GIFT OF 
 
 SEELEY W. MUDD 
 
 and 
 
 GEORGE 1. COCBRAN MEYER ELSASSER 
 DR. JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD 
 JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI 
 
 to the 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH 
 
 JOHN FISKE
 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 
 is 
 
 THE ROMANS 
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 CHARLES MERIVALE, B.D., 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 FROM THE FOURTH LONDON EDITION. 
 
 WITH A COPIOUS ANALYTICAL INDEX. 
 
 VOL. IV. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 443 & 445 BROADWAY. 
 1864.

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF THE FOURTH VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Anticipations of constitutional monarchy. Indifference of the mass of the citizens on 
 political questions. Augustus studies to revive the national sentiment. His con- 
 servation of the patrician caste : of the religious ceremonial. Restoration of tem- 
 ples and special cults. Conservation of the rights of property : of matrimony. 
 Legislative measures to encourage marriage. Regulations for the distinction of 
 classes. Jurisprudence of Augustus. Completion of his policy. His personal 
 popularity not disturbed by occasional severity. Disgrace and death of Cornelius 
 Callus. The jubilee of the Roman people. Considerations on the authenticity of 
 the imperial history, ........ Page 7 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 The organization of the provinces by Augustus. 1. Spain : Final pacification of the 
 mountain tribes. 2. Gaul : Tribute promised by the Britons ; reduction of tho 
 Alpine tribes. 3. Mcesia and Thrace. 4. Kingdom of Mauretania. 5. Province 
 of Africa. 6. The Cyrenaica. 7. Egypt: Expedition of ^Elius Gallus into Arabia. 
 8. Egypt : Repulse of the Ethiopians. 9. Asia Minor : Bithynia, Asia, and the 
 dependent kingdoms. 10. Syria and Palestine: Parthia and Armenia. 11. 
 Achaia. 12. Illyricnm. 13. Italy, Sardinia, and Corsica, . . .60 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 The Csesarean family. Julia, daughter of Augustus, by Scribonia, married to Marcel- 
 lus, son of Octavia. High promise and early death of Marcellus. Julia united to 
 Agrippa. Augustus receives the tribunitian and the consular powers. Agrippa 
 is raised to a participation in the former. Prefecture of manners. Revision of 
 the senate. Secular games. Prefecture of the city. Conduct and character of 
 Mfficenas. Augustus in Gaul, and Agrippa in the East. Conquest of Rhaatia and 
 Yindelicia by Tiberius and Drusus, stepsons of Augustus. Tiberius consul in 741. 
 Augustus and Agrippa return to Rome. Augustus chief pontiff. Campaign of 
 Agrippa against the Pannonians. His illness and death. Character of Agrippa 
 (A. u. 726-742, B. c. 25-12), 124 
 
 245257
 
 4: CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 The children of Agrippa. Character of the Claudii : Tiberius and Drusus. Marriage 
 of Tibering and Julia. Policy of the empire on the Rhine and Danube. Expedi- 
 tion of Drusus in Germany, and Tiberius in Pannonia. Death of Drnsus, A. u. 745. 
 Extension of the empire in Thrace and Mcesia. Tiberius invades Germany. 
 Introduction of Cains Caesar to public life. Death of Maecenas, and final remarks 
 on his character (A. u. 742-747, B. c. 12-7), ..... IfiO 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 The history of Rome assumes the character of a domestic drama. Character and con- 
 duct of Julia, and of Caius and Lucius Caesar. Augustus holds the balance be- 
 tween his grandsons and Tiberius. Disgust and retirement of Tiberius to Rhodes 
 (A. u. 748, B. c. 6). Disgrace and banishment of Julia. Deaths of Caius and Lu- 
 cius. Recall of Tiberius (A. u. 757, A. D. 4) . he receives the tribunitian power a 
 second time, and is adopted by Augustus. Conspiracy of Cinna, and clemency of 
 Augustus. Review of the personal habits of Augustus in his later years (A. u. 747, 
 B. c. 7 ; A. u. 757, A. D. 4) 197 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVm. 
 
 Tiberius, on his return from Rhodes, at first takes no part in public affairs. After the 
 death of Caius he comes again forward. His mission to Gaul in 757. He reaches 
 the Elbe. The Marcomanni and the kingdom of Maroboduus. Expedition of 
 Tiberius against the Mareomanni in 759. Frustrated by the revolt of the Panno- 
 nians. Alarm at Rome. Banishment of Agrippa Postumus. The Pannonians 
 are reduced by Tiberius and Germanicus, A. r. 759-762. Intrigues against Augus- 
 tus. Banishment of the younger Julia. Banishment of the poet Ovidius Naso, 
 761. Discontent of the citizens. The Roman province between the Rhine and 
 Elbe. Overthrow of Varus and loss of three legions, 763. Consternation at Rome. 
 Tiberius sent to the Rhine. Old age of Augustus. Tiberius receives the pro- 
 consular power, and is virtually associated in the empire. His hopes of the suc- 
 cession. Rumoured reconciliation of Augustus with Agrippa Postumus. Record 
 of the acts of Augustus. Monumentum Ancyranum. Last days and death of 
 Augustus. Conclusion (A. D. 4-14, A. tr. 757-767), .... 233 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 Unity of the Roman empire. Contrast between the three great divisions of the an- 
 cient world, the East, the North, and the West. Variety within the Roman 
 empire: 1. of languages; 2. of religions; 8. of classes: citizens, subjects, and al- 
 lies, all gradually tend to a single type. Elements of unity in the Roman empire 
 from its geographical features. Italy and the Mediterranean. Communications 
 by sea and land. Map of the empire : Surveys : Census and Professlo. Brevia- 
 rium or register of the empire. The population of the Roman dominions under 
 Augustus. Universal peace : Pax Romana, .... 292 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 The great cities of the Roman empire. The cities of Greece : Corinth, Sparta, Athens, 
 Delos. The cities of Asia : Ephesus and others. Antioch in Syria. The Ore-
 
 CONTENTS. 5 
 
 cian cities in Italy : The cities on the Campanian coast. Approach to Rome. 
 The hills of Rome. The valleys of Rome. The Forum, Velabrum, &c. The 
 Transtiberine. The Campus Martius. The streets and domestic architecture of 
 Rome. The Domus and Insute. Population estimated : 1. From the area of the 
 city. 2. From the number of houses. 3. From the number of recipients of grain. 
 Concluding remarks, ........ 349 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 Life in Rome. Thronging of the streets. Places of recreation. Theatres, circus, and 
 amphitheatres. Exhibitions of wild beasts and gladiators. Baths. The day of a 
 Roman noble : The Forum, the Campus, the bath, and the supper. Custom of 
 recitation. The schools of the rhetoricians. Authors : Livy, Virgil, Horace, Pro- 
 pertius, Tibullus, Ovid, each reflecting in his own way the sentiments of the 
 Augustan age, ......... 405
 
 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 ANTICIPATIONS OF CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. INDIFFERENCE OF THE MASS 
 OF THE CITIZENS ON POLITICAL QUESTIONS. AUGUSTUS STUDIES TO REVIVE 
 
 THE NATIONAL SENTIMENT. HIS CONSERVATION OF THE PATRICIAN CASTE: 
 
 OF THE RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL. RESTORATION OF TEMPLES AND SPECIAL 
 
 CULTS. CONSERVATION OF THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY : OF MATRIMONY. 
 
 LEGISLATIVE MEASURES TO ENCOURAGE MARRIAGE. REGULATIONS FOR THE 
 
 DISTINCTION OF CLASSES. JURISPRUDENCE OF AUGUSTUS. COMPLETION OF 
 
 HIS POLICY. HIS PERSONAL POPULARITY NOT DISTURBED BY OCCASIONAL 
 
 SEVERITY. DISGRACE AND DEATH OF CORNELIUS GALLUS. THE JUBILEE 
 
 OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE 
 
 IMPERIAL HISTORY. 
 
 rpHE noble fragment we have lately recovered of Cicero's 
 -L treatise on Commonwealths breaks off with a warm eulo- 
 gium on a limited or constitutional monarchy, de- The Roman 
 livered in the person of the younger Africanus, coSutionai 
 but supposed, not unreasonably, to convey the monarch y- 
 genuine sentiments of the writer himself. There are certain 
 points of similarity in the position of these illustrious states- 
 men which, it may be presumed, did not escape the observa- 
 tion of the political philosopher : both began their career in 
 the interest of the people, and finished it as champions of the 
 oligarchy ; both were conspicuous in their opposition to 
 demagogues ; both denounced agrarian levellers ; both pro-
 
 g HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 fessed to form themselves on the model of Roman antiquity, 
 while they cherished the arts and literature of Greece, and 
 boasted their insight into its national character. Accordingly 
 we may readily believe that the experience of Scipio actually 
 suggested to him the thoughts which are here ascribed to 
 him by his later admirer. While the popular notion of mon- 
 archy among the Romans was simply that of a despotic au- 
 tocracy, and the traditional colours in which they painted the 
 tyrant Tarquin received a deeper shade from their actual ac- 
 quaintance with an Antiochus or an Orodes, more reflecting 
 minds speculated, we may conceive, from an early period, on 
 the idea of a legal sovereignty, in which the prerogatives of 
 the people should be delegated, on fixed principles, to a mag- 
 istrate of its own choice. If their experience could discover 
 no distinct examples of this happy polity, their imaginations 
 at least were not idle ; and such perhaps was the shadowy 
 conception they formed to themselves of the original common- 
 wealth of Rome, the free state of a Romulus, a Nuina, a Tul- 
 lus, and a Servius. 1 However this may be, the most perfect 
 government, in the view, we may believe, of the wisest of the 
 Romans, was a just combination of popular and aristocratic 
 authority, subjected by mutual concession to the control of a 
 single hand. It was the government by centuries and curies, 
 by a senate and a king. We may easily imagine that many 
 of the most earnest thinkers of the later republic, when they 
 saw every form and institution torn in pieces by the furious 
 ambition of demagogues and nobles, when consuls vied with 
 
 1 Cic. de Republ. iii. 35. : " Hie Scipio, Agnosco, inquit, tuum morcm 
 istum, Spuri, tarn aversurn a ratione popular!. Sed quanquam potest id lenius 
 ferri quam tu soles ferre, tamen assentior nullum esse de tribus his generibus 
 quod sit probandum minus. Illud tamen non assentior tibi praestare regi opti- 
 mates. Si enim sapientia est quae gubernat rem publicam, quid tandem inter- 
 est hsec in unone sit an in pluribus ? Sed errore quodarn fallimur in dispu- 
 tando. Cum enim optimates appellantur nihil potest videri praestabilius. Quid 
 enim optimo melius cogitari potest ? Cum autem regis est facta mentio occur- 
 rit animis rex etiam injustus : nos autem de injusto rege nihil loquimur nunc, 
 cum de ipsa regali republica quaerimus. Quare cogitato Romulum aut Pom- 
 pilium aut Tullum regem ; forsan non tarn illius to rei publicoe pcenitebit."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 9 
 
 tribunes in trampling upon the laws, and imperators and trium- 
 virs divided the empire with their swords, turned often with 
 a sigh to that pleasing ideal of a political Utopia, where the 
 king was moderate, the senate wise, the people devoted, and 
 the subjects satisfied. 
 
 But in the eighth century of the city it was too late to realize 
 any such dream as this. The most perfect system of checks 
 and balances would have fallen to pieces in the Too Jate to ap _ 
 hands of a corrupt and degenerate people. The SmlV^Aulns- 
 time for a fair experiment on constitutional mon- tus - 
 archy had passed for more than a hundred years. The younger 
 Scipio, when he prophesied the downfall of his country, was 
 not unaware that even in his own day the vices of the oligarchy 
 had provoked the re-action of democracy, and that their differ- 
 ences had become too inveterate for equal arbitration. A few 
 generations earlier, perhaps, Rome, free and victorious, was 
 still pure and honest enough to yield obedience to authority, 
 and might have offered to the world an illustrious example of 
 submission to a self-imposed monarchy. But when once a 
 Gracchus and a Drusus had given the reins to democratical agi- 
 tation, no such change could transpire without exciting unap- 
 peasable ambitions, and plunging the state into the direst con- 
 vulsions. When the republic, after a brief and restless inter- 
 val, fell at last under the sway of an armed chief like Marius 
 or China, the character both of the men and of the tunes for- 
 bade the hope that monarchy might avert the overthrow of 
 freedom. Nevertheless, as monarchy had now become inevi- 
 table, better that Marius should have been the first of the em- 
 perors than Caesar, while the Roman mind was still vigorous, 
 capable of receiving a new impulse and assimilating another 
 polity. Such he undoubtedly would have been, and- the- his- 
 tory of the empire would have dated from the auspicious ter- 
 mination of the Social wars, but for the successful reprisals 
 of Sulla, and his resolute reconstruction of the broken rule of 
 the oligarchy. This counter-revolution stayed abruptly the 
 natural progress of events, and delayed for fifty years the 
 doom of the commonwealth. But the system of Sulla can
 
 10 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 only be considered as a political anachronism. It had no 
 rightful claim to exist ; it was the monstrous creation of the 
 sword, repugnant to the views and aspirations of the great 
 mass of Romans and Italians, as well as formidable to the 
 provinces. It avowed its determination to control the de- 
 velopment of society, and stop the political education of man- 
 kind. Hateful as it was, the victories of Pompeius availed to 
 sustain it through one generation, while the current of men's 
 thoughts was diverted from it by the conquest of Asia, the 
 glare of foreign wealth, and the allurements of foreign lux- 
 ury. But its foundations meanwhile were silently crumbling 
 away in the decay of the old noble families, the decline of public 
 virtue, and the scarce disguised treachery of some of its most 
 conspicuous supporters. "When Cassar arose to strike the 
 long-expected blow it fell in helpless impotence, and the vio- 
 lence of a rebel's hand anticipated by a brief period the strug- 
 Yet the best gles of its natural dissolution. We indeed can 
 n<rtde"pair d of see that the Csesarean revolution came too late 
 ** to save the remains of national virtue ; but to 
 
 despair of the republic was a crime with the Romans, and by 
 a Messala and a Pollio, and a few of the noblest spirits 
 of their age, Octavius, we may feel assured, was fondly re- 
 garded as the deliverer for whom the best and wisest citizens 
 had been looking for an hundred years. The mildness of his 
 sway in Italy, the firmness with which he had opposed intes- 
 tine commotion and foreign aggression, the respect he had 
 evinced for certain traditions of public policy, on which the 
 safety and good order of the state were supposed to rest, led 
 them to indulge the hope that he would continue to preserve 
 all that was good hi the old consular government, while he 
 held it together with the strong hand of the imperator. The 
 reflections indeed of the mass of the citizens were far less 
 deep or philosophical. The decrees of the senate and the 
 public demonstrations of the populace have made us already 
 familiar with the outward manifestation of joy and thankful- 
 ness which hailed the victories both of Julius Caesar and of 
 his successor. Yet such expressions of popular sentiment may
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. H 
 
 easily be feigned, and in these instances we may be disposed 
 perhaps at first sight to call their genuineness in question. 
 Can it be true, we ask, that the Roman people, so proud of 
 their freedom, so jealous of their rulers, so confident in them- 
 selves, could have really rejoiced in the triumph of the sword 
 over the guardians and pledges of their laws ? Or did they 
 indulge the vain imagination that the victors of Actium and 
 Pharsalia, the men who had hunted to death a Cicero and a 
 Cato, would restore the liberties they had wrested from the 
 devoted champions of the republic ? May we not rather sup- 
 pose that the mass of the citizens were prepared in fact to 
 surrender even more than was demanded of them, and that 
 they received back with surprise the present made them by 
 the usurpers of the names and forms of the commonwealth ? 
 In order to answer these questions we must take a wider sur- 
 vey of the state of public opinion at the time. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable how nearly passive the mass 
 of the Roman people had long been under the sway of fac- 
 tions and political intriguers. Far distant was the indifference of 
 period when the great body of the citizens was ^ff^^ d 
 wont to rise at the bidding of some trusted lead- i uestion8 - 
 er, or at the dictates of a common sympathy, and express 
 their will by a secession to the Sacred Mount, or a sullen re- 
 fusal to enlist in the legions. Throughout the horrors of the 
 Marian and Sullan revolutions, while Roman blood was flow- 
 ing in torrents, and no man's throat was secure from the gripe 
 of the assassin, they looked on with palsied apathy, and sub- 
 mitted to the reign of terror almost without a murmur. 
 Habits of camp discipline and familiarity with the use of arms 
 seem, from manifold experience, to be rather unfavourable 
 than otherwise to the development of civil courage and self- 
 reliance at home. During the struggles of Cassar and Pom- 
 peius the same populace continued equally inert, though the 
 success of either the one or the other might be the signal for 
 a second series of proscriptions. And when those proscrip- 
 tions were actually repeated at the bidding of the triumvirs, 
 they were found not less patient of outrage and massacre than
 
 12 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 ever. They seem to have utterly renounced the power of as- 
 serting any principle or any wish of their own ; the love of 
 life itself seems to have degenerated into a mere animal in- 
 stinct. We have seen how, throughout the civil wars, it was 
 never from the capital, nor even from Italy, that the im- 
 pulse was given to the leading movements of parties : Caesar 
 armed himself in Gaul, Pompeius in the East, Cato in Africa, 
 Cnaeus in Spain. Antonius and his rivals depended solely 
 upon their mercenary legions, until, in the final struggle, the 
 aggression of a foreign power aroused the spirit of the con- 
 quering republic, and strengthened the hands of Octavius with 
 a crowning manifestation of national sentiment. This was 
 the last spontaneous levy of the Roman people ; the effort 
 was momentary and the victory immediate ; but they had 
 long resigned themselves to the tyranny of any ruler, provided 
 only he were a Roman like themselves. Their only hope, at 
 the crisis of each succeeding usurpation, was that the con- 
 queror would be more merciful than Sulla ; and when the last 
 candidate for empire returned in triumph to their presence, 
 the assurance that he had fought their own battle, that he 
 was not merely the victor of a civil fray, but the vanquisher 
 of a foreign foe, allowed them to hope that his success 
 would be as bloodless as it was glorious. In considering the 
 history of Rome we cannot lay too much stress on the im- 
 pression made upon the national mind by the first proscrip- 
 tions. To this frightful period its imaginations were con- 
 stantly recurring ; the undying recollection of these horrors 
 survived every new phase of revolution, and taught the Ro- 
 mans to acquiesce in each successive act of violence as a relief 
 from the recollections of the past. 
 
 To the mass of the Romans, then, it was enough to be 
 
 spared from massacre and confiscation. They were ready to 
 
 exalt to the skies the usurper who refrained from 
 
 Degradation of . . 
 
 Roman senti- taking all their lives and properties. This, in 
 
 mfxtur/of e their eyes, was the merit of Octavius, and for this 
 
 they met him at the gates of the city and led him 
 
 in triumph to the Capitol and the temples of the gods.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. ^3 
 
 Though dignified with the name of Romans, the people, it 
 must be remembered, who disgraced a title consecrated to 
 freedom and self-reliance, had in fact little in common with 
 the men who first rendered it illustrious. The result of the 
 great "struggle between the republic and her allies seventy 
 years before, had mingled in one current the blood of the 
 Romans and the Italians. Yet between these new compa- 
 triots there was at least a certain affinity in language, origin, 
 and institutions. 1 Far more fatal to the homogeneity of the 
 Roman race was the repeated enfranchisement of foreign 
 slaves drawn from eveiy quarter of the known world, the 
 supple Syrian, the sensual German, the moody and ungovern- 
 able Moor. Various methods, indeed, were devised to im- 
 pede the progress of these despised aliens to the highest offices 
 of the state ; even the complete franchise of the city was 
 doled out to them with jealous precaution : but the necessi- 
 ties of political chiefs overleaped every restraint, and Sulla 
 himself, the champion of exclusion, admitted a host of for- 
 eign-born clients into his own Cornelian gens. Ca?sar took 
 a bolder and more decisive step, but not before the times were 
 ripe for it, in admitting foreigners into the senate itself ; and 
 the successors to his policy and power continued to replenish 
 it. after every massacre, with members of the meanest extrac- 
 tion. The streets of Rome, which had witnessed the triumphs 
 of the Scipios and jEmilii, were thronged with the descend- 
 ants of their captives ; the villas of the conquerors of Sam- 
 nium and Carthage had fallen into the hands of owners 
 who a few years before could hardly have pronounced their 
 names. 
 
 The long settled communities of modern civilization can 
 scarcely appreciate perhaps the extent of this 
 
 j ix + f j ti i T i'^ 1 Modern Enro- 
 
 adulteration 01 race and blood. .Political revo- poan commu- 
 
 i , . .. , -it nities afford no 
 
 unions we nave witnessed ; social and economi- parallel to this 
 cal changes, vast in extent and unprecedented in 
 
 1 The most conspicuous monuments of early Roman literature are in almost 
 every case the work of Italians rather than of genuine Romans ; yet the true 
 Roman sentiment is not the less unmistakeably impressed upon them.
 
 14 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 character, have occurred at our very doors ; but upon the physi- 
 cal elements of the population affected by them, no impres- 
 sion has been made. The people of modern Europe, there- 
 fore, can admit of no comparison in respect of physical change 
 with the Romans of the age of Augustus. The case, however, 
 is different in the opposite hemisphere, where the native race 
 is overwhelmed from one generation to another by a constant 
 stream of foreign immigration. The movement of the physical 
 elements of Roman society may not inaptly be compared, how- 
 ever different the causes from which it arose, with that in the 
 population of North America. And accordingly in America 
 we observe a rapid change and disintegration of national 
 sentiment constantly in progress : the ideas of one decade of 
 years become obsolete in the next ; manners and fashions are 
 ever fluctuating ; even the language partakes of the general 
 instability, though retained on its foundations by the influence 
 of its European sister ; a few fixed principles of polity, be- 
 longing perhaps to an exceptional state of social development, 
 alone remain, like landmarks, overtopping the ceaseless flow 
 of thoughts and prejudices around them. But the local fixity 
 and isolation of the Roman people in its earlier stages had 
 imparted a similar character to its institutions, and maintained 
 them in their native forms for several ages before the era of 
 movement had commenced. Its notions of religion and pol- 
 ity, interweaved and entangled together, had sunk, as it were, 
 into the very soil ; its habits of thought on these matters, 
 which constituted almost its whole life, were cast in a mould 
 of iron. The Romans, as has been often said, were a nation 
 of formalists ; not less so than the Jews themselves ; nor, as 
 far as we know, were their prejudices shaken, or their minds 
 recalled from the servitude of the letter, by any spiritual ex- 
 positions of prophets or philosophers. Among the Romans, 
 the men of higher light and deeper insight, who impugned 
 the accredited faith of the people, carefully abstained from 
 any attack upon their formulas. Scsevola, Varro, and Cicero, 
 avowed the principle, that the errors of the vulgar, and the 
 knowledge of the wise, should be permitted to co-exist with
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 15 
 
 mutual toleration. 1 But the men who were most deeply im- 
 bued with these forms and prejudices, even the classes which 
 were their acknowledged depositaries, were almost extin- 
 guished by war and proscription ; their places became occu- 
 pied by strangers, men for the most part who were prepared, 
 on entering their adopted city, to renounce the ideas of that 
 from which they came, without taking much interest in the 
 acquisition of the new. They were proud indeed of inherit- 
 ing the glorious name of Romans, and of claiming affinity 
 with the remnant of the genuine citizens ; but their claims 
 were rejected perhaps not less contemptuously by the real de- 
 scendants of Quirinus than those of the Samaritans by the 
 tribes of Benjamin and Judah. 
 
 The Roman regarded himself in two very different lights, 
 according as he reflected on his political or his social posi- 
 tion. On the one hand, soaring on the wings of Expansion of 
 imagination, he vaunted himself as the favourite ^eai "fBonfan 
 of the gods, the child of destiny, appointed to life< 
 achieve a vast mission, no less than the reduction of the world 
 to political unity ; to beat down by force all opposition of 
 arms, and constrain men to the simple routine of peaceful oc- 
 cupations. 2 On the other, he gloated with mere prosaic in- 
 terest on the material gains of conquest. He regarded realms 
 and empires as his domain, and worked out the resources of 
 a province with the same zest as his ancestor had devoted to 
 tilling his modest glebe. He remembered, on a wider theatre, 
 how the master of the household had daily appeased the gods 
 with corn and oil, with a prayer or a charm ; how he had fed 
 his slaves at his own board, and dispensed to them with equal 
 care, both their tasks and their recreations ; how he had kept 
 the key of his wine-bin at his girdle, and chastised his con- 
 
 1 Augustin. Civ. Dei, iv. 27. : " Ease pontifex (Scacvola) nosse populos non 
 vult ; nam falsa esse non putat. Expedire igitur existimat falli in religione 
 civitates. Quod dicere etiara in libris rerum divinarum ipse Varro non dubi- 
 tat." Comp. iv. 31. This is the principle put forth by Cicero throughout his 
 treatises de Divinatione and de Hatura Deorum. 
 
 1 Virg. JEn. vi. ; " Tu regere imperio populos," etc.
 
 16 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 sort, even to the death, if she ventured to purloin it from his 
 side. Such in the last age of the republic was still the ideal 
 of Roman life, the life of a Curius or Cincinnatus expanded 
 to the proportions of a Lentulus or a Lucullus. Such was the 
 life, it was fondly proclaimed, of Remus and his brother, of 
 the sturdy sons of Latium and Sabellia. Thus the valiant 
 Etruscans had waxed in glory and power, second only to the 
 Romans themselves ; thus Rome had become of all created 
 things the fairest and the strongest. 1 
 
 The drop of pious sentiment enshrined in either view 
 served in some measure to purify the turbid elements of 
 signs of mate- ^hich at this period the mass of the Roman 
 rial decay. people was composed. Some moments there were 
 in the existence of the contemporaries of the second trium- 
 virate, when all the wealth of Asia and elegance of Greece 
 seemed inadequate to compensate for the innocence and sim- 
 plicity of the ancient republic. At such times the sense of 
 lost freedom and forfeited self-esteem was aggravated ly a 
 consciousness of material decay. Throughout Italy the spolia- 
 tion of so many estates and the insecurity of all had ca<t a 
 blight upon agriculture ; the harvests failed to support a 
 population diminished by war and misery ; the wall? of cities 
 were crumbling into ruin ; the increase of brigandage cut off 
 the communications between them, while it redoubled the anx- 
 iety of the masters for the safe custody of their sullen slaves. 
 In Rome itself the invasion of barbarism was no less apparent. 
 While the gratification of the multitude was consulted in the 
 
 Virg. Georg. ii. nit. : " Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini," kc. 
 This ideal was of a singularly domestic character. The tutelary divinities of 
 their country were styled by the Romans " gods of their fathers," and " home- 
 born " (di patrii indigetes) ; their country itself was the " fatherland " (patria) ; 
 their most cherished usages were the " custom of their elders " (mos majorum). 
 They continued to the last to denominate the metropolis of their world-wide 
 empire " the town " (urbs), while all foreign lands, far or near, were simply 
 " bevond the gates" (foris). Much confusion is caused by our common trans- 
 lation of urb by " city," a designation which ought in strictness to be confined 
 to the political community (civitas). Urbs, whatever be its derivation, means 
 the town or inhabited enclosure.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. -tf 
 
 erection of gorgeous edifices for public entertainment, the 
 temples of the gods were suffered to decay, their images were 
 stained with smoke and damp, their worship was neglected, 
 their services forgotten, the holy rites of wedlock were slighted, 
 and a new race of citizens was springing into life whose will 
 was their only law, and to whom the most venerable prescrip- 
 tions of antiquity were no better than a dusty parchment. 
 
 But in the midst of this desolation, the legislator who 
 sought to revive the pure sentiments of antiquity might ap- 
 peal to a witness in their favour which no child 
 
 r The. fundamen- 
 
 of Quirinus could venture to impugn. To as- tai principle of 
 
 the Roman re- 
 
 cnbe to mere chance the imperial career of the Hgfon stui sur- 
 republic, or even to the virtues of the citizens 
 themselves, apart from the holy influence of their laws and 
 institutions, was a blasphemy from which the feelings of every 
 genuine Roman revolted. Deep and firm was his persuasion 
 that his city owed its prosperity to the divine principle of its 
 constitution. The empire of Rome was a standing evidence in 
 his view to the truth of the Roman religion, in its widest 
 sense, as the foundation of its laws and usages. Already 
 men's minds were becoming weaned from positive belief in 
 the concrete divinities of Olympus, and fixing themselves 
 more and more upon the abstraction of the Roman majesty, 
 which their imaginations were beginning to invest with the 
 form and personality of an actual goddess. 1 
 
 It was the policy of the new master of the republic to 
 throw himself upon this deep conservative feeling, to revive 
 the usages of the ancient days, and assimilate the August 
 fresh elements of the population to the remnant % 
 of its original stock. The victories of Actium *igo 
 and Alexandria soon proved to be something more than the 
 rout of a foreign foe or the defeat of a barbaric invasion. 
 "Not only was Isis overthrown, and Anubis driven howling to 
 his native desert ; the majesty of the gods of Rome was not 
 
 1 The Smyrnseans boasted that they had been the first to erect a temple to 
 TJrbs Roma. This was in the consulship of the elder Cato, A. u. 558. Tac. 
 Ann. iv. 56. 
 
 VOL. iv. 2
 
 18 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 only vindicated, but restored to honour and recommended 
 with a powerful voice to the veneration of the citizens. The 
 conqueror commenced his career of empire by the restoration 
 of the ancient cult. Religious forms were entwined about 
 all the public and private life of the primitive Roman. The 
 acts of every popular assembly were hallowed by ceremonial 
 observances ; the conduct of war abroad and of government 
 at home was alike dependent upon auspices and omens ; each 
 particular family partook of the rites of the gens to which it 
 belonged, and cherished the domestic worship of some god or 
 hero from whom it derived its name or lineage. Thus, after 
 the extinction in the fifth century of the family of Potitius, 
 its first founder, the cult of Hercules had been appropriated 
 to the Pinarii, with whom Julius Cajsar was himself con- 
 nected. 1 The Julii claimed the special ministry of Venus, 
 the Nautii worshipped Minerva, the Aurelii Apollo, the Va- 
 lerii Pluto, while Diana was honoured by the Calpurnii, Nep- 
 tune by the Servilii.* Some families venerated certain heroes 
 of their own race, as the Horatii, who performed religious 
 rites in honour of the brave Horatius who kept the bridge 
 against Porsena and the Tarquins ; and the Julii, who adopted 
 as their patron the greatest of their name, the deified dicta- 
 tor. On stated anniversaries the rites of these divinities were 
 celebrated by the representatives of the gens in a private 
 chapel ; and though the presence of the members in general 
 was not required at the ceremony, the favour of the guardian 
 saint was supposed to be extended to all. It was extended, 
 indeed, much farther. The welfare of the commonwealth 
 itself was held to be closely connected with the due observance 
 of these particular cults, and the law maintained a jealous 
 watch over their perpetuation ; the descent of property was 
 burdened or illustrated with the obligation to preserve them 
 
 1 Liv. i. 7. 5x. 29. : " Sacra penes Pinarios resedisse eosque mysteria fide- 
 liter custodisse." From this passage compared with Virgil, ^En. viii. 270., it 
 would seem probable that the Pinarii still retained this privilege, though Dio 
 nysius, i. 40., denies it. 
 
 s See Becker, Handbuch der Romischen Alterthumer, ii. 1. 45.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. }9 
 
 in force. The annals of these patrician races were written 
 for their especial honour, and the public traditions of the com- 
 monwealth itself were corrupted to glorify the most illus- 
 trious of its houses. The images or waxen busts of the de- 
 ceased, ranged along the walls of the mansion in the city, 
 were silent but expressive monuments of the family history ; 
 and whenever a chief of the house was carried forth to his 
 sepulchre on the Flaminian or Latin Way, these effigies of his 
 renowned ancestors, labelled for all to recognise them, were 
 borne in procession before him, and reminded the admiring 
 citizens of the proudest glories of their history. 
 
 Accordingly the patricians of the primitive republic con- 
 stituted a dominant caste, jealous of its peculiar prerogatives, 
 and admitting no access to its own divine inheri- 
 
 . __ Conservation 
 
 tance of dignity and authority. These preten- of the patrician 
 sions had been gradually abated by the encroach- 
 ment of the plebeians ; the loss of privilege had drawn down 
 with it many august but impoverished houses ; and not a few 
 of the oldest families had fallen out of the ranks of public 
 office, and sunk into insignificance among the herd of citizens. 
 While they retained their legitimate place at the head of the 
 legions, the constant wars of the republic had drained them 
 of their best blood ; and when the new nobility of the com- 
 mons forced itself into command, the patricians perished not 
 less rapidly, but more obscurely, in the ranks. It was about 
 the period of the Gracchi that this subsidence of the old aris- 
 tocracy of birth began first to be remarked. The increase of 
 wealth and multiplication of offices had raised a number of 
 new men into their places, while those that still remained on 
 the arena of public life were forced to compete on equal terms 
 with their upstart rivals, and, except in the possession of a 
 few honorary distinctions, the patrician was only distinguished 
 from the rest of the citizens by his exclusion from the tribune- 
 ship of the plebs. The wealthy competitors for the honours 
 of the state became gradually fused into one common aristoc- 
 racy, to which office alone gave a title of admission. The 
 number of plebeian houses thus exalted by participation in
 
 20 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 the curule magistracies, and enrolled by the censors in the list 
 of the senate, soon far surpassed the remnant of the patrician. 
 This new aristocracy, under the title of the nobility, or the 
 class ennobled by public service, drew a broad line between 
 itself and the knights, the ignoble rich, whom it jealously ex- 
 cluded from the higher functions of the state. But this no- 
 bility again, rich, numerous, and powerful as it was, was deci- 
 mated in its turn by massacres and proscriptions. Of the 
 patrician houses which figure in the early history of Rome, 
 the greater number disappear from her annals after the Punic 
 wars, while many of those which we can still trace there have 
 sunk into comparative obscurity. They are succeeded in the 
 Fasti by a long series of plebeian names ; but of these, again, 
 few survive the Civil Wars, and the establishment of the 
 Empire. The houses which rose to distinction after this 
 epoch were universally of plebeian origin, and generally little 
 known to fame at an earlier period. 
 
 The custom, indeed, of adoption, invented perhaps from a 
 religious motive, for the perpetuation of the gentile cults, 
 Principle of might serve to maintain the existence of the 
 adoption. house, and its name, long after its genuine blood 
 had really ceased to flow. Nevertheless, it may be doubted 
 whether this contrivance was actually of much avail ; for the 
 facility thus given for preserving the legal continuity of fam- 
 ily existence was in itself fatal to the real perpetuation of 
 race. The pride of name might thus be satisfied without the 
 propagation of lineal successors, or submission to the obliga- 
 tions of legitimate marriage. Thus while, on the one hand, 
 the main stem of the Julian gens was prolonged, in default 
 of natural heirs, by the adoption of an Octavius, its collateral 
 branches, on the other, once widely extended, withered wholly 
 away, 1 Besides adoption, however, the Romans invented 
 
 1 Lord Mahon, near the beginning of his History of England, has given a 
 table of the representatives of existing English houses about a century ago, 
 which shows in a striking manner the vitality of our aristocratic families, main- 
 tained as they are solely by succession in blood either directly or collaterally. 
 But the interval has been a period of unexampled tranquillity and prosperity 
 to the class in question.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 21 
 
 another method for the perpetuation of the gens through its 
 clientele. The noble Roman was authorized to confer his 
 name, together with its religious privileges, upon the enfran- 
 chised foreigners who ranged themselves under his patronage. 
 Even the slaves whom he manumitted were allowed, with occa- 
 sional restrictions, to enrol themselves in his clan. Thus, 
 with the exception perhaps of the Cornelian, the Julian be- 
 came under Csesar and Augustus the most extensive of any 
 Roman house. It had its offshoots not only in Rome and 
 Italy, but wherever either of its most illustrious patrons had 
 set his foot and established his personal influence. The 
 Gauls, the Britons, and the Iberians more particularly, sought 
 the honour of this distinguished connexion, which was libe- 
 rally bestowed on chiefs and potentates, on philosophers and 
 statesmen, on artists and grammarians. Though the dictator 
 left no natural offspring, and only one son by adoption, the 
 name of Julius continues frequently to recur in the history 
 of the Romans as long as they retained the gentile name with 
 its appropriate observances. 1 
 
 To the remnant of the patrician families, it has just been 
 said, certain honorary functions were still, from ancient usage, 
 attached. Among these was the exalted priest- 
 hood of the Flamens. For the perpetuation of patrician 
 such offices, which the people continued to regard 
 with superstitious reverence, or from the vague desire so 
 common to usurpers to surround himself with the ensigns of 
 the polity he had overthrown, Julius Caesar had introduced a 
 measure for increasing the number of patrician houses. By 
 the lex Cassia several plebeian gentes, among them perhaps 
 the Octavia, to which his nephew belonged, and the Tullia, so 
 recently illustrated by the genius of Cicero, were called up to 
 the higher caste. 2 Augustus followed the example of the 
 
 1 The kinsmen of the great Julius Caesar, of whom there were one or two 
 branches existing in his time, left as far as we know no successors. 
 
 2 The elevation of the young Octaviua to the patriciate has been already 
 mentioned (ch. xxx.) ; that of Cicero is inferred from the passage of Dion, 
 xlvi. 22. : tXeydels vr'b rov Kattrapos Kal trteQfls, ey re rovs tviraTptSas t-yypa-
 
 22 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 dictator ; but in this case, we may believe, with a more distinct 
 and deliberate object. The political nullity of the patricians 
 had in fact abated nothing from the charm which popularly 
 surrounded them ; perhaps they had even gained in the affec- 
 tions of the people what they had lost in power. The mani- 
 fest decay of those illustrious monuments of the past, the 
 historical families of the republic, had excited an interest even 
 in the contemplative spirit of an Atticus, who had devoted a 
 portion of his abundant leisure to explore their antiquities and 
 describe their genealogies. The archaeologist Varro had writ- 
 ten learnedly upon the same theme ; at a later period Vale- 
 rius Messala, the intimate friend of Augustus, but a true re- 
 publican at heart, followed in the same track. 1 A subject 
 which occupied the thoughts of three men of such distinction 
 we may well imagine to have been generally attractive. 
 
 The anxiety of Octavius to restore the due consideration 
 of the patrician houses, as a principle of public conservation, 
 outstripped his own movements on his return 
 a- homeward from the East at the close of 724. 
 
 trician houses. -rrni ,'ii r. , 1. f A i. 
 
 Vvhile still absent in the provinces 01 Asia, he 
 directed L. Ssenius, the consul suffect, to lay a measure before 
 the senate for raising several plebeian families to the hon- 
 ours of the patriciate. The law itself, to which the senate 
 dutifully acceded, and which the tribes were content to regis- 
 ter, was dated from the following year, when the emperor, 
 resuming his place in the capital, accepted the powers of the 
 censorship, and undertook to reconstitute by various stringent 
 enactments the several orders of the state. 8 The Romans 
 
 <f>e)s. Such an elevation wag not simply personal, but was extended to the 
 whole gens. It seems probable that these two cases were comprehended along 
 with others in the measure of the dictator which bore the name of the lex 
 Cassia. This and the lex Saenia of Augustus are referred to by Tacitus, Ann. 
 xi. 25. Comp. Suet. Jul. 41. Dion, xlix. 43. lii. 42. 
 
 1 The etymological writings of Atticus are referred to by Corn. Nepos, 
 Aft. 18. Varro wrote on the subject of families which claimed a Trojan de- 
 scent. Servius on Yirg. jEn. v. 117. 704. On the work of Messala and its 
 origin, see Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXT. 2. 
 
 a L. Ssenius was consul suffect with M. Tullius Cicero, son of the orator, 
 in the latter part of the year Y24 : but the law which bore Ms name, and was
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 23 
 
 were highly gratified by the respect thus paid to their early 
 associations. The national traditions, which still exercised, as 
 we have seen, their full influence over the mass of the citizens, 
 connected the majesty of the republic with the dignity of its 
 highest caste, who mediated by their august functions be- 
 tween the state and the celestial hierarchy. It is a curious 
 fact that the patrician houses had for the most part attached 
 themselves to the cult, not of the original Italian divinities, 
 but of gods of comparatively recent and foreign importation. 
 But in so doing they had only followed the course of the 
 religious revolution which had long been in progress at Rome. 
 Apollo, Venus, Neptune, Hercules, Pluto, Diana, and at least 
 as the goddess of war, Minerva also, had been unknown to the 
 worship of the early Romans ; it was only in the latter ages 
 of the republic that these deities were honoured with temples 
 and priesthoods at all. 1 The principal temples at Rome had 
 been constructed by the piety of victorious imperators ; and 
 to the posterity they had ennobled they had bequeathed, as 
 the most precious of heir-looms, the care of these sacred edi- 
 fices. Few, however, of their descendants, in the latter days 
 of anarchy and irreligion, had displayed the zeal of the noble 
 Catulus in the restoration of Jove's temple in the Capitol. 
 The shrines of the gods, as has been said, were falling on all 
 sides into ruin, their images were blackened with smoke, or 
 mouldering with damp. The sufferings of the commonwealth 
 were willingly ascribed by the existing generation to the im- 
 piety of that which had gone before, and the admonitions of 
 the poet were hailed with general acclamation when he re- 
 minded it that it was the lord of mankind only because it was 
 the servant of the gods. This pious acknowledgment, said 
 Horace, was the beginning and end of all its greatness. 2 Au- 
 
 introduced by him, is placed under the following year by Dion Cassius, lii. 
 42. ; to which Augustus also himself refers it, Monum. Ancyr. 2. : " Patri- 
 ciorum numerum auxi consul v. jussu populi et senatus." 
 1 See Zumpt in his little tract Religion der Roemer. 
 a Horace in the well known passage, Od. iii. 6. : 
 " Delicta majorum immeritus lues, 
 Romane, donee templa refeceris .... 
 Dis te minorem quod geris imperas."
 
 24: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 gustus perceived, with unerring sagacity, the direction of the 
 popular sentiment, and at once placed himself at its head. 
 The duty of renovating the temples had lapsed, by the death 
 or impoverishment of their appointed guardians, to the nation 
 itself, and he, in his censorial capacity, was the keeper of the 
 national conscience. Accordingly he restored himself the tem- 
 ple of Jupiter Feretrius in the Capitol, which was said to be 
 the most ancient in Rome ; he erected another to Jove the 
 Thunderer, to Cybele, and other divinities. He encouraged 
 Eestoration of *^ e nobles to vie with him in the pious work, and 
 temples. instructed Livia to repair the shrines of Juno, the 
 
 tutelary guardian of Roman womanhood. 1 Up to this period, 
 the god Mars, the reputed father of the Roman race, had 
 never, it is said, enjoyed the distinction of a temple within 
 the walls. He was now introduced into the city, which he 
 had saved from overthrow and ruin ; and the aid he had lent 
 in bringing the murderers of Caesar to justice, was signalized 
 by the title of Avenger, by which he was now specially ad- 
 dressed. 8 There still remained, however, another deity in 
 whom the emperor retained a peculiar interest. Apollo was 
 the patron of the spot which had given a name to his great 
 victory of Actium ; Apollo himself, it was proclaimed, had 
 fought for Rome and for Octavius on that auspicious day ; 
 the same Apollo, the sun-god, had shuddered in his bright 
 career at the murder of the dictator, and had terrified the na- 
 tions by the eclipse of his divine countenance. 8 The courtiers 
 
 1 Monum. Ancyr. 4. Comp. Dion, li. 22. Ovid. Fast. i. 649. v. 157. 
 vi. 637. At ii. 63. of the same work he addresses the emperor as " templo- 
 rum positor, templorum sancte repostor : " and Livy (iv. 20.) calls him, u tem- 
 plorum omnium conditor aut restitutor." 
 
 9 The temple of Mars Ultor, of gigantic proportions, " Et deus est ingena 
 et opus," was erected in the new forum of Augustus at the foot of the Capi- 
 toline and Quirinal hills. Ovid describes it, Fast. v. 650. foil. 
 3 Virg. Georg, i. 446. : 
 
 " Hie etiam extincto miseratus Csesare Roman, 
 Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine tinxit, 
 Impiaque seternam timuerunt saecula noctem." 
 
 Comp. Ovid, Metam. xv. 786.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 25 
 
 of Augustus insinuated that their patron was inspired by an 
 effluence from this glorious being : to him they ventured to 
 ascribe the real parentage of the restorer of the city, as its 
 founder had sprung from the auspicious passion of Mars for 
 Rhea. 1 When they came into his presence they could not 
 flatter him more adroitly than by dropping their eyes to the 
 ground, as if dazzled by the encounter with his celestial radi- 
 ance. 3 Besides building a splendid temple to Apollo on the 
 Palatine hill, the emperor sought to honour him by transplant- 
 ing to the Circus Maximus, the sports of which were under 
 his special protection, an obelisk from Heliopolis in Egypt. 
 This flame-shaped column was a symbol of the sun, and origi- 
 nally bore a blazing orb upon its summit. It is interesting to 
 trace an intelligible motive for the first introduction into Eu- 
 rope of these grotesque and unsightly monuments of eastern 
 superstition. 
 
 Descending from the heights, and quitting the open spaces 
 of the city, which afforded commanding eminences and ample 
 room for his most august constructions, the re- Restoration of 
 storer of antiquity next proceeded to revive the woreh^oTthe 
 modest and retiring worship of the streets and LareSi 
 lanes. The three hundred shrines, all of imposing magnitude, 
 which Virgil assures us he dedicated throughout the city to 
 the " gods of Italy," were in fact, not temples of the Olym- 
 pian deities, such as have been mentioned above, but fanes or 
 chapels of Stata Mater the Steadfast Earth, and the Lares, or 
 domestic Genii, erected in every vicus or district, for the com- 
 mon worship of the locality. Notwithstanding the grandeur 
 of their attributes and the attraction of their magnificent 
 ceremonials, the greater divinities, imported from Greece and 
 Asia, never fully acquired the sympathies of the genuine Ital- 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 94. ; Dion, xlv. 1. 
 
 * Suet. Oct. 79. : " Oculos habuit claros ac nitidos, quibus etram existimari 
 rolebat inesse quoddam divini vigoris, gaudebatque si quis acrius contuenti, 
 quasi ad fulgorem soils, vultum submitteret." Comp. Plin. Hist. Nat. xi. 32. 
 Aurel. Viet. Epit. 1. Viig. JEn. viii. : " Geminas cuitempora flammasLaeta 
 vomunt."
 
 26 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 ians, who still clung with unabated interest to the simple ser- 
 vice of their old household patrons, the symbols, in their view, 
 of permanence and security. The Roman might carry his 
 Penates with him to every quarter of the globe, but his Lares 
 still remained at home, and continued to consecrate his do- 
 mestic hearth, and assure the safety of the neighbourhood. 
 While Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, had each their patrician 
 Flamens, the Lares were served by freedmen and plebeians. 1 
 The masters of quarters (magistri vicorum), churchwardens, 
 as we might call them, of parishes, were chosen from the 
 local population itself, and constituted an integral part of the 
 municipal government of the city. At a later period in his 
 reign, the emperor seems to have so far yielded to the irre- 
 sistible propensity of his people to make him an object of 
 worship, as to have allowed his own name to be associated 
 with these semi-divinities, and his image to be erected along 
 with theirs, and that of the faithful dog who watched to- 
 gether with the Lares and himself over the domestic security 
 of the citizens. 2 The festival of the Street-games, 8 which 
 from the time of the Sabine Tatius had been celebrated on 
 the calends of May, was now repeated twice annually, on that 
 day, and again in August, 4 in honour of the imperial demi- 
 god who had taken it under his special patronage, and who 
 
 I See Egger, Historiens cTAuguste, in his curious essay on the Augustales, 
 p. 369. foil. Porphyrion and Acron, the scholiasts of Horace, ad Serm. ii. 3. 
 281. say, " Ab Augusto Lares, id est, Dii domestic! positi sunt ; ex libertinis 
 sacerdotes dati qui Augustales appellati." " Jusserat enim Augustus in com- 
 pitis Deos Penates (Lares) constitui, ut studiosius colerentur. Erant autem 
 libertini sacerdotes qui Augustales dicuntur." 
 
 II Ovid, Fast. v. 129. foil. : 
 
 "Et canis ante pedes saxo fabricatus eodem . . . 
 Mille Lares Geniumque Ducis qui tradidit illos 
 
 Urbs habet, et vici numina trina colunt." 
 Hence we have numerous votive inscriptions, Laribus Augustis. 
 
 3 Hence in Virgil, jEn. viii. 7 IT. : 
 
 " Lsetitia ludisque vice, plausuque fremebant." 
 
 4 Suet. Oct. 31. : " Compitales Lares ornari bis anno instituit, vernis flori- 
 bus et sestivis."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 27 
 
 gradually became the central object of this popular worship 
 throughout Rome and Italy, and at least the western prov- 
 inces of the empire. 1 
 
 During his long tenure of power, and especially after as- 
 suming the functions of the chief priesthood, Augustus ex- 
 tended his restoring care to every branch of reli- Temples re- 
 gious service. He revived various solemn games, " ^ 
 which combined the cultivation of religion with minu8 - 
 the amusement of the people ; he increased the number of the 
 special priesthoods and of their individual members, to ad- 
 vance the honour of the gods, and the dignity of the noble 
 officials ; a nor did he renounce the principles of religious tole- 
 ration, which were ordinarily extended by the Roman govern- 
 ment to all rituals politically harmless, and not flagrantly im- 
 moral. 3 Besides erecting temples to Jupiter under the names 
 of the Thunderer and the Spoilbearer, Augustus dedicated a 
 large amount of bullion, together with gems and pearls, to 
 the same god, as the tutelar divinity of the Capitol, the cita- 
 del of the empire. The sumptuous fane of the Capitoline 
 Jupiter had peculiar claims on the veneration of the Roman 
 citizens ; for not only the great Lord of the earth was wor- 
 shipped in it, but the conservative principle of property itself 
 
 1 This worship of Augustus, or rather perhaps of the Lar of Augustus, as 
 a demigod or genius, is to be distinguished from the later cult of the Csesara 
 as deities, which Augustus himself interdicted at least in Rome. Comp. Hor. 
 Od. iv. 5. 34. : 
 
 " Et Laribus tuum 
 Miscet numen, uti Grsecia Castoris, 
 Et magni memor Herculis." 
 
 As regards the tercentum delubra of Virgil, we find in the Regionarii just 
 265 sediculse enumerated, in each of which were the figures of two Lares, and 
 the genius of the emperor. Hence, Ovid, in round numbers, " Mille Lares." 
 
 a Suet. Oct. 31. : " Sacerdotum etnumerum et dignitatem sed et commoda 
 auxit, prsecipue Vestalium virginum," &c. 
 
 3 Marcianus in Dig. xlvii. 22. : " Sed religionis causa coire non prohiben- 
 tur, dum tamen per hoc non fiat contra senatusconsultum quo illicita collegia 
 arcentur." Dionysius Hal. (Antiq. Rom. ii. 19.) distinguishes between the 
 toleration and the reception, or as we should say, establishment, of a foreign 
 cult.
 
 28 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 found therein its appropriate symbol. While the statue of 
 Jupiter occupied the usual place of the divinity in the furthest 
 recess of the building, an image of the god Terminus was also 
 placed in the centre of the nave, which was open to the hea- 
 vens. A venerable legend affirmed that when, in the time of 
 the kings, it was requisite to clear a space on the Capitoline 
 to erect on it a temple to the great father of the gods, and 
 the shrines of several lesser divinities were to be removed for 
 the purpose, Terminus alone, the patron of boundaries, re- 
 fused to quit his place, and demanded to be included within 
 the walls of the new edifice. 1 Thus propitiated, he was under- 
 stood to declare that henceforth the bounds of 
 gurai iimita- the republic should never be narrowed ; and the 
 
 tion, and the . 3 , ,, , /j-.-. -, -, , -, . 
 
 consecration of pledge was more than fulfilled by the ever-increas- 
 ing circuit of her dominion. But the solicitude 
 of this tutelary divinity was not confined to maintaining the 
 frontier of the empire ; as guardian of the public domain he 
 presided over the measurement or limitation of every civic 
 territory, and the private estates assigned out of it ; his 
 bound-stones were erected to mark out each separate divi- 
 sion, consecrated with rustic offerings, and hallowed with 
 solemn formularies. 9 Whenever a portion of a conquered 
 district was to be allotted to a community or a citizen, the 
 augur, with his staff in his hand, turning himself to the aus- 
 picious quarter of the heavens, first drew an imaginary line 
 
 1 Ovid, Fast. iL 667. : 
 
 " Terminus, ut veteres memorant, conventua in ffide 
 Restitit, et magno cum Jove templa tenet" 
 
 a The citizen who removed a landmark was devoted to the gods ; the slave 
 was thrown into chains or subjected to hard labour : but if he had acted under 
 the authority of his master, he was put to death with all his family, by way, 
 as it would seem, of punishing his guilty owner. See the formula in the 
 Scriptores Rei Agrarise, p. 258. ed. Goes. These penalties were commuted 
 to a fine by a law of Caius Caesar (lex Mamilia, &c.), which Mommsen ascribes 
 to the Dictator. But this opinion is controverted by Rudorff, and I have little 
 doubt that its real author was Caius Caligula. See Lachmann's Momische 
 Feldmesser, ii. 223. 244. The law in question is preserved ha the Pandects. 
 See Digest, xlvii. 21. de termino moto.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 29 
 
 across it from end to end in a direction vertical to himself, 
 then another at right angles to it from right to left, thus di- 
 viding it in his mind into four equal portions. 1 The portions 
 thus designated were then separated by balks of certain width, 
 and again subdivided into smaller parallelograms, according 
 to the number of lots required. Each lot was marked by 
 bound-stones at its corners and points of intersection, and 
 along its edges trees of foreign origin were planted, as a 
 standing witness to the artificial character of the limitation.* 
 If the space thus allotted was not, as of course it seldom or 
 never was, strictly rectangular, the remainder was excluded 
 from this geometrical division, and reserved as the peculiar 
 property of the state. When the appointed forms had been 
 completed, the estate of the citizen or colonist was placed 
 under the protection of the god Terminus ; and the boundaries 
 once assigned, marked out, and consecrated, could never 
 again be changed, whatever change might occur in their 
 ownership. If, for instance, one of these rectangles or fundi 
 became divided between more than a single proprietor, the 
 fundus still remained distinct, and for purposes of taxation 
 was reckoned as an unit. 8 This mode of laud-measuring was 
 a science derived from the Etruscans, and is perhaps first 
 brought to our notice by a fragment of writing which dates 
 from the fifth century of the city. 4 It was, however, at least 
 
 1 Originally the augur faced the west ; afterwards he took a contrary posi- 
 tion. This appears from Varro, cited by Frontinus, de limitibus. Hyginua 
 de Urn. const, in Lachmann, i. 27. 166., compared with p. 169. See Rudorff's 
 Gromatische Instit. p. 343. foil, of the second volume of Lachmann's collec- 
 tion. 
 
 9 It is not surprising that these bound-stones, which undoubtedly were 
 maintained in innumerable instances for a thousand years, should have utterly 
 disappeared. They furnished the readiest materials for building and the re- 
 pair of roads. Besides, they were usually placed over pieces of money, like 
 the foundation-stones of our modern edifices, and were no doubt often torn up 
 for the sake of the concealed treasure. 
 
 3 Though the territory of Italy, and the whole ager Eomanus throughout 
 the provinces, was exempted from the land-tax, it did not escape the succes- 
 sion tax imposed by Augustus. 
 
 4 See the fragment ascribed to the augur Vegoia in the Script. Rei. Agr. 
 p. 258. ed. Goes., 5. 350. ed. Lachmann.
 
 30 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 as ancient as the Etruscan kings of Rome. The divisions of 
 land made by the Gracchi and Sulla, and by the kings them- 
 selves, continued to be known by their irremovable bound- 
 stones down to a late period of the empire. Though the 
 stones or termini themselves have long been uprooted from 
 the soil, it is said that the names of the original fundi may 
 still be traced both in Italy and Gaul in the modern appella- 
 tions of certain well-known farms. 1 
 
 The writers on this abstruse subject contain numerous no- 
 tices of the limitations effected by Augustus, and the stones 
 Respected by set U P ^7 ^ s authority are referred to by his 
 Augustus. name.* Some of them mark, we may suppose, 
 the ktest assignments of land he made to his veterans after 
 Actium ; but even in the turbulence of the triumvirate the 
 formalities of ancient usage were not perhaps disregarded in 
 this particular. The land-measurer or agrimensor preceded 
 the veteran with his pole and chain to mark out the appointed 
 allotment ; * but the rude soldier entered into possession 
 sword in hand, and hardly sheathed it either to sow or reap 
 the harvest. He paid perhaps little respect to the bound- 
 stones set up for him, or even waited for the completion of 
 augural forms. The emperor, however, was solicitous to re- 
 pair whatever irregularities had occurred in the original ap- 
 propriation, and studied to revive the honours of Terminus in 
 conjunction with those of Jupiter himself. 4 
 
 1 Nlebuhr (Rom. Hist. ii. 629.) refers to two estates in the Campagna 
 known by the name of la Roiana and la Cipollara, which he considers to be 
 fundi Roianus and Ceponianus. A M. Bausset, cited by Dureau de la Malle, 
 has discovered no less than twenty-five such names of Roman proprietors pre- 
 served in villages, hamlets, and farms, in the neighbourhood of Beziers in 
 France. De la Malle, Econ. pol. des Remains, i. 183. 
 
 a We meet with mention not only of termini Gracchani and Sullani, but 
 Augustei, Neroniani, Vespasiani, &c. They were inscribed with numbers or 
 figures, plated with brass, and differed from one another in shape. Those of 
 Augustus and Caligula were rotundi, perhaps rounded at the head ; others 
 were quadrati . In the Script. Rei Ayr. are many rude figures of these ter- 
 mini, copied from the MSS. 
 
 * Propert. iv. 1. 130. : " Abstulit excultas pertica iristis opes." 
 
 4 "Terminos rotundos quos Augusteos vocamus, pro hac ratione quod
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 3^ 
 
 The restoration of the temples of Juno "by Augustus and 
 his consort indicated the interest the new government felt in 
 the institution of marriage. Neither the history p rinci pieof] 
 nor literature of Rome can be understood without man marr iage. 
 clear ideas upon this branch of her social economy. All na- 
 tions have agreed in investing marriage with a religious sanc- 
 tion ; but religion and policy were closely connected through 
 every phase of the social life of the Romans, and in none more 
 closely than in this. 1 Marriage they regarded as an institu- 
 tion hallowed by the national divinities for the propagation 
 of the Roman race, the special favourite of the gods. Its ob- 
 ject was not to chasten the affections and purify the appetites 
 of man, but to replenish the curies and centuries, to maintain 
 the service of the national temples, to recruit the legions and 
 establish Roman garrisons in conquered lands. The marriage 
 therefore of Caius and Caia, of a Roman with a Roman, was 
 a far higher and holier matter, in the view of their priests 
 and legislators, than the union of a Roman with a foreigner, 
 of aliens with aliens, or of slaves with slaves. Even the legiti- 
 mate union of the sexes among the citizens was regulated by 
 the descending scale of confarreation, coemption, and mere co- 
 habitation ; and the offspring of the former only were quali- 
 fied for the highest religious functions, such as those of the 
 Flamen of Jupiter, and apparently of the Vestal Virgins, on 
 which the safety of the state was deemed most strictly to 
 depend. 2 
 
 These jealous regulations were fostered in the first instance 
 by a grave political necessity ; but the increase of the power 
 
 Augustus eos recensuit, et ubi defuerunt lapides alios constituit." Scr. Rei 
 Ayr. p. 255. ed. Goes. The two appendices on the subject of Roman limitation 
 at the end of the second volume of the English translation of Niebuhr's his- 
 tory should be read in conjunction with De la Malle's chapter on the same 
 subject, and RudorfF's Gromatische Institutionen, in Lachmann's edition of 
 the Scr. Rei Agrarice. 
 
 1 Modestinus in the Digest, xxiii. 2. 1., has a fine definition of marriage: 
 " Nuptiae sunt conjunctio maris et fceminae, consortium omnis vitse, divini et 
 humani juris communicatio." 
 
 a See Dezobry, Rome aw Siecle cFAuguste, ii. 436.
 
 32 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 Fallen into dig- ^ R me > ^ e enlargement of her resources, the 
 
 favour and multiplication of her allies, her clients and de- 
 desuetude. . 
 
 pendents, had long relaxed her vigilance in main- 
 taining the purity of her children's descent. 1 The dictates 
 of nature, reinforced by the observation of foreign examples, 
 had long rebelled in this matter against the tyrannical pre- 
 scriptions of a barbarous antiquity. After the eastern con- 
 quests of the Republic it became impossible to maintain the 
 race in its state of social isolation. In his winter quarters at 
 Athens, Samos, or Ephesus, the rude husbandman of Alba or 
 the Volscian hills was dazzled by the fascinations of women, 
 whose accomplishments fatally eclipsed the homely virtues 
 of the Latin and Sabine matrons. To form legitimate con- 
 nexions with these foreign charmers was forbidden him by 
 the harsh institutions of a Servius or Numa ; while his ideas 
 were so narrowed and debased by bad laws, that he never 
 dreamt of raising his own countrywomen by education to the 
 level of their superior attractions. Gravely impressing upon 
 his wife and daughters that to sing and dance, to cultivate 
 the knowledge of languages, to exercise the taste and under- 
 standing, was the business of the hired courtesan, 8 it was to 
 the courtesan that he repaired himself for the solace of hi.s 
 own lighter hours. The Hetaerae of Greece had been driven 
 to the voluptuous courts of Asia by the impoverishment, and 
 perhaps the declining refinement, of their native entertain- 
 ers. They were now invited to the great western capital of 
 wealth and luxury, where they shared with viler objects the 
 admiration of the Roman nobles, and imparted perhaps a 
 
 1 Horace, Od. iii. 6. 17. : 
 
 " Foecunda culpte ssecula nuptias 
 Primum inquinavere, et genus, et domos : 
 Hoc fonte derivata clades 
 
 In patriam populumque fluxit." 
 
 5 See the well known description of the accomplishments of the matron 
 Sempronia, Sallust, Catil. 25.: "Hsec mulier genere atque forma, prseterea 
 viro, liberis, satis fortunata fuit : literis Graecis atque Latinis docta ; psallere, 
 ealtare, elegantius quam necesse est probes ; multa alia quse instrumenta luxu- 
 rise sunt." Comp. Plautus, Rudens, prol. 43., and Terence, Phorm. i. 2. 86.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 33 
 
 shade of sentiment and delicacy to their most sensual carouses. 
 The unnatural restrictions of the law formed a decent excuse 
 for this class of unions, which were often productive of mu- 
 tual regard, and were hallowed at least at the shrine of pub- 
 lic opinion. 
 
 Such fortunate cases were, however, at the best, only ex- 
 ceptional. For the most part, the Grecian mistress of the pro- 
 consul or imperator, the object of a transient ap- i n fl uen ceoftho 
 petite, sought to indemnify herself by venal ra- freed women - 
 pacity for actual contempt and anticipated desertion. The in- 
 fluence of these seductive intriguers poisoned the springs of 
 justice before the provincial tribunals. At an earlier period 
 a brutal general could order a criminal to be beheaded at his 
 supper table, to exhibit to his paramour the spectacle of 
 death : * at a later, the luxurious governor of a province al- 
 lowed his freedwoman to negotiate with his subjects for the 
 price of their rights and privileges, or carried her at his side 
 in his progress through Italy itself. 3 The frantic declama- 
 
 1 This is the story told of L. Flaminius by Valerius Maximus, ii. 9. 3. 
 Cicero alludes to it, de Senect. 12. : " Invitus quidem feci ut L. Flamininum 
 . . . . e Senatu ejicerem, octo annis postquam consul fuisset ; sed notandam 
 putavi libidinem." Livy's version of the same story is still more atrocious. 
 It may be amusing to compare with it the ingenuous confession of Napoleon 
 I. to Las Cases, in speaking of a connexion he had formed in his first Italian 
 campaign. " J'etais bien jeune alors, j'etais heureux, et fier de mon petit suc- 
 ces ; aussi cherchai je a le reconnaitre par toutes les attentions en mon pou- 
 voir; et TOUS allez voir quel peut etre 1'abua de 1'autorite, a quoi peut tenirle 
 Bort des hommes ; car je ne suis par pire qu'un autre. La promenant un jour au 
 milieu de nos positions, dans les environs, au Col de Tende, il me vient subite- 
 ment 1'idee de lui donner le spectacle d'une petite guerre, et j'ordonnai une 
 attaque d'avant-poste. Nous fumes vainqueurs, il est vrai, mais evidemment 
 il ne pouvait y avoir de resultat ; 1'attaque etait une pure fantaisie, et pour- 
 tant quelques hommes y resterent. Aussi, plus tard, toutes les fois que le 
 souvenir m'en est revenu a 1'esprit, je me le suis fort reproche." Las Cases, 
 Mem. de 8. Helene, i. 169. 
 
 8 See the account of Chelidon, the mistress of Verres, Cic. in Verr. i. 40., 
 ii. 47., iv. 32., v. 18., and of Cytheris, Philipp. ii. We can hardly wonder 
 that the Romans, with their formal notions of the institution of marriage, 
 should have entertained no moral disapprobation of these connections. It 
 was only in a political point of view that the concubinatus of a citizen with a 
 foreign pellex was regarded as a mesalliance. But the pellex must be a free 
 VOL. iv. 3
 
 34: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 tions of Cicero against the licentiousness of Verres and An- 
 tonius in this respect were a fruitless and, it must be ad- 
 mitted, a hollow attempt to play upon an extinct religious 
 sentiment. 
 
 The results of this vicious indulgence were more depraving 
 than the vice itself. The unmarried Roman, thus cohabiting 
 with a freedwoman or slave, became the father 
 of a bastard brood, against whom the gates of the 
 city were shut. His pride was wounded in the 
 tenderest part ; his loyalty to the commonwealth was shaken. 
 He chose rather to abandon the wretched offspring of his 
 amours, than to breed them up as a reproach to himself, and 
 see them sink below the rank in which their father was born. 
 In the absence of all true religious feeling, the possession of 
 children was the surest pledge to the state of the public 
 morality of her citizens. By the renunciation of marriage, 
 which it became the fashion to avow and boast, public con- 
 fidence was shaken to its centre. 1 On the other hand, the 
 women themselves, insulted by the neglect of the other sex, 
 and exasperated at the inferiority of their position, revenged 
 themselves by holding the institution of legitimate marriage 
 with almost equal aversion. They were indignant at the ser- 
 vitude to which it bound them, the state of dependence and 
 legal incapacity in which it kept them ; for it left them with- 
 out rights, and without the enjoyment of their own property : 
 it reduced them to the status of mere children, or rather 
 transferred them from the power of their parent to that of 
 
 woman : commerce with a slave, where the choice was not free on both sides, 
 was esteemed dishonourable, and the high-minded Roman generally enfran- 
 chised the object of his desire. Walckenaer has put this subject in its true 
 light in his Histoire d 1 Horace, i. 110. foL 
 
 1 See the praises of celibacy in Plautus, Mil. Glor. iii. 1. 111. fol. : 
 "Quando habeo multos cognates quid opus sit mihi liberis?" etc. Comp. 
 Plin. Hist. Nat. xiv. procem. : " Coepisse orbitatem in auctoritate summa et 
 potentia esse, captationem in quaestu maximo." Tac. Ann. xiii. 52. Senec. 
 Cons, ad Marc. 19. Augustus says, in Dion, Ivi. 7. : ov yap 5^ ou p.ovav\ia 
 Xaipfrf, 1v &vev yvvatKuv Sidyrirt, ovSf itrriv tons vfitav tj fftTtircu novos f\ 
 vfiplfav Kal ifft\yaiv(
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 35 
 
 their husband. They continued through life, in spite of the 
 mockery of respect with which the laws surrounded them, 1 
 things rather than persons ; things that could be sold, trans- 
 ferred backwards and forwards, from one master to another, 
 for the sake of their dowry or even their powers of child- 
 bearing.* For the smallest fault the wife might be placed on 
 trial before her husband, or if he were more than usually con- 
 siderate in judging upon his own case, before a council of her 
 relations. She might be beaten with rods, even to death it- 
 self, for adultery or any other heinous crime ; while she might 
 suffer divorce from the merest caprice, and simply for the loss 
 of her youth or beauty. 3 
 
 The latter centuries of the Roman commonwealth are filled 
 with the domestic struggles occasioned by the obstinacy with 
 which political restrictions were maintained upon 
 
 /.., t i ^ -n Struggles of tho 
 
 the most sensitive of the social relations. Begin- women against 
 ning with wild and romantic legends, the account 
 of these troubles becomes in the end an important feature in 
 history. As early as the year 423, it is said, a great number 
 of Roman matrons attempted the lives of their husbands by 
 poison. They were dragged before the tribunals, probably 
 domestic, and adjudged to death. As many as a hundred and 
 seventy are said to have suffered. 4 In the following century, 
 after the promulgation of the Oppian law, which forbade 
 
 1 For these outward signs of respect, see particularly Ovid, Art. Amand. 
 i. 32. Festus, in voc. Matronse. 
 
 * The well-known story of Cato and his wife Marcia has been related in an 
 early chapter of this history. Plut. Cat. Min. 36. 68. Comp. Plaut. Mencechm. 
 in fin.: 
 
 " Venibunt servi, subpellex, fundi, sedes, omnia .... 
 
 Venibit uxor quoque etiam, si quis emptor venerit." 
 
 The uxor is the legitimate wife who has contracted nuptice, a Roman marriage. 
 Conjux is a term of much wider application. 
 
 * Valerius Maximus (vi. 3.) tells of Egnatius Metellus, who flogged his 
 wife to death for drinking wine. Comp. Plin. H. N. xiv. 13. ; Gell. x. 23., 
 and the passage in Plautus, Mercator, iv. 6. : 
 
 " Ecastor lege dura vivunt mulieres, 
 
 Multoque iniquiore miserae quam viri," etc. 
 4 Liv. viii. 18. Val. Max. ii. 6. 3.
 
 36 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 women to keep more than half an ounce of gold, to wear 
 robes of various colours, and to ride in the carpentum, they 
 formed a new conspiracy such at least was the story not to 
 destroy their husbands, but to refuse conversation with them 
 and frustrate their hopes of progeny. 1 This was followed at 
 the distance of half a century by the Lex Voconia, the most 
 unjust of laws, in the judgment of the Christian Augustine, 
 which excluded women from the right of inheriting.* Of 
 these laws, however, the first was speedily abrogated," the 
 other was evaded, and, by underhand and circuitous means, 
 women came to receive inheritances, to the great scandal, as 
 we shall hereafter see, of the reformers under the empire.* 
 But the continued quarrel of the sexes was exaggerated by 
 mutual jealousy, and at the outbreak of the Catilinarian con- 
 spiracy, it was currently reported among the men, that the 
 traitors obtained money for their enterprise from a multitude 
 of matrons, who longed for a bloody revolution to extermi- 
 nate their husbands.* 
 
 In the primitive ages the state had not only regulated the 
 forms of marriage, but had undertaken to enforce it. Among 
 Legislation of * ne duties of the censors was that of levying fines 
 for ^forcing upon the citizen who persisted in remaining single 
 marriage. ^ t k e Detriment of the public weal. The censure 
 of Camillus and Postumius, A. u. 351, was celebrated for the 
 patriotic vigour with which this inquisition was made.' In 
 
 1 Ovid, Fast. L 620. folL 
 
 * Augustin. de Civ. Dei, iii. 21. The severity of this law is also stigma- 
 tized in the Institutions of Justinian (iii. 2.), and the modifications explained 
 which were introduced by the imperial legislation. 
 
 1 The Lei Oppia was abrogated A. c. 657, under the consulship of 1L Por- 
 cius Cato and L. Valerius Flaccus. The abrogation was proposed by the tri- 
 bunes Fundanius and Valerius, and carried with the help of clamour and agi- 
 tation on the part of the women, against the resistance of Cato and some of 
 their own colleagues. Liv. xxiiv. 1. folL 
 
 4 Tac. Ann. iii. 23. : " Quae Oppiis quondam aliisque legibus constricts, 
 nunc vinclis eisolutis domos jam et exercitus regerent." 
 
 * Appian, Bell. Civ. ii. 2. : xrfn*ra 8e aytlpuv ToAXa ira/>i ToXAwy ywtu- 
 KU, 01 TOWI &v5pas fartfov iv ry ivavturrafffi 
 
 * VaL Max. ii. 9. 1. Plut Camill. 2.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 37 
 
 process of time the milder method of encouraging marriage 
 by rewards was introduced, the earliest mention of which, 
 perhaps, is in a speech of Scipio, censor in the year 554. At 
 this time, it appears, certain immunities were already granted 
 to the fathers of legitimate, and even of adopted, children, 
 which last the censor denounced as an abuse. 1 But neither 
 rewards nor penalties proved effectual to check the increasing 
 tendency to celibacy, and at the period of the Gracchi an 
 alarm was sounded that the old Roman race was becoming 
 rapidly extinguished. The censor of the year 623, Metellus 
 Macedonicus, expounded the evil to the senate in a speech 
 which seems to have been among the most curious produc- 
 tions of antiquity. Could we exist without wives at all, it be- 
 gan, doubtless we should all rid ourselves of the plague they are 
 to us : since, however, nature has decreed that we cannot dis- 
 pense with the infliction, it is best to bear it manfully, and 
 rather look to the permanent conservation of the state than to 
 our own transient satisfaction* It is still more curious, per- 
 haps, that above a hundred years afterwards Augustus should 
 have ventured to recite in the polished senate of his own 
 generation the cynical invective of a ruder age. But, so it 
 was, that when the legislation of Julius Caesar was found 
 ineffectual for controlling the still growing evil, it was rein- 
 forced by his successor with fresh penalties and rewards, and 
 the bitter measure recommended by the arguments and even 
 the language of the ancient censor. 8 
 
 1 Cell. v. 19. Compare Liv. xlv. 16. Heinecc. Antiq. Roman, i. 25. 3. 
 Cicero approves of this kind of legislation. See de Legg. iii. : " Caelibes esse 
 prohibento." 
 
 2 Cell. i. 6. : "Si sine uxore, Quirites, possemus esse, omnes ea molestia 
 careremus : sed quoniam ita natura tradidit, ut nee cum illis satis commode, 
 nee sine illis ullo modo vivi possit, saluti perpetuae potius quam brevi volup- 
 tati consulendum." That the censor was Metellus Macedonicus, not Numidi- 
 cus, appears from Liv. Epit. lix. Gellius quotes a very noble sentiment from 
 another part of the same speech. 
 
 * Suet. Oct. 89. : "Etiam libros totog et senatui recitavit et populo notos 
 per edictum saepe fecit : ut orationes Q. Metelli de augenda prole, et Rutilii de 
 modo (edificiorum : quo magis persuaderet utramque rem non a se primo ani- 
 madversam, sed antiquis jam tune cures fuisse." 
 
 ~;
 
 38 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 The importance attached by the emperor to this fruitless 
 legislation appears from his turning his efforts in this direc- 
 tion from the first year of his return to Rome. 
 
 Legislation of .__. , - - . , A . . . 
 
 Augustus on When he took the census with Agnppa, in 725, 
 
 this subject. , . . , , . ' I S. i 
 
 he insisted on carrying into execution the regula- 
 tions of the dictator, which had been neglected during the in- 
 A.U. 725. terval of anarchy, and were destined speedily to 
 B.C. 29. f a n m to similar neglect again. Upon this one 
 point the master of the Romans could make no impression upon 
 the dogged disobedience of his subjects. Both the men and 
 the women preferred the loose terms of union upon which they 
 had consented to cohabit to the harsh provisions of antiquity. 
 They despised rewards, and penalties they audaciously defied. 
 Eleven years later Augustus caused the senate to pass a new 
 law of increased stringency, by which the marriage of citi- 
 zens of competent age was positively required. Three years' 
 grace was allowed for making a choice and settling prelimi- 
 naries ; but when the allotted interval was expired, it was 
 found expedient to prolong it for two years more : from time 
 to time a further respite seems to have been conceded, and 
 we shall find the emperor still struggling almost to the close 
 of his life, to impose this intolerable restraint upon the liberty 
 or licence of the times. The consent of the senators them- 
 selves, subservient as they generally were, was given with 
 murmurs of reluctance, the more so, perhaps, as they alone 
 were excepted from the indulgence, which was now prudently 
 extended to every lower order of citizens, of permission to 
 form a legitimate marriage with a freedwoman. 1 The meas- 
 ure was received indeed with outward deference, but an in- 
 ward determination to evade or overthrow it. Even the 
 poets, who were instructed to sing its praises, renounced the 
 obligation to fulfil its conditions ; while others, whose voices 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 16. ; who gives as the reason for the relaxation the dispropor- 
 tion of freeborn males to females, Ivi. 7. Comp. Dig. xxiii. 2. 44. Suet. 
 Oct. 34. : " Prae tumultu recusantium perferre non potuit nisi adempta demum 
 lenitave parte pcenarum, et vacatione triennii data, auctisque praemiis."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 39 
 
 were generally tuned to accents of adulation, exulted openly 
 in its relaxation or postponement. 1 
 
 The nature of the penalties and rewards assigned by this 
 law shows that the views of Augustus were for the most part 
 confined to the rehabilitation of marriage in the penalties of 
 higher classes, and the restoration of the purest ^^ of d 
 blood of Rome. On the one hand, celibacy was marriage. 
 punished by incapacity to receive bequests, and even the mar- 
 ried man who happened to be childless, was regarded with 
 suspicion, and mulcted of one half of every legacy. 2 On the 
 other, the father of a family enjoyed a place of distinction in 
 the theatres, and preference in competition for public office. 
 He was relieved from the responsibilities of a tutor or a 
 judex, and, as by the earlier measure of the dictator, was 
 excused from a portion of the public burdens, if father of 
 three children at Rome, of four in Italy, or of five in the 
 provinces. Of the two consuls, precedence was given, not 
 to the senior in age, according to ancient usage, but to the 
 husband and the father of the most numerous offspring. 3 It 
 
 1 Horace and Propertius were both unmarried. The former muttered, in 
 language which seems even by its languor and prosaic structure to betray its 
 insincerity (Carm. S&c.), 
 
 " Diva, producas subolem, Patrumque 
 Prosperes decreta super jugandis 
 Foaminis, prolisque novae feraci 
 
 Lege marita." 
 
 The latter exclaimed, with all the fervour of genuine triumph (ii. 6. 2.), 
 " Gavisa es certes sublatam Cynthia legem, 
 
 Qua quondam edicta flemus uterque diu, 
 Ne nos divideret : quamvis diducere amantes 
 
 Non queat invitos Jupiter ipse duos ! " 
 
 s Tac. Ann. xv. 19. Dion, liii. 13. Gaii Instit. ii. 111. 286. Cooip. 
 Juvenal, ix. 87. : 
 
 " Jura parentis habes ; propter me scriberis hseres ; 
 Legatum omne capis, necnon et dulce caducum." 
 
 8 Gell. ii. 15. Besides the classical authorities here cited the reader may 
 refer to the fragments of Ulpian, published in Booking's Corpus Juris Ante- 
 justinianei, and the modern writers on jurisprudence, such as Heineccius, 
 Gothofred, Schulting, Brisson, and others who have written treatises upon the
 
 40 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 is clear that such provisions as these could have had little 
 application to the great mass of the citizens, who lived on the 
 favour of their noble patrons or the bounty of the treasury, 
 and bred up a horde of paupers to eat into the vitals of the 
 state. 
 
 The perverse subjects of this domestic legislation seem at 
 first to have sought to evade it by entering into contracts of 
 Penalties of un- marriage which they afterwards omitted to fulfil, 
 chastity. j^ was necessary to enact new provisions to meet 
 
 this subterfuge. The facility allowed by the ancient usage 
 to divorce formed another obvious means of escape : but 
 again did the vigilant reformer interfere by appointing the 
 observation of onerous forms for the legal separation of mar- 
 ried persons. 1 When a divorce had actually taken place, the 
 parties fell again under the provisions of the marriage law, and 
 were required to find themselves fresh consorts within a speci- 
 fied interval. 2 Another mode of driving the reluctant citizens 
 within the marriage pale was the infliction of penalties and dis- 
 grace upon unchastity beyond it : while now, for the first time, 
 adultery, which had been left to be punished by the domestic 
 tribunal as a private injury, was branded as a crime against the 
 general well being, and subjected to the animadversion of the 
 Btate.' But Augustus was not satisfied with directing his thun- 
 ders against the guilty ; he sought to anticipate criminality by 
 imposing fresh restraints upon the licentious manners of the 
 age. After the example of his predecessors in the censorship, 
 
 Lex Papia Poppsea, or reconstructed it from the notices of antiquity. The 
 particulars here given may be found in all compilations on Roman law. 
 
 1 Paulus in Dig. xxiv. 2. 9. : " Xullum divortium ratum est, nisi septem 
 civibus Rom. puberibus adhibitis, prseter libertum ejus qui divortium faciet." 
 
 4 Ulpian, fr. xiv. : " Fceminis lex Julia a morte viri anni tribuit vacationem, 
 a divortio sex mensium : lex autem Papia a morte viri biennii, a repudio anni 
 et sex mensium." The fragment seems to be incomplete, and probably went 
 on to specify the interval allowed to the male sex. 
 
 * Suetonius, Oct. 34., calls this law, " Lex de adulteriis et pudicitia." For 
 the particulars see Dig. xlviii. 6. 
 
 Horace, Od. iv. 5. : " Mos et lex maculosum edomuit nefas." 
 
 The punishment of adultery consisted in heavy pecuniary fines, and ban- 
 ishment to an island, and seems therefore applicable only to the higher classes.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. ^ 
 
 he fixed a scale of expense for the luxuries of the table, and 
 pretended to regulate the taste of the women for personal orna- 
 ments. At the gladiatorial shows, from which they could no 
 longer be excluded, he assigned different places for the two 
 sexes, removing the women to the hinder rows, the least fa- 
 vourable either for seeing or being seen, and altogether for- 
 bade them to assist at the exhibitions of wrestling and boxing. 
 The main principles of the old Roman polity were founded 
 upon the distinction of classes, and in order to revive or rein- 
 force them, the conservative legislator determined 
 to mark the distinction by outward tokens. The the distinction 
 word of command went forth, let every Roman 
 know his own place and keep it. The law of Roscius Otho 
 had separated the knights from the body of the people, and 
 assigned them the first fourteen rows in the theatre. But 
 this ordinance had been invaded, in the confusion of the 
 times, by the rampant democracy of Ca?sar and Antonius : a 
 plain soldier had been known to intrude himself into the 
 places thus set apart for the privileged order ; and Augustus 
 himself had beheld a senator enter the theatre, where every 
 seat was already occupied, and no man rise to make room for 
 him. Freedmen, under pretence of being attached to the ser- 
 vice of foreign potentates, had penetrated the orchestra itself, 
 which was strictly appropriated to the senators. These ir- 
 regularities were regarded as the symptom of a dislocation 
 of all social principles. Henceforth they were corrected, and 
 with the correction it was hoped that the spirit of antiquity 
 would revive. The soldiers were kept separate from the 
 people, the young from the old, the children's tutors had their 
 proper places assigned them by the side of their charges, the 
 married men were promoted in front of the bachelors, and a 
 sumptuary ordinance relegated to the most distant corners 
 those who ventured to obtrude themselves in unseemly rai- 
 ments. 1 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 44. : " Sanxitque ne pullatorum quisquam media cavea sederet." 
 Compare Calpurnius, at a much later period, Eel. vii. 26. : 
 " Venimus ad sedes ubi pulla sordida veste 
 Inter fcemineas spectabat turba cathedraa."
 
 42 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 "We have already seen how the proprieties of dress and 
 demeanour were again rigidly enforced. The public enter- 
 tainments presented an image of the Roman state, 
 
 Restrictions on ., ^ .. . . , A 
 
 the manumis- and there at least the citizen was required to ap- 
 
 sion of slaves. . ,, ,, -, . , , / . i 
 
 pear in full dress, in the costume of the ancient 
 Quirites. He was forbidden to reject the warm and cum- 
 brous toga for the light habiliments of slaves and foreigners. 
 The practice in which knights and even senators had some- 
 times indulged, of showing their skill in dancing and acting 
 upon the public stage, was now sternly prohibited. The Ro- 
 man must give way neither to ease nor vanity. But the 
 primitive sense of personal dignity could scarcely be retained 
 by men who had lost the support of conscious freedom, and 
 the irregularities thus denounced were ready at every moment 
 to break out again, upon the slightest relaxation of vigilance 
 in the government. By imposing a tax upon the manumission 
 of slaves Augustus might hope to limit in some degree the 
 infusion of new and base blood into the veins of the body 
 politic, and no considerations of humanity withheld him from 
 a measure which must have tended to worsen the condition 
 of that unfortunate class. The mild influence of social tran- 
 quillity had not yet succeeded in softening, as was certainly 
 the case in some respects at a later period, the callous indiffer- 
 ence to human suffering engendered by the habits and institu- 
 tions of a race of conquerors. The horrible punishment Au- 
 gustus inflicted on the slaves who had enlisted under Sextus 
 Pompeius, consigning them by thousands to the cross as fugi- 
 tives, was a punctilious recurrence to the prescriptions of 
 ancient law, and was no doubt applauded by the mass of the 
 citizens as a wholesome exercise of authority for the safety 
 of the state. But unfortunately we can discover no certain 
 trace of any later measures of the same emperor for ameliorat- 
 ing the condition of servitude, though one. anecdote at least is 
 told of his interfering to save a slave's life, and another of 
 his refusing to punish the murder of an odious master. 1 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 23. Senec. Nat. Quezst. i. 16. The lex Petronia, by which 
 masters were forbidden to sell their slaves to the exhibitors of combats with
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 43 
 
 The discreet usurper, who shrinks from the name of a 
 revolutionist, will seek, by controlling the interpretation of 
 existing laws, to avoid the necessity of enacting 
 
 ,/ & Jurispru- 
 
 new. Such was eminently the policy of Augus- dence of AU- 
 tus. The legislation of the Triumvirate, if to its s 
 arbitrary decrees such a title may be applied, consisted chiefly 
 in indulgences accorded to certain classes or interests ; and 
 these the new ruler, after faintly excusing them on the plea 
 of momentary necessity, surrendered to be absolutely an- 
 nulled. 1 His own special enactments were directed, as we 
 have seen, to the permanent reconstruction of society upon 
 the basis of at least a pretended antiquity. Every deviation 
 from ancient forms was carefully disguised or plausibly pal- 
 liated. The great body of the Roman law existed for the 
 most part in a mass of traditional precedents, upon which 
 the judicial magistrates formed their own system of procedure. 
 Their arbitrary conclusions were controlled however by the 
 general interpretation of the learned, the patrician juriscon- 
 sults, who still claimed, with more or less success, to be the 
 privileged expounders of the sense of antiquity in these mat- 
 ters, and were still consulted, if not strictly obeyed, by the 
 advocates of their own class. Thus when Servius Sulpicius, 
 the greatest or at least the second, as a learned jurist calls 
 him, of Roman pleaders, was in doubt on a point of law in- 
 volved in a cause with which he was concerned, he asked the 
 opinion of Mucius Scaevola. Not perfectly understanding the 
 reply vouchsafed to him, he laid his difficulty a second, and 
 again a third time, before the oracle ; and at last submitted 
 to the severe rebuke, that it was shameful for a patrician, a 
 noble and an advocate, to be ignorant of the law which he 
 had to administer. Thereupon he applied himself so dili- 
 
 wild beasts, has been referred by many commentators to Augustus. But the 
 term lex, on which they mainly depend, continued to be sometimes used after the 
 abolition of the ancient forms of legislation, and other critics ascribe this law 
 with more probability to the time of Nero. Troplong, Influence du Christian- 
 isme sur le droit Romain, part ii. chap. ii. 
 1 A. r. 726. Tac. Ann. iii. 28. ; Dion, liii. 2.
 
 44 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 gently to the abstruse study, as to acquire the highest reputa- 
 tion therein of any of his countrymen, and to leave them no 
 less than a hundred and eighty volumes of commentaries on 
 the subject, to become a standard authority with succeeding 
 generations. 1 Such influence as a Scaevola or a Sulpicius could 
 thus exert Augustus sought to gain to his own side. His 
 appointment indeed of the pra?tors secured him the interpre- 
 tation of the law in all matters affecting his interests, as far 
 as the edict of these magistrates could go ; but he shrank 
 from suffering the law to issue solely from the mouth of his 
 own officers. The middle course which he devised was to 
 suppress the right of giving opinions hitherto possessed in 
 theory by all patricians indiscriminately, and restrict it to 
 such among them as he chose himself to licence, ostensibly at 
 least for their eminent knowledge and character. This change 
 was not perhaps in fact so startling as it appears ; for the 
 practice of the jurisconsult's prerogative had fallen into gen- 
 eral disuse, and was actually confined to a small number of 
 devoted professors of the science. Such however as it was, it 
 led the way to the systematic development of legal principles, 
 which, as it was the greatest creation of the imperial system, 
 became also the firmest bulwark of its authority, cementing 
 in one massive structure the work of a series of revolutions, 
 and throwing a legitimate sanction over mere military force.* 
 This review of the legislation of Augustus must be closed 
 with some general remarks upon the policy which directed it. 
 
 1 Pomponius in Digest, i. 2. 42. 
 
 * Pomponius (Dig. L 2. 47.) gives a curious account of the two schools of 
 juridical authorities which sprang from the teaching of Ateius Capito and 
 Antistius Labeo respectively. The first of these learned men had yielded to 
 the imperial blandishments, and accepted the consulship as the price of his 
 subserviency ; the other maintained a sturdy independence, devoting himself 
 entirely to the business of his profession. The followers of Capito were at- 
 tached to the old traditions; those of Labeo were innovators and original 
 speculators ; the one was succeeded by Masurius Sabinus, Cassius Longinus, 
 Cffilius Sabinus, Priscus Javolenus, Valens, Tuscianus, and Julianus ; the other 
 by Cocceius Nerva, Proculus, Pegasus, Celsus father and son, and Priscus Xe- 
 ratius. For the characters of Capito and Labeo see Tacitus, Ann. iii. 76.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 4.5 
 
 The name of Julius Caesar \vas the watchword 
 which had cheered the legions of Octavius on to policy of AU- 
 victory, and it continued dear to the mass of the 
 Roman citizens, by whom the conqueror of the oligarchs was 
 still regarded as the legitimate descendant of Marius and the 
 avenger of the Sullan massacres. But the popular writers of 
 the Augustan era, who reflected the sentiments of the court 
 rather than of the people, seem to have shared in a very trifling 
 degree this general enthusiasm. Their almost total silence 
 on Caesar's merits, for Virgil rarely and Horace never once 
 celebrates his praises, must be taken as significant of the 
 peculiar views and policy of their patron. 1 The merits of the 
 father and the son were so distinct that, had such been the 
 pleasure of Augustus, he could have afforded to lavish the 
 highest honours on the memory of his predecessor, without 
 subjecting his own well-earned fame to any disparagement. 
 The genial tributes of the Latin muse would have warmed the 
 feelings of the Romans towards their benefactor more effect- 
 ually, had such been his desire, than the frigid compliments of 
 a temple and a priesthood. But Augustus, who affected to 
 be the Caesar of Peace, had a political motive for throwing 
 into the shade the glories of the hero of Pharsalia. The death 
 of his last rival Antonius operated a complete change both in 
 his temper and his aspirations. Henceforth the princeps, or 
 leader of the senate, succeeds to the triumvir, as the triumvir 
 had succeeded to the dictator. He now approaches more and 
 more closely to the aristocracy, against which in his early 
 years he had waged a war of extermination. He opens his 
 arms to it,, he devotes to its interests without reserve all the 
 powers he has received from the triumphant democracy. 
 
 1 The name of the first Caesar ia only once introduced by Horace, to com- 
 pliment Augustus as "Caesaris ultor." The allusion to the "Julium sidus" 
 applies, perhaps, to the Julian family generally. When Tydides is said to be 
 " melior patre," it is meant to remind us that Augustus was more illustrious 
 than his father. Ovid has a similar comparison, Metam. xv. 760.: "Neque 
 enim de Caesaris actia Ullum majus opus quam quod pater exstitit hujus." 
 Virgil mentions Caesar only three times ; Eel. ix. 127., Geo. i. 466., jn. vi. 
 626. ; and Propertius never. See Orelli'a note on Horace, Od. i, 12. 47.
 
 4:6 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Towards so generous a conqueror the nobles could not long 
 retain their feelings of rancour, nor persist in refusing him 
 their support, when they found him full of the most amiable 
 dispositions towards them, when he promised and strove with 
 energy and discretion to revive their ancient consideration, 
 and more than compensate them for their losses, when he pro- 
 moted to the highest offices the son of the murdered Cicero 
 and a friend of the persecuted Brutus, 1 when, in short, by 
 flattery and condescension he sought to efface the crime of his 
 origin, and the revolutionary recollections of Mutina and Mun- 
 da. They listened with admiration to his accustomed theses 
 on Resistance and Conservation, Reaction and Restitution ; 
 on a projected system of government which he propounded 
 as the best, the best at least which the times admitted, the 
 only system, in fact, by which the illustrious republic of Rome 
 could be preserved ; a system which he is proud to call his 
 own, though built on the old foundations and constructed of 
 the old materials overthrown by the earthquake of civil strife ; 
 with no other ambition, as he fervently asseverated, than to 
 be called the restorer of the commonwealth, and bear away 
 in. dying the conviction that his work will survive him." 
 
 How carefully this system was contrived to interest the 
 
 higher class, while it tranquillized the restless spirits of the 
 
 lower, has been seen in the details of this and 
 
 Augustus con- . 
 
 gratniates him- former chapters. To the one it held out the pros- 
 
 eelfonthe / 11 , i >i i i i 
 
 accomplish- pect oi honourable employment, while it checked 
 
 1 M. Tullius Cicero was consul suffect in the year 724: Dion, li. 19. A 
 son of Crassus the triumvir held the same office in that year also. Sestius, the 
 friend of Brutus, was promoted to the consulship in 731. The family of the 
 great orator ended in the second generation in a contemptible drunkard. See 
 the stories of this Cicero's excesses in Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxii. 8., xiv. 28. Senec. 
 de Benef. iv. 30. We may suppose that he had forfeited his self-respect after 
 accepting the consulship from the slayer of his father. 
 
 2 Suet. Oct. 28. : "Quam Toluntatem (retinendi Imp.) quum prse se iden- 
 tidem ferret, quodam etiam edicto hia verbis testatus est : Ita mihi salvam ac sos- 
 pitam rempublicam sistere in sua sede liceat, atque ejus rei fructum percipere 
 quern peto, ut optimi status auctor dicar, et moriens ut feram mecum spem 
 mansura in vestigio suo fundamenta reipublicse quse jecero. Fecitque ipse se 
 compotem TOti, nisus omni modo ne quern novi status pceniteret."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 47 
 
 every prompting of ambition ; to the other it sub- ment of MS pa- 
 
 . * j A , T trioticBchemes. 
 
 stituted amusement lor occupation, shows and lar- 
 gesses for military service : and such a system, while it can be 
 maintained, affords no doubt great facilities to the march of 
 administration. To the nobles Augustus could boast that the 
 dictator had refused to be crowned a king, but had himself 
 offered to restore the sword of the imperator. He vaunted 
 the victories he had gained over the national foes, and the 
 glory the state had acquired under his direction of its foreign 
 relations. He pointed to the sacrifices he had made for the 
 general weal, and compared himself to a Mucius, a Curtius, 
 or a Decius. Think not, he exclaimed, that the ancients alone 
 were true patriots ; behold in me a living proof that the love 
 of Home burns still bright in her children. Such was the 
 spirit of the old patricians, and such still exists in the bosom 
 of the high-born offspring of Quirinus. They are the true 
 rulers and fathers of the commonwealth : fear not that I will 
 ever abandon it to the sway of an unprincipled democracy : 
 no ! sooner will I perish, sooner KEIGN ! He thus held out 
 to them the dire figure of royalty in the furthest distance, as 
 a monster to be invoked only in the last necessity to save the 
 world from chaos. So far from taking away the life of a 
 single citizen to obtain the crown, he would sooner lose his 
 own life than wear one ! a life, be it remarked, which the 
 gods will surely protect, as they have avenged the death of 
 Caesar. 1 To the people he affirmed that the sway of Rome 
 over the nations was now completed and assured. All na- 
 tions should bring their tribute to the Capitol ; the Roman, 
 proud and untaxed, should enjoy the fruits of every zone and 
 climate. Every gale should waft corn to Italy, to be lavished 
 on the citizens by the hand of their friend and benefactor. 
 The Roman should fold his arms in indolence and satiety, 
 while his subjects should labour and his rulers think for him. 
 To his countrymen, one and all, Augustus could allege that he 
 had secured the stability of their institutions by his piety to 
 the gods. He had bribed Olympus by gifts in which the im- 
 1 See the supposed harangue of Augustus in Dion, liii. 6. foil.
 
 48 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 mortals delighted. He had set up their fallen altars, repaired 
 their temples, revived their services, and rekindled the flame of 
 devotion hi the heart of the nation. To his own fortunes and 
 to the fortunes of the state he had attached the powers of heaven 
 for ever. 1 From the gods he had descended to rehabilitate the 
 ancient heroes of his country, restoring their monuments, re- 
 erecting their images, surrounded with triumphal ornaments, 
 and placing them under the colonnades of his own spacious fo- 
 rum, as the witnesses and patrons of the glory he had achieved. 
 The city itself had participated in his pious solicitude. He 
 honours her as a mother and a tutelary influence, almost as a 
 goddess herself. For her embellishment he constructs many 
 magnificent works, and requires the wealthy and the noble to 
 follow his example ; for he is not an Oriental potentate, but 
 only the first of his own rank of citizens. Indignant at the 
 inundations which periodically overwhelm, and the conflagra- 
 tions which so frequently devastate her, he projects her re- 
 storation upon a scale of greater security and splendour, and 
 boasts at last, as the crowning merit of his administration, 
 that he found her of brick and has left her of marble. 9 
 
 In reflecting upon the easy acquiescence of the Romans in 
 a regal tyranny, disguised under such transparent pretensions, 
 Prospect of we must not forget that they were not in a po- 
 dico a u?Kto sition * anticipate the rapid decline in public 
 the Roman*, gpjrit which from this time actually took place 
 among them. Apart from an antique prejudice, of which the 
 wisest statesmen may have well been ashamed, royal rule 
 could not imply, to their minds, degeneracy and decay. Un- 
 der the sceptre of Philip the Macedonians had conquered 
 Greece ; under Alexander they had subjugated Asia. The 
 Spartans had flourished under a dynasty of kings ; even the 
 
 I Ovid, Fast. ii. 62. : " Nee satis est homines, obligat ille deos." 
 
 II Suet. Oct. 29. : " Urbem, neque pro maj estate imperii oraatam, et imm- 
 dationibus incendiisque obnoxiam, excoluit adeo ut jure sit gloriatus, marmo- 
 ream se relinquere quam latericiam aceepisset." Comp. Dion, Ivi. 80., who 
 puts the same expression in Greek, and adds the moral interpretation : TOVTO 
 ov irpby ri TWV ojKoSojUTjjUOTWK avrfjs cucpijSe'j, oAAo wpbj rb TTJJ apx*i* l<rx v P^ v
 
 UNDER THE EMPIKE. 49 
 
 Romans themselves, it might be remembered, had first proved 
 their youthful energies under the auspices of a Romulus and 
 a Tullus. They were far, therefore, from anticipating that 
 the greatness and glory of their country would decline under 
 a prince's sway ; it was only in the last agonies of an imprac- 
 ticable republic that their valour had earned them no tri- 
 umphs. 1 For the maintenance of the living powers of the 
 state they looked, not so much to the effect of free action and 
 discussion, as to certain established principles of social organi- 
 zation. They put their trust, not in a free press and public 
 opinion, but in the subordination of classes, the hierarchy of 
 families, the customs of antiquity, and the traditions of reli- 
 gion. Generally speaking, law, in the view of the ancients, 
 was something divine and permanent, the exponent of certain 
 eternal necessities ; whereas we allow ourselves to regard it 
 as little else than the fleeting expression of every mood of the 
 national existence. Hence the undoubting faith of the Ro- 
 mans in sumptuary legislation ; that is, in the attempt to re- 
 store, without regard to outward change in the circumstances 
 of society, the prescriptions of a normal antiquity. Hence 
 the conviction of Augustus and his contemporaries, that in 
 merely reviving ancient traditions, he was raising to life the 
 dead bones of the past, and launching his country upon a new 
 career of growth and development. 
 
 In his personal habits and demeanour Augustus carefully 
 distinguished between the Imperator and the Princeps. He 
 
 1 Lucan, L 12. : "Bella geri placuit nullos habitura triumphos." The 
 opening lines of the Pharsalia deserve to be studied from this point of view ; 
 as for instance : 
 
 " Heu quantum terrae potuit pelagique parari, 
 Hoc quern civiles hauserunt sanguine dextrae .... 
 Sub juga jam Seres, jam barbarus isset Araxes" .... 
 When after a century's experience the empire was declared to be barren of 
 laurels, Lucan expresses the mortification of his class in bitter language : 
 " Sed retro tua fata tulit, par omnibus annis, 
 jEmathiae funesta dies : hac luce cruenta 
 Effectum, ut Latios non horreat India fasces ; 
 Nee vetitos errare Dahas in mcenia ducat, 
 Sarmaticumque premat succinctus consul aratrum." 
 
 VOL. IV. 4
 
 50 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Moderation in protected his personal dignity "by withdrawing 
 babSTof !AU- from the indecent familiarity with which Julius 
 g uBtu8. Caesar had allowed himself to address his legion- 
 
 aries. The conqueror of the Gauls had deigned to call the in- 
 struments of his victories by the name of fellow-soldiers ; but 
 Augustus, whether in his edicts or his harangues, never spoke 
 of them but as his " soldiers " only. At a later period he forbade 
 the princes of his family to employ any other term than this in 
 communication with them ; a prohibition in which there was a 
 little pride, and perhaps also a little jealousy. 1 At the same 
 time, however, as the prince of the senate and the people, he did 
 not fail studiously to disguise all consciousness of his deserts, 
 and shrank from the appearance of claiming the honours due to 
 him. Amidst the magnificence displayed around him, which 
 he chose to encourage in his nobles, his own manners were re- 
 markable for their simplicity, and were regulated, not by his 
 actual pre-eminence, but by the position he aflected to occupy, 
 of a modest patrician. His mansion on the Palatine hill was 
 moderate in size and decoration, and he showed his contempt 
 for the voluptuous appliances of patrician luxury by retaining 
 the same bedchamber both in winter and summer. 8 His dress 
 was that of a plain senator, and he let it be known that his 
 robe was woven by the hands of Livia herself and the maidens 
 of her apartment. He was seen to traverse the streets as a 
 private citizen, with no more than the ordinary retinue of 
 slaves and clients, addressing familiarly the acquaintances 
 he met, taking them courteously by the hand, or leaning 
 on their shoulders, allowing himself to be summoned as a 
 witness in their suits, and often attending in their houses 
 
 1 Suet. Jul. 67. : " Nee milites eos pro condone, sed blandiori nomine 
 commilitones appellabat." Oct. 25. : "Ambitiosius id existimans." 
 
 3 Suet. Oct. 72. There is something interesting in the care with which 
 the Romans traced their honoured emperor from one of his residences to 
 another, and probably rising a little above the last in the scale of sumptuous- 
 ness: "Habitavit primo juxta Romanum forum, supra scalas annularias, in 
 domo quae Calvi oratoris fuerat ; postea in palatio ; sed nihilominus sedibus 
 modicis Hortensianis ; et neque laxitate neque cultu conspicuia," &c. Com p. 
 Dion, liii. 16., Iv. 12.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. gl 
 
 on occasions of domestic interest. 1 At table his habits were 
 sober and decorous, and his mode of living abstemious : he 
 was generally the last to approach and the earliest to quit the 
 board. 3 His guests were few in number, and chosen, for the 
 most part, for their social qualities : Virgil and Horace, the 
 plebeian poets, were as welcome to his hours of recreation as 
 Pollio or Messala. His conversation turned on subjects of 
 intellectual interest ; he disdained the amusement which the 
 vulgar rich derived from dwarfs, idiots, and monsters. 8 Some 
 ribald stories were current respecting his private habits, which 
 the citizens gratified themselves with repeating, though at- 
 taching, perhaps, little credit to them. The future restorer 
 of religion, and patron of the Olympian hierarchy, had amused 
 himself, it was said, while yet triumvir, amidst a crew of boon 
 companions, with assuming at a banquet the names and attri- 
 butes of the twelve greater gods. 4 The guardian of manners 
 and reviver of the ancient purity was affirmed, in a similar 
 spirit of detraction and pasquinade, to have courted, some- 
 times in the rudest and most open manner, the wives of the 
 noblest Romans ; not from unbridled appetite, for his power 
 of self-control was unquestioned ; 6 but in order, as his apolo- 
 gists averred, to extract from his paramours the political se- 
 crets of their consorts. 9 Such stories, however, if actually 
 current at the time, made little impression upon the public ; 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 53. ; Quintil. Inst. Oral. vi. 3. 59. ; Macrob. Saturn, ii. 4. 
 a Suet. Oct. 74. 76, 77. 
 
 3 Suet. Oct. 83. : " Nam pumilos et distortos et omnes generis ejusdem ut 
 ludibria quaedam naturae malique ominis abhorrebat." 
 
 * Suet. Oct. 70. : " Csena quoque secretior in fabulis fuit quse SteSeieddfos 
 vocabatur." This and many other stories against Octavius might be traced to 
 the invention of Antonius. It had been generally forgotten, we may presume, 
 when Horace could venture to sing : 
 
 " Quos inter Augustus recumbens 
 
 Purpureo bibit ore nectar." 
 
 5 See an anecdote of the continence of the young Octaviua in Nicolaus 
 Damascenus, Vit. August. 5. 15. 
 
 * Suet. Oct. 69. : " Adulteria qusedam exercuisse ne amici quidem negant ; 
 excusantes sane non libidine sed ratione commissa, quo facilius consilia adver- 
 sariorum per cujusque mulieres exquireret."
 
 52 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 they were too commonly reported of all conspicuous charac- 
 ters to take hold of the convictions of the multitude ; nor did 
 the great man himself think it always necessary to reply to 
 them. Augustus refrained, with remarkable firmness, from 
 checking the licentiousness of his personal detractors by legal 
 procedure. 1 
 
 But if Augustus had the good sense to bear with temper 
 the virulence of clandestine lampooners, which he knew would 
 jealousy of AU- evaporate as soon as it reached the air, he was 
 fhe Bt poet cor not ^ e ^ ess vigilant in marking, and stern in re- 
 neiiuB Gaiius. pressing, all acts of defiance or presumption on 
 the part -of his subjects. The mild and affable patrician, 
 whose whole heart seemed to be wrapped up in schemes for 
 the promotion of general prosperity and individual comfort, 
 was changed at once into a jealous tyrant at the first sign of 
 political rivalry. Painful was the impression made upon the 
 public mind when it appeared, from one melancholy instance, 
 that the mere frown of so kind a master was felt as a dis- 
 grace at his court, and that disgrace at court was regarded 
 as no other than a sentence of death. Cornelius Gallus, a 
 Roman knight, a man of fashion and accomplishments, a poet 
 himself of considerable mark, and the companion of poets and 
 statesmen, had been entrusted, by the favour of Augustus, 
 with the government of Egypt, where, as we have seen, he 
 had done him faithful service in repelling the solicitations of 
 Antonius. 9 But the splendour of his position, as the first 
 Roman who had sate on the throne of the Ptolemies, and the 
 flattery of the cringing Orientals, who, in the vicegerent and 
 servant of the emperor, beheld the successor of their own 
 absolute sovereigns, intoxicated his weak and vain mind, and 
 he suffered his subjects to erect statues in his honour, and in- 
 scribe his name and exploits on the walls of the pyramids. 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 55. : " Etiam sparsos de se in curia famosos libellos nee expa- 
 vit, nee magna cura redarguit." Comp. Tac. Ann. i. 72. 
 
 2 Gallus was in the zenith of his fame as an amatory poet before the 
 reputation of any of his contemporaries was established. Even at a later 
 period Ovid speaks of him as inferior to none of them. Amor. i. 15. 29.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 53 
 
 Li a senator and a proconsul such conduct might have given 
 no pretext for complaint ; but the case of the government of 
 Egypt was exceptional : the jealousy of the emperor was pe- 
 culiarly sensitive in regard to every act and word of his factor 
 at Alexandria ; and the indiscretions of Gallus were magnified 
 into a charge of treason against the interests of the republic. 
 The senators, before whose tribunal the culprit was arraigned 
 on the motion of one of their own order, hastened with ready 
 adulation to declare him guilty, and desired his removal from 
 his command. Augustus appointed an officer to supersede 
 him, and required his presence in Rome. On his return the 
 loss of his master's favour, the cold reception he encountered 
 from the courtiers, the sense of disgrace and the apprehension 
 of severer punishment so worked upon his weak mind, that 
 he threw himself upon his own sword. Augustus was him- 
 self shocked at this unexpected catastrophe ; it impressed, no 
 doubt, upon him a painful conviction of his own isolation : he 
 was sincere, we may believe, in rebuking the excessive zeal 
 of the officious and selfish accusers, and complained that he 
 was the only citizen who could not be angry with a friend 
 without making him an enemy. 1 Nevertheless the dependents 
 of the court seemed to have distrusted the sincerity of these 
 regrets. They hastened to abjure their connexion with the 
 fallen favourite. Virgil, at the instigation, it is said, of Au- 
 gustus himself, suppressed a poetical compliment to the prince 
 of Roman elegy, and replaced a genuine tribute of regard 
 and admiration with a very pretty but a very foolish fable." 
 
 The senators, yet unconscious of the peril in which their 
 own order stood, had perhaps little concern for the fate of 
 an upstart knight, while the murmurs of fear and discon- 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 66. ; Dion, liii. 23. ; Ammian. Marcell. xvii. 4. 
 
 2 Donatus in Vit. Virgil. 10. It was believed that the story of Aristseus, 
 at the end of the fourth Georgic, was written to occupy the room of an ad- 
 dress to Gallus, which the poet was commanded to expunge. This account is 
 very reasonably questioned by Heyne : it is not easy to see what place the 
 praises of Gallus can have had in this connexion, whereas the fable of Aris- 
 taeus is not inappropriate, and may be thought perhaps to elevate by its fan- 
 tastic supernaturalism the extreme humility of the general subject.
 
 54 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 < civil "de- tent which mav have issued from the associates 
 
 meanonrof , _.. _ ., 
 
 Augustus at of the victim himself were speedily drowned 
 and circus* 8 in the strains of praise and flattery with which 
 the theatre and circus, and every other public place, resound- 
 ed. The admiration of the citizens was divided between the 
 splendour, the variety, and the frequency of the shows their 
 munificent patron exhibited. The attractions of these were 
 so irresistible, that almost every house in Rome was deserted 
 to attend them, and it was necessary to patrol the streets 
 with guards on the days of spectacle to protect the property 
 of their truant inhabitants. 1 It is said that Augustus him- 
 self partook of the popular taste for the excitement and vul- 
 gar pomp of these shows, and acknowledged an interest in 
 them which was not generally felt by the more refined and 
 intelligent.* At all events he justly regarded them as one of 
 his instruments of government : it was civil, in the Roman 
 sense, to mingle in the amusements of the citizens ; accord- 
 ingly, if business prevented him from attending, he always 
 affected to ask pardon of his good countrymen, and when 
 present he was careful to avoid the fault of Julius Ca?sar, 
 who allowed himself to read and write letters and transact 
 affairs in the hours devoted to general relaxation.* 
 
 The constant plenty which the emperor's prudent meas- 
 ures secured for Italy and the city, the sudden abundance of 
 The people * ne precious metals, and the impetus it gave to 
 eei'vefon ^| m " the transactions of trade and commerce, the ces- 
 P^ce4f prS sation of the detested recruiting for the legions, 
 which was now relegated to the provinces, all 
 combined to fulfil the wannest anticipations of the blessings 
 
 1 Suet Oct. 43. 
 
 * Aurel. Victor, Epit. L : " Quodque est laeti animi vel amoeni, oblectaba- 
 tur omni genere spectaculorum." 
 
 1 Suet Oct. 45. : " Quoties adesset nihil praeterea agebat : seu vitandi 
 rumoris causa, quo patrem Caesarem vulgo reprehensum commemorabat, quod 
 inter spectandum epistolis libellisque legendis ac rescribendis vacaret ; seu 
 studio spectandi ac voluptate, qua teneri se neque dissimulavit unquam, ei 
 saepe ingenue professus est." Comp. Tac. Ann. i. 54. : " Xeque ipse abhorrebat 
 a talibus studiis, et civile rebatur, misceri voluptatibus vulgi."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 55 
 
 of peace, and reduced to a happy reality the fervent aspira- 
 tions of the poets. 1 Mildew corroded blade and spear-head, 
 but spared the growing crops ; the sword was turned into a 
 pruning-hook, the corslet into a ploughshare ; the altar of 
 Peace was erected solemnly in the Roman curia, and her fes- 
 tival was celebrated on the same day with those A-u 74L 
 of Janus, of Safety, and of Concord. 3 On such B - c - 13 - 
 occasions the praises of Augustus, as the author of so much 
 happiness, held always the foremost place. Even the calami- 
 ties of the city were turned into occasions of congratulation. 
 Once when the Tiber overflowing its banks caused more than 
 usual devastation, the augurs interpreted the event as a token 
 of the swelling greatness of the emperor. Thereupon a sena- 
 tor named Pacuvius invited the citizens to devote A ^ 727> 
 their lives in company with himself to the life of B- c - 27- 
 Augustus, that is, to swear not to survive him. 3 In vain did 
 the emperor interfere to prevent them from rushing tumultu- 
 ously to ofier sacrifices to his divinity. Whenever he re- 
 turned to Rome from the provinces the people accom- 
 panied him home with hymns and acclamations, and care 
 was taken that on such auspicious occasions no criminal 
 should be capitally punished. 4 The poets urged their coun- 
 trymen to remember, in every prayer and thanksgiving, the 
 restorer of order, the creator of universal felicity. In the 
 temples on days of public service, around their own hearths 
 on every ordinary day, they were invited to thank the gods 
 for all their prosperity, and with the gods themselves to join 
 
 1 Ovid, Fast. iv. 925. : " Aspera Robigo parcas Cerealibus herbis," &c. 
 Comp. Fast. i. 701. 711.; Tibull. i. 2. 49. 
 
 8 Ovid, Fast. i. 881. (March 28.) : 
 
 " Janus adorandus, cumque hoc Concordia mitis, 
 
 Et Romana Salus, araque Pacis erit." 
 Comp. Zonaras, x. 34. 
 
 * Dion, liii. 20. This devotion he characterises as after the manner of the 
 Spaniards, rov TUV 'l&ypuv -rp6irov. Caesar has told us that it was a custom of 
 the Aquitanians, and it may have been in vogue among the kindred tribes on 
 both sides of the Pyrenees. 
 
 4 Suet. Oct. 57. Dion, li. 20.
 
 56 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 the hallowed names of Troy, of Anchises, and of JEneas, the 
 patrons of the Julian race. 1 And when they rose from the 
 evening meal to retire to rest, the last duty of the day, they 
 were reminded, was to call with a modest libation for a bless- 
 ing on themselves, and on Caesar, the Father of his country." 
 The title of father of his country was indeed the proudest 
 any Roman could obtain, and this the citizens had long been 
 The title of accustomed to lavish, privately and irregularly, 
 ro a nfe r rfe a don on tne i r hero ^ patron, when at last the senate 
 Augustus. too k U p t jje voice of the nation and conferred it 
 upon him with due solemnity. 8 This act, however, was not 
 sanctioned by a formal decree ; it seemed perhaps more flat- 
 tering to give it the appearance of spontaneous acclamation. 
 Valerius Messala, one of the noblest of the order, was de- 
 puted by his colleagues to offer the title to the emperor in the 
 name of the senate and people. " Conscript Fathers" replied 
 Augustus with tears, " my wishes are now fulfilled, my vows 
 are accomplished. I have nothing more to ask of the immor- 
 tal gods, but that I may retain to my dying day the unani- 
 mous approbation you now bestow upon me" * The poet 
 Ovid could declare that the emperor was justly designated 
 the father of his country, for he had long been in fact the 
 father of the world. To him, as the pacifier of the nations, 
 the sovereigns in alliance with Rome paid homage not less 
 zealously than his own compatriots. In various kingdoms 
 
 1 Horace, Od. iv. 15.: 
 
 " Nos et profestis lucibus et sacris," etc. 
 1 Ovid, Fast. ii. 635. : 
 
 " Et bene nos, patriae bene te pater, optime Caesar, 
 Dicite, suffuso per sacra Terba mero." 
 
 3 Suet. Oct. 58. Horace, at an early period of his power : "Hie ames dici 
 Pater atque Princeps." But the title was not formally conferred before 752, 
 on the nones of February, in the 13th consulship of Augustus. See Spanheim, 
 de Usu Num. 446. Comp. Ovid, Fast. ii. 127. : 
 
 " Sancte Pater patriae, tibi Plebs, tibi Curia nomen 
 Hoc dedit, hoc dedimus nos tibi nomen Eques. 
 Res tamen ante dedit : sero quoque vera tulisti 
 Nbmina: jam pridem tu Pater Orbis eras." 
 
 4 Suet. Oct. 1. c.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 5f 
 
 of the East they founded cities which they dignified with the 
 name of Caesarea. They combined for the completion of the 
 great temple, long before commenced, of Jupiter Olympus at 
 Athens, and finally dedicated it to the genius of Augustus. 
 They descended from their thrones to seek him in his capital, 
 or wherever they might overtake him in his progress through 
 the provinces ; divesting themselves in his presence of the 
 diadem and the purple, and donning the toga of plain Roman 
 citizenship, as clients attending on a noble patron. 1 
 
 The estimation in which the founder of the empire was 
 held by the citizens and by foreigners is thus established, not 
 from the colours in which historians have pour- 
 
 _ , . . _ A Considerations 
 
 trayed his career, but from the unsuspected testi- on the source 
 
 f, -,, , , .1 TIT of Roman his- 
 
 mony of many collateral authorities. We may toryattMs 
 now proceed to examine in detail, as far as our p 
 means allow, the incidents of an administration which has 
 left on the whole such a solemn impression of respect. These 
 incidents are related in a consecutive narrative by only one 
 writer of antiquity, nor till after an interval of nearly 200 
 years. And even this writer admits in striking language the 
 imperfection of his materials, and explains the cause of the un- 
 certainty which pervades all Roman history from the estab- 
 lishment of the empire. " Thus" says Dion, " was the Roman 
 commonwealth reduced to a better and securer form, : and in- 
 deed it was no longer possible for it to exist under popular 
 rule. Henceforth, however, its affairs can no longer be written 
 as heretofore. For hitherto every transaction, whether at 
 home or abroad, was referred to the cognisance of the senate 
 and people, and accordingly all public affairs were generally 
 known, and.many related them in writing. Although, there- 
 fore, many authors were swayed by fear or favour, by love or 
 hatred, yet the truth might generally be discovered by the com- 
 parison of one with another, combined with the examination 
 of public records. But from henceforth affairs began to be 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 60. : Comp. Eutrop. vii. 5. Cities of the name of Caesarea 
 were founded in Palestine, Galatia, Pisidia, Bithynia, Cilicia, Armenia, and 
 Mauretania. See Pliny, Hist. Nat. v. vi.
 
 58 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 transacted primly and in silence, and if any were divulged 
 they were not sufficiently attested to command implicit cre- 
 dence. For everything, it was suspected, was said and done in 
 accordance with the views of the men in power. From hence- 
 forth we find many things commonly stated which never oc- 
 curred, while others which really took place are not mentioned 
 at all ; and almost every incident is distorted from the truth 
 of facts. Besides, the vastness of the empire itself, and the 
 multitude of occurrences, makes it doubly difficult to relate 
 all things accurately. For events occurred in Home, in the 
 provinces, and on the frontiers, of which none but the actors 
 themselves could ascertain the real circumstances, while the 
 people generally knew not that they occurred at all. Hence- 
 forth therefore I propose to relate affairs as far as I think 
 requisite, in accordance with the narrations of others, whether 
 they be true or false, only occasionally introducing conjec- 
 tures of my own, where lam induced to dissent from the ordi- 
 nary account by some special information" 1 Dion, it will be 
 remembered, was possessed of all our authorities, of Pliny and 
 Seneca, of Suetonius and Tacitus, as well as of many others ; 
 and though, as a Greek himself, he applied probably, for the 
 most part, to the Greeks for instruction, he cannot have been 
 unaware of the pretensions of Tacitus especially to industry 
 and impartiality, and of the character of a consummate his- 
 torian which that writer bore among his own countrymen ac- 
 cordingly. When this illustrious Roman remarks, at the out- 
 set of his Annals, that men of excellent talents were not 
 wanting to relate the times of Augustus, till deterred by the 
 increasing necessity of adulation, but that the histories of 
 later principates were falsified either by fear during the life- 
 time of the princes themselves, or by hatred after their death, 
 we may question whether Dion considered even Tacitus so 
 free both from anger and affection as he confidently asserts." 
 
 1 Dion, liii. 19. 
 
 2 Tacitus, Annal. i. 1. : " Temporibus August! dicendis non defuere decora 
 ingenia, donee gliscente adulatione deterrereutur. Tiberii Caiique et Claudii 
 ac Neronis res, florentibus ipsis, ob metum falsae ; postquam occiderant, recen- 
 tibus odiis composite sunt. Inde consilium mihi, pauca de Augusto et ex-
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 59 
 
 To explain here my own view of the worth of Tacitus as an 
 historian, far the most important undoubtedly of all our au- 
 thorities on the subject before us, would be to anticipate the 
 history itself : the judgment I have formed of him will be 
 explained, and I hope justified, as I proceed in the arduous 
 task of comparing him with himself and with others ; but the 
 reader will not be in a position fully to appreciate it till he 
 has studied the reign of Trajan as well as those of Tiberius 
 and Nero. 
 
 trema tradere, mox Tiberii principatum et cetera ; sine ira et studio, quorum 
 caussas procul habeo." I cannot pause to give an account here of the various 
 authorities for our history, but it is a satisfaction to be able to refer the reader 
 to the well-written criticisms in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Classical Biography. 
 Egger's Historiens cTAuguste is also a valuable work for appreciating the 
 sources of imperial history.
 
 60 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIY. 
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PROTINCES BY AUGUSTUS. 1. SPAIN : FINAL PA- 
 CIFICATION OF THE MOUNTAIN TRIBES. 2. GAUL : TRIBUTE PROMISED BT 
 
 THE BRITONS ; REDUCTION OF THE ALPINE TRIBES. 3. M,SIA AND THRACE. 
 
 4. KINGDOM OF MAURETANIA. 5. PROTINCE OF AFRICA. 6. THE CYRE- 
 
 NAICA. 7. EGYPT : EXPEDITION OF JELIUS CALLUS INTO ARABIA. 8. 
 
 EGYPT : REPULSE OF THE ETHIOPIANS. 9. ASIA MINOR : BITHYNIA, ASIA, 
 
 AND THE DEPENDENT KINGDOMS. 10. SYRIA AND PALESTINE : PARTHIA AND 
 
 ARMENIA. 11. ACHAIA. 12. ILLYRICUM. 13. ITALY, SARDINIA, AND 
 
 CORSICA. 
 
 H 
 
 1ARASSED by a century of civil dissensions, and by 
 twenty years of civil war, during which even the tradi- 
 tions of their aggressive policy had been almost 
 
 north of m of Antonius as a pledge of universal tranquillity. 
 The solemn ceremony with which their victorious 
 hero had closed the gates of Janus had invested him with ex- 
 traordinary popularity ; when he proclaimed the establishment 
 of peace throughout the world, the citizens accepted the an- 
 nouncement joyfully, without minutely inquiring into its cor- 
 rectness. They were satisfied perhaps with remarking that 
 the conflict their legions still continued to maintain with the 
 unsubdued hordes of a few obscure districts, whether within 
 or beyond their frontiers, could not fairly be classed under the 
 title of legitimate warfare. In the north of Spain the Canta- 
 brians, the Vaccaei, and the Asturians were still, as they had 
 ever been, in arms. These savage tribes, protected by the 
 inaccessible character of their country as much as by their 
 bravery, had never yet been brought under the provincial
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 Cl 
 
 yoke. The capture and sack of the Iberian cities, three hun- 
 dred of which, it is asserted, had been stormed by an ancient 
 imperator, had had little effect in coercing the liberties of a 
 people whose fortresses were mountains, and whose resources 
 were buried in the depths of caves and forests. The moun- 
 tains indeed of Spain, especially of its northern regions, 
 abounded in gold : the ancient battlefield of the Romans and 
 Carthaginians was reputed to possess the greatest natural 
 riches of any country of the world. It had often pretended 
 to submit to the proconsuls of the republic, and had promised 
 tribute : the Iberians had willingly taken service by the side 
 of the Roman armies ; but when they found themselves seized 
 by their new masters and compelled to toil for them in the 
 bowels of the earth, they revolted again and again under a 
 yoke which imposed upon them not subjection only, but per- 
 sonal servitude. 1 The republic had controlled them with 
 large forces and a complete civil organization ; but when the 
 theatre of civil war was transferred from the west to the east, 
 and a portion of this pressure was withdrawn, the natives of 
 the wildest districts had renewed with ardour their implaca- 
 ble hostilities. The triumvirs, in the midst of their common 
 dangers and mutual jealousies, had commissioned their ablest 
 lieutenants to lead large armies against them. The real or 
 pretended victories successively gained over them had been 
 thought not unworthy of the highest military rewards. Ca3- 
 sar had allowed his legates, Fabius and Pedius, to triumph 
 over Spain in the year 709. Domitius Calvinus gained a 
 similar distinction in 718, Norbanus Flaccus in 720, Marcius 
 
 1 The wealth especially of the region called Turdetania in the south of 
 Spain, not in gold only but other precious metals, which are not commonly 
 found near together, not only in mineral but in yegetable riches, which are 
 still more rarely combined in the same locality, excites the warmest admira- 
 tion of Strabo, iii. 2. p. 146. Lucan, in his account of Caesar's campaign on 
 the Sicoris, introduces an illustration from the working of gold mines (iv. 
 
