ, who reigned over Upper Asia, till the successful
revolt of the Parthians confined their dominions between the
Euphrates and the Mediterranean. When Syria became subject to the
Romans, it formed the eastern frontier of their empire: nor did
that province, in its utmost latitude, know any other bounds than
the mountains of Cappadocia to the north, and towards the south,
the confines of Egypt, and the Red Sea. Phœnicia and Palestine
were sometimes annexed to, and sometimes separated from, the
jurisdiction of Syria. The former of these was a narrow and rocky
coast; the latter was a territory scarcely superior to Wales,
either in fertility or extent. * Yet Phœnicia and Palestine will
forever live in the memory of mankind; since America, as well as
Europe, has received letters from the one, and religion from the
other. A sandy desert, alike destitute of wood and water, skirts
along the doubtful confine of Syria, from the Euphrates to the
Red Sea. The wandering life of the Arabs was inseparably
connected with their independence; and wherever, on some spots
less barren than the rest, they ventured to for many settled
habitations, they soon became subjects to the Roman empire.
The geographers of antiquity have frequently hesitated to what
portion of the globe they should ascribe Egypt. By its situation
that celebrated kingdom is included within the immense peninsula
of Africa; but it is accessible only on the side of Asia, whose
revolutions, in almost every period of history, Egypt has humbly
obeyed. A Roman præfect was seated on the splendid throne of the
Ptolemies; and the iron sceptre of the Mamelukes is now in the
hands of a Turkish pacha. The Nile flows down the country, above
five hundred miles from the tropic of Cancer to the
Mediterranean, and marks on either side the extent of fertility
by the measure of its inundations. Cyrene, situate towards the
west, and along the sea-coast, was first a Greek colony,
afterwards a province of Egypt, and is now lost in the desert of
Barca. *
From Cyrene to the ocean, the coast of Africa extends above
fifteen hundred miles; yet so closely is it pressed between the
Mediterranean and the Sahara, or sandy desert, that its breadth
seldom exceeds fourscore or a hundred miles. The eastern division
was considered by the Romans as the more peculiar and proper
province of Africa. Till the arrival of the Phœnician colonies,
that fertile country was inhabited by the Libyans, the most
savage of mankind. Under the immediate jurisdiction of Carthage,
it became the centre of commerce and empire; but the republic of
Carthage is now degenerated into the feeble and disorderly states
of Tripoli and Tunis. The military government of Algiers
oppresses the wide extent of Numidia, as it was once united under
Massinissa and Jugurtha; but in the time of Augustus, the limits
of Numidia were contracted; and, at least, two thirds of the
country acquiesced in the name of Mauritania, with the epithet of
Cæsariensis. The genuine Mauritania, or country of the Moors,
which, from the ancient city of Tingi, or Tangier, was
distinguished by the appellation of Tingitana, is represented by
the modern kingdom of Fez. Salle, on the Ocean, so infamous at
present for its piratical depredations, was noticed by the
Romans, as the extreme object of their power, and almost of their
geography. A city of their foundation may still be discovered
near Mequinez, the residence of the barbarian whom we condescend
to style the Emperor of Morocco; but it does not appear, that his
more southern dominions, Morocco itself, and Segelmessa, were
ever comprehended within the Roman province. The western parts of
Africa are intersected by the branches of Mount Atlas, a name so
idly celebrated by the fancy of poets; but which is now diffused
over the immense ocean that rolls between the ancient and the new
continent.
Having now finished the circuit of the Roman empire, we may
observe, that Africa is divided from Spain by a narrow strait of
about twelve miles, through which the Atlantic flows into the
Mediterranean. The columns of Hercules, so famous among the
ancients, were two mountains which seemed to have been torn
asunder by some convulsion of the elements; and at the foot of
the European mountain, the fortress of Gibraltar is now seated.
The whole extent of the Mediterranean Sea, its coasts and its
islands, were comprised within the Roman dominion. Of the larger
islands, the two Baleares, which derive their name of Majorca and
Minorca from their respective size, are subject at present, the
former to Spain, the latter to Great Britain. * It is easier to
deplore the fate, than to describe the actual condition, of
Corsica. Two Italian sovereigns assume a regal title from
Sardinia and Sicily. Crete, or Candia, with Cyprus, and most of
the smaller islands of Greece and Asia, have been subdued by the
Turkish arms, whilst the little rock of Malta defies their power,
and has emerged, under the government of its military Order, into
fame and opulence.
This long enumeration of provinces, whose broken fragments have
formed so many powerful kingdoms, might almost induce us to
forgive the vanity or ignorance of the ancients. Dazzled with the
extensive sway, the irresistible strength, and the real or
affected moderation of the emperors, they permitted themselves to
despise, and sometimes to forget, the outlying countries which
had been left in the enjoyment of a barbarous independence; and
they gradually usurped the license of confounding the Roman
monarchy with the globe of the earth. But the temper, as well as
knowledge, of a modern historian, require a more sober and
accurate language. He may impress a juster image of the greatness
of Rome, by observing that the empire was above two thousand
miles in breadth, from the wall of Antoninus and the northern
limits of Dacia, to Mount Atlas and the tropic of Cancer; that it
extended in length more than three thousand miles from the
Western Ocean to the Euphrates; that it was situated in the
finest part of the Temperate Zone, between the twenty-fourth and
fifty-sixth degrees of northern latitude; and that it was
supposed to contain above sixteen hundred thousand square miles,
for the most part of fertile and well-cultivated land.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part I.
Of The Union And Internal Prosperity Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of
The Antonines.
It is not alone by the rapidity, or extent of conquest, that we
should estimate the greatness of Rome. The sovereign of the
Russian deserts commands a larger portion of the globe. In the
seventh summer after his passage of the Hellespont, Alexander
erected the Macedonian trophies on the banks of the Hyphasis.
Within less than a century, the irresistible Zingis, and the
Mogul princes of his race, spread their cruel devastations and
transient empire from the Sea of China, to the confines of Egypt
and Germany. But the firm edifice of Roman power was raised and
preserved by the wisdom of ages. The obedient provinces of Trajan
and the Antonines were united by laws, and adorned by arts. They
might occasionally suffer from the partial abuse of delegated
authority; but the general principle of government was wise,
simple, and beneficent. They enjoyed the religion of their
ancestors, whilst in civil honors and advantages they were
exalted, by just degrees, to an equality with their conquerors.
I. The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it
concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of
the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of
their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in
the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally
true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the
magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not
only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.
The superstition of the people was not imbittered by any mixture
of theological rancor; nor was it confined by the chains of any
speculative system. The devout polytheist, though fondly attached
to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different
religions of the earth. Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream
or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey,
perpetually disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief,
and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin texture of
the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but not
discordant materials. As soon as it was allowed that sages and
heroes, who had lived or who had died for the benefit of their
country, were exalted to a state of power and immortality, it was
universally confessed, that they deserved, if not the adoration,
at least the reverence, of all mankind. The deities of a thousand
groves and a thousand streams possessed, in peace, their local
and respective influence; nor could the Romans who deprecated the
wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his
offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers
of nature, the planets, and the elements were the same throughout
the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were
inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory. Every
virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative; every
art and profession its patron, whose attributes, in the most
distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived from the
character of their peculiar votaries. A republic of gods of such
opposite tempers and interests required, in every system, the
moderating hand of a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of
knowledge and flattery, was gradually invested with the sublime
perfections of an Eternal Parent, and an Omnipotent Monarch. Such
was the mild spirit of antiquity, that the nations were less
attentive to the difference, than to the resemblance, of their
religious worship. The Greek, the Roman, and the Barbarian, as
they met before their respective altars, easily persuaded
themselves, that under various names, and with various
ceremonies, they adored the same deities. The elegant mythology
of Homer gave a beautiful, and almost a regular form, to the
polytheism of the ancient world.
