UC-NRLF
Z03
$B SD3 ass
Hstorg Iprimcrs. £ditedfy].R. greets.
HISTORY
OF
ROME.
REV. M. CREIGHTON, M.A.,
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD,
W/TN MAPS.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON & COMPANY^
549 & 551 BROADWAY.
1877.
• * • •
• .:* »
^ • • «
•*••«• ••♦•»
(h
7
0'
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION, 5
CHAP. I. — HOW ROME BECAME A CITY, ... 6
CHAP. II. HOW ROME BECAME MISTRESS OF
ITALY, 19
r:HAP. III. ROME'S WARS WITH CARTHAGE, . 35
CHAP. IV. — HOW ROME CONQUERED THE EAST, . 47
"7 ^ CHAP. V. HOW THE ROMANS BEHAVED AS CON-
QUERORS, . . . . -51
$ 7 CHAP. VI. ATTEMPTS AT REFORM BY THE GRACCHI, 57
£f 5 CHAP. VII. TIME OF MISGOVERNMENT AT ROME, . 60
/6^'CHAP. VIII. THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME, . . 66
/ /■ . CHAP. IX. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE EMPIRE, . 8^
jfj- CHAP. X. THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS, . . .96
jyCUAV. XL EMPERORS ELECTED BY THE SOLDIERS, IO3
ft^CnXP. XII. CHANGES MADE BY DIOCLETIAN AND
^ CONSTANTINE, . . . . I09
/"^CHAP. XIII. — SETTLEMENTS OF THE BARBARIANS IN
THE EMPIRE, . . . . I18
TABLE SHOWING THE DESCENT OF THE JULIAN
EMPERQRS, . . . . 94
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, 1 25
LIST OF MAPS.
1. The Roman Empire. Frontispiece.
2. Italy at the Time of Rome's founding, .... 7
3. The Races of Italy, so
4. The Peoples around Rome, . . . . . . .21
5. Rome and the Samnites, 27
6. Rome and South Italy, . 3^
7. The Roman Roads in/^flvo r: ^v /-» 34
8. Rome and Carthage, y*^<fOyO 36
9. Hannibal's March to Italy, 42
10. Italy and the East, 48
11. The enemies of the Roman Empire, 107
HISTORY PRIMERS.
ROME.
INTRODUCTION.
1. How Roman History explains Modern
Europe. — If we look at the nations of Modern
Europe we at once notice that they differ very much
from one another in language, laws, manners and
customs. Yet we see also, in spite of this difference,
that they have a great likeness to one another, which
parts all of them from the nations of the other quarters
of the world. Now the great thing which Roman
History tells us is, how these nations of Europe grew
up, and how they came to be so different from one
another, and yet how, though one nation differs from
another, the people of Europe se^m to be all almost
the same, if we compare them with the people of Asia
or Africa.
The great reason which makes the people of Europe
have so much in common is, that they all owe a great
deal to the laws and customs and ideas of the Romans '
who conquered and governed them; and the reason
why they differ from one another is that some owe
more than others to the Romans ; some have kept
more of the ideas of the Romans ; others have kept
more of the ideas of the Germans, who broke up
tlie government of the Romans, and founded new
nations in Europe. So you see that the history of
Rome will explain to you how the nations of Europe
grew up as they are at present.
2. How Roman History teaches about old
times. — But besides seeing how the nations of Europe
grew up under the influence of Rome, you will also
6 ROMAN HISTORY. [int.
see how the power of Rome was gained by conquering
all the nations of old times. . You will see how the
people of Rome first of all overcame all the other
people of Italy, and then went on to overcome all
the nations that lived round tHe Mediterranean Sea.
Also, besides conquering these nations, they governed
them, and gave them their own laws, and made them
all like themselves in some degree or another. Now,
these nations who lived roiind the Mediterranean Sea
were the only peoples who lived in cities, and made
themselves laws, and wrote books, and were what we
in these times call civilised.
So you see Roman history teaches you something
about all the great nations, both of old times and of
our own days. Rome was a great link in the history
of the world, — -for all the nations of old times were
conquered by Rome, and so came under Rome's power,
while all the European nations of our own days were
formed out of the overthrow of Rome, and learned a
great deal from her.
3. Important points in Roman History. —
These, then, are the important points for you to notice
in Roman history :
(i). How did Rome become fit to be such a great
conqueror ?
(2). How did she make her conquests ?
(3). How did she manage to keep her conquests ?
(4). How did she govern the world when she was
its mistress?
(5). Why did she fall ?
CHAPTER I.
HOW ROME BECAME A CITY.
I. Italy in early times. — Rome, as you know, is
the capital of Italy : and Italy is the middle one of
the three peninsulas which make the south of Europe,
and which are washed by the Mediterranean Sea.
CHAP. I.] HOW ROME BECAME A CITY, -j
Italy at present is bounded on the north by the
x\lps. But in the year 753 before the birth of Christ,
when Rome was founded, the great plain between the
Alps and the Apennines, which we now call Lombardy,
belonged to the Gauls, and was called Gallia. Also,
on the west coast between the Apennines and the
river Tiber, lived the Etruscans, who were the greatest
people in the peninsula at that time. The land which
they lived in is still called Tuscany after them.
2 Italy at the time of Rome's founding.
South of the Gauls and Etruscans came the Italians,
amongst whom the Latins were the principal race.
The Latins lived in the plain south of the Tiber,
and were an agricultural people. They lived in
villages, and each village managed its own affairs,
but they all gathered together sometimes for common
objects, and this gathering together was called a
League.
2. Founding of Rome. — It would seem that
8 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
about the year 753 B.C. these Latms founded a colony
on the Tiber, to guard the river against the Etruscans,
of whom they were afraid. This colony was called
Rome, and as it was founded upon the great river
of that part of Italy, it soon became of importance
for trade, as well as for keeping off the Etruscans.
3. Roman stories about Rome's founding.
— Now this is all we can really know about the
founding of Rome, but the Romans themselves tell
this story about it. A w'icked king called Amulius
ruled in Alba Longa. He had robbed his elder
brother of the kingdom, and put his sons to death,
but a daughter of his had twin sons, w^hose father was
the god Mars. Amulius ordered them to be thrown
into the river Tiber; but they floated down the
stream till they stuck near the place where Rome
was afterwards built. They were fed first by a she-
wolf, and afterwards were found and brought up by
a shepherd. When they had grown up they wxre
made known to their grandfather, whom they restored
to his throne after slaying the wicked Amulius. Then
the youths, whose names were Romulus and Remus,
determined to build a city on the Tiber. They
quarrelled whose city it should be, and Remus was
killed in the quarrel. So Romulus built the city,
and called it Rome after his own name, and was
its first king, and made his city great in war. He
was taken up to heaven by his father Mars, and
was worshipped bylhe Romans as a god.
After his disappearance the people elected as their
king Numa Pompilius, who was a peaceful king, and
gave them laws, and taught them religion. Then
came a warlike king, Tullus Hostilius, who conquered
and took Alba, not by a regular battle, but by a
fight between three brothers on each side. The
fourth king, Ancus Martins, still further increased
Rome's power over the Latins.-
Now these are no doubt mere stories, but this
is quite certain, that all this time Rome was rising
I.] KOIV ROME BECAME A CITY. 9
into importance, and though she was the youngest
of the Latin settlements, she early became the head
of the League (or gathering together) of Latin villages.
So you see Rome was a conquerer from the very
first.
4. The City of Rome. — Rome was built on
the banks of the river Tiber, about fifteen miles from
its mouth. It was at first only a few houses upon
a little hill near the river, which had a wall built
round it. But as the number of people who came
there grew greater, other hills close to were added to
the city, and the wall was carried round them also.
Not more than 150 years after Rome's founding there
were seven hills within the wall, which was nearly five
miles round. So Rome was sometimes called "the
city of the seven hills."
5. The People of Rome. — The city grew in
numbers, because men came and lived within the wall
to be safe from their enemies. Some of the men were
merchants, and went up and down the Tiber in their
boats. But the greater part of them were farmers,
who tilled the land which lay round about the city.
So, by Rome you must always understand the city
and the land around it. As fast as the city grew
in number of citizens, the land it possessed grew also
larger and larger. You see, then, that these citizens
who lived together in Rome had t6 think how they
could best keep off their enemies, and save their lands
from being plundered. The citizens living together
for their common good form what is called a State^
and the means taken to bring about that common
good is called the government of the state.
6. How Rome was governed in early times.
— At first Rome's government was very simple. The
state consisted of a number of families, and each
family was ruled by its head. For state matters the
heads of the families, who were called patres or
fathers^ met together in the Senate or nieeting of
the old men. The king was the president over the
I o ROMAN HIS TOR K [chap.
Senate, and was the father of the state, which was
looked upon as a large family.
But as Rome became more important, many new
people came there, who had no place in the old
families, and so had no share in the government.
They were looked down upon by the patres^ and
were called the plebes, or crowd. Thus Rome became
an aristocracy^ or government of 7tobles, and the
common people (plebeians), having no share in the
government, were badly treated by the patres (patri-
cians). So Rome was at war within herself, and you
must see how this war went on. It stopped Rome's
conquests for a long while : she could not conquer
others when she was torn in pieces herself
7. How the Kingship came to an end. — So
the next three kings after Ancus Martins had diffi-
culties at home. First, Tarquinius Priscus, who also
made war against the I^atins, tried to make a few
changes in the state, but was prevented by the nobles.
After him came Servius Tullius, who succeeded in
helping the plebeians by making a new division of the
people, according to their wealth. Then he ordered
that every man should bear arms according to his
possessions, and that men with the same arms should
drill and serve together in centuries, that is, bands
of TOO men. As the army was of course very im-
portant in the state, many things about the govern-
ment were settled in meetings of the centuries. Thus
the rich men amongst the plebeians were now better
off. But there was great discontent felt by the nobles, .
and the good king Servius was murdered by his son-
in-law, Lucius Tarquinius, who succeeded him on the
throne. The Romans have called him Superbus, or
The Proud, for he ruled them harshly, according to
his will. He took advantage of their quarrels to^-
make himself a tyra?it, that is, one who governs by
his own will, and not according to the laws of the
state. He made himself the master, instead of the
father, of the state. He was a great warrior, and
I.] HOW ROME BECAME A CITY. n
made Rome still more powerful in Latium. But at
last the Romans could endure him no more, so they
rose against him and drove him out, with his whole
family, and resolved that they would have no more
kings.
This driving out of the kings took place in the year
before Christ 509, after Rome had been governed by
kings 244 years : but we cannot be sure about these
kings, or about the times when they lived, as there
were no Roman writers till long after this time, and we
cannot be certain about stories WTitten three or four
hundred years after the events they tell about.
8. Rome as a Republic. — When the Romans
determined to have no kings, they seem first to have
given the position of king to one man, who held it for •
a year only, and was called Dictator. Then, thinking
this power was still too much for one man, they made
two yearly officers, who were at first called Prcztors
(or leaders)^ and afterwards Consuls (or deliberators).
They still, however, kept the office of Dictator in
reserve, and when the state was in great danger a
Dictator was specially appointed, who for six months
might be sole magistrate and exercise the old kingly
power over the state. The ordinary magistrates, how-
ever, were the Consuls, who presided over the Senate,
and also led the army to battle. Of course under
yearly magistrates the Senate had more power than it
had had under the kings : also, the assembly of the
people, who were called together in their centuries
according to their military array, became more im-
portant, and their consent was necessary in making
laws.
9. Early difficulties of the Republic. — ^All
this took some time to settle, and Rome was not so v^'
powerful at first, as a Republic, as she had been under
her kings. She was attacked by the other Latin cities,
and by the Etmscans, and suffered great distress. Her
lands were ravaged, and the Etruscans besieged, and
seem even to have taken Rome. When at length thev
2
12 ROMAN HISTORY, [CHAP.
were driven back, the plebeians were in great misery.
They were most of them farmers, and their farms had
been entirely destroyed in the war. They themselves
also had to serve in the army, without receiving any
pay, and they were called upon also to pay taxes Avhen
the state was in difficulties. We cannot, then, wonder
that the plebeians ran into debt and borrowed money
from the patricians, who seem to have wished to use
their distress as a means of strengthening their own
power in the state. The old law of debt was very
strict, and gave up the debtor entirely to his creditor,
who might imprison him, or sell him to slavery. The
houses, therefore, of the patricians had prisons attached
to them, which were full of plebeian debtors.
lo. How the Plebeians got their own Magis-
trates. — At last, in 494, only sixteen years after the
driving out of the kings, the plebeians thought that this
state of things could not be borne any longer. So they
marched out of Rome in a body, and took up a
position on a hill a few miles away from the city, and
declared that they would found there a new plebeian
city, and leave the patricians to live in Rome by
themselves. You may imagine the patricians did not
like being left in this way, so they sent to the plebeians
a wise man, Menenius Agrippa, to persuade them to
come back. He told them a fable : "Once upon a
time the other members of the body conspired against
the belly ; they declared that they had all the work to
do, while the belly lay quietly in the middle of the
body and enjoyed without any labour everything they
brought it. So they all struck work, and agreed to
starve the belly into subjection. But while they
starved the belly, the whole body began to waste away,
and all the members found that they were becoming
weaker themselves. So you plebeians will find that in
trying to starve out* the patricians you will ruin your-
selves." The plebeians thought there was much truth
in this, and they agreed to go back on condition that
they might have officers of their own to protect them.
I.] HOW ROME BECAME A CITY. 13
These officers were called Tribunes, and their duty
was to protect all plebeians from wrong. They could
deliver any man from the patrician magistrates ; their
houses were to be places of refuge for any one who
was pursued; their doors were to stand open day and
night. Moreover, any one who laid hands upon them,
or tried to hurt them, was to be outlawed : their
persons were to be sacred as those of heralds.
Thus you see a plebeian state, with the tribunes
for its officers, had been founded by the side of the
patrician state with its consuls. The quarrels of the
two classes had gone so far that Rome was no longer
one state, but two.
11. Struggles of the Patricians and Ple-
beians. — You may imagine that this attempt to get
over difficulties by making two states instead of one,
within the walls of Rome, did not make Rome strong,
cr likely to go on with her career as a conqueror.
But you will remember that we said the first question
to be answered about Rome was, How did she be-
come fit to be such a great conqueror?
One great reason was, that the first 200 years of
the Roman Republic (500-300) were spent in a con-
tinued struggle between the patricians and plebeians.
Both parties, to begin with, were very much attached
to Rome and to its institutions. Each party regarded
the other as fellow-citizens, though they wished to
oppose them on some particular point. The struggle
was carried on with great moderation. There was
very seldom blood shed, and never civil war. They
had enemies outside Rome whom they had to fight,
and often they would lay aside their own quarrels
when they were at the fiercest, and go out together
to battle.
12. What the Romans learned from their
struggles. — Now this was a good training for 2S/
great people. It taught them to be severe, yet just,
at the same time. It gave every man a high sense
of his duty to his fellow-men, that is, to the state j it
[4 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
made him always do his best, for he ahvays had
something before him to do. The plebeians respected
the patricians, and knew that they could only over-
come them by working hard for the common good,
and showing that they were worthy of the rights they
asked for. The patricians held out for their own
privileges as long as they could, but learned to know
when they were beaten; when they could hold out
no longer, they gave way, and tried to make the best
of it. In this way the Roman people learned obe-
dience, self-control, and perseverance. But they
learned not only to be wise in their own separate lives,
but also to be wise in their general life together, as
fellow-citizens and members of the same state. This
\ " political wisdom," as it is called, helped them greatly
afterwards. For though they held very fast by their
old institutions, they learned that changes must some-
- -4 times be made, and they learned how to make them
"^slowly and gradually, without disturbing more than
could be helped the ordinary course of things. It
was because they had learned how to give way when
they had to give way, and how to make changes
wisely and slowly, that the Romans became fit to
"^^ govern the world when they had conquered it.
' 13. What the Patricians and Plebeians
strove about. — Now we must speak of a few of
the things which the patricians and plebeians strove
about. Their strife lasted for nearly two hundred years,
but you may divide this into two periods.
I. 494-450 B.C. Fifty years, during which the ple-
beians were tiying to escape from their misery.
II. 450-300 B.C. A hundred and fifty years, in which
the plebeians were trying to get as great a share in
the government as the patricians.
^ 14. Agrarian Law of Spurius Cassius. — ^^The
^rst great attempt to make the plebeians less miser-
able was the Agrarian Law of Spurius Cassius, B.C.
486. Spurius Cassius was himself a patrician, and
had been consul, and when consul he had done good
I] HOW ROME BECAME A CITY. 15
service to the state by 'making peace with the Latins,
who were henceforth to be the equal aUies of Rome.
He saw the sad condition of the plebeians, and the
debts which they were obliged to run into, and
which brought them to ruin and misery. He pro-
posed, accordingly, that pieces of the public land
should be divided amongst the poor plebeians. The (
public land was the land which had been won in
war, and which belonged to the state. Some of this
land had been divided to citizens when it was con-
quered, and some had been given to the temples,
to provide for the service of the gods whom the
Romans worshipped. What was left belonged to the
state; but the state meant as yet the patricians. So
the patricians fed their cattle on this public land,
and used it as their own. What Spurius Cassius
proposed was, ' that some of this land should be
divided amongst the poor plebeians, and that the
patricians who fed their cattle on the remainder
should pay a rent to the state for doing so. It
seems that this law was passed, but was never carried
into effect, for the patricians put difficulties in the
way. They hated Spurius Cassius for his law, and
accused him of conspiring to make himself popular
that so he might become a king, and on this charge
they put him to death (b.c. 485). But this Agrarian
Law was never forgotten, and you must remember
what it was, for we shall hear of it again.
15. How the Tribunes became powerful. —
The misery after Cassius' death went on increasing,
and the tribunes of the plebs became more import-
ant in consequence. The plebeians looked upon the
tribunes as their own magistrates, and the tribunes
used to call the plebeians together to discuss questions
that arose. The plebeians came and voted according
to their tribes, when the tribunes called them together,
though at first they could only pass resolutions like
our public meetings, and had no means of putting
them into effect. The patricians did not like these
1 6 ROMAN HISTOR V, [chap.
meetings, and tried to disturb them. But the ple-
beians only held to them the faster, so that they
became more important. And now there were really
two states in Rome, the consuls .took counsel with
the Senate, and then made laws, with the consent of
the people, in the Assembly of the Centuries. But
the tribunes took counsel with the plebeians in the
Assembly of the Tribes, and though they could not
make laws, still they were very powerful. For, if the
consuls made a law which the plebeians did not like,
the tribunes could protect any one who broke the
law from being punished for breaking it : so the law
could not be carried into effect.
1 6. The Decemviri. — You will see this state of
things could not last long. In 461 the plebeians
asked that the consuls and tribunes also should cease,
and that ten new magistrates should be elected from
the patricians and plebeians alike. These magistrates
were to find out the laws, and write them up in the
forum, or market place^ where the people gathered
together, so that every one should know them, and no
man should be unjustly oppressed. Till this time the
patricians had kept the laws to themselves, and so had
been able to judge the plebeians as they chose. For
ten years there were bitter struggles about this pro-
posal, till, in 451, ten new magistrates, called from
their number Decemviri, or the Teti Men, were ap-
pointed. They published the laws, to the great joy
of the plebeians. But one among the Decemviri,
Appius Claudius, a patrician, was a proud and haughty
man, who would always have his own way. He
wished to have for his servant the daughter of a ple-
beian called Virginius; so he got a man to declare
that Virginia, as the girl was called, was not really
the daughter of Virginius, but of a slave of his. The
case was brought before Appius Claudius to try, and
Appius of course decided that Virginia was a slave.
Then her father, who was a soldier, and had hurried
to Rome from the camp, led his daughter to one side
£.] HOW ROME BECAME A CITY, 17
to say " Farewell " to her ; but he seized a butcher's
knife from the market place, and plunged it into his
daughter's heart, saying, " It is the only way to keep
you free." Then the people in horror rose against
Appius, and drove out the Decemviri, and elected
consuls and tribunes again.
Still the plebeians had now got the laws, and so
grew more powerful, and after the Decemvirate (b.c.
Ago) they were not so wretched as they had been
before.
17. How the Censors were made. — From /2
450 to 300, when this struggle between the two
orders came quite to an end, the plebeians were
trying to get some of themselves made judges and
rulers of the people, as the patricians were. In
450 the plebeians could not hold any office in the
state, but by 300 they could hold any to which they
were elected, and they had also secured some offices
for themselves which might not be held by patricians.
The chief office which the plebeians wished to be
admitted to was the consulship. The patricians
fought desperately to prevent this, and when they
could hold out no longer, they weakened the power of
the consuls by making new officers, who were to be
patricians only. First, they made Censors^ in 443, who
were to hold office for five years, and who were to take
a census or numbering of the people^ and were to
issue lists on which the rank of all the citizens was to
depend. These censors could enquire into men's
conduct and degrade them from their rank if they
pleased, and so had great power. You will remember,
too, that the numbering of the people is called a
Census amongst us at present, and was always a
custom of the Roman state ; but with the Romans it
meant an arrangement of the people in their ranks,
as well as merely counting them. It shows how the
Romans liked order in everything they did. ^
") 18. Powerof the Assembly of the Tribes. — *^
About this time Rome was busy with wars, as you
1 8 ROMAN HIS TOR K [chap.
will see presently, and the plebeians, by being good
soldiers abroad, went on gaining power at home. One
way in which this power showed ilself was in the im-
portance gained by their meetings .in the Assembly of
the Tribes. The plebeians demanded that the resolu-
tions they passed there should be the laws of the state,
as much as the laws made by the consuls and the
Assembly of the Centuries. The patricians had been
obliged to give way to this, but were always refusing
to obey the laws made by this plebeian assembly. So
the quarrel still went on.
19. The laws of Licinius and Sextius. — At
last, in 376, two of the tribunes, called Caius Licinius
Stolo and Lucius Sextius, determined to win the con-
sulship for the plebeians. They brought forward three
laws together, and said they must be all carried at
once. These three laws had something for the good
both of the rich and poor plebeians ; for many of the
plebeians were now rich men, though they were still
looked down upon by the old houses of the patricians.
So all the plebeians, rich and poor alike, were now
made to work together. The laws were these :
(i). That the poor should be helpe^i to pay their
debts.
(2). That when the poor were out of debt they
should have pieces of the public land given them, and
the rich should only be allowed to till or feed cattle
on a certain part of it.
. (3). That one of the consuls must always be a
] plebeian.
These great laws are called the Licinian laws, from
the name of their proposer. The patricians fought
hard against them for ten years. But Licinius and
Sextius were elected tribunes year after year, and
used their power as tribunes to the utmost. They
prevented the election of any consuls or magistrates
for five years, by saying that as tribunes they would
protect every one who disobeyed these magistrates :
so it was of no use to elect them. The patricians at
£.] HOW ROME BECAME MISTRESS OF ITALY, 19
last had to give way, and in 366 the first plebeian
consul was elected.
20. End of the struggle between Patricians
and Plebeians. — This year, 366, really marks the /r
victory of the plebeians. They had, however, to fight
on to get the patricians to keep these laws of Liciniiis
after they were passed. The law about the public
land was soon forgotten, and the plebeians had to
fight hard at first to keep their one consul. After this
they forced the patricians to share with them all the
other offices, and in the year 300 patricians and ple-
beians had equal rights in Rome so far as justice and
government went. Really the plebeians had got more
than the patricians, for they had the tribunes all to
themselves, and the patricians had no magistrates of
their own. Also one of the consuls micst be a ple-
beian, and both ;;//^>^/ be, if the votes so fell out. So
you see that the patricians, by trying too hard to keep
everything to themselves, really lost in the long run.
This long struggle between the patricians and ple-
beians is very wonderful. You must remember that
both parties lived in the same city, and were always
meeting one another in the streets. But there were
very seldom mobs or riots or bloodshed. In their
struggles they always used means which the laws
allowed, and the plebeians obeyed the laws, even
though they wished to alter them. Both sides fought
hard, yet kept their temper : they were not in a hurry,
for they knew the strongest side would win at last.