 298.): 
 
 " Non se tarn penitus, tarn longe luce relicta, 
 
 Merserit Assyrii scrutator pallidus auri." 
 
 For Assyrii, Oudendorp would read Asturii, an emendation in which I fully 
 concur.
 
 (52 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Philippus and Appius Claudius two years later. Neverthe- 
 less, after so many overthrows, the Iberians were still in arms, 
 and in the very year which witnessed the general pacification 
 of Augustus, his officers, Statilius Taurus and Nonius Gallus, 
 were still contending against them. 1 
 
 In the year 727, the emperor undertook to bring the strug- 
 gle to a close in person. On quitting Rome, indeed, he had 
 allowed it to be understood that he was going to 
 
 Augustus . 
 
 quits Rome to complete the conquest of Britain, which his illus- 
 
 D'icifv tliii 
 
 province in trious father had twice commenced and twice 
 ?eI A.' 727. prematurely suspended. The barbarians had long 
 since neglected to transmit the tribute imposed 
 upon them. Arts and commerce were increasing among them, 
 and they were proud of the rising importance of their ports 
 and cities. The announcement that the emperor meditated 
 such an expedition might serve to raise some enthusiasm 
 among the citizens, but it is not likely that he ever really in- 
 tended to engage in so remote and hazardous an enterprise 
 while he was conscious what a mass of occupation lay before 
 him nearer home. 8 Already, however, the great northern road 
 of the consul Flaminius had been repaired by his orders to 
 expedite the march of his legions into Gaul. s After crossing 
 the Rubicon and traversing the Cisalpine province, he found 
 
 1 Fischer's Zeittafeln. The Spanish era dates from 38 B. c. (A. TT. 716), and 
 is supposed to mark some important epoch in the organization of the province 
 by the Romans. It may coincide with the campaign of Calvinus, which is 
 only known to us from a notice hi the Fasti Triumphales. The word is derived 
 by Isidorus from aes, sera, (de Rer. Nat. 6.): "jJEra quoque Cscsaris Augusti 
 tempore posita est. Dicta autem est aera, ex quo orbis ses reddere professus 
 est populo Romano." This may refer to a local census, but the writer con- 
 founds it apparently with the general census of the empire alluded to in St. 
 Luke's Gospel. See Egger, Historiens d'Auguste, p. 46. The Spanish era was 
 preserved in Aragon till 1358, in Castile till 1383, and in Portugal till 1416. 
 See Mem. Soc, Antiq. de France, v. 28. in an essay upon the site of Emporia?. 
 
 4 Dion, liii. 22. 25. The ode of Horace (5. 35.), in which he prays " Serves 
 iturum Caesarem in ultimos orbis Britannos," is referred to the year 727. 
 
 8 The repair of this road was commemorated by an arch at either end, at 
 the gates of Rome and of Ariminum. (Dion, liii. 22.) The last of these is 
 still extant, as is also the bridge thrown by Augustus over the Anminus, at 
 the exit from the town on the north.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 53 
 
 his progress impeded by the audacious attacks of the Alpine 
 mountaineers. Leaving Terentius Varro to chastise these 
 marauders, he continued his route to Narbo, where envoys 
 from Britain hastened, it was said, into his presence, with 
 such assurances of respect and submission as might allow him 
 to abandon without dishonour the intention he had avowed. 
 At Narbo he held a conventus, or general meeting of the 
 representatives of the Gaulish states, those of the south at 
 least, and commenced his elaborate organization of the great 
 province beyond the Rhone. 1 But while thus engaged, the 
 pertinacious insubordination of the tribes of northern Spain 
 demanded his presence in the camp. Augustus had already 
 devoted himself to the service of the commonwealth on fields 
 where little glory was to be obtained, and where the perils 
 and fatigues of warfare might seem scarcely compensated by 
 the dispersion of a few barbarian hordes. Nor could he 
 expect to emulate in the mountains of Asturia the exploits 
 of his father on the plains of Gaul, or of Pompeius among the 
 wealthy cities of the eastern world. The campaign he now 
 meditated was obscure ; yet he knew that solid advantages 
 were to be gained from victory in the last stronghold of pro- 
 vincial independence, and besides, his title of imperator re- 
 quired to be justified by occasional service in the field. Gaul 
 and Blyricum, Britain and Spain, had all furnished the first 
 Caesar with imperatorial laurels, and Augustus thus turned 
 his arms from the one to the other to emulate the career of 
 his great predecessor. 
 
 Accordingly, entering Spain from the Pyrenees in the 
 autumn of 727, he advanced into the heart of the disturbed 
 districts, and pitched his camp at Segisama, near Military opera- 
 the head-waters of the Pisuerga, while a naval "Zof AU^" 
 squadron from the Garonne or Adour watched the tu8 - 
 coast and harassed the enemy in the rear." As long, how- 
 ever, as he kept his troops together in the centre of the ene- 
 my's position, the barbarians abstained from meeting him in 
 battle, and confined themselves to the harassing warfare for 
 1 Dion, I. c. a Oros. vi. 21. ; Flor. iv. 12.
 
 64 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 which their country has been ever famous. 1 The emperor's 
 flatterers might assure him that the foe was terrified by his 
 presence, and would refuse to be drawn from their fastnesses 
 as long as he remained before them. At the same time his 
 fatigues, and perhaps his mortification at the repeated failure 
 of his military enterprises, prostrated his feeble frame with 
 sickness of unusual severity. He was soon compelled to quit 
 the scene of operations, and repair to Tarraco, the head-quar- 
 ters of the province to which it gave its name. 2 While Au- 
 gustus lay stretched upon his couch the barbarians ventured 
 to issue from their fastnesses, and assailed the legions. The 
 Cantabrians were overthrown in a great battle at Vellica, 
 among the sources of the Ebro, and were driven from thence, 
 step by step, to the recesses of the Mons Vinnius, a lofty and 
 sterile tract in the north of Gallicia, the summits of which 
 rise more than nine thousand feet above the sea. Secure as 
 they deemed themselves, in these inaccessible strongholds, the 
 mountaineers asserted that the waters of the Atlantic should 
 overflow these eminences sooner than the arms of the repub- 
 lic succeed in scaling them. 
 
 Nevertheless the skill and perseverance of the Romans 
 were at last triumphant, and Spain, it was declared, was once 
 Reduction of more pacified. At the last moment, when the 
 tri^am? 111 success of his lieutenants had become fully as- 
 mSulrycoio^ sure ^, Augustus was able to rise from his bed, 
 nios - and hasten to the scene of their exploits, where 
 
 he devoted himself in person to the task of consolidating 
 their conquests. The natives were required to descend from 
 
 1 The "unchangeable character of Spanish warfare " is marked by a single 
 word in Virgil : " Aut impacatos a tergo horrebis Ibcros." How important 
 this contest was felt to be even at Rome is attested by the frequent allusiona 
 to it in Horace. See Od. ii. 6. 11., iii. 8., iv. 14.; Epist. i. 12. 26. The foe 
 is mentioned with respect even as late as the time of Lucan, Phars. vi. 258. : 
 " Si tibi durus Iber, aut si tibi terga dedisset 
 
 Cantaber exiguis, aut longis Teutonus armis." 
 
 * We learn from Martial, x. 104., that the most direct communication by 
 sea between Italy and Spain was from Rome to Tarraco.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. (55 
 
 their mountains, and drafted into the cities in the plains, or 
 quartered, as clients of the conquering race, within the lines 
 which he now caused to be traced for the establishment of 
 military colonies. Large numbers were sold into captivity ; 
 the chiefs were suffered to redeem their freedom by the sur- 
 render of hostages. The veterans of the legions were en- 
 dowed with confiscated lands, and settled in fortified posts, 
 of which Csesar-Augusta, the modern Saragossa, was chosen, 
 we are told, for its beautiful situation, more probably from 
 its convenience as a centre of communication between Tar- 
 raco and Gallacia, the Pyrenees and the Tagus. Bracara Au- 
 gusta, with Asturica Augusta and Lucus Augusti, served to 
 bridle the rebellious people of the north. 1 Emerita Augusta, 
 which became at a later period one of the chief cities of Spain 
 under the Romans, was founded in a more favoured region, 
 and to this perhaps it owed its eminent splendour and pros- 
 perity. The remains of a magnificent bridge over the Guadi- 
 ana, and of two noble aqueducts, still evince the consideration 
 it attained under the peaceful sway of the emperors. 
 
 The thirtieth and last triumph over the warlike nations 
 of Iberia was celebrated in 728 by S. Apuleius, under whose 
 conduct, as proconsul, the final successes had p ro i on ged resi- 
 been gained before the arrival of the emperor in gus 
 person. Augustus was already satiated with these B P 
 distinctions, and demanded no military honours himself for 
 the victories of his lieutenants. His flatterers recorded with 
 exultation how embassies from the verge of the extreme East 
 now reached him on the western margin of his empire^ The 
 envoys, we are assured, of the Indians and Scythians, famous 
 names of unknown nations, had traversed the whole breadth 
 of the globe in quest of the mighty master, and had found 
 
 1 Bracara is the modern Braga in the north of Portugal, Asturica is As- 
 torgain Leon, and Lucus may be traced in Lugo among the highlands of Gal- 
 licia ; Emerita is Merida in Estremadura. There was also a colony, Pax Julia, 
 and a Pax Augusta, probably the same place, called also Colonia Pacensis, 
 which is supposed to be Beja. Ukert, Geogr. Gr. und Ram. ii. 388. Ebora 
 (Evora) received the name of Liberalitas Julia, and Gades (Cadiz) that of 
 Augusta Julia. 
 
 VOL. IT. 5
 
 QQ HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 him at length at the spot where they could advance no farther. 
 The Romans were reminded that in the same manner the na- 
 tions of Gaul and Spain had sent ambassadors to the court of 
 Alexander at Babylon, to accept peace at the hands of the great- 
 est of ancient conquerors. 1 Augustus prolonged his residence 
 A. r. 729. in the country till 729, occupying himself with the 
 organization of the three provinces, and amusing 
 himself, during the tedious intervals of returning illness, with 
 familiar correspondence with his friends in Rome. At this pe- 
 riod the great epic of Vii'gil was promised to the world, and a 
 brother poet had predicted, in verses current among the circles 
 of fashion in the capital, that it would eclipse with its splendour 
 all Roman and all Grecian fame. Something finer than the 
 Iliad, exclaimed Propertius, is about to see the light. The 
 exploits of Caesar and the triumphs of Actium were to be en- 
 twined with the legend of ^Eneas and his Trojan fleet. Au- 
 gustus, to whom these anticipations were duly reported, urged 
 the poet with importunate letters to send him a specimen of the 
 work, which the modest author continued firmly to decline." 
 In the year 729 Augustus finally quitted the peninsula. It 
 
 1 Orosius, vi 21. : " Interea Caesarem apud Tarragonam citerioris Hispa- 
 niae urbem legati Indorum et Scytharum, toto orbe transmisso, tandem ibi in- 
 venerunt, ultra quod jam quaerere non possent ; refuderuntque in Cassarem 
 Alexandri Magni gloriam : quern sicut Hispanorum Gallorumque legatio in 
 medio Oriente apud Babylonem contemplatione pacis adiit, ita hunc apud His- 
 paniam in Occidentis ultimo supplex cum gentilitio munere Eous Indus et 
 Scytha Boreus oravit." 
 
 We may suspect, however, the reality of this remarkable incident, men- 
 tioned only by so late a writer as Orosius, himself a Spaniard. At a later 
 period a similar embassy is said to have reached Augustus in the more cen- 
 tral locality of Samos. 
 
 - Propert. it 34. 65. : 
 
 " Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite Graii, 
 
 Nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade." 
 
 Donatus in Vit. Virgil. 12. 45. : " Augustus vero cum turn forte expeditione 
 Cantabrica abesset, et supplicibus atque minacibus per jocum literis efflagitaret, 
 ut sibi de J2neide, ut ipsius verba sunt, vel prima carminis hypographa, vel 
 quodlibet colon mitteret, negavit se facturum Yirgilius ; cui tamen non multo 
 post, perfecta demum materia, tres omnino libros recitavit, secundum videlicet, 
 quartum et sextum." Comp. Macrob. Saturn, i. 24.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. Qf 
 
 was not long, however, before fresh disturbances broke out. 
 In the following year Agrippa was employed to Renewed out- 
 suppress them. In 732 the oppression of Carisius, flnT 
 propraetor of the northern province, drove the g'pan^ard 
 Asturians to another outbreak, in which they A gPP a - 
 were presently joined by the gallant Cantabrians. Three 
 Roman armies were attacked simultaneously, and only saved, 
 as was affirmed, by the treachery among the assailants them- 
 selves. Carisius reduced the stronghold of Lan- A r 731> 
 cia, under the mountains of Asturia, in the north B - c - 22 - 
 of Leon, and displayed unusual moderation in saving it from 
 conflagration, in order that it might remain a monument of 
 his victory. Furnius drove the remnant of the insurgents into 
 the Mons Medullius, between the Minho and Douro, where he 
 surrounded them with a circumvallation, fifteen miles in ex- 
 tent, and compelled them at last to surrender, but not until 
 great numbers had imitated the devotion of the Numantians 
 and Saguntines, and destroyed themselves with fire, poison, 
 and the sword. 1 Nevertheless the last sparks of the indomi- 
 table spirit of independence were not extinguished till 735, 
 when Agrippa was once more engaged in the A ^ 735 
 work. Some of the Cantabrian captives in Rome B - c> 19- 
 had contrived to assassinate their masters and escape into 
 their own country, where they excited their compatriots 
 to a fresh revolt by the recital of their sufferings and re- 
 venge. So desperate was their last effort of resistance, so 
 well had they profited by their experience of Roman tactics, 
 that the veterans had learnt to fear them in turn, and were 
 with difficulty and only by severe examples, brought into the 
 field against them. Among other punishments the legion 
 called Augusta was forbidden to use the imperial title. But 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 5. ; Hor. Od. iv. 12. This C. Furnius was not less skilful as a 
 courtier than as a soldier. See the anecdote in Seneca, De Benef. ii. 25. : 
 " Nullo magis Caesarem Augustum demeruit, et ad alia impetranda facilem sibi 
 reddidit Furnius, quam quod, cum patri Antonianas partes secuto veniam impe- 
 trasset, dixit, Hanc unam, Caesar, habeo injuriam tuam ; effecisti ut viverem 
 et morerer ingratus." He became consul in 737.
 
 (}8 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 the conquest was now at last completed, and the severe meas- 
 ures enjoined by Augustus were carried out with unflinching 
 perseverance by his trusty coadjutor. Agrippa was conscious, 
 however, that his services had reached the limit beyond which 
 they would be invidious in a subject, and abstained from ob- 
 truding them on the emperor's notice by demanding a tri- 
 umph. \Vith this campaign the three provinces were com- 
 pletely brought under the yoke. 1 From this period the arts 
 of peace and civilization were allowed to germinate without 
 interruption. The fertile genius of the Iberian population 
 profited to the utmost by the advantages of its position, se- 
 cure from the inroads of war, and opportune for peaceful 
 communication with the rest of the world. The cities of the 
 great western peninsula became famous for luxury and letters, 
 and the schools of Bastica furnished a longer list of historians, 
 poets, and philosophers, than any province of the empire in 
 which the imperial language was spoken. Throughout the 
 southern part of the country the nations were completely Ro- 
 manized, so as to forget their vernacular tongue. 1 Bsetica 
 was administered by the senate without any military force, 
 while the Tarraconensis and Lusitania, which were placed 
 tinder the care of the emperor, required the presence of his 
 legates only as a protection against their own intractable 
 mountaineers. Commerce, agriculture, and manufactures 
 flourished ; the demand of Italy for grain gave an impulse to 
 industry, and fertilized the Iberian soil with a continual 
 stream of wealth ; the spirit of disaffection to Rome and the 
 Caesarean house yielded to the sense of increasing comfort and 
 abundance ; and the ease and contentment of the mass of the 
 population may be estimated from the fact that from hence- 
 forth Spam disappears for four centuries from the page of 
 military history. 3 
 
 1 Liv. xxTii. 12.: " Hispania prima Romania inita provinciarum, quae qui- 
 dem continentis sunt, postrema omnium, nostra demum state, ductu auspicio- 
 que August! Caesaris perdomita est." 
 
 * Strabo, iii. 2. p. 151. : ol -xtpl rov Bairw Tt\fius (Is r6v 'Pu,ualuv fitra- 
 
 * Velleius remarks (ii. 90.), " Has provincias ad earn pacem perduxit
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 69 
 
 Thus removed from the ordinary sphere of historical nar- 
 rative, Spain presents us with scanty materials for describing 
 her political organization, and that organization political organ- 
 itself becomes of comparatively little interest or 1^^?! 
 importance. It will be enough to remark, that the inces - 
 three provinces into which the country was divided in the 
 time of Ca3sar continued under the same names and with 
 nearly the same boundaries. The military posts by which it 
 was occupied were confined for the most part to the Asturian 
 mountains. The great division of the Tarraconensis contained 
 no less than seven conventus or circles, embracing twelve colo- 
 nies, thirteen Roman and eighteen Latin municipia. Three 
 conventus, nine colonies, and eight municipia, were enumer- 
 ated in the smaller district of Bsetica ; while Lusitania, less 
 populous and advanced, included three combinations of states, 
 five colonies, and four municipia only. 1 
 
 But to the ample region, divided from Spain by the Pyre- 
 nees, which will come repeatedly on the scene before us, we 
 must devote our attention more closely, destined Affairs of Gaul. 
 as it was to play a part in almost every domestic ^A^ f 
 revolution, and many of the foreign transactions, v!ri n and tiie re " 
 of its conquerors. Ca?sar had left Gaul exhausted Morinl - 
 and tranquil. He had succeeded in diverting into his own 
 camps the valour of her most restless spirits, and had opened 
 to her adventurous chiefs a new career of fame and fortune 
 in the arena of Roman politics. During his brief tenure of 
 power, and for a few years after, the tranquillity of the prov- 
 ince continued to be maintained, though he had withdrawn 
 from it the strength of the legions by which its submission 
 had been originally eifected. The obedience of the Gauls 
 was interrupted once only by a rising of the Bellovaci ; " and 
 
 Caesar Augustus, ut quoe maximis bellis nunquam vacaverant, eae etiam latro- 
 ciniis vacarent." Orosius, the Spaniard, writing four centuries later : " Tota 
 Hispania in aeternam pacem reclinata." 
 
 1 See Becker (continued by Marquardt) Handbuch derRoem. Alterthumcr, 
 iii. 1. 83. from Pliny and Strabo. 
 
 y Liv. Epit. cxiv. The name of Bratuspantium was changed perhaps on
 
 YO HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 this was speedily put down by Decimus Brutus, to whom, 
 after the reduction of Massilia, Csesar had entrusted the com- 
 mand. But after the establishment of the triumvirate, the as- 
 pect of affairs was entirely changed. From that time, both the 
 north and the south were harassed by repeated disturbances. 
 Agrippa was sent by Octavius in 717 to quell a revolt of the 
 Aquitanians : no sooner had he gained an advantage over this 
 people, than he was summoned in haste to the banks of the 
 Rhine, to check an irruption of German hordes, invited thither 
 by the Gauls themselves. Agrippa was the first to adopt the 
 policy of establishing these warlike strangers in settlements 
 within the frontier, where their jealousy of the natives on the 
 one hand, and their fear of their own fierce and needy kins- 
 men on the other, might serve to retain them in alliance with 
 the republic, whose position and interests were now connected 
 with their own. This system, as we shall see, was carried 
 out more extensively in later ages, till it became in fact one 
 of the fixed principles of the Roman administration. Never- 
 theless, the pacification effected by Agrippa was precarious 
 and incomplete. Nine years later the conquest of Aquitania 
 had to be repeated, and Valerius Messala earned a triumph 
 over Gaul on the banks of the Adour. 1 Nonius Gallus de- 
 feated the Treviri, together with the German bands they had 
 enlisted in their service ; and C. Carrinas gained a victory 
 over the Morini, beyond the Somme, whom Virgil, the pane- 
 
 this occasion by Decimus to Caesaromagus ; it became afterwards Bellovaci, 
 now Beauvais. 
 
 1 Tibull. i. 7. 4. : 
 
 " Hunc fore Aquitanas posset qui fundere gentes, 
 Quern tremeret forti milite victus Atur." 
 
 But the Aquitania of Messala's campaign is to be understood in the wider 
 sense it obtained officially only a few years later, as bounded by the Rhone 
 and Saone, the Loire and Pyrenees. The poet continues : 
 
 " Non sine me tibi partus honos : Tarbella Pyrene 
 
 Testis, et Oceani litora Santonici : 
 Testis Arar, Rhodanusque celer, magnusque Garumna, 
 
 Carnuti et flavi casrula lympha Liger." 
 Messala triumphed in 72Y. See the Fasti Capitolini.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 71 
 
 gyrist of Augustus, would fain persuade the Romans to be- 
 lieve the farthest of mankind. Another irruption of the Ger- 
 mans across the Rhine was chastised in 729 by Marcus Vini- 
 cius. 1 
 
 The cause of this disruption of the bands of Gaulish obe- 
 dience, which appeared so firmly settled (for even the aggres- 
 sion of the Germans may be taken as a symptom Disaffection of 
 of disaffection within the province), is to be sought caused by' 
 in the change of treatment to which the natives ^fen^nnder the 
 were now apparently subjected. Caesar, with a triumvirs. 
 broad and liberal policy, besides flattering the martial spirit 
 of the nation, had taken a still surer means of purchasing 
 their submission by the slender tribute he had been satisfied 
 to impose upon them. He required no more than a moderate 
 revenue for the maintenance of his army of picked veterans, 
 small in number, and accustomed to seek its reward in the 
 conquests to which he continually led it. Gaul was in fact 
 the adopted country of the .first Roman emperor. During the 
 brief period of his rule in Rome, he formed no general plan 
 of taxation for the empire, and the region beyond the Alps 
 was left to develope its natural resources, in peace and virtual 
 independence, unchecked by the extortions of the Roman col- 
 lector. As long as this lenient system was suffered to endure, 
 Gaul remained tranquil and contented. But with the acces- 
 sion of the triumvirs to power, the fiscal demands of the treas- 
 ury began to make themselves felt with more than common 
 severity. The new rulers were needy ; their armies, raised 
 in desperate rivalry, were immense in number ; their clients 
 and adherents reckless and insatiable ; and they were com- 
 pelled to frame their financial system in accordance with 
 the demands importunately urged upon them. Massacre and 
 confiscation at home, plunder and extortion abroad; such 
 was the simple policy of the new administration. Gaul and 
 Spain, though not cursed by the presence of the rival chiefs 
 
 1 Virgil, JEn. viii. fin. : " Extremique hominum Morini." Dion, li. 20, 
 21., liii. 29. Comp. Veil ii. 104. : " In Germania . . . immcnsum exorsei-at 
 bellum."
 
 72 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 themselves, suffered under this pressure hardly less than 
 Greece and Asia, in which they encamped or resided. Hence 
 the commotions we have noticed on either side of the Pyre- 
 nees ; hence the campaigns which violated even the sacred 
 peace of Janus ; hence the hard-won triumphs of the Octavian 
 generals, swiftly followed by fresh disturbances ; and hence 
 the necessity for the arrival of Augustus himself to strike out 
 in either province the lines of a satisfactory and permanent 
 settlement. 
 
 It was with such a settlement in view that the emperor 
 had chosen these provinces to be governed among others di- 
 Poiicy of An- rectly from himself. As an imperial province, the 
 r n g 8 anfzLuon e of whole of Gaul was placed, like the Tarraconensis, 
 Gaul - under a purely military regime. An imperial or 
 
 Caesarean legatus commanded the legions quartered upon it, 
 enacted its laws, apportioned its contributions, and adminis- 
 tered justice, under no other control than that of the impera- 
 tor himself ; while a procurator, as the steward of the irn- 
 perator's private property, and generally a simple knight, or 
 merely a freedman of his household, collected its revenues for 
 the maintenance of its public government. 1 The constitu- 
 tional princeps and limited imperator in the city was trans- 
 formed, in his relation to an imperial province, into an irre- 
 sponsible dictator. The organization of Gaul by Augustus, 
 of which we can combine the details with tolerable complete- 
 ness, furnishes, in its general aspect, a specimen of the way 
 in which the provinces were ordinarily settled by victorious 
 proconsuls under the commonwealth. The civil and political 
 reforms which required such delicate handling, and so much 
 
 1 Under the republic the procurator was the man of business of a private 
 citizen, charged with the care of his property out of Italy : hence generally 
 his client or freedman. The emperor's procurator took the place of the quaes- 
 tor in the imperial provinces, and in some assumed the functions of the pro- 
 consul himself. Tac. Hist. i. 11.: "Duse Mauretania?, Rhnetia, Xoricum, 
 Thracia, et quae alias procuratoribus cohibentur." In this case he was called 
 procurator vice praesidis, &c. Even in the senatorial provinces there was a pro- 
 curator with independent functions, to look after the fiscus or private revenues 
 accruing to the emperor. See Becker, Roem. Alter, iii. 1. 300.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 73 
 
 of preparation and disguise, when they affected the city, 
 which, in fact, could only be enforced by the most powerful 
 commanders with the aid of popular enthusiasm, could be 
 carried out in the provinces at one blow, or by one word, at 
 the sole will of the governor deputed by the state. The sanc- 
 tion of the subjects of the republic was neither asked nor ac- 
 knowledged ; all the proconsul required was the eventual rati- 
 fication of his acts by the senate. In the present case, this 
 ratification was of course a mere matter of form, if it was 
 ever even formally demanded. Augustus, at the head of the 
 general assembly of the Gaulish states, propounded his views 
 for the division, the administration, and the assessment of the 
 regions around him, and the law which proceeded from his 
 lips was maintained without appeal by the terrors of the 
 sword. 
 
 His attention was first directed to the settlement of the 
 Narbonensis. He had already summoned the states of Gaul 
 into his presence at Narbo, before proceeding into 
 
 Spain, and had decreed that a census should be th?proTincfa 
 taken of the three divisions of the Comata. 1 With 
 respect, however, to the Togata, the more civilized region 
 called hitherto specially the Province, we have seen how 
 completely it had been gained to the interests of the oligarchy 
 under the sway of Pompeius, and the prefects appointed 
 through his influence. The hostile feeling engendered in this 
 quarter against the popular party had been defied by Ca?sar, 
 and disarmed to a great extent by his discretion. Yet the 
 Massilians had clearly shown that their sympathies were still 
 Pompeian, and after the reduction of their city Caesar had 
 taken vigorous measures to break their spirit. Augustus con- 
 tinued, after the dictator's example, to mingle favours with 
 severities in his treatment of these dubious allies. His first 
 
 1 Liv. Ejnt. cxxxiv. : " Cum ille conventum in Xarbone ageret, census a 
 tribus Galliis quas Caesar pater vicerat actus." Dion, liii. 22. : Kal avruv xal 
 airoypcupas evot-fiffaru, KO.\ rov f)lot> T(]V re TrohiTeiav 8ie/co<ryurj<re. It cannot be 
 supposed that this census was completed during the short stay of Augustus in 
 Gaul in 727.
 
 74 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 act was to dedicate a temple to the Justice and Clemency of 
 his predecessor, as a pledge of the system he was resolved him- 
 self to pursue. He proceeded to found or restore colonies for 
 detachments of his soldiers. Arausio received veterans from 
 the second legion, Forum Julii from the eighth, Arelate from 
 the sixth, Baeterra? from the seventh. 1 These foundations 
 were distinguished by the full Roman franchise ; but Augus- 
 tus was more reserved in communicating this privilege than 
 his bolder predecessor, and Carpentorate, Cabellio, Aqua} 
 Sextiae, Nemausus, with other places which were now allowed 
 to assume the denomination of Julian or Augustan, marking, 
 it may be presumed, some close connexion with the imperator 
 himself, were confined to the Latin rights. Vienna, the capi- 
 tal of the Allobroges, was already a colony of earlier date, 
 and it is probable that no new proprietors were now intruded 
 upon it. 2 According to the analogy of Spain we must sup- 
 pose that the wide domain of the Narbonensis was divided 
 into several conventus, the states of which met in their assem- 
 blies to receive the commands of the Roman governor, and 
 to apportion among themselves their shares of the fiscal bur- 
 dens imposed upon the whole province. Of their number, 
 however, we are not informed. 3 The chastisement which fell 
 upon Massilia was the withdrawal from its supremacy of its 
 dependents, Antipolis and Agathe. Of these, the former, 
 though on the right bank of the Var, was declared to belong 
 to the Cisalpine province, while the latter obtained the title 
 and immunities of a Roman city. At the same time, how- 
 ever, Nicaea, which lay some miles to the left of the frontier 
 stream, was suffered to remain a client of Massilia, and a city 
 
 1 Plin. Hist. Nat. Hi. 4. Valentia and other towns are designated as colo- 
 nies by Ptolemy, Geogr. ii. 5. 10. ; but these, we may suppose from the 
 silence of Pliny, are of later date. 
 
 3 Plin. H. N. 1. c. According to Tacitus, Hist. i. 65., the colonists of 
 Lugdunum (see below) regarded the Viennese as less genuine Romans than 
 themselves. The soil of the Allobroges may have absorbed the blood of the 
 older foundation. 
 
 3 Becker's Roem. Alterthumer, iii. 1. 89.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 75 
 
 of the Transalpine province. 1 The port and arsenals of Forum 
 Julii were completed by Augustus, and this colony, called 
 also Classica, as the station of a great naval armament, and 
 Pacensis, as a surety for the peace of the empire, became a 
 formidable rival to the ancient emporium of the Phoceans. 
 
 But beyond the Narbonensis the soil of Gaul extended 
 many hundreds of miles in various directions, and compre- 
 hended more than one federation of tribes, differ- The p rovinc i a 
 ing in manners and language. To forge into one Lu ga unensi8 - 
 mass the divers elements of which this region was composed, 
 required great administrative vigour, and the seat of its gov- 
 ernment could not fail to become the centre and capital of 
 the whole province. During the wars of Cassar and Pom- 
 peius, dissensions in Vienna had caused the expulsion of a 
 portion of its inhabitants, originally Roman colonists ; and 
 the outcasts had betaken themselves to the eminence which 
 overlooks the meeting of the Rhone and Saone, where, under 
 the auspices of the proconsul Plancus, they had founded Lug- 
 dunum, the city on the MIL 1 This place, admirably situated 
 both for commerce and defence, Augustus had garrisoned 
 with a band of veterans, and had endowed it with a small 
 domain extorted from the Segusians on the right bank of the 
 Saone, to make it independent of the surrounding tribes, the 
 jEdui, the Sequani, and the Allobroges. 3 Standing at the ex- 
 treme point or apex of the ancient province, Lugdunum 
 seemed to command a view of the new conquests of the re- 
 public in every direction. 4 From this spot, as the base of his 
 
 1 Strabo, iv. 1. p. 184. Plin. H. N. iii. 5. : " Agatha quondam Massilien- 
 sium." 
 
 2 Dion, xlvi. 50. The site of the Roman Lugdunum is on the hill of 
 Fourvieres, supposed to be Forum Vetus, to the north of the level space be- 
 tween the rivers, probably a recent accretion from them, now occupied by the 
 chief part of the modern Lyons. Strabo, iv. 3. p. 192. : ^Kiriff^fvov virb 
 \6<bto, on a slope beneath the brow of the hill, unless we should read M. 
 
 * Plin. Hist. Nat. iv. 32. : " Segusiani liberi in quorum agro colonia Lug- 
 dunum." For their position, however, west of both rivers, see Strabo, iv. I. c. 
 (whose account is to be read with caution, from his mistaking the Loire for the 
 Doubs). Ptol. Geogr. ii. 8. Comp. Cic. pro Quinct. 25, 26. 
 
 4 " Qui locus est exordium Galliarum." Amm. Marcel, xv. 11. Strabo,
 
 76 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 operations, Augustus drew two geographical lines, radiating, 
 the one to the Atlantic, the other to the British Channel. 
 The first took nearly the course of the Loire, except where it 
 swept southward to exclude the territory of the Turones, and 
 mark off the province of Aquitania from the rest of Gaul ; ' 
 the other adopted first the channel of the Saone, then struck 
 westward between the Seine and Marne, and reached the sea 
 nearly at the mouth of the Somme. Beyond this second line 
 lay the whole region of Belgic Gaul, together with the realms 
 of the Sequani and Lingones, which were now included within 
 that division. The shapeless and comparatively narrow strip 
 comprehended between these two lines, and extended to em- 
 brace the distant headland of Armorica, received its name of 
 Lugdunensis from the new city which constituted its capital ; 
 but Lugdunum was destined, from the convenience of its 
 situation, to become the political and commercial centre of the 
 whole of Gaul. From hence the great roads of the province 
 were directed to the extremities of the land ; and from this 
 starting-point, as from the walls of the imperial metropolis, 
 the distances along each line were regularly measured.* Here 
 was established the Gaulish mint, and here was the residence 
 of the emperor himself, when he chose to visit the province 
 in person, or of the governor to whom he deputed its admin- 
 istration. 
 
 rather differently, iv. 6. p. 208. : TO 8e AotySowov eV platf TTJJ x^P as ^T\V, 
 Siffirfp aKp6iro\Ls, 5jck re T&S ffvfi&o\as riav vorafj.uf, Kal 8ii T& tyyvs flvai irciffi 
 iroTs fj.fpecri. 
 
 1 Pliny asserts in one place that the Garonne was still the northern limit 
 of Aquitania, but shortly afterwards includes in that district several tribes 
 lying between the Garonne and the Loire. Comp. Hist. Nat. iv. 31. 83. Mela 
 also retains the pre- Augustan division (ii. 2.) ; but Strabo is decisive on the 
 Other side : irpoGt6f\KS tie T'cr<rapa Kal 8ca tdvj) T&V utra^v rov Tapovva. /col TOV 
 Afyupo? vordfiov vf/j.ofj.fvui'. iv. 1. p. 177. See also Ptolemy, Geogr. ii. 7. 
 
 2 If we may take the statement of Ammianus in the fifth century, "exinde 
 lion millenis passibussed leugis (1500 pp. Ducange in voc.) metiuntur " (Amm. 
 /. c.), as true of this early period, it would seem that a remarkable concession 
 was made to the habits of the natives, in measuring the roads of the further 
 provinces by leagues instead of miles. But the Itineraries authorize no such 
 distinction.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. ff 
 
 Lugdunum was a new creation of the Roman power, of 
 which it was the citadel and the symbol, the moral and the 
 material pledge. From its position, combined 
 
 .., ., ,.,., j -Ji Extent to 
 
 with its political importance, it advanced rapidly -which seif-gov- 
 in wealth and numbers, and within perhaps half aorded7o the 
 a century had attained, next to Narbo, the great- Gaullah Btates< 
 est population of any Gaulish city. 1 The territory specially 
 assigned to it was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the 
 Gaulish states on every side. It was not, however, the policy 
 of the emperor to break up the old nationalities, or attempt to 
 fuse them into a common mass. On the contrary, nowhere 
 was the common artifice more systematically employed, of 
 inviting the natives to self-government, under imperial super- 
 vision, with a machinery fashioned on the model of the com- 
 monwealth itself. "We have seen that, with the exception of 
 the Arvernians, and more especially of the ^Eduans, the sove- 
 reign authority was exercised throughout Gaul, either by in- 
 dividual chiefs or aristocratic federations. This form of 
 government was supported by the influence of the Druids, 
 whose religion was essentially an engine of aristocratic polity. 
 While the popular assemblies, wherever the power was in 
 their hands, had been prompt in obeying the mandates of 
 Rome, the long struggle of the Gauls against Csesar had been 
 constantly fostered, and more than once revived, by the ani- 
 mosity of the chiefs and priesthood. Of the forms of popular 
 government, therefore, the conquerors had no cause to be 
 jealous. Here, as elsewhere, the suffering masses of the 
 people hailed the arrival of the Romans as an era of deliver- 
 ance from domestic tyranny. The fears and anxieties of the 
 new rulers of Gaul were directed to another quarter. Au- 
 gustus appears, as far as we can trace the landmarks of his 
 policy abroad, to have studied to break down the influence 
 of the privileged classes, and to raise up, as a bulwark against 
 it, the machinery of popular institutions. His first care, it 
 would seem, was to obliterate the old Gaulish names of the 
 principal cities, which might be made the rallying cry of the 
 
 1 Strabo, iv. 3. p. 192.
 
 78 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 disaffected ; and it is remarkable that, while he changed the 
 designation of Bibracte to Augustodunum, 1 and transformed 
 the names of the obscure oppida of many lesser states into 
 strange appellations of mixed Romano-Celtic sound, 2 he per- 
 mitted Lugdunum, as the representative of no hostile nation- 
 ality, to retain the vernacular title which its first settlers had 
 chosen. 3 To these cities, each the centre of a petty tribe, the 
 people of each district were invited to resort ; in them the 
 image of a Roman senate or curia was established, to be the 
 instrument of local government and taxation ; to them the 
 Gauls were taught to look, as the representatives of their 
 name and nation : eventually, but at what period we cannot 
 determine, its Roman name fell into disuse, and was super- 
 seded by the appellation of the tribe in which it lay ; and the 
 modern titles of the chief cities of France are derived almost 
 without exception from those of the clans which were ranged 
 in resistance to Ca3sar nineteen hundred years ago. 4 
 
 1 Augustodunum (Autun), the hill of Augustus, so called, I presume, from 
 a temple of Augustus which crowned its summit. 
 
 4 As for instance Juliomagus, Csesarodunum, Augustobona, Augustoritum. 
 All such places as these become not merely urbes, but civitates, or territorial 
 communities. The limits of the dioceses of France down to the Revolution 
 generally mark, it is said, the ager of these cities respectively. Bureau de la 
 Malle, Eton, Pol. des Romains, i. 193. Walckenaer, Geogr. des Gaules, passim. 
 
 * It is singular that this Celtic name (whatever be its true signification) 
 should have been chosen by the mixed Gauls and Romans whom the Allobro- 
 ges expelled from Vienna, for the city built for them by Plancus by direction 
 of the Roman senate. 
 
 4 The original names of the places mentioned in the last note but one are 
 not known. Their Roman titles became changed respectively into Andecavi 
 (Angers), Turones (Tours), Tricasses (Troyes), Lemovices (Limoges). A simi- 
 lar change took place with regard to Gaulish names which had never been sup- 
 planted by Roman. Thus Samarobriva became Ambiani (Amiens) ; Divodu- 
 rum, Mediomatrici (Metz) ; Nemetacum, Atrebates (Arras) ; Lutetia, Parisii 
 (Paris) : Durocortorum, Remi (Rheims) ; Avaricum, Bituriges (Bourges) ; Me- 
 diolanum, Santones (Saintes) ; Condivicnum, Namnetes (Nantes) ; Limonum, 
 Pictavi (Poitiers) ; and many more. Such a change is rarely found hi the south 
 of Gaul, where the Romans had the longest resided. Toulouse, Bourdeaux, 
 Narbonne, Aries, Nismes, Vienne, Valence, Aix, Marseille, &c., still bear the 
 original names not of tribes but of the cities themselves. Such is generally 
 the case throughout the more advanced parts of Gaul, the countries of the
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 7-9 
 
 The popular assemblies, however, of the cities were in 
 no respect strongholds of national independence. The or- 
 der of decurions or curials was composed of citi- 
 
 1 . Functions of 
 
 zens qualified by a certain census ; their officers, their popular 
 
 ,,.,., _ . . assemblies. 
 
 the duumvirs, aediles, quaestors, and Augustales, 
 were appointed by rotation rather than by election. Ex- 
 cept in a few cases, where autonomy was specially per- 
 mitted, they did not presume to legislate in any but the 
 most trifling matters of municipal regime. They merely 
 registered and enforced the decrees of the central authority, 
 and provided the machinery for levying on families and indi- 
 viduals their share of the quota of the state. These quotas 
 were fixed by the census, which was instituted, as we have 
 seen, by Augustus, during his brief sojourn in Gaul in 727 ; 
 and was repeated and extended by his command at subsequent 
 periods. The moderate impost, or military contribution, of his 
 predecessor, was now increased, we may suppose, to the ordi- 
 nary proportions of provincial taxation, and pressed more and 
 more heavily on the bulk of the people, as favoured citizens 
 or cities were admitted to the immunities of the Roman fran- 
 chise. The political and fiscal organization of the province 
 formed the basis of the measures for retaining it in subjection. 
 The discretion with which municipal privileges were conce- 
 ded or withheld, and personal distinctions awarded or prom- 
 ised, softened the animosity of the conquered, while the show 
 the republic could make of her vast material resources, how- 
 ever distant, terrified and controlled the disaffected. The 
 
 JJdui and Sequani, as we see in Autun, Chalons, Besancon, Macon, &c. It is 
 remarkable that no such transformation has taken place in the local appella- 
 tives of Spain or Britain. The Romans changed the Iberian into a Latin name 
 in a great many cases, in some of which the Latin form is still traced, while 
 in others, perhaps the greater number, the original name has been recovered. 
 In Britain, where not changed by the Saxons, our cities retain the British local 
 appellation, as Venta, Londinium, Lindum, Eboracum. The cause of these 
 peculiarities is difficult to trace, and cannot be discussed within the limits of 
 a note. They would seem, however, to show that the municipal system was 
 more fully developed in Gaul than in the other provinces, and probably with 
 the object of popularizing the local governments as a counterpoise to the influ- 
 ence of the priests and nobles.
 
 80 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Political im- military roads, the work of the indefatigable 
 
 Agrippa, which led from Lugdunuin to the chief 
 
 military roads. 
 
 cities of the furthest districts, were constructed 
 for pouring the legions rapidly to any point of danger, while 
 the want of cross-roads cut off their intercourse with one 
 another. 1 Here, as elsewhere, an effective system of posts 
 was established from place to place, but solely for the use of 
 the government, which could thus strengthen itself by the 
 means of communication which it denied to its subjects." The 
 itinerary system of the Romans was thus an effective instru- 
 ment of centralization in Gaul, just as, at the present day, the 
 trunk lines of railroad, in the same country, bring its great 
 cities nearer to the capital, but throw them relatively further 
 from one another. Thus enabled to defy local and partial 
 discontent, the Romans found themselves at liberty to concen- 
 trate the chief forces of the province on the German fron- 
 
 1 Pompeius is said to have made a line of road over the Alps and Pyrenees ; 
 but it does not appear that Caesar ever constructed any great permanent way 
 iii Gaul or elsewhere. Strabo notices the roads of Agrippa in Gaul (iv. 6. p. 
 208), leading from Lugdunum to 1. the Rhine ; 2. the Somme and the Chan- 
 nel ; 3. across the Cevennes to the ocean ; 4. Massilia and Narbo. Besides 
 these roads, the great aqueduct of the Pont du Gard at Nismes, still existing, 
 is ascribed to Agrippa on the authority of inscriptions. See Frandsen (Agrip- 
 pa, p. 172.), who ascribes it to the date of Agrippa's second visit to Gaul, A. u. 
 734, 735. 
 
 a The little that is known of the post-system of the empire is summed up 
 in a few words in Becker's HandbucJi, iii. i. 304. " The institution of Augus- 
 tus, which became the basis of the later system known to us from the writings 
 of the Jurists, consisted of a military service which forwarded official dis- 
 patches from station to station by couriers, called in the earlier imperial period 
 ' speculatores. ' (Liv. xxxi. 24. ; Suet. Calig. 44. ; Tac. Hist. ii. 73.) Per- 
 sonal conveyance was confined (as in the time of the republic) to officials : 
 for this purpose the mutationes (posts) and mansiones (night quarters) were 
 assigned, and even palatia erected at the latter for the use of governors and 
 the emperor himself. Private individuals could take advantage of these state 
 posts within the provinces by a special licence (diploma) of the governor, and 
 at a later period of the emperor only." Under the republic senators and high 
 personages could obtain the posts for their private use, as a matter of privilege. 
 The occupation, it may be observed, of the posts by the government, would 
 give it a similar advantage to the monopoly of the telegraphs at the present 
 day.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 81 
 
 tier, where its tranquillity was threatened, not by internal 
 disturbances, but by foreign invasion. On the left bank of 
 the Rhine Augustus established two formidable encampments, 
 each containing four legions, which, at a later period in his 
 reign, were quartered in smaller detachments on a long line of 
 fortified posts. These armaments, ample as they might appear, 
 were further reinforced by inviting unsettled hordes from the 
 German side to take up their residence within the Roman 
 frontier, and thus opposing barbarians to the barbarians them- 
 selves. 1 Ca3sar himself had been the first to introduce this 
 policy, to which his successors in after times attached increas- 
 ing importance. The lexions were attended by bands of na- 
 tive auxiliaries, furnished and supported by the principal cities, 
 in which the most restless spirits of the province were trained 
 to obey and admire their conquerors, till long absence from 
 their homes completed the process of estrangement. 
 
 At an earlier period every conquest of the Roman arms 
 was followed by the rush of emigration to the region newly 
 opened to Italian industry and adventure. In the 
 
 , . . , ., . , Progress of 
 
 age, however, which we are now considering the Roman civiiiai- 
 springs of enterprise had become relaxed. The 
 revolution which had brought the products of every land in 
 an unceasing stream to Rome itself, had left the Romans satis- 
 fied, for the most part, with the indolent enjoyment of wealth 
 and luxury thus wafted to their shores. Nevertheless the in- 
 fluence of their civilization continued to increase abroad in 
 power and attraction. The provincials on every side sought 
 with fatal ardour to naturalize the tastes and habits to which 
 they were prone to ascribe the superiority of their conquerors. 
 Divitiacus, as we have seen, had sojourned for years at Rome, 
 and attended upon Caesar in his campaigns, without acquiring 
 the use of the Latin idiom. But his countrymen soon wiped 
 
 1 Strabo, iv. 3. p. 194. ; Tac. Ann. xii. 2Y. The transplantation of the 
 Ubii from the right bank of the Rhine to the district of Cologne and Bonn on 
 the left, was the work of Agrippa, and may be assigned to the year 716. 
 Frandsen, Agrippa, p. 102. Suetonius is doubtless incorrect in ascribing it 
 to the emperor himself. Suet. Oct. 21. 
 VOL. iv. 6
 
 82 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 out the stain of his indolence or incuriousness. They destined 
 their capital Bibracte, which they now entitled the Hill of 
 Augustus, to be the literary metropolis of Gaul, and embraced 
 with eagerness the imperial present of a school for instruction 
 in the liberal arts. 1 MassiUa continued to be the centre of 
 Greek education, and taught the Gauls within the sphere of 
 its influence to become, as the writers of that language fondly 
 phrased it, Philhellenes. 9 The literature of the South flour- 
 ished for centuries as a brilliant exotic at Tolosa, Arelas, and 
 "Vienna : Lugdunum became celebrated for its rhetorical con- 
 tests. 8 The Gauls, naturally loquacious, litigious, and impas- 
 sioned in thought and gesture, rushed to the contests of the 
 bar as a congenial exercise, while both medicine and philoso- 
 phy, imported from abroad, found zealous cultivators among 
 their acute and enquiring spirits. 4 They renounced the stir 
 of the camp and battle-field for the formalities of municipal 
 government. The jealousy of the Italian landlords forbade 
 them to cultivate the vine and olive, to which their soil has 
 since proved so propitious ; 5 but they devoted themselves to 
 raising corn and cattle, particularly horses, together with the 
 fabrication of arms, cloths, and stufls, of various kinds and 
 qualities. 8 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. iii. 43. : " Augustodunum caput gentis nobilissimam 
 
 Galliarum sobolem liberalibus studiis ibi operatam." 
 
 2 Strabo, iv. 1. p. 181. : ir6\is TO?J fiap&apois ftuSeurfiplov 
 
 ^lAe'AATjvaj KareffKfvafff rot/r Tab-drou. 
 
 1 Ausonius, de Clar. Urb. : " Gallula Roma Arelas." The same writer baa 
 a series of portraits of the professors of eloquence at Burdigala, not less illustri- 
 ous in their day perhaps than the commentators in the gallery at Leyden. For 
 Lugdunum see more particularly the well-known passages, Juvenal, i. 44.; 
 Suet. Calig. 20. 
 
 4 Strabo, /. c. : voQurrfa yovv vroSe'xojTeu, rovs ft.lv ISid rovs 8 ol v6\tii 
 KOIVII m/rdovufvoi, Ka.8dirfp Kal larpovs. 
 
 s Cic. de Republ. iii. 9. : " Nos vero justlssimi homines qui transalpine gen- 
 tes oleam et vitem serere non sinimus, quo pluria Bint nostra oliveta nostraeque 
 vineae." The prohibition was early defied (see Suet. Domit. 7.) and eventu- 
 ally repealed. Vopisc. Prob. 18. 
 
 In the Notitia Dignitatum Imp. Occidentis, c. 32., seven cities of Gaul 
 are enumerated as seats of military manufactures : Argentoratum, Matisco, 
 Augustodunum, Suessiones, Remi, Treviri, and AmbianL Atrebates was also
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. g3 
 
 The pursuit of arms, arts, and literature might soothe the 
 restlessness of the Gauls, and keep them industrious and obe- 
 dient. The extension of municipal government 
 contributed to check the excessive influence of the countenances 
 chiefs, and to balance the authority of the priest- 
 hood. The spiiit of Druidism, the popular religion of the 
 greater part of Gaul, was essentially opposed to the admix- 
 ture of any foreign civilization, and this element of disaffec- 
 tion the conquerors studied in various ways to counteract. 
 Augustus, in offering citizenship to the most favoured of the 
 nation, made the renunciation of Druidism, as incompatible 
 with Roman usage, a primary condition of its acceptance. 1 
 Such a mode of discountenancing a suspected cult was a step 
 beyond the ordinary policy of Rome ; for hitherto the jeal- 
 ousy of the government had confined itself to forbidding ob- 
 noxious practices within the walls of the capital. Augustus 
 affected pious horror at the custom of human sacrifices, which 
 had been expunged, indeed, from the Roman ritual itself 
 within less than a hundred years, but which the Druids con- 
 tinued undoubtedly to practise more constantly and exten- 
 sively than had been ever done by the Romans or Etruscans. 
 But while the taking of human life was forbidden, a compro- 
 mise was made with the priests, who were permitted to punc- 
 ture the skin of the victim, and sprinkle a few drops of his 
 blood upon the altar." 
 
 Another and less direct way of emasculating the obnox- 
 ious superstition, was to fuse it, by means of real or fancied 
 
 famous for its fabric of red cloth for the legions. Trebell. Gallien. 6. with 
 the notes of Salmasius. " Vestitur Gallia rufis." Martial. Lingones, Santones, 
 and Cadurci manufactured woollen and flaxen fabrics. See Moreau de Jonnea, 
 Statistique de,s Peuples anciens, p. 661. Comp. also Juvenal, ix. 30. for the 
 coarse character of the Gallic woollens; and Martial, vi. 11.: "Te Cadmea 
 Tyros, me pinguis Gallia vestit." 
 
 1 Suet. Claud. 25. : " Religionem Druidarum apud Gallos tantum civibus 
 sub Augusto interdictum." 
 
 4 Mela, iii. 2. : " Manent vestigia (i. e. under Claudius, sixty years later) 
 severitatis abolitae, atque ut ab ultimis caedibus temperant, ita mhilommus, ubi 
 devotos altaribus admovere, delibant."
 
 84: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 introduction of amn iti es > with the recognized polytheism of the 
 Roman poly- empire. The great principle of the imperial gov- 
 ernment, inherited indeed from the republic itself, 
 was to declare the essential unity of the various habits and 
 ideas of its heterogeneous subjects. Druidism, it was now 
 proclaimed, was, in its spirit, no other than the common reli- 
 gion of the Roman world. Caesar himself had remarked, not 
 without surprise, that the Gaulish priesthood held the same 
 notion about the gods as the rest of mankind. Here was the 
 germ of the grand idea for the pacification of the country, 
 which Augustus seized and appropriated. The emperor car- 
 ried across the Alps the principle which the senate had so 
 often applied to Etruria, Greece, and Asia. The gods of Gaul 
 were admitted to the citizenship of the Roman Olympus, the 
 pantheon of the civilized world. Teutates and Belenus, Ar- 
 duinna and Belisana, were declared to be merely local and 
 special appellations for the universal divinities of Mercury 
 and Apollo, Diana and Minerva. 1 Taranis was identified with 
 Jove the Thunderer ; Camul or Hesus with Mars, the patron 
 of the conquering city. Augustus dedicated a temple to the 
 god Kirk or Circius, the spirit of the Bise, a blighting wind 
 of the Southern coast, over which he was supposed to reign 
 Worship of AU- vi^ malignant influence.* So far did he advance 
 gustos in Gaui. m fyfa work of fusion as to claim himself a place 
 among the Gaulish deities, and to encourage his flatterers to 
 invoke his divinity in connexion with the genii of their own 
 cities.' A few years later we shall see them erect an altar 
 and consecrate a ritual in honour of Augustus and Rome. 
 
 1 The collections of inscriptions give numerous examples of the worship 
 of the old Gaulish divinities under the combined Roman and Gaulish names, 
 e. g. Marti Camulo, Minervse Belisanae, Apollini Beleno, Marti Belatucardo ; 
 sometimes we find such combinations as Beleno Augusto ; one inscription in 
 Orelli (1960) gives Ardoinnae, Camulo, Jovi, Mercuric, Herculi. There are 
 also monuments to the local divinities of Gaul, as Dese Bibracti, Deae Deironae. 
 
 1 Senec. Qu. Nat. v. 17. : "Divus certe Augustus templum illi (Circio), 
 quum hi Gallia moraretur, et vovit et fecit." Lucan, i. 407. : " Solus sua li- 
 tora turbat Circius." 
 
 f " Augusto sacrum et Genio civitatis Biturigum Viviscorum." Gruter, Inter. 
 p. 227. Thierry, Gaulois, ill 258.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 85 
 
 Such was the specious compromise of religious sentiment 
 which the Gauls were invited to accept. As usual in such 
 cases, in the towns and among the higher classes, D igC ontentof 
 the new ideas flourished in the sunshine of politi- the Druidfl - 
 cal favour ; while the multitude, particularly in the remoter 
 districts, continued to cling the more fervently to their an- 
 cient forms and usages. The Druids had to choose between 
 the two classes of devotees, the courtly and powerful, the 
 rude and sincere. Whatever their interest might have 
 prompted, their love of country, their old habits and convic- 
 tions, above all their pride of caste and reputed sanctity, for- 
 bade them for the most part to acquiesce in a sacrilege com- 
 mitted by the hands of foes and strangers. They kept sul- 
 lenly aloof from the imperial blandishments, persisting in the 
 practice, discountenanced but not yet forbidden, of their rude 
 but imposing ceremonies ; they fostered the spirit of national 
 hatred among the conquered people, maintained in secret the 
 reminiscence of ancient glory and independence, and at length, 
 when the opportunity arrived, unfurled the standard of re- 
 volt, and once more led their clans against the Roman legions, 
 with the watchwords of empire and freedom. 1 
 
 Besides keeping in check both the Druids within and the 
 Germans beyond the frontier, two things were still wanting 
 to secure the subjection of the Gauls, and to give 
 
 ,. .11 / i i Augustus satis- 
 
 free course to the imperial plans for their social fled with the 
 
 mt_ A__. .0 ^L i promise of tri- 
 
 regeneration. The first of these was to control bute from the 
 the vaunted freedom of the neighbouring tribes 
 of Britain, which Caesar himself had felt to imperil the se- 
 curity of his yet unorganized conquests. The constant and 
 increasing intercourse between the opposite coasts, while it 
 consolidated the power of the island chiefs, might sap the 
 foundations of submission on the continent. But Augustus 
 was too cautious to engage in an enterprise of such magnitude 
 as the invasion of a region, the resources and even the size 
 of which were but imperfectly known to him, and where he 
 
 1 Tac. Hist. iv. 54. 59. : " Ne deessent libertati . . . juravere pro imperio 
 Galliarum." Thierry, I. c.
 
 86 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 might find it impossible, even after a first success, either to ad- 
 vance or recede with honour. He accepted with alacrity the 
 renewed promise of annual tribute, however little he might 
 expect its punctual fulfilment, and trusted to address and in- 
 trigue, and the distribution among the native chiefs of hon- 
 ours and bribes, for the gradual preparation of a future con- 
 quest. Meanwhile the Romans continued alternately to con- 
 jure up pictures of the rudeness and inhospitality of the 
 British barbarians, and again to amuse themselves with the 
 thought of seeing them led in chains along the Sacred way ; l 
 but while fully convinced that their arms and counsels were 
 alike invincible, they were content to leave the glory of the 
 triumph to another generation.* 
 
 After securing the conquered people from contact with 
 external liberty, it was requisite to strengthen the bonds 
 Operations for which strained them to the conquerors themselves. 
 pa C BM n of the kike tne captive chained to the arm of the soldier 
 Alps. w jj O guarded him, the provinces were bound to 
 
 Rome by the great military ways. But these, though ex- 
 tending through the length of Italy, and again from the fron- 
 tier to the extremities of the provinces beyond, had been long 
 intercepted by the rugged barrier of the Alps, the perils of 
 which were aggravated by the jealous ferocity of their native 
 tribes. Many an invader indeed had penetrated them from 
 either side. The Gauls and Romans had alternately burst 
 through every obstacle, to strike the foe couched in fancied 
 security beyond. The opposition of the natives had suc- 
 cumbed to the resistless determination of a Hannibal, or the 
 overwhelming armaments of a Pompeius. On the other hand, 
 in the intervals of these international conflicts, the spirit of 
 
 1 Hor. Od. iii. 4. 33. : " Visam Britannos hospitibus feros." 
 Epod. 1. : " Intactua aut Britannus ut descenderet 
 
 Sacra catenatus via," 
 
 2 It was perhaps popularly believed that the Britons had actually placed 
 themselves under Roman authority. Compare the expression of so grave and 
 sensible a writer as Strabo, half a century later : ical ointlav ffx&ov n Tape- 
 trittvaffav rots 'Pwjuafou faijv r^v t^jffof. iv. 5. p. 200.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 87 
 
 traffic had tempted solitary passengers to thread the defiles, 
 and trample a narrow pathway through the everlasting snows, 
 while they purchased the forbearance of the mountaineers by 
 a regular tribute. Polybius could enumerate in his time three 
 routes over the western Alps, which he distinguished by the 
 names of the tribes on the Italian side, through whose terri- 
 tories they ran. On the one hand lay the coast-road through 
 the lands of the Ligurians ; on the other that through the 
 country of the Salassi, or the valley of the Dora Baltea; 
 while a third, between the two, traversed the region of the 
 Taurini, along the defile of the Dora Susina. 1 Of these the 
 first was most commonly adopted by the Romans under the 
 republic ; and the Auretian way, which conducted from Rome 
 to the Cisalpine frontier on the west, was extended under the 
 name of Julia into the Province. The hostility, however, of 
 the unsettled tribes of Liguria made it often impracticable, 
 and Pompeius effected a securer passage for his troops, that 
 perhaps which now conducts over the Mont Genevre, while 
 Caesar, at least on one memorable occasion, penetrated into 
 Gaul by the pass of the Cenis. The final subjugation of the 
 Ligurians was effected by Augustus, and commemorated, with 
 that of the other tribes of the Western Alps, on a monument, 
 still remaining, not far from Monaco. 4 Henceforth the coast, 
 
 1 Strabo, iv. 6. p. 209. : Set Ai-yiW ntv -r^v eyyjoTo r$ Tvpfavutf ir\a.yfi 
 flra TV 5ta Tavpivtav, ^v 'AwijBaf $tTJ\0(i> tlra rV Sici '2a\affffuv. These 
 are still the principal routes for entering Italy from the west. It is uncertain 
 whether Polybius was aware that there were in fact two practicable passes 
 through the Salassi those of the two St. Bernards, or the Pennine and Graian 
 Alps, meeting at Aosta, and two also through the Taurini those of the Cenis 
 and Genevre, which were both known as the Cottian Alps, meeting at Susa. 
 But if, as is not improbable, he was only thinking of the descents into Italy, 
 he would not stop to particularise every separate road he might be acquainted 
 with. 
 
 3 Strabo, iv. 6. The spot is indicated by the name of a village, Turbia 
 (Tropsea), Mannert, ix. 27 1. The inscription is given at length by Pliny, H. N. 
 iii. 24. It records the names of forty-four conquered tribes. The Ligurians, 
 as we read in Dion, liv. 24., were finally reduced in 740, but as the inscription 
 is dated Aug. Imp. xiii. it cannot have been set up earlier than 746. See 
 belww.
 
 88 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 or Cornice road, became as safe as it was commodious for 
 communication with the south of Gaul. At the same time 
 the path over the Cenis, the nearest route to Lugdunum, 
 was improved and secured by treaty with Cottius, the king 
 of the Cottian Alps, which included the spurs and summits 
 of the Cenis, Genevre, and Monte Viso. The barbarian chief 
 was allowed to retain a nominal sovereignty in return for his 
 zeal and fidelity, and the bounds of Italy continued for a cen- 
 tury to be placed at Ad Fines or Avigliana, the first ascent 
 of the mountains. 1 But he was made to feel his entire depend- 
 ence on his patrons by the galling spectacle of a Roman col- 
 ony planted at the entrance of his dominions, Augusta of the 
 Taurini, or Turin. Beyond this Alpine tract lay the cluster 
 of the Graian mountains and the pass of the Little St. Bernard, 
 with which also the Romans were already familiar, and by 
 which Caesar seems to have sometimes travelled. The moun- 
 taineers, named, as we have seen, Salassi, who occupied the 
 Italian side of this pass, as well as of the Great St. Bernard 
 further on, constantly resented the intrusion of strangers. 
 Csesar himself had once lost his baggage in a skirmish with 
 them. 2 In the year 729 Terentius Varro, who had been charged 
 with the task of reducing them, persuaded them to treat, and 
 then attacked them unprepared, and captured the whole tribe. 3 
 The victims of this signal treachery, 8,000 fighting men and 
 36,000 old men, women, and children, were sold into slavery ; 
 
 1 The Cottian people received Latinitas, and Cottius obtained, with the 
 name of M. Julius, the title of praefectus. See the inscription on the arch of 
 Susa erected by him (Orell. 626.) : " Civitates quse sub eo prsefecto fuerunt." 
 Comp. Strabo, /. c. ; Amm. Marcell. xv. 10. The date of this inscription is 
 fixed to 745 by the words Aug. Imp. xiii. Trib. pot. xv. ; Fischer, Roem. 
 Zeittaf. 
 
 8 Strabo, iv. 6. 205. : tfffaijffav 8 irore ical xp^M* Ta Kaf<rapos, xal litffiaXov 
 Kprinvovs ffrparoirfSois, -irp6<f>aa-iv &is dtioiroiovvrts % yttpvpovvrfs TOTOJUOUJ. The 
 same writer relates that the Salassi mulcted Decimus Brutus one drachma per 
 man, when he crossed their mountains in his flight from Mutina. 
 
 8 This Varro was a Licinius Murena, adopted by an A. Terentius Varro, 
 whose name he accordingly bore. He continued, however, to be sometimes 
 called by his original designation. For the conquest of the Salassi see Dion, 
 liii. 25. ; Liv. Spit, cxxxv. ; Suet. Oct. 21. ; Plin. Hist. Nat. iii. 21.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 89 
 
 and it was stipulated that their masters should in no case 
 emancipate them under a period of twenty years. At the 
 point where the two streams meet which form the Dora Bel- 
 tea, the emperor founded a military colony, to which he gave 
 the name of Augusta Pretoria, now Aosta, to assure for 
 ever the safe passage of troops and wayfarers ; and at the 
 entrance of the town he erected a triumphal arch to attest the 
 utility and glory of his conquest. 1 The reduction of the 
 Salassi, the most formidable of the Alpine tribes, coincided 
 with the submission of the Cantabrians, and Augustus, while 
 still occupied with the settlement of affairs in Spain, could 
 command the temple of Janus to be once more closed at 
 Rome.* This speedy repetition of the auspicious solemnity 
 of four years previously, shows how popular the idea of 
 peace now was with the Romans ; it marks the striking 
 change that had taken place in the character of the times and 
 the people, and what a field was open for the creation of a 
 new national policy. 
 
 Enough has been said to show how means of access were 
 finally secured for the Roman arms to the nations beyond the 
 western Alps. Henceforth the conquerors and progress of the 
 their subjects, in that quarter, might peacefully fSS?** 
 coalesce. To occupy the defiles of the mountains Thrace - 
 to the east was a matter of hardly less importance, in order 
 to reach the Rha3tians, the Vindelicians, and the Pannonians, 
 with whom Rome had become gradually implicated in almost 
 constant hostilities. Our account, however, of its conflicts in 
 this quarter may be conveniently deferred. Beyond the 
 Adriatic Augustus had shared in person the hardships and 
 perils of the Roman warfare against the Dalmatians and Uly- 
 
 1 Dion, liii. 25. ; Strabo, iv. 6. p. 206. 
 
 2 Dion, liii. 26. ; Oros. vi. 21. ; " Cantabricae victories hunc honorem Caesar 
 detulit, ut tune quoque belli portas claustro cohiberi juberet. Ita tune secun- 
 do per Caesarem, quarto post urbem conditam clausua est Janus." This does 
 not of course imply that Rome had never been at peace but twice before 
 Augustus, in the legendary period of Romulus and Numa, but that no chief 
 had been encouraged by the temper of the times to make a political merit of 
 restoring it.
 
 90 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 rians, the success of which, if effected by no brilliant victories, 
 was not the less solid and permanent. But the advance of 
 his lieutenants was not checked by the range of the Mona 
 Boebius, which separates the waters of the Adriatic from 
 those of the Danube and the Euxine. Forty years before 
 Actium, while Lucius Lucullus was engaging Mithridates in 
 Asia, his brother Marcus first traversed the vast plains of 
 Mcesia, and checked the league of Scythians and Sarmatians 
 with which the king of Pontus was meditating to penetrate 
 into Italy. 1 The dread of such a combination among the 
 unknown hordes of the North survived the overthrow of the 
 man, who alone, perhaps, could have hoped effectually to 
 wield it. Accordingly, among the projects of Caesar, which 
 divided his attention with the task of chastising the Parthians, 
 was that of a military promenade along the northern shores 
 of the Euxine and Mxeotis. His successor shared, indeed, in 
 no such romantic visions ; but he allowed his lieutenants to 
 follow in the track of Marcus Lucullus, to check the aggres- 
 sions of the nomade races of the plains, and reduce the Greek 
 colonies on the western coast of the Euxine to more direct 
 obedience. 3 Istrus and Dionysopolis, Odessus and Tomi, 
 Calatis and Apollonia, accepted his powerful protection 
 against the Mcesians encamped around them, and the Get, 
 lazyges, and Dacians, who crossed the Danube and poured 
 over the morasses of lower Scythia. 3 These places became the 
 outposts of the Roman power, the factories of Roman com- 
 merce, in some cases the prisons of Roman tyranny ; but the 
 subjugation of Mcesia itself continued through the reign of 
 Augustus to be merely nominal : it was not till the time of 
 his successor that tribute was first exacted from it, when it 
 
 1 A. u. 681. B. c. 73. Liv. Epit. xcvii. ; Eutrop. vi. 7. ; Oros. vi. 3. 
 
 a Dion, li. 23-27. 
 
 3 The sites of these places lay on the Bulgarian coast, but none of them, 
 I believe, have been clearly identified. For the names of the hostile nations 
 by which they were threatened, see Ovid in the Tristia and Ex Ponto. Yirgil 
 and Horace mention the DacL Ukert, Geogr. der Griech. und Roem. pt. iii.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 91 
 
 became annexed to the province of Ulyricum. 1 Some por- 
 tions of this latter country were suffered to continue under 
 the sovereignty of native chieftains, who were dignified with 
 the title of king, and alliance with Rome, in return for the 
 real surrender of their independence. The victories which he 
 claimed over the Moesians, indecisive as they were, gained for 
 M. Crassus the honours of a triumph. In Thrace he was 
 emulated by a Lentulus and a Piso. Rome was appalled by 
 the accounts these commanders transmitted of the ferocity 
 of their captives, who gnawed, it was said, their chains in the 
 fury of a savage despair. 2 
 
 From the northern we may pass once more to the southern 
 frontier of the empire, and the remote realms of the Moor 
 and the Numidian, where Augustus without a 
 
 n. . , ,. , , ., .^. The kingdom 
 
 ioe or rival could make a graceful exhibition of Mauretama 
 
 n , ,. , ., rrn given to Juba. 
 
 oi moderation and generosity. The sway 01 
 the Mauretanian Bocchus extended from the shores of the 
 Atlantic to the city of Salda, and its independence had 
 been guaranteed by Julius Caesar after the battle of Thap- 
 sus. He had enlarged it, moreover, with a portion of Juba's 
 dominions, or rather, perhaps, restored to it some territories 
 which the N"umidian had wrested from it. This donation 
 was confirmed by Octavius, to whom Bocchus continued 
 to his death in devoted obedience. Upon this event, which 
 occurred in 721, the triumvir, it might be expected, would 
 annex this sovereignty to the empire. He abstained, how- 
 ever, from this aggression, and a few years later, in 729, 
 appointed Juba, the son of the late king of Numidia, who 
 had been educated at Rome, and imbued with due veneration 
 for Roman institutions, to rule as a friend and ally over it. 
 At the same time he gave the young chieftain for wife Cleo- 
 patra Selene, the daughter of Antonius and his Egyptian 
 paramour, and even transferred to their protection her broth- 
 ers Ptolema3us and Alexander. The respect and even favour 
 he thus displayed to the children of his great enemy, whom 
 Octavia herself had bred up with her own children, deserves 
 
 1 Appian, Bell, fllyr. c. 30. a Floras, iv. 12.
 
 92 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 to be honourably recorded. It was intended, perhaps, as a 
 mark of his sincere affection for his noble sister. 1 
 
 The dominions of the peaceful and studious Juba were 
 enlarged by the addition of the tract which lies eastward 
 The province fr m Salda to the river Ampsaga. This was the 
 of Africa. boundary of the Roman province of Africa, which 
 extended from hence to the greater Syrtis ; the ancient 
 domain of Carthage having been increased by the accession 
 of the conquered realm of Numidia. This region had been 
 completely pacified by the wise administration of Caesar ; nor 
 did it ever again betray an inclination to espouse the repub- 
 lican cause. When the ports of Italy were opened to its 
 ample stores of grain, it advanced rapidly in wealth and im- 
 portance, and even the extortions of its prefect Sallustius 
 failed to shake its fidelity. On the second division of the 
 empire between the triumvirs, its importance was such that 
 it could be assigned, with some appearance of respect and 
 good faith, as the sole portion of one of the contracting par- 
 ties. After the overthrow of Lepidus, Augustus considered 
 the province as his own conquest, and of all his possessions 
 there was none that caused him so little anxiety or expense. 
 A single legion sufficed to maintain it, and the emperor could 
 concede its government to the senate without prejudice to 
 his own interests ; nor throughout the long period of his 
 reign did it ever require his presence, a fact which could be 
 affirmed of only two provinces of the empire, one doubtless 
 the most obscure, the other, perhaps, the most tranquil of all* 
 
 1 Dion, li. 15., liii. 26. ; Strabo, xvii. 3. p. 828. 
 
 4 Sardinia and Africa. Suet. Oct. 47. The Cyrenaica should, I believe, 
 be added. It is remarkable, however, that the Fasti record no less than five 
 triumphs over Africa, that is, over the wild tribes on the frontier, such as the 
 Garamantes and others (see Plin. H. N. v. 5.), in the early years of the em- 
 pire; those, namely, of Statilius Taurus, A. u. 720; of L. Cornificius, 722; 
 of L. Autronius Paetus, 725 ; of L. Sempronius Atratinus, 733 ; and of L. 
 Cornelius Balbus, 735. This Balbus was nephew to Caesar's friend. Pliny 
 remarks that he was the only foreigner (i. e. from beyond Italy) who ever en- 
 joyed the honour. He was, moreover, the last Roman subject who triumphed. 
 The province of Africa being senatorial, the emperor scrupled thus long to 
 curtail the right of the senate to reward its own officers.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 93 
 
 Beyond the great Syrtis eastward lay the province of the 
 Cyrenaica, which enjoys throughout the whole course of Ro- 
 man history a remarkable immunity from politi- r^ Cyre . 
 cal vicissitudes. Surrendered to the republic by naloa - 
 the will of its last Macedonian sovereign Ptolemaeus Apion, 
 it was for a time allowed to retain its freedom, on pay- 
 ment of a moderate tribute. Upon the pretext, however, of 
 quarrels occurring between its cities, the Romans shortly 
 afterwards interfered: Lucullus formed it into a province 
 about the year 680, and Metellus combined it under one 
 government with the opposite island of Crete. 1 To the 
 transfer of its allegiance, and again to the loss of its indepen- 
 dence, it submitted without a murmur, and gave its annual 
 tribute of the gum silphium, which was worth its weight in 
 silver, without repining. The sword was never required to 
 enforce its submission. In the civil wars, indeed, it ventured 
 to assert its indifference to either side, and it was fortunate, 
 when for a moment it refused admission to the republican 
 force under Cato, to meet with an equitable opponent who 
 abstained from chastising its presumption. Throughout the 
 long period of its connexion with Rome the Cyrenaica 
 attached itself to no political movements, nor, remote and 
 obscure as it was, did it ever become the battle-field of con- 
 tending parties. Nor was it less favoured by the blessings 
 of nature. Its configuration is that of a large segment of a 
 circle projecting into the Mediterranean ; and it consists of a 
 series of terraces rising one behind another, like the seats of 
 a vast inverted theatre, to a depth of eighty or an hundred 
 miles into the interior, till bounded by a range of lofty sum- 
 mits which protect it from the simoom of the desert. Upon 
 these terraces, fanned by cool breezes from the sea, grow the 
 
 1 The precise date of the reduction of the Cyrenaica is still a matter of dis- 
 pute in consequence of the differing statements of Eutropius, vi. 9., and Appian, 
 Bell. Civ. i. 111. See Becker's Roem. Alt. iii. 1. 222. note. The union of 
 Crete and Cyrene continued under Augustus, who made it a senatorial prov- 
 ince under a propraetor with the title of proconsul. See an inscription in 
 Gruter, p. 415. 5.
 
 94: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 products of as many different climates, and the fortunate 
 inhabitants of its five cities gathered, in a succession of 
 harvests prolonged through eight months of the year, the 
 grams of the north and the fruits of the south of Europe, 
 together with the gums and perfumes of Asia and Africa. 1 
 One only drawback to such manifold advantages is recorded 
 in the annual recurrence of a plague of locusts : to this must 
 be added the customary extortion of the Roman officials, as 
 similar in kind, and repeated in similar succession. Never- 
 theless, the Cyrenaica, if not free from this endemic pesti- 
 lence, may have escaped better than most of its kindred pro- 
 vinces ; no instance, at least as far as I remember, occurs of a 
 public scandal in this quarter. 
 
 Crossing the elevated plain of the Libyan desert, and 
 
 descending the Catabathmus, its eastward slope, we alight on 
 
 the fertile valley of the Nile, the latest and most 
 
 The province of . ... /. T- T 
 
 Egypt and the precious acquisition of Home. Little more than 
 
 regions border- , ,,, , , , , . .in -,. > 
 
 ing on the Ara- halt a century had elapsed since the first political 
 intercourse of the Romans with the Egyptians, 
 and in that brief period the arms, and still more the craft, of 
 the Western conquerors had reduced the kingdom of the 
 Ptolemies to complete servitude. The neighbouring realm of 
 Palestine was traversing with slower and less direct steps the 
 same fated cycle from independence to servitude, but at this 
 moment, as we have seen, it had only reached the stage of 
 royal vassalage. At no extremity of the empire did the pulse 
 of Roman life beat more energetically than in these regions. 
 The south-eastern angle of the Mediterranean had become the 
 common theatre of the commercial activity of all nations. 
 Greeks and Syrians, Jews and Ethiopians, Persians and Ara- 
 bians were all mingled together at this central focus ; but the 
 Romans, more resolute and self-confident than any, more 
 shrewd perhaps and keen in business than most of their com- 
 petitors, were thrusting themselves into every emporium of 
 trade, and founding factories in every haven. Rome had long 
 
 1 Herod, iv. 198, 199. ; Plin. Hist. Nat. xiii. 4. ; xvii. 30. ; and other au- 
 thorities referred to in the article " Cyrenaica," Smith's Diet. Anc. Geography.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 95 
 
 been glutted with the glories of Grecian civilization ; statues 
 and bronzes, plate and jewels, had been poured with un- 
 bounded profusion into her markets : but the luxury of the 
 masters of the world, and not less of their mistresses, was 
 now taking another direction, and the purveyors to their taste 
 and cupidity were ransacking the east and south of Asia for 
 gums and spices, silks, ivory, and costly woods, for all the 
 most curious products of India and Arabia, their birds of 
 gayest plumage, and their slaves, bedizened with gems and 
 fragrant with aromatic odours. 1 The chief emporium of this 
 traffic was Petra, the rock-hewn city, which filled a narrow 
 gorge in the mountains of Seir, and kept the gate of the 
 eastern and western desert. From a port on the Arabian 
 shore of the Red Sea, to which the Greeks gave the name of 
 Leuce Come or the White Village, the merchandise of India, 
 Arabia, and Ethiopia, was carried on the backs of camels to 
 Petra, and from thence to Rhinocolura on the Mediterranean, 
 for dispersion throughout the western world. 2 But the pro- 
 ducers of these luxuries, living in the rudest simplicity, 
 demanded few of the products of Europe in return, and Italy 
 continued for centuries to exchange for them its precious 
 metals only. In the year 730, the higher circles of the capital 
 were amused and excited by the rumour, that the emperor 
 
 1 Ovid. Amor. ii. : " Psittacua Eois imitatrix ales ab India." 
 Virg. Geo. i. 57. : " India mittit ebur, molles sua thura Sabsei." 
 Hor. Od. i. 29. : " Puer quia ex aula capillia 
 
 Ad cyathum statuetur unctia." 
 
 For the vegetable producta of India and Arabia, see particularly Plin. H. N. 
 xii. 8. foil. The objecta of Indian commerce, at its fullest extent, are enumer- 
 ated by the author of the Periplus maris Erythrcei, and in the Digest, xxxix. 
 4. 16., de publicanis et vectigalibus. But these authorities refer to a later 
 period. 
 
 2 Strabo tella ua that in hia time, within half a century, the route of Ara- 
 bian commerce had changed to Myos Hormus and Alexandria by the Nile. 
 This was in consequence of the great impulse given to the trade of Egypt by 
 its Roman masters. Strabo, xvi. 4. : vvvl 5e rb vKtov v r^v 'A\fdvSp(iav rf 
 Nfi'Ay Kardyfrcu, rit, 5' in TTJS 'Apa#t'os /cal TTJ* 'IvSiicfjs els Vlvos '6pfJ.ov, evff 
 virfp6f<rts (Is Koirrdv T?)J 07)j8at8oy /caju^Xois, % SitSptryi rov Ntftov, KeifJLfinj tit
 
 96 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 was about to send an expedition to acquire the native seats 
 of these splendid luxuries. The actual views of the govern- 
 ment were kept perhaps in studied obscurity, and free scope 
 was given to the wildest ideas of avarice and ambition. The 
 East, in the imagination of the Romans, glittered with gold 
 and jewels, as with the rays of its own morning sun. The 
 defeat of Crassus was still unavenged ; the disasters of An- 
 tonius unretrieved ; the fabled treasures of the great Parthian 
 cities invited the hand of the spoiler, who knew nothing of 
 the treaties his ruler had made with their chiefs, or of the 
 motives of the policy which still kept his sword in its scab- 
 bard. With ideas thus vague and unsettled, the objects of 
 the meditated enterprise were easily confounded in the minds 
 of the Romans. At home they had little notion of commerce 
 apart from conquest, and their cupidity was inflamed by the 
 splendours paraded before them in the triumphs of Pompeius 
 and Augustus. Accordingly, in the current language of the 
 day, as we may gather it from the poets of the court, the 
 arms of Rome were to be directed against the Parthians and 
 Medes, the Arabians and Indians, the Bactrians and Seres. 1 
 The land of the morning was to be explored sword in hand, 
 subjugated and ransacked. The young nobles cast aside the 
 tomes of the philosophers, and equipped themselves in breast- 
 plates of Iberian steel, abjuring the tame lessons of content 
 and simplicity for the prospect of illimitable booty.* Au- 
 gustus might shudder, perhaps, at seeing how little the peace- 
 ful occupations to which he had directed the Roman youth 
 had really taken hold of their minds. Neither did it enter 
 into his views to hazard any great scheme of oriental con- 
 
 1 Compare Hor. Od. i. 29.: Propert. ii. 10., iii. 4. ; Virgil, jn. vii. 604. 
 " Sive Getis inferre manu lachrymabile bellum 
 Eoisve Arabisve parant, seu tendere ad Indos, 
 Auroramque sequi, Parthosque reposcere signa." 
 
 * Hor. I. c. : " Cum tu coemptos undique nobiles 
 
 Libros Panaeti, Socraticam et domum, 
 Mutare loricis Iberis 
 Pollicitua meliora tendia."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 97 
 
 quest : he shrank from risking an encounter with the formid- 
 able Parthians ; he limited his preparations to a scale propor- 
 tioned to an exploring expedition, rather than an invading 
 armament. 
 
 Even at a later period, indeed, sober historians did not scru- 
 ple to affirm that the object of Augustus was either to form 
 relations of commerce with the Arabs and Ethio- Expedition of 
 pians, or, if necessary, to reduce them to submis- ^i^t^" 8 
 sion by force of arms ; but the account they give Ar * bl p n 7 V 
 of the means employed seems to show that no B - c - 2t 
 armed occupation of distant regions was actually contem- 
 plated. The force placed under the command of .-^Elius 
 Gallus, the officer chosen for the service, amounted only to 
 ten thousand men, forming apparently no more than a single 
 legion, with auxiliaries, of whom one thousand were Naba- 
 thaeans and five hundred Jews. 1 The legionaries were drafted 
 from the army of Egypt, and Gallus himself had recently 
 served there under the prefect Petronius. The blunders, 
 however, which he committed from the very outset, bespeak 
 a strange want of local information. The Romans, with 
 their usual vanity, ascribed them to the treachery of their 
 adviser Sylteus, a minister of the N"abatha?an king Obodas, 
 who sought, they declared, both in his own interest and that 
 of his master, to harass the invaders in every possible way. 
 But the first delay was caused by the error of equipping large 
 war-galleys for the navigation of the Arabian coast, which is 
 full in many parts of shoals and rocks. The expedition was 
 kept waiting at Cleopatris at the head of the gulf of Hero- 
 opolis till a new flotilla of smaller vessels could be equipped. 
 "When all was ready it dropped down the gulf to the point of 
 Drepanum, and then crossed the mouth of the Elanitic gulf 
 
 1 Strabo, xvi. 4. : txu> v "^P' f-vplovs vtovs T>V IK Trjs Alyvirrov 'Pw 
 ualuv KoL Ttav ffvfj./j.dxwv, ai> -ffffav 'lovSaioi jjifv ireiraK({<rH, NaaTa7oi 5e 
 XI'AJOJ. These words have been generally understood to mean that there were 
 10,000 Romans besides allies ; but I believe my interpretation is more correct. 
 Two legions constituted the ordinary garrison of Egypt, and ^Elius Gallus was 
 only a subordinate to the prefect. 
 TOL. iv. 7
 
 98 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 to the Arabian coast. Here it ought to have made good its 
 landing, and taken the caravan route southward in the direc- 
 tion of the spice regions of Arabia Felix or Yemen, to which 
 it was bound. But Syllseus, we are told, assured Gallus that 
 there was no practicable coast route, and persuaded him to 
 continue his course by sea as far as Leuce Come (Haura). In 
 this latter part of its voyage, the fleet suffered severely from 
 the difficulties of the navigation and the violence of winds 
 and tides ; and the men were already dispirited when they 
 first touched land after a passage of fifteen days. From hence 
 it was determined to march into the spice country, opening 
 relations with the intervening states, chastising such as 
 opposed or betrayed any jealousy of the armed strangers, 
 and leaving garrisons at the most important posts for the 
 security of their return. But though the object of the expe- 
 dition was not properly warlike, it was the crafty policy of 
 Sylla3us to engage it in hostilities with tribe after tribe, in 
 order to exhaust and finally destroy it. Before, however, 
 the Romans could move in advance, they were dreadfully 
 harassed by sickness, which particularly affected their mouths 
 and legs, and seems to have been the same which modern 
 travellers have described as endemic on that part of the coast. 1 
 When, at last, after passing a summer and the succeeding 
 winter under these distresses, the army was ready to march, 
 Syllaeus directed it into the country of Aretas, a chief in 
 alliance with Obodas. This is the name frequently given by 
 the Greeks and Romans to chiefs of northern Arabia, and 
 from this and other circumstances it seems probable that the 
 route of Gallus lay, not southward, in the first instance, but 
 
 1 Strabo says, ffrofj.aKa.KKri re Kal ffKf\orvpl3ri weipa^ojieVf;? TTJS ffrpartas 
 tirtX&piois vdOtfft, which is curiously confirmed by the observations of Burck- 
 hardt (Travels in Arabia, i. 182. 446. &c.) : " My stay at Djidda was pro- 
 longed to three weeks, chiefly in consequence of sore legs, a disease very pre- 
 valent on this unhealthy coast, where every bite, if neglected, becomes a 
 
 serious wound I believe that one fourth of the population of Djidda is 
 
 constantly afflicted with ulcers on the legs." See Forster's Hist. Geogr. of 
 Arabia, 5i. 280. Djidda, it should be remarked, is 300 miles south of Haura; 
 but Burckhardt's observations apply to the whole coast of the Hedjaz.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 99 
 
 eastward, into the central plateau of the great peninsula, 
 known by the name of El Nedjed ; and that the territory of 
 Aretas himself was El Kasim, lying on the caravan track from 
 Medina to Bahrein on the Persian Gulf. 1 Even here, though 
 the country was not unfriendly, and the track not unfrequent- 
 ed, the strangers were subjected, by the artifices of Syllaeus, 
 to severe privations ; but when, at last, they turned south- 
 ward across an inhospitable desert, in quest of Agrana (Ned- 
 jran), at the first descent of the hills towards the Red Sea, 
 their sufferings became intense. Three months were spent in 
 reaching this spot, where the Romans found rest and refresh- 
 ment, the chief having fled at their approach, and the tribe 
 having yielded with little resistance. Six days beyond Agra- 
 na, the Romans fought a battle on the banks of a river, in 
 which they boasted of destroying ten thousand Arabs with 
 the loss of two men only. Nevertheless, from hence every 
 step was contested, and six months had passed before they 
 reached the city of Marsyaba, which lay within two days of 
 the spice country, the cherished object of their expedition. 
 But the resistance they here encountered, together with the 
 want of water, determined them to retire from before its 
 walls at the end of six days. They had become persuaded of 
 the treachery of Syllaeus, who had led them by a painful and 
 
 1 Strabo says that Syllseus led the Romans KVK\oiropelan. Mr. Forster 
 justly remarks, " While Callus might be and was deceived, a Roman general 
 could not be altogether befooled by his Arab conductor. Total ignorance of 
 the country might betray him, as it had betrayed Crassus, into taking a totally 
 wrong road an error which his subsequent better knowledge of the country 
 enabled him eventually to correct ; but no amount of ignorance could induce 
 him to be led, like the characters of a modern drama, round and round a 
 horse-pond, as must have been pretty much the case, could we believe him 
 to have employed alternately six months and two months in his passage through 
 the same line of country. Yet this is the ground taken by our highest modern 
 authorities. D'Anville, Gosselin, Vincent, all agree in conducting and recon- 
 ducting the Roman army through the Hedjaz." Forster supposes, on the con- 
 trary, that the army described two sides of a triangle on its advance, and took 
 the base on its retreat. See below. Pliny, #. If. vi. 32., refers to this expe- 
 dition, and gives a list of towns which the Romans occupied on their route ; 
 but their names afford little or no assistance in determining it.
 
 100 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 circuitous route, in order, as was supposed, to employ their 
 arms in chastising tribes unfriendly tp his master. Exhausted 
 as the Romans were, their leader relinquished the attempt to 
 penetrate southward, and commenced his retreat. Having 
 once more reached Agrana, instead of retracing the route by 
 which he had come, he turned to the left in the direction of 
 the Red Sea, from whence he led his army, apparently with- 
 out impediment, along the coast. On reaching Nera Come 
 (Yembo), where he arrived in sixty days, he fell in with the 
 flotilla which had been despatched southward to wait on his 
 movements, and, once more embarking with the remnant of 
 his soldiers, crossed over the gulf to the Bay of Hormas. 1 
 The failure of the expedition must have been a severe mortifi- 
 cation to Augustus, whose power rested to so great a degree 
 on the reputation of success ; but he threw a veil over it, by 
 retaining and even promoting Gallus in his service, and by 
 refraining from the infliction of punishment on Syllaeus. The 
 one on his return was appointed prefect of Egypt, the other 
 ventured to appear in person at Rome, where he negotiated 
 
 1 The main points to be determined in tracing the route of this expedition 
 are Leuce Come, Nera Come, and Marsyaba. The two first of these are, I 
 think, satisfactorily settled by Mr. Forster (Geogr. of Arabia, ii. 27*7. foil.). 
 The first corresponds in signification with El Haura, the White City, and also 
 in its distance (fifteen days' voyage) from Cleopatris, the distance in miles, 
 taking the sinuous line of the coast, being stated at 470, or 31 miles a day. 
 Mr. Forster shows also, from Golius, that Nera, a barbarous Greek word for 
 water, agrees in meaning with Yembo, the name of a town eighty miles south 
 of Haura on the coast of the Hedjaz. Marsyaba may very possibly be Saba 
 or Sabbia, lying midway between the modern Mecca and Mareb, with the 
 former of which it has been identified by Gosselin, but by D'Anville, followed 
 by Gibbon, with the latter. Mareb, however, lies hi the centre of the spice 
 region, while Mecca is too distant from it. I think, with Mr. Forster, that 
 Gallus went eastward from Haura in the first instance (and this was the opinion 
 of Burckhardt and of Walckenaer, Vie d'Horace, i. 664.), though I cannot im- 
 agine that he got, as that writer represents, almost within sight of the Persian 
 Gulf. Mr. Forster lays great stress on the mention of the river, which he 
 thinks he can prove was the Sancan, the only stream in the vicinity of Nedjran. 
 But his identification of Agrana with Nedjran on the caravan route from the 
 Persian Gulf into Yemen cannot be fully relied on, and the maps I have been 
 able to consult differ widely from each other.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 either for his master or for himself, but eventually, being 
 detected in a fresh treason, expiated his offence with death. 1 
 
 While Gallus was thus occupied in Arabia, his superior 
 officer Petronius, the governor of Egypt, was employed in 
 chastising the encroachments of the Ethiopians p e tronius, the 
 on the other side of the Red Sea. During the E^^VGai. 
 latter years of the feeble and enervated rule of lus in E syp t - 
 the Macedonians the resources of that fertile country were 
 allowed to run to waste, and even the defence of their fron- 
 tiers had been neglected. While Alexandria flourished from 
 the concourse of all nations in its streets, and from the in- 
 creasing development of Oriental trade, the old cities of 
 Upper Egypt had utterly decayed, the industry of the native 
 Copts, no longer strung to the utmost by importunate task- 
 masters, had relaxed and dwindled away, and the Arabs of 
 Nubia and Ethiopia had encroached upon their domains, and 
 occupied their crumbling halls. 2 The artificial channels for 
 the irrigation of the soil, on which the whole welfare of 
 Lower Egypt depended, had become choked with sand ; the 
 canal from the Nile to the head of the Red Sea, begun by 
 Sesostris or Darius, and which the Ptolemies had undertaken 
 to complete, had either been left unfinished or was rendered 
 useless from want of repairs ; the traffic of India, which, even 
 in default of continuous water communication, might have 
 been brought by a short portage to the valley of the Nile, 
 had been allowed to become diverted to the route of Petra ; 
 and not more than twenty vessels were despatched annually 
 from Arsinoe to the Indian Ocean. Augustus undertook 
 to repair all these disorders, and unfold the boundless 
 resources of his new province. But his first prefect, Cor- 
 nelius Gallus, was found unequal to the charge, in which, 
 
 1 Strabo, 1. c. : rri<re 8e ol SiKas 4i> 'PM!?> irpoffirotovfufvos ntv <pi\iav, e'Ae- 
 yX&*l* &* *?&* avrrj ry irovripltf xal &\\a Katcovpyuv, Kal aTrorfiriOelsr^v Kf(pa\-(iv. 
 
 2 Thus the city of Coptos was occupied jointly by Egyptians and Arabs, 
 that is, Ethiopians. Strabo, xvii. 1. p. 816. But the principal evidence on this 
 point is drawn from the large proportion of Arab skulls among the mummies 
 of this period. Sharpe's Hist, of Egypt, ch. i. 3.
 
 102 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 besides indulging in personal vanity, he had excited by ill- 
 judged severity the disaffection of an irritable population. 
 He had been removed, as we have seen, from the government 
 of Egypt, and his place had been supplied by C. Petronius, 
 who brought zeal and activity to his work. The new govern- 
 or speedily quelled the risings of the Alexandrians, and set 
 his legionaries, freed from the task of coercion, to clear the 
 canals and remove the causes of insurrection. 1 When this 
 beneficent work was completed, it was found that a rise of 
 the Nile waters of twelve cubits sufficed to cover a tract of 
 country which had previously required fourteen. 2 
 
 A portion of the army of Egypt was now drafted off on 
 service in Arabia ; but about the same time the encroachments 
 He defends the of the barbarians on the frontier had become 
 anat't^ e k f ofthe intolerable, and it was necessary to employ a 
 EO A. ?! J 732. force to chastise them. Petronius repaired to 
 Syene, and demanded of the Ethiopian queen 
 Candace, the restitution of the booty her subjects had carried 
 off, including some statues of the emperor himself. The 
 barbarians retorted by complaints of the aggression of Roman 
 officers on the frontiers ; to which Petronius replied that the 
 ruler of Egypt was Caesar himself, and with him they had to 
 deal and not with his lieutenants. "When, not comprehending 
 this argument, they ventured to meet him in the field, they 
 were easily routed, and pursued far into their own territories. 
 Candace, who is described as a woman of great spirit, and the 
 more terrible to behold from the loss of an eye, consented to 
 treat for peace with the cession of the spoils demanded, and 
 of the fortified post of Premnis ; but no sooner had Petro- 
 nius withdrawn than she collected her forces to attack the 
 garrison he had left there, and compelled him to rush back in 
 haste to its rescue. Negotiations again ensued, and the 
 Roman referred his adversary to Cffisar himself for terms of 
 permanent pacification. On her demanding who Ccesar was, 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 18. 
 
 a Strabo, xviL 1. p. 788. Ten cubits, instead of twelve, according to 
 Groskurd's reading.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 103 
 
 he despatched her envoys to Augustus, who was then in per- 
 son at Samos, and the emperor, satisfied with their protesta- 
 tions of respect, and sensible of the fruitlessness of attempting 
 to extend his sway into their wild regions, released their 
 nation from the tribute his prefect had imposed on them. 1 
 On the return of jElius Gallus from Arabia he wlas appointed 
 to succeed Petronius in the prefecture. In the progress 
 which he made to Syene he took with him the geographer 
 Strabo, then a young man, to whose personal examinations 
 and inquiries on the spot we owe the minute details about 
 Egypt recorded in his great work. 
 
 In the year 733 Augustus once more quitted the seat of 
 his government to make a proconsular progress through the 
 Oriental provinces, and settle their administration 
 
 , n .. , . s\ ! i / , , i Progressof Au- 
 
 on a definite basis. On his way he first visited gustus into the 
 Sicily, where he planted Roman colonies in Syra- i.' u. 733. 
 cuse and other cities, impoverished perhaps, or 
 depopulated, by the effects of the late war, and at the same 
 time withdrew, as it would appear, the privilege of citizenship 
 accorded generally to the islanders by Antonius.* From thence 
 passing into Greece, he bestowed favours on Sparta, which 
 had been loyal to his interests, while he mulcted the Athe- 
 nians, guilty of the grossest flattery of his rival, of the most 
 lucrative of their privileges, that of selling the freedom of 
 their city. 3 Thence he crossed to the island of Samos, where 
 he passed the winter, shaming, perhaps, by his simplicity the 
 
 1 Strabo, xvii. 1. p. 820. The campaign of Petronius is referred to the 
 year 732 : Dion, liv. 5. Augustus is supposed to have coveted a footing in 
 Ethiopia or Abyssinia, from the apprehension that the natives might at any 
 time ruin Egypt by turning the course of the Nile into the Red Sea. Such a 
 project was actually entertained by Albuquerque, the great captain of the 
 Portuguese in the East, to punish the Egyptian Sultan for his opposition to the 
 establishments of that people in India. M'Culloch's Economical Policy, p. 292. 
 
 2 Among the sixty-eight cities of Sicily enumerated by Pliny (Hist, Nat. 
 iii. 14.) six only are specified as having the Roman franchise. We do not 
 know when the franchise was withdrawn, and the act is ascribed to Augustus 
 only conjecturally. Dureau de la Halle, Econ. Pol. des Homains, i. 322. 
 
 3 Dion, liv. Y. ; Spanheim, Orb. Rom. i. 61.
 
 104: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 orgies enacted on the same spot by the wretched Antonius, 
 and receiving the envoys of many vassal potentates, among 
 them, as we have seen, those of the queen of Ethiopia. In 
 the ensuing spring he landed on the continent of Asia, and 
 undertook the arrangement of its political condition, not 
 heeding the distinction he had himself made between the 
 provinces of the emperor and the senate, but exercising, in 
 virtue of his proconsular power, the same unlimited authority 
 throughout all as had been conceded to Pompeius by the 
 Gabinian law. 
 
 Armed with irresponsible power, that great conqueror had 
 prostrated the whole Lower Asia under the supremacy of 
 Political organ- Rome ; but the dependence to which he had 
 - reduced its various districts differed in form and 
 
 er Aa. degree. At the commencement of the imperial 
 
 rule a small portion only of the regions which extended to 
 the Phasis and Euphrates was strictly provincial soil ; for in 
 the centre, and by the side of these provinces, certain wide 
 tracts were still allowed to remain in the hands of native 
 princes and priests, in addition to which a few favoured terri- 
 tories were still suffered to call themselves autonomous. The 
 power, however, of the one, and the freedom of the other, 
 were held alike in fact at the mere will of the conquerors. 
 The political status of all these regions, excepting that of the 
 province of Asia, properly so called, was grounded on the acts 
 of Pompeius, ratified by the decree of the senate ; and the sys- 
 tem he created continued to subsist in all its principal features 
 into the imperial period. The dissensions of the republic, 
 the conflict of Roman parties in this distant sphere, the irrup- 
 tion of the Parthians, the intrigues of less powerful barbarians 
 on the frontiers, and, above all, the caprice and violence of 
 Antonius, had each in turn assailed and shaken it ; Augustus 
 himself, in his rapid progress through Asia on his return from 
 Egypt, had modified it in various particulars. But the work 
 which he meditated was not yet complete, and the same hand 
 which had organized the western half of the empire in accord- 
 ance with the matured system of the imperial policy, was
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 105 
 
 now employed in finally regulating the affairs of the opposite 
 hemisphere. 
 
 Bithynia and Asia were the only provinces in this quarter 
 which Augustus was content to surrender to the government 
 of the senate. Of these Asia was the earliest 
 
 ... n ,,.i -i, TT-I The provinces 
 
 acquisition of the republic beyond the Jkgean, of Asia and 
 
 . , __, . /> -nr T i- Bithynia. 
 
 and comprised the regions of Mysia, Lydia, 
 Caria, and probably the greater part of Phrygia. 1 This 
 magnificent territory had been originally obtained by the 
 testament of the last of the Attali, whose kingdom of 
 Pergamus had been extended by the aid of the Romans 
 themselves far beyond its proper limits. Bithynia had also 
 been acquired by the voluntary cession of its sovereign Nico- 
 medes. When formed into a province it was extended by 
 Pompeius, at the expense of the dominions of Mithridates, as 
 far as the Halys, so as to include the whole seaboard of 
 Paphlagonia, together with a part of Pontus. It was divided 
 from Asia by the Rhyndacus, a river which falls into the 
 Propontis : and its southern frontier was marked by the ridge 
 of Mount Olympus, which separated it from Galatia and 
 Phrygia. These provinces had been subdivided into numer- 
 ous districts for the convenience of levying the appointed 
 tribute. Thus in Asia there were as many as forty of these 
 regions, each having its chief town ; a another division was 
 that into conventus or circles for judicial and administrative 
 purposes, much fewer in number and proportionally more 
 extensive. The chief cities of Asia, six in number, were 
 denominated metropoles, and of these Ephesus was the princi- 
 pal, and the capital of the whole province ; but in all there 
 were enumerated not less than five hundred. 8 Under the 
 republic both Asia and Bithynia were governed by proprae- 
 tors, but under the emperors the officers appointed to admin- 
 
 1 Cic. pro Place. 2*7. 
 
 s This was the division of Sulla, which was generally maintained by his 
 successors. See Becker, Roem. Alterth. iii. 1. 134. 
 
 8 Becker, from Philostr. vit. Sophist, p. 36. 21. ; and Joseph. Sell. Jud. 
 ii. 16. 4.
 
 106 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 ister them by the senate took the style and rank of pro- 
 consuls. 1 
 
 With these arrangements, which constituted the ordinary 
 machinery of provincial government, Augustus did not inter- 
 Compensation f ere - His attention was directed to meting out 
 metedt^the" justice to the states and cities which had either 
 cities of Aeia. s i^ e( j with his enemies or been maltreated by 
 them. Several autonomous cities were now deprived of their 
 freedom, while others which had suffered, whether from 
 Brutus or Antonius, received munificent compensation by 
 grants of territory or relief from taxation. This retributive 
 policy Augustus had already inaugurated in his earlier pro- 
 gress ; but now, after an interval of ten years, he still found 
 his work incomplete, and the claims of those who had suffered 
 in his cause urged him to carry it out to the uttermost. The 
 people of Cyzicus, who had seized some Roman citizens in a 
 popular tumult, scourged and executed them, were now 
 punished with the loss of their national freedom ; a punish- 
 ment which was inflicted also subsequently on the people of 
 Tyre and Sidon." These cities fell henceforward under the 
 direct control of the proconsul. On the other hand, several 
 Asiatic communities were now presented with the Roman or 
 the Latin franchise. The temple of the Grecian Artemis 
 claimed from remote antiquity to confer rights of asylum 
 on the wretches who took refuge within its enclosure. Alex- 
 ander of Macedon had extended this privilege to the circuit 
 of one stadium around it ; Mithridates, letting fly an arrow 
 from the corner of the roof, had slightly overshot this limit, 
 and enlarged the sacred precincts accordingly ; but Antonius 
 had doubled the radius of the circle, so as to embrace within 
 its sphere a large portion of the city. The Ephesians them- 
 selves exclaimed that this put their homes and hearths in the 
 power of evil-doers, and Augustus performed a popular act 
 in confining the asylum once more within reasonable limits.' 
 
 1 Strabo, xvii. p. 840. ; Dion, liii. 12. 14. 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 7. ; Suet. Oct. 47. 
 
 3 Strabo, xiv. 1. p. 641. : 'A\fa.v$pov f*ei> e'irt ara^tov eVreiVavros,
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 107 
 
 At the south-western angle of Asia Minor several places 
 on the coast of Caria were held by the Rhodians, whose island 
 still retained a nominal freedom, and vaunted cariaand 
 itself as the last stronghold of the maritime and Rhode8 - 
 commercial spirit of ancient Greece. Before the establish- 
 ment of Roman supremacy in the East, Rhodes might not 
 unjustly style herself the mistress of the sea. In the civil 
 wars she had furnished a large fleet to Pompeius, which she 
 had withdrawn from the service of the senate after the defeat 
 of Pharsalia. Her docks and arsenals continued under Au- 
 gustus to be the objects of her pride and solicitude. Herein 
 still resided, or seemed to reside, the secret of the independ- 
 ence which even the emperor respected, and she punished 
 with death the prying intruder who ventured covertly to 
 inspect them. The Rhodians offered an asylum moreover to 
 the teachers of rhetoric and philosophy, and to their city 
 many of the young patricians continued long to resort for the 
 highest literary instruction. But they are still more remark- 
 able for the institution among them, unique, it may be said, 
 in antiquity, of a regular poor-law, which seems to have been 
 long established; not, as Strabo remarks, that they were 
 democratically governed, but the aristocracy, in the midst of 
 its pride and power, wisely took this precaution to secure an 
 unfailing supply of efficient operatives and seamen. 1 
 
 We are not sufficiently acquainted with the mode in which 
 this system of relief was conducted to decide whether it was 
 in fact an instance of prudent generosity, or mere- Autonomous 
 ly, as in the case of the largesses to the Roman Btates of Lycia- 
 populace, a tribute exacted from contented industry for the 
 satisfaction of turbulent idleness. Allowing, however, that 
 
 Sorou 5e To|ei/xo aQfVTOs airo rf/s ycavlat TOV Kfpd[j.ov, Kal SJfavTos uirepjSaAe- 
 ffQai fiiKpa, TO ff-ra&iov. 
 
 1 Strabo, xiv. 2. p. 653. The constitution of Rhodes, at least at an earlier 
 period, is described as a curious combination of aristocracy and democracy. 
 See Cicero, de Republ. iii. 35. At a later period again, Dion Chrysostom and 
 Aristides represent the constitution of Rhodes as popular. Creuzer, in loc. 
 Ciceron.
 
 108 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 its principle was sound, we cannot but remark how little jeal- 
 ousy the Romans evinced of this example of freedom and pub- 
 lic spirit Not only did they suffer the autonomy of Rhodes 
 within sight of their own subject provinces, but permitted 
 even in their centre the existence of a political confederacy 
 of twenty-three Lycian towns, whose deputies met together in 
 common, as the Greeks and the lonians had assembled in the 
 days of their independence. From the character of these 
 meetings, as well as from the name of the chief Lycian city, 
 Xanthus, we might imagine that these autonomous communi- 
 ties were themselves of Hellenic origin ; but the Greeks re- 
 fused to acknowledge the affinity, and insisted that they were 
 simply Carian. At all events, they deserved the respect shown 
 them by the Romans for the honourable way in which, though 
 a maritime people, they abstained from piracy in its palmiest 
 days, and Xanthus at least, which had been delivered by Bru- 
 tus to pillage, might claim consideration at the hands of Au- 
 gustus. These little states, however, had suffered so much 
 from the exaction of the Roman generals, that even freedom, 
 with immunity from Roman taxation, seems to have failed to 
 restore their prosperity. 1 
 
 From the Gulf of Pamphylia to that of Issns stretched 
 the province of Cilicia. To this, since the time of Pompeius, 
 . not only Pamphylia and Isauria, but also some 
 
 districts of Pisidia and Phrygia had been appen- 
 ded, Cilicia was regarded by the Romans as a very impor- 
 tant possession, not for the wealth of its inhabitants, but, first, 
 as the region from whence the pirates had issued, and within 
 which they were still located after their defeat ; and, again, 
 as the key of Syria, with which it was connected by the passes 
 of the Amanus. Accordingly we always find it occupied by a 
 strong military force. Augustus claimed to administer it by 
 officers of his own appointment ; but Cyprus, which was at 
 first attached to it, he afterwards restored to the senate.* 
 
 1 Strabo, xiv. 3. p. 664. 
 
 * Strabo, xvii. 3. p. 840. A. W. Zompt seems to hare satisfactorily shown
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 109 
 
 But though the seas were cleared of pirates, and the harbours 
 secured, the mountains of Cilicia were still invested by hordes 
 of robbers ; and it was in order to keep these marauders in 
 check without expense to the imperial treasury that the Ro- 
 mans had permitted the existence on the Taurus 
 
 . , . . i i Vassal kings 
 
 and Amanus of various petty chieftains with the allowed to ex- 
 title of kings. 1 In the period of the civil wars 
 one chief of superior craft or energy had succeeded in absorb- 
 ing into his own realm the possessions of his neighbours, 
 and was allowed to hold, in dependence on the republic, 
 the gates of Syria and Cilicia. His name was Tarcondimotus ; 
 but when he was slain on the side of Antonius at Actium, his 
 son Philopator, who claimed the succession, was displaced by 
 the conquerors, and the throne bestowed upon a younger 
 brother of the same name as the father." 
 
 The disposition of affairs effected by the republic in the 
 Asiatic provinces had remained, for the most part, intact 
 through the series of revolutions which had re- Their subser- 
 cently swept over the country. Neither Caesar chief s'Vf the 6 
 nor Brutus and Cassius had changed in any im- Eoman Btate - 
 portant particular the administration of these territories. 
 Even Antonius, whose sway had been most arbitrary, and 
 whose necessities most exacting, had spared the institutions 
 of these regions, while levying from them the heaviest contri- 
 butions. But throughout the foreign and allied dependencies 
 of the sovereign state, as far as his hand could reach, he had 
 overthrown dynasties and effaced political landmarks, for the 
 gratification of his caprices, or from lust of gold. Every 
 where thrones were to be obtained from him for money, and 
 without money the possession of none was secure. The 
 vassals of the Roman people were transformed into clients of 
 the triumvir, and were summoned at his call to maintain his 
 quarrel against his rival, and the gods and people of Rome 
 herself. They obeyed him reluctantly, and betrayed him 
 
 that Cilicia became annexed to the proconsulate of Syria. Comment. Epi- 
 graph, ii. 93. foil. 
 
 1 Strabo, xir. 4. p. 676. * Dion, liv. 9.
 
 HO HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 without scruple. But the conqueror, who had friends and 
 allies of his own to serve, did not, for the most part, spare 
 them for this tardy service, and few, perhaps, of the -whole 
 number of the dependent chiefs of Asia were allowed to retain 
 their authority on the establishment of his power. 1 
 
 Difficult, indeed, was the game which these little tributa- 
 ries were required to play. The creatures of a proconsul's 
 Amyntas, king breath, and the puppets of his caprice, any sense 
 of Gaiatia. o f gratitude for favours conferred might well be 
 lost in the sense of his insolence and own degradation. Their 
 power, and indeed existence, depended on their turning pre- 
 cisely at the favourable moment in a contest in which they 
 took no interest, but in which their services were demanded 
 by every party in turn. Among the wariest of the number 
 was Amyntas, who had been the minister and general of king 
 Deiotarus. He was sent by his master to the assistance of 
 Brutus and Cassius ; but without waiting for the decision of 
 Philippi, which would have been too late, he had the sagacity 
 to augur their discomfiture at an earlier period, and could 
 thus make a merit of his defection. 8 Antonius accordingly 
 rewarded him with the royal title, and gave him, upon the 
 death of Deiotarus, which speedily followed, the greater part 
 of his late master's possessions. His territories extended over 
 the whole of Gaiatia, the tract between the Halys and the 
 Phasis, together with some portions of Lycaonia and Pam- 
 phylia. 8 Having once turned so opportunely, he resolved to 
 play the same game again, and, watching the moment when 
 the crimes and follies of Antonius were manifestly hurrying 
 him to his ruin, he contrived to signify his desertion to Octa- 
 vius just before the battle of Actium. 4 By this second feat 
 he secured the possession of his throne, which he 
 
 Annexation of . , , . /> i t *. * fe i 
 
 his territory, continued to enjoy, with no further trial of his 
 prudence, till his death in 729, whereupon Augus- 
 
 1 Dion, H. 2., excepts only Amyntas and Archelaus. But we shall see im- 
 mediately that there were some others. 
 
 5 Dion, xlvii. 48. s Dion, xlix. 32. ; Strabo, xii. 8. p. S47. 
 
 4 Veil. ii. 84 : Plut Anton. 68.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 tus took the greater part of his dominions, and formed there- 
 with the province of Galatia. 
 
 A similar good fortune, though on a smaller scale, at- 
 tended the well-timed adhesion to Octavius of Deiotarus Phi- 
 ladelphus. This chief went over to the west- 
 
 . a 11 T Deiotarus, 
 
 ern triumvir with Amyntas, and was allowed, it king of Paphia- 
 would seem, in consequence, to retain his little g ' 
 sovereignty in a part of Paphlagonia, which again, upon his 
 death, became incorporated in the province of Galatia. 1 The 
 same was the fate of several other petty chiefs in this district, 
 and of their territories. Another of the most distinguished 
 of these favourites of fortune was Polemo, the 
 
 n <-* -, -, i_ A Polemo, king 
 
 son of a Greek rhetorician, on whom Antomus of Pontus and 
 had bestowed the kingdom of Pontus, compri- 
 sing the eastern portion of the ample region generally so 
 called, enlarged by the addition of the seaboard of the 
 Euxine, as far, at least, as the river Phasis. 2 Augustus con- 
 firmed his title to these dominions, and in 728 conferred upon 
 him the style of friend and ally of the Roman people. He 
 even added eventually to his territories the kingdom of the 
 Bosphorus. 3 Polemo himself was killed in conflict with some 
 of his barbarian neighbours; but his territories continued 
 long to escape the gulf into which so many Asiatic sove- 
 reignties were falling, and retained their nominal independ- 
 ence under the sceptre of his widow Pythodoris. This 
 woman was possessed of uncommon abilities, and maintained 
 herself on her throne in the midst of so many hostile or jeal- 
 ous potentates, by the force of her genius and the discreet 
 choice of her second husband. She united her fortunes with 
 those of Archelaus, another client of Augustus, whom An- 
 tonius had placed on the throne of Cappadocia in reward for 
 the complaisance of his beautiful mother. 4 To this kingdom, 
 which was originally bounded by Galatia and Lycaonia on 
 the west, and the line of the Anti-Taurus on the north, Au- 
 
 1 Strabo, xii. 3. p. 562. * Strabo, xi. 2. p. 499. 
 
 3 Dion, liii. 25. liv. 24. ; Strabo, xi. 2. p. 495. 
 
 4 Dion, xlix. 33. ; Strabo, xii. 2. p. 540.
 
 112 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 gustus added a portion of Cilicia, 1 and Pythodoris could 
 bring him a further accession in the adjacent realm of the 
 Lesser Armenia. In the centre of their united dominions 
 they founded the city of Sebaste in honour of their patron, 
 and strenuously defended his frontiers against the formidable 
 power of the Parthians." 
 
 In the conquest of Asia Minor, Sulla and Lucullus, Metel- 
 lus and Servilius, had each borne a share ; but the subjuga- 
 The province ^ on ^ Syria, the fairest gem of the imperial 
 of Syria. diadem of Rome, was the work of Pompeius 
 
 alone. The reduction of Gaul, it may be said, was the only 
 achievement that surpassed it, as Caesar was the only Roman 
 who deserved to be styled superior to the second Alexander. 
 Syria, in its widest extent, comprised the whole tract of coun- 
 try, ill-defined, at least on its eastern frontier, which lay be- 
 tween the Amanus and Euphrates on the north, and the de- 
 serts of Mesopotamia and Arabia to the Pelusian isthmus. 
 In Palestine and some other outlying districts, the conque- 
 ror had suffered the existence of vassal kings ; but Syria 
 proper, with its wealthy cities of Antioch and Damascus, 
 Aparnea and Emesa, its active and restless population, its 
 fanatical priesthood, and above all its frontier exposed to 
 powerful and ambitious neighbours, was too precarious a 
 possession to be placed in the hands of any tributary monarch. 
 Accordingly Pompeius had at once enrolled it among the 
 Roman provinces, and had demanded of the senate that a 
 force of several legions should be permanently quartered in 
 it, for the defence of the most important outpost of the 
 empire. The proconsulate of Syria became the object of 
 every inordinate ambition ; and the possession of this depend- 
 ency, it was soon discovered, was pregnant with far more 
 
 1 Strabo, xii. 1. p. 535. 
 
 * Cappadocia on the Taurus, the original kingdom of Archelaus, was 
 formed into a province on his death, A u. 769. Tac. Ann. ii. 42. ; Strabo, 
 xii. 1. p. 534. ; Lucan, iii. 243. : 
 
 " Venere feroces 
 Cappadoces, duri populos nunc cultor Amani."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 danger than advantage to the government at home. Caesar 
 redressed the balance of the East and West, but it was at the 
 expense of creating a new army, and a new general inimical 
 to the privileges of the dominant class. Meanwhile, however, 
 the presence of the legions of Syria had secured the safety of 
 the province against the encroachments of the Parthians, 
 amidst all the troubles of the civil wars, and the terrible 
 disasters of Crassus and Antonius. Accustomed to submis- 
 sion, and trained to the yoke of foreign rulers, by the succes- 
 sive dynasties of the Assyrian, the Persian, and the Macedo- 
 nian, the natives bore the exactions of their new masters with 
 equanimity : nevertheless Augustus garrisoned their country 
 with a force of four legions. 1 At the northern extremity of 
 this region the little kingdom of Commagene reached to the 
 banks of the Euphrates, and presented the last vestige of the 
 magnificent domain of the Seleucidae. In the year 723 it was 
 ruled by a king of the name of Mithridates, who, however, 
 was not himself a scion of the Macedonian dynasty." Two 
 years later an Antiochus of Commagene was put to death, as 
 we read, at Rome. The possessor of the throne from this 
 time to the year 734 is not known, but at that period Augus- 
 tus presented it to another Mithridates, who was but a child. 3 
 Two years before the Eastern journey of Augustus, his 
 friend and adviser Agrippa had inspected in his behalf the 
 provinces of Asia. 4 The politic Herodes had H erodee, king 
 succeeded in gaming the minister's favour, as of Judea - 
 previously his master's, and had received a full confirmation 
 of the favours already bestowed upon him. To his kingdom 
 of Judea were annexed the dominions of various petty chief- 
 tains ; he was allowed to choose his own successor from 
 among the children whom he had sent of his own accord to 
 Rome, as pledges of his loyalty. Few of the vassal kings of 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. iv. 3. 2 Plut. Anton. 61. ; Appian, B. C. v. 10. 
 
 1 Dion, lii. 43. liv. 9. ; Hoeck, Rom. Oesch. i. 370. 
 
 4 In the year 731. Dion, liii. 32. : ov /xeVroi Kal is r^v 2vplcu> aQtKtro, 
 aAA" (Ti Hal /jia\\ov jUETpia(,W t/ce?<T fjitv roi/s viroffTparriyovs firfft^fv, UVT&S 
 
 5e (v Ae'<r#a> Stcrpiif 6. 
 
 VOL. IT. 8
 
 114- HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Rome were thus encouraged to contemplate the prospect of 
 perpetuating a dynasty. On the arrival, however, of Au- 
 gustus himself, more extensive additions were 
 made {(This made to his territories, in the districts of Tracho- 
 nitis, Auranitis, and Batanea, which were taken 
 from their tetrarch Zenodorus, because he leagued himself 
 with the Arab robbers instead of controlling them. Phe- 
 roras, a brother of Herodes, was raised to the sovereignty of 
 a portion of Persea, and Herod was himself guaranteed by 
 special ordinance from the obnoxious interference of the 
 governor of Syria. Such were the brilliant rewards he ob- 
 tained for maintaining the police of the Arabian deserts, chas- 
 tising the nomade sheikhs, and gradually enuring them to the 
 stern control of civilized authority. 1 On similar conditions 
 Obodas held, as we have seen, his sceptre in Petra, and lam- 
 blichus in Emesa. 
 
 Before quitting the Eastern dominions of the Roman em- 
 pire we must cast our eyes for a moment on the great empire 
 the only rival empire which lay beyond their 
 
 The rival mon- . J _ , ..... 
 
 archy of Par- frontier. In their collisions with Parthia the 
 Romans had been twice unfortunate, and scanty 
 were the trophies they had to set against the overthrow of one 
 proconsul, the flight of another, and the loss of their legion- 
 ary eagles. Nevertheless the events which had taken place in 
 the interval nearer home were too tremendous in their char- 
 acter, and their interest was too absorbing, to allow them to 
 brood over these distant disasters. Each political chieftain 
 had in turn rejoiced secretly in the discomfiture of his personal 
 foe : the death of Crassus had relieved both Pompeius and 
 Caesar from a vigilant rival, and the setting of the sun of 
 Antonius had cast a double brightness on the rising star of 
 Octavius. The splendour and pretended glories of the new 
 administration might continue to throw these early misfor- 
 tunes into the shade : patriots who dared hardly think of the 
 ancient triumphs of the republic would still less indulge in 
 
 1 Joseph. Antiq. xv. 1. 10. IS.; Sell. Jud. i. 20, 21.; Dion, liv. 9.; 
 Strabo, xvi. 2. p. 756.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. H5 
 
 the recollection of her failures. Although in the earlier years 
 of Augustus the writings of the day reflect often the national 
 fear and hatred of the Parthians, none ventured to suggest 
 the duty or policy of chastising them. During the closing 
 struggle between the triumvirs, both Media and Armenia 
 had been suffered to fall under the tutelage of these formi- 
 dable enemies ; but the dissensions of the reigning family 
 had saved the honour of the Romans, by inducing the rival 
 claimants of the throne to appeal to the arbitration of the 
 emperor. 1 While Phraates was allowed, as we have seen, to 
 sit unmolested on his throne, his son, whom Tiridates had 
 delivered up to Augustus, was kept in honourable confine- 
 ment at Rome, and Tiridates himself entertained with respect 
 and favour in Syria. This state of things subsisted for seve- 
 ral years, during which the rivals, thus kept apart, continued 
 secretly to countermine each other. Meanwhile Rome grew 
 united and stronger : Parthia was weakened by its dissensions. 
 In the year 731 the claimants for the throne condescended 
 once more to appeal to the common enemy of their nation. 
 On this great occasion the demeanour of Augustus was emi- 
 nently patriotic and national. He referred their claims to the 
 consideration of the senate, and himself suggested that the 
 opportunity had now arrived for satisfying the honour of 
 the country, and effacing the memorials of her discomfiture. 2 
 While no decision was yet made respecting the settlement of 
 the throne, the standards and the captives of Carrha3 were 
 proudly reclaimed, as the first condition of arbitration. The 
 Parthian monarch temporized, and on the part of the Roman 
 no great anxiety was shown to hasten their reco- A v 734 
 very. At last, in the year 734, Augustus, then en- B< c< 20 - 
 gaged in the settlement of the affairs of Asia, repeated in loud- 
 er tones his demands for satisfaction. The tardy restoration 
 was quickened by the advance of Tiberius Nero, the emperor's 
 step-son, into Armenia, at the head of a military force, which 
 might easily be turned against the refractory Parthian. 3 The 
 
 1 Dion, li. 18. ; Justin, xlii. 6. See above, ch. xxix. " Dion, liii. 33. 
 
 3 Suet. Tib. 9. The line of Horace, Epist. i. 12. 26., " Jus imperiumque
 
 116 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Restoration of s * an< lards were restored, or rather, perhaps, the 
 the standards bronze eagles which surmounted them the cher- 
 
 of Crassue. 
 
 ished object of the soldier's affection and some- 
 times of his worship which he was bound by the military 
 sacrament never to desert. After an interval of more than 
 thirty years few of the captives survived, and not many of 
 these would care to relinquish their new ties and occupations 
 for the forgotten honours of their youth. Phraates himself, if 
 we may trust the testimony of the imperial medals, performed 
 homage at the feet of the emperor's representative, and recei- 
 ved the crown from his hands. The long-lost trophies were 
 brought by Tiberius to his father, and by him transmitted to 
 Rome, where they were greeted with fervent acclamations, 
 and deposited in the temple of Mars the Avenger. 1 This 
 splendid edifice, which Augustus had vowed before the 
 battle of Philippi, in which he was about to take vengeance 
 on his father's murderers, was thus rendered doubly worthy 
 of its title, as a monument of national retribution. The 
 poets celebrated this recovery as something greater than a 
 victory or a triumph. Augustus, however, in the monu- 
 mental record he has left us of his own exploits, speaks of it 
 with dignity and moderation. 2 
 
 Phraates Caesaris accepit genibus minor," alludes to the coins struck at thig 
 period, on which we see the figure of a trousered Parthian presenting the 
 emperor with a standard, or, in some cases, a bow. Eckhel, Doctr. Numm. vi. 
 96. Comp. Ovid. Fast. T. 693. : " Parthe, refers aquilas, victos quoque por- 
 rigifl arcus." Propert. iii. 4. 17. : " Tela fugacis equi et braccati militis arcus." 
 
 1 Bunsen, Rom, iii. 281., after Piale, maintains that the trophies were sus- 
 pended, not in the temple of Mars Ultor in the forum of Augustus, but in a 
 chapel erected to that deity in the Capitol, on the ground that the medals re- 
 present it as a small circular building, whereas the temple was ample in size 
 and of the ordinary shape. Becker takes the same view. Hoeck supposes 
 that the trophies were first placed in the smaller shrine, and removed at a later 
 period to the temple, which was not actually dedicated upon completion till 
 752. But surely the representation of the temple on the medal is merely con- 
 ventional. Dion, who places the temple itself on the Capitol, may be cor- 
 rected by an easy transposition. The words of Augustus himself are : "Eaau- 
 tem signa in penetrali quod est in tempi o Martis Ultoris reposui." Mon. Ancyr. 
 col. 5. 
 