The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from the nature
of man, rather than from that of God. They meditated, however, on
the Divine Nature, as a very curious and important speculation;
and in the profound inquiry, they displayed the strength and
weakness of the human understanding. Of the four most celebrated
schools, the Stoics and the Platonists endeavored to reconcile
the jaring interests of reason and piety. They have left us the
most sublime proofs of the existence and perfections of the first
cause; but, as it was impossible for them to conceive the
creation of matter, the workman in the Stoic philosophy was not
sufficiently distinguished from the work; whilst, on the
contrary, the spiritual God of Plato and his disciples resembled
an idea, rather than a substance. The opinions of the Academics
and Epicureans were of a less religious cast; but whilst the
modest science of the former induced them to doubt, the positive
ignorance of the latter urged them to deny, the providence of a
Supreme Ruler. The spirit of inquiry, prompted by emulation, and
supported by freedom, had divided the public teachers of
philosophy into a variety of contending sects; but the ingenious
youth, who, from every part, resorted to Athens, and the other
seats of learning in the Roman empire, were alike instructed in
every school to reject and to despise the religion of the
multitude. How, indeed, was it possible that a philosopher should
accept, as divine truths, the idle tales of the poets, and the
incoherent traditions of antiquity; or that he should adore, as
gods, those imperfect beings whom he must have despised, as men?
Against such unworthy adversaries, Cicero condescended to employ
the arms of reason and eloquence; but the satire of Lucian was a
much more adequate, as well as more efficacious, weapon. We may
be well assured, that a writer, conversant with the world, would
never have ventured to expose the gods of his country to public
ridicule, had they not already been the objects of secret
contempt among the polished and enlightened orders of society.
Notwithstanding the fashionable irreligion which prevailed in the
age of the Antonines, both the interest of the priests and the
credulity of the people were sufficiently respected. In their
writings and conversation, the philosophers of antiquity asserted
the independent dignity of reason; but they resigned their
actions to the commands of law and of custom. Viewing, with a
smile of pity and indulgence, the various errors of the vulgar,
they diligently practised the ceremonies of their fathers,
devoutly frequented the temples of the gods; and sometimes
condescending to act a part on the theatre of superstition, they
concealed the sentiments of an atheist under the sacerdotal
robes. Reasoners of such a temper were scarcely inclined to
wrangle about their respective modes of faith, or of worship. It
was indifferent to them what shape the folly of the multitude
might choose to assume; and they approached with the same inward
contempt, and the same external reverence, the altars of the
Libyan, the Olympian, or the Capitoline Jupiter.
It is not easy to conceive from what motives a spirit of
persecution could introduce itself into the Roman councils. The
magistrates could not be actuated by a blind, though honest
bigotry, since the magistrates were themselves philosophers; and
the schools of Athens had given laws to the senate. They could
not be impelled by ambition or avarice, as the temporal and
ecclesiastical powers were united in the same hands. The pontiffs
were chosen among the most illustrious of the senators; and the
office of Supreme Pontiff was constantly exercised by the
emperors themselves. They knew and valued the advantages of
religion, as it is connected with civil government. They
encouraged the public festivals which humanize the manners of the
people. They managed the arts of divination as a convenient
instrument of policy; and they respected, as the firmest bond of
society, the useful persuasion, that, either in this or in a
future life, the crime of perjury is most assuredly punished by
the avenging gods. But whilst they acknowledged the general
advantages of religion, they were convinced that the various
modes of worship contributed alike to the same salutary purposes;
and that, in every country, the form of superstition, which had
received the sanction of time and experience, was the best
adapted to the climate, and to its inhabitants. Avarice and taste
very frequently despoiled the vanquished nations of the elegant
statues of their gods, and the rich ornaments of their temples;
but, in the exercise of the religion which they derived from
their ancestors, they uniformly experienced the indulgence, and
even protection, of the Roman conquerors. The province of Gaul
seems, and indeed only seems, an exception to this universal
toleration. Under the specious pretext of abolishing human
sacrifices, the emperors Tiberius and Claudius suppressed the
dangerous power of the Druids: but the priests themselves, their
gods and their altars, subsisted in peaceful obscurity till the
final destruction of Paganism.
Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was incessantly filled
with subjects and strangers from every part of the world, who all
introduced and enjoyed the favorite superstitions of their native
country. Every city in the empire was justified in maintaining
the purity of its ancient ceremonies; and the Roman senate, using
the common privilege, sometimes interposed, to check this
inundation of foreign rites. * The Egyptian superstition, of all
the most contemptible and abject, was frequently prohibited: the
temples of Serapis and Isis demolished, and their worshippers
banished from Rome and Italy. But the zeal of fanaticism
prevailed over the cold and feeble efforts of policy. The exiles
returned, the proselytes multiplied, the temples were restored
with increasing splendor, and Isis and Serapis at length assumed
their place among the Roman Deities. Nor was this indulgence a
departure from the old maxims of government. In the purest ages
of the commonwealth, Cybele and Æsculapius had been invited by
solemn embassies; and it was customary to tempt the protectors of
besieged cities, by the promise of more distinguished honors than
they possessed in their native country. Rome gradually became the
common temple of her subjects; and the freedom of the city was
bestowed on all the gods of mankind.
II. The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture,
the pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the fortune,
and hastened the ruin, of Athens and Sparta. The aspiring genius
of Rome sacrificed vanity to ambition, and deemed it more
prudent, as well as honorable, to adopt virtue and merit for her
own wheresoever they were found, among slaves or strangers,
enemies or barbarians. During the most flourishing æra of the
Athenian commonwealth, the number of citizens gradually decreased
from about thirty to twenty-one thousand. If, on the contrary, we
study the growth of the Roman republic, we may discover, that,
notwithstanding the incessant demands of wars and colonies, the
citizens, who, in the first census of Servius Tullius, amounted
to no more than eighty-three thousand, were multiplied, before
the commencement of the social war, to the number of four hundred
and sixty-three thousand men, able to bear arms in the service of
their country. When the allies of Rome claimed an equal share of
honors and privileges, the senate indeed preferred the chance of
arms to an ignominious concession. The Samnites and the Lucanians
paid the severe penalty of their rashness; but the rest of the
Italian states, as they successively returned to their duty, were
admitted into the bosom of the republic, and soon contributed to
the ruin of public freedom. Under a democratical government, the
citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers
will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed
to an unwieldy multitude. But when the popular assemblies had
been suppressed by the administration of the emperors, the
conquerors were distinguished from the vanquished nations, only
as the first and most honorable order of subjects; and their
increase, however rapid, was no longer exposed to the same
dangers. Yet the wisest princes, who adopted the maxims of
Augustus, guarded with the strictest care the dignity of the
Roman name, and diffused the freedom of the city with a prudent
liberality.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part II.
Till the privileges of Romans had been progressively extended to
all the inhabitants of the empire, an important distinction was
preserved between Italy and the provinces. The former was
esteemed the centre of public unity, and the firm basis of the
constitution. Italy claimed the birth, or at least the residence,
of the emperors and the senate. The estates of the Italians were
exempt from taxes, their persons from the arbitrary jurisdiction
of governors. Their municipal corporations, formed after the
perfect model of the capital, * were intrusted, under the
immediate eye of the supreme power, with the execution of the
laws. From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, all
the natives of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial
distinctions were obliterated, and they insensibly coalesced into
one great nation, united by language, manners, and civil
institutions, and equal to the weight of a powerful empire. The
republic gloried in her generous policy, and was frequently
rewarded by the merit and services of her adopted sons. Had she
always confined the distinction of Romans to the ancient families
within the walls of the city, that immortal name would have been
deprived of some of its noblest ornaments. Virgil was a native of
Mantua; Horace was inclined to doubt whether he should call
himself an Apulian or a Lucanian; it was in Padua that an
historian was found worthy to record the majestic series of Roman
victories. The patriot family of the Catos emerged from Tusculum;
and the little town of Arpinum claimed the double honor of
producing Marius and Cicero, the former of whom deserved, after
Romulus and Camillus, to be styled the Third Founder of Rome; and
the latter, after saving his country from the designs of
Catiline, enabled her to contend with Athens for the palm of
eloquence.