No country, except England, has ever been so wise and
moderate in settling its disputes.
CHAPTER II.
HOW ROME BECAME MISTRESS OF ITALY.
/ I. The Peoples of Italy. — During the time of
this struggle between the patricians and plebeians,
Rome could not become a very great nation. Still,
k
ROMAN HISTORY.
[chap.
she was making herself feared in Italy, and it was
partly because the plebeians fought so well against
Rome's enemies that the patricians gave way to them
at last.
„f,TAWHllrt Ci<Kl«,MT..W. .WOOH.
3. The Races of Italy.
To understand Rome's wars you must know clearly
who were the people round her. You remember that
south of the Alps were the Gauls ; then along the west
coast, north of Rome, wxre the Etruscans ; while on
the east coast, south of Rome, were a number of pros-
perous cities, which were colonies founded by settlers
from Greece. There were great and rich Greek cities
loo along the coast of Sicily. The rest of Italy was
covered by jnirely Italian tribes, of which the Latins
round Rome were one. But these Italian tribes were
very different in habits and temper from one another,
and there were some warlike tribes lying in the valleys
of the Apernines, of whom the Latins were very much
afraid.
11.] HOW ROME BECAME MISTRESS OF ITALY, 21
/ 2. Rome's early wars. — Now, in 494, Spurius
Cassius the consul made an alliance between Rome
and the Latins, in which another tribe, the Herni-
cans, joined soon after. These three allies defended
themselves against their enemies. But Rome had
very little power at first, and up to the year 405 was
engaged in fighting against two tribes, called the
/Equians and Volscians, who lived close by. The
map will show you how near these tribes were to
Rome, and how small Rome's territory was at first.
We know very little about these wars, but two stories
are told about them which are worth knowing. /
jTAWfOWDI r.I0CB.«BT»^y.L0H0OH.
4. The Peoples arovmd Rome.
3. Story of Caius Marcius Coriolanus. — The
story of Caius Marcius Coriolanus shows you how
the quarrels at home made Rome weak : and it shows
you, too, how the Romans were taught to obey their
parents. Caius Marcius was a patrician and a great
soldier. He was once with the Roman army be-
2 2 ROMAN HISTOR V. [chap.
sieging the Volscian town, Corioli. The Volscians
came out to fight, but were driven back, and Caius
Marcius pursued them into their town. But he was
the only Roman who did so, and so was shut in alone
amongst the enemy. He was, however, so brave that
he drove the Volscians with his own hand away from
the gates, and then opened the gates to the Roman
army. So Corioli was taken, and the name of Corio-
lanus, or the man of Corioli^ was given to Caius
Marcius for his valour.
After this there was a great famine at Rome, and
when corn came from Sicily the Senate wished to
sell it to the poor plebeians. But Caius Marcius
said, "Let them have no corn till they obey the
patricians." Now the plebeians heard this, and were
very angry, and the tribunes brought Caius Marcius
to trial before them. Caius knew he would be found
guilty, so he fled to the king of Volscians, and offered
to serve him. Then the king of Volscians gave him
a large army, and he marched against Rome. The
Romans were afraid, and sent to ask for peace. They
sent first the chief senators, who had been the friends
of Caius Marcius, but he refused to listen to them.
They then sent the priests, with the images of the
gods, but Caius would not hear them either. Then
the Romans were in great distress, and had no hope
of escape, till some one said, " Perhaps he will listen
to his mother and his wife." Then his mother and
his wife and children, with many of the chief ladies
in Rome, went out, dressed in mourning garments.
And when Caius saw his mother he ran to meet
her, but she said, " Do not kiss me till I know
whether you are an enemy or a son." Then his
mother and wife and children fell on their knees and
begged him to spare Rome. And he wept and said,
" Mother, this is a happy victory for you and Rome,
but it is ruin and shame to your son." So he led his
army back, and Rome was saved. And soon after
this he died amon^^st the Volscians.
n.] HOW ROME BECAME MISTRESS OF ITALY. 23
4. Story of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.
— Another story, which the Romans tell of a war against
the ^quians, shows how simple their customs were,
and how all the citizens served the state. The consul
Minucius was warring against the JEquians, but they
had shut him up in a steep narrow valley, and guarded
the mouth of it so that he could not get out. News
was brought to Rome, and the Senate said, " There is
only one man who can help us : let us make Lucius
Quinctius dictator.'' So they sent messengers to
Lucius Quinctius, whose surname was Cijicinnatus^ or
the curly-haired. He was at his farm on which he
lived, and was ploughing without his cloak, when
the messengers of the Senate found him. So he
called to his wife to bring him his cloak, that he
might show respect to the messengers. They then
hailed him as dictator, and brought him to Rome.
And he ordered all who could bear arms to get
ready to march, and to take with them provisions
and twelve long stakes of wood. So he marched
out with his army, and came upon the ^quians by
night. His soldiers raised a shout, which cheered
the consul and his men, who knew that help had
come, and so fell upon the ^quians. But Lucius
bade his men dig a ditch round the -^quians, and
make a hedge round them with their wooden stakes.
This they did all night, and when it was morning
the -^quians found themselves shut in in their turn.
Then they surrendered to the dictator; and so he
delivered the consul and his army, and came back
to Rome in triumph. But he laid down his office of
dictator at once, and went back to his farm.
Men like Lucius Quinctius, who left the plough
and became generals when the state wanted them,
and t;hen went back contented to the plough again,
were the men who won Rome's battles for her and
made Jier great.
T""^. Wars with the Etruscans. — These wars
J with the ^quians and Volscians were troublesome to
\ 3 --sfet
2 4 ROMAN HIS TOR V. [ch Ar.
Rome, but were not really great wars. Roitte"^l$rJ
had to watch her old enemies the Etruscans, for
Rome, you remember, had been founded that she
might keep th« -^ruscans a^yay from, the Latins^-^
These Etruscans were a great people, who lived in
cities, and built large buildings, and made many
beautiful things. They were great traders also, and
had ships, and in early times they and the Cartha-
ginians had been masters of the Mediterranean Sea.
But the Greeks in Sicily and Italy, who wanted to
trade in these seas as well, had fought both against
the Etruscans and Carthaginians : and in a great
battle ie--4H the Etruscans had been terribly beaten
at sea by the Greeks. But the Etruscans were also
attacked on land by the Gauls in the north, and so
their power began to grow less. When the Rpmaas
saw this, they attack ed them on the south, ajii4n
■^^55^ began the'si^g^^f the nearest Etru^c^n city,
the city of Veii. ^For ten years th e'^ ^leg eMas ted ,
but at last a great general of the Romans, named
Marcus Furius Camillus, took it. Then he went on
and took many other Etruscan towiik, till Rome's
territory reached to the (^i^i0i^"|iilf^-\BuD CamH^
was an honourable map, anr j ^vhen he. ^ ^hpRiPfAnfir
Falerii there came one day into his camp 4 s4hdol-
master out of the town, bringing with him^ all his
boys, who were the sons of the chief citizens of the
town. These boys he brought to Camillus, that when
he had them in his power, he might force their fathers
to surrender to him.\ But G^millus was very angry,
and had the schoolin^ter^ hands tied behind his
back, and ordered all \h^ boys to flog him back
again into the town ap^ tell his baseness. Then
the people of Falerii thought so highly of Camillus
that they surrendered to him of their own accord.
X ^'/^ Romans defeated by the Gauls. — But
me Romans soon suffered a great defeat, the greatest
they\ver met with. "Fof the Gauls had dAso been
conquering the Etruscans from the north, while the
II.] HOW ROME BECAME MISTRESS OF ITAL V. 25
Romans were attacking them from the south. But
the Romans tried to help the Etruscans against them ;
then the Gauls marched against the Romans, defeated
them on the river Allia (369), and advanced against
Rome itself.
7. Rome taken by the Gauls. — The Romans
had lost so many men in the battle that they had no
hope of defending the city. So the people all fled,
except a few of the bravest soldiers, who shut them-
selves up in -^^^—Gapitol, which was the fortress or
^fhftI&-4^ Rome, determined that it should not be
taken. There stayed also some of the oldest patri-
cians, who would not leave in their old age the city
they loved so well. They all dressed themselves
in their best robes, and sat on their seats in the
-sejoate-^house. When the Gauls rushed in, and found
no one in the city except these old men, who sat
in silence, they were astonished. At last one of
the Gauls began to stroke the long white beard of
IVtoeus Papiriu.s, who-was one of the priests. He
in anger struck the Gaul with his ivory sceptre which
h« held in his hand. Then the Gauls rushed upon
them and killed them all, and set fire to the city.
Next the Gauls tried to take the Capitol, but they
could not find any way up to it, because the rock
was steep. At last they found a path, and one night
a band of Gauls climbed up so secretly that no one
of the Romans heard them. But there were in the
Capitol some geese, which were sacred to the goddess
Juno ; and as the Gauls reached the top, these geese
began to cackle, and awoke a brave Roman, Marcus
Manlius, who was just in time to find the f(P»remnst
Gaul clambering over the edge of the rock. He pushed
him back with his shield, and the Gaul fell: as he
fell he knocked over many of those who were
following him, and the Romans had time to awake
and drive the rest back. So the Capitol was saved ;
and" "after a while the Gauls went back to their own
country, carrying their plunder with them.
26 ROMAN- HISTORY. [chap.
v^ 8. Effects of this burning of Rome. — Now this
taking and burning of Rome by the Gauls is no doubt
the reason why we know so little eertainly of the
early history of Rome. For in those days the priests
kept notes of all that happened every year, and laid
them by in their temples. So, when the temples
were burnt by the Gauls, all these notes and chronicles
must have been burnt with them, and we cannot
feel very certain about anything that happened before I
this time. But after this, things begin to get ^more' 1
certain, and we kiiow more of wfeftt the Romans |w##ef J
raa]]y4oing. ..:: L^. 4
'^p: 9. Marcus Manlius and the Plebeians. — Then
^ the Romans came back, and found their city in ruins,
and at first they talked of leaving Rome and going to
live in Veii. But Camillus persuaded them to stay
and build their city again. This was a heavy burden
on the poor plebeians, and they suffered great misery,
and were in great debt. One day a brave soldier was
being dragged off to prison for debt, when Marcus
Manlius, who had saved the Capitol, being grieved
at this, paid the debt for him and saved him. Man-
lius said also, that so long as he had any money he
would not see a citizen made a slave for debt. The
plebeians loved him for this : but the patricians
were afraid of him. They accused him of tiying
to make himself a king, and put him to death (383).
So the plebeians learned they must look to laws to
protect them, and not to men.
10. Effects of the coming of the Gauls. — This
invasion of the Gauls was not really a great disaster
to the Romans. They suffered, it is true, but not so
much as their old enemies the ^quians, who from
this time forward troubled the Romans no more. Also
the Romans learned to improve their armies, and
to be more careful in battle. The Gauls came back
from their country along the Po year after year, and
plundered wherever they went : but the Romans never
again went out to fight them rashly. They drove
IL] HOW ROME BECAME MISTRESS OF ITALY. 27
them little by little, till the Gauls were afraid to
come back again. After the year 350 we hear no
more of their invasions, but Rome had grown in
power by her wars with them, and was looked up
to "by all the tribes round about as their protector.
II. Beginning of the Samnite Wars.^-The
Gauls had crushed others-i>esides.-th€ -^quians, especi-
ally the Greek cities south of Rome, in the district
called Campania. These cities were so weak, and also
so wealthy, that, when the Gauls were gone, they were
attacked by a hardy - Italian tribe, called the Samnites,
who lived among the Apennine mountains, which ran
down the centre of Italy. The Samnites so distressed
one of these cities, Capua, that she called on the
Romans to help her, in the year 343. This was the
beginning of the Samnite wars, which lasted for more
than 50 years, tii^t is, to the year 290.
5. Rome and the Samnites.
This time of the Samnite wars was a most important
2 8 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
time for Rome; it settled whether Rome was to govern
Italy or not. The Samnites were the stoutest and
bravest enemies Rome had yet met with : they were
as stubborn, and almost as strong as the Romans
themselves. The first Samnite war was soon over,
and had not much result : both sides were willing to
make peace, especially Rome, for she was just then
afraid of her allies, the Latins.
12. The Latin War.-r-The Latins, now that the
Gauls were gone, did not wish to be subject to the
Romans any more. In 340 they sent to the Romans
and asked to be made equal with them. They were
willing that Rome should still be the capital of the
alliance, but its Senate must be doubled, and there
must be two Latin as well as two Roman Consuls every
year. The Romans would not agree to this, so the great
Latin war arose, which was to settle which of these two
powers, the Romans or the Latins, should rule the
other. It lasted three years (340-338) and was very
severe. The greatest battle of the war was fought at
the foot of Mount Vesuvius, and victory was for a
long time doubtful. But the Roman consul, Publius
Decius Mus, had heard that that side should conquer
whose general gave himself up to death. So he
covered his head with his cloak, and rushing among
the enemy, was killed. Then the victory went slowly
in favour of the Romans.
13. The doom of Manlius. — You may judge how
stern the Romans were by a story told of the other
consul, Titus Manlius. He had given orders that no
one should fight a single combat with any of the foe.
One day, however, his own son, being ^challenged by
an enemy, fought with him and killed him, and brought
back his spoils. His father ordered him to be be-
headed for disobedience, and stood by to see it done.
And though all men were struck with horror, yet they
said that the doom of Manlius was just.
14. How Rome governed the Latins. — The
Latins, then, were conquered, and Rome took all their
II.] HOW ROME BECAME MISTRESS OF ITALY. 29
towns, and gave them different privileges, and taught
them all to look up to Rome herself, and to care more
for her than they had done for one another. You
see Rome could not look upon the Latins as strangers,
for they had long been her allies. Romans. and Latins
had fought side by side, used the same arms, and
been almost brothers. So when Rome conquered,
she did not treat the Latins hardly, but she took
care that they should not rise against her again. So
she would not allow the Latin cities to trade with one
another, but made them all trade with Rome, so that
Rome became their capital. Also she gave them all
hopes of being made citizens of Rome if they remained
faithful. So the Latins began to forget that they had
been conquered, and were proud of being ruled by
Rome. Rome learned in this way how to bind to
herself the people she conquered, so that they seldom
tried to rebel. You must remember that later on she
always did the same things after a war : she separated
the towns she had won from one another, and made
them all hope that she would reward them if they were
jijij6-*rue to her.
15. ^econd Samnite War. — It was well for
Rome that she had made the Latins contented^ for in
327 began the second Samnite war, which lasted till
305, for twenty-two years. It was a war in which
both sides fought hard, for they knew that the people
which won would be the chief state in Italy. The
Samnites had a very brave general, called Gftrcs^"
Pontius, who once very nearly destroyed the Roman
army. He made his army pretend to run away,
and the Romans followed him by the shortest way,
till they were shut up in a valley, with the Samnites
all around them, and could not get out. They had
to surrender to Pontius, and he made peace with
them, and let them go free. \ But the Romans at
home would not hear of -tho yeace ; they said that
no peace was rightly made except by the Senate,
and they sent' back as prisoners to Pontiu^ the
30 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
consuls who had made the peace. Pontius said
he might have killed all the army, if he had chosen,
and then he could have forced them to make peace :
now, if they would not have peace, let them put their
army back again in the pass of 'Caudium. But the
Romans refused, saying they had sent him the consuls
who had done the wrong, and that was all they were
bound to do. Pontius sent the consuls back, and the
war went on. The Romans did not act fairly in this,
but they were always a people who thought they had
a^ their duty if they kept the letter of the law.
ls the war went on, the Etruscans became frightened
Jlome's power, and helped the Samnites, but they
too were beaten. At last, in 304, the Samnites were
obliged to lay down their armsA
f''^i6. Third Samnite W^— But peace did not
last long, for in 300 began the third Samnite war. All
the peoples of Italy, who up to this time had been
fighting agains^.on^ another, were now drawn together
by a commonvl^^^^^ipf Rome, and so this war was a
desperate struggle of Samnites, Etruscans, and Gauls to
shake off the power of Rome. A great battle was
fought in 295 at Sentinum, in which the Romans beat
them all. Two years afterwards the brave leader of
the Samnites, Caius Pontius, was taken prisoner by
the Romans, who had no pity for him, but put him to
death. The Romans always showed themselves with-
out mercy for those who rose against them, and this
ras another reason why the towns they conquered did
ot often rise again. \ \ '
17. Wars WttTl Ae Greek cities.-!— jstqw, the last
Samnite war had settled that Rome was to be mistress
of all southern Italy. She had subdued the Samnites
and Etruscans, and had driven back the Gauls, and
there were only some Greek cities in the south to
stand against her. These cities had once been very
powerful, and were still very rich, in fact so rich
that they did not care about fighting for themselves.
One of the most important of these cities was
n.'\ HOW ROME BECAME MISTRESS OF ITALY, 31
Tarentum, on the ^"eat gulf of Tarentum, which is
in the south of Italy. The Romans had been helping
some of the other cities near Tarentum against their
enemies, and the people of Tarentum were very
^rKsrsssTiSoartSrtsrcsmar-
i a
6. Rome and South Italy.
jealous of Rome's power. One day the people were
all sitting in the theatre, which was in the open air,
and had its seats looking towards the sea. They
were listening to one of those plays of which the
Greeks were so fond, when suddenly they saw ten
Roman ships sail close to the harbour of Tarentum.
In a rage they rushed to their ships, attacked the
Romans, and destroyed half of them. So the war
^ began in the year 282. ' -
|<w t8. War with Pyrrhus. — But the Tarentines
were afraid of fighting for themselves, and there was
no people in Italy strong enough to fight* against
Rome. So they turned to Greece, and asked help
from Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, which was on the west
3 2 ROMAN HISTOR V. [chap.
coast of Greece, and the nearest part to Italy. Pyrrhus
was very glad to come and help them : for he was
young, and wished to be a great conqueror :. he was
a good general, and brought a large army of good
soldiers. It was a serious thing for the Romans
to begin to fight with nations who lived outside of
Italy, but they had to do it in their own defence.
In 280 Pyrrhus landed in Italy with a large army.
The Romans who went against him were defeated act
Heraclea, on the little river^iiis : their cavalry w^as
not nearly so good as that of the Greeks, and their
horses were frightened at the sight of some elephants
which the Greeks had brought with them. But
though Pyrrhus won the battle, he lost so many
men that he said, " A few more such victories, and
I am ruined." So he sent to Rome to try and make
peace on good terms for himself and Tarentum. He
sent a very clever man, called Cineas, who almost per-
suaded the Senate; but a Roman noble, who had
been consul and censor, but was now old and blind,
had himself carried to the senate-house, and with
his dying breath begged them never to make peace
so long as Pyrrhus stayed in Italy. Then the Senate
sent Cineas away with this answer; and 'when he
came to Pyrrhus he said, " It is useless to fight with
Rome, for its Senate is an assembly of kings." Next
year Pyrrhus defeated the Romans again, but they
would not give way. So Pyrrhus went over to Sicily,
and fought there for two years. Then when he came
back his army was much weaker. The Romans
meanwhile had been learning to improve their cavalry,
and to figlit against elephants : and they could meet
Pyrrhus more equally. So in 275 a battle was fought
atJ&eiTCventum;in-^whi€k Pyrrhus was beaten by the
Romans. He had to go back again to gpirus, having
lost almost all his troops. His hopes of conquest
were at an end, and three years afterwards he was
killed in Greeco' by a stone -throwtrTJtr^ his head bj''
a-w'oman whU^ie was besieging Atgos.
II.] HOW ROME BECAME MISTRESS OF ITALY. 33
19. Rome's Government of Italy. — After
Pyrrlms had been driven away, Rome had no diffi-
culty in taking all south Italy. And now Rome
ruled all south of a line drawn between the Httle
river Macra on the west coast, and the Rubicon on
the east coast. North of this lay Gaul. Rome was
herself a city, and she ruled over the cities which
she had taken, for the country in Italy was all divided
into districts belonging to the cities. The state of
things, tken^ in Italy was this : the citizens of Rome
governed all the rest, and every one wished to become
a citizen of Rome. Next to the Romans came the
Latins, who had some of the rights of Roman citizen-
ship, and hoped to get the other rights in time. Then
below the Latins came the Italians, who governed
their own cities in which they lived, but had to obey
Rome, and serve in Rome's armies when they were
wanted.
There were two ways by which Rome kept Italy
under her power. You must notice them, as they are
the ways which she always used afterwards with her
conquests. The ways were these :
(i.) She founded colonies.
(2.) She made roads.
20. Rome^s Colonies. — (i.) Colonies^ as you know,
are settlements made in foreign countries. The Ro-
mans took some of the land of the people they con-
quered in Italy, and sent some Roman citizens to live
on it, and form themselves into a state. Thus a
number of little Romes were scattered about Italy :
and Rome could always trust her colonists, as a
Roman never forgot Rome. These colonies were
almost garrisons to keep the Italians in order : but
they were much better than garrisons of soldiers,
for they were garrisons of peaceful men, who worked
hard at their farms, and taught others to do so as
well. Thus the Italians learned to know the Romans,
and tried to be like them, and were content to be
governed by Rome.
34
ROMAN HISTORY.
[chap.
\ 21. Roman Roads. — (2.) The Romans were great
makers of roads. Th«y made them so well and
so strong that many Roman roads still remain in
use at the present day. These roads went from
Rome to different parts of Italy, and so Rome could
send soldiers where they were wanted, and could get
news quickly. This was very useful as a way of
keeping order. You will see from the map how
they were spread over Italy, and served as so many
chains by which Rome fastened other cities to herself.
WAHFQRtfl 0«X>C«.«STAII>..L0»I.O>L,
7. The Roman Roads in Italy.
22. Character of the old Romans. — In this
way, then, Rome governed Italy. And these days of
lier wars with the Samnites and with Pyrrhus were her
most flourishing days. For the Romans still had to
work hard, and had not yet grown rich : so they were
honest and brave and noble.. Many stories are told
showing how simply the old Romans lived. Their
great generals and statesmen were no grander than
II. ] ROME 'S WARS WITH CARTHA GE. 3 5
Other people, and when presents were sent them,
they used to refuse to take them. Thus, the Sam-
nites sent a present of gold to a great Roman general,
Manius Curius. The messengers found, him at his
farm* cooking his own dinner, which was a turnip
roasted in the ashes of his fire : and he had only a
wooden dish to eat it on. When the Samnites
brought out their gold, Curius refused to take it,
saying, "It is more glorious not to have gold, but
to have power over those who have it."
But the time was soon to come when the Romans
were to grow rich in foreign wars, and their simple
life would last no lonsrer.
CHAPTER III. [^
ROME'S WARS WITH CARTHAGE.
Only eleven years after Pyrrhus had gone, the Roman-,
were engaged in a^nother war with foreigners, with the
Carthaginians.
I. Origin of Carthage. — Carthage, as you will
see on the map, was a town on the north coast of
Africa, at the point where the African coast is nearest
to Sicily. Carthage itself was a colony of the Phoe-
nicians, who lived on the coast of Syria just above
Palestine, and whose great towns were Tyre and
Sidon. These Phoenicians were the same people
as the Canaanites who had been driven out by the
Israelites from Palestine. They spoke Hebrew, and
so belonged to the same great Semitic race to which
the Jews also belonged. In old times they had
been great traders ; their ships are said to have
sailed as far as Gaul, and got tin overland from
Britain. Carthage is said to have been founded as a
colony of Tyre about 100 years before the foundation
of Rome, but it grew into power sooner than Rome
did, because it was engaged in trade. Carthage was
like Rome in not being ruled by a king, but it was
4
36
ROMAN HISTORY,
[chap.
ruled by its nobles, who were very rich from the
money they gained in trade. All the western half of
the north coast of Africa had been conquered by
Carthage, but the conquered people were not treated
by them so well as the Italians were by Rome. You
will see how important this was in the great war that
was now coming on.
A F H
■ow^o«o-s laoei.. t»T.«L. VBnt,om.