 * Mon. Ancyr. 5. : " Parthostrium eiercituum Romanorum spolia et signa
 
 TINDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 The history of Armenia, during the few years preceding, 
 is equally obscure with that of Parthia. Antonius had with- 
 drawn from it ingloriously in 721, and Artaxias, 
 
 J Armenia. 
 
 tne son or the unfortunate Artavasdes, being 
 placed on his father's throne, had avenged the injuries of his 
 family by murdering all the Romans in his dominions. His 
 next resource was to throw himself upon the protection of the 
 Parthians. He seems, however, to have made some friendly 
 overtures to Octavius after the death of Antonius, which the 
 victorious triumvir thought fit to dignify with the name of sub- 
 mission. 1 On the murder of Artaxias soon after by his own 
 subjects, Augustus commissioned Tiberius to place his brother 
 Tigranes on the throne, nor did the Parthians, as we have 
 seen, venture to make any opposition. Armenia, we may 
 conclude, fell under the protection of the empire, an event 
 which the imperial medals commemorate with their usual 
 magniloquence. 2 Whatever, however, was the glory of the 
 exploit, Tiberius, it was remarked, claimed it all as his own, 
 and the prodigies which marked his progress over the field 
 of Philippi stimulated his young ambition with visions of 
 future empire. 8 
 
 After witnessing the completion of these important affairs 
 Augustus returned, towards the end of 734, to his winter 
 
 quarters at Samos, where he bestowed the boon of 
 
 Augustus re- 
 autonomy on the hosts by whom he had been so turns togamos. 
 
 frequently entertained. He watched, as we have 
 
 seen, from this distant retreat the agitation of public feeling 
 
 restituere mihi, supplicesque amicitiam pop. Rom. petere coegi." The three 
 disasters may include, perhaps, besides the defeats of 701 and 719, the in- 
 glorious retreat of Antonius from the Araxesin 721. Dion, xlix. 44. 
 
 1 Eckhel, Doct. Numm, vi. 82. : " Caesar Divi f. Armenia recepta." (A. u. 
 725.) 
 
 2 Eckhel, vi. 98.: "Augustus Armenia capta." Comp. Dion, li. 16., liv. 
 9. ; Veil. ii. 94. 
 
 ' Dion, liv. 9. : firftSrj Trpot rovs &i\iirirovs uitra! irpofffKavvovri &6pv/3os re 
 ris 4it rov TTJS ndxns X u P >io "> &>s Ka.1 etc crrparoirioov T)Kovff(>T), xal irvp ex ruv 
 Pupum, T<av vir& rov 'Avrtaviov iv rip ratppev/jiari iopvBfvruv, avr6p.aro 
 4*6 Tj8e'pi<K pev 8^ tit rovrwv eyavpovro.
 
 118 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 at Rome, where each ensuing consular election had called 
 forth an ungovernable spirit of turbulence ; and the eyes of all 
 sober citizens were turned more and more anxiously towards 
 him, as the man who could alone restore tranquillity and 
 guarantee its continuance. Still, however, while affairs 
 seemed not yet ripe for his august interference, the emperor 
 persisted in holding his court at Samos, transacting business 
 there through the winter, and receiving the homage of long 
 trains of admirers from the remotest parts of India and Scy- 
 thia. The envoys of Pandion and Porus, Indian kings, pro- 
 fessed to have been four years on their travels westward, and 
 apologized for the diminished retinue with which they ap- 
 proached his presence by the losses their number had sus- 
 tained through fatigue, or in the course of nature. 1 They 
 brought presents of precious stones, and spices, and animals 
 hitherto unknown to Europe. The Romans, says Dion, had 
 never before seen a tiger ; nor, he believes, had the Greeks 
 either. 4 They presented him also with a man born without 
 arms, but who had learnt to blow the trumpet, to draw the 
 bow, and dart the lance by means of his toes ; so at least, 
 says the historian, I am told, though I see not myself how it 
 be possible. But the most remarkable part of this embassy 
 was the self-immolation of an Indian sage, whose name per- 
 haps was Zarmanochanus, who followed the court of Au- 
 gustus to Athens, was there initiated into the mysteries of 
 Ceres, and then, declaring that having lived so long in per- 
 fect content he would not expose himself to the chances of a 
 reverse, burnt himself publicly, according to the approved 
 custom of the wise men of his country. 3 
 
 I Dion, liv. 9. ; Strabo, xv. 1. p. 720. 
 
 II Comp. Plin. Hist. Nat. viii. 25. : " Q. Tuberone, Fabio Max. Coss. Thea- 
 tri Marcelli dedicatione, tigrin primus omnium Romae ostendit (Augustus) in 
 cavea mansuefactum (A. u. 743)." This animal was probably the royal Ben- 
 gal tiger, which may have been unknown to the Romans. They speak so fre- 
 quently of the Armenian and Hyrcanian tigers, that I can hardly suppose they 
 were unacquainted with the inferior species. 
 
 8 Dion, Strabo, I. c. Comp. Lucan, iii. 241. : 
 
 " Proh quanta est gloria genti
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 119 
 
 At Athens the proconsul slowly returning was met by 
 accounts from Rome which determined him at last to yield 
 to the importunate solicitations addressed to him -n^ pr0 yince 
 from various quarters, and assume the direct ofAchaia - 
 nomination of the consuls to be elected by the people. Ac- 
 cordingly our review of the long progress he had made 
 through almost every region of the empire here comes to its 
 conclusion ; but a few words are still wanted to complete 
 our survey of his dominions. The first province formally con- 
 stituted beyond the Adriatic was Macedonia ; but the whole 
 extent of Greece Proper, or Achaia as it was denominated 
 by the Romans, together with the islands around its coast, 
 had been reduced under their sway for more than a hundred 
 years, though the nature of its government was not perhaps 
 very accurately defined. It is probable that Achaia was not 
 made a province before Julius Caesar, nor even then is it easy 
 to determine from the confused statement of the geographer 
 Strabo exactly what its limits were. 1 It is still a question 
 whether, according to the general opinion, Thessaly, -ZEto- 
 lia, Acarnania, and certain parts of Epirus were included in 
 Achaia, or belonged more properly to Macedonia. Both 
 those provinces were surrendered by Augustus to the govern- 
 ment of the senate ; and such being the case, it seems not im- 
 possible that the limits between them were either not accu- 
 rately defined or varied from time to tune. 2 They both con- 
 
 Injecisse manum fatis, vitaque repletos 
 
 Quod superest donasse Deis." 
 
 Calanus had made a similar exhibition before Alexander ; but he was old 
 and infirm. See Arrian, Exp. Alex. vii. 3. The name of Zarmanochanus is 
 spelt in various ways. I retain this orthography from its similarity to other 
 Indian names as Grecized, such as Forticanus, Musicanus, Oxycanus, Assaca- 
 nus. The philosopher came from Bargosa (Baroche) on the western coast of 
 India. 
 
 1 Becker (Marquardt), Jtcem. Alterth. iii. 1. 121., refers to a recent treatise 
 by C. F. Hermann, in which he comes to the conclusion that this organization 
 did not take place till the time of Augustus. He inclines however himself to 
 an earlier date. 
 
 2 Achaia was made senatorial in 727, again resumed, in conjunction with 
 Macedonia, as imperial, in 739. At a later period it was again transferred to 
 the senate by the emperor Claudius. Becker, p. 128.
 
 120 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 tinued to enjoy uninterrupted tranquillity ; and if the popula- 
 tion of Achaia dwindled with the decay of commerce and the 
 loss of independence, the constant resort thither from all parts 
 of the world of the curious in antiquities and learning, the 
 admirers of its historic glory, and believers in the inspiration 
 of its hallowed soil, continued to maintain at least a brilliant 
 reflection of its ancient wealth and splendour. The legions 
 which had recently controlled Macedonia were removed to 
 the turbulent frontier of Thrace, Mcesia, and Pannonia. 
 
 The district of Illyricum, which Caesar had held together 
 with both the Gauls, was confined in his time to a narrow 
 strip of land on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, 
 from the Istrian peninsula to the river Drilon, a 
 rude and barren tract, as it has ever been, but important in a 
 military sense, as the outwork of the great central citadel 
 of Italy. The Romans in this region had been brought, in 
 the usual course, into more and more frequent collision with 
 the half-reclaimed natives themselves, and with their wholly 
 barbarous neighbours, the Dalmatians, lapodes, and Panno- 
 nians. Augustus himself, with his lieutenants Pollio and 
 Agrippa, had made Illyricum a field for the martial training 
 of his fresh conscripts. In the course of a few years the prov- 
 ince assumed grander dimensions, the Dalmatians were 
 incorporated in it, the lapodes were subjugated on the fall 
 of their fortress Metulum, and the Roman arms were ad- 
 vanced as far as Siscia, a fastness of the Pannonians on the 
 waters of the Save. For a moment Augustus seems to have 
 fancied his work there accomplished, and to have offered the 
 pacified province to the administration of the senate ; but on 
 the occurrence of disturbances within, and threats of aggres- 
 sion from without, he renounced this intention as premature, 
 and appointed two legions, under a commander of his own 
 choice, to watch over its security. But events of considerable 
 gravity and importance, which presently occurred in these 
 regions, will again draw our attention to the Save, and even 
 to the Danube, to Rhaetia and Vindelicia, to Noricum and 
 Pannonia.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 So far and wide, says an historian under the empire, did 
 the Romans carry their arms around the circuit of the terres- 
 trial globe, that the student of their affairs may 
 trace therein the fortunes, not of a single nation, 
 but of all mankind. 1 And so this faint outline of their politi- 
 cal relations, reduced within the limits of a single chapter, 
 has brought us in contact with the mines of Asturia and the 
 looms of India, the painted Britons, and the sunburnt Ethio- 
 pians, the languid decrepitude of Greece, and the precocious 
 aspirations of Gaul and Spain. All these various and discor- 
 dant nationalities were bound together by the moral senti- 
 ment of a common dependence on a stronger, an abler, and a 
 wiser people than themselves, who swayed them, from the 
 sacred soil of Italy, the centre of their common universe, the 
 heart of their whole animated system. This moral connexion 
 was represented outwardly to the eye by the long lines of 
 military road, branching from the centre of Italy herself, from 
 the golden milestone in the forum at Rome. 2 Within the 
 bounds of Italy indeed, the desolation of the social war, the 
 massacres of Marius and Sulla, the plantation of colonies, 
 many times repeated, had tended to obliterate every national 
 distinction, and to assimilate the population of the whole 
 peninsula to a single type. The same process which was 
 in rapid progress throughout the provinces, was already 
 almost consummated in the sovereign territory. The ground 
 was cleared for the completion of the work of fusion, and in 
 Augustus the man was found who had the skill and energy to 
 effect it. From an early period the name of Italy had been 
 popularly attached to the whole region south of the Alps, 
 though politically it had been divided into Gallia Cisal- 
 pina in the north, and Italia Proper in the south. 3 Possibly 
 
 1 Florus, procem. lib. i. : " Ita late ubique per orbem ten-arum arma circum- 
 tulit, ut qui res ejus legunt, nonimius populi, sed generis human! fata discant." 
 
 1 Hoeck, Rom. Gesch. i. 386. The " milliare aureum," it may be observed, 
 was not properly a milestone, though popularly so denominated. The roads 
 might be said to commence at the forum, but the measured miles began not at 
 the centre, but at the gates of the city. 
 
 3 Polybius, ii. 14., speaks of Italy as the whole region within the Alps ;
 
 122 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 the popular use of this common name was a tradition from 
 times anterior to the first Gallic invasion. But Italy within 
 the Rubicon had become entirely Roman, and recently the 
 Gauls also on either side the Po had received the franchise 
 of the City. There remained, therefore, no substantial dis- 
 tinction between any portions of the whole country, and 
 Augustus acted in harmony with the instinct of the times 
 when he formally pronounced the Var the boundary of Italy 
 and Gaul. 1 This favoured tract was exempted from the 
 sway of a proconsul, whose imperium in the provinces was a 
 symbol of conquest and domination. The commander of an 
 army so near to Rome might have imperilled the security of 
 the emperor. It was governed by the civil officers of its own 
 colonies and municipalities ; and was divided for administra- 
 tive purposes into eleven regions or circles. 8 With the res- 
 pective limits of these we are not accurately acquainted, but 
 we may presume they regarded in little more than name the 
 old and almost forgotten landmarks of communities and 
 races. 8 
 
 In our review of the provinces of the empire the two con- 
 siderable islands of Sardinia and Corsica have well nigh 
 Sardinia and escaped our notice. Isolated in their position, 
 Corsica. ^gy Wer6) fa f ac t } no ^ ] ess exceptional in their 
 
 but, as a Greek, his use of such terms may be geographical rather than politi- 
 cal. 
 
 1 Strabo, v. 1. ; Plin. Hist. Nat. iii. 6. ; Lucan, i. 404. Nicaea, lying east 
 of the Var, is assigned by Pliny and Ptolemy to Italy. Mela, however, and 
 Stephanus give it to Gaul, as a Massilian colony. Ukert, ii. 2. 431. 
 
 2 The eleven regions of Italy were Transpadana, Yenetia, Liguria, Cispa- 
 dana, Etruria, Umbria, Picenum, Samnium, Campania, Lucania, and Apulia. 
 Becker, p. 61., ventures to assign the exact limits of each. 
 
 8 Ancient writers have illustrated the shape of Italy by various fanciful 
 similitudes. Polybius likened it to a mathematical triangle, Pliny to an elon- 
 gated oak-leaf. Lucan more judiciously fixes his eye on the dorsal ridge of 
 the mountains that permeate it ; and this, if we were to indulge in such fan- 
 cies as the foregoing, we might compare to the sinuosities of a monstrous ser- 
 pent, whose head is in Istria, whose arched and crested neck is represented by 
 the Alps, his body by the Apennines, and his tail by the waving curve of Lu- 
 cania and Bruttium.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 123 
 
 character. Near as they were to the coast of the continent, 
 the latter being within sight of Populonium and even 
 of Liguria, to the great Etruscan cities of antiquity, and 
 even to Rome herself, these islands enjoyed none of the 
 fruits of Italian civilization, and remained, in the time of 
 Augustus, as they have continued ever since, dark spots of 
 barbarism on the skirts of opulence and refinement. The 
 northern island, indeed, was rugged and wild, and covered 
 with impenetrable forests, and even under the empire was 
 made a hunting field for slaves of the lowest and rudest char- 
 acter. Sardinia, more inviting in appearance, and adapted 
 for the production of grain, which it sent in large quantities 
 to Italy, was afflicted by a pestilential miasma which its pos- 
 sessors had never science or energy to overcome. Both were 
 placed under the rule of the senate, as secure, and, at least 
 from their weakness, peaceable. They were used as places 
 of banishment for political exiles : the philosopher Seneca 
 passed eight years of solitude and reflection in the mountains 
 of Corsica ; 1 and when four thousand freedmen of Rome, 
 infected with the superstition of the Jews, were transported to 
 Sardinia, it was observed that if they all perished of the fever 
 of the country the loss would be of little importance. 3 
 
 1 Senec. Cons, ad Helv. 6. 
 
 8 Tac. Ann. ii. 86. : " Si ob gravitatem coeli interissent vile damnum."
 
 124: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 CHAPTER XXXY. 
 
 THE &ESAREAN FAMILY. - JULIA, DAUGHTER OF AUGUSTUS, BY SCRIBONIA, MAR- 
 RIED TO MARCELLUS, SON OF OCTATIA. - HIGH PROMISE AND EARLY DEATH 
 OP MARCELLUS. - JULIA UNITED TO AGRIPPA. - AUGUSTUS RECEIVES THE 
 TRIBUNITIAN AND THE CONSULAR POWERS. - AGRIPPA IS RAISED TO A PAR- 
 TICIPATION IN THE FORMER. - PREFECTURE OF MANNERS. - REVISION OF THE 
 SENATE. - SECULAR GAMES. - PREFECTURE OF THE CITY. - CONDUCT AND 
 CHARACTER OF MAECENAS. - AUGUSTUS IN GAUL, AND AGRIPPA IN THE EAST. 
 - CONQUEST OF RH.STIA AND VINDELICIA BY TIBERIUS AND DRUSUS, STEP- 
 SONS OF AUGUSTUS. TIBERIUS CONSUL IN 741. AUGUSTUS AND AGRIPPA 
 RETURN TO ROME. - AUGUSTUS CHIEF PONTIFF. - CAMPAIGN OF AGRIPPA 
 AGAINST THE PANNONIANS. - HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. - CHARACTER OF 
 AGRIPPA. A. U. 729-742. B. C. 25-12. 
 
 importance which began, even from their tenderest 
 JL years, to attach to the members of the imperial family, 
 attested from an early period the direction of the revolution 
 The Csesarean which was in progress. It was at the commence- 
 fln^nce ofLi- ment ^ tne y ear /J ' 16 t * iat Augustus married 
 via - Livia, the last of the four consorts with whom, 
 
 in his brief career, he had already connected himself. Livia 
 was at this time extremely young, but she had borne one son 
 to her first husband Tiberius, four years before, and was 
 already six months with child when led to his home by her 
 second. She was again delivered of a male child hi due sea- 
 son, which was acknowledged equally with its elder brother 
 by Tiberius, though the ardour of her lover's passion, and 
 the fact that her husband had been compelled to resign her 
 to him, gave rise to a suspicion that the child was really the
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 125 
 
 offspring of Augustus himself. 1 However this might be, the 
 reputed father, who had acquiesced with courtier-like facility 
 in the loss of his wife, continued on the best terms with his 
 successor, and at his death, four years afterwards, recom- 
 mended both the children to his guardianship. Livia herself, 
 the sport of these caprices, was even at the date of her second 
 marriage little more than a child. It is hardly credible that 
 she was only twelve years of age at the birth of her eldest 
 son Tiberius, but at latest she was not more than twenty 
 when she became the consort of Octavius. 8 But while her 
 personal charms were thus in their first bloom, her under- 
 standing was, perhaps, already mature. She was a daughter 
 of the Claudian house, the pride and abilities of which were 
 the common inheritance of both males and females. 3 She had 
 been united for four years to a man of eminence, under guid- 
 ance of whose experience she had shared the vicissitudes of 
 civil war, and had fled with him before her future husband 
 on the failure of the enterprise of Perusia. The facility with 
 which she had been transferred from the guardianship of one 
 political chief to that of another might give her an impressive 
 lesson on the instability of female influence. In her second 
 home she directed all her arts to securing her position, and 
 became, perhaps, in no long course of time, as consummate a 
 dissembler and intriguer as Octavius himself. While, indeed, 
 she seconded him in his efforts to cajole the Roman people, 
 she was engaged, not less successfully, in cajoling him. Her 
 elegant manners, in which she was reputed to exceed the 
 narrow limits allowed by fashion and opinion to the Roman 
 
 1 Suetonius, Claud. 1. : "Drusum Livia, quum Augusto gravida 
 
 nupsisset, intra mensem tertium peperit ; fuitque suspicio, ex vitrico per adul- 
 terii consuetudinem procreatum. Statim certe vulgatus est versus : To fitrv- 
 Xovffi Kai Tpinriva iraiSi'a." Compare Suetonius, Oct. 62., lib. 4. ; Dion, xlviii. 
 44. 
 
 J Pliny (Hist. Nat. xiv. 8.) places her birth A. u. 700 ; Dion (Iviii. 2.) in 
 696. 
 
 3 Livia was daughter of M. Livius Drusus Claudianus, a Claudius adopted 
 into the Livian gens. Her children were accordingly Claudii by actual de- 
 scent on both sides.
 
 126 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 matrons, proved no less fascinating to him than her beauty. 1 
 Her intellect was undoubtedly of a high order, and, when her 
 personal charms failed to enchain his roving inclinations, she 
 was content with the influence she still continued to exercise 
 over his understanding. 2 While she connived at his amuse- 
 ments she became the confidante of his policy, and the sway 
 she acquired over him in the first transports of courtship she 
 retained without change or interruption to the day of his 
 death. But Livia was denied the good fortune of bearing 
 her husband a child ; and there were objects still nearer to his 
 natural affections than her offspring by another man, though 
 bred up under his own eye and guardianship. 3 
 
 Scribonia, during the short time she had been permitted 
 to share the home of the triumvir, had proved her fertility by 
 the birth of one daughter, and might, perhaps, have sur- 
 rounded the emperor's throne with a numerous progeny of 
 sons. From this blessing, however, in which his ambition 
 Julia, daughter was so deeply interested, he excluded himself 
 byitc"fbonui' ^7 ^ s wanton repudiation of her. When the 
 Marcelfue eon P ros P ec t of having heirs by Livia began to fail, 
 of octavia. ^he daughter of Scribonia, to whom he had given 
 the name of Julia, acquired the ascendant in his affections. 4 
 But a woman could have no political position in Rome : the 
 father must be content to transfer to the son-in-law of his 
 choice the interest he felt in his own offspring. It was the 
 natural policy of Augustus, in order to avoid domestic jeal- 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. v. 1. : " Sanctitate domus priscum ad morem, comis ultra 
 quam antiquis foeminis probatum." 
 
 8 Suet. Oct. 71. Tacitus calls her " uxor facilis." 
 
 3 In the hope of having sons of his own, and when this hope failed, for the 
 sake of his grandsons by Julia, Augustus refrained from formally adopting the 
 young Neros. Tiberius, as we shall see, acquired adoption at a much later 
 period. Suet. Oct. 65., Tib. 15. 
 
 4 Julia, the daughter of Augustus by Scribonia, was born in the year 716, 
 and her mother received her bill of divorcement the same day. Dion, xlviii. 
 34. : T9> 5' erfi, tv $ AovKi6s tf Mapxior Kal Tcu'oy 2a/3?yos virdrtvarav, . . . <J 
 Kdiffap . ^5ij Kal TTJS Aioufas epav tfpxero, Kal 5io rovro Kal T^V SKpt&ievtav 
 TtKovffdv 01 frvydrpiov aireW/utf/aTo avO'fip.tpov.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 127 
 
 ousies, to seek a husband for his child within the sphere of 
 his own family, and in Marcellus, the son of his sister Oc- 
 tavia, he found one both suitable in years and promising 
 in disposition. He had shown strong marks of affection 
 for his sister, whose force of character, together with a su- 
 periority of two years in age, had exercised great influence 
 over him. For her sake he had spared the lives of the spu- 
 rious children of Cleopatra, and had continued to treat with 
 the consideration due to their rank those she had herself 
 borne to his rival. But she had had a son and daughter also 
 by an earlier marriage, and these had on every account a 
 prior claim to his regard. On his return from Egypt he 
 united Marcella, just then of marriageable age, to his friend 
 Agrippa ; but for the young Marcellus he destined at an early 
 date the hand of his beloved Julia. In the year A v 729 
 729 the one had completed only seventeen, the B - c - 25 - 
 other not more than fourteen years of age. But the weakness 
 of his own health, lately shaken by a dangerous sickness, 
 urged him to hasten an union to which he looked for the 
 perpetuation of his family, and the fortunes so wonderfully 
 linked with it ; and being himself still detained beyond the 
 sea, he deputed Agrippa to conduct the ceremonial. Au- 
 gustus had already raised the partner in his victories to an 
 elevation at which it was scarcely prudent to set any limit 
 to his ambitious aspirations. The successive consulships to 
 which he had been advanced in 725 and 726, were regarded 
 by the Romans as an indication that he had outstepped the 
 sphere of a private citizen. In his Spanish campaigns Au- 
 gustus had divided with him the command of the army, and 
 shared the prastorian tent. In 729, when his dwelling was 
 consumed by an accidental fire, he was invited to take up his 
 residence in the emperor's mansion on the Palatine, which was 
 already beginning to assume the name and character of the 
 Palace. 1 And now, when the daughter of the emperor was 
 about to be given in marriage, he was summoned to take the 
 place, not indeed of the bridegroom, which, with its pledge 
 
 1 Dion, liii. 1. 27.
 
 128 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 of favour and prospect of inheritance, he might perhaps have 
 justly demanded, but of the father of the bride. While he 
 had served his patron by land and sea, in peace and in war, 
 with signal fidelity for so many years, he had made it, per- 
 haps, apparent that at least he would serve no other, and 
 that he regarded himself as debarred from the first place in 
 the state only by the existence of one precarious life. The 
 rumour that Agrippa had counselled the restoration of the 
 republic, and was himself at heart a true republican, may 
 have arisen from hints dropped by himself to remind Au- 
 gustus that his claims could not safely be disregarded. 1 
 
 But neither these rumours, nor the splendour of his shows, 
 and utility of the manifold works he designed and executed, 
 Marceiius en- availed to obtain for Agrippa any peculiar popu- 
 poputerlty than larity with the citizens. Born of obscure, and 
 Agrippa. perhaps vulgar, extraction, he could never per- 
 
 haps shake off the manner of the plebeian client, and invest 
 himself with the easy address of the noble Roman which won 
 all hearts in an Antonius or an Octavius. His countenance, 
 as it is exhibited on the medals, was stern and rigid, expres- 
 sive of grave thought and inflexible will, but destitute of all 
 the graces of feature and expression which secured the popu- 
 lar triumphs of a Caesar or a Pompeius. It is probable that 
 he was naturally reserved and haughty, and that the great 
 but qualified successes of his career rendered him stiU more 
 so. On the other hand, the regard entertained by the Ro- 
 mans for the noble Octavia descended in full measure upon 
 her son, while he was yet too young to exhibit any character 
 at all. Already, in the year 719, the triumvir had elevated 
 his 'sister to an equal share in every honour and privilege 
 assigned to his consort Livia. As time passed on, he de- 
 manded of the senate that her son Marceiius should have 
 leave to anticipate by ten years the age for soliciting the 
 consulship. He caused him to be chosen aedile for 731, when 
 yet in his twentieth year. At the same time he placed the 
 young Tiberius, twelve months his junior, in the quaestorship, 
 
 1 Velleius (ii. 79.) describes him as " parendi, sed uni, scientissimus."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 129 
 
 to allay, perhaps, the jealousy of Livia. 1 But it was not so 
 easy to satisfy Agrippa, who seems to have resented every 
 such act of favour as an indication of the emperor's intention 
 to raise his youthful relative to a speedy participation in his 
 own pre-eminence. 
 
 In the year 731 Augustus had returned to Rome, and was 
 exercising his eleventh consulship. 3 Struck down by a second 
 illness, more alarming than the first, we have seen sickness of AU- 
 how adroitly he contrived, in the very crisis of gUB A tu *; 73 i. 
 his disorder, to flatter the hopes of the friend B - c - 2a 
 whom he esteemed, without blighting the fond anticipations 
 of the nephew, for whom, perhaps, he felt the deeper affec- 
 tion. 3 When, shortly afterwards, the politic dissembler rose 
 from his couch, he had refrained from committing himself 
 beyond return with either of the two expectants ; neverthe- 
 less Marcellus could not dissemble his disappointment and 
 jealousy, nor perhaps did Agrippa abstain from resenting 
 his youthful petulance with undisguised ill-humour. Augus- 
 tus was anxious to separate them. With this view he offer- 
 ed Agrippa a splendid mission in the East, for the regula- 
 tion of the affairs of one half of the empire. Condnctof 
 Agrippa accepted the charge ; but he went in ^s rJ PP a - 
 person no farther than Lesbos, committing to the care of his 
 
 1 Dion's statement (liii. 28.) is that Marcellus had leave to become consul 
 ten years before the proper age, and Tiberius to anticipate by five years the 
 career of honours. Now in strictness the qusestorian age was thirty, that of 
 the sedile thirty-two. Marcellus therefore became sedile, and might have 
 become consul, twelve years, and Tiberius commenced his career not five but 
 eleven years, before the tune. If we are to credit the historian, we must sup- 
 pose, as is not indeed improbable, that the decrees in question were merely 
 conventional, implying generally a release from the Lex Annalis, which long 
 before this time had ceased to be much regarded. 
 
 * This was the last of the series of continuous consulships which Augustus 
 had held, with a single interruption (A. u. 722) since 721. He assumed it, 
 we may presume, this year in order to introduce the young scions of his house 
 into public life with more solemnity. His assumption in this year also of the 
 tribunitian power may have induced him to waive for the future the now in- 
 ferior dignity of the consulship, which he accepted only once subsequently. 
 
 3 Dion, liii. 80. ; Suet. Oct. 28. See above, chapter xrx. 
 VOL. iv. 9
 
 130 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 legates the execution of the orders he issued from thence. 
 This conduct may have been interpreted by some as a token 
 of his moderation; but to others it may have seemed an 
 indication of offended pride, and of a suspicion that his mis- 
 sion was the result of the emperor's distrust rather than of 
 his confidence. 1 Agrippa belongs to the number of men of 
 high mark and estimation, who have been judged worthy of 
 reigning because, perhaps, they have never actually reigned. 
 Little as his personal character appears in the history we 
 have received of his exploits, his behaviour on this occasion is 
 important from the element of weakness it seems to disclose, 
 and the tokens it apparently gives of moroseness and selfish- 
 ness, which, had he ever succeeded to power, might have 
 rendered him a coward and a tyrant. We shall presently 
 witness a conspicuous example of a similar disposition, in 
 which a fair renown for political ability was overcast by the 
 misfortune of inheriting an empire. 
 
 The emperor's recovery from his recent illness seems to 
 have been slow and dubious. During the weary hours of con- 
 valescence the pressure of public affairs made 
 
 Recovery of * 
 
 Augustus. He itself doubly felt, and there may perhaps be some 
 
 Accepts the 
 
 tribunitian foundation for the notion to which Suetonius 
 
 ^LMT. 731. refers, that at this period he meditated, for the 
 
 second time, the surrender of his power. 3 But 
 
 with returning strength and spirits any such ideas quickly 
 
 1 Dion says : ov /zeVr 01 Kal Is TIJV 2f piW cup'tKfro, a\\' trt KOU fj.a\\ov /AtTpid- 
 wv titeiffe fj.lv TOVS fnroffrpa.T'fiyovs tire^e. Suetonius also mentions it as an 
 instance of Agrippa's forbearance: "Quum . . quod Marcellus sibi ante- 
 ferretur, Mytilenas se, relictis omnibus, contulisset." Pliny, Hist. Nat. vii. 45., 
 mentions, among the misfortunes of Augustus, " pudendam Agrippae ablega- 
 tionem." Velleius, ii. 93., says of him : " Qui sub specie ministeriorum 
 principalium profectus in Asiam, ut fama loquitur, ob tacitas cum Marcello of- 
 fensiones praesenti se subduxerat tempori." Josephus, Antiq. xv. 10. 2., ex- 
 presses the opinion common in the East, that Agrippa was associated in the 
 empire with Augustus : Sxrre Svo rovrtav rV 'Po>MaiW apxV SieirJjraic, 
 KaiVapos Kal (utr* avrov ' Aypiirira. Perhaps it was supposed that a division 
 was made between them, as between the triumvirs. Frandsen's Agrippa, 
 p. 45. 
 
 * Suet. Oct. 28. : referred to in chapter xxx.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 passed away. The year 731 is memorable in the life of the 
 first princeps from his acceptance of the power of the tribu- 
 nate, the most important perhaps, in a constitutional point of 
 view, of all his prerogatives ; certainly that which above all 
 others stamped the empire of the Romans as a government 
 of the people by the child of the people itself. From hence- 
 forth Augustus might regard himself as no longer a military 
 ruler, but a popular leader, and such is the character to which 
 the best of his successors constantly aspired. But the in- 
 terests of the people could not thus rise without proportion- 
 ally depressing those of the privileged classes of the state ; 
 and from henceforth we musl^ consider the reign of the 
 Roman nobility as actually extinguished. 
 
 But, whatever were the feelings with which Augustus re- 
 garded this accession to his dignity, and the completion of 
 his work of popular revolution, the anticipations 
 
 V.A. f f f j- j f~u Deathandfu- 
 
 he might form of founding a dynasty of tribunes nerai obsequies 
 were suddenly checked by the shock of a terrible I..TT. m. 
 domestic calamity. The young sedile was in the 
 midst of his career of office, in which, assisted by the liber- 
 ality of his father-in-law, he had gratified the citizens with 
 the grandeur of his shows, when towards the end of the 
 summer the fatal malaria of the city marked him for its prey. 1 
 The same physician, Antonius Musa, who had cured the vale- 
 tudinarian Augustus of a fever by the bold expedient of a 
 cold-water treatment, failed in repeating the experiment on 
 the younger and stronger patient. 8 The emperor seems to 
 
 1 I suppose that as sedile Marcellus would have passed the summer in the 
 city superintending the public festivals ; but he died, we are told, at Baiae. 
 Propert. ii. 16.: 
 
 " At nunc invisae magno cum crimine Baise ; 
 Quis Deus in vestra constitit hostis aqua ? " 
 
 3 Dion, liii. 30. Augustus was treated, according to Dion, \f/vxpo\ov(riats 
 Kal tyvxpovotriats. Pliny (Hist. Nat. xix. 8.) adds, " lactucis." Suet. Oct. 
 81. : " Quia calida fomenta non proderant, frigidis curari coactus, auctore 
 Antonio Musa." The cold treatment of certain cases of fever is now very 
 commonly used with success, where the patient has strength to bear the vio- 
 lence of the stimulant. In ague-fever it is said that it would be highly inex-
 
 132 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.U. 731. 
 
 have been much afiected by this untoward event. 1 It was 
 not only the loss to him of a favourite child, it was the frus- 
 tration of a cherished plan, and a stern memento that fortune, 
 which had exalted him so high as her vassal, still retained 
 over him her paramount sovereignty. He caused the body 
 to be honoured with public obsequies, and the ashes laid in 
 the mausoleum of his family. He had erected this monument 
 to his own mortality in his sixth consulship, the very year of 
 his return to Rome and assumption of undisputed power. 
 Hard by the banks of the Tiber, in the grassy meadow where 
 the Roman youths met in athletic and martial exercises, there 
 rose a lofty marble tower w\th three retiring stages, each of 
 which had its terrace covered with earth and planted with 
 cypresses. These stages were pierced with numerous cham- 
 bers, destined to receive row within row, and story upon 
 story, the remains of every member of the imperial family, 
 with many thousands of their slaves and freedmen. In the 
 centre of that massive mound the great founder of the empire 
 was to sleep his last sleep, while his statue was ordained to 
 rise conspicuous on its summit, and satiate its everlasting gaze 
 with the view of his beloved city. 8 Marcellus was the first 
 for whom those lofty portals opened. The people followed 
 his remains with unavailing lamentations, heaping reproaches 
 on the unkindness of the gods, and whispering horrid sus- 
 
 pedient. But we do not know the precise nature of either of these two cases. 
 Suetonius says of the illness Augustus suffered in Tarraco, " destillationibus 
 jecinore vitiato." 
 
 1 It was natural that high expectations should be formed of a youth who 
 had such advantages for courting popular favour. Veil. ii. 93. : " Sane, ut 
 aiunt, ingenuarum virtutum laetusque animi et ingenii, fortunaeque in quam 
 alebatur capax." Seneca (Cons, ad Marc. 2.) expatiates more amply on the 
 same theme. 
 
 a There are two passages about the mausoleum of Augustus : Suet. Oct. 
 100., and Strabo, v. p. 256. I think they are sufficient to bear out this de- 
 scription, which I have taken from Dezobry's Rome au siecle <T Augusts, i. 
 426, and his charming restoration of the Campus Martius. Strabo says ex- 
 pressly that there was a statue of Augustus on the summit, and he can hardly 
 have been mistaken. Nevertheless Dezobry contends, from the analogy of 
 similar monuments, that it was probably surmounted by an urn.
 
 B.C. 23.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 133 
 
 picions of the unfair practices of Livia. The season indeed 
 had been unusually fatal : but in these cases the breath of 
 rumour can never be wiped away, and every historian has 
 thought it necessary to record that the guilt of Marcellus's 
 death was imputed at least to the mother of Tiberius. 1 The 
 emperor had the fortitude to pronounce in person the pane- 
 gyric of his favourite, and dedicated in his name a magnificent 
 theatre in the Campus Martins." But amidst the vain and 
 perishable memorials of the deceased which Augustus might 
 fondly love to accumulate, he was fortunate in obtaining 
 from the gratitude of Virgil a monument nobler and more 
 durable than stone. The verses on the death of Marcellus, 
 which the author of the ^Eneid inserted in his poem, bear 
 evident marks of a hasty interpolation, and so far corroborate 
 the common belief that they were in fact a later addition. 
 The graceful story of Octavia's fainting at the recital of her 
 darling's praises, and the hopes so cruelly frustrated, crowns 
 with its last ray of interest the head of the noblest of Roman 
 matrons. 8 
 
 1 Dion, liii. 33. For the honours paid to Marcellus see Servius on ^En. 
 vi. 862. ; and comp. Probert. ii. 16. ; the Consol. ad Liviam, i. 65. ; and the 
 celebrated passage in Virgil himself, J3n. vi. 872. : 
 
 " Quantos ille virum magnam Mavortia ad urbem 
 Campus aget gemitus, vel quae Tiberine videbis 
 Funera cum tumulum prseterlabere recentem." 
 
 A rude fragment of the lower story of this mausoleum still remains after 
 many transformations. The explorer passes from a dark alley under a dark 
 doorway, and ascending a dark stair finds himself in a small open amphitheatre. 
 The sepulchre of the illustrious aedile is now dishonoured by the vulgar sports 
 of the bull-ring : " inani munere." 
 
 2 Some of the outer columns of the Theatre of Marcellus still remain, and 
 owe their preservation to their having been built in with modern houses. In 
 one of these Niebuhr was lodged during part of his residence in Rome. 
 Servius, on Virgil's phrase (^En. i. 716.) " pesti devota futurse," observes, 
 " De oratione Augusti translata locutio quam habuit in tralatione funeris Mar- 
 celli, cum diceret ilium immature morti devetum fuisse." The first book of 
 the ^Eneid must have been written earlier, yet such later insertions were not 
 perhaps uncommon. Horace also has the phrase : " Devota morti pectora li- 
 berae." 
 
 3 Donat. in Vit. Virgil. 47. : " Dena sestertia (about 9(W.) pro singulo 
 versu." Comp. Servius on .JSk, I. c.
 
 134: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Whatever aspirations Livia may have cherished on the 
 death of her husband's son-in-law, it was not to her children 
 Agrippa is re- the first instance that the advantage fell. Such 
 pouBe the c wid- of the citizens as had ventured to augur, from 
 ow juiia. t ke f avour w ith which Augustus had treated him, 
 that it was wished to smooth the way for his succession, had 
 still regarded the pride and ambition of Agrippa as a for- 
 midable obstacle to hia claims. 1 At this period the imperial 
 autocracy was assuming a more fixed and definite character. 
 Though he declined at the close of this year to resume the 
 consulship which he had held for several years in succession, 
 and though on the occurrence of scarcity and inundations he 
 had firmly refused the dictatorship decreed him by the senate 
 and pressed upon him not without violence by the people, 
 Augustus was not the less intent on shaping the foundations 
 he had himself marked out for his power, and was not unwil- 
 ling that his, countrymen should be led to regard him and his 
 system as the sole pledges of regular government. Without 
 a partner in his power or an heir to his pre-eminence, he 
 seemed to stand isolated and defenceless as a mark to the 
 dagger of the assassin. In fact, the death of Marcellus was 
 
 A. u 732 speedily followed by renewed attempts on the life 
 
 B. c. 22. o f tng emperor. 9 While he withdrew therefore 
 from Rome, that the citizens might feel by renewed experi- 
 ence the need of his presence, he determined to frustrate the 
 designs of his enemies by confirming and perpetuating his 
 authority. On reaching Sicily he desired Agrippa to leave 
 his retreat in Lesbos and meet him. Maecenas had whispered 
 in his ear that the minister's power was already too great for 
 a subject : he must either raise him to his own rank by mar- 
 riage with the widow Julia, or contrive to rid himself of 
 
 1 Veil, ii 93. : " Marcellus quern homines ita, si quid accidisset 
 
 Csesari, successorem potentise ejus arbitrabantur futurum, ut tamen id per M. 
 Agrippam securo ei posse contingere non existimarent." 
 
 a The conspiracy of L. Murena and Fannius Caepio. Dion, liii. 3. ; Veil, 
 ii. 91. ; Suet. Oct. 19., in the first half of the year 732.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 135 
 
 him. 1 Augustus had resolved upon the former alternative. 
 He could not balance, as a measure of prudence, between 
 Livia's striplings and the trusty veteran of Pachynus and 
 Actium. Agrippa was married indeed to Octavia's daughter 
 Marcella ; but the expedient of a divorce was obvious and 
 easy, and the mother herself, it was said, was prepared and 
 even anxious to sacrifice her own child to the higher interests 
 of her brother's family. 2 She had abandoned herself to pas- 
 sionate sorrow on the loss of her son, and had ever since made 
 a parade of her affliction, and refused to admit of any allevia- 
 tion. Crushed in her own dearest hopes and aspirations, she 
 was alive only to the frustration of those of a rival, and 
 woke once more from her dream of unavailing woe to devise 
 a scheme for the mortification of Livia.' The result of the 
 interview was that Agrippa was sent to Rome, A n 733 
 to carry on the government in the name of Au- B - c - 21 - 
 gustus, and to solemnize his nuptials with the emperor's 
 daughter. 4 He was thus fixed in the eyes of his countrymen 
 in the second place in the commonwealth, and was manifestly 
 designated for admission hereafter, either in his own person 
 or that of his children, to the first. 6 The ambition of Livia 
 was a second time disappointed. 
 
 From this tune we must expect to find a veil cast over the 
 domestic transactions of the imperial family. It 
 
 ,, .. , ,,. .. Uneasy rela- 
 
 has become dangerous to divulge to public curiosity tions bet-ween 
 
 1 Dion, liy. 6., makes Maecenas say, without circumlocution, TT]\IKOVTOV 
 aitrbv ireirot^xoj, &<rr % ja.fiL^p&v ffov yevfffBai ^ <$>ovfv6r}vai. 
 
 9 Plutarch, Anton. 88. ; Suetonius, Oct. 63. 
 
 8 See the description of Octavia's mourning contrasted with that of the 
 magnanimous Livia on a later occasion, by Seneca, Cons, ad Marc. 2. The 
 rhetorical turn of the philosopher's pathos is imitated pretty closely by his 
 nephew Lucan in celebrating the sorrows of Cornelia, Phars. ix. 109. fol. 
 
 * The return of Agrippa to Rome and marriage with Julia took place in 
 the first half of 733. Fischer, Roem. Zeittafeln. 
 
 & The precedent was cited on a subsequent occasion. Tac. Hist. i. 15. : 
 "D. Augustus sororis filium Marcellum, dein generum Agrippam, .... in 
 proximo sibi fastigio collocavit. Sed Augustus in domo successorem quse- 
 Bivit."
 
 136 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Augustus aud the privacy of the palace. The divorced Marcella 
 had borne her husband more than one child ; but 
 of the fruit of this ill-starred marriage we have no further 
 account. She was wedded herself a second tune to Julus 
 Antonius, the second son of the triumvir, an union, however, 
 which met with a still more disastrous end than the preceding. 
 For two years Agrippa ruled alone in Rome, while Augustus 
 was abroad in the provinces, an alteration of his sphere of 
 administration which gave additional significance to his repu- 
 ted association in the empire. 1 About their feelings and out- 
 ward demeanour towards each other at this period, history is 
 entirely silent. Jealousy there must have been on the one 
 side, pride on the other. Agrippa must have been conscious 
 that he owed his elevation not to predilection, for another 
 had been preferred to him, but to necessity or fear ; and of 
 this consciousness Augustus himself cannot but have been 
 painfully sensible. It seems impossible that the familiarity 
 of their early friendship can have continued under these cir- 
 cumstances ; but whatever were their real feelings, they were 
 mutually careful to give no handle to rumour, and during the 
 ten years their union lasted, with increasing marks of external 
 confidence, there was no whisper of private dissension be- 
 tween them. No sign did Agrippa betray of regret at parting 
 from Marcella ; if Julia was personally distasteful to him, or 
 if the licentiousness for which she was afterwards notorious 
 became apparent during the period of her union with him, he 
 communicated to no one his aversion or resentment. In the 
 ten years which followed, she bore him two sons and as many 
 daughters, and was pregnant of a third son at the time of his 
 death. 
 
 1 Among other significant incidents which seem to imply a virtual equality 
 between the two rulers, may be mentioned the statues of Augustus and him- 
 self which Agrippa placed on either side of the entrance to the Pantheon, and 
 the two halls in his palace to which Herod, the king of Judea, gave their 
 names respectively. Joseph. Antig. xv. 9. 3. ; Sell. Jud. i. 21. 1. Agrippa 
 also erected his own statue together with one of Augustus on the Propyhea at 
 Athens.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 137 
 
 Agrippa did not long remain in the exercise of his new 
 authority in Rome. While Augustus was still absent in Asia, 
 the report of renewed disturbances in Gaul, and 8tate of affalrB 
 afterwards in Spain, called him to the opposite 
 quarter of the empire, where he speedily re- 
 pressed an outbreak of the Cantabrians. It is possible that 
 he may have reached the capital once more before the return 
 of Augustus, towards the end of the year 735. 1 During his 
 absence, however, and, we may suppose, from the want of 
 his firm controlling hand, the turbulence of some ambitious 
 intriguers had brought the government into peril. Egna- 
 tius Rufus, the asdile of the year before, had A n 735- 
 ventured to solicit the consulship, vacant by the B - c- 19- 
 emperor's refusal, not at the recommendation of Augustus, 
 but through his popularity with the citizens. Riots and 
 bloodshed ensued, though we are left altogether in igno- 
 rance from what quarter they sprang. The actual consul, 
 Sentius Saturninus, acted, we are told, with vigour. He chas- 
 tised the disturbers of the public peace, and arrested Egna- 
 tius and others on a charge of conspiracy against the empe- 
 ror's life, a charge sufficiently improbable in the absence of 
 the emperor at many hundred miles' distance. 8 
 
 The treason of Egnatius, indeed, never ripened into act. 
 As with previous conspirators, his nefarious design was dis- 
 covered, as we are informed, and stifled in the bud. But the 
 time had already arrived when it might be convenient to 
 extinguish a vexatious ambition by the false imputation of a 
 crime. Saturninus refused the invidious privilege which the 
 senate would have thrust upon him, of maintaining an armed 
 guard for his personal security against the disturbers of the 
 
 1 Fischer (Roem. Zeit.) supposes that he had returned before the summer, 
 735, from a passage in Frontinus de Aquced. 10. : "Agrippa cum jam consul 
 tertium fuisset, C. Sentio Q. Lucretio Coss. post annum xiii. quam Juliam de- 
 duxerat (scil. ann. 721), Virginem quoque in agro Lucullano collectam Romam 
 perduxit : dies quo primum in urbe respondent V. Id. Jun. invenitur." But 
 there is no reason to suppose from this that he was in Rome at the time. 
 
 1 Veil. ii. 91.: "Egnatius, aggregatis simillimis sibi, interimere Caesarem 
 Btatuit." Comp. Suet. Oct. 19. ; Dion, liv. 10.
 
 138 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 public peace, and distinguished senators were sent to entreat 
 Augustus to resume the consulship which he had already 
 waived. He contented himself, however, with nominating 
 one of the envoys, Q. Lucretius, and shortly afterwards quit- 
 ted Samos, and reentered Rome, after three years' absence, 
 Return of AU- n the fourth of the Ides of October. 1 The sub- 
 gus l u u. 735. ordination of Agrippa's position to that of his 
 illustrious patron, in general estimation, as well as 
 in outward distinction, is clearly marked in the application of 
 the senate to Augustus alone, notwithstanding the presumed 
 association of the other with him. If the exploits of Agrip- 
 pa, his love for his country, and even his services in her be- 
 half, might in some respects be compared with those of his 
 imperator, the distinction of the Julian name was confined to 
 Augustus alone ; he alone could claim descent from tutelary 
 gods and heroes ; Agrippa, by his recent marriage, might 
 become the father of a divine race, but Augustus was him- 
 self divine. 8 
 
 The joy which the Romans had vociferously expressed 
 on the return of Caesar from Thapsus and Munda, of Octa- 
 Enthusiasm of vius himself from Actium and his Asturian battle- 
 the ret^m of n fields, was again manifested with no less apparent 
 Au f u ^ u 7 ^5 enthusiasm when he regained the city after the 
 B. o. is. bloodless triumphs of his eastern administration. 
 
 1 Kalendar. Amiternin. in Fast. Verrian. p. 114. ed. Foggin. (Orelli, Inscr, 
 ii. 400.) IV. Eid. Oct. August. Lud. in circ. Fer. ex S. C. q. e. d. Imp. Caes. 
 Aug. ex transmarinis provinciis urbem intravit, araque Fort. Reduci constit. 
 Fischer, Roem, Zeit. 
 
 8 Agrippa seems to have called himself by his prcenomen and cognomen, 
 and allowed the nomen of his obscure Vipsanian gens to drop. The lowness 
 of his origin is constantly put forward by the ancients, as Veil. ii. 127., "novi- 
 tas familife haud obstitit," &c. ; and so late a writer as Servius, in ^En. viii. 
 682.: " Agrippa non adeo claro genere ortus." M. Seneca, Controv. ii. 12.: 
 " Tanta autem sub divo Augusto libertas fuit ut praepotenti tune M. Agrippaa 
 non defuerint qui ignobilitatem exprobarent. Vipsanius Agrippa fuerat : Vip- 
 sanii nomen, quasi argumentum paternae humilitatis, sustulerat, et M. Agrippa 
 dicebatur. Quum defenderet reum, fuit accusator, qui diceret : M. Agrippam 
 et quod medium est. Volebat Vipsanium intelligi." See Frandsen's Agrippa, 
 p. 254.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. -[39 
 
 The last two years had been marked by the paralysis of 
 legitimate order in Rome, and had brought back a pain- 
 ful reminiscence of the days of demagogic turbulence, when 
 consuls vied with tribunes in the violation of the laws. A 
 whole generation had passed since the comitia had been 
 dissolved, and the tribes dismissed to their homes without the 
 completion of the business of their meeting, the election of 
 the chief magistrates of the state. Such, it might naturally 
 be remarked,had been the happy effect of lending autocratic 
 authority to the most deserving of the citizens, that the 
 course of law and order had never since been seriously inter- 
 rupted, even in the midst of wars and revolutions. But no 
 sooner did the emperor quit the helm, than the perils of winds 
 and waves broke out with redoubled fury. The days of 
 Clodius and Milo returned, intrigues were enforced with the 
 hand of violence, fraud was cemented with blood. Checked, 
 perhaps, for a time by the presence of Agrippa, these distur- 
 bances had recommenced on his departure from the city, and 
 afiairs had come to pass not unlike that in which Pompeius 
 had been invested with the sole consulship for the restoration 
 of the commonwealth. Augustus was now invoked, as Pom- 
 peius had been, to accept extraordinary powers for the salva- 
 tion of the state : but he already possessed the substance, and 
 was satiated with the titles of power. His return to Rome was 
 celebrated, in the fashion of the day, by honorary distinctions, 
 which were not, however, without their significance. An altar 
 was erected to Fortuna Redux, the good genius of the state 
 which had brought her hero home, and the day of his return 
 was marked as a festive anniversary in the calendar. 1 Upon 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 10. Eckhel (vi. 100.) and the numismatists cite, medals refer- 
 ring to this circumstance. Similar honours were afterwards paid to Domitian 
 (Martial, viii. 65.), Vespasian, Caracalla, and other emperors. Reimar on 
 Dion.) I. c. They are referred to by Claudian in the solemn exordium to his 
 " Sixth Consulship of Honorius : " 
 
 " Aurea Fortunaa Reduci si templa priores 
 
 Ob reditum vovere ducum." 
 
 It is curious that this compliment was paid to Honorius, as to Augustus, upon 
 a pretended restoration of the comitial elections :
 
 140 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 the 12th of October the feast of the Augustalia was hence- 
 forth to be solemnized. But in order to avoid the display of 
 a solemn reception, he was careful to make his entry into 
 the city, as on former occasions, by night. 1 His successes 
 over the Parthians, obtained, as he vaunted, without a blow, 
 by the mere terror of his name, he celebrated in due course 
 by the modest ceremony of an ovation, on which occasion he 
 led his legions on horseback, through the gates of the city 
 under an arch erected in his honour. The temple of Mars 
 the Avenger has been already mentioned, in which the spoils 
 of Parthia and the recaptured standards were suspended, 
 while medals were struck to commemorate the rout of the 
 mail-clad bowmen, and the homage of Phraates." 
 
 It was upon this return to Rome, when the senate and 
 people had repeatedly declared that the wheels of govern- 
 ment could not move without the pressure of his 
 
 Augustus ac- .Till -11 
 
 ceptsthecon- guiding hand, that Augustus allowed the cycle 
 SU 'A r u7Mi!' of his administrative functions to be completed 
 with the assumption for life of the consular 
 power. Nor must we fail to remark that, at the same time 
 that he thus allowed the sphere of his own powers to be 
 extended, he did not fail to advance his colleague Agrippa 
 to a still nearer equality with himself. He caused him to 
 share with himself the tribunitian power, the same which the 
 Agnppa raised most careful of Roman political writers has desig- 
 iSISTtriffi 11 nated as the highest and most distinctive prero- 
 tun power. gative of the Caesar.' This power, however, he 
 
 " Indigenas habitus nativa Palatia summit, 
 Et patriis plebem castris sociante Quirino 
 Mars augusta sui renovat suffragia Campi." 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 53. says that this was his usual custom. " Ne quern officii 
 causa inquietaret." 
 
 2 See above, chapter xxxiv. 
 
 * Tac. Ann. iii. 56. : " Id summi fastigii vocabulum Augustus repperit 
 . . . . M. deinde Agrippam socium ejus potestatis .... delegit, ne successor 
 in incerto foret." Comp. Dion, liv. 12. : 6 5e 'Aypitnrat hr^r ainapx^ 11 Tp6- 
 aov TIV& inr' avrov irpo^xflij. Serv. on ^n. viii. 682. : " M. Agrippa .... 
 societate Augusti ad summos honores pervenh ; nam Tribunus plebis quietissi-
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 limited in the first instance to a period 'of five years. About 
 the same time he resumed, in his own person, the censure or 
 prefecture of manners, and proceeded to exercise prefecture of 
 it by a second lustration of the senate, as well as manners - 
 by the introduction of sumptuary enactments. He proposed, 
 at first, to reduce the chief assembly of the state A . c . 736 . 
 to its original number of three hundred, but the B - c< 18- 
 reclamations of the members themselves, of whom he was 
 about to demand so large a sacrifice, induced him to retain as 
 many as six hundred ; indeed, from the difficulty he acknow- 
 ledged in ensuring the attendance of a sufficient number to 
 transact business, he could hardly have afforded to reduce it 
 lower by one half. With this reduction of its numbers was 
 connected, perhaps, the raising of the census or qualification 
 of the order. 1 This was the emperor's second reform of the 
 senate, and warned, perhaps, by the animosity the first had 
 excited, he secured the aid of Agrippa in the task, and threw 
 a portion of the responsibility upon the senators themselves, 
 selecting himself, in the first instance, thirty of the most dis- 
 tinguished, and requiring these to choose the remainder by a 
 combination of appointment and ballot. Nevertheless he 
 found himself the object of desperate hostility to many of the 
 rejected ; and it was on this occasion, we are told, that he 
 deemed it advisable to protect his person with a guard of 
 faithful friends, to wear a coat of mail under his robes, and 
 search every senator who approached him. 2 
 
 Now followed also the second attempt of Augustus to 
 restore the honours of matrimony by penal legislation, the 
 character and provisions of which have been spe- Legislation of 
 cified in a preceding chapter. The leges Julice Au g tus - 
 of this epoch included also divers measures, with the particu- 
 
 mus fuit." The writer intends to mark that the tribunate of Agrippa was ex- 
 ercised in perfect accord with the ruling powers of the state, not, as in the old 
 times of the demagogues, in opposition to them. 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 12. 18. ; Suet. Oct. 41. 
 
 a Suet. Oct. 35., on the authority of Cremutius Cordus, who, however, bears 
 the character of a.frondeur, and is not to be implicitly relied on.
 
 1J.2 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 lars of which we are* not acquainted, for the regulation of 
 criminal procedure in cases of bribery at elections, exactions 
 in the provinces, and other subjects of administrative reform. 
 With the close of the year 736, the decennial period to which 
 Augustus had insisted on restricting his imperium was about 
 to reach its termination. He does not appear to 
 i m e per?um for 6 have waited to be pressed to renew it, but plead- 
 v< Af u ai 736. ing the necessity which still existed for the super- 
 intendence of his vigilant authority, and appre- 
 hensive perhaps of the success of the conspiracies still rife 
 against him, if he suffered himself to be disarmed, he required 
 the senate and people, who certainly exhibited no reluctance 
 in complying, to invest him with it once more, but this time, 
 not for ten, but only for five years. 1 
 
 The completion of the cycle of the imperial functions 
 could not be more fitly celebrated than by a revival of the 
 The Ludi Sze- solemn festival, which, according to a tradition 
 cul " e u.'737. obscurely floating in the minds of the Romans, 
 was appointed to mark the transition of each 
 succeeding age of the republic. When the Etruscans laid 
 the foundation of a city, the births of the year, it was 
 said, were carefully registered, and with the decease of the 
 last survivor, the first age of the city was supposed to ter- 
 minate. In a similar way each subsequent age was calcu- 
 lated ; but this fanciful definition of the saeculum seems to 
 have been soon lost in the more natural and, at the same time, 
 stricter notion of a fixed number of years. Whether, how- 
 ever, the age or century of the early Romans was a hundred 
 or a hundred and ten of their years, or whether it was com- 
 puted with reference to periods of ten or of twelve months, 
 of ordinary or intercalated years, remains still a mystery, into 
 which it is the less necessary to inquire, inasmuch as the secu- 
 lar games, anterior to the epoch of Augustus, seem to have 
 had little significance, and to have been celebrated with no 
 sort of regularity. 8 But Augustus determined to seize an 
 
 ' Dion, liii. 16., liv. 12. 
 
 8 Much has been written upon the mode of computing time to which the
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 143 
 
 opportunity for inaugurating his rule by a solemn ceremony, 
 and with his usual tact he perceived how impressive the re- 
 vival of this historic tradition might be made. The Sibylline 
 oracles, searched by his obsequious priests, readily presented 
 the sanction he required ; the forms of the ceremonial were 
 investigated by the most learned of his legal antiquarians ; 
 and the college of the Quindecemvirs undertook to prescribe 
 the particulars of the observance, and superintend its execu- 
 tion. The ceremony was to occupy three days and nights, 
 and, for some time previous to its c'ommencement, heralds 
 were appointed to traverse the streets of the city and the 
 neighbouring towns, inviting every citizen to attend upon a 
 solemn spectacle which none of them had ever yet seen, or 
 could ever see again. 1 The secular games were, indeed, once 
 
 secular games should be referred. I will try to compress within the limits of a 
 note the most important points for consideration. We learn from Censorinus 
 (c. 17.) that Valerius Antias, Varro, and Livy make 100 years the period of 
 the saeculum, while Augustus himself and Horace specified 110. The notices 
 we have of the celebration of these games anterior to the time of Augustus 
 are so inconsistent that we must conclude there was no such regular cele- 
 bration of them at all. The discrepancy, however, in the number of years, 
 as stated to us (100 and 110), may perhaps be accounted for by comparing the 
 ordinary year of Numa, 355 days, with the intercalary years of 877-8 days. 
 Multiplying the first of these numbers by 110, and the second by 100, the re- 
 sults will come sufficiently near to one another to satisfy the conditions of a 
 round number. (I take the hint of this solution from Walckenaer, Hist. <P Ho- 
 race, ii. 269., though I cannot subscribe to the method by which he arrives at 
 still closer results.) But however this may be, succeeding ages soon lost the 
 clue to this synchronism. The emperor Claudius repeated the games A. u. 
 800, disregarding those of Augustus as irregular. Claudius was disregarded 
 again in his turn by Domitian, who renewed the celebration in 841, anticipa-* 
 ting, in his impatience, by six years the period prescribed by Augustus. To 
 the Augustan computation Severus conformed precisely, and repeated the 
 solemnity in 957, after two intervals of 110 years each. Philippus, however, 
 returned once more to the precedent of Claudius in the year of the city 1000. 
 This was the last celebration, though Zosimus, in the year 1067, suggests that 
 the time has arrived for another secular festival, according to the computation 
 of Severus. 
 
 1 Walckenaer's ingenuity has discovered another reason for fixing the age 
 at 110 years, in the law of mortality as deduced from certain French tables. 
 He finds that, in a population of the amount of that of the Roman empire,
 
 144 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 more repeated within the lifetime of a large portion of that 
 same generation, but never again, assuredly, on so worthy an 
 occasion, nor, perhaps, with such popular enthusiasm. The 
 ceremonies themselves, peculiar to the occasion, were of the 
 simplest kind, consisting of the distribution of lustral torches, 
 sulphur, and pitch, to the citizens at certain stations, and of 
 wheat, barley, and beans, at another, in which the emperor 
 himself took a prominent part. The Aventine, the Capitoline, 
 and the Palatine hills were paraded by crowds of citizens. 
 Sacrifices were offered for the safety of the state to the chief 
 divinities of the national religion. The game of Troy was 
 enacted, together with other shows, in the circus, and occu- 
 pied with scenic representations the intervals of sacrifice, and 
 divided the interest of the multitude. The festival concluded 
 with the performance of an ode of praise and thanksgiving in 
 the atrium of Apollo on the Palatine, by a chorus of noble 
 youths and maidens, the auspicious offspring of the holiest 
 marriages, and both of whose parents were living. 1 Such 
 were the rites, it was confidently affirmed, by which Rome 
 had gained the favour of the gods, and secured their protec- 
 tion ; and when their due repetition was first discontinued, 
 three ages later, the champions of expiring Paganism beheld 
 in their cessation an omen of the dissolution of the empire, 
 and a not inadequate cause for it. 2 
 
 By one writer, at least, the name of Agrippa is associated 
 on equal terms with that of Augustus himself, in his account 
 of the secular games," though in the more courtly panegyrics 
 
 which he supposes to be four times that of France (28,763,192), there will be 
 at any given time sixty-four individuals aged 105, thirty-two aged 106, sixteen 
 aged 107, eight aged 108, four aged 109, but not one will have arrived at the 
 age of 110. We cannot suppose that the Etruscans had the means of making 
 such an induction as this, nor, probably, the capacity to deduce a law from it 
 
 1 The nature of the ceremonies may be collected from Horace's farm. 
 Scecul. ; Tac, Ann. xi. 11. : Zosimns, ii. init. The origin of the festival ia 
 narrated by Zoeimus and Valerius Max. ii. 4, 5. For a lively description of 
 them, see, besides Walckenaer, Dezobry, Rome, kc., ii. 412. folL 
 
 * Zosimus, ii. 7 : Toi/rov 5t ^ <f>v\ax6(yros (Set tls T^V vvv avviyovacui iipa* 
 (\6flf TO, Trpay^ara SvtrK\rif>iav.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 145 
 
 of the poets no such union or participation was, IngtHtltion of 
 perhaps, alluded to. 1 If the antiquarian Censo- $ e t |* e ^ t C y Ure 
 rinus repeated what he had read in the archives A - u - 's'- 
 
 B. C. 17. 
 
 and on public monuments, Horace and Ovid re- 
 flected, we may suppose, the popular sentiment which per- 
 sisted with unusual fidelity in confining all its enthusiasm to 
 the good deeds of Augustus alone. That Agrippa, however, 
 had now actually reached a point of elevation at which he 
 could no longer be deputed by his colleague to discharge an 
 office of dependence, appears very clearly in the formal insti- 
 tution at this period of the prefecture of the city. Hitherto, 
 upon every emergency, it was to the faithful energy of Agrip- 
 pa that the control of the capital, the command of its garri- 
 son, the supervision of the disaffected and suspected in its 
 vicinity, had been entrusted. But this was an irregular office 
 which had never yet been incorporated formally in the system 
 of the imperial government. Now, at last, Augustus found it 
 necessary to make it regular and perpetual. The association 
 of Agrippa in so much of the outward show of power, had 
 served, perhaps, to exasperate the remnant of the republicans ; 
 intrigues against the life of the emperor became more rife 
 than ever, and permanent machinery might be required for 
 the protection of his august person. 2 But he did not now 
 depute Agrippa to act as the commander of his own body- 
 guard. He selected in the first place Valerius Messala, the 
 foremost of the citizens in the estimation of his countrymen, 
 
 1 Censorinus, c. 17. : " Quintos ludos, C. Furnio, C. Junio Silano Coss. anno 
 DCCXXXVII. Caesar Augustus et Agrippa fecerunt." But Tacitus, Suetonius, 
 Pliny, and Dion mention Augustus only. Compare the Carmen Sceculare of 
 Horace, and the allusion in Ovid, Trist. ii. 25. Horace's hymn is remarkable 
 as an index to the popular feeling of the time, and shows how far the regard 
 of the Romans for Augustus was removed from the vulgar adulation of later 
 despotisms. The writer never mentions the name of his hero, and only once 
 directly alludes to him as " Clarus Anchisae Venerisque sanguis," while hardly 
 a line could fail to remind the citizens indirectly of his presumed merits. No 
 monument of antiquity gives us a clearer view of the self-respect of the Roman 
 character, which is, perhaps, the highest idea of religion of which Paganism 
 was capable. 
 
 2 Dion, liv. 15. : nal ^Kelvif KO! r$ 'A-ypiinrq; t-mf3ov\vcra.i. 
 
 VOL. IT. 10
 
 146 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 and second to none in rank and the importance of his services. 
 He might hope to gratify the Romans, and disarm their suspi- 
 cion, by placing in the vanguard of tyranny a man whom they 
 trusted and admired, rather than a creature of his own, such 
 as Macenas. The Romans, however, and their master, must 
 have been equally surprised when Messala, after holding the 
 office six days, insisted upon resigning it, pleading, perhaps, 
 his inability to discharge its arduous duties, but allowing it to 
 be understood that he regarded it as hostile to liberty. 1 He 
 was succeeded by Statilius Taurus, whose military distinctions 
 have been already frequently mentioned, and who had been 
 consul with Augustus ten years before. Taurus was now a 
 man of advanced age, but the combined vigour and discretion 
 with which he acquitted himself became a theme of general 
 admiration. 2 
 
 Among other tokens of incipient monarchy, must here be 
 mentioned the select council which Augustus at this time em- 
 institution of a ployed for the handling of state affairs, which he 
 council of state, gradually withdrew more and more from the con- 
 sideration of the assembled senate. The first adoption of 
 such a system is dated from an earlier period ; but in the 
 interval he had resided but little in the capital, and it was 
 not, perhaps, till his second return from Asia, and second 
 reform of the senate, that he allowed this privy council to 
 become a distinct engine of his government. The convenience 
 which had first suggested the arrangement became more and 
 more sensibly felt with the decline in the political training of 
 the great body of the nobles, and their growing indifference 
 
 1 Tacitus, Ann. vi. 11. : "Sumsit ex consularibus qui coerceret servitia et 
 quod civium audacia turbidum, nisi vim metuat : primusque Messala Corvinus 
 earn potestatem, et paucos intra dies finem, accepit, quasi nescius exercendi." 
 The studied mildness with which Tacitus speaks of this office is rather remark- 
 able. Compare Hieron. in Euseb. Chron. :"Messala Corvinus primus praefec- 
 tus urbis factus sexto die magistratu se abdicavit, incivilem potestatem esse 
 contestans." This appointment is placed at the commencement of 738, by 
 Frandsen, Agrippa, p. 80. 
 
 * Tacitus, I. c. : " Turn Taurus Statilius, quanquam provecta rotate, egregie 
 toleravit."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 to public affairs. Their indisposition to business increased 
 with the consciousness that their interference was not wanted, 
 and gradually every transaction of importance was left to the 
 secret deliberation of the imperial councillors. The reception 
 of foreign kings and envoys, and some other stated ceremo- 
 nials, still drew the senators together ; but the real business 
 of the state soon dropped as completely from their hands, as 
 that of election had slipped from the control of the people. 1 
 
 The more prominent Augustus became in the outward 
 titles and actual substance of power, the more did he strive to 
 appear in his habits and demeanour simply the studious mode- 
 equal of his citizens. He rejected with signs of empero^sde- 
 horror the appellation of Dominus, which awk- meanour - 
 ward flatterers sometimes addressed to him ; and once in the 
 theatre, when a player uttered the words, Ojust and generous 
 Ziord, and the spectators applied it with acclamations to* the 
 emperor, he repressed their flattery with a frown and gesture of 
 impatience, and the next day issued an edict to forbid the use 
 of a term which seemed to imply that the Romans were his 
 slaves. 3 When consul, he generally traversed the streets on 
 foot, nor at other times did he shut himself up in a close litter. 
 In the senate he rejected, as far as possible, the distinctions 
 of the consular dignity. The fathers were given to under- 
 stand that he did not wish to be conducted from his door to 
 the curia by a crowd of illustrious attendants, nor would he 
 let them rise from their places when he entered the assembly 
 or quitted it. As he passed along the streets he received 
 petitions with equal affability. The Romans repeated with 
 delight his playful rebuke of a nervous suppliant, whom he 
 likened to a man giving a halfpenny to an elephant. Within 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 35. ; Dion, liii. 21. This council was instituted as a floating 
 body, consisting of certain of the chief annual magistrates, and fifteen senators 
 chosen for a period of six months. It was designed originally to prepare 
 measures for the consideration of the larger assembly. Dion refers to the in- 
 stitution under the year 727. 
 
 2 Suet. Oct. 53. ; Dion, Iv. 12. ; but Orosius (vi. 22.) with only the Chris- 
 tian application of the word in view: " Domini appellationem, ut homo, decli- 
 navit."
 
 148 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 the curia he suffered with patience many harsh attacks. One 
 senator ventured to exclaim, I do not know what you mean I 
 another, I would contradict you, if I might ! Once, on his 
 quitting the assembly in anger at the noisy altercations which 
 were going on, several voices shouted after him, ~We ought to 
 be let speak on public affairs ! * It must be remarked that, 
 with the loss of personal dignity, such of the senators as did 
 not sink into abject flatterers, too often sought to assert their 
 self-respect by ill-mannered freedoms. Augustus was known 
 to leave the curia precipitately to check the angry retort 
 which they would sometimes have provoked from him. 
 When the fathers were discussing a proposal for appointing 
 some of their body as a guard of honour to the emperor, 
 Antistius Labeo, who was notorious for his blunt humour, 
 growled out, I for one am not fit to be posted before Caesar's 
 bed-chamber, for I snore in my sleep? It was observed that, 
 when Augustus recommended a candidate for a magistracy, 
 he conducted him always in person through the public places, 
 and solicited votes in his favour : his own vote he gave in his 
 proper tribe, like a private citizen. When he canvassed for a 
 prince of his own family, he was careful to add, provided he 
 deserves the honour. He allowed himself to be summoned as 
 a witness before the tribunals, to be examined and interro- 
 gated, and abstained, on the trial of a friend, from the formal 
 testimony to his public services which was sanctioned by an in- 
 vidious custom.' So great was now his respect for the rights 
 of property, that the assignor of the military colonies suffered 
 the proportions of his forum to be curtailed, rather than tres- 
 pass upon the limits of private occupiers.* As consul and cor- 
 rector of manners, Augustus was anxious to exhibit strictness 
 and firmness in the dispensation of justice. His temper was 
 
 I Suet Oct. 53, 64. 
 
 II Dion, liv. 27. Comp. another story of Labeo, Suet. Oct. 54. ; Dion, 
 liv. 15. 
 
 3 Suet. Oct. 56. 
 
 * Suet. c. : " Forum angustius fecit, non ausus extorquere possessoribus 
 proximas domos." Mon. Ancyr. " privato solo."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 149 
 
 not naturally mild, or the infirmities of his health made him 
 irritable, and he sometimes forgot his usual discretion. On 
 one occasion he had brought a charge against a knight for 
 having squandered his patrimony. The accused proved that 
 he had, on the contrary, augmented it. Well, replied the 
 emperor, annoyed at his error, but at least you are living in 
 celibacy in defiance of recent enactments. The man could re- 
 ply that, on the contrary, he was married, and was the father 
 of three legitimate children. The inquisitor was silenced ; 
 but the accused, not satisfied with his triumph, added aloud, 
 Ccesar, when next you listen to charges against good citizens, 
 see that your informants themselves are honest men. 1 
 
 The time indeed was not far distant, when the majesty of 
 the emperor, and the sanctity of the tribunitian power, would 
 demand a severe account for freedoms far more Freedom of 
 innocent than these ; but at present, little or no ^unseno/to 
 restraint was imposed upon the moroseness of Au s ustu8 - 
 disappointed patriots or place-hunters. The examples of 
 Maecenas himself, the minister in whom Augustus most con- 
 fided, might be pleaded in defence of a liberty of speech 
 which must appear offensive and inexcusable to our modern 
 notions. This shrewd adviser was encouraged to keep close 
 watch on his master's hasty and arbitrary temper, and recall 
 him, when requisite, to a better mood. Once when the em- 
 peror was presiding at a criminal trial, and was about to sen- 
 tence to death a number of culprits, Maecenas, it is said, 
 sought to speak with him in private, but being prevented by 
 the crowd, he tore a leaf from his tablets, wrote hastily upon 
 it, Up, hangman, and threw it dexterously into the folds of 
 the emperor's robe. Augustus opened and read the paper, 
 and quitted the tribunal without a word. 3 He was pleased, 
 we are assured, when he received such corrections as these, 
 though we may well believe it was only in certain moods, well 
 understood by those about him, and by certain persons under 
 peculiar relations to him, that such liberties could safely be 
 taken. 
 
 1 Maerob, Saturn, ii. 4. 9 Macrob. I. c. ; Dion, Iv. 7.
 
 150 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 The influence indeed which this shrewd adviser exercised 
 upon Augustus, and through him upon public affairs, was 
 Easiness of strongly characteristic of the circumstances of 
 fed^y'the chfcf tne period. Maecenas was a disciple of the 
 men of the day. g^oi o f Balbus and Oppius, Matius and Pansa, 
 the mild and courtly favourites of the elder Caesar, whose 
 habits and temper had marked a reaction from the rough 
 and bold self-assertion of the men directly preceding them. 
 Caesar himself, whose early life had been passed in scenes of 
 angry contention, whose associates and opponents had been 
 ever ready with the fierce retort and the rude blow, seems to 
 have taken pleasure in his later years in reposing himself 
 among gentler spirits. From such as these the fashion of 
 forbearance in speech and action had descended upon the 
 public men of the generation before us. The writings of the 
 day present, or at least suggest to us, many pictures of urban- 
 ity and delicacy in the transaction of affairs, and as it were a 
 studied desire to put aside the recollections of strife and 
 bloodshed, which must have pressed so importunately on the 
 minds of all. With the closing, indeed, of so many avenues 
 to aspiring ambition, the interests of life were now less ab- 
 sorbing. Men became more indifferent to success, less furious 
 in their rivalry with one another ; they could afford to tolerate 
 party differences where party itself led to no political prizes. 
 Between the flatterers of the ruler on the one side and the 
 grumblers on the other, lay this important class of polished 
 triflers ; polished and trifling in their outward demeanour, 
 yet for the most part sufficiently in earnest at heart, and 
 resolved to maintain the balance of the state, to control the 
 discontented, who were ready to plunge it into another revo- 
 lution, and to shame the corrupt and venal, who would have 
 precipitated it into the arms of tyranny. To this class be- 
 longed all the greatest statesmen of the day, Messala, Pollio, 
 Taurus perhaps, and Piso, who succeeded Taurus in the pre- 
 fecture of the city. Such was the temper, and such, we may 
 believe, the views of the high-minded Agrippa. But to these 
 views no man gave such distinct form and expression as
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 Maecenas himself, who for many years governed the republic 
 in the truest interests of his master, by quietly removing from 
 his path the opposition which might have stimulated his more 
 selfish passions. By teaching the Romans to be content with 
 the liberties they were yet able to retain and enjoy, he averted 
 the further encroachments of despotism. Maecenas was not a 
 soldier by profession ; nor did he understand the machinery 
 of military governments. At moments when the peace of 
 Italy was seriously threatened, Augustus resorted for its 
 defence to the stronger arm of Agrippa. But when these 
 crises had passed, he gave his confidence once more to the 
 man of policy and sagacity ; and with no ostensible post, for 
 he never rose above the equestrian rank, nor filled any public 
 magistracy, Maecenas was in fact, during a long course of 
 years, the closest and dearest of the emperor's advisers. To 
 the counsels of this minister the Romans ascribed Maecenas repre- 
 the subtle policy by which Augustus gathered Augusts con 8 -' 
 into his single hand the functions of the magis- Bervation - 
 tracy and the legislature. If the imperator actually delib- 
 erated on resigning his extraordinary powers, it was Maecenas 
 who was generally believed to have advised his retaining 
 them. The transformation of the ancient system of coordi- 
 nate municipalities to the modern character of a government 
 emanating from the centre to the extremities, was reputed to 
 be the work of this able administrator ; the chief lines at least 
 of such a change were drawn by his hand, and filled in by 
 statesmen of his school in later generations. If we may sup- 
 pose any difference of opinion on these matters between the 
 minister and his master, we may represent Maecenas to our- 
 selves as the exponent of progress, Augustus of conservation, 
 the two principles which throughout the reign of the second 
 Ca3sar preserved so happy a balance. 1 
 
 The views of the statesman combined with the natural 
 temper of the man in moulding Maecenas to habits of life 
 which engaged the curious observation of his contempo- 
 
 1 The traditional idea of the policy of Maecenas may be supposed to be 
 preserved in the counsels ascribed to him by Dion, lii. 14-40.
 
 152 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 have always retained their interest 
 
 first minister of with posterity. It is to be remembered that he 
 
 the empire. . . 
 
 was the first minister^ in the modern sense, 01 the 
 Roman commonwealth ; and his deportment, not uncommon, 
 as modern tunes bear witness, in men of his class, was novel 
 and peculiar in the eyes of a generation born under the free 
 republic. The republican statesman of ancient Rome, an aris- 
 tocrat by birth, a despot by his military training, was char- 
 acterized by strong self-assertion, and rude independence of 
 sentiment and manner. He was active, earnest, and busy ; he 
 left no moment unoccupied ; he rushed from the forum to the 
 camp, from the senate to his study, with marvellous rapidity 
 and unwearied diligence ; even the softer hours he allotted to 
 polite conversation had their definite object of exercise and 
 improvement. The last age of the republic brought out in 
 the strongest way the harsher features of this unamiable char- 
 acter. The Romans were hardened by success more than they 
 were softened by refinement. But about their qualities, such 
 as they were, there had been at least no disguise. The consul 
 and imperator never pretended indifference to the honours and 
 advantages of his position. His countrymen, he knew, were 
 proud both of the office and of the men who filled it, and 
 required no concession on his part to any envious feelings on 
 theirs. Believing himself the greatest and noblest of his kind, 
 he gave the world to know it without reserve or delicacy. 
 But with the advent of the empire all this was destined to 
 undergo a complete change, though it could not arrive im- 
 mediately. For more than one generation we shall have to 
 remark the angry struggles of the old Roman pride against 
 the dissimulation which circumstances so potently enjoined it. 
 The great nobles of the Augustan age felt instinctively that 
 they had fallen from their high position, and ceased to be the 
 first objects of their countrymen's admiration ; but they 
 descended with reluctance from the pedestal of official emi- 
 nence, and strove to deceive themselves with empty titles and 
 not less empty magnificence. Already a vast revolution was 
 embodied in the fatal apparition of the first subject of the
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 153 
 
 empire, the animating spirit of its policy, the controller of its 
 laws, and dispenser of its honours, averring entire indifference 
 to all public distinction, lounging carelessly in the forum, 
 amidst the men of business and the men of pleasure, with his 
 robe trailing on the ground, leaning on the arms of two 
 eunuchs, chatting with the chance comers of his acquaintance, 
 gazing listlessly at statues and paintings, and basking in the 
 brilliant sun of Italy, or sporting in song and political influ- 
 epigram with the wits and poets of the day. 1 ^ a c B e a s f a M p *t c r e on 
 How seductive must have been the fashion thus of literature - 
 set by the most prosperous and most popular of politicians ! 
 The world moulds itself to the habits of the minister more 
 readily than to those of the sovereign himself ; for the emi- 
 nence of the one seems attainable by duly copying his beha- 
 viour, that of the other is altogether beyond the sphere of an 
 ordinary ambition. 
 
 Undoubtedly in the manners of Maecenas there was a mix- 
 ture of nature and artifice. Under the exterior of careless 
 good humour he concealed real shrewdness, activity, and 
 vigilance ; he was fully possessed of all the threads of party 
 intrigue, and was never unprepared, at the fittest moment, to 
 baffle any hostile aspiration. 8 His far-famed patronage of art 
 and literature was not unalloyed by political motives. The 
 poets whom he caressed, and with whose names his own has 
 become inseparably entwined, were in fact the instruments, 
 perhaps unconsciously, of his system of government ; and 
 their encomiums on the person of the most gracious of states- 
 men, and the glories of his administration, were inspired, if 
 not by his gold and his wine, at least by the charm of his 
 affability and the adroitness of his flattery. The praises lav- 
 ished on Maecenas by Virgil, Horace, and Propertius are 
 recorded for all readers ; but we know not what were the 
 blandishments by which he engaged or retained them. The 
 same lax philosophy, gilded with the brilliant name of Epi- 
 curus, which Caesar had used to quell the remorse of his fol- 
 lowers, when he urged them to trample on the sanctions 
 1 Seneca, Epist. 114. 3 Veil. ii. 88.
 
 154: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 which upheld the frame of the republic, was employed by 
 Maecenas to stifle the yearnings of ambition and the murmurs 
 of discontent. It stimulated activity in the one case, while it 
 served to paralyse it in the other. 
 
 The air of easy and almost contemptuous nonchalance 
 which Maecenas assumed so successfully in public life, stands 
 His domestic m cur ious contrast with the susceptibility he was 
 chagrins. unable to conceal in the conduct of his domestic 
 
 affairs. The man who could control the politicians of Rome 
 without an apparent effort, was himself no better than a strug- 
 gling captive in the hands of an intriguing woman. His wife 
 Terentia, or Terentilla, was celebrated for her beauty and 
 caprices, for the violence of her temper and the powers of her 
 fascinations. From the licentiousness of conduct imputed to 
 her we may suppose that she was unfaithful to him with more 
 than one lover ; but the interest she excited in Augustus him- 
 self was perhaps peculiarly galling to the uxorious husband, 
 who was unable to resent an injury inflicted by his master. 
 Terentia is supposed to have been sister by adoption to 
 Licinius Murena, who was put to death for a conspiracy 
 against the emperor in the year 732. 1 It was a remarkable 
 instance of the power she exercised over Maecenas, that she 
 extracted from him the secret of the discovery his agents had 
 made of the plot. Once it is said the angry husband availed 
 himself of the indulgence of the laws to divorce her without a 
 public scandal ; but he speedily sued for a reconciliation. 
 His frequent and transient quarrels with her became a topic 
 of general derision. Maecenas, it was said, married a thou- 
 sand times, and every time the same woman. 3 But this incon- 
 sistency in the character of the wariest of ministers might be 
 thought too common to deserve remark, were it not worthy 
 of observation as a trait of manners. It would be difficult to 
 discover such an instance of female domination at an earlier 
 period of the republic, while it became a prominent and strik- 
 ing feature in the history of the times which followed. 
 
 The establishment of the prefecture of the city released 
 1 Dion, liv. 3. ; Suet. Oct. 66. a Seneca, Ep. 114.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 155 
 
 both Augustus and Agrippa from the necessity of keeping 
 watch in the capital, where they found it con- 
 
 Tnt. -i -i a Adoption of 
 
 stantly more difficult to maintain, amidst flatterers caius and LU- 
 
 . . _ cius, sona of 
 
 and cavillers, the modest reserve they had pre- Agrippa by 
 scribed to themselves in their intercourse with the "l.V. 737. 
 citizens. In the year 737 Augustus had adopted 
 the two sons whom Julia had now borne to his son-in-law, 
 in order, perhaps, to render his own person more secure 
 against conspirators. The children now received the names 
 of Caius and Lucius Julius Caesar, names which sufficed of 
 themselves to impress the Romans with the conviction that 
 their bearers were destined to imperial preeminence. 1 Agrip- 
 pa, satisfied with this mark of confidence, had already betaken 
 himself to the eastern provinces of the empire, while Augustus 
 was preparing again to inspect in person the western. Like 
 Pompeius, the emperor had experienced the difficulty of abiding 
 strictly by his own statutes, swerving neither to partiality, nor 
 severity. If he proposed to quit the helm for a season, there 
 was no lack of pedants to remind the Romans of the cele- 
 brated example of Solon, who quitted Athens that his coun- 
 trymen might try, without fear or favour, the real strength 
 of his institutions. Nor were there wanting busy tongues to 
 whisper that he was disturbed by the observations made at 
 home on his amour with Terentia, and wished to enjoy her 
 
 1 Caius, Lucius, and occasionally Sextus, are the only prsenomens of the 
 Julian family that occur in the Fasti. Every gens had its proper prsenomens, 
 which it repeated from one generation to another, and abstained not less care- 
 fully from others. Thus the Cornelii were mostly Caii, Lucii, and Publii ; 
 they have no Titus or Quintus. The Claudii have no Titus or Quintus ; the 
 yEmilii no Titus. The Quinctii are always Titus, Lucius, or Caius. It may be 
 interesting to remark how these prsenomens bore reference originally to nobility 
 of birth. Thus Caius and Cnaeus = gnavus, " well born ; " Titus and Lucius 
 are the Sabine and Etruscan words for " noble." Comp. Titius, Tatius, on the 
 one hand; on the other Lucumon, Luceres. Marcus = " warrior ;" comp. 
 Mamercus, Martius. Spurius (see Donaldson's Varron. p. 26.) = " high born." 
 Aulus is cognate with Augustus, &c. = " noble." From Marcus, Lucius, and 
 Publius we have the gentile names Marcius, Lucilius, and Publilius ; as from 
 Quintus, Sextus, and Decimus are formed Quinctius, Sextius, and perhaps 
 Decius.
 
 156 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 (society beyond the reach of curiosity. We may conclude 
 from this surmise, whatever other value it may have, that 
 Maecenas now accompanied his master into the provinces. 1 
 
 But in truth the disturbed state of the frontiers was a 
 
 sufficient motive for this renewed activity. Not only had 
 
 many of the Alpine tribes rushed again to arms, 
 
 Disturbances , % . . . 
 
 onthefron- and harassed the colonists of the Cisalpine, but 
 of Loiiius in from beyond the Alps, also, the Pannonians and 
 A.'C. 738. Noricans had invaded the Istrian peninsula, which 
 now claimed to be a portion of Italy. The Dal- 
 matian tribes were in open insurrection ; Macedonia was 
 ravaged by the Moesian Dentheletaa and Scordisci ; the Sar- 
 matians had inundated Thrace ; and lastly, the central for- 
 tresses of Spain were shaken once more by renewed commo- 
 tions. 1 The government, indeed, was not in any quarter taken 
 by surprise. Presidiary cohorts were stationed at every 
 threatened point of attack, and it required no extraordinary 
 effort of their arms to check and overthrow the aggressors in 
 all directions. An irruption, however, of the Germans, who 
 had crossed the Lower Rhine in considerable numbers, was 
 represented as more formidable. Lollius, the imperial legate 
 on that frontier, was defeated with some IQSS and still more 
 disgrace, for the eagle of the fifth legion was left in possession 
 of the victors. 3 Augustus hurried, it is said, across the Alps, 
 with the purpose of marching against them. But while he 
 was advancing northwards, Lollius rallied his troops again, 
 and the Germans thought it prudent to withdraw from a col- 
 lision with the collected forces of the Empire. Retreating 
 hastily into their own country, they sent hostages for their 
 future tranquillity. 
 
 Within the confines of the Gaulish province, however, 
 Augustus found a more fatal enemy than the Usipetes and 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 19. Dion, liv. 20. 
 
 3 Suet. Oct. 23., says the defeat was " majoris infamise quam detriment!. " 
 Comp. Veil. ii. 97. ; Tac. Ann. i. 10. The favourable character Horace gives 
 of Lollius, Od. iv. 9., is in marked contrast with the imputations of Yelleius. 
 We may suspect partiality on the one side as readily as prejudice on the other.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 157 
 
 the Sigambri. His own procurator, Licinus, had T 
 
 r 7 . Iniquitous pro- 
 
 shaken the fidelity of the Gauls by his monstrous ceedings of LI- 
 
 * emus, the em- 
 
 exactions. 1 This man was himself a Gaul by ex- peror> B procu- 
 
 * rator in GauL 
 
 traction ; he had been captured in his childhood, 
 and subsequently manumitted by Julius Caesar, and, as the 
 freedman of the dictator's heir, Octavius, had acquired by his 
 useful talents the favour and confidence of his patron. Raised 
 successively to various places of trust and profit, he had been 
 promoted at last to the general superintendence of the finances 
 of the imperial province. From Lugdunum, the centre of his 
 administration, he had tyrannized over the whole of Gaul 
 with the insolence of a despot." He combined, said the 
 wretched provincials, the pride of the Roman with the avarice 
 of the sordid barbarian, and he had no compunction in crush- 
 ing by his extortions the chiefs of the native nobility. Not 
 only did he exact the legitimate dues with ruthless severity, 
 but imposed additional burdens for the enrichment of himself 
 and his creatures. Such, it was declared, was his A ^ 738 
 unblushing wickedness, that he made the people B - c - le - 
 pay their monthly taxes fourteen times in the year. December, 
 he said, is clearly the tenth, not the twelfth month. I demand 
 the quotas of two months more, which I will call Augusti. 3 
 When at last complaints of this injustice reached the ears of 
 the emperor, he was inclined to sympathize with the oppressed 
 provincials, and ashamed of the confidence he had reposed in a 
 culprit so odious. On reaching Lugdunum, he required his pro- 
 curator to render an account of his transactions. Augustus re- 
 
 D ^ T- A. u J' r.' v pairs to Lugdu- 
 
 r$ut Licinus, we are told, finding his position pre- num. 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 21., calls this man Licinius, but as the freedman of Cassar it is 
 more probable that he took the gentile name of Julius. On the other hand, 
 the scholiast on Juvenal identifies him with the Licinus cited as an example 
 of enormous wealth by Seneca, Persius, and his author in various places. The 
 reading in Suet. Oct. 67. Licinium Enceladum seems to be corrupt. 
 
 3 Senec. Ludus in Claud. 6. : " Lugduni .... ubi Licinius multoa annos 
 regnavit." Seneca might have applied to him the proverb which he reserves 
 for the emperor Claudius: " Gallum in suo sterquilinio plurimum posse." 
 
 3 Such seems to be the meaning of Dion, who expresses himself rather 
 confusedly.
 
 158 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 carious, invited his master to visit him at his house, and there 
 exposing to his view the hoards he had accumulated, insin- 
 uated that all these treasures, extorted from the public ene- 
 my, he had amassed for the service of the emperor himself. 
 Augustus acknowledged the policy of the device, and accepted 
 the splendid bribe. Licinus continued to advance in his pros- 
 perous career, maintaining himself in favour by the occasional 
 contribution of great sums to public works in Rome, where 
 the basilica of Julius Caesar was completed principally at this 
 freedman's expense. 1 He acquired the reputation of the rich- 
 est of Roman upstarts ; and when he died, at a great age, 
 after surviving Augustus himself, his marble sepulchre was 
 contrasted, with bitter indignation, with the humble grave of 
 a Cato, and the unsheltered bier of a Pompeius. 9 
 
 The emperor prolonged his residence in Gaul through the 
 years 739 and 740, and finally completed the arrangements 
 Augustus pro- connected with the organization of the province. 
 !n n 8 aui i8 8tay His system of government required him to divide 
 A. u. 739, 740. his time almost equally at home and abroad : he 
 remembered that he was imperator as well as princeps, that 
 he wielded the proconsular power as well as the tribunitian. 
 The position of Gaul, moreover, lying between the hostile 
 zones of Germany and Vindelicia, demanded more than ordi- 
 nary vigilance. Immense preparations were now in progress 
 for the effective subjugation of both those regions, and for 
 binding the Rhine and Danube together by a chain of Roman 
 outposts. It was from Gaul, the great storehouse of men and 
 
 1 Macrob. Saturn, ii. 4. ; Schol. ad Juven. i. 109. 
 
 5 Comp. the epigram of Varro Atacinus quoted by the scholiast on Per- 
 sius, ii. 86. : 
 
 " Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet; et Cato parvo ; 
 Pompeius nullo : quis putet esse Deos ? " 
 
 The freedmen of the great nobles had already become notorious under the 
 republic for the wealth they had been permitted to accumulate. Such was the 
 case especially with Chrysogonus, Heron, Amphion, Hipparchus, and Demetrius, 
 the freedmen of Sulla, Lucullus, Catulus, Antonius, and Pompeius. Comp. 
 Plin. H. N. xxxv. 18. But the reign of the freedmen in Rome was yet to 
 come.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 159 
 
 material, that the resources for many future campaigns were 
 principally to be drawn. We may believe that the emperor's 
 presence there, together with the attitude assumed by his 
 legions on the frontier, sufficed to keep the Germans in check, 
 and prevent any cooperation from that quarter with the tribes 
 which the Romans were at the same time assailing in the 
 south. The exploits of the lieutenants of Augustus in the 
 western Alps had secured the passes into Gaul, but those 
 which led into Germany and Pannonia were still in the hands 
 of the barbarians, and the communications of Rome with her 
 legions in the valleys of the Save and Danube lay often at the 
 mercy of these unmanageable hordes. The Alps from the 
 Simplon pass to the sources of the Drave were Formidable po- 
 occupied by the Rhaetians. Beyond the Inn and Kh^tianB^nd 
 the Lake of Constance, the plain which slopes vindeiiciane. 
 gently towards the Danube was known by the name of Vin- 
 delicia. Styria, the Kammergut of Salzburg, and the south- 
 ern half of the Austrian Archduchy, belonged to the tribes of 
 Noricum, while the passes between that country and Italy 
 were held by the Carnians. The rich plains of the Cisalpine 
 offered a tempting prey to these hungry mountaineers, and 
 the honour, as well as the security, of Italy demanded their 
 thorough subjugation. Nor was it less important to extin- 
 guish the sparks of freedom still visible from the seats of the 
 conquered Gauls. But these rude warriors were not terrified 
 into submission by the memorable chastisement of the Salassi ; 
 on the contrary, they were rather exasperated by the treach- 
 ery which accompanied it, and retorted the cruelty of the con- 
 querors with no less shocking barbarity. 
 
 Under these circumstances cause of warfare was never 
 wanting on either side, but the Romans, as usual, pretended 
 that they were provoked to hostilities by intoler- campaigns of 
 able aggressions. 1 The Camuni and Vennones, ^iSs'in the Ti " 
 the people of the central regions of the Alps, Eastern Alps. 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 22. : Kal ravra juec ical ffvvT\6rj irojy TO?J owe eWirdVSots itoitiv 4S6- 
 KOVV, irav 5 5)j TO tipper TUV a\tffKOfifvti>v oix STJ TO <f>aif6/j.evov, aAAi Kal TO 
 ii> roTj yaffTpdffii> en ruv yvraiKuv ov, [J.avTfia.is na\v avevpiffKOvres, e<f>6etpov.
 
 160 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 were the first attacked. P. Silius engaged these tribes in 738, 
 and worsted, not them only, but the Noricans and Pannonians 
 also, who had made an incursion into Istria. 1 The year fol- 
 lowing it was resolved to follow up these successes with 
 method and perseverance. Drusus, the emperor's younger 
 stepson, now in his twenty-third year, took the command of 
 the legions from Silius, overthrew the Rhatians in the Tri- 
 dentine Alps, traversed the Brenner pass, and defeated the 
 Brenni and Genauni in the valley of the Inn. Whether he 
 made any further progress towards the Danube is not record- 
 ed ; it is more probable that he turned westward to effect a 
 junction with his brother Tiberius, who had been despatched 
 at the same time from the Rhenish frontier to attack the 
 Vindelicians in the rear. Ascending the valley of the Rhine 
 beyond the frontiers of the Gaulish province, Tiberius had 
 reached the Lake of Constance, and had there launched a 
 flotilla, with which he surprised the enemy in quarters where 
 he least expected to be assailed. He penetrated the gorges 
 of the Upper Rhine and Inn in every direction ; and at the 
 conclusion of a brilliant and rapid campaign the two brothers 
 had effected the complete subjugation of the country of the 
 Grisons and the Tyrol. 2 The permanence of their successes 
 was doubtless assured by the wholesale slaughter or captivity 
 of the wretched people. Strike once and strike no more^ was 
 the maxim of the Roman imperator ; and perhaps the process 
 was merciful even where mercy was least intended. But it is 
 impossible not to marvel at the extraordinary power of the 
 Roman arms, which could thus in a single campaign storm, 
 rifle, and dismantle the great fortress of modern freedom. 
 The free tribes of the eastern Alps appear then for the first 
 time in history only to disappear again for a thousand years ; 
 then- memory was perpetuated on the monument erected by 
 Augustus, on which he enumerated the names of four and 
 forty conquered nations. A few of the bravest among them 
 have obtained a place in the most martial of Horace's odes, 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 19. ; Flor. iv. 12. 
 
 * Dion, liv. 22. ; Veil. ii. 95. ; Strab. iv. 6. p. 206.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 and swell the deathless triumph of their twice-fortunate con- 
 querors. 1 
 
 Having settled the affairs of Gaul, Augustus made a final 
 progress into Spain, to receive once more the submission of 
 the Cantabrians. Drusus was retained in com- Augustus re- 
 mand of the armies on the Rhine, while Tiberius m^^- ' 
 was despatched to Rome, to assume the consul- BuL A ; v 741 
 ship for 741. In the following July, the emperor B -- 13 - 
 himself returned to his capital, amidst the same demonstra- 
 tions of flattery, which had already greeted him on so many 
 former occasions. Cornelius Balbus, who, at the moment of 
 his arrival being announced, was exhibiting shows in a theatre 
 he had recently erected, pretended that he had sped his return 
 by the auspicious ceremony. Tiberius, as consul, repaid the 
 compliment by demanding his opinion first of the senators. 
 An altar, it was decreed, should be placed in the senate-house, 
 on which incense should be offered for the safety, not of the 
 state, but of its ruler ; but this token of respect, the principle 
 of which is recognized under every modern monarchy, was 
 rejected by one who still called himself the first citizen of the 
 Roman republic. The day after his return, which' had taken 
 place, according to his usual custom, at night, Augustus 
 saluted the people from the door of his Palatine residence, 
 and then, ascending the capitol, took the laurel wreath from 
 his fasces, and placed it on the knees of Jove's statue. That 
 day the whole Roman people were admitted to the use of the 
 baths gratuitously, and the services of their barbers remune- 
 rated from the fiscus. Augustus then convened the senate to 
 receive the account of his proconsular acts ; and being him- 
 self hoarse from a casual cold, the recital of his victories and 
 his ordinances was made by his quaestor. At this time he 
 determined also the limits of military service, the uncertainty 
 of which had caused some discontent. Twelve years were 
 assigned as the term of pratorian, sixteen of legionary ser- 
 
 1 Horace, Od. iv. 4. : 
 
 " Videre Rhaeti bella sub Alpibus 
 Drusum gerentem," &c. 
 
 TOL. IT. 11
 
 162 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 vice. 1 Instead of lands, for which, since the days of Sulla, 
 the veterans had been constantly clamouring, pensions were 
 henceforth to be given hi money, an arrangement which was 
 accepted by both the citizens and the soldiers as a mutual 
 compromise. If less splendid than houses and estates, these 
 fixed rewards were of more real value to the recipients, while 
 they relieved the citizens from the constant fear of spoliation, 
 which embittered the glories of each successful campaign. 
 
 While Augustus was occupying himself with the affairs 
 of the western provinces, the opposite hemisphere, as we have 
 Agrippa in the seen j ne na ^ committed to the care of Agrippa. 
 Ea i t V 737 '^ ne exigencies of a government so widely divid- 
 B. c. 17. g^ especially at a period of transition, when every 
 state was resigning itself, with more or less agitation, to a 
 change from the fitful licentiousness of republican imperators 
 to the systematic despotism of imperial procurators, required 
 the personal superintendence either of the chief of the empire, 
 or of his direct representative, with the same interests as his 
 own. Agrippa quitted the city in the summer of 737, and 
 reached Syria before the winter, accompanied by his consort 
 Julia, or followed by her at a short interval. While engaged 
 in the administration of this province, 2 he was visited by 
 Herod of Judea, who offered, with protestations of friendship 
 and devotion, to escort him within the frontiers of his own 
 kingdom. This prince, the most consummate adept in flattery 
 of all the dependents of the imperial court, had recently 
 returned from Rome, where he had succeeded in recovering 
 the liberty of Aristobulus and Alexander, his sons by Mari- 
 amne, who had been kept there as hostages for his own fidel- 
 ity. These youths were received by their countrymen with 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 25. A few years afterwards the difficulty of recruiting in- 
 duced the emperor to increase the pay of the praetorians after sixteen and the 
 legionaries after twenty years' service, by which they were tempted to remain 
 longer under arms. Dion, Iv. 23. It would seem from the complaints of the 
 soldiers at a later period (seeTac. Ann. i 17.) that this extension of service 
 was made, at least on some stations, compulsory. 
 
 a In Syria Agrippa founded the colony of Berytus (Beyrout), and made it 
 a station for two legions, A. c. 739. Strabo, xvi. 2. p. 756.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 the strongest marks of affection for the sake of their much- 
 injured mother ; nor does Herod himself appear to have enter- 
 tained any jealousy of them. But they were all the more 
 hateful to Salome and her party, through fear of their influ- 
 ence over their capricious father, by whom they were already 
 treated with the distinction due to their birth, and united in 
 marriage, the one with a daughter of Salome herself, the other 
 with the child of Archelaus, king of Cappadocia. 1 
 
 Herod led his guest through his new cities Sebaste and 
 Csesarea, which he had named in honour of Augustus, and 
 displayed to him the magnificence of his build- He visits Ju- 
 ings, as if the most delicate compliment he could t^r^to I^'ia 
 pay the Roman potentate was to show himself Mi "^ 740 
 not afraid to reveal the abundance of his resour- B - c - 14 - 
 ces. Agrippa in return assured him of his security, and con- 
 firmed to his subjects the privileges accorded them by the 
 first Caesar. The Jews, it would seem, were flattered by the 
 Roman entering their city as an admiring visitor, and sacri- 
 ficing a hecatomb to their God." From Judea he returned to 
 Asia Minor for the winter, in order to prepare an expedition 
 for settling the affairs of the kingdom of the Bosphorus. The 
 throne of Mithridates had been seized by a pretended descend- 
 ant of the great king, who called himself by the Roman name 
 of Scribonius, on his marriage with Dynamis, the widow of 
 its recent occupant Asander. This usurpation was unpalatable 
 to the Romans, and Polemo, king of Pontus, was invited to 
 overthrow it, and assume the sovereignty under their protec- 
 tion. The natives, indeed, speedily ridded themselves of the 
 first of these intruders, but they were reluctant to admit the 
 second, in support of whose pretensions Agrippa sailed in the 
 spring of 740 as far as Sinope. Here he was joined by 
 Herod, whose officious zeal had prompted him to follow 
 his patron with powerful reinforcements. The Bosphorus 
 now submitted, and received Asander. Agrippa had no 
 
 1 Joseph. Antiq. Jud. xvi. 1, 2. 
 
 8 Joseph. Antiq. Jud. rvi. 2. 1. : fjyev 5e Kal eis rijv ir6\iv TWV 'Iepo<roAi/u<- 
 riav .... 'Aiiriras
 
 164 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 occasion to proceed farther. He returned through the states 
 of Asia Minor, still accompanied by Herod, who seems to 
 have feared to lose sight of him, and listened at Ephesus to 
 the complaints of the Jewish residents, who resented the 
 desecration of their sabbaths and holidays, and not less the 
 robbery of the tribute they annually sent to the temple of 
 Jerusalem. Among other favours they now received was the 
 important boon of exemption from service as auxiliaries to 
 the legions, a privilege conceded to a few only of the most 
 fortunate communities, and to no other entire nation but their 
 own. So early did this people manifest their aversion to the 
 use of arms, which has been disregarded even in our own 
 tunes only by the most despotic of rulers. 1 
 
 But Agrippa, notwithstanding the kindness he exhibited 
 to his favourites, could manifest, it would seem, no slight 
 
 capriciousness, when provoked, however unreason- 
 Harsh treat- 
 ment of the ably. The story of his treatment of the people of 
 
 people of Ilium. T,. , , , . .,, . 
 
 Ilium may be taken, at least, in illustration of the 
 wanton abuses of power too common among the Roman com- 
 manders in the provinces. Julia, it seems, chose to bathe in the 
 Scamander, a mountain stream, which, as Homer long before 
 had signalized, was liable to the most sudden and violent rises 
 after rain. The delicate Roman lady with difficulty escaped 
 from the waves which had well-nigh overwhelmed the hero 
 Achilles. The Hians, who were not more prepared for the 
 arrival of the princess than for the sudden inundation of their 
 river, were surely blameless in the matter ; but Agrippa 
 thought fit to impose upon them, for their imputed neglect, a 
 fine of a hundred thousand drachmas. The intercession, how- 
 ever, of Herod availed, we are told, in their behalf. 2 
 
 In 741 Agrippa was recalled to Rome, after a four years' 
 absence, or as the Orientals themselves understood it, after 
 Agrippa re- having exercised imperial power for a period of 
 nd n decineTa e ' ten years, counting from his first mission in 731. 
 triU jL m ? b 74i. At Rome he met Augustus, who had returned 
 B. c. is. about the same tune. During his absence in the 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 24. ; Joseph. Antiq. xvi. 2. 2. 
 
 ' Nicolaus Damasc. ed. Orell. p. 8. Frandsen'a Agrippa^ p. 90.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 165 
 
 East the senate had decreed him a triumph, together with a 
 supplication. The triumph Agrippa declined ; but it may be 
 a question whether he thus meant to acknowledge that he was 
 only the lieutenant of the imperator, or whether, as admitted 
 to a participation in empire itself, he regarded such an honour 
 as beneath his acceptance. Thus Augustus allowed several 
 of his lieutenants to triumph, but never condescended to tri- 
 umph himself after receiving the imperial pow- A n 742 . 
 ers. 1 Whatever was Agrippa's motive, the em- B - c - 12 - 
 peror seems to have been well satisfied with his behaviour, 
 and desired him to resume the tribunitian power for a second 
 five years' term. Nevertheless he could not be at ease in 
 Rome, where Tiberius, in whom he saw a formidable rival, 
 was now consul. It is probable, moreover, that he was an- 
 noyed by the loose conduct of Julia, whose dissolute man- 
 ners had become already notorious. He could not risk offend- 
 ing Augustus by repudiating his daughter, but he was too 
 proud to connive at irregularities committed under his own 
 eyes. Before the end of the year he quitted the city once 
 more for Pannonia, where serious disturbances had again 
 broken out.* 
 
 The year which followed forms an important epoch in the 
 life of Augustus. It beheld his elevation to the chief ponti- 
 ficate, the last of the great offices of the republic 
 which remained to complete the cycle of his func- come^cMef 6 
 
 .. , , i > A A. -it. j.' 'j. pontiff on the 
 
 tions as monarch of Home. At the same tune it death of Lepi- 
 left him alone in the possession of all their hon- 
 ours and burdens. The death of Lepidus removed his scruples 
 against wresting the sacred office from a living occupant, how- 
 ever despicable, and early in 742 he became formally invested 
 with the direction of the national rites, which he had long vir- 
 
 1 All authorities agree that the powers deputed to Agrippa in the provinces 
 were in some respect greater than those of any mere imperial legate. Dion, 
 liv. 28., says expressly, (ntl^ov avrf TO>V fnaffTaxdOt e|w rfjt 'Ir 
 
 8 Dion, liv. 28. He went to Pannonia, Dion says, with greater powers than 
 any Roman officer had ever exercised abroad before him.
 
 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 tually exercised. 1 Meanwhile Agrippa had crossed the Adri- 
 atic, and proceeded with undiminished energy, to attack the 
 Pannonians, though in the depth of winter. The barbarians, 
 surprised at the suddenness of the assault, made speedy sub- 
 mission, which seems to have been accepted without any solid 
 guarantees. Agrippa returned to Italy without delay ; but he 
 fell sick while on his journey, and Augustus, who hastened 
 from Rome to Campania to meet him, found him already 
 Death of Agrip- & ea d* He conveyed the body himself into the 
 P a - city, and pronounced over it a funeral oration in 
 
 the forum, with a curtain drawn before him, because the eyes 
 of the pontiff might not rest upon a corpse. 8 The honoured 
 remains were then consumed in the Campus Martius, and the 
 ceremonies observed on the occasion were carefully noted as a 
 precedent for the obsequies of the emperor. The ashes were 
 laid up, not in the tomb which Agrippa had designed for him- 
 self, but in the mausoleum of Augustus, which thus opened 
 the second time for his second son-in-law. 4 Whatever jeal- 
 ousy may at times have existed between the two confederates 
 (and it seems impossible but that the sharing of their prize 
 must have caused some heart-burning between them), it was 
 now buried in the family sepulchre, and Augustus lived to 
 feel acutely, and to lament sincerely, the loss of so faithful a 
 servant and so useful a colleague. He was not displeased at 
 the accents of popular admiration which pronounced his 
 friend the best man of his generation. From the estates of 
 
 1 On the 6th of March, " prid. non. Mart." Kal. Maff. in Orell. Inscr. ii. 
 p. 386. ; Ovid, Fast. iii. 415. ; Seneca, de Clem. i. 10. 
 
 9 Agrippa died probably before the end of March. Augustus received the 
 news of his sickness while celebrating the festival of the Quinquatrus, " xiv.- 
 x. Kal. Apr." Ovid, Fast. iii. 809. ; Dion, liv. 28. 
 
 3 It is curious that the meaning of this ceremonial should have been for- 
 gotten in the time of Dion. It is explained by Seneca in relation to a similar 
 scene forty years later. Cons, ad Marc. 15. : "Ipse (Tiberius) pro rostris lau- 
 davit filium, stetitque in conspectu posito corpore, interjecto tantummodo vela- 
 mento, quod Pontificis oculos a funere arceret." But Augustus and Tiberius 
 were both pedantic in their observances. Comp. Tac. Ann. i. 62. 
 
 4 " Condidit Agrippam quo te, Marcelle, sepulchro." 
 
 Consol. ad Liv. 67.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 167 
 
 the deceased, which devolved upon himself, he gratified the 
 citizens with munificent largesses. Agrippa had bequeathed 
 his baths and gardens to the people, whose concern may be 
 estimated perhaps by the report of omens and evil prodigies 
 which were supposed to attend the catastrophe. 1 
 
 There can be little to regret in the loss of the funeral 
 panegyric which Augustus pronounced over his friend, which 
 has sunk into the oblivion to which all such pieces character of 
 have been speedily consigned. It was more re- A r 'PP a - 
 markable, assuredly, for what it disguised than for what it 
 revealed of his character. Yet it is with reluctance that we 
 let the curtain drop upon a man so eminent in public life, yet 
 so much less known to us than from his public career he 
 deserves. There is no statesman of the best known period 
 of Roman history who filled a large space in the eyes of his 
 countrymen, with whom we are so little acquainted as Agrip- 
 pa. His energy, bravery, and conduct, both in military and 
 civil affairs, marked him for the first place ; yet he was always 
 content with the second. His countenance, as to which exists 
 ing monuments agree with the description of the ancient 
 writers, was stern and rough, yet his tastes were liberal and 
 elegant." If we possessed any notices of his private habits 
 and conversation, we might acquire perhaps the key to these 
 apparent inconsistencies : but no anecdote is preserved of his 
 domestic life ; we know not what were his relaxations, or 
 who were his companions in them. 8 The only saying attrib- 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 29. The district of the Thracian Chersonese (Gallipoli) was 
 a private domain of Agrippa, which he bequeathed along with the rest of his 
 possessions to Augustus. Dion, who mentions the fact, can give no account 
 of how he came by this estate. 
 
 * Pliny (Hist. Wat. xxxv. 4.) characterizes his countenance by the expres- 
 sive word " torvitas," and calls him " vir rusticitati propior quam deliciis;" 
 at the same time he remarks the taste he showed in decorating the city, and 
 making the finest works of art accessible to the people. See above, chapter 
 xxviii. 
 
 8 The story told by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xiv. 28.), that Cicero, the orator's 
 son, once in a drunken fit threw a cup at him, is hardly an exception to this 
 remark.
 
 168 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 uted to him, marks, if genuine, the great spring of his ac- 
 tions, and the bent of his character. By union, he used to 
 say, small things become great ; by division the greatest fall 
 to pieces. 1 Such was indeed the maxim of his life ; such the 
 motto which might fitly be inscribed upon his tomb. His 
 whole career was devoted to consolidate the empire of his 
 patron ; and the small beginnings of the two youthful adven- 
 turers waxed, through his self-control as much as by his en- 
 ergy, into the widest development of all human history. To 
 this he sacrificed the objects which a more selfish man would 
 alone have regarded. The only token of personal feeling he 
 exhibited was his vexation at being apparently postponed to 
 Marcellus. He resented being made the third person in the 
 empire, but he was satisfied to continue always the second. 1 
 He gained his reward in the well-earned honours of his life, 
 and the unanimous voice of posterity in his favour ; 3 nor less 
 perhaps in the seasonableness of his death, which removed him 
 at the age of fifty-one from the perils of the second place, 
 and the risk of succeeding to the first. 4 
 
 1 Seneca, Epist. 94. : " M. Agrippa, vir ingentis animi, qui solus ex hia 
 quos civilia bella clares potentesque fecerunt, felix in publicum fuit, dicere 
 solebat, multum so huic sententiae debere : nam concordia res parvse crescunt, 
 discordia maximae dilabuntur." The sentence is in Sallust's Jugurtha, c. 10. 
 
 s Veil. ii. 79. : " Parendi, sed uni, scientissimus, aliis imperandi cupidus." ii. 
 88 :" Nee minora consequi potuit, sed non tarn concupivit." 
 
 8 Seneca, 1. e. Dion, liv. 29. : &piffros -rSiv KO.& ia.vrbi> Stcupavw -yefd/xeyoy. 
 
 * Pliny (Hist. Nat. vii. 6.) supposes him to have been unhappy, and con- 
 nects his sufferings with the inauspicious phenomenon of bis birth : "In pedes 
 procedere nascentem contra naturam est; quo argumento eos appcllavere 
 Agrippas,ut aegre partos : qualiter M. Agrippam ferunt genitum, unico prope 
 felicitatis exemplo in omnibus ad hunc modum genitis. Quamquam is quoque 
 adversa pedum valetudine, misera juventa, exercito aero inter arma mortesque, 
 ad noxia successu, infelici terris stirpe omni, sed per utrasque Agrippinas 
 maxime, quae Caium et Domitium Neronem principes genuere, totidem faces 
 generis humani : praeterea brevitate aevi, quinquagesimo uno raptus anno, in 
 tormentis adulteriorum conjugis, socerique praegravi servitio, luisse augurium 
 praeposteri natalis existimatus." The passage of course is only important from 
 the sense it evinces of the misery attendant upon the highest human fortune.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE CHILDREN OF AGRIPPA. CHARACTER OF THE CLATJDII : TIBERIUS AND 
 DRUSUS. MARRIAGE OF TIBERIUS AND JULIA. POLICY OF THE EMPIRE 
 
 ON THE RHINE AND DANUBE. EXPEDITION OF DRUSUS IN GERMANY, AND 
 
 TIBERIUS IN PANNONIA. DEATH OF DRUSUS, A. U. 745. EXTENSION OF 
 
 THE EMPIRE IN THRACE AND MffiSIA. TIBERIUS INVADES GERMANY. IN- 
 TRODUCTION OF CAIUS OfiSAR TO PUBLIC LIFE. DEATH OF MAECENAS, AND 
 FINAL REMARKS ON HIS CHARACTER. A. U. 742-747. B. C. 12-7. 
 
 A GRIPPA left two sons, Caius and Lucius, who have been 
 JLJL already mentioned, of the age of eight and five years 
 respectively, and more than one daughter. 1 A The family of 
 third son was born some months after his decease, A s ri PP a - 
 to whom Augustus gave the name of Agrippa Postumus. 
 The favour with which the emperor had distinguished his 
 daughter's offspring, and which he promised to extend to the 
 yet unborn infant, was their natural right as scions of his 
 own race ; the claims of Livia's children on his affections, 
 though educated under his guardianship, could not really 
 come in competition with those of Julia. But while the idea 
 of a family succession was assuming consistency in the minds 
 both of Augustus and his subjects, the weight of empire was 
 becoming daily more burdensome to the ruler, who knew not 
 indeed, till he lost Agrippa's support, how overwhelming it 
 
 1 The daughters of Agrippa were Vipsania, the child of his first marriage, 
 when yet a private citizen, with a daughter of Atticus ; and by his Csesarean 
 princess, a Julia and an Agrippina. Of these two, more will be said hereafter. 
 Vipsania soon recedes from the view of public history ; but it is remarked of 
 her, that she alone, of all the children of Agrippa, died a natural death, with- 
 out even a suspicion of violence. Tac. Ann. iii. 19.
 
 170 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 must prove for a single arm. That untoward event advanced 
 by another step the intrigues of Livia, and this time, at least, 
 without suspicion of a crime. While condoling with her hus- 
 band on the loss of his trustiest friend, she could now urge 
 the necessity of seeking aid from an active and tried asso- 
 ciate, and represent that by the union of her eldest son with 
 his own twice-widowed daughter, he might reconcile the 
 claims of blood with the exigencies of the public weal. 
 Tiberius was, indeed, already married to Vipsania, the daugh- 
 ter of Agrippa by a former consort, and to her he seems to 
 have felt a strong and genuine attachment. 1 Some struggle 
 Tiberius be- there may have been in his mind between feeling 
 juua^nd an< l ambition, but the demands of Augustus and 
 fo^Fmarrii^e' ^ e importunities of his mother, whose influence 
 to A a u D 742 a< over n - was a ^ ^ tim es overwhelming, silenced 
 B. c. 12. every scruple. The youngest of Agrippa's child- 
 ren had not yet seen the light when the mother was betrothed 
 to her third husband. But the Pannonians had resumed their 
 arms on the news of their conqueror's death ; and in the 
 decent interval which was yet to elapse before the marriage 
 could be completed, Tiberius was directed to conduct a fresh 
 campaign against these inveterate enemies. 2 
 
 The elder of the emperor's stepsons is destined to occupy 
 a large space on our canvass, and it will be well to take this 
 Figure and opportunity of presenting ourselves with a sketch 
 'nberiug r jn f f ^ figure and character, as they appeared to 
 his countrymen in the earlier stages of his career. 
 If we may trust the testimony of a noble sitting statue, dis- 
 covered in modern times at Piperno, the ancient Privernum, 
 near Terracina, and now lodged in the gallery of the Vati- 
 
 1 Suet. Tib. 7. : " Non sine magno angore animi, quum et Agrippinae (Vip- 
 saniae) consuetudine teneretur, et Julise mores improbaret." 
 
 9 Veil. ii. 96. : " Mors deinde Agrippae. . . admovit propius Neronem 
 Caesari; quippe filia ejus Julia, quse fuerat Agrippa? nupta, Xeroni nupsit. 
 Subinde bellum Pannonicum," &c. Comp. Dion, liv. 31., who speaks of the 
 emperor's reluctance : Tiftipiov ical &<av irpoer\eTo. The campaign of Tibe- 
 rius took place in the summer of this year (A. u. 742.).
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 can, 1 which has been pronounced to be a genuine representa- 
 tion of Tiberius, we must believe that both in face and 
 figure he was eminently handsome, his body and limbs devel- 
 oped in the most admirable proportions, and his countenance 
 regular, animated, and expressive. In accordance with this 
 description the biographer of the Caesars assures us that he 
 was tall and big of bone, with ample chest and shoulders ; it 
 is added that he was left-handed, and such was the firmness 
 of his joints, that he could drive, it is said, his extended finger 
 through a sound apple, and draw blood from a slave's head 
 with a fillip. He was fair in complexion, and the abundance 
 of hair at the back of his head, which he suffered to fall over 
 bis shoulders, was reputed to be characteristic of the Claudian 
 family. 3 The statue, above mentioned, preserves something 
 of a sinister expression in the mouth and eyes ; the glance is 
 unquiet and scowling, but it is not impossible that this may 
 be owing to a peculiarity of vision, which enabled him, it is 
 said, to see clearly in twilight on first awaking, though this 
 power did not continue more than a few minutes.* His gait, 
 we are told, was ungraceful, his head being generally thrown 
 stiffly backward. He was habitually grave and silent, and 
 when he condescended to address his attendants, his words 
 were few, slow, and measured, which gave an unfavourable 
 impression of his temper. Augustus, who did not fail to 
 notice this demeanour, and was feelingly alive to the policy 
 of conciliation, excused it as a fault of manner, rather than 
 of disposition. Pride and reserve, indeed, were the well- 
 known qualities of the Claudii, and in many chiefs of the 
 house they had been known to issue in a gloomy ferocity, 
 
 1 Bunsen's Rom., ii. 2. 69. (account of the Museo Chiaramonti in the 
 Vatican) 492. : " Sitzende statue des Tiberius, von Kolossaler Grosse, gefun- 
 den zu Piperno im Jahre 1796. Neu ist der rechte Arm, die linke Hand, der 
 rechte Fuss und der vordere Theil des linken." I have described it myself, I 
 fear imperfectly, from personal recollection. There is another well-known 
 Btatue of Tiberius in the Louvre. 
 
 * Suet. T^b. 68. 
 
 * Suet. 1. c. ; Plin. Hist. Nat. xi. 37. ; Dion, IviL 2.
 
 172 HISTORY OF THE ROMAXS 
 
 nearly allied, at least, to madness. 1 If Tiberius inherited any 
 seeds of this fatal disposition, no atmosphere could be more 
 adapted to develope them than that of a precarious and up- 
 start court. Surrounded by secret dangers, dubious of his 
 own position, with a different part to act to every creature 
 about him, impelled to suspicion of his nearest attendants 
 and distrust of his dearest kinsmen, with a master and patron 
 exacting from him the strictest obedience, but requiring at 
 the same time the most vigorous action, conscious, finally, 
 that his mother, his only ally, was using him for her own 
 ambitious projects rather than devoting her influence to his 
 real advantage, how little chance could he have of escaping 
 the doom of his race ? Xor do we know how early he began 
 to indulge in the vicious gratifications, to which, at a later 
 period at least, he was supposed to have abandoned himself 
 without restraint, and which, if truly ascribed to him, must 
 undoubtedly have tended to precipitate any natural proneness 
 to mental alienation. Against all these evil influences might 
 be set the consummate education he enjoyed in common with 
 the nobles of his time, combining the grace and strength of 
 scholarship with a practical training in affairs.* His deep 
 feeling for his wife Vipsania, when required against his will 
 to part from her, commands our sympathy and respect. Some 
 time after the divorce, on casually meeting her, he betrayed, 
 we are told, so much emotion, that the politicians who 
 watched him at-every moment found it necessary to prevent 
 another interview.* Meanwhile, the wretched Julia, whose 
 
 1 Mr. Landor, in his dialogue " Tiberius and Ylpsania," has suggested that 
 a taint of madness was hereditary in the Claudian blood, and refers to the exces- 
 sive pride and perverse licentiousness of some of the name in earlier Roman 
 history. But we must not lay too much stress on this, for there were many 
 families of the Claudian gens, and the Xeros had formed a distinct race for 
 some centuries. 
 
 1 In his youth he was nicknamed " Old Tiberius," for his precocious discre- 
 tion. Philo Judaeus, Leg. ad Cahtm, 23. : ov wv oXAa /col tn reos tiv & *pt<r- 
 /BVTTJJ t\t-f(To, Si alSw r^jv -xtpl T^K ayxlvow*. 
 
 1 Suet Tib. 7 : " Sed Agrippinam (Tipsaniam) et abegisse post divortium 
 doluit ; et semel omnino ex occursu visam adeo contends et tumentibus oculis 
 prosecutus est, ut custoditum sitne unquam in conspectum ejus postea veniret."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 173 
 
 bridal torch had twice been lit at the pyre of a deceased hus- 
 band, indemnified herself for the laceration of whatever deli- 
 cacy she may have once possessed by licentious indulgences, 
 and outraged the prudery of Tiberius, a man of antique aus- 
 terity in pronouncing, at least, upon the vices of Roman 
 matrons. 1 
 
 Of the younger brother, Drusus, we are not in a condition 
 to present so complete a portrait, whether physical or moral. 
 Though he has met with at least one fluent flat- character of 
 terer, who has sung his praises through a courtly DruBUS - 
 panegyric of five hundred verses, there is no trait of indi- 
 vidual character or feature to be drawn from them, except it 
 be a hint that his qualities of feeling and genius were lodged 
 in a form of ample proportions. 2 We learn indeed from other 
 sources that the disposition of the younger Nero was gentle, 
 his manners courteous and popular, so that both citizens and 
 soldiers might forget in his presence the prince of an imperial 
 family. Hence perhaps the rumour, which obtained currency 
 at a later period, that he was not indisposed, if ever he at- 
 tained to power, to restore the liberties of the Roman people. 8 
 It was asserted that he had actually avowed such an intention 
 to his brother. This fond rumour may indeed be justly con- 
 signed to the same limbo of popular imaginations in which 
 we must bury the counsels ascribed to Agrippa ; though it 
 is more credible that such advice should be hazarded by the 
 prop and champion of the imperial power, than by the youth- 
 ful aspirant to public honours, whose interests and even life 
 depended on the confidence reposed in him by his step-father. 
 
 I Suet. /. c. : " Quum .... Juliae mores improbaret, ut quam sensisset 
 sui quoque sub priore marito appetentem, quod sane etiam vulgo existima- 
 batur." 
 
 II See the Consol. ad Liv. ascribed to Pedo Albinovanus, 262. : 
 
 " Pectoraque ingenii magna capaxque domus." 
 
 3 Suet. Claud. 1. Tac. Ann. i. 33. : " Credebaturque, si rerum potitus 
 foret, libertatem redditurus." Comp. ii. 82. It must be remarked that the 
 praises of Drusus were all posterior to his premature death, and might in some 
 cases be stimulated by the general hatred towards the brother who survived 
 him.
 