The provinces of the empire (as they have been described in the
preceding chapter) were destitute of any public force, or
constitutional freedom. In Etruria, in Greece, and in Gaul, it
was the first care of the senate to dissolve those dangerous
confederacies, which taught mankind that, as the Roman arms
prevailed by division, they might be resisted by union. Those
princes, whom the ostentation of gratitude or generosity
permitted for a while to hold a precarious sceptre, were
dismissed from their thrones, as soon as they had performed their
appointed task of fashioning to the yoke the vanquished nations.
The free states and cities which had embraced the cause of Rome
were rewarded with a nominal alliance, and insensibly sunk into
real servitude. The public authority was everywhere exercised by
the ministers of the senate and of the emperors, and that
authority was absolute, and without control. But the same
salutary maxims of government, which had secured the peace and
obedience of Italy were extended to the most distant conquests. A
nation of Romans was gradually formed in the provinces, by the
double expedient of introducing colonies, and of admitting the
most faithful and deserving of the provincials to the freedom of
Rome.
“Wheresoever the Roman conquers, he inhabits,” is a very just
observation of Seneca, confirmed by history and experience. The
natives of Italy, allured by pleasure or by interest, hastened to
enjoy the advantages of victory; and we may remark, that, about
forty years after the reduction of Asia, eighty thousand Romans
were massacred in one day, by the cruel orders of Mithridates.
These voluntary exiles were engaged, for the most part, in the
occupations of commerce, agriculture, and the farm of the
revenue. But after the legions were rendered permanent by the
emperors, the provinces were peopled by a race of soldiers; and
the veterans, whether they received the reward of their service
in land or in money, usually settled with their families in the
country, where they had honorably spent their youth. Throughout
the empire, but more particularly in the western parts, the most
fertile districts, and the most convenient situations, were
reserved for the establishment of colonies; some of which were of
a civil, and others of a military nature. In their manners and
internal policy, the colonies formed a perfect representation of
their great parent; and they were soon endeared to the natives by
the ties of friendship and alliance, they effectually diffused a
reverence for the Roman name, and a desire, which was seldom
disappointed, of sharing, in due time, its honors and advantages.
The municipal cities insensibly equalled the rank and splendor of
the colonies; and in the reign of Hadrian, it was disputed which
was the preferable condition, of those societies which had issued
from, or those which had been received into, the bosom of Rome.
The right of Latium, as it was called, * conferred on the cities
to which it had been granted, a more partial favor. The
magistrates only, at the expiration of their office, assumed the
quality of Roman citizens; but as those offices were annual, in a
few years they circulated round the principal families. Those of
the provincials who were permitted to bear arms in the legions;
those who exercised any civil employment; all, in a word, who
performed any public service, or displayed any personal talents,
were rewarded with a present, whose value was continually
diminished by the increasing liberality of the emperors. Yet
even, in the age of the Antonines, when the freedom of the city
had been bestowed on the greater number of their subjects, it was
still accompanied with very solid advantages. The bulk of the
people acquired, with that title, the benefit of the Roman laws,
particularly in the interesting articles of marriage, testaments,
and inheritances; and the road of fortune was open to those whose
pretensions were seconded by favor or merit. The grandsons of the
Gauls, who had besieged Julius Cæsar in Alesia, commanded
legions, governed provinces, and were admitted into the senate of
Rome. Their ambition, instead of disturbing the tranquillity of
the state, was intimately connected with its safety and
greatness.
So sensible were the Romans of the influence of language over
national manners, that it was their most serious care to extend,
with the progress of their arms, the use of the Latin tongue. The
ancient dialects of Italy, the Sabine, the Etruscan, and the
Venetian, sunk into oblivion; but in the provinces, the east was
less docile than the west to the voice of its victorious
preceptors. This obvious difference marked the two portions of
the empire with a distinction of colors, which, though it was in
some degree concealed during the meridian splendor of prosperity,
became gradually more visible, as the shades of night descended
upon the Roman world. The western countries were civilized by the
same hands which subdued them. As soon as the barbarians were
reconciled to obedience, their minds were open to any new
impressions of knowledge and politeness. The language of Virgil
and Cicero, though with some inevitable mixture of corruption,
was so universally adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and
Pannonia, that the faint traces of the Punic or Celtic idioms
were preserved only in the mountains, or among the peasants.
Education and study insensibly inspired the natives of those
countries with the sentiments of Romans; and Italy gave fashions,
as well as laws, to her Latin provincials. They solicited with
more ardor, and obtained with more facility, the freedom and
honors of the state; supported the national dignity in letters
and in arms; and at length, in the person of Trajan, produced an
emperor whom the Scipios would not have disowned for their
countryman. The situation of the Greeks was very different from
that of the barbarians. The former had been long since civilized
and corrupted. They had too much taste to relinquish their
language, and too much vanity to adopt any foreign institutions.
Still preserving the prejudices, after they had lost the virtues,
of their ancestors, they affected to despise the unpolished
manners of the Roman conquerors, whilst they were compelled to
respect their superior wisdom and power. Nor was the influence of
the Grecian language and sentiments confined to the narrow limits
of that once celebrated country. Their empire, by the progress of
colonies and conquest, had been diffused from the Adriatic to the
Euphrates and the Nile. Asia was covered with Greek cities, and
the long reign of the Macedonian kings had introduced a silent
revolution into Syria and Egypt. In their pompous courts, those
princes united the elegance of Athens with the luxury of the
East, and the example of the court was imitated, at an humble
distance, by the higher ranks of their subjects. Such was the
general division of the Roman empire into the Latin and Greek
languages. To these we may add a third distinction for the body
of the natives in Syria, and especially in Egypt, the use of
their ancient dialects, by secluding them from the commerce of
mankind, checked the improvements of those barbarians. The
slothful effeminacy of the former exposed them to the contempt,
the sullen ferociousness of the latter excited the aversion, of
the conquerors. Those nations had submitted to the Roman power,
but they seldom desired or deserved the freedom of the city: and
it was remarked, that more than two hundred and thirty years
elapsed after the ruin of the Ptolemies, before an Egyptian was
admitted into the senate of Rome.
It is a just though trite observation, that victorious Rome was
herself subdued by the arts of Greece. Those immortal writers who
still command the admiration of modern Europe, soon became the
favorite object of study and imitation in Italy and the western
provinces. But the elegant amusements of the Romans were not
suffered to interfere with their sound maxims of policy. Whilst
they acknowledged the charms of the Greek, they asserted the
dignity of the Latin tongue, and the exclusive use of the latter
was inflexibly maintained in the administration of civil as well
as military government. The two languages exercised at the same
time their separate jurisdiction throughout the empire: the
former, as the natural idiom of science; the latter, as the legal
dialect of public transactions. Those who united letters with
business were equally conversant with both; and it was almost
impossible, in any province, to find a Roman subject, of a
liberal education, who was at once a stranger to the Greek and to
the Latin language.
It was by such institutions that the nations of the empire
insensibly melted away into the Roman name and people. But there
still remained, in the centre of every province and of every
family, an unhappy condition of men who endured the weight,
without sharing the benefits, of society. In the free states of
antiquity, the domestic slaves were exposed to the wanton rigor
of despotism. The perfect settlement of the Roman empire was
preceded by ages of violence and rapine. The slaves consisted,
for the most part, of barbarian captives, * taken in thousands by
the chance of war, purchased at a vile price, accustomed to a
life of independence, and impatient to break and to revenge their
fetters. Against such internal enemies, whose desperate
insurrections had more than once reduced the republic to the
brink of destruction, the most severe regulations, and the most
cruel treatment, seemed almost justified by the great law of
self-preservation. But when the principal nations of Europe,
Asia, and Africa were united under the laws of one sovereign, the
source of foreign supplies flowed with much less abundance, and
the Romans were reduced to the milder but more tedious method of
propagation. * In their numerous families, and particularly in
their country estates, they encouraged the marriage of their
slaves. The sentiments of nature, the habits of education, and
the possession of a dependent species of property, contributed to
alleviate the hardships of servitude. The existence of a slave
became an object of greater value, and though his happiness still
depended on the temper and circumstances of the master, the
humanity of the latter, instead of being restrained by fear, was
encouraged by the sense of his own interest. The progress of
manners was accelerated by the virtue or policy of the emperors;
and by the edicts of Hadrian and the Antonines, the protection of
the laws was extended to the most abject part of mankind. The
jurisdiction of life and death over the slaves, a power long
exercised and often abused, was taken out of private hands, and
reserved to the magistrates alone. The subterraneous prisons were
abolished; and, upon a just complaint of intolerable treatment,
the injured slave obtained either his deliverance, or a less
cruel master.
Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition, was not denied
to the Roman slave; and if he had any opportunity of rendering
himself either useful or agreeable, he might very naturally
expect that the diligence and fidelity of a few years would be
rewarded with the inestimable gift of freedom. The benevolence of
the master was so frequently prompted by the meaner suggestions
of vanity and avarice, that the laws found it more necessary to
restrain than to encourage a profuse and undistinguishing
liberality, which might degenerate into a very dangerous abuse.
It was a maxim of ancient jurisprudence, that a slave had not any
country of his own; he acquired with his liberty an admission
into the political society of which his patron was a member. The
consequences of this maxim would have prostituted the privileges
of the Roman city to a mean and promiscuous multitude. Some
seasonable exceptions were therefore provided; and the honorable
distinction was confined to such slaves only as, for just causes,
and with the approbation of the magistrate, should receive a
solemn and legal manumission. Even these chosen freedmen obtained
no more than the private rights of citizens, and were rigorously
excluded from civil or military honors. Whatever might be the
merit or fortune of their sons, _they_ likewise were esteemed
unworthy of a seat in the senate; nor were the traces of a
servile origin allowed to be completely obliterated till the
third or fourth generation. Without destroying the distinction of
ranks, a distant prospect of freedom and honors was presented,
even to those whom pride and prejudice almost disdained to number
among the human species.
It was once proposed to discriminate the slaves by a peculiar
habit; but it was justly apprehended that there might be some
danger in acquainting them with their own numbers. Without
interpreting, in their utmost strictness, the liberal
appellations of legions and myriads, we may venture to pronounce,
that the proportion of slaves, who were valued as property, was
more considerable than that of servants, who can be computed only
as an expense. The youths of a promising genius were instructed
in the arts and sciences, and their price was ascertained by the
degree of their skill and talents. Almost every profession,
either liberal or mechanical, might be found in the household of
an opulent senator. The ministers of pomp and sensuality were
multiplied beyond the conception of modern luxury. It was more
for the interest of the merchant or manufacturer to purchase,
than to hire his workmen; and in the country, slaves were
employed as the cheapest and most laborious instruments of
agriculture. To confirm the general observation, and to display
the multitude of slaves, we might allege a variety of particular
instances. It was discovered, on a very melancholy occasion, that
four hundred slaves were maintained in a single palace of Rome.
The same number of four hundred belonged to an estate which an
African widow, of a very private condition, resigned to her son,
whilst she reserved for herself a much larger share of her
property. A freedman, under the name of Augustus, though his
fortune had suffered great losses in the civil wars, left behind
him three thousand six hundred yoke of oxen, two hundred and
fifty thousand head of smaller cattle, and what was almost
included in the description of cattle, four thousand one hundred
and sixteen slaves.
The number of subjects who acknowledged the laws of Rome, of
citizens, of provincials, and of slaves, cannot now be fixed with
such a degree of accuracy, as the importance of the object would
deserve. We are informed, that when the Emperor Claudius
exercised the office of censor, he took an account of six
millions nine hundred and forty-five thousand Roman citizens,
who, with the proportion of women and children, must have
amounted to about twenty millions of souls. The multitude of
subjects of an inferior rank was uncertain and fluctuating. But,
after weighing with attention every circumstance which could
influence the balance, it seems probable that there existed, in
the time of Claudius, about twice as many provincials as there
were citizens, of either sex, and of every age; and that the
slaves were at least equal in number to the free inhabitants of
the Roman world. * The total amount of this imperfect calculation
would rise to about one hundred and twenty millions of persons; a
degree of population which possibly exceeds that of modern
Europe, and forms the most numerous society that has ever been
united under the same system of government.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part III.
Domestic peace and union were the natural consequences of the
moderate and comprehensive policy embraced by the Romans. If we
turn our eyes towards the monarchies of Asia, we shall behold
despotism in the centre, and weakness in the extremities; the
collection of the revenue, or the administration of justice,
enforced by the presence of an army; hostile barbarians
established in the heart of the country, hereditary satraps
usurping the dominion of the provinces, and subjects inclined to
rebellion, though incapable of freedom. But the obedience of the
Roman world was uniform, voluntary, and permanent. The vanquished
nations, blended into one great people, resigned the hope, nay,
even the wish, of resuming their independence, and scarcely
considered their own existence as distinct from the existence of
Rome. The established authority of the emperors pervaded without
an effort the wide extent of their dominions, and was exercised
with the same facility on the banks of the Thames, or of the
Nile, as on those of the Tyber. The legions were destined to
serve against the public enemy, and the civil magistrate seldom
required the aid of a military force. In this state of general
security, the leisure, as well as opulence, both of the prince
and people, were devoted to improve and to adorn the Roman
empire.
Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by
the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few
have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism! And yet, even
the majestic ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the
provinces, would be sufficient to prove that those countries were
once the seat of a polite and powerful empire. Their greatness
alone, or their beauty, might deserve our attention: but they are
rendered more interesting, by two important circumstances, which
connect the agreeable history of the arts with the more useful
history of human manners. Many of those works were erected at
private expense, and almost all were intended for public benefit.
It is natural to suppose that the greatest number, as well as the
most considerable of the Roman edifices, were raised by the
emperors, who possessed so unbounded a command both of men and
money. Augustus was accustomed to boast that he had found his
capital of brick, and that he had left it of marble. The strict
economy of Vespasian was the source of his magnificence. The
works of Trajan bear the stamp of his genius. The public
monuments with which Hadrian adorned every province of the
empire, were executed not only by his orders, but under his
immediate inspection. He was himself an artist; and he loved the
arts, as they conduced to the glory of the monarch. They were
encouraged by the Antonines, as they contributed to the happiness
of the people. But if the emperors were the first, they were not
the only architects of their dominions. Their example was
universally imitated by their principal subjects, who were not
afraid of declaring to the world that they had spirit to
conceive, and wealth to accomplish, the noblest undertakings.
Scarcely had the proud structure of the Coliseum been dedicated
at Rome, before the edifices, of a smaller scale indeed, but of
the same design and materials, were erected for the use, and at
the expense, of the cities of Capua and Verona. The inscription
of the stupendous bridge of Alcantara attests that it was thrown
over the Tagus by the contribution of a few Lusitanian
communities. When Pliny was intrusted with the government of
Bithynia and Pontus, provinces by no means the richest or most
considerable of the empire, he found the cities within his
jurisdiction striving with each other in every useful and
ornamental work, that might deserve the curiosity of strangers,
or the gratitude of their citizens. It was the duty of the
proconsul to supply their deficiencies, to direct their taste,
and sometimes to moderate their emulation. The opulent senators
of Rome and the provinces esteemed it an honor, and almost an
obligation, to adorn the splendor of their age and country; and
the influence of fashion very frequently supplied the want of
taste or generosity. Among a crowd of these private benefactors,
we may select Herodes Atticus, an Athenian citizen, who lived in
the age of the Antonines. Whatever might be the motive of his
conduct, his magnificence would have been worthy of the greatest
kings.