8. Rome and Carthage.
2. Carthaginians in Sicily. — It was in Sicily thai
the Romans and Carthaginians first met one another :
it was very natural that they should do so, as the
island of Sicily lies between Italy and Carthage. The
Sicels, who gave their name to Sicily, were an Italian
people, very like the Latins at first. But the Greeks
planted colonies in Sicily as early as 735, and the
Sicels learned to be like the Greeks. These Greeks
were great traders as well as the Carthaginians, so the
two were always fighting, especially as the Carthaginians
settled on the west coast of Sicily and tried to drive
p
III.] ROME'S WARS WITH CARTHAGE. 37
out the Greeks. Thus, while Rome was carrying on
her early wars in Italy, there was constant fighting in
Sicily between the Carthaginians and the Greeks, under
the tyrants or kings of Syracuse.
3. First Punic War. — The cause of these Phoe-
7tidan, or Funic wars, as the wars with Carthage are
called, was this. Some Italian pirates had settled in
Messana, the nearest city in Sicily to Italy. Both the
Greeks and Carthaginians wished to drive them out,
so the pirates called to Rome for help, and Rome, not
wishing the Carthaginians to take Messana, sent help ;
so a war began which was to last for twenty-two years
(264-241).
The Romans had no ships, while the Carthaginians,
as being great traders, had a large fleet. But the
Romans had a better army on land, as every Roman
was a soldier, and the ItaUans who were in Rome's
army fought willingly for Rome. The Carthaginians
sent generals only of their own with an army hired
from the peoples under their rule, who cared for
nothing but their pay.
0/ 4. Growth of Rome's Navy. — At first, when the
war was carried on in Sicily, the Romans drove back the
Carthaginians, and compelled the Greek king of Syra-
cuse to make peace, and ally himself with them instead
of with Carthage. But the Carthaginian ships did so
much harm to the Italian coast that the Romans saw
they could do nothing till they also had a fleet. It
happened that a Carthaginian ship was wrecked on
the shore of Italy. So the Romans took it as a model,
and began to build ships like it. And at the same
time that they were building the ships, they began to
train rowers. Ships in those days were rowed by men
arranged in rows one above the other:- and in large
ships of war there were five such rows, — so that it
required some practice before the ships could be used.
In 260 the new fleet put to sea. The Romans knew
they could conquer if they could only have a chance
of close fighting : so they had long wooden bridges
38 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
fastened to their masts, with a spike at the end.
When their ships came near enough to the Carthaginian
ships, the bridge was let fall, and the spike fixed it in
the deck of the ship on which it fell. Then the Roman
soldiers ran on board the Carthaguiian ship, and easily
took it. By this means the Romans, though they
were not good seamen, won two great battles at sea in
the next four years.
\j 5. Regulus in Africa (256). — Made bold by this,
^ the Roman consul, Marcius Regulus, sailed to Africa,
and plundered all the country. The Carthaginians
were very frightened, and offered to make peace, but
Regulus would have nothing but entire submission.
Then the Carthaginians gathered an army, and fell upon
the Romans and defeated them, and took Regulus
prisoner. Still the war went on as before in Sicily,
and in 250 the Romans won a battle, and took
prisoners some Carthaginian nobles. , The Cartha-
ginians, wishing to get them back, sent Regulus to
Rome, and made him promise that, if he did not make
an exchange of prisoners, he would come back to
Carthage. Regulus thought that the Romans would
lose by the exchange, and he boldly said so, and ad-
vised the Senate not to make it. So they refused, and
Regulus nobly kept his word, and left his wife and
children and friends in Rome, and went back to die in
^prison at Carthage.
vL^. End of the First Punic War.-— The war
dragged on till 241, when the Romans won a great
victory at sea. The Carthaginians were tired, and
wished for peace : there had arisen also amongst them
a great general, Hamilcar, surnamed Barca, or Light-
nings who saw that Carthage must have some time of
quiet, in which she might train soldiers who could fight
the Romans on land. So the Carthaginians made
peace, and agreed to pay Rome a large sum of money,
and to leave her Sicily. Peace was therefore made,
but neither side meant that it should last long : both
wanted time to get ready for a new war.
III.] ROME'S WARS WITH CARTHAGE. 39
7. Rome*s first Province. — Rome had now
gained her first possession outside Italy, that is, Sicily.
A few years afterwards she forced the Carthaginians to
give up to her the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.
She did not treat the people of Sicily in the same
way as she had treated the people of Italy. But
she made Sicily what was called a province^ which
meant, a country governed by a Roman magistrate.
The people of Sicily, then, had no share in the govern-
ment of Rome, nor had they any hope of ever having
any : they were not the allies of Rome, but her subjects.
They were governed by magistrates sent every year
from Rome, and they had to pay tribute to Rome,
that is, a sort of rent for their land.
This way of governing Sicily was afterwards used
by Rome for all the peoples she conquered : so you
must remember it carefully. Rome governed the
Latins in one way, the Italians in another, and the
people of the provinces in a third.
8. Carthaginians in Spain. — We saw that the
first war with Carthage came to an end because both
sides were tired, and because Hamilcar wanted to get
an army ready, with which he might fight the Romans.
He got the Carthaginians to send him to Spain, and
there he taught his soldiers how to fight hard : for
Spain was full of tribes of poor and brave men, who
fought very hard before they were conquered. Before
Hamilcar left Carthage he offered a great sacrifice to
the gods ; and as he was offering, he called his young
son Hannibal, who was only nine years old, and
asked him if he would like to go to the war. Hanni-
bal said " Yes." " Then," said his father, '* swear on
this altar that you will never be the friend of the
Roman people." And the boy swore it, and went
with his father, and you will see how he never forgot
his promise.
Hamilcar fought in Spain till he died, and con-
quered for Carthage all Spain up to the river Tagus.
When he died his son-in-law Hasdrubal went on with
40 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
his conquests, till he was killed in 221, and Hannibal
became general of the army at the age of twenty-six.
Th^ Romans meanwhile had not been idle : they
had had a great war with the Gauls in the north,
and had driven them back to the great river of
north Italy, the Padus, or Po. They had also made
a treaty with Carthage, that she should not conquer
in Spain north of the river Iberus, which is now called \
Ebro. -~^
^ 9. How the Second Punic War began. — In
the year 219 Hannibal thought he was fit to fight the
Romans, and he began his great war with them, which
lasted for seventeen years (21 9-202). The way in which
he begun it was this. There was a city on the east
coast of Spain, called Saguntum, which was a colony
of the Greeks. Saguntum was afraid of the power
of Carthage, and had made a treaty with Rome, that
she should be Rome's ally. But Hannibal quarrelled
with Saguntum, and besieged it, and the people fought
hard against him. At last, after a siege of eight
months, the chief men of the city, seeing they could
hold out no longer, lit a great fire, and threw into it
all their treasures, and last of all threw themselves in
as well. So Saguntum was taken. Then the Romans
sent to Carthage to complain, and one of their ambas-
sadors came before the Carthaginian senate holding
his cloak together as if he were carrying something in
it : and he said, " I bring you peace or war ; take
which you like." The Carthaginians said, " Give us
which you will." Then he shook his cloak open and
said, *' I give you war." And the Carthaginians
shouted and said, "So let it be."
10. Hannibal's plans. — Now, Hannibal did not
mean to fight this war by sea, but he meant to march
his army at once into Italy, and attack the Romans in
their own country. He thought that the Gauls, who
had so lately been conquered by Rome, would dislike
her very much, and would be ready to rise up against her.
He thought also that if he beat the Romans in' one 01
III.] ROME'S WARS WITH CARTHAGE. \x
two battles, all the Italians would come to his side,
and so Rome would have to give in.
/i[i. Hannibal's difficulties. — It was hard, how-
/ever, to get into Italy at all, for he had first to go across
I the Pyrenees mountains to get out of Spain ; then he
had to cross the great river Rhodanus (Rhone), which
was not easy to do, as the river is very swift, and the
Gaulish tribes on this side of the Alps, who did not
like Hannibal to march through their country, tried
to prevent him. Then he had to fight his way
through these Gauls till he • came to the Alps ; and
then he had to go with his army through the cold,
and snow, and ice, and all the dangers which there
are in crossing those high mountains. All this had
to be done before he could reach the country of the
Cisalpine Gauls, which we now call Lombardy, and
the Romans also were sure to try and prevent him.
It is because he had all these difficulties to get over
that Hannibal's march to Italy is so very famous.
The Romans might have attacked him while he was
among the Gauls, who dwell west of the AIjds, and so
he would never have got into Italy at all. But he was
too quick for them, and got on so much faster than
the Romans thought he would, that they always came
too late. Thus, the Roman army came to the Rhodanus
just three days after Hannibal had crossed it, so they
had to go away and wait for him in Cisalpine Gaul, or
Lombardy. ^_y
12. Hannibal's march to Italy. — Hannibal
crossed the Rhodanus very quickly; in two days he got
together all the boats he wanted to take his soldiers
across. The Gauls were on the opposite shore to pre-
vent him from landing. So he sent some soldiers by
night to go farther up the river, and cross where the
Gauls did not see them. Then he moored all his large
boats so as to break the force of the stream, and put his
men in smaller boats, with the horses swimming by the
side. So Hannibal waited till he saw some smoke rising
behind the Gauls, for this was the sign that his soldiers
CK. III.] ROME'S WARS WITH CARTHAGE. 43
who had been sent before had got across. Then he
told all his men to row hard at their boats : as they
got to the shore the Gauls rushed on them, but they
heard a shout behind, and saw their tents on fire, and
the soldiers of Hannibal coming against them where
they did not expect it. They were afraid, and ran
away, so the soldiers landed easily. It was a much
harder thing for Hannibal to march up the Alps, for
the people of the mountains rolled down great stones
upon his troops, and attacked them from behind when
they were not expecting. But even this was not so
bad as the cold, and the dangers of the snow and ice.
These were most felt on the way down into Cisalpine
Gaul ; the paths, being only made of ice, broke away,
and men slipped down the steep sides of the mountain
and were killed. You may think how hard a march
this was, when you know that Hannibal had 59,000
men when he crossed the Rhodanus, and when he got ,
to the bottom of the Alps he had only 26,000 men. |
13. Hannibal defeats the Romans. — You may
suppose the Romans wanted to stop him as soon as
possible, for the Cisalpine Gauls, who lived along the
valleys of the Padus or Po, as Hannibal had hoped,
began to join his army. The first battle was fought
(218) on the river Ticinus, which runs into the Padus
from the north. The Romans were driven back, and
Hannibal passed the Padus. Meanwhile another
Roman army had come up, and its general, the consul,
Tiberius Sempronius Longus, wanted to fight at once.
The little river of the Trebbia lay between the two
armies, and on a cold morning the Roman general
marched his soldiers through the water against Han-
nibal. The Romans were entirely beaten, and driven
out of Gaul.
All northern Italy had thus passed under Hannibal's
power, and its people were his friends ; so next year,
217, Hannibal went into Etruria, and marched south
towards Rome itself, plundering as he went. The
Roman consul, Caius Flaminius Nepos, went to meet
44 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
him, and a battle was fought on the shores of the Lake
Trasimenus. It was a misty day, and the Romans,
who were marchmg after Hannibal, were surrounded
by him and taken by surprise : they were entirely
beaten, and the consul was killed m battle. Then the
Romans were in great distress, and elected a dictator,
Quintus Fabius Maximus. He saw that it was no use
to fight battles with Hannibal, so he followed him
about, and watched him, and did little things against
him when he could : so he was called Cunciator, or
the Delayer.
14. Battle of Cannae. — But, although this plan of
waiting was very useful, the Romans did not like it,
for Hannibal was left to plunder as he thought fit, and
there was always danger that the other Italians would
join him against Rome. So next year, 216, the
Romans made a great attempt to get rid of him. They
sent both the consuls with an army twice as large as
Hannibal's, but again they were defeated at Cannae.
They lost 70,000 men, while Hannibal only lost 6,000 :
all their best soldiers were killed, and it seemed as
/though they had no hope left.
^"'^ 15. Rome's strength in the war. — But nations
^^ are not conquered only by the loss of battles. Hanni-
bal hoped, after the battle of Cannae, that the Italians
would all come to his side, and leave Rome. Some did
so, but all the Latin cities, and all the Roman colonies
held by Rome. So long as this was the case, Rome
was not yet conquered. Hannibal could win battles
very quickly, but it would take him a long time to
besiege all the cities that still held to Rome, and for
that he must have a larger army. But he could not
get more soldiers, — the Romans had sent an army into
Spain, and Hannibal's brother, Hasdrubal, was busy
fighting the Romans there, and could not send any
troops to Italy. The Carthaginians also would not
send any, for they were becoming afraid of Hannibal,
and they did not know anything about Italy. So they
answered his letters, asking for more men, by saying,
III.] ROME'S WARS WITH CARTHAGE. 45
that if he had won such great battles, he ought not
to want any more troops.
At Cannse, then, Hannibal had struck his greatest
'* blow : he could do no more. The Romans had
learned to wait, and be careful : so they fought no
more great battles, but every year they grew stronger
and Hannibal grew weaker. The chief town that
liad gone over to Hannibal's side was Capua, but
in 211 the Romans took it again, and Hannibal
was not strong enough to prevent them. The chief
men of Capua were so afraid of falling into the hands
of the Romans that they all poisoned themselves.
After this all the Italians cities that had joined Han-
^nibal began to leave him again.
(<^ 16. Defeat of Hasdrubal. — At last, in 207, Has-
drubal managed to leave Spain and march across the
Alps, bringing help to his brother. He marched along
the east coast of Italy to join Hannibal in the south.
But his messengers to tell his brother that he was
coming fell into the hands of the Romans : and
the consul, Caius Claudius Nero, who was watching
Hannibal in the south, marched up secretly to join
the other consul in the north. Then Hasdrubal was
defeated and killed on the banks of the river Metaurus,
and Nero marched back again and threw Hasdrubal's
head into Hannibal's camp. It was the first news
he had had that his brother was in Italy, and it told
him that now he could never hope to conquer Rome.
17. Rise of Scipio. — Still Hannibal did not leave
Italy, nor did the Romans try to drive him out, but
they carried on the war elsewhere, and at last found
a general who was a match for Hannibal. In 209
Publius Cornelius Scipio, whose father and grand-
father had been Roman generals, was sent to Spain :
there he won over the people, by his kindness, from
the side of Carthage to that of Rome. After Hasdrubal's
death the Romans grew still stronger in Spain, and
in 206 the Carthaginians were entirely driven out
by Scipio.
46 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
1 8. Battle of Zama. — ^When Scipio came back to
Rome he had made a plan for mvadmg Africa, so he
got himself made consul, and landed in Africa in 204.
He destroyed the Carthaginian army, by setting fire '
to their tents by night, and killing' them as they tried
to run away. After this loss the Carthaginians were
forced to send for Hannibal out of Italy. In 202 a
great battle was fought between him and Scipio at
Zama. The battle was long and bloody, but Scipio
had better cavalry, and they drove away Hannibal's
cavalry, and then fell upon his infantry in the rear.
This was nearly all cut to pieces, and Hannibal's
army was destroyed.
(V_ 19. End of Hannibal. — After this, of course,. Car-
"thage had to make peace ; she had to pay great sums
of money to Rome, and promised never again to make
war without asking leave from Rome. Hannibal still
tried to help his country, but the Romans were afraid
of him ; so he was forced to flee from Carthage, and
then went from one king to another till he died.
All the kings were afraid to have him in their land,
for they knew the Romans would not like it. So he
was hunted about, and at last took poison, that he
might not fall into the hands of the Romans (183).
20. Effects of the war. — This war between the
Romans and Hannibal was one of the greatest wars
the world has ever seen. It was a war between a
great man and a great nation. ^The Romans won
because they were strong enough to live through the
war. Hannibal thought that the Italians would all
be on his side, but when he found that the best of
them held by the Romans, he began to lose in
strength. Though the Romans had the enemy for
sixteen years in Italy, they could still send armies
elsewhere : but the Carthaginians soon had to give
way when the enemy landed in their country.
This war had two important effects on Rome :
(i.) It made her the chief state of all the states along
the Mediterranean Sea. She had begun the war to
[II.] HOW ROME CONQUERED THE EAST. 47
defend herself, but at its close she had conquered
Carthage and had won Spain. She became, too, a
great naval state, and was mistress by her ships of
the Mediterranean, which was henceforth to be her
road to conquest.
(2.) When Hannibal had left Italy Rome was very
cruel to the Italian cities which had joined him. She
no longer treated them kindly, but made them her
subjects. All except the Latins were hardly treated,
and even the Latins soon had complaints to make
against Rome. This fierce war had made the Romans
more cruel. Also it had driven the people who lived
on their farms in the country into the towns, and never
afterwards do you find so many farmers in Italy. We
shall see how bad this was as we go on.
CHAPTER IV.
fe^
HOW ROME CONQUERED THE EAST.
^. State of the East.— The end of the war with
Hannibal left Rome the greatest state in the west :
fifty years after that time she was the greatest state in
the east also. The east had been conquered (334-323)
by Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia in the
north of Greece. He had conquered and ruled over
Asia Minor, Persia, Syria, Egypt, and even parts of
India. When he died, all these countries were divided
amongst his generals, and when the Romans first had
anything to do with the east, there were three great king-
doms : (i.) Macedonia, which ruled over the greater
part of Greece. (2.) Syria, which ruled over Asia Minor,
though there was there a number of small states.
(3.) Egypt, which was very rich, and traded a great
deal from its capital, Alexandria.
2. Conquest of Macedonia and Syria. — ^The
first of these with whom Rome went to war was
Macedonia. When the Romans had conquered Hanni-
bal, they found that Philip, king of Macedonia, was
48
ROMAN HISTORY,
[chap.
becoming too powerful, so when Athens asked for
help against him, Rome began the second Mace-
donian war (200). In 197 the Roman general Titus
Quinctius Flamininus conquered Philip at Cynos-
cephalae, and made Greece free, as he called it; but
this really meant that the Greek towns came under the
power of Rome, instead of being under that of Philip.
It was not long before the second of these great
eastern powers, Syria, was conquered by the Romans.
Antiochus, king of Syria, was obliged in 190 to give
up Asia Minor, and all the kingdoms of Asia Minor
looked up to Rome as their head.
gTAH»ORD'i CtOeW. t^TAai„kOriBPN_
10. Italy and the East.
^ 3^ How Rome ruled the East. — By these
\\^rs Rome had conquered the kings of Macedonia
and Syria, and had taken away from them Greece and
Asia Minor, but she had not taken Greece or Asia
under her own rule. Rome was never in a hurry to
govern the countries she conquered. She left weak
kings instead of strong ones, and many little kingdoms
IV.] HOW ROME CONQUERED THE EAST, 49
instead of one large one, and then these small kings
had to do what Rome told them to do. One king
went to war against another, till at last Rome put an
end to them all without any trouble, and governed
these countries herself. The next years, from 190 to
133, show us Rome following this plan, and finishing
the conquests she had begun. Macedonia was made
a Roman province in 148. In Asia Minor also the
Romans favoured the kingdom of Pergamus, which
grew larger, and its king did what the Romans wanted.
At last, in 133, King Attains III. died, and left Per-
gamus to the Roman people by his will. So the
Romans made Asia into a Roman province, and
governed it themselves. -4 —
4. Conquest of Spain. — In some countries, how- ' .
ever, the Romans found it hard to conquer the people /H
entirely. Spain gave them a great deal of trouble.
Amongst the Lusitani, who lived in what we now call
Portugal, there rose a hero, called Viriathus, who led
his countrymen against the Romans. He was only a
shepherd when he began, but he won battle after
battle, and the Lusitani made him their king. For
many years he fought against the Romans, and even
forced them to make peace with him. But this did
not last long, and in the end the Roman general,
Quintus Coepio, bribed three of the friends of Viri-
athus to murder him while he was asleep. So, too, in
the north of Spain the city of Numantia refused to
open its gates to the Romans, and fought against them
for many years (141-133). At last the Romans had
to send their greatest general, Scipio ^milianus : and
he could only take the city by digging a ditch all
round it, so that no one could go in or come out,
till at last the Numantines almost died of hunger.
Before they surrendered, the chief men killed them-
selves, and when the gates were opened a few only
came out, and they were nearly starved to death,
Numantia was taken in 123, and after this Spain was
made into Roman provinces.
50 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
5. Destruction of Carthage. — But the country
that Rome treated most hardly was Carthage. Rome
was still afraid of Carthage, and so tried to find a reason
for attacking her. After the second Punic war, Rome
had taken under her protection 'Massinissa., king of
Numidia, which was the country next to Carthage. Mas-
sinissa went to war with Carthage, and the Romans
took his part, in 149. The Carthaginians knew they
could not fight with Rome, so they offered to give
up everything. First Rome asked for three hundred
boys of the noblest parents, who were to be kept at
Rome, to make sure of their fathers' obedience. Then
the Romans asked for all the arms of the Cartha-
ginians, and these also were given up. Last of all the
Roman consul said that the Carthaginians must pull
their city down, and build it again ten miles from
the sea coast. This was of course ruin to a trading
city, so in fury the Carthaginians refused : they made
haste to mend their walls, and made new arms : the
women cut off their hair to make bow-strings, and the
city was made ready for a siege. The siege lasted for
three years (149-146), and the fighting was severe on
both sides. The general who took the city was
Publius Scipio ^milianus. He first built a stone
wall across the harbour of Carthage so as to shut in
their ships, but the Carthaginians dug a canal on the
other side and sailed out. However, Scipio tried
again, and built a great wall as high as the wall of
the city, so as to shut out the Carthaginians from
the harbour. Then they began to give way, and the
Romans forced an entrance into the city; but still every
house had to be taken by storm ; the Romans entered
one house from another, by knocking down the walls,
and there were desperate fights in the rooms. At last
only a tenth part of the population was left to sur-
render; all the rest had been killed. Carthage was
set on fire, and burned almost to the ground, and
the land of Carthage was made a Roman province
under the name of Africa.
v.] ROME AS CONQUEROR, 51
6. Rome's position in B.C. 133. — Thus you see
that in the year 133 Rome, besides ruling Italy, was
ruler also of Macedonia, Greece, Asia, Spain and
Africa, in fact all the countries round the Medi-
terranean Sea, which thus became a Roman lake.
Also these were all the countries which at that time
were civilised^ that is, had made themselves into regular '
states, whose citizens lived together for their common
good, and built cities, and made and obeyed laws.
You see, then, how important was the position of Rome
after these wars : she was the head of the civilized
world. Some of the countries which Rome conquered
were made into provinces, and so were ruled by
Roman governors : others were still ruled over by their
own kings or governors, but had to do whatever
Rome told them, and were really worse off than if
.(they had been subjects.
^"^ 7. Rome's Wars after B.C. 133. — The wars
Rome carried on after this time were against tmcivilised
peoples, that is, against peoples who did not yet live
in cities, but were small tribes, who only helped one
another when they were afraid of a great common
danger, and who had no laws in common. Against
these people Rome fought as a civilising power : when
she conquered them, she taught them to live together
and obey laws. In this way the history of the
nations of northern Europe begins with the account
of their conquest by Rome.
CHAPTER V.
HOW THE ROMANS BEHAVED AS
v>; CONQUERORS.
vAf" I. Change in the Character of the Romans.
— The Romans themselves were greatly changed by
making all these conquests. Their great men were
no longer simple farmers who left the plough to
fight for their country, and went back again when the
^^
52 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
enemy had been driven away. The Roman generals
were now very rich men, and spent all their time in
war or in the business of the state. They were no
longer simple men doing their duty to their country,
but they became proud, and desired honours, and
wanted to be rich. No longer were the presents of
foreign kings refused at Rome, but Roman generals
asked for money wherever they went.
2. Influence of the Greeks. — Of course when the
Romans conquered Greece and the East, they saw a
great many things which they had never seen before :
and they began to care more about eating and drinking
and building fine houses. ' , The Greeks were much
cleverer than the Romans, or indeed than any people
of the time, for all the best books and statues and
pictures of the old world had been made by the Greek
writers and artists. So the Romans not only learned
many new things from the Greeks, but gave up a great
many of their own early beUefs. They thought less
of their own Roman gods, and altogether they were
not so simple or so good as they had been before.