 174 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 If any such generous anticipations reached the ears of Augus- 
 tus, and Tiberius, we are assured, himself denounced them, 1 
 we should hardly hear, as the constant tradition of the 
 Romans, that Drusus was the favourite, and so manifestly 
 preferred to his elder brother, that he was surmised to be the 
 emperor's actual son.* On the whole, it must be allowed that 
 the character we have received of Drusus depends on too 
 uncertain testimonies to build any hypothesis upon it ; other- 
 wise we might readily fancy him heir by blood to the gallant 
 disposition of a Julius, while Tiberius displayed in every fea- 
 ture the harsher lineaments of the Claudian house. 1 
 
 Such were the two pillars of the imperial throne, on which, 
 during the minority at least of his immediate descendants, the 
 
 hopes of Augustus seemed now to rest. He re- 
 epatched to quired of both an entire devotion to his interests 
 
 and those of the state ; he demanded of both 
 the sacrifice of ease and comfort, retaining them in distant 
 provinces and on savage frontiers, at the head of his ar- 
 mies, far from the pleasures of the capital, and the temp- 
 tations it afforded to unpopular arrogance. At a distance, 
 he well knew, their martial bearing and exploits would se- 
 cure them the favour of the people, which they might easily 
 forfeit in closer intercourse with them. Accordingly, while 
 Tiberius was sent to quell the insurrection in Pannonia, 
 Drusus had been already charged with the administration 
 of the Gaulish provinces on the emperor's departure to 
 Rome/ The nations beyond the Alps had not yet learned 
 resignation to the exactions of the Roman officials ; the im- 
 punity accorded, as they believed, to their oppressor Licinus 
 rankled in their bosoms ; s and the inquisition into their means, 
 
 1 Suet Jib. 50. ; Claud. 1. Hoeck very reasonably discredits this anec- 
 dote : Roem. Gtsch. i. 2. 14. 
 
 * Suetonius notices, but only to discredit it, a rumour that Augustus caused 
 Drusus to be poisoned ont of jealousy at his republican sentiments. 
 
 * Tac. Ann. L 4. : " Vetere atque insita Claudia? familise superbia." 
 4 Dion, liv. 25. 
 
 * The story of the enterprise of a noble Gaul who proposed to assassinate 
 Augustus in his passage through the Alps, refers, perhaps, to the odium this 
 transaction excited. Suet. Oct. 79.: "Vultu erat adeo tranquillo serenoque,
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 175 
 
 together with the fiscal exactions consequent upon it, which 
 resulted from the census now held at Lugdunum, must have 
 fanned the flame of their discontent. The Germans, ever 
 watching their opportunity, were preparing again to cross 
 the Rhine when Drusus invited his subjects to display their 
 loyalty to Augustus by erecting an altar at the confluence of 
 the Rhone and Saone. Sixty of the Gaulish communities 
 united in this work of flattery. It was dedicated Altar of An . 
 to Augustus and Rome conjointly ; the names of f>om U e 8 a TLug- 
 the sixty states were inscribed upon it ; and the dunum - 
 colossal statue of the emperor before which it stood was 
 surrounded by smaller figures representing so many abstract 
 nationalities. 1 On the first day of the month of August 
 Drusus consecrated this tribute to the majesty of the empire, 
 and instituted at the same time a festival, which continued 
 to be annually solemnized on the spot with shows and music 
 for several centuries. To impress a still more imposing char- 
 acter on the ceremony, he invited the chiefs of every state 
 to attend it, and prevailed on a noble JEduan to accept the 
 office of pontiff, assisted by a ministry of Gaulish flamens. 2 
 The worship of Caesar Augustus, thus inaugurated in the 
 province, became extended throughout it, and at one place at 
 least Livia Augusta was associated in divine honours with her 
 husband. 3 It was necessary to confront the religious principle 
 
 ut quidam a primoribus Galliarum confessus sit inter sues, eo se inhibitum ac 
 remollitum quominus, ut destinarat, in transitu Alpium per simulationem col- 
 loquii propius admissus, in praecipitium impelleret." 
 
 1 Strabo, iv. 3. p. 192., following Groskurd's reading, which seems neces- 
 sary for the sense. Hoeck, i. 2. 18. This may have suggested the allegorical 
 figures of the French cities which surround the obelisk and fountains on the 
 Place de la Concorde at Paris. 
 
 a Liv. Epit. cxxxvii. : " Ara D. Caesari ad confluentem Araris et Rhodani 
 dedicata, sacerdote C. Julio Vercundaridubio J2duo." Supposing the epito- 
 rnist to have found Divus Caesar in his copy of the original, this has been 
 thought to prove that Livy had not completed his work till the reign of Tibe- 
 rius. The altar was undoubtedly dedicated to Augustus during his lifetime, 
 not to the deceased Julius. See Suet. Claud. 2. ; Dion, liv. 32. Gruter, Inscr. 
 p. 13. : " Sacerdos Rom. et Aug. ad aram ad confluentes." Thierry, Gaulois, 
 iii. 266., refers to other inscriptions. 
 
 * Thus we read " Dea Augusta Vocontiorum : Livise Aug. Dea munic."
 
 176 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 of the Druids by another equally imposing ; and the genius 
 of the mighty emperor and the fortune of the all-conquering 
 Republic might exercise on the imagination of the cowering 
 Gauls no less potent a spell than the blasts of Circius and the 
 thunders of Taranis. 
 
 Such were the politic measures of Drusus to quell dis- 
 affection in his rear, while occupied in the task of chastising 
 the Germans, and retorting on their own soil 
 
 lloman for- , . . , '*_ f T> 
 
 tresses on the their aggressions upon the territories of Rome. 
 The Rhine we are used to consider as the per- 
 manent boundary of the great southern empire ; and that 
 such for some centuries it really was, is attested by the chain 
 of fortified posts along its left bank, which defended the pas- 
 sage of the river from the spot where it escaped from the 
 mountains of Helvetia to its mouth in the northern Ocean. 
 These fortresses have since grown for the most part into 
 considerable towns : Basel, Strasburg, Speyer, "Worms, Mainz, 
 Bingen, Coblenz, Andernach, Bonn, Koln, Neuss, Ximeguen, 
 and Ley den are all probably sprung from foundations laid 
 not later than the reign of Augustus. 1 The left bank of the 
 Rhine has always been the richer of the two, and has shown 
 accordingly the greater anxiety to provide for its security. 
 The German side of the river has never been fortified so jeal- 
 ously as the Gaulish. But though the Romans seem thus 
 early impressed with a presentiment that they had here 
 reached the natural limits of their conquests, there was a time 
 when, under the guidance of the impetuous youth who now 
 commanded their legions, they dreamed of extending their 
 sway into the heart of Germany, and reducing it to the same 
 subjection as Gaul and Spain. The head-quarters of their 
 military force in these regions were now removed from the 
 Somme or Scheldt, where they had been fixed by Caesar, and 
 transplanted to the Rhine. Detachments of troops were 
 
 Inscriptions cited by Thierry. Luc in Dauphine is Lucus Augusti ; Die is Dea 
 Augusta. 
 
 1 The establishment of these fortresses, fifty in number, is ascribed to 
 Drusus. Flor. iv. 12.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 posted in close communication with one another at all the 
 stations above mentioned, but the two provinces of the first 
 and second Germany, divided by the Moselle, had each its 
 separate military establishment, its proper prsetorium and 
 legatus. 
 
 At the same tune the limits of the empire had been per- 
 manently advanced in another quarter to the Danube. The 
 victories of Tiberius over the Vindelici in the O n the Dan- 
 mountains had been followed by the advance of Bbe - 
 his successor Piso through the plains which intervene between 
 them and the river, by the foundation of the colony of Au- 
 gusta, 1 the construction of military roads, connecting it both 
 with Italy and Gaul, and the establishment of fortified posts 
 along the course of the stream. Here again the limits of 
 Roman dominion are marked by the position of the most 
 ancient stations on the Roman, that is, the southern bank of 
 the river. The sites of Regensburg, Passau, Linz, Vienna, 
 and the little village of Hainburg, formerly Carnuntum, all 
 sloping towards the ungenial north, were adopted for pur- 
 poses of defence. But between the Rhine and the Upper 
 Danube there intervenes a triangular tract of land, the apex 
 of which touches the confines of Switzerland at Basel ; thus 
 separating, as with an enormous wedge, the provinces of 
 Gaul and Vindelicia, and presenting at its base no natural 
 line of defence from one river to the other. This tract was, 
 however, occupied for the most part by forests, and if it 
 broke the line of the Roman defences, it might at least be 
 considered impenetrable to an enemy. Abandoned by the 
 warlike and predatory tribes of Germany, it was The A ^ De _ 
 seized by wandering immigrants from Gaul, many cumates. 
 of them Roman adventurers, before whom the original in- 
 habitants, the Marcomanni or men of the frontier, seem to 
 have retreated eastward beyond the Hercynian forest. The 
 
 1 Augusta Vindelicorum is the modern Augsburg, founded, it may be sup- 
 posed, about the year 740, after the conquest of Rhsetia by Drusus. Tac. 
 Germ. 41. : " Splendidissima Rhsetise provinciae colonia." The Itineraries re- 
 present it as the centre of the roads from Verona, Sirmium, and Treviri. 
 VOL. IT. 12
 
 178 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 intruders claimed or solicited Roman protection, and offered 
 in return a tribute from the produce of their soil, whence the 
 district itself came to be known by the title of the .Agri De- 
 cumates, or Tithed Land. 1 It was not, however, officially 
 connected with any province of the empire, nor was any 
 attempt made to provide for its permanent security, till a 
 period much later than that on which we are now engaged. 
 But as an irregular outpost of the Roman dominions it exer- 
 cised considerable influence upon the neighbouring barbarians, 
 in familiarizing them with the features of southern civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 When he had brought the chief men of the various states 
 of Gaul together on pretence of paying divine honours to the 
 emperor, Drusus required them to furnish him 
 to invade with means for his projected invasion of Ger- 
 
 many. The tribes first destined for chastisement 
 were the Usipetes and Tenctheri, whose seats were on the 
 Lippe, and the Sigambri between the Sieg and Lahn. Behind 
 these lay the Cherusci on the Ems and Weser, and the Chauci 
 on the marshy plains which stretch towards the ocean, both 
 formidable for their power and influence, against whom he 
 meditated hostilities at a later period. South of the Lahn 
 the range of the Taunus was occupied by the Chatti, who 
 extended eastward to the Hercynian forest in the heart of 
 Germany, and were perhaps a main portion of the people 
 whom Caesar knew by the more general appellation of Suevi. 
 While penetrating to the Ems and "\Veser the Roman general 
 would require to secure his right flank by the reduction of 
 this tribe also ; so that six nations, the flower of the Germans 
 in the north, were included in the young Caesar's grand 
 scheme of conquest. Augustus had himself refrained from 
 advancing the conquests of the empire in this direction, and 
 
 1 Tacitus, Germ. 29., writing a century later: " Xon numeraverim inter 
 Germanise populos, quanquam trans Rhenum Danubiumque consederint, eos 
 qui Decumates agros exercent. Levissimus quisque Gallorum, et inopia audai, 
 dubiae posseasionis solum occnpavere. Mox limite acto, promotisque pneaidiis, 
 sinus Imperil, et pars proviucis- habetur."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 179 
 
 Agrippa had speedily withdrawn from the right bank of the 
 Rhine, and acquiesced in his master's policy. But the ardour 
 of his favourite seems now to have prevailed over the em- 
 peror's accustomed moderation. He felt, perhaps, the impor- 
 tance of allowing the princes of his family to substantiate by 
 popular exploits the claims he advanced in their behalf : and 
 while one was employed in the reduction of Pannonia, to the 
 other he opened a still wider field of ambition in the un- 
 trodden plains of central Europe. 
 
 On reaching the Rhine in the spring of 742, Drusus lost 
 not a moment in throwing his army across it, and chasing 
 the Usipetes to their strongholds. But this in- Expeditions by 
 cursion was meant only as a feint to occupy the Bea A a d 74^ d ' 
 attention of the enemy, or to keep his own sol- B - c - 12 - 
 diers employed, while he was himself intently engaged in 
 preparing for a bolder and more important enterprise. He 
 proposed to carry his arms against the Chauci and Cherusci ; 
 but he was anxious to avoid the risks and hardships of a 
 march through the forests of Germany, and preferred to em- 
 bark his legions on the Rhine, and transport them along the 
 shores of the ocean to the mouth of the Ems. The first 
 obstacle to this novel and daring enterprise had been re- 
 moved, under his direction, by cutting a communication 
 from the Rhine to the lake Flevus, or Zuyder Zee ; and the 
 channel which Drusus opened for this purpose still continues 
 to discharge a large portion of the waters of the river. 1 A 
 flotilla adapted for cruising in the shallows of the North Sea 
 was speedily equipped in the arsenals on the river side, 2 and 
 
 1 This channel is generally described as originally a canal from the Rhine, 
 at Arnheim, to the Yssel, a small river flowing into the Zuyder Zee, which 
 now gives its name to this eastern branch. It would be more correct to say 
 that the canal connected the Yssel, a stream flowing into the Rhine, with the 
 Vecht, which emptied itself into the lake. The communication thus opened, 
 the weight of the Rhine-stream turned the waters of the Yssel into the Vecht, 
 and carried them along with it into the ocean. Upon this subject, and the 
 changes which have taken place hi the lake Flevus, partly from irruptions of 
 the sea, partly also, perhaps, from the increased volume of river-water thus 
 poured into it, see Von Hoff, Gesch. der Erd oberfldche, i. 253. foil. 
 
 4 We gather from a corrupt passage in Floras (iv. 12.), that Bonna (Bonn)
 
 180 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 as the season for operations advanced, the legions were with- 
 drawn from the districts they had occupied beyond the Rhine, 
 and embarked for a more distant and extraordinary service. 
 The Frisii, who inhabited the shores of the lake, were con- 
 verted, by force or persuasion, into allies for the occasion. 
 Drusus felt the necessity of securing their assistance in his 
 navigation, or their succour in case of a reverse. Unpractised 
 as the Romans were in stemming the ocean tides and currents, 
 they met with serious disasters in rounding the coast of Fries- 
 land and Groningen, and when cast at length by the winds 
 and waves on its sandy downs, gladly put themselves under 
 the guidance of a Frisian escort, and made the best of their 
 way home across the continent. The approach of winter fur- 
 nished an excuse for this hasty and inglorious retreat. The 
 invaders had ascertained the practicability, if favoured by 
 the weather, of transporting their cumbrous armaments with 
 ease and speed to the point they wished to reach, and not dis- 
 heartened by the casual failure of their first attempt, they 
 treasured up the experience they had gained for a future 
 occasion. 1 
 
 Nevertheless, Drusus determined the next year to change 
 his mode of proceeding, and return to the ordinary tactics 
 Second cam- f Roman invasion. Entering again the territo- 
 pai f n u. 743. es f tne Usipetes and Tenctheri, he crossed 
 them without opposition, the Germans not ven- 
 turing to offer resistance in the field. He threw a bridge 
 across the Lippe, from the right, as it would appear, to the 
 left bank, and again struck boldly forwards, traversing the 
 country of the Cherusci, the modern Paderborn and Detmold, 
 
 was made a naval station, and apparently connected by a bridge with a town 
 on the opposite bank. See Art. Gesonia, in Smith's Diet. Anc. Geogr, 
 
 1 This expedition was celebrated in an heroic poem by Pedo Albinovanus. 
 A few of his lines have been preserved by Seneca, Suasor, 1. The subject 
 furnished some obvious commonplaces for the rhetorical taste which was ad- 
 vancing with rapid strides : such as, 
 
 " Quo ferimur ? ruit ipse dies, orbemque relictum 
 Ultima perpetuis claudit natura tenebris."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 181 
 
 till he reached the banks of the Weser. 1 The strength of the 
 Sigambrian nation, the most bold and warlike in that part of 
 Germany, would have been brought to oppose him, but for 
 the timely defection of the Chatti from the league of the bar- 
 barians, which called off the force of that people in another 
 direction. But the Germans had already learnt the impru- 
 dence of meeting their invaders in open combat. They retired 
 steadily before them, or hovered assiduously on their flanks, 
 trusting to the difficulty of the route, the inclemency of the 
 climate, and the scarceness of provisions, to harass their 
 advance, and ultimately turn them back. All these circum- 
 stances now conspired to baffle and discourage the Roman 
 leader. Not venturing to place the Weser in his rear, he 
 assured his soldiers that inauspicious omens forbade the fur- 
 ther progress of their arms, and gave orders for the retreat. 
 The Germans, who were watching their opportunity, now 
 gradually closed upon them, and, after annoying them by 
 desultory attacks, at last closed upon them in a narrow gorge 
 of the hills. The danger of the legions was imminent, for, 
 so far removed from succour, no slight or partial success 
 would have availed to disentangle them. But the enemy, 
 confident of a complete victory, and regardless of all discipline 
 and discretion, rushed upon them without concert or precau- 
 tion ; and when received with coolness, and repelled with 
 firm resolution, broke their ranks, and fled with precipitation. 
 Once more the Romans could move freely ; the Germans did 
 not again attempt to close with them; and the annoyance 
 of their flying attacks was cheerfully borne by men who had 
 just thrown off the whole weight of their onslaught. Drusus 
 halted on his retreat to erect a fortress at a spot on the Lippe 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 33. : r6v re 'Prjvov ^irepatciOrj, na.1 TODS Ouffiire'ray KaTetrrpe- 
 tyaro ' r6v re \o\ntiav %Cfvf, teal ey rV T&V ~S.vya./j.f3p<i}v eVf'/SaAe, Kal 81' OUTTJS 
 Kal is T^V XepoufTKi'Sia irpoex^pT/ffe, fitXP 1 r v OvJffovpyov. It would seem to 
 have been Dion's idea, if he had any distinct views on the matter, that Drusus 
 crossed the Rhine north of the Lippe, again crossed the Lippe from the right 
 to the left bank, and swept with a circuitous route through the country of the 
 Sigambri, into that of the Cherusci.
 
 182 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 which bore the name of Aliso. 1 In the course of the same 
 summer, but not, as it would seem, in connexion with this 
 campaign, he established another Roman outpost in the 
 country of the Chatti.* These sufficed for tokens of victory, 
 and the emperor obtained for him the triumphal insignia, 
 with the honour of an ovation, which he was now summoned 
 to Rome to celebrate. But the title of imperator, with which 
 his soldiers saluted him, he was not permitted to accept. 
 
 The conduct of the war in Pannonia, which lay nearer to 
 
 Italy than the German frontier, may have allowed Tiberius 
 
 to return to Rome after the campaign of 742, 
 
 Tiberiusin , . # ..i. T v 
 
 Pannonia. and fulfil his engagement of marriage with Julia 
 at the commencement of the following year. But 
 his retirement lasted only during the season of military inac- 
 tion. In the spring of 743 he again crossed the Alps, and 
 renewed his operations against the half-conquered barbarians. 
 This campaign was not unproductive of successes, for which 
 the young prince was suffered, on his second return, in the 
 winter, to enjoy the same distinctions as were also awarded 
 to his brother, and Augustus had the satisfaction of exhibit- 
 ing both his stepsons to the people in the character of na- 
 tional heroes.* At this moment, however, the demise of 
 Death of octa- Octavia, the darling of the last generation of citi- 
 ^\.v 743 zens, snapped another link which connected the 
 Empire with the Republic. 4 Her body was con- 
 signed to the appointed resting place of the Julian family, 
 after the honours of a public funeral, at which orations were 
 
 1 Dion, I. c. The spot has been supposed to be at Hamra, where the Lippe 
 is joined by the Alse, or at Elsen, where the Alme falls into it, about two miles 
 from Paderbom. The one is thirty, the other .about fifty miles east of the 
 Rhine. 
 
 1 This fortification is said to have been on the Rhine (Dion, I. c.). It was 
 probably between the Lahn and the Mayn. 
 
 * Dion, liv. 34. ; Yell. ii. 96. Dalmatia, which had joined the Pannonians, 
 was now made an imperial province, and the senate received in exchange the 
 peacefnl regions of Cyprus and the Narbonensis. 
 
 4 Octavia died, according to Fischer (Zeittafeln), in November or Decem- 
 ber of 743.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 183 
 
 delivered over it by Drusus and by Augustus himself. 1 She 
 died at the age of fifty-four, being about two years older than 
 her brother. Her praises have been already celebrated in this 
 work, and her noble qualities are now once more referred to, 
 only to notice the respect which the Romans could pay to 
 female virtue, while their customs condemned it for the most 
 part to perpetual nonage and insignificance. This was perhaps 
 the first instance of a woman being made the subject of a 
 national solemnity at Rome ; it may be questioned, however, 
 whether, except in the case of a sovereign, even the more 
 chivalrous feelings of modern times have ever prompted so 
 extraordinary a distinction. 
 
 The death of Octavia, grievous as it undoubtedly was to 
 her brother, was felt by him as a private rather than a public 
 loss. It does not appear that he ever consulted her on affairs 
 of state ; and since the death of her son Marcellus, she had 
 become more than ever estranged from public life. His own 
 popularity, supported by the merits of the young 
 
 ^ r /iY J n +1. IT 1 1 f Continued pop- 
 
 Neros, was still advancing. On the Kalends of uiarity of AU- 
 the ensuing January the noblest citizens pressed g ' 
 forward with increasing alacrity to offer him the customary 
 presents on the commencement of the new year. Such compli- 
 ments he was always proud to receive, but he was careful, it 
 is said, to return them with interest. He refused, however, to 
 accept the sums which it was now the fashion to subscribe for 
 the erection of statues of himself, and directed that they should 
 be applied instead to the glory of the national divinities. The 
 people invented another way of expressing their devotion to 
 him, by thro whig each a piece of money, on a stated day, into 
 the Curtian lake in the Forum, as an offering for his safety. 8 
 
 1 Drusus may have been selected for this office from his closer connexion 
 with the deceased. He was married to Autonia, daughter of the triumvir, and 
 sister of Julius Antonius, who was himself married to the elder Marcella, a 
 daughter of Octavia. The body was borne by both Tiberius and Drusus. 
 Suet. Oct. 61., places her death somewhat later, but the historian, who follows 
 the order of time, is undoubtedly correct. 
 
 8 Suet. Oct. 57. : " Omnes ordines ill lacum Curtii quotannis ex voto pro
 
 184: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 At this time Augustus began his strange custom of sitting 
 one day in every year in the guise of a mendicant at his own 
 palace-gate, and accepting the petty coins which passers-by 
 placed in his hand. Of his motive in this practice no certain 
 account could be given ; but it seems to have had its origin 
 in superstitious feeling, and was generally ascribed to the 
 warning of an oracle or a dream. 1 
 
 Early in the year 744, Augustus once more quitted his 
 
 capital to visit Gaul ; not, indeed, with the purpose of urging 
 
 by his nearer approach the conquest of the Ger- 
 
 Thlrd cam- J /. , . 
 
 paign of Dm- man tribes, for his views were still pacific, and 
 
 BUS in Oer- , . , , , , _ 
 
 many, and his he was anxious to shut the temple of Janus, for 
 / 4. IT. 745. which he had actually issued orders, when the 
 report of fresh disturbances on the Danube com- 
 pelled him to revoke them. He charged Tiberius to defend 
 Pannonia from an irruption of Dacians ; but Drusus, at the 
 same time, pleaded for another expedition beyond the Rhine, 
 and the emperor yielded, perhaps reluctantly, to his instances. 
 In 745 Drusus became consul ; nevertheless he resumed the 
 command of the legions, and directed his march through the 
 territory of the Chatti, in which, as we have seen, he had 
 provided already a basis for future operations. His views 
 of conquest had now expanded more widely than ever, and 
 the inexperience of his new enemies, who ventured to oppose 
 his advance, and allowed him to gain some partial successes, 
 inspired him with increased confidence. Beyond the Chatti, 
 he reached the habitations of the Suevi ; then, turning 
 northward, he threw himself once more upon the flanks of 
 the Cherusci, and, crossing the Weser, penetrated the Hercy- 
 nian forest as far as the Elbe, the central river of the North. 
 The Cherusci, more prudent than their southern neighbours, 
 
 salute ejus stipem jaciebant." This must be regarded as a conventional ex- 
 pression. The coin was placed, perhaps, on an altar which stood over the 
 sacred spot. Ovid, Fast. vi. 403. says, 
 
 " Curtius ille lacus, siccas qui sustinet aras, 
 
 Nunc solida est tellus, sed lacus ante fuit." 
 1 Dion, liv. 35. ; but he doubts the story.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 185 
 
 had declined to meet him in arms, and the advancing legions 
 found themselves left without a visible enemy in the depths 
 of the wilderness. Mindful of the disasters which had cloud- 
 ed his former retreat, Drusus might now be anxious for 
 an excuse to turn the heads of his columns. It would have 
 been easy to appeal to some imaginary omens ; but the por- 
 tent which is related does not seem, from its character, to 
 have been a Roman invention. A woman, it was affirmed, 
 of more than mortal stature, here crossed his path, addressing 
 him by name, rebuking his ambition, and announcing a fatal 
 termination to his career. 1 The invaders hastily erected a 
 trophy on the banks of the river, and retraced their steps, 
 still without encountering a human foe. But before they 
 reached the Rhine, the prediction of the spectre met with its 
 fulfilment. Drusus fell from his horse, and the injuries he 
 received terminated, after thirty days' suffering, in his death. 8 
 The camp in which he lingered, under the protection of the 
 Roman outposts, obtained from this disaster the name of 
 Scelerata, or the Accursed. The body was borne along with 
 military pomp. At Moguntiacura, where the army may have 
 crossed the Rhine, a monument was erected in its honour ; * 
 
 1 Some writers resolve this supposed apparition into the actual appearance 
 of a Druidess. Others connect it with an alleged German superstition, on 
 which Reimar (on Dion in loc.) gives a remarkable instance : " Augustas Vin- 
 delicorum adhuc visitur in turri Minoritarum imago mulieris fanaticae equo 
 vectae, qua? Attilae pergenti ex Italia in Pannoniam sese furibunda objecit, et 
 ter terribili voce acclamavit, Retro, Attila ! " The story, I have little doubt, 
 was a later fabrication. There is no allusion to it, or to portents of any kind, 
 in the Consol. ad Liviam. 
 
 2 Dion, Iv. 1, 2. ; Suet. Claud. 1. ; Liv. Epit. cxL (more properly cxlii.). 
 With this event the history of Livy terminated, A. u. 745. Drusus was now 
 in his thirtieth year. Veil. ii. 97. 
 
 1 Eutrop. vii. 13. Games and military spectacles continued to be exhibited 
 here on the anniversary of Drusus's death. An altar had been already raised 
 to his honour on the banks of the Lippe. Tac. Ann. ii. 7. The soldiers be- 
 gan now to regard themselves as a distinct people, with rites and heroes of 
 their own. Augustus required them to surrender the body of their beloved 
 chief, as a matter of discipline. Senec. Cons, ad Polyb. 34. : " Modum tamen 
 lugendi non sibi tantum sed etiam aliis fecit, ac totum exercitum, non solum 
 maBStum sed etiam attonitum, corpus Drusisibi vindicantem, ad morem Roman!
 
 186 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 but it was not suffered to repose there. Augustus, who was 
 still at Lugdunum when the news of his favourite's illness 
 arrived, summoned Tiberius to attend his brother's couch, 
 and when his death was subsequently announced, charged him 
 to convey the remains to Rome, which he did, preceding it 
 himself on foot. The emperor, who had now returned to Italy, 
 received the mournful cavalcade at Ticinum in the depth of 
 winter. Accompanying the body in person to the city, he 
 pronounced over it a funeral oration ; and after cremation, 
 the ashes were deposited in the imperial mausoleum. 1 The 
 youthful hero, baffled in his enterprises, and cut off so prema- 
 turely in his career, was more than ordinarily fortunate in the 
 honours accorded to his memory. The regrets of his country- 
 men were both loud and enduring ; alone of all Roman war- 
 riors he received a posthumous title to commemorate his suc- 
 cesses ; the appellation of Germanicus, which his son rendered 
 afterwards still more illustrious, became the dearest, as it was 
 the last, of the heroic names of Rome. The senate decreed 
 him a triumphal arch, which still exists, for a triumph scarcely 
 earned, and never consummated ; * and the elegant though 
 feeble verses of a courtly poet continue still to attest his vir- 
 tues, or at least the popular belief in them. 3 
 
 While, however, we remark the signal failure of the 
 mighty preparations Drusus had made for a vast and enduring 
 conquest, we must not overlook the importance 
 of their actual results. If the Germans were 
 neither reduced to subjection, nor even over- 
 thrown in any decisive engagement, as the Romans vainly 
 pretended, yet their spirit of aggression was finally checked ; 
 
 luctus redegit, indicavitque non militandi tantum disciplinam esse servandam, 
 sed etiam dolendi." 
 
 1 Suet. Claud. 1. Augustus further composed an epitaph for the young 
 Caesar, and wrote a memoir of his life. 
 
 " Suet. /. c. : " Marmoreum arcum cum tropaeo Appia via." This arch is, 
 with the exception of the Pantheon, the most perfect existing monument of 
 Augustan architecture. It is heavy, plain, and narrow, with all the dignified 
 but stern simplicity which belongs to the character of its age. 
 
 * See the Consolatio ascribed to Pedo Albinovanus.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 and from henceforth for many generations they were fully 
 occupied with the task of defending themselves. 1 The Chatti 
 and Marcomanni hi the south were thoroughly impressed with 
 a sense of Roman invincibility ; the Marcomanni even quitted 
 their homes in Suabia, to seek new abodes beyond the Hercy- 
 nian forest ; " while the Chatti resigned themselves to the in- 
 trusion of Roman settlers within their confines, and gradually 
 conformed to the example of Gaulish civilization. In the 
 north the invaders planted themselves strongly in defensible 
 positions, and extended their inroads every year into the terri- 
 tories of the Sigambri and Cherusci, till the banks of the Ems 
 and Lippe assumed almost the appearance of a Roman prov- 
 ince, administered by a Roman proconsul. 3 
 
 To achieve the work interrupted by the death of Drusus, 
 his brother Tiberius was summoned once more to arms. He 
 had quitted Pannonia to attend the funeral pro- 
 
 * v j i .1.1. w 1.J1J Progress of the 
 
 cession, but his task in that province had already Roman arms 
 
 , , t -, , ,. , . , . T ,,. in Pannonia. 
 
 been completed by a solid victory. 4 In quelling Thrace, and 
 the insurrection of the native tribes, assisted by 
 a revolt of the Dalmatians, he had displayed activity and 
 skill, and might already be esteemed the most consummate 
 captain of his day. But before we accompany Tiberius to 
 the Rhine, we must cast our eyes for a moment on another 
 quarter, the repose of which was affected by the wars in 
 which he had been thus employed. The districts of Thrace 
 and Mcesia on the Lower Danube were not too distant from 
 Pannonia to escape the contagion of its spirit of independ- 
 ence. While the princes who were suffered to govern nomi- 
 nally in these countries maintained the fidelity to Rome 
 
 1 Veil. ii. 10Y. : "Ex magna parte domitorem Germanise." Flor. iv. 12. : 
 " German! victi magis quam domiti erant." Cons, ad Liv. 457. : " Ignoti 
 victor Germanicua orbis." a Strabo, vii. 2. p. 290. 
 
 3 Compare the praise of Stilicho, four centuries later, in the pleasing 
 verses of Claudian, xxi. 218. foil. : 
 
 " Ut Salius jam rura colat, flexosque Sigambri 
 In falcem curvent gladios, geminasque viator 
 Cum videat ripas, quae sit Romana requirat," &c. 
 
 4 Dion, Iv. 2.
 
 188 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 which was necessary for their existence, the people them- 
 selves were little influenced by such politic considerations. 
 The signal of defiance was raised by a chief of the Bessi 
 named Vologesus, a priest of the Thracian Dionysus, to 
 whose worship the people were fanatically devoted. In- 
 flamed with passionate superstition, they rose against the 
 king Rhascuporis, a loyal servant of the empire, overthrew 
 him in battle, and slew him. Rhasmetalces, his uncle, was 
 driven into the Chersonese, and the whole nation was at once 
 arrayed in arms against the foreigner and all who sided with 
 him. The Romans conducted themselves with ability and 
 resolution. L. Piso, who commanded in Pamphylia, was 
 summoned from the other side of the Hellespont to make 
 head against the insurgents. For three years he continued 
 to wage war against them from Illyricuni to the shores of the 
 Euxine, and at the close of his third campaign he could de- 
 clare that order was restored and the spirit of revolt extin- 
 guished. The high honours awarded him by the emperor 
 and senate attest the importance of the occasion and the 
 merit of his services. 1 
 
 With the year 746, Augustus commenced a third decennial 
 term of his imperimn, which seems to have been now renewed 
 Augustus as- as a matter of course, although he pleaded again 
 ^imperial his reluctance to accept it. 8 He still regarded 
 ^Tu. 746. the position of his Gaulish provinces with anxi- 
 ety ; so much so that, while he invited Tiberius 
 to complete his brother's enterprises, he proposed to take up 
 his own residence once more at Lugdunum, the keystone of 
 the great arch of the Rheno-Danubian fortifications, and super- 
 intend on the spot the consolidation of his empire in the north. 
 This was now the only quarter in which he prosecuted offen- 
 sive warfare ; nevertheless, the common notion of the pacific 
 policy of Augustus is far from correct. Though he was 
 averse from the bold adventures in which the great captains 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 34. ; Veil. ii. 98; Flor. iv. 12. 17. (A. u. 741-743.) 
 3 Dion, Iv. 6. : juera 8f 6rj ravra T{JV re i]yf/j.ovtiav, (coiirep a<ieis $>t eAe- 
 ytv, firftti)) TO, 5e'a nj TO Sfirrt
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 189 
 
 of Rome perilled their own lives and the interests of the 
 republic, and though no brilliant achievements have given a 
 martial colour to his long administration, there were in fact 
 few epochs in which the progress of Roman conquest was 
 more unremitting. 1 Glancing from the Baltic to the Black 
 Sea, his vigilant eye marked every point on which the empire 
 was assailable in the north ; and though not successful, as we 
 shall see, in narrowing its exposed frontier to the tract be- 
 tween the Vistula and the Dniester, as he may once have con- 
 templated, he completed the line of its defences along the 
 Rhine and Danube, and advanced the bulwarks of Italy a 
 month's march beyond the Alps. 
 
 Tiberius crossed the Rhine ; but no sooner had he entered 
 the German territories, than the tribes on the frontier, with 
 the exception of the Sigambri, sent envoys with TiberhlB crOBB . 
 offers of submission. He directed them to seek es ^Vm 6 ' 
 the emperor in person at Lugdunum; but Au- B - c - 8 - 
 gustus, who saw, as he thought, an opportunity for effecting 
 a great conquest without further risk, refused to grant any 
 terms unless the Sigambri combined in solicitation with them. 
 Thereupon this people also sent some chiefs to join the depu- 
 tation ; and their unscrupulous assailant, having thus got host- 
 ages from every state, did not hesitate to retain them in custo- 
 dy, and disperse them as prisoners among his fortresses. Many 
 of the captives, thus ill treated, slew themselves in their indig- 
 nation; but their countrymen, stunned by the blow which 
 deprived them of their best leaders, seem for a moment to 
 have submitted in silence. Augustus gloried without shame 
 in the happy result of a stroke in which his people, as he well 
 knew, would equally exult. He allowed the successes of a 
 bloodless and treacherous campaign to be magnified with the 
 most extravagant flattery. 4 Though he declined to celebrate 
 a triumph on the occasion, he permitted Tiberius to assume 
 
 1 Compare, for the policy of Augustus, the statement of Aurelius Victor, 
 Epit. 1. : " Arma nisi majoris emolument! causa nunquam movenda esse : ne 
 compendio tenui, jactura gravi, petita victoria, similis sit hamo aureo piscanti- 
 bus : cujus abrupti amissique detrimentum nullo capturae lucro pensari potest." 
 
 2 Veil. ii. 97. : " Moles deinde ejus belli translata in Neronem est."
 
 190 HISTOKY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 the title of Imperator and to enjoy that honour in his stead. 
 He invested him also, now the second time, with the consul- 
 ship for the following year. 1 At the same time, he gratified 
 the soldiers with an extraordinary largess, on the pretext of 
 his grandson Caius, then thirteen years of age, having served 
 among them his first campaign. For himself he accepted the 
 glorious prerogative of extending the pomoerium of the city, 
 reserved for such commanders only as had enlarged the limits 
 of the empire. It was at this time also that he directed the 
 month Sextilis, which had proved the most fortunate to him 
 throughout his career, to be called by his own appellation of 
 Augustus. 9 
 
 The emperor was already advancing in years when he 
 exhibited this activity in repeatedly visiting a distant prov- 
 ince. Since his last dangerous sickness his con- 
 
 Tiberins ad- 
 vances again stitution seems to have acquired fresh strength ; 
 
 into Germany. , , # 1 3 j> i j* i 
 
 and we near no more of that defect of his physi- 
 cal powers, which we have so often remarked at an earlier 
 period. But in the young and vigorous prince, who aspired 
 to a share in his labours, and the inheritance of his preroga- 
 tives, such activity was more naturally required. Tiberius 
 hastened back to Rome to commence his consulship with the 
 beginning of the year 747 ; but he was allowed only a moment 
 A.TT. 747. to repose from his military duties, and to dis- 
 B - c> 7 - charge the civil functions of his office. Early in 
 the spring he was once more on his route to Gaul, and with 
 the arrival of summer, he had placed himself at the head of 
 the legions, and was engaged in a new expedition against the 
 German tribes. The departure of Augustus had been the 
 
 1 Tiberius had an ovation A. u. 745 ; Dion, Iv. 2. ; Veil. ii. 96. But on 
 this occasion (A. u. 747) he enjoyed the full honours of the triumph, Suet. Tib. 
 9. : " Quas ob res et ovans, et curru, urbem ingressus est." See also Dion, Iv. 
 8., Veil. ii. 97. : "ovans triumphavit," and afterwards: " turn alter triumphua 
 cum altero consulatu ei oblatus est." 
 
 * Dion, Iv. 6. Cassiodorus reports that, " His consulibus (C. Asinio et C. 
 llarcio, A. u. 746) inter Albim et Rhenum Gennani omnes Tiberio Ncroni de- 
 diti sunt" (Hoeck, i. 2. 33.) ; but the extension of the administration beyond 
 the Rhine took place a little later.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 signal for renewed disturbances among them, such at least 
 was the pretext put forth for the campaign ; but it was evi- 
 dently the policy of the Romans to seek occasion for succes- 
 sive attacks. Each succeeding advance of the tide of conquest 
 gained some fresh ground ; and although the legions retired 
 every autumn within their own lines, they left behind them 
 traces of power not easily obliterated. Tiberius had no ex- 
 tensive plans of conquest ; he was satisfied with showing him- 
 self to the enemy, and occupying their territory for a few 
 months. He performed, it seems, in this campaign no action 
 worth recording ; and having led his troops back to their 
 quarters, returned to Rome before the end of the summer. 1 
 
 The districts nearest the right bank of the Rhine had been 
 utterly exhausted by these repeated invasions, in which the 
 invader swept away every commodity he could 
 
 3 i ^ -L- rrn. e XT. J.T- i Reasons of the 
 
 carry or drive before mm. The further the le- slowness of his 
 gions penetrated, the more scanty became the p 
 objects of plunder, the more slender the means of subsistence. 
 Accordingly each succeeding campaign became more laborious 
 to the troops, and more expensive to the government. The 
 four expeditions of Drusus had drained the resources of the 
 Gaulish province, and exhausted its arsenals and workshops. 
 This was perhaps the main cause of the feebleness of the 
 exertions made by his successor. Tiberius was indeed com- 
 pelled by the necessities of his position to undertake active 
 operations. The citizens expected their future imperator to 
 maintain by constant warfare his claim to their suffrages ; 
 and Augustus, on his part, required him to conform to this 
 expectation. It was not, we may presume, the wish of Tibe- 
 rius to confine himself to such trifling enterprises. He must 
 have felt the importance of earning a great reputation in the 
 career of conquest which was opened to him, and he chafed 
 perhaps at the want of men, money, and supplies of all kinds. 
 Nor was he unaware, that while he thus relinquished the en- 
 joyment of ease and luxury, he was in fact distrusted by both 
 
 1 Dion, Iv. 8. : lv Se TTJ reppaviq ov$ei> &iov ju^jttrjs awtfrt). Fischer, 
 Roem. Zeitt. A. u. 747.
 
 192 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 the prince and the people. The emperor already regarded 
 with pleasing anticipations the progress of his grandsons, in 
 popular favour ; of whom Caius, the elder, was but fourteen 
 years of age, but had already served a first campaign, and 
 had recently appeared also in a public capacity 
 
 Introduction of J rr . , *+ . r ' 
 
 Cains casar to in the city. During the absence of Tiberius, the 
 young Caesar had occupied his place by the side 
 of the consul Piso, in ordering the votive games on the empe- 
 ror's happy return. 1 This ceremony was followed by the in- 
 auguration of some works of Agrippa, which that industrious 
 builder had left unfinished. He had commenced the construc- 
 tion of a spacious hall, in which the soldiers were to be as- 
 sembled to receive their pay. Its roof had a larger span than 
 any other in the world, though the Pantheon was already in 
 existence. At the same time the place of exercise, which 
 Agrippa had added to the field of Mars, was opened for pub- 
 lic recreation, though the colonnades which were to surround 
 it, and afterwards formed, with their fresco paintings, its 
 principal charm, were not yet completed. Funeral games 
 were now celebrated in honour of this great national bene- 
 factor, in order, no doubt, to conciliate the afiections of the 
 people for his children. But whether a Nero or a Caesar 
 filled at this moment the most space in the eyes of the Ro- 
 mans, it was between the scions of the imperial house that 
 all their interests were divided ; the merits of private citizens 
 were cast into the shade, and none of them presumed to step 
 forth and contest the palm of popularity. 
 
 In this temper of the public mind, the death of Maecenas, 
 the last statesman whose name and fortunes might remind 
 Death of Maece- tne R m a n s of the days of the Republic, caused 
 na9 probably but little notice. This event had oc- 
 
 curred at the close of the year 746. For some time previous- 
 ly the people had remarked a coolness between the emperor 
 and the minister he had so long loved and trusted, whose 
 counsels, however, as far as they tended to maintain the show 
 of ancient forms and stay the downward progress of despot- 
 1 Dion, IT. 8. (A. c. 747, B . c. 7.)
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 193 
 
 ism, became less palatable as they could be more easily dis- 
 pensed with. Some ascribed this decline in favour to no 
 worthier cause than the emperor's passion for Terentia ; others 
 asserted that Augustus was disgusted at discovering the minis- 
 ter's weakness in allowing his wife to extort from him a state 
 secret. 1 It is easy to suppose that he was wearied A Vi 746- 
 with the freedoms of a friend, who could not B ' c>8 ' 
 forget that they had both started on their adventures to- 
 gether, and exercised the privilege of long and loyal service 
 to rebuke his master's indiscretions with a frankness border- 
 ing on rudeness. We may believe that Maecenas himself 
 became weary of his position, which never had for him the 
 charms which enchain more vulgar ambitions ; for he had 
 never sought to rise above the rank of knighthood, and had 
 declined the badges of office, the trabea, fasces, and ivory 
 chair, which still held such sway over the imagination of his 
 countrymen. It may be questioned indeed whether any man 
 is really the happier or the wiser for divesting himself of the 
 common illusions of mankind. Such of the ancients as had 
 no hope of the future, and among them must be numbered 
 the epicurean Maecenas, found sometimes, in the decline of 
 life, a substitute for such anticipations in a sedate retrospect, 
 and were consoled on the brink of the grave by the persuasion 
 that they had fulfilled their mission. But it was not so with 
 the minister of the rising empire. His last days of sickness 
 were disgraced by an abject clinging to life, long after he 
 had lost all reasonable enjoyment of it." The disgrace of 
 Gallus, the early death of Virgil, the failing health and ap- 
 proaching end of Horace (it is a question whether the minis- 
 ter or his friend survived for a few days only), must have 
 
 1 Senec. Ep. 19. ; Dion, liv. 19., Ivi. 7. 
 
 * Seneca, Ep. 101., has preserved some well-known lines ascribed to Maece- 
 nas, in illustration of his unworthy shrinking from death : 
 " Debilem facito manu, Debilem pede, coxa ; 
 Tuber adstrue gibberum, Lubricos quate denies : 
 Vita dum superest, bene eat : Hanc mihi, vel acuta 
 Si sedeam cruce, sustine." 
 
 VOL. IV. 13
 
 194 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 combined with other losses in saddening the latter years of 
 one who was really attached to his friends, and joined with 
 the tastes of a Sybarite some of the happier instincts of 
 humanity. The voluptuousness of his habits was of the 
 most refined and exquisite character, and his manners were, 
 for the time, a model of urbanity, without wanting in genuine 
 kindliness. But the delicacy and fastidiousness of his tastes 
 were heightened by the irritation of a fever which constantly 
 preyed upon him, so that for three years, he obtained no 
 natural rest either by day or by night. 1 His only slumbers, 
 it was said, were procured, under the direction of the physi- 
 cian Musa, by the distant sound of falling water, a rumour 
 which may have been suggested by the view of his suburban 
 residence, which rose like an exhalation above the cascades 
 ofTibur.' 
 
 The demeanour of Maecenas was remarkable for its appa- 
 rent ease, which disarmed suspicion, and opened to him the 
 secrets of his adversaries as well as of his friends. 
 
 HIB constitn- 
 
 tion exhausted It was difficult to believe that a man with the air 
 tension of of an elegant debauchee was actually awake to 
 every breath of popular sentiment, dived into the 
 hearts of the citizens, and traced the aims and motives of 
 every political cabal. There are no limits perhaps to the 
 extent to which a cool head and artful temper may carry 
 this kind of deception ; but such catlike vigilance can never 
 be united with any real self-abandonment, and little reliance 
 can be placed on the description we have received of the 
 minister's geniality in private. "We shall find reason to be- 
 lieve, when we come to review the characters of the litera- 
 ry companionhood which surrounded the board of Maecenas, 
 that the patron was, even in his most festive hours, still 
 
 1 Pliny, Hist. Nat. vii. 51. : " Quibusdam perpetua febris est, ut C. Maece- 
 nati : eidem triennio supremo nullo horae momento contigit somnus." 
 
 * Seneca, Epp. 101. 114., de Prov. iii. 9. That Maecenas had a villa at 
 Tibur is a constant tradition, and its supposed remains are still pointed out. 
 See Eustace, Clots. Tour, ii. 7. ; Dunlop, Hist. Rom. Liter, iii. 43. There is 
 said, however, to be no direct authority for the supposition, which may have 
 been derived from a misunderstanding of the lines of Horace, Od. iii. 29. 6.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 195 
 
 playing a part, and governing the world from the head of his 
 table, by the wit and wisdom of his well-trained associates. 
 If such was the case, we perceive how his earnest activity 
 admitted of no actual relaxation ; nor can we wonder at the 
 wearing out of the vital machine under the constant tension 
 of thirty years of effort. The date of Maecenas's birth is 
 not accurately known. It is supposed that he was a few years 
 older than his patron, and may have been about sixty at the 
 time of his death. 1 
 
 There seems, on the whole, no reason to seek far for the 
 motives of the minister's retirement, least of all to ascribe it, 
 with Tacitus, to the blind agency of Fate. 8 The 
 failure of health of one whose whole time and favour -with 
 thoughts were thus absorbed in the duties of his regarded by 
 office, is amply sufficient to account for it, with- p ' 
 out supposing any jealousy or distaste on the part of his 
 patron. But the Romans of a later age could not excuse the 
 appearance of a slight to one, on whom they looked with 
 fondness as a model for ministers. The views of policy they 
 ascribed to him were eminently generous and liberal ; he was 
 supposed to have encouraged the expression of public opin- 
 ion, to have opened a career to all ranks and classes, to have 
 sought out merit wherever it was to be found, to have made 
 the empire, to the best of his power, an administration of the 
 best men ! To him, also, they attributed the humane coun- 
 sels for which the reign of the triumvir was so favourably 
 remembered. He it was, they believed, that guided the 
 author of the proscriptions into the path of clemency ; and 
 when he seemed about to stray from it, recalled him boldly 
 and effectively. 3 Such were the principles, they said, which 
 
 1 Fischer places his birth, in common with other writers, between 680 and 
 690 of the city. Roem. Zeittafeln. 
 
 * Tac. Ann. iii. 30. : " Idque et Maecenati acciderat ; fato potentiae raro 
 sempiternse, an satias capit aut illos, cum omnia tribuerunt, aut hos, cum jam 
 nihil reliquum est quod cupiant." 
 
 8 The long political pamphlet which Dion Cassius has given us, as a speech 
 of Maecenas upon the ordering of the empire, is chiefly valuable on two ac-
 
 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 disarmed disaffection, and rendered the people contented and 
 their chief secure. This was the work of Maecenas, and this 
 he effected without spies or delators, without a law of libel 
 or a law of majesty. True, he was only a knight, and he had 
 succeeded to the post of consuls and senators ; but the gener- 
 ations which honoured him with these fond reminiscences, had 
 been made to tremble under the sway of mistresses and 
 freedmen. 
 
 counts : first, as representing to a certain extent the actual form of government 
 in his own time ; and, secondly, as recording, to some extent also, the opinion 
 his contemporaries -entertained of the views and character of the speaker. 
 Dion, lii. 14-40.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVH. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ROME ASSUMES THE CHARACTER OP A DOMESTIC DRAMA. 
 CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF JCLIA, AND OF CAIUS AND LUCIUS CAESAR. 
 
 AUGUSTUS HOLDS THE BALANCE BETWEEN HIS GRANDSONS AND TIBERIUS. 
 
 DISGUST AND RETIREMENT OF TIBERIUS TO RHODES (A. U. 748, B. C. 6). 
 
 DISGRACE AND BANISHMENT OF JULIA. DEATHS OF CAIUS AND LUCIUS. 
 
 RECALL OF TIBERIUS (A. U. 757, A. D. 4) : HE RECEIVES THE TRIBUNI- 
 
 TIAN POWER A SECOND TIME, -AND IS ADOPTED BY AUGUSTUS. CONSPIR- 
 ACY OF CINNA AND CLEMENCY OF AUGUSTUS. RETIEW OF THE PERSONAL 
 
 HABITS OF AUGUSTUS IN HIS LATER YEARS. A. U. 747, B. C. 7, A. U. 757, 
 A. D. 4. 
 
 AT this period we seem to enter upon a new phase of Ro- 
 man history : for the remainder of the reign of Augustus, 
 which extended yet twenty years further, brought 
 
 * , , ? Tha history of 
 
 forth no great men, and not more perhaps than Rome assumes 
 
 . . , , a i the character 
 
 one great event, which will be related in its place, of a domestic 
 Many personages of note and occurrences of A. u. 747. 
 some interest will flit before us ; but these occur- B ' c> 7< 
 rences will be confined, for the most part, to the afiairs of 
 the Caesarean family and palace, and might indeed be repre- 
 sented in a drama, the scene of which should be a chamber in 
 the imperial residence, with but little aid from the machinery 
 conventionally allowed for narrating what has passed behind 
 it. The personages of this domestic piece should be a self- 
 important and irritable father, an intriguing stepmother, two 
 rival heirs the one gloomy and suspicious, the other guileless 
 and indiscreet a daughter whose follies should serve to point 
 the declamations of her sire with many grave and decorous 
 laxims ; while the under-plot of a detected conspiracy might 
 lisplay the real magnanimity of his character, and solve the
 
 198 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.U.747. 
 
 perplexities of his position by an act of judicious clemency. 
 One grave and national disaster will break with a ruder shock 
 the course of these private disquietudes, and recall us once 
 more to the public theatre, on which the great interests of 
 mankind are represented. 
 
 Amidst these anxieties the time was coming when Augus- 
 tus would deeply lament the loss of his discreetest counsellors, 
 The gardens of from both of whom he had perhaps been partly 
 the^equiiine estranged by the machinations of Livia and Ti- 
 berius. 1 On the death of the last survivor of the 
 two, and the one to whom he was personally most attached, 
 he expressed much genuine sorrow, though the inferior rank 
 of Maecenas did not allow him to make any public and nota- 
 ble manifestation of his grief. In the time of their mutual 
 familiarity, he had indulged in a sort of womanish playful- 
 ness towards his elder companion, and had made his pecu- 
 liarities the butt of good-humoured satire.* MaBcenas, on his 
 part, gave the last proof of affection in making the emperor 
 his heir ; a compliment indeed which was becoming too cus- 
 tomary to be noted as a genuine token of regard. The for- 
 tunate minister had accumulated great wealth, and among 
 other monuments of his taste and magnificence had erected a 
 noble mansion on the heights of the Esquiline Hill, the most 
 commanding situation in Rome. The domain of this resi- 
 dence had been bounded originally by the Agger of Servius, 
 which extended above a thousand yards along the north- 
 eastern limits of the city, and was deemed to afford it suffi- 
 cient protection, without the addition of a rampart of ma- 
 sonry. With the increasing security of the capital against 
 foreign attack, this mound had ceased to be regarded as a 
 
 1 Dion, Iv. 7. ; Senec. de Benef. vi. 32.: "Saepe exclamavit, horumnihil 
 mihi accidisset si aut Agrippa aut Maecenas vixisset .... tota vita Agrippae 
 et Maecenatis vacavit locus." 
 
 * Macrobius (Saturn, ii. 4.) has preserved an amusing specimen of the im- 
 perial banter, aimed apparently at the minister's affectation of foreign finery : 
 " Vale mel gentium, melcule ; ebur ex Etruria, laser Arretinum, adamas Su- 
 pernas, Tiberinum margaritum, Cilniorum smaragude, iaspi figulorum, berylle 
 Porsenae, carbuncule Italiae."
 
 B. C. 7.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 199 
 
 fortification, and now formed a public promenade, or at least 
 a causeway for communication from one part of the city to 
 another. But the prospect it embraced, the most varied and 
 extensive in Rome, was defaced by the charnel field of the 
 Campus Esquilinus, which lay at its feet outside the city. 
 Here, between the roads which issued from the Esquiline and 
 Viminal gates, was the plot assigned for casting out the car- 
 casses of slaves, whose foul and half-burnt remains were 
 scarcely hidden from the vultures. The Accursed field was 
 enclosed, it would appear, by neither wall nor fence, to ex- 
 clude the wandering steps of man or beast ; and from the 
 public walk on the summit of the ridge it must have been 
 viewed in all its horrors. Here prowled in troops the house- 
 less dogs of the city and the suburbs ; here skulked the soli- 
 tary wolf from the Alban hills ; and here, perhaps to the 
 doleful murmurs of the Marsic chant, the sorceress com- 
 pounded her philtres of the ashes of dead men's bones. 1 It 
 was high time to sweep away this abomination of a barbarous 
 antiquity, now become a source of pestilence to the habita- 
 tions which daily encroached more closely upon it, as well as 
 offensive to natural feeling. Maecenas deserved the gratitude 
 of the citizens, when he obtained a grant of this piece of 
 ground, cleansed it from its pollutions, and transformed it 
 into a park or garden, which was either thrown open for the 
 recreation of the people, or allowed at least to present an 
 agreeable object to the frequenters of the terrace above it. 2 
 The Esquiline mansion of Maecenas, the roof of which tower- 
 ed above every other habitation in Rome, commanded on one 
 side a prospect of the ever-falling waters of Tibur and the 
 fertile slopes of ^dEsula, while on the other it looked down 
 
 1 See Horace's Odes to Canidia, Epod. 5. 17. 
 Horace, Sat. i. 8. 14. : 
 
 " Nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus, atque 
 Aggere in aprico spatiari, qua modo tristes 
 Albis informem spectabant ossibus agrum." 
 
 TJpon which the scholiast remarks : " In Esquiliis Maecenas domum iustruxit, 
 addiditque amcenos hortos perditis prius et subrutis sepulchris."
 
 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.U.747. 
 
 upon the smoke, the splendour, and the turmoil of the great 
 metropolis. 1 This domain, on becoming the patrimony of the 
 Caesars, was first inhabited by Tiberius, and was connected 
 at a later period with the far extended precincts of the im- 
 perial residence ; till a new dynasty sought to ingratiate itself 
 with the mass of the citizens, by converting it, at least in 
 part, into a pleasure ground for the public." 
 
 From this time, however, the affections of Augustus were 
 wholly centred on the members of his own family. They 
 Affection of were subject to no capricious variations, nor 
 w" darter* were ^ey indulged in any case to an extent 
 Julia. which can fairly be branded as weak or culpa- 
 
 ble. He might surely be excused for blindness to the fail- 
 ings of an only daughter, till they were forced on his obser- 
 vation by their notoriety, and the risk of fatal consequences ; 
 for the fair Julia, though he had sported with her feelings for 
 the furtherance of his settled policy, when he required her 
 to marry Agrippa and Tiberius successively, he still felt a 
 father's admiration. When he declared that if pure and high- 
 born damsels could not be found to immure themselves in the 
 cloisters of Vesta, he would devote his own daughter to tend 
 the sacred fire, he was prepared to sacrifice all the pride of 
 the sire to the still greater pride of the sovereign. He had 
 carefully trained her for the throne or the temple in the aus- 
 tere habits which he pretended himself to cultivate ; but from 
 
 1 Horace, Od. iii. 29. : 
 
 " Ne semper udum Tibur et JSsulae 
 
 Declive contempleris arvurn .... 
 Omitte mirari beatae 
 
 Fumum et opes strepitumque Romas." 
 
 * It is a common opinion that the public baths of Titus were within the 
 Horti Msecenatis, and were perhaps an enlargement of the swimming bath of 
 warm water which Maecenas was the first to construct at Rome. Dion, Iv. 1. 
 The Thermae Titi lay on the brow of the Esquiline, overlooking the Forum ; 
 and it is not impossible that the gardens of Maecenas may have reached to this 
 spot. But the commanding elevation on which the palace stood must have 
 been some way further back, not far perhaps from the site of the church of 
 St. Maria Maggiore, which is the highest spot in Rome, 177 feet above the sea- 
 leTel. The Campus Esquilinus is now the gardens of the Villa Negroni
 
 B. C. 7.1 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 201 
 
 the time she had become her own mistress (and the frequent 
 absence and constant occupation of Agrippa had given her in 
 opening womanhood the control of her own leisure and 
 amusements), Julia had relapsed into a scandalous levity 
 which had caused him deep mortification. Nevertheless, the 
 harmony of her union, and the likeness her children seemed 
 to bear to the husband who acknowledged them, satisfied him 
 that her follies had never degenerated into crime ; and when- 
 ever he checked by word or sign the wantonness of her be- 
 haviour, she seldom failed to disarm his anger by the arch- 
 ness of her excuses. Thus, on her appearing one day before 
 him brilliantly attired, Augustus made no remark, though his 
 countenance indicated his vexation. The next day she came 
 into his presence in the decorous habiliments of a sober 
 matron, upon which he could not refrain from exclaiming 
 with delight, that now she was arrayed as beseemed Caesar's 
 daughter. To-day, she replied, I am dressed to please my 
 fattier ; yesterday I thought to please my husband. Again, 
 the eyes of the whole theatre were turned on one occasion 
 upon Livia and herself, on their appearing in public, the one 
 attended by a number of grave seniors, the other surrounded 
 by a troop of gay and dissolute youths. Augustus remarked 
 to her the painful contrast between the demeanour of the 
 empress and the princess. JBut these young men, she replied, 
 will grow old along with me. 1 
 
 Excuses such as these, and still more the grace with which 
 they were delivered, softened the father's heart, and while at 
 one time he playfully complained that he had 
 
 11 TT -11 TH Heraccom- 
 
 two troublesome daughters, Julia and the Ke- piishments, at- 
 public, at others he would gravely declare that dangerous 
 she was a second Claudia, the most illustrious e 
 model of Roman chastity. 8 Yet he must have sighed at the 
 difference of her demeanour from the idea he had formed to 
 himself of a Caesarean princess. The conduct, he had said, 
 of every member of his illustrious family should be such as 
 
 1 Macrob. Saturn, ii. 5. : " Et hi mecum senes fient." 
 1 Liv. xxix. 14. ; Suet. Tib. 2.
 
 202 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.U. 747. 
 
 might be daily blazoned in the Acts and Journals of the 
 state. 1 To such an extent did he carry this prudery with 
 respect to his daughter, that even after her marriage, as it 
 would seem, he rebuked her for receiving a visit of compli- 
 ment at Baise from a young nobleman named Viniciu's. 11 To 
 such restrictions the temper of Julia was peculiarly averse. 
 The beauty of her countenance is still attested by coins and 
 gems, and the traits of wit already mentioned evince, among 
 others, that she was not less distinguished for cleverness. 
 The care with which she had been educated had extended 
 beyond the mere household employments to which her father 
 pretended to destine her. She was a woman of letters and 
 even erudition, and we may believe that, like the Sempronia, 
 to whom Sallust pays an equivocal compliment, she danced, 
 played, and sang with a grace and spirit which had but lately 
 been confined to the least honourable of Roman women. 8 
 We cannot be surprised that she was proud of her position, 
 as well as of her personal attractions, and courted the danger- 
 ous admiration she excited. Nor can we fail to sympathize 
 with the magnanimity of her answer to one who objected that 
 her manners were far removed from the affected simplicity 
 of her father's : He forgets that he is Caesar ; I cannot but 
 remember that lam Caesar's daughter* But the memory of 
 Augustus went farther back than Julia's. He had heard, hi 
 his younger days, how talents and fascinations, such as hers, 
 had aided in the development of political intrigues ; that 
 such had been the painted baits with which a Clodius or a 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 64. A hundred years before it had been recorded of M. Livius 
 Drusus that he had wished for a house of glass, that every citizen might wit- 
 ness every action of his life. The different way in which Augustus expressed 
 the same idea marks the change from the time when statesmen lived in public, 
 to that when their proceedings were only discussed in private coteries. 
 
 2 Suet. I. c. Velleius mentions Vinicii of three generations, and we can- 
 not determine the precise period of this occurrence. But as Julia was first 
 married to Marcellus at a very early age, it is not likely to have taken place 
 while she was yet single ; and if she had been a widow at the time, it would 
 probably have been mentioned as giving some colour to the emperor's jealousy. 
 
 1 Sallust. Catil 25. 4 Macrob. Saturn, ii. 6.
 
 B.C. 7.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 203 
 
 Catiline had caught the gayest of the young patricians, and 
 precipitated giddy spendthrifts into grave conspiracies. Such 
 times might once more arrive ; and the rumoured amours of 
 Julia undoubtedly caused him double disquietude, both as a 
 father and a ruler. On Agrippa's decease the emperor was 
 for a tune undetermined how to dispose of the widow, now 
 in the full meridian of her passionate enjoyment of life. His 
 regard for her good name, and for the dignity of his house, 
 forbade him to leave the thoughtless matron without the 
 protection of a legitimate guardian ; but to unite her with 
 some noble consular would have sown discord in his own 
 family, and excited importunate pretensions in the breast of 
 a stranger. Such untoward results might be averted by 
 giving her to a husband of inferior rank ; and he long scanned 
 the list of the Roman knights to find her a respectable and 
 trusty bridegroom. The intrigues of Livia diverted him, as 
 we have seen, from this design ; but the choice to which he 
 was finally directed failed to accomplish any of the objects 
 he had proposed. Tiberius, compelled to separate from a 
 wife to whom he was attached, and who had borne him an 
 only son, and distrusting the lightness of the woman he had 
 consented to take in her stead, was met on her part by dislike 
 and disdain. The daughter of the emperor despised the son 
 of the empress. 1 She was proud of the numerous and flour- 
 ishing family she had borne in her earlier wedlock ; she con- 
 sidered her own position secured by their presumptive expec- 
 tations, and regarded him as an unworthy intruder within the 
 sphere of their splendid prospects. To Tiberius the fruitful 
 Julia bore only a single child, who died in infancy : from 
 thenceforth the ill-assorted couple never consented to cohabit 
 
 1 Niebuhr is reported to have remarked, in his Lectures on Roman History 
 (Hist. Rom. v. 175.), that Tiberius despised the daughter of Augustus. But 
 this is evidently an oversight. Tacitus had said just the reverse : " Julia 
 fuerat in matrimonio Tiberii . . . spreveratque ut imparem." A Julia, though 
 by adoption only, was at least an equal match for a Claudius ; besides, the 
 first and beloved wife of Tiberius had been an obscure Vipsania. Comp. 
 Tac. Ann. ii. 43. : " Eques Romanus Pomponius Atticua " (the grandfather of 
 Vipsania) " dedecere Claudiorum imagines videbatur."
 
 204 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.U. 747. 
 
 again. 1 During the years which followed the husband was 
 but little in Rome ; nor do we hear of the wife accompany- 
 ing him into the provinces. The imperial palace continued 
 to be her residence ; but she evaded the superintendence of 
 an indulgent parent, and soon plunged, without restraint, 
 into levities and vices which became the theme of every idle 
 tongue. 
 
 Many indeed were at that time the idle tongues and the 
 idle hands of the teeming capital. The overwhelming energy, 
 The character which, but a few years before, had animated the 
 few tofemaie forum, the comitia, and the tribunals, was sud- 
 virtae - denly arrested in its full career. But it required 
 
 more than half a century of servitude completely to paralyse 
 its impulses. Forbidden to rush in full volume along the 
 broad channel of public life, it oozed away in a thousand 
 petty interests and trifling occupations. With the age of 
 Augustus commenced an era of personal affectation. 8 A 
 graceful address, a splendid equipage, a distinguished air 
 stamped the candidate for popular admiration. A success in 
 the counterfeit contests of the declaimers' schools, or before 
 the partial tribunal of a social audience, contented the most 
 ardent aspirants for fame or notoriety. The tone of this 
 class was indeed far more humane and polished than it had 
 been fifty years earlier : the young nobility of Rome were no 
 longer led by ruffians and bravos ; skill in the use of deadly 
 weapons was no longer their point of honour ; while the 
 exercises of the Campus Martius served only to exhibit a fine 
 figure or complexion, and the last shadows of faction were cast 
 upon the contests of the Circus. Both men and women crowd- 
 ed the theatres to be seen rather than to see. Love-making 
 succeeded to arms ; verse-making to eloquence ; vanity to 
 ambition ; pride of notoriety to thirst for glory. The exqui- 
 sites of the day were men who dangled in the train of ladies, 
 the oracles of coteries, the observed of aristocratic reunions ; 
 
 1 Suet. Tib. 7. a Ovid, Ars Amand. in. 107. : 
 
 " Corpora si veteres non sic coluere puellae, 
 Nee veteres cultos sic habuere viros."
 
 B.C.7.1 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 205 
 
 the flattery of the drawing-room was reduced to a system, 
 and courtship between the sexes taught as an art. 1 Success 
 in affairs of gallantry became a title to distinction, and a 
 score of brave young nobles laid siege to the heart of a 
 princess, who would formerly have emulated one another in 
 storming a royal fortress. Such were the snares which 
 surrounded the steps of the unfortunate Julia. Reckless 
 ,and daring by nature, exulting in the grandeur of her sta- 
 tion, overflowing with animal spirits, she seemed to lead the 
 current of fashion which was hurrying her to irretrievable 
 destruction. 
 
 Into this fatal vortex the grandsons of the emperor were 
 now about also to enter. Augustus, in order to adopt them 
 as his own children, had bought them, according Education and 
 to ancient form, of their father, with a piece of (^^a^dLu- 
 money weighed in a balance. He had taken a cius Ca38ar - 
 deep interest in them from their earliest infancy, and had 
 carried them with him on his progresses, and placed them 
 at the foot of his couch at meals." Their education had been 
 conducted under his own direction. He once found Caius, 
 it is said, reading a work of Cicero's, and, when the boy 
 would have concealed it, encouraged him to continue the 
 perusal, saying with a pensive smile, He was a great man 
 and loved his country.* The anecdote is cited in proof of 
 the emperor's magnanimity ; but it may also show that even 
 his darling pupils could make only a surreptitious acquaint- 
 ance with the noblest models of their language. An educa- 
 tion thus restricted was at best but a counterfeit ; we cannot 
 expect that it would have trained the presumptive rulers of 
 
 1 The Ars Amandi of the poet Ovid, the liveliest mirror of the fashions 
 of the time, came forth about the year 752, as will appear from a historical 
 allusion which will be referred to in its place. The Amores was published 
 earlier. 
 
 8 Suet. Oct. 64., who adds a curious trait of affection : " Nihil aeque ela- 
 boravit quam ut imitarentur chirographum suum." 
 
 3 Plut. Cic. 49. A similar trait of moderation is recorded in his saying 
 with regard to Cato : " Quisquis prsesentem statum civitatis commutari non 
 volet, et civis et vir bonus est." Macrob. Sat. ii. 4.
 
 206 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.U.748. 
 
 the empire to virtues suitable to their station. Brief as their 
 career was destined to be, there is reason to believe that they 
 profited but little by the lessons of moderation their grand- 
 father inculcated upon them. Lucius, the younger, intoxi- 
 cated by the acclamations which had greeted him on his 
 casual appearance in the theatre, had urged Augustus to 
 make his elder brother consul before he had yet been num- 
 bered among the men. 1 Such bad been the fortune of the 
 young Octavius, in the midst of a revolutionary crisis, and 
 the spoiled children of the empire would have adopted this 
 exceptional precedent as an ordinary principle of government. 
 May the gods grant, Augustus had replied, that no such emer- 
 gency shall again occur as that which made me consul before 
 the age of twenty / A magistracy, he added, should be given 
 to none but such as have learned to control both their own 
 passions and those of the people ; and to this rule, at least, 
 he might have said, I myself was no exception. 
 
 Nevertheless, favours and distinctions were rapidly show- 
 ered upon the scions of the imperial house ; and it was, doubt- 
 less, alreadv intimated to them that the period 
 
 The tribumtian / ,,., , 1111 
 
 power for five oi eligibility to the highest honours should be 
 ferred upon speedily abridged. Having conferred upon Cains 
 jJt^tt. the priesthood, and admitted him to the benches 
 of the senate at spectacles and banquets, Au- 
 gustus compensated Tiberius with the more substantial prero- 
 gatives of the tribunitian power, which was now bestowed 
 upon him for a term of five years.* This elevation, which 
 might be regarded technically as almost equivalent to asso- 
 ciation in the empire, would have made him, if present in 
 the city, too decidedly superior to the younger princes. To 
 modify its effect he was removed from the centre of affaire, 
 under the pretext of a mission to Armenia, which, on the 
 death of Tigranes, had been invaded by the Parthians. This 
 nice attempt at equipoise seems, as might have been expected, 
 to have entirely failed. The grandsons ventured to show 
 themselves aggrieved by the predominance thus given to their 
 
 1 Dion, lv. 9. * Dion, Iv. 9 ; Suet. Tib. 10.
 
 B. C. 6.J UNDER THE EMPIRE. 207 
 
 kinsman, pre-eminent though he was for his services and ex- 
 perience ; and the son-in-law was not less hurt at the prospect 
 of a distant expedition, which he justly regarded as a spe- 
 cious banishment. It is hardly to be supposed that Tiberius 
 cowered under the rising favour of these aspiring youths, or 
 that he voluntarily resigned the place nearest the throne to 
 avoid collision with them; though the one is the reason 
 assigned by the historians, the other that pretended by him- 
 self, for his relinquishing the hardships and glories of his 
 foreign mission, and taking up his residence in the obscure 
 retreat of Rhodes. Still less is it credible that this aban- 
 donment of active service, with all its hopes and visions of 
 the future, was caused by disgust at the infidelities of Julia, 
 to which a prevalent rumour ascribed it. 1 The cloud was 
 upon him ; the dark humour of his race was at nis dissatisfac- 
 the moment in the ascendant, and prompted him ment a frompui>- 
 to shake off with a peevish effort the restraints Ucaffairs - 
 of his position, and the dire necessity of eternal dissimulation, 
 which he loathed while he crouched beneath it. At the ma- 
 ture age of forty years, he solicited a release from active ser- 
 vice, and pretended a wish to cultivate philosophy in retire- 
 ment. Augustus was surprised and vexed. He could not 
 but suspect that his son-in-law was irritated against the 
 children of Agrippa, and he demanded, perhaps, some proof 
 of the affection which ought to subsist between such near 
 relatives. Tiberius opened his will, and showed, by the pro- 
 visions he had made for their advantage, that he entertained 
 no personal jealousy. 2 When he pressed for leave to depart, 
 the emperor pretended the utmost distress, and joined his 
 own prayers with Livia's that he would remain at Rome. 
 Tiberius, not to be outdone in these transparent professions, 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. i. 51. : " Nee alia tarn intima Tiberio causa cur Rhodum absce- 
 deret." 
 
 2 Dion, Iv. 9. Comp. Suet. Tib. 10. Velleius, the flatterer of Tiberius, 
 says, " Veritus ne fulgor suus orientium juvenum obstaret initiis, dissimulata 
 causa consilii sui, commeatum ab socero atque eodem vitrico acquiescendi a 
 continuatione laborura pctiit."
 
 208 HISTOBT OF THE ROMANS 
 
 threatened to starve himself unless his wishes were indulged. 
 Having at last obtained his point, he went down to Ostia, 
 leaving his wife and son behind him, and parted from his 
 attendants in sullen silence. 1 As he sailed along the Campa- 
 nian coast, he was overtaken by a report of the emperor's 
 sickness, which induced him to halt. But when he found that 
 this caused observation, he determined to proceed without 
 further delay, and braved a tempest in prosecuting his voy- 
 age. This secession from affairs took place in the year 748. 
 At Rhodes, the retired statesman seemed to abandon all con- 
 cern for politics. He contented himself with a small house 
 in the city, and a villa, not much more spacious, in the sub- 
 urbs. He frequented, without attendants, the schools and 
 lecture halls, the resort of philosophers and students, and 
 amused himself with entering into their discussions as an 
 ordinary visitor. The Rhodians, indeed, failed to compre- 
 hend such condescension, and incommoded the august stranger 
 with importunate compliments. A professor, however, who 
 ventured to respect his incognito so far as to reprehend his 
 arguments, was soon convinced of his mistake by the blows 
 of the lictors, whom Tiberius summoned to the spot.* 
 
 The sons of Agrippa reaped all the advantages of this ill- 
 humour. Livia might witness with dismay the honours to 
 Cming Cwar which her son's rivals were now advanced, though 
 . she dared not manifest her vexation. After an 
 . 749 interval of seventeen years, Augustus allowed 
 E - c - * himself to be invested once again with the consu- 
 lar fasces, and opened the year 749 with due solemnities. He 
 was about to introduce Caius to the people, on the occasion 
 of his commencing his sixteenth year and reaching the age 
 to assume the toga. The senators decreed that the young 
 man should be eligible for the consulship within five years 
 from that time ; and anxious though he was to advance his 
 
 1 This eon must hare been Drusus, bis child by Yipsania. Julia's infant, 
 from the account of Suetonius, must hare been already dead. 
 
 * Suet Tib. 11. At this place we lose for a few years the guidance of 
 Dion, and are left to the anecdotes of Suetonius.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 209 
 
 favourite, Augustus himself, perhaps, interposed to withhold 
 them from designating him for it at once. 1 When the em- 
 peror appeared once more in 752, surrounded, now for the 
 thirteenth time, with the ensigns of the chief office of the 
 free state, the enthusiasm of all ranks burst forth with extra- 
 ordinary acclamations. They had already endowed him with 
 every power, every distinction, every dignity they had offi- 
 cially to give ; but the man who, after so long a tenure of 
 power, still preserved to them the forms of liberty deserved 
 the highest title of reverent affection which hu- August re- 
 man nature can bestow. The appellation of penltion e f p ~ 
 Father of his Country was the dearest to the 2'^f^' 
 feelings of every genuine Roman ; it had been B - c - 2 - 
 heard indeed sometimes to resound from the lips of the multi- 
 tude among the praises of Augustus ; but now for the first 
 time it was solemnly pronounced by the voice perhaps of the 
 tribunes, and formally recorded. It was engraved over the 
 gateway of the imperial residence, in the interior of the 
 senate-house, at the foot of the emperor's statue, and in the 
 precincts of his forum. 8 A public festival was decreed upon 
 the occasion. Soon afterwards Augustus led his younger 
 grandson into the forum, and presented him in the gown of 
 manhood to the assembled citizens. The two Caesars received 
 the title of Princes of the JRoman Youth, and rode at the 
 head of a cavalcade of noble companions, each with a silver 
 spear and shield. 3 The emperor gave an extraordinary largess 
 of money to all the citizens who were registered at the time 
 as recipients of the public corn ; a number which he had now 
 succeeded in reducing to about two hundred thousand. 4 In 
 the course of the year followed the dedication of the temple, 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. i. 3. : " Nondum posita puerili praetexta principes Juventutia 
 appellari, destinari Consules, specie recusandi flagrantissime concupiverat." 
 
 * Mon. Ancyr. col. 7. gr. vers. Comp. Kalend. Praenest. in Fast. Verrian. 
 p. 106. (Orelli, Inscr. ii. 384.) : " Non. Feb. N. concordiae in arce ferise ex S. 
 C. quod eo die Imp. Cassar Pont. Max. trib. potest. xxi. Cons. xiii. a S. P. q. 
 R. pater patriae appellatus." Fischer, R. Z. 422. Ovid, Fast. ii. 129. See 
 above, chapter xxxiii. 
 
 8 Mon. Ancyr. col. 3. * Mon. Ancyr. I. c. 
 
 VOL. iv. 14
 
 210 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.U. 752. 
 
 just then completed, of Mars the Avenger, as a threat and 
 defiance to the Parthians ; and the martial ardour of the 
 populace was stimulated by gladiatorial shows of more than 
 usual magnificence, with the spectacle of a naval combat in 
 the vast basin which Augustus had excavated on the other 
 side of the Tiber. 1 
 
 The pride, however, with which Augustus regarded his 
 illustrious grandsons at their entrance into manhood, was 
 
 dashed by the conviction he could no longer sup- 
 banuhment'of press of the utter depravity of his daughter. 
 
 The orgies of the unfortunate Julia could no lon- 
 ger be disguised. Among the partners of her licentious plea- 
 sures were some of the noblest youths of Rome, men whose 
 acts and manners could not fail to be the talk of the whole 
 city. The excesses in which she indulged were not less open 
 than profligate. She traversed the streets and public places of 
 the city by night, attended by the young bacchanals her com- 
 panions, and polluted the dignified solitude of the rostra itself 
 with her unseasonable revels. 2 In vain had the founder of 
 the empire devoted himself to the reformation of public man- 
 ners ; in vain had he pretended to emulate in his own person 
 the severe virtues of the ancient heroes ; the laws by which 
 he affected to recall the pristine fame and fortune of the 
 state were trodden under foot by his own daughter, his only 
 child, the mother of his anticipated successors. Terrible must 
 have been the shock to one who hoped to found an hereditary 
 dynasty, when he was made to doubt the legitimacy of its 
 first inheritors. In the passionate vexation which now over- 
 whelmed every other feeling, he suffered himself to make a 
 public avowal to the senate, by the mouth of his quaestor, of 
 
 1 Mon. Ancyr. 1. c. ; Suet. Oct. 43. Dion (Iv. 10.) says that water was 
 introduced into the Circus Flaminius, and thirty-six crocodiles slain there. 
 
 s Dion, Iv. 10. : a.<rt\ya.ivov<ra.v oSrus Sore KOI iv TT) ayopa Kal fir' avrov 
 ye rou jS^uaroy (col Ktaud^fiv vvKTtap ical avfiirivtiv. Seneca (de Benef. vi. 32.) 
 goes still further : " Admissos gregatim adulteros, pererratam nocturnis comis- 
 sationibus civitatem, forum ipsum et rostra ex quibus pater legem de adulteriis 
 tulerat, in stupra placuisse."
 
 B.C. 2.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 211 
 
 every crime imputed to the culprit. We cannot tell how far 
 he had chosen to inquire into the truth of these charges, 
 which some very near to him would not scruple to exagge- 
 rate ; but it would seem that he adopted even the worst 
 without qualification. 1 Nor did his spleen evaporate in 
 words. He seized not Julia only, but the reputed partners 
 of her crimes also, of whom there were many both of eques- 
 trian and senatorial rank, and banished them from Italy. 
 Among them were numbered an Appius Claudius, a Sempro- 
 nius Gracchus, a Quinctius, and a Scipio ; men of rank so 
 exalted that they might have been tempted to intrigue with 
 her against the prince and the government. The emperor 
 boasted that he was satisfied with punishing the gallants of 
 the princess with no greater severity than if she had been 
 merely a private matron. But the most distinguished of her 
 paramours was Julius Antonius, the second of the sons borne 
 by Fulvia to the triumvir, whom Augustus had spared for 
 the sake of his sister, and eventually had elevated to the con- 
 sulship. The ungrateful nobleman had corrupted the daugh- 
 ter of his benefactor, and induced her to conspire against his 
 life ; and the law of majestas or treason was invoked in this 
 special case to aggravate the penalties of the law of adultery. 
 Antonius suffered death. Julia herself, now in her thirty- 
 eighth year, was exiled to the barren island of Pandateria, 
 where she was treated with great harshness, and left in want 
 of ordinary comforts." The political colour of her offence 
 was marked by the rigorous precautions taken with regard 
 to the few visitors who were suffered to approach her. Her 
 mother, Scribonia, was allowed, and perhaps required, to 
 bear her company. Tiberius, on hearing of an event at which 
 
 1 Seneca, in the passage above referred to, seems to have the official docu- 
 ment in his eye. Julia was branded as the vilest mercenary : "ex adultera 
 in quajstuariam versa," &c. Nevertheless she has found defenders. Ruhkopf 
 (in loc. Senec.) refers to Wieland, Werk. xxiv. 338. Blackened she may have 
 been ; but in those evil times at what point of degradation was the man or 
 woman who had once abandoned virtue likely to stop ? 
 
 * Macrob. Saturn, ii. 6. Veil. ii. 100. : " Se et Gallo Caninio Consulibus, 
 dedicate Martis Templo." Between Jul. 1. and Oct. 1. Fischer.
 
 212 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS [A.U. 752. 
 
 he doubtless felt little concern, thought it decent to intercede 
 for her in a letter ; but his instances were sternly rejected. 
 He had, indeed, double cause of dissatisfaction, for, not con- 
 tent with infidelity to his bed, she had sought to injure him 
 with her father by attacking his character with libels, in 
 which she was supposed to have been assisted by Sempro- 
 nius. 1 
 
 The violence with which Augustus acted in this matter is 
 not inconsistent with his character ; for not only was he sub- 
 ject to accesses of sudden passion, but, when his 
 
 Deep indigna- ,. /, ,.,. . ,-,-, 
 
 tionof Angus- feelings of anger and indignation had been long 
 pent up and disguised, they were wont some- 
 times to burst out with accumulated and terrible force. 2 
 "When a confidante of Julia named Phrebe hanged herself for 
 fear of punishment, he was heard to exclaim in bitterness of 
 spirit, Would that I were Phoebus father ! He was not slow, 
 however, in recollecting himself, and perceiving that he had 
 overstepped the limits of discretion. More than ever did he 
 now lament the death of Agrippa and Maecenas, whose counsels 
 might have restrained him in the full career of his fury. He 
 may have discovered, when too late, that, as regarded at least 
 the treasonable practices ascribed to the lovers of Julia, he had 
 been imposed upon by their enemies, and perhaps by Livia 
 herself ; for the name of Julius Antonius seems not to have 
 been erased from the Fasti, the last disgrace which was ordi- 
 narily inflicted upon noble criminals.* Nevertheless his indig- 
 nation against his daughter continued immovable. It was 
 not till the expiration of five years that he allowed any miti- 
 gation of her sufferings, nor to the last could he be further 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. ii. 63. For the circumstances of this public scandal, see Sen- 
 eca and Dion, II. cc. ; Suet. Oct. 64. 101. ; Tib. 1. 11. ; Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 
 46. ; Veil. ii. 100. This last writer fixes the date of Julia's banishment to the 
 summer of 752. Fischer, Roem. Zeitt. p. 423. 
 
 8 Aurelius Victor (Epit. i.) says that he was merely "paululum impatiens, 
 leviter iracundus ; " but Suetonius tells a fearful story of his violence in the 
 case of Q. Gallius. (Oct. 27.) Horace intimates that he was not to be trifled 
 with even by his courtiers : " Cui male si palpere recalcitrat." 
 
 3 Tac. Ann. iii. 18. See Walckenaer's Hist. cTHorace, ii. 396.
 
 B.C. 2.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 213 
 
 prevailed on than to transfer her from her desolate island to 
 the extreme point of the Italian continent. "When the sena- 
 tors persisted in interceding for her, he truculently replied 
 by wishing them such wives and such daughters for their 
 own. 1 
 
 Meanwhile the world, according to the expression of the 
 courtly Velleius, was feeling the effect of Tiberius's retire- 
 ment. The Parthians, as he proceeds to explain, 
 
 f -n I,-! -i Mission of 
 
 renouncing the alliance of Home, laid hands upon Cains Caesar to 
 Armenia. Tigranes, whom the Romans had A. u.Vss. 
 placed upon the throne, had died in the year B ' c ' 
 748 : the Armenians had taken advantage of this event to 
 deliver themselves from dependence on their western protect- 
 ors, and the sons of the deceased monarch had ventured to 
 enter on their succession without seeking their crown from 
 the emperor. Augustus, resenting this act of freedom, had 
 equipped an expedition against them, from the command of 
 which Tiberius, as we have seen, had withdrawn himself. 
 But the Roman legions had proceeded, under another leader, 
 to menace Armenia with invasion : the sons of Tigranes had 
 been compelled to retire, and a prince named Artavasdes had 
 been set up in their room.* A counter-revolution speedily 
 followed. Artavasdes was expelled by his indignant sub- 
 jects ; the Parthians were called in to their assistance ; the 
 Romans suffered a defeat ; and a second Tigranes succeeded, 
 by the help of foreign arms, to the throne of his father. 3 
 This hostile movement on the part of the Parthians, who had 
 so lately cowered under the anger of Augustus, bespoke re- 
 vived confidence and power. At the same time the Arab 
 chiefs of the Syrian frontier were provoking the chastisement 
 of the empire. It was determined to send Caius Caesar, with 
 a numerous force and extensive powers, for the settlement of 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 65. 
 
 * Coins of the year 749 bear the legend " Armenia recepta," in reference 
 to this event. Hoeck, i. 2. 48. 
 
 3 Tac. Ann. ii. 3, 4. : " Jussu Augusti impositus Artavasdes, et non sine 
 clade nostra dejectus."
 
 214 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.U.753. 
 
 the affairs of the East. 1 In 753 the young prince had reached 
 the age of twenty, and was designated for the consulship of 
 the ensuing year. Placed under a veteran adviser, M. Lol- 
 lius, the same, however, who had been defeated by the Ger- 
 mans in Gaul, he might be capable of leading the Roman 
 legions to victory, at least the glory of his name and lineage 
 might supply the place of personal reputation in arms.* Au- 
 gustus, indeed, did not anticipate any serious resistance to 
 his demands. He intended his grandson to show himself on 
 the frontiers, and dictate from thence the terms of capitula- 
 tion. Possibly he might contemplate some extension of the 
 limits of the empire on the side of Arabia, and a renewal of 
 the designs which Gallus had failed in accomplishing. Geo- 
 graphers and men of science were to follow the course of the 
 armament: among these was Dionysius, surnamed the Cir- 
 cumnavigator, who was a native of the shores of the Persian 
 Gulf; and the Mauretanian Juba, who wrote an account of 
 the expedition, was probably an attendant upon it.' 
 
 Flushed with the pride of youth and hopes of glory, Caius 
 crossed the ^Egean Sea on his way to his appointed province. 
 
 Tiberius, who was already wearied with his re- 
 
 tween cams treat, and alarmed perhaps at the ease with 
 
 A. u. 753. ' which his place had been supplied at the head 
 
 of the legions, sought an interview with the 
 young imperator at Samos. 4 Whatever outward marks of 
 respect the stripling might exhibit towards the veteran who 
 now paid court to him, it is not likely that the conversation 
 which occurred between them gave Tiberius any real satisfao- 
 
 1 Ovid, Ara Amand. i. 17*7. foil, (which seems to fix the date of publica- 
 tion to the year 752) : 
 
 " Ecce ! parat Caesar domito quod defuit orbi 
 Addere : nunc, Oriens ultimo, noster eris. 
 Parthe, dabis poenas ; Crassi gaudete sepulti .... 
 
 Bellaque non puero tractat agenda puer." 
 1 Velleius, ii. 102. 
 Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 27., xii. 14. 
 
 4 Suetonius says Samos ; Dion, Chios : the former island lay more directly 
 in the proconsular route from Corinth to Ephesus.
 
 B. C. 1.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 tion. 1 Augustus had been induced to promise his grandson 
 that his elder rival should neither be recalled to Rome, nor 
 even suffered to return there, except with his permission; 
 and if such permission was now sought it undoubtedly was 
 not granted. When the exile represented to the emperor 
 that he had withdrawn to Rhodes solely out of regard for 
 his young kinsmen, and from anxiety to avoid causing them 
 injury or annoyance, he was coldly bade to relinquish all con- 
 cern for relatives from whom he had so perversely severed 
 himself. 4 
 
 From Samos, Caius proceeded into Syria, and from thence 
 despatched the imperious demands he was instructed to make 
 upon the Parthian monarch, enjoining him to caiusgoeato 
 remove his creature Tigranes, and allow the jJSEffilta?* 
 return of Artavasdes to the throne of Armenia ; f hisp?Bsl on 
 but while he left these potent spells to operate * io - v 753 
 in his absence, he made a progress himself in B - c - J - 
 an opposite direction. The throne of Judea had been recently 
 rendered vacant by the death of Herod. 8 The latter years of 
 this prince's life, whose successful dexterity, rather than any 
 grandeur in his designs or brilliancy in his exploits, had 
 earned him the title of the Great, had been marked with 
 more bloody and repeated atrocities than even his earlier 
 career. Ten wives had borne him a numerous progeny, to 
 poison every moment of his existence with fear and hatred. 
 His jealousy had latterly been roused against the children he 
 had brought back from Rome, and exalted so high in his 
 
 1 Velleius Paterculus, whose flattery of his patron Tiberius is everywhere 
 transparent, wishes it to appear that even in disgrace and exile he was treated 
 by Caius as his superior : " Convento prius Tiberio Nerone, cui omnem hono- 
 rem ut superiori habuit," ii. 301. Dion, on the contrary, says, virfiwrrev oi>x 
 rt '6r<a Taiy oAAo /col ro7s HIT* OUTOV o<r<, Iv. 11. Suetonius speaks even more 
 strongly of the contempt into which Tiberius had fallen. 
 
 * Suet. Tib. 11. : " Ultro admonitus est dimitteret omnem curam suorum, 
 quos tarn cupide reliquisset." 
 
 3 The death of Herod was marked by an eclipse of the moon just before 
 the passover in the year u. c. 750, B. c. 4 ; therefore towards the end of March 
 (Clinton, Fast. Hell. iii. 256.) or the beginning of April (Ideler, Chronol. ii. 
 391. foil.). Joseph. Antiq. Jud. xvii. 8. 1. See Fischer, Roem. Zeit. p. 420.
 
 216 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 favour, and he had caused them both to be put to death with 
 a vast number of their friends and presumed adherents. 
 Antipater, another son, the instigator of these enormities, 
 had soon after shared the same fate. He had fallen under a 
 charge of treason to his father ; but Herod seems to have 
 asked permission of Augustus to punish him capitally. The 
 emperor, after some delay, thought proper to leave the young 
 man's fate in his parent's hands, and, well aware as he was 
 what that fate would be, he may have then made the unfeel- 
 ing jest recorded among his witty sayings by Macrobius, I had 
 rather be Herod's swine than his son. 1 Other sons, however, 
 still survived to ascend the blood-stained eminence. The will 
 of the deceased monarch appointed, subject to the approval 
 of the Roman power, that Archelaus and Antipas, the chil- 
 dren of Malthace, should assume authority, the one in Judea, 
 the other in the district of Galilee, while Philip, the offspring 
 of Cleopatra, should bear rule in the Trans-Jordanic region 
 of Ituraa. Caius may have gone to Jerusalem to confirm 
 these dispositions. When there, he offended the Jews by 
 refusing to enter their temple, and assist at their national 
 worship, an act of haughty reserve, of which, however, the 
 emperor signified his approval. Agrippa, indeed, had offered 
 vows and sacrifices on that same spot ; but Augustus remem- 
 bered that he had himself refrained from visiting the shrines 
 of the Egyptian divinities. He considered it unseemly in the 
 chiefs of the Roman religion to betray any token of interest 
 in the rites of the foreigner. 8 
 
 Caius entered upon his consulship in Syria at the com- 
 mencement of the year 754. During his progress among 
 the states and potentates of the East, his tutor 
 
 Cains in Syria. T ... . *, . 
 
 A. D. i. .Lollius was chiefly intent on exactions and plun- 
 der. The charge of avarice which had been for- 
 
 1 Macrob. Saturn, ii. 4. : " Porcum quam filium : " but Augustus undoubt- 
 edly used the Greek, Zv ^ \>i6v. 
 
 8 Suet Oct. 93. Oros. vii. 3. This Christian writer, who assigns this 
 event to 752, the year in which he places the birth of our Lord, declares that 
 the great scarcity which afflicted Rome six years after was a punishment for 
 this insult to the true God.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 217 
 
 merly made against him in Gaul, and which he had then suc- 
 ceeded in defeating or evading, was now redoubled, and with 
 a different result. The Parthians divulged his guilt in receiv- 
 ing bribes for betraying the secrets of the republic. He was 
 denounced by Caius to the emperor, and if he escaped public 
 disgrace and punishment, he owed it perhaps to the oppor- 
 tuneness of his death, which was not without suspicion of vio- 
 lence. 1 When Augustus discovered that his grandson's oppo- 
 sition to the return of Tibrerius had been prompted by this 
 worthless adviser, he became himself more amenable to the 
 entreaties of Livia. With the consent, it is said, of Caius, 
 he now summoned the exile to Rome, requiring, however, 
 the condition that he should abstain from taking part in pub- 
 lic affairs. At this restriction Tiberius may have smiled in 
 secret: the fortunes of the Imperial house, flourishing as 
 they seemed at the opening manhood of Julia's children, 
 were not yet beyond the stroke of an adverse fate." Scarcely 
 had he regained his place by the side of the emperor, after 
 eight years of absence, than the second of the young Ca3sars 
 fell sick and died. Lucius had been sent on a mission into 
 Spain ; but he got no further than Massilia, 
 
 e .: Mission of Lu- 
 
 where his brief career was arrested in the sum- cms Caesar to 
 nier of 755, in the course of which season the deatn'at Mas- 
 elder brother proceeded also to enforce his '*'. 0.2. 
 orders with regard to the affairs of Armenia, as 
 to which ,he had received no satisfaction. 3 Caius summoned 
 Phraates to an interview, which took place on an island in 
 the Euphrates, where the two great empires which divided 
 the world were represented by the sovereign of the one and 
 the presumptive heir to the other. 4 The Roman officers and 
 soldiers, drawn up on the bank, acknowledged themselves the 
 
 1 Suet. Tib. 13. ; Veil. ii. 102. ; Plin. Hist. Nat. ix. 35. 
 
 2 Velleius, ii. 99., after the event, says, " Magna nee incerta spe futuro- 
 rum." 
 
 3 Veil. ii. 102. ; Suet. Oct. 65. 
 
 4 The passage in Velleius is corrupt, and it is not quite clear whether the 
 Parthian monarchy was represented by its king Phraates or by his son Phraa- 
 taces. Cornp. Dion, Iv. 11.
 
 218 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 instruments of a military monarchy, and might already, per- 
 haps, anticipate the time when they should in turn be ac- 
 knowledged as its masters. 1 Sufficient explanation or sub- 
 mission having been offered by the Parthian, who promised 
 henceforth to desist from interference with the affairs of Ar- 
 menia, the two chiefs entertained each other alternately on 
 the opposite banks of the river. The death of Artavasdes, 
 however, at this moment, opened to Tigranes another chance 
 of maintaining himself, by which he profited, and succeeded 
 by adroit flattery in securing the favour of the Roman rulers. 
 Augustus condescended to accept his submission ; but in the 
 mean time, either apprehending a refusal, or hoping to extort 
 better terms by force, he defied the young Cassar to a trial 
 A. D. 3. of arms." In 756 Caius advanced, but on arriving 
 A.U. 758. before the walls of Artagira, and admitting the 
 governor Addon, on his offer of capitulation, into his presence, 
 he received from him a treacherous wound. From the effects 
 of this injury his constitution, which was perhaps, like his 
 brother's, weakly, was never able to rally. Bodily suffering 
 seems to have affected his temper. During the brief remnant 
 of his life he indulged the petulance of his humour and his 
 natural bias to idle and frivolous amusements. 3 There were 
 now no matters of importance to detain him in the East. He 
 requested permission, however, to remain in Syria, and to 
 throw off for a time the cares of his august station. To the 
 latter part of this request Augustus consented, though with 
 great reluctance, communicating it, as a matter of imperial 
 
 1 Velleius, who was an eye-witness, seems to have felt that this event con- 
 stituted an epoch in history. " Quod spectaculum stantis ex diverso, hinc Ro- 
 mani, illinc Parthorum exercitus, cum duo inter se eminentissima imperiorum 
 et hominum coirent capita, perquam clarum et memorabile, sub initia stipendi- 
 orum meorum tribuno militum mihi visere contigit." (ii. 101.) 
 
 2 This is the statement of the Excerpta de Legationibus, inserted in this 
 place by Ursinus (Dion, edit. Tauchnitz), but not admitted into Sturz's edition. 
 There is much confusion in the remains of Dion's work at this place. Iv. 11. 
 
 3 Such, I think, is the insinuation of Velleius, whatever it may be really 
 worth: "Ex eo ut corpus minus habile, ita animum minus utilem reipubli.-as 
 habuit." ii. 102.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 219 
 
 concern, to his obsequious senate : but he earnestly exhorted 
 the prince to return at least to Italy. 1 Caius prepared to 
 obey, and passed by sea from Syria into Lycia. But his 
 health was now rapidly sinking, and at the town of Limyra 
 he finally succumbed, eighteen months after the death of his 
 brother. The citizens were startled as well as DeathofCaiua 
 distressed at this recurring fatality. Their sus- Ca38ar - 
 picions had been already more than once excited, and now, 
 when the tardy return of Tiberius to Rome so nearly coin- 
 cided with the removal of both his most prominent rivals, it 
 was not unnatural that they should revive with redoubled 
 force. 2 It might be difficult to connect the death of Lucius 
 in Gaul or of Caius in Asia with Livia and Tiberius at Rome ; 
 but poison operates in secret, and such secret operations, in 
 the estimation of the vulgar, may dispense with the ordinary 
 laws both of time and space. 3 
 
 But the race of Agrippa was not yet exhausted, and the 
 rival branch of the imperial house can scarcely have contem- 
 plated wading deliberately through the blood of Augustus re- 
 so many competitors. Agrippa Postumus, born and^JvesTshim 
 after the death of his father, was now in his fif- SH^SSJ* 
 teenth year, and might prove worthy of succeed- [ of C five 
 ing to the place of his deceased brothers in the yea B - D 4 
 affections of Augustus, and the hopes of the peo- * " ' 
 
 1 The affection of Augustus for his grandson is attested by the book of 
 letters he addressed to him while absent on this expedition, some fragments of 
 which have been preserved by Aulus Gellius, xv. 7. 3. " Ave mi Cai, meus 
 ocellus jucundissimus, quern semper medius fidius desidero cum a me abes r 
 sed prsecipue diebus talibus qualis est hodiernus, oculi mei requirunt meum 
 Caium : quern ubicunque hoc die fuisti, spero laetum et bene valentem cele- 
 brasse quartum et sexagesimum natalem meum (Sept. 24. 754.) .... Deos 
 autem oro,ut mihi quantumcunque superest temporis, id salvis vobis traducere 
 liceat in statu reipublicae felicissimo, avSpayaBovvruv vpStv Kalv 5iu5ex<'A t 'a:' 
 stationem meam." Both the princes were at this time alive. 
 
 Dion, Iv. 11. ; Tac. Ann. i. 13. ; Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 46. 
 
 * The Cenotaphium Pisanum, a monument still hi existence, erected in 
 memory of the young Csesars by the townspeople of Pisae, who had recently 
 chosen Lucius as their patron, exhibits a long and curious inscription in their 
 honour. Orelli, Inscr. i. 162. Caius died in February, 757.
 
 220 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 pie. But whatever the emperor's inclinations might be, he 
 felt the claim his countrymen had upon him, and was too 
 magnanimous to sacrifice the welfare of the state to a pri- 
 vate partiality. He was deeply distressed at the loss of the 
 youths in whom he had anticipated, not only props for his 
 own declining strength, but powerful protectors of the pub- 
 lic interests. Amidst all the outward appearance of power 
 and magnificence which surrounded his administration, he 
 could not fail to perceive how precarious was the founda- 
 tion on which the prosperity of the empire now rested. 
 Every year resistance sprang up, in some shape or other, on 
 one of the extended frontiers of his dominions, and a presen- 
 timent might sometimes intrude on his thoughtful mind, of a 
 dire reverse to be one day experienced by his arms. The 
 moral force of his government was founded on its success, 
 and he was nervously sensible to the consequences which 
 might ensue upon a great public disaster. Tiberius alone 
 could now supply to him the place of his trusty Agrippa. 
 He determined accordingly to devolve openly upon him a 
 share in the government, and for this purpose insisted, not- 
 withstanding his pretended reluctance, that he should accept, 
 in conjunction with himself, the powers of the tribunate for a 
 second quinquennium. 1 When Tiberius had before been 
 honoured with this distinction, it had been accompanied with 
 dismissal to the provinces, and followed by removal from 
 affairs. But with the death of the young Caesars, and his 
 own readmission to the cares of state, the position of Tiberius 
 had become materially changed. This formal investiture now 
 placed him at once on the same footing as that enjoyed by 
 the veteran Agrippa during his latter years : and there can 
 be no doubt that it was universally regarded as a virtual 
 introduction to the first place in the empire. I do it, said the 
 
 1 Suet. Tib. 16. Dion, Iv. 13., says ten years. Veil. ii. 103.: "Quod 
 post Lucii mortem adhuc Caio vivo facere voluerat, atque vehementer repug- 
 nante Nerone erat inhibitus, post utriusque adolescentium obitum facere per- 
 severavit." The adoption which took place at the same time is dated June 27. 
 A. u. 757. A. D. 4.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 221 
 
 emperor, perhaps with a sigh, for the public weal. At the 
 same time he adopted Tiberius into his own fam- Tiberius is 
 ily, and together with him the young Agrippa, the^juUanfom- 
 to learn the duties of his station under the aus- ily - 
 pices of his step-father. Tiberius was required, moreover, to 
 adopt in his turn Germanicus, the eldest son of his late brother 
 Drusus. Whatever were the anxieties and intrigues of Livia, 
 they might now, for a time at least, be allayed. The pro- 
 gramme of the succession was significantly shadowed out: 
 Tiberius had been ordered to assume his place at the head 
 of the senate, the people, and the army, and was now ex- 
 hibited before the eyes of the citizens as the partner of the 
 emperor's honours as well as of his counsels. 1 
 
 After the ceremony of his adoption, Tiberius departed 
 for the German frontier, to undertake a third expedition, 
 the fortunes of which will be presently related, 
 
 ,. ,, , ., . . ,, . J \ Continued 
 
 for the honour 01 the empire in that quarter, labours of 
 Meanwhile Augustus, though saddened with dis- 
 appointments, and sated perhaps with the gratification of his 
 ambition, still plodded on with admirable industry in the 
 career of civil reformation. The constructive and administra- 
 tive tendency of the Roman mind was developed in none of 
 the great men of the republic more remarkably than in the 
 founder of the empire. The security of his own power he 
 felt to be now thoroughly established : he had entered, not 
 long before this period, without an audible murmur, upon 
 the fourth decennium of his imperial rule. 8 He could not 
 have required the senate any longer as an essential instru- 
 ment of his policy ; its actual power was gone, and with its 
 power its consideration had collapsed; yet blinded by his 
 ruling idea of constitutional renovation, he still persisted in 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 65., Tib. 15. ; Tac. Ann. i. 3. ; Dion, IT. 12. Veil. ii. 103. : 
 " Laetitiam illius diei, concursumque civitatis, et vota paene inferentium coelo 
 manus, spemque conceptam perpetuse securitatis aeternitatisque Rom. imperil 
 vix persequi poterimus, nedum hie implere." 
 
 8 Veil. ii. 104, 105. 
 
 8 Towards the end of the year 756. Dion, Iv. 12.
 
 222 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 decking the victim he had already sacrificed. In fact, it was 
 in irritating the pride and self-love of individual nobles that 
 his only danger now lay. The people might make tumultu- 
 ary assemblies, and demand with importunate cries the recall 
 of his banished daughter : such demonstrations he could 
 easily repress, and would scarcely condescend to notice. But 
 when he repeated this year, for the third time, his dreaded 
 Third revision scrutiny of the senate, and the expulsion of its 
 f I A V 4 nate ' unworthy members, he once more deliberately 
 A. u. 757. imperilled life and power merely to satisfy the 
 sentiment of symmetry and completeness. He had now no 
 Agrippa to stand- between him and the angry passions of the 
 degraded senators ; he even allowed Tiberius to take his 
 departure from Rome before he committed himself to the 
 task. Acting through a board of some influential members 
 of the body, he caused an investigation to be again made into 
 the lives and means of the whole : all such as had reason to 
 fear the result of the inquiry he invited, as on a former occa- 
 sion, to retire of their own accord ; but when few were found 
 to make this spontaneous abdication, he acted with indulgence 
 towards them, expelling only a small number, while he quali- 
 fied others, by adding to their fortunes from his own bounty. 1 
 The violence indeed of the magnates of the last genera- 
 tion had been quelled or moderated in their children. Augus- 
 of tus needed not now to conduct his inquiry with 
 
 C "A! D. 4. a breast-plate under his gown in the midst of the 
 A. u. 757. senate house. Nevertheless the covert designs 
 of the ambitious or the offended never allowed his vigilance 
 to slumber. A plot was formed for his destruction, at the 
 head of which was a Cnaeus Cornelius Cinna, described as a 
 son of Faustus Sulla by a daughter of the great Pompeius. 2 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 53. Dion, Iv. 13. : irpadrepds re KO.\ oKviipArtpos vieb rov 
 irpbr rb riav $ov\fvrS>v TKTIV a.irf\QavsffQai yeyovtas. 
 
 4 The story of China's conspiracy is told by Seneca, de Clem. 9., and Dion, 
 Iv. 14. foil. They agree in the main fact ; but Seneca is our authority for the 
 details of the interview between Augustus and his enemy, while Dion has 
 doubtless invented his long conversation between the emperor and Livia.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 223 
 
 Although this man does not appear to have been personally 
 aggrieved by the emperor's measures, he may have found 
 instruments for his private ambition in the mortification and 
 resentment of the disgraced senators. Proud of his descent 
 and oblivious of the favours he had received at the hands of 
 Augustus, who had made that descent no bar to his advance- 
 ment (indeed it had been the uniform policy of the emperor 
 to place the great names of the oligarchy at the head of his 
 imperial democracy), he was vain enough to imagine that he 
 could himself wield the powers of empire, and that the old 
 nobility would acquiesce in his supremacy. One of his ac- 
 complices, however, disclosed to the emperor the design to 
 surprise him in the act of sacrificing, and slay him at the foot 
 of the altar. Time was when Augustus would have rushed 
 impetuously to punish such an attempt in a paroxysm of fear 
 or anger. But these passions had now cooled down: he 
 could reason calmly with himself ; he could take deliberate 
 counsel with his advisers, how best to baffle designs which 
 neither the certainty nor the severity of punishment had 
 hitherto availed to repress. The Romans ascribed to Livia 
 the merit of persuading him that mercy was also policy. A 
 remarkable scene followed. While the chief criminal was 
 yet unconscious that his plot was detected, Augustus sum- 
 moned him into his cabinet, and ordered a chair to be set 
 for him by the side of his own ; and then, desiring not to be 
 interrupted, proceeded to deliver a discourse, which, accord- 
 ing to his custom in matters of importance, he had already 
 prepared, and perhaps committed to writing. He reminded 
 
 Seneca, however, calls the conspirator Lucius, and places the event in the 
 fortieth year of Augustus (A. u. 731.), the scene in Gaul; Dion, on the other 
 hand, gives the name of Cnaeus, and supposes the circumstances to have oc- 
 curred twenty-six years later, and at Rome. It may be observed that a son of 
 Faustus Sulla must have been at least fifty at this latter date, nor do we know 
 why he should bear the name of China, though an adoption is not impossible. 
 Suetonius does not mention this among the conspiracies he enumerates against 
 Augustus. But, whatever doubt there may be about the person, the period, 
 and the place, the only point of importance, the fact, namely, of a conspicu- 
 ous act of clemency on the emperor's part, may be considered as established.
 
 224 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A. D. 4. 
 
 his uneasy auditor of the grace he had bestowed upon him, 
 though a political enemy and the son of an enemy ; he had 
 granted him life, had enriched and distinguished him. He 
 had raised him to the honour of the priesthood, over more than 
 one competitor from the ranks of the Caesareans themselves. 
 After all these favours, he continued, how could you plot to 
 take away my life ? Cinna could keep silence no longer : 
 he vehemently disclaimed the horrid imputation. You pro- 
 mised not to interrupt me, retorted Augustus, and proceeded 
 calmly with his harangue, unfolding all the details of the 
 conspiracy, and finally asking what end the traitor could 
 have proposed to himself; how could he hope to fill the 
 place of the emperor, who could not maintain his dignity 
 as a private citizen, but had recently suffered defeat in a 
 legal encounter with a freedman? Be assured, he added, 
 it is not myself alone who stand in your way, if such be 
 your ambition: neither the Paulli nor the Cossi, the Fabii 
 nor the Servilii, will suffer you to assume dominion over 
 them. Thus did he continue for more than two hours, to 
 pour forth his premeditated argument, before he arrived at 
 the unexpected conclusion, in which he assured the culprit, 
 not of forgiveness only, but of renewed favour. Let this, 
 Clemency of ^ e sa ^> be the commencement of friendship and 
 Augustus. confidence between us. Shortly afterwards he con- 
 ferred on him the consulship, and found him ever afterwards 
 a grateful and sincere adherent. 1 Cinna, at his death, be- 
 queathed his property to his illustrious benefactor ; and this, 
 it was remarked, was the last occasion of any attempt being 
 made against the life of the magnanimous Augustus. 9 
 
 Such is the story, the romance, should we call it?, 
 
 1 Cn. Cornelius Cinna was consul with Valerius Messala, A. u. 758. It 
 was this circumstance, perhaps, that induced Dion to place the conspiracy in 
 the year preceding. 
 
 a Senec. /. c. : " Haec cum dementia ad salutem securitatemque perduxit ; 
 hsec gratum ac favorabilem reddidit ; quamvis nondum subactis reipubl. cervi- 
 cibus manum imposuisset; hsec hodieque prsestat illi famam, qua? vix vivis 
 principibus servit."
 
 A.U. 757.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 225 
 
 which has embalmed the fame of the second Caesar's clem- 
 ency, and has served sometimes to balance in the Reflections 
 eyes of posterity the selfishness and cruelty of his m this story, 
 youth. It is related with ample details by two writers of 
 authority, whose testimonies may be considered as perfectly 
 independent. 1 One of them was living at the time, and has 
 obtained credit, not without reason, for his notices of his- 
 torical events interspersed among writings of a very different 
 character. The suspicion which would ordinarily attach to 
 such details of private conversation, is removed by the cir- 
 cumstance, elsewhere attested, that Augustus did habitually 
 prepare and commit to writing the discourses he was about 
 to hold ; not only harangues before the senate or arguments 
 in council, but even confidential deliberations with his own 
 consort. 5 There seems, therefore, no reason to question the 
 general correctness of the sketch of this remarkable inter- 
 view, as given by Seneca ; and assuming its authenticity, it 
 confirms in a striking manner the impression we have already 
 received of the absence of any public spirit in the opposition 
 which the imperial regime still occasionally experienced. It 
 is assumed without a remark, that the object of the conspira- 
 tor was simply to leap himself into the seat of Augustus ; that 
 the chiefs of the old nobility would resent his usurpation, not 
 as a public wrong, but merely as a grievance to themselves. 
 The pretence of liberty, once sanctioned by the name of Bru- 
 tus, was too transparent to be advanced again. It was no 
 better than a pretence fifty years before ; it had ceased to 
 
 1 Seneca and Dion Cassius, II. cc. The philosopher is supposed to have 
 been born a few years B. c., perhaps twenty years later than the date he gives 
 himself for the story, but six years before that assigned to it by the historian. 
 His father lived in Rome, and the great topics of the day were of course fa- 
 miliar to him. Dion, on the other hand, consulted the archives and historical 
 writers of note ; but, as a Greek, he is not likely to have made acquaintance 
 with the second-hand speculations in moral science of a Roman. 
 
 5 Suet. Oct. 84. : " Sennones quoque cum singulis, etiam cum Li via sua 
 graviores, non nisi in scriptis et e libello habebat, ne plus minusve loqueretur 
 ex tempore." It may be added that Augustus would naturally take care that 
 an incident so much to his credit should be circumstantially detailed. 
 VOL. iv. 15
 
 226 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D.4. 
 
 be admissible even as a pretence now. Fifty years before 
 the commonwealth might have boasted of one enthusiast in 
 Cicero, of a solitary fanatic in Cato : but the last of the race 
 of heroes had left no successors, and the old fictions of the 
 republic were no longer seriously regarded by a single citizen 
 of Rome. 
 
 Augustus had thus obtained the licence which he had 
 once complained was denied to him alone ; secure in the 
 Private habits enjoyment of his power, he could now exhibit 
 hfAeh^iour J ust resentment without necessarily entailing 
 rnen i9 Hiaveg ^ a ^ consequences on its object. 1 From prin- 
 and to women. c jpi e) as well as from natural disposition, he 
 maintained in all their strictness the rules of friendship or 
 fellowship as practised by the nobles of Rome. To admit a 
 companion to his hours of relaxation was with him a matter 
 of solemn ceremony, and established ever after a mutual 
 claim to confidence and regard. These connexions were 
 hallowed by the reciprocal attendance of the parties on occa- 
 sions of family interest ; they were cemented by correspon- 
 dence, by presents, and various tokens of mutual esteem or 
 good will. Such were the offices or duties of friendship, 
 which constituted a large part of Roman ethics. Such be- 
 nevolence Augustus rigidly exacted from his living associates : 
 it was understood that he expected it even from the dying ; 
 and though he was said to show no avidity for testamentary 
 bequests, and never to have accepted them from persons with 
 whom he was personally unconnected, he was strict in requir- 
 ing such marks of his friends' regard, and scrutinized them 
 with jealous solicitude, as genuine indications of feeling. If 
 gratified by a liberal bequest he generally waived it for the 
 benefit of the deceased's kindred. In the treatment of his 
 personal attendants, his slaves, or his freedmen, a class who 
 were often more really intimate with the noble Roman than 
 the fellow-citizens whom he admitted to his friendship, Au- 
 
 1 On the occasion of the suicide of Callus, " illacrymavit, et vicem suam 
 conquestus est, quod soli sibi non liceret amicia quantum vellet irasci." Suet. 
 Oct. 66. See above, ch. xxxiii.
 
 A.U. 757.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 227 
 
 gustus obtained a character for mildness and consideration. 1 
 Law and custom, however, gave him power of life and death 
 over the menials of his household, and he hardly resented 
 with greater sternness the crime of one of these who was 
 convicted of adultery with a matron, than that of another 
 who had opened his letters for a bribe. 3 His grandson's 
 attendants in the East were still slaves of the imperial family, 
 and upon these, on proof of their violence or peculation, he 
 exercised extreme severity. A third class of the emperor's 
 intimates were the women, with whom he amused his leisure. 
 Public opinion would have tolerated any amount of licentious- 
 ness in this particular, had the amours of the chief of the 
 citizens been confined to freedwomen or strangers. But to 
 force a slave was reputed indecorous, while to seduce a 
 matron was branded as a crime. The indulgences of Au- 
 gustus were said to be of the latter kind. His apologists 
 could only allege that his intrigues were a matter not of pas- 
 sion, but of state-craft, and that he extracted the secrets of his 
 adversaries from the weakness of their dissolute consorts. 
 This refers, perhaps, to the period of the great struggles of 
 his early career; no such explanation could be offered in 
 excuse for the weakness of his later years, 3 to which even 
 Livia, the paragon of matronhood, was supposed to have lent 
 herself. 
 
 The vice of gaming with dice must seem a venial offence 
 in a man whose ordinary pieces were nations, and whose 
 stakes were empires. Yet upon this subject the 
 
 . ,. _ Amused him- 
 
 Komans had also strong prejudices, and Augus- self with games 
 tus was gravely reproached for avowing that he 
 amused himself in his family, or among his nearest associates, 
 with games of chance for the most trifling ventures. He 
 
 1 Yet Augustus never condescended to ask a freedman to his table, except 
 in the peculiar instance of the traitor Menodorus. Suet. Oct. 74. 
 
 - Suet. Oct. 67. : " Proculum mori coegit ; Thallo .... crura 
 
 fregit." 
 
 8 Dion, Iviii. 2. : irdvra. ra SOKOVVTO. avrtf ^Se'tos irotovffa, tca\ p^rt &\\o n 
 rZv tKfivov iro\virpaynovovffa, Kal ret a<J>po5i'cna avrov aOvpna-ra p-fiTf Sicuicovaa 
 /*7)T alaBavfaQvLi rrpoatroiovnevT]. Comp. Suet. Oct. 69.
 
 228 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS [A.D. 4. 
 
 played, says Suetonius, openly and without disguise, even in 
 his old age ; nor did he confine himself to the genial month 
 of December, but indulged in this way any day of the year, 
 whether of business or recreation. 1 Letters have been pre- 
 served in which he recounts to Tiberius his bloodless contests 
 at the supper table with Vinicius and Silius ; how they had 
 played, for pastime not for gain, sporting a single denarius 
 on each die, and sweeping the modest stakes with the lucky 
 throw of the Venus. We played daily through the five-day 
 feast of Minerva, and kept the table warm. Your brother 
 
 was most vociferous* Yet he lost but little after all 
 
 Host for my part twenty pieces : but then Twos generous, as 
 usual, for had I insisted on all my winnings, or retained all I 
 gave away, I should have gained fifty. But I like to be 
 liberal, and I expect immortal honour for it. To Julia he 
 wrote : I make you a present of 250 denarii, the sum I gave 
 to each of my guests to play at dice with at supper, or, if they 
 pleased, at odd and even. 9 The biographer seems uncertain 
 whether he ought to pass over such errors without censure : 
 he contents himself, however, with adding that except in this 
 matter only the continence of the emperor was signal, and he 
 escaped the imputation of any other failing. 
 
 The moderation of Augustus in regard to the size and 
 outward show of his residences has been remarked in our 
 
 review of his public character ; it may be added, 
 taste and liter- that he caused even a house which Julia had 
 
 erected to be pulled down, as too sumptuous 
 and splendid. 4 In the interior of his dwellings he might have 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 71. : " Alese rumorem nullo modo expavit, lusitque simpliciter 
 et palam, etiam senex ; ac prseterquam Decembri mense, aliis quoque, festis 
 profestisque diebus." Comp. Martial, iv. 14. : 
 
 "Dum blanda vagus alea December 
 Incertis sonat hinc et hinc fritillis." 
 
 * This allusion to Drusus shows that the letter is not of late date ; and the 
 words, " we played ytpovrutus," innocently, as old men do, that is, for amuse- 
 ment merely, does not imply that Augustus and his party were themselves old. 
 
 * Suet. /. c. : " Si vellent inter se inter coenam vel tails vel par impar ludere." 
 4 Suet Oct. 73. 

 
 A. U. 757.] TINDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 indulged without invidious notice in the luxurious decorations 
 affected by the opulent magnates. It was from a peculiarity 
 of taste, therefore, rather than any politic calculation, that, 
 instead of works of painting or sculpture, he was fond of 
 collecting natural curiosities such as the fossil bones of mam- 
 moths and saurians, which were found in abundance in his 
 island of Capreae, and were vulgarly reputed to be the re- 
 mains of giants and heroes. Thrown from his earliest years 
 into the vortex of public action, and absorbed in a game of 
 life and death, it was impossible for Augustus to imbibe 
 tastes which are seldom acquired except by reflection and 
 leisure. Nor had he the temper which affects connoisseur- 
 ship without knowledge. His turn of mind was directed to 
 the positive and practical, and he disdained, after the manner 
 of an antique Roman, the pretence of sentiment or aesthetic 
 refinement. Though not unversed in literature, and even a 
 composer, like every well-bred Roman, both in prose and 
 verse, we can hardly suppose that he took any interest in 
 ethical speculations. 1 The companions of his leisure hours 
 were jurists, grammarians, and physicians, rather than phi- 
 losophers, and he is not reported to have lent the authority of 
 his name to any of the still contending schools of thought. 
 The logical habit of his mind is curiously exemplified in the 
 statement that he insisted on writing according, not to estab- 
 lished orthography, but to spoken sounds.* To the objection 
 that were such a practice to prevail, it would obliterate the 
 
 1 Suetonius {Oct. 85.) enumerates his pieces : a reply to Brutus's panegyric 
 on Cato (" rescripta Bruto de Catone ") ; verses on Sicily, with reference 
 probably to his campaigns there ; a tragedy of Ajax, which he blotted out 
 (" quaerentibus amicis quid Ajax ageret, respondit Ajacem suum in spongiam 
 incubuisse ") ; an account of his own life as far as the Cantabrian war, in 
 thirteen books ; and finally, an Exhortation to Philosophy, about the nature 
 of which nothing is said, and which may have merely contained elementary 
 instruction for his grandchildren. Though a reader of ancient poetry, and 
 especially of Greek comedy, his attention was chiefly directed to extracting 
 from it rules of life and policy : " in evolvendis utriusque linguae auctoribus 
 nihil aeque sectabatur quam praecepta et exempla publice vel privatim salubria." 
 
 * Suet. Oct. 88. : " Videtur eorum potiua sequi opinionem qui perinde 
 scribendum ac loquamur existiment."
 
 230 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 4. 
 
 historical derivation and continuity of language, he would 
 have been wholly inaccessible. Perhaps he would have been 
 not less indifferent to the argument, that it would throw the 
 great mass of existing literature into oblivion, and condemn 
 even the remainder to be retranscribed. On the same prin- 
 ciple, however, he was more legitimately careful to avoid 
 affectation and curious refinement in the choice of words : his 
 chief care, it is said, was to express his meaning clearly, and, 
 with this view, he disregarded even grammatical rules, and 
 took no pains to avoid repetitions. He amused himself 
 with ridiculing the opposite vices in the style of Maecenas, 
 whose sentences he compared to frizzled ringlets, and whose 
 language, he said, seemed steeped in myrrh and unguents. 
 He called Antonius a madman, for writing to be admired 
 rather than understood; nor did he spare his own pupil, 
 Tiberius, for the affectation of recondite and antique phrase- 
 ology. He urged his grandchild, Agrippina, to make it her 
 aim that neither readers nor hearers should have any trou- 
 ble in understanding her. 1 Meanwhile, the style of the im- 
 perial censor himself, which must have been a strange one, 
 found happily no imitators. Nothing, however, remains to 
 tell us how it was criticised in return : the minute particulars 
 regarding it preserved by Suetonius show how long the 
 Romans retained an interest in everything that related to 
 their great emperor ; but even at the distance of a hundred 
 years, it seemed more respectful to describe his peculiarities 
 than to reprove them. 
 
 The chief of the great empire, the head of so many depart- 
 ments of administration and the supervisor of all, had every 
 minute of his day occupied to overflowing. The 
 
 Augustus ad- j ., 
 
 dieted to super- details of the employment of his time may indeed 
 
 fill us with astonishment, when we reflect that 
 
 they refer not to the overwrought exertions of a few feverish 
 
 years, but to the whole course of a long life engaged in pub- 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 86. There is nothing peculiar in the style of the few verses 
 on the death of Virgil ascribed to Augustus.
 
 A.U. 757.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 231 
 
 lie affairs. Yet Augustus, we are told, never suffered busi- 
 ness, even during his campaigns, to stop his daily practice 
 of declamation, of reading and writing ; and the speeches he 
 addressed to the senate and other bodies were always care- 
 fully meditated, and even transcribed before delivery. 1 With 
 so much method, such constancy of purpose, together with 
 the self-control which pre-eminently marked him, it may 
 seem strange to us to read that he was as timid as a child in 
 all that related to the superstitions of his time. He trembled 
 at thunder and lightning, not from the vulgar fear of their 
 fatal effects, but from horror at their occult and mysterious 
 causes ; he marked the portents which seemed to attend on 
 his own career not less anxiously than the weakest of his 
 subjects ; he considered his own and others' dreams with pain- 
 ful solicitude, and observed all signs and auguries with a 
 serious curiosity. 2 He became, in fact, the victim of the 
 excessive precision and minuteness of his observation on 
 all subjects, which never suffered him to rest in the broad 
 principles either of belief or scepticism, but constantly ha- 
 rassed him with vain and frivolous inquiries into matters on 
 which no satisfaction could be attained. 
 
 After all, the most agreeable feature in the character of 
 Augustus, is the good-humoured cheerfulness, which sprang 
 apparently from a deep-seated contentment, and 
 
 , / His kindness 
 
 showed itself, among other things, in the pleas- andgentie- 
 ure he took in the simple sports of children, 
 whom he was always glad to have about him and to play 
 with, which overflowed also in tokens of affection towards 
 his nearest connexions. His playful intercourse with Maece- 
 nas and Horace, with his daughter Julia, with his grandsons 
 Caius and Lucius, and even with the morose Tiberius, was 
 the yearning of unaffected feeling. The recorded instances 
 of his wit and repartee all bear this character of good humour. 
 Some of them have been already given in the course of this 
 
 1 Aurel. Victor, Epit. 1.: " Ut nullus, ne in procinctu quidem, laberetur 
 dies quin legeret, scriberet, declamaret." Comp. Suet. Oct. 84. 
 Suet. Oct. 90-92.
 