The family of Herod, at least after it had been favored by
fortune, was lineally descended from Cimon and Miltiades, Theseus
and Cecrops, Æacus and Jupiter. But the posterity of so many gods
and heroes was fallen into the most abject state. His grandfather
had suffered by the hands of justice, and Julius Atticus, his
father, must have ended his life in poverty and contempt, had he
not discovered an immense treasure buried under an old house, the
last remains of his patrimony. According to the rigor of the law,
the emperor might have asserted his claim, and the prudent
Atticus prevented, by a frank confession, the officiousness of
informers. But the equitable Nerva, who then filled the throne,
refused to accept any part of it, and commanded him to use,
without scruple, the present of fortune. The cautious Athenian
still insisted, that the treasure was too considerable for a
subject, and that he knew not how to _use it_. _Abuse it then_,
replied the monarch, with a good-natured peevishness; for it is
your own. Many will be of opinion, that Atticus literally obeyed
the emperor’s last instructions; since he expended the greatest
part of his fortune, which was much increased by an advantageous
marriage, in the service of the public. He had obtained for his
son Herod the prefecture of the free cities of Asia; and the
young magistrate, observing that the town of Troas was
indifferently supplied with water, obtained from the munificence
of Hadrian three hundred myriads of drachms, (about a hundred
thousand pounds,) for the construction of a new aqueduct. But in
the execution of the work, the charge amounted to more than
double the estimate, and the officers of the revenue began to
murmur, till the generous Atticus silenced their complaints, by
requesting that he might be permitted to take upon himself the
whole additional expense.
The ablest preceptors of Greece and Asia had been invited by
liberal rewards to direct the education of young Herod. Their
pupil soon became a celebrated orator, according to the useless
rhetoric of that age, which, confining itself to the schools,
disdained to visit either the Forum or the Senate. He was honored
with the consulship at Rome: but the greatest part of his life
was spent in a philosophic retirement at Athens, and his adjacent
villas; perpetually surrounded by sophists, who acknowledged,
without reluctance, the superiority of a rich and generous rival.
The monuments of his genius have perished; some considerable
ruins still preserve the fame of his taste and munificence:
modern travellers have measured the remains of the stadium which
he constructed at Athens. It was six hundred feet in length,
built entirely of white marble, capable of admitting the whole
body of the people, and finished in four years, whilst Herod was
president of the Athenian games. To the memory of his wife
Regilla he dedicated a theatre, scarcely to be paralleled in the
empire: no wood except cedar, very curiously carved, was employed
in any part of the building. The Odeum, * designed by Pericles
for musical performances, and the rehearsal of new tragedies, had
been a trophy of the victory of the arts over barbaric greatness;
as the timbers employed in the construction consisted chiefly of
the masts of the Persian vessels. Notwithstanding the repairs
bestowed on that ancient edifice by a king of Cappadocia, it was
again fallen to decay. Herod restored its ancient beauty and
magnificence. Nor was the liberality of that illustrious citizen
confined to the walls of Athens. The most splendid ornaments
bestowed on the temple of Neptune in the Isthmus, a theatre at
Corinth, a stadium at Delphi, a bath at Thermopylæ, and an
aqueduct at Canusium in Italy, were insufficient to exhaust his
treasures. The people of Epirus, Thessaly, Euboea, Boeotia, and
Peloponnesus, experienced his favors; and many inscriptions of
the cities of Greece and Asia gratefully style Herodes Atticus
their patron and benefactor.
In the commonwealths of Athens and Rome, the modest simplicity of
private houses announced the equal condition of freedom; whilst
the sovereignty of the people was represented in the majestic
edifices designed to the public use; nor was this republican
spirit totally extinguished by the introduction of wealth and
monarchy. It was in works of national honor and benefit, that the
most virtuous of the emperors affected to display their
magnificence. The golden palace of Nero excited a just
indignation, but the vast extent of ground which had been usurped
by his selfish luxury was more nobly filled under the succeeding
reigns by the Coliseum, the baths of Titus, the Claudian portico,
and the temples dedicated to the goddess of Peace, and to the
genius of Rome. These monuments of architecture, the property of
the Roman people, were adorned with the most beautiful
productions of Grecian painting and sculpture; and in the temple
of Peace, a very curious library was open to the curiosity of the
learned. * At a small distance from thence was situated the Forum
of Trajan. It was surrounded by a lofty portico, in the form of a
quadrangle, into which four triumphal arches opened a noble and
spacious entrance: in the centre arose a column of marble, whose
height, of one hundred and ten feet, denoted the elevation of the
hill that had been cut away. This column, which still subsists in
its ancient beauty, exhibited an exact representation of the
Dacian victories of its founder. The veteran soldier contemplated
the story of his own campaigns, and by an easy illusion of
national vanity, the peaceful citizen associated himself to the
honors of the triumph. All the other quarters of the capital, and
all the provinces of the empire, were embellished by the same
liberal spirit of public magnificence, and were filled with
amphitheatres, theatres, temples, porticoes, triumphal arches,
baths and aqueducts, all variously conducive to the health, the
devotion, and the pleasures of the meanest citizen. The last
mentioned of those edifices deserve our peculiar attention. The
boldness of the enterprise, the solidity of the execution, and
the uses to which they were subservient, rank the aqueducts among
the noblest monuments of Roman genius and power. The aqueducts of
the capital claim a just preeminence; but the curious traveller,
who, without the light of history, should examine those of
Spoleto, of Metz, or of Segovia, would very naturally conclude
that those provincial towns had formerly been the residence of
some potent monarch. The solitudes of Asia and Africa were once
covered with flourishing cities, whose populousness, and even
whose existence, was derived from such artificial supplies of a
perennial stream of fresh water.
We have computed the inhabitants, and contemplated the public
works, of the Roman empire. The observation of the number and
greatness of its cities will serve to confirm the former, and to
multiply the latter. It may not be unpleasing to collect a few
scattered instances relative to that subject without forgetting,
however, that from the vanity of nations and the poverty of
language, the vague appellation of city has been indifferently
bestowed on Rome and upon Laurentum.
I. _Ancient_ Italy is said to have contained eleven hundred and
ninety-seven cities; and for whatsoever æra of antiquity the
expression might be intended, there is not any reason to believe
the country less populous in the age of the Antonines, than in
that of Romulus. The petty states of Latium were contained within
the metropolis of the empire, by whose superior influence they
had been attracted. * Those parts of Italy which have so long
languished under the lazy tyranny of priests and viceroys, had
been afflicted only by the more tolerable calamities of war; and
the first symptoms of decay which they experienced, were amply
compensated by the rapid improvements of the Cisalpine Gaul. The
splendor of Verona may be traced in its remains: yet Verona was
less celebrated than Aquileia or Padua, Milan or Ravenna. II. The
spirit of improvement had passed the Alps, and been felt even in
the woods of Britain, which were gradually cleared away to open a
free space for convenient and elegant habitations. York was the
seat of government; London was already enriched by commerce; and
Bath was celebrated for the salutary effects of its medicinal
waters. Gaul could boast of her twelve hundred cities; and
though, in the northern parts, many of them, without excepting
Paris itself, were little more than the rude and imperfect
townships of a rising people, the southern provinces imitated the
wealth and elegance of Italy. Many were the cities of Gaul,
Marseilles, Arles, Nismes, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Bourdeaux, Autun,
Vienna, Lyons, Langres, and Treves, whose ancient condition might
sustain an equal, and perhaps advantageous comparison with their
present state. With regard to Spain, that country flourished as a
province, and has declined as a kingdom. Exhausted by the abuse
of her strength, by America, and by superstition, her pride might
possibly be confounded, if we required such a list of three
hundred and sixty cities, as Pliny has exhibited under the reign
of Vespasian. III. Three hundred African cities had once
acknowledged the authority of Carthage, nor is it likely that
their numbers diminished under the administration of the
emperors: Carthage itself rose with new splendor from its ashes;
and that capital, as well as Capua and Corinth, soon recovered
all the advantages which can be separated from independent
sovereignty. IV. The provinces of the East present the contrast
of Roman magnificence with Turkish barbarism. The ruins of
antiquity scattered over uncultivated fields, and ascribed, by
ignorance, to the power of magic, scarcely afford a shelter to
the oppressed peasant or wandering Arab. Under the reign of the
Cæsars, the proper Asia alone contained five hundred populous
cities, enriched with all the gifts of nature, and adorned with
all the refinements of art. Eleven cities of Asia had once
disputed the honor of dedicating a temple of Tiberius, and their
respective merits were examined by the senate. Four of them were
immediately rejected as unequal to the burden; and among these
was Laodicea, whose splendor is still displayed in its ruins.