3. Publius Scipio Africanus. — The man who
was most fond of the Greeks, and lived most like
them, was Publius Scipio Africanus, — for he was
called Africanus after he had defeated Hannibal in
Africa. Men in Rome were not fond of Publius
Scipio, though he was a great general. They said
he thought too much of himself, and wished to do as
he liked, and did not behave like a Roman. His
great enemy was Marcus Cato, who was a rough old
man who did not like the new Greek fashions. At
last a charge was brought against Lucius Scipio Asiati-
cus, who was the brother of Publius, and had defeated
Antiochus in Asia. He was accused of having taken
for himself, as general, some money that belonged to
the Roman people. Then Publius rose to speak for
his brother, and took the account-books and tore them
hi pieces before the people, and said " To-day fourteen
years ago I defeated Hannibal at Zama ; let us go and
v.] ROME AS CONQUEROR. 53
give thanks to the gods for saving the state." Then
he and all the people went up to the Capitol, and his
accusers were left alone. But after this he left Rome,
and died in exile, and the words " Ungrateful country "
were written on his grave.
4. Marcus Cato. — His enemy, Marcus Cato, tried
to keep up the old Roman manners. He lived very -
simply, and spent very little money. He took great
pains in educating his children, and making them
strong in body. He always spoke against the bad
habits which the Romans were learning, and when
he w^as made censor, he punished many great men
for things they had done. But though the Roman
people listened to him, and laughed at his sharp
sayings, and found much truth in them, still they did
not try to make themselves any better.
5. The Roman Nobles. — Let us try and see
how the Roman people changed, now that they had
become so great a nation.
• You will remember that in the year 300 the old
quarrels of the patricians and plebeians came to an
end, and all were equal in the state. But very soon
a new difference grew up amongst them. The rich
plebeians and the chief patricians were the only people
who were elected consuls. So a few families, whose
members were generally elected magistrates, gradually
separated themselves off from the other families, and
were called optimates^ or nobles. These families thought '
themselves much better than the rest because they were
richer, and because they held the offices of state ; and
thus you see a new nobility, which was founded on
money, grew up in Rome. Only rich men ever got
into the Senate, and all the magistrates were chosen
out of these noble families. These nobles agreed
amongst themselves, and as they made up the Senate,
they governed Rome as they pleased. ^^-^
6. New government of the Roman State. — a
In former times the consuls had governed Rome with ^^
the help of the Senate ; but now the Senate governed,
54 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
and the consuls had to do what the Senate told them
to do. At first the Senate governed very well, especi-
ally during the war with Hannibal ; but after the wars
in Asia every one wanted to grow rich, and then the
Senate tried to get money rather than to govern well.
So all sorts of evils arose in Rome, and no one could
prevent them. Though Rome was very powerful, still
her greatest men were afraid. Cato asked sadly, " What
will become of Rome when she has no longer any
state to fear ? " Scipio ^milianus, who took Carthage,
instead of praying, as the magistrates always did, that
the gods would increase the state, could only pray that
the gods would preserve it.
You must see what these dangers were of which
these great men were afraid. Perhaps this may be
done most easily if you see what the government of the
i. Senate did for Rome, for Italy, and for the Provinces.
\ 7. What the new state of things did for
J Rome. — Rome, you must remember, was a city, and
^ so, when Rome grew great, the people of one city had
to govern almost all the world. The people of the
city were divided into the rich nobles and senators,
the knights, and the common people. The nobles
and senators took care of the government, as we have
seen, but laws had to be made before the Assemblies
of the people, and so the Senate had to please the
people if it wanted to have its own way. The knights
were the rich traders : they were called knights because
in the old army of Rome all the richest men had to
fight on horseba,ck. Of course, in the new state of
things these knights vqtj seldom went to the wars, but
stayed at Rome and did their business, and the Senate
let them gather the taxes in the provinces, so that
they gi'ew richer and richer. The common people
also had to be fed and amused by the nobles, that
they might be kept quiet and contented. The magis-
trates in the provinces used to send presents of corn
to Rome, which were divided amongst the people,
without their paying for it. Also every man before he
v.] ROME AS CONQUEROR, 55
was elected a magistrate had to give great games for the
people's amusement in the circus. The Romans were
always a cruel people, and their games were cruel too.
They had of course horse races and foot races : but
they also liked to see strange animals, such as lions
and tigers, brought to Rome, and hunted to death in
their presence. The sport, however, of which they
were most fond were the gladiatorial fights, when men
fought with one another, and killed one another to make
amusement for the people. Often these gladiators were
prisoners taken in war, but there was a number of
men regularly trained to this as a trade. Now, all
these games were paid for by the rich, so as to please
the people, and the games and gifts of corn together
drew more and more people to Rome, and so its poor
people ceased to be really Romans, and became more
and more a mob of idle and worthless folk. But all
the rule of the world was still in their hands.
Thus you see in Rome itself the Senate wanted to
keep all the power to itself; the knights wanted to
grow rich, and would^ do. anything to get money; the
people were lazy, and only wanted to be fed and
amused, without doing anything.
8. What the new state of things did for
Italy. — Italy had been ravaged by the war with
Hannibal, and afterwards by the Romans when they
punished those who had taken Hannibal's side. The
little farms had been ruined, and men went to live
in towns instead of living in the country. Every
Roman when he grew rich Avanted to have a great
deal of land; so land grew too dear for the small
farmer to buy, and large farms took the place of small
ones. This land, which the Roman nobles thus got,
was not generally let out for a rent, as it is with us,
but was tilled by slaves. The Romans in their wars
had made a great number of slaves ; so to buy and
use slaves w^as cheaper than to hire free labourers,
and slaves were almost always used in Italy. A poor
man could very seldom get work to do as a farm
56 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
labourer, but had to go and live idly in a town, or
else become a soldier. Bands of slaves, chained
together, did all the work in the fields.
You see, then, that the class of soldiers who had
fought Rome's battles so well in lier early days, the
Ismail farmers, had been ruined by the grow^th of
wealth. Rome might become richer, but would never
be so strong again.
Another thing w^as that Rome, after driving Hannibal
out of Italy, treated the Italians much more harshly
than before. The Italians were looked upon as
subjects, almost as much as the foreign peoples which
Rome had been conquering. Even the Latins, who
had been so faithful to Rome, were not rewarded ;
Rome no longer treated them as equals, but took
from them by her harshness all the hopes they had
had before of being some day made Roman citizens.
So Rome's government was not much liked in Italy
, Jtself
J- 9. Condition of the Provinces. — The pro-
^ vinces w^ere governed by magistrates sent every year
from Rome by the Senate. The custom was that
after a man had been consul in Rome, he should go
and rule a province for a year. A man only became
consul after he had held other magistracies, and to all
of these he was elected by the people. He had, then,
to make sure of his elections by giving very splendid
games to the people, and these cost him a great deal
of money. The governor of a Roman province gener-
ally left Rome very much in debt. He had during his
year of office to make three large fortunes, one to pay
his debts, one for himself to live upon, and one to
bribe his judges if he were brought to trial. Of
course this money had to be gotten from the poor
people whom he governed. If he did anything WTong,
and the people of the province complained to the
Senate, the governor was brought to trial, but he was
almost always acquitted. He bribed his judges, and
the senators all hoped to go as governors of provinces
VI. ] A TTEMFTS A T REFORM, 5 7
some day, and so they would not be hard upon one
another.
So the people of the provinces were sadly oppressed
by this government of the Senate.
CHAPTER VI.
ATTEMPTS AT REFORM BY THE GRACCHI.
I. Dangers of the Roman State. — You see
how Vxiany dangers there were in the Roman state, and
you see why Cato and Scipio feared about the future
of Rome.
Before trying to see how these evils were to be got
rid of, let us clearly say what they were : —
(i). The Roman people was becoming a rabble, at
the head of which was a small body of rich and selfish
nobles, who fed and amused this rabble to make it
do as they told it.
(2). Slave labour had taken the place of free labour
in Italy, and the number of freemen was becoming
smaller and smaller.
(3). Rome was treating the Italians hardly, and the
Latins proudly, because the rabble of Rome did not
want to give anyone else the privileges which they had
themselves.
(4). The people of the provinces were everywhere
F pressed.
, 2. Plans of Tiberius Gracchus for reform. —
V ^^ow, in the year 133 an attempt was made in Rome
to mend some of these evils. Tiberius Sempronius
Gracchus was a Roman noble, who had seen the sad
state of Italy, and who had been at the wars in
Spain, and knew how badly the Romans treated the
Spaniards, and how weak the Roman army really was.
So he came back to Rome, to see if he could not
make things better. He got himself elected tribune
of the plebs in 134, and at once proposed an Agrarian
Law. The public land of Rome was now very large,
58 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
and it was used by the nobles, who paid no rent to
the state for it. Tiberius Gracchus wanted to take
this land and divide it into small farms for the poor
people. Of course the rich men did not like this, and
as there were ten tribunes, they, got one of the other
tribunes to object to the law which Tiberius Gracchus
brought forward. Now no law could pass w^hich a
tribune objected to. But Tiberius Gracchus proposed
to the people to turn this tribune out of his office,
and so carry the law. The people agreed to do this,
and the law was passed, but you see that the old
laws of the state were broken to pass it. This was not a
very good sign for the future ; for if changes could not
be made in Rome without breaking the laws, it seemed
likely that the changes would do more harm than good.
Tiberius Gracchus soon found that this was the
case. His law was very hard to carry out, and did
not do much for the poor people at once. The
nobles hated him for it, and he knew that if he were
not made tribune next year, the nobles would kill
him. So he tried very hard to be made tribune,
and the nobles tried to prevent him, and so there
was a riot, in which Tiberius Gracchus and three
hundred of his followers were killed. This was in
the year i2i'h-> ^^^ was the beginning of a time of
Y-revolution in Rome, that is, a time in which neither
I side cared for the old laws, but both sides were ready
to carry what they wanted by force and bloodshed
if they could not do it in any other way.
^ 3. Reforms of Caius Gracchus. — Ten years
V after the death of Tiberius Gracchus, his younger
brother, Caius Sempronius Gracchus, tried to carry out
the same plans (123). It was in vain that his mother
strove to prevent him. She had been very proud of
her sons when they were boys, and once when a Roman
lady was showing her all sorts of fine jewels, Cornelia
(for that was her name) called for her sons, and when
they came she put her arms round them and said,
"These are my jewels." Now one of them had been
VI.] A TTEMPTS A T REFORM, 5 9
killed as a rebel, and she was afraid that the other
might soon be killed also.
Caius Gracchus went much farther than his brother.
He seems to have wished to break up the government
altogether. He was tribune, and carried laws by going
to the people at once, without paying any attention
to the consuls or Senate. He wanted to upset the
government of the nobles, and make a government
of the people, with himself at its head. First he won
over the people by passing a law that they should
always have corn sold them at a very low price.
Then he won over the knights to side with him against
the nobles by giving them greater chances of making
money in the provinces, and also by ordering that the
jurymen for the future should be chosen from the knights
and not from the Senate. In this way the knights had
all the power of the law-courts on their side, and now
were quite equal to the Senate. The rich men had
before this joined with the nobles, but now the rich
men and the nobles were opposed to one another.
Caius Gracchus said that he had thrown down a
dagger for the enemies of the people to stab one
^another with. — ^
^i--^. How Caius Gracchus failed. — When Caius v^
Gracchus had thus got the people and the knights on
his side, he passed an Agrarian Law, and founded many
colonies for the poor people, both in Italy and outside
Italy. So long as he only tried to do good to the people
of Rome, they were very pleased at all he did. But
in his second tribunate (122), he proposed to make
all the Latins citizens of Rome, and to give all the
Italians the rights which the Latins then had. The
Romans, however, did not like this ; they thought that
it was better to keep to themselves their high position,
which meant their cheap bread and their games, so
they would not have this law of Gracchus. It was
a great pity that they would not have it, as it would
have done a great deal of good to the Roman state.
For it was impossible for the people of one city
6o ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
to govern the whole Avorld, unless they were ready to
take hito their city every one who was fit to obey their
laws. Now the Latins were alniost the same people
as the Romans, and had always been their allies,
and had obeyed Rome's laws, and fought bravely for
her. If the city of Rome was to grow larger it could
not have any new citizens better than *the Latins. If
the city of Rome was not to grow larger it would have
to govern all its subjects by force, and it would be
impossible for the few people of one city to govern
the world by force only. You will see how this
difficulty came back again, and the Romans had to
give way at last ; but it would have saved them much
misery if they had been wise enough to take the Latins
into the state of their own accord, as Caius Gracchus
wanted them to do. Next year, 121, Caius Gracchus
was not made tribune. He tried to live quietly in
Rome, but there was soon a riot, in which the nobles
attacked him and his followers. Many were killed,
and Caius Gracchus amongst them.
You see from this what a bad condition Rome was
in, and how different it was now from the old times
of the struggles between the patricians and plebeians.
Then the Romans held by the laws, and did not kill
one another, but now the laws were thought very little
of, and force and selfishness seemed to do everything.
CHAPTER VII.
TIME OF MISGOVERNMENT AT ROME.
I. Slave War in Sicily. — After the death of
Caius Gracchus the nobles did what they pleased in
Rome. They paid no more attention to the Agrarian
Law, and the state of Italy grew worse and worse.
The slaves were so many that it was very hard to keep
them in order. In Sicily there was a great war carried
on by runaway slaves, who made themselves into an
army, and for five years resisted the Romans (104-99).
i
Vil] time of MISGOVERNMENT at ROME. 6i
2. War with Jugurtha. — The nobles cared
nothing for Rome's honour, but only for their own
pockets. . They governed badly, and took bribes from
foreign kings, who were allowed to do what they liked
if they could pay enough. This was especially seen in
a war that took place in Africa. After Carthage had
been destroyed, the. greatest state in Africa was Nu-
midia. The King of Numidia was a friend of the
Roman people, and had fought with them against Car-
thage. So Rome had a good deal to do with Numidia,
and the Numidians often helped Rome in her wars.
In ii8 a king of Numidia died, and left the kmgdom
to his two sons and an adopted son named Jugurtha.
Jugurtha determined to have the kingdom all to him-
self, so he murdered one of the sons and made war
upon the other, who applied to Rome for help. The
Senate was bribed by Jugurtha, and did all it could
to please him ; at last, however, Jugurtha besieged his
brother in Cirta, and when he took the city put him
and all his army to death (112). After this the
Romans thought they must interfere, but the Senate
for more money were willing to let Jugurtha off very
easily. He came to Rome to excuse himself before
the people, and whilst he was there he had a Numid-
ian prince, of whom he was afraid, murdered in Rome
itself But his bribes were stronger than the laws,
and when he left Rome he looked back upon it, and
said, " Oh city, where everything is sold, you would
sell yourself if you could only find a buyer."
The Romans declared war against Jugurtha, but he
bribed the generals, and for three years very little was
done against him. At last, in 108, a good general, who
would not take bribes, Quintus Metellus, went against
him and defeated him. Metellus would have finished
the war, but in 106 the command was taken from him
by Caius Marius the consul.
3. Rise of Caius Marius. — This Caius Marius
was a man of low birth, but a good soldier. He had
risen in war by his bravery, and had held magistracies
62 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
in Rome. He was an officer in the army of Metellus,
and was very much Hked by the common soldiers, for
he was a rough man Hke themselves, and talked with
them, and lived as they did. It is said that Metellus
laughed at him for his low birth, ^nd so Marius dis-
liked him. Also in Africa a soothsayer told Marius
that he would become a very great man, greater
than he ever had hoped to be. So Marius left Africa
and went to Rome to try and be made consul in
1 06. He found fault with Metellus before the people,
and said that he could carry on the war better him-
celf. So the people made him consul, and more
than that, they said that he should be general in
Africa instead of Metellus.' Before this time the
Senate always said what the consuls should do : but
since the time of the Gracchi the assemblies of the
people had done more and more in the business of
the state.
Marius finished the war in Africa, and brought
Jugurtha in triumph to Italy in 104. But you see
this war ought never to have taken place if the Senate
had governed honestly ; and, when it did take place,
it ought to have been finished much sooner if the
generals had carried it on honestly. However, when
it was over, Marius was the most powerful man in
Rome. He was the leader of the popular party, and
also the general of the army.
4. Power of the Army at Rome. — The army
had greatly changed since the time of Hannibal. The
Roman soldiers were no longer citizens who fought when
their country wanted them, and then went back to their
work. But as wars were now constantly going on,
and going on too in distant countries, this could no
longer be the case, and the army was full of men
who took to a soldier's life as a trade. Marius was
the favourite of these soldiers : he was a soldier by
trade himself, and had risen in consequence to power
in the state. Notice, then, that when Marius was made
consul, it was a sign that the government for the future
VII.] TIME OF MISGOVERNMENT AT ROME, 63
was to be carried on by the army, as well as by the
people and the nobles.
5. Wars against the Teutones and Cimbri. —
>vlarius was soon wanted to carry on another war. Two
great tribes of barbarians from the north had entered
Gaul west of the Alps, and threatened to drive out
the Romans, and even attack Italy. They came with
their wives and children, like a wandering people
looking for a home. They seemed very strange to
the Romans, these people with blue eyes and flaxen
hair. They fought bravely in battle, rushing upon
their enemy with fury. At first these Cimbri defeated
the Roman generals in southern Gaul, where the
Romans had conquered the country along the Rhone,
and made it a province, which is still called the
province, or Froi'ence. The Romans, after this de-
feat, were afraid of another burning of their city by
barbarians, so Marius was made consul again, and for
the next five years he was elected again and again.
This was against the custom, and had never been done
to any one before. It shows how great the fear of
the Romans must have been, and how powerful Marius
had become. In the year 102 the Teutones and the
Cimbri marched to attack Italy, but Marius defeated
them in two great battles. Afterwards when he went
back to Rome in triumph he was so powerful that he
could have done what he chose in the state. The
people were very grateful to him, the soldiers were
very fond of him, and the nobles were very much
afraid of him.
6. Marius in Rome. — But Marius did not think
much of the good of the state : he thought much more
of his own greatness, and how he might become a still
greater man. So, first, he joined the party of the people,
and one of the tribunes, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus,
brought forward some laws like those of Caius Grac-
chus, and Marius helped him. But there were riots
in consequence, and the Senate begged Marius to help
them in putting down the riots. For a time Marius
64 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
doubted what to do, but at last he armed the people,
and Saturninus was killed (99). But now neither
side liked Marius, for he was true to neither, and
did only what he thought would make himself most
powerful. So for the future Marius was not likely to
be of much use in the troubles of the Roman state.
7. Marcus Livius Drusus. — These troubles
began very greatly to increase ; for the Italians were
growing more and more angry at the way in which
Rome treated them. The Latins also had been ordered
to leave Rome, where many of them used to live,
because some of the nobles thought they voted against
them in the Assemblies of the people. To prevent
these grievances from breaking out into war, Marcus
Livius Drusus, a tribune, proposed in 91 that the
citizenship of Rome should be given to all the Italians,
and so all the Italians would be made equal with
the people who lived in Rome. But both nobles
and people were very angry with Drusus for bringing
forward this law, and on the day on which it was to
have been voted upon Drusus was murdered. He
was stabbed as he was going into his house, and
died saying, " When will the state have another citizen
like myself"
8. War with the Italians. — The news of this
murder stirred up the Italians at once to rebel : they
saw that Rome would never of her own accord give
them any rights : so they tried to get them by force.
The chief of the rebel peoples were the Samnites. In
the year 90 began a war, in which Italy was divided
into two parts, and one fought against the other. At
the end of the first year's war the Romans felt that they
must give way. But they gave way little by little : at
first they gave the Roman citizenship to all the Italians
who had not yet revolted : then to all who should
lay down their arms in two months. In this way
Rome won back all who were not very hostile to
her, and so could go against Samnium, which had
shown again all the old vigour of the Samnite wars.
VII. ] TIME OF MISGO VERNMENT A T ROME. 65
In this war there arose a new general amongst the
Romans, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. He was a noble,
who had first learned war under Marius when he
fought against Jugurtha. But he had not shown him-
self very desirous of holding office in the state, and
had not put himself forward. In the year 89 he
was commanding against the Samnites and defeated
them.
9. Results of the Social War. — ^At the end of
the year 89 all the peoples of Italy except the Samnites
and Lucanians had submitted to Rome, and had re-
ceived the Roman citizenship. This war, which is
called the Social War, or war against the allies^ was
almost over. Rome had had to give way, and had
been forced to go back to her old plan of making
other people equal with herself, and always from time
to time taking in fresh citizens into the state. This
plan had for a time been laid aside by the nobles, and
Rome had run in consequence into great danger. This
war had destroyed houses and wasted fields in Italy
almost as much as the war with Hannibal had done.
It made' the number of farms in Italy smaller than it
had been before, and drove more men who before
would have been farmers to become soldiers.
10. Causes of the Civil Wars. — You find, then,
Rome's armies growing larger and larger, and the men
who went to be soldiers were better than the men who
stayed at Rome and idled, and were fed by the
Senate, and spent all their time in baths and sports
in the circus. You see, then, that the army was
becoming more important than the people, and the
generals of the army were becoming more powerful
than the magistrates of the state. When this was
the case, it was plain that questions about govern-
ment would no longer be agreed about, but be fought
about. This was what happened : the government
could not do anything against the generals of the
army. For the next fifty years we have a period of
Civil War.
66 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME.
1. War with Mithradates. — This Social War was
not the only difficulty which the Senate had before them.
During the last twenty years a great power had been
forming in the east under Mithradates, king of Pontus.
Pontus is in the north-east of Asia Minor, next to
Armenia. Mithradates for some time went on con-
quering the people in his neighbourhood, and when
the Romans interfered he stopped for a little while,
and then went on again. At last war broke out with
Rome in the year 88, when Lucius Cornelius Sulla
was one of the consuls. He was appointed by the
Senate to carry on the war.
2. Marius and Sulla. — But Marius, though old,
wanted the command for himself, so he joined with one
of the tribunes, P. Sulpicius Rufus, who brought before
the people a number of laws which went against the
Senate, and amongst them a law that Marius should
be appointed general in the East instead of Sulla.
When Sulla's army heard this they were very angr}%
and marched against Rome, and drove out Marius,
and put Sulpicius to death. It was the first time
that Rome had been taken by her own army, but
it was not to be the last. From this time the chief
l)ower in Rome had to be fought for, and Rome had
to pay those who fought. Sulla did not stay long
in Rome, but he passed some laws to make the
Senate stronger and the tribunes weaker. Then,
hoping things would remain quiet at home, he went
off to the war against Mithradates.
3. Sulla in the East. — It was quite time that he
did so, as Mithradates had entered Asia Minor, and had
ordered all the Italians there to be put to death : 150,000
are said to have been killed. He had also sent troops
into Greece, which had rebelled against the Romans
and had joined him. So when Sulla landed in Greece
f
viiL] T//£ CIVIL WARS OF ROME, dj
in 87 he had quite enough to do. He managed, how-
ever, to win back Greece, and meanwhile Mithiadates
made himself unpopular in Asia Minor ; so that when
another army was sent from Rome, which landed in
Asia, Mithradates was obliged to ask for peace in 84.
Sulla made peace because he wanted to go back to
Italy, where things again were in confusion.
4. Marius in Exile. — ^After Sulla had left Rome
the two consuls began to quarrel, one being on the
side of Sulla, the other on the side of Marius. At last
L. Cornelius Cinna, who was Marius' consul, gathered
an army and brought Marius back. Marius had had
many troubles in trying to escape from Italy. The
sailors of a ship on which he Trashed to go to Africa
persuaded him to land near Mintumae, and then
sailed away and left him. He was pursued and
taken prisoner, though he had tried to hide himself
by standing up to the chin in a marsh. He was put
in prison at Mintumae, and the magistrates sent a
Gaulish slave to put him to death in prison : but
when the slave came to Marius the old man's eyes
flashed so terribly through the dark prison as he said,
" Fellow, darest thou kill Caius Marius ? " that the
man dropped his sword and ran away. Then the
magistrates were ashamed, and let Marius go. He
crossed over to Africa, but had no sooner landed than
he was warned by the magistrates to go away. Those
who were sent to tell him to go found him sitting
among the ruins of Carthage, and when they had
given their message he said, "Say you have seen
Caius Marius among the ruins of Carthage."