 232 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 4. 
 
 narrative, the rest perhaps are hardly worth repeating. 1 But, 
 as Macrobius remarks, he deserves more admiration for the 
 sarcasms he suffered to be addressed to himself, some of which 
 were severely cutting, than for the gentle banter he indulged 
 in towards others. The attainment of his utmost desires had 
 left him placable in his animosities, and clement from temper 
 as well as policy. If a Roman had any true sensibility, it was 
 in his friendships that he displayed it, and towards his friends 
 Augustus was both constant and delicate. A generation had 
 now grown up to whom the horrors of the proscriptions were 
 only a whispered tale ; the revolutionary triumvir had become 
 in their eyes a kind and genial old man, grown grey in serv- 
 ing the commonwealth, and still the guardian genius of the 
 country he had saved. Loudly as the blessings of his rule 
 were proclaimed, they felt more sensibly than poets or orators 
 could tell them that his life was the pledge of their contin- 
 uance. As he grew weaker, and betrayed once more the infir- 
 mities of nature, which had caused such alarm to the Romans 
 in his younger days, even the best of patriots must have admit- 
 ted that he should either never have been born, or else should 
 never die. 1 That the citizens should have forgotten, under 
 their own vines and fig-trees, the crimes he had committed 
 against their unhappy sires may not be hard to comprehend : 
 it is more difficult to understand the real feelings of the man 
 who had done such things, and betrayed to the close of life 
 no uneasy recollection of them. 
 
 1 See especially the collection of his jests in Macrob. Sat. i. 4. In some 
 there is an ingenious play upon words which could not be expressed in another 
 language. Perhaps the best are the following : " Vettius cum monumentum 
 patris exarasset ; ait Augustus ; Hoc est vere monumentum patris colere ; " 
 and, " Cum multi Severe Cassio accusante absolverentur ; et architectus fori 
 August! exspectationem operis diu traheret; itajocatus est, Vellem Cassius et 
 meum forum accuset." 
 
 * Such may be supposed to be the meaning of Aurelius Victor, Epit. 1.: 
 " Cunctis vulgo jactantibus, utinam aut non nasceretur aut non moreretur: 
 alterura enim pessimi exempli, exitus praeclari alterum."
 
 A.U. 757.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 233 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXYIII. 
 
 TIBEEITJS, ON HIS RETURN FROM RHODES, AT FIRST TAKES NO PART IN PUBLIC 
 AFFAIRS. - AFTER THE DEATH OF CAIUS HE COMES AGAIN FORWARD. - HIS 
 MISSION TO GAUL IN 757. - HE REACHES THE ELBE. - THE MARCOMANNI 
 AND THE KINGDOM OF MAROBODUUS. - EXPEDITION OF TIBERIUS AGAINST 
 THE MARCOMANNI IN 759. - FRUSTRATED BY THE REVOLT OF THE PANNO- 
 NIANS. - ALARM AT ROME. - BANISHMENT OF AGRIPPA POSTUMUS. - THE 
 PANNONIANS ARE REDUCED BY TIBERIUS AND GERMANICUS, A. U. 759-762- 
 
 INTRIGUES AGAINST AUGUSTUS. BANISHMENT OF THE YOUNGER JULIA. 
 BANISHMENT OF THE POET OTIDIUS NASO, 761. - DISCONTENT OF THE CITI- 
 ZENS. - THE ROMAN PROVINCE BETWEEN THE RHINE AND ELBE. - OVER- 
 THROW OF VARUS AND LOSS OF THREE LEGIONS, 763. CONSTERNATION AT 
 ROME. - TIBERIUS SENT TO THE RHINE. OLD AGE OF AUGUSTUS. - TIBERIUS 
 RECEIVES THE PROCONSULAR POWER, AND IS VIRTUALLY ASSOCIATED IN THE 
 EMPIRE. - HIS HOPES OF THE SUCCESSION. - RUMOURED RECONCILIATION OF 
 AUGUSTUS WITH AGRIPPA POSTUMUS. - RECORD OF THE ACTS OF AUGUSTUS. 
 
 MONUMENTUM ANCYRANUM. LAST DAYS AND DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. CON- 
 
 CLUSION (A. D. 4-14, A. u. 757-767). 
 
 reinstated in the highest consideration to which a 
 -L citizen could attain beneath the shadow of the imperial 
 power, Tiberius might look with horror on the 
 humiliation, not unmingled with personal dan- pectTcJ 5ibe- 
 ger, from which he had so recently emerged. rinsatRhodes - 
 He had experienced, as the fruit of his perverse resentment, 
 how short is the step from retirement to oblivion, how pre- 
 carious the condition of a royal exile, how nigh, in the case 
 of the most exalted fortunes, disgrace ever borders on des- 
 truction. As the conviction was gradually forced upon him, 
 that his moody abandonment of his duties had been an act 
 of fatal impolicy, he had become disgusted with the retreat
 
 234: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 4. 
 
 which he had chosen, he had buried himself in the recesses 
 of his narrow prison-house, had thrown aside the garb of a 
 senator, and waived the -visits of the officers who still halted 
 on their route at Rhodes, or turned thither out of their way 
 to pay court to the emperor's son-in-law. From year to year 
 these visits of compliment and policy became more rare. 
 The displeasure of Augustus was more generally known, and 
 the courtiers took their cue from the indications he gave of 
 his sentiments. Tiberius was made aware that if the citizens 
 still spoke of him at all, it was with an affectation of pity or 
 resentment. One of the Gaulish states actually voted that 
 his statue in their forum should be overthrown. In the tent 
 of Caius Ca?sar officious persons were found to speak of him 
 contemptuously as the exile, and even offer to lay his head at 
 their young patron's feet. 1 This tone was encouraged, per- 
 haps, by the arrogant demeanour of the prince himself in the 
 interview they had had at Sanjos ; and the enmity of his tutor 
 Lollius towards Tiberius, whatever its motive, was sufficiently 
 notorious among the legions. Tiberius meanwhile, uneasy 
 in mind and dissatisfied with his own conduct, yet unable to 
 abate the emperor's resentment, fell into deep despondency. 
 Able as he undoubtedly was, he was deficient in a manly reli- 
 ance on his abilities, and under discouragement or perplexity 
 his faint-heartedness took refuge in dreams and omens. From 
 his childhood, indeed, like many a scion of a ruling house, 
 he had been pampered with auguries of his future greatness, 
 in the contemplation of which his native strength of character 
 may have been partly enervated. He now devoted himself 
 still more eagerly to the study of the future, in 
 
 He addicts . o J J 
 
 himself to which he consulted the skill of the astrologer 
 Thrasyllus. The post of seer in the household 
 of so wayward a patron must have been one of peculiar diffi- 
 culty, nor was it devoid of danger. Its occupant was the 
 unwilling depositary of many perilous secrets. He was em- 
 ployed to cast the horoscope, not of his master only, but of 
 his master's enemies or rivals, of the young Cassars, Caius 
 1 Suet Tib. 13.
 
 A.U. 757.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 235 
 
 and Lucius, possibly of Augustus himself. He was made the 
 reluctant accomplice of investigations which either were 
 already treasonable, or might hereafter become so. Among 
 the horrid stories regarding the recluse of Rhodes, which 
 were now noised abroad to the dismay of the citizens, it was 
 said that he kept an attendant of Herculean strength, to hurl 
 into the waves beneath his villa the wretches whom he had 
 thus possessed of his secret thoughts and practices. Among 
 these none was so eminent as Thrasyllus, and accordingly 
 the position of none was so perilous. The astrologer saved 
 himself by an ingenious device. Undoubtedly it required no 
 occult science to divine the cruel intentions of so jealous a 
 patron, nor in his moody humours to read the thoughts which 
 occupied him. One day Thrasyllus was observed to betray 
 sudden perturbation and terror. When Tiberius inquired the 
 cause, he declared that his art had just revealed to him that he 
 was at that moment in imminent peril. Tiberius, conscious 
 that he had just been meditating his companion's destruction, 
 was struck with this proof of his skill in divination, embraced 
 him with transports of delight, and gave him increasing marks 
 of his confidence. When his own turn came to watch anx- 
 iously from the cliffs the arrival of a messenger from Rome, 
 Avhom he expected to bring his own death-warrant, Thrasyllus, 
 on descrying the vessel, declared that, on the contrary, he 
 was the bearer of good tidings. The conjecture was again 
 fortunate. Tiberius was suddenly summoned from his exile 
 to the favour of Augustus, and even to the prospect of 
 empire. 1 
 
 Conscious of his error in pretending for once to act with 
 independence, Tiberius now sought to retrieve it by entire 
 submission to his chief's wishes. At Rhodes he had entreated 
 that an officer might be appointed to watch him, and report 
 
 1 These stories are referred to by Suetonius, Tib. 14., and Dion, Iv. 11. 
 They are gravely attested also by Tacitus, Ann. vi. 20, 21. The appearance 
 of an eagle, a bird which was never known to visit Rhodes, was hailed as a 
 favourable omen. The occurrence is ingeniously handled in an epigram of 
 Apollonidas, Anthol. Grcec. ii. 135., ed. Brunck.
 
 236 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 all his words and actions. On his return, under the condition 
 imposed by Caius that he should abstain from 
 public affairs, he renounced the mansion of Pom- 
 from b aif 'public peius, which he had formerly occupied in the fre- 
 quented quarter of the Carinae, and courted seclu- 
 sion in the more distant gardens of Maecenas. 1 His only pub- 
 lic act was to introduce his son Drusus, on coming of age, to 
 the citizens in the forum ; he surrendered himself to complete 
 retirement, associated with the poets and grammarians, stud- 
 ied sentimental and erotic versifiers, and employed himself in 
 composing an elegy on the death of Lucius Caesar." But 
 when the demise of the surviving brother opened to him 
 again a public career, and he was to believe that the republic 
 demanded his assistance, his long-restrained activity quickly 
 revived. He accepted a mission to the German frontier, 
 along which a general war of attack and defence on either 
 side had been raging for three years. 3 Since the last cam- 
 paign he had conducted in this quarter, the Romans had 
 acquired substantial advantages beyond the Rhine. The 
 command of the legions had devolved upon 
 
 Expeditions of -^ ... % ,, A 
 
 Domitiusin Domitius, the son of the Antoman renegade, 
 a man of energy and boldness, who had plunged 
 into the heart of Germany, crossed the Elbe, and planted on 
 its further bank an altar to Augustus, as a pledge of the 
 amicable relations he had succeeded for a moment in establish- 
 
 1 Suet. Tib. 16. : " Rornam reversus statim e Carinis et Pompeiana domo 
 Esquilias in hortos Maecenatis transmigrant." This fact deserves to be noticed 
 as a trait of manners. The life of public men in Rome was so thoroughly 
 public, their doors standing open from the earliest hour for the throng of 
 clients and attendants, that the removal of a few hundred paces from the cen- 
 tre of social movement was not without political significance. The dwellings 
 of the great men of the republic had always been in the immediate vicinity of 
 the Forum. It was part of Majcenas's modest policy to make choice of a sub- 
 urban locality. 
 
 1 Suet. Tib. 70: " Composuit et lyricum carmen cujus est titulus : conques- 
 tio de L. Caesaris morte." For his taste in poetry, and his admiration of the 
 Greek writers of the class of Parthenius and Rhianor, see the same author, /. e. 
 
 3 Veil. ii. 104. : " Bcllum quibusdam in locis gestum, quibusdam susten- 
 tatum feliciter."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 237 
 
 ing with the natives. 1 By the construction of a road across 
 the heaths and morasses of the Lippe valley, he had connect- 
 ed the frontiers of Gaul with the outposts of the empire on 
 the Weser. He had also transplanted the Hennunduri into 
 the vacant seats of the Marcomanni, who had quitted their 
 old habitations about the sources of the Danube, for a domi- 
 cile in the remoter region of Bohemia. It seems, however, 
 that Domitius had been unsuccessful in his demand on the 
 Cherusci, to receive back some exiles of their nation ; and in 
 quitting the province without chastising this affront, he had 
 perhaps subjected the Roman authority to contempt. Vini- 
 cius, who succeeded to his command, found him- andofVini- 
 self involved in a formidable war, for the con- cms 
 duct of which he was rewarded with the triumphal orna- 
 ments ; but had he performed any considerable exploit it is 
 not likely that a favourable historian, such as Velleius Pater- 
 culus, would have failed to specify it." 
 
 Tiberius quitted Rome for the frontiers in the summer of 
 757, and entered at once on the work before him. The events 
 of this invasion are not known to us; but the Tiberius in 
 powerful force he commanded seems to have ^"^"l; 
 speedily quelled resistance, and the only record * u - 757 - 
 of his exploit remains in the names of the tribes which are 
 said to have now submitted to him, the Bructeri, the Canine- 
 fates, the Attuarii, and Cherusci, lying between the lower 
 Rhine and the Weser, a district which the Roman arms had 
 already penetrated in every direction. His operations were 
 prolonged, perhaps, by the means he took to secure conquests 
 so often partially effected, until the middle of December, some 
 months beyond the usual military season in that severe cli- 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. iv. 44. : " Domitius flumen Albim exercitu transcendit, longius 
 penetrata Germania quam qnisquam priorum." Velleius, it will be seen, as- 
 signs this honour to his hero Tiberius. 
 
 3 Dion, IT. 10. ; Veil. /. c. M. Vinicius was the grandfather of the friend 
 to whom Velleius addresses his work. It is to be observed, however, that he 
 seems systematically to depreciate the predecessors of Tiberius in the German 
 command.
 
 238 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 5. 
 
 mate ; and when he left the army to revisit Rome, he fixed 
 its winter quarters at the sources of the Lippe, on the confines 
 of the forest of Teutobiirg. 1 From this point he meditated 
 a deliberate advance in the ensuing year, and his object in 
 now recrossing the Alps may have been to extort from the 
 growing timidity and reluctance of Augustus permission and 
 means for an enterprise on a grander scale. Returning ac- 
 cordingly to his legions early in the spring of 758, he organ- 
 A. D. 5. i se< ^ a combined expedition by land and sea, by 
 A. u. 758. w hich the wants of the invading army might be 
 supplied, and its baggage and machines of war transported 
 by water into the heart of the enemy's country. Reserving 
 for himself in person the conduct of the main body of his 
 forces in light array across the wilderness, he directed a numer- 
 ous flotilla, long since prepared on the Rhine, to follow in the 
 course explored by Drusus, along the shores of the Northern 
 Ocean ; to penetrate to the mouth of the Elbe, and ascend 
 its yet unknown waters, till the armaments should meet 
 together in an appointed latitude. 4 This remarkable com- 
 bination was actually earned into execution according to the 
 directions prescribed ; and the praises lavished upon it by 
 Yelleius, who shared himself in its hazards, cannot be re- 
 garded as too warm for so memorable an achievement, the 
 most remarkable for the success of its far-sighted arrange- 
 ments of any recorded in ancient military history. It is 
 much to be regretted that we should know so little of its 
 
 1 Veil. ii. 105. : " In mediis (Germanise) finibus ad caput Luppiae flumiuis : " 
 advanced, therefore, considerably to the east of Aliso. 
 
 1 Veil. ii. 106. This remarkable statement deserves to be given in full : 
 " Denique quod nunquam antea epe conceptum, nedum opere tentatum erat, 
 ad quadringentesimum milliarium a Rheno usque ad flumen, Albim, qui Sem- 
 nonum Hermundurorumque fines praeterfluit, Romanus cum signis perductus 
 est exercitus ; et eodem mira felicitate et cura ducis, temporum quoque obser- 
 vantia, classis quaj oceani circumnavigaverat sinus, ab inaudito atque incognito 
 ante mari flumine Albi subvecta, plurimarum gentium victoria, cum abundan- 
 tissima rerum omnium copia, exercitui Csesarique se junxit." The point of 
 junction is left quite indeterminate. It seems hardly credible that the Roman 
 flotilla can have ascended the stream to the latitude of the Lippe, or the con- 
 fluence of the Elbe and Saale.
 
 A.U. 758.] [JNDER THE EMPIRE. 239 
 
 details, which, if fully presented, would give us ample insight 
 into the resources of the Roman power. 1 We only know 
 that the advance of Tiberius had been triumphant, and per- 
 haps unresisted. In the lack of victories to celebrate, his 
 encomiast vaunts the merit, unusual in a Roman general, of 
 sparing the lives of his soldiers, and exposing himself to no 
 unnecessary risk. 2 But to Velleius the future emperor was a 
 demigod, and his deeds divine ; 3 and he records with enthu- 
 siasm the veneration with which the barbarians regarded 
 him/ While the army was encamped on the left bank of 
 the Elbe, and the natives, retreating before them, were col- 
 lected in force on the other, an aged chief put off from the 
 further side in a canoe, and from the middle of the stream 
 addressed the strangers, demanding leave to cross in safety, 
 and behold the person of their leader. Conducted to the 
 tent of the imperator, he surveyed him for a time with silent 
 admiration, and exclaimed, What madness is this of ours, to 
 contend against the unseen divinities, and not humbly to seek 
 their presence and make submission to their benign authority ! 
 JBut I, by the grace of Ccesar, have this day seen a god, a 
 privilege I never before attained nor hoped to attain. Thus 
 saying, he sought permission to touch the hand of the divini- 
 ty ; and as he paddled back across the stream still turned his 
 face towards the Roman bank, with his eyes fixed constantly 
 upon him. 5 It is obvious to remark, that if the story be true, 
 
 1 The battering train of a Roman army was generally little less cumbrous 
 than modern artillery : but in moving through a country where there were no 
 stone fortifications, it is probable that this was in a great degree dispensed with. 
 Nevertheless the provision for the conveyance of the men's baggage must have 
 been on an immense scale, even in their lightest array. 
 
 2 Veil. 1. c. : " Sine ullo detrimento commissi exercitus." 
 
 3 Veil. ii. 94 : " Caelestissimorum ejus operum per annos continues novem, 
 prsefectus aut legatus, spectator, pro captu mediocritatis mese adjutor fui." 
 
 4 There is something far more natural, and not less interesting, in the his- 
 torian's account of the joy with which the veterans hailed their old leader's re- 
 turn to military life. (ii. 103.) " Vidcmus te, imperator? salvum recepimus? 
 ac deinde, ego tecum, imperator, in Armenia, ego in Rhxtia fui ; ego a te in 
 Vindelicis, ego in Pannonia, ego in Germania donatus sum ! " 
 
 6 Veil. ii. 107. Compare an epigram of Martial, v. 3.
 
 24:0 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A. D. 4. 
 
 
 
 the scene miglit have easily been arranged, by the prince's 
 flatterers, to confirm the allegiance of the native chiefs at- 
 tending in his camp. But the children of the German forests 
 were fully prepared to accept the divine character of the 
 great and powerful among men, and the altar recently erected 
 on their soil had already attracted votaries among them. 
 This expedition, however remarkable in its circumstances, 
 had no more important results than those which preceded it. 
 Once only had the Germans ventured to measure their strength 
 with the advancing legions, when they paid for their rashness 
 by a signal discomfiture : nevertheless the Romans, on reti- 
 ring in the autumn, had left behind them no permanent im- 
 pression of their successes. 
 
 These repeated advances, however, with the speedy retreat 
 
 and proffered submission of the natives, though far from 
 
 having the character of conquests, could not 
 
 The influence , , ., . , 
 
 of Rome ex- altogether tail in extending the influence of 
 
 tended by these T> ,r r ,. f -, 
 
 repeated inva- Kome throughout a great portion of central 
 Europe. They inspired a strong sense of her 
 invincibility, and of her conquering destiny ; at the same 
 time they exalted the respect of the barbarians for the south- 
 ern civilization, which could marshal such irresistible forces 
 at so vast a distance from the sources of its power. Accord- 
 ingly the young chiefs of the Rhine and Elbeland crowded 
 to Rome, to learn her lessons of government on the spot ; 
 while many of their followers and dependants settled within 
 her walls. The views of Tiberius extended to the complete 
 subjugation of the whole country before him ; but he had not 
 the military ardour of the conqueror of the Gauls, nor was he 
 pressed for time like the rival of Pompeius : he could afford 
 to wait upon events, and leave the consummation of his policy 
 to be developed hereafter. Meanwhile, the position to which 
 he had been elevated rendered him almost independent of the 
 scruples of Augustus, whose discreet and dilatory system he 
 was able, when he chose, to overrule. This hesitation, in- 
 deed, on the emperor's part was not inadequately justified by 
 the circumstances of the time. Augustus perceived but too
 
 A.U.757.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 241 
 
 clearly the goal to which affairs were tending, the Au ugtug heg . 
 unchecked preponderance of the military power. t:ites in * he , 
 
 * f . J r prosecution of 
 
 The mercenaries now enlisted under the Roman l e conquest of 
 eagles began to clamour for increased pay and 
 privileges, and to remonstrate against the protracted servitude 
 to which they were condemned by the reluctance of the citi- 
 zens to embrace the profession of arms. The nobles and men 
 of fortune, the strength of the ancient legions, were fully em- 
 ployed, by the cautious but self-defeating policy of the em- 
 peror, in the civil business of the state ; while the populace, 
 from whom Marius and Ca3sar had not disdained to recruit, 
 were contented with the dole of public corn, and refused to 
 earn their bread under the austere discipline of the camp. 
 Augustus, when he looked around him, might perceive that 
 this was but one of many symptoms of the decline of national 
 spirit, and the failure of his elaborate scheme for reconstruct- 
 ing the nation. To many it might seem a trifling matter, 
 that he was now obliged, for want of legitimate candidates 
 for the Vestal priesthood, to admit the daughters of freed- 
 men to that dignity ; nevertheless it betrayed, but too plainly, 
 to the clear view of the imperial reformer, the loss of an ele- 
 ment of power in the decay of a venerable tradition. 1 At 
 such a moment the acquisition of a new province with its 
 burdens and obligations was hardly a matter of felicitation ; 
 but the Jews had complained so loudly of the tyranny of Ar- 
 chelaus, that Augustus was induced to summon him to Rome, 
 and thence relegate him to Vienna in Gaul, while he satisfied 
 the demands of his people by annexing his dominions to the 
 empire. 4 It was now necessary to keep a regular force stationed 
 in the strong places of Judea ; but even the means of pay- 
 ing the soldiery at home had become a question of difficulty. 
 Augustus largely contributed to the public service from his 
 private resources; he encouraged his allies also to bestow 
 
 1 Dion, Iv. 22. 
 
 4 Joseph. Antiq. xvii. 13. 2., xviii. 2. 1. Judea was made a province in 
 the last half of the year 759 ; in the tenth year of Archelaus's government. 
 Dion, Iv. 27. ; Bell. Jvd. ii. 7. 3. 
 VOL. iv. 16
 
 242 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 their liberality in the same manner ; yet he refrained from 
 soliciting, nor would he even accept, the subscriptions of 
 individual citizens. He was glad perhaps to profit by a tran- 
 sient necessity for the imposition of a permanent charge OD 
 the Roman people, who, since they had been relieved from 
 the land-tax, were jealous of any encroachment on their cher- 
 ished immunity. While he decreed the levy of one twentieth 
 upon the succession to property, he invited the senators to 
 recommend any other tax they deemed more eligible ; well 
 assured that while many of them would be eager to submit 
 to his own view, those who ventured to dissent from it would 
 neutralize their opposition by the conflict of opinions among 
 themselves. 1 
 
 To return, however, to the northern frontiers, to which 
 
 our eyes have been so frequently directed, we may observe 
 
 that, within a very recent period, a remarkable 
 
 Movements of . J , r 
 
 the Marcoman- revolution had taken place in the interior of Ger- 
 many, which must be ascribed to the influence of 
 a single chief. The designation of Marcomanni had been 
 given by the western tribes to a Suevic clan, settled, as 
 their name imports, on the march or border of the German 
 territory. 8 They formed the advanced guard of the nation 
 in its struggles to extend westward, and to penetrate through 
 the denies of Helvetia into the pastures of Gaul. But the 
 restoration of the Helvetii by Caesar, and the subsequent in- 
 trusion of Gaulish and Roman settlers on the right bank of 
 the Rhine, seem to have harassed the Marcomanni, and made 
 them dissatisfied with possessions which they could not main- 
 
 1 Dion, lv. 25. 
 
 a This is one of the earliest and clearest indications of the radical identity 
 of the German language of the first and the nineteenth century. The Marco- 
 manni are evidently the men of the marca or limes, the line which divides one 
 territory from another. Zeuss, die Deutscken, &c., p. 114. Another deriva- 
 tion assigned, is from markir, a wood But this word is itself derived from 
 marca. Zeuss refers to Grimm, Rechtsalterthiim. p. 497. Some writers Ger- 
 manize Maroboduus into Marbod. But the meaning of this word is not obvious, 
 and here and elsewhere I have generally preferred the Latin as the only au- 
 thorized form.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 243 
 
 tain inviolate. They were induced by the authority of their 
 chief Maroboduus, or Marbod, to remove in a body eastward : 
 crossing the Mons Gabreta or Erzgebirge, they poured into 
 the district of Boiohemum, the homes of the Boil, and estab- 
 lished themselves in the broad, lozenge-shaped valley of the 
 Moldau and Upper Elbe. Within this territory, entrenched in 
 a circumvallation of mountains, and doubly defended by rocks 
 and forests, the great South-German empire was rapidly reared 
 under the sway of its spirited chieftain, who had The kingdom 
 profited by the lessons he had learned in an S^n 8 ' 
 early residence at Rome. 1 Flanked by the Na- German y- 
 risci on one side and the Quadi on the other, the Marcomanni 
 and their allies confronted, along the whole line of the Upper 
 Danube, the garrisons of Noricum and Vindelicia. Marobo- 
 duus maintained a regular force of seventy thousand foot and 
 four thousand horse, armed and disciplined after the Roman 
 model ; and these troops, while still unmolested by the south- 
 ern invaders, he had exercised in reducing his German neigh- 
 bours, and consolidating his wide possessions. If at an earlier 
 period the Marcomanni had retired before the aggressions of 
 the Roman power, they now no longer pretended to fear it : 
 the provincials who fled from the tyranny of the proconsuls 
 found an hospitable reception beyond the Danube ; while in 
 the discussions which ensued, the envoys of Maroboduus were 
 instructed to alternate a tone of deference towards their for- 
 midable rivals, with the boldest assertions of equality and 
 independence. 5 
 
 The German nations placed themselves for the most part 
 under the lead of a single chieftain, whom the Romans were 
 accustomed to describe by the general designa- 
 tion of king. But the power of this chief was 
 limited on all sides by prescriptive usage, and 
 the authority of force and numbers. A political education 
 
 1 Veil. ii. 108. : " Maroboduus certum imperium vimque regiam 
 
 complexus anirao." 
 
 * Veil. ii. 109. : "Legati quos mittebat ad Csesares interdum ut supplicem 
 commendabant, interdum ut pro pari loquebantur."
 
 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 6. 
 
 at the capital of the empire was ill-suited to the heir of such 
 a sovereignty as this. No sooner had Maroboduus returned 
 to his own country, than he aspired to a loftier eminence 
 above the jealous control of his armed peers. The crisis in 
 the fortunes of his nation furnished an opportunity for secur- 
 ing the object of his ambition, and he seems to have acquired 
 a much more absolute sway than his people had before ad- 
 mitted. This was the circumstance which made him pecu- 
 liarly formidable to the Romans. The imperators on the 
 frontiers had hitherto profited far more by the divisions of 
 their enemies, than by the vigour of their own arms. Ac- 
 cordingly, when they beheld for the first time a nation of 
 warriors arrayed under the control of a single hand, they 
 felt deprived of their wonted advantage, and reduced to 
 contend on equal terms with an opponent whose strength 
 and courage might compensate for inferior discipline. Hence 
 it was that they compared the king of the Marcomanni to 
 Pyrrhus and Antiochus, and declared that he was not less 
 dangerous to their own empire than the Macedonian Philip 
 had proved to Athens. 1 They added that the frontiers of his 
 kingdom and dependencies extended to within two hundred 
 miles of Italy : it was more important to observe that the 
 interval was occupied by half-conquered foreigners, ready to 
 hail with acclamations the advance of a German deliverer. 
 But the despotism of Maroboduus was in fact a source of 
 weakness rather than of strength ; for it tended to separate 
 his interests from those of the brave warriors of the north, 
 and divided into two jealous camps the great Teutonic na- 
 tion. 
 
 At the commencement of 759, Tiberius had exchanged his 
 post on the Rhine for the command of the legions on the sister- 
 Campaign of stream of the Danube. Preparations had been 
 f,u n e made for a grand attack on the Marcomanni, 
 Marcomanni. wnO se insolence, as the Romans designated it, 
 A.u.759. h a a a ff or ded sufficient pretext for a declaration 
 
 1 Tacitus (Ann. ii. 62.) puts this declaration, at a later period, into the 
 mouth of Tiberius.
 
 A.U. 759.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 245 
 
 of war. The chief station of the Romans in this quarter was 
 at Carnuntum, the gate of western Europe, where her great- 
 est river issues from the hills of the Celt and Teuton into the 
 plains of the Scythian and Sannatian. At this important 
 post, which served to overawe both Noricum and Pannonia, 
 a force, which may be estimated at six legions, was collect- 
 ed for the projected invasion. Tiberius, placing himself at 
 their head, proceeded to lead them westward, in order to 
 meet an army of not inferior strength which Saturninus was 
 bringing from the Rhine, cutting his way with spade and axe 
 through the heart of the Hercynian forest. The boldness of 
 this movement must be allowed for an instant to arrest our 
 attention. There was not, indeed, much apprehension of any 
 armed opposition being made to it. The Suevic tribes, 
 through whose territories it would be directed, had for the 
 most part abandoned their homes ; and a large portion of 
 the track it followed lay within the undisputed domain of 
 the wilderness. But when we consider how ignorant the 
 Romans were of these savage regions, the rudeness of their 
 methods of exploration by sea or land, and the gloom of the 
 pathless forest which they had to traverse without even the 
 compass for their guide, we must confess that the forethought 
 and methodical arrangement which could insure the meeting 
 of two armies from such distant points at an appointed spot, 
 was not less admirable than the just self-confidence which 
 ventured to rely on them. It is not quite clear, from the 
 meagre account of our historian, whether this spot was on 
 the right bank of the Danube or the left. The latter seems, 
 however, the more probable. Tiberius crossed the river at 
 Carnuntum, and struck in a north-westerly direction towards 
 the frontiers of Bohemia. He had arrived within five marches 
 of the enemy's border ; and Saturninus was at the same mo- 
 ment at no greater distance from it on the opposite side. 
 Whatever might have been the further result of He IB recalled 
 the arduous campaign in prospect, this combi- ^n^p 8 ^! 60 " 
 nation, which for its magnitude and precision nonia - 
 deserves to be compared with that which we have recently
 
 246 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A. D. 6. 
 
 admired, had, in fact, virtually succeeded, when Tiberius was 
 disconcerted by the report of an insurrection in Pannonia. 
 The provincial garrisons had been drafted from their camps, 
 and the natives, who had groaned under the exactions of the 
 Roman administration, finding themselves relieved from the 
 accustomed pressure of military force, sprang with vehemence 
 to arms. With his prey almost in his clutches, and a victory 
 in prospect more magnificent than any since those of Aquas 
 SextiaB and VercellaB, Tiberius was too discreet to hazard for 
 his own glory the peace and safety of the empire. He offered 
 terms to Maroboduus, who, with less discretion, was eager to 
 accept them. The Roman armies were ordered to retreat 
 simultaneously, and they regained their provinces at least 
 without dishonour. 1 
 
 The nations through which the flame of rebellion had 
 spread counted, according to a loose calculation, eight hun- 
 dred thousand souls ; the warriors in arms, whose 
 
 General out- . . 
 
 break of the force might be more accurately estimated, were 
 Dalmatians' computed at two hundred thousand infantry and 
 eight thousand horse." Their numbers, however, 
 were not so formidable as the union they maintained among 
 themselves, and the concert which might be apprehended 
 between them and the various tribes from the Adriatic to the 
 Euxine. The immediate cause of this revolt was the raising 
 of levies by Messalinus, the imperial legate, for enlistment in 
 the army of the Danube. But the warriors of the northern 
 provinces were not generally averse to the risks and glories 
 of Roman service, and it was rather the tyranny of the 
 government which always pressed most harshly on the sub- 
 jects whose loyalty was least assured, that drove them to the 
 
 1 Dion, Iv. 28. ; Veil. ii. 112. : " Turn necessaria gloriosis praeposita, neque 
 tntum visum, abdito in interiora exercitu, vacuam tarn vicino hosti Italiam re- 
 linquere." Tac. Ann. ii. 46. : " Conditionibus aequis discessum." 
 
 5 This, it will be remembered, is nearly the same proportion of fighting 
 men to a whole population as that which was recorded among the Helvetians. 
 These provinces had been for several years under the Roman dominion, and 
 the population may have been numbered for purposes of administration. In 
 such a case the slaves were probably omitted from the account.
 
 A.U.T59.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 desperate resource of insurrection. The Dalmatians and Uly- 
 rians, the nearest to Italy, whose long resistance, though 
 productive of few great men or great events, was deemed 
 worthy of detailed recital by the historiographer of the ene- 
 mies of Rome, were led by chiefs whose names, Bato and 
 Pinnes, have been preserved to us. 1 They attacked and over- 
 powered some cohorts stationed in their own country, then 
 turned southward, assaulted Salona on the Adriatic without 
 success, and marched southward as far as Apollonia, to check 
 perhaps the advance of reinforcements from Greece. At the 
 same time a Pannonian chief, named also Gato, attempted to 
 carry the strong post of Sirmium ; and though he was re- 
 pulsed and defeated by Caecina on the Drave, the loss of the 
 Romans was such as almost to convert his defeat into a vic- 
 tory. The readiness with which the Pannonians had learnt, 
 not only the habits and language, but the tactics of their con- 
 querors, made them peculiarly formidable. No nation, it was 
 affirmed, that had ever opposed the Romans, had so well 
 weighed its resources, or seized more warily the moment for 
 exerting them. The rout of the local garrisons, the extermi- 
 nation of the Roman colonists, the abortive attack upon Sir- 
 mium, were only preludes to an organized and general com- 
 bination against the foreign intruders. On the one hand, the 
 Dacians and Sarmatians were encouraged to attack the ex- 
 treme right of the Roman line on the Danube ; on the other, 
 preparations were made for penetrating into Italy itself by 
 the route of Nauportus and Tergeste. 2 
 
 The accessibility of Italy upon this side, where her moun- 
 
 1 Dion, Iv. 29. Besides the " Civil Wars " of Rome, Appian wrote the 
 " Affairs," that is, the " contests with the republic" of the Illyrians, the Mace- 
 donians, and the Carthaginians. 
 
 2 Veil. ii. 110. : " Pars petere Italiam decreverat, junctam sibi Nauporttet 
 Tergestis confinio." Nauportus is evidently from its name the station of a flo- 
 tilla, such as the Romans maintained on some of their great frontier rivers. 
 It must have stood on the banks of the Save, near ^Emona, the modern Lay- 
 bach. D'Anville supposes it to be Ober-Laybach, on the eastern declivity of 
 the Carnian Alps. The ancient as well as the modern road from Italy lay 
 through these places.
 
 248 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 6. 
 
 tain barrier sinks most nearly to the level of the plains, was 
 Consternation at all times a matter of anxiety to her rulers. 
 Aism^ofAu- Augustus, shaken by years and dispirited by 
 gustus. family losses, forgot that the rear of the enemy 
 
 was pressed by the armaments of Tiberius, and exclaimed, 
 with petulant vexation, that ten days might bring them to 
 the gates of Rome. The consternation became general. In 
 earlier times the republic had disdained to maintain a defen- 
 sive force before the walls of the capital. Every citizen in 
 those days was a soldier, every father of a family was a vete- 
 ran of many campaigns. Rome could never be taken by sur- 
 prise. But the vast change in her social circumstances had 
 produced no alteration in her material defences. Italy was 
 allowed to remain denuded of regular troops, and her children 
 shrank from a service to which they were unaccustomed and 
 averse. It required a strong appeal to their fears to support 
 the vigorous measures which seemed requisite for their safety. 
 The veterans were summoned from their estates ; the heads 
 of every household, male or female, were required to furnish 
 a contingent of freedmen for military service ; senators and 
 knights were bid to unbar the doors of their factories, and 
 pour forth their slaves, whom the state enfranchised before 
 putting arms into their hands. 1 
 
 Whatever apprehensions the emperor may have felt at 
 this moment, they were probably excited not so much by the 
 state of affairs hostility of the barbarians beyond the Alps, as 
 at Rome. by t ^ e disquietude which had for some time pre- 
 vailed at Rome. It can hardly be said that the citizens had 
 any particular distress to complain of, beyond the occasional 
 recurrence of scarcities and inundations. Nevertheless, their 
 
 1 Veil. ii. 111. Comp. Dion, Iv. 31. It must be observed that Velleius 
 speaks in much stronger terms than Dion of the anxiety of this crisis, and may 
 fairly be suspected of exaggerating it from his known disposition to flatter 
 Tiberius. Nevertheless, Suetonius, no flatterer of Tiberius, or of any other 
 of the Caesars, could declare that Rome had experienced no such dangers since 
 the period of the Punic wars. Tib. 16. : " Quod gravissimum omnium exter- 
 norum bellorum post Punica per quindecim legiones paremque auxiliorum co- 
 piam triennio gessit."
 
 A. U. 759.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 24:9 
 
 complaints were becoming louder and more frequent. Au- 
 gustus had yielded to their outcries and redoubled his lar- 
 gesses. To rid the city of its superfluous consumers, he had 
 ordered that the gladiators and the slaves exposed for sale 
 should be removed to a hundred miles' distance. He set 
 the example of dismissing a portion of his own household ; 
 and he gave the senators permission, long jealously withheld, 
 to quit Rome for their estates. 1 But fresh causes of discon- 
 tent arose with the same harassing results. Fires broke out 
 in the city in quickly recurring succession. Again the people 
 murmured, as if their chief were responsible for assaults of 
 every element. Under despotic governments, in- Di gco ntent of 
 cendiary fives have been employed to arrest the man^tldTn 
 attention of the rulers to the wants of their sub- variouB wa >' 8 - 
 jects, and it is not impossible that the hands of citizens them- 
 selves may have caused the conflagrations they now resented. 
 This, however, was the origin of the nightly watch of the 
 city, a police formed in the first instance from the emperor's 
 own freedmen, and meant to serve a temporary purpose, but 
 soon found too useful, both to the public service and the im- 
 perial interests, to be abandoned. 8 Such long neglect of so 
 obvious a precaution shows strongly the power of the aristo- 
 cratic element in the old constitution. The nobles, secure in 
 their isolated dwellings on the hills of Rome, had no concern 
 for the frail and crowded tenements of the commons, and let 
 matters take their course with frigid indiflerence.* But not- 
 withstanding these concessions made to the popular cry by 
 the patron of the people, the discontent of the citizens was 
 
 1 Dion, lv. 22, 23. 26. ; Oros. vii. 3. A. c. Y58, *759 ; Fischer, Roem. Zeit. 
 
 3 Suet. Oct. 30. ; Dion, lv. 26. 
 
 s The history of this subject is given briefly by Paulus in the Digest, i. 15. 
 1. : " Apud vetustiores incendiis arcendis triumviri prseerant, qui ab eo quod 
 excubias agebant nocturni dicti sunt. Interveniebant non nunquam et aediles 
 et tribuni plebis. Erat autem familia publica circa portam et muros disposita, 
 unde ei opus esset evocabatur. Fuerant et private familiae qui incendia vel 
 mercede vel gratia exstinguerent." The service was thus left to the occasional 
 energy of the magistrates or to private enterprise. " Deinde D. Augustus 
 maluit per se huic rei consuli." Reimar on Dion, I. c.
 
 250 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 6. 
 
 little appeased. They had become tired of their favourite. 
 Augustus had grown old and morose ; his figure had lost its 
 grace, his government its brilliancy. The smoothness with 
 which the machine of empire moved allowed men to forget 
 how easily it might be disarranged, and how fatal might be 
 the consequences of disturbance. The mildness of the admin- 
 istration encouraged the murmurs of the discontented, and 
 many an aimless muttering of change was heard in the famil- 
 iar talk of a thoughtless populace. 1 Seditious placards were 
 posted at night in the public places. The origin of these 
 demonstrations was said to be traced to a certain Plautius 
 Rufus, a noble of no personal distinction ; it was believed, 
 however, that he was only an instrument in the hands of con- 
 cealed agitators." Suspicion and apprehension everywhere 
 prevailed ; and these were increased rather than allayed by 
 the inquiries of the government, which offered rewards for 
 the discovery of the guilty and obtained numerous denuncia- 
 tions. A scarcity, with which the city was threatened, con- 
 tributed to aggravate alarm, which only departed with the 
 return of plenty and security ; when good humour was resto- 
 Good humour Te & ty ^ e games of Tiberius and the young Ger- 
 gam^of b Tibe- e manicus in honour of the still lamented Drusus. 
 Still greater was the delight universally mani- 
 fested when Tiberius inscribed his deceased brother's name, 
 in conjunction with his own, on the temple he now dedicated 
 to the twin-deities, Castor and Pollux.' 
 
 But scarcely had this cloud passed away, and Tiberius 
 returned to the attack on Maroboduus beyond the Danube, 
 Alacrity of the than the news arrived of the great Pannonian 
 obeying the revolt, which had broken out in his rear. For- 
 
 1 Dion, Iv. 27. : *ol n-oAAa ntv KO! ipayfpws vewrtpoVoia 5ieA.aA.ow. 
 
 5 Suet Oct. 25. ; Dion, /. c. 
 
 * This dedication (Suet. Tib. 20.) seems to have taken place early in the 
 spring of 759, when Tiberius was again at Rome for a few months before pro- 
 ceeding to the campaign on the Danube. Dion, Iv. 27., who adds, rd rf yap 
 rS>v Tt6\tnov fiuo Siy'icei, KCU tt rrjv ir&\iv, dfort of>a<rx' <rwfX<** ivtfyoi-ra, 
 rb fi.fi> TI, -rpa.yfJLa.ruev TIVUIV ?y*Ka, rb 5t JHj jrAtJo-rov, (po&ovptvos HT] & AC- 
 yovffTot &\\ov rtva, irapo TT)V awovcrtay airrov
 
 A.U. 759.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 251 
 
 tunately, abundance reigned at this moment in directions of 
 the city, and while the supply of their simple 
 necessaries was abundant, the populace was never dangerous 
 to the government which maintained it hi idleness. Anxious 
 as Augustus must have been, at such a crisis, with the possi- 
 bility of a domestic insurrection to complicate and aggravate 
 it, he might be reassured by the trembling eagerness with 
 which all classes now joined in obeying his directions for 
 their Common safety. The citizens submitted to the fresh 
 imposition of a fiftieth on the sale of slaves ; and these re- 
 peated recognitions, however trifling in amount, of their lia- 
 bility to share the burdens of their subjects, served to confirm 
 an important principle. They marked, in a way which no 
 politician could mistake, the equalization of all classes under 
 the rising monarchy of the empire. 
 
 The new levies, hastily raised and equipped, were entrusted 
 to the command of the youthful Germanicus, who had now 
 nearly completed his twenty-first year. 1 The 
 name he bore and the favour which already Germanicus in 
 
 1-11. r> . , Pannonia. 
 
 attached to him, marked him as a ntting leader A. D. 7. 
 for this popular armament : and Augustus beheld 
 with satisfaction in the third generation of his family, quali- 
 ties, both of mind and person, which augured the highest 
 distinction. This was the more consolatory to the bereaved 
 grandsire, as the next in years of the Csesarean house, entitled 
 not less from his name than Germanicus to the love of the 
 soldiers, though placed in the same line of succession with 
 him, seemed to offer no such happy promise. This was 
 Agrippa Postumus, the youngest child of Julia, born after 
 his father's decease, on whom, as nearest to him in blood, the 
 affection Augustus had lavished on Caius and Lucius might 
 
 1 The younger Germanicus, son of Nero Claudius Drusus, to whom the 
 title of Germanicus was assigned after his father's premature death, was born 
 A. u. 739, probably in September. He was now despatched on his first cam- 
 paign in the summer of 760. Dion, 1 v. 30. His praenomen is not ascertained ; 
 it was probably the same as his father's. Nero, which was originally a cogno- 
 men, became at this time a praenomen of the Claudian house. Suet. Claud. 1.
 
 252 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 6. 
 
 now be expected to devolve. But from some defect of breed- 
 Disappoint- ing, if not of temper, the last of the Agrippas 
 t^ e s n attht ugT18 ' grievously degenerated from his kindred. Un- 
 AgrippaPostu- g am ty m person, and awkward in every gesture, 
 muB - he seemed unsusceptible, both in mind and body, 
 
 of the training suitable to his station. Docility, both moral 
 and physical, was a quality to which the Romans attached 
 peculiar importance. They considered a plastic nature the 
 great mark of distinction between the gentle and the base, 
 the free and the servile character ; and as regarded his own 
 family, Augustus was no doubt peculiarly sensitive on this 
 point, which seemed to touch on his imperial mission: for 
 the beauty of his own person, and the fineness of his intellect, 
 constituted a powerful element in his claim, as well as in that 
 of the divine Julius, to reign over the free Roman people. 
 That any of his descendants, whom he had himself reared or 
 adopted, should prove unworthy in manners or appearance of 
 the ambrosian blood of their parent Venus, pierced him to 
 the quick. He considered it as a personal disgrace, implying 
 some defect on his own part ; and he could not bear that 
 such a failure should be manifested in the face of his ad- 
 mirers. To this sentiment the unfortunate but guilty Julia 
 had been partly sacrificed : Agrippa, even more unfortunate, 
 was at least guiltless. The worst that could be alleged 
 against him was that his manners were what the Romans 
 contemptuously designated as servile: he had neither the 
 martial nor the literary spirit of the true optimate. In- 
 stead of devoting himself to the mimic war of the Campus 
 Martius or the mimic debates of the rhetoricians' schools, he 
 would recline in the shade of a Baian portico, and listlessly 
 angle in the placid waters beneath it. For the triumphs of 
 his rod and line he claimed, it was said, the attributes of 
 Neptune, an assumption which had been deemed abominable 
 even in Sextus, when he ruled supreme over the Tyrrhene 
 and Ionian, and was master of a thousand triremes. 1 Doubt- 
 less vigilant enemies were not wanting to insinuate that his 
 1 Dion, lv. 32.
 
 A.U. 760.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 253 
 
 wanton mother had played false to her husband, and suffered 
 the turbid blood of a plebeian paramour to mingle with the 
 Julian ichor. Of all the direct descendants of Augustus this 
 youth remained alone to dispute with the Claudian branch of 
 the Caesarean stem the honours which were now almost as- 
 sured to it. The intrigues of Livia did not sleep in the last 
 crisis of the long contest she had waged against the claims 
 of the rival race. If, as was reported, Agrippa allowed him- 
 self to use the language of exasperation against her, we may 
 believe that he at least gave credence to the current stories 
 of her machinations and crimes. But it is added that, in his 
 bursts of uncontrolled passion, he did not spare Augustus 
 himself, whom he accused of depriving him of his legitimate 
 patrimony, by the acceptance of his father's legacy. 
 
 To make such a charge as this against the man who was 
 able, and naturally willing, to indemnify him far beyond any 
 loss he had sustained, was an act of stolid per- 
 
 V, Banishment of 
 
 versity; and such was the character generally, Agrippa Postu- 
 
 -it nms. 
 
 and we must suppose not unjustly, attributed to 
 Postumus. 1 The emperor determined, with one last pang, to 
 rid himself of the embarrassment of so unworthy a claimant 
 on his favour. He caused him to be arrested and carried to 
 Planasia, a barren rock off the coast of Ilva, and there de- 
 tained as a state prisoner. This extreme act of parental 
 authority towards a child who had already assumed the toga, 
 and was accused of no crime, he caused the senate to ratify 
 by a decree, in which its motives were explained, and justified 
 no doubt by ancient precedents. 2 Having nerved himself 
 with fortitude thus to violate his feelings for the common 
 weal, as he imagined, perhaps more truly as a sacrifice to his 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. i. 3. : " Rudem sane bonarum artium et robore corporis sto- 
 lide ferocem." Yell. ii. 112. : " Mira pravitate animi atque ingenii in prasci- 
 pitia conversus." Suet. Oct. 65. : " Ingenium sordidum et ferox." 
 
 a Tac. Ann. i. 6. : " Multa saevaque Augustus de moribus adolescentis 
 questus, ut exilium ejus senatusconsulto sanciretur perfecerat." Dion, Iv. 32. 
 Suetonius states that he was first relegated to Surrentum ; afterwards, " nihilo 
 tractabiliorem immo in dies amentiorem in insulam transportavit, sepsitque 
 insuper custodia militum." Suet. I. c.
 
 254 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A. D. 9. 
 
 own pride, he turned with the yearnings of disappointed 
 affection to the object on which his hopes were now begin- 
 ning to centre, the fair promise of the gallant Germanicus. 
 omise T^ e appointment of this young prince to his first 
 of Ger- military command gave scope to talents and a 
 disposition not unworthy of Drusus the well- 
 beloved. Before the end of the year he had worsted one of 
 the Dalmatian tribes, while Tiberius, returning from the 
 Danube, reoccupied Pannonia with an overwhelming force. 
 The chiefs of the insurgent armies had taken advantage of 
 his absence to move eastward, in order to intercept the 
 forces which Severus, who commanded in Mcesia, was bring- 
 ing up from that quarter. They had succeeded in meeting 
 him, and had compelled him to await their onset in his camp, 
 near the Palus Volcea, or lake of Balaton, but they were 
 unable to force his well-defended entrenchments. Failing 
 in this attempt, they found themselves pressed by the Roman 
 arms on three sides, and falling back on a country which was 
 no longer able to support them, they suffered the extremes of 
 famine and pestilence ; yet when at last they sued for peace, 
 they still sued with arms in their hands, and in an attitude 
 of defiance, with which the Roman leader disdained to parley. 
 More than once, it was asserted, did Augustus declare him- 
 self satisfied, and exhort Tiberius to conclude a war which 
 he suspected him of purposely protracting. 1 But Tiberius 
 Final Bubjuf?a- knew, perhaps, the inveterate hostility the Roman 
 nianBa?id an ~ government had provoked, as well as the resolu- 
 the * n 9? B ' tion of his opponents. When the Dalmatian 
 A. u. 762. Bato was led captive into his presence, and was 
 asked what had induced him to revolt, and to persist so long 
 in a desperate struggle, It is your own doing, he boldly 
 answered, who send not dogs or shepherds to protect your 
 sheep, but wolves to prey on them. Dalmatia, however, says 
 
 1 Suet Tib. 16.: " Quanquam saepius revocaretur, tamen perseveravit, 
 metuens ne vicinus et prsevalens hostis instaret ultro cedentibus." Comp. 
 Dion, IT. 81. : viroxTevffas it rbi* Ti/Jt'piov, is SvrnBfrra ntv Sta "ra.x* wv avrovt 
 rpiftovra 5 ^tirinjSej.
 
 A.U.762.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 255 
 
 the historian, returned to her obedience, partly by conquest 
 and partly on capitulation. 1 Nevertheless the gallant Bato, 
 who seems to have been released on his pretended submis- 
 sion, once more defied the conquerors. When another Bato, 
 the chief of the Pannonians, sought the favour of the Romans 
 by betraying his colleague Pinnes, the Dalmatian turned his 
 arms against the traitor, and speedily overpowered and slew 
 him. The Pannonians now rose once more against the in- 
 vaders ; but, exhausted and dispirited by their own divisions, 
 they were easily reduced. Bato himself did not refrain from 
 plundering allies who could serve his hopeless cause no long- 
 er. Keeping hold of the passes of the mountains between 
 Pannonia and his own country, he continued to maintain his 
 personal independence ; but it was the independence of a 
 brigand chief, no longer of a national leader. The war 
 dwindled into the chase of a cunning fugitive from post to 
 post, and ceases from henceforth to occupy a place in history. 
 The pacification of the great province between the Adriatic 
 and the Danube was not finally completed by Germanicus 
 till the autumn of the year 762, 2 
 
 Meanwhile, deprived of the consoling presence of all his 
 nearest kinsmen, the emperor had begun, in the solitude of 
 his palace, to find the cares of sovereignty insup- Mortifications 
 portably onerous. He ventured by degrees to of Au s ustU8 - 
 cast aside a portion of the overwhelming responsibilities to 
 which he had subjected himself. The senators, at whose 
 meetings he had attended with scrupulous punctuality, were 
 now allowed to determine many matters in his absence ; he 
 desisted from the habit of appearing in person at the mock 
 elections of the Comitia; while from the year 760, when 
 the votes had been interrupted by popular disturbances, he 
 directed all the magistrates to be chosen on his own imme- 
 diate nomination. The anxieties of the Pannonian war drew 
 him from the city as far as Ariminum, and the citizens ofiered 
 vows for his safety on his departure, and of thanksgiving on 
 
 1 Dion, Ir. 33, 34.; Veil. ii. 110-116. 
 
 2 Dion, Ivi. 11-17. ; Zonaras, x. 37.
 
 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A. D. 9. 
 
 his return, as if he had undergone the perils of a foreign 
 campaign. Satiety had left him weary and restless : his 
 cheerful and collected temper gave way under repeated alarms 
 and accumulated vexations. After disarming the animosity 
 of noble intriguers by unexpected clemency, he found himself 
 struck at by the hands of bondmen and adventurers. His 
 life was attempted by an obscure slave named Telephus, 
 whose brain was heated with the imagination that he was 
 destined to reign. Audasius, a convicted forger, and Epica- 
 dus, a foreign freedman, sought to carry off 
 
 Fresh conspira- . ._ T .. . . 
 
 cies against Agrippa jrostumus and Julia from their exile, 
 and put them at the head of a seditious move- 
 ment. 1 This event, the date of which, however, cannot be 
 fixed precisely, may have determined the emperor to inflict 
 banishment upon another member of the same hapless. family. 
 Julia had left behind her at Rome, besides Caius and Lucius, 
 and the wretched Postumus, two daughters, a Julia and an 
 Agrippina. The first of these had been married to L. ^Emil- 
 ius Paulus, grand-nephew of the triumvir Lepidus, the head 
 of the house which might still be considered the noblest in 
 Rome ; while the other, who was younger, perhaps by some 
 years, was united to her kinsman, Germanicus, apparently 
 about her own age. The ^Emilii continued for several gene- 
 rations to betray the pride of race which could ill brook the 
 ascendency of a Julius or a Claudius. 2 The son of the trium- 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 19. 
 
 a The irregular ambition hereditary in the JSmilii is noted in some lines 
 of a very late writer, which the historical student may do well to remember. 
 Rutil. Itiner. 295. : 
 
 " Inter castrorum vestigia sermo retexit 
 
 Sardoam, Lepido praecipitante, fugam . . . 
 Ille tamen Lepidus pejor, civilibus armis 
 
 Qui gessit sociis impia bella tribua . . . 
 Insidias paci moliri tertius ausus 
 
 Tristibus exegit congrua fata reis. 
 Quart us Caesareo dum vult irrepere regno 
 
 Incest! pcenam solvit adulterii." 
 
 The last of these cases refers to a later period, and will be recorded in its place.
 
 A.U.762.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 257 
 
 vir had perished, as we have seen, for aiming at the subver- 
 sion of the emperor's power ; and the husband of Julia was 
 now doomed also to suffer on a charge of conspiracy. The 
 exact period of this treason is not known, nor is its punish- 
 ment specified. The culprit was confined or 
 
 * . Banishment of 
 
 banished : his wife, whose irregularities were the younger 
 numerous and notorious, allied herself with D. u i a j> 9. 
 Silanus, and was convicted of adultery. Silanus 
 was in turn charged with treasonable aspirations, with what 
 result we know not ; but the crime of Julia, which brought 
 scandal as well as danger on the imperial house, was punished 
 by relegation to an island. Augustus was deeply affected at 
 this outbreak of the evil blood of the mother in the next 
 generation. Though it was recorded, as a proof of parental 
 feeling, that he never suffered one of his own race to be put 
 to death, he forbade the offspring of this hateful amour to be 
 reared, and, reflecting with indignation on the vices of both 
 the Julias, exclaimed, in the language of Homer, better he 
 had never been married and had died childless. 1 
 
 The silence of history throws a veil over the latter years 
 of Augustus, and has, doubtless, buried many acts of morose 
 severity, on which no citizen ventured to consign .Banishment of 
 his comments to writing. The recollection, how- the poet Ovid - 
 ever, of one example of the kind, which may be regarded as 
 a type of the imperial tyranny at this period, has been casu- 
 ally preserved. If the personal freedom of the citizen was 
 
 The ^Emilius of whom we are now treating is not mentioned in these lines, 
 because he bore the cognomen Paulus. See the stemma of the JSmilii in ap- 
 pendix to chapter 1. 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. i. 6. : " In nullius unquam suorum necem duravit." Suet. 
 Oct. 65., quotes from the Iliad, iii. 40. : 
 
 aW 6<$>t\ov 6ya/j.6s r' c-jucj/cu, &yov6s T' airoAcVdat. 
 In the original the expression is addressed by Hector to Paris, 
 
 afff o<pe\fs &yoi>6s r' ejuccai, fryajitoj T' airoXeVflai : 
 
 the word &yovos evidently meaning "never born; " but Augustus, I presume, 
 or at least his biographer, understood it differently. The date of the younger 
 Julia's banishment is fixed to 761 by Tacitus, Ann, iv. 71. ; and Suetonius 
 tells us that her place of confinement was the island of Trimerus, off the coast 
 of Apulia. 
 
 VOL. IT. 17
 
 258 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A. D. 9. 
 
 still guarded by the laws, and the accused still competent to 
 defend himself before the ordinary tribunals ; if advocates 
 were still bold and judges honourable, there were, neverthe- 
 less, powers beside the laws, which had found a way of dis- 
 pensing with their application, in cases where their interfe- 
 rence might prove inconvenient. When the emperor wished 
 to rid himself of a disagreeable citizen, he directed him to 
 remove from Rome to some distant spot indicated to him ; 
 and such was the authority of his mere word, that without 
 defence, without trial, without sentence, without the use or 
 even threat of force, the culprit at once obeyed, and plunged 
 silently into oblivion. The emperor might, if he pleased, 
 appease public curiosity by declaring the cause of this sudden 
 removal ; but the mere act of his will required neither the 
 concurrence nor the ratification of any legal tribunal. Such 
 was the celebrated exile of Publius Ovidius Naso, a popular 
 favourite, whose abuse of his noble gifts might seem calculated 
 to disarm a tyrant's jealousy, and even secure his approbation. 
 This illustrious poet, familiar to our childhood under the 
 cherished name of Ovid, was a man of fashion and figure, the 
 son of a Roman knight of Sulmo, who had been introduced 
 to the best society of the capital, and had succeeded in estab- 
 lishing himself there by the charm of his writings and the dex- 
 terity of his adulation. He was undoubtedly a writer of un- 
 common genius, of a fertility and invention unsurpassed by 
 any of his countrymen, and little inferior to any in language 
 and versification. His various compositions comprehend many 
 character of pieces of unsullied purity and grace, which are 
 his poetry. gt jj| ^ g rgt p a g es o f antiquity we put into the 
 hands of our children, and among the last on which we turn 
 the retrospect of our own declining years. But Ovid had 
 desecrated his abilities by the licentiousness of many of his 
 subjects, and the grossness with which he treated them : he 
 had thrown himself on the foul track of far inferior men, 
 who sought the favour of the government by inculcating 
 frivolity of sentiment, and degrading the character of their 
 countrymen. It may be said, perhaps, in excuse for Ovid,
 
 A.U. 762.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 259 
 
 that he erred from mere gaiety of heart, stimulated by the 
 applause of greatness and beauty : he says of himself, and his 
 protestations are not unworthy of belief, that his verses were 
 purer than those he imitated, and his manners purer than his 
 verses. 1 His amatory poems were principally the work of 
 his earlier years, and the maturity of his powers had been 
 devoted sedulously, nor with less felicity, to subjects of wider 
 scope and higher interest. 8 "While thus honourably engaged, 
 suddenly, at the close of the year 761, he was bade to depart 
 from Rome, and the obscure town of Tomi, on the wild shores 
 of the Euxine, was denoted as the place to which he should 
 transport himself. 3 A few hours only were allowed him to 
 prepare for the journey, which was to remove him for ever 
 from his home, his friends and family. He was exiled, un- 
 heard and unarraigned, and the cause of his banishment was 
 only vaguely indicated by a complaint against the pernicious 
 tendency of his love verses. The poet of intrigue and gal- 
 lantry had a wife, to whom he was as tenderly attached as 
 
 1 See his elaborate but by no means satisfactory excuses in the second book 
 of the Tristia. 
 
 * Since the publication of the Ars Amandi, which may be fixed to the 
 year 752, he had laboured on the wonderful epic of the Metamorphoses, in 
 which, though he never veils the licentiousness of mythological story, he had 
 at least no immoral purpose ; and on his versified rationale of the national 
 calendar, which, with a few incidental blemishes, is on the whole a model of 
 Roman dignity. The former of these works was completed but not finally 
 corrected at the moment of his banishment, and was given to the world with 
 some imperfections ; of the latter, the six books we possess were probably fin- 
 ished, and the remaining six perhaps only rudely sketched out. Though Ovid 
 speaks of the twelve books as written, " Sex ego fastorum scrips! totidemque 
 libellos," he says, nevertheless, that the work was interrupted by his disgrace ; 
 and, as he complains that he had no books with him at Tomi, and was unable to 
 study, it seems very improbable that a work which required so much research 
 could have been resumed under such unfavourable circumstances. Nor in all 
 his writings at Tomi does he ever allude to it as in progress. 
 
 3 Ovid, Trist. iv. 10. He had at this time, as he informs us, completed 
 his fiftieth year : " decem lustris omni sine labe peractis." He was born March 
 20. 711, at the epoch of the battle of Mutina, and his banishment took place 
 in December of 761. Tris. i. 11. 3. See Fischer in Ann. Clinton is to be 
 understood in the same sense, though, from some confusion in his arrangement, 
 it requires considerable attention to detect his real view.
 
 260 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A. D. 9. 
 
 the severest of the old Roman censors ; but she was forbid- 
 den to accompany, or to rejoin him. A single friend ven- 
 tured to break the agonies of parting, by attending him 
 during the first days of travel ; and he too fell a victim, not 
 long afterwards, to the tyrant's fatal suspicions. While the 
 scions of the imperial family, who might perhaps some day 
 be recalled, were retained in durance within sight of the 
 Latian coast ; the unfortunate knight, as if to preclude all 
 hope of pardon, was cast out on an unknown frontier, many 
 hundred miles distant. We observe with an awful sense of 
 the emperor's power, that the island of Planasia or Panda- 
 teria, past which whole fleets sailed daily, was deemed a 
 prison out of which no criminal could break : but our awe 
 is enhanced on hearing that a citizen condemned to banish- 
 ment on the frontiers of the empire should simply receive an 
 order to repair there, and be left to find his way, perhaps 
 even unattended, without fear of his lingering on his route 
 or diverging from it. 1 
 
 The cause of this cruel punishment was surely not that 
 which Augustus thought fit to assign. It seems to have been 
 Fruitless spec- f a nature which he could not venture to declare 
 SSSrfiM?" openly: had it been an offence against public 
 banishment. morality, he would have claimed merit for mak- 
 ing it the subject of a public arraignment. Though the suf- 
 ferer bows to his sentence, and acquiesces discreetly in the 
 charge which he knows to be fictitious, his allusions point 
 plainly to some other cause, well known to Augustus and to 
 himself, the possession apparently, and possibly, as he pro- 
 tests, the innocent possession, of some fatal secret. The con- 
 jectures which have been made regarding it may be readily dis- 
 
 1 Ovid records with some minuteness the stages of his long journey by sea 
 and land, but gives no intimation that even a single officer was deputed to 
 guard and conduct him. Nor does he seem to have been under any restraint 
 at Tomi. The inhospitable character of the neighbourhood may have been 
 considered a sufficient pledge for his not attempting to escape. It seems, how- 
 ever, that some exiles contrived to avoid going to their places of banishment. 
 Augustus animadverted with no great severity upon them. Dion, Ivi. 27.
 
 A. U. 762.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 261 
 
 missed as groundless. The surmise that he had been detected 
 in an intrigue with the elder Julia, and that she was in fact 
 the lady to whom he addressed his love verses under the name 
 of Corinna, though derived, perhaps, from nearly contempo- 
 rary sources, is refuted by the evidence of dates. 1 The only 
 clue, as it appears, to guide our inquiries is the coincidence 
 of the time with the disgrace of the younger Julia, and with 
 the treasonable attempts with which that event seems to have 
 been connected. When, at a later period, Fabius Maximus, 
 a man of political consequence, falls under the emperor's dis- 
 pleasure, the unfortunate exile, in a burst of sorrow, would 
 fain take the blame on himself, as if his own error had been 
 important enough to involve in its consequences the fate of 
 his noblest friend. Putting these circumstances together, it 
 seems natural to surmise that Ovid, though no public man 
 himself, got unwittingly implicated in the political intrigues 
 of the time, and suffered as an accomplice in projects, of the 
 scope of which he was perhaps actually unconscious. 4 From 
 
 I The only ground for this popular but untenable hypothesis, is the misin- 
 terpretation of a passage in Sidonius Apollinaris : 
 
 " Et te carmina per libidinosa 
 
 Notum, Kaso tener, Tomosque missum, 
 
 Quondam Caesareae nimis puellae 
 
 Falso nomine subditum Corinnaa." 
 
 Even could it be shown that Julia was meant by the name of the poet's mis 
 tress Corinna, and that he did really intrigue with her, k would not follow from 
 this passage that he was banished on that account. The punishment of Julia 
 preceded that of Ovid by nine years. But he had sung the praises of Corinna 
 almost twenty years before the first of these dates. The name was probably 
 a mere poetical abstraction. It may be admitted, however, that Sidonius re- 
 fers to a tradition of great antiquity, derived from the appearance of the Art 
 of Love about the period of the elder Julia's disgrace. 
 
 II See the well-known deprecation, Trist. ii. 103., quoted below, and JEpisL 
 ex Pont. ii. 2. : 
 
 " Nil nisi non sapiens possum timidusque vocari ; " 
 
 which, taken together, seem to imply that he had shrunk from divulging some 
 important circumstance which had come accidentally to his knowledge. Dun- 
 lop. Hist. Rom. Lit. iii. 363. The extravagant adulation of Augustus and 
 expressions of personal devotion which abound in the writings from Tomi, may 
 have been meant as an atonement for a political fault.
 
 262 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 9. 
 
 the scene of his punishment, on the verge of the inhospitable 
 Dobrudscha, dreary and pestilential now, but then alterna- 
 ting the frosts of the Neva with the fevers of the Niger, the 
 wretched victim poured forth his misery in verses of grace 
 and sweetness, though of little power : he murmured at the 
 loss of every friend and amusement, at the rudeness of the 
 people, and hostility of their savage neighbours, while he 
 shuddered at the sight of the frozen Euxine, or shivered in 
 the agues of the Danubian marshes. 1 A gleam of reviving 
 cheerfulness induced him at more favourable moments to cul- 
 tivate the hospitality of the natives, and to flatter them by 
 acquiring their language and even writing verses in it : but 
 neither lamentations nor industry availed to soothe the bitter- 
 ness of his sorrows, which were only for a moment allayed 
 by anticipations of future celebrity ; and he continued in vain 
 to solicit with abject humiliation the compassion of the 
 offended emperor. Though his punishment was not strictly 
 exile, but only the milder form of relegation, which allowed 
 him to retain his fortune and his citizenship, and admitted the 
 hope of eventual pardon, he never obtained remission of his 
 sentence, though he survived Augustus three years.* 
 
 So well known and so deeply feared was the emperor's 
 resentment, from whatever cause it proceeded, that the suf- 
 ferer's friends seem to have been deterred from 
 
 Silent discon- . ,. /, , . rm t i i 
 
 tent of the interceding for him. They cowered with the 
 
 rest of the citizens under the suspicious tyranny 
 
 which pretended to have done the state a service in robbing 
 
 them of the favourite ministers of their pleasures. The 
 
 1 Tomi, the spot of Ovid's exile, is supposed to have been at, or very near 
 to, the modern Costendje. 
 
 * See this explained in the Tristia, v. 11. : 
 
 " Nee vitara nee opes nee jus mihi civis ademit . . . 
 
 Nil nisi me patriis jussit abire focis .... 
 Ipse relegati, non exsulls, utitur in me Nomine." 
 
 The date of Ovid's death, A. c. 770, or early in 771, in his sixtieth year, is 
 established by Euseb. Chron. ii. p. 157., and the Auctor Vitas Ovid. Fischer 
 in Ann. 767. Comp. Clinton, Fast. Hell. iii. 275., Fast. Rom. i. 5.
 
 A. U. 762.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 263 
 
 Loves and Graces might seem to have fled from the city of 
 Venus with the banishment of Ovid and the Julias, the one 
 the high priest of Gallantry and Dissipation, the others the 
 most distinguished of their devotees. The pretence of a 
 regard for public morals was derided in secret by the rising 
 generation of sensualists and triflers. They thought it hard 
 to be deprived of their amusements to satisfy the scruples 
 of a worn-out debauchee, or to glorify the cold correctness 
 of an unamiable prude. When Ovid, in an unguarded mo- 
 ment of mythological reverie, chose to liken his mysterious 
 crime to the misfortune of Actaeon, who had startled the 
 shiftless Diana, the Romans were too clever in pasquinade 
 not to seize on an obvious innuendo ; nor could it be left to 
 the ingenuity of a modern to be the first to suggest that he 
 had discovered the empress naked in her bath. 1 It is not 
 improbable that some of the bitter lampoons against the em- 
 peror's private habits, specimens of which have been pre- 
 served by Suetonius, date from this reign of mortification 
 and terror. 
 
 The closing years of a long and prosperous reign have not 
 unfrequently been clouded with popular discontent. Even the 
 
 1 Ovid, Trist. ii. 103. : 
 
 " Cur aliquid vidi, cur noxia lumina feci ? 
 
 Cur imprudent! cognita culpa mihi ? 
 Inscius Actaeon vidit sine vestc Dianam : 
 Prseda futt canibus non minus ille suis." 
 
 Dryden has the merit of the conjecture founded on these lines, but it seems 
 impossible it could have escaped the malicious wit of Ovid's own contempora- 
 ries. Another notion is, that he had surprised the emperor himself in some 
 grave indecorum. I have seen a disquisition to prove that his real offence 
 was his having too nearly divulged the meaning of the Eleusiman mysteries. 
 The peccant passage is in the Metamorphoses, xv. 368. : 
 
 " Pressus humo bellator equus crabronis origo est : 
 
 Concava litoreo si demas brachia cancro, 
 
 Caetera supponas terra, de parte sepulta 
 
 Scorpius exibit, caudaque minabitur unca : " 
 
 Tho reader will rather be inclined to complain that if he really knew the secret, 
 he has been only too successful in concealing it.
 
 264: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS |A.D. 9. 
 
 state of o u- su ^J ects an< ^ courtiers of a despotism become 
 iar feeling at wearied at last with hearing their sovereign 
 
 this period. *- 
 
 styled the Just, the Beneficent, or the .fortu- 
 nate. The court of Augustus indeed had never pandered by 
 meretricious brilliancy to the tastes of vulgar gentility, and 
 accordingly, in respect to show and ornament, the setting of 
 the imperial sun suffered no eclipse. The prince of the 
 Roman people had presided over the national intelligence. 
 He had sought to educate his subjects by the patronage of 
 literary merit, and by his graceful recognition of some of the 
 best objects of national interest had even created a genuine 
 appreciation of them. But the era of Virgil and Horace, of 
 Varius and Pollio, had quickly passed away ; the Caesar no 
 longer blandly countenanced, with Maecenas at his side, the 
 social intercourse of the wisest and most genial of the Ro- 
 mans. The last years of the age, familiarly styled the Au- 
 gustan, were singularly barren of the literary glories from 
 which its celebrity was chiefly derived. One by one the 
 stars in its firmament had been lost to the world : Virgil and 
 Horace, Tibullus and Propertius, Varius and Plotius had long 
 since died; the charm which the imagination of Livy had 
 thrown over the earlier annals of Rome had ceased to shine 
 on the details of almost contemporary history ; and if the 
 flood of his eloquence still continued flowing, we can hardly 
 suppose that the stream was as rapid, as clear, and as fresh 
 as ever. And now the youngest of its race of poets seemed 
 to extinguish in his disgrace the last spark of its admired 
 brilliancy. If the remembrance of their early enthusiasm for 
 the beauty and genius of Octavius, the father of his country 
 and the saviour of the state, still survived to temper the dis- 
 satisfaction of the Romans at the gloom of his declining 
 years, no such tender feelings interfered to modify their dis- 
 gust at the pretended virtues of his consort, or the ill-dis- 
 guised haughtiness of her son. Their feelings were lacerated 
 by the successive loss of so many amiable princes, in each of 
 whom they beheld a victim to the machinations of this de- 
 tested pair ; they murmured at the untoward destiny of the
 
 A.TL 762.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 265 
 
 still living children of Agrippa ; but they turned with the 
 freshness of a hope which no disappointments could blight, 
 no evil auguries overshadow, to the opening promise of the 
 gallant Germanicus, the last of the national favourites. A 
 spring, summer, and autumn had passed with nothing to 
 dispel the general dissatisfaction except an occasional rumour 
 of successes in Pannonia, and assurances, often repeated, but 
 never yet fulfilled, of speedy pacification. At last, to the 
 delight of the citizens, the young hero brought in person the 
 news of the final subjugation of the enemy, from which they 
 hoped for a long relief from levies and exactions. The senate 
 decreed the honours of a triumph to Tiberius, and appointed 
 two triumphal arches to be erected at conspicuous spots with- 
 in the conquered territory. The triumphal ornaments were 
 at the same time granted to Germanicus : he was placed in 
 the rank of praetors, and invited to speak in the senate next in 
 order to the consulars. 1 The restrictions of age were relaxed 
 in his behalf, that he might attain the consulship without 
 delay. But the celebration of the imperial triumph, and the 
 jubilee of the Roman people, were frustrated by the disaster 
 which is now to be related. 3 
 
 The uneasiness of the popular mind might be taken as a 
 presentiment of the calamity which was impending. With- 
 in five days from the restoration of tranquillity Extension of 
 on the Save and Drave, the empire sustained a gove^nSent be- 
 shock in the north, which, had it happened but KWjwandthe 
 a little sooner, must have torn from it either of Elbe - 
 its Rhenish or its Danubian possessions. The countries be- 
 tween the Rhine and Weser, or even the Elbe, the ocean 
 and the Mayn, had been reduced by the repeated enterprises 
 
 1 The triumphal ornaments, the empty distinction henceforth accorded to 
 the emperor's successful lieutenants, consisted in an ivory staff surmounted by 
 the figure of an eagle, a curule chair or stool, a golden crown, the triumphal 
 mantle, a laurelled statue. Sacrifices were offered, with a supplicatio, on the 
 occasion, and the victor was allowed to receive the title of Imperator. 
 
 a Dion, Ivi. 1Y. Suet. Tib. 17. : " Triumphum ipse distulit, moesta civi- 
 tate clade Variana."
 
 266 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A. D. 9. 
 
 of Drusus and Tiberius to complete subjection. When Ti- 
 berius quitted this region, in the year 758, the tribes com- 
 prised within these ample boundaries appeared to have sub- 
 mitted placidly to the yoke. It only remained, apparently, 
 to establish among them the system of provincial administra- 
 tion, according to the forms which had proved so generally 
 efficient elsewhere. The success indeed of the Roman arms 
 in this quarter had been such as to prove that they had lost 
 none of their ancient temper in the hands of the existing 
 generation. The legions had penetrated the whole country 
 in every direction ; the war-galleys had swept the coast and 
 stemmed the current of the fleetest rivers ; military posts had 
 been established in proper localities, and their communica- 
 tions secured by permanent roadways. 1 The courage and 
 conduct of the soldiers, the firmness of the Romans, and the 
 devotion of the allies, had shown no decline, while the means 
 of armament and supply had been brought to such perfection, 
 that their movements had been more extended, their combi- 
 nations more unerring, than in any previous campaigns. Bold 
 and obstinate as the Germans had proved in their long resis- 
 tance to such well-appointed adversaries, the effect of this 
 organized valour had been overwhelming. By force or per- 
 suasion all the northern tribes seemed to be gained to the 
 empire. The Frisii and Chauci had merited the distinction 
 of admission to alliance with Rome, which knitted them more 
 firmly to her interests, by making them objects of jealousy 
 to their less fortunate brethren. The Batavi, in the island 
 between the Rhine and Waal, served with ardour as cavalry 
 in the Roman armies. Their neighbours the Caninefates 
 were subdued. The Usipetes and Tenctheri on the right bank 
 of the Rhine were overpowered ; while the Bructeri, the Che- 
 
 1 Such were the fortresses of Aliso on the Lippe, and Burchana (Borkum) 
 at the mouth of the Ems. Vestiges of Roman fortifications are still traced in 
 the range of the Taunus-gebirge in Nassau. Niebuhr believed that remains 
 of the original Roman roads still exist in the north of Germany, in the wooden, 
 causeways of great antiquity which crossed the marshes and heaths in that 
 quarter. Rom. Hist. v. lect. Iviii.
 
 A. U. 762.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 267 
 
 nisei, the Chatti, and the Sigambri had only escaped this fate 
 by the care with which they had avoided a conflict with the in- 
 vaders, who had established themselves as conquerors through- 
 out their territories. Emigrants and colonists had followed 
 in the wake of the legions ; various channels of commerce 
 had been opened with the natives, who began to relax from 
 their attitude of defiance, and showed a desire to imbibe the 
 lessons of civilization ; Germans, noted for their big limbs, 
 blue eyes, and fair complexion, became conspicuous among 
 the nations which thronged the streets of Rome ; and the 
 Sigambrian women ministered to the caprice of fashion by 
 selling their flaxen locks to decorate the sallow brows of the 
 Italian matrons. 1 
 
 The vigilance of Augustus seems for a moment to have 
 slumbered in allowing his latest conquest to remain in an 
 anomalous, and, as it proved, a precarious posi- 
 
 7 \. , *,. Fancied seen- 
 
 tion. There were two ways in which, according rity of the 
 
 / ,-1 .. " ... Roman admin- 
 
 to the maxims of the time, such an acquisition istration in 
 might be governed. The one was the policy of 
 coercion, exemplified in the case of the Pannonians and Dal- 
 matians, whom the conquerors sought to crush into obedience 
 by riveting on them the weight of the provincial administra- 
 tion, with its civil and military governors, its judicial and 
 fiscal intendants, and the whole apparatus of official tyranny. 
 There was the policy of severe exactions, rigorous conscrip- 
 tions, and wholesale confiscations. We have just witnessed 
 the fearful result which might follow from such a system in 
 the desperate revolt which had thrown Rome into consterna- 
 tion. This, however, was the method not unusually adopted 
 wherever the Romans feared the martial spirit of the con- 
 quered ; and though, as in Spain, it gave rise to repeated out- 
 breaks, it was nevertheless generally successful, at least in 
 the end. The other was the policy which Cassar had adopted 
 in Gaul. His own views indeed were personal rather than 
 national ; he aimed at making the Gauls useful servants to 
 
 1 Ovid, Amor. I 14. 49. : 
 
 "Nescio quam pro me laudat mine iste Sigambram."
 
 268 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 9. 
 
 himself, rather than submissive subjects to Rome. But the 
 lenity with which he treated them, the amount of freedom he 
 allowed them, the lightness of the tribute he imposed on 
 them, sufficed to effect both his own object and that of the 
 state he professed to serve. The Gauls continued faithful 
 from gratitude, or at least from contentment, not to Caesar 
 only but to Rome herself. But the Transrhenane territory 
 was governed on neither of these principles. It was neither 
 crushed as a province nor cherished as an ally ; certainly no 
 peculiar harshness was exercised upon the Germans. They 
 had offered little opposition to Drusus or Tiberius ; if they 
 had not voluntarily submitted, they had at least retired before 
 their advancing legions. Some of them had evinced a temper 
 more than usually tractable. The Romans felt themselves 
 secure in the heart of Germany, as they had never felt in 
 Gaul, Spain, or Pannonia. While year by year the procon- 
 suls were waging interminable war against the obscure barba- 
 rians of Moesia and Mauretania, the Germans, whose strength 
 and courage, and not less their genius and understanding, 
 were especially vaunted, seemed not only to submit without 
 resistance, but to conform with unexampled alacrity to the 
 ideas of the invader. Such was the security of the Romans 
 that their cohorts were suffered to be scattered, through a 
 number of petty posts far asunder. Their winter stations 
 grew from the concourse of new settlers to the dimension of 
 colonies, but without their defences. The Germans flocked 
 to the stated markets ; and though not without a sense of 
 uneasiness and vexation, seemed prepared to abandon one by 
 one every feature of their native habits. 
 
 It was the part of a prudent ruler to encourage this self- 
 abandonment, but by no means to precipitate it by pressure. 
 Quintnius Va- The utmost discretion was required in the com- 
 deHnGh an ~ mander who should succeed Tiberius, and receive 
 many. t ^e subjugated Germans from their conqueror to 
 
 instruct and civilize. No more important selection had the 
 emperor had to make since he appointed Maecenas to the 
 government of Italy, or sent Agrippa to control the turbu-
 
 A.U. 762.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 269 
 
 lence of the mob in the city. And not only was it important 
 to choose the legate well ; it was necessary, moreover, to 
 give him distinct instructions, and while allowing him lati- 
 tude in the choice of his means, to prescribe definitely to 
 him his mode of treatment. In all these particulars Au- 
 gustus seems to have failed. The prefect he selected was a 
 man of no special ability ; as the recent governor of the 
 tranquil province of Syria, where he had too quickly en- 
 riched himself, he had learnt by easy success to despise 
 both the provincial subject and the imperial government, 
 the one for submitting to his extortions, the other for 
 conniving at them. 1 L. Quintilius Varus was an official 
 pedant. Transplanted to the heart of Germany, placed at 
 the head of an army, but without the ordinary machinery 
 of civil government, he conceived the idea of forcing the 
 formalities of the provincial administration, its tribunals, its 
 police, and its fiscal charges, on people who had hitherto been 
 allowed to tax and govern themselves. 3 Had the emperor 
 given him specific instructions to this effect, he would at 
 least have guarded the experiment by proper military pre- 
 cautions. Had he, on the other hand, forbidden such an 
 experiment to be hazarded, Varus would not have ven- 
 tured to disobey. But left, as it would seem, to his own 
 caprice by the oversight of his aged chief, he chose to dis- 
 regard the usual habits of the service, and pretended to 
 sheathe the sword while he imposed upon the Germans the 
 yoke of servitude. While the ancients throw all the blame 
 of what followed upon the incapacity of Varus, and some 
 moderns impute it rather to the indiscretion of Augustus 
 himself, we shall be more correct perhaps in dividing it 
 between them. 
 
 Notwithstanding the ardour or levity with which the 
 German chiefs had accepted service under the foreigner, 
 and the satisfaction they had felt in partaking of its glit- 
 
 1 Dion, Ivi. 18. Yell. ii. 117. : "Pecunije quam non contemptor Syria, cui 
 profuerat, declaravit, quam pauper divitem ingressus, dives pauperem reliquit." 
 5 The command of Varus in Germany dates from A. u. 759.
 
 270 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS |A.D. 9. 
 
 His indiscre- term g distinctions, many doubtless among them 
 
 tbTcf/man* st ^ watched an opportunity of rising against 
 
 A. D. 9. their masters. The precipitation with which 
 
 A. u. 762. 
 
 Varus threw off the mask which concealed the 
 harsher features of Roman domination could not fail to in- 
 flame their thirst for independence. The tedious and intricate 
 forms of Roman law perplexed and disgusted them ; but 
 personal freedom, and exemption from blows, still more from 
 capital punishment, was the birthright of the free German ; 
 and when a Roman official in the reckless exercise of power 
 inflicted dishonour where he meant no more than a slight 
 admonition, the stroke of the lictor's rod left a rankling 
 wound. Still the spirit of the Germans might have been 
 gradually tamed, had not their own mutual jealousies has- 
 tened the outbreak. It was usual for the ruler of a province 
 to make a summer progress through his dominions, fixing 
 his camp and tribunal at various spots successively, to ac- 
 quaint himself with his subjects and their resources, and 
 brandish over all in turn the terrors of the axe and rods. 
 During these excursions the troops which occupied a secure 
 and peaceful country were allowed for the most part to re- 
 main in their quarters, the safety of the proconsul not requir- 
 ing their attendance on himself. But Yarus was not so 
 neglectful of his own security. He led forth the three 
 legions under his orders ; and as he advanced from place to 
 place he was attended by the chiefs of the country, who 
 either commanded auxiliary cohorts or played the courtier 
 Segestes and m his prffitorium. Among the most distinguished 
 fhtefc oftke of these were the lea ders of the Cherusci, the 
 cherusci. brothers Segimerus and Segestes. Segimerus 
 had a son named Arminius, who had offended his uncle Se- 
 gestes, by carrying off his daughter. 1 They had all enrolled 
 
 1 Of Arminius, almost the only German of this time whom we can invest 
 with a distinct personality, there will be much to record hereafter. The 
 Germans take a pleasure in designating him as Hermann, (Heer-mann), " the 
 general ; " but this derivation does not seem certain enough to induce me to 
 forego the satisfaction of attaching a proper name to so distinguished a hero.
 
 A.U. 762.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 271 
 
 themselves in the Roman service ; Arminius had received 
 the citizenship, and been promoted to the equestiian order. 
 But Segestes was much in the proconsul's confidence, and 
 Arminius, conscious of his animosity towards himself, might 
 apprehend the effect of his hostile representations. While 
 his father, his uncle, and a brother, who had caused himself 
 to be adopted into a Roman house, all attached themselves 
 with sincerity to the party of the foreigners, Arminius de- 
 voted himself to their overthrow. He was the favourite of 
 his countrymen, not for his bravery only but for Arminius in- 
 his conduct : he was both eloquent in speech and thf iiomfn ln8t 
 prompt in action, qualities in which the Germans P wer - 
 were inferior to both the Gauls and Romans. He was a man 
 of bold and lofty spirit, capable of imparting the enthusiasm 
 which he felt himself. He intrigued with the chief men of 
 various tribes, and brought them readily into his views. They 
 besieged the proconsul with demands for military aid in 
 various quarters, to overawe their unconquered neighbours 
 or to repress the outrages of banditti. Varus was persuaded 
 to detach cohorts and squadrons from his main body, which 
 were speedily overpowered and cut off. But before these 
 disasters were known Segestes had detected and denounced 
 the conspiracy. Varus had advanced to the Weser, and was 
 meditating perhaps an incursion in the broad plains extend- 
 ing to the Elbe, through which Tiberius had recently carried 
 his eagles. At this moment the enemy, who had laid their 
 toils in his rear, spread the report of an outbreak in the south 
 of the province, and induced him to turn his front in that 
 direction. 1 From the confluence of the little stream of the 
 Werre with the Weser, or the entrance perhaps of the gorge 
 known by the name of the Westphalian Gates, he had to 
 retrace his steps across a wild tract of wooded hills which 
 separates the Weser from the sources of the Ems and Lippe, 
 the last offset from the mountains of central Europe, before 
 
 1 That this reported outbreak was in the south, among the Chatti, is con- 
 jectured from that being the direction of the expedition of Germanicus at a 
 later period. Hoeck, Roem. Gesch. \. 2. 96. foil.
 
 272 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A. D. 9. 
 
 they die away in the sandy flats of Lower Germany. The 
 Varus advan- general elevation of this region is inconsiderable, 
 fores" ^rreuto- but ^ s eminences are separated by narrow val- 
 burg> leys, the bottoms of which were choked with 
 
 morasses, while their summits were clothed with dense 
 forests. 1 The tracks which traversed it, for the Romans had 
 not taken the precaution of building a permanent way 
 through it, were sufficiently practicable in dry weather, but 
 with the close of summer the season of storms and rain was 
 at hand. Varus was unconscious of these perils. He an- 
 nounced his intention of marching in quest of the reputed 
 delinquents. The night before he was to set out, Segestes, 
 who was at supper with him, declared that the report was 
 false, and that he was falling into the snare of traitors in 
 his own camp. He desired to be kept in custody himself 
 till the truth of his disclosures should be proved. But the 
 proconsul paid no regard to the warning. The conspirators, 
 to lull him into security, pretended to quarrel among them- 
 selves, and flattered him by appealing to his decision between 
 them. 
 
 The rain had set in before the march began, and the 
 advance of the troops was from the first impeded by the ele- 
 ments. The hostility of the natives, no longer 
 tacked oifhis disguised, soon added to their difficulties. At 
 
 eat> this critical moment Varus had the weakness to 
 
 let Arminius and other chiefs quit the camp, under pretence 
 of bringing up reinforcements. They quickly marshalled the 
 swarming hordes, and pressed the rear and flanks of the 
 enemy with repeated assaults. The proconsul, still blind to 
 the treachery around him, contented himself with summon- 
 ing the disturbers of his repose before his tribunal. The 
 
 1 The Teutoburger and Lippischer Wald, the Saltus Teutoburgensis of 
 Tacitus (Ann. i. 60.), extends N.W. a space of seventy or eighty miles, and 
 may be described as a tract of parallel hills in broken chains with flat marshy 
 hollows between them, so that in crossing them from N.E. to S.W., more 
 than one stage was to be traversed, each consisting of a level swamp with a 
 defile at either end.
 
 A.U. 762.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 273 
 
 answer to his childish menaces presently arrived in the news 
 that the insurrection had spread through the country, and 
 that the establishments of the Roman power had been forced 
 in every direction. The army was encumbered with quanti- 
 ties of baggage, besides women and children, which it was 
 soon out of its power to protect. This ignominious loss 
 served at last to awaken Yarus to a sense of his peril. While 
 still involved in the swamps and woods through which he 
 was making for the open country to the south, he felt the 
 necessity of striking directly westward, so as to reach Aliso, 
 and his communications with the Rhine. Aliso lay but a 
 few days' march to his right, but the tracks of the forest 
 were probably guarded against him, and he must either 
 explore a more circuitous path or force his way through 
 all obstacles. The carnages and remaining baggage he 
 ordered to be burnt, and pushed hastily forward. The 
 weather continued unpropitious. The soil was soft and slip- 
 pery ; the ram rusted the men's spear-heads, soaked their 
 leathern accoutrements, and swelled their wooden shields ; 
 the wind threw limbs of large trees across their path, which 
 possibly the enemy had sawn half through beforehand. 1 Be- 
 fore they had pitched their first encampment, the Romans 
 had been roughly handled by the enemy, who now closed 
 upon them to prevent their escape. That night they traced 
 their lines with failing strength and spirit. In the morning 
 they staggered on with diminished numbers, and already they 
 had almost lost the appearance of a legionary force. They 
 had emerged, however, now from the woods, and had gained 
 the open upland of swamp and moor, which slopes from the 
 hill-country to the valleys of the Ems and Lippe. But the 
 enemy meanwhile had increased in numbers and confidence. 
 Redoubling their attacks, they pressed the fugitives on every 
 side. The soldiers had no reliance on their imperator, and as 
 he lost his control over them, Varus lost equally all command 
 
 1 Dion, Ivi. 20. : Kal ret &xpa. TUI> SfvSpwv Kara6pav6/j.fva ol KarairnrTS- 
 fifva Sicrdpaffffov. The explanation is a conjecture of Luden's (Gesch. Deutsch- 
 landt, i.), which is perhaps superfluous. 
 VOL. iv. 18
 
 274: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A. D. 9. 
 
 over himself. Remembering the example of his father and 
 and finally over- grandfather, who, it seems, had both put an end 
 ?heTo88 d ofu!ree to their own lives, 1 he threw himself in despair 
 legkms. ^ on n j g swor( j. g o ^(j ma ny of his officers. The 
 A. u. 762. soldiers, deprived of their leaders, were butchered 
 without organized resistance. The cavalry escaped from the 
 field only to be hunted down at a distance. The Germans 
 had taken their measures well. Not more than a few strag- 
 glers escaped from the terrible destruction. 2 In the space of 
 three days, three entire legions, horse, foot, and auxiliaries, 
 were annihilated ; their arms, stores, and accoutrements, were 
 destroyed ; their eagles were retained as trophies. 3 
 
 The incompetence of Varus for his post is manifest from 
 
 his having left no reserve at Aliso. We have seen how, 
 
 under circumstances nearly similar, the remnant 
 
 A small rem- ,. , - ,, ~ .. , , 
 
 nant escape to of the legions of Crassus was saved by the ar- 
 
 the Rhine. . -, /. , j M j 
 
 rival of succours in its rear, and similar aid 
 should have now too been at hand. But the triumph of the 
 Germans was secure. They could afford time to gloat over 
 their trophies, to slaughter their captives on altars erected in 
 the woods, with every circumstance of cruelty and derision, 
 and to search for the body of Varus, whose head they sent 
 to Maroboduus, as an incentive to rise against the common 
 enemy. Aliso, which was held by a handful of men, together 
 with the few fugitives from the bloody field, was invested 
 with overwhelming numbers ; but the Germans had not the 
 means of conducting a siege. The Romans were soon pressed 
 with hunger ; but they deceived the enemy by a stratagem, 
 and threw him for a moment off his guard, by which they 
 profited to sally from their entrenchments and make a rush 
 for the Rhine. The temptation of booty diverted the victors 
 
 1 VelL ii. 119. The occasions are not mentioned. 
 
 * There is a gap in the 22nd chapter of Dion, which is to be supplied from 
 Zonaras, x. 37. 
 
 ' Florus, iv. 12., says that one of the three eagles was saved : but we read 
 of the recovery of two in Tacitus, Ann. i. 60. ii. 25., and of the third in Dion, 
 Ix. 8.
 
 A.U.762.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 275 
 
 from the pursuit, and thus the last fragment of the Roman 
 power in Germany was saved from the general wreck. 1 
 
 Terrible as was the loss of so many officers and so fine an 
 army, with the destruction of flourishing settlements, and the 
 slaughter of multitudes of citizens and allies, the 
 Romans on the Rhine had no time for mourning, due" of Augus- 
 The shout of triumph on the one bank was sure 
 to find an echo on the other ; the victory of Arminius might 
 be expected to raise a general revolt both of Germans and 
 Gauls within the Gaulish provinces. The energy of Aspre- 
 nas, who commanded two legions in this quarter, averted this 
 anticipated disaster. Flying to the river bank, and receiving 
 with open arms the straggling fugitives from Aliso, he as- 
 sumed so bold an attitude as to daunt both the Germans in his 
 front and the Gauls behind him. Arminius contented him- 
 self with efikcing from his own soil the traces of Roman domi- 
 nation ; but he met with no encouragement to cross the bor- 
 der, nor did Maroboduus respond to his summons by arming. 
 This supineness saved the Romans. The news of the disaster 
 roused Augustus once more to energetic action. Alone, or at 
 least supported only by his son Tiberius, he manfully con- 
 fronted the danger, and prepared to overcome it. He caused 
 the city to be patrolled by guards, or placed it, as we should 
 say, in a state of siege, as a precaution against domestic 
 disturbances. He directed the prefects throughout the 
 provinces to retain their imperium, lest a change of admin- 
 istration might shake in any quarter the tottering fabric of 
 the empire. At the same time he sought to reassure the 
 citizens by vowing solemn games to Jupiter for the public 
 security, an act of faith such as was deemed to have protected 
 
 1 Frontinus, Strateg. iv. 14. Aliso was probably destroyed.. It is one of 
 the very few historical stations of the Roman armies which it is impossible to 
 identify with any modern locality. Roman remains have been found in some 
 spots of this neighbourhood, particularly, it is said, at Elsen, a small village 
 on the Lippe near Paderborn. I should be inclined, however, to look for it a 
 good deal nearer to the Rhine, and Hamm has been already mentioned as a 
 not improbable locality.
 
 276 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 10. 
 
 the state from the assault of the Cimbri and the Marsi. 1 The 
 citizens, however, seem for the most part to have been sunk 
 in the profoundest apathy. They had already ceased to feel 
 either for the successes or the disasters of the chiefs who 
 had usurped all the pleasures as well as the pains of sove- 
 reignty. They hesitated to inscribe their names on the roll 
 for military service, and the emperor was forced to stimulate 
 their patriotism by fines, and even by threats of capital punish- 
 ment. The levies which he was enabled to raise by ballot 
 from the veterans and freedmen, were sent forward as fast as 
 they could be collected. Yet it was not without some mis- 
 givings that Rome saw herself thus denuded of defenders. 
 Such was the panic of the government that even the handful 
 of Gauls and Germans residing within the walls caused it 
 grave disquietude. Some squadrons of these foreign auxilia- 
 ries had been admitted into the ranks of the imperial body- 
 guard. These were all now disarmed and dismissed from the 
 city, while such as seemed most obnoxious to suspicion were 
 removed to the state prisons. 2 
 
 The year 763 opened in gloom and amidst all the bustle 
 of these extraordinary preparations. On the 16th of January, 
 Tiberias goes Tiberius dedicated a temple of Concord, inscri- 
 to I A e D R io ne ' *> in g on its front the names of himself and his 
 A.U. 763. brother Drusus, an act which the citizens may 
 have construed as a pledge of his parental care for Germani- 
 cus.* In the course of the spring he reached himself the head 
 quarters on the Rhine. Even in Gaul some symptoms of in- 
 subordination had manifested themselves, but these Tiberius 
 quelled as he advanced. It was a work of time to replace 
 the material of war which had been annihilated in the late 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 23. : " Vovit et magnos ludos Jovi Opt Max. si respublica in 
 meliorem statum vertisset" 
 
 * Dion, Ivi. 23. Suet Oct. 49. : " Dimissa Germanorum rnanu quam usque 
 ad cladem Yarianam inter armigeros circum se habuerat" 
 
 * Kalend. Pramest. (Orelli, Inscrip. ii. 383.) " xvii. Kal. Febr. Concordiae 
 Augustae sedes dedicata est P. Dolabella C. Silano cos." Comp. Dion, Ivi. 25. 
 Concordia Augusta may refer to the happy harmony now established between the 
 members of the imperial family, and between the various orders of citizens also.
 
 A. U. 763.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 277 
 
 disaster; the new levies required training, the old soldiers 
 were discouraged, and could hardly be trusted in the field. 
 The Germans, on their part, did not venture on aggression, 
 and the year passed without hostile movements on either side. 
 With the commencement, however, of the following year 
 the Roman equipments were complete, and it was necessary 
 to adopt offensive operations, and convince the Bloodless cam- 
 enemy that the spirit of the empire was not ffln ^ 6 " 
 cowed by the blow it had sustained. Gennani- ma y j, n 
 cus was in the camp with his uncle, burning with A - v - 764 - 
 youthful ardour for revenge and glory. It was well for his 
 future distinction that he was required under Tiberius to 
 temper courage with prudence, and learn the art, most diffi- 
 cult to a young commander, of sparing his own men, and 
 economizing his resources. We have admired more than 
 once the breadth and boldness of plan which distinguished 
 the campaigns of Tiberius, though his operations were always 
 conducted with caution, and he never risked defeat by pre- 
 sumptuous temerity. But now his army was not perhaps 
 thoroughly to be relied on ; a single check might completely 
 demoralize it, and it was the last force the state could send 
 into the field. The excessive care and anxiety he now showed 
 in his preparations, limiting the amount of baggage, enforcing 
 the strictest discipline, exercising the utmost personal activity 
 and vigilance, yet seeking constantly the support of councils 
 of war, proves how deeply he felt the gravity of the occasion. 
 With so large a province to recover, so many nations to 
 reduce, so great a disaster to avenge, he confined himself to 
 ravaging a few fields and burning a few habitations, in which 
 he lost not a man. 1 The Germans, on their part, were not 
 seduced into rashness by sudden success. They declined to 
 meet the invader in the field, while he abstained from attack- 
 ing them in their strongholds. After traversing the open 
 country, for a few weeks perhaps, in various directions, Ti- 
 
 1 Comp. Veil. 120. Suet. Tiber. 18, 19. This writer observes particular- 
 ly, " semper alias sui arbitrii, contentusque se uno, tune prseter consuetudinem 
 cum pluribus de belli ratione communicavit."
 
 278 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 12. 
 
 berius withdrew slowly behind the Rhine, only careful to 
 secure his retreat from interruption. Tiberius had already 
 earned a triumph for his victories in Pannonia ; he forfeited 
 it by no misadventure in Germany. On his return to Rome 
 A D 12 he was at last enabled to celebrate the solemnity 
 A. u. 766. ^hich had been so long delayed. 1 The citizens, 
 assured that their arms had penetrated again into the recesses 
 of the formidable North, and that eveiy foe had fled before 
 them, were satisfied with this new proof of their reputed 
 invincibility, while the conqueror himself was doubtless well 
 aware how much their resources for conquest were really 
 exhausted. The Romans had recovered the fame of superi- 
 ority, but the actual loss they had sustained could not be 
 replaced without some years of repose. The frontiers of the 
 empire, as it seemed to the eyes of statesmen, had perma- 
 nently receded to the Rhine. 2 The aged emperor, after the 
 immediate necessity for action had passed, sank into a state of 
 nervous despondency. For many months after the news of 
 the Varian massacre he allowed his hair and beard to grow 
 untrimmed, and was even known to dash his head against his 
 chamber walls, exclaiming with frantic impatience, Varus, 
 Varus, restore me my legions ! To the end of his days he 
 continued to observe with solemn mourning the anniversary 
 of that fatal disaster. 3 
 
 We are now drawing to the close of the long domina- 
 tion of the second Caesar, the splendour of which, though 
 clouded towards its setting, was never wholly obscured. 
 The year 765 opened auspiciously for the emperor with 
 the triumph of Tiberius and the consulship of the brave 
 Germanicus, who was perhaps the secret object of his pride, 
 
 1 Suet. Tiber. 20. : " Tiberius a Germania in urbem post biennium regres- 
 sus, triumphum egit." The triumph took place on the 16th January, Kalend. 
 Prcenest. (Orelli, ii. 382.) Fischer, in Ann. 765. Germanicus was this year 
 consul. 
 
 2 Florus, iv. 12. : " Hac clade factum, ut imperium, quod hi litore Oce.ani 
 non steterat, in ripa fluminis Rheni staret." Possibly Tacitus alludes in Ann. 
 i. 38. " limes a Tiberio coeptus," to some outposts that were still retained be- 
 yond that river. 8 Suet. Oct. 23.
 
 A. U. 765.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 279 
 
 and on whom the people undoubtedly rested their best hopes 
 for the future. Great we may believe was the satisfaction, 
 both in the palace and the city, when, later in the year, the 
 union of this young hero with Agrippa's daugh- Augustus, in 
 ter, Agrippina, produced a son to inherit, as peas1eM e in ap " 
 might be fondly anticipated, the virtues of his P ubllc - 
 progenitors on either side. 1 The prsenomen of Caius, which 
 was bestowed upon him, unknown as it was to the branch of 
 the Claudii from which he was lineally descended, might 
 serve to remind the emperor of the favourite grandson he 
 had lately lost, while it would recal to the people the remem- 
 brance of the great dictator, the conqueror of the Gauls, the 
 destroyer of the Sullan oligarchy. With the politic courtesy 
 which rarely abandoned him, Augustus addressed a letter to 
 the senate, in which he recommended Germanicus to its favour 
 and protection, while at the same time he recommended the 
 senate itself to the respectful care of Tiberius. This letter 
 he excused himself from reciting in person on the plea of 
 increasing debility : it was read for him by Germanicus from 
 the consul's chair. Failing as he now was in strength and 
 spirits, he desired his kind friends, the senators and knights 
 of Rome, no longer to incommode him by their officious 
 salutations in the curia and the streets, in his own hall and 
 private apartments, and to abstain from inviting him to their 
 entertainments, which he had hitherto sedulously attended. 
 He was gradually withdrawing himself from the most irksome 
 obligations of his station, and relaxing the cords which bound 
 the burden of his honours upon him. He was more anxious, 
 however, to relieve himself from the pains or responsibilities 
 of authority than to surrender its substance. AD 13 
 Though he required the senate to renew the A - c - 766 - 
 tribunitian power of Tiberius, and at the same time to decree 
 him the proconsulate throughout the provinces, he did not 
 hesitate to accept for himself in the year 766 a fifth decennial 
 term of the Imperium. To his privy council, now raised from 
 
 1 Caius Germanicus, known afterwards by his nickname of Caligula, was 
 born on the 30th of September, A. u. 765, at Antium. Suet. Calig. 8.
 
 280 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D.13. 
 
 the number of fifteen to twenty, and always embracing 
 among its members the consuls actual and designate, to- 
 gether with other high magistrates, he reserved the right 
 of discussing all state affairs, and deciding them without 
 recurring to the senate itself. He had come but rarely 
 of late into the curia : he now relinquished his attendance 
 there altogether, and conducted his deliberations under his 
 own roof, and frequently in his bed-chamber. It was only 
 when he wanted the confirmation of some unpalatable mea- 
 sure, such as his tax on successions, that he required the senate 
 to set to it the seal of its collective authority. 1 
 
 This communication of proconsular power abroad could 
 hardly admit of any other interpretation than that the son 
 Tiberius be- was thereby formally associated in the empire 
 of?toB a ucce r 8 d with his father. The only question that now 
 8lon - remained for solution was whether the emperor 
 
 would designate others to share the succession in like man- 
 ner with Tiberius hereafter. On this point the jealousy of 
 Livia and her son's despondent apprehensions could not even 
 yet be tranquillized. In vain did the expressions which 
 dropped from Augustus himself throughout his intercourse 
 with Tiberius assure him of his esteem and affection. "Whether 
 earnest or playful, his letters continued always to abound in 
 tokens of admiration. No one, they declared, could have con- 
 ducted the late campaign with more consummate prudence. 
 Tiberius alone, they said, had restored the public weal, not 
 by delay, as Fabius of old, but by wariness and discretion. 2 
 No matter whether or not the aged emperor were well, pro- 
 vided only the brave Tiberius were not ill. Such was the 
 flattering tenor of every imperial epistle. Nevertheless 
 
 1 Dion, Ivi. 28. The council of fifteen had been renewed every six 
 months ; the twenty now retained their office for a year. Augustus, we see, 
 was still far from confining the supervision of affairs to a mere cabinet. To 
 the last he was not unfaithful to the principle, " quo plures partem adminis- 
 trandae reipublicse caperent." Suet. Oct. 37. 
 
 a Quoting the well-known line of Ennius, "TJnus homo nobis cunctando 
 restituit rem," Augustus altered cunctando to vigilando.
 
 A.U. 766.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 281 
 
 rumours were not wanting that in conversation with his 
 nearest associates, Augustus had used very different lan- 
 guage ; that he had expressed his fears, not indeed of the 
 ability, but of the temper of his future successor ; that he had 
 muttered with a sigh, Alas for my people ! to be ground be- 
 tween jaws so slow and so relentless. 1 On the other hand, it 
 was insinuated by some that he was induced to leave the 
 conduct of affairs to Tiberius, that the contrast he anticipated 
 between his own rule and his successor's might make his end 
 the more generally regretted. 2 He had been heard to murmur 
 at the moroseness of his stepson's temper, and been seen 
 to check the cheerful flow of his own spirits in company, 
 when the gloomy shadow of Tiberius darkened his thres- 
 hold. 3 
 
 Agrippa Postumus still lingered in banishment. It was 
 possible that, at the last moment, his grandfather's heart 
 might relent towards him. If this distrust of Reported visit 
 his stepson was truly imputed to him, Augustus Agrfpf alnban- 
 hoped to qualify the evil by making Agrippa his ishment - 
 associate in the imperial inheritance. Under the shades of 
 despotism whatever men begin to think likely to be done, is 
 straightway reported to have actually been done. Some 
 writers mentioned it only as a rumour, others stated it as a 
 fact, at least it was very generally believed, that Augustus 
 had visited his grandson in exile. 4 Adopting every precau- 
 tion to baffle observation, and attended, it was said, by a few 
 trusty servants and with Maximus as his only confidant, he 
 had quitted the shore of Italy. The interview had been 
 marked by emotion and tears on either side. Thus much, it 
 was added, was revealed by Maximus to his wife Marcia, by 
 
 1 Suet. Tib. 21. : "Miserum pop. Rom., qui sub tarn lentis maxillis erit." 
 The metaphor is taken from the circus. Suetonius elsewhere characterizes the 
 disposition of Tiberius as " saevam et lentam." 
 
 2 Tac. Ann. i. 10. ; Suet. /. c. 
 
 3 Suet. /. c. But even Suetonius gives no countenance to these rumours. 
 
 4 Comp. Tac. Ann. i. 5., with Dion, Ivi. 30., and with Plutarch (de Garrul. 
 11.), who tells the story still more dramatically.
 
 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 14, 
 
 Marcia to Livia. The emperor discovered his companion's 
 indiscretion, and when shortly afterwards Maximus was found 
 dead under suspicious circumstances, his wife was heard to 
 accuse herself as the cause of his decease. Such rumours 
 soon acquired consistency in the mouths of the citizens, and 
 became repeated as history at a later period. But Ovid, 
 in one of his desponding letters from the Euxine, drops a 
 similar accusation against himself, as in some mysterious way 
 the unworthy means of his friend's disaster. It will be re- 
 membered that the exile of Ovid was nearly simultaneous 
 with that of Agrippa, and hence some colour has been given 
 to the idea that a political connexion existed between them. 1 
 The mystery which attached to the end of so distinguished a 
 personage shows at least the irritable state of the public mind 
 at this period. Its morbid feelings were displayed in a cra- 
 ving for excitement which overcame every restraint. The pas- 
 sion of men of birth and figure to encounter the perils of the 
 arena for a round of popular applause rose higher than ever ; 
 and Augustus, wearied and disgusted, relaxed at last the 
 opposition he had so vigorously maintained to the practice." 
 
 Had Augustus, indeed, survived some years longer, a 
 
 more formidable rival to Livia's son than Agrippa would 
 
 have arisen in Gennanicus. Even now, since the 
 
 The census of , ., , . 
 
 the year 767. ,last campaign oi Tiberius, the most important 
 frontier of the empire was intrusted to his de- 
 fence ; his conspicuous ability, and the popularity he earned 
 or inherited, would doubtless have recommended him to the 
 emperor for still stronger tokens of confidence. 3 But the old 
 man, now reaching the completion of his seventy-sixth year, 
 
 1 Ovid, Ex Pont. iv. 6. 11.: 
 
 " Occidis ante preces, causamque ego, Maxime, mortis, 
 Nee fueram tanti, me reor esse tuae." 
 
 2 Dion, Ivi. 25. : Kai rots lirirtvyiv, i> KO! Savfuifffttv &t> TIJ, /xovojtax*"' 
 fTTfrpdirri ' aXnov 5e '6n tv o\iyupia -rives T}]V arifj.iav TJ\V IT? a.vT&> twiKfi/jifi>riv 
 f-jToiouvTO .... Kal ot/Ta>y avrl rrjy orjjui'as 6a.va.-rov u><$>\'iffKavov. 
 
 8 Suet. Calig. 8. : " Germanicum exacto consulatu in Galliam missum ;" 
 therefore at the commencement of the year 766.
 
 A.U. 767.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 283 
 
 could not but feel his end approaching. His health, which in 
 his youth had required constant care and unusual precautions, 
 had certainly become more confirmed in the latter half of his 
 life ; nevertheless he was subject to harassing infirmities, and 
 his strength failed under the weight of suffering no less than 
 of years. 1 He was anxious to leave his great work complete, 
 as far as human hands could make it so, and to retire from 
 the scene with the assurance that he had provided for the 
 future. As an appropriate close to his career he proposed 
 to hold now a census of the people, the third he had under- 
 taken since his accession to power, in order that the exact 
 state of the commonwealth, its wealth and population, at the 
 moment of his quitting it, might be certified to the latest pos- 
 terity. So much, indeed, was he impressed with the belief 
 that his decease was at hand, that on the occurrence of an 
 unlucky omen, which was thought to portend that he would 
 not survive an hundred days, he desisted from the work him- 
 self, leaving it to be completed by Tiberius, lest it should 
 suffer an unlucky interruption by his death. 
 
 The census, however, was completed, and the lustrum 
 closed, before the middle of 767, and Augustus still lived. 
 He employed the next few months in compiling a succinct 
 
 1 Suetonius, Oct. 80-83. gives some curious details of the habits of a 
 Roman valetudinarian. Weakness of the hams and thighs was relieved by 
 bandages and splints ; the forefinger of his right hand, being liable to numb- 
 ness, was encased, when he wrote, in horn. In the winter he wore four 
 under-garments and a thick gown over them, besides guarding the chest with 
 wool ; the legs were also wrapped up. In the summer he slept in a chamber 
 with open doors, often under an open colonnade, with fountains of water play- 
 ing beside him, and a slave to fan him. He always, even in winter, wore a 
 covering for the head when exposed to the sun. His journeys were made in 
 a litter, generally at night, slowly and by short stages, taking two days to 
 reach Tibur or Prgerieste, at the distance of fifteen or twenty miles. He pre- 
 ferred going by sea when possible. His precautions for preserving his health 
 were chiefly, refraining from much bathing, anointing frequently, and sweat- 
 ing himself before a fire. For exercise, instead of the athletic sports of the 
 palasstra, he was content with gentle riding and walking, or swinging his limbs 
 in sitting. His amusements were the languid excitement of fishing, or play- 
 ing dice with children.
 
 num - 
 
 284 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS [A.D. 14. 
 
 Augustus memorial of his public acts, to be preserved in 
 o?h7s 8 a\tio c ns? the public archives, a truly imperial work, and 
 oyTa e . n ' probably unique in its kind. The archives of 
 Rome have long mouldered in the dust, but a 
 ruined wall in a remote corner of her empire, engraved with 
 this precious document, has been faithful to its trust for 
 eighteen hundred years, and still presents us with one of the 
 most curious records of antiquity. The inscription, which 
 may still be read in the pronaos of a temple at Ancyra, attests 
 the energy, sagacity, and fortune of the second Caesar in a 
 detailed register of all his public undertakings through a 
 period of fifty-eight years. 1 Commencing with his nine- 
 teenth year, it bears witness to his filial piety in prosecuting 
 his father's murderers ; it touches lightly on the proscriptions, 
 and vaunts the unanimity of all good citizens in his favour, 
 when 500,000 Romans arrayed themselves under the banner 
 of the triumvir. It records his assignment of lands to the 
 veterans, and the triumphs and ovations decreed him by the 
 senate. It signalizes his prudence in civil affairs, in revising 
 the senate, in multiplying the patricians, and in thrice per- 
 forming the lustrum of the people. It enumerates the magis- 
 tracies and priesthoods conferred upon him, and boasts of his 
 three times closing the temple of Janus. His liberality is 
 commemorated in his various largesses both of corn and 
 money, and the contribiitions he made from his private treas- 
 
 1 The celebrated Monumentum Ancyranum is a Latin inscription in paral- 
 lel columns, covering the walls of the pronaos, or exterior porch, of a Temple 
 of Augustus at Ancyra. It" was first copied by Busbequius in 1544, and has 
 been transcribed often since : the traces of the letters have become fainter, 
 but the greater care of recent explorers has more than balanced this misfor- 
 tune. In the present century some fragments of the Greek text of the same 
 inscription have been discovered at Apollonia in Pisidia, which have served to 
 supply some defects and verify some corrections. See the history of the 
 Monumentum in Egger, Historiens cTAuguste, p. 412. foil. The record pur- 
 ports to be a copy from the original statement of Augustus himself, engraved 
 on two brazen pillars at Rome : " Rerum gestarum divi Augusti ex- 
 emplar subjectum." It runs throughout in the first person : " Annos undevi- 
 ginti natus exercitum private consilio et privata impensa comparavi," &c.
 
 A.U. 767.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 285 
 
 ures to relieve the burdens of his subjects. His magnificence 
 is made to appear in the temples and public structures he 
 built or caused to be built ; in his halls and forums, his colon- 
 nades and aqueducts ; nor less in the glorious spectacles he 
 exhibited, and the multitude of beasts he hunted in the circus. 
 The patriotism of Octavius shone conspicuously in the over- 
 throw of the pirate Sextus, with his crew of fugitive slaves. 
 Italy, it was added, swore allegiance to him of her own ac- 
 cord, and every province in succession followed her example. 
 Under his auspices the empire had reached the Elbe, a Roman 
 fleet had navigated the Northern Ocean, the Pannonians and 
 Ulyrians had been reduced, the Cimbric Chersonese had 
 sought his friendship and alliance. No nation had been 
 attacked by him without provocation. He had added Egypt 
 to the dominions of Rome ; Armenia, with dignified modera- 
 tion, he had refrained from adding. He had planted Roman 
 colonies in every province. Finally, he had recovered from 
 the Parthians the captured standards of Crassus. For all 
 these merits, and others not less particularly enumerated, he 
 had been honoured with the laurel wreath and the civic 
 crown ; he had received from the senate the title of Au- 
 gustus, and been hailed by acclamation as the father of his 
 country. 
 
 Such are the most interesting statements of this extraordi- 
 nary document ; but to judge of the marvellous sobriety and 
 dignity of its tone, the suppressed anticipation Lagt days of 
 of immortal glory which it discovers, the reader Au 8U 8tn8 - 
 must refer to the work itself. Certainly, whatever we may 
 think of the merits of Augustus, no deed of his life became 
 him so well as the preparation he made for quitting it. The 
 grave satisfaction he exhibits shows in a wonderful manner 
 the triumph in the mind of the Roman of the citizen over 
 the man. For if in public affairs his career had been emi- 
 nently prosperous, and a vast ambition had been gorged with 
 unexampled gratification, not the less had his latter years 
 been embittered beyond the ordinary measure of humanity, 
 by private chagrins and disappointments. The fortune of
 
 286 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS [A. D. 14. 
 
 Augustus, proverbial as it became, related only to the one 
 side of his history ; the other served not less to point a moral, 
 and betray the vanity of all earthly splendour and success. 1 
 It is important to notice these indications of the calmness 
 with which Augustus contemplated the approach of death, 
 and the preparation he made to meet it, for the estimate 
 they enable us to form of the reports which ascribed it to 
 the secret machinations of Livia. Such foul surmises obtain 
 circulation but too commonly on the demise of an autocrat ; 
 engendered in darkness, it is generally impossible to trace 
 their sources, or pronounce on their authenticity. But in 
 the instance before us our means of judging are fortunately 
 more satisfactory. Tiberius, after completing the lustrum, 
 prepared to resume the command in Illyricum, where the 
 attitude of the enemy, or rather, perhaps, of the legions them- 
 selves, might cause some uneasiness. On his quitting the 
 city in midsummer, the emperor, who generally spent the hot 
 season in the cool retreat of Campania, proposed to accom- 
 pany him towards the Apulian coast. The Ca3sars proceeded 
 leisurely together, halting at various spots on their route, and 
 showing themselves with good-humoured condescension to 
 the inhabitants. But at Astura, Augustus contracted a dy- 
 sentery, from incautious exposure to the night air. On re- 
 covering partly from the disorder, he proceeded to Caprea? 
 and Naples, and finally accompanied Tiberius as far as Bene- 
 ventum, where he took leave of him. Tiberius went on to 
 Brundisium, and took ship for Illyricum, while the elder 
 traveller returned towards the lower coast, but on reaching 
 Nola was attacked with a fatal relapse of his recent sickness." 
 
 1 The readers of Gibbon will remember how, at a late period of the 
 empire, the best wish that could be solemnly expressed for each emperor on 
 his accession was, that he might be "felicior Augusto," as well as "melior 
 Trajano." But compare the very striking passage in Pliny (Hist. Nat. vii. 
 
 46.) on the mortifications of Augustus : " In divo Augusto si 
 
 diligenter jestimentur cuucta, inagna sortis humanae reperiantur volumina," &c. 
 
 a Suetonius gives some interesting details of this last journey, showing the 
 cheerfulness and self-possession of the invalid to the last. Oct. 97, 98. 
 Comp. Dion, Ivi. 29., Veil. ii. 123. The death of Augustus is dated the 19th
 
 A.U. 767.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 287 
 
 Thereupon messengers were despatched in all haste to Ti- 
 berius, by the order of Livia, or of the emperor himself. 
 The expectant successor returned without delay ; and it was 
 announced that he came in time to see his father-in-law while 
 yet alive, to receive his parting injunctions in a long inter- 
 view, and to discharge towards him the last offices of filial 
 piety. 1 But the real moment of the sick man's decease was 
 never accurately known. The empress, it may be presumed, 
 would not have chosen to reveal it while her son was yet 
 absent, and before all requisite preparations had been made 
 to secure the recognition of his claims. "We may readily 
 excuse her for taking such precautions to ensure the object 
 of her life's ambition ; but the Romans were not content with 
 ascribing to her a little venial deceit; they gravely repre- 
 sented her to have murdered the poor old man her husband, 
 by giving him poisoned figs. From what has been said, how- 
 ever, it will be apparent that there was no adequate motive 
 for the crime : the fortunes of Tiberius, if not assured against 
 all remoter contingencies, were at the time at least fully se- 
 cure ; absent as he was from the court and city, the moment 
 was not such as would be seized for striking a blow in his 
 behalf; Augustus, now arrived on the verge of seventy- 
 seven, had already lived in safety with his reputed murderess 
 for more than half a century, and had never been led to 
 waver an instant in the confidence he reposed in her ; finally, 
 we have seen how evidently he was himself impressed with 
 the anticipation of a speedy dissolution, which is so often the 
 
 of August, 767, within thirty-seven days of his seventy-seventh birthday, i. e. 
 September 23. Suet. Oct. 100. His power, counting from the battle of, 
 Actium, Dion, Ivi. 29., had lasted forty-four years all but thirteen days ; or, 
 counting from his triumvirate, fifty-six years all but two months. 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 99. : " Revocatum ex itinere Tiberium diu secreto eermone 
 detinuit, neque post ulli majori negotio animum accommodavit." Veil. ii. 
 123.: " Revocavit filium. Ille expectato revolavit maturius," &c. But Taci- 
 tus insinuates a doubt, Ann. i. 5. : " Vixdum ingressus Illyricum Tiberius, 
 properis matris literis accitur ; neque satis compertum est, spirantem adhuc 
 Augustum apud urbem Jfolam, an exanimem repererit." And the latter view 
 is maintained by Dion, Ivi. 31. : ravra yap ovrca roT? re it\ft6fft Kal a^ioiricrro- 
 repots ytypairrat.
 
 288 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A.D. 14. 
 
 effect of an inward consciousness of decay. To exculpate 
 Livia or Tiberius from such a crime may be hardly worth the 
 endeavour ; but it is important to mark the weakness of the 
 grounds upon which historians of high character could ven- 
 ture to insinuate it against them. 
 
 The closing scene of this illustrious life has been portrayed 
 for us with considerable minuteness. It is the first natural 
 Last moments dissolution of a great man we have been called 
 of Augustus, upon to witness, and it will be long, I may add, 
 before we shall assist at another. Let us observe it and 
 reflect upon it. On the morning of his death, being now 
 fully sensible of his approaching end, Augustus inquired 
 whether there were any popular excitement in anticipation 
 of it. Being no doubt reassured upon this point, he called 
 for a mirror, and desired his grey hairs and beard to be 
 decently arranged. 1 Then asking of his friends around him 
 whether he had played well his part in the drama of life, he 
 muttered a verse from a comic epilogue, inviting them to 
 greet his last exit with applause. 2 He made some inquiries 
 after a sick grandchild of Tiberius, and falling at last into 
 the arms of Livia, had just strength, in the last moment of 
 expiring, to recommend to her the memory of their long 
 union. 8 His end was perfectly tranquil. He obtained the 
 euthanasia he had always desired, very different, but not less 
 in harmony with his character, from that of his predecessor. 4 
 There was no cynicism, at least to my apprehension, in the 
 gentle irony with which, at the moment of death, he sported 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 99. : " Capillum sibi comi, ac malas labentes corrigi prs&- 
 cepit." 
 
 9 Suet. 1. c. : " Ecquid iia videretur mimum vitoe commode transegisse 
 .... adjecit et clausulam : I Se irav ex 6 ' KO,\US, T$ naiyvitp A6n Kpfaov, 
 Kal iramfs v^s /uera xPs Krvir!)<ra.Tf." Comp. Dion, Ivi. 30. 
 
 3 Suet. I. c. The child was named Livilla, daughter of Drusus, the son of 
 Tiberius by Vipsania. See Suet. Claud. 1. 
 
 4 Suet. I. <r.:"Sortitus facilem exitum et qualem semper optaverat. Nam 
 fere quoties audisset cito ac nullo cruciatu defunctum quempiam sibi et suis 
 tu8ava<riat> similem, hoc enim et verbo uti solebat, precabatur." The reader 
 may remember Caesar's expression, that the best death is that which is least 
 expected.
 
 A.U. 767.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 289 
 
 with the vanities of a human career. Though cheered with 
 no religious hope for himself, nor soothed with any deep-felt 
 yearnings towards his survivors, he was supported on the 
 verge of the abyss by the unfailing power of national senti- 
 ment, and the strong assurance that he had confirmed by a 
 great achievement the fortunes of the Roman state. 
 