Laodicea collected a very considerable revenue from its flocks of
sheep, celebrated for the fineness of their wool, and had
received, a little before the contest, a legacy of above four
hundred thousand pounds by the testament of a generous citizen.
If such was the poverty of Laodicea, what must have been the
wealth of those cities, whose claim appeared preferable, and
particularly of Pergamus, of Smyrna, and of Ephesus, who so long
disputed with each other the titular primacy of Asia? The
capitals of Syria and Egypt held a still superior rank in the
empire; Antioch and Alexandria looked down with disdain on a
crowd of dependent cities, and yielded, with reluctance, to the
majesty of Rome itself.
Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
Antonines.—Part IV.
All these cities were connected with each other, and with the
capital, by the public highways, which, issuing from the Forum of
Rome, traversed Italy, pervaded the provinces, and were
terminated only by the frontiers of the empire. If we carefully
trace the distance from the wall of Antoninus to Rome, and from
thence to Jerusalem, it will be found that the great chain of
communication, from the north-west to the south-east point of the
empire, was drawn out to the length of four thousand and eighty
Roman miles. The public roads were accurately divided by
mile-stones, and ran in a direct line from one city to another,
with very little respect for the obstacles either of nature or
private property. Mountains were perforated, and bold arches
thrown over the broadest and most rapid streams. The middle part
of the road was raised into a terrace which commanded the
adjacent country, consisted of several strata of sand, gravel,
and cement, and was paved with large stones, or, in some places
near the capital, with granite. Such was the solid construction
of the Roman highways, whose firmness has not entirely yielded to
the effort of fifteen centuries. They united the subjects of the
most distant provinces by an easy and familiar intercourse; but
their primary object had been to facilitate the marches of the
legions; nor was any country considered as completely subdued,
till it had been rendered, in all its parts, pervious to the arms
and authority of the conqueror. The advantage of receiving the
earliest intelligence, and of conveying their orders with
celerity, induced the emperors to establish, throughout their
extensive dominions, the regular institution of posts. Houses
were everywhere erected at the distance only of five or six
miles; each of them was constantly provided with forty horses,
and by the help of these relays, it was easy to travel a hundred
miles in a day along the Roman roads. * The use of posts was
allowed to those who claimed it by an Imperial mandate; but
though originally intended for the public service, it was
sometimes indulged to the business or conveniency of private
citizens. Nor was the communication of the Roman empire less free
and open by sea than it was by land. The provinces surrounded and
enclosed the Mediterranean: and Italy, in the shape of an immense
promontory, advanced into the midst of that great lake. The
coasts of Italy are, in general, destitute of safe harbors; but
human industry had corrected the deficiencies of nature; and the
artificial port of Ostia, in particular, situate at the mouth of
the Tyber, and formed by the emperor Claudius, was a useful
monument of Roman greatness. From this port, which was only
sixteen miles from the capital, a favorable breeze frequently
carried vessels in seven days to the columns of Hercules, and in
nine or ten, to Alexandria in Egypt.
Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to
extensive empire, the power of Rome was attended with some
beneficial consequences to mankind; and the same freedom of
intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise the
improvements, of social life. In the more remote ages of
antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The East was in the
immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the West was
inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained
agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown. Under the
protection of an established government, the productions of
happier climates, and the industry of more civilized nations,
were gradually introduced into the western countries of Europe;
and the natives were encouraged, by an open and profitable
commerce, to multiply the former, as well as to improve the
latter. It would be almost impossible to enumerate all the
articles, either of the animal or the vegetable reign, which were
successively imported into Europe from Asia and Egypt: but it
will not be unworthy of the dignity, and much less of the
utility, of an historical work, slightly to touch on a few of the
principal heads. 1. Almost all the flowers, the herbs, and the
fruits, that grow in our European gardens, are of foreign
extraction, which, in many cases, is betrayed even by their
names: the apple was a native of Italy, and when the Romans had
tasted the richer flavor of the apricot, the peach, the
pomegranate, the citron, and the orange, they contented
themselves with applying to all these new fruits the common
denomination of apple, discriminating them from each other by the
additional epithet of their country. 2. In the time of Homer, the
vine grew wild in the island of Sicily, and most probably in the
adjacent continent; but it was not improved by the skill, nor did
it afford a liquor grateful to the taste, of the savage
inhabitants. A thousand years afterwards, Italy could boast, that
of the fourscore most generous and celebrated wines, more than
two thirds were produced from her soil. The blessing was soon
communicated to the Narbonnese province of Gaul; but so intense
was the cold to the north of the Cevennes, that, in the time of
Strabo, it was thought impossible to ripen the grapes in those
parts of Gaul. This difficulty, however, was gradually
vanquished; and there is some reason to believe, that the
vineyards of Burgundy are as old as the age of the Antonines. 3.
The olive, in the western world, followed the progress of peace,
of which it was considered as the symbol. Two centuries after the
foundation of Rome, both Italy and Africa were strangers to that
useful plant: it was naturalized in those countries; and at
length carried into the heart of Spain and Gaul. The timid errors
of the ancients, that it required a certain degree of heat, and
could only flourish in the neighborhood of the sea, were
insensibly exploded by industry and experience. 4. The
cultivation of flax was transported from Egypt to Gaul, and
enriched the whole country, however it might impoverish the
particular lands on which it was sown. 5. The use of artificial
grasses became familiar to the farmers both of Italy and the
provinces, particularly the Lucerne, which derived its name and
origin from Media. The assured supply of wholesome and plentiful
food for the cattle during winter, multiplied the number of the
docks and herds, which in their turn contributed to the fertility
of the soil. To all these improvements may be added an assiduous
attention to mines and fisheries, which, by employing a multitude
of laborious hands, serve to increase the pleasures of the rich
and the subsistence of the poor. The elegant treatise of
Columella describes the advanced state of the Spanish husbandry
under the reign of Tiberius; and it may be observed, that those
famines, which so frequently afflicted the infant republic, were
seldom or never experienced by the extensive empire of Rome. The
accidental scarcity, in any single province, was immediately
relieved by the plenty of its more fortunate neighbors.
Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures; since the
productions of nature are the materials of art. Under the Roman
empire, the labor of an industrious and ingenious people was
variously, but incessantly, employed in the service of the rich.
In their dress, their table, their houses, and their furniture,
the favorites of fortune united every refinement of conveniency,
of elegance, and of splendor, whatever could soothe their pride
or gratify their sensuality. Such refinements, under the odious
name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of
every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue,
as well as happiness, of mankind, if all possessed the
necessaries, and none the superfluities, of life. But in the
present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may
proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can
correct the unequal distribution of property. The diligent
mechanic, and the skilful artist, who have obtained no share in
the division of the earth, receive a voluntary tax from the
possessors of land; and the latter are prompted, by a sense of
interest, to improve those estates, with whose produce they may
purchase additional pleasures. This operation, the particular
effects of which are felt in every society, acted with much more
diffusive energy in the Roman world. The provinces would soon
have been exhausted of their wealth, if the manufactures and
commerce of luxury had not insensibly restored to the industrious
subjects the sums which were exacted from them by the arms and
authority of Rome. As long as the circulation was confined within
the bounds of the empire, it impressed the political machine with
a new degree of activity, and its consequences, sometimes
beneficial, could never become pernicious.