5. Cinna and Sulla. — Now that his troubles were
over, Marius came back to Rome very savage after all
that he had suffered. He and Cinna put to death all
the chief people who w^ere opposed to thenL For five
days the gates of Rome were shut, and Marius went
through the streets with a body of soldiers, who put
to death any one he pointed out In the year 86
Marius was made consul for the seventh time, but
68 ROMAN HISTOR V. [chap.
he did not live long to enjoy his power. He died,
over the age of seventy, hated by all for his cmelty.
Cinna continued to hold the chief power at Rome
till 84, when Sulla, who had finished the war with
Mithradates for the present, prepared to cross to
Italy. Cinna thought it better to go and meet him
in the East, — but he was murdered at Ancona by his
troops as he was on the point of setting out. When
Sulla landed in Italy he had only 40,000 men, while
the consuls had 100,000. He could not therefore
march to Rome at once, so he remained in south Italy,
and won over the people by kindness, defeating the
armies sent against him.
6. Sulla's Victory. — In the year 82 the struggle
became more important. The Samnites, who had not
yet been subdued after the Social War, joined with
the old party of Marius. Sulla was making good his
position on every side, and at last in despair the
Samnites and Marians retreated to Rome, and would
have destroyed it. But Sulla followed them, and a
great battle was fought just outside the walls of Rome.
The Samnites were with difficulty defeated, and Rome
was saved.
So Sulla was now master of Rome, and could do
there what he Hked. You see how in all these last
five years the power had been in the hands of one
man, and the Senate and all the old ways of governing
had been set aside. Now Sulla decided to do all
that could be done to bring back these old w^ays, and
to set up the government of the nobility again.
7. Sulla's Government. — Sulla showed quite as
much cruelty as Marius had done. He seems to have
wished to make his government quiet and peaceable
by putting to death everybody who was opposed to
it. Lists were put out every day of men who were
outlawed, and whom any one might put to death
without trial, and also get pay for doing it. It is
said that 4,700 of the chief people in Rome were
killed in this way, and all their property was sold
viii.] THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME, 69
for the good of the state. This was a terrible way
of bringing in peaceful government, and was hardly
likely to succeed. You may think how bad an effect
it had on the morals of those who lived through it.
Many men suddenly became rich, many more hoped
that they would gain something for themselves by
killing others. Every one was made anxious and un-
quiet for a long while to come.
Then, when Sulla had got rid of all his enemies, he
went on to put the government in order. He was
made dictator, and as such passed a number of laws
to make the Senate stronger. When he had done this
he had himself elected consul (80) to show how a consul
ought to govern. He gave most magnificent games,
and fed all the people of Rome for many days. Then
he retired from Rome and from its politics to a house
in the country, where he died in 78, and was honoured
with the grandest funeral that had ever been seen
in Rome.
'j^8. Troubles after Sulla's Death. — It might have
* seemed that Rome would now go on quietly, but the old
evils soon broke out again. The Social War, and the
Civil Wi : which followed, had wasted Italy, and made
its population still less than before. It is true that Sulla,
when his wars were over, had given his soldiers farms
in Italy, by founding what were called military colonies.
But these soldiers were restless, and soon sold their
land and went to live in the towns, and so Italy again
went back to large farms tilled by slaves.
Again, the Senate and the nobility, on being restored
to power by Sulla, looked upon the state as something
tiiey had a right to use for their own purposes. They
were more bent upon making money than ever, and
many of them made larger fortunes than ever. Their
government was selfish at home and weak abroad,
so it pleased nobody, and soon found troubles on
pvery side.
tv^Q. War with Sertorius in Spain. — First, in
Spain, there was a rebellion against Rome set on foot
70 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.1
by a Roman, Quintus Sertorius. He had been a general
on the side of Marius, and fled to Spain when Sulla con-
quered. There he gathered the Spaniards round him,
and also a large number of Romans who had fled like
himself. He had very greatly the power of getting
barbarous people to obey him, 'and so he lived amongst
the Spaniards, and taught them all the virtues of Rome.
For many years the Romans could do nothing against
him : they sent their best general, Cnseus Pompeius,
but he did not do very much. At last the Spaniards
became tired of the long war and the misery it brought.
Many deserted Sertorius, and he became suspicious
of the rest. Then some of his officers made a plot
against him, and murdered him in his tent at supper
(72). After his death the rebellion was put down,
. aind Spain again was obedient.
yj^ 10. Troubles in the East. — But there were other
^ troubles quite as great for the Romans. The Medi-
terranean Sea swarmed with - pirates, who disturbed
all the Roman trade. Mithradates, too, in Pontus,
had only been waiting to gather his forces together,
and in the year 74 he again went to war with
. the Romans. At first he was beaten by the Roman
general, Lucullus, and driven from his kingdom, but
he got help from the King of Armenia, and in the
year 67 Lucullus was defeated, and Mithradates re-
turned to Pontus. So far the Romans had gained
nothing by the war. At the same time, also, the
Roman fleet had failed in its attempts against the
pirates in the Mediterranean.
v^Vii. Rebellion of the Gladiators. — All these
things showed how unable the Senate was to carry on
the government in matters abroad. Their weakness at
home was shown, at the same time, by a dreadful war
which again laid waste Italy. This was the Gladia-
torial^ d.x which broke out in 73. The gladiators were
men who were trained to fight with one another and
kill one another to amuse the Roman people at their
games. These men were regularly taught their horrible
VIII.] THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME, yi
trade, and there were schools of gladiators in different
parts of Italy. Many of them were prisoners who
had been taken in battle against the Romans, and
were now being taught how to amuse their conquerors
by their death. A number of these gladiators made
their escape from a prison at Capua, under a brave
leader called Spartacus. Their numbers grew very
quickly, for slaves and gladiators escaped on every
side, and the army of Spartacus soon reached 40,000
men. The Roman generals were defeated by them,
and Rome was in great danger of an attack. Spartacus
himself was a great man, and wished to lead his
followers over the Alps back to their native land* of
Gaul or Germany. But they found they could rob
as they pleased in Italy, so they stayed there and
did almost what they liked ; but they soon began
to quarrel amongst themselves, and at last, in the
year 71, were defeated by the Roman general Marcus
Crassus. At the same time Cnseus Pompeius, who
had been sent for from Spain, after the death of
Sertorius, fell upon the rest of the slave amy and
almost entirely destroyed them.
12. Power of Cnseus Pompeius. — Many people
now expected that Pompeius would behave like Sulla,
and enter Rome with his army, and so put himself
at the head of the government. But he came back
quietly, and he and Crassus were made consuls for
the year 70. From this time Pompeius was the most
important man in Rome. He tried to please both
the party of the nobles and the party of the people.
It seemed to the people that he was the only man
who could put an end to the wars in which they were
engaged : so, in 67, he was made general against the
pirates by a special decree of the people. In three
months he cleared the Mediterranean Sea of pirates,
pursued them to Cilicia, and destroyed their strong-
holds. ^
13. Pompeius in the East. — Meanwhile Mith-
radates had been making held in Asia, and the general
7
7 2 ROMAN HISTOR Y. [chak
sent by the Senate had shown himself quite useless.
So, at the proposal of one of the tribunes, the com-
mand in Asia was given to Pompeius. The Senate
opposed this, but in vaui. The people were too strong
for them, and the Senate found, that the favourite of
the people could do anything he pleased.
Pompeius, therefore, went against Mithradates in
66. He drove him out of his kingdom of Pontus,
and followed him into Armenia, whither he fled. For
a time Mithradates still tried to resist, but at last his
own son rebelled against him, and Mithradates in the
year 63 killed himself, that he might not be given over
to* the Romans. After this Pompeius went on to
Syria, which he brought under the rule of Rome.
From Syria he passed to Judaea, which for a time
resisted, and even after Jerusalem had submitted a
few Jews still held out on the Temple rock : but
they w^ere at last surprised upon the Sabbath, since
they did not think it right to fight on that day.
Pompeius entered the Temple, and wondered much
at seeing no idol or statue in it, for the Romans
did not understand the religion of the Jews. After
this Pontus, Cilicia, Syria, and Crete were all made
provinces of Rome, and in the year 61 Pompeius
came back to Rome again a successful conqueror.
14. Troubles in Rome. — But while Pompeius had
been establishing order abroad the government of the
Senate had become still weaker in Rome itself. Ever
since the time of the Gracchi there had been a party
of the people opposed to the nobles and the Senate.
We saw how little good this party had got from the
help of Marius and his troops : Sulla had put it down
for a time, and had given the power back again to- the
Senate. But in these last few years the Senate had
been growing weaker, and the party of the people had
been growing stronger. Pompeius had been a friend
of Sulla's, and so belonged to the nobles'-party, but
the nobles were rather afraid of him, and he did not
trust them.
VIII.] THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME. 73
15. Chief men in Rome. — The best man amongst
the nobles was Marcus Porcius Cato, who kept to the
old Roman virtues, and wished to keep also to the
old Roman government. Another man of great con-
sequence in Rome was Marcus Licinius Crassus, who
had made a very large fortune, which he was always
increasing : he tried to please both parties, and so
get everything he could for himself Marcus Tullius
Cicero also, was a great man in Rome : he was not
of old family or very rich, but he rose by his own
talents, and especially by his great power of speaking
to men so as to persuade them. He was one of the
greatest orators^ or public speakers^ that there has ever
been, and we still have many of his speeches to the
Roman people, which tell us a great deal about these
times. He was a moderate man, who wished to keep
Rome at peace, and also to put an end to the chief
abuses which he saw. He wished to reform the old
plan of government by the Senate, but he did not
wish to change it. The great leader of the popular
party was Caius Julius Caesar; he was of a noble
family, but Marius had married his aunt, and he him-
self had married Cinna's daughter, so he was very
much liked by the people. He was resolved to
destroy the government of the Senate, and then rule
Rome himself in the name of the people. But as
yet he had no army, so he was waiting in Rome to
see how he could get one in due time. -1,
16. Conspiracy of Catilina. — How dangerous
the state of things was in Rome may be seen from
the conspiracy of Lucius Sergius Catilina. He was a
noble, and had been a friend of Sulla's, but had run
into debt, and was now the leader of a band of young
nobles who were all ruined, and who hoped to get
more money if they could violently upset the govern-
ment. Catilina joined the party of the people, and
tried to be elected consul while Pompeius was away :
> ^ut ^ the year d^ ^^ was not elected, while Cicero was.
^ Catilma is said by Cicero to have intended to murder
74 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
him, and then to rise and burn the city and rob as
he and his followers pleased. Though the Senate
believed this, yet they were afraid to take Catilina
prisoner. He left Rome and raised an army, where-
upon his friends in Rome were put to death by
Cicero's orders. Next year Catilina was killed in
a battle against the Senate's army, and his troops
were all scattered. You see how little feeling there
was in Rome for law and order, when a man was
suspected of standing for the consulship that he might
use his office as a means of plundering Rome. People
did not know whether Catilina's plans were lawful or
not lawful. And afterwards Cicero was exiled for
putting Catilina's followers to death without trial.
This shows you how hard it was for a magistrate to
know what to do in Rome, and how party feeling
decided everything, and there was very little care
for the good of the state.
17. Pompeius, Caesar, and Crassus. — This was
the state of things when Pompeius returned in 61. It
was again thought that he would bring his army into
Rome, and so rule the Senate. But he did not, and
came back to Rome as a simple citizen (61). He
found, however, that when the first gratitude was
over he was not so powerful as he expected to be.
Gradually he quarrelled about many little matters with
the Senate. Caesar saw this, and took advantage
of it. He agreed with Pompeius and Crassus that
they should all three work together to get what they
each wanted. In the year 59 Caesar was made consul,
and as such passed an Agrarian Law^, which was to
give lands to Pompeius' old soldiers. Then a law was
passed by the people making Caesar the governor of
Gaul for five years, and putting him at the head of
a large army.
Caesar had now got what he w^anted : he had- got
the opportunity of showing himself to be a great
general, and so of gaining popularity with the Roman
people. He could now make himself the equal of
VIII.] THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME, 75
Pompeius, and hoped soon to become a greater man
than he was. Above all, he could train up an army
attached to hmi and ready to do whatever he told it.
18. Csesar in Gaul. — So in the year 58 Caesar
went oif to Gaul, where he soon found plenty to do.
In the next seven years he succeeded in entirely con-
quering all the land north of the Pyrenees and west of
the Rhine. He even crossed over to Britain (54),
and, though he did not stay to conquer it, he first
brought the Romans into the land where the English
live now, though the British alone lived there then.
In Gaul Caesar showed what a very great man he was.
He was busy in conquering Gaul, but he never lost
sight of things in Rome at the same time. He was
a skilful general, and also a great writer as well,
and has left us his own account of his wars in
Gaul, where he was beloved both by the Roman
soldiers and also by the natives of Gaul. He was
kind to those that he conquered, yet he always took
care that they should be thoroughly beaten. Csesar
made roads in Gaul, and brought in Roman ideas and
Roman customs, and also taught all his officers to
deal kindly with the Gauls. In this way he succeeded
in making those of the Gauls, who were not killed or
made slaves, quite content to be ruled by the Romans.
Though he was only there ten years altogether, and
when he left he took his army with him, still the
Gauls did not rebel against Rome. This conquest
of Gaul by Csesar is the greatest instance in Roman
history of the way in which Rome could not only •
conquer, but could bind the conquered countries to
herself. It was also most important for the future . ,^
of Rome herself You have seen how greatly the -j^
people of Italy were declining in numbers and xxi^^^
energy. The Gauls became children of Rome, and
you will soon see that many of Rome's greatest men
came from Gaul. Also this conquest of Gaul by
Csesar first brought the power of Rome into those
parts of P2urope wliich our own history has most to
7 6 ROMAN HISTOR V, [chap.
do with. Caesar's invasion of Britain is the first great
tact that we have related to us about the land in
which our fathers afterwards came to hve.
19. Caesar's influence in Rome. — But Caesar
had to keep a close watch all this -while on things that
were going on in Rome. He had been sent to Gaul
first for five years. But he wanted to stay there longer
to get more money, and become more known to his
soldiers; also, the hordes of slaves he got made him
rich enough to pay his debts in Rome, and to buy over
to his side many men who were powerful with the
people. He could only stay in Gaul if Pompeius
and Crassus would help him, or at all events would
not prevent it. In Rome itself there was great con-
fusion. Every year the election to the consulship
caused a war of parties. There were constant riots in
the streets, and every one was discontented. Pom-
peius found that he was becoming less and less power-
ful with the Senate, and also with the people,
v^ 20. Plans of Caesar, Pompeius, and Crassus.
" ^— Men looked to C^sar for advice, and in the year 56
Pompeius and Crassus went to meet him at Luca.
There they agreed to unite again, and get by their
united influence all that each of them wanted. So in
the next year, 55, Pompeius and Crassus were elected
consuls, by the help of soldiers whom Caesar sent
from his army in Gaul to vote in the assembly at
Rome. As soon as they became consuls they pro-
posed to extend Caesar's command in Gaul for five
years more. Then a tribune proposed to the people
that the province of Syria should be given for five
years to Crassus, and the province of Spain for five
years to Pompeius.
So these three men, Caesar, Pompeius, and Crassus,
divided all the power in Rome. The Senate could
do nothing against them. The old Roman Republic
was beginning to fall, and the power of the nobles,
as a body, had given way before the wealth and in-
fluence of individuals.
VIII.] THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME.
77
21. Death of Crassus. — Crassus went away to
Syria at once, where he was killed in battle against the
Parthians, in the year 53. These Parthians were the
great enemies of Rome in the East for some time to
come ; they lived among the deserts, where the Romans
found it hard to follow them. This defeat of Crassus
at Charrae was a severe blow to the Roman power in
the East. But, more than this, the death of Crassus
broke the bond of union between Caesar and Pompeius:
there were now only two men, and not three, to share
the power in Rome, and so Caesar and Pompeius
became rivals, with no one to stand between them.
22. Rivalry of Pompeius and Caesar. — Pom-
peius had not gone to his province in Spain : he waited
in Rome, which was not customary for the magistrate of
a province. Also, he got the Senate to give him the
province of Spain for five years more. By this means
he became superior to Caesar, for when Cassar gave up
liis province of Gaul, and also his army, as he would
have to do in the year 48, Pompeius would still be
governor of Spain, and would have an army at his
command. Caesar would have to come to Rome and
live as a private noble, while Pompeius would have
all the power, as being general of an army. But mean-
while the constant riots in Rome gave more and more
power to Pompeius. The Senate could do very little
to keep order, and Pompeius hoped that, if he waited,
things would become so bad that he would be called
in to keep order, and so would get all the power for
himself
Caesar's friends of course did not like this, and
Caesar was afraid that when he came back to Rome as
a private man he would be brought to trial on some
charge or another before the people, and then would
be condemned by the votes of Pompeius' soldiers.
There was no certainty what might happen, and Caesar
was determined to carry out his own plans, and to
alter the government of Rome. The Senate was more
afi-aid of him than of Pompeius, who made himself
7 8 ROMAN HISTOR Y. [chap
the head of the party of the nobles and those who
held by the existmg form of government. Caesar,
on the other hand, was the leader of the people,
and of those who wished for a reform in the govern-
ment. It w^as soon very clear ta every one that the
questions in dispute would never be settled peaceably,
but that there would be a great civil war.
i^ 23. Quarrel of Pompeius and Caesar. — This
was the question about which the war broke out : Caesar
demanded that either both he and Pompeius should
give up their provinces at the same time, or he should
be allowed to stand for the consulship while absent
in Gaul, so that he might come to Rome as consul,
and be as strong as Pompeius in the state. Caesar
was at the head of an army, and had many friends
in Rome, but the Senate did not know how strong
he was, so they refused his proposals, and when
two of the tribunes took Caesar's side they were
threatened with loss of their office. They fled to
Caesar, who now had a cause for war, and who
advanced into Roman ground, passing the little river
Rubico, which separates Gaul from Italy : he said
he came to defend the tribunes of the people against
the Senate. In January, 49, the great war broke out.
24. Civil War of Pompeius and Caesar. —
Pompeius was taken by surprise when Caesar actually
came against him, and when he found that troops did
not gather round him he left Rome, with the consuls
and Senate, and sailed to Greece. In sixty days Caesar
had gained possession of Italy : but he only spent
a few days in Rome, and then hurried to Spain to
fight Pompeius' army there. In the battle of Ilerda
he defeated Pompeius' generals, and broke up their
army. Then he came back to Rome, and by his
kindness and justice won over all those who did not
care much how Rome was governed, but only wanted
to live peaceably.
25. Defeat of Pompeius. — Next year (48) he
crossed over to Greece, where Pompeius had gathered
VIII.] THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME. 79
a large army, and the great battle that was to decide the
fate of Rome was fought on the Pharsalian plain. Pom-
peius' army was twice as large as Caesar's, but Caesar's
troops had fought with him in Gaul, and he knew
he could trust them. It is said that he gave an order
to his men before the battle to strike at the enemies
faces, for he knew that a wound in the face would
frighten the Roman nobles. After a long battle, Caesar
was victorious. Pompeius did not stay to fight again,
but fled to Egypt, where he was murdered in a boat as
he was landing : Caesar, who followed after him, wept
when Pompeius' head was brought him. He used
his victory very mercifully, and did not put any one
to death, for he did not only want to conquer, he
wanted his conquest to last, and he knew that he
could only establish his own power on justice and
mercy.
26. Caesar in the East. — When Caesar followed
Pompeius to Egypt, he found there a quarrel going on
about the kingdom, between Ptolomaeus XII, a boy
of fourteen, and his sister Cleopatra. Caesar took the
side of Cleopatra, and made her queen after Ptolomaeus
had been killed in battle. Then he passed to Asia,
where he defeated a rebel king at Zela, and wrote
his famous letter to the Roman Senate " Veni, vidi,
vici," (I came, I saw, I conquered.) He had no
sooner reached Rome than he set off again to Africa,
where many of Pompeius' party had assembled, and
were gathering troops among the Africans. They were
defeated with great slaughter at Thapsus (46).
27. Caesar in Rome. — Still Caesar could not rest,
for the sons of Pompeius had raised an army in Spain,
where they were beaten by Caesar after a desperate
battle at Munda (45). After that Caesar came back
to Rome as master of the Roman world. The Senate
made him dictator for life, and gave him every pos-
sible honour that could be found. But Caesar wished
to establish his pov^er entirely, ?.nd to hand it on
to others after him; so he wanted to be made king
8o ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
at once, and change the whole form of the Roman
government from a Republic to a Monarchy — but
a Monarchy restmg on the people. He wanted to
take in amongst the number of the Roman citizens
the people of the provinces, as soon as they showed
themselves ready for it. He wanted also to make the
Senate a council of advisers to the king, and he
wanted to bring into it not only Roman nobles, but
also the chief men of the provinces.
28. Murder of Csesar. — Now, many of the Ro-
mans disliked these changes, and disliked Caesar. So,
just as he was beginning to settle down in Rome to live
quietly, after all his hard work, a plot was made against
him. He was murdered in the Senate-house (March
15, 44) by a band of men, amongst whom M. Junius
Brutus and C. Cassius Longinus were the chief. They
were all men to whom Csesar had shown great kind-
ness, but they thought it was their duty to maintain
the Roman state, instead of submitting to a single
master : so they murdered Csesar in the name of
liberty. Csesar died at the age of fifty-six, and is perhaps
the greatest man in all history, when we consider both
the greatness of the things he did, and the wonder-
ful powers of mind and body which he showed. He
is not only a great general, but also a great statesman
and a great writer. He had many faults, for the times
in which he lived were full of wickedness; but the
poor people liked him, and his soldiers were entirely
devoted to him.
-\- 29. Antonius and Octavianus. — The murder of
Caisar, however, did not restore the old government of
the Senate, as Brutus and Cassius thought it would do.
It only brought on new disturbances and civil war
for the next thirteen years. Caesar had left as his
heir Caius Octavius, his great-nephew, the son of
his sister's daughter, but he was only a boy of
the age of eighteen at the time of Cxsar's death,
and was being educated in Greece. Wx (/ii^^sar's will
he was adopted as his son, and so changed his name
viii.] THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME. 8l
to Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus. In Rome, how-
ever, was one of Caesar's generals, Marcus Antonius,
who stirred up the people against Brutus and Cassius,
so that they had to leave Rome. Then Caesar's old
soldiers gathered round Antonius and asked to avenge
their leader's death. Antonius hoped by means of
this army to make himsdf master of Rome, as Caesar
had done. But Octavianus, young as he was, was wise
and cautious. He came to Rome, and made himself
popular to every one. Many of Caesar's old soldiers
came round him, and he soon became powerful. When
war broke out between the Senate and Antonius he
sided with the Senate, till Antonius was defeated in
the battle of Mutina (43), where also the two consuls
who were commanding for the Senate were killed.
Then Octavianus came to Rome with his troops, and
forced his own election as consul. Then, having got
a position of real power, he made peace with Anton-
ius, and with Marcus Lepidus, who, as governor of
part of Spain and Gaul, had an army at his command.
30. Second Triumvirate. — Thus was formed (43)
what is known as the second trhmivtrate, or board of
three men. Just as, twelve years before, the affairs of
Rome had been settled by three men, Pompeius, Caesar,
and Crassus, so now were they settled by three men who
found themselves at the head of armies, Octavianus,
Antonius, and Lepidus. The first thing they did was
to secure themselves by putting every one to death
of whom any of the three was afraid, just as Sulla had
done before. One of the people who was killed at
this time was the great orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero.
He had stood firmly by the Senate, and had spoken
very fiercely against Antonius in some very celebrated
speeches, so he was killed, at the age of sixty-four.
When they had thus settled matters in Rome, they
had to face Brutus and Cassius, who had gathered
together a large army in Macedonia : while Sextus
Pompeius, the son of Cnaeus Pompeius, had collected
a fleet, and was in possession of Sicily. But Brutus
8 2 ROMAN HIS TOR K [chap.
and Cassius were not good generals, and despaired
too soon of their cause. In two battles fought at
Philippi they were defeated (42) : in the first battle
Cassius committed suicide, and in the second Brutus
did the same.