 The history of the emperors will afford us abundant 
 materials for estimating the strain upon the heart and brain 
 of the fatal possession of unlimited power. Effec t of sue- 
 Some men it puffs up and intoxicates with pride, cC?rac P te? of e 
 as we have seen was the case with the bold and Au g U8tus - 
 magnanimous Csesar ; others, of vehement and ill-regulated 
 passions, it may drive to raging madness ; some it crazes 
 with fear, others it fevers with sensual indulgence ; others 
 again, whose inteUects are weak, though their natures are 
 susceptible and kindly, it may reduce to absolute imbecility. 
 But there is still another class of characters, self-poised and 
 harmoniously developed, in whom it breeds a genuine enthu- 
 siasm, a firm assurance of their own mission, a perfect reli- 
 ance on their own destiny, which sanctifies to them all their 
 means, and imbues them with a full conviction that their 
 might is right, eternal and immutable. At the close of his 
 long career, Augustus could look back on the horrors in 
 which it had commenced without blenching. He had made 
 peace with himself, to whom alone he felt himself responsi- 
 ble ; neither God nor man, in his view, had any claim upon 
 him. The nations had not proclaimed him a deity in vain ; 
 he had seemed to himself to grow up to the full proportions 
 they ascribed to him. Such enthusiasm, it may be argued, 
 can hardly exist without at least some rational 
 foundation. The self-reliance of Augustus was andbcttefinhta 
 justified by his success. He had resolved to raise 
 himself to power, and he had succeeded. He had vowed to 
 restore the moral features of the republic, and in this too he 
 had, at least outwardly, succeeded. While, however, the 
 lassitude of the Romans, and their disgust at the excesses of 
 the times, had been the main elements of his success, another 
 
 YOL. IV. 19
 
 290 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS [A. D. 14. 
 
 and more vulgar agent, one which it might seem to need no 
 genius to wield, had been hardly less efficacious ; and this 
 was simply his command of money. Throughout his long 
 reign, Augustus was enabled to maintain a system of profuse 
 liberality, partly by strict economy and moderation in his own 
 habits, but more by the vast resources he had derived from 
 his conquests. He was anxious to keep the springs of this 
 abundance ever flowing, and he found means to engage the 
 wealthiest of his subjects to feed them with gifts and lega- 
 cies. The people were content to barter their freedom for 
 shows and largesses, to accept forums and temples in place 
 of conquests ; and while their ruler directed his sumptuary 
 laws against the magnificence of the nobles, because it threw 
 a shade over the economy which his own necessities required, 
 he cherished the most luxurious tastes among the people, and 
 strained every nerve to satiate them with the appliances of 
 indolent enjoyment, with baths and banquets, with galleries 
 and libraries, with popular amusements and religious solem- 
 nities. 
 
 Yet the secret of his power escaped perhaps the eyes of 
 Augustus himself, blinded as they doubtless were by the 
 Concluding re- fumes of national incense. Cool, shrewd, and 
 flections. subtle, the youth of nineteen had suffered neither 
 
 interest nor vanity to warp the correctness of his judgments. 
 The accomplishment of his desires was marred by no wan- 
 dering imaginations. His struggle for power was supported 
 by no belief in a great destiny, but simply by observation of 
 circumstances, and a close calculation of his means. As he 
 was a man of no absorbing tastes or fervid impulses, so he 
 was also free from all illusions. The story that he made his 
 illicit amours subservient to his policy, whether or not it be 
 strictly true, represents correctly the man's real character. 
 The young Octavius commenced his career as a narrow- 
 minded aspirant for material power. But his intellect ex- 
 panded with his fortunes, and his soul grew with his intellect. 
 The emperor was not less magnanimous than he was magnifi- 
 cent. With the world at his feet, he began to conceive the
 
 A.U.767.] UNDER THE EMPIRE. 291 
 
 real grandeur of his position ; he learnt to comprehend the 
 manifold variety of the interests subjected to him ; he rose 
 to a sense of the awful mission imposed upon him. He 
 became the greatest of Stoic philosophers, inspired with the 
 strongest enthusiasm, and impressed the most deeply with a 
 consciousness of divinity within him. He acknowledged, not 
 less than a Cato or a Brutus, that the man-God must suffer 
 as well as act divinely ; and though his human weakness still 
 allowed some meannesses and trivialities to creep to light, his 
 self-possession both in triumphs and reverses, in joys and in 
 sorrows, was consistently dignified and imposing. 1 
 
 1 The deep impression this ruler's character made upon a hundred mil- 
 lions of subjects, is strongly marked in the eloquent though high-flown pane- 
 gyric which Philo the Jew pronounces upon him : <5 5< /jtfytQos fiyeovias 
 ouTo/cporovy 6fj.ou KOI Ka\oK.aya6iaf irptaros &vo/jLaff6fls 2ej8a<7TJ>s, oil 5ia5o%j} 
 yeVous Hxrirtp rl K\^pov jue'pos T^V tirwvvfj.iai' \af3wir a\\' curbs yev6pfvos 
 (cat TOIS (veira' K. r. \. Philo. Leg. ad Caium. 21.
 
 292 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 UNITY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. - CONTRAST BETWEEN THE THREE GREAT DIVISIONS 
 OF THE ANCIENT WORLD, THE EAST, THE NORTH, AND THE WEST. TARIETY 
 WITHIN THE ROMAN EMPIRE : 1. OF LANGUAGES ; 2. OF RELIGIONS ; 3. OF 
 CLASSES : CITIZENS, SUBJECTS, AND ALLIES, ALL GRADUALLY TEND TO A SINGLE 
 TYPE. - ELEMENTS OF UNITY IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE FROM ITS GEOGRAPHICAL 
 FEATURES. - ITALY AND THE MEDITERRANEAN. - COMMUNICATIONS BY SEA AND 
 LAND. - MAP OF THE EMPIRE : SURVEYS I CENSUS AND PROFESSIO. - BREVIA- 
 RIUM OR REGISTER OF THE EMPIRE. THE POPULATION OF THE ROMAN DOMIN- 
 IONS UNDER AUGUSTUS. UNIVERSAL PEACE ; PAX ROMANA. 
 
 conquests of Sulla and Lucullus, and still more those 
 of Pompeius, opened a new world to the Romans, and 
 The empire of extended their dominion, as they proudly boasted, 
 the world. over another hemisphere. Lords alike of the East 
 and of the West, their sway seemed to stretch to the horizon 
 on either side. They listened first with complacent satisfac- 
 tion to the flattery of the Greeks, who sought to extenuate 
 the shame of their own overthrow by magnifying the force 
 and glory of their conquerors ; but the orators of the forum 
 soon caught up these exaggerated strains, and Cicero him- 
 self could venture to declare that the whole globe was shaken 
 by the convulsion of the civil wars. 1 The establishment of the 
 Augustan monarchy, expressing the material and moral unity 
 of so many climes and nations, penetrated the Roman mind 
 still more deeply with a sense of the vastness of the national 
 power, and the boundless extent of its dominion. If any 
 
 1 Polyb. iii, 3. : The Romans, he says, tirolricrav iratrav T^V olicovufvriv 
 virriKooi> avrois. Cic. ad Div. ii. 16. iv. 1. : " hac orbis terrarum perturba- 
 tione . . . orbem terrarum ardere bello."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 293 
 
 realms or nations still lay beyond the tread of the proconsular 
 legions, they were known to the mass of the citizens only as 
 suppliants or tributaries from the delusive legends of the 
 imperial medals. These illusions were widely propagated by 
 the glowing language of orators and courtly versifiers ; though 
 not Virgil only and Horace, but Tibullus also and Propertius, 
 generally speak upon this tempting theme with dignified 
 moderation. With the lively and witty Ovid, however, there 
 is an end of all such reserve. The author of the Fasti and the 
 Metamorphoses indulges without scruple or reflection in the 
 boldest assertions of the unbounded power of Rome, and its 
 extension over all the earth. He defies great Jove himself, 
 when he casts his eyes down from the pinnacles of heaven, to 
 descry throughout creation any object which is not actually 
 Roman. 1 
 
 A glance on the map of the world, as it is known in our own 
 times, will suffice to reduce these vaunts to their proper limits. 
 At this moment the globe contains three at least, 
 
 ./,./ . i_ .* i_ i_ 3 Three families 
 
 if not four empires, each of which, exceeds in size of nations in 
 the dominions of Rome at the period of their westfan'dthe 
 greatest extension, and of which one only com- 
 prises a few acres of all the regions over which Augustus 
 held sway.* It will be fairer, however, to measure the ideas 
 of the Romans by the knowledge they themselves possessed ; 
 
 1 Compare the noble and legitimate aspiration of Horace, " possis nihil 
 urbe Roma visere majus," with the reckless assertion of Ovid : 
 " Jupiter arce sua totum cum spectat in orbem, 
 
 Nil nisi Romanum quod .tueatur habet." 
 
 But Horace had said, " totum confecta duella per orbem ; " and Virgil, " Pa- 
 catumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem." Seneca views the subject rather 
 differently. If Rome did not possess the whole world she had all that was 
 worth having. "Omnes considera gentes hi quibus Romana pax desinit; 
 Germanos, dico, et quicquid circa Istrum vagarum gentium occursat. Per- 
 petua illos hyems, triste coelum premit, maligne solum sterile sustentat, imbrem 
 culmo aut fronde defendunt, super durata glacie stagna persultant, in alimentum 
 feras captant." De Provid. 4. 
 
 * The Russian, the British, the American, and, if it still exist, the Chinese. 
 Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian islands are the only fragments of the Augus- 
 tan empire included in any of these vast agglomerations of territory.
 
 294: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 though judged even by this test, the extravagance of their 
 notions will stand reproved. The tripartite division of the 
 earth's surface is a tradition of unknown antiquity, though 
 it has been differently applied at different epochs. At one 
 time it was usual to separate Asia from the rest by a vertical 
 line from north to south, and again to subdivide the western 
 hemicycle by a line drawn horizontally through the Mediter- 
 ranean, into the two continents of Europe and Africa. At 
 another the cardinal line was traced from east to west, leav- 
 ing Europe, with half of Asia, as a single compartment, above 
 it, and the rest of Asia with Africa, which were again dis- 
 tinguished from each other, below. But these divisions were 
 merely arbitrary ; at least they recommended themselves to 
 the eye only. At the period we are now considering the 
 known world admits of a more philosophical division, with 
 reference to its social and political features, while the prin- 
 ciple of tripartition may be still retained. At the foundation 
 of the empire the communities of the Roman world were 
 massed in three principal families, and these continued for 
 many ages to retain their most distinctive characteristics. 
 They may be represented as the East, the West, and the 
 North ; the realms, 1st, of the Parthian, Indian, and Ara- 
 bian ; 2nd, of the Roman with all his subject peoples ; and, 
 lastly, of the German, Scythian, and Sarmatian. On the one 
 hand, a line drawn from the crest of the Caucasus across the 
 heads of the Tigris and Euphrates, descending thence along 
 the frontiers of Syria and Palestine, till it struck the northern 
 extremity of the Red Sea, would separate the dominions of 
 Rome from those of her chief rival, Parthia, and the allies the 
 Parthian could summon to his aid, or the kindred monarchies 
 he might pretend to influence. On the other hand, the eye 
 following the British Channel, the Rhine, and the Danube, 
 and glancing across the Euxine and the Caspian, till it lost 
 itself in the steppes of central Asia, might distinguish be- 
 tween the unexplored realms of the northern barbarians on 
 the left, and the two great empires of civilized humanity on 
 the right.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 295 
 
 The political characteristics of these three co-ordinate sec- 
 tions may be contrasted not less readily than their geographi- 
 cal positions. In the patriarchal despotism which 
 
 Their political 
 
 prevailed throughout the East, all power emana- characteristics 
 
 ,-,/. ,, . , , jTii. i contrasted. 
 
 ted irom the sovereign, and descended through i. Parthtaand 
 the channels ordained by his sole will and pleas- Spirit of inonar- 
 ure. From the Parthian sultan on his throne at cl 
 Seleucia, to the Arab sheikh who directed a handful of roving 
 bandits from his tent in the desert, the same principle of 
 government was there generally admitted. The military 
 chiefship of the Macedonian kings became, as soon as they 
 were settled in Asia, an uncontrolled monarchy, checked by 
 no prerogatives of nobles or people. The successors of Alex- 
 ander inherited the tiara of Darius. In the same manner the 
 feudal principles respected by the old Parthian kings in their 
 mountain fastnesses, where the great vassals of the crown had 
 each his proper place and privileges, entitled to the deference 
 of the sovereign himself, vanished almost as soon as the 
 horsemen of the Oxus touched the soil of Seleucia and Baby- 
 lon, and yielded to the pure autocracy exercised there long 
 before by the Mede and the Persian. 
 
 The chief feature, however, of the northern polities, if 
 such a term is applicable to so rude a society, consisted in the 
 voluntary surrender of each man's will and action 
 to a chief chosen by himself for a definite object, and the North. 
 The German warriors assembled for the choice of personal iib- 
 a captain to point out to them the foe, to lead ert>> 
 them against him, to divide his territories among them. They 
 required him also to execute justice between them, and ordi- 
 narily appealed to his decision, when their passions were not 
 too strongly excited to forego a mere trial of strength. But, 
 destitute as they were of cities, and nearly destitute even of 
 villages, they had no conception of municipal government, 
 and the intricate questions of right thence arising. Their 
 property, held for the most part in common, was hardly a 
 subject of legal regulation ; religion, directed by the voice 
 of priests, oracles, and prophetesses, had little of prescribed
 
 296 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 system or traditional forms ; while consultation in common 
 for the purpose of permanent legislation was apparently sel- 
 dom used. The instinct of municipal organization which has 
 been since so conspicuous among them, remained yet to be 
 developed in the character of the northern nations. The 
 spirit of personal independence was as yet a sufficient safe- 
 guard of freedom, and enabled them to resist with success 
 the formidable aggressions of their invaders : but it would 
 not have availed to overthrow the fabric of an established 
 civilization, much less to replace it ; and the four centuries 
 which were yet to intervene before the northern races, con- 
 fronted on the Rhine and Danube with Roman laws and 
 manners, should succeed to the empire of the South, were a 
 period of slow and gradual training in the science of law and 
 government. 
 
 The political notions which animated the two great civil- 
 izing nations of antiquity, the Greek and the Roman, were 
 remarkable for their similarity. The idea of the 
 
 3. Greece and . . , , . 
 
 Rome in the city, as the germ ol social development, was com- 
 of municipal mon to both. The spirit of the institutions of 
 government. Athens an( j R O me was in the main identical. 
 It was marked by common consultation, by oral discussion, 
 by the recognition of the opinion of the majority as the sen- 
 tence of the community, by the combination in the same 
 hands of the civil, the military, and the religious administra- 
 tion, and generally by a preference of the elective to the he- 
 reditary principle in every department of government. How- 
 ever much of the details of their political constitution the Ro- 
 mans derived from the Etruscans, they permitted little devia- 
 tion, under that foreign influence, from these great fundamen- 
 tals. They created and maintained from the first the theories 
 of government, which have approved themselves as the sound- 
 est to after ages, and which are generally accepted among the 
 most advanced of modern nations as the genuine expression 
 of right reason. When the Romans conquered Italy they 
 found tl emselves in collision with no hostile and irreconcile- 
 able political conceptions. There was no difficulty, therefore,
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 297 
 
 in admitting the nations of the peninsula to the privileges of 
 the conquering city, for they had been educated to under- 
 stand and appreciate them by familiarity with their own. So 
 it was with the conquests of the Greeks also. Throughout 
 the regions where the Hellenic race had settled, in which it 
 had amalgamated the natives to a great extent with itself, the 
 ideas of municipal government had taken root and become 
 naturalized. The conquerors did not find it necessary to 
 supplant these institutions by formulas of their own : both 
 the one and the other were in fact homogeneous. Even in 
 lower Italy and Sicily, and still more commonly in Greece 
 and Asia Minor, we find that the petty communities of Hel- 
 lenic origin were frequently allowed to retain their laws and 
 local administration. The general ideas of self-government 
 and social progress, which had formed the strength of Athens 
 and Rome, continued to animate the two great families, the 
 Italian and Hellenic, in which the moral force of the united 
 empire resided. 
 
 In the West, on the other hand, the native races had far 
 less of this instinct for municipal government : many of them, 
 as in Spam and Africa, were probably altogether 
 
 J Barbarian 
 
 devoid of it. Here the conqueror came as an in- races of the 
 structor and a civilizer. Self-government was 
 recommended to the Gauls and Iberians by the moral supe- 
 riority of their new rulers, which they acknowledged with 
 awe and admiration. 1 Accordingly little effort was required 
 
 1 Yet this may be a fit place to remark that the civilization of barbarians, 
 at least their material cultivation, has been generally more advanced by in- 
 structors whose moral superiority was less strongly marked, than where the 
 teachers and the taught have few common sympathies and points of contact. 
 Thus, in our own times, rough whalers and brutal pirates have done more to 
 Europeanize the natives of Polynesia than the missionaries ; and it may be 
 believed that the success of the Romans hi assimilating to themselves the 
 barbarian races of their empire, which has been deemed one of the lost arts, 
 was owing in a great degree to the low moral standard of the conquerors 
 themselves, which brought them nearer to the level of their subjects. When 
 this moral infirmity was found to be united, as in the case before us, with in- 
 tellectual and social superiority, the influence it exercised over the inferior
 
 298 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 to impress on these people the advantage of managing their 
 local affairs under Roman forms. We have already seen how 
 the western half of the empire became much more closely 
 assimilated to Italy than the eastern : in the one region Roman 
 ideas were transplanted in their full maturity to the foreign 
 land ; hi the other they found themselves confronted and held 
 aloof by a rival civilization at least equal to their own, long 
 fixed and rooted in the soil. 
 
 We may pause in this place, and examine in some detail the 
 elements of variety which thus existed together in the political 
 Elements of condition of the Roman empire ; an empire which 
 th^oman hln comprehended at least an hundred divers races 
 empire. among its subjects, speaking perhaps many more 
 
 languages and dialects ; which numbered some thousands of 
 towns or cities, each endowed with its own laws and admin- 
 istration, each having its several classes of inhabitants, with 
 peculiar privileges and functions the citizen, the metic, the 
 stranger, and the slave ; which acknowledged at the same 
 tune the sanctity of manifold religions, and suffered a para- 
 mount or exclusive authority to be claimed by a multitude 
 of distinct divinities, each in its own peculiar sphere. 
 
 I./ There is no trace of the Romans seeking in any quarter 
 to impose their own language on the conquered races, or pro- 
 VarietieB of scribing the native tongue. The furthest extent 
 to which they allowed themselves to go in ob- 
 truding a single favoured idiom on their subjects, was in con- 
 ducting public business throughout the empire in Latin, a 
 practice dictated by convenience, though sanctioned no doubt 
 by a feeling of national pride. The majesty of Rome, that 
 moral charm on which her authority was made to rest even 
 more than on her arms, might seem to require that her chief 
 
 race was irresistibly seductive. But hence the new civilization of the Roman 
 provinces was rotten from the first. Its foundation was laid on a mere quick- 
 sand : there were no steadfast and solid virtues, however rude and homely, at 
 the bottom of it. Hence Gaul, Spain, and Africa produced no original minds 
 in any branch of art or science, no schools of thought, no principles of action, 
 and exercised no moral control on the course of events.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 299 
 
 magistrates and generals should use no other language than 
 her own, and allow no other to be addressed to them in the 
 provinces, and still more that the debates of the senate at 
 home, the parliamentary model and court of appeal of all 
 nations, should be confined to the vernacular dialect, at a time 
 when in private every educated Roman was in the habit of 
 talking Greek almost as commonly as Latin. Some vigilance 
 was required, in such a state of things, to maintain the purity 
 of this oificial language of the state, to keep the door closed 
 against the intrusion of alien idioms into its most solemn dis- 
 cussions ; and Tiberius was noted for the strictness with 
 which he insisted on this etiquette in drawing up the decrees 
 of the senate. 1 The Roman language was used in every offi- 
 cial act to the furthest borders of the empire ; but it was 
 translated .into the local dialect, and often again into the 
 Greek, as the classical channel of communication between 
 the instructed of all countries. 2 The Greek language indeed 
 pervaded, as we have seen, the whole of the East- prevalence of 
 ern provinces, and was generally understood by ilste'rnVrov. 
 the more intelligent even of the lower classes. lnces - 
 Among these the knowledge of it was probably disseminated 
 by the Greek slaves who followed in the retinue of every 
 noble Roman, and generally transacted his business. In 
 Rome, however, it was acknowledged and prized as the 
 vehicle of poetry, philosophy, history, and science. In all 
 these branches of learning the writers of Latin avowed them- 
 selves to be merely imitators ; they pretended to no higher 
 
 1 Suet. Tib. 71. : " Sermone Graeco, quanquam alias promptus et facilis, 
 non tamen usquequaque usus est, abstinuitque maxime in Senatu, adeo quidem 
 ut monopolium nominaturus, prius veniam postularit, quod sibi verbo pere- 
 grino utendum esset. Atque etiam in quodam decreto Patrum, quum ^^AT;^O 
 recitaretur, commutandam censuit vocem," &c. 
 
 a Hence we read that the inscription on the cross was written in Latin, 
 Greek, and Hebrew. The co-ordination of the three languages among the 
 Jews is curiously exemplified, as regards personal names, in the incidental 
 notice of St. Mark's Gospel, xv. 21. : "Simon the Cyrenian, the father of Alex- 
 ander and Rufus." But generally the names of Jews mentioned in the New 
 Testament are in about equal proportion, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.
 
 300 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 aim than that of naturalizing among their own countrymen 
 the ideas of their intellectual mistress. They had their 
 children taught Greek from infancy ; l they spoke it habitu- 
 ally in their own families ; they wrote in it their private 
 correspondence ; they discussed in it with their learned slaves 
 matters of art, science, and domestic economy ; and many mas- 
 ters of Roman literature composed without affectation some 
 pieces in Greek also. They indulged a humble hope of leav- 
 ing to posterity a more durable monument of themselves than 
 stone or brass, by embalming the record of their actions in 
 the language of Xenophon and Thucydides. 1 It is curious 
 how entirely this calculation has failed. Such memorials of 
 Roman statesmen and captains have universally perished ; 
 nor does there exist any composition of a Roman writer in 
 Greek until we come at least to a somewhat later age. 1 
 
 But Latin, while it thus yielded without reluctance to the 
 superior claims of its rival throughout the East, and to a 
 of Latin in the great extent even in Italy and Rome itself, was 
 Western. compensated by a still more remarkable triumph 
 in the opposite quarters of the empire. 4 We have no intima- 
 tion that force was employed in planting this Language in 
 Gaul or Spain, Pannonia or Africa ; that the use of the ver- 
 nacular idioms was ever interdicted, or the native children 
 drafted into schools to learn that of their conquerors. Yet 
 scarcely had one generation passed away, after the incorpora- 
 
 1 Dial, de Orat. 29. : "At none natus infans delegatur Graculae alicui 
 anriDje." 
 
 * Thus, besides Cicero's history of his consulship, there were memoirs of 
 the younger Scipio, of Lucullus, of Sulla, &c., in Greek. Fabius Pictor and 
 Cincius wrote Roman history in that language. 
 
 * The Geography of Strabo (in the reign of Tiberius), preserTed to us by 
 its rare merits, is perhaps the earnest of the kind. 
 
 4 The reason why the Latin never prevailed over the Greek, is because the 
 Greek is a language of later formation than the other. A people who had ad- 
 vanced so far in accuracy and discrimination as to use the article, middle verb, 
 and such a variety of moods, cases, and inflexions, as the Greeks, could not re- 
 turn to the meagre elements of the Latin tongue. For the greater antiquity 
 of Latin, see Donaldson, Netc Crattfu*, ed. 2. p. 127. But Latin, on the other 
 hand, was no doubt more copious and varied than any of the western idioms.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 301 
 
 tion of these countries with the empire, before the use of 
 Latin seems to have become almost universal among them. 
 Some districts of Gaul continued, indeed, as at this day, to 
 utter the cherished sounds of their own Celtic idioms ; the 
 language of the Vascones or Basques retained its savage 
 supremacy, as it still does, in remote corners of Spain ; frag- 
 ments of the ancient Moorish tongue, and of the Punic en- 
 grafted on it, lingered, we may believe, among the African 
 provinces ; l but in all these vast regions Latin became, at a 
 very early period, the ordinary language of the people ; it 
 reached, within one or two centuries, the limits beyond the 
 Alps and the Pyrenees which it has ever since retained. 
 Strabo, born in the lifetime of Augustus, tells us that in 
 some parts of Spain the native language was in his day 
 already forgotten. 8 Latin, we learn from Velleius Patercu- 
 lus, was generally spoken 3 in Pannonia twenty years after its 
 subjugation. While Divitiacus had lived for years at Rome 
 without acquiring it, in the course of two generations we 
 find Arminius speaking it without hesitation. 4 The conquests 
 of a language seem to depend, not so much on the compara- 
 tive numbers of the people who speak it, as on the moral 
 influence they exert. We here discover an additional proof 
 that Rome occupied, in the view of the western races, the 
 same place which Greece claimed in the eyes of the Romans. 
 She was beheld with the same awe and respect, and acknowl- 
 edged as a mistress in civilization more potent than in arms. 
 The western nations were content never to look beyond Rome 
 for their ideas, just as the Romans never looked beyond 
 
 1 " Apuleius reproaches an African youth, who lived among the populace, 
 with the use of Punic, whilst he had almost forgot Greek, and neither could 
 nor would Speak Latin. Apolog. p. 656. The greater part of St. Austin's 
 congregations were strangers to the Punic." Gibbon, Ded. and fall, 
 ch. ii. 
 
 3 Strabo, iii. 2. p. 151. : oXA.' of fj.(v TovpSeravol Kal fjAXiara. ol vepl rb 
 BOUTIV .... ovSe T7)S 5ta\fKTOv rrjj ff$tTepa.s tn fj.tfj.vrifj.tvoi. 
 
 3 Veil. ii. 110.: "In omnibus Pannoniis non discipline tantummodo sed 
 linguae quoque notitia Romans, plerisque etiam literarum usus." 
 
 4 Tac. Ann. ii. 10.
 
 302 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Greece. The monuments of Egyptian life and manners, 
 which the children of Hellen acknowledged as the source 
 of so much of their own inspiration, were merely objects of 
 vague curiosity to the descendants of Quirinus. 
 
 II. Accordingly, while we observe the wide diversities 
 of language thus existing within the sphere of the empire, 
 ii. Varieties of we perceive at the same time that they are doom- 
 ed soon to merge in one or two superior types of 
 speech. The variety, however, of the religious systems in 
 vogue under the Roman dominion, offered a more obstinate 
 resistance to the tendency, which was now every where ex- 
 hibited, towards uniformity. According to modern notions 
 there is nothing more vital to the existence of national unity 
 than the unity of its religious views. To the maintenance of 
 this unity philosophers and statesmen have directed their most 
 ardent efforts, the one by argument, the other often by force. 
 The dawn of consciousness that it has ceased to exist has 
 been felt as a shock which it was necessary to conceal from 
 popular observation. In proportion as the actual variety of 
 belief among the people has become apparent, the state itself 
 has seemed to rock to and fro, to lose its balance, to let go 
 its fixed principles, to become a mere collection of unce- 
 mented atoms. Very foreign, however, were any such feel- 
 ings from the ideas with which the Romans were conversant. 
 In the height of their power, when their own faith and their 
 own right hands were equally potent, they felt no scruple in 
 allowing every race and every man among their subjects to 
 worship his God after his own fashion. We have seen how 
 the national divinities of Gaul were respected by the con- 
 querors ; and the same was doubtless the case, though we 
 have not the means of tracing it, in every other province. 
 The honours paid them by the natives, and even by the Roman 
 residents, survived in many parts the vernacular languages. 1 
 In Jerusalem, Augustus caused a sacrifice to be offered 
 
 1 The votive inscriptions, of which there are many existing, to the Gallic 
 divinities, run generally in the name of Roman worshippers, and always in the 
 Latin language
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 303 
 
 daily in the temple for his own health and fortunes. 1 With 
 few and special exceptions only, they allowed foreign cults 
 to be practised even in the heart of the imperial city : they 
 suffered their own Jupiter on the Capitol to be rivalled with- 
 in the shadow of his august temple by deities, whose wor- 
 shippers proclaimed them the Best and the Greatest, no less 
 than Jupiter himself. 
 
 ISTor was this all. There were temples dedicated to Jupi- 
 ter Capitolinus at Corinth, at Antioch, at Augustodunum, 
 and possibly at other places, as well as at Rome ; Their local in _ 
 nor can we suppose, although no traces of such de P endence - 
 worship appear, that Janus and Quirinus, and other Roman 
 divinities, were entirely without honour in the colonies 
 abroad. 3 The deity of Augustus himself, sometimes in con- 
 junction with that of Roma, was adored with vows and 
 sacrifices both in the East and West, though the worship of 
 the emperor was forbidden to Roman citizens, or within the 
 bounds of Italy. But we cannot trace at least any bond of 
 uniformity in the worship of the same gods thus locally 
 separated. No jealous eye watched over their ceremonies 
 and rituals, no authoritative voice denounced the discrepan- 
 cies which might spring up between their services, and even 
 the attributes in divers places ascribed to them. Each tem- 
 ple must be supposed to have had its own ministers, indepen- 
 dent of other kindred colleges, and subject only to the gen- 
 eral but ill-defined authority of the chief of religion, who was 
 chief also of the state. The management of the estates be- 
 queathed to it by local piety, the regulation of its usages, the 
 methods of election into its own body, were left to the dis- 
 cretion of each separate corporation. We shall notice at a 
 later period the feebleness of this loose and unconnected sys- 
 tem when opposed to the strict organization of the Christian 
 churches. 
 
 III. Another important element of diversity was the fixed 
 
 1 Philo, Leg. ad Cai. y pp. 588. 592. 
 
 3 Pausan. ii. 4, ; Liv. xli. 20. Eumen. Orat. pro instaur. schol. 9, 10. 
 Comp. Tzschirner, Fall des Heidenthums, p. 53.
 
 304 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 distinction of classes in the empire. The great aim of modern 
 in. Distinction civilization is to reduce the component parts of 
 society to an uniform status, at least in the eye 
 of the law ; to fuse together all varieties of race and origin, 
 and abolish or disguise whatever special privileges they may 
 have claimed or exercised. The administration of Augustus, 
 retrogressive in many respects, had in this particular a con- 
 trary aim, however it may have been thwarted by irresistible 
 circumstances. Augustus strove, with a zeal which we may 
 almost call fanatical, to retrace more strongly the old lines 
 of social demarcation, which the disorders of the times had 
 suffered to disappear. The Roman world was still com- 
 posed of citizens, subjects, and allies : such were 
 
 Citizens, sub- A 
 
 jects, and the three co-ordinate classes of society, each 
 
 allies 
 
 subdivided into ranks and orders of its own, 
 
 which alone the law recognised as entitled to social and 
 
 political rights. Beyond these, huddled together 
 
 with goods and chattels, lay the outer world 
 
 of slaves, who were allowed no part or interest in the law 
 
 at all. 
 
 We have seen with what precision Augustus regulated 
 the places of senators and knights, citizens and freedmen ; 
 with respect to the admission of strangers to the franchise 
 he was reserved and scrupulous. He abstained altogether 
 from imparting the boon to whole cities and states, as Casar 
 and Antonius had done : to individuals he doled out the pre- 
 cious gift with a sparing hand. In the provinces the condi- 
 tion of the people was complicated by a variety 
 
 Distinctions of *_-_. J ^r. i. * J 
 
 condition in the ot distinctions ; and these too he maintained ac- 
 cording to the prescriptions of the republic. We 
 have no data for assigning the proportion of the provincial 
 population which belonged to the class of subjects, and lay 
 under the yoke of Roman laws and magistrates, without any 
 free action of its own. It was not, perhaps, large. Caesar 
 applauded his own generosity in granting terms to the whole 
 mass of the Gauls, the use of their own customs, choice of 
 their magistrates, discussion of their affairs, and levying of
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 305 
 
 their local revenues. Independence, or autonomy, as it was 
 called, to this extent was enjoyed, indeed, by a large portion 
 of every subject people ; but only by special grant at the 
 time of capitulation, or at a later period under the patronage 
 of some powerful chieftain. Pompeius gave autonomy to 
 most of the cities of Asia ; in Greece the constitutions of the 
 several states were generally remodelled at the conquest, but 
 they were allowed themselves to administer them. 1 We have 
 already traced in many instances the effect of individual 
 favour and caprice in conferring or withdrawing these co- 
 veted prerogatives. Autonomy, however, did not imply re- 
 lease from imperial taxation. The land and capitation taxes, 
 sometimes together with a special tribute, were regularly 
 enforced. Fiscal exemption or immunity was a special boon 
 bestowed only in the most favoured cases. The free states 
 continued to mark their years by the names of their chief 
 magistrates. Archons and Prytanes, as we learn from medals 
 and inscriptions, governed to a late period the communities 
 of Ionian origin, while the Dorian still obeyed their Ephori 
 and Cosmi." To some of them the prerogative of coining 
 money was long indulged. Each of them was suffered to 
 maintain its own fiscal regulations, devised with a view to its 
 own peculiar advantage, whereby a multitude of conflicting 
 interests was everywhere perpetuated ; and these were still 
 further complicated by the existence of free confederations, 
 such as the Panionian, the Amphictyonic, the Boeotian and 
 Achaean ; the action of which may have been mainly confined, 
 however, to matters of religion and social intercourse. 
 
 But the friends and allies of the Roman people, though 
 often locally situate in the heart of the Roman territories, 
 were neither subject to the Roman magistrate, Inde p en dent 
 nor tributary to the imperial treasury. The terms commnnitieB 
 on which they held then* independence were specifically those 
 of offensive and defensive alliance ; the supply of a military 
 
 1 Strabo, xii. xiii. ; Plin. H. N. v. ; Dion, xxxvii. 20.; Pausan. vii. 16.; 
 Becker's JRoem. Alterth. iii. 1. 143. 
 9 Hoeck, Roem. Gesch. ii. 218. 
 
 VOL. IT. 20
 
 306 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 contingent, the extradition of fugitives, and non-intercourse 
 with the enemies of Rome. In return for such compliances 
 they received the august protection of the patron state. 
 Much, however, as these apparent anomalies might seem to 
 militate against the actual unity of the empire, in practice 
 they did not seriously aflect it. The eye, accustomed to the 
 contemplation of the essential uniformity of the administra- 
 tion, glanced beyond these petty exceptions without a pause, 
 and rested upon the grand principle which predominated over 
 the whole. Friends and allies, the free and the exempted, all 
 felt but too sensibly that their privileges were held only at 
 the caprice of a master. Their independence was after all 
 little more than a shadow. The edicts of the proconsuls, 
 and in later times, the rescripts of the emperors, could at 
 any time dissipate and destroy it. Step by step most of them 
 were in fact brought down at last to the common 
 duced to sub- condition of subjects. The loss of their political 
 
 jection. ...... ' , . , 
 
 or civic privileges, meagre as they were, might 
 be a matter of little regret to them ; but as subjects of the 
 empire they found themselves compelled to bear an undue 
 proportion of the imperial taxation, every deficiency in which 
 was ordinarily supplied by additional imposts on the occupiers 
 of the public domain. To escape from this ever-increasing 
 burden was the aim of their most earnest endeavours, and 
 this could only be effected by acquiring the rights of citizen- 
 ship. Every fresh admission to the most favoured class so 
 far reduced the area of general taxation, while it increased 
 its intensity. Hence the impolicy, which Augustus wisely 
 appreciated, of giving easy access to it. But we shall find 
 his successors not always so scrupulous, and observe how the 
 discovery, which was speedily made, that the privileges of 
 citizenship could be made financially available, induced them 
 to turn in their necessities to this fatal resource, and sacrifice 
 to an immediate expediency the permanent forces of the 
 empire. 
 
 The reserve adopted by Augustus in multiplying the 
 dominant class was doubtless manifest to the provincials,
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 307 
 
 who well knew that a wary ruler must feel alarm 
 
 at the too rapid diminution of the tax-payers cltlzena - 
 throughout his dominions, under the opposite policy of his 
 predecessors. They would observe with satisfaction that 
 the total number of exemptions, according to the census of 
 767, did not exceed by more than 500,000 that which had 
 been calculated forty-one years before, representing an in- 
 crease in that period of only about one in thirty-two, and 
 that it was actually less than that of the intermediate enu- 
 meration of 746. 1 During the confusion of the civil wars no 
 census had been taken from which a comparison might be 
 instituted between this moderation and the lavish profusion 
 of Caesar and Antonius. Yet however selfish and reckless 
 the triumvir had shown himself in this respect, the views of 
 the dictator at least are entitled to more consideration. Caesar 
 had felt the need of infusing new blood largely into the class 
 who fought the battles of the state. As a conqueror himself 
 he knew the weakness of his military resources. As a man 
 of science and letters, he honoured and rewarded the liberal 
 professions. Sanguine and ambitious, he relied upon future 
 conquests for replenishing the treasury his liberality ex- 
 hausted and created new sources of perennial wealth. But 
 Augustus indulged in no such visions. He found the citizens, 
 at least in Italy, generally indisposed to military service ; but 
 the resources bequeathed him by his predecessors sufficed for 
 his more moderate outlay of Roman blood, and, except on 
 one great occasion of disaster and panic, he was able to 
 recruit his military garrisons without extraneous supplies? 
 
 1 The numbers of the censuses of Augustus, as given on the Monument of 
 Ancyra, are as follows : A. TL 726, 4,063,000 ; A. u. 746, 4,233,000 ; A. u. 
 767, 4,190,000. These numbers may be supposed to represent the male 
 citizens of military age throughout the empire : previous enumerations, the 
 highest of which scarcely exceeded one tenth of these numbers, must refer to 
 those of the city and its vicinity only. The ratio these numbers bear to the 
 whole class of citizens of every age and both sexes, is roughly indicated in the 
 text ; it will be considered more closely a little further on. 
 
 * This applies of course only to the legionary force. The subjects of the 
 empire continued to furnish auxiliary cohorts, and it is possible that the pro-
 
 308 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 But he would not suffer even the Italians to enjoy a double 
 immunity both from arms and taxation. Exemption from 
 the tax on land was a special privilege, which they could not 
 be persuaded to forego. Augustus, by the invention of a 
 duty on succession, which he imposed exclusively on the 
 citizens, redressed in some degree the balance. By a simple 
 stroke of finance he established the essential equality of the 
 conquerors and the conquered, while he relieved himself 
 from some portion at least of the pressure applied to him by 
 those who sought to evade by becoming citizens their due 
 share in the general burdens. 
 
 There was one source, however, from which, notwith- 
 standing the emperor's reluctance, the franchise continued 
 to be extended, nor could any direct or efficient 
 
 Extension of , , , , , -n 
 
 the franchise control be placed upon it. J^very propnetor had 
 
 by the manu- -. -i- n , i_ i 
 
 mission of it in his power to conier citizenship on his own 
 slave by a legitimate emancipation, nor, till Au- 
 gustus interfered, was any discouragement thrown on this 
 practice, as long as certain forms were duly complied with. 
 With the stroke of the praetor's wand, the slave was turned 
 at once into a citizen, and the master became a patron. 1 In 
 the simpler ages of the commonwealth, no provision had 
 been made, because perhaps none was practically required, 
 
 portion they bore to the legions was gradually increased. Gaul and Spain, 
 and even Germany, furnished numerous and well-appointed contingents. The 
 Jews were generally exempted from military service in deference to their reli- 
 gions prejudices. Joseph. Antiq. Jud. xiv. 10, 11-19. 
 
 1 It is to be observed that there are two modes of manumission, juda and 
 minus jutta, the one being the regular and legitimate method effected by the 
 stroke of the praetor's wand, which conferred a certain citizenship with limited 
 privileges ; the other required no formality beyond the mere word or certifi- 
 cate of the master, but the freedom it gave was good only as against the 
 master. The lex Julia Norbana (A. r. 771) first gave these freedmen a cer- 
 tain political status, by assimilating them to the Latini. See Wallon, Hist, de 
 FEsclavage dans V Antiquite (ii. 401.) from Gaius (i. 22), who calls them Latini 
 Juniani. Under the republic the freedman could obtain no political honours, 
 could vote only in one of the four urban tribes, could serve only in the marine, 
 and could not contract marriage with a citizen. These restrictions were how- 
 ever extinguished in the second generation.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 309 
 
 for restraining the cupidity of masters in this particular. 
 The service of the slave was worth more to his master than 
 the trifling sum he could have it in his power to offer for his 
 freedom. But the case must have been altered when slaves 
 were possessed of the highest personal and intellectual quali- 
 ties. Such men as Cicero's favourite Tiro, a paragon of lite- 
 rary accomplishments, might doubtless have bid high for 
 manumission, had he sighed for the mere name of liberty. 
 In many cases indeed the qualities of the slave were a pecu- 
 niary benefit to the master ; but it is natural to suspect that 
 the master was often induced to turn this interest into capital, 
 by selling the slave his freedom outright. 1 It was sometimes 
 perhaps from humanity, more commonly from a feeling of 
 pride, that he manumitted his slaves on his death-bed, and 
 secured a longer retinue of clients to follow his bier." But 
 even in his lifetime his vanity might be fed by the respect 
 and service of his freedmen. These people continued after 
 emancipation attached to the interests of their patron, and 
 were often admitted to his confidence, in places of trust 
 which could not with propriety be filled by a slave. There 
 are no intimations, perhaps, from which we can judge of the 
 extent to which manumission had actually been carried, but 
 undoubtedly the common expectation of release from capti- 
 vity rendered the condition of slavery more tolerable. A good 
 and trusty slave, we infer from a passage in Cicero, might 
 anticipate his emancipation in six years. 3 The measure of 
 Augustus, which placed a tax on this sale of citizenship, may 
 have had some influence in checking it ; it is probable, how- 
 
 1 It seems, indeed, to have been a common arrangement that the slave 
 should be allowed to work on his own account, and recover his freedom for a 
 stipulated sum. It appears, however, that the law gave him no protection 
 against the violation of this agreement. See Tac. Ann. xiv. 42. . 
 
 3 Dion. Hal. Antiq. Rom. iv. 24. 
 
 * Gic. Philipp. viii. 11. : "Etenim, patres conscript!, quum in spem liber- 
 tatis sexennio post simus ingressi, diutiusque servitium perpessi, quam cap- 
 tivi frugi et diligentes solent." He counts the years of his political servitude 
 from the crossing of the Rubicon (705) to the declaration of war against 
 Antonius (711).
 
 310 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 ever, that it was meant to serve another purpose, in feeding 
 the imperial treasury. 1 
 
 The slaves formed the last of the classes of the popula- 
 tion ; and the marked contrast of their condition, politically 
 Slavery : its and socially, to those of the various free men of 
 i^Jombinfng* * he empire, constituted, no doubt, the strongest 
 dasBo^oTfree element of diversity in its system. Throughout 
 men together. fae w hole extent of the Roman dominions every 
 city and every mansion was in fact divided into two hostile 
 camps, those of the masters and the slaves, the tyrants and 
 their victims. This inveterate hostility of mass against mass, 
 would appear at first sight to be a source of weakness, against 
 which no political contrivance could effectually contend: 
 nevertheless, history seems to attest that the institutions of 
 slave-states have been at least as permanent as those of 
 others ; there has been no instance perhaps, on a large scale, 
 of the overthrow of a polity by a servile reaction. Notwith- 
 standing the superficial diversity introduced by slavery into 
 the Roman state, it was on the whole an element of unity as 
 well as of strength. It drew the various classes of free men 
 more closely together by the sense of a common interest ; it 
 induced them to establish a common system of law and usage, 
 of police and repression, in reference to it ; it left them free 
 to exercise themselves in arms or letters, while all necessary 
 manual services were performed for them by others ; by 
 drawing its recruits from manifold sources, and gradually 
 transfusing them into the body of the free population, it 
 tended to assimilate the races of the empire, and obliterate 
 distinctions of blood, language, and condition. Drop by 
 drop the stream of barbarism continually distilled into the 
 reservoir of the city. The busts of the later empire speak 
 more eloquently than any other evidence to the gradual 
 
 1 Under the republic a tax of a twentieth had been levied on the sale of 
 slaves (from A. u. 398 to 643) ; and the money thence derived was deposited 
 in the treasury ; from whence (the sum being recorded) Bureau de la Malle 
 draws a curious but unsafe argument regarding the number of enfranchise- 
 ments.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 3H 
 
 debasement of the old Roman type of form and counte- 
 nance. 
 
 We have thus seen how even the varieties of language, 
 religion, and condition, which prevailed throughout the Ro- 
 man dominions were compensated in a great de- 
 
 , / _!L j Elements of 
 
 gree by certain tendencies to uniformity, and unity in the 
 slowly gravitated towards a single type. There 
 were other respects, however, in which this progress was 
 more rapid and apparent, and impressed on the manifold 
 fragments of the empire the character of one homogeneous 
 mass. From age to age, the ever-increasing area of the 
 Roman dominions continued to be generated round its cen- 
 tre, the peninsula, which, striking deeply into the 
 
 ,, ' L ,. ., * A Italy the centre 
 
 Mediterranean, almost divides it into equal parts, oftheMediter- 
 until it encircled the whole of that great basin 
 with a belt of populous provinces, studded with rich and 
 splendid cities. Before the conquests of Csesar and Pompeius, 
 the map of the empire was merely a chart of the T^ Medlter . 
 Mediterranean. Cicero had said of the Greek SStStt? 
 states and colonies throughout the world that em P ire - 
 they were a fringe, as it were, on the skirts of barbarism ; 
 and it was not till the reduction of the interior of Gaul, Spain, 
 and Lesser Asia that the Roman power penetrated far, in any 
 quarter, beyond sight of the friendly waves of the Mediter- 
 ranean. 1 While the coast teemed everywhere with the pro- 
 ducts of industry, and civilization, and the hand and mind of 
 man were as busy and restless as the waves before his feet, 
 the vast regions at his back were abandoned to forests and 
 morasses, the abodes of wild animals, and hardly less wild 
 barbarians. In the most flourishing periods of ancient his- 
 
 1 Cic. de Repuhl. ii. 4. : " Ita barbarorum agris quasi attexta quaedam 
 videtur esse ora Graeciae." "We," says Plato (Pheedo, p. 199, b.), "who 
 dwell from the Phasis to the pillars of Hercules, inhabit only a small portion 
 of the earth, in which we have settled round the sea, like ants or frogs round 
 a marsh." Mark the contrast of national character in these kindred images 
 " Romanus honos et Graia licentia " the one majestic but rhetorical, the 
 other genial though mean.
 
 312 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 tory, the Mediterranean may be compared to the great inland 
 lakes of the American continent, skirted with cities, villages, 
 and clearings, but with illimitable tracts of unredeemed wil- 
 derness stretching behind them. The latest conquests of 
 Rome annexed the backwoods of Gaul and Germany in great 
 masses, though even here the colonization of the Romans, 
 and even the occupation of the natives, was confined to cer- 
 tain narrow tracks of internal communication. Even in the 
 age of Augustus hardly one place of any political importance 
 lay at a distance of twenty miles from the coasts of the mid- 
 land sea. 1 The consolidation of the Roman power over these 
 coasts reduced the Mediterranean to the common highway of 
 all civilized nations ; and when the police of these waters was 
 duly kept, as was the case under the emperors, their mutual 
 communications were regular and rapid. In fair seasons, 
 and with fair winds, the navigation of the ancients, conducted 
 by oars and sails, was speedier than our own till the inven- 
 tions of the most recent tunes. 11 We learn that vessels from 
 the mouth of the Tiber could reach the coast of Africa in 
 two days, Massilia in three, Tarraco in four, and the pillars 
 of Hercules in seven. From Puteoli the transit to Alexandria 
 had been effected with moderate winds in nine days ; from 
 Messana in seven, and once even in six. 3 On the other hand, 
 
 1 I am speaking of course of places which owed subjection to Rome, and I 
 except the military colonies and frontier posts in Gaul, Spain, and Pannonia. 
 I would also except some towns in the ulterior of Asia Minor, which owed 
 their importance to their position on the route of the overland traffic from 
 Greece into Upper Asia. The political importance of Lugdunum was of later 
 growth. 
 
 a Herodotus, iv. 86., reckons 1300 stadia, or 162 Roman miles, a good 
 twenty-four hours' sail in summer. See Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. 
 Paid, ii. 315. foil, from Greswell's Dissertations, &c., iv. 51Y. About seven 
 knots an hour before the wind, for which the rigging with one mainsail is best 
 adapted, might be the average speed of sailing. 
 
 3 Plin. Hist. Nat. xix. 1. Between the period of Augustus and Pliny, 
 about fifty years, there was probably a considerable advance in the science of 
 navigation. That writer seems to attribute the increased speed in sailing to 
 the use of the Egyptian linen in place of the hempen or lattin sails of the 
 ancients, which from its lightness admitted of a much greater speed : " super
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 313 
 
 however, if the winds and waves were adverse, the timidity 
 and unskilfulness of the mariners made their voyages extreme- 
 ly slow and uncertain. Caesar took twenty-nine days to reach 
 the coast of Italy from Sardinia, and the Alexandrian vessel 
 in which St. Paul sailed from the coast of Lycia would have 
 wintered in a haven of Crete in the midst of its voyage to 
 Rome. The Romans, indeed, only navigated in the finer parts 
 of the year. The communication between Italy and Spain by 
 water was interrupted from the middle of November, and only 
 recommenced in March. 1 It took as much as three months 
 to sail from Gades to Ostia in the face of the east winds which 
 prevailed at a certain season. 8 
 
 But with the return of spring or summer the glittering 
 sea was alive with vessels. Rome, placed like a mightier 
 Mexico in the centre of her mighty lake, was 
 
 . -i /> Rome the em- 
 
 furmshed with every luxury and with many ot poriumofthe 
 her chief necessaries from beyond the waters ; the Mediter- 
 and cities on every coast, nearly similar in lati- 
 tude and climate, vied in intense rivalry with each other in 
 ministering to her appetite. First in the ranks of commerce 
 was the traffic in corn, which was conducted by large fleets 
 of galleys, sailing from certain havens once a year at stated 
 periods, and pouring their stores into her granaries in their 
 appointed order. Gaul and Spain, Sardinia and Sicily, Africa 
 and Egypt were all wheat-growing countries, and all contri- 
 buted of their produce, partly as a tax, partly also as an 
 article of commerce, to the sustentation of Rome and Italy. 
 The convoy from Alexandria was looked for with the greatest 
 anxiety, both as the heaviest laden, and as from the length 
 of the voyage the most liable to disaster or detention. The 
 vessels which bore the corn of Egypt were required to hoist 
 their topsails on sighting the promontory of Surrentum, both 
 
 antennas addi velorum alia vela, praeterque alia in proris, et alia in puppibus 
 pandi." 
 
 1 Vegetius, v. 9. : " Ex die tertio iduum Novemb. usque in diem sextum 
 iduum Mart, maria clauduntur." 
 
 8 Strabo, iii. 2. p. 144.
 
 314 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 to distinguish them from others, and to expedite their arri- 
 val. These vessels moreover, according to the institution of 
 Augustus, were of more than ordinary size, and they were 
 attended by an escort of war galleys. The importance at- 
 tached to this convoy was marked by the phrases, auspicious 
 and sacred, applied to it. 1 As it neared the Italian coast, its 
 swiftest sailers were detached to go forward and give notice 
 of its approach. Hence it glided rapidly, by night or day, 
 under the guidance of the Surrentine Minerva on the right, 
 and on the left the lighthouse of Capreae." A deputation of 
 senators from Rome was directed to await its arrival at the 
 port where it was about to cast anchor, which, from the bad 
 condition of the haven at Ostia, was generally at this period 
 Puteoli in Campania. As soon as the well-known topsails 
 were seen above the horizon a general holiday was pro- 
 claimed, and the population of the country, far and near, 
 streamed with joyous acclamations to the pier, and gazed upon 
 the rich flotilla expanding gaily before them." 
 
 The vessels engaged in this trade, however numerous, 
 were after all of small burden. The corn-fleets did not in- 
 deed form the chief maritime venture of the Alexandrians. 
 
 1 " Felix embola, sacra embola." Statius has a picturesque allusion to the 
 mariner hailing the Isle of Capreae and pouring his libation before the statue 
 or temple of Minerva on the opposite height : 
 
 " Modo nam trans aequora tends 
 
 Prima Dicarchaeis Pharium gravis intuh't annum : 
 Prima salutavit Capreas, et margine dextro 
 Sparsit Tyrrhenae Mareotica vina Minervae." 
 
 His friend Celer takes his passage on board this vessel, on its return voyage, 
 to join his legion hi Palestine : 
 
 " Quam scandere gaudet 
 Nobilis Ausonise Celer armipotentis alumnus." 
 
 Sylv. iii. 2. 19. 
 9 Stat. 8ylv. iii. 5. 100. : 
 
 " Teleboumque domos, trepidis ubi dulcia nautis 
 Lumina noctivagse tollit Pharus aemula Lunae." 
 
 8 Seneca, Eput. 78., in which there is a lively account of this circumstance, 
 says, " Cum intravere Capreas et promontorium ex quo alta procelloso specu- 
 latur vertice Pallas, caeterae velo jubentur esse contentas, supparum Alexan- 
 drinarum insigne indicium est."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 315 
 
 The products of India, which had formerly i CB ofcom 
 reached Egypt from Arabia, and were supposed erce ln the 
 
 5; r Mediterranean. 
 
 indeed in Europe to have come only from the 
 shores of the Erythraean Sea, were now conveyed direct to 
 Cleopatris or Berenice from the mouths of the Indus and the 
 coast of Malabar, and employed an increasing number of ves- 
 sels, which took advantage of the periodical trade winds both 
 in going and returning. The articles of which they went in 
 quest were for the most part objects of luxury; such as 
 ivory and tortoiseshell, fabrics of cotton and silk, Spiceg) &c , 
 both then rare and costly, pearls and diamonds, from the ^ ast 
 and more especially gums and spices. 1 The consumption of 
 these latter substances in dress, in cookery, in the service of 
 the temples, and above all at funerals, advanced with the 
 progress of wealth and refinement. 2 The consignments which 
 reached Alexandria from the East were directed to every 
 port on the Mediterranean ; but there was no corresponding 
 demand for the produce of the West in India, and these pre- 
 cious freights were for the most part exchanged for gold and 
 silver, of which the drain from Europe to Asia was uninter- 
 rupted. The amount of the precious metals thus abstracted 
 from the currency or bullion of the empire, was estimated at 
 100,000,000 sesterces, or about 800,000^. yearly. 8 The reed 
 called papyrus, the growth of which seems to p ap erfrom 
 have been almost confined to the banks of the E ?yP t - 
 Nile, was in general use as the cheapest and most convenient 
 writing material, and the consumption of it throughout the 
 world, though it never entirely superseded the use of parch- 
 ment and waxen tablets, must have been immense. 4 It was 
 
 1 The objects of the Indian trade are enumerated by Arrian, Peripl. 
 JErythr. p. 28., and also in the Digest, xxxix. tit. 4. 16. 
 
 1 See the account of the funeral of Sulla in Plutarch, and of Poppaea (the 
 wife of Nero) in Pliny, Hist. Nat. xii. 41. 
 
 Plin. Hist. Nat. 1. c. : " Minimaque computatione millies centena millia 
 sestertium annis omnibus India et Seres peninsulaque ilia (Arabia) imperio 
 stro adimunt." 
 
 The papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, is found also on the banks of a 
 ivulet near Syracuse, and has sometimes been converted into paper there in
 
 316 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 converted into paper in Egypt, and thence exported in its 
 manufactured state ; but this practice was not universal, for 
 we read of a house at Rome which improved on the native 
 process, and produced what Pliny calls an imperial or noble 
 out of a mere plebeian texture. 1 With respect to other articles 
 of general use, it may be remarked that the most important, 
 such as corn, wine, oil, and wool, were the common produce 
 of all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and there was accord- 
 ingly much less interchange of these staple commodities 
 among the nations of antiquity than with ourselves, whose 
 relations extend through so many zones of temperature. 
 Hence, probably, we hear of none of their great cities be- 
 coming the workshops or emporiums of the world for any 
 special article of commerce. 8 The woollens in- 
 
 Woollens. 
 
 deed of Miletus and Laodicea, together with 
 other places of Asia Minor, were renowned for their excel- 
 lence, and may have been transported as articles of luxury 
 to distant parts ; but Africa and Spain, Italy and parts of 
 Greece, were also breeders of sheep, and none of these coun- 
 tries depended for this prime necessary on the industry or 
 cupidity of foreigners. The finest qualities of Greek and 
 Asiatic wines were bespoken at Rome, and at 
 every other great seat of luxury. The Chian and 
 Lesbian vintages were among the most celebrated, but the 
 quantity they could produce must have been comparatively 
 limited, and an immense proportion of the wines consumed 
 
 modern times, as a matter of curiosity. See Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, 
 iii. 148. 
 
 1 Plin. Hist. Nat. xiii. 23.: "Excepit hanc Romae Fannii sagax officina, 
 tenuatamque curiosa interpolatione principalem fecit e plebeia." The ordinary 
 process of this manufacture was to place two layers of the thin slices of the 
 papyrus crosswaya, and then paste and press them together. But Fannius, as 
 I understand Pliny, plaited the transverse slices. The most elegant paper was 
 rubbed thin and polished with shells or ivory. 
 
 a Hume, in his essay on the " Populousness of Ancient Nations," has 
 the remark, which, as far as I have noticed, is correct, that no great city of 
 antiquity is said to have acquired its importance from any kind of manu- 
 factures.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 317 
 
 by the nations of the Mediterranean was undoubtedly of home 
 growth, for few of them were not themselves producers. 
 Again, while the clothing of the mass of the population was 
 made perhaps mainly from the skins of animals, leather of 
 course could be obtained abundantly in almost every locality. 
 When we remember that the ancients had neither tea, coffee, 
 tobacco, sugar, nor for the most part spirits ; that they made 
 little use of glass, and at this period had hardly acquired a 
 taste for fabrics of silk, cotton, or even flax, we shall perceive 
 at a glance how large a portion of the chief articles of our 
 commerce was entirely wanting to theirs. Against this 
 deficiency, however, many objects of great importance are to 
 be set. Though the ruder classes were content with wooden 
 cups and platters fashioned at their own doors, the transport 
 of earthenware of the finer and more precious kinds, and 
 from certain localities, was very considerable. 1 Though the 
 Greeks and Romans generally were without some of our com- 
 monest implements of gold and silver, such for instance as 
 watches and forks, it is probable that they indulged even 
 more than we do in personal decoration with rings, seals, and 
 trinkets of a thousand descriptions. Their armour and even 
 their peaceful habiliments were ornamented with the precious 
 metals, and altogether the traffic in this particular article, 
 which came chiefly from the Spanish mines, furnished as im- 
 portant an element in their commerce as in our own. The 
 conveyance of wild animals, chiefly from Africa, for the sports 
 of the amphitheatres of some hundreds of cities throughout 
 the empire, must alone have given occupation to a large fleet 
 
 1 I believe it is now understood that the murrha of the Romans was not 
 porcelain, as had been supposed from the line, 
 
 " Murrheaque La Parthis pocula cocta focis " (Propert. iv. 6. 26.), 
 
 but an imitation in coloured glass of a transparent stone. It is agreed that 
 the so-called Etruscan ware, of which such immense quantities were used in 
 Italy, was not an Etruscan, but a Greek manufacture, and came not even from 
 the Greeks of Lower Italy, but from the mother country beyond the sea, 
 Macculloch's Political Essays, p. 298.
 
 318 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 of ships and many thousand mariners. 1 NOT were the con- 
 voys smaller which were employed to transport marble from 
 the choicest quarries of Greece and Asia to many flourishing 
 cities besides the metropolis ; and even the spoliation of the 
 forums and temples of the East, not of their pictures and 
 statues only, but of columns and pavements and almost entire 
 edifices, furnished a notable addition to the annual freights 
 of the Mediterranean. The last article of transport which 
 need be enumerated is that of troops and military stores, in- 
 cluding engines of war, horses, and even elephants, which 
 alone must occasionally have required large naval armaments ; 
 for it was by water, far more than by land, that the forces 
 of Rome were conveyed to Greece, Spain, and Asia, as well as 
 to Africa and Egypt. When we remember that the Medi- 
 terranean was closed for a third part of the year, and that all 
 this variety of maritime enterprise was crowded into a few 
 months annually, we shall be disposed to regard with some 
 indulgence the bold hyperbole of Juvenal, that more than 
 half mankind was actually upon the water.* 
 
 After due deduction for the more contracted sphere of 
 ancient commerce, and the lesser number of articles, for the 
 Effect of com- extent also to which the necessaries and con- 
 nYty\o n t h<r ng veniences of life were manufactured at home in 
 empire. ^e establishments of wealthy slaveowners, we 
 
 shall still readily believe that the inter-communication of the 
 cities of the Mediterranean, such as Corinth, Rhodes, Ephe- 
 sus, Cyzicus, Antioch, Tyrus, Alexandria, Cyrene, Athens, 
 Carthage, Tarraco, Narbo and Massilia, Neapolis and Taren- 
 
 1 Petron. Satyr. 119 : 
 
 "Premit advena classes Tigris." 
 
 Such insignificant places as Dorchester and Lillebonne had spacious amphi- 
 theatres ; the one, perhaps, merely of turf with wooden sheds, but the other a 
 miniature colosseum in architecture and masonry. 
 a Juvenal, xiv. 275. : 
 
 " Adspice portus 
 
 Et plenum magnis trabibus mare : plus hominum est jam 
 In pelago."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 turn, Syracuse and Agrigentum, and of all with Rome, must 
 have been a potent instrument in fusing into one family the 
 manifold nations of the empire. While each community re- 
 tained for the most part its own commercial laws and cus- 
 toms' duties, which operated to some extent in impeding the 
 free interchange of their divers commodities, the direct traffic 
 with Rome was equally free to all ; nor were the tolls levied 
 on imports into the capital either capricious or severe. Rome, 
 conspicuous on her seven hills, and though situated fifteen 
 miles inland, not perhaps invisible from the Tyrrhene waters, 1 
 became the great central object to which all enterprise and 
 commercial cupidity looked ; and in the eyes of the Orientals 
 and the Greeks, the mistress of lands and continents, the lea- 
 der of armies, and the builder of roads was regarded as the 
 greatest of all maritime emporiums, and represented in their 
 figurative style as a woman sitting enthroned upon the waves 
 of the Mediterranean. 3 
 
 The maritime aspect thus assumed by Rome in the eyes 
 of her subjects beyond the sea, is the more remarkable when 
 we consider how directly her ancient policy and security of 
 habits were opposed to commercial development, merce^nde" 
 Cicero mentions it, among the advantages of her the em P ire - 
 
 1 The cross of St. Peter's may be seen from the sea, but it may be ques- 
 tioned whether any building of ancient Rome was equally lofty. 
 
 3 " The great whore that sitteth upon many waters .... Alas, alas ! 
 that great city Babylon .... the merchants of the earth shall weep and 
 mourn over her, for no man buyeth of her merchandise any more .... The 
 merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones, and of pearls, and of fine 
 linen and purple, and silk and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner 
 of vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, -and of 
 brass and of iron, and of marble, and cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, 
 and frankincense, and wine and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts and 
 sheep, and horses and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men." Revel, rvii. 1., 
 rviii. 10. "That great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the 
 sea." The above is perhaps a complete enumeration of the imports of the 
 port of Ostia for the use of Rome. For the sense hi which the opprobrious 
 term ri irdfvt\ is applied to Babylon, i. e. Rome, Schleusner compares Isaiah 
 xxiii. 16., where the Hebrew equivalent is applied to Tyre : " Quia fuit prop- 
 ter mercaturam insignis, et sicut meretrix lUcri et quaestus causa cum aliis 
 negotiabatur."
 
 320 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 site, that she was removed from the sea, contact with which 
 was supposed to have been fatal to her predecessors in em- 
 pire, to Athens and Corinth, Syracuse and Carthage. 1 The 
 landowners of Rome, in the highday of her insolent adole- 
 scence, had denounced both commerce and the arts as the 
 business of slaves or freedmen. So late as the year 535 a 
 law had been passed which forbade a senator to possess a ves- 
 sel of burden, and the traffic which was prohibited to the 
 higher class was degraded in the eyes of the lower. 2 But it 
 would not have been necessaiy to enact such a restriction 
 were not the thirst of lucre already sapping the foundations 
 of the old Roman spirit, which had allowed itself no other 
 employment but arms and agriculture. The traders of 
 Rome, instead of connecting themselves by relations of 
 commerce with foreign houses, preferred, under the pressure 
 of these limitations, to withdraw beyond the sea, and devoted 
 their industry to the pursuit of wealth removed from the 
 watchful eyes of the censors and the vulgar prejudices of the 
 multitude. The government, in its barbarous zeal for the 
 ancient traditions, burnt the captured fleets of Carthage and 
 Corinth. It sought to destroy the resources of its enemies' 
 naval power rather than to increase its own. Possessed of 
 no native commerce, it beheld with indifference the dominion 
 of the seas passing into the hands of pirates ; nor did it care 
 to create a naval force, and assert its supremacy in the Medi- 
 terranean, till the transport of its own armies and their gen- 
 
 1 Cic. de Republ. ii. 4. 
 
 a Liv. xxi. 63. : " Ne quis senator, cuive senatorius pater fuerat, maritimam 
 navem, quae plus quam trecentarum amphorarum esset, haberet. Id satis 
 habitum ad fructus ex agris vectandos : qusestus omnis patribus indecorus 
 Visus est." The measure, however, was strongly contested, and brought 
 odium upon its author Flaminius. Compare with this interdict the limited 
 toleration Cicero extends to the pursuit of commerce : " Mercatura, si tenuis 
 est, sordida putanda est ; ski magna et copiosa, multa undique apportans, non 
 est admodum vituperanda. Atque etiam si satiata quaestu, vel contenta 
 potius, ut saepe ex alto hi portum, ex ipso portu hi agros se possessionesque 
 contulerit, videtur jure optimo posse laudari. Omnium autem rerum ex quibus 
 aliquid acquiritur, nihil est agriculture meliua .... nihil homine libero dig- 
 nius." De Offic. i. 42.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 321 
 
 erals was menaced and impeded. When roused at last to act 
 upon the ocean the Romans did not leave their work imper- 
 fect. The suppression of piracy by Pompeius, the greatest 
 exploit of his life, was effected once for all. Under the 
 empire the midland sea became a safer highway than it had 
 ever been before or, till recent times, has been since ; and 
 the people who dwelt along its shores, and daily went down 
 upon its waters, were sensibly convinced of the unity of all 
 nations under the sway of the universal ruler. 
 
 It was thus by following the natural train of circumstan- 
 ces, and by no settled policy of her own, that Rome secured 
 her march across the sea, and joined coast to R 0m ethecen- 
 coast with the indissoluble chain of her dominion, n^ionsby 11 
 On land, on the contrary, she constructed her land - 
 military causeways with a fixed and definite purpose. Her 
 continental possessions, at least in the "West, were at this 
 time, for the most part, still in a state of nature : the cultiva- 
 tion, as has been said, of Gaul and Spain, Ulyria and Pan- 
 nonia, even of a great part of Italy and Greece, was still 
 limited to the neighbourhood of the coast and the valleys of 
 rivers ; while the upper country almost everywhere pre- 
 sented an expanse of primeval forest, broken sometimes by 
 grassy prairies, sometimes by rugged mountains, and again 
 by impassable morasses. The population of Gaul ci'ept, we 
 know, slowly up the channel of the rivers, and the native 
 tracks which conveyed their traific from station to station 
 were guided by these main arteries of their vital system. 
 But the conquerors struck out at once a complete system of 
 communication for their own purposes, by means of roads cut 
 or built as occasion required, with a settled policy rigidly 
 pursued. These high roads, as we may well call them, for 
 they were raised above the level of the plains and the banks of 
 the rivers, and climbed the loftiest hills, were driven in direct 
 lines from point to point, and were stopped by neither forest 
 nor marsh nor mountain. Throughout their course they were 
 studded with inscribed pillars erected at equal distances of a 
 thousand paces : they were furnished with stations or post- 
 
 VOL. IV. 21
 
 322 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 houses, and kept in repair by tolls or rates in Italy, in the 
 provinces, we may suppose, by the forced labour of the popu- 
 lation. 1 It was no part of the policy of the conquerors to 
 facilitate the intercourse of the natives of the interior, and 
 the municipal system they introduced among them tended 
 rather to isolate each separate community and make it inde- 
 pendent of those around it. But the sense of unity and com- 
 mon dependence on a central authority was admirably main- 
 tained by the instrument of communication with Rome, which, 
 in whatever quarter the subjects of the state might cross it, 
 always pointed with a silent finger in the direction of their 
 invisible mistress. 8 Far as the eye could reach, till it was 
 lost in the remote horizon, stretched this mysterious symbol 
 of her all-attaining influence ; and where the sense failed 
 to follow the imagination came into play, and wafted the 
 thoughts of the awe-stricken provincial to the gates of Rome 
 and the pra3torium of the venerable imperator. Along these 
 channels, as he knew, the armies, the laws, and the institutions 
 of the city streamed, in ceaseless flow, to every corner of the 
 earth : they were the veins through which the life-blood of 
 the empire circulated from its heart, making every pulse to 
 beat with unfailing harmony and precision. 
 
 1 Cic. pro Font. 4. The cross roads (vicinales viae) were kept in repair 
 by the owners of the land through which they ran, who were assessed thereto 
 by the magistri pagorum. Siculus Flaccus, hi Scr. R. Agr. 146., ed. Lach- 
 mann. 
 
 3 For the rate of travelling by land, we may notice that Caesar reached 
 Geneva from Rome ha eight days (Plut. Cces. 17.) ; and Suetonius tells us that 
 he commonly performed one hundred miles in the twenty-four hours. Jul. 57. 
 Tiberius actually travelled two hundred miles hi that tune, when he was hast- 
 ening to Drusus hi Germany. Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 20. Cicero (pro Rose. Am. 
 19.) speaks of fifty-sir miles as a good twelve hours' journey by the cisium or 
 post-carriage. These are all mentioned as instances of great speed. Martial 
 gives the more ordinary rate of forty miles a day : 
 
 " Hispani pete Tarraconis arces. 
 Ulinc Bilbilin et tuum Salouem 
 Quinto forsitan essedo videbis." 
 
 (x. 104.) ; the distance of the Roman road through Herda and Caesar Augusta 
 being about two hundred miles.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 323 
 
 Julius Caesar had commanded this vast machine of life 
 and movement to be delineated on a chart or map, and the 
 work was conducted with such minute and scru- 
 
 . . The orbla pic- 
 
 pulous care, that the three commissioners to tus, or map of 
 
 . the empire. 
 
 whom it was entrusted, were employed twenty- 
 five years in elaborating it. 1 The zeal and activity of Agrippa 
 had watched over the progress of the work, and finally 
 brought it to completion. The science of geography had 
 made but little progress before the time of Augustus (there 
 was little demand for it as long as all civilized men dwelt 
 around the shores of one marine basin), and the information 
 of the few writers on the subject was neither extensive nor 
 precise. The sun and stars were not observed, to ascertain 
 the position of places ; the definitions of latitude and longi- 
 tude were not invented till two centuries later. But there 
 existed ample materials for a comprehensive survey of the 
 Roman dominions, in an infinite mass of chorographical de- 
 tails preserved in the local archives, by comparing and com- 
 bining which, and verifying them by observation and meas- 
 urement, it was possible, with vast labour, and not without 
 many inaccuracies, to work out a map of the entire empire on 
 an uniform scale. Of the map which Agrippa caused to be 
 engraved or painted on the walls of his portico at Rome, we 
 know only that it represented by a series of diagrams the 
 result of this laborious commission. It is evident, from the 
 nature of the place in which it was exhibited, that this paint- 
 ed world, as it was denominated, bore no resemblance to the 
 kind of delineation to which we give the name. 4 It made, we 
 
 1 From Caesar's consulship, 710, to that of Saturninus, 735. (Hoeck, 
 Ram. Gesch. i. 2. 394), from ^Ethicus, whose computation, however, is not 
 quite accurate. 
 
 8 The source of our acquaintance with the map (orbis pictus) of Agrippa 
 is Pliny, Hist. Nat. iii. 3. : " Cum orbem terrarum orbi spectandum proposi- 
 turus esset .... is namque (sc. Augustus) complexam eum porticum ex 
 destinatione et commentariis M. Agrippae a sorore ejus inchoatam peregit." I 
 conceive that this map was engraved on the wall of the portico, and the 
 lines coloured, h'ke the fragment of the well-known Plan of Rome in the 
 Capitoline museum. We may get the best idea, perhaps, of its shape and
 
 324: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 must suppose, no attempt to express the proper configuration 
 of lands and seas, but simply to represent, in a series of 
 tables, the order and distances of places upon every line of 
 road, coast, and river. Its extension along the walls of a 
 gallery or cloister was meant to keep all its parts nearly on 
 the same level, in which respect it may be compared to the 
 sculptured frieze of a temple, or the pictured series of the 
 Bayeux tapestry. Such a delineation might serve to amuse 
 and astonish the multitude ; but it could have been of little 
 real service without the supplement of a written description. 
 This was furnished no doubt by the commentaries of Agrip- 
 pa, which explained the portion of the work addressed only 
 to the eye, and to which the great geographer Pliny refers 
 as one of his amplest and most conclusive authorities. 1 We 
 are not, however, to imagine, that the compilers of the Paint- 
 ed World did no more than measure itineraries, and state the 
 result in a diagram or in a volume. They measured, we may 
 believe, not only the roads, but the areas which lay between 
 them ; the labour of a quarter of a century produced no doubt 
 a complete registration of the size, the figure, and the natural 
 features of .every province, district, and estate throughout the 
 empire. Every portion of this immense work, it may be pre- 
 sumed, was traced on vellum, or engraved on plates of brass : 
 if it was too unwieldy to be comprehended on a single tablet 
 and exposed at one view to the gaze of the Roman people, 
 it was preserved piece by piece as an official record for the 
 examination of government. It may even be conjectured 
 that copies of the whole, or of parts, were taken from it, and 
 multiplied for private or official use." 
 
 character from the curious specimen of ancient chorography called the Peutin- 
 ger Table, which may, indeed, be actually a reduction from it adapted to a 
 later period. 
 
 1 Pliny cites Agrippa twenty-six tunes, according to Frandsen (Agrippa, 
 p. 188.), and always in such terms as he uses in reference to known authors 
 of books. There can be no doubt, therefore, of the nature of the Commen- 
 taries, as a work of geographical details. 
 
 2 This may be inferred, perhaps, from the h'ne of Propertius (iv. 3. 36), 
 
 " Cogor et e tabula pictos ediscere mundos ; "
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 325 
 
 "We shall find it difficult, indeed, to acquiesce in the notion 
 that the Romans had no chorographic maps, when we re- 
 member the care and exactness with which they 
 
 * Chorographical 
 
 measured the surface of every private estate, and surveys in use 
 represented its configuration. From a very early 
 period they had been accustomed to delineate the areas of 
 the national domains, and of every conquest they successively 
 added to them. The land surveyor, as has been before re- 
 marked, followed regularly in the track of the imperator, and 
 lent the aid of his staff and line to work out the imaginary 
 division of allotted territory made by the augur according to 
 the forms of the Etruscan discipline. The assessment of land 
 to the public revenue, in which under the early republic the 
 chief element of the national resources consisted, was appor- 
 tioned with scrupulous precision, and founded on authentic 
 registers, including maps as well as tabular statements. 
 The examination and correction of these documents, from one 
 lustrum to another, constituted a critical part of the censorial 
 functions. Every fifth year the chorographical statistics of 
 the Roman territory were carefully revised and adjusted to 
 the actual facts, and few of these quinquennial periods elapsed 
 without some extension of its limits, and a corresponding 
 addition to the duties of the censorship. After the remis- 
 sion, indeed, of the land tax upon the estates of Roman citi- 
 zens, the state had less interest in this inquisition. It would 
 seem, nevertheless, to have been still maintained, while the 
 investigation became further extended to the property of the 
 subjects throughout the provinces. The census of the pro- 
 
 and from a passage in Eumenius (de Instaur. Schol. 20, 21.) : " Ulic omnium 
 cum nominibus suis locorum situs, spatia, intervalla descripti sunt, instru- 
 endae pueritiae causa." These smaller maps would be something different 
 from the chorographical itineraries recommended by Vegetius (de Re Mil. iii. 
 6.) for military purposes : " itineraria provinciarum . . . ut non solum con- 
 silio mentis verum aspectu oculorum viam profecturis eligerent." The Itine- 
 raries preserved to us were constructed, we may suppose, from the records of 
 the roadmakers, of which a specimen may be seen in the inscription of Aquil- 
 lius (Grater, p. 160.), stating the names of places and distances on the Way 
 he built from Capua to Rhegium.
 
 326 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Census and vincials, however, was different in some respects, 
 Professio. and bore a different name from that of the citi- 
 zens. It was not sanctified by the same ceremonies ; it did 
 not require to be held by a censor, but might be taken by the 
 proconsul; nor was it necessarily simultaneous with the 
 census at Rome. The provincial Profession, as it was desig- 
 nated, extended wherever the land tax was exacted ; and this 
 was the case, not only throughout the subject countries and 
 communities, but even in those which were suffered to call 
 themselves autonomous, provided they had not the further 
 privilege of immunity. 1 
 
 The geographical science of the Romans thus advanced 
 
 in the same proportion with their conquests. Its application 
 
 was carried out from the banks of the Tiber to 
 
 Statistical /.,--,. -r-i 
 
 registers of those of the Khme and Euphrates with the same 
 
 the empire. . . , . 
 
 rigid minuteness, and its results preserved with 
 no less scrupulous solicitude. It furnished an immense mass 
 of materials for the mathematicians to whom the redaction 
 of the Caesar's Universal Geography was confided ; although, 
 as these professors of science were Greeks, it is possible that 
 they may have made little account of the rough practical 
 drawings of the Roman surveyors. These working drafts 
 were engraved upon brazen tablets and preserved, together 
 with a complete account of every thing which constituted 
 the value of the soil, in the archives of the Tabulariuni. 8 
 
 1 "In urbe Roma tantum censum agi notum est: in provinciis autem 
 magis professionibus utuntur." Dositheus in Corp. Juris Ante-Theod. ed. 
 Bcecking, p. 63. The census as applied to Roman citizens had other objects 
 besides the fiscal It was designed to fix the position of the citizen in the 
 classes, and, accordingly, in the comitia of the centuries, by the amount of his 
 means ; and thus the state acquired an accurate knowledge of the numbers 
 upon which it could reckon for different kinds of military service. The census 
 was held hi Rome, and the citizens were summoned before the censors in per- 
 son. It may be concluded, therefore, though we have no specific statement 
 to that effect, that it was not applied beyond the bounds of Italy, nor, till a 
 late period, at any great distance from Rome. Hence the trifling addition 
 made to the roll of citizenship by the nominal admission of the whole Italian 
 population. 
 
 * " Omnes significationes et formis et tabulis aeris inscribemus, data, assig-
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 327 
 
 The Professions of the provinces comprehended, after the 
 manner of the censorial registers, not only a numerical state- 
 ment of the freemen and slaves, the women and children, 
 and cattle of every description, not only of the houses and 
 buildings also, but of the acreage of every farm, with the 
 amount of land under tillage, in pasture or in wood, and the 
 nature of its plantations, even to the number of vines, olives, 
 and other fruit-trees. 1 The elder Cato in his censorship had 
 demanded an exact inventory of clothes, carriages, trinkets, 
 furniture, and implements. 11 The names of the owners of land 
 on the borders of each particular farm were inscribed on the 
 maps, as in those of our own surveyors. A certain individuality 
 was attached, at least for fiscal purposes, to separate parcels 
 of land. Each fundus or estate remained a constant quantity, 
 while its component parts were sold or divided among various 
 holders, and the fiscal liabilities of the whole Caput were 
 apportioned among them respectively. 3 
 
 It was from the precise information contained in these 
 official registers that Augustus, towards the close of his 
 reign, drew up the complete survey of the Roman 
 empire, which he placed in the hands of the Yes- 
 tal Virgins, to be delivered to the senate and his 
 successor after his death. 4 To this table of statistics he gave 
 nata, concessa, excepta, commutata pro suo, reddita veteri possessor*, et quae- 
 cunque alia inscriptio singularum literarum in usu fuerit, et in aere permaneat. 
 Libros serfs et typum totius perticse lineis descriptum secundum suas termina- 
 tiones, adscriptis affinibus, tabulario Csesaris inferemus." Hyginus, de Limit. 
 Constit. ed. Goes. 193. ed. Lachmann, p. 202. For lineis, Gcesius reads linteis, 
 which Bureau de la Malle cannot resist the temptation of adopting, and thence 
 inferring that copies were taken off the plate on linen. 
 
 1 Lactant. de Mort. Persecut. 23. : " Agri glebatim metiebantur, vites et 
 arbores numerabantur, animalia omnis generis scribebantur, hominum capita 
 notabantur ; unusquisque cum liberis cum servis aderant." 
 
 9 Plut. Cat. Maj. 18. 
 
 1 Compare Digest, x. tit. i. 4. : " Si alter fundua duorum, alter trium sit, 
 potest judex uni parti adjudicare locum de quo quaeritur, licet plures dominos 
 habeat ; quoniam magis fundo quam personis adjudicari fines intelliguntur." 
 
 4 Suet. Oct. 101., comp. 28. ; Tac. Ann. i. 11.: "Opes publics contine- 
 bantur : quantum civium sociorumque in armis : quot classes, regna, pro- 
 vincise, tributa aut vectigalia, &c." Egger, Hist. d'Auguste, p. 50. It is not
 
 328 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 the name of Breviariutn or Rationarium. It was the ledger 
 of his household : but his household comprehended half the 
 human race. 1 It embraced a succinct but authentic statement 
 of all the resources of the Roman people, including indeed 
 some details which lay beyond the ample verge of the census 
 and profession, as for instance the number not only of the 
 citizens and subjects, but also of the allies ; it detailed the 
 state of the naval as well as military forces of the common- 
 wealth, the condition of the provinces and dependencies, and 
 political system of each several community, the amount of 
 the public revenues, and proceeds of every import, together 
 with the expenses of the general government. At the foot 
 of this compendious synopsis of Roman affairs the emperor 
 had added a recommendation to his successors to abstain 
 from extending further the actual limits of the empire. The 
 final impression left on his mind, by the review of his vast 
 possessions, was the solemn feeling that they were already as 
 great as any single man could hope to wield for the welfare 
 of the people committed to his care. 2 
 
 This little book might well be regarded as a symbol of the 
 unity of the empire. It comprised within the compass of a 
 single manual the result of a mass of statistical in- 
 formation derived from every corner of the pro- 
 fnfSmation on ^i 11068 ? an ^ elaborated with a degree of method 
 TOpniaticra f an< ^ a completeness which has never been rivalled 
 even by modern civilization until our own cen- 
 tury. Under no less stringent and minute a system would it 
 
 clear, however, whether the Breviarium, the legacy of Augustus, was precisely 
 the same as the Rationarium, or imperial ledger. 
 
 1 Augustus was sometimes styled, half in praise, half in mockery, " pater 
 familias totius imperil." 
 
 8 Tac. I. c., Dion, Ivi. 33. The immediate source of the emperor's compi- 
 lation was, no doubt, the work of Balbus, the chief of his staff of surveyors, 
 who had drawn up a statistical survey of the provinces. See Script. Rei 
 Agr. p. 239, ed. Lachmann. Comp. Cassiodorus Variar. iii. 52 : " August! 
 siquidem temporibus orbis Romanus agris divisus, censuque descriptus est, 
 ut possessio sua nulli haberetur incerta, quam pro tributorum susceperat 
 quantitate solvenda." Cited by Bureau de la Malle, Econ. Pol. des Rom. 
 1193.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 329 
 
 have been possible to work the regulation for taxing the suc- 
 cession to property, or for apportioning the amount of tribute 
 exacted from the great corn-growing countries. The details 
 upon which it was based, engraved, as already stated, on 
 metal plates, and deposited in the vaults of the treasury be- 
 neath the capitol, might have survived to this day, had they 
 been left to the slow process of natural decay. But these 
 documents have suffered from violence and conflagration, at 
 a time when they had lost the interest they originally pos- 
 sessed, and which in our day they would undoubtedly have 
 recovered. While Virgil and Livy had a thousand copyists, no 
 one took the pains to multiply the exemplars of these abstruse 
 documents, which were regarded as no better than cast-off 
 almanacks. We would sacrifice many of the remains of 
 ancient literature for a transcript of the Breviarium of Au- 
 gustus, or the tables of finance and population. The rulers 
 of Rome, we have no reason to doubt, had the means of 
 glancing at complete details on the subject of population. 
 The births and deaths, the marriages and divorces, were all 
 duly registered. The first enumeration of the Roman people 
 was attributed to the founder of the state ; and a law, as- 
 cribed to Servius Tullius, required that every birth should be 
 registered by payment of a piece of money in the temple of 
 Juno Lucina. At every death or funeral a piece of money 
 was similarly offered at the shrine of Libitina. The assump- 
 tion of the robe of manhood was verified by a fee to Juven- 
 tas. 1 The naturalist Pliny illustrated the subject of human 
 longevity by extracts from a census of Cispadane Gaul, from 
 which it appears that every inhabitant was required to state 
 his exact age to the enumerator. 9 If he allowed his imagina- 
 
 1 Dion. Hal. iv. 1. 
 
 3 Pliny refers to a census under Vespasian (circa A. D. 70), as furnishing 
 indisputable evidence as to vital statistics throughout the empire. His own 
 citations he confines to a small district. At Parma, he tells us, three persons 
 returned themselves set. 120; two, aet. 130; at Brixellum, one, aet. 125; at 
 Placentia, one, set. 131 ; at Faventia, one, set. 135 ; at Veleiacum, six, set. 
 110, four, set. 120, one, set. 140. On the whole, in the eighth region of Italy, 
 there were fifty-four persons of 100, three of 148 years. The figures are no
 
 330 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 tion to wander beyond the strict limits of truth in giving his 
 reply, he was at least liable to be checked by the registers of 
 birth, which were also regularly kept. Every parent on 
 taking up his new-born child, entered its birth in the Acta or 
 Journal of Public Events, which was preserved as a state 
 document. As regards marriages, there may be perhaps no 
 direct evidence of the registration which is here presumed ; 
 but that such was the case in respect of divorces, is more than 
 once expressly affirmed. 1 If these testimonies apply only to 
 the case of citizens, we may fairly infer from analogy that 
 similar regard was had to the registration of the provincials, 
 though this may have been a later institution. 2 
 
 The numerical statements of the ancient authorities are 
 
 not, therefore, to be lightly disregarded, as they evidently 
 
 possessed sources of accurate information on many 
 
 The Acta, or r . * 
 
 Journal of the points of social economy, if they chose to use 
 them. It is to be feared, however, that, with 
 their loose notions of historical composition, they rarely took 
 pains to examine these sources with care and discrimination. 
 The avowed references to the Official Journal of the State 
 are meagre and obscure. 3 The forgeries of some unscrupu- 
 
 doubt far too high, but they prove the main fact that the inquiry was regu- 
 larly made. Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 50. 
 
 1 Cic. adDiv. viii. 7. : "Paula Valeria divortium sine causa fecit : nuptura 
 est D. Bruto: nondum retulerat (soil, in acta)." Juvenal, ii. 136. : "Fient 
 ista palam, cupient et in acta referri." 
 
 ix. 84. : " Tollis enim et libris actorum spargere gaudes 
 
 Argumenta viri." 
 
 Digest, xxii. tit. 3. 29. : " Mulier gravida repudiata, absente marito filium 
 enixa, ut spurium in actis professa est." Capitolinus, Gord. 5. : " Filium 
 Gordianum nomine Antonini et signo illustravit, quum apud prsefectum aerarii 
 more Romano professus filium publicis actis ejus nomen insereret." 
 
 * Capitol., M. Anton. 9. : " Jussit apud praefectos aerarii Saturni unum- 
 quemque civium natos liberos profiteri, intra tricesimum diem nomine imposito. 
 Per provincias tabulariorum publicorum usum instituit, apud quos idem de 
 originibus fieret quod Romae apud prsefectos aerarii." 
 
 3 These references are collected by Leclerc, Journaux des JRomains 181 
 foil, from Cicero, Tacitus, Suetonius, Seneca, the two Plinys, Dion, and some 
 other writers. The facts elicited from them are, however, of the most trifling 
 kind.
 
 UXDER THE EMPIRE. 331 
 
 lous scholars, who have put forth pretended extracts from 
 this lost treasure, may remind us how much we have suffered 
 from the disappearance of the genuine documents. 1 Of the 
 actual nature of their contents, however, we can nowhere 
 obtain a clearer idea than from the mock account of the 
 freedman Trimalchio, a personage in the curious satire of 
 Petronius, represented as immensely wealthy, and enacting, 
 on a smaller but yet a truly magnificent scale, the part of the 
 imperial owner of the Roman world. 
 
 The seventh of the kalends of Sextilis. On the estate at 
 Cumce, belonging to Trimalchio, were born thirty boys, twenty 
 girls / were carried from the floor to the barn 500,000 bush- 
 els of wheat ; were broke 500 oxen. The same day the slave 
 Mithridates was crucified for blasphemy against the Emperor's 
 genius? The same day was placed in the chest the sum often 
 million sesterces, which could not be put out to use. The same 
 day was afire in the Pompeian Villa, which spread from the 
 house of Nasta the bailiff. ' How now f ' exclaimed Trimal- 
 chio ; ' when did I buy a villa at Pompeii f ' ' Last year,' 
 replied the intendant, ' so it has not yet come into the audit.' 
 Trimalchio hereupon fell into a passion, and cried out 
 * Whatever estates I buy, if lam not told of them within six 
 
 1 The question of these forgeries, as thoy are now admitted to be, was 
 warmly debated by the learned for two centuries. They seem to be traced to 
 the composition of Ludovicus Vives, a friend of Erasmus. 
 
 a Petron. Satyr, c. 53. ; vii. Kal. Sext. : " In praedio Cumano quod est 
 Trimalchionis nati sunt pueri xxx., puellae xx. : sublata in horreum ex area 
 tritici millia modium quingenta : boves domiti D. : eodem die Mithridates 
 servus in crucem actus est quia Gaii nostri genio maledixerat. . Eodem die hi 
 arcam relatum est quod collocari non potuit sestertium centies. Eodem die 
 incendium factum est in hortis Pompcianis, ortum ex aedibus Xastae villici. 
 Quid ? inquit Trimalchio : quando mihi Pompeiani horti empti sunt ? Anno 
 priore, inquit actuarius, et ideo in rationem nondum venerunt. Excanduit 
 Trimalchio, et Quicunque, inquit, mihi fundi empti fuerint, nisi intra sextum 
 mensem sciero, in rationes meae inferri veto. Jam etiam edicta aedilium 
 recitabantur et saltuariorum testamenta, quibus Trimalchio cum elogio ex- 
 hffiredebatur ; jam nomina villicorum et repudiata a circuitore liberta in bal- 
 neatoris contubernio deprehensa : atriensis Baias relegatus : jam reus factus 
 dispensator et judicium inter cubicularios actum."
 
 332 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 months, I will not have them brought into my accounts at 
 all." 1 Then were recited the cediles ' (surveyors') edicts, and 
 the wills of certain herdsmen, with the excuses they made for 
 omitting to make their master their heir ; then ^again the 
 sums lent by his bailiffs, and the story of a freedwoman, wife 
 of a watchman, divorced on being caught in commerce with a 
 slave of the bath / the case of a porter relegated to Baice ; 
 of a steward accused and examined before the tribunal of the 
 slaves and retainers of the bedchamber. This piece of banter 
 the author himself describes as a counterpart of the official 
 register of events ; and we may trace in it the way in which 
 public receipts and expenses, as well as accidents and offences, 
 were recorded for the information of the government and the 
 amusement of the citizens. 1 
 
 But the neglect and loss of these precious statistics have 
 left us dependent on a few casual notices of history, and such 
 
 inferences as may be drawn from analogy, on the 
 ^population point of chief interest to modern inquirers, the 
 
 actual amount of population of the great Roman 
 community. The statements we have received of the num- 
 ber of citizens concern, of course, a portion only of the whole 
 mass, nor have we any direct means of comparing the relative 
 numbers of the citizens and subjects, the freemen and the 
 slaves. We must go back, for our starting point in the in- 
 vestigation of this subject, which we cannot altogether fore- 
 go, however little satisfaction we may expect to derive from 
 it, to the well-known statement of Polybius regarding the 
 number of men available for arms in the Italian peninsula. 
 From this datum we may proceed perhaps, step by step, by 
 the aid of inference and comparison, however imperfect, to 
 deduce an approximate estimate of the population of the Au- 
 gustan empire : it must, however, be fully understood that 
 such an estimate can only be put forth as a conjecture. 
 
 It appears then, that, in the year of the city 529, the Ro- 
 
 1 Comp. Cicero (ad Div. viii. 7.), writing to Caelius from Cilicia, for the talk 
 of the day recorded in the Acta. Plin. Ep. ix. 15. : " nobis sic rusticis urbana 
 acta rescribe." Leclerc, Journcmx, p. 21Y.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 333 
 
 mans and their allies the Campanians could furnish 273,000 
 men of all arms. The rest of Italy below the 
 Rubicon, with the exclusion, however, of some Poiyb*n ro- 
 of the wilder districts, could furnish 477,000. population.^ 
 These numbers are understood to comprise all taly ' 
 the men between the ages of seventeen and sixty. 1 But 
 modern tables of life show that a sum of 750,000 of this age 
 implies a total of 1,332,902 males ; and this number must be 
 doubled to obtain the amount of both sexes together, which 
 would raise the gross total of the free native population to 
 2,665,804." To this must be added, the number of slaves, as 
 to which it would be fruitless to hazard a definite conjecture, 
 and also that of foreigners, which is no less uncertain. Some 
 allowance is further to be made for the barbarians of the 
 forests and mountains, and, indeed, the whole population, 
 scanty as it doubtless was, of the wild peninsula of Bruttium, 
 who could not be counted on for the defence of the common 
 soil of Italy, and are accordingly omitted from the specifica- 
 tion of Polybius. 
 
 In the sixth century of the city it is not to be supposed 
 that the slaves bore any large proportion to the free popula- 
 tion of Italy. The cultivation of the soil was still 
 
 , , ,, .. Historical 
 
 performed for the most part by free labour, and statements 
 
 1 Polyb. ii. 24.,.where twenty thousand arc to be deducted from his total 
 for Cisalpine contingents. We may rely with sufficient confidence on the 
 accuracy of the enumeration of the Romans, and perhaps of their allies ; for 
 that of the rest we must be content with the fact that the author was satisfied 
 with it. The numbers of Polybius are very nearly verified by Diodorus and 
 Pliny. For the limits of military age, see Bureau de la Malle, Econ. Pol. 
 L 217. 
 
 2 " D'apres les tables de population calcule'es par M. Duvillard, et corrigees 
 par M. Mathieu (Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes pour 1839, p. 178. 
 foil.), le nombre des individus de tout sexe de dixt-sept a soixante ans, pour 
 uue population de 10,000,000, est de 5,626,819." De la Malle, i. 287. This 
 is a proportion of fourteen to twenty-five ; and the fighting men, whom we 
 sometimes roughly estimate at one fourth of a population, are more correctly 
 seven twenty-fifths. Supposing male and female births to be nearly equal, 
 against the drain of men by war in a warlike age, Dureau de la Malle sets the 
 loss of female children by exposure at birth.
 
 334 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 bearing on tho servile hands were chiefly employed in menial 
 
 population of , . 
 
 Italy. attendance on the wealthier classes, and in some 
 
 kinds of handicraft and professions. Slaves were as yet gen- 
 erally obtained by war, but the condemnation of a whole 
 population to bondage was comparatively rare, and reserved 
 for cases where the greatest severity was required. The 
 number, however, both of slaves and foreigners was undoubt- 
 edly more considerable in the Hellenic cities of Magna Grse- 
 cia ; while in the interior and at the extremities of the coun- 
 try there existed divers native tribes, in a state of wild and 
 isolated independence. The density of population varied 
 exceedingly in different parts of the peninsula. Some regions 
 swarmed with life. The numbers, indeed, ascribed to the 
 great Hellenic cities of the south-east are extravagant, and 
 generally we may observe that less reliance can be placed in 
 these matters upon Greek than Roman figures ; * but we can 
 hardly reject the express statements we have received of the 
 number of organized communities within the narrow bounds 
 of Latium. Between the Apennines, the Tiber, and the pro- 
 montory of Circeii, a tract but sixty miles in length and per- 
 haps thirty in breadth, the size of an English county, there 
 was a confederation of states, which was assumed to be always 
 thirty, though the number might from time to time vary." 
 The extreme smallness of these numerous communities is 
 self-evident : each was composed of a few thousand, or even 
 a few hundred warriors, who nestled on the narrow ledge of 
 a scarped hill, descending daily into the plain to scratch the 
 soil with spades and harrows ; a soil, however, for the most 
 part of exceeding fertility, which could easily have been made 
 to support a swarm of industrious cultivators. Nevertheless 
 the aggregate of the population in the most favoured portions 
 
 1 For the exaggerated numbers ascribed to Sybaris and Crotona, see 
 Diodorus (xii. 9.), and even the more judicious Strabo (vi. 1. p. 263.). Similar 
 exaggerations are current with regard to Syracuse and Agrigentum. 
 
 2 Dion. HaL Ant. Rom. vi. 63. ; Comp. v. 61., where he enumerates 
 twenty-four. Pliny (Hist. Nat. iii. 9.) gives the name of fifty-three towns of 
 Latium which had become extinct in his time.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 335 
 
 of Italy must have been very considerable. Far the larger 
 part of the peninsula, however, was as yet unsubdued by the 
 husbandman. In early times Italy, now one of i n f erence s 
 the least wooded countries of Europe, was cov- andphyclf 
 ered almost throughout with forests. Many of features - 
 the summits of Rome derived their names from the woods 
 which originally shaded them, while the Capitoline and Quiri- 
 nal were separated by a thick grove, and the Velabrun was 
 an almost impassable jungle. 1 Such was the scene which the 
 poet of the ^Eneid recalled to his imagination in depicting 
 the first landing of the Trojans on the destined site of em- 
 pire. Virgil's landscapes, it will be remembered, are gen- 
 erally umbrageous. The forest of Sila occupied perhaps one 
 half of Lucania. Large tracts even in Latium were covered 
 with the bay-trees of Laurentum, the Arician ilexes, and the 
 Gallinarian pine forests. Even within the lifetime of Au- 
 gustus, Varro could say of Italy that it was so thickly set 
 with trees as to appear like one continuous orchard. 2 Diony- 
 sius, the historian, remarks the convenience of its rivers for 
 the transport of wood from the interior, and the Romans 
 gave their cross roads the name of wood ways, on account of 
 the timber which they were used in conveying. 8 But the 
 streams of Italy have long ceased to be navigable, with the 
 disappearance of the foliage which attracted moisture for 
 their supply, the value of which for this purpose the Romans 
 seem to have recognised in appointing special officers to pre- 
 serve their forests, and perhaps in placing them under the 
 protection of religion. The extirpation of this wild vegeta- 
 tion has led to further changes in the climate of these regions, 
 
 1 Hence the names of the Viminal, the Fagutal, the Querquetulan, and 
 perhaps the Esquiline. A part of the Aventine was called Lauretum. Dion. 
 Hal. Ant. Rom. iii. 43. 
 
 8 Varro de Re Rust. i. 2. Many places now bare of trees retain, it is said, 
 a name, such as Frassineto, Saliceto, Laureto, which shows that they were 
 formerly remarkable for their groves. See Moreau de .Tonne's, Statist, des 
 Peup. Andens, p. 326. 
 
 1 Via vicinalis and via lignaria are the common names for by-roads in the 
 writers de Re Agraria.
 
 336 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 the winters being now, as is generally believed, less rigorous 
 than in ancient times. Even in the age of Augustus the pro- 
 gress of this change was observable. Columella refers to it 
 in explanation of the fact that vines and olives grew in his 
 day hi many spots which they formerly refused to inhabit. 
 But the change in this respect has probably been still greater 
 in other countries of Europe which the Romans regarded as 
 far colder than their own. Strabo assures us that the north 
 of Spain was thinly peopled on account of the severity of the 
 climate. A Gaulish winter was proverbial for its intensity, 
 and the central latitudes of the continent were described as 
 suffering a perpetual frost. 
 
 The change which the lapse of centuries has evidently 
 effected in the face of the country, in its climate, and conse- 
 quently hi its capacity for cultivation, presents 
 
 Basis for an 
 
 approximate alone an insuperable obstacle to our obtaining 
 
 calculation of i i j / . v. /? , 
 
 the population any precise knowledge of the amount 01 its an- 
 cient production, from whence to calculate ap- 
 proximately the numbers of its population. Nor, indeed, are 
 there any accounts of its bearing at the present day, from 
 which, supposing we could form a tolerable estimate of these 
 physical changes, we might draw a reasonable inference on 
 this point. Even were there such, we should still be at a 
 loss to compare with accuracy the relative consumption of 
 different kinds of food at the one time and the other. We 
 shall be inclined perhaps to surmise that the ancient Italians 
 were greater consumers of meat than their descendants ; first, 
 from the large districts of their country which were entirely 
 devoted to feeding swine ; secondly, from the numbers of 
 the nobler animals which were reared for sacrifice ; and 
 again, from the importance they attached to maintaining at 
 its height the physical strength of their martial populations. 
 But waiving all such considerations, the most suitable basis 
 we can adopt for an inquiry, which is too interesting to be 
 altogether omitted, is that assumed by a modern writer of 
 high authority on such subjects a comparison, namely, of 
 Roman or peninsular Italy with the south-eastern portion of
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 337 
 
 modern France, which in extent and climate, in the character 
 of its soil and variety of elevation, bears the nearest analogy 
 to it. 1 Assuming these two regions to comprise a like pro- 
 portion of productive soil, and that Italy, in the time of Au- 
 gustus, with which we are now concerned, was cultivated to 
 the same extent, and with the same industry as this part of 
 France at the present day, we may estimate the breadth of 
 land under corn and green crops annually in the peninsula 
 below the Rubicon at about two millions and a half of hec- 
 tares, a figure which may be multiplied by 2'333 for the num- 
 ber of acres, or by four for that of Roman jugera." This 
 extent of land bears a ratio of less than one fifth to the whole 
 area. Our next step must be to ascertain the production of 
 this amount of cultivated soil. We must inquire the quan- 
 tity of seed used, and the proportion of the crop to the seed. 
 On both these points, the ancients have given us some definite 
 statements, which will bear comparison with modern expe- 
 rience. Five modii, or one bushel and a quarter, it is said, 
 was the seed required for each jugerum, and we may infer, 
 as a mean between various statements, that the average ratio 
 of production was six-fold, a ratio which holds very closely 
 in the district of France under comparison. 8 Accordingly, 
 the produce of each jugerum is to be rated at thirty modii, 
 
 1 Wallon, Hist, de V Esclavage, &c. ii. 76. foil. Comp. Bureau de la Malle, 
 Econ. Pol. i. 281. foil. The S. E. portion of France is limited by the meridian 
 of Paris and the forty-seventh degree of latitude N. 
 
 3 The statistical tables of France for 1840 give the area of the S. E. of 
 France at 18,287,463 hectares, and in cereal cultivation 2,490,591 beet. The 
 area of the Italian peninsula is stated by Wallon at 7774 geogr. leagues 
 square, or 15,356,109 hect. Hence the quantity in cultivation is estimated at 
 2,878,336 hect., Wallon, 1. c. But this author, following De la Malle, has for- 
 gotten that Modena, Lucca, the Bolognese, the Ferrarese, and part of the 
 Romagna, belong to the Roman Cisalpine. It appears from Maltebrun's 
 tables, that Roman Italy, south of the Rubicon and _<Esar, contains about 
 6,800 square leagues, which is about 13,450,000 hectares, of which, according 
 to the proportion in France, we may compute that 2,500,000 are cultivated. 
 
 9 Comp. Varro, R. R. i. 44. ; Cic. ii. in Verr. iii. 4. The modius equals 
 2 gallons or a quarter of a bushel. The authorities for the individual con- 
 sumption are Cato, R. R. 66. ; Sallust, fragm. 3. : Seneca, Ep. 80. 9. 
 VOL. iv. 22
 
 338 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 from whence the whole amount of the Italian harvest may be 
 easily estimated. Another mean must next be taken from 
 the data we possess regarding the quantity of cereal food 
 consumed by the people of divers ages and classes, by free 
 men and slaves, by women and children ; and when this is 
 fixed at three modii, or three quarters of a bushel per head 
 per month, or nine bushels per head for the year, we shall 
 arrive at a total population of about seven millions ; 1 a num- 
 ber which may seem on many accounts to deserve our confi- 
 dence, being far removed from the exaggerations of some 
 modern inquirers, who would raise it to seven-and-twenty or 
 even forty millions, and from the far more conscientious cal- 
 culations of another, who, by an oversight, as it seems, has 
 reduced it to less than five.* If such was the amount of the 
 Italian production in the time of Augustus, and such the 
 number of the mouths it could feed, we must still make an 
 arbitrary addition to the population for the multitudes which 
 
 1 The calculation will stand thus : 
 
 2,500,000 hectares. 
 4 
 
 1 0,000,000 jugera. 
 30 
 
 300,000,000 produce hi modii. 
 50,000,000 deduct for seed. 
 
 Divide bv 36 for annual con- ) 
 sumption of modii per head... f 
 
 6,945,000 
 
 Or, in round numbers, 7,000,000 population. 
 
 * The forty millions are assigned, if I remember right, by Moreau de 
 Jonnes in his Statistique des Ancient PeupUs, a work of little value except as a 
 collection of texts, to the whole of Italy within the Alps ; the twenty-seven is 
 the result arrived at by Blair, hi his Essay on Ancient Slavery, but I do not 
 know exactly within what limits he applies it On the other hand, Bureau de 
 la Malle, who gives five millions for peninsular Italy, has made the error of 
 assigning four modii per month, the consumption of a full-grown man, as the 
 average of the whole population. His peninsular Italy also exceeds, as shown 
 in a previous note, the true limits. Wallon, taking the average of individual 
 consumption, as ascertained from the French tables, arrives at the number 
 of 8,114,534 for Italy ; but he also takes a more extended Italy than mine.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 339 
 
 were supported within the peninsula by importation of grain 
 from abroad. This importation, which had been resorted to, 
 more or less, from an early period, first became fixed and 
 constant about this time ; but we may believe it had by no 
 means yet reached its maximum. 1 The cultivation of Italy 
 diminished as the foreign supply increased ; and if we assume 
 that under Augustus food was then furnished for two addi- 
 tional millions, this total of nine millions was the largest 
 number of inhabitants ever collected in ancient times between 
 the Rubicon and the Straits of Messana.' It is not, however, 
 without hesitation that I pay so much regard to the strong 
 expressions of the ancients, loose and fallacious as they often 
 are, regarding the large amount of this importation, and the 
 dangers, not of scarcity only, but starvation, which they sup- 
 posed to impend on its failure or deficiency.* 
 
 The resources of Italy had sufiered severely during the 
 civil commotions ; yet not much more, perhaps, than through- 
 out the chronic state of war and devastation 
 
 . . The population 
 
 which had continued from the commencement ofitaiycom- 
 
 1 It appears from Josephus, Bell. Jud. il. 16., and AureL Victor, Epit. 2., 
 that Egypt and Africa supplied Italy, the one with twenty the other with forty 
 millions of modii. This amount would feed (at thirty-six modii per annum) 
 1,666,666 individuals. To this is to be added the importation from Sicily, 
 Sardinia, and perhaps other quarters. The foreign supply had increased 
 under the successors of Augustus. Tac. Ann. vi. 13. There is a fair pre- 
 sumption that not Rome only, but other Italian cities were partly fed from 
 abroad. 
 
 2 Maltebrun gives the population of the peninsula in 1826 : 
 
 Naples (without Sicily) 6,690,000 
 
 States of the Church (omitting Bologna, &c.) about 2,000,000 
 
 Tuscany 1,275,000 
 
 8,965,000 
 
 3 It should be observed, however, that the failure of a portion of the usual 
 supply does not imply the abstraction of a similar proportion from each indi- 
 vidual's consumption. In time of scarcity a large proportion of the popula- 
 tion pay more for their food, but continue to consume as much as ever ; the 
 loss in quantity falls entirely upon the remainder. Hence the importation 
 may have been comparatively small, and yet the consequences of a deficiency 
 may have been sufficiently alarming.
 
 34:0 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 pared with that o f its records. If its sufferings at the later 
 
 of the prov- 
 
 incea. epoch had been exceptional, attempts had been 
 
 made to compensate them by exceptional methods. The 
 establishment of military colonies, and the constant influx 
 of slave labour, had tended to restore the level of its popula- 
 tion, and the centre of the empire undoubtedly partook large- 
 ly of the general prosperity, during the fifty years' peace of 
 the Augustan age. We may regard Italy, therefore, at this 
 period, as truly that which her fond children represented her, 
 the garden of the world ; and we cannot pretend to calculate 
 the population of any other region on a similar basis, as none 
 other, at least in Europe, approached so nearly to a uniform 
 state of cultivation. The resources of the Cisalpine territory, 
 which has been excluded from the above inquiry, were not 
 regarded as equally developed with those of peninsular Italy. 
 The valley of the Po was usually contrasted with the region 
 of the Apennines, as a land of pasture rather than arable soil ; 
 though it is impossible that with so many cities, some of 
 them very considerable, it could have neglected the produc- 
 tion of grains for the food of man. The surface of this dis- 
 trict is to that of the peninsula in the proportion of more 
 than six to seven, and we will assume its population to be 
 one half only, or about four and a half millions.' The inhabi- 
 tants of Sicily, remarkable for its fertility and the number 
 and opulence of its cities, cannot be set at less than two mil- 
 lions.* To Sardinia and Corsica together, however, we must 
 
 1 Maltebrun gives the Italian areas, in square geographical leagues, as 
 follows : 
 
 The Cisalpine region (Piedmont, Lombardy) 6000^ 
 
 Add for the duchies and part of Papal States 1000) 
 
 {Tuscany 1100 \ 
 States of the Church 1850 > 6860 
 Naples 3910) 
 
 Sicily 1610 
 
 2 Bureau de la Malle has gone into this inquiry, and his result is only 
 twelve hundred thousand (Econ. Pol. iL 380.). The correction I have applied 
 is nearly the same as Wallon has shown to be applicable to his estimate for 
 Italy. My reference to De la Malle's book is to an edition of 1840; I do not 
 know whether it has since been revised.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 341 
 
 not assign more than one fourth of this amount. Gaul beyond 
 the Alps was doubtless for the most part very thinly peo- 
 pled. To a great extent it was covered by primeval forests, 
 but these were diversified by large tracts of open plain and 
 prairie ; and when Strabo speaks of the whole country as 
 generally cultivated, he must mean that it was not intersected 
 by great mountain regions like Spain or Thrace, by salt or 
 stony deserts like Asia Minor, nor by basins of sand like 
 Egypt and Numidia. I have shown some reasons for guess- 
 ing its population at six millions in the time of Caesar ; and 
 though it advanced rapidly in wealth and industry under his 
 successor, it must have taken many years to recover the deso- 
 lation it underwent in the struggle against the conqueror. 1 
 A large part of Spain had enjoyed tranquillity for a con- 
 siderable period, and its resources had been actively devel- 
 oped by the skill and cupidity of Roman settlers. Its inhabi- 
 tants, we may suppose, were more numerous than those of 
 Gaul, but much less so than those of Italy. We may set 
 them, therefore, at seven or perhaps eight millions. The 
 European provinces north and east of the Adriatic, compri- 
 sing Achaia and Macedonia, with the Greek islands, Ulyria 
 and Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, Vindelicia, and Rhsetia, 
 Thrace and Moasia, somewhat exceed Gaul in extent ; and 
 the superior populousness of the first of these districts, though 
 far fallen from their palmiest days, compensating for the 
 barrenness of others, we may reckon for them, on the whole, 
 an aggregate of ten millions. The provinces of Asia, how- 
 ever, were unquestionably far more densely peopled than 
 almost any portion of Europe. They were filled with innu- 
 merable cities, the hives of commerce and manufactures. 
 Though they had suffered from the devastation of many 
 transient conquests, they had for centuries hardly engaged 
 
 1 Though the tribute or military contribution of Gaul was light, we may 
 imagine how severe must have been the pressure on its industry from the 
 requisition of men, animals, and material of all kinds for the vast establish- 
 ments of the Rhenish camps. Tacitus says, at a little later period, " Tessas 
 Gallias mini strand is equis."
 
 342 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 in warfare themselves ; they had maintained no standing 
 armies of idle consumers, and had countenanced no preju- 
 dices against commerce and labour. If they doubled Italy 
 in extent, they more than doubled her in the number of their 
 inhabitants. 1 This will raise the aggregate for Europe and 
 Asia to near seventy millions. The provinces of the last of 
 the three continents had been far less harassed by war and 
 spoliation ; nevertheless, under the listless sway of the Ptole- 
 mies, Egypt, we are told, had fallen to one half of her earlier 
 population. Diodorus assures us that her people did not ex- 
 ceed three millions ; but it may be questioned whether he 
 includes the Greek residents ; and there can be little doubt 
 that he takes no account of the slaves, or of the Jews, who 
 alone formed, perhaps, a fourth of the inhabitants of the Nile 
 Valley." "We may believe, moreover, that the resources of 
 this favoured region grew as rapidly under the rule of the 
 Cffisars, as they had fallen under its Macedonian tyrants. The 
 districts of Cyrene and Africa remain still to be estimated : 
 the former small in extent, but renowned for exuberant fer- 
 tility, and the commercial activity of its cities, which had 
 suffered no check since the suppression of the Cilician piracy ; 
 the latter long rejoicing in the impulse given to its industry 
 by the demands of Italy. The returns from these regions 
 may swell the general account to a total of eighty-five mil- 
 lions for the population of the empire of Augustus, including 
 both sexes, all ages, and every class of inhabitants. 
 
 It may be observed, in conclusion, that the portion of the 
 globe which constituted this empire far exceeds at the pre- 
 sent day the numbers thus assigned to it at the 
 
 Ancient and J 
 
 modem popu- period under consideration ; at the same tune, 
 
 1 I omit the region of Palestine, which was only temporarily incorporated 
 in the empire in the latter years of Augustus. 
 
 a Diodor. Sic. L 31. ; referred to in chap. xxviii. His expression is o-^iras 
 Aadj ; but Wesseling asserts that the reading is uncertain. Fifty years after 
 the death of Augustus, the population of Egypt, inclusive of Alexandria, is 
 stated by Josephus at seven millions and a half of tribute payers. Bell. Jud. 
 ii. 16. 4. There seems to be no proof that the poll-tax was extended to 
 slaves.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 34.3 
 
 the revolutions which have swept at intervals B 
 over both the East and the West have reversed ^as compared. 
 the social importance of the two great spheres of the Ca3sa- 
 rean dominions : the districts of Asia and Africa, which we 
 have just surveyed, at that period the most flourishing of all, 
 have now sunk almost to the lowest depths of a progressive 
 decay ; while, on the other hand, the European provinces are 
 at this moment occupied by more than twice as many souls 
 as acknowledged the sway of Augustus throughout those 
 regions, although peninsular Italy has itself remained per- 
 haps stationary in population. 1 
 
 Though statesmen, conversant with the returns of the 
 census and profession, may have begun from an earlier time 
 to contemplate the population of the empire as a 
 
 , . . A view of the 
 
 whole, such a view must have been still foreign aggregate pop- 
 to the mass of the people, and perhaps the com- vances the idea 
 prehensive estimate of Diodorus Siculus with 
 reference to Egypt, is the first indication of such a spirit even 
 
 1 We may estimate 
 
 Under Augustus, at 
 Gaul (i. e. France, Belgium, Switzerland, 
 
 &c.)nowat 40,000,000 6,000,000 
 
 Spain and Portugal 18,000,000 8,000,000 
 
 Italy (Piedmont and Lombardy) 7,500,000 ) 
 
 Smaller States 1,500,000 ) 4 > 500 > 00< 
 
 The peninsula 9,000,000 9,000,000 
 
 The islands (Sicily, &c.) 2,500,000 2,500,000 
 
 Turkey in Europe (with Greece and Servia) 12,000,000 ) , n nftft 
 
 Germany (south of the Danube) 9,000,000 ) 10 . 000 00( 
 
 European provinces 100,000,000 40,000,000 
 
 The population of the Asiatic and African provinces at the present day, 
 meagre as it is, is too uncertain for specification ; but under Augustus we may 
 thus enumerate it : 
 
 Asia Manor and Syria 27,000,000 
 
 " " Cyprus 1,000,000 
 
 " Egypt 8,000,000 
 
 " " Gyrene and Africa 9,000,000 
 
 45,000,000 
 Grand total 85,000,000
 
 344 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 among men of letters and intelligence. When it became 
 general it would mark more strongly than any thing else the 
 consummation of the change in popular sentiment, from the 
 narrow ideas of tribe and nation to the broader view of the 
 unity of mankind. The loose conjecture of Paganism, that 
 divers nations sprang from divers heroes, and the heroes 
 themselves from the gods, was ready to yield to the more 
 enlightened doctrine of the unity of race, already dissemina- 
 ted in Home by the Jewish scriptures, and may have been 
 rendered popular through the fashionable poetry of the author 
 of the Metamorphoses. 1 A wise government might have 
 turned to good effect this growing tendency to acknowledge 
 the unity, and consequently the essential equality of man ; 
 but while statesmen were unconscious of its importance, 
 and regarded it with little interest, it was seized, under a 
 higher direction, by the preachers of a new religion, and 
 became the basis of a church or spiritual empire, which event- 
 ually overlapped on every side the bounds of the Caesarean 
 dominions. 
 
 But the sense of unity thus beginning to germinate re- 
 ceived its first practical expression in the acquiescence with 
 The Pax RO- "which the Romans beheld the universal peace 
 which seemed about to envelope them. The 
 grandeur of this new and strange idea made 
 a deep impression on their imaginations. Some faint sighs 
 for rest may be heard in the philosophy of Lucretius ; but 
 the poetry of the Augustan age echoes with jubilant strains 
 at its supposed attainment. A h ! who was the first to forge 
 the sword of iron f How brutal^ how truly iron-hearted was 
 he ! " Such were the complacent declamations of the friends 
 
 1 Ovid, Metam. i. 78 : 
 
 " Natus homo est : sive hunc divino semine fecit 
 
 Hie opifex rerum, mundi melioris origo," &c. 
 
 The legends of Prometheus and Deucalion both imply the unity of mankind, 
 and a single act of creation. 
 a Tibull. i. 10. 1. : 
 
 " Quis fuit horrendos primus qui protulit enses ? 
 Quam ferus et vere ferreus ille fuit ! "
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 345 
 
 of peace, recited or sung before admiring audiences, and 
 wafted from province to province. The transition of the 
 Roman mind from aspirations of unlimited aggressions to 
 views of mere repression and control was sudden, but it was 
 not the less permanent. Henceforth the policy of govern- 
 ment or the ambition of princes might sometimes dictate an 
 attack ; but the people evinced no disposition for conquest, 
 and would scarcely rouse themselves to avenge a national 
 dishonour. Let the wild tribes of the exterior, the outside 
 barbarians, they exclaimed, be taught to respect the majesty 
 of the empire : let them be satisfied that she meditates no 
 assault on them ; let them receive from her hands the pledge 
 of safety and tranquillity. The Roman Peace, which it was 
 her mission to extend to the German or the Parthian, might 
 be accepted by them as a boon, or must be endured as a 
 burden. 1 
 
 It became the settled policy of the imperial government, 
 while acquiescing in these common yearnings for peace, to 
 fortify and guard the frontiers as the best secu- 
 
 rm i. . 1-11 Troops and 
 
 rity against war. The limits to which the gen- fortifications 
 erals of the republic had already advanced form- peace was 
 ed a strong and well-defined natural frontier at 
 almost every point of the whole circuit. We have seen how 
 its standing forces were posted along the lines of the Rhine 
 and Danube, their quarters secured by a long chain of fortifi- 
 cations, and still further protected by the systematic devasta- 
 tion of the regions in their front, and the transport of the 
 nearest barbarians within the limits of the adjacent province. 
 In the East the frontier of the Roman dominion was less ac- 
 curately defined; but the mountain passes which lead into 
 Lesser Asia, practicable for armies during some months only 
 in the year, were easily guarded, and the nominal independ- 
 ence of certain states inclosed within the empire was a 
 wise provision for its defence in that quarter. The passage 
 of the Euphrates was guarded at the most available points 
 
 1 Virgil, jEn. vL 858. : " pacisque imponere morem."
 
 346 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 by fortified posts ; and from thence to the Red Sea, from the 
 Red Sea to the Atlas, and from the Atlas to the ocean, the 
 Roman Peace was, for the most part, effectually secured by 
 deserts and solitudes, which there at least the conquerors had 
 not made but found. 1 
 
 Within these sacred limits of the Roman Terminus the 
 repose of the empire was calm, passive, and almost deathlike. 
 
 The shores of the mighty ocean might still re- 
 of the subject sound with the murmurs of the eternal conflict 
 
 of servitude and freedom, but the depths of its 
 central abysses were unmoved alike by winds and currents. 
 The Alps, the Atlas, the Pyrenees, and the Hsemus were the 
 last retreats of native independence : but the power of Au- 
 gustus (so languid or timid on the frontiers), had been di- 
 rected against his internal foes with a pertinacity which 
 showed, that if his arm seemed anywhere weak, it was 
 restrained, not by infirmity, but by policy. Ever and 
 anon the subject nations lifted their heads and beheld with 
 amazement and mortification, by what a mere shadow of 
 military force they were actually controlled, and again lay 
 quietly down, and resigned themselves to their humiliation. 
 Spain and Egypt, they remarked, were kept in obedience 
 each by two legions ; Africa by one only ; Gaul by two 
 cohorts or twelve hundred men; Greece by the six lictors 
 of a single propraetor. 8 The sway of Rome throughout the 
 provinces was a government of opinion ; it was maintained 
 by the skill with which the interests of individuals and classes 
 were consulted, by a system no doubt of political corruption, 
 which, at least, was better than the sword, by the remem- 
 brance of the ills of barbaric lawlessness, above all, by a sense 
 of the moral superiority of the conquerors. When the spirit- 
 ual yearnings of the world, thus pacified and amalgamated, 
 began shortly to issue in a burst of religious enthusiasm, 
 
 1 Compare the well-known expression of the British chief in Tacitus 
 (Agric. 30.), so applicable in other quarters : " Solitudinem faciunt, pacem 
 appellant." 
 
 a See a striking passage to this effect in Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 16.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 34.7 
 
 under a Providential guidance, the conviction of the essential 
 force and greatness of the Roman character was the fir- 
 mest bulwark of heathenism against the assaults of Christi- 
 anity. 
 
 Nevertheless it was in vain that men cried peace, peace, 
 when there was no peace. The greatest of Roman historians 
 has lamented that the empire could furnish only war of opinion 
 a narrative of petty events, and a survey of con- ratTd'beueath 
 temptible characters; yet he has succeeded in the Roman f 
 investing this barren subject with a livelier in- Peace - 
 terest, and inspiring it with a deeper pathos, than have been 
 developed by the more stirring themes of any of his rivals. 
 And yet he was not aware of the conflicts that were really 
 impending the wars worse than civil that were actually fer- 
 menting beneath that unruffled surface the foes more ter- 
 rible than Gaul or Carthaginian, who were slowly struggling 
 upwards, like the warriors of Cadmus, to destroy or be de- 
 stroyed beneath the light of heaven. The human appearance 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ dates from about the middle of the 
 reign of Augustus. This mysterious event, in which we trace 
 the germ of Roman dissolution, and still mark the frontier 
 line between ancient and modern civilization, though once 
 commonly assigned to the year 753 of the city, is now univer- 
 sally referred to a somewhat earlier period ; and among many 
 conflicting opinions, the best chronologers are still divided 
 between the years u. c. 747 and 749, or 7 and 5 B. c. 1 It was 
 
 1 Fischer, with Ideler and Reinold, place the date in 747 ; but Clinton in 
 749. A remarkable light has recently been thrown upon this point, by the 
 demonstration, as it seems to be, of Augustus Zumpt, in his second volume of 
 Commentationes Epigraphicce, that Quirinius (the Cyrenius of St. Luke, ch. ii.) 
 was first governor of Syria, from the close of A. TJ. 750, B. c. 4, to 753, B. c. 1. 
 Accordingly, the enumeration begun or appointed under his predecessor 
 Varus, and before the death of Herod, was completed after that event under 
 Quirinius. It would appear from hence that our Lord's birth was A. TJ. 750, or 
 749 at the earliest. Though I have used the first volume of Zumpt's Commen- 
 tationes, I have not yet seen the second, and have learnt his view from a pas- 
 eage pointed out to me in the Christian Reformer for Oct. 1855.
 
 348 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 not, however, till more than half a century later that the 
 political consequences of the Christian revelation began to 
 be felt : with these our history will be concerned hereafter, 
 and it is not necessary to refer to them any further by antici- 
 pation.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 349 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 THE GEEAT CITIES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. THE CITIES OP GREECE : CORINTH, 
 
 SPARTA, ATHENS, DELOS. THE CITIES OF ASIA: EPHESUS AND OTHERS. 
 
 ANTIOCH IN SYRIA. THE GRECIAN CITIES IN ITALY: THE CITIES ON THE 
 CAMPANIAN COAST. APPROACH TO ROME. THE HILLS OF ROME. THE 
 
 TALLEYS OF ROME. THE FORUM, TELABRUM, ETC. THE TRANSTIBERINA. 
 
 THE CAMPUS MARTIUS. THE STREETS AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF 
 ROME. THE DOMUS AND INSUL.fi. POPULATION ESTIMATED '. 1. FROM 
 THE AREA OF THE CITY. 2. FROM THE NUMBER OF HOUSES. 3. FROM 
 THE NUMBER OF RECIPIENTS OF GRAIN. CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 HPHE progress of the Greeks and Romans in the arts of 
 JL peace and civilization may be ascribed in a great measure 
 to the skill they early attained in self-defence. The idea of the 
 When assailed by a superior foe, whom they sortedf/th'at 
 were unable to meet in the field, they withdrew undthe pire 
 behind the shelter of their walls, constructed for Caesars - 
 the permanent security of their temples and dwellings, and 
 derided from the heights of their airy citadels the fruitless 
 challenge of the adversary who pined inactive beneath them. 
 Hence the political importance which the city, the place of 
 common refuge, the hearth of the national gods, the strong- 
 hold of national independence, acquired among them, and the 
 comparative insignificance to which they resigned their do- 
 mains and villages, which they held themselves ever ready, at 
 the first sign of invasion, to abandon to the enemy. Even 
 when their conquests extended far and wide over islands and 
 continents, Rome and Athens, Syracuse and Sparta, still con- 
 tinued, unlike England and France, Russia and Turkey, in
 
 350 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 modern times, to be the names of cities, rather than of coun- 
 tries ; all political privileges centred in them, and flowed 
 thence with slow and measured pace to the more favoured 
 of their subject communities. It is to this principle of their 
 polity that we owe much of the intense national life, the 
 deep-marked lines of national character, of faith, manners, 
 and opinions, which severally distinguished them, and which 
 seem to have received their form and pressure from the 
 mould of the city walls in which they were first fused to- 
 gether. We have seen, however, in the last chapter, how 
 the exclusive pretensions of the greatest of these conquering 
 cities were eventually modified by the exigencies of a wide- 
 extended sovereignty. The Roman empire claims at last, the 
 first in civilized antiquity, to be considered as in itself a polit- 
 ical body, independent of its connexion with Rome, the resi- 
 dence of its chief governor. Our history becomes a review 
 of the affairs of a vast unit, the aggregate of a multitude of 
 smaller members, the sum of many combined elements. The 
 title affixed to it, the History of the Romans rather than of 
 Rome, may serve to mark this important feature in its char- 
 acter ; and accordingly it seemed most fitting to commence 
 our survey of the condition of the Roman people under Au- 
 gustus with a general view of the empire itself, and the social 
 and political bands by which it was held together and com- 
 pacted into one system. I have reserved for a second chap- 
 ter the more special examination of the features of the illus- 
 trious city from which it must still derive its chief interest, as 
 well as its celebrated name. 
 