But it is no easy task to confine luxury within the limits of an
empire. The most remote countries of the ancient world were
ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests of
Scythia afforded some valuable furs. Amber was brought over land
from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube; and the barbarians
were astonished at the price which they received in exchange for
so useless a commodity. There was a considerable demand for
Babylonian carpets, and other manufactures of the East; but the
most important and unpopular branch of foreign trade was carried
on with Arabia and India. Every year, about the time of the
summer solstice, a fleet of a hundred and twenty vessels sailed
from Myos-hormos, a port of Egypt, on the Red Sea. By the
periodical assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean
in about forty days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of
Ceylon, was the usual term of their navigation, and it was in
those markets that the merchants from the more remote countries
of Asia expected their arrival. The return of the fleet of Egypt
was fixed to the months of December or January; and as soon as
their rich cargo had been transported on the backs of camels,
from the Red Sea to the Nile, and had descended that river as far
as Alexandria, it was poured, without delay, into the capital of
the empire. The objects of oriental traffic were splendid and
trifling; silk, a pound of which was esteemed not inferior in
value to a pound of gold; precious stones, among which the pearl
claimed the first rank after the diamond; and a variety of
aromatics, that were consumed in religious worship and the pomp
of funerals. The labor and risk of the voyage was rewarded with
almost incredible profit; but the profit was made upon Roman
subjects, and a few individuals were enriched at the expense of
the public. As the natives of Arabia and India were contented
with the productions and manufactures of their own country,
silver, on the side of the Romans, was the principal, if not the
only * instrument of commerce. It was a complaint worthy of the
gravity of the senate, that, in the purchase of female ornaments,
the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away to foreign
and hostile nations. The annual loss is computed, by a writer of
an inquisitive but censorious temper, at upwards of eight hundred
thousand pounds sterling. Such was the style of discontent,
brooding over the dark prospect of approaching poverty. And yet,
if we compare the proportion between gold and silver, as it stood
in the time of Pliny, and as it was fixed in the reign of
Constantine, we shall discover within that period a very
considerable increase. There is not the least reason to suppose
that gold was become more scarce; it is therefore evident that
silver was grown more common; that whatever might be the amount
of the Indian and Arabian exports, they were far from exhausting
the wealth of the Roman world; and that the produce of the mines
abundantly supplied the demands of commerce.
Notwithstanding the propensity of mankind to exalt the past, and
to depreciate the present, the tranquil and prosperous state of
the empire was warmly felt, and honestly confessed, by the
provincials as well as Romans. “They acknowledged that the true
principles of social life, laws, agriculture, and science, which
had been first invented by the wisdom of Athens, were now firmly
established by the power of Rome, under whose auspicious
influence the fiercest barbarians were united by an equal
government and common language. They affirm, that with the
improvement of arts, the human species were visibly multiplied.
They celebrate the increasing splendor of the cities, the
beautiful face of the country, cultivated and adorned like an
immense garden; and the long festival of peace which was enjoyed
by so many nations, forgetful of the ancient animosities, and
delivered from the apprehension of future danger.” Whatever
suspicions may be suggested by the air of rhetoric and
declamation, which seems to prevail in these passages, the
substance of them is perfectly agreeable to historic truth.
It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should
discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and
corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the
Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of
the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same
level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military
spirit evaporated. The natives of Europe were brave and robust.
Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum supplied the legions with
excellent soldiers, and constituted the real strength of the
monarchy. Their personal valor remained, but they no longer
possessed that public courage which is nourished by the love of
independence, the sense of national honor, the presence of
danger, and the habit of command. They received laws and
governors from the will of their sovereign, and trusted for their
defence to a mercenary army. The posterity of their boldest
leaders was contented with the rank of citizens and subjects. The
most aspiring spirits resorted to the court or standard of the
emperors; and the deserted provinces, deprived of political
strength or union, insensibly sunk into the languid indifference
of private life.
The love of letters, almost inseparable from peace and
refinement, was fashionable among the subjects of Hadrian and the
Antonines, who were themselves men of learning and curiosity. It
was diffused over the whole extent of their empire; the most
northern tribes of Britons had acquired a taste for rhetoric;
Homer as well as Virgil were transcribed and studied on the banks
of the Rhine and Danube; and the most liberal rewards sought out
the faintest glimmerings of literary merit. The sciences of
physic and astronomy were successfully cultivated by the Greeks;
the observations of Ptolemy and the writings of Galen are studied
by those who have improved their discoveries and corrected their
errors; but if we except the inimitable Lucian, this age of
indolence passed away without having produced a single writer of
original genius, or who excelled in the arts of elegant
composition.* The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and
Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems,
transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples
to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the
powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind. The beauties of
the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own,
inspired only cold and servile imitations: or if any ventured to
deviate from those models, they deviated at the same time from
good sense and propriety. On the revival of letters, the youthful
vigor of the imagination, after a long repose, national
emulation, a new religion, new languages, and a new world, called
forth the genius of Europe. But the provincials of Rome, trained
by a uniform artificial foreign education, were engaged in a very
unequal competition with those bold ancients, who, by expressing
their genuine feelings in their native tongue, had already
occupied every place of honor. The name of Poet was almost
forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of
critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of
learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the
corruption of taste.
The sublime Longinus, who, in somewhat a later period, and in the
court of a Syrian queen, preserved the spirit of ancient Athens,
observes and laments this degeneracy of his contemporaries, which
debased their sentiments, enervated their courage, and depressed
their talents. “In the same manner,” says he, “as some children
always remain pygmies, whose infant limbs have been too closely
confined, thus our tender minds, fettered by the prejudices and
habits of a just servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or
to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the
ancients; who, living under a popular government, wrote with the
same freedom as they acted.” This diminutive stature of mankind,
if we pursue the metaphor, was daily sinking below the old
standard, and the Roman world was indeed peopled by a race of
pygmies; when the fierce giants of the north broke in, and mended
the puny breed. They restored a manly spirit of freedom; and
after the revolution of ten centuries, freedom became the happy
parent of taste and science.
Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
I.
Of The Constitution Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of The Antonines.
The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state,
in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be
distinguished, is intrusted with the execution of the laws, the
management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But,
unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant
guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon
degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy, in an age
of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights
of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne
and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been
seen on the side of the people. * A martial nobility and stubborn
commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected
into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of
preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring
prince.
Every barrier of the Roman constitution had been levelled by the
vast ambition of the dictator; every fence had been extirpated by
the cruel hand of the triumvir. After the victory of Actium, the
fate of the Roman world depended on the will of Octavianus,
surnamed Cæsar, by his uncle’s adoption, and afterwards Augustus,
by the flattery of the senate. The conqueror was at the head of
forty-four veteran legions, conscious of their own strength, and
of the weakness of the constitution, habituated, during twenty
years’ civil war, to every act of blood and violence, and
passionately devoted to the house of Cæsar, from whence alone
they had received, and expected the most lavish rewards. The
provinces, long oppressed by the ministers of the republic,
sighed for the government of a single person, who would be the
master, not the accomplice, of those petty tyrants. The people of
Rome, viewing, with a secret pleasure, the humiliation of the
aristocracy, demanded only bread and public shows; and were
supplied with both by the liberal hand of Augustus. The rich and
polite Italians, who had almost universally embraced the
philosophy of Epicurus, enjoyed the present blessings of ease and
tranquillity, and suffered not the pleasing dream to be
interrupted by the memory of their old tumultuous freedom. With
its power, the senate had lost its dignity; many of the most
noble families were extinct. The republicans of spirit and
ability had perished in the field of battle, or in the
proscription . The door of the assembly had been designedly left
open, for a mixed multitude of more than a thousand persons, who
reflected disgrace upon their rank, instead of deriving honor
from it.
The reformation of the senate was one of the first steps in which
Augustus laid aside the tyrant, and professed himself the father
of his country. He was elected censor; and, in concert with his
faithful Agrippa, he examined the list of the senators, expelled
a few members, * whose vices or whose obstinacy required a public
example, persuaded near two hundred to prevent the shame of an
expulsion by a voluntary retreat, raised the qualification of a
senator to about ten thousand pounds, created a sufficient number
of patrician families, and accepted for himself the honorable
title of Prince of the Senate, which had always been bestowed, by
the censors, on the citizen the most eminent for his honors and
services. But whilst he thus restored the dignity, he destroyed
the independence, of the senate. The principles of a free
constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power
is nominated by the executive.
Before an assembly thus modelled and prepared, Augustus
pronounced a studied oration, which displayed his patriotism, and
disguised his ambition. “He lamented, yet excused, his past
conduct. Filial piety had required at his hands the revenge of
his father’s murder; the humanity of his own nature had sometimes
given way to the stern laws of necessity, and to a forced
connection with two unworthy colleagues: as long as Antony lived,
the republic forbade him to abandon her to a degenerate Roman,
and a barbarian queen. He was now at liberty to satisfy his duty
and his inclination. He solemnly restored the senate and people
to all their ancient rights; and wished only to mingle with the
crowd of his fellow-citizens, and to share the blessings which he
had obtained for his country.”