31. Octavianus in Italy. — After this battle An-
tonius went to the East, where he met Cleopatra, the
queen of Egypt, and became so fond of her that he
stayed with her in Egypt. Octavianus went back to
Italy, where he tried to establish order. It was at last
agreed that Antonius should rule the East, Octavianus
the West, and Lepidus Africa. Octavianus had the
hardest work, as he had no ships, and Sextus Pompeius,
who had a large fleet, could prevent the corn-ships
from sailing to Rome, and so could produce famine.
Octavianus, therefore, had to get together a fleet of
his own, and also to try and keep the Romans quiet.
At first his ships were defeated, and he was in great
difficulties, but at last, in 36, he succeeded in over-
coming Pompeius, who was, however, joined by Lepi-
dus, through fear of Octavianus growing too power-
ful. Lepidus was defeated and deprived of his power,
and Sextus Pompeius was driven to take refuge m
the East, where he was put to death by Antonius.
32. Civil War of Octavianus and Antonius.
— It was now Antonius' turn to be afraid of the power
of Octavianus, who was master of Italy, which he had
saved from great distress, and where he had quietly
and moderately introduced law and order. All Caesar's
old soldiers followed him, and he was the head of all
the old political party of Marius. Antonius, on the
other hand, became more and more disliked at Rome.
He lived entirely in the East, where he was altogether
under the influence of Cleopatra, and followed eastern
habits and customs, which the Romans heard of with
disgust. So, gradually, a war came about between
Octavianus and Antonius, which was settled by the
battle of Actium, in the year 31. This battle was
fought at sea, off the west coast of Greece, and was
VIII.] BEGINNINGS OF THE EMPIRE. ^^^
decided by the flight of Cleopatra's ship in the middle
of the battle. Antonius was so distressed at this that
he followed her ; and then all his ships, seeing their
general run away, turned and fled likewise. Antonius
was pursued to Egypt, where he attempted to commit
suicide on hearing Cleopatra was dead : but she was
not dead, and he lived just long enough to see her,
but died in time to escape falling into the hands of
Octavianus. Cleopatra was taken prisoner, but com-
mitted suicide by the sting of an asp, or poisonous
serpent, which she contrived to have sent to her in
a basket of fruit. She was the last queen of Egypt :
after her death it was made a Roman province.
CHAPTER IX.
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE EMPIRE.
I. Why the Romans took one man as ruler.
— So now again the Roman world was under the rule
of one man. The murder of Julius Caesar had only led
to thirteen years of confusion, and at the end of that
time Caesar's adopted son stood in much the same
position as his father had done. Every one was now
tired of these civil wars, which had lasted since the
times of Marius and Sulla, for more than fifty years.
Very few people were alive who had seen these wars
begin. Very few had ever known what it was to
live under a settled government. So men had lost
much of their love for the old government of Rome,
and were contented with any government that would
give them quiet and peace, and would bring back law
and order. Almost all the chief Roman nobles had
been killed in these late wars. There was no family
left which could claim to be as great as the Julian
family. Octavianus was by far the most powerful man
in the state, and there was no means of getting rid
of him, or governing without him. After the battle of
Actium, when Octavianus returned to Rome, the power
84 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
of the state passed entirely into his hands, and Rome's
government slowly changed, in reality though not in
name, from being a Republic to being a Monarchy^
-J or the ride of o?ie man,
2. How the Empire was founded. — Octavi-
anus, however, had learned from the fate of Julius how
dangerous it was to try to change the form of govern-
ment openly : he had learned that it must be done
slowly and quietly. So he never wanted the title of
" king," nor did he wish for any extraordinary powers.
But he slowly took to himself all the old magistracies,
or at least the power of the old magistrates. You
remember that w^ien Rome drove out her kings and
became a Republic, she did not make any violent
change, but at first appointed one yearly magistrate,
and then two, who bore the kingly power. Then
little by little this power was split up, and pieces
of it given to new magistrates. Well, Octavianus
took to himself all these scattered powers one by
one, and so became a king again, though he avoided
the name of king. He took the title, Lnperator^
which means the holder of a military command from
the people. It is this title which has been shortened
into Emperor^ and which we now use as the chief
title of Octavianus and his successors. By this power
of Imperator he was head of the army, and the use
of this title more than others shows what the new
rule was really founded upon. Then he took the
authority of Censor, by which he could control the
appointments to the Senate. He also was made
princeps, or chief man of the Senate, who always
spoke first on every question ; from this again comes
our title Prince. By these powers of censor and
princeps he became also head of the Senate. Next
he received the tribunician power for life, and as
such became head of the people. Then he took
the consular power for life, and so was the chief
magistrate of Rome. Lastly, he became Q\\\t{ pivitifcx,
or priest^ and so was head of the Roman religion.
IX.] BEGINAIiVGS OF THE EMPIRE. g^
Thus he had gathered into his own hands the control
over every part of the old government, and also held
his powers for life. He also had the title conferred
upon himself of Augustus, or the Majestic, just as
we say *'Her Majesty." It is by this name of
Augustus that Octavianus is always known in his
later life.
3. Rule of Augustus. — Augustus lived quite
simply at Rome, without any show of grandeur. He
kept watch over everything, and always had his own
way. He accustomed the Senate and the people to
look to him for orders what to do about everything.
Sometimes he offered to resign his powers, that they
might see that they could not do without him. Once
he went away from Rome, and at the next elections
there was a riot, which only his presence could put
down. It was by these means of trying not to give
offence to any one, and of doing everything under the
old names, and so not seeming to make any change,
that Augustus established the Empire in Rome.
4. Roman Writers under Augustus. — He
ruled the Roman world from B.C. 30 to a.d. 14, and
the Romans were happy under his rule after all their
wars. His reign was the time in which the great
Roman writers flourished, and their works are full
of mentions of him. It was in his honour that
Publius Virgilius Maro wrote his poem of the ^neid,
to tell the great deeds of ^neas, who founded Alba, and
from whom the Julian family, to which Julius Caesar
had belonged, was said to have sprung. Quintus
Horatius Flaccus, and Publius Ovidius Varo, also
wrote poems at this time : and Titus Livius wrote
his great history of Rome. Augustus was fond of
having literary men about him, and used to encourage
them to write. Hence it is customary to talk about
the Augustan age of literature as being that in which
there were the best writers, and they were the most /
highly esteemed. "^~r"
5. Effects of the Empire on the Provinces,
86 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
— But the chief thing that Augustus did was the general
arrangement of the government. You see that Rome's
government, up to the time of the Empire, had been
the government of the people of the city of Rome over
all the peoples they had conquered. After the Social
War all the Italians had been made Roman citizens,
but they could only vote at Rome itself, and of course
every man in Italy could not go to Rome and vote
every time there was an Assembly. The chief power in
Rome was simply that of the rabble of Rome, who came
and voted just as they were led by some one popular
for the time. The Senate had been always trying
to keep this " Roman people " quiet and obedient
to itself, but had failed to do so. When the Empire
was once established this difficulty was settled : both
Senate and people had to obey the Emperor. The
pow^r of governing the provinces was no longer left
to the Roman people, but went either directly or in-
directly to the Emperor. Thus, under the Empire,
the Italians gradually lost their freedom, and the
provincials gradually gained equality with them.
6. Extent of the Roman Empire. — If you
look at the map at the beginning of the book,
you will see how large was the extent of Rome's
dominions under Augustus. After a great defeat
in North Germany, he thought that Rome had con-
quered far enough, and that it was only necessary for
her to get good strong frontiers. His wars were
mostly carried on against the Germans, and he at last
succeeded in making the two great rivers of the Rhine
and the Danube the • boundaries of the Roman terri-
tory. Thus you see Rome's dominions were bounded
on the west by the Atlantic Ocean ; on the north by
the English Channel, the Rhine, the Danube, the
Black Sea, and the mountains of Caucasus ; on the
east by the Armenian mountains, the Tigris, and they
Arabian desert ; and on the south by the African
deserts. Along all this frontier there were only two
weak points : one was towards the Germans, and the
IX.] BEGINNINGS OF THE EMPIRE, gy
Other on the east side towards the Parthians. These
two peoples, the Germans and the Parthians, were
the enemies whom Rome had chiefly to fear. When
Augustus died he left directions to his successors not
to increase these dominions : and up to the end of
the Roman Empire only two other countries were
added. One was Britain, which had already been in-
vaded by Julius Csesar, but which the Emperor
Claudius conquered in a.d. 51 ; the other was Dacia,
which was added by the Emperor Trajan in a.d. 106.
f 7. New Government of the Provinces. —
These provinces had been governed, you remember,
by those who had been magistrates at Rome, and
who were purely Roman governors, settling everything
in the interests of the Senate. So the provinces
had been oppressed and ill treated by many Romans
who wanted to make money out of them. Augustus
took many of these provinces under his own care,
and appointed his own governor, who was under
his control. Even in the other provinces, which
still were under the care of the Senate, Augustus
had officers who kept watch over the governors
of the Senate. He was always ready also to hear
the complaints of the people of the provinces, and
used to see that justice was done to them. In this
way the provinces were delivered by the Emperor
from the oppression of the Roman nobles. The pro-
vinces before had been looked upon as estates of the
Roman people, which they might deal with as they
chose, and out of which they made as much money as
they could. But now the provinces began to be equal
with Italy, and both alike were parts of a great system
of government, at the head of which was the Emperor.
Instead of being the mistress of all the peoples she
had conquered, Rome became only their capital city.
f 8. Equality between Rome and the Pro-
vinces. — This, then, was the result of the change
which was brought about when the Roman Republic
began to have an Emperor at its head. You see that
88 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
in this point the emperors went back to the old plan
which Rome had followed at first ; they did not want
to keep the conquered people outside the state, and
give them no share in it, but they gradually gave the
provinces Roman citizenship, and so made them all
equal to Italy herself. It was because the nobles of
the Senate had not followed this plan that they had
failed to govern. However, this gift of Roman citizen-
ship did not do much good by itself, as Roman citizens
could only vote at Rome itself, and of course men
living away from Rome could not go there to vote,
however important the matter might be. When the
emperors gave Roman citizenship to cities or districts
they did not give any real power in the state, for there
was no real power except what they had themselves, but
they gave the rights of the Roman law and an equal
position to that of the Romans who were scattered
about as officials through the provinces. So you
see the city of Rome first conquered the civilised
world, and then gradually made all people of the
world citizens of Rome, and all these citizens were
equal with one another, but all had to obey the
Emperor who, however, though he ruled them all,
was only a Roman citizen himself
This was a very curious result of the Empire, and
was one that came about slowly : but there was
this result at once, that the provinces were better
governed. The people were very grateful to Augustus
for this. We are told that one day, as he was sailing
in his yacht in the Bay of Baiae, a Greek ship which
was sailing past saw him. The sailors at once stopped
the ship, and, coming to his yacht clad in white robes,
they sacrificed to him as to a god, saying " You have
given us happiness, you have secured to us our lives
and our goods."
9. Wars of Augustus. — Though Augustus was
"or the most part busy with arranging the provinces, he
also carried on some wars. The most important of these
was with the Germans, whom Augustus wished to con-
k
IX.] BEGINNINGS OF THE EMPIRE. 89
quer. At one time the Romans had won all the
country between the Rhine and the Elbe, where our
forefathers the English and Saxons were living, but a
German chieftain, Arminius, as the Romans called him,
attacked the Roman general, Varus, and destroyed all
- his troops (a.d. 9). Augustus never recovered from
grief at this loss : it is said he used to call out in his
sleep, " Varus, Varus, give me back my legions." At
all events Germany, north of the Rhine and Danube,
was safe from the Romans, and although wars were
made afterwards, they were not wars for conquest, but
rather wars to keep down the Germans and prevent
them from crossing the Rhine.
V 10. Death of Augustus. — Augustus died in the
year a.d. 14, at the age of seventy-six. He was a
very clever man, who had always known how to use
everything for his own advantage. He liked to act
gently rather than violently; but he shrunk from
nothing that might help him to get what he wanted.
He was not happy in his private life; his daughter
vexed him greatly, and at last he had chosen to
succeed him his step-son, -Tiberius Claudius Nero,
who was not of the Julian house by birth, but was the
son of Augustus' second wife, Livia, by a former
marriage, and had been adopted by Augustus as his
son.
"^ii. Accession of Tiberius. — Tiberius (14-27)
had been greatly employed by Augustus in state affairs,
and had for tl^e last two years shared Augustus' power.
So the Senate, when Augustus was dead, gave him
the same honours as Augustus had held, and he be-
came Emperor in the same way. But Tiberius was
not so pleasant and kindly as Augustus had been :
he was rather stern and sullen, and was fifty-five years
old when he came to power, and so was too old to
change his ways of li^e. He did not keep up all
the old forms of the Republic as Augustus had done.
He did away altogether with the Assemblies of the
People for the purpose of making laws : and we must
90 ROMAN HI^ 1 VR V. [chap.
own that the people who could give up their right
so easily did not deserve to have it. The Senate
^ also felt itself to be entirely under his power, and
some of the feeling of the old Roman nobles again
awoke. For the first nine years Tiberius did a great
deal of Avork : he saw that the provinces were rightly
governed and that the laws were obeyed. But he
felt that he was not liked, and he became jealous of
his nephew, Germanicus, who w^as very popular with
all classes. So he grew suspicious and tyrannical,
and, unhappily, the state of things in Rome allowed
him to be as cruel as he pleased.
"^12. Evils of the Government of the Em-
perors. — We have seen what was the good side of
this new government of Emperors, — the provinces were
freed from oppression, and men became more equal.
But we must now look at the bad side of it, of which
Tiberius and his successors show us only too much. The
people who lived in Rome were very diiferent from
what they had been in the days when the Roman
people ruled for themselves. The old Roman nobles
had died out, and in their places had grown up
a large body of men, who owed their riches to the
Emperor, who had not been born in Rome at all,
and who cared very little about the old customs.
The upper classes in Rome were very rich, very
luxurious, and very lazy. The lower classes in Rome
were no longer the farmers in Italy, but were a mob
of people who had come together from every side
to live at Rome, because it was cheap to live there,
and there were plenty of amusements. 'A great part of
them had come to Rome as slaves, and had managed
to be set free. Now this mob cared about nothing
except how they could get bread without doing any
work, and amusements without paying for them. So
long as the emperor took care that they had these,
they did not trouble themselves about what he did.
Of course the emperor's power really rested on the
army : so long as the army obeyed him he could do
IX,] BEGINNINGS OF THE EMPIRE. 91
what he pleased, and he had a guard, known as the
Prcetorian Guard, of about 6,000 men in Rome itself, i
13. Rise of a class of Informers. — In this state
of things the Senate lost its sense of freedom ; it had
very little to do, and yet its members wanted to have
something to make speeches about. So they took
to accusing one another of different crimes against
the emperor, and they showed their cleverness in
finding out new sorts of crimes that might be done
against him. Thus, one man was brought to trial
because he had melted down a silver image of the
emperor to make plate for his own table. At first
Tiberius would not allow trials to go on for such
charges, but, when he had grown suspicious, he used
this temper of the Senate for his own purposes. Those
whom he was afraid of were got rid of in this way.
There grew up a class of men who started the trade
of informers, who got up these charges against any
one whom they thought the emperor would like to
see put to death, and who made large fortunes by
getting a share of the property of the condemned
man. In this way almost all that remained of the
Roman nobles were put to death. The rich and
distinguished men lived in constant fear that they
would be accused. Even Tiberius himself was fright-
ened : he left Rome and went to the little island of
Capreae, where he lived, amongst astrologers, a gloomy
and wicked life.
14. End of the Reign of Tiberius. — But, though
Tiberius had left Rome, he was still regarded as its
chief ruler, and this shows you how great a change
had already come over Roman ideas. The govern-
ment of Rome had now become a power belonging to
a person, and not to the state, Tiberius gave his
power to others to exercise for him, and Rome was
governed by the captain of the Praetorian Guard,
^Elius Sejanus, who was very cruel, and w^ho hoped to
succeed Tiberius. He killed almost all the emperor's
relations, till at last Tiberius was afraid of a con-
92 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap,
spiracy against himself, and sent a letter to the Senate,
ordering them to make Sejanus prisoner. The letter
was a long one, and was read aloud in the Senate
while Sejanus was there, expecting that it contained
the news of some new honour for himself At the
end of the letter was the order to arrest him : Sejanus
was instantly seized ; all who had been his friends
before left him at once; and on the w^ay to prison
he saw the people pulling down his statues, which
had been put up in the streets. He was put to
death at once in prison. This will show you how
the Romans, when once they had lost their freedom,
lost also all their nobleness of character, and became
mean and slavish and unfeeling. Tiberius .died, being
gloomy and wretched to the last, at the age of seventy-
eight, and every one at Rome was glad when he died.
15. Caius Caligula. — But the next emperor, Caius
(37-41), was quite as bad, and shows still more the
bad results of letting one man have such great power
as the emperors had. He was the grandson, by
adoption, of Tiberius, and was the son of Germanicus,
whom the Romans had loved so much. He is gener-
ally called Caligula, which means a " little boot," and
was a nickname given him by his father's soldiers.
Caius became mad when he was emperor. He was
always weak-headed, and could sleep only very little,
and so his weakness and restlessness, when he had the
great power of emperor, led him to give way to the
wildest fancies. He had all the ships of Rome put
together on the sea across the Bay of Baiae, and then
covered with planks, on which was laid earth, and
trees were planted. Then he rode along this in
solemn procession, that he might say he ha<J ridden
on horseback on the sea. On things like this he
spent so much money that he had to put rich men to
death, that he might seize their property. So terrible
at last was his cruelty that a conspiracy was made
against him, and he was murdered by some of his
servants.
IX.] BEGINNINGS OF THE EMPIRE. 93
16. Claudius. — For a time the Senate tried to
rule Rome; but the Pragtorian Guard paid no atten-
tion to them, and made' Claudius emperor, who was
brother of Germanicus, and uncle of Caius. He had
always been neglected, and looked upon as stupid ;
in fact, he would have been put to death long before
if he had not been despised as useless. The Prae-
torians found him hiding in the palace of Caius ; one
of them saw his feet behind the tapestry with which
the wall was hung : he dragged him out, and, on
seeing who he was, cried out that he should be
emperor. All the rest agreed, and the Senate was
obliged to give way.
Claudius (41-54) ruled well enough when left to
himself, but he did not know how to manage business,
and so things were done for him by his wife, or his
servants, who were all wicked people. In the year 43
Claudius crossed over to Britain, and the conquest of
the island by the Romans was begun. Claudius was
very good to the Gauls, and gave many of them the
Roman citizenship ; so he was called '^ the father of
the provinces." He had, however, two very wicked
wives. The second one, Agrippina, was also his
niece : she was a widow, and persuaded him to adopt
her son, Lucius Domitius Nero. Then she poisoned
her husband, to make her son's succession to the
empire quite sure.
17. Nero. — Nero (54-68) is known as a monster of
cruelty, who put to death every one whom he chose.
He even killed his mother, w^ho had done so much for
hun : first he tried to drown her by having the ship
sunk in v/hich she was sailing, and afterwards, when
she w^as saved from the water, he sent a soldier to kill
her. Nero had no care for a.nything. In the year 64
there was a great fire in Rome, and Nero went up to
a hill that he might see it better, and fiddled while the
city burned. Many suspected that he gave orders to
spread the fire farther that it might make a finer sight.
Then afterwards the Christians were accused of having
94
ROMAN HISTORY,
[chap.
ai
O
cv;
<
w
H
O
^■'
u
m
Q
W
H
O
o
•c
(U
H
o
:2;u
I
6
< CJ
K
d
K
bo
CQ
3
-h
<
X
o
-Q
<u
T?
a
OJ
s
Hh
W
o
<
1
!§■
c^-o
'O
<
-5 ^
Is
u
(/)
s
.5
)_
'3
OJ
S
ci3
'i
6
a,
S
6
IX.] BEGINNINGS OF THE EMPIRE. 93
made the fire, and many of them were put to death on
the charge of general hatred to mankind.
18. Growth of Christianity. — Jesus Christ lived
in the time of Augustus and Tiberius, and Christianity
had been quietly spreading ever since among the
poorer classes all over the Roman Empire. At first
the Christians were disliked, because they refused to
do so many things which every one else did. All
games and amusements were connected with the wor-
ship of some of the heathen gods, and so the Christians
did not go to them. But there had grown up also,
under the Empire, a custom of worshipping the em-
peror as a god. This may seem strange to you, when
you think what sort of men these emperors were ; but
all the old religions had really died out before Rome's
conquering power : they had been national or local
religions, and had no meaning to peoples who had
lost their nationality and become parts of a great
empire. So the only thing that men all had in com-
mon was obedience to the emperor, and the emperor
was the most powerful thing they knew of: so they
set up statues to him, and worshipped him. The
Christians could not do this, and so could not appear
at the public festivals, when sacrifices were offered to
the emperor. This was the reason why they were
looked upon as unsocial, and haters of mankind, as
well as unloyal to the emperor.
19. Death of Nero. — At last Nero's cruelty could
no longer be endured. The provinces grew angry at his
doings, and the armies murmured. The Roman people
would do nothing for him, and, deserted by every one,
at last he committed suicide, at the age of thirty.
20. Disturbances in the Empire. — Nero left
no children, and there was no member of the Julian
family to succeed him. There now arose the difficult
question for the Romans, how the succession to the
Empire was to be settled. It had seemed to belong
of right to Augustus, and to his family by adoption
after him, for the Julian family had always been power-
9
96 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
ful in Rome, and some even thought that it had
sprung from the old gods of Rome ; but, now that the
Juhan family had come to an end, there was no means
of knowing who would be the right man to appoint.
The election was made by the -Senate, but it could
be of no use unless the army agreed.
2 1. Galba. — The Senate elected first Servius Sul-
picius Galba (69), who was general of the army in
Spain, and a Roman noble. He wished to govern
well, but was stern to the Praetorian Guards, and
offended the man who was most popular with the
Romans, Marcus Salvius Otho. Otho expected that
Galba would adopt him as his son, and so that he
would succeed him as emperor, but Galba adopted
some one else; so Otho persuaded the Praetorian
Guards to rise and kill Galba, and proclaim him em-
peror.
22. Otho. — But the soldiers on the German frontier
were not willing that the Praetorian Guards should
make emperors as they pleased. They proclaimed
their own general, Aulus Vitellius, and marched to
Italy. Otho and his Praetorians v/ere defeated, and Otho,
after a reign of three months, committed suicide (69).
23. Vitellius. — Vitellius was soon found to be of
no use as an emperor : he was distinguished only for
gluttony, and spent all the money he could find in
eating and drinking. The soldiers in Syria refused to
have him as emperor, and proclaimed their own
general, Titus Flavins Vespasianus. Vitellius was
attacked on all, sides, and, after great tumults, in which
the city of Rome suffered a great deal, he was put to
death, and Vespasian was made emperor.
CHAPTER X.
THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS.
I. The Flavian Emperors (69-192.) — With Ves-
pasian (69-79) begins a new line of Emperors, which
X. ] THE FLA VI AN EMPERORS.
97
lasted for the next hundred years. These are called
the Flavian Emperors, because Vespasian was of the
Flavian family, and the emperors who succeeded after
the death of his sons followed in his footsteps, and
looked to him as the founder of their power. During
these hundred years Rome was governed by good
emperors, with' only one exception, and the people
were prosperous and happy.
2. Change made by Vespasian. — This was very
greatly due to the wisdom of Vespasian, who brought
back order to the state, and discipline to the army.
At first his position was by no means easy, for he had
none of the claims to rule which the Julian Caesars
had had : he was not sprung from a very distinguished
family, nor had he done very great deeds for the
Roman people. He was only a good general, and a
wise and prudent governor of a Roman province, but
there were many other men who might claim to be as
good as he was. He could not expect any of the old
respect for the person of the emperor, or any belief in
his divine descent. So Vespasian laid all this aside,
and tried to go back to the old ideas of governing the
state : he tried to rule by means of the Senate, to
which he paid great honours : he tried to bring back
again the idea of the rule of the city of Rome over the
world : he always lived at Rome himself, and lived as
simply as Augustus had done. He did not set himself
above the laws, as Caius and Nero had done, but was
careful in everything to obey them.