 Before entering, however, on this survey of the Eternal 
 
 City, we will pass in rapid review the most conspicuous of her 
 
 rivals in fame and splendour, such as they ap- 
 
 Proposed snr- r ' 
 
 vey of the city peared at this period of eclipse, if not of degra- 
 
 iteelf, as com- *L . 
 
 pared with the elation. Ine grandeur of Rome, great and strik- 
 
 other great . . ''' -i -t 
 
 cities of the ing as it must seem in itself, may not disdain to 
 borrow additional lustre from comparison with 
 her noblest contemporaries. 
 
 No Roman traveller of gentle birth and training could
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 351 
 
 enter the precincts of an Hellenic community, and fail to 
 imbibe a portion of the sacred glow with which 
 it regarded the beautiful in the world either of Greece under 
 sense or imagination. The young patrician, sent Augustus - 
 forth to acquire lessons of taste or wisdom at Rhodes and 
 Athens, returned to his own rude Penates an altered man. A 
 citizen who had visited Greece, might be recognised, no doubt, 
 in the Via Sacra almost at sight. He had worshipped in the 
 temple of a real divinity ; he had been initiated into the 
 genuine mysteries of nature ; he had received illumination 
 from above. Yet the Greece which he had traversed and 
 admired, though still full of restless stir and motion, still 
 occupied upon thoughts that never die, and forms that never 
 tire, was living Greece no more : she was the shadow of her 
 former self, the ghost of her ancient being, still lingering 
 among the haunts of her pride and beauty, more attractive 
 perhaps to the imagination than in the bloom of her living 
 existence. He had threaded, perhaps, with Cicero's graceful 
 friend, the narrow channels of the ^Egean, crowned by the 
 Athenian acropolis. Behind him had lain ^gina, before him 
 Megara, on his right the Pira?us, Corinth on his left. 1 It was 
 indeed a scene of mournful recollections. JEgina, 
 the handmaid of haughty Athens, had shared her Me 
 latest disasters, but had never revived with her recent renova- 
 tion. Megara, the fatal cause of the great war of the Pelopon- 
 nesus, had sunk into a state of decay and insignificance in 
 which she could no longer tempt an unhallowed ambition. 
 The sight of Corinth, still desolate and in ruins, Cor i nt h and 
 might awake a painful remembrance of the sack the Fir8BUS - 
 of Mummius, the most shameful page in the annals of 
 Roman devastation ; while the Piraeus reflected still more 
 recent traditions of outrage, when Sulla wreaked on her 
 the vengeance which he affected to spare to the venerable 
 glories of Athens. No spot on earth could read the Roman 
 moralist a more instructive lesson on the vanity of human 
 
 1 See the famous consolations of Sulpicius to Cicero (Div, iv. 5.), written 
 in the year 70&.
 
 352 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 greatness, or display to him more melancholy trophies of the 
 lust of rapine and conquest. 
 
 Such mementos might have their use and appropriateness, 
 as addressed to a child of the capitol and the forum on cross- 
 ing the threshold of illustrious Greece ; but we 
 
 Restoration of . ,, ,. , , , , , -, -, 
 
 Corinth by are not to infer from them that decay and misery 
 889ar> had fallen as a blight upon the whole realm of 
 Hellas. Corinth herself was at that moment about to rise 
 from her ashes under the auspices of a generous Roman, and 
 to take her place once more among the most distinguished of 
 cities. Her position, in respect to commerce and navigation, 
 was not less admirable than that of Alexandria or Constanti- 
 nople ; and nothing but the deliberate pressure of a conque- 
 ror's arm could keep her permanently prostrate. Placed at 
 the head of two almost commingling gulfs, and commanding 
 by them the commerce of Italy and Asia, which shrank in 
 conscious imbecility from the stormy navigation of the Ma- 
 lean Cape, Corinth, restored to life and freedom by the decree 
 of Julius Caesar, entered at once on a new career of pros- 
 perity, in which she was destined speedily to outstrip the 
 fame of her earlier successes. It is probable indeed that 
 some of her chief buildings and temples had survived, though 
 defaced and desecrated by the ruthless Mummius. 1 A squalid 
 and degraded population still crouched under their shelter ; 
 but these poor wretches gained their livelihood, not by return- 
 ing to the pursuits of commerce, which were checked by wars 
 and piracy, and the now triumphant rivalry of Rhodes and 
 Delos, but by groping among their ruins for the buried rem- 
 nants of Corinthian bronze which had escaped the cupidity 
 of the first captors, and had since become of priceless value. 8 
 
 1 This, it seems, may be inferred from the way in which Pausanias, in his 
 account of Corinth, speaks of these edifices as monuments of antiquity. 
 
 2 Comp. Strabo, viii. 6. p. 381. ; Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 2., xxxvii. 3. ; 
 Stat. Sylv. ii. 2. 68. : " JSraque ab Isthmiacis auro potiora favillis." Cicero 
 (Tiuc. Disp. iii. 22.) laments the indifference these people evinced to their 
 degraded condition. He was more moved by the sight of their ruins than 
 they were themselves : " Magis me moverunt Corinthi subito aspect* parie-
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 353 
 
 The restoration of Corinth was one of Caesar's noblest pro- 
 jects, and he was fortunately permitted to accomplish it. In 
 gratitude for his services the new inhabitants gave it the 
 name of the Praise of Julius? But the lazy plebeians of 
 Rome had shown no inclination to earn wealth by industry ; 
 no mercantile community could have sprung from the seed 
 of the licentious veterans. The good sense of the dictator 
 was strongly marked in his disregarding the prejudices of his 
 countrymen, and transplanting to his new establishment a 
 colony of enfranchised slaves. 2 Corinth rapidly rose under 
 these auspices, became a centre of commerce and art, and 
 took the lead among the cities of European Hellas. Here 
 was established the seat of the Roman government of Achaia, 
 and its population, though the representations we have re- 
 ceived of it are extravagant, undoubtedly exceeded that of 
 any Grecian rival. 3 The beauty of its situation, the splen- 
 dour of its edifices, the florid graces of its architecture, and 
 the voluptuous charms of its parks and pleasure grounds, 
 delighted the stranger whom its commerce had attracted. 
 The security it now enjoyed allowed it to expand its ample 
 streets far beyond the precincts of its defences, and the light 
 and airy arcades which connected it with its harbour at Le- 
 chgeum might be advantageously contrasted with the weary 
 length of dead wall which extended from Athens to the 
 Pirseus. 4 
 
 tinas quam ipsos Corinthios, quorum animis diuturna cogitatio callum vetusta- 
 tis obduxerat." 
 
 1 " Laus Julia " upon the medals. Eckhel, ii. 238. 
 
 2 Strabo, viii. 6. p. 381. ; Pausan. ii. 1, 2. ; Plut. Cces. 57. ; Dion, xliii. 50. ; 
 Plin. Hist. Nat. iv. 4. Crinagoras in Anthol. Gr. ii. 145. 
 
 3 Comp. Apuleius, Metam. x. p. 247. ; Hierocles, p. 646. : Koptvdos i*tfrp6- 
 TroAij ira<r7)j 'EAAaSoy. Athenseus (vi. 20.) declares that its slaves amounted 
 to 460,000. This number may bear perhaps to be shorn of its last figure ; but 
 we may as well suspect exaggeration in the writer as corruption in the MSS. 
 
 4 Stat. Sylv. ii. 2. 25. : 
 
 " Qualis ubi subeas Ephyres Baccheidos altum 
 Culmen, ab Inoo fert semita tecta Lechaeo." 
 
 There was more than one such "via tecta" for the convenience of shade at 
 TOL. iv. 23
 
 354: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 The restoration of Corinth exalted her to higher eminence 
 in every respect, except historic fame, than either of the 
 rivals who had formerly outshone her. Of these, 
 favoured by indeed, Sparta, in the days of Augustus, had fall- 
 en almost to the lowest depths of humiliation. 
 Enjoying no advantages of position, she had suffered more 
 than her share in the general decline of the Grecian cities 
 after their loss of independence. In the late troubles, however, 
 she had prudently sided with Octavius, while Athens was 
 dazzled by the more brilliant pretensions of Antouius. She 
 had been rewarded with the boon of immunity from Roman 
 taxation, as well as self-government, and these privileges she 
 continued to retain. 1 But at the same time she was allowed 
 to exercise no supremacy over the descendants of her Helots 
 and Perked, who retained, under the name of free Laconians, 
 complete independence of her authority in four-and-twenty 
 townships along her coasts ; and of the hundred burghs she 
 boasted in the days of her prosperity, she could now count 
 no more than thirty, all of which were sunk in squalid insig- 
 nificance. 
 
 Nevertheless, in this reverse of fortune, the Spartans 
 
 could still vaunt themselves genuine children of the Dorian 
 
 heroes, who had conquered the sons of Hercules, 
 
 The Athenians 
 
 debased in and made themselves more than once the tyrants 
 
 blood. 
 
 of the Hellenic world. Did their ancient rivals 
 the Athenians venture to put forth similar pretensions of race 
 and pedigree, they were met with a contemptuous smile from 
 the rest of Greece and the enlightened all over the world, 
 who well knew how little of pure Attic blood really flowed 
 in their veins. The genuine race of Cecrops, the earth-born 
 Eupatrids, had long mingled with strangers, before the fatal 
 
 Rome. At a much, later period such an arcade ran from the Lateran gate to 
 the basilica of St. Paul, and one structure of the kind now leads from Bologna 
 to a favourite shrine some miles distant. 
 
 1 Strabo, viii. 5. p. 365..: fri/uVj07j<ret' Sia<f>fp6vrtas, teal tutivav iKfvQtpot, 
 irXV rwv <pi\tKo>v \ftrovpyidii' &\\o <rvvTt\ovvres oii$fv. Coinp. Plin. Hist. 
 Nat. iv. 6. : "ager Laconicae geutis." Pausan. iii. iv.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 355 
 
 massacre of Sulla, which almost exterminated them. The 
 edifices of their city, which the Roman general deigned to 
 leave standing, were now repeopled by a motley crowd of 
 immigrants from all parts. 1 With the name, however, of 
 Athenians, these new citizens inherited the pride of their 
 presumed ancestry. They paraded a spirit of independence 
 even before the fasces of the praetor, refusing, when urged 
 by one Roman consular, to allow sepulture within their walls 
 to another, and declining to repeat the celebration of their 
 mysteries at the solicitation of Crassus.* 
 
 The splendour of the old Athenian glory still cast a mild 
 declining ray over the land of Phoabus and the Muses ; but 
 the most accomplished of its foreign votaries could not but 
 observe, that in his time the home of science and letters was 
 more justly appreciated by strangers than by its own degen- 
 erate citizens. 3 Strangers indeed still continued to flock to 
 it, and none were so numerous, none such enthusiasts in ad- 
 miring it, as the sons of its Italian conquerors. The contem- 
 poraries of Cicero fully recognised the fact that the fame of 
 ancient Hellas was mainly a reflex from the preeminent glory 
 of Athens. 4 The jealousies of ancient rivals were extinguished 
 in their common humiliation, and the men of Rhodes and 
 Sparta regarded Athens as the last prop of their national 
 renown, and sought the honour of enrolment among her citi- 
 zens. 6 The noblest of the Romans were fain to follow this 
 
 1 Cic. Or at. 44. : " Athenis mos est quotannis laudare in concione cos qui 
 sunt in proelis interfecti, recitato Platonis Menexeno." Tacitus (Ann. ii. 55.) 
 tells how the pride of Rome rebuked these pretensions : " quod contra decus 
 Rom. nominis non Atheniensis tot cladibus exstinctos, sed colluviem omnium 
 nationum comitate nimia coluisset." 
 
 * See the letter of Sulpicius on the death of M. Marcellus. Cic. ad Div. iv. 
 12. 5. ; and comp. Cic. de Orat. iii. 20. 
 
 s Cic. de Orat. iii. 11. : " Atheuis jam diu doctrina ipsorum Atheniensium 
 interiit, domicilium tantum in ilia urbe remanet studiorum, quibus vacant 
 cives, peregrini utuntur." 
 
 4 Cic. Brut. 13. ... " dicendi studium non erat commune Graecia; sed 
 proprium Athenarum." 
 
 8 Cic. pro Place. 26. : " Auctoritate tanta est, ut jam fractum et debilita- 
 tum Graciae nomen hujus urbis laude nitatur."
 
 356 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 example. In vain did Cicero remind them of a principle of 
 their own law, better known, perhaps, to constitutional anti- 
 quarians than to practical jurists, that every Roman who in- 
 scribed his name on the rolls of another republic thereby for- 
 feited the privileges of his own. 1 
 
 With the destruction of the Piraeus by Sulla the commer- 
 cial ascendancy of Athens had suffered an eclipse whence it 
 never again emerged. In the time of Augustus 
 splendour of her naval arsenal had dwindled into a small strag- 
 gling village, and the three state-galleys which 
 she still maintained, like the Bucentaur of falling Venice, 
 merely preserved the tradition of her former greatness. 5 
 Nevertheless, though shorn of the resources of industry and 
 independence, the splendour of the illustrious city was main- 
 tained by the pious veneration of her foreign visitors, who 
 regarded her not unjustly with a feeling akin to religious. 
 The Athens of the Augustan era might still, perhaps, claim 
 to be the finest city in the world. Since the fall of her liber- 
 ty 300 years before, kings and potentates had vied with one 
 another in embellishing her streets and public places ; and 
 if she presented, like more modern cities, no capacious squares 
 or long vistas lined on either side with superb edifices, it was 
 owing to the unevenness of her original site, and the scruples 
 which had spared her narrow and tortuous lanes in so many 
 capitulations. The great temple of Zeus Olympius, first 
 designed by the dynasty of Pisistratus, had risen, column 
 after column, under Antiochus Epiphanes, and having been 
 partially spoiled by Sulla, was carried on almost to comple- 
 
 1 Cic. pro Salb. 12. 
 
 * Strabo, ix. 1. p. 395. Athens contributed all her remaining forces to 
 the cause of Pompeius, retaining only the three official galleys Theoris, Para- 
 lus, and Salaminia, the last token of her ancient glory. Lucan, iii. 381. : 
 " Exhausit veteres quamvis delectus Athenas, 
 Exiguae Phoebea tenent navalia puppes ; 
 Tresque petunt veram credi Salamina carin." 
 
 The passage is crabbed, and there is no satisfactory explanation to be given of 
 the word Phcebea. None of the Athenian havens was consecrated to Apollo, 
 but the Munychia had a temple of Diana.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 35Y 
 
 tion by the joint efforts, already commemorated, of many 
 royal associates. 1 Attalus, king of Pergamus, had crowned 
 the walls of the Acropolis with statues. Ptolemy Philadel- 
 phus had erected a magnificent gymnasium. The groves of 
 Academus, which Sulla had cut down to construct machinery 
 for his siege, were planted anew in the reign of Augustus, 
 and continued for many ages to furnish a shade to sophists 
 and rhetoricians. The walls of Athens, however, once over- 
 thrown, lay henceforth in ruins. The weakness of the city 
 of Minerva became now her best defence. Both Julius and 
 Augustus contributed to the erection of a portico dedicated 
 to the goddess, and Agrippa placed his own statue, together 
 with that of his imperator, upon a single pedestal by the side 
 of the Propylsea of the Acropolis. A temple of Rome and 
 Augustus, was erected before the eastern front of the Par- 
 thenon. The munificence of a private benefactor, the censor 
 Appius Claudius, had decorated the hamlet of the Attic Eleu- 
 sis ; and we may indulge, perhaps, in the idea that Cicero 
 himself displayed his gratitude to his alma mater by dedicat- 
 ing to her a votive memorial within the precincts of the 
 Academy. 5 
 
 Exempt from the direct control of a Roman officer, the 
 university of Athens was governed by a senate and assembly 
 of its own. It was permitted to retain its an- 
 
 Cultivation of 
 
 cient laws, and the august tribunals, such as the art and letters 
 
 A i_- i_ T- f j f at Athens. 
 
 Areopagus, which had continued for so many 
 ages to administer them. Under the shadow of the free 
 republic of thought and letters, art, science, and philosophy 
 were still taught and cultivated. The professors of ethics 
 and physics, of oratory and grammar, still held forth to ad- 
 miring audiences, each in his own lecture-room ; every theory 
 
 1 Livy (xli. 20.) speaks of it perhaps before the undertaking of the con- 
 federate potentates : " templum Jovis Olympii unum in terris inchoatum pro 
 magnitudine Dei." 
 
 a Cic. ad Att. vi. 1. 26. : " Audio Appium irpoirv\aiov Eleusine facere : 
 num inepti fuerimus si nos quoque Academiae fecerimus? Equidem valde 
 ipsas Athenas amo : volo esse quoddam monumentum."
 
 358 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 had its special teacher, every paradox its sworn defender ; 
 but strangers flocked to Athens, not to ascertain the truth 
 from the collision of minds, but to hear how the doctrines of 
 Epicurus were modified by Patro, how Phsedrus handled the 
 dialectics of Zeno, or what was the latest qualification of the 
 doubts of the Academy. 1 The place of the poets had been 
 taken by lecturers on poetry: but versification still had its 
 votaries, and the epigram's humble plot of ground was culti- 
 vated at least with exquisite taste. The arts of sculpture and 
 architecture had long lost their originality and simplicity ; 
 yet there was no department of excellence in which the genius 
 of Greece seemed so nearly inexhaustible as in these. 2 
 
 The destruction of Corinth by the Romans had driven the 
 
 commerce of Greece to the Isle of Delos, which, besides the 
 
 convenience of its situation at the entrance of the 
 
 Commercial _ . ., , .. ., 
 
 emporium of .diigean, enjoyed the advantage ol a reputation 
 for special sanctity. It was the natural empo- 
 rium of four seas, and offered an interchange between the 
 products of Greece and Asia, Libya and Sarmatia. It became 
 the centre of the slave trade of the ancient world, the most 
 constant, and perhaps the most extensive, of all traffics. The 
 piracy of the Mediterranean, which threatened to sweep away 
 all other maritime employments, was the feeder and sustainer 
 of this. Hither it converged in its regular and legitimate 
 
 1 Propert. Hi. 21. : 
 
 " Inde ubi Piraei capient me litora portus, 
 
 Scandam ego Theseae brachia longa viae. 
 Illic aut spatiis animum emendare Platonis 
 Incipiam, aut hortis, docte Epicure, tuis. 
 Persequar aut studium linguae, Demosthenis anna, 
 
 Librorumque tuos, muude Menandre, sales ; 
 Aut certe tabulae captent mea lumina pictae, 
 
 Sive ebore exactae, seu magis aere, manus." 
 
 8 Enthusiasts for Grecian art, such as Visconti, have maintained that its 
 excellence in sculpture lasted without decline for six centuries. On the other 
 hand, Velleius Paterculus asserts the famous paradox, " Eminentissima inge- 
 nia in idem arctati temporis spatium congregari," and illustrates it by the as- 
 sumed confinement of the excellence of all arts in Greece within the limits of 
 a single generation. Veil. i. 16, 17.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 359 
 
 course from Thrace and Pontus on the Euxine, from Phrygia 
 and Caria, from Egypt and Gyrene ; even the cities of Euro- 
 pean Hellas furnished a class of victims, selected for the 
 beauty of their persons or the refinement of their manners. 
 But wherever piracy was in the ascendant, captives from 
 every coast, and even noble Romans among them, were 
 wafted to the great dep&t of Delos, and transferred without 
 remorse to the dealers who awaited their arrival. 1 Not less 
 than 5000 slaves had thus been bought and sold in a single 
 day. But the prosperity of the guilty island was more short- 
 lived than even the crimes on which it throve. The pirates 
 were still roaming the seas with impunity when the wealth 
 of Delos tempted the cupidity of Menophanes, one of the 
 captains of Mithridates, by whom it was stormed and ran- 
 sacked. 2 Its commercial eminence migrated to the securer 
 stronghold of Rhodes, which had the singular good fortune 
 to escape the sword both of the Romans and their adversa- 
 ries. The ruin of Delos was consummated by the restora- 
 tion of Corinth ; and in the age of Augustus it still lay pros- 
 trate, nor did it ever again recover a portion of its earlier 
 importance.' 
 
 Notwithstanding many vexatious restrictions on the natu- 
 ral course of trade imposed by fiscal ignorance, the unity of 
 the Roman empire conspired on the whole to re- 
 
 ., , ... t, T rrn. Cities of Asia 
 
 store commerce to its legitimate channels. The 
 
 spot on the Asiatic coast which corresponded most nearly 
 
 1 After the suppression of the Cicilian piracy, the practice survived of kid- 
 napping free men and selling them into slavery. Cicero (de Off. ii. 16.) 
 praises the benevolence of those who redeemed the victims of the crimps or 
 corsairs. Even in Italy, during the civil wars, free men were seized by armed 
 bands and carried into the ergastula of the great proprietors. Both Augustus 
 and his successor attempted to remedy this violence (Suet. Oct. 32., Tiber 8.) : 
 nevertheless the crime continued. Senec. Controv. x. 4. The Digest, xxxix. 
 4., recognises the existence of freemen made slaves. 
 
 4 Cicero, at a little later period still, contrasts the security of Delos with 
 the dangers of Italy, and even the Appian Way, under the reign of maritime 
 piracy. Pro Leg. Manil. 18. 
 
 3 Strabo, x. 5. p. 486.
 
 360 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 with Corinth on the European was Ephesus, a city which, 
 in the time of Herodotus, had been the starting 
 
 Ephesus, TT . . , 
 
 point of caravans for upper Asia, but which, 
 under the change of dynasties and ruin of empires, had 
 dwindled into a mere provincial town. The mild sway of 
 Augustus restored it to wealth and eminence, and as the offi- 
 cial capital of the province of Asia, it was reputed to be the 
 metropolis of no less than 500 cities. 1 It shared with Smyrna, 
 Pergamus, and Nicsea the honour of erecting a temple to the 
 emperor. Apamea, in Phrygia, the centre of trade with the 
 interior, was reputed the second commercial city in the penin- 
 sula. Synnada was celebrated for its variegated marbles, 
 
 Laodicea for its woollens and tapestries, Hiera- 
 
 Apamea, Syn- . A 
 
 nada, Laodicea, polis and Cibyra, the nrst for its dyes, the se- 
 cond for its iron manufactures. To these may be 
 
 added the. commercial activity of Miletus, and the royal mag- 
 nificence of decoration which distinguished Cyzi- 
 
 Miletus. . 6 . / 
 
 cus, binope, and (Jnidus, in each of which kings 
 had once resided. 2 These numerous hives of population were 
 supported, not only by the exchange of their industry for 
 foreign articles, but by the abundant fertility of the soil 
 around them : the plains of Sardis and the valleys of the Cai- 
 cus, the Hermus and the Cayster, were remarkable for their 
 harvests, and the wines of Asia were among the choicest in 
 the world. 3 
 
 Such was the condition of the most famous cities of the 
 
 old world, reviving under the exercise of their native usages, 
 
 or protected by the vigilance and equity of a 
 
 Cities of Mace- J m 
 
 donian origin strong metropolitan administration. There was, 
 
 in Asia. , i _* i 
 
 however, another class ot cities in the .Last, ot 
 
 1 Eckhel, Doctr. Numm. ii. 559. &c. ; Ulpian. de Off. procons. in Digest, 
 iv. 5. ; Strabo, xiv. 1. p. 640. foil. 
 
 a Strabo, xii., xiii. ; Joseph. Sell. Jud. ii. 16. 4. 
 
 3 Strabo, II. cc. For the natural resources of Asia, the rapidity with which 
 it recovered its losses by war and tyranny, and the importance of its revenues 
 to the empire, see particularly Cicero, ad Qu. Fr. i. 1. and pro Leg. Manil. 6. 
 ad Alt. vi. 2.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 361 
 
 more modern origin and character, of which it will be suffi- 
 cient to notice one specimen. The Macedonian rulers of 
 the East were a race of builders. After the manner of the 
 kings and satraps to whom they succeeded, they fed their 
 pride by sweeping the inhabitants of towns and villages into 
 cities laid out with pomp and splendour, on sites the most 
 convenient and commanding, to which they gave their own 
 names or those of their kinsmen or consorts. 
 Antioch flourished on the fall of Tyre. It was 
 erected by Seleucus Nicator, the greatest of all builders of 
 the class, on the banks of the Orontes, about fifteen miles 
 from the sea, in a plain celebrated for the beauty of its cli- 
 mate, the abundance of its water, and consequent fertility. 
 It was laid out, after the usual type of the Macedonian cities, 
 on a symmetrical plan, the chief street being a straight line four 
 miles hi length, bordered throughout with double colonnades. 
 Four cities, contiguous to one another, coalesced into a single 
 metropolis ; but, from some inequality of ground or other 
 cause, the common arrangement of two transverse streets 
 was not adopted at Antioch. 1 The character of Grecian 
 architecture, with its indefinite prolongation of horizontal 
 lines, its regularity of outline, and constant repetition of 
 similar forms, must have given a peculiar air of magnificence 
 to this style of construction, and conveyed an impression of 
 the enormous power of the hand which could thus strike out 
 as it were at one blow a fabric capable of infinite extension 
 in every direction. Antioch contained, we are told, in the 
 third century 300,000 free citizens, and was then surpassed 
 in numbers only by Rome and Seleucia on the Tigris. Alex- 
 andria perhaps nearly equalled it, but every other city 
 
 1 Strabo, xvi. 2. p. *750. See the description and map of Antioch from 
 Malelas and Libanius, in Lewin's or Conybeare and Howson's Life of St. Paul. 
 Nicsea, mentioned above, should be included among the cities of Macedonian 
 origin. Strabo describes it as a square of sixteen stadia in circumference, 
 divided into equal rectangles by two straight avenues, so that the four gates 
 could be seen from a pillar in the public place in the centre. Strabo, xii. 4 
 p. 566.
 
 362 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 throughout the world yielded to it the palm of grandeur 
 and population. 1 
 
 The Grecian cities of Syria, and Antioch at the head of 
 them, were notorious for their luxury and voluptuousness : 
 Greek cities in an ^ tne i^ e an ^ dissolute native, relaxed by long 
 Italy. servitude to his kings and priests, received the 
 
 polish of Hellenic culture only to make his degradation more 
 conspicuous. The refinements of Grecian life had found a home 
 also on the fairest shores of Italy, and had exercised no less 
 debasing influence on the sterner character of the Romans 
 themselves. From ages long lost in the darkness of legend- 
 ary history, settlers from Greece had established themselves 
 on the coast of the Tyrrhene or Sicilian Sea : hill and head- 
 land, pool and river, village and city, had received from them 
 a Grecian appellation, and had been admitted within the 
 hallowed circle of their national traditions. Misenum and 
 Leucosia, Posidonia and Cuma3, Acheron and Avernus, Nea- 
 polis and Herculaneum, attested the ancient settlement of the 
 Greeks on the coast of Campania; while cities of native 
 growth, such as Baiae and Stabia3, Surrentum, Pompeii, and 
 Salernum, grew up by the side of the foreign colonies, and- 
 partook of their splendour and prosperity. 8 From the period 
 of the conquest of this region by the Romans, its beauty and 
 salubrity had attracted their notice ; the medicinal qualities 
 of its warm vapours and sulphureous springs were appreciated 
 by them ; while the mountains which encircled it had not 
 yet revealed their latent fires, or the activity they may have 
 displayed in remote ages was remembered only in obscure 
 traditions. 3 
 
 I Herodian, iv. 5. : % r?V 'Avn6xeiav fy ryv 'A\edvSpfiai>, 011 iro\v ri TTJJ 
 'Pwjtijs, &s faro, jue-yeflei viro\fnrov(ras. Seleucia on the Tigris was built also 
 by Seleucus Nicator. In the time of Pliny it was supposed to contain 400,000 
 free inhabitants (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 36.), although the Parthians had built 
 Ctesiphon by its side to rival and control it. I suspect that Pliny's estimate 
 applies properly to the two cities conjointly. 
 
 II Paestum was the Italian name of Posidonia, Puteoli of Dicaearchia, which 
 eventually prevailed over the Grecian. 
 
 3 It has been conjectured that the Homeric or Phoenician tradition, that
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 363 
 
 Roman imperators, from the time of the Scipios and the 
 Gracchi, had sought repose in this favoured tract : on the 
 heights of Misenum Horterisius and Lucullus, The life of the 
 Csesar and Pompeius, had erected their villas, ca'jZian the 
 their camps, as Seneca would rather call them, coast - 
 from the dignity of their position, and the wide prospect 
 they commanded. 1 The cities which lined the gulf or crater 
 embraced by the sweeping arms of Misenum and Surrentum, 
 were governed by Grecian laws, and surrendered to the 
 sway of Grecian usages and customs. To them the Roman, 
 wearied with the ceaseless occupations and rigid formality 
 of life at Rome, gladly retired for bodily relaxation, to be 
 ennobled, as he might pretend, by intellectual exercises. 
 Neapolis had its schools and colleges, as well as Athens ; its 
 society abounded in artists and men of letters, and it en- 
 joyed among the Romans the title of the learned, which 
 comprehended in their view the praise of elegance as well as 
 knowledge." Every fifth year the festival of the Quinquennia 
 was celebrated with athletic contests in the arena; in its 
 theatre the genteel comedy of the school of Menander com- 
 bined in due proportions the decorousness of Rome and the 
 licence of its native country/ 1 Here the patrician might 
 
 here were the ends of the earth covered with Cimmerian darkness, was derived 
 from the reports of navigators, who had found the sun obscured by volcanic 
 smoke and ashes, such as have been known to extinguish the light in Iceland 
 for months together. 
 
 1 Seneca, Ep. 51. : " Videbatur hoc magis militare ex edito speculari late 
 longeque subjecta. Adspice quani positionem elegerunt, quibus sedificia excita- 
 verunt locis et qualia : scias nou villas esse sed castra." It is curious that the 
 vast remains of the Lucullan substructions, grottoes, and arcades, received in 
 the middle ages the name of Castrum Lucullanum. 
 
 2 Columell. x. 134. : " Docta Parthenope." The epithet implies, besides 
 mere knowledge, the polish and refinement of manners imparted by a liberal 
 education. 
 
 3 Stat. Sylv. \\. 5. 89. : 
 
 " Quid nunc magnificas species cultusque locorum, 
 Templaque, et innumeris spatia interstincta columnis ; 
 Quid geminam molem nudi tectique theatri, 
 Et Capitolinis Quinquennia proxima lustris ;
 
 364: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 throw off the toga, the sandal and the cap, and lounge in a 
 trailing robe barefooted, his head lightly bound with the 
 Oriental fillet, attended at every step by obedient slaves and 
 cringing parasites, but relieved from the gaze of clients and 
 lictors, from the duty of answering questions and the neces- 
 sity of issuing commands. 1 Such was the indolent life of the 
 Romans at Neapolis and its neighbour Palaepolis ; such it 
 was at Herculaneum and Pompeii. But Baiae, the most 
 fashionable of the Roman spas, presented another and more 
 lively spectacle. Here idleness had assumed the form of dissi- 
 pation, and the senator displayed as much energy in amusing 
 himself as he had elsewhere shown in serving his country or 
 promoting his own fortunes. As soon as the reviving heats 
 of April gave token of advancing summer, the noble and the 
 rich hurried from Rome to this choice retreat ; and here, till 
 the raging dogstar forbade the toils even of amusement, they 
 disported themselves on shore or on sea, in the thick groves 
 or on the placid lakes, in litters and chariots, in gilded boats 
 with painted sails, lulled by day and night with the sweetest 
 symphonies of song and music, or gazing indolently on the 
 wanton measures of male and female dancers. The bath, 
 elsewhere their relaxation, was here the business of the day : 
 besides using the native warm springs and the vapours which 
 issued from the treacherous soil, they turned the pools of 
 Avernus and Lucrinus into tanks for swimming ; and in 
 these pleasant waters both sexes met familiarly together, 
 and conversed amidst the roses sprinkled lavishly on their 
 surface. 3 
 
 Quid laudem risus libertatemque Menandri, 
 Quam Romanus honos et Graia licentia miscent ? " 
 
 It must be observed, however, that the Quinquennial games of Neapolis were 
 an institution of Domitian, seventy years after Augustus. 
 
 1 Cicero, pro Rabir. Post. 10. : " Deliciarum causa et voluptatis nonmodo 
 cives Romanes sed et nobiles adolescentes, et quosdam etiam senatores, summo 
 loco natos, non in hortis et suburbanis suis, sed Neapoli in celeberrimo oppido, 
 cum mitella saepe vidimus." See in the same place what scandal might be 
 caused by the use of the pallium. 
 
 * For the amusements of Baiae see Tibullus, iii. 5. ; Martial, iv. 57., x. 30.,
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 305 
 
 But I have brought the reader from the provinces to 
 Italy : I now assume the graver task of introducing him to 
 Rome. 
 
 From whichever side of Italy the stranger approached the 
 imperial city, he emerged from the defiles of an amphitheatre 
 of hills upon a wide open plain, near the centre Approach to 
 of which an isolated cluster of eminences, moder- Bome - 
 ate in height and volume, crowned with a vast assemblage of 
 stately edifices, announced the goal towards which for many 
 a hundred miles his road had been conducting him. There 
 were two main routes which might have thus led him. from 
 the provinces to the capital, the Appian from Greece and 
 Africa, and the Flaminian from Gaul ; but the 
 
 ,, ... ... , ... The roads. 
 
 lines of the Servian wall, which still bounded 
 Rome in the age of Augustus, were pierced with eighteen 
 apertures, each of which admitted a well-appointed road from 
 the nearer districts of the peninsula. The approach to the 
 greatest of cities was indicated also by works of another 
 kind, the most magnificent and imposing in their character 
 of any Roman constructions. In the time of Augustus seven 
 aqueducts brought water from distant sources to 
 
 * . The aqueduct. 
 
 Rome, borne of these streams indeed were con- 
 veyed underground in leaden pipes throughout their whole 
 course, -till they were received into reservoirs within the walls, 
 where they rose to the level required for the supply of the 
 highest sites. Others, however, entered the city on a succes- 
 sion of stone arches, and of these the Aqua Marcia, which 
 was derived from the Yolscian mountains, was thus sump- 
 tuously conducted for a distance of 7000 paces before it 
 
 xi., 80. ; Ovid, Art. Amand.i. 255. ; and especially Seneca, Ep. 51. : " Videre 
 ebrios per litora errantes, et comissationes navigantium, et symphoniarum 
 cantibus perstrepentes lacus . . . praeternavigantes adulteras dinumerare, et 
 aspicere tot genera cymbarum variia coloribus picta, et fluitantem toto lacu 
 rosam, et audire canentium nocturna convicia." He also calls it, more com- 
 pendiously, " diversorium vitiorum." Ovid, I. c. : 
 
 " Hinc aliquis vulnus referens in pectore dixit : 
 Non hiec, ut fama est, unda salubris erat."
 
 366 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 reache'd the brow of the Esquiline Hill. 1 These monuments 
 of the pomp and power of the people to whose wants they 
 ostentatiously ministered, were rendered the more impressive 
 from the solitudes in which for many miles they planted their 
 giant footsteps. The Campagna, or plain of Rome, at the 
 present day the most awful image of death in the bosom of 
 life anywhere to be witnessed, was already deserted by the 
 swarms of population which three centuries before had made 
 it the hive of Italy. The fertile fields of the Hernici and 
 i had been converted into pasture land, and 
 
 Solitude of the ,,. ,. A , ., ,, , . f 
 
 country round the cultivators of the soil, once the denizens oi a 
 hundred towns and villages, had gone to swell 
 the numbers of the cities on the coast. Even the fastnesses 
 in the hills had been abandoned in the general security from 
 external attack ; while the patrician villas, with which central 
 Italy was studded, were buried in the shade of woods or the 
 cool recesses of the mountains. For many months, it may be 
 added, the heat was too oppressive for journeying by day, 
 whenever it could be avoided ; the commerce of Rome was 
 chiefly carried on by means of the river ; a and the necessities 
 of warfare no longer required the constant passing and re- 
 passing at all hours of soldiers, couriers, and munitions. The 
 practice of riding by night seems to have been generally 
 adopted, so that the movement on the roads gave little sign 
 by daylight of the vicinity of so vast a haunt of human beings 
 with their manifold interests and occupations.* Nor was the 
 
 1 Strabo, v. 3. ; Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxi. 3. 24. Corrected by Frontinus in 
 his special treatise on the aqueducts, c. 7. 
 
 1 There are picturesque allusions to the movement on the river in Pro- 
 pertius, i. 14. : 
 
 "Et modo tarn celeres mireris eurrere lintres, 
 Et modo tarn tardas funibus ire rates : " 
 
 and Martial, iv. 64. : 
 
 " Quern nee rumpere nauticum celeusma, 
 Nee clamor valet helciariorum." 
 
 * Many indications might be alleged of the frequency of night travelling. 
 The Allobroges were circumvented on their leaving Rome in the evening,
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 proximity of so great a city indicated long before arriving 
 at its gates by suburbs stretching far into the surrounding 
 plain. The rhetorical flights of certain writers who would 
 assure us of the contrary, and persuade us that Rome sent 
 forth her feelers as far as Aricia and Tibur, and that many 
 cities were attached to it by continuous lines of building, are 
 plainly refuted by the fact that groves, villages, and separate 
 houses are repeatedly mentioned as existing within three or 
 four miles of the capital. 1 
 
 The solemn feeling with which, under such circumstances, 
 a great city would naturally be approached, was redoubled 
 by the wayside spectacle, peculiarly Roman, of -r 
 the memorials of the dead. The sepulchres of roadside - 
 twenty generations lined the high roads for several miles 
 beyond the gates ; and many of these were edifices of con- 
 siderable size and architectural pretension : for it was the 
 nobles only Avhose houses were thus distinguished, and each 
 patrician family pointed with pride to its own mausoleum, 
 in which it gathered the ashes of its members, and often of 
 its slaves and freedmen, beneath a common roof. Flanked 
 by such rows of historic marble, and crossed by the gaunt 
 shadows of funereal cypresses, the Appian, the queen, as it 
 was proudly termed, of all Ways, as the oldest, the longest, 
 and the most frequented, approached the city from the south. 3 
 At five miles' distance from the walls it traversed the famous 
 plain where the Horatii decided the fate of the young repub- 
 lic, and where the monuments of the Roman and Sabine 
 champions indicated the spots on which each had fallen. 3 
 
 Catilina made his exit from the city at night ; so did Curio and Antonius. 
 
 Comp. Juvenal, x. 19.: 
 
 " Pauca licet portes argenti vascula puri 
 
 Nocte iter ingressus." 
 1 See the passages of the ancients, and ill-considered inferences of the 
 
 moderns, in De la Malle, Econ. Pol. i. 375. 
 
 a Stat. Sylv. ii. 2. 12. : " Appia longarum teritur Regina viaruro." 
 
 1 Liv. i. 25.; Dionys. Hal. Antig. Rom. iii. 18. The modern topographer 
 
 Canina accounts for a bend in the road at this point, as meant to avoid the 
 
 desecration of these sacred memorials. Annali del Institute, &c., 1852, p. 268.
 
 368 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 X early at the first milestone, as measured from the Servian 
 gates, it passed under the arch of Drusus, and thence de- 
 scended a gentle slope into the hollow of the Aqua Crabra. 1 
 The monuments of the dead now lay closer together. Here 
 were the sepulchres of the Scipios, the Furii, the Manilii, the 
 Servilii, Calatini and Marcelli ; of which the first four have 
 been already discovered, the rest still await the exploration 
 of the curious. 1 Here were laid under a common dome, in 
 cells arranged along the walls, the ashes of the slaves of Au- 
 gustus and Livia. Hard by the gate reposed the remains of 
 the base Horatia, slain by a patriot brother for her devotion 
 to a foreign lover. Beside the rivulet, on the southern 
 slope, perhaps, of the Caelian Hill, was the reputed grotto 
 of Egeria, once rudely scooped out of the rock ; but its 
 native simplicity had long been violated by the gaudy pomp 
 of architecture and sculpture. 3 On the descent to the Aqua 
 Crabra, the temple of Mars crowned the eminence which 
 fronted the gate of the city, the spot from which the proces- 
 sion of the knights to the Capitol on the Ides of Julius took 
 its commencement 4 Still nearer to the gate, on the right 
 
 He thinks that the actual monuments have been discovered in the most recent 
 excavations. 
 
 1 Fragments of the first milestone have been discovered at 512 palms 
 (about 120 yards) beyond the Porta S. Sebastiano. Canina, Annali, 1851, 
 p. 317. The arch of Drusus stands a little within that modern gate. 
 
 * Go. Tusc. Disp. L. 5. The excavations oT the last few years extend from 
 the fourth to the ninth milestone. Besides the foundations of villas, temples, 
 and sepulchres, many inscriptions have been brought to light, which appear, 
 however, in almost every case to belong to the later periods of the empire. 
 It is possible, from the single word " Cotta," which can now be read upon the 
 Casal rotondo, a monument of similar character to that known by the name 
 of Caecilia Metella, that this was the tomb of Messala Corvinus. See Canina, 
 in Annali, 1851. 
 
 * Juvenal, iii. 18. 
 
 4 The temple of Mars stood on an acclivity (Clivus Martis), and faced the 
 Porta Capena : " quern prospicit ipsa Appositum tectae porta Capena viae." It 
 was probably, therefore, on the descent to the Aqua Crabra, in going towards 
 the city. That there was some interval between it and the gate appears from 
 Livy, i. 33. : " semitam saxo quadrato a Capena porta ad Martis struxerunt." 
 The lowering of this hill is recorded on an inscription in Gruter : " Clivum 
 Martis pec. publica in planitiem redegerant."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 369 
 
 side of the road, were the twin temples of Honour and Vir- 
 tue, vowed by the great Marcellus for his conquest of Syra- 
 cuse, which he had adorned with the earliest spoils of foreign 
 painting. From the steps of these temples the populace had 
 greeted Cicero on his return from exile. The gate, surnamed 
 Capena, dripped constantly with the overflowings of the Aqua 
 Appia, and of a branch of the Marcia brought there to join 
 it : the united stream was carried over the arch on its way to 
 the Aventine. Here we enter Rome : the road Entrance to 
 has become a street ; houses, hitherto inter- Rome- 
 spersed between monuments and temples, have now become 
 dense and continuous. The avenue is still, however, broad 
 and straight for the convenience of military processions. 
 Soon it forks into two ways, still following the direction of 
 the hollows between the hills : the one, turning to the right 
 between the Palatine and Cselian, was conducted to the Velia, 
 the Esquiline and the Forum, till it arrived at the golden 
 milestone at the foot of the Capitol ; the other, to the left, 
 entered one extremity of the Circus Maximus, beneath the 
 Palatine and Aventine, to pass out of it at the other, and 
 reach the same termination through the Forum Boarium and 
 the Velabrum. 1 
 
 The seven hills of Rome have been diversely enumerated, 
 and admit, indeed, of being multiplied to a much greater 
 number, or, regarding them from a different The Beven hl]la 
 point of view, of being not less considerably ofRome - 
 reduced. The Aventine is the only eminence among them 
 wholly distinct and separated from the others. The Palatine 
 is connected with the Esquiline by the low ridge or saddle 
 
 1 There was unquestionably a communication through the circus longi- 
 tudinally for the triumphal processions ; but it is not likely that this was kept 
 open for ordinary traffic. The usual thoroughfare must hare run alongside 
 the outer wall of the circus, and was perhaps conducted under the arcades 
 which supported the upper seats of that edifice. The upper part of the circus 
 was connected with the buildings on the Palatine on one side, and probably 
 with those on the Aventine on the other, the whole width of the valley between 
 being thus occupied by its extensive structures. The Aqua Crabra, we must 
 suppose, was carried in a tunnel beneath it. 
 VOL. iv. 24
 
 370 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 of the Velia, and the Capitoline was in like manner attached 
 at its northern extremity to the Quirinal, till severed from 
 it by an artificial cutting a century after Augustus. The 
 Quirinal, the Viminal, the Esquiline and the Cselian, to which 
 may be added the extra-mural eminence of the Pincian, are 
 in fact merely tongues or spurs of hill projecting inwards 
 from a common base, the broad table-land which slopes on 
 the other side almost imperceptibly into the Campagna. On 
 approaching Rome from the north the eye was at once arrest- 
 ed by the abrupt escarpment of the Capitoline, which sufficed 
 to exclude from it all view of the city ; but from the south 
 or east it was carried gently upwards along the rising slopes, 
 and allowed to overleap the depressions which lay beyond 
 them, of the Suburra, the Circus, the Velabrum and the 
 Forum, in which the densest buildings of the city nestled, 
 till it lighted on the heights of the Capitoline and the sum- 
 mits of the Etruscan mountains in the distance. 
 
 The Palatine Hill, which was closely embraced by the 
 
 double arms of the Appian Way, the site of the city of 
 
 Romulus, the cradle of imperial Rome, was an 
 
 The Palatine. 
 
 elevation of about 130 feet above the level of the 
 sea. 1 With some assistance from art it was made to slope 
 abruptly on every side, though at its junction with the Velia 
 its height was not more than half that which has been as- 
 cribed to the mass in general. It formed a trapezium of 
 solid rock, two sides of which were about 300 yards in length, 
 and the others about 400 : the area of its summit, to compare 
 it with a familiar object, was nearly equal to the space be- 
 tween Pall Mall and Piccadilly, in London. Along the brow 
 
 1 This and subsequent measurements, taken from M. Bunsen's work on 
 Rome, refer of course to the present elevation. Some allowance must be 
 made for the degradation of the summits. At the same time the hollows hare 
 been filled up to the depth, in some places, of fifteen or twenty feet It must 
 be remembered that the bed and water-line of the Tiber hare also risen, though 
 probably in a less degree. The crown of the arch of the Cloaca at its em- 
 bouchure stands now very little above the mean level of the river. We are 
 told that in ancient times the tunnel could be navigated by boats, and admitted 
 a waggon loaded with hay : but this perhaps supposes the water at its lowest.
 
 . UNDER THE EMPIRE. 371 
 
 of the escarpment ran, we must suppose, the original walls ; 
 but no fragments of them remain, nor have our authorities 
 preserved any notice of their exact position. The site of 
 two of the gates may be pointed out perhaps at the base of 
 the cliffs ; but it is possible that these mark the apertures, 
 not in the defences themselves, but in the sacred enclosure 
 of the pomo2rium beyond them. 1 This fanciful limitation 
 had been traced round the foot of the hill, after the Etruscan 
 fashion, with a plough drawn by a bull and a heifer, the fur- 
 row being carefully made to fall inwards, and the heifer yoked 
 on the near side, to signify that strength and courage are re- 
 quired without, obedience and fertility within the city. 2 The 
 broad ways which encircled the Palatine skirted the borders 
 of the pomceriura, and formed the route of the triumphal 
 march, and of the religious and political processions. 3 
 
 The locality thus doubly inclosed was reserved for the 
 temples of the gods and the residence of the ruling race, the 
 class of patricians, or burghers, as Niebuhr has 
 
 , The Palatine 
 
 taught us to entitle them, which predominated occupied by 
 over the dependent commons, and only suffered paT&fanresi- 
 them to crouch for security under the shadow 
 
 1 The Porta Mugionis, the present access to the Palatine from the north 
 near the arch of Titus, and the Porta Romana on the west, near the church of 
 S. Teodoro. There was probably a third gate at the south-eastern corner of 
 the hill, where Severus afterwards built his Septizonium, to make the approach 
 to the city from Africa, i. e. by the Appian Way, more imposing. 
 
 Varro, L. L. v. 32.; Plut. Rom. 11. From Tac. Ann. xii. 26., it ap- 
 pears that this Etruscan fashion referred to the pomcerium, not to the walls. 
 
 3 The line of the Triumphal Way has been referred to hi another place 
 (ch. xix.). Becker has described it more closely. It seems to have run from 
 the Porta Carmentalis (I omit the difficult question about the Porta Trium- 
 phalis), along the Vicus Jugarius, up one side of the Velabrum, and down the 
 other again by the Via Nova, thence through the circus, &c. In this way it 
 made a complete circuit of the original city on the Palatine, and had doubtless 
 a religious significance. Compare also the lustra! procession round the pomceria, 
 in Lucan, i. 592. : 
 
 "Turn jubet et totam pavidis a civibus Urbem 
 Ambiri, et festo purgantes moenia lustro 
 Longa per extremes pomoeria cingere fines 
 Pontifices, sacri quibus est permissa potestas. . . ."
 
 372 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 of the walls of Romulus. The Palatine was never occupied 
 by the plebs. In the last age of the republic, long after the 
 removal of this partition, or of the civil distinctions between 
 the great classes of the state, here was still the chosen site 
 of the mansions of the highest nobility. Here stood the 
 famous dwelling of the tribune Drusus, whose architect pro- 
 posed so to fence it with walls and curtains that its owner 
 should be secluded from the observation of the citizens below. 
 The tribune's answer, father build it so that all my country- 
 men may see me, implied not only that he would be visible 
 by all, but accessible to all also. The site of this house can- 
 not be fixed with certainty ; but it seems probable from this 
 anecdote, that it overlooked the Forum, and stood therefore 
 on the north side of the hill, not far from the Porta Mugionis. 
 It became the property of Crassus, and was bought of him by 
 Cicero ; it was razed, as we have seen, by Clodius, but the 
 vacant space was restored to its recent possessor, after whose 
 death we hear of its passage into the hands of a noble named 
 Censorinus. The house of JEmilius Scaurus was another 
 patrician mansion in this locality. There seems reason to 
 believe that it stood at the north-eastern angle of the hill, 
 overlooking the valley since occupied by the Colosseum and 
 the arch of Constantine. 1 This mansion also passed through 
 various hands in the course of two or three generations : it 
 was famous for the size and splendour of its columns, of the 
 costly marble afterwards distinguished by the name of Lu- 
 cullus. 4 Contiguous to the dwelling of Cicero was that of 
 his enemy Clodius : the price the tribune had given for it, 
 says Pliny, agreed with the madness of a king rather than 
 
 1 See Dezobry, Rome sous Auguste, L 156. The topographical parf of 
 this generally valuable book is founded on some inveterate errors, and can 
 only occasionally be made serviceable. 
 
 s Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 2. These columns, four in number, were thirty- 
 eight feet in height, and adorned the atrium of the house. They were the 
 largest of the whole number of three hundred and sixty which Scaurus had 
 conveyed, in his aedileship, to Rome (A. c. 696) for the decoration of a tem- 
 porary theatre. They were afterwards used in the theatre of Marcellus. 
 Ascon. in Oral, pro Scaur.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 373 
 
 the dignity of a Roman senator. 1 The Regia, the official 
 residence of Caesar as chief pontiff, which lay at the foot of 
 the hill, abutting on the Forum, may have thus been placed 
 immediately below it. We may amuse ourselves with imagin- 
 ing the flight of steps and the wicket in the garden wall, 
 which admitted Pompeia's gallant to the mysteries of the 
 Bona Dea. Agrippa, and after him Messala, occupied the 
 house which had belonged to Antonius on the Palatine ; and 
 Domitius Calvinus, who triumphed over Spain in 715, devoted 
 a large portion of his spoils to the construction of a mansion 
 in this quarter also.* But a spot of more interest than these 
 in the imperial annals was that which bore the residence of 
 Augustus himself. From the modest house in which he first 
 saw the light, the dwelling of his father Octavius, which 
 was also on the Palatine, he removed at a later pe- q^ palace of 
 riod to the mansion of Hortensius, on the same Augustus. 
 hill ; and there he continued to abide, though lodged far be- 
 neath the dignity of his position, in the height of his power, 
 till it was destroyed by fire in 748. 3 The citizens insisted 
 on contributing to its restoration on a grander scale ; and 
 their subscriptions must have been universal if, as we read, 
 the emperor refused to accept more than a single denarius 
 from each. The residence of the chief of the state began 
 already to be known from its situation as the Palatium or 
 palace. Augustus, in his care not to press on the limits of 
 popular favour, pretended to regard the dwelling thus erected 
 for him as the property of the public, and relinquished a large 
 portion of it for the recreation of the citizens. 4 It was pro- 
 bably connected with the Regia, and its remains are accord- 
 ingly to be looked for in the north-western angle of the hill, 
 
 1 Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 24. 2. 
 
 3 Dion, xlviii. 42., liii. 27. 
 
 * For the emperor's changes of residence see Suetonius, Oct. 5, 51, "72. ; 
 and Dion, liii. 16., Iv. 12. The house of Octavius was probably on the Ger- 
 malus, a portion of the Palatine Hill, and the Scales Annulariae descended 
 from it to the Velabrum. 
 
 4 Dion, Iv. 12.: rfyv oiKtav oi'/coSouijo-a? 4S^noffi<afft iraffav .... Iv tv 
 TO?? iSi'ou aaa xa.1 ev rots xoivols
 
 374 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 where indeed some foundations have been discovered which 
 may have really appertained to it. Tiberius also built a man- 
 sion by the side of the Augustan, with which he eventually 
 connected it, and thus embraced within the precincts of the 
 imperial residence a large part of the western side of the 
 Palatine. We shall see hereafter how later emperors ex- 
 tended these limits, and connected dome with dome, and at 
 last bill with bill, by arcades, bridges, and substructions of 
 enormous dimensions. 
 
 The Palatine was ascended in more than one direction by 
 flights of steps, and if there was any road for wheel-carriages 
 Temples <m the to **& summit, it was used perhaps only for the 
 Palatine. convenience of religious solemnities. The houses 
 
 of the nobility here, as in other parts of Rome, were isolated 
 structures, placed at the caprice of their owners, surrounded 
 by gardens, and never regularly disposed in streets, an ar- 
 rangement which was confined to the lower level and infe- 
 rior habitations of the city. They were interspersed with 
 temples, colonnades and sacred groves. On the summit of 
 the Palatine stood, among many others, the temples of Cybele 
 and Juno Sospita, of Luna, of Febris, of Faith and Fortune, 
 of Mars and Vesta : but none of these was so illustrious as 
 that of Apollo, the emperor's patron, which was dignified 
 by a spacious area inclosed by porticos where the trophies 
 of all nations were suspended. To this temple was also 
 attached the celebrated library, in two compartments, devoted 
 respectively to the writings of the Greeks and the Romans. 1 
 On the slopes of the hill, or immediately at its foot, were 
 temples of Victory and of Jupiter Stator, bordering upon the 
 Forum : the shrine of Pan, called also the Lupercal, stood at 
 the entrance to the Velabrum. 9 On the crest which over- 
 
 1 Suet. Oct. 29.; Veil. iii. 81.; Dion, liii. 1. 
 * Virgil, jn. viii. ex.tr. : 
 
 " Ipse sedens niveo candentis limine Phoebi, 
 
 Dona recognoscit populorum, aptatque superbis 
 
 Postibus." 
 
 We may remember how throughout this book the poet revels in allusions to
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 375 
 
 looked the circus was a venerable monument, which pretended 
 to be the regia of Romulus and Numa, and also a square 
 mass of masonry, to which was given the name of Roma 
 Quadrata, supposed to have some mysterious connexion with 
 the fortunes of the city, beneath which certain precious amu- 
 lets were deposited. 1 
 
 While the Romans were fortifying themselves on the 
 Palatine, the neighbouring summits did not remain unoccu- 
 pied. The Quirinal, the Viminal, and the Esqui- 
 
 ,..,., , , , The Quirinal, 
 
 line, the three principal spurs of the great north- viminai, and < 
 ern ridge, were separated from the Palatine by Es<luililie - 
 a swampy jungle, and their crests were crowned with the 
 strongholds of a rival tribe. The Quirinal at least was in the 
 hands of a Sabine colony ; and We may conjecture that the 
 settlers on the other eminences were closely connected with 
 these, from the tradition of the earthen mound which seems 
 to have closed, in remote antiquity, the mouth of the valley 
 between them. 3 The Romans and the Sabines contended for 
 the possession of the Capitoline. This hill, the smallest of 
 the seven, was flung across the hollow which 
 
 , , j f *i_ TT i. 3 i-i The Capitoline. 
 
 descended westward from the Velia, and while 
 it touched the Quirinal of the Sabines at one end, was sepa- 
 rated from the Palatine of the Romans by the valley of the 
 Velabrum at the other. It rose in two summits : the Sabines 
 seized the northern ; the Romans established themselves on 
 
 the objects on the Palatine, and surrounds the residence of his patron with a 
 halo of historic associations. 
 
 1 Festus, in v. Quadrata, p. 258. : " Quadrata Roma in Palatio ante tern- 
 plum Apollinis (it lay towards the circus) dicitur, ubi reposita sunt qua solent 
 boni ominis gratia in urbe condenda adhiberi (they were bones of animals and 
 implements) quia saxo munitus est initio in speciem quadratam." 
 
 9 The early Sabine occupation of the Quirinal is attested by the presence 
 here of many shrines of Sabine divinities, such as those of Sancus, of Quirinus, 
 and perhaps of Flora. The college of the Salii was at the Colline Gate. Here 
 was a house of Numa, the Sabine king, and, at a later period, the temples of 
 the Sabine emperors of the Flavian house. The antiquity of its occupation is 
 shown by the Capitolium Vetus, the rival Capitol, in which, as in the other, 
 was a temple common to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Varro, de Ling. Lat. 
 v. 32. It stood probably on the crest of the hill, facing the Forum.
 
 376 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 the southern. 1 A small rectangular space lay depressed between 
 them, which for convenience we may call the Intermontium, 
 and this the Romans seem to have been the first to make 
 their own. The sacred grove, or asylum, in which they 
 offered a retreat for fugitives, was meant, we may suppose, 
 to encourage desertion from the enemy. The disputes be- 
 tween the two powers ended in their union and coalition ; 
 the morasses of the valley were drained for their comitium or 
 place of meeting, and their common forum or thoroughfare ; 
 while the fortress of the united confederacy was founded on 
 the northern summit of the hill they shared between them, 
 and the great temple of their common patron Jupiter on the 
 The ATX and opposite extremity : the one was called specifi- 
 capitoiium. ca jiy t h e Arx or Citadel ; the other bore the au- 
 gust name of Capitolium." The former contained only one 
 important civil edifice, the temple of Juno Moneta, or the 
 Roman mint ; the latter was the centre of the religious sys- 
 tem of the city, the spot where the holiest mysteries of 
 her faith were solemnized by the chief of her priesthood, the 
 consul or the dictator ; to which the imperator led his con- 
 quering legions preceded by the spoils and captives of his 
 triumph, and where he returned his thanks for victory with 
 appointed sacrifices. This was that rock eternal and im- 
 movable, to which the empire of the world was promised, 
 and which the race of Julius and ^Eneas should inherit for 
 The Temple of ever and ever. The temple of Jupiter Capito- 
 peiu^o'r capi- liaus was divided into three cells, occupied by 
 statues of the king of gods and Juno and Mi- 
 nerva, his assessors ; the ancient divinities Terminus and 
 Juventas, who refused to quit their wonted stations on the 
 foundation of the Capitol, were accommodated with places 
 within the sacred walls. Here the images of the gods, 
 
 1 The northern summit, now known as the Araceli, is the higher of the 
 two, and rises 161 feet above the sea. 
 
 a The respective sites of the Arx and Capitolium are still a matter of con- 
 troversy on which it would hardly be proper to enter in this work. I shall 
 have further occasion to notice the question.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 377 
 
 on occasions of peculiar solemnity, after being paraded 
 through the city on litters, were reclined on costly cushions, 
 and invited to a gorgeous banquet. The Jupiter of the 
 Capitol was called also the Tarpeian, from the name of the 
 cliff which fronted the Palatine, a precipice eighty feet in 
 height ; and this was the direction in which his temple 
 looked. 1 On the same summit was a second 
 shrine of Jupiter, under the title of Feretrius, Feretrius^and 
 or the spoil-bearer, and another was erected here 
 also to the same divinity by Augustus, under the name of the 
 Thunderer. 2 The Capitoline was climbed perhaps by three 
 paths ; of which two, the Clivus Asyli and the Clivus Capi- 
 tolinus, sprang from the Forum and ascended to 
 the Intermontium, on the right and left hand re- andMDiivuJ 
 spectively. The first of these, the existence of 
 which is matter of question, was probably a mere flight of 
 steps ; the other was practicable for carriages, and for this 
 purpose was made to climb the acclivity with a zigzag. The 
 triumphal chariot rolled up this path, and was admitted with- 
 in the fortress through the gate Porta Pandana, midway on 
 the ascent. There was a third access by the flight of the 
 Hundred Stairs from the southern extremity, where the hill 
 approached within three hundred yards of the river. The 
 chief approach in modern times, that from the west, or the 
 Campus Martius, was then a sheer declivity, and the spot most 
 jealously guarded along the whole crest of the hill. 
 
 The Capitoline was the great bulwark of Rome against 
 the Etruscans descending the Tiber from the north. But a 
 colony of that people settled at a very early TheCgsUan 
 period on an eminence in the opposite quarter, H11L 
 which derived its name of Caelius from their leader Caeles 
 Vibenna. These strangers, it is said, were transplanted, 
 
 1 Becker has fully shown that Mons Tarpeius and Mons Capitolinus are 
 convertible terms ; the first, at least, being only the earlier, the second the 
 later designation : hence the Jupiter of the Capitol is called sometimes by the 
 one name, sometimes by the other. 
 
 a Dion, liv. 4.
 
 378 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 under a convention with the holders of the Palatine, to the 
 valley between that hill and the Capitoline, the memory of 
 which event was preserved in the appellation of the Tuscan 
 Street, which led through the Velabrum from the Forum to 
 the river-side. The Ccelius then fell into the possession of 
 the Romans, who re-peopled it with a colony of Latins trans- 
 planted from Alba Longa, their recent conquest. 1 In con- 
 sequence, perhaps, of this early destination, this hill was 
 never a strictly patrician quarter, although many noble man- 
 sions, and particularly that of Caesar's officer, Mamurra, were 
 to be found there ; it was covered with the houses of all 
 classes indiscriminately, and became, at least under the em- 
 pire, one of the most populous regions of the city." 
 
 The Aventine, which from its position might well have 
 become the most formidable rival of the Palatine, was con- 
 demned by the same caprice of fortune which 
 
 The Aventine. , _ , , , . 
 
 had robbed it of the August Augury, on which 
 the life of the city depended, to play an obscure and insignifi- 
 cant part in the early history of the Romans. This hill was 
 a holy spot reserved by the neighbouring tribes for the meet- 
 ings of their confederacy, of which Rome herself was the 
 head, and was consecrated to Diana, whose temple continued 
 for ages to be the most conspicuous object upon it." When 
 appropriated by the Romans under Ancus, it was assigned as 
 public domain to the use of the patricians. The ruling caste 
 placed on it some bands of Latins as their tenants and clients, 
 and it was thus converted into a plebeian suburb of the 
 haughty Palatine. 4 The space which lay between the two 
 
 1 Liv. i. 30. ; Strabo, v. 3. p. 234. 
 
 a For the palace of Mamurra, who first encrusted his walls with marble, 
 see Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 6. : for the number of noble residences, Martial, 
 xii. 18. : "Bum per limina te potentiorum Sudatrix toga ventilat, vagumque 
 Major Caelius et minor fatigant : " for the mixture of all classes, Velli. ii. 130., 
 describing a fire which ravaged the Caelian Hill: " omnis ordinia hominum 
 jactura." 
 
 8 Servius compares the Latin worship of the Aventine Diana with that of 
 the Ephesian by the Ionian confederacy. Livy considers it an acknowledg- 
 ment of the supremacy of Rome by her Latin allies : i. 45. 
 
 4 Liv. i. 33.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 379 
 
 hills, the valley of the Aqua Crabra, had been devoted by 
 Romulus to the public games ; and here, after the stream 
 was arched over and the area levelled and strown with sand, 
 the Great Circus, a stadium 600 yards in length, furnished 
 seats for 150,000 spectators of the national races. Such was 
 the extent of the city and its dependencies when Servius 
 Tullius, according to the tradition, resolved to The wails of 
 embrace the whole together within a common 8erviU8 - 
 line of defences. The summits indeed of the precipitous cliffs 
 might require no artificial fortifications, and it would seem 
 that the Capitoline itself had no other protection at some 
 points than the steepness of its natural escarpment; but 
 dykes were thrown across the hollows, and the most acces- 
 sible spots on the hills were strengthened with mounds of 
 earth or masonry. The long level ridge from which, as has 
 been described, the Esquiline, Viminal, and Quirinal spring, 
 was fortified by a continuous ditch and rampart, which ob- 
 tained the special appellation of the Servian Agger. That 
 there was no stone wall here may be inferred not only from 
 this title, but also from the fact, already noticed, that Maece- 
 nas extended the gardens of his palace on either side of the 
 mound. It is hardly to be supposed that he would have ven- 
 tured to level a wall of masonry, but it was easy to convert 
 an earthen terrace, by sloping and planting, into a pleasant 
 promenade for the public. 1 The Servian lines continued, 
 
 1 Hor. Sat. I. 8. 14., referred to in a former chapter. This account of the 
 real character of the Servian walls is confirmed by the almost total absence 
 of any actual traces of them, though the topographers have pitched here and 
 there upon substructions in the face of the cliffs as remains of this primitive 
 fortification. Already in the time of Augustus the Greek antiquarian could 
 find few portions of them, on account of the private dwellings which had en- 
 croached upon them : Sva-fvperov 5ia ray irpj/\.a/xj8a>'ou<ras avrb -no\\ax6Qev 
 oiKr\<rfis, 1\vri 8 riva pv\arrov Kara ir6\\ovs rtrovs TTJT apxaias KOToo-Keinjr. 
 Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. iv. 13. Strabo certainly was no believer in a continuous 
 Servian wall. After noticing the agger as a defence or a special point, he 
 accounts for its exceptional character, Sion 'Punaiois tpoariKev OVK airb rwv 
 tpvparuv, a\\a curb ruv 8ir\cav Kal TTJS otkeiaj apfrrjs %X elv T V a.ff<pa\(iav Kal 
 TTJP &\\i)v finropiav, Trpo/3\-finara vonifames ou ra Tt'x*/ TOIS avfipdffiv, a\\a 
 TOUJ avtipas ToTs relx fffl ( v - 3. p. 234.).
 
 380 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 however, still to form the nominal boundary of the city, 
 though the idea of maintaining them for defence had long 
 been abandoned as superfluous. While the temples of the 
 Gods and the palaces of the wealthy were planted, as we 
 have seen, for the most part on the airy summits of the hills, 
 the dwellings of the lower classes were clustered together in 
 the narrow valleys between them. The roads were measured 
 from the gates of the Servian inclosure ; and here began the 
 strait lines of their interminable avenues. Within the walls 
 the streets were laid out with no such regularity, or rather 
 The valleys of ^ey may be said to have grown up as caprice or 
 accident dictated, so that the names of few of 
 these confined and tortuous alleys have been preserved, and 
 of these few we can seldom ascertain the direction. The 
 Forum alone of all the public places of the city was de- 
 The Forum signed with any approach to regularity. Its open 
 Romanum. space, nearly rectangular in form, was inclosed 
 by paved roads which skirted its border, and were specially 
 intended for processions. These roads were lined, on the 
 edge where they approached the bases of the hills, by rows 
 of temples and public edifices ; and the limits of the most 
 famous area in the world may be distinctly traced to this day 
 by the remains of these historic monuments. Strange it is to 
 observe within how small a space the affairs of the greatest 
 of empires were transacted. From the slope of the Yelia to 
 the foot of the Capitoline its length does not exceed three 
 hundred yards, and its breadth, which increases as it advances 
 westward, varies from about fifty to one hundred. The tem- 
 ple of Julius on the one height fronted that of Jupiter on the 
 other. On the right stood the ancient temple of the Penates 
 and that of the twin heroes, Romulus and Remus, with the 
 spacious hall of Paullus JEmilius ; on the left the shrine of 
 Vesta, in which the sacred flame was ever burning, with the 
 mansion of the chief pontiff annexed, the temple of the twin 
 gods Castor and Pollux, and the basilica of Julius Caesar. In 
 the time of the republic the sides of the Forum had been 
 lined with shops, having dwellings over them ; but these had
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 381 
 
 been latterly displaced by sacred and civil buildings, such as 
 have been noticed. The line of the Sacra Via, which de- 
 scended from the Yelia, under the arch of Fabius, and skirted 
 the Forum on the right, was bordered on one side by these 
 public edifices, on the other by a range of statues on pedes- 
 tals, or columns, forming an august approach to the Capitol, 
 which it mounted by an oblique and gradual ascent before 
 the temples of Concord and of Saturn. To this avenue, simi- 
 larly adorned and directed towards the same point, corre- 
 sponded the Nova Via on the left. But the whole space thus 
 described generally as the Forum Romanum was more pro- 
 perly divided into two portions, of which one slightly ele- 
 vated above the other was strictly denominated the Comi- 
 tium, and was originally the place of honour assigned to the 
 Populus as distinguished from the Plebs. The Rostrum, or 
 tribunal for public speaking, which stood in the centre of the 
 open space, was turned at first towards the Comitium, and 
 away from the Forum : the harangues of the orators were 
 addressed to the curies, and not to the centuries. The bold 
 change by which the Rostrum was directed towards the 
 opposite quarter was the manoeuvre of Livius Drusus, the 
 popular tribune : but at that time the distinction of plebs and 
 populus had almost ceased to exist ; the Comitium soon lost 
 its political significance ; and while the senators transacted 
 their affairs under the cover of halls and temples, the mighty 
 multitude of the Roman people occupied without dispute the 
 whole vacant space between the Sacred and the New street, 
 and crowded without order or distinction of places around 
 the occupant of the political pulpit. The meetings of the 
 senate were held most frequently in the Curia Hostilia, which 
 stood beneath the north-west angle of the Palatine, and was 
 flanked, a little in advance, by a small building called the 
 Graecostasis, in which foreign envoys awaited the summons 
 of the imperial assembly. But this curia had been con- 
 sumed in the Clodian conflagration, and other halls or tem- 
 ples were at different times adopted at the caprice of the 
 consuls or the emperor. Year after year the Roman Forum
 
 382 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Enlargement received fresh accessions of splendour and con- 
 of?h d e e Fo?um n venience. The fire just referred to cleared a 
 Romanum. space for nobler constructions, and first suggest- 
 ed the idea of more important changes and additions. With 
 the surrender of political privileges grew the taste for osten- 
 tatious display in the enlargement and decoration of the site 
 which had once been consecrated to their exercise. The 
 colonnades by which the place became surrounded, connect- 
 ing hall with hall and temple with temple, were in the morn- 
 ing the thoroughfare of men of business, but at a later hour 
 were almost abandoned to the seekers of pleasure and dissi- 
 pation. The area of the ancient Forum was found, however, 
 too narrow either for the one use or the other. Various 
 attempts had been made to gain additional space ; and it was 
 with this view perhaps that the rows of shops or stalls which 
 formerly inclosed it had been recently demolished. It was 
 not so easy to remove the temples and other consecrated 
 objects, which continued to present impassable barriers to 
 extension at almost every point. Behind them, however, on 
 the right, there was still a space nearly level, reaching to the 
 foot of the Esquiline and Quirinal ; and here on the site of 
 the ancient grove of Argiletum, and in the jaws of the Su- 
 burra, the population of Rome was most densely crowded to- 
 gether. Overlooked by the temples and patrician mansions 
 of the Carinae and other surrounding heights, the Argiletum 
 and the Suburra were the abodes of artificers of all kinds, the 
 workers in metals and in leather, the clothiers and perfume- 
 The Argiletum sellers. This, moreover, was the quarter of the 
 and Suburra. booksellers, and the publicans, of the retailers, 
 in short, of every article of luxury and necessity. Here was 
 concentrated much of the vicious dissipation of a large 
 capital ; and here the young gentlemen of Rome, just emerged 
 from dependence on their parents and tutors, might lounge 
 with friends or flatterers, and glance without control on every 
 object of interest or amusement. 1 In earlier times the Su- 
 
 1 " Quales in media sedent Suburra." Martial, vi. 66. Compare Pereius, 
 Sat. v. 32. :
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 333 
 
 burra had been the residence of many noble families, and here 
 Julius Caesar had himself been born ; but as they advanced 
 to the highest pinnacles of greatness, they had migrated to 
 the more conspicuous quarters of the Palatine or the Esqui- 
 line, and fashion had now generally deserted the lower parts 
 of the city. From the entrance of the Suburra branched out 
 the long streets which penetrated the hollows between the 
 Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline, to the gates pierced in the 
 mound of Servius. It was in this direction that Caesar effect- 
 ed the first extension of the Forum, by convert- The Formne of 
 ing the site of certain streets into an open space the CaesarB - 
 which he surrounded with arcades, and in the centre of which 
 he erected his temple of Yenus. By the side of the Julian 
 Forum, or perhaps in its rear, Augustus constructed a still 
 ampler inclosure, which he adorned with the temple of Mars 
 the Avenger. Succeeding emperors, hereafter to be specified, 
 continued to work out the same idea, till the Argiletum on 
 the one hand, and the saddle of the Capitoline and Quirinal, 
 excavated for the purpose, on the other, were both occupied 
 by these constructions, the dwellings of the populace being 
 swept away before them ; and a space running nearly parallel 
 to the length of the Roman Forum, and exceeding it in size, 
 was thus devoted to public use, extending from the pillar of 
 Trajan to the basilica of Constantine. 1 
 
 Next to the quarter of the Suburra, that of the Velabrum, 
 
 " Cum blandi comites, totaque impune Suburra 
 Permisit sparsisse oculos jam candidus umbo." 
 
 1 The reader will understand that these are the conclusions at which I have 
 arrived, chiefly under the guidance of Becker's Hand-book, upon a subject on 
 which the views of various schools of Roman topographers have been widely 
 divergent. It would be superfluous to specify the ancient authorities. The 
 general arrangement of the Roman Forum by Bunsen and Becker, and the 
 German school as opposed to the Italian, ought to be considered as settled by 
 the recent excavations, which have revealed beyond dispute the sites of the 
 JSmilian and Julian basilicas. At the same time, it cannot be denied that the 
 Italians, headed by Canina, have not yet surrendered their theory, that the 
 Forum extended longitudinally towards the Tiber, and not towards the Velia, 
 and maintain that the Julian basilica was an encroachment upon the ancient
 
 384: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 on the opposite side of the Forum, was the most crowded por- 
 tion of the city. The hollow which descended 
 
 The Velabrum. __ ,. J n 
 
 from the Velia, after meeting that of the Suburra, 
 turned obliquely towards the Tiber ; and the Nova Via, 
 which skirted the base of the Palatine, followed its flexure 
 from the temple of Castor and Pollux, and formed the 
 boundary of the Velabrum on one side, as it had before 
 limited the Forum. But the Velabrum, the space between 
 the Palatine and the Capitoline, was wide enough to admit 
 of two other streets running parallel to the Nova, the Vicus 
 Tuscus and the Vicus Jugarius. These avenues, descending 
 The Forum irom tne Forum Roinanum, opened upon the Fo- 
 Boarium. rum Boariun^ the spot perhaps where the cattle 
 destined for the consumption of Rome were landed from the 
 barks on the Tiber : but they were also the great outlets of 
 the multitudes which hurried from the heart of the city to 
 the shows of the circus, and the recreations of the Campus 
 Martius. The Vicus Tuscus, the middle street of the three, 
 was perhaps the most crowded thoroughfare of all, the 
 Cheapside of Rome. The public buildings in this quarter 
 were comparatively few and insignificant, and we may believe 
 that the whole space of the Velabrum was densely packed 
 with the cabins of the industrious classes. 
 
 The streets which traversed the Velabrum led direct to 
 the bank of the Tiber, and to the oldest of the bridges of 
 ransti- Rome, the Sublicius, or bridge of piles, which 
 quarter. connecte d the city with the Transtiberine quar- 
 ter, called also Janiculan, from the slope on which it stood. 
 This district, rising in terraces from the river, enjoyed a 
 noble view of the seven hills on the opposite bank, and was 
 also celebrated for its salubrity, which circumstances com- 
 bined to attract to it the wealthier citizens under the later 
 republic and the empire, who spread themselves along the 
 crest of the adjoining eminences, and gradually occupied the 
 whole ridge of the Vatican. The lower part continued to be 
 the resort of the poorer classes. But the importance of this 
 region may be inferred from the aqueducts which were con-
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 385 
 
 structed to supply it, the numerous bridges which connected 
 it with other quarters, the venerableness of its shrines, espe- 
 cially that of the Goddess Fortuna, and the station there of 
 one cohort of the city police, or Vigiles. The island in the 
 Tiber, fashioned at either end into some rude resemblance to 
 a ship, was also included in the Transtiberine, and was dense- 
 ly crowded with habitations. The gardens of Caesar on the 
 right bank of the river have been already described. Au- 
 gustus excavated a naumachia, or basin for the exhibition of 
 naval engagements, by their side. He surrounded it with 
 groves and walks, to which he gave the names of his grand- 
 sons Caius and Lucius, and supplied it with water, not, as 
 might have been expected, from the adjacent river, but by 
 means of an aqueduct from the lake Alsietinus, or Bracciano, 
 in Etruria. 
 
 We have still to notice the two regions beyond the Ser- 
 vian walls, in the broad plain to the north of the city, which 
 may be designated by the comprehensive name The campus 
 of the Campus Martius, though that appellation, Martius - 
 as we shall presently see, was more strictly confined to a cer- 
 tain portion only. From the earliest period the grassy mead- 
 ows which here skirted the Tiber had been a resort for mili- 
 tary exercises, and the recreations of leaping, running, and 
 bathing. From the Porta Ratumena and the Carmentalis, 
 on either side of the Capitoline, the citizens poured after the 
 business of the day, to indulge in these sports, a custom 
 which survived, through the whole period of the republic, 
 late into the times of the emperors. Gradually, however, the 
 space between the walls and the reach of the river was en 
 croached upon by buildings of various kinds ; and Caesar con- 
 templated, as we have seen, its extension, by giving a wider 
 sweep to the Tiber. Here stood some of the principal temples 
 of the Gods, and here, from an early period, were the septa, 
 or booths, at which the centuries polled. The elections were 
 originally a military institution, and on this account the citi- 
 zens were summoned outside the walls to solemnize them. 1 
 
 1 The division of the Roman people into classes and centuries had a mili- 
 VOL. iv. 25
 
 386 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 The regulation that no imperator might enter the city, led to 
 the practice of convening the senate also in the Campus Mar- 
 tius. Here too was the gate from which the victor, returned 
 from distant frontiers, commenced his triumphal procession to 
 the Capitol. Here was the gorgeous theatre of Pompeius, 
 with its groves and porticos, and halls for business or amuse- 
 ment. Here stood the Flaminian circus, second only in size 
 to the great circus beneath the Palatine ; and here were the 
 theatre of Marcellus and the portico of Octavia, the contribu- 
 tions of Augustus himself to the attractions of this splendid 
 region. Here also, further from the city and precisely in the 
 centre of the plain, still stands the magnificent Pantheon of 
 Agrippa, which constituted a portion only of his extensive 
 constructions in this quarter. Beyond it rose the amphi- 
 theatre of Taurus, and adjacent to the banks of the river the 
 conspicuous mausoleum of the Csesarean family. Up to this 
 point the area was perhaps almost covered with edifices, but 
 beyond it there was still a tract of open meadow, preserved 
 for the martial sports of the Roman people, extending to the 
 modern Ripetta and the Porta del popolo. The whole of 
 this district north of the Capitoline is now thronged with 
 houses, and comprehends the chief part of modern Rome : 
 the remains of some of the most interesting buildings of the 
 ancient city lie buried beneath the masses of mediaeval con- 
 struction ; and no portion of it has been of necessity so im- 
 perfectly explored, or presents so many insoluble problems 
 to the topographer. It was divided into two unequal por- 
 tions by the straight line of the Flaminian Way, which issued 
 from the city at the northern angle of the Capitoline. The 
 first portion of this road was known perhaps by the title of 
 the Via Lata, which gave its name to the region on the right, 
 extending beyond the level of the plain over the slope of the 
 Pincian hill. In the course of time this road was bordered 
 
 tary object, and the word classia had originally the meaning of exercitus. 
 Cell. xv. 27., quoting an ancient writer : " Centuriata comitia intra pomcerium 
 fieri nefas esse, quia exercitum extra urbem imperari oportent, intra urbem 
 jus non sit."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 337 
 
 with houses, and the Corso of the modern city runs at least 
 for some distance on its track. 1 The Pincian itself was occu- 
 pied by villas shrouded in extensive parks or gardens, such 
 as those of Lucullus and Sallust, from whence it derived the 
 name of Collis Hortulorum. From its flank descended the 
 arches of the aqueduct called Aqua Virgo, one The Pincian 
 of the most stupendous works of Agrippa, by huL 
 which water was conveyed to the septa in the Campus Mar- 
 tins." The Campus Agrippse, the site of which is not deter- 
 mined, was a portion of the plain which the same great bene- 
 factor laid out in gardens and porticos for the recreation 
 of the citizens, and the convenience of the bathers. It con- 
 tained the therma? which he constructed for the public ; and 
 two of its colonnades, styled the Europa and the Neptune, 
 were celebrated for the elegance of their fresco paintings. 3 
 Augustus peopled the Campus with a host of statues taken 
 chiefly from the Capitol, where they had accumulated, as the 
 spoils of war or the votive offerings of conquerors, to an in- 
 convenient extent. At a later period the Forum and other 
 public places were deliberately thinned of their overgrowths 
 of sculpture, which amounted, it may be supposed, to many 
 thousands of specimens, to enrich the halls, the baths, and 
 the colonnades of the Palaces of the People.* 
 
 1 Martial (x. 6.) describes the Via Flaminia as running through the plain, 
 with trees and detached houses by its sides : 
 
 " Quando erit ilia dies, qua campus et arbor et omnis 
 
 Lucebit Latia culta fenestra nuru ? 
 Quando morse dulces, longnsque a Cresare pulvig, 
 Totaque Flaminia Roma videndavia?" 
 
 3 Frontin. de Aquceduct. 22. 
 
 3 See the allusions in Martial, ii. 14., vii. 32., iii. 20. It has been imagined 
 that the Pantheon was originally constructed for a central hall, some think 
 for a swimming bath, to the thermae of Agrippa. See Bunsen's Rom., iii. 3. 
 123. 341. 
 
 4 Suet. Calig. 34. ; Dion. Ix. 6. The Campus Martius is described by 
 Strabo with more vivacity than is usual with him (v. 3. p. 236.). I have 
 avoided the debateable parts of his description, over which a furious battle 
 still rages. Preller, however, the last combatant who has entered the field, 
 especially against Becker, seems to me captious and unreasonable.
 
 388 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 It would appear from this review that the densely popu- 
 lated parts of Rome covered but a small part of its whole 
 area, for the summits of the hills were generally 
 
 The population . , , j , , . 
 
 of Rome chief- occupied by temples and aristocratic mansions, 
 the C iower e part8 and large spaces even in the intervening hollows 
 were devoted to places of public resort. The 
 vici, or streets of Rome, as far as their names and directions 
 are known to us, were confined to the valleys. The houses 
 on the hills were generally detached mansions, surrounded 
 in many cases by gardens. It must be allowed, however, 
 that the clients of the nobles often clustered their obscure 
 tenements against the outer walls of their patrons' palaces. 
 But in the districts where the masses of the population were 
 collected, such as the Suburra and Velabrum, every available 
 inch of ground was seized for building, and the want of space 
 was compensated by elevation. Perched upon the precipi- 
 tous ledges of the hills, the houses rose to an enormous height 
 in front, while in the rear their elevation might often be far 
 more moderate. Rome, says Cicero, rhetorically, is sus- 
 pended in the air; Rome, avers the more guarded Vitru- 
 vius, is built vertically ; Tacitus speaks of houses rising from 
 the plain to the level of the Capitoline summit. 1 Augustus 
 was the first to impose a limit by law to their daring ascent, 
 and he was satisfied with fixing the greatest height at the 
 liberal allowance of seventy feet. At the same time, for no 
 other purpose, as far as we can divine, than to economize 
 space, their exterior walls were forbidden, we are told, to 
 exceed a foot and a half in thickness, the minimum, perhaps, 
 which was calculated to bear the weight of the superincum- 
 
 1 Cic. Leg. Agr. ii. 35. : " Romam in montibus positam et convallibus, 
 coenaculis sublatam atque suspensam." He compares it disadvantageous^ 
 with the broad open spaces of the Greek city of Capua. Vitruvius says: 
 " Roma in altum propter civium frequentiam aedificata." Tacitus, Hist. iii. 
 71. : " JSdificia quae in altum edita Capitolii solum aequabant." Aristides, in 
 his Encomium Romce, compares the stories of Rome with the strata of the 
 earth's crust, and pretends that, if they were all laid out on one level, they 
 would occupy the whole area of Italy from sea to sea.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 389 
 
 bent mass. 1 The streets, following the tracks of the cattle 
 and herdsmen of primitive antiquity to their pastures and 
 watering places, were narrow and winding ; and this may 
 account for the fact that so few of them were important 
 enough to transmit their names to history. 2 It was not till 
 the gates had been passed that the direction of the roads 
 began to be marked out deliberately ; and, except the avenues 
 which were designed for sacred processions, or the course of 
 which was shaped by the narrow gorges through which they 
 ran, few perhaps preserved for many yards together the irk- 
 some uniformity of a right line. 3 Narrow as these alleys 
 were, and little adapted for the passage of wheel-carriages, 
 which indeed till a late period were hardly used in Rome, 
 they were still more confined above, by the device of project- 
 ing balconies from the upper stories. These were known by 
 the name of Ma3niana, from the tribune Maenius, who first 
 invented them to accommodate the spectators of the proces- 
 sions in the streets below. It is probable, though we have 
 no express testimony to the fact, that these balconies were 
 afterwards improved into hanging stories, the occupants of 
 which could sometimes shake hands with their neighbours 
 opposite. 4 
 
 1 Vitruvius, ii. 8. Comp. Juvenal, iii. 193.: "Xos urbem colimus tenui 
 tibicine fultam." 
 
 " See the description of the hurried and irregular manner in which the city 
 was rebuilt after its burning by the Gauls, in Livy, v. 65. (Comp. Diodor. xiv. 
 116.) The lines of the old streets were probably preserved, for the most part, 
 as with us after the fire of London. Livy, indeed, would have us believe that 
 every citizen built for himself, as suited his convenience, without reference to 
 his neighbours, or to any common plan ; but this cannot, I conceive, have 
 been generally the case. The preservation, indeed, of the names of the ancient 
 streets sufficiently attests the contrary. 
 
 3 Strabo contrasts the style in which Rome was laid out with the elegant 
 designs of the Greek city builders : TWV ykp 'EAA^wv irepl T&S mlffeis fj.d\urTa 
 evrvx^fffu So^dvruv on ce(AAous iffroxdCovro. v. 3. 
 
 * See Festus in voc. Maeniana : " Maenius .... primus ultra columnas 
 extendit tigna, quo ampliarentur superiora." The Digest, 1. 16. 242. speaks 
 of mseniana and suggrundia, projecting eaves. These projections, together 
 with the narrowness of the streets, gave a grateful shade (Comp. Cic. Acad. ii. 
 22.), and on that account were considered to contribute to salubrity. Tac.
 
 390 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 It may be believed that the roofs of the houses in Rome 
 were adapted to a climate abounding in violent storms of 
 
 rain, and rose in steep ridges, presenting some- 
 style of domes- , , 
 tic architec- times a gable (a spread eagle the Greeks would 
 
 have called it) to the street. 1 The want of glass, 
 which was hardly known up to the imperial era, and but little 
 used for dwelling windows to a late period, compelled the 
 Romans to make the apertures of their houses few and nar- 
 row compared with those of modern architecture ; a but the 
 habit of living through the day almost entirely out of doors 
 would render this deprivation of light less intolerable. In 
 the better class of houses, however, there were windows pro- 
 tected by shutters of lattice work with double valves. 3 The 
 most common material for private dwellings was brick, which 
 not only superseded the primitive wood, but was preferred 
 for the purpose to the stone of the country, whether extracted 
 from beneath the soil of Rome itself, or dug from the quar- 
 ries of Alba, Gabii, and Tibur. Although this stone was as 
 easily obtained, and was perhaps the cheaper material, the 
 Romans gave a preference to brick, from its applicability to 
 the construction of the arch, and also for the extreme hard- 
 ness and durability it assumed in their hands. The old con- 
 suls of the republic truly built for eternity, when they ranged 
 tile upon tile, and embedded them in their concrete sand and 
 gypsum. It was a famous boast of Augustus, when he 
 pointed to the sumptuous halls and temples with which he 
 had eclipsed the modest merit of preceding builders, that he 
 
 Ann. xv. 43. Martial, i. 87. : " Vicinus meus est manuque tangi De nostris 
 Novius potest fenestris." But this may apply to a next-door neighbour. 
 
 1 " Fastigia, pectinata tecta ; " Gr. irrovto, rptx^pos. Upon this subject, 
 on which our information is indistinct, see the note of Salmasius, on Spartian. 
 Pescenn. 12. 
 
 2 Plin. xxxvi. 66. : " Neronis principatu reperta ritri arte." This can only 
 refer to its employment for windows. Comp. Senec. Ep. 90. : " Quaedam 
 nostra demum prodisse memoria scimus, ut speoulariorum usum, perlucente 
 testa, clarum transmittentium lumen." 
 
 ' Hor. Od. \. 25. 1.: "Junctas quatiunt fenestras." Pers. iii. 1. : "Jam 
 clarum mane fenestras Intrat, et angustas distendit lumine rimas."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 391 
 
 had found Rome of clay and had left her of marble ; but 
 after eighteen centuries the marble has mostly vanished and 
 crumbled into dust, while huge strata of brickwork still crop 
 out from under the soil, a Titanic formation as imperishable 
 as the rock itself. 1 
 
 The temples of ancient Rome were all, as far as we can 
 trace them, constructed on the Grecian pattern ; that is, gen- 
 erally in oblong masses of masonry, with long 
 
 1 t j- SA -A- f ^ Style of 
 
 low roofs, corresponding with the apex of the temple arcw- 
 pediment. Though crowned perhaps with statues t( 
 on the summit, they scarcely overtopped, except from their 
 position, the meaner buildings around them: the invention 
 of bells, the greatest of all boons to architecture, had not yet 
 afforded a motive or excuse for raising the many storied tur- 
 ret, or suggested the arrowy flight of the spire or steeple. 
 Here and there perhaps the watch tower of some palace or 
 fortress might break the horizon of stone ; but these were 
 too few and unimportant in character to lead the eye of the 
 spectator upwards, or divert him from the sights of splen- 
 dour or squalor nearer to his own level. Nevertheless there 
 was a grand significance in the crests of the hills encompass- 
 ing the Forum, crowned with a range almost unbroken of 
 columned temples, the dwellings of the Gods, who thus 
 seemed to keep eternal watch over the secure recesses of the 
 city. If neither the architecture nor religion of the Roman 
 pointed heavenwards, or led to spiritual aspirations, not the 
 less did they combine to impress upon him, in their harmo- 
 nious development, the great idea of Paganism, the tem- 
 poral protection with which the Powers of Nature, duly 
 honoured and propitiated, encircle their favourites among 
 men. 
 
 The dwellings of the citizens were of two general classes, 
 the domus and the insulae. The former of these, which we 
 
 1 This saying has been referred to in an earlier chapter. Strabo remarks that 
 the ancients, occupied with more urgent carea, paid little attention to the 
 decoration of the city, a merit which was reserved for Pompeius, Caesar, and 
 Augustus, with his friends and relatives.
 
 392 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 The domus and D^J ca ^ mansions, were the abodes of the nobili- 
 insuiae. ^.y^ ^^ were constructed originally as separate 
 
 buildings, inclosed within courts or gardens, and adapted, at 
 least since the latter years of the republic, to the Greek fash- 
 ion, covering a considerable surface with a single, or at most 
 two stories. The application to the private mansion of the 
 The mansions ornamental architecture of Greece, which had 
 ofihenobiee. been ] O ng reserved at Rome for temples and 
 public edifices, soon demanded the use of the rich and polished 
 material with which Greece abounded, of their own wealth 
 in which the Italians were perhaps hardly yet aware. When 
 the nobles began to build their long columnar corridors, they 
 required marble to give variety by its colour to the intermi- 
 nable repetition of pillar after pillar, and the vast expanse of 
 their level pavements. Crassus, the orator, was said to have 
 first introduced into his house six columns of Hymettian 
 marble. This was about the middle of the seventh century. 
 Soon afterwards Lepidus paved his arcades with polished 
 slabs from the quarries of Numidia. This nobleman's palace 
 was reputed at that time the finest domestic edifice in Rome, 
 but thirty-five years later it was excelled by not less than a 
 hundred rivals. 1 Nevertheless, at a still later period, the 
 Romans continued to wonder at the inordinate luxury of the 
 Orientals, who piled the richest marbles block upon block, 
 while the lords of the world could only afford to use them 
 in thin flags.* 
 
 The domus, it has been said, were generally insulated 
 dwellings ; the insula?, or islands, on the other 
 
 Thecabinsof , - . , ' ,. , , . 
 
 the poorer citi- hand, were precisely the contrary of what their 
 name should import, the smaller abodes of the 
 
 1 Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 2, 8, 24. 
 
 1 Lucan contrasts the magnificence of Cleopatra's palace with those of 
 Rome in language which expresses the feeling probably of bia own time : 
 "Xec summis crustata domus sectisque nitebat 
 Marmoribus : stabatque sibi non segnis Achates. 
 Purpureusque lapis ; totaque effusus in aula 
 Calcabatur onyx." Pharsal. x. 114.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 393 
 
 lower classes, closely connected together in large blocks of 
 'building, and covered with a continuous roof. 1 These little 
 dwellings were generally built over the rows of shops which 
 lined the area of the streets, and were entered by stairs from 
 the outside, having no connexion with the resorts of trade 
 and industry below them. In a height of seventy feet there 
 were probably from seven to ten stories, and each of these 
 stories, and often each chamber in them, might be occupied 
 by a separate family. 3 Being used as little else than sleep- 
 ing apartments, they accommodated, in the fashion of the age 
 and country, a multitude of inmates, the amount of which, 
 however, we are totally at a loss to estimate. The subject, 
 indeed, of the population of Rome has exercised the in- 
 genuity of many inquirers, but with widely differing results. 
 As regards the accommodation the tract covered by the city 
 may have afforded, when we have carefully measured the 
 circuit of the walls, and estimated the area they enclosed, we 
 are still ignorant both of the capacity of the houses, and of 
 the amount of empty space within the inclosure. In drawing 
 a comparison, however, from experience in our own day, we 
 may observe that, if modern cities on the one hand are not 
 so closely built, nor their houses so densely inhabited as was 
 the case with ancient Rome, on the other they have no such 
 proportion of vacant space appropriated to gardens, and 
 
 1 A law of the twelve tables required, for security against fire, that every 
 house should stand separate ; but it is impossible that this can have applied, 
 even at that early time, to every single chamber in which a separate family 
 was lodged. I consider the insula to have originally been a block of cham- 
 bers, such as are represented in the fragment of the ancient plan of Rome still 
 preserved on marble, which corresponds with the style of arrangement observed 
 at Pompeii. These rows of building were often constructed round public 
 edifices, and the clients, operative slaves, and freedmen of the noble were often 
 thus lodged against the walls of his domus. If insula was the term originally 
 given to the aggregate of such dwellings, it came afterwards to be applied 
 to the component members. Thus Tacitus uses insulae as synonymous with 
 tabernae. Ann. vi. 45., xv. 38. See De la Malle, Econ. Pol. i. 364. 
 
 2 Thus a house of four stories is indicated in the account of one of Livy's 
 portents, xxi. 65. : " foro boario bovem in tertiam contignationem sua sponte 
 escendisse atque inde tumultu habitatorum territum sese dejecisse."
 
 394 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 courts, and public places. Setting one of these conditions, 
 therefore, against the other, it may seem not unreasonable to 
 form an approximate estimate of the population of Rome 
 from the numbers domiciled on an equal area in some modern 
 capital. 
 
 I. According to an ancient definition, the space within the 
 
 walls was specifically denominated the Urbs, or city, while the 
 
 term Rome applied to the whole unbroken extent 
 
 Data for calcu- . 
 
 latins the of buildings which reached to the extremity of the 
 Rome. suburbs. 1 The Roman urbs, then, was included at 
 
 area of the this period within the walls or lines of Servius ; 
 and this area had been divided by Augustus, for 
 administrative purposes, into eleven regions, to which he had 
 added three others outside the walls, to embrace, we may 
 suppose, the most frequented quarters of the suburbs. 2 The 
 area of the eleven urban regions has been found by measure- 
 ment on an accurate map to equal about one fifth of that of 
 the modern city of Paris within the barrier. 8 The population 
 therefore of the urbs, if calculated on the basis of that of 
 
 1 Paulus in Digest. 1. 16. 2. : "Urbis appellatio muris, Romas autem conti- 
 nentibus asdificiis finitur, quod latius patet." 
 
 " These three were (Reg. i.) Porta Capena; (vii.) Via Lata; (ix.) Circus 
 Flaminius. It may be conjectured that these were included within the pomoe- 
 rium as extended by Augustus in the year 746 (Dion, Iv. 6.). See Becker, 
 R<xm. Alter, ii. 105. 
 
 ' For this important statement I cite the words of Bureau de la Malle 
 (i. 347.) : " La superficie de Paris (i. e. within the barriere de Toctroi) est, 
 d'apres les mesures exactes, de 3439 hect. 68 ar. 16c. ; celle de Rome, 
 638 hect. 72 ar. 34c. J'ai calcule la superficie d'apres le grand plan de Nolli, 
 dont 1'exactltude est reconnue. Mon savant confrere M. Jomard a eu 1'extreme 
 oblig6ance de revoir mes calculs ; je les ai fait verifier de nouveau par un 
 habile mathematicien. On s'est servi du perimetre determine par d'Anville 
 pour la premiere enceinte de Rome, et verifie de nouveau sur les lieux par 
 M. Nibby et par Brocchi." He adds in a note that his calculations of the area 
 of the city were again verified by Tournon, the learned prefect of Napoleon's 
 department of Rome. De la Malle's calculations were made about 1824, and 
 his statement of the population of Paris (714,000) refers to the year 1817. 
 Econ. Pol. i. 369. The estimate in McCulloch's Diet, of Geog. for 1846 is, 
 1,050,000. There has been a great extent of building within the barrier 
 during that interval.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 395 
 
 Paris (equal 1,050,000), would not amount to more than two 
 hundred and ten thousand ; nor is it easy to adduce any di- 
 rect proof that it actually exceeded this very moderate num- 
 ber. Bearing in mind what has been said of the character of 
 the buildings which prevailed in different parts of this space, 
 the number of temples and public edifices, the extent of many 
 private residences, the space devoted to theatres, circuses, 
 and baths (of which last Agrippa alone established, within 
 and without the urbs, no less than a hundred and seventy), 
 the numerous groves arid gardens which existed even within 
 the walls, it will be allowed that the surface actually covered 
 with the abodes of the masses can hardly have exceeded that 
 similarly occupied in Paris, or any of our cities at the pre- 
 sent day. 1 It has been shown, however, how closely the 
 houses of the densest quarters were packed together ; and we 
 may also believe that the space required, man by man, at Rome 
 was much smaller than accords with our modern habits. 
 This arises from the outdoor mode of life practised in ancient 
 Italy, from the number of slaves, who were huddled together 
 without respect to health or comfort, and from the sordid 
 notions of domestic comfort common even to the higher 
 classes. Thus, while they allotted ample space to their halls 
 for banquets and recreation, their sleeping rooms were of the 
 smallest possible dimensions. The habitations indeed of 
 mediaeval Europe were far more densely crowded than our 
 own, and such we may easily believe was the case with the 
 ancient urbs also. Assuming, however, that from these con- 
 siderations we may double the amount of its population as 
 compared with modern Paris, we shall still be surprised, and 
 perhaps even startled, to find that we cannot raise it above 
 four hundred and twenty thousand. 
 
 If we now look to suburban Rome, and seek for compen- 
 sation in that quarter for the slender amount of population 
 within the walls, we shall still be disappointed. Extent of the 
 From the time indeed of the retreat of Hannibal BUburbs - 
 
 1 There were, according to Pliny (Hist. Nat. iii. 9.), not less than 265 open 
 places in Rome.
 
 396 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 the citizens had ceased to require the protection of military 
 defences for their dwellings, and there was no impediment, 
 except in the reserved space of the pomcerium, to their con- 
 structing their houses outside the ancient lines, and at as 
 great a distance from them as they pleased. Modern Vienna, 
 with its central urbs, surrounded by a broad vacant glacis, 
 and again by a second belt of houses beyond it, may offer a 
 considerable resemblance to the Rome of Augustus. 1 These 
 outer buildings continued no doubt to increase both in extent 
 and density, through the two following centuries, before they 
 were finally inclosed in the second and wider circumvallation, 
 which still marks the greatest spread of the imperial metro- 
 polis, embracing an area rather more than twice the size of 
 the Servian city, or than two-fifths of that of Paris. 8 But in 
 the Augustan period this outer area was only partially occu- 
 pied with buildings. Augustus, when he added three Sub- 
 urban regions, the Via Lata, the Circus Flaminius, and the 
 Porta Capena, to the eleven Urban, included in them a por- 
 tion only of this intermural space, and of these the Circus at 
 least can have had very few private dwellings of any kind. It 
 may be wrong, however, to assume that the rest of the space 
 uncomprised in these three regions was not also encroached 
 on by numerous habitations ; for so London runs into exten- 
 sive and populous suburbs, though they are excluded from 
 the limits of its component boroughs, and known perhaps by 
 no distinctive appellations. On the other hand, however, the 
 great number and extent of private villas and gardens, such 
 
 1 There is no statement, I believe, of the ordinary width of the pomcerium, 
 which probably varied very much in different quarters. I do not suppose that 
 it was anywhere nearly equal to that of the glacis at Vienna ; and indeed, in 
 the time of Augustus, it had been greatly encroached upon. If, as Dionysius 
 tells us, the lines of Servius could no longer be traced throughout in his days, 
 neither certainly could the pomcerium. 
 
 * De la Malle (i. 347.) calculates the area of the Aurelian inclosure at 
 1396 hect., 9 centiar. ; it seems on the map much more than double the Ser- 
 vian. D'Anville (cited by De la Malle) states the length of the Servian walls 
 at 6187i toises, or 8186 Roman passus ; that of the Aurelian, at 12,345 toises. 
 Hence his happy correction of Pliny, viir. M.CC. for xm. M.CC., Hist. Nat. iii. 9.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 397- 
 
 as those of Maecenas, of Pallas, of Sallust, of the Lamise and 
 Laterani, of Csesar, and many others of historical celebrity, 
 which occupied large sites between the Servian and Aurelian 
 walls, though some of them eventually gave way to the 
 extension of streets and lanes, clearly indicate that at an 
 earlier period that area was far from filled with ordinary 
 dwellings. Nor, again, is it possible to give a high estimate 
 to the more distant suburbs of Rome. Up to the gates of 
 the city the Campagna yields few vestiges of ancient habita- 
 tion, except here and there the foundations of isolated villas ; 
 and the roads, as we have seen, were lined, not with rows 
 of tradesmen's lodgings, but with a succession of sepulchral 
 monuments, which the feelings of the Romans would have 
 shrunk from desecrating by proximity to the abodes of life. 1 
 It seems unreasonable, then, to estimate the extramural popu- 
 lation at more than one half of that within the walls, which 
 will raise the sum. total to six hundred and thirty, or, mak- 
 ing a liberal allowance for soldiers and public slaves, who 
 occupied the baths and temples, about seven hundred thou- 
 sand. 2 
 
 IE. But any estimate formed on such grounds as these 
 only must at best be very uncertain, and it will be well to 
 inquire whether the arguments which may be 
 
 J 2. The recorded 
 
 drawn from other sources serve to confirm or to number of 
 invalidate it. There exists an ancient statistical 
 
 1 It is difficult to resist the strong expressions of Pliny, Dionysius, and 
 others : but we must shut our ears to their reckless exaggerations ; such as, 
 Plin. iii. 5. : " Exspatiantia tecta multas addidere urbes." Dion. Hal. iv. 13. : 
 OVTW ffwiuftavrat ry &ffrei i] X^P a i Ka ^ *' s brfipov tK/jii]Kvvo/j.ft>i)s ir6\f(i>s \nt6- 
 \rjfyiv rois 6fta/jifvois irope'xTat ; and the passage of Aristides, before referred 
 to, Encom. Rom. vol. i. p. 324. : (1 rts ainty 0eA.^<rete Ko.8a.p5is avairrv^at^ 
 leal rets vvv pfTftlipovs ir<J\JS M /?}$ fpf'tffas Oflvcu &\\rjv trap' fiXArjy, S<rov vvv 
 
 'lra\las 8id\fitr6v iffnv avair\rip<a6rjvai, rovro truv &v not 8o/cef, ical ytveaOai 
 v6\is avvex^is pia M rbv 'l6viov Telvovffa. 
 
 2 De la Malle fixes the population of the Servian urbs at 266,684, that of 
 the Aurelian at 382,695, and of Rome, including the suburbs at their furthest 
 extent, at 602,000. To these he adds 30,000 for strangers, and an equal num- 
 ber for soldiers, making a total of 562,000. i. 403.
 
 398 HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 account of Rome, in which, among other specific numerical 
 notices, the number of the domus and insulse respectively is 
 given for each of the fourteen regions. 1 The date of this 
 little work cannot perhaps be fixed very nearly, but the sub- 
 stance of the information it conveys may be referred to the 
 third century of our era, after the building of the Aurelian 
 walls, and at the period probably of the greatest extension 
 of the city. We must bear in mind, therefore, on the one 
 hand, that the density of habitation in the urbs was un- 
 questionably reduced after the time of Augustus ; and on the 
 other, that the whole enlarged area was more uniformly occu- 
 pied with dwellings. If these circumstances may be supposed 
 nearly to balance one another, we may be allowed perhaps 
 to assume that the numbers given in the Nbtitia do not far 
 exceed the actual amount at the earlier period, namely, 46,- 
 602 insulae and 1,790 domus. The numbers, however, of 
 individuals accommodated in each domus and insula respec- 
 tively must still be a matter of mere conjecture, nor can we 
 find any close analogy to guide us. The average ratio of 
 dwellers to houses in London or Liverpool is said to be about 
 five to one ; in Paris and Vienna it is much greater ; and we 
 may, perhaps, fairly double it for the insulse of Rome, al- 
 though these were in many cases, as I have said, merely sin- 
 gle chambers. The capacity of the domus must have been 
 still more varied, and I confess that I am merely speaking at 
 random in assigning to them an average of eighty occupants. 3 
 The result, however, of such a calculation will be found some- 
 what to exceed six hundred thousand for the domus and in- 
 
 1 See Preller's comparative edition of the Curiosum and Notiiia. 
 
 9 Brotier guesses the average at eighty-four, nor does De la Malle see rea- 
 son to dissent from him. I should prefer a smaller number, because, in my 
 view, multitudes of slaves belonging to great houses were lodged ha the insulae 
 appended to them. Such would generally be the case with the artificers 
 whose skill was turned to the profit of their masters. The chief argument for 
 the great numbers of domestic slaves is taken from the well-known case of the 
 family of Pedanius, amounting to 400, who were all put to death for their 
 master's murder. Tac. Ann. xiv. 45. Allowance, however, must be made for 
 the houseless, and the slaves of the temples and public buildings.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 399 
 
 sulae together, which does not fall greatly short of the esti- 
 mate at which we have -arrived from the basis previously 
 assumed. 
 
 III. There is, however, still a third datum to be consid- 
 ered, which may seem at first sight to lead us to very diiferent 
 results, though possibly, on further examination, 
 
 , -, f, -, .-, & . . , 3. The number 
 
 it may be round rather to confirm our original of recipients of 
 estimate. Augustus, as we learn from his own 
 statement, reduced the recipients of the ordinary dole of grain 
 to the number of two hundred thousand. When, however, 
 he bestowed upon the plebs urbana, the populace of the city, 
 an extraordinary donative, the numbers who partook of his 
 bounty swelled again to three hundred and twenty thousand. 
 The smaller of these amounts may represent, perhaps, the 
 poorer sort of the citizens ; the larger the whole population, 
 male and free, below the senatorial and equestrian ranks. 1 
 This last has been assumed accordingly by many inquirers 
 as the actual number of the commons of Rome ; and this 
 they have doubled, at one stroke of the pen, to comprehend 
 the females, and quadrupled, at another, to embrace the slaves 
 also. When to this aggregate has been added a reasonable 
 proportion for the noble classes, together with their wives 
 and families, it has been thought that the enormous sum of 
 two millions of souls is not too large for the whole amount 
 of the inhabitants of Rome. Now, whatever we may think 
 of the capacity of the domus and insulse, it seems almost 
 demonstrable, from what has been said above, that the limits 
 of the city can never have contained such a mass of human 
 beings ; nor, on fair examination of the data, are we driven 
 in fact to so extravagant a conclusion. I have little doubt 
 that the plebs urbana, as they are called, who were allowed to 
 receive the extraordinary largess, comprehended not merely 
 the actual residents, but as many citizens as could present them- 
 selves in person, or possibly even by proxy, from the country 
 round. If this be so, it is evident that the specified number 
 
 1 Before the time of Augustus children below the age of ten years were ex- 
 cluded, but he extended the gratuity to all. Suet. Oct. 41.
 
 400 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 of three hundred and twenty thousand may far exceed that of 
 the actual free male residents. 1 Again, with regard to the pro- 
 portion of females to males, to suppose it, according to the 
 ordinary law of nature, to be nearly equal is, I fear, in this 
 case an unwarrantable assumption. The license of infanticide 
 was, we know, a principle recognised generally in the ancient 
 polities : there can be no doubt that the crime was regularly 
 and systematically practised by the civilized as well as the 
 barbarous. 8 Solon enjoined, and even the gentle Plutarch ap- 
 proved of it ; and if it is rarely noticed in books, it is perhaps 
 only because it was too common to remark upon. Nor can 
 there be any doubt that, under these circumstances, exposure 
 would befall the female far more commonly than the male 
 infants. There is, indeed, one passage of antiquity which 
 expressly asserts the disproportion of the female to the male 
 adults, where Dion tells us that Augustus allowed the Roman 
 citizens below the rank of senators to intermarry with freed- 
 women, for this very reason, because the females of in- 
 genuous birth were not numerous enough to mate them.* 
 With respect to the numbers of the slave population, the esti- 
 mate I have referred to is not less gratuitous. The most care- 
 ful and conscientious inquirer into this intricate subject declares 
 himself unable to form any conjecture as to its amount, and 
 though he remarks the vast size of the families of the Roman 
 magnates, and the multitude also of public slaves, it is most 
 probable that the mass of the commonalty possessed no slaves 
 at all.* The nearest analogy to which we can refer, perhaps, 
 
 1 In the same manner, it may be presumed that the numbers of the census, 
 before the time of Augustus, included not merely the residents in Rome, nor, 
 on the other hand, the whole number of citizens within and without it, but 
 precisely as many as could present themselves to the censors from the city 
 and the country round. 
 
 * The frequency of this practice among the Romans, insinuated by Ter- 
 tullian, Apol. 9., is painfully confirmed by the cursory remark of Tacitus on 
 the abstinence of the Germans : " Numerum liberorum finire . . . flagitium 
 habetur." Germ. 19. 
 
 3 Dion, liv. 16., referred to in chapter xxxiii. 
 
 4 Wallon, Hist, de VEidavage, &c., pt. ii. chap. 3.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 401 
 
 would be that of the great Oriental cities of our time, such 
 as Cairo or Constantinople, in which there are nearly the 
 same striking contrasts as in ancient Rome of luxury and 
 squalid misery ; the same extravagance among the few rich 
 in building, amusements and decorations, and the same stolid 
 apathy among the many poor in enduring life on a crust of 
 bread and a sup of water. Although a few pashas and emirs 
 may dazzle the eyes of the Frank with the ostentatious dis- 
 play of hundreds of male and female slaves, an immense pro- 
 portion of their countrymen are entirely destitute of them ; 
 and the total number of this class, as far as I can learn, forms 
 an inconsiderable element in the whole population. 1 
 
 While, therefore, there are some apparent data for the 
 opinion, not uncommonly advanced by moderate and judicious 
 critics, that the inhabitants of Rome amounted Exaggerations 
 to a million or twelve hundred thousand souls, it modemaSr- 
 would seem that the grounds for this conclusion itie8 - 
 are at best questionable, while it is hardly possible to assign 
 more than seven hundred thousand to the extent of area on 
 which they were domiciled. 11 Accustomed as we are to con- 
 template much larger collections of human beings within the 
 limits of a single city, and to connect the idea of the capital 
 
 1 Mr. McCulloch, in his Dictionary of Geography, tells us that the esti- 
 mates of the population of European Turkey by M. Boue and Mr. Urquhart 
 (strangely discrepant as they are) are those on which most reliance may be 
 placed. Neither of these makes any mention of the class of slaves. 
 
 2 There is another important statement upon this subject hi the Hist. Au- 
 gust, in Sever. 23. : " Moriens septem annorum canonem, ita ut quotidiana 
 septuaginta quinque millia modiorum expendi possent, reliquit." De la Malle 
 argues that this amount of 75,000 modii per diem was the estimated consump- 
 tion of the whole population of Rome. He goes on to show that this quantity 
 equals 1,012,000 pounds, and represents, at two pounds per head, a number 
 of 506,000 persons. Econ. Pol. i. 274, 404. But Wallon, hi his admirable 
 work (ii. 84.), has shown that this standard of consumption is too high hi the 
 ratio of 5 to 3 ; while Dezobry, comparing it with the returns of consumption 
 in Paris, reckons it too high in the ratio of 2 to 1. Rome, iii. 534. But this 
 datum, it will be observed, refers to a period two centuries later than the Au- 
 gustan ; nor can we affirm that the towns and villages round Rome were not 
 partly supplied from the granaries of the capital. 
 
 VOL. iv. 26
 
 402 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 of a vast and rich empire with a much higher amount of 
 population, we may feel surprised and disappointed at such 
 a result of our calculations, and the more so from the enor- 
 mous numbers which the extravagance of certain earlier au- 
 thorities has ascribed to imperial Rome. 1 Little stress, how- 
 ever, can be placed upon the vague generalities of the native 
 writers, who indulged in the grossest hyperboles in represent- 
 ing the vastness, as they supposed it, of the Roman popula- 
 tion : they were not accustomed to weigh and compare statis- 
 tical data ; and though we have reason to believe that the 
 amount of the inhabitants of every city was registered and 
 made known to the government, it may be admitted that 
 there was no general curiosity on the subject, and no concep- 
 tion of the moral and social purposes to which such know- 
 ledge might be applied. Even on the lowest computation 
 which has been made, it is plain that the density of habita- 
 tion in Rome must have far exceeded all modern experience ; 
 and when we remember how much the Romans lived out of 
 doors, how gregarious were their habits, how universal their 
 custom of frequenting the baths, visiting the theatre, and 
 attending the games of the circus, we may well believe that 
 the movement and aggregation of the people at certain spots 
 were far greater than what we ordinarily witness in our own 
 cities. We should be led to expect that the great places of 
 public resort, such as those just mentioned, would be ex- 
 pressly calculated to accommodate the whole mass of the free 
 male population ; but the theatres which existed in the time 
 of Augustus could not, at the highest statement, contain above 
 ninety thousand, and the Circus Maximus, the general place 
 of assemblage for all citizens within reach of Rome, on the 
 
 1 Lipsius computed the population of Rome at 4,000,000 ; Mengotti, as late 
 as 1781, at the same. Brotier and Gibbon have reduced it to 1,200,000, and 
 this is the number assigned to it by Jacob : On the Precious Metah. That 
 Chateaubriand should raise it to 3,000,000 might, perhaps, be expected ; but I 
 am surprised at the sum of 2,000,000 assigned to it, on very futile grounds, in 
 the elaborate description of Rome by M. Bunsen and his learned associates. 
 See Rom., i. 185. Hoeck, on more critical, but still, as I maintain, on quite 
 erroneous principles, would raise it to 2,265,000. Jicem. Reich, i. 2. 390.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 403 
 
 greatest national solemnities, afforded seats at this period to 
 not more than an hundred and fifty thousand. 1 
 
 N"or indeed was Rome calculated, from the position it 
 held among the cities of the empire, to attain any extraordi- 
 nary population. It was neither a commercial T 
 nor a manufacturing city. It was not the empo- R 
 rium of a great transit trade, like Alexandria, fa r ge\p^I? ry 
 nor the centre of exchange among a host of opu- tion - 
 lent neighbours, like Antioch. It was not surrounded by the 
 teeming hives of life which encircled Babylon or Seleucia, 
 Nor was it increased by the ever-accumulating wealth of all 
 classes of society, like modern London, or by the constant 
 tightening of the bands of centralization, by which the life- 
 blood of the provinces is flooded back upon Paris. It was 
 not the natural focus of attraction for the indolent and luxu- 
 rious ; but every one who had the means escaped from it as 
 often and as much as he could, and exchanged its ungenial 
 climate for the cool breezes of the mountains or the coast, 
 and the voluptuous recreations of a Campanian watering- 
 place. The country around it was almost abandoned, in the 
 
 1 The theatre of Pompeius held, as Pliny assures us (H. N. xxxvi. 15.), 
 40,000 ; but according to the Curiosum only 1*7,580 ; that of Balbus 11,500, 
 according to this last authority, but the Notitia gives the number of 30,000. 
 The theatre of Marcellus held, according to the Curiosum again, 20,000. To 
 the Circus Maximus, Dionysius assigns (Ant. Rom. iii. 68.) 150,000 places : 
 Pliny gives 260,000, and the last spurious edition of the Curiosum, which goes 
 by the name of Victor, 385,000. The accommodation of the circus was prob- 
 ably increased from tune to time by the addition of wooden galleries, as we 
 know was the case with the Colosseum. We need not trouble ourselves with 
 the statement of the so-called Publius Victor. In the circus the citizens were 
 originally seated according to their classes ; the chief magistrate presided, the 
 senators and knights attended in their places, and every order was arrayed in 
 its proper garb. It was, in fact, the civil camp of the Roman people. When 
 Juvenal says, " Totam hodie Romam circus capit," his hyperbole is only the 
 tradition of an ancient reality. Tacitus (Ann. xiii. 24.) expresses nearly the 
 same idea : " Intraverunt Pompeii theatrum quo magnitudinem populi vise- 
 rent." Comp. Senec. de Ira. ii. 7. : " Ulum circum in quo maximam sui par- 
 tern populus ostendit." Yet from the time of the later republic women were 
 not excluded from the theatres or circus. Plut. Sull. 35. ; Ovid, Art. Amand. 
 L 139. ; Calpurn. Ed. vii. 26.
 
 404 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 imperial period, to the maintenance of cattle, and the drain 
 of human life caused by its crowded state and baneful atmos- 
 phere was only replenished by immigration from distant 
 shores. I will not compare it with Madrid, a mere royal 
 residence, nor with the marble exhalation of St. Petersburg ; 
 but of modern capitals Vienna may perhaps be considered 
 most nearly to resemble it. Its great social characteristic 
 was the entire absence of a middle class, the bone and sinew 
 of cities as well as of empires ; and its population mainly 
 consisted of the two orders of wealthy nobles on the one 
 hand, whose means were in process of trituration under the 
 pressure of the imperial imposts, and the poor citizens on the 
 other, who clung to the forum and the circus for the sake of 
 their amusements and largesses.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 4.95 
 
 CHAPTEE XLI. 
 
 LIFE IN ROME. THRONGING OF THE STREETS. PLACES OF RECREATION. 
 
 THEATRES, CIRCUS, AND AMPHITHEATRES. EXHIBITIONS OF WILD BEASTS 
 
 AND GLADIATORS. BATHS. THE DAY OF A ROMAN NOBLE: THE FORUM, 
 
 THE CAMPUS, THE BATH, AND THE SUPPER. CUSTOM OF RECITATION. THE 
 
 SCHOOLS OF THE RHETORICIANS. AUTHORS: LIVY, YIRGIL, HORACE, PRO- 
 PERTIUS, TIBULLUS, OTID, EACH REFLECTING IN HIS OWN WAY THE SENTI- 
 MENTS OF THE AUGUSTAN AGE. 
 
 WE will now proceed to people with human figures the 
 expanse of brick and marble which has been presented 
 to our view, and realize, as we may, the actual 
 
 , . , , Thronging of 
 
 movement of life in the great metropolis, heart- the streets of 
 
 . i . i i MI Rome. 
 
 ening to the surging murmurs which still seem 
 to resound across the abyss of eighteen centuries. 1 Rome, 
 at the tune of which we are speaking, was in the crisis of 
 that transitional state which most great capitals have expe- 
 rienced, when a rapid increase in their population and the 
 transactions of daily life has begun to outstrip the extension 
 of their means of accommodation. The increase of numbers 
 must necessarily multiply the operations of industry, which 
 cross and recross each other in the streets ; and though 
 neither the commerce nor manufactures of Rome were con- 
 ducted on the scale to which our ideas are accustomed, the 
 retail traffic which passed from hand to hand, and the ordi- 
 nary affairs of business and pleasure, must have caused an 
 ever-increasing stir and circulation among the multitude of 
 
 1 Stat Sylv. i. 1. 65. : " Magnse vaga murmura Roma."
 
 406 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 human beings collected within its walls. The uninterrupted 
 progress of building operations, and the extension of the 
 suburbs simultaneously with the restoration of the city, must 
 have kept every avenue constantly thronged with waggons 
 and vehicles of all sorts, engaged in the transport of cum- 
 brous materials : the crush of these heavy-laden machines, 
 and the portentous swinging of the long beams they carried, 
 round the corners of the narrow streets, are mentioned among 
 the worst nuisances and even terrors of the citizen's daily 
 walk. 1 Neither of the rival institutions of the shop and the 
 bazaar had been developed to any great extent in ancient 
 Trades exer- Rome. Numerous trades were exercised there 
 streets. by itinerant vendors. The street cries, which 
 
 have almost ceased within our own memory in London, were 
 rife in the city of the Caesars. The incessant din of these 
 discordant sounds is complained of as making life intolerable 
 to the poor gentleman who is compelled to reside in the midst 
 of them.* The streets were not contrived, nor was it possible 
 generally to adapt them, for the passage of the well-attended 
 litters and cumbrous carriages of the wealthy, which began 
 to traverse them with the pomp and circumstance of our own 
 aristocratic vehicles of a century since ; * while the police of 
 the city seems never to have contemplated the removal of the 
 most obvious causes of crowd and obstruction, in the display 
 of gymnastic and gladiatorial feats, of conjurors' tricks and 
 the buffoonery of the lowest stage-players, amidst the most 
 
 frequented thoroughfares. 4 The noble seldom 
 loungers and crossed his threshold without a numerous train 
 
 of clients and retainers ; the lower people col- 
 lected at the corners of the streets to hear the gossip of the 
 day, and discuss the merits of racers and dancers ; the slaves 
 
 1 Juvenal, ill 236, 255. In the second century it became necessary to for- 
 bid loaded waggons to traverse the city. " Orbicula cum ingentibus sarcinis 
 urbem ingredi prohibuit." Spartian. Hadrian. 22. 
 
 1 Martial, i. 42., x. 3., xii. 57. 
 
 * The Appian Way was the fashionable drive of the Roman nobility. Hor. 
 Epod. 4. 14. ; Epist. L 6. 26. 
 
 4 Suet Oct. 74. : " Triviales ex Circo ludiL"
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 407 
 
 hovered over the steam of the open cook-shops, or loitered on 
 their errands, to gaze on the rude drawings or pore over the 
 placards on the walls. The last century had filled the im- 
 perial capital with multitudes of foreigners, attracted by 
 curiosity as much as by business to the renowned emporium 
 of the wonders of the world, who added to the host of idlers 
 and gazers in the streets of Rome ; men of strange costumes 
 and figures, and, when they spoke, of speech still stranger, 
 who, while they gazed around them with awe and admira- 
 tion, became themselves objects of interest to a crowd of 
 lounging citizens. The marked though casual manner in 
 which the throng of the streets is noticed by the Roman 
 writers, shows, in the strongest way, how ordinary a feature 
 it was of life in the city. 1 
 
 The streets, or rather the narrow and winding alleys, of 
 Rome were miserably inadequate to the circulation of the 
 people who thus encumbered them ; for the vici interruptions 
 were no better than lanes or alleys, and there totrafflc - 
 were only two vise, or paved ways, fit for the transport of 
 heavy carriages, the Sacra and the Nova, in the PaucUy of 
 central parts of the city. The three interior hills, thoroughfares. 
 the Palatine, the Aventine, and the Capitoline, were sore 
 impediments to traffic ; for no carriages could pass over them, 
 and it may be doubted whether they were even thoroughfares 
 for foot-passengers. The occurrence of a fire or Demolition of 
 an inundation, or the casual fall of a house, must hoase8 - Firea - 
 have choked the circulation of the lifeblood of the city. 1 The 
 
 1 Comp., for instance, Hor. Sat. ii. 6. 28. : 
 
 " Luctandum in turba, facienda injuria tardis ; " 
 
 and Cicero, in the passage so important for the topography of Rome (pro Plane. 
 7.) : " Equidem si quando, ut fit, jactor in turba, non ilium accuso qui est in 
 summa Sacra Via, cum ego ad Fabium fornicem impeller, sed eum qui in me 
 ipsum incurrit et incidit." Such an illustration would not occur to an English 
 speaker. Comp. Plaut. Mercat. i. 1. 8. : " Tres simitu res agendas sunt .... 
 et currendum, et pugnandum, et autem jurgandum est in via." Dezobry, 
 Rome, i. 218. 
 