It would require the pen of Tacitus (if Tacitus had assisted at
this assembly) to describe the various emotions of the senate,
those that were suppressed, and those that were affected. It was
dangerous to trust the sincerity of Augustus; to seem to distrust
it was still more dangerous. The respective advantages of
monarchy and a republic have often divided speculative inquirers;
the present greatness of the Roman state, the corruption of
manners, and the license of the soldiers, supplied new arguments
to the advocates of monarchy; and these general views of
government were again warped by the hopes and fears of each
individual. Amidst this confusion of sentiments, the answer of
the senate was unanimous and decisive. They refused to accept the
resignation of Augustus; they conjured him not to desert the
republic, which he had saved. After a decent resistance, the
crafty tyrant submitted to the orders of the senate; and
consented to receive the government of the provinces, and the
general command of the Roman armies, under the well-known names
of Proconsul and Imperator. But he would receive them only for
ten years. Even before the expiration of that period, he hope
that the wounds of civil discord would be completely healed, and
that the republic, restored to its pristine health and vigor,
would no longer require the dangerous interposition of so
extraordinary a magistrate. The memory of this comedy, repeated
several times during the life of Augustus, was preserved to the
last ages of the empire, by the peculiar pomp with which the
perpetual monarchs of Rome always solemnized the tenth years of
their reign.
Without any violation of the principles of the constitution, the
general of the Roman armies might receive and exercise an
authority almost despotic over the soldiers, the enemies, and the
subjects of the republic. With regard to the soldiers, the
jealousy of freedom had, even from the earliest ages of Rome,
given way to the hopes of conquest, and a just sense of military
discipline. The dictator, or consul, had a right to command the
service of the Roman youth; and to punish an obstinate or
cowardly disobedience by the most severe and ignominious
penalties, by striking the offender out of the list of citizens,
by confiscating his property, and by selling his person into
slavery. The most sacred rights of freedom, confirmed by the
Porcian and Sempronian laws, were suspended by the military
engagement. In his camp the general exercised an absolute power
of life and death; his jurisdiction was not confined by any forms
of trial, or rules of proceeding, and the execution of the
sentence was immediate and without appeal. The choice of the
enemies of Rome was regularly decided by the legislative
authority. The most important resolutions of peace and war were
seriously debated in the senate, and solemnly ratified by the
people. But when the arms of the legions were carried to a great
distance from Italy, the general assumed the liberty of directing
them against whatever people, and in whatever manner, they judged
most advantageous for the public service. It was from the
success, not from the justice, of their enterprises, that they
expected the honors of a triumph. In the use of victory,
especially after they were no longer controlled by the
commissioners of the senate, they exercised the most unbounded
despotism. When Pompey commanded in the East, he rewarded his
soldiers and allies, dethroned princes, divided kingdoms, founded
colonies, and distributed the treasures of Mithridates. On his
return to Rome, he obtained, by a single act of the senate and
people, the universal ratification of all his proceedings. Such
was the power over the soldiers, and over the enemies of Rome,
which was either granted to, or assumed by, the generals of the
republic. They were, at the same time, the governors, or rather
monarchs, of the conquered provinces, united the civil with the
military character, administered justice as well as the finances,
and exercised both the executive and legislative power of the
state.
From what has already been observed in the first chapter of this
work, some notion may be formed of the armies and provinces thus
intrusted to the ruling hand of Augustus. But as it was
impossible that he could personally command the regions of so
many distant frontiers, he was indulged by the senate, as Pompey
had already been, in the permission of devolving the execution of
his great office on a sufficient number of lieutenants. In rank
and authority these officers seemed not inferior to the ancient
proconsuls; but their station was dependent and precarious. They
received and held their commissions at the will of a superior, to
whose _auspicious_ influence the merit of their action was
legally attributed. They were the representatives of the emperor.
The emperor alone was the general of the republic, and his
jurisdiction, civil as well as military, extended over all the
conquests of Rome. It was some satisfaction, however, to the
senate, that he always delegated his power to the members of
their body. The imperial lieutenants were of consular or
prætorian dignity; the legions were commanded by senators, and
the præfecture of Egypt was the only important trust committed to
a Roman knight.
Within six days after Augustus had been compelled to accept so
very liberal a grant, he resolved to gratify the pride of the
senate by an easy sacrifice. He represented to them, that they
had enlarged his powers, even beyond that degree which might be
required by the melancholy condition of the times. They had not
permitted him to refuse the laborious command of the armies and
the frontiers; but he must insist on being allowed to restore the
more peaceful and secure provinces to the mild administration of
the civil magistrate. In the division of the provinces, Augustus
provided for his own power and for the dignity of the republic.
The proconsuls of the senate, particularly those of Asia, Greece,
and Africa, enjoyed a more honorable character than the
lieutenants of the emperor, who commanded in Gaul or Syria. The
former were attended by lictors, the latter by soldiers. * A law
was passed, that wherever the emperor was present, his
extraordinary commission should supersede the ordinary
jurisdiction of the governor; a custom was introduced, that the
new conquests belonged to the imperial portion; and it was soon
discovered that the authority of the _Prince_, the favorite
epithet of Augustus, was the same in every part of the empire.
In return for this imaginary concession, Augustus obtained an
important privilege, which rendered him master of Rome and Italy.
By a dangerous exception to the ancient maxims, he was authorized
to preserve his military command, supported by a numerous body of
guards, even in time of peace, and in the heart of the capital.
His command, indeed, was confined to those citizens who were
engaged in the service by the military oath; but such was the
propensity of the Romans to servitude, that the oath was
voluntarily taken by the magistrates, the senators, and the
equestrian order, till the homage of flattery was insensibly
converted into an annual and solemn protestation of fidelity.
Although Augustus considered a military force as the firmest
foundation, he wisely rejected it, as a very odious instrument of
government. It was more agreeable to his temper, as well as to
his policy, to reign under the venerable names of ancient
magistracy, and artfully to collect, in his own person, all the
scattered rays of civil jurisdiction. With this view, he
permitted the senate to confer upon him, for his life, the powers
of the consular and tribunitian offices, which were, in the same
manner, continued to all his successors. The consuls had
succeeded to the kings of Rome, and represented the dignity of
the state. They superintended the ceremonies of religion, levied
and commanded the legions, gave audience to foreign ambassadors,
and presided in the assemblies both of the senate and people. The
general control of the finances was intrusted to their care; and
though they seldom had leisure to administer justice in person,
they were considered as the supreme guardians of law, equity, and
the public peace. Such was their ordinary jurisdiction; but
whenever the senate empowered the first magistrate to consult the
safety of the commonwealth, he was raised by that decree above
the laws, and exercised, in the defence of liberty, a temporary
despotism. The character of the tribunes was, in every respect,
different from that of the consuls. The appearance of the former
was modest and humble; but their persons were sacred and
inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than for
action. They were instituted to defend the oppressed, to pardon
offences, to arraign the enemies of the people, and, when they
judged it necessary, to stop, by a single word, the whole machine
of government. As long as the republic subsisted, the dangerous
influence, which either the consul or the tribune might derive
from their respective jurisdiction, was diminished by several
important restrictions. Their authority expired with the year in
which they were elected; the former office was divided between
two, the latter among ten persons; and, as both in their private
and public interest they were averse to each other, their mutual
conflicts contributed, for the most part, to strengthen rather
than to destroy the balance of the constitution. * But when the
consular and tribunitian powers were united, when they were
vested for life in a single person, when the general of the army
was, at the same time, the minister of the senate and the
representative of the Roman people, it was impossible to resist
the exercise, nor was it easy to define the limits, of his
imperial prerogative.
To these accumulated honors, the policy of Augustus soon added
the splendid as well as important dignities of supreme pontiff,
and of censor. By the former he acquired the management of the
religion, and by the latter a legal inspection over the manners
and fortunes, of the Roman people. If so many distinct and
independent powers did not exactly unite with each other, the
complaisance of the senate was prepared to supply every
deficienc
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