Thus, you see, he had no claim to rule except that
he could rule well ; and so he and those who followed
him did their best for the prosperity and comfort of
the people. But they did no more than this : they
did not make the people wiser, or stronger, or more
fit to govern themselves, and so it happened that this
prosperous time came to an end, without any fault on
the part of the emperors, in confusion and distress.
However, for the time, Vespasian put down the
luxury and wickedness which had been growing greater
98 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
and greater in Rome under the last emperors. By
living a simple life himself, he made the senators
live better, and by obeying the laws himself he taught
others to do the same. We never find after his reign
the same wickedness as there had -been before.
3. Titus. — Titus, Vespasian's son, put down a
rising of the Jews, besieged Jerusalem, and, after a
long siege, took it : the Jews resisted to the last,
and the whole city, as well as the Temple, was
burned (70). The Jews were scattered through other
countries, and the Roman Empire was once more
at peace. Titus (79-81) succeeded his father. He
was kind and liberal to all men, and was called the
'' Darling of mankind." At the beginning of his reign
was a terrible eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which
destroyed the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii,
and covered them over with ashes. They have now
been dug up again, and you can still see there what a
Roman city was in those days, as many of the houses
still remain almost the same as when they were first
buried by the cinders and ashes. Vespasian and his
son Titus built splendid buildings, such as the Baths
of Titus and the Colosseum^ which were both open,
free of charge, to all the people of Rome. The baths
w^ere- a sort of club, where everyone met and talked,
while the Colosseum was a great theatre for games and
shows. The emperors had to keep the people in
good humour by providing such things for them.
4. Domitian. — Domitian (81-96) was very different
from his brother Titus, for he was cruel and gloomy,
and took pleasure in bloodshed. During his reign
a great general, Caius Julius Agricola, was carrying
on the conquest of Britain. He advanced northwards
as far as the Grampian mountains, and defeated the
Caledonians. After' his time the Roman power over
Britain was firmly established. Domitian reigned till
a conspiracy was formed against him on account of
his cruelty, and he was murdered in his palace in
the year 96.
X.] THE FLA VI AN EMPERORS.
99
5. Nerva. — After the murder of Domitian the
Senate proclaimed as emperor an old senator, Marcus
Cocceius Nerva (96-98). He had always been very
kind, and was liked by all. He tried to reign peace-
ably, and to forget all the crimes that had been done
in the reign of Domitian, but the Praetorian Guards
rose and demanded the death of the murderers of
Domitian, whom they seized and put to death against
Nerva's will. But Nerva was determined not to let
them do this again : so he adopted as his son and
successor to the Empire, Marcus Ulpius Trajanus,
who was general of the troops on the Rhine, and who
w^ould be able to keep the Praetorian Guards in order.
Then Nerva died, after reigning sixteen months.
6. Trajan. — Trajan (98-117) was the first emperor
who was not of Roman, or even Italian birth. He
was a native of Spain, and his family had risen by
its merit. The fact that Trajan could now be made
emperor with the approval of every one, shows how
the differences between Italy and the provinces were
going away, and how the government of the emperors
was bringing equality amongst all men.
With Trajan begins a line of emperors, who ruled
well, and who were great as well as good men.
The Romans were very happy under their rule, and
the century during which they reigned was looked
upon as the happiest time in the history of Rome.
Under these emperors the Empire did not pass on
from father to son, but each one adopted as his son
and successor the fittest man he knew for so high
a place. Trajan set the example of this to those who
came after him. He lived in Rome simply and quietly,
and was so loved by the people that he was afraid of
no one. When he came to Rome first, he came with-
out any soldiers, but simply walked through the streets
among the people with his wife. When they entered
the palace, his wife Plotina turned and said to the
people, that she entered her palace contentedly, and
would be willing to leave it as contentedly. The Senate,
I oo ROMAN HISTOR Y. [chap.
the people, and the soldiers all liked Trajan equally.
He pleased the Senate by treating them with respect :
he pleased the people by his kindness and his splendid
buildings in Rome, where he made a great forum, or
open square, with galleries all round, and large halls
for public business and for libraries and law-courts.
In the middle of this stood a tall column with sculp-
tures all over it, showing Trajan's victories over the
Dacians.
7. Trajan's Wars. — Trajan was the first warlike
emperor : he pleased the soldiers because he was
a brave general, and in the year loi he crossed
the Danube and conquered the Dacians, who had
long been troublesome neighbours to the Romans.
The country between the Danube, the Theiss, the
Dneister, and the Carpathian mountains was made
into a new province called Dacia.
Trajan was not happy in times of peace, so he took
advantage of a disturbance in Armenia to make an
expedition into the East (114). He seems to have
had a great plan of conquest there, but after marching
as far as the Persian Gulf he came back, and died
at Selinus in Cihcia, in 117. It was very doubtful who
was to succeed him, and on his death-bed he is said
to have adopted Publius ^lius Hadrian us, who had
married his niece. Many believed that this adoption
had never really been made, but was a fiction of
Plotina to avoid any disturbance. However, the
soldiers believed it, and received Hadrian as emperor.
8. Hadrian. — Hadrian (i 17-138) at once gave up
all Trajan's conquests in the East and went to Rome.
It was indeed useless for Rome to try and spread her
government in distant lands, where a large army would
have to be kept up always at a great cost. Hadrian
did not care for war, but spent his time in travelling
about the provinces, and seeing that they were well
governed, and that his troops were well trained. He
was the first emperor who did this, and wl^o behaved
as ruler of the whole world, and not only of Rome
X. ] THE FLA VI AN EMFERORS. i o i
and Italy. He passed ov\?r ^^H^en;;int0' Brit^iH,c\vhere
he found that the Roman niariiite and cust(5ms had
been followed by the people^ .so' th^ii'fhey f^ad^become
quite like the Romans i^heriuelve^. ^bl'^Ot'^cji/ti^e
boundaries of the Roman province, he built a wall
between the mouth of the Tyne and the Solway, which
could easily be guarded by soldiers, so as to prevent
the northern peoples, who had not been civilised by
Rome, from coming down to -plunder. In the same
way, wherever he went he ordered useful buildings
to be built, and did all he could for the people. He
travelled through almost all the provinces, and as a
ruler we may look upon him as the most useful one
whom Rome ever had. He adopted Titus Aurelius
Antoninus, a native of Gaul.
9, Antoninus Pius. — Antoninus (138-16 1) was
called Fius^ or the affectionate^ on account of the affec-
tion he had shown to his adoptive father, Hadrian.
He was a good and kindly ruler, who was looked upon
ever^^here as the ^' Father of his people." He had
been ordered by Hadrian to adopt for his sons Marcus
Aurelius, a young man of the age of seventeen, and
Lucius Vems, a boy of the age of seven. Antoninus
married Marcus to his daughter, and gave him at
once a share in the duties of emperor, and so Marcus
grew up to be the wisest and best of the Roman
emperors.
JO. Marcus Aurelius. — On the death of Anton-
inus, Marcus Aurelius became emperor (i 61-180). He
made his brother, Lucius Vems, emperor as well as
himself; but Verus was quite unworthy of the position,
and would have behaved himself like Nero if Marcus
had not kept him back. Luckily he died in 169, and
left Marcus free.
Though he was so good, Marcus had a very un- '
happy reign. He would gladly have spent his days at
Rome in study, but he was obliged to leave Rome and
spend his days in war. The German peoples now
began to cross the Roman frontier. All along the
I02 ROMAN HISTOR K [chap.
Danube and the/ XTpp^r . Rhine the Romans were
attacked* by the'- Germans. The reason of this partly
was tlxat .thC' Germans theinselves were being attacked
at'the Game tirpe by tb.«e* Slavonian peoples, who lived
in Russia, and so they fled from. them till they came
against the Romans. Marcus Aurelius fought against
these Germans, and drove them back; but he saw
how hard it was for him to do so, and he was unhappy
at the thoughts of what would happen afterwards.
Another thing which distressed him was that his wife
Faustina, the daughter of Antoninus Pius, was a very
wicked woman, and behaved herself very ill. His son
also, Cdmmodus, did not promise well. So, altogether,
Marcus Aurelius saw with sadness that nothing but
calamities were likely to happen after his death. He
tried to keep them off for a while, but he saw no hope
of putting an end to them. He died as he was fighting
against the Germans, in the year i8o, at Vienna.
11. Change of the Roman Empire. — ^\Vith
Marcus Aurelius the line of the good emperors comes
to an end, and the best days of the Roman Empire were
over. No longer was the Empire in peace both at
home and abroad, but the barbarians along the frontiers
had grown stronger, while Rome's armies had grown
weaker. At the same time, also, within Rome's do-
minions themselves, the people were growing feebler,
and the power of the state was falling into the hands
of the soldiers. From this time forward the Empire
had no longer to think about governing the provinces,
but about defending them. The old boast that the
Roman Empire meant the peace of the world had now
j)assed away. But from this time the Empire stands
forward as the defender of the civilised world against
the invasions of uncivilised barbarians. In this way,
too, it was the defender of the Christian peoples against
the heathen invaders, and this fact led the emperors
in time to become Christians themselves.
12. Commodus. — In the reign of Commodus (i8o-
192) the signs of these disasters may be seen only too
XI.] THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS. 103
clearly. Commodus did not care to carry on trouble-
some wars as his father had done. He went back at
once to Rome, and there gave himself up to pleasure.
The government was carried on by a minister named
Perennis, who made himself unpopular to the soldiers ;
so 1500 of them marched from Britain to Rome to ask
tliat he should be dismissed. He was at once put to
death : but you see how powerful the soldiers were
growing when they began to interfere in the govern-
ment itself.
Commodus was cruel and wicked in every way.
The thing he cared about most were the sports given
to the people. He was very proud of his own skill
in shooting, and once when 100 lions were let loose in
the amphitheatre he killed them all with 100 darts.
He used to fight as a gladiator himself, of course
taking good care that he was in no danger of being
hurt. This was thought very disgraceful by the
Romans, and his cruelty was so hateful that at last he
was murdered in his palace by his servants.
13. Pertinax. — After his death, an old senator,
Pertinax, was made emperor by the Senate, but the
Praetorian Guards did not like his sternness. They
rose against him and killed him, when he had been
emperor for three months, and the power now passed
into the hands of the soldiers^ who made emperors of
whoever they liked.
CHAPTER XI.
EMPERORS ELECTED BY THE SOLDIERS
(193-284).
I. Growth of the Power of the Army. — From
this time for nearly a hundred years the emperors were
chosen by the soldiers, and the government of Ilome
was consequently in great confusion. You remember
that it was by the army, after all, that Julius, and
afterwards Augustus, had gained their power. But,
104 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
when they had gained it, they wished to use it with
the consent of the people, and so keep it quietly
without having to look to the soldiers to help them.
Augustus, however, had not been able to do so al-
together; he had kept some soldiers, the Praetorian
Guards, in Rome; and, as you have seen, these soldiers
sometimes settled who should be emperor. Still, upon
the whole, the emperor was chosen by the Senate, and
not by the soldiers.
This state of things had lasted while the Empire
was at peace, and the emperor lived generally in Rome,
and was the chief magistrate of the state. But now
things were changing, and the emperor must be the
leader of the armies. Marcus Aurelius had been
forced to spend his days in the camp, and to try and
become a general, though it was greatly against his
will. The soldiers were now the most important part
of the state, and they would no longer take for their
leader anyone whom the Senate sent them.
2. Confusion on the Death of Pertinax. — This
was soon found out when the Praetorian Guards rose and
murdered Pertinax (193). They then sold the Empire
to the highest bidder, who was a rich senator, Didius
Julianus. This could not be borne by the armies
along the frontier, which all took up arms. Julianus
was killed after reigning three months, and then, after
some fighting between the different generals, an African,
Septimus Severus, overcame the others, and became
Emperor (193-21 1).
3. Septimus Severus. — Septimus Severus was
nothing but a soldier, and did not care about Rome
or the Senate. He governed by force, and was only
desirous to keep the army in his favour. During his
reign the soldiers got higher pay and greater privileges,
and so became the chief people in the state. Up to
this time the Praetorian Guards had always been
natives of Italy ; but Severus chose them from the
best soldiers of all the armies, and made their number
50,000. So now Rome was in the power of these
XL] EMPERORS ELECTED J^Y THE SOLDIERS. 105
foreign soldiers ; and Severus hoped that the emperor,
with these troops at hand, would in the future be
strong enough *to resist the generals of the armies in
the provinces. In this way the Empire changed
entirely, and became a government carried on by
the soldiers.
4. Caracalla. — The result of this change was soon
seen. The son of Severus, who is known by the nick-
name of Caracalla (21 1-2 17), was a cruel tyrant. He
knew that he might do anything, if he only got the
soldiers on his side. He murdered his brother Geta,
who was emperor with him; and he also went with
his Praetorian Guards through the provinces, and so
was the first emperor who had been a tyrant anywhere
else than in Rome. Thus, at Alexandria, being angry
at the jokes which the people made about him, he
invited them to come outside the walls, and then
ordered his guards to kill all who were there. Cara-
calla used every means to raise money to pay his
soldiers, and this was another great evil which this
new plan of government brought with. it. The soldiers
must be paid very highly, and every time the emperor
had done anything they did not like he had to give
them more money to make them contented. So the
people were taxed in every way to pay the soldiers.
5. Roman Citizenship given to all the Pro-
vinces. — One good thing, however, came out of this;
Caracalla gave the rights of Roman citizenship to all
the provinces, so that all who were governed by Rome
called themselves Romans alike. Italy and the pro-
vinces were now equal, and there were no differences be-
tween one free man and another. This was not done,
however, for any good reason, but only that Caracalla
might lay upon all the provinces the taxes which were
paid by the citizens of Rome. Still this decree of
Caracalla was the end of a change that had been
slowly going on ever since the time of Caius Grac-
chus. It drew the Empire much more together, and
made it entirely one. Roman ideas had long been
xo6 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap. xi.
spreading among the people of the provinces, but now
everyone was in name, as well as in thought, a Roman.
People everywhere called themselves Romans, and the
name Roumajiia still remains to show how proud
. were the Dacians, whom Trajan conquered, to mix
with the Roman settlers and call themselves by their
name.
6. Alexander Severus. — It is not worth your
while to know the names of all the emperors from this
time. They all met with the same fate ; they were
set up by the soldiers who had killed the emperor
before them, and who needed some one else in his
place to give authority to what they had done. Then
the soldiers soon found that they liked their new
emperor quite as little as they had liked their old one,
and so he was killed in his turn. The best of these
emperors was Alexander Severus (222-235). He
lived simply at Rome, and tried his best to govern
well. At certain hours in the day his palace was
open for any one to see him who wanted to do so;
but a crier stood at the gate and called, " Let no one
enter these holy walls unless he feels that his heart is
pure and innocent." Alexander tried, however, in
vain to lessen the power of the soldiers and to pre-
vent them from committing crimes. They were so
strong that they knew that they could do what they
pleased without being punished, and were so angry
with Alexander for trying to punish them when they
did wrong, that they conspired against him and killed
him. This they did on the banks of the Rhine, where
Alexander had gone to lead his troops against the
Germans.
7. Rome*s Enemies. — It is easy to see that
soldiers who made emperors and unmade them as they
pleased, and who could behave as they chose without
fear of punishment, were not good soldiers to lead
against the enemy. While they were quarrelling about
which general should be emperor, the foes of Rome were
growing stronger and stronger on the frontiers. All
1 08 ROMAN HI ST OR Y. [chap.
along the Rhine and the Danube different tribes of
the Germans were attacking the Roman borders.
Amongst them were the Franks, who afterwards gave
the name of France to the country which was as yet
called Gaul, and the Goths, who. were a people very
nearly akin to the English. In the East also a
very powerful enemy had arisen in the Persians.
They had been the great people of the East in old
times, when Rome's power did not go farther than
her own walls : but they had been conquered by
Alexander the Great, and since then had fallen under
the power of the Parthians. In the year 226, under
a leader called Artaxerxes, they freed themselves from
the Parthians, and formed again a great Persian king-
dom. So you see there had grown up slowly very
strong enemies to Rome, on both the sides on which
she could be attacked.
8. Disasters of Rome. — Soon the weakness of
Rome and the badness of her armies were sadly found
out. Rome had now to fight enemies as strong as
those whom she had had to do with in her early days ;
but the soldiers, who now fought only to get their
pay and enjoy themselves in peace, were very different
from the Roman citizens who had left their little farms
to fight their country's battles. From the year 250
to the year 267 Rome was defeated on every side.
In 251 the Emperor Decius was killed in battle
against the Goths, and his son Gallus paid them
a yearly tribute to get peace. After this the Franks
ravaged Gaul and Spain, the Goths plundered Asia
Minor and Greece, while the Persians entered Armenia.
The Emperor Valerian (253-60) marched to the East,
but was defeated and taken prisoner by the Persian
king. It is said that he was carried about in chains
from place to place, and the Persian king used him
as a footstool whenever he mounted his horse : when
he died his skin was stuffed and kept in a Persian
temple. These defeats led to still greater misery in
the Empire. During the reign of Gallienus (260-265),
xii.] EMFERORS ELECTED BY THE SOLDIERS. 109
the son of Valerian, arose a great number of pre-
tenders who called themselves emperors. Really the
Empire was now broken in pieces ; every army called
its own general emperor of Rome,, and during this
confusion there could be no government of the whole.
9. The Illyrian Emperors. — At last, however,
the power of Rome again rose. On the death of Gal-
Henus a brave soldier, Claudius, a native of Illyria,
succeeded, and drove back the Goths (268-70). After
him came Aurelian, another Illyrian (270-75), who left
the province of Dacia to the Goths, as he found it
useless for the Romans to try and keep it. From this
time the Danube was again the northern boundary of
Rome's dominions. But Aurelian again brought the
Empire under one ruler. The Roman Empire was
still strong enough when it was united, and when it
had a brave man at its head, but it could only put
forth its strength when it was well governed. Every
fight for the Empire between generals, every rebellion
of the soldiers against the emperor, gave the barbarians
on the frontiers a chance of crossing the borders and
plundering the provinces. Every time they did so
the Romans became weaker and poorer, and less
able to drive them back again. Though Rome might
therefore hold out for the present, it was clear she
would not be able to do so much longer, unless she
changed her government for the better.
CHAPTER XII.
CHANGES MADE BY DIOCLETIAN AND
CONSTANTINE.
I. Diocletian changed a great deal of the plan of the
Roman government. His parents are said to have
been slaves at Rome, and he himself rose in the army
by his abilities. He was made emperor by the soldiers,
and was determined to keep himself free from the
dangers by which the emperors before him had been
1 1 o ROMAN HISTOR K [chap.
overthrown. He saw that the two things to do
were, first, to defend the frontiers of the Empire
from the barbarians ; secondly, to defend the emperor
from the soldiers, so that they should not be able to
put him to death when they did not like him, and set
up another in his place. He thought that both these
objects might be gained by dividing the emperor's
power, instead of keeping it all in his own hand's.
He accordingly chose a brave general, Maximian,
with whom he shared the Empire, and who had the
title of Augustus as well as himself. Afterwards he
added two other generals, Galerius and Constantius,
who had the name of Ccesars. The Caesars were not
so high in rank as the two Augusti, but they were to
succeed to the rank of Augustus when either of the
others died.
2. Power of the Soldiers reduced. — ^The Ro-
man Empire was thus governed by four men instead of
one, and the provinces were divided amongst the four
rulers. Diocletian ruled over Thrace, Egypt, and
Asia : Maximian over Italy and Africa : Constantius
over Gaul, Spain, and Britain : Galerius over the pro-
vinces along the Danube. These four put down all
rebellions throughout the Empire, and then set their
soldiers to work at building walls and fortifying the
frontiers. Along the Rhine and Danube, and also
along the Persian boundary, camps and castles were
built and soldiers were stationed. For a time there
was peace, and the barbarians were kept back.
This plan, however, only succeeded because the
four rulers all worked together. So long as they
did this the soldiers had to give way to them; they
felt that it was no good to murder only one of them,
because the other three would march against them.
They would be punished themselves, and would not
after all be able to choose their own emperor. By this
plan the armies were under the emperors' power, and
thus, after a long while, Rome had again got a govern-
ment which did not depend entirely on the soldiers.
XII.] CHANGES MADE B Y DIOCLETIAN. i j i
3. Seat of Empire no longer in Rome. — One
great change which this new state of things made
was that Rome was no longer the only capital : other
places became as important. In fact Rome was
scarcely the capital at all; the Senate still stayed
there, but the emperors did not. They lived in places
more convenient for them, as they had to be near the
frontiers, and ready to go to war when they were
wanted. Thus Diocletian lived at Nicomedia in Asia
Minor, and Maximian at Milan. This change was
really a very great one. You have seen that at first the
emperors had only claimed to be the chief magis-
trates of the city of Rome, and commanders of Rome's
armies. But under their rule the differences between
Rome and the provinces had gradually passed away.
Rome had not now the position so far above all other
cities which she once had had. The idea of empire
was now no longer confined to the city of Rome itself,
and the emperors of Rome lived wherever it was most
convenient to live.
4. Magnificence of the Emperors. — When the
emperors no longer lived at Rome they could make
many changes in the old state of things. The first
emperors at Rome had lived like the chief citizens,
and their houses were simple. This had gradually
given way to greater grandeur, and now this grandeur
was carried by Diocletian still further. He wore splen-
did dresses, and had a large number of servants ; he
could seldom be seen by any of his subjects, and
never did anything without great pomp. People had
to behave to him as if he were another kind of man to
themselves ; they had to kneel before him, and speak
to him in words of great humility. So, too, the names
of the different servants of the emperor became titles
of rank, which were thought more of than the old
names of consul and senator. This grandeur was
another method which Diocletian used to separate the
emperor from the soldiers. They no longer saw him
amongst them, and they became gradually more
1 1 2 ROMAN HISTOR K [cHAr.
obedient to one whom they thought greater than
themselves.
5. Abdication of Diocletian. — This, then, was
the new plan of government which Diocletian brought
in, and which, as you will see, those who came after
him carried out still more. Diocletian is also famous in
history because he is one of the very few rulers who
liave given up their high office of their own accord
and have gone back into private life. During twenty-
one years he had worked very hard for the state,
and, in 305, finding his health was failing, he laid
down before the people and the soldiers the purple
robe which the emperors always wore, and went away
to a palace which he had had built for himself in Dal-
matia. There he lived for nine years — but not en-
tirely in contentment, for there arose civil wars
amongst the Caesars and Augusti, which lasted till
the year 323.
6. Constantine the Great. — In that year Flavius
Valerius Constantinus, known as Constantine the
Great, once more brought the Roman world under
the rule of one emperor. Constantine was the son of
Constantius the Caesar, and on his father's death, in
306, he was made Caesar of the troops in Britain. In
the wars which followed he was both wise and brave,
and managed to spread his power. Gradually he
overcame, one by one, all the others w^ho claimed to
rule, and so, in 323, he was the only emperor.
7. Spread of Christianity. — All this while Chris-
tianity had been going on spreading in the Roman
Empire. The number of churches and congregations
in every city h^d been increasing. You have seen
that the Christians were not liked by the emperors,
and that many of them were put to death by Nero.