 * Strabo speaks very strongly of the constant fall and demolition of houses 
 (v. 3. p. 235.) : at ffv/jtirraxTfts Kal tpvpfiffeis Kal /jLerairptiffeis,
 
 408 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 first, indeed, and the last of these, were accidents to which 
 
 every place of human resort is liable ; but the inundations of 
 
 Rome were a marked and peculiar feature of her 
 
 Inundations. _ , 
 
 ancient existence. The central quarters of the 
 city were founded in a morass little raised above the ordinary 
 level of the Tiber, a river peculiarly subject to rapid and vio- 
 lent risings. The Romans might complain that, from the 
 configuration of the spot, the masses of water brought down 
 from above were flung from the right bank, where the high 
 grounds descended directly into the stream, and driven with 
 increased violence against the left, just at the point where 
 nature had left an opening into the heart of the city. 1 It 
 might have been easy to maintain a mound or levee on this 
 bank, and curb the overflows at least of ordinary years ; but 
 the seven hills were themselves great attractors of rain, 
 which they cast off from their sides into the pool of the 
 Forum and the trough of the Velabrum, and this discharge 
 it required a stupendous under drainage to convey safely 
 into the river." When the Tiber was high, the torrents of 
 the sewers, or cloacae, were of course ponded back, and no 
 ingenuity could prevent the flooding of the lower levels of the 
 city to a depth of several feet. Nor was it in the Forum 
 and Velabrum only that these disastrous effects were pro- 
 duced : the little Aqua Crabra, which descended into the 
 city from the Porta Capena, and was carried beneath the 
 arena of the circus into the Cloaca Maxima, often overspread 
 
 aurai ovcrai Kal yiip al fifrairpdff(is (Kovffiot nvts <rvfi.irr<afffis fieri, Karafla- 
 \6vr<av Kal avoiKoSonovyTuv irpbs TO,S firiGvfjLlas trepa il- irfpatv. 
 
 1 Such is the interpretation sometimes given to the well-known lines of 
 Horace : " Vidimus flavum Tiberim retortis 
 
 Litore Etrusco violenter undis." 
 
 It may be more correct to understand by the litus Etruscum, the coast of the 
 Mediterranean ; but I remember the happy boldness of the Ovidian, " pro ripis 
 litora poscunt," and am willing to adopt it here. 
 
 2 Strabo describes the drainage of the city, v. 3. p. 235. : rovovrov 5' fo-rl 
 rb flffaydryifiov vSwp Sitk TWV vSpaywyfiuv, wffre iroranovs Sia, T^S vtteus Kal 
 ruv {nrov6(i.ii>v freiv. Here occurs his remarkable statement that a waggon 
 loaded with hay could enter the great Cloaca.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 409 
 
 the low grounds at the foot of the Caelian Hill, and the grotto 
 of Egeria was sometimes, we may believe, thus converted into 
 an abode more worthy of the water nymph to whom it was 
 dedicated. 1 
 
 The efforts made to expand the sides of the Forum, and 
 give more play to the lungs of the great animated machine, 
 were very feeble and imperfect, till Julius Caesar, and after 
 him Augustus, removed large masses of habitations in this 
 quarter, and threw open to traffic and movement the space 
 thus seasonably acquired. But if the Roman people was ill 
 accommodated in its streets, it might derive compensation in 
 the vast constructions erected for its amusement, 
 the ample walks and gardens devoted to its re- atipn for the 
 creation, and the area which was sedulously pre- Parkland gar- 
 served for its exercise in the Campus Martius, 
 and the circuses of Romulus and Flaminius. The theatre of 
 Pompeius, the first built of stone for permanent 
 use, was rivalled by that of Balbus, and Augus- 
 tus dedicated a third to the pleasures of the citizens under the 
 title of the theatre of Marcellus. 4 From the enormous size 
 of these celebrated edifices, it is clear that the idea of reserv- 
 ing them for dramatic performances hardly entered into the 
 views of their builders. The Roman theatres were an insti- 
 tution very different from ours, where a select audience pay the 
 price of admission to a private spectacle on however large a 
 scale : they were the houses of the Roman people, to which 
 every citizen claimed the right of entrance ; for they were 
 given him for his own by their munificent founders, and the 
 
 1 Cicero describes the effect of a flood in this quarter in a passage of some 
 topographical importance. " Romae et maxime Appia ad Martis mira prolu- 
 vies ; Crassipedia ambulatio ablata ; horti, tabernae plurimae : magna vis aquae 
 usque ad Piscinam publicam." Ad. Qu. Fr. iii. 7. 
 
 2 Ovid, Trist. iii. 12. : " Cumque tribus resonant terna theatra foris." The 
 three forums are those of Julius and Augustus, with the Boarium. It is not 
 quite clear what was the construction or what the fate of the theatre of Scau- 
 rus. It was adorned with costly pillars of marble, but the walls and seats may 
 have been chiefly of wood ; and if it was not pulled down, it must have been 
 destroyed by fire before the erection of the Pompeian a few years later.
 
 410 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 performances which took place hi them were provided gra- 
 tuitously by the magistrates. The first object, therefore, was 
 to seat the greatest number of the people possible ; and when 
 that was accomplished, the question followed of how they 
 should be safely and conveniently entertained. An assem- 
 blage of 30,000 spectators, gathering excitement from the 
 consciousness of their own multitude, could not sit tamely 
 under the blaze of an Italian sun, tempered only by an awn- 
 ing, in the steam and dust of their own creating, which 
 streams of perfumed waters were required to allay, 1 to hear 
 the formal dialogue of the ancient tragedy declaimed by 
 human puppets from brass-lipped masques, staggering on the 
 stilted cothurnus. 2 Whatever might be the case with the 
 Greeks, it was impossible, at least for the plainer Romans, 
 so to abstract their imaginations from the ungraceful realities 
 thus placed before them, as to behold in them a symbolic 
 adumbration of the heroic and the divine. For the charms, 
 Theatrical ex- however, both of music and dancing, which are 
 hibitions. a i so considered pleasures of the imagination, they 
 appear to have had a genuine, though perhaps a rude, taste. 
 Their dramatic representations, accordingly, were mostly con- 
 ducted in pantomime ; this form at- least of the drama was 
 that which most flourished among them, and produced men 
 of genius, inventors and creators in their own line. Some of 
 the most famous of the mimic actors were them- 
 
 Pantomime. . . 
 
 selves Komans ; but the ancient prejudice against 
 
 1 These were recent inventions : in simpler times, according to Propertius 
 (iv. I. 15.): 
 
 " Non sinuosa vago pendebant vela theatre ; 
 
 Pulpita solennes non oluere crocos." 
 
 In the amphitheatres which were too spacious for complete awnings, the spec- 
 tators were refreshed by the play of jets d'eau, which rose to the full height 
 of the building. Senec. Nat. Qucest. ii. 9. 
 
 2 " Like mice roaring," to apply an expression of Mrs. F. Kemble's. I can- 
 not reconcile the use of the mask and buskin with the keen appreciation of the 
 graceful in form ascribed so liberally to the Greeks ; nor can I understand 
 how the audiences of Aristophanes could be the same people who gravely wit- 
 nessed Agamemnon's shuffle across the stage : x a t ia - i TifleJs Tbv abv ir6$', 
 'l\lov
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 the exercise of histrionic art by citizens was never perhaps 
 wholly overcome. Accordingly Greek names figure more 
 conspicuously than Roman in the roll of actors on the Roman 
 stage ; and two of these, Bathyllus and Pylades, divided 
 between them, under the mild autocracy of Augustus, the 
 dearest sympathies and favours of the masters of the world. 
 The rivalry of these two competitors for public applause, 
 or rather of their admirers and adherents, broke out into 
 tumultuous disorders, which engaged at last the interference 
 of the emperor himself. It is better for your government, said 
 one of them to him, when required to desist from a profes- 
 sional emulation which imperilled the tranquillity of the city 
 it is better that the citizens should quarrel about a Pylades 
 and a Bathyllus than about a Pompeius and a Ccesar. 1 
 
 But whatever claims pantomime might have as a legiti- 
 mate child of the drama, the Roman stage was invaded by 
 another class of exhibitions, for which no such 
 pretensions could be advanced. The grand pro- 
 portions of the theatre invited more display of scenic effects 
 than could be supplied by the chaste simplicity of the Greek 
 chorus, in which the priests or virgins, whatever their num- 
 ber, presented only so many repetitions of a single type. The 
 finer sentiment of the upper classes was overpowered by the 
 vulgar multitude, who demanded with noisy violence the 
 gratification of their coarse and rude tastes.* Processions 
 swept before their eyes of horses and chariots, of wild and 
 unfamiliar animals ; the long show of a triumph wound its 
 way across the stage ; the spoils of captured cities, and the 
 figures of the cities themselves were represented in painting 
 or sculpture ; the boards were occupied in every interval of 
 more serious entertainment by crowds of rope-dancers, con- 
 jurors, boxers, clowns, and posture-makers, men who walked 
 
 1 Dion, liv. 1Y. ; Macrob. Saturn, ii. 7. 
 a Hor. Epxt. ii. 1. 184. : 
 
 " Indocti stolidique, et depugnare parati 
 
 Si discordet eques, media inter carmina poscunt 
 
 Aut ursum aut pugiles," &c.
 
 412 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 on their hands, or stood on their heads, or let themselves be 
 whirled aloft by machinery, or suspended upon wires, or 
 who danced on stilts, or exhibited feats of skill with cups 
 and balls. 1 But these degenerate spectacles were not the 
 lowest degradation to which the theatres were subjected. 
 They were polluted with the grossest indecencies ; and the 
 luxury of the stage, as the Romans delicately phrased it, drew 
 down the loudest indignation of the reformers of a later age.* 
 Hitherto at least legislators and moralists had been content 
 with branding with civil infamy the instruments of the people's 
 licentious pleasures ; but the pretext even for this was rather 
 the supposed baseness of exhibiting oneself for money, than 
 the iniquity of the performances themselves. The legitimate 
 drama, which was still an exercise of skill among the Romans, 
 was relegated, perhaps, to the smaller theatres of wood, 
 which were erected year by year for temporary use. There 
 were also certain private theatres, in which knights and sena- 
 tors could exercise their genius for singing and acting with- 
 out incurring the stigma of public representation. 
 
 The appetite for grandeur and magnificence, developed 
 so rapidly among the Romans by the pride of opulence and 
 TheampM- power, was stimulated by the rivalry of the 
 theatres. great nobles. The bold and ingenious tribune 
 
 1 The learned Bolenger (de Theatre, L 34, foil, in Grsev. Thes.) has given a 
 list of the kinds of performers who thus encroached upon the domain of Mel- 
 pomene and Thalia : " Ingens utique hujusmodi hominum sylva fuit, quorum 
 alii miracula patrarent, Graeci vocant &av/j.a.Toiroiovs, Latini praestigiatores, 
 acetabulos, alii per catadromum decurrerent, cemuarent, petauristae essent, 
 petaminarii, grallatores, phonasci, pantomimi, crotochoraulae, citharoedi, satyri, 
 lentuli, tibicines, parasiti, atellani, dictiosi, ridiculi, rhapsodi, urbicarii, psaltriae, 
 sabulones, planipedes, muni, mastigophori, apinarii, moriones, miriones, san- 
 niones, iambi, salii, musici, poetae, curiones, praecones, agonarchae : " all which 
 he proceeds severally to describe. 
 
 a This coarseness dated, indeed, from a period of high and honourable feel- 
 ing. The impurities of the Floralia offended the elder Cato, according to Mar- 
 tial's well-known epigram, i. 1. The same licentiousness continued to please, 
 through a period of six centuries, down to the time of Ausonius, who says, 
 " Nee non lascivi Floralia laeta theatri, 
 
 Quae spectasse volunt qui voluisse negant."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 413 
 
 Curio, whose talents found a more fatal arena in the contests 
 of the civil wars, was the first to imagine the form of the 
 double hemicycle, which he executed with an immense wood- 
 en structure and a mechanical apparatus, by which two thea- 
 tres, after doing their legitimate duty to the drama, could be 
 wheeled front to front, and combined into a single amphi- 
 theatre for gladiatorial spectacles. 1 There can be no doubt 
 that this extraordinary edifice was adapted to contain many 
 thousands of spectators ; and there are few, perhaps, even 
 of our own engineers, who build tubular bridges and suspend 
 acres of iron network over our heads, who would not shrink 
 from the problem of moving the population of a great city on 
 a single pair of pivots. 2 The amphitheatre of Julius Caesar 
 in the Campus was of wood also, and this, as well as its pre- 
 decessors, seems to have been taken down after serving the 
 purpose of the day. It remained for Statilius Taurus, the 
 legate of Augustus, to construct the first edifice of this char- 
 acter in stone, and to bequeath to future ages the original 
 model of the magnificent structures which bear that name, 
 some of which still attest the grandeur of the empire in her 
 provinces ; but the most amazing specimen of which, and in- 
 deed the noblest existing monument of all ancient architec- 
 ture, is the glorious Colosseum at Rome. Like most of the 
 splendid buildings of this period, the amphitheatre of Taurus 
 was erected in the Campus Martius, the interior of the city 
 not admitting of the dedication of so large a space to the 
 purpose ; though it was rumoured indeed that Augustus had 
 purposed to crown the series of his public works by an edifice 
 
 1 Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 24. 8. : " Theatra juxta fecit amplissima e ligno, 
 cardinum singulorum versatili suspensa libramento, in quibus utrisque ante- 
 meridiano ludorum spectaculo edito inter sese aversis, ne invicem obstreperent 
 scenae, repente circumactis ut contra starent, postremo jam die discedentibus 
 tabulis et cornibus in se coeuntibus, faciebat amphitheatrum, et gladiatorum 
 spectacula edebat, ipsum magis auctoratum populum Romanum circumferens." 
 
 2 Plin. 1. c. : " Super omnia erit populi furor, sedere ausa tarn infida insta- 
 
 bilique sede ecce populus Romanus universus, velut duobus navigiia 
 
 impositus, binis cardinibus sustinetur."
 
 414 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 of this nature, in the centre of his capital. 1 "While the amphi- 
 theatre, however, was a novel invention, the circus, to which 
 it was in a manner supplementary, was one of the most an- 
 cient institutions of the city. The founder himself had con- 
 vened his subjects in the Murcian valley, beneath his cabin 
 on the Palatine, to celebrate games of riding, hunting, and 
 charioteering. The inclosure in which these shows were an- 
 nually exhibited was an oblong, curved at the further end, 
 above six hundred yards in length, but comparatively nar- 
 row. The seats which ranged round the two larger sides 
 and extremity of this area were originally cut out of the 
 rising ground, and covered with turf: less rude accommoda- 
 tion was afterwards supplied by wooden scaffoldings ; but 
 the whole space was eventually surrounded by masonry, 
 and decorated with all the forms and members of Roman 
 architecture. 
 
 The arena was adapted for chariot-racing by a partition, a 
 
 dwarf wall, surmounted with various emblematic devices, which 
 
 ran along the middle and terminated at either end 
 
 The Circus. 
 
 in goals or ornamented pillars, round which the 
 contending cars were driven a stated number of times. The 
 eye of the spectator, from his position aloft, was carried over 
 this spinal ridge, and he obtained a complete view of the con- 
 test, which thus passed and repassed, amidst clouds 
 
 Chariot races. ' 
 
 oi dust and roars 01 sympathizing excitement, be- 
 fore his feet. The Romans had from the first an intense de- 
 light in these races ; and many of the most graphic passages 
 of their poets describe the ardour of the horses, the emulation 
 of their drivers, and the tumultuous enthusiasm of the spec- 
 tators.* These contests maintained their interest from the 
 
 1 Suetonius, remarking particularly that the Colosseum, or amphitheatre of 
 Vespasian, was hi the centre of the city, tells us that it was erected there hi 
 order to carry out a design of Augustus. Ve*pas. 9. 
 
 5 Most of us have been struck with the spectacle of an audience of three or 
 four thousands hi one of our theatres rising simultaneously at the first sound 
 of the national anthem. The Romans were deeply impressed with the gran- 
 deur of such a movement, on the very different scale with which they were 
 familiar. Comp. Stat. Theb. vi. 448. :
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 415 
 
 cradle to the very grave of the Roman people. The circus 
 of Constantinople, under the Greek designation of Hippo- 
 drome, was copied from the pattern of the Roman ; and 
 the factions, which divided the favour of the tribes almost 
 from the beginning of the empire, continued to agitate the 
 city of Theodosius and Justinian. The citizens were never 
 satiated with this spectacle, and could sit without flagging 
 through a hundred heats, which the liberality of the exhibitor 
 sometimes provided for them. But the races were more com- 
 monly varied with contests of other kinds. All the varieties 
 of the Greek Pancratium, such as boxing, wrestling, and 
 running, were exhibited in the circus ; gladiators fought one 
 another with naked swords, sometimes in single combat, some- 
 times with opposing bands. The immense size of the arena, 
 unfavourable for the exhibition of the duel, was turned to 
 advantage for the display of multitudes of wild Exhibition of 
 animals, which were let loose in it to be transfixed wild beasts - 
 with spears and arrows. This practice seems to date from 
 the sixth century, when victorious generals first returned to 
 Rome from the far regions of the East, and ingratiated them- 
 selves with the populace by exhibiting strange monsters of 
 unknown continents, lions and elephants, giraffes and hippopo- 
 tami. As in other things, the rivalry of the nobles soon dis- 
 played itself in the number of these creatures they produced 
 for massacre ; and the favour of the citizens appears to have 
 followed with constancy the champion who treated them with 
 the largest effusion of blood. The circus was too spacious for 
 the eye to gloat on the expression of conflicting passions, and 
 watch the last ebbings of life ; but the amphitheatre brought 
 the greatest possible number of spectators within easy dis- 
 tance of the dead and dying, and fostered the passion for the 
 sight of blood, which continued for centuries to vie in interest 
 with the harmless excitement of the race. 1 
 
 " Subit astra fragor, coelumque tremiscit, 
 
 Omniaque excusso patuere sedilia vulgo." 
 
 1 Favourable as the long extent of the circus might have been for the ex- 
 hibition of pageants and processions, the people, in their eagerness for specta-
 
 416 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 The idea of the theatre is representation and illusion, and 
 the stage is, as it were, magic ground, over which the imagina- 
 Giadiatoriai ^ on mav glance without restraint and wander at 
 combats. ^jjj^ y rom Thebes to Athens^ from the present to 
 
 the past or future. But in the amphitheatre all is reality. The 
 citizen, seated face to face with his fellow-citizens, could not 
 for a moment forget either his country or his times. The spec- 
 tacles here presented to him made no appeal to the discursive 
 faculties ; they brought before his senses, in all the hardness 
 of actuality, the consummation of those efforts of strength, 
 skill, and dexterity in the use of arms, to which much of his 
 own time and thoughts was necessarily directed. The exhi- 
 bition of gladiatorial combats, which preceded the departure 
 of a general for a foreign campaign, was part of the soldier's 
 training (and every citizen was regarded as a soldier), from 
 which he received the last finish of his education, and was 
 taught to regard wounds and death as the natural incidents 
 of his calling. These were probably the most ancient of the 
 military spectacles. The combats of wild beasts, and of men 
 with beasts, were a corruption of the noble science of war 
 which the gladiatorial contests were supposed to teach ; they 
 were a concession to the prurient appetite for excitement, 
 engendered by an indulgence which, however natural in a 
 rude and barbarous age, was actually hardening and degrad- 
 ing. The interest these exercises at first naturally excited 
 degenerated into a mere passion for the sight of death ; and 
 as the imagination can never be wholly inactive in the face 
 of the barest realities, the Romans learnt to feast their 
 thoughts on the deepest mystery of humanity, and to pry 
 with insatiate curiosity into the secrets of the last moments 
 of existence : in proportion as they lost their faith in a future 
 life, they became more restlessly inquisitive into the condi- 
 tions of the present. 
 
 The eagerness with which the great mass of the citizens 
 
 cles of bloodshed, witnessed them here with great impatience. M. Seneca thus 
 closes one of his prefaces : " Sed jam non sustineo vos morari. Scio quam 
 odiosa res sit circensibus pompa." Controv. i. prsef.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 crowded to witness these bloody shows, on every occasion 
 of their exhibition, became one of the most strik- sentiments of 
 ing features of Roman society, and none of their fhe^'bi 
 customs has attracted more of the notice of the B P 
 ancient writers who profess to describe the manners of their 
 times. By them they are often represented as an idle and 
 frivolous recreation, unworthy of the great nation of kings ; 
 nor do we find the excuse officially offered for the combats 
 of gladiators, as a means of cherishing courage and fostering 
 the ruder virtues of antiquity, generally put forward as their 
 apology by private moralists. 1 Men of reflection, who were 
 far themselves from sharing the vulgar delight in these hor- 
 rid spectacles (and it should be noticed that no Roman author 
 speaks of them with favour, or gloats with interest on their 
 abominations), acquiesced in the belief that it was necessary 
 to amuse the multitude, and was better to gratify them with 
 any indulgence they craved for, than risk the more fearful 
 consequences of thwarting and controlling them. The blood 
 thus shed on the arena was the price they were content to 
 pay for the safety and tranquillity of the realm. In theory, 
 at least, the men who were thus thrust forth to engage the 
 wild beasts were condemned criminals : but it was often 
 necessary to hire volunteers to complete the numbers re- 
 quired ; and this seems to prove that the advantage was 
 generally on the side of the human combatant. The gladia- 
 tors, although their profession might be traced by antiqua- 
 rians to the combats of armed slaves around the pyre of their 
 
 1 Capitolin. Max. et Balb. 8. Cicero (Tusc. ii. 17.), even while offering 
 this vindication, cannot help remarking : " Crudele gladiatorium spectaculum 
 nonnullis videri solet ; et haud scio an ita sit, ut nunc fit." Compare also his 
 remarks to Marius (ad Dlv. vii. 1.) : " quae potest homini polito esse delectatio 
 quum homo imbecillus a valentissima bestia laniatur," &c. See also a passage 
 to the same effect in Seneca, de Brev. Vit. 13., and the preaching of Apollo- 
 nius at Athens (Philostr. Vit. Apoll. iv. 22.). Tertullian and Prudentius have 
 some declamations against the exhibition ; but far the most interesting passage 
 on the subject is the description in St. Augustine's Confessions (vL 13.) of the 
 youth Alypius yielding against his will to its horrid fascination : " Quid plura ? 
 spectavit, clamavit, exarsit," &c. 
 VOL. iv. 2*7
 
 418 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 master, ending in their mutual destruction in his honour, 
 were devoted to no certain death. 1 They were generally 
 slaves purchased for the purpose, but not unfrequently free 
 men tempted by liberal wages ; and they were in either case 
 too costly articles to be thrown away with indifference. 
 They were entitled to their discharge after a few years' ser- 
 vice, and their profession was regarded in many respects as 
 a public service, conducted under fixed regulations. 2 Under 
 the emperors, indeed, express laws were required to moderate 
 the ardour even of knights and senators to descend into the 
 arena, where they delighted to exhibit their courage and 
 address in the face of danger. Such was the ferocity en- 
 gendered by the habitual use of arms, so soothing to the 
 swordsman's vanity the consciousness of skill and valour, so 
 stimulating to his pride the thunders of applause from an 
 hundred thousand admirers, that the practice of mortal com- 
 bat, however unsophisticated nature may blench at its horrors, 
 was actually the source perhaps of more pleasure than pain 
 to these Roman prize-fighters. If the companions of Spar- 
 tacus revolted and slew their trainers and masters, we may 
 set against this instance of despair and fury the devotion 
 of the gladiators of Antonius, who cut their way through so 
 many obstacles in an effort to succour him. But the effect of 
 such shows on the spectators themselves was wholly evil ; for 
 while they utterly failed in supplying the bastard courage for 
 which they were said to be designed, they destroyed the nerve 
 of sympathy for suffering, which distinguishes the human 
 from the brute creation. 
 
 The Romans, however, had another popular passion, inno- 
 cent at least of blood and pain, but perhaps little less perni- 
 cious to the moral character, in the excess to 
 
 Fondness of >,-, -,-,-,. -, , , , 
 
 the Romans which they indulged it, than that which we have 
 
 for the bath. . . -, m .1 i 
 
 just reviewed. This was their universal appetite 
 
 1 Servius in ^Eneid. iii. 67. ; TertulL de Spedac. 12. 
 
 1 Hor. Epist. i. 1. 4. : " Teianius armis 
 
 Herculis ad postern fbcis, latet abditua agro, 
 Ne populum extrema toties exoret arena."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 419 
 
 for the bath, a refreshment which degenerated, in their im- 
 moderate use of it, into an enervating luxury. The houses 
 of the opulent were always furnished with chambers for this 
 purpose ; they had their warm and cold baths, as well as 
 their steam apparatus ; and the application of oil and perfumes 
 was equally universal among them. From the earliest times 
 there were perhaps places of more general resort, where the 
 plebeian paid a trifling sum for the enjoyment of this luxury ; 
 and among other ways of courting popular favour was that of 
 subsidizing the owners of these common baths, and giving 
 the people the free use of them for one or more days. The 
 extent to which Agrippa carried this mode of bribery has 
 been before mentioned. Besides the erection of lesser baths 
 to the number of an hundred and seventy, he was the first to 
 construct public establishments of the kind, or Thermae, in 
 which the citizens might assemble in large numbers, and com- 
 bine the pleasure of purification with the exercise of gymnas- 
 tic sports ; while at the same time they might be' amused by 
 the contemplation of paintings and sculptures, and by listen- 
 ing to song and music. The Roman, however, had his pecu- 
 liar notion of personal dignity, and it was not without a feel- 
 ing of uneasiness that he stripped himself in public below 
 the waist, however accustomed he might be to exhibit his 
 chest and shoulders in the performance of his manly exer- 
 cises. 1 The baths of Maecenas and Agrippa remained without 
 rivals for more than one generation, though they were ulti- 
 mately supplanted by imperial constructions on a far grander 
 scale. In the time of Augustus the resort of women to the 
 public baths was forbidden, if indeed such an indecorum had 
 yet been imagined. At a later period, whatever might be 
 the absence of costume among the men, the The manners 
 women at least were partially covered. 2 An ofthebath8 - 
 
 1 Valerius Maximua (ii. 1. 7.) states as an instance of this modest reserve 
 that, " aliquando nee pater cum filio, nee socer cum genero lavabatur." The 
 dislike of the Romans, at their best period, to be represented by naked statues, 
 has been already noticed. 
 
 2 Martial, iii. 87. See Walckenaer, Vie cT Horace, i. 126.
 
 420 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 ingenious writer has remarked on the effect produced on the 
 spirits by the action of air and water upon the naked body. 
 The unusual lightness and coolness, the disembarrassment of 
 the limbs, the elasticity of the circulation, combine to stimu- 
 late the sensibility of the nervous system. Hence the Thenna? 
 of the great city resounded with the shouts and laughter of 
 the bathers, who, when risen from the water and resigned to 
 the manipulations of the barbers and perfumers, gazed with 
 voluptuous languor on the brilliant decorations of the halls 
 around them, or listened with charmed ears to the singers 
 and musicians, and even to the poets who presumed on their 
 helplessness to recite to them their choicest compositions. 1 
 
 Such were the amusements of the great mass of the citi- 
 zens ; and their amusements were now their most serious 
 The day of a occupations. But the magnanimous Roman of 
 Roman noble. ^ ne cas t e which once ruled the world, and was still 
 permitted to administer it, continued to be trained on other 
 principles, and was still taught to combine in no unfair pro- 
 portions attention to business, cultivation of mind, the exer- 
 cise of the body, and indulgence in social relaxations. Bred 
 up in the traditions of an antique education, these men could 
 not soon be reduced, under any change of government, to 
 become mere loungers and triflers. Augustus at least had 
 no such aim or desire ; on the contrary, he was anxious to 
 employ all men of rank and breeding in practical business, 
 while at the same time he proposed to them his own example 
 as a follower both of the Muses and the Graces. The Roman 
 noble rose ordinarily at daybreak, and received at his levee 
 the crowd of clients and retainers who had thronged his door- 
 step from the hours of darkness. 3 A few words of greeting 
 were expected on either side, and then, as the sun mounted 
 the eastern sky, he descended from his elevated mansion into 
 
 1 Two of the most interesting passages on the manners of the baths are 
 Senec. Ep. 56., and Petron. Satyr. 73. See Walckenaer, /. c. 
 
 * For the disposal of the Roman's day see particularly Martial, iv. 8. : 
 " Prima salutantes atque altera continet hora," &c. Comp. the younger Pliny's 
 account of his uncle's day. Epist. iii. 5. ; cf. iii. 1.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 421 
 
 the Forum. 1 He might walk surrounded by the still lingering 
 crowd, or he might be carried in a litter ; but to ride in a 
 wheeled vehicle on such occasions was no Roman fashion. 11 
 Once arrived in the Forum he was quickly immersed in the 
 business of the day. He presided as a judge in one The tuBineS s 
 of the basilicas, or he appeared himself before the of the mornin &- 
 judges as an advocate, a witness, or a suitor. He transacted 
 his private affairs with his banker or notary ; he perused the 
 Public Journal of yesterday, and inquired how his friend's 
 cause had sped before the tribunal of the praetor. At every 
 step he crossed the path of some of the notables of his own 
 class, and the news of the day and interests of the hour were 
 discussed between them with dignified politeness. 
 
 Such were the morning occupations of a dies fastus^ or 
 working day: the holy-day had its appropriate occupation 
 in attendance on the temple services, in offering prayers for 
 the safety of the emperor and people, in sprinkling frankin- 
 cense on the altar, and, on occasions of special devotion, ap- 
 peasing the gods with a sacrifice. But all transactions of 
 business, secular or divine, ceased at once when the voice of 
 the herald on the steps of the Hostilian Curia proclaimed that 
 the shadow of the sun had passed the line on the pavement 
 before him, which marked the hour of midday. 3 Every door 
 
 1 The phrases, descendere in forum or in campum (so Hor. iii. 1., " De- 
 scendit in campum petitor"), refer to the comparative level of the noble man- 
 sion on the hill, and the public places hi the valley or plain. Champagny, 
 Cesars, ii. 256. 
 
 2 The Romans rode in carriages on a journey, but rarely for amusement, 
 and never within the city. Even beyond the walls it was considered disre- 
 putable to hold the reins oneself, such being the occupation of the slave or 
 hired driver. Juvenal ranks the consul, who creeps out at night to drive his 
 own chariot, with the most degraded of characters : that he should venture to 
 drive by daylight, while still in office, is an excess of turpitude transcending 
 the imagination of the most sarcastic painter of manners as they were. And 
 this was a hundred years later than the age of Augustus. See Juvenal, viii. 
 146. foil. 
 
 8 1 allude to the passage, well known to the topographers, hi Pliny, Hist. 
 Nat. vii. 60. : " Meridies .... accenso consulum id pronuntiante, quum a 
 curia inter rostra et Grsecostasim prospexisset solem." The reader will ob-
 
 422 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 was now closed ; every citizen, at least in summer, plunged 
 The midday mto tne dark recess of his sleeping chamber for 
 siesta. t h e enjoyment of his meridian slumber. The 
 
 midday siesta generally terminated the affairs of the day, and 
 every man was now released from duty and free to devote 
 himself, on rising again, to relaxation or amusement till the 
 return of night. If the senate had been used sometimes to 
 prolong or renew its sittings, there was a rule that after the 
 tenth hour, or four o'clock, no new business could be brought 
 before it, and we are told of Asinius Pollio that he would not 
 even open a letter after that hour. 1 Meanwhile Rome had 
 awakened to amusements and recreation, and the grave man 
 of business had his amusements as well as the idler of the 
 Forum. The exercises of the Field of Mars were the relaxa- 
 tion of the soldiers of the republic ; and when the urban popu- 
 lace had withdrawn from military service, the 
 the e Fiefd of n ' traditions of the Campus were still cherished by 
 the upper ranks, and the practice of its mimic 
 war confined, perhaps, exclusively to them. The swimming, 
 running, riding, and javelin-throwing of this public ground 
 became under the emperors a fashion of the nobility : 2 the 
 populace had no taste for such labours, and witnessed with 
 some surprise the toils to which men voluntarily devoted 
 themselves, who possessed slaves to relieve them from the 
 most ordinary exertions. But the young competitors in these 
 athletic contests were not without a throng of spectators : 
 the porticos which bordered the field were crowded with the 
 elder people and the women, who shunned the heat of the 
 declining sun : many a private dwelling looked upon it from 
 the opposite side of the river, which was esteemed on that 
 account a desirable place of residence. Augustus had pro- 
 serve that this refers in strictness to an earlier period, and that the Curia Hos- 
 tilia was destroyed in the year 52 B. c. 
 
 1 Senec. de Tranq. Anim. 15. : " Quidam nullum non diem inter et otium 
 et curas dividebant ; qualem Pollionem Asinium, oratorem magnum, memini- 
 mus, quern nulla res ultra decimam retinuit ; ne epistolas quidem post earn 
 horam legebat, ne quid novas curse nasceretur." 
 
 2 See for the exercises of the Campus, Hor. Od. L 13., Art. Poet. 379.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 423 
 
 mised his favour to every revival of the gallant customs of 
 antiquity, and all the Roman world that lived in his smiles 
 hastened to the scene of these antique amusements to gratify 
 the emperor, if not to amuse themselves. 1 
 
 The ancients, it was said, had made a choice of the Field 
 of Mars for the scene of their mimic warfare for the conve- 
 nience of the stream of the Tiber, in which the wearied com- 
 batants might wash off the sweat and dust, and return to 
 their companions in the glow of recruited health and vigour. 2 
 But the youth of Rome in more refined days were not satis- 
 fied with these genial ablutions. They resorted to warm and 
 vapour baths, to the use of perfumes and cosmetics, to en- 
 hance the luxury of refreshment; and sought by various 
 exquisite devices to stimulate the appetite for the banquet 
 which crowned the evening. The coma or supper The evening . 
 of the Romans deserves to be described as a na- the BU PP er - 
 tional institution : it had from the first its prescriptions and 
 traditions, its laws and usages ; it was sanctified by religious 
 observances, and its whole system of etiquette was held as 
 binding as if it had had a religious significance. 8 Under the 
 
 1 Horace knew how to please his patron by frequent allusions to the exer- 
 cises of the Campus. It is probable that they declined in interest at a subse- 
 quent period, and the mention of them becomes comparatively rare. But they 
 still constituted a part of the ordinary occupation of the day in the second cen- 
 tury of the empire (Martial, ii. 14. iv. 8.), and were not disused in the third. 
 TrebelL Poll. Claud. 13.: "Fecerat hoc adolescens in militia quum ludicro 
 Martiali in campo luctamen inter fortissimos quosque celebraret." 
 
 3 Veget. de Re Mllit. i. 10. What life and spirit this gives to Virgil's lines 
 at the end of the ninth book of the JEneid : 
 
 " Turn toto corpore sudor 
 Liquitur, et piceum, nee respirare potestas, 
 Flumen agit ; fessos quatit aeger anhelitus artus : 
 Turn demum praeceps saltu sese omnibus armis 
 In fluvium dedit : ille suo cum gurgite flavo 
 Accepit venientem, ac mollibus extulit undis, 
 Et laetum sociis abluta caede remisit." 
 3 Hor. Sat. ii. 6. 66. : 
 
 " Ante Larem proprium vescor, vernasque loquaces 
 
 Pasco libatis dapibus." 
 Comp. Ovid, Fast. ii. 631.
 
 424: HISTORY OP THE ROMANS 
 
 protection of the gods to whom they poured their libations, 
 friends met together for the recreation equally of mind and 
 body. If the conversation flagged it was relieved by the aid 
 of minstrels, who recited the famous deeds of the national 
 heroes : l but in the best days of the republic the guests of 
 the noble Roman were men of speech not less than of deeds, 
 men consummately trained in all the knowledge of their times ; 
 and we may imagine there was more room to fear lest their 
 converse should degenerate into the argumentative and didac- 
 tic than languish from the want of matter or interest. It is 
 probable, however, that the table-talk of the higher classes at 
 Rome was peculiarly terse and epigrammatic. Many speci- 
 mens have been preserved to us of the dry sententious style 
 which they seem to have cultivated : their remarks on life 
 and manners were commonly conveyed in solemn or caustic 
 aphorisms, and they condemned as undignified and Greekish 
 any superfluous abundance of words. The graceful and flow- 
 ing conversations of Cicero's dialogues were imitated from 
 Athenian writings, rather than drawn after the types of 
 actual life around him. People at supper^ said Varro, him- 
 self not the least sententious of his nation, should neither be 
 loquacious nor mute ; eloquence is for the forum, silence for 
 the bedchamber? Another rule of the same master of eti- 
 quette, that the number of the guests should not exceed nine, 
 the number of the Muses, nor fall short of three, the number 
 of the Graces, was dictated by a sense of the proprieties of 
 the Roman banquet, which the love of ostentation and pride 
 of wealth were now constantly violating. Luxury and the 
 appetite for excitement were engaged in multiplying occa- 
 sions of more than ordinary festivity, on which the most rigid 
 of the sumptuary laws allowed a wider license to the expen- 
 ses of the table. On such high days the number of the guests 
 was limited neither by law nor custom : the entertainer, the 
 master or father, as he was called, of the supper, was required 
 to abdicate the ordinary functions of host, and, according to 
 
 1 Cic. Tuse. i. 2., iv. 2. ; Nonius, in Assa voce; Val. Max. ii. 1. 10. 
 3 Varro, quoted by A. Gellius, xiii 11.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 425 
 
 the Greek custom, a king of the wine or arbiter of drinking, 
 was chosen from among themselves by lot, or for his convivial 
 qualities, by the Bacchanalian crew around him. 1 
 
 Our own more polished but not unmanly taste must look 
 with amazement and even disgust at the convivial excesses 
 of the Romans at this period, such as they have coarseness of 
 themselves represented them. Their luxury was $le EomZi 0f 
 a coarse and low imitation of Greek voluptuous- table - 
 ness ; and for nothing perhaps did the Greeks more despise 
 their rude conquerors than for the manifest failure of their 
 attempts at imitating the vices of their betters. The Romans 
 vied with one another in the cost rather than the elegance of 
 their banquets, and accumulated with absurd pride the rarest 
 and most expensive viands on their boards, to excite the ad- 
 miration of their parasites, not to gratify their palates. Cleo- 
 patra's famous conceit, in dissolving the pearl in vinegar, may 
 have been the fine satire of an elegant Grecian on the taste- 
 less extravagance of her barbarian lover. Antonius, indeed, 
 though he degraded himself to the manners of a gladiator, 
 was a man of noble birth, and might have imbibed purer 
 tastes at the tables of the men of his own class ; but the 
 establishment of the imperial regime thrust into the high 
 places of society a number of low-born upstarts, the sons of 
 the speculators and contractors of the preceding generation, 
 who knew not how to dispense with grace the unbounded 
 wealth amassed by their sires. 8 Augustus would fain have 
 restrained these excesses, which shamed the dignified reserve 
 he wished to characterize his court : he strove by counsel 
 and example, as well as by formal enactments, to train his 
 people in the simpler tastes of the olden time, refined but not 
 
 1 Cicero, de Sened. 14. : " Me vero magisteria delectant a majoribus insti- 
 tuta." This refers, I conceive, to the legitimate ordering of the feast by the 
 host himself: the "pater cosnse" (Hor. Sat. ii. 8. 7.). The Thaliarchus, or, as 
 the Romans styled him, " Rex vini," represented a Greek innovation. 
 
 8 Tacitus (Ann. xii. 55.) refers to the " luxus mensae a fine Actiaci belli 
 .... per C annos profusis sumptibus exerciti."
 
 426 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 yet enervated by the infusion of Hellenic culture. 1 His laws, 
 indeed, shared the fate of the sumptuary regulations of his 
 predecessors, and soon passed from neglect into oblivion. His 
 example was too austere, perhaps, to be generally followed 
 even by the most sedulous of his own courtiers. He ate but 
 little, and was content with the simplest fare : his bread was 
 of the second quality, at a time when the best was far less 
 fine than ours ; a and he was satisfied with dining on a few 
 small fishes, curds or cheese, figs and dates, taken at any hour 
 when he had an appetite rather than at regular and for- 
 mal meals. He was careful, however, to keep a moderately 
 furnished table for his associates, at which he commonly ap- 
 peared himself, though, as has been before remarked, he was 
 often the last to arrive, and the first to retire from it. 8 
 
 The ordinary arrangement of a Roman supper consisted 
 of three low couches, on three sides of a low table, at which 
 Ordering of a * ne attendant slaves could minister without in- 
 Roman supper, commoding the recumbent guests. Upon each 
 couch three persons reclined, a mode which had been intro- 
 duced from Greece, where it had been in use for centuries, 
 though not from the heroic times. The Egyptians and Per- 
 sians sate at meat ; so till the Greeks corrupted them did 
 also the Jews : the poetical traditions of Hellas represented 
 the gods as sitting at their celestial banquets. The Macedo- 
 nians also, down to the time of Alexander, are said to have 
 adopted the more ordinary practice ; and such was the cus- 
 tom at Rome till a late period. 4 When the men first allowed 
 
 1 The leges Juliae allowed 200 sesterces for a repast on ordinary days, 
 300 on holidays, 1000 for special occasions, such as a wedding, &c. Gell. 
 ii. 24. 
 
 2 De la Malle, in his work often cited, has some elaborate calculations of 
 the comparative loss of nourishment in a given weight of flour from the imper- 
 fect grinding of the Romans. 
 
 3 Suet. Oct. 74. 76. 
 
 4 The primitive Romans sate at meals. Serv. in JEn. vii. 176. After- 
 wards men reclined, boys and women sate ; finally women reclined also. Val. 
 Max. ii. 1, 2. Homer represents his heroes as sitting ; and such was the pos- 
 ture of the gods of Olympus. Catull. Ixiv. 304. : " Qui postquam niveos flexe- 
 runt sedibus artus."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 427 
 
 themselves the indulgence of reclining, they required boys 
 and women to maintain an erect posture, from notions of 
 delicacy; but in the time of Augustus no such distinction 
 was observed, and the inferiority of the weaker sex was only 
 marked b'y setting them together on one of the side couches, 
 the place of honour being always in the centre. Reclined on 
 stuffed and cushioned sofas, leaning on the left elbow, the 
 neck and right arm bare, and his sandals removed, the Roman 
 abandoned himself, after the exhaustion of the palaestra and 
 the bath, to all the luxury of languor. His slaves relieved 
 him from every effort, however trifling : l they carved for 
 him, filled his cup for him, supplied every dish for him with 
 such fragmentary viands as he could raise to his mouth with 
 his fingers only, and poured water on his hands at every re- 
 move. 2 Men of genius and learning might amuse themselves 
 with conversation only ; those to whom this resource was in- 
 sufficient had other means of entertainment to resort to. Music 
 and dancing were performed before them ; actors and clowns 
 exhibited in their presence ; dwarfs and hunchbacks were 
 introduced to make sport for them ; Augustus himself some- 
 times escaped from these levities by playing at dice between 
 the courses ; but the stale wit and practical humour, with 
 which in many houses the banquet seems to have been sea- 
 soned, give us a lower idea of the manners of Roman gentle- 
 
 1 The structor or carver was an important officer at the sideboard. Carving 
 was even taught as an art, which, as the ancients had no forks (xfipofo/iav, to 
 manipulate, was the Greek term for it), must have required grace as well as 
 dexterity. Moreau de Jonnfes observes, with some reason, that the invention 
 of the fork, apparently so simple, deserves to be considered difficult and re- 
 condite. The Chinese, with their ancient and elaborate civilization, have failed 
 to attain to it. " Cinquante siecles ne leur ont pas pennis d'imaginer 1'usage 
 des fourchettes." /Statist, des anciens Peuples, p. 506. 
 
 2 For some of the most extravagant refinements of the luxury of the table 
 see Martial, iii. 82. : 
 
 " Stat exoletus suggeritque ructanti 
 Pinnas rubentes cuspidesque lentisci. . . . 
 Percurrit agili corpus arte tractatrix, 
 Manumque doctam epargit omnibus membris "
 
 428 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 men than any perhaps of these trifling pastimes. 1 The vul- 
 garity, however, of the revellers of Rome was less shocking 
 than their indecency, and nothing perhaps contributed more 
 to break down the sense of dignity and self-respect, the last 
 safeguard of Pagan virtue, than the easy familiarity engen- 
 dered by their attitude at meals. 
 
 Some persons, indeed, men no doubt of peculiar assurance 
 and conceit, ventured to startle the voluptuous languor of the 
 Custom of red- supper-table by repeating their own compositions 
 tatlon - to the captive guests." But for the most part 
 
 the last sentiments of expiring liberty revolted against this 
 odious oppression. The Romans compounded for the invio- 
 late sanctity of their convivial hours by surrendering to the 
 inevitable enemy a solid portion of the day. They resigned 
 themselves to the task of listening as a part of the business 
 of the morning. The custom of recitation is said to have 
 been introduced by Asinius Pollio, the prince, at this period, 
 of Roman literature. 3 It was in fact a practice of somewhat 
 older date ; the influence, however, of so distinguished a pa- 
 tron may have brought it more into fashion, and established 
 it as a permanent institution. The rich and noble author 
 could easily secure himself an audience by merely throwing 
 wide his doors, and he was hardly less secure of their accla- 
 mations ; but when the usage descended to the inferior herd 
 of literature, who were obliged to hire rooms to receive the 
 guests they summoned, it was far more difficult to attract 
 flattering or even courteous listeners. 4 Such, however, was 
 
 I Suet. Oct. 77. ; Macrob. Saturn, ii. 4. Horace's wit is exquisite, but it 
 must be allowed that his convivial humour is intolerable. The silliness of his 
 butt Nasidienus is far less odious than the vulgarity of his genteel associates. 
 Comp. the supper, Sat. ii. 8., and the festive scenes in the journey to Brundi- 
 sium, Sat. i. 5. 
 
 II Cic. ad Att. xvi. 2. in fin. 
 
 3 M. Seneca, Controv. iv. procem. 
 
 4 Plin. Epist. viii. 12.; Juvenal, vii. 40.; Tac. de Orator. 9.: "Quorum 
 exitus hie est, ut . . . . rogare ultro et ambire cogatur, ut sint qui dignentur 
 audire : et ne id quidem gratis ; nam et domum mutuatur et auditorium ex- 
 struit et subsellia conducit et libellos dispergit," &c.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 429 
 
 the influence of the mode, that even under these discourage- 
 ments the practice seems to have maintained its ground ; at- 
 tendance on these solemn occasions, whatever natural jeers 
 or murmurs they excited, was esteemed a social duty, and 
 among other habits of higher importance, though always evil 
 spoken of, it was still faithfully observed. Much, indeed, of 
 the best poetry of the day was thus recited as an experiment 
 on the taste of the town ; and the practice served in some 
 degree the purpose of our literary reviews, in pointing out 
 the works which deserved to be purchased and perused. But 
 it owed its popularity still more, perhaps, to the national love 
 of acting and declamation ; and while few of the company 
 might care to listen to the reciter's language, all intently ob- 
 served his gestures and the studied modulations of his voice. 
 It was the glory of the author to throw his audience into a 
 fever of excitement, till they screamed and gesticulated them- 
 selves in turn, and almost overwhelmed the blushing declaimer 
 with the vehement demonstration of their applause. 1 The 
 tendency of such a system to stimulate false taste and dis- 
 countenance modest merit may easily be imagined. In the 
 age of Augustus the evil had not reached its highest point. 
 Horace, who describes himself as weakly in voice and limb, 
 and devoid of personal graces, might shrink from the ordeal 
 of recitation from a consciousness of these deficiencies rather 
 than from greater delicacy of taste ; but his calm and judi- 
 cious style of composition was not the less honourably appre- 
 ciated for the want of these spurious recommendations. 2 At 
 a later period the ear of the public was accessible perhaps by 
 no other means. 
 
 The Romans, it will be observed, were not a people of 
 readers ; the invention of printing would have Habitg of 
 been thrown away upon them; or rather, had declamation - 
 
 1 Hor. Art. Poet. 428. : " Pulchre, bene, recte ! " Pera. i. 49. ; Juvenal, 
 vi. 582. ; Martial, i. 7Y. : "At circum pulpita nostra Et steriles cathedras basia 
 sola crepant." 
 
 2 Hor. Sat. i. 4. 22. : " Cum mea nemo Scripta legat vulgo recitare timen- 
 tis." Comp. Epiat. L 19. 39.
 
 430 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 they had a strong appetency for reading, they would un- 
 doubtedly have discovered the means (on the verge of 
 which they arrived from more sides than one) of abridging 
 the labour of copying, and diminishing the cost of books. 1 
 But to hear recitation with its kindred accompaniment of 
 action, of which they were earnest and critical admirers, 
 was to them a genuine delight. Nor were they content 
 with being merely hearers. With the buoyant spirits and 
 healthy enjoyment of children, the Romans seem to have 
 derived pleasure, akin to that of children, in the free exer- 
 cise of their voice and lungs. If the Greeks were great talk- 
 ers, the Romans were eminently a nation of speakers. Their 
 earliest education was directed to conning and repeating old 
 saws and legends ; such as the laws of the twelve tables, the 
 national ballads, and rhythmical histories ; and from their 
 tender years they were trained to the practice of debate and 
 declamation. Rhetoric was taught them by technical rules, 
 and reduced, indeed, to so formal a system, that children of 
 twelve years, or even under, could come forward and deliver 
 set harangues on the most solemn of pubh'c occasions. Julius 
 Cassar pronounced the funeral oration of his aunt in his 
 twelfth year; nor was Augustus older when he performed 
 a similar feat. But, in fact, such tours de force were merely 
 school exercises ; the form, the turns of thoughts, the caden- 
 ces, everything but the actual words was modelled to a pat- 
 tern, allowing neither opportunity for genius, nor risk of fail- 
 ure. Under the free state these scholastic prolusions were 
 soon exchanged for the genuine warfare of the forum or the 
 tribunals. The ever-varying demands of those mighty arenas 
 on the talents and resources of the noble Roman required in- 
 cessant study, and compelled the orator to devote eveiy leis- 
 
 1 The figures on the tesserae or tablets of admission to the theatres were 
 undoubtedly stamped, and there is considerable reason to believe that a me- 
 thod had been discovered of taking off copies of a drawing or painting. See 
 Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxv. 2. : " M. Varro benignissimo invento .... non pas- 
 sus intercidcre figuras .... in omnes terras misit ut prsesentes essent ubi- 
 que . . . ."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 431 
 
 ure hour to the toils of practice and preparation. Augustus 
 never allowed a day to pass without reserving an hour for 
 declamation, to keep his lungs in regular exercise, and main- 
 tain the armoury of dialectics furbished for ready use. Yet 
 the speeches of Augustus were not discussions or contests, 
 but merely proclamations of his policy. With the firmer ap- 
 plication of a central authority to control the vices of the 
 magistrates, and check the ebullitions of party violence, the 
 occupation of his contemporary orators was lost. 1 The age 
 of the first princeps was perhaps the period of the lowest 
 decline of Roman eloquence ; it rose again, as we shah 1 see, to 
 a state of feverish activity under the reign of his successors, 
 when the favour of the emperor might be secured by ardour 
 in denouncing crimes against his honour and safety. The law 
 of Treason evoked a more copious stream of rhetoric than 
 those of Violence and Rapine. Nevertheless, the want of 
 worthy subjects for their powers seems to have availed little 
 in checking the passion for oratorical distinction among the 
 young declaimers of the schools. After Augustus had paci- 
 fied eloquence along with all things else, the mature orators 
 of the falling republic, such as Pollio and Messala, had retired 
 with suppressed indignation from the rostra, and disdained to 
 degrade their talent by exercising it in false and frivolous 
 declamation. 2 But the rising generation, to whom the fresh 
 air of li berty was unknown, had no such honourable scruples. 
 The practice of the art in private, by which Cicero and his 
 rivals had kept the edge of their weapons keen for the en- 
 
 1 The 37th chapter of the treatise De Oratoribus is an eloquent exposition 
 of this thesis : " Quae mala sicut non accidere melius est, isque optimus civita- 
 tis status habendus est quo nihil tale patimur; ita, quum acciderent, ingentem 
 eloquentiae materiam subministrabant." In the next chapter the author ad- 
 duces as a further cause of the dech'ne of eloquence, the limitation of time, 
 first imposed on the orators by Pompeius. That such a limitation, once im- 
 posed, should never have been removed again, seems to show that it must have 
 had great practical advantages. 
 
 * Tacitus, de Orator. 38. : " Postquam longa temporum quies et continuum 
 populi otium et assidua senatus tranquillitas et maximi principis disciplina 
 ipsam quoque eloquentiam, sicut omnia alia, pacaverat."
 
 432 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 counters of the forum, became, under the new regime, an end, 
 
 and not a means. The counterfeit or shadow was adopted 
 
 for the substance of oratory. The schools of the rhetoricians, 
 
 who professed instruction in eloquence, were more 
 
 The schools of , , 
 
 the rhetori- frequented than the forum, the senate-house, and 
 the tribunals. They became the resort, not of 
 learners merely, but of amateur practitioners ; and the verdict 
 of the select audience they entertained was more highly 
 prized than the suffrage of the judges, or the applause of the 
 populace. Around this new centre of exertion, traditions of 
 its own began speedily to gather. It had its examples and 
 authorities, its dictators and legislators, men whose maxims 
 became axioms, and whose sayings were remembered, quoted, 
 imitated, and pointed afresh by each succeeding generation. 
 It had a manner and almost a language of its own. One de- 
 claimer was reproved for addressing the mixed assemblage 
 of a public place in the style reserved for the initiated of the 
 School ;' another, when called upon to plead in the open air, 
 lost his presence of mind, committed a solecism in his first 
 sentence, and called in his dismay for the close walls, the 
 familiar benches, and the select auditory before which alone 
 he was fluent and self-possessed." 
 
 What then was this declamation, which for the space of 
 an hundred years from the battle of Actium was the most 
 really active and flourishing of all intellectual exercises at 
 Rome ? We happen to possess a great collection of its re- 
 mains, preserved to us by one who was perhaps the most 
 renowned professor of the art ; a man who rose in some re- 
 spects superior to its trivialities, and lived to perceive its fatal 
 tendency, and lament its degeneracy. M. An- 
 
 M. Annseus J J 
 
 Seneca, the naeus Seneca, the father of the celebrated philoso- 
 
 rhetorician. , , ,. ..,., i i 
 
 pher, and generally distinguished from him by 
 
 1 M. Senec. praef. Controv. v. : " Nihil indecentius quam ubi scholasticus 
 forum, quod non novit, imitatur." 
 
 2 M. Senec. praef. Controv. iv. : " Nee ante potuisse confirmari tectum 
 ac parietes desiderantem quam impetravit ut judicium ex foro in basilicam 
 transferretur."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 433 
 
 the title of the Rhetorician, after giving instruction in Rome, 
 whither he had repaired, at the close of the civil wars, from 
 Spain, for more than half a century, was induced, in extreme 
 old age, to put on record for his sons the wittiest and finest 
 sayings of the declaimers of his own best days, which had 
 fallen under the principate of Augustus. 1 He divides into the 
 two classes of Suasives and Controversies the subjects of 
 their scholastic exercises. The first are quasi-historical ; as, 
 whether Alexander should have launched on the ocean ; 
 whether Cicero should have burnt his Philippics : the second 
 refer to debateable points in ethics or casuistry, ingeniously 
 intricate, and perversely indeterminable ; points on which the 
 cleverest things that can be said prove only how much better 
 it were to be silent. 8 On all these subjects the compiler has 
 cited entirely, as he says, from memory a multitude of subtle 
 and sparkling sentiments from the most illustrious wits of the 
 period ; while in his prefaces he marks with strong and rapid 
 touches the literary characters of a large company of declaim- 
 ers. In these pages Porcius Latro, Albucius Silo, Arellius 
 Fuscus, Cestius, Gallio, Montanus, and many others have 
 each their distinct individuality ; and the anecdotes related of 
 them are often piquant in themselves, as well as historically 
 curious. 3 The fashion of epigram and antithesis, which 
 
 1 M. Seneca, or Seneca Rhetor, was a native of Corduba in Spain, and born 
 about the close of the seventh century of the city. He came to Rome at the 
 termination of the civil wars, and became a fashionable teacher of rhetoric. 
 He wrote also a history of his own times, of which only two short fragments 
 have been recovered. Towards the end of his life, which was protracted into 
 the reign of Caius Caligula, he addressed to his three sons, Lucius Seneca, 
 Lucius Mela, and M. Novatus, the compilation on rhetoric which is now ex- 
 tant. If his declaration that it is made from memory is accurate, the work is 
 a very extraordinary one. He gives other portentous instances of his powers 
 in this respect. See praef. Controv. i. The remains of Seneca Rhetor are well 
 analysed by Egger. Historiens d'Auguste, ch. iv. 
 
 * Champagny (Cesars, i. 212. foil.) has painted the schools of the declaim- 
 ers with great force and brilliancy. 
 
 * Thus, for instance, it is interesting at least to learn that Ovid's fine say- 
 ing, " Anna viri fortis medios mittantur in hostes," &c., was taken from a de- 
 clamation of Latro. There is also an amusing story of the poet's friends ask- 
 
 VOL. iv. 28
 
 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 these rhetoricians introduced, was more fatal to truth and 
 justness of sentiment than even the florid exuberance of 
 Cicero and his imitators. The habit of estimating logical ar- 
 guments by the accessories of style alone soon leapt from the 
 schools to the tribunals. The noblest of the Romans, accused 
 of plunder or extortion in the provinces, and assailed -with 
 virulent licence of tongue as a thief or brigand, could reply, 
 not by refuting the charges with evidence or reason, but by 
 curiously poising them in a balance of antitheses, and receive, 
 if not his acquittal, that which perhaps for the moment he 
 valued higher, the admiration and applause of his judges. 1 
 
 A glimpse of this curious fragment of Roman literary life 
 may leave a feeling of wonder, not unmixed with pity, at the 
 exuberance of animal spirits fostered by the train- 
 rules for the ing of the Campus and Pala?stra, which found a 
 
 declaimers. . , ., . , . , , 
 
 vent, in the silence imposed on serious and sober 
 thought, in vociferating conceits and puerilities with all the 
 force of the lungs, and the by-play of attitudes and ges- 
 tures. If the subject of the debate was merely moonshine, if 
 its schemes and colours and sentences were in a great degree 
 conventional, yet the manner, the movements, the arrange- 
 ment of the dress, the management of the voice, all these 
 came more and more to take the place of real meaning and 
 purpose, and were subjected themselves to rule and rigid cen- 
 sure. The hair was to be sedulously coifed ; directions were 
 given for the conduct of the handkerchief; the steps in ad- 
 ing leave to select three of his lines to be expunged, and his consenting, on 
 condition that he might also select three to retain. The lines, on being pro- 
 duced, were found to be the same. Two of them are mentioned : " Semi- 
 bovemque virum, semivirumque bovem," was one : " Egelidum Borean, egeli- 
 dumque Noton," another. I think Ovid was right. It is added ; " Aiebat 
 interim decentiorem faciem esse in qua aliquis naevus esset." I am inclined 
 to agree with him again. The saving is very characteristic. For historical 
 anecdotes I may refer to those about Cicero, Cremutius Cordus, and other 
 celebrated personages. 
 
 1 Persius, L 85.: "Fur es, ait Pedio ; Pedius quid? crimina rasia 
 
 Librat in antithetis ; doctas posuisse figuras 
 Laudatur."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 435 
 
 vance or retreat, to the right hand or to the left, which the 
 orator might safely take were numbered. He was to rest so 
 many instants only on each foot alternately, to advance one 
 so many inches only before the other ; the elbow must not be 
 raised above a certain angle ; the fingers should be set off 
 with rings, but not too many, nor too large ; and in elevating 
 the hand to exhibit them, he must be careful not to disar- 
 range his head-dress. Every emotion had its prescribed index 
 in the gesture appropriated to it. The audience of scholars 
 and amateurs who crowded to these private theatricals, ap- 
 plauded with intense enthusiasm not the passion nor even the 
 conceit so much as the correctness of the pantomime. From 
 the schools all these conventions were transferred to the tri- 
 bunals ; and a century after Augustus, a judicious professor 
 of the art of speaking could devote several pages of his elab- 
 orate treatise on the Institution of an Orator to the discussion 
 of these and many other points of etiquette in dress, manners, 
 and attitude. 1 
 
 The pernicious effects of this solemn trifling seem to have 
 perverted the moral sense of the Romans more speedily than 
 even their literary style. Itself the creation in 
 
 i-i i MI General purity 
 
 part of an era of hollow pretensions, it reacted still and terseness 
 
 - j 3 3 _i of style in the 
 
 more powerfully upon it, and produced the tone of Augustan 
 insincerity which pervades the monuments of its 
 mind and intellect. Yet it was long before it affected that 
 justness of thought, that purity of taste, and that accuracy of 
 diction which distinguished the compositions of the Augustan 
 age ; and it must be remembered that the declaimers them- 
 selves, of whom mention has been made, were of the same 
 generation as the men who could cheer with correct discrimina- 
 tion a Livy, a Virgil, and a Horace. Seneca himself was not 
 unconscious of the meanness of his art, and contrived to keep 
 his language but little corrupted by the conceits with which he 
 
 1 Quintilian, Inst. Oral. xi. 3. His examples are in a great measure de- 
 rived from the usage of Cicero, and even Demosthenes ; and it must be ad- 
 mitted that the physical accessories of oratory were studied with a care which 
 was not altogether superfluous in the best ages of Greek and Roman eloquence.
 
 436 HISTORY OF THE EOMANS 
 
 burdened his memory. The purest master of Latin prose we 
 possess, the illustrious Titus Livius, was himself 
 
 Titus Livius. r 
 
 a frequenter of the schools, and, perhaps, even a 
 professor of rhetoric. 1 If his style escaped the contagion of 
 such evil influences, if his judgment and fancy retained their 
 well-adjusted balance, he may still have lost in that baneful 
 atmosphere the clear perceptions of truth and candour, and 
 the abiding sense of moral obligation, which should hold 
 sleepless vigil round the desk of the historian. Devoid of 
 these, the passion for liberty is as rank a perverter of justice 
 as the meanest servility : the truth of history was sacrificed as 
 much by the few indomitable spirits who still thundered 
 against tyranny, as by the supple flatterers who painted the 
 tyrant in the colours of a patriot and demigod. If we pos- 
 sessed the Annals of the surly republican Labienus, we should 
 doubtless find them no more to be relied on than the panegy- 
 rical biographies of the courtier Nicolaus. It is mentioned as 
 a proof of the freedom with which Labienus had lashed the 
 crimes of the great and powerful, that in reciting to his 
 friends, he would sometimes roll up whole paragraphs of the 
 volume, saying, What I now pass over will be read after my 
 death? But the man who writes, under such circumstances, 
 for posterity what he dares not divulge to his contemporaries, 
 subjects himself to a temptation to gratify malice by calum- 
 ny, which few can withstand, and which none should venture 
 to disregard. 
 
 It was in the schools, we may believe, that Livy learnt 
 that indifference to historical accuracy, that sacrifice of the 
 character of substance to the form of truth, which has cast a 
 Livy's history. ghade over tne mstre o f ms immortal work. As 
 
 1 This may be inferred, perhaps, from comparing Senec. Epist. 100. 
 " Scripsit enim et dialogos, quos non magis philosophise annumerare possis 
 quam historic, et ex professo philosophiam continentes libros " with Quintil. 
 Inst. Oral. viii. 2. 18., x. 1. 39., and Suet. Claud. 41. 
 
 a M. Senec. prf. Controv. v. : " Memini aliquando cum recitaret historiam 
 magnam partem convolvisse et dixisse, haec quae transeo post mortem meam 
 legentur." His books were burnt by a decree of the senate. Cassius Severua 
 said: " Nunc me vivum uri oportet, qvu illos edidici."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 437 
 
 a friend of the ancient oligarchy, and an aristocrat in preju- 
 dices and temper, he would scarcely have carried his Roman 
 history down to his own times, had he not submitted to veil 
 his real sentiments, and made his book such as Augustus him- 
 self might sanction for the perusal of his subjects. The 
 emperor, indeed, is said to have called him a Pompeian, and 
 to have complained of the colours in which he pourtrayed 
 the men of the opposite side ; but this could only have been 
 in jest : the favour in which he was held by the courtiers of 
 the empire, and his being suffered to assist the studies of 
 Claudius Germanicus, show that he was not seriously regard- 
 ed as a disaffected politician. 1 The scorn which Livy heaps 
 on the tribunes and demagogues, and his ignorant contempt 
 for the Plebs, evince the leaning of his mind to the side of 
 the nobility. But these are obviously the views of the 
 rhetorician rather than of the historian ; and Augustus, tri- 
 bune and demagogue as he was, could distinguish between 
 the hollow commonplaces of a perverted education and the 
 stern judgment of genuine conviction. The loss of the latter 
 portions of this extensive work must be deplored for the 
 number of facts it has swept into oblivion ; but the facts 
 would have been valuable rather from the inferences modern 
 science might deduce from them, than from the light in which 
 the author would himself have placed them. Livy, taking the 
 pen in middle life, and continuing to pour forth his volumes 
 in interminable succession, perhaps to the end of his long 
 career, for born in the year 695, he died in 771, left it still 
 apparently unfinished, at the close of his hundred and forty- 
 second book, and with the demise of Drusus Germanicus. 2 It 
 
 1 Tac. Ann. iv. 34. ; Suet. Claud. 41. Nevertheless, in the preface to his 
 work, Livy alludes with deep feeling to the misery of the times he had wit- 
 nessed ; and his presentiment of national decline " Hsec tempora quibus nee 
 vitia nostra nee remedia pati possumus " must have been highly unpalatable 
 to the reigning powers. 
 
 a Niebuhr's remarks on the dates of Livy's history (Rom. Hist, iv.) may 
 be compared with the more common view given in Smith's Dictionary and 
 elsewhere. I think the beginning of the work must be placed in 725 730 ; 
 but adopting the idea that it was originally divided into decades, the fact, now
 
 438 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 may be conjectured that the latter portions of the work were 
 overtaken by the garrulity of old age, and were suffered to 
 fall into oblivion from their want of political or literary value. 1 
 It is in the earlier books, however, that the spirit of Livy 
 found its most congenial sphere ; the first and third decades, 
 The service containing the early history of the kings and con- 
 lir^L f ToTn. suls, and again the grand epic of the war with 
 Hannibal, have always retained their pre-eminence 
 in general esteem as the noblest specimens of narration. The 
 greatest minds of Rome at this period seem to have kindled 
 with inspiration from the genius of the founder of the em- 
 pire ; and of these Livy at least appears to have conceived 
 unconsciously the idea of attaching his countrymen to the 
 early records of their city, by encircling it with a halo of 
 poetical associations. The imagination of the Romans of that 
 age was inflamed by the conservative reaction which sought 
 to bridge the chaos of the last century, and revive the sense 
 of national continuity. The thanks the race of Romulus 
 owed to Livy, for making them acquainted with their ances- 
 tors and proud of their descent, were akin to those which 
 Englishmen acknowledge to the historical dramas of Shak- 
 speare. He took the dry chronicles, in which alone their first 
 affairs were written, drew forth from them the poetic life of 
 half-forgotten traditions, and clothed it again in forms of ideal 
 beauty. His narrative, glowing in all the colours of imaginar 
 
 demonstrated, that it reached to a 142nd book, seems to show that it was not 
 left complete according to the author's intentions. It is also well remarked 
 that the death of Drusus does not furnish a point of sufficient importance for 
 the termination of the great epic of Roman history. This view is supported 
 by the interesting statement of Pliny, that in one of his latter books Livy had 
 declared : "Satis jam sibi gloriae quaesitum : et potuisse se desinere, nisi ani- 
 mus inquies pasceretur opere." Plin. Hist. Nat. praef. A period of more 
 than forty years thus devoted to the elaboration of a single work is not un- 
 paralleled. Froissart was engaged forty years upon his Chronicles. 
 
 1 We have sustained undoubtedly a great loss in the characters of the 
 chief men of later Roman history, such as Livy so frequently inserted into his 
 narrative, and of which we have one fine example in the fragment on the 
 death of Cicero. The ancients declared him, " Candidiasimus magnorum in- 
 geniorum testimator." M. Senec. Suasor. 1.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 439 
 
 tion and fancy, is just as faithful to its authorities as the 
 dramatized histories of the English hard to theirs ; indeed, 
 the myths of Romulus and Tarquin cannot lie farther from 
 the truth of facts than the tragedies of Lear and Cymbeline : 
 and when he begins to tread the domain of sober history, his 
 painted Hannibals and Scipios approach as nearly to the men 
 themselves as the Richards and Henrys of our own mighty 
 master. The charms of Livy's style befitted the happy con- 
 junction of circumstances under which he wrote, and com- 
 bined with it to give him that pre-eminence among Roman 
 historians which he never afterwards lost. The events and 
 characters of deepest interest became immutably fixed in the 
 lines in which he had represented them. Henceforth every 
 Roman received from Livy his first impressions of his coun- 
 try's career, which thus became graven for ever in the mind 
 of the nation. It was in vain that the inaccuracy of these re- 
 lations, and in many cases their direct falsehood, were pointed 
 out by the votaries of truth, or by jealous and unsuccessful 
 rivals ; henceforth it was treason to the majesty of Rome to 
 doubt that Porsena was driven in confusion from her walls, or 
 that the spoils of the Capitol were wrested again from the 
 triumphant legions of Brennus. 1 
 
 The poets lie under no such obligation to speak the truth, 
 and Virgil requires no excuse for his endeavour to inflame the 
 patriotism of his countrymen by a fanciful account VirKil an en . 
 of their origin. But, writing as he did a few years thUBlast - 
 earlier than Livy, and in all the glow of patriotic fervour, the 
 spiiit which animated him was doubtless far more genuine. 
 The simplicity of his genius shrank from the subtle inventions 
 of the schools, to which, indeed, his youth had been a stran- 
 ger ; he uttered the convictions of an imagination which he 
 felt as an inspiration, and he spoke from a sense of duty which 
 had almost the force of compulsion. We have seen how 
 this child of the Muses, born and bred in rustic retirement, 
 was expelled from his patrimony by an intruding soldier, and 
 restored beyond expectation by the kindly interference of 
 1 Comp. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 39. ; Tac. Ann. iii. Y2.
 
 440 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Pollio. "We have traced him under the shadow of the gra- 
 cious patronage of Maecenas, and the generous countenance 
 of Octavius himself. We have marked the enthusiasm of 
 gratitude for himself, and hope for his country, with which he 
 seized the popular sentiment in favour of the Western trium- 
 vir, in his contest with the pirate Sextus and the renegade 
 Antonius. His ardour in the cause of law, order, and tradi- 
 tion assumed the character of a religious sentiment, and he 
 conceived himself devoted to a great moral mission. His 
 purpose widened, and his enthusiasm grew deeper, as he con- 
 templated the sins of his countrymen, and the means by which 
 alone they might be expiated : their abandonment, on the one 
 hand, of the first duties of their being ; on the other, the res- 
 toration of belief, and a return to the principles of the past. 
 The character of Yirgil deserves the interest and awe which, 
 however grotesquely delineated, it excited in the middle ages. 
 His spirit belonged to the Ages of Faith. In the twelfth 
 century he might have founded an order of monkery or of 
 knighthood. 
 
 It is not in his first known compositions, the Eclogues, the 
 dates of which extend from 713 to 717, or from his twenty- 
 ninth to his thirty-third year, that this sense of a 
 
 The Eclogues. . . . 
 
 religious mission can be generally traced. There 
 is, however, a certain earnestness of feeling in the fourth and 
 sixth, which seems to show that the depths of the poet's soul 
 were already stirring within him; and the ardent love of 
 peace and justice they commonly exhibit, may have sufficed 
 to attract the observation of Mascenas, as the adviser of the 
 new sovereignty, and lead him to enlist the young enthusiast 
 in the service of the government, to expound in an attractive 
 form the principles it pretended to assert. The tradition that 
 
 Maecenas himself suggested the composition of 
 
 TheGeorgics. 
 
 the i^eorgics may be accepted, not in the literal 
 sense which has generally been attached to it, as a means of 
 reviving the art of husbandry and the cultivation of the de- 
 vastated soil of Italy ; but rather to recommend the princi- 
 ples of the ancient Romans, their love of home, of labour,
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 441 
 
 of piety, and order ; to magnify their domestic happiness and 
 greatness ; to make men proud of their country, on better 
 grounds than the mere glory of its arms and the extent of its 
 conquests. It would be absurd to suppose that Virgil's verses 
 induced any Roman to put his hand to the plough, or take 
 from his bailiff the management of his own estates ; but they 
 served undoubtedly to revive some of the simple tastes and 
 sentiments of the olden time, and perpetuated, amidst the 
 vices and corruptions of the empire, a pure stream of sober 
 and innocent enjoyments, of which, as we journey onward, 
 we shall rejoice to catch at least occasional glimpses. 
 
 To comprehend the moral grandeur of the Georgics, in 
 point of mere style .the most perfect piece of Roman litera- 
 ture, we must regard it as the glorification of La- 
 
 U T ^ V J *' -T-D 1 Tfce moral 
 
 bour. In the better times ot Kome, when manual grandeur of the 
 labour was still in honour, it was to husbandry 
 and arms that its exercise was confined. It was not for the 
 reviver of antiquity to cast his eye over newer fields of indus- 
 try, such as the occupations of trade and science, and direct 
 to them the minds of his countrymen ; and of arms there had 
 been already more than enough : it is on husbandry, accord- 
 ingly, that Virgil fixes his admiration, and throws on the 
 labours of the husbandman, hard and coarse as they seem to 
 the unpurged vision, all the colours of the radiant heaven of 
 the imagination. Labor improbus, incessant, importunate 
 labour, conquers all things ; subdues the soil, baffles the in- 
 clemency of the seasons, defeats the machinations of Nature, 
 that cruel step-mother, and wins the favour and patronage of 
 the gods. 1 For gods there are who have ever looked with 
 kindness on the industry and piety of man, who have shown 
 to him the excellent uses of every product of the soil, who 
 have blest his labour with increase, and averted evil from his 
 
 1 Virgil, Georg. i. 121. : 
 
 " Pater ipse colendi 
 
 Haud facilem esse viam voluit .... Labor omnia vincit 
 Iroprobua . . . ."
 
 442 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 roof. 1 The first Georgic may be viewed as the poet's protest 
 against the unbelief of philosophy : the shield of Lucretius is 
 pierced through and through by the fiery blade of Virgil ; 
 the frigid pleas of naturalism dissolve in the blaze of light- 
 ning which Jove himself, with his red right hand, hurls from 
 
 the night of the thunder-clouds Then before all 
 
 things, says the preacher, venerate the Gods. 3 Nor is reli- 
 gion harsh and exacting in its rites. Though it prescribes 
 many days of repose, and gives no success to ordinary labour 
 on some others, yet certain works there are which are not 
 even then prohibited ; the husbandman is never bidden by the 
 Gods to fold his hands in idleness. 3 May they now, he con- 
 tinues, save the saviour of the state, the support of this sink- 
 ing age. Octavius was the object against whom all the dag- 
 gers which had met in his father's bosom were once more 
 levelled : he was exposed to perils in war, to perils by sea 
 and land : his frame was weak, his health was precarious, 
 and the most pious of the Romans were offering vows for his 
 safety, and engaging their heirs to sacrifice to the Gods in 
 their name, in gratitude for the blessing of leaving him their 
 survivor. 4 
 
 The praise of Italy might wean the restless Romans from 
 the visions of an Atlantis, a paradise beyond the sea, which 
 
 1 Georg. i. 125. 147. : 
 
 " Ante Jovem nulli subigebant arva colon! .... 
 Prima Ceres ferro mortales vertere glebam . . . ." 
 
 5 Georg. i. 328. 338. : 
 
 " Ipse Pater media nimborum in nocte corusca 
 Fulmina molitur dextra .... 
 In primis venerate Deos . . . ." 
 1 Georg. i. 268. : 
 
 " Quippe etiam festis quaedam exercere diebus 
 Fas et jura sinunt." 
 
 4 Suet. Oct. 59. ; Georg. i. 498. : 
 "DJ patrii Indigetes . . . 
 Hunc saltern everso juvenem succurrere saeclo 
 Xe prohibete . . . ."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 443 
 
 had flitted before their eyes since the days of Ser- Tho ^ neid . 
 torius, and which they too often sought to realize of e t f jf R^nT 
 by quitting the stern duties of their fatherland andofAugus- 
 for the pleasant indulgences of the East. Its 
 fields and river sides might supply those charms of indolent 
 repose, for which the wearied warrior too often repaired to 
 the blandishments of Athens or Ephesus. The institutions 
 of an imperial republic might be aptly recommended by the 
 example of the prudent bees, the insects which nature has 
 herself endued with the instinct of divine order. 1 But the 
 pious sentiment of Virgil receives its strongest expression in 
 the monument he has erected to the glories of his country- 
 men, and of their tutelary saint Augustus. The grand reli- 
 gious idea which breathes throughout his JEneid, 
 
 ' The religious 
 
 is the persuasion that the .Romans are the sons idea which per- 
 and successors of the Trojans, the chosen race of 
 heaven, of divine lineage and royal pretensions, whose desti- 
 nies have engaged all the care of Olympus from the begin- 
 ning, till they reach at last their consummation in the blissful 
 regeneration of the empire. It maintains the existence of 
 Providence as the bond of the Roman commonwealth. Yes ! 
 they are Gods, it proclaims, and the glories of Rome demon- 
 strate it. Yes ! there are Gods above, and the Romans are 
 their children and their ministers upon earth, exercising in 
 their name a delegated sovereignty, sparing those who yield, 
 but beating down the proud. This is the mission of the race 
 of Assaracus, to vindicate the ways of God to man, to impose 
 upon him the yoke of an eternal peace, and bring all wars to 
 an end for ever ! 2 
 
 But the government of Olympus is monarchical : the Jove- 
 bom demigods and heroes have all been kings themselves, 
 ruling their children and descendants with the i t8 vindication 
 dignity and authority of patriarchs. Hence the f monarchy. 
 
 1 Georg. ii. iv. 
 
 4 Virg. jEn. ix. 643. : 
 
 " Jure omnia bella 
 Gente sub Assaraci fato ventura resident."
 
 444 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Romans may submit without dishonour to the sceptre of a 
 patriarch of their own. He has recovered, indeed, with the 
 sword the kingdom of his ancestors, but the divine effulgence 
 of his countenance suffices to attest his claims. His legiti- 
 mate right may be traced through his illustrious ancestors, 
 and is impressed upon us by many a sounding reference to 
 the faith of ancient days. Virgil read in the legend of Rome 
 that it was founded by the descendants of ^Eneas ; but this 
 -^Eneas, though he traced his descent from Trojan kings, and, 
 like other heroes, from Jove himself, neither in this nor in 
 other respects stood pre-eminent above his peers. In the 
 glories of the Trojan war he had borne no superior part : 
 what claim could be advanced for him to rule over the Tro- 
 jans, or centre in ^timself and his posterity the interest of all 
 the offspring of Dardanus and Tros ? To raise ^Eneas to the 
 place of Hector, to make him the virtual successor of Priam, 
 the last and greatest of the heroes, this was the enterprise 
 Virgil undertook. Accordingly, we may observe how every- 
 thing is made to conspire to thrust this pre-eminence upon 
 him. Hector himself, when all hope has vanished, counsels 
 his flight from the crumbling city ; Hector commends to him 
 the Penates of his land ; Hector foretells to him the new city 
 he shall found beyond the seas. Troy has been utterly over- 
 thrown, Priam and all his sons have vanished from the stage, 
 Astyanax, the hope of Troy, has perished. Helenus, the last 
 survivor of the race, pious and resigned, speeds the fated hero 
 on his voyage, and assures him of the favour of the gods. 
 The house of Hus, the elder branch of the Dardanian stem, is 
 prostrate on the ground ; all its rights and honours, its hopes 
 and aspirations, have reverted to the offspring of the cadet 
 Assaracus. 1 Around him the gods of Troy now watch with 
 
 1 The stemma of the royal race of Troy was this: 1. Dardanus. 2. 
 Erichthonius. 3. Tros. 4. Hus and Assaracus. 
 
 Hus had 6. Laomedon, 6. Priam, *7. Hector, &c. 
 
 Assaracus had 5. Capys, 6. Anchises, 7. ^Eneas, &c. 
 
 Homer, //. xx. 219. foil. This genealogy, though not distinctly asserted, is 
 supposed throughout the jEneid.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 445 
 
 peculiar care. All his steps are guided or controlled by 
 omens. He submits himself in all things to the will of 
 heaven thus visibly revealed to him. At its bidding he sur- 
 renders every natural desire, the desire to perish sword in 
 hand among the flames of Troy, to recover his wandering 
 wife Creusa, to yield to love and repose in the sweet embrace 
 of Dido. The oracles of the gods still marshal him on his 
 way : they go before him to Italy, and king Latinus is already 
 apprised that he must yield his daughter to a stranger, ere 
 -<Eneas steps on the Lavinian shore, and presents himself as 
 her suitor. 1 In vain the Furies and Demons interpose, with 
 even the envious Juno at their head ; the foe must be over- 
 thrown, the bride be won ; the chosen race of Dardanus and 
 Assaracus, bearing with it the destinies of Hus and Priam, 
 must unite with the native dynasty of Alba, and the line of 
 kings which springs from this triple legitimacy combine 
 every right to reign, and fulfil every augury of fortune. To 
 complete the poetic justice of this development of fate, we 
 are reminded that Dardanus himself, the first of the Trojans, 
 was of Italian origin, and his descendants are not really 
 strangers in the land of their adoption. 2 Henceforth the 
 mingled blood of Troy and Latium flows in many channels : 
 in one it descends, through Silvius, Numitor and Hia, to 
 Romulus ; in another it animates the race of the Julii ; and 
 thus Augustus becomes by legitimate adoption the offspring 
 of lulus and tineas, of Venus and Jove. Once more, the 
 family of his mother Atia derives from Atys, the companion 
 of lulus, and thus Augustus is Trojan on either side. 8 
 
 1 Virg. jEn. vii. 255. : 
 
 " Hunc ilium fatis externa ab sede profectum 
 
 Portendi generum." 
 a Virg. jEn. vii. 206. : 
 
 " His ortus ut agris 
 
 Dardanus Idaeas Phrygiae penetrarit ad urbes." 
 3 jEn. v. 568. : 
 
 " Alter Atys, genus unde Atium duxere Latini : 
 
 Parvus Atys, pueroque puer dilectus lulo." 
 These remarks on the poems of Virgil have been derived in a good measure
 
 446 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Such is the career of piety and such is its reward. The 
 children of Assaracus the Just inherit in the room of the 
 Augustus family of Has, attainted for the treason of Laome- 
 ta vi ? rgu^ f rth don. The pious ^Eneas recovers the patrimony 
 ^Eneas. Q f j^ g rgt ances tor Dardanus, deprived by vio- 
 
 lence of his legitimate rights. And thus, too, in the mind of 
 the poet, the pious Augustus recovered the empire of his 
 father Julius, slain by the daggers of faction. Urged by his 
 patron Apollo, and the voice of many oracles, Augustus had 
 crossed the sea to the promised shore of Italy, to claim his 
 rightful inheritance. He, too, had been tost for many years 
 both on land and sea. He had suffered much in wars, while 
 laying the foundations of his everlasting polity. He had 
 traversed a wider realm than Hercules or Bacchus. 1 He had 
 subdued many nations, and overthrown many cities. With 
 noble constancy and firmness he bad accomplished the divine 
 designs ; no temptations had allured him from the path of 
 duty, and persuaded him to found his state on any foreign 
 soil. The anxiety of the Romans about the often rumoured 
 translation of the seat of empire, whether to Hium or to 
 Alexandria, had a particular significance. They expected 
 that the victorious triumvir would aspire to found a mon- 
 archy, and yet they clung to the belief that no king could 
 reign at Rome. That the name of the republic would be 
 suffered to remain, while the yoke of royal rule was really 
 fixed upon them, was beyond their power to conceive ; ac- 
 cordingly, they were convinced that he meditated establish- 
 ing himself with his army in some Oriental city, and govern- 
 ing Rome and the world from its regal acropolis. His long 
 sojourns in the East kept this notion constantly alive ; the 
 
 from my recollection of some interesting essays on the Roman poets by a 
 French writer named Legris, in his work entitled Home, ou Etudes sur JJiicrece, 
 C'atullc, Virgile, et Horace, whose ingenuity, though indulged with too little 
 restraint, has brought out in very striking relief the ideas and sentiments of 
 the period. 
 
 vi. 802. : 
 
 " Nee, vero Alcides tantum telluris obivit, .... 
 Xec qui pampineis victor juga flectit habenis . . . ."
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 4.4.7 
 
 example of Antonius, who had reigned there for ten years, 
 of Julius, whose half-revealed design was nipped, as they im- 
 agined, in the bud, and the common passion for escaping 
 from the duties of the citizen to live in licentious independ- 
 ence abroad, all conspired to impress on the minds of the 
 Romans the persuasion that Augustus would sacrifice Rome 
 to a foreign capital. The Mneid. may be read as a continued 
 protest against such a crime. Nevertheless, the opinion that 
 Augustus himself is specially represented by its hero cannot 
 be admitted without great reservation. 2Eneas, ever alarmed 
 by some apparition, always led by soothsayers, flitting from 
 oracle to oracle, believing in dreams, predictions, days and 
 omens, if he resembles Augustus, reflects no less the general 
 type of the slavish superstition of the time. ^Eneas weeping 
 at every crisis instead of acting, may suit the popular notion 
 of the triumvir, whose effeminacy was the theme of many a 
 lampoon ; but surely the poet would have refrained from so 
 far pushing his parallel. The baseness of the hero in desert- 
 ing Dido, and his slender excuse for abandoning the search 
 for Creusa, at which the moral sense revolts, whatever reli- 
 gious pretext may be devised for them, show how wanting 
 Virgil himself was in delicacy ; and the plain injustice of the 
 attack on Tumus has been cited in proof of the blunted sen- 
 sibility of his age. 
 
 The composition of the ./Eneid occupied the interval be- 
 tween 727 and 735, the year of the poet's death. During 
 this period Virgil made his principal residence at Melancholy of 
 Naples, and though an honoured guest at the Vir s il - 
 tables of the great at Rome, he seems to have easily yielded 
 the post of court favourite to rivals of a gayer and perhaps 
 of a more supple temper. The honour his writings pay to 
 the principle of religious belief was certainly not assumed 
 for a political purpose. But with a temper naturally in- 
 clined to melancholy, neither the objects of his faith, nor the 
 prospects it presented to him, were such as to cheer and en- 
 liven it. After describing with mournful enthusiasm the 
 virtues of the ancient Romans, it was impossible even for a
 
 448 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 more sanguine Caesarean than Virgil to augur a revival of 
 those simple manners which were to him the pledges of hap- 
 piness and goodness. His view of the progress of the world 
 was the reverse of the Lucretian : but it is hard to say which 
 of the two was the least reasonable ; that of the believer, 
 who anticipates under the sway of Providence a constant de- 
 cline of happiness and virtue ; or of the sceptic, who, casting 
 man on his own unaided energies, expects him to subdue the 
 evil around him and within him, and to grow from strength 
 to strength, by the force of philosophy and culture. Virgil, 
 we may imagine, in his retirement began already to see the 
 shades closing around the public life of his countrymen, and 
 feared that he had bestowed on the idol of the day a prema- 
 ture and excessive adoration. Possibly he repented the 
 course he had taken, the flattery to which he had pledged his 
 talents and consecrated his existence ; and when on his death- 
 bed he desired that his unfinished poem should be destroyed, 
 he may have been moved, not by regret at its imperfections, 
 but by the remorse of an accusing conscience. His last 
 breath, like that of his own gallant Turnus, may have passed 
 away with a groan of indignation. But Augustus knew too 
 well the political value of the JEneid to sacrifice it to a mor- 
 bid sensibility. He placed it in the hands of Varius and 
 Plotius for the necessary correction, but strictly charged 
 them to make no additions, nor even to complete the few un- 
 finished lines at which the hand of the master had paused or 
 faltered. 1 Great, undoubtedly, is the debt we owe him for 
 this delicate consideration. The Roman epic abounds in 
 moral and poetical defects : nevertheless it remains the most 
 complete picture of the national mind at its highest elevation, 
 the most precious document of national history, if the history 
 of an age is revealed in its ideas, no less than in its events 
 and incidents. This is the consideration which, with many 
 of us, must raise the interest of the .JSneid above that of any 
 other poem of antiquity, and justify the saying of I know not 
 
 1 Donat. in vil. Virgil, 15.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 449 
 
 what Virgilian enthusiast, that if Homer really made Virgil, 
 undoubtedly it was his greatest work. 
 
 The remark of an ancient biographer that there was a 
 shade of rusticity in the expression of Virgil's countenance, 
 has been amplified by later critics ; and the lines 
 
 J , Personal ap- 
 
 of Horace, describing a mend, of many sterling pearance of 
 qualities indeed and of fine genius, but coarse in 
 figure, moody in temper, and causing a smile in the ranks of 
 fashion by the carriage of his gown, the cut of his hair, and 
 the fit of his slipper, have been applied to him on the testi- 
 mony of an early scholiast. 1 The bashfulness and reserve 
 which have been attributed to the poet may at least be ac- 
 cepted as facts : and even these trifling defects of manner 
 might, under the circumstances of society at Rome, be 
 deemed worthy of remark and gentle correction. Under the 
 imperial system, which sought to mould all men to a common 
 type of complacent mediocrity, the apparition of a single 
 visitant of independent thought and manners, whose honesty 
 and genius condemned the creeping servility of his associates, 
 could not fail to alarm and irritate. In a company whose 
 festivity depended on their success in forgetting themselves, 
 and who disguised their own littleness by mutual applause, 
 the society of the sacred poet might be felt as a restraint, and 
 even Augustus and Mascenas may have breathed more freely 
 when relieved from it. 
 
 We must not fail, indeed, to observe how the emperor 
 himself, much as he set his heart on the high moral principles 
 of conservation and renewal, much as he had on 
 
 .. .. u . 3 j . A i The political 
 
 his lips the words, religion and devotion, tne mission of 
 sanctity of marriage, the purity of the life philo- 
 sophical, was not unwilling to encourage by his countenance, 
 and even by his example, such libertinage and dissipation as 
 
 1 Donatus, vit. Virgil, 5. ; Acron. in Horat. Sat, i. 3, 30., foil. : 
 " Iracundior est paulo, minus aptus acutis 
 Naribus horum hominum .... at ingenium ingena 
 luculto latet hoc sub corpore." 
 Comp. also Sat. i. 4, 35. 
 
 VOL. IT. 29
 
 450 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 could be kept within certain conventional limits, and do no 
 violence to public feeling. Looking back for a moment to the 
 age of Caesar, and to Catullus, who holds up the mirror to its 
 sins, we shall remark how Vice, as reflected in his pages, is 
 imbued with the spirit of freedom and independence, which 
 has not yet fled from the atmosphere of Rome. It raises its 
 forehead with the insolence of the tyrant aristocrats born to 
 triumph and rule mankind ; it walks abroad, shameless and 
 lusty, gazing and to be gazed at. But when we turn to view 
 it in the days of Augustus, we see it cowering beneath the 
 control of a master, who has subjected it to forms and regu- 
 lations, removed it from the centre to the side of the street, 
 from the forum to the lanes and alleys, and constrained it to 
 assume, at proper times and places, a show of decency, or 
 even a pretence of virtue. Rome is full of hypocrites, who 
 affect gravity and austerity, men who commit every excess in 
 private, but profess in public the sobriety of the Curii and the 
 Catos. 1 Horace himself, who is charged with the office of 
 chasing the truant vices back to their covert, knows well the 
 limits of his commission : if sin appears in his pictures less 
 coarse and naked than in those of his predecessor, it is be- 
 cause he is only permitted to lift a corner of the veil, to allure 
 his compatriots to indulgence, but not to disgust them by 
 effrontery. 11 
 
 Examples are not wanting to aid us in conceiving the 
 effect of the great revolution which had recently been accom- 
 plished upon the social deportment of the Ro- 
 
 Attempts of r r , . r 
 
 Augustus to mans. The regime of the first Napoleon which 
 
 correct the . . , -I-I-I.T 
 
 deterioration of followed the extirpation of the old nobility, and 
 
 among his the proscription of their fashions, was marked by 
 
 vulgarity and rudeness, by a careless affectation 
 
 of indifference to the manners of polite society, or by absurd 
 
 1 Hor. Epist. i. 16, 57. : 
 
 " Vir bonus, omne forum quern spectat et omne tribunal . . . ." 
 
 9 There can be no doubt that the scandalous anecdote told of Horace's 
 private habits, in the life of him ascribed to Suetonius, refers to another 
 person.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 451 
 
 attempts to imitate them. The emperor himself had no tact 
 for such conventionalities, and the influence of his consort 
 was at best ill-directed. One of the weak points of his gov- 
 ernment was the handle given by his court to the mockery of 
 the frivolous and idle. It is interesting to observe the good 
 sense of Augustus and his advisers in perceiving the disad- 
 vantage to which his system was subjected by the folly of 
 the classes he called on to support it. To form or correct the 
 habits of the day was no mean part of the policy of the 
 founder of the empire. But all that he did in public as pre- 
 fect of manners, all his regulations for the conservation of re- 
 ligious and moral principles, were of far less importance 
 towards establishing his power than the means he employed 
 for moulding the demeanour of the citizens, so that it should 
 obtain general respect, and trample on no prejudices. The 
 aristocracy of birth and honours had been almost swept away : 
 it was necessary to replace it ; and for this no other materials 
 were at hand but the clever officials, the trusty soldiers, the 
 astute freedmen of noble houses, the bankers, usurers and 
 traders, who, in waiting upon the necessities of their betters, 
 had taken the varnish of their manners. The senate of Au- 
 gustus was in short an assembly of plebeians, but of plebeians 
 more vain of their position than an JEmilius or Valerius, a 
 Marcius or an Hortensius : while Gorgonius was boorish and 
 rude even to affectation, Rufillus was not less offensive, from 
 his pretensions to excessive refinement. 1 These men were to 
 be fashioned to the mode, first by tailors and perruquiers, 
 and next by the parasite or poet of the court, the master of 
 ceremonies to the emperor, or rather, that his own influence 
 might be less apparent, to his minister and confidant. They 
 were to be taught not only to wear their toga decorously, 
 but to bear themselves politely at the table, or at the theatre 
 and circus. If Domitius Marsus, a favourite writer of the 
 day, devoted a treatise to instruction in urbanity, or the 
 graces of town conversation, the whole philosophy of good 
 
 1 Hor. Sat. i. 4, 92. : 
 
 " Pastillum Rufillus olet, Gorgonius hircum."
 
 452 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 breeding was reviewed by Horace in the poetical discourses, 
 to which he gave the old Roman name of Satires or Medleys. 1 
 The part Horace had taken in the civil wars, to which a 
 boyish enthusiasm had impelled him, was soon over. After 
 career of Philippi, his first and only field, he abjured the 
 Horace. service of liberty, and finding his way almost 
 
 friendless to Rome, began writing verses and making himself 
 a name, while solicitous only for his daily bread. Careless 
 and incorrect as his first pieces are, sometimes vapid in sense 
 and ill-conditioned in their object, there were not wanting 
 among them some of a better character, fitted to impress a 
 sagacious reader with a high idea of his genius. Virgil is 
 said in the popular tradition to have been the first to make 
 the discovery, and to have introduced Horace in all simplicity 
 to Maecenas as a man of poetical promise. But this, however 
 he might affect to patronize literature for its own sake, was 
 not all the minister required ; and for some time, a few cour- 
 teous words were all the notice he thought fit to take of his 
 new acquaintance. But Horace improved his own fortunes. 
 He continued to write with more earnestness, and in a tone 
 of greater self-respect ; he mingled with his compositions 
 compliments to the minister so delicate that neither could be 
 ashamed of them. He acquired the great man's friendship, 
 and was received gradually into closer intimacy and even 
 confidence. But we know not how far this confidence really 
 went. The citizens doubtless surmised that it 
 his connexion extended to public afiairs, and that Horace was 
 and Msec*" 8 UB consulted by Maecenas on the disposal of his pa- 
 tronage, or the assignment of colonial territories. 
 It was the business of the poet to laugh away these conjec- 
 tures, possibly to put the guessers on a wrong scent, and rep- 
 resent himself as totally unconnected with politics, absolute- 
 
 1 Quintilian (Inst. Oral. yi. 3, 102.) speaks of such a treatise by Domitius 
 Marsus, a poet of the Augustan age : " Qui de urbanitate diligentissime scrip- 
 sit." But the urbanitas of Marsus is rather pleasantry than politeness. " TJr- 
 banitas est virtus qusedam in breve dictum coacta et apta ad delectandos 
 movendosque homines," &c.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 453 
 
 ly devoid of ambition, satisfied with the smallest favours, a 
 sincere, independent friend of the minister, and even of the 
 emperor himself. Certain it is that Horace, however strict 
 may have been the attachment between himself and the men 
 in power, obtained neither riches nor office. He was grati- 
 fied with the present of a moderate estate, the Sabine farm, 
 of which he sings with such pleasing animation ; and profess- 
 ing himself simple in his tastes, with few wants, being un- 
 married, and apparently without kinsmen, he was satisfied 
 with the golden mean of fortune which entailed on him 
 neither trouble nor anxiety. 1 To the Roman, whose pleas- 
 ures and amusements were mostly public, and who might 
 satiate every lawful taste with the libraries, the baths, the 
 shows, and the galleries of the great city, the want of large 
 personal means brought no sensible deprivations. It was the 
 policy of Augustus to curtail the excessive affluence of the 
 few, and make the masses dependent for their enjoyments on 
 the government itself. It was doihg him good service there- 
 fore to expose to scorn or ridicule the men who made a 
 parade of their wealth, or betrayed anxiety to amass it ; to 
 sing the praise of simplicity and indifference, and contrast 
 with the smoke, the noise and splendour of Rome, the lan- 
 guid indolence of mid-day slumbers in the meadow. 4 At the 
 same time, the jealousy of the new nobility might demand 
 some consolation from their patrons for the mortification they 
 experienced at the sneers of the survivors of the true aristoc- 
 racy. For them Horace had a salve in his specious dispar- 
 agement of illustrious parentage, and descent from genera- 
 tions of official notabilities. 3 But whether he rebukes the 
 
 1 Eplst. ii. 2, 159. : " Qui te pascit ager tuus est." 
 
 2 Compare Horace's sneers at the " Fumum et opes strepitumque Romae," 
 &c., with the conclusion of Virgil's second Georgic the " Quid bellicosus 
 Cantaber et Scythes," of the one, &c., with the " Non res Romans peritura- 
 que regna," or the " Conjurato descendens Dacus ab Istro," of the other. 
 Surely both drew their inspiration from the same official source. 
 
 3 Hor. Sat. i. 6, fin. : 
 
 " His me consolor victurum suavius, ac si 
 Quaestor avus, pater atque meus, patruusque fuisset."
 
 454: HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 vain, or ministers comfort to wounded susceptibility, he 
 knows the art of sweetening his potions by his tone of good- 
 humoured levity and banter. Angry passions, he suggests, 
 have been excited more than enough ; it is time to allay irri- 
 tation, to relieve men of their fears, to surround the throne 
 with cheerful countenances ; to let all men know each other's 
 weaknesses, and rely upon mutual indulgence. The genial 
 magician who shall thus transform society must have special 
 qualifications for a task so delicate. He must be of no family 
 illustration himself, to make the new men jealous ; he must 
 be a man of courtly manners, to satisfy the taste of the re- 
 fined ; he must dress with faultless neatness rather than 
 elegance, trim his hair and beard carefully but not fantasti- 
 cally, .have a tender indulgence for the vices of good com- 
 pany, and if his own stomach is too weak for an occasional 
 excess, he must sit through the festive meetings of his com- 
 panions, and enjoy at least their enjoyment. 1 He must be 
 fond of music and poetry ; and if he is able to entertain 
 others with his wit, if, above all, he can strike the lyre to 
 notes of genial harmony himself, he will become the soul of 
 fellowship, the emperor's viceroy in the realms of fashion. 
 He must be able to invest ordinary ideas with elegant lan- 
 guage, and appeal to educated mediocrity by sentiments level 
 with its understanding ; and then, if he can sometimes take 
 a higher flight, and utter bursts of inspiration, solemn, pas- 
 sionate, and tender, if he can assume an enthusiasm worthy 
 of a Roman freeman or a Grecian bard, and emulate the fire 
 of Pindar with the steady glow of a sustained dignity, he 
 will combine the voices of the generous and the vulgar, of 
 
 1 Accordingly Augustus, we are told, used to call him homuncionem lepi- 
 disnimum. Suet. vit. Hor. Some pleasing fragments of the emperor's letters 
 to the poet are given in this biography, and may not improbably be genuine. 
 Horace says of himself: 
 
 " Quern tenues decuere comae, uitidique capilli ; 
 Quern scis immunem Cinarae placuisse rapaci ; 
 Quern bibulum liquidi media de nocte Falerni 
 Ccena jurat." 
 
 Epist. i. 14, 32. Comp. i. 7, 26.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 455 
 
 the future and of the present, and become a fixed star in the 
 heaven of poetry. 
 
 A further task remains, however, for the favoured instru- 
 ment of ministerial conservatism. Horace must teach the 
 Roman gentlemen to be religious, or at least to Horace's pre- 
 appear so. Horace was himself, so he seems to reUgiouVsenti- 
 confess, something of a scapegrace in his youth : ment 
 one who could be so wrong and foolish as to embrace the 
 cause of the murderers of the divine Julius, must have imbibed 
 some very false notions from the sources of his philosophy. 
 He had dallied with the Greek ideologists, the corrupters of 
 youth, in the schools of Athens ; he had fancied himself a 
 disciple of Epicurus : child as he was, he had affected to re- 
 nounce allegiance to all sound principles of religion as well as 
 of politics. Under the change of his fortunes he has had the 
 grace to repent ; he has become devout ; he wishes his coun- 
 trymen to know how highly he now thinks of Jupiter and 
 Apollo, no less than of Augustus and Maecenas. A man of 
 ardent imagination and of delicate sensibility, a man who 
 questioned the world and his own conscience both solemnly 
 and sternly, such a man as Virgil, for instance, might well 
 persuade himself that the miseries he had witnessed attested 
 the mortal sin of renouncing the worship of the Gods, and 
 compassing the destruction of their hero ; but Horace has no 
 such claim on our indulgent interpretation, and the palinodes 
 of his lyric muse ring false to an attentive ear. 1 
 
 It can hardly be mere accident that the pieces in which 
 
 1 Horace is indiscreet in assigning the motives of his conversion, which 
 have caused much perplexity to the critics who wished to believe him in ear- 
 nest. Od. i. 34 : 
 
 " Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens .... 
 
 Namque Diespiter 
 
 Igni corusco nubila dividens 
 Plerumque, per sudum tonantes 
 
 Egit equos." 
 
 Compare i. 22. : " Namque me sylva lupus in Sabina . . . ." 
 ii. 17. : " Me truncus illapsus cerebro . . . ." 
 iii. 4. : " Non sine Dis animosus infans."
 
 456 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 this subtle moralist inculcates temperance and sobriety of 
 thought and action, which denounce the vanity 
 
 Horace em- ' . . 
 
 ployed to of ambition and the cares 01 greatness, are ad- 
 recommend _ _ . . /. , 
 moderation and dressed in almost every case to scions oi the no- 
 
 the resuess blest and proudest houses. Such is the character 
 of the odes to Lollius and Licinius, to Torquatus 
 and Quinctius, to Postumus and Dellius, Antonius, Pompeius, 
 and Plancus. 1 When we remember that these men were pre- 
 cisely of the class to which the regards of Augustus and his 
 minister were most jealously directed, such a concurrence of 
 similar warnings, repeated to more than satiety, seems to ad- 
 mit of only one explanation. The minion of the usurping 
 dynasty would not have been countenanced in such frequent 
 and familiar addresses to men whose restless ambition, whose 
 exalted birth and ample means made them formidable to the 
 court, more than one of whom had been found in open or 
 secret array against it, unless on condition of exerting his in- 
 fluence to curb their impatience, and chastise their illicit as- 
 pirations. 2 Horace resounds the praises of Italy in strains not 
 dissimilar to those of Virgil ; and we are again reminded, by 
 his fervid encomiums on the beauties of that sacred soil, of 
 the anxiety of his master to recall the truant spirits of his 
 subjects from the charms of Greece and Asia to the post of 
 piety and duty.* 
 
 We cannot, perhaps, easily exaggerate the influence which 
 the cheerful subservience of the Horatian muse exerted upon 
 
 1 Comp. Epist. i. 6. : To Numicius : "Nil admirari . . . ." We have 
 met with several of these names ranged on the side of the senate against 
 Caesar, or of the Eastern against the Western triumvir. 
 
 * Legris ventures to explain the perplexing ode to Plancus (Od. i. T.), with 
 its preference of Tiber and the Anio over Argos and Larissa, as a covert invi- 
 tation to renounce the service of the tyrant of the East, and join the defender 
 of his native land. It is difficult to see why a poet should make any mystery 
 of such an object Yet the well-known political poem (Epod. 16.: "Altera 
 jam teritur "), bears considerable analogy to this, and other odes of Horace 
 have unquestionably a covert allusion to the state of public affairs. 
 
 * Compare, also, Propert. iii. 22. : 
 
 " Omnia Romanae cedent miracula terra," &c.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 patriots willing to be persuaded, and pleased to 
 
 Dissatisfaction 
 
 have then* weakness gilded with the names ot of Horace in 
 
 TT ..his later years. 
 
 good sense and philosophy. Horace was reward- 
 ed, if not splendidly, at least to the extent of his desires : he 
 enjoyed ease, reputation, the fellowship of the good and 
 witty ; he who had commenced life in search of a patron, 
 finished it as the observed of all observers. Yet it may be 
 true that the attainment of every wish left him despondent 
 and dissatisfied with himself. If I rightly understand the 
 chronology of his compositions, those which seem to be 
 among the latest betray a spirit of mortification, rather than 
 the cheerfulness to which he at least pretended in his earlier 
 years. 1 He now longs for retirement ; he seeks to be released 
 from servitude ; he seems even ashamed of his success in 
 seconding the policy of his masters. He quits the thorny 
 path of politics, and the transparent shades of his assumed 
 philosophy, and sickens at last over the long-abused refrain 
 of all his poetry, that wisdom is better than wealth and hon- 
 ours, liberty and beauty, acknowledging with a bitter smile 
 that contentment depends more on the digestion than the finest 
 precepts of the schools. 3 Finally, he amuses himself with 
 meditation on literature, and the innocent recreations of ab- 
 stract criticism. The Art of Poetry is a curious, perhaps we 
 may say an instructive, euthanasia to the fervid exaltation of 
 his youth, and the decorous accommodation of his maturer 
 years. 3 
 
 1 Compare, for instance, Hor. Epist. \. 1, 2, 7, 8, 10. : " Non eadem est 
 aetas non mens Solve senescentem Sic mihi tarda fluunt ingrataque tempora 
 Sapere aude, Incipe Quod si me noles unquam discedere Mihi jam non re- 
 gia Roma Vivere nee pulchre nee suaviter Mente minus validus quam cor- 
 pore Vivo et regno simul ista reliqui." 
 
 * Hor. Eplst. i. 1, fin. : 
 
 " Ad summum sapiens uno minor est Jove, dives, 
 Liber, honoratus, pulcher, rer denique regum, 
 Prcecipue sanus, nisi cum pituita molesta est." 
 
 3 The commentators have found a golden key to the chronology of Horace's 
 writings in the lines which terminate his address to the first book of the Epis- 
 tles:
 
 458 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 A dissertation has been written to show that the disagree- 
 able acquaintance whom Horace sought in vain to shake off 
 in the Via Sacra was no other than the poet Pro- 
 
 Propertius. . * i 
 
 pertms. The hypothesis, ianciiul as it seems, is 
 not altogether devoid of probability ; but whether it be cor- 
 rect or not, there is undoubtedly something in the character 
 of Propertius, as we trace it in his writings, which harmonizes 
 with such an estimate of him. While the favour of the 
 rulers of the commonwealth was showered upon Virgil and 
 Horace, Varius and Plotius, recommended by the eminence of- 
 their commanding genius, or the exquisiteness of their tact, 
 there were doubtless other men, of considerable pretensions 
 to literary talent, who sought a share in their distinctions, 
 
 " Forte meum si te quis percontabitur aevum, 
 Me quater undenos sciat implevisse Decembres, 
 Collegam Lepidum quo duxit Lollius anno." 
 
 This consulship was A.TJ. 733. But this allusion proves nothing except of 
 course that the book was not published earlier than that date. There is no 
 reason why it should not have been sent forth some years later ; and such I 
 believe, from the evidence both of style and matter, was really the case. The 
 Epodes, most of which were among the writer's earliest compositions, which 
 were circulated, like his other pieces, from hand to hand long before they 
 were collected into a volume, breathe the freshness and independence, to- 
 gether with the inaccuracy, of youth. The two books of Satires and the first 
 three of Odes were composed probably together during a series of years, and 
 belong to the period in which Horace was actively employed in the service of 
 his patrons. The last book of Odes, we are told, was published at the express 
 desire of Augustus, and the few pieces it contains were probably strung to- 
 gether as a vehicle for the exhibition of the fine poems in praise of the impe- 
 rial family. But in the first book of the Epistles we find the poet complaining 
 that he has no longer the spirit for composition (" Non eadem est aetas non 
 mens "), and parrying the solicitations of Maecenas to resume the task. He 
 shows an inclination to withdraw from political service : he complains of him- 
 self and of the world. Finally, the three long pieces which conclude the col- 
 lection are evidently the work of a single period, when he had at last succeed- 
 ed in throwing off the yoke of servitude, and could indulge himself, and per- 
 haps seek forgetfulness, in polished and sensible, but not very profound nor 
 very careful, remarks on the literary taste of his day. Horace was born in 
 689, and died in 746, within a few days perhaps of Maecenas, but later, if we 
 may believe the story that the dying minister recommended him to Augustus 
 with the words, "Horatii Flacci ut mei memor esto." Suet, in vit. Hor.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 459 
 
 and were eager to barter the incense they could offer for the 
 smiles and sunshine of the court. Among these, none perhaps 
 was more distinguished than Propertius ; yet in the race of 
 favour he seems to have fallen far behind his more fortunate 
 rivals. He started, indeed, in early life from the same com- 
 mon goal with them, being introduced to the notice of 
 Maecenas as a victim of the revolution. His abilities gave 
 ample promise ; and he qualified himself for the minister's 
 consideration by the zeal with which he sought to gild with 
 all the ornaments of verse the false idols of the day, in making 
 vice and voluptuousness graceful, in singing in sounding verse 
 the legends of Roman mythology, and in praising to the skies 
 the glories of Augustus, and the virtues of his trusty counsel- 
 lor. But on all these topics, similar as they are to those 
 which Horace has so delicately recommended to us, we feel 
 sensibly the inferior powers of his less successful competitor. 
 Propertius is deficient in that light touch and exquisitely 
 polished taste which volatilize the sensuality and flattery of 
 Horace. The playfulness of the Sabine bard is that of the 
 lapdog, while the Umbrian reminds us of the pranks of a 
 clumsier and less tolerated quadruped. 1 Amidst all his affect- 
 ed indifference, the art of Maecenas must have been constantly 
 exercised in keeping importunate suitors at a distance. The 
 assiduity of Propertius was perhaps too officious, and it was 
 necessary to repel without offending him. Like all his unfor- 
 tunate class, he could not understand how, with undoubted 
 talents and acknowledged industry, his pursuit of the great 
 was through life a failure, while that of his rivals, who seemed 
 so much less eager in it, was crowned with such distinguished 
 rewards. Nevertheless, this disappointment was not wholly 
 merited. Although Propertius is often frigid and pedantic 
 in his sentiments, though he takes his learning from diction- 
 aries and his gallantry from romances, and retails at second 
 hand the flattery of his contemporaries, there is notwithstand- 
 ing a strength, and sometimes a grandeur in his language, 
 which would have been more highly relished in the sterner 
 1 Propert. iv. 1, 64. : " Umbria Romani patria Callimacbi."
 
 460 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 age of Lucretius. His rustic muse, though brought as a -will- 
 ing captive to the tables of the great at Rome, seems some- 
 times to break her silken fetters, and bound along in the 
 wilder measures of her native mountains. Propertius stands 
 alone among the Roman poets in the force and fervour he im- 
 parts to elegiac verse : he alone raises the soft and languid 
 pentameter to the dignity of its heroic consort. 1 But it is in 
 the weight of single lines, and the manly savour of occasional 
 expressions, that the charm of this writer is to be found : he 
 has none of the form of poetical invention, and is alike defi- 
 cient in sustained majesty, in natural grace, and in flowing 
 rhythm. 
 
 A contemporary of Propertius, and also a writer of elegiac 
 poetry, is Albius Tibullus, the sweetness of whose versifica- 
 tion, deficient though it is both in variety and 
 
 Tibnllns. . J 
 
 strength, is remarkable at least from the early 
 period to which it belongs. But Tibullus deserves our con- 
 sideration on a more important ground, for the singular inde- 
 pendence of character he exhibits in relation to the court of 
 Augustus. Like so many of his most distinguished contem- 
 poraries, he had been dispossessed of his estates at Pedum, 
 near Prseneste, by the soldiers of Octavius ; but he too, like 
 them, had the fortune to recover his patrimony, at least in 
 part, and this probably through the good offices of Messala. 
 To Messala accordingly, as his patron, he attached himself 
 through life, following him throughout his campaigns in Aqui- 
 tania, and sharing the glory and merits of his success. Ti- 
 bullus sings of this distant warfare with more than usual ani- 
 mation, though generally he expresses a poet's aversion to 
 the toils of military life : nevertheless the heroic poem, spe- 
 
 1 As for instance in the lines : 
 
 iiL 7, 56. : " Cum moribunda niger clauderet ora liquor." 
 iiL 11, 56. : "Jura dare et statuas inter et anna MarL" 
 iv. 6, 42. : " Imposuit prorae publica vota tuae." 
 iv. 11, 46. : " Viximus insignes inter utramque facem." 
 
 Rurilius, in the fourth century of our era, is the only writer who deserves to 
 
 be compared hi this respect with Propertius.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 
 
 cially dedicated to the praise of Messala, which passes under 
 his name, can perhaps hardly be ascribed to him. The most 
 virtuous of the Roman nobles seems to have exacted no un- 
 worthy compliances of his grateful client. Messala, it would 
 appear, was himself surrounded, like Maecenas or Agrippa, 
 with a retinue of versifiers as well as of warriors, and kept a 
 mimic court of his own, as a chief of the ancient aristocracy. 
 Certain it is that Tibullus refrained from all flattery of the 
 rival following of Octavius. Throughout his works there is 
 no mention made either of Augustus or of his ministers and 
 associates. Yet the imperial court, on its part, was not indis- 
 posed to flatter and solicit him. Horace addressed him more 
 than once in kindly and complimentary strains, which seem 
 to invite him to enrol himself also in the cohort of the bards 
 of the empire. 1 If such was Horace's view, it would appear 
 that he was wholly unsuccessful. The muse of Tibullus, con- 
 stant to its chosen theme, was devoted to singing his general- 
 ly unprosperous loves ; yet the tone of tender melancholy 
 which pervades its elegies may have had a deeper and purer 
 source than the caprices of three inconstant paramours. The 
 spirit of Tibullus is eminently religious ; but his religion bids 
 him fold his hands in resignation rather than open them in 
 hope :" there is something soothing at least in the idea that 
 he alone of the great poets of his day remained undazzled by 
 the glitter of the Caesarean usurpation, and pined away in un- 
 availing despondency in beholding the subjugation of his 
 country. 8 
 
 , Virgil and Horace may have had, besides the common 
 throng of admirers, the audience fit, though few, of some soli- 
 tary students ; but Ovid is "eminently the poet of 
 society, and the various styles of composition in 
 
 1 Hor. Od. i. 23. ; Epist. i. 4. 
 
 * "Ccelo supinas si tuleris manus." For the indications of this religious 
 spirit, see particularly i. 1, 37., ii. 80., iii. 57., and Ovid, Amor. iii. 9, 37. 
 
 * See some remarks on Tibullus in Legris's second volume. Tibullus died 
 young, according to the epigram ascribed to Marsus : 
 
 " Te quoque Virgilio comitem non sequa, Tibulle, 
 More juvenem campos misit ad Elysios."
 
 462 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 which he excelled, disclose to us the tastes and interests of 
 the day, and reflect the tone of ordinary sentiment in the 
 higher ranks of the capital. Fatigued as they were with the 
 unbending exaltation of the epic and the lyric, the Elegies 
 and Art of Love attracted and delighted them as the repre- 
 sentation, but slightly disguised or idealized, of actual man- 
 an imitator of ners an< i habits. Ovid was the successor in elegy 
 Parthenine. of p rop ertius and Tibullus, of Gallus and Mar- 
 sus ; but it is probable that all these writers drew from the 
 common fountain of Grecian inspiration, and even from the 
 effusions of a single author, Parthenius. Born at Nicaa and 
 carried captive as a child to Rome in the wars of Mithri- 
 dates, the talents of Parthenius, and his powers of pleasing, 
 had obtained him freedom and reception among the highest 
 circles. He was the author of erotic elegies in verse, some of 
 them lively and joyous, others of a funereal strain. Among 
 the first of his disciples were Gallus and* Virgil, and some 
 lines of the Georgics, it is said, were fashioned directly upon 
 his models. Tiberius Caesar, who affected himself to compose 
 Greek verses, had such admiration for this poet, that he 
 caused his bust and writings to be placed in the public libra- 
 ries among the most famous notabilities of his nation. His 
 influence may be traced in the Heroids of Ovid, 
 
 The Heroic. J 
 
 in which the most tragic love-stones of ancient 
 legend are versified under the form of epistles, and which 
 seem to have been founded on the summaries Parthenius had 
 specially drawn up for the use of Cornelius Gallus. 1 But how- 
 ever elegant the Grecian may have been in his style, or copi- 
 ous in the flow of his language, it was doubtless to his train- 
 ing in the schools of the rhetoricians that Ovid owed the won- 
 derful variety he has been able to introduce into a set of sub- 
 jects so similar in character, in which the universal passion, 
 deserted or unsuccessful, is made to breathe from the mouths 
 of Sappho or CEnone, Ariadne or Medea. If the poet has 
 failed to catch the simplicity of the best heroic models, he has 
 
 1 See Walckenaer's Histoire cTHorace, ii. 197., from Suidas in TOC. Gel- 
 lius. ix. 9., xiii. 26. ; Suet. Tiber. 70.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 4.53 
 
 at least imbibed a portion of their purity and depth of feeling. 
 The Loves of the Heroines is the most elevated and refined 
 in sentiment of all elegiac compositions of the Romans. If 
 we may argue back from Ovid to Parthenius, the marked pre- 
 dilection of Tiberius for the Grecian poetaster will appear 
 not discreditable to that prince's taste and feeling. 
 
 It is possible that the same author suggested to Ovid the 
 idea of his extraordinary poem on the Metamorphoses, or 
 Transformations, of Greek and Roman mytholo- The Metamor- 
 gy, in which the wealth of his fancy is displayed P hoBes - 
 still more abundantly, and is at times combined with an epic 
 majesty of diction. Its structure betrays at once the occa- 
 sions for which it was written ; for the slender thread of con- 
 nexion which runs through it is unable to sustain any con- 
 tinued interest, while the repetition of similar incidents, how- 
 ever ingeniously varied in relation, would become inexpressi- 
 bly wearisome in a continuous perusal. But viewed as a 
 series of sketches intended for successive recitation to the 
 same, and often to different audiences, the Metamorphoses is 
 perfectly adapted to the author's object. The work rolls on 
 in an uniform line, without a catastrophe or a climax, to its 
 chronological termination : yet the Romans may have drawn 
 a political moral from the philosophy of Pythagoras in the 
 concluding book, which taught that all things change, but 
 nothing perishes ; and may have felt that the transformation 
 of the republic into an empire was no more than a crowning 
 illustration of the ruling principle of the work. 1 
 
 The Fasti assumes a character of considerable impor- 
 tance when we regard Ovid, not as a poet giving utterance to 
 his own enthusiasm, but as the fashionable author 
 
 The Fasti. 
 
 addressing himself always to the current taste or 
 interest of society. The work which goes under that name 
 may be described as the pontifical ritual in verse : it gives 
 the rationale of the calendar, and of the stated observances 
 of the national religion : it digests the Seasons and the 
 
 1 Ovid, Metam, xv. 165. : " Omnia mutantur, nihil intent."
 
 464 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 Reasons of every special cult and ceremony. 1 Such a work, 
 it would appear, must have been calculated to meet a popular 
 demand. The Roman people required an explanation, in the 
 courtly and graceful style to which alone they would listen, 
 of the usages to which they had solemnly devoted them- 
 selves. "With these fair and sounding verses the poet satis- 
 fied the ecclesiastical spirit of the times, which leant with 
 fond reliance on forms and traditions, and was less a thing to 
 be felt than to be talked about. From the appearance of 
 such a work, we may feel assured that the decree of Augus- 
 tus, that the Romans should become again a religious people, 
 was duly accepted on their part and ratified by their outward 
 practice ; that they actually set themselves to worship the 
 gods after the manner of their fathers on the emperor's ad- 
 monition. It would be idle to say that this was mere hypoc- 
 risy or flattery : doubtless there was felt a spiritual want, and 
 multitudes blindly followed the blind leaders who offered 
 themselves, and took their faith in all sincerity from Augus- 
 tus, and their ritual complacently from Ovid. 
 
 The gloom and despondency which pervade this poet's 
 
 later writings, the Tristia, or Sorrows, and the Epistles from 
 
 the Euxine, are explained and excused by the 
 
 TheTristla . 
 
 and Epistles painful circumstances under which they were 
 composed : the exile of the Roman Siberia speaks 
 the natural language of a spoilt child in suffering. 2 Yet there 
 is something instructive here also, in witnessing the breaking 
 down of the old Roman fortitude, which seems to have been 
 among the first of the virtues of the republic to wither under 
 the shadow of the empire. Neither the melancholy of Vir- 
 
 1 Ovid, Fast, i. 1. : " Tempora cum causis Latium digesta per annum." 
 The Fasti is remarkable, even among the works of Ovid, for its combination of 
 ease with dignity. Nowhere else are his stories told with such vivacity and 
 perspicuousness. There is no better example, perhaps, of narrative in verse 
 than in the legend of Anna Perenna, iii. 557. foil 
 
 3 The Ibis, however, an attack upon some nameless slanderer, who had 
 trampled on him in his misfortunes, is as energetic as could be desired ; while 
 the address to his wife (Trist. iii. 7.) reaches a lofty pitch of manly endurance.
 
 UNDER THE EMPIRE. 465 
 
 gil, nor the self-dissatisfaction we have remarked in Horace, 
 would have been betrayed in word or deed in the period of 
 true pride and self-reliance. 1 We should be curious to learn 
 how the lamentations of the banished poet were received by 
 his associates at home. They moved the compassion neither 
 of Augustus nor of his successor ; and there is too much rea- 
 son to fear that neither the friends he so piteously intercedes 
 with, nor the wife he so feelingly praises, ventured to move 
 in his behalf. Long before his death, Ovid, we may believe, 
 was forgotten in the land he so miserably yearned for ; and 
 it was not perhaps till after his own tongue had grown cold, 
 that the verses it poured forth in so copious a stream were 
 brought from the desks of his correspondents, and published 
 for the interest of the world. In the course of time the em- 
 pire teemed with a society of fellow-sufferers, who learnt, 
 perhaps, from their own woes, to sympathize with the lamen- 
 tations of the first generation of exiles. The Tristia of Ovid 
 became the common expression of the sentiments of a whole 
 class of unfortunates. 
 
 I have thus sought to give a view of the ideas of the Au- 
 gustan era, from a few representative examples ; but it would 
 detain us too long from our narrative were we to 
 examine the subject of its literature through all 
 its elements and features. For the same reason, and because 
 indeed the remains we possess of them are still more frag- 
 mentary, not from undervaluing their significance in express- 
 ing the mind of their age, I omit all reference, here at least, 
 to the arts and sciences of the period, to its painting, archi- 
 tecture and sculpture, as well as to its investigations in ethics 
 and physics. The moral character of these times is indeed a 
 subject of still deeper interest, and one which it will become 
 us to study with all the resources of knowledge and applica- 
 tion w r e can command : but it will be well to postpone this 
 
 1 "VVe may be allowed, however, to question whether even a Coriolanua 
 could have used such an expression as, Ramans, I banish you ! which Shak- 
 speare has transferred to him from the mouth of the cynic Diogenes. Shaks. 
 Coriol. Act iii. 
 
 VOL. iv. 30
 
 466 HISTORY OF THE ROMANS 
 
 survey till we can compare the Roman principles and practice 
 with the Christian, and scrutinize both by the light which 
 they will throw reciprocally upon each other. Meanwhile I 
 return to the political history of the empire, as far as we can 
 succeed in penetrating its obscurity ; for the guides who 
 deign to aid us will prove too often blind or treacherous ; and 
 we shall march like the hero of Virgil in the infernal twilight, 
 by the malign rays of Tacitus and Suetonius, through the 
 gloom of a tyranny which has overshadowed men and things, 
 and confused the various colours of events and characters. 1 
 
 1 Virgil, jEn. vi. 270. : 
 
 " Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna 
 Est iter in sylvis, ubi coelum condidit umbra 
 Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem." 
 
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