From time to time the emperors had tried to put a
stop to Christianity. They thought that it was teach- '
ing the people to disobey the laws, and that Christians
were not faithful subjects. They could not under-
stand a religion whose followers refused to take part
XII.] CHANGES MADE BY CONSTANTINE. 113
in the religion of the state. They did not object to
the Christians having their own worship, but they
insisted that all members of the state should take part
in the state festivals and sacrifices. This the Chris-
tians could not do, so the emperors from time to
time persecuted them. It was not so much the
wicked emperors who persecuted as the good ones ;
for they looked upon the Christians as rebels who
ought to be put down. Thus Trajan, Decius (244),
and Valerian were all persecutors; but Diocletian
was worst of all. From 303 to 313 Christians
were put to death in every part of the Empire,
but it was for the last time. The constancy with
which they endured death rather than agree to what
they did not believe showed that they were stronger
than the emperors. Through all the Roman world
the emperor had brought everything under his own
power except Christianity. The Christians alone held
out for freedom, and so all those who had any love for
freedom began to gather round them. All the old
religions had died out; very few really beheved in
them. The miseries which the Romans had suffered
made them feel their need of a religion ; the constancy
of the Christians when they were persecuted made
every one admire them, and^ they only grew stronger
through the emperors' attempts to get rid of them.
So the Emperor Constantine found the Christians so
strong that he judged it wise to make the Christian
religion the religion of the Empire.
8. Constantine makes the Empire Christian.
— Constantine was emperor alone from 323 to 337,
and he first made the Roman Empire Christian. This
changed it a great deal, and made it much stronger ;
for Christianity bound men together more firmly, and
this was very much wanted, since the Empire was be-
ginning to fall in pieces, because there was no great
reason why men should want to be governed by the
emperors rather than submit to the barbarians.
9. Constantine founds a new Rome. — Con-
1 14 ROMAN HISTOR V. [chap.
stantine knew this, so he determined to carry out still
further the plans of Diocletian, and made still greater
changes in the Empire. He knew that in Rome itself
the old ideas of government would always be very
strong ; so he founded a new Rome, which was to be his
capital city for the future. This city was called, after
its founder, Constantinopolis^ or the City of Consta^ttme.
It was built on the promontory of Thrace that reaches
out into the Black Sea; so, you see, it was on that
part of Europe which was nearest to Asia, and'also it
was built amongst a Greek-speaking and not a Latin-
speaking people. No doubt this was done on purpose,
because the people of Asia had always been used to
the rule of one man, while the people of Europe had
not, and Constantine wanted to make his power more
like that which the rulers of Asia had over their
subjects.
Also, to do this he had to get rid of the old ideas of
Rome, according to which the Emperor was only the
chief magistrate of a free people. By building a new
Rome, he could take just as much of the customs of
the old Rome as he liked, and could get rid of what
he disliked, without making any violent change. It
would have been hard to give the Emperor new
powers so long as he stayed in Rome : the Senate
would still have had a great deal of authority. But
in Constantinople a new Senate Avas made, which
bore the old name, but which was filled with men
whom Constantine chose, who were many of them
Greeks, and were used to give way to those who were
set over them.
10. Gonstantine's changes in the Empire. —
Thus the great change which Constantine made was to
turn the Roman Empire into an absolute monarchy.
He got rid of Rome, its Senate and its nobility, by going
to Constantinople. Then he went on to make the army
powerless against the Emperor, by making the number
of troops which obeyed any one general much smaller
than it had been before : also, the troops themselves
XII. ] CHANGES MADE B V CONSTANTINE, 1 1 5
were divided into two classes, one of which was
quartered in towns, and the other defended the fron-
tiers. In this Avay they were not likely to rebel, be-
cause they were so divided that they could not come
together in large enough numbers to do any harm.
Besides this, Constantine divided out the provinces
into a number of small districts, each of which had
its magistraXes. These small districts again were
gathered up into thirteen larger ones ; — over these
were set four prefects, who were answerable to the
Emperor. In this way the Emperor became the head
of a large body of officials, who were put in their
places by him, and removed by him if he thought fit.
Of course all these officials wished the Emperor to go
on being Emperor, and so would be likely to keep
down rebelHons if they could. Also, these officials
made up a new body of nobles, who took the place of
the old nobles. They were nobles not by birth, but
because they held offices.
You see, then, how great a change Constantine made.
He was very much helped in making it by the fact
that he had become a Christian. The new Rome
which he founded had a meaning to men as being the
first city which had never been anything but Christian.
When the great change was made of making the Em-
pire Christian, other changes could easily go with
it. People were so glad to have Christianity set up as
the religion of Rome, that they looked with favour on
all that Constantine did.
II. Evils of the new plan of government. —
No doubt this new plan of government made the Empire
stronger. It kept the army in order, and took care of
the people. But it cost a great deal of money to keep
it going. The Emperor had to live in great grandeur :
he had a large court, and a very large number of
officials, all of whom had to be highly paid. The
money for their pay had to be got by taxes from the
people, and these taxes were paid on the land w^hich
every man possessed. But as these taxes were
1 1 6 ROMAN HISTOR K [chap.
very high, men could not pay them if their lands
were ravaged by a barbarian invasion. So this plan
of government went on very well so long as there
was peace, but when there was war on the frontiers
the people were brought to great misery. What the
barbarian spared the tax-gatherer carried away. So
homesteads which had once been ruined were not
built again, and thus a strip of desert land was slowly
formed inside the Roman frontiers. Of course this
did not come about all at once, but things went on
gradually in this direction; and you will see what
happened in consequence.
12. Julian. — The family of Constantine went on
ruling after his death, from 337 to 363. The most
important of them was Flavins Claudius Julianus, his
nephew, who as a young man drove the Germans out of
Gaul. Although he had been brought up as a Christian,
he went back again to the worship of the old gods, and
tried to bring it back among the people. He did not
dare to persecute the Christians as other emperors
had done, for they were too strong for that ; but he
turned them out of all offices, and made them build
up again the heathen temples which they had thrown
down. In spite of this, however, Julian was a good
emperor : he make a great expedition against the
Persians, and defeated them several times, but Avas
killed while retiring from their country. He was the last
heathen emperor, but his attempts to bring back the old
religion .entirely failed ; for very few people believed in
it, or could do so; really there were only a few men like
Julian himself, who were wise men, or philosophers^
and who saw much worldly wisdom in the old heathen
stories, and so held to them. Besides these, the
country people were long in changing their old
opinions, and heathenism remained in the country
after it had died away in the towns; so the word
pagan means properly one who lives t7i a village.
After Julian's time, however, there was never any talk
of bringing back the old religion.
Jtii.] CHANGES MADE B V CONSTANTINE. 1 1 7
13. The Barbarian invasions. — ^\Ve now come
to the time when the Roman Empire began to be
broken up. You have seen how the Germans had for
the last 150 years been pressing upon the Romans.
Though they were driven back, they became year by
year stronger and stronger. From fighting with the
Romans, and from being employed as Roman soldiers,
they learned a great deal : from breaking into the pro-
vinces and plundering the Roman towns they became
rich, and also learned Roman habits. The Goths, to
whom Dacia had been given up by the Romans, had
learned most from Rome, but in 376 they were driven
to become Rome's enemies.
14. Invasion of the Goths. — It seems that all
this time great changes were going on in the great plain
of northern Asia, and in consequence of these changes
an Asiatic people, called the Huns, came into Europe,
and attacked the Goths. The Goths were defeated by
them, and were at last driven to cross the Danube,
and come into the lands of the Roman Empire. The
Emperor Valens was weak, and could not make up his
mind whether to treat the Goths as friends or as
enemies. He took them under his protection, and
then refused to give them food. The Goths therefore
rose against him, and he was killed in battle in 378,
after which the Goths were for some time masters of
the Roman Empire. It is indeed hard to see how the
next Emperor, Theodosius (379-95), managed to drive
them out. He was a Spaniard, who was made em-
peror because he was the only man who could be of
any use. He seems to have been very clever at
separating the different tribes of the Goths from one
another; and then he fought against them one by
one, and at last partly drove them out, and partly
made them submit to Rome. They settled in the
provinces below the Danube, and so, you see, the
Roman Empire had to allow the barbarians to come
and take their place within her own borders. This
went on still more afterwards, and this is the reason
1 1 8 ROMAN HIS TOR V. [chap.
why the Roman Empire was never overthrown, bu*
took the barbarians into itself, and so went on chang
ing slowly till it passed away.
CHAPTER XIII.
SETTLEMENTS OF THE BARBARIANS IN
THE EMPIRE.
I. The Goths settle in Spain. — Theodosius was
the last emperor who ruled over the whole Empire.
After his death (395) it -was divided between his two
sons, Arcadius and Honorius, in the same way as it
had been done in the days of Diocletian. Arcadius
ruled in the east, and Honorius in the west. But
Honorius w^as only a boy of the age of eleven, and
was under the guardianship of a brave general,
Stilicho. So long as Stilicho lived he kept back the
Goths, but in 408 he was put to death by the order of
Honorius, who was afraid that his power was be-
coming too great. When Stilicho was gone there was
no longer any general who could resist the Goths.
Under their king Alaric they besieged and took Rome
in 410. Alaric died afterwards, and they buried him
in the bed of a little stream which they had turned
aside for a time and then turned back again, that no
one might know where their great king was buried.
He was succeeded by Athaulf, who had learned a
great deal from the Romans. He saw that it was
useless to make a Gothic kingdom, as the Goths had
not yet learned to obey laws and live quietly ; so he
thought it better to be friendly witli the Romans, and
to settle down with his Goths among the Roman
people. He therefore married the sister of Honorius,
and passed on with his army to Spain and the south
of Gaul, from which he drove the German tribes who
had invaded it. He called himself the officer of the
Roman emperor, but he really founded a Gothic king-
XIII.] SETTLEMENTS OF THE BARBARIANS. 119
dom, which was the first regular settlement of the
barbarians inside the Roman Empire.
2. Invasion of the Huns. — It was well that the
Goths and the Romans were on good terms with each
other, for they were soon attacked by their old
enemies the Huns. The Huns, under their great
king Attila (433-53), burst in upon Europe. They
were the worst enemies the Romans ever had.
They were of an entirely different race from the
peoples of Europe : they destroyed everything where-
ever they went, and looked so strange and horrible
that at first the Romans scarcely beHeved they were
men at all, but thought they were more like wild
beasts. Attila attacked Gaul, and was at last de-
feated at the battle of Chalons, in 451, by an army
of Goths and Romans under the command of the
Roman General Aetius. Luckily, Attila died two
years afterwards, and then the Huns fell in pieces, as
their army was only gathered round their leader, and
when he died the army did not keep together any
longer.
3. Settlements of the Barbarians. — But all this
time the provinces of the western division of the Empire
were being overrun by German tribes. The Goths were
in Spain and South Gaul ; the Burgundians in Central
Gaul ; the Franks in North Gaul. The English were
conquering and settling in Britain, and the Vandals had
occupied Africa. Into Italy also the German armies
had gone, and although their generals called them-
selves ofilcers of the Roman Empire, they really did
what they chose. At last, in 476, the Emperor
Romulus Augustus laid down his title ; the Senate
of Rome sent to the Eastern Emperor Zeno to say
that one emperor was enough, that Italy would have
him for its emperor, but that the German general
Odoacer would act as his deputy in Italy. So
Odoacer, who was a king of the Heruli, ruled over
Italy, and after hijn came kings of other German
tribes into Italy, who were all considered the officers
11
X20 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
of the Eastern Emperor, but who really did what
they pleased.
4. The Roman Empire of the East. — All this
while the Eastern Empire had gone on more quietly.
Attila and his Huns had not plundered so much in
the East; they found it better to pass on to Gaul.
The Eastern Empire was stronger, and kept more
together. It differed from the Western Empire,
because the people spoke Greek, and had been civil-
ised people long before the Romans were. So they
had not become just like the Romans, as the western
peoples, who were uncivilised when the Romans
conquered them, had become. The Greeks still
had their own manners and customs; they were much
more busy with trade and commerce than were the
peoples of the West. They were very fond of talking
and discussing things ; so, when they became Chris-
tians, they used to dispute about all the doctrines
of religion, till the points in dispute were settled
by the votes of bishops at a council, and in this way
Theology grew up. All these things made the Eastern
Empire keep together more than the Western. The
Greek-speaking peoples might be invaded, but they
did not mix with their invaders : they kept themselves
separate, and waited till the enemy was gone, and
then went on as before.
5. Effects of the Settlements in the West. —
In the West, on the other hand, the German conquerors
and the Latin-speaking people of the provinces settled
down together very contentedly, except only in Bri-
tain. The Enghsh had never had anything to do
widi Rome when they came here, so they conquered
and drove out the Britons, and would learn nothing
•>from them. But in Spain and Gaul and Italy the
people who settled began to talk Latin, and to behave
like the Romans. Arid this is why the people of
Spain and France and Italy at the present day talk
what are called Romance languages, that is, languages
which began from the Roman, but have been changed
XIII.] SETTLEMENTS OF THE BARBARIANS, 121
from the old Latin, because these peoples were care-
less, and tried to make it easier for themselves as they
went on.
6. Reign of Justinian. — So, while the Western
Empire was being split up, the Eastern Empire kept
together, and managed to keep back the Huns and
Persians, who were its chief enemies. Under the
Emperor 'Justinianus or Justinian (527-65), there was
even an attempt made to win back from the barbar-
ians the provinces which they had taken from the
Empire. The great general Belisarius showed a
wonderful power of making his soldiers love him
and follow him, however rash he might seem to
be. He first defeated the Persians ; then he crossed
over to Africa and defeated the Vandals, and again
made Africa a province of the . Empire. He then
conquered Sicily, and drove the Goths out of Italy.
So that Justinian was real ruler both of Rome and
of Constantinople.
But this did not last long, for in 568 another
German people, the Lombards, invaded Italy and
conquered all the northern part of it. The Persians,
too, had become more powerful than ever in the East,
and another people like the Huns, called the Avars,
settled along the Danube. Still the Empire had great
men to help her when she was in trouble. The
Emperor Heraclius (610-41) was one of the greatest
generals ever known, almost as great as Hannibal.
He went with his army into the country of the
Persians, and for four years defeated every army they
could send against him. The power of the Persians
was entirely destroyed ; at the same time, too, the
Avars had grown weaker, and it would seem that
the Empire might have peace.
7. Conquests of the Arabs. — But a more serious
enemy was soon to rise against them. Mohammed,
an Arabian, taught the people of Arabia a purer
religion than they had known before. The scattered
tribes gathered themselves together round him and
£22 ROMAN HISTORY. [chap.
his teaching, and the Arabs went out to conquer
as the Huns had done before. There was, however,
this great difference : the Huns only followed a great
leader, and fell in pieces when he was dead : the
Arabs believed what their leader taught them, and
so held together while they won a great empire.
Syria, Egypt, and Africa were conquered by them, and
were never won back by the Roman Empire. One
great reason of this was, that the Greek-speaking Chris-
tians differed very much about questions concerning
religion, and when they differed they called one an-
other heretics, and quarrelled a great deal. Thus it
came about that many were willing to submit to the
Arabs rather than give up their religious opinions.
The Arabs passed over into Spain and threatened
the West, but were driven out of Gaul by the leader
of the Franks, Charles Martel, in 732.
After these losses, which took place between 633
and 692, the Roman Empire only ruled over Greece,
the provinces below the Danube, Asia Minor, and
part of Italy. It soon lost almost the whole of what
it still held in Italy, because the Emperor Leo III
(717-41) quarrelled with the Pope, or Bishop of Rome,
about the worshipping of images.
8. Rome again sets up an Emperor. — All this
time the emperors had done nothing for Italy; the
Lombards had become more powerful in the north,
and the Popes had made themselves chief magistrates
of the city of Rome, as there was no one else. Now,
when the Pope and Emperor quarrelled, the connexion
between Italy and the emperors at Constantinople was
more and more broken off The Pope looked to the
kings of the Franks, who were the most powerful of
the German peoples, and had settled in Gaul, to help
him against the Lombards. And at last, in the year 800,
Charles the Great, king of the Franks, was crowned
Roman Emperor by the Pope at Rome.
9. The Division of the Empire. — At this time,
then, there were two Emperors, one at Rome and the
XIII.] SETTLEMENTS OF THE BARBARIANS. 123
Other at Constantinople, who both claimed to be the
rulers of the whole Roman world, as the early Em-
perors had been. But really the West obeyed the
one, and the East the other; and so men came to
speak of an Eastern and a Western Empire. For
some time these Empires did not have much to do
with one another, and at last they became open
enemies.
10. Fall of the Western Empire. — The Western
Empire was called at a later time the Holy Roman
Empire, and its emperor was also the German king.
He claimed to have authority over all the people of the
West, but his authority grew less and less, as nations
formed themselves in Europe. For you have seen that
the Roman Empire grew up because Rome brought all
the ancient nations under her rule. Then, when the
Roman Empire was split up by the settlements of
barbarians within it, at first people still all kept together
in a sort of way. But the barbarians and the Romans
mixed together differently in different places : some-
times there were more Romans, sometimes more bar-
barians. This made great differences, so people
gathered together into groups according to these
differences, and out of these groups sprung up what
we now call nations. As fast, then, as the nations
grew up the Empire fell in pieces, and after the Refor-
mation the title Holy Roman Empire meant hardly
anything at all.
11. Fall of the Eastern Empire. — ^The Eastern
Empire went on fighting very bravely against the various
tribes of Turks in the East, and against the different
tribes of barbarians who attacked the provinces along
the Danube. It grew smaller and smaller, and be-
came only a Greek kingdom. It was at last destroyed
by the Turks, who took Constantinople in 1453, and
made it the capital of a Turkish Empire, which still
remains.
12. Influence of the Roman Empire. — You
see, however, how long the old laws and ideas of Rome
124 ROMAN HISTORY, [chap.
went on. Modern Europe was founded on the destruc-
tion of the Roman Empire, and the modern nations
grew up under its shadow. The power of Rome was
so great that it was not destroyed all at once, but
died away gradually. So you see it is hard to say
where Roman history comes to an end. Every nation
in Europe owes something to Rome. Some, as we
have said, are called Romance peoples, and still speak
languages which come from the Latin. Of course,
together with Rome's language, they also have many
ideas about government and other things that come
from Rome. The German races, on the other hand, of
which we are one, speak German and not a Latin
language. So we do not owe so much to Rome as
do the Italians, or the French, or Spaniards, but still
we have learned something from Rome, "and Roman
history must always have a great deal of interest for
us, and must teach us to understand all that has
happened in Europe a great deal better than we other-
wise should.
One great instance of this influence of Rome, even
up to our own days, may be seen in the Papacy.
When the power of the city of Rome became smaller
in governing the State, it began to grow larger in
governing the Church. Men had so long been ac-
customed to look to the city of Rome for laws and
government that, wdien the Emperors no longer lived
there, and the Bishop of Rome had become the chief
man in the city, men looked to the Bishop of Rome
for laws and government in matters of religion. When
Rome ceased to be the head of the old Pagan Empire
of the world, she became the head of the new Christian
Empire of the world ; and the notion of the Holy
Roman Empire was that the Pope and the Emperor were
closely united, and were together to direct the affairs
of Christendom. Long after nations had formed for
themselves their own civil government, it was thought
that in religious matters all nations must obey the
government of the Roman Church. You know that
XIII.]
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.
125
what is called the Reformation is the time in which
most of the German peoples, the English amongst the
rest, threw off the rule of the Bishop of Rome. But
the Romance peoples still obey the Pope, and though
the Roman Empire has passed away in political
matters, traces of it still remain in the high position
given in religious matters to the Bishop of Rome.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.
Rome Founded,
The Romans drove out their Kings, .
The Plebeians first had Tribunes,
The Decemvirs published the Laws at Rome,
The Romans took Veil from the Etruscans,
The Gauls took Rome, ....
The Laws of Licinius and Sextius made the
Patricians and Plebians equal in Rome,
The Romans conquered the Latins, .
The Romans, having conquered the Samnites, bC'
came the chief people in Italy,
The Romans drove Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, out
of Italy,
First War with Carthage, . . . •
War with Hannibal,
The Romans conquered the East, • •
The Romans conquered Spain, . .
Destruction of Carthage, ....
Tiberius Gracchus tried to reform the Roman
State,
Caius Gracchus tried to reform the Roman State.
War with Jugurtha in Numidia,* .
Caius Marius drove back the Teutones and
Cimbri from Italy, ....
The Italians forced Rome to make them Roman
citizens,
Civil War between Sulla and Marius, .
Cnaeus Pompeius overcame Rome's rebels, ,
Caius Julius Caesar conquered the Gauls, ,
B.C.
753
509
494
451
396
389
366
338
290
275
264-241
219-202
200-160
150
146
133
123-121
111-106
102
91-89
88-82
74-61
58-49
1 2 6 ROMAN HIST OR Y.
BX.
Caius Julius Caesar invaded Britain, ... 54
Civil War between Pompeius and Caesar, in which
Caesar was conqueror at the Battle of Phar-
salia, 49-48
Caius Julius Caesar put himself at the head of
the Government of Rome, ... . . 48-44
Caius Julius Caesar was murdered, ... 44
Marcus Antonius, Caius Octavianus, and Marcus
Lepidus gained the chief power in the Roman
State, 43
Octavianus defeated Antonius at Actium, and be-
came the chief man in Rome, ... 31
Octavianus, known as Augustus Caesar, governed
the Roman Republic as Emperor, B.C. 30-14 a.d.
A.D.
Tiberius Emperor, ..,•,. 14-37
Caius Caesar (Caligula) Emperor, . . • 37-41
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Emperor, , . . 41-54
Nero Claudius Caesar Emperor, . . . 54-68
Disturbances in the Empire after the fall of the
Julian family, 69
Titus Flavins Vespasianus, known as Vespasian,
Emperor, 69-79
Destruction of Jerusalem, 70
Titus Flavins Vespasianus, known as Titus, Em-
peror, . 79-81
Lucius Flavins Domitianus, known as Domitian,
Emperor, 81-96
Ulpius Trajanus Emperor, . ^ . . . . 98-117
Publius ^lius Hadrianus Emperor, . . . 117-138
Titus yElius Antoninus, known as Antoninus Pius,
Emperor, 138-161
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, — the first Emperor
who had to spend his time in fighting against
barbarian invaders, 161-180
The Emperors were elected by the soldiers, and
barbarian tribes invaded the frontiers, . . 192-268
The Emperor Caracalla made all men who were
governed by Rome citizens of Rome, . . 215
A series of Emperors chosen from Illyria drove
back the invaders, 268-284
The Emperor Diocletian made great changes in
the Roman Empire, 284-305
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 127
A.D.
Flavius Valerius Constantinus, known as Con-
stantine the Great, made the Empire
Christian, and built Constantinople as its
new capital, 323-337
The Emperor Valens was killed by the Goths in
battle, 378
The Emperor Theodosius drove back the Goths, 379-395
The Empire was divided between two Caesars,
one in the East and one in the West, . . 395
The Goths settled in South Gaul and Spain, . 415
The Vandals settled in Africa, .... 429
The Huns, under their King, Attila, invaded
Europe, 433-453
The Franks were settling in Gaul and the English
in Britain, . 450-500
The Empire was again united under the Emperor
at Constantinople, and a German King
governed Italy as his deputy, . . . 476
The Emperor Justinian made the Empire power-
ful for a time, 527-565
The Arabs, united by the teaching of Mahomet,
began a career of conquest in Syria, Egypt,
and Africa, 636
The Pope, representing the people of Rome,
crowned Charles, King of the Franks, as
Emperor of Rome, 80D
The Turks captured Constantinople, and brought
the Eastern Empire to an end, . . . 1453
Francis II abdicated the Holy Roman Empire, . x8o6
692556
I
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY
/
PHYSICS;
PHYSICAL Gl
GEOI^OGY: Profess^
F^HYSIOLOGY: Br* M|
ASTRONOMTt J. Nor|
BOTANY t Dr. ]. D, Ho
ibtoru?
EUeOPE; E, A, Freeman, B,CJ
ENGl^ANDf }\ R< Green, Mc A.
riHEKOK: C. A. Fyffe, M,A.
HOME. M. Ci^mGHTOs, M. A.
,-^"ri A.NCE: CHuax>TTE M VoNGE^^
O COG B APH Y '; CsoRGE Gr<3
^itiatur^.
j^NOLiSH GRAMMARi Bi^, 'K.
;-.]-. C.^^ISH LITERATUREt
KhTIN Llj^^^B^RE^ Rev« Dr, Fc W, f aI
l^''Hr: BlmS^^^^^^RoYK, Esq.
D. A
N & CO.