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100 2(10	4" to	600	800ROMAN HISTORY

THE EARLY EMPIRE

FROM THE ASSASSINATION OF JULIUS CiESAR
TO THAT OF DOMITIAN

BY

W. W. CAPES, M.A.

LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, AND
READER IN ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

WITH TWO MAlPS

NEW YORK
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO.c.

n r

GRANT, FAIRES & RODGERS,
Electrotypers <5r® Printers,
52 & 54 North Sixth Street, Philadelphia.

| CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Rapid survey of the history of Rome from the death of Julius
Caesar to the battle of Actium . , . . . PAGE I

CHAPTER I.

AUGUSTUS B. C. 31—A. D. X4.

The change in Octavianus after he gained absolute power, not a
mere change of Policy, but of temper and demeanor—The
change in the forms of the constitution—The proposal to resign
—He avoids the title of king, or of dictator—Had already taken
the name of Csesar—;Is styled Augustus—Takes the old repub-
lican titles—The old offices of the executive—New offices created
—The Senate—Privy Council—The government of the provinces
—-Senatorial provinces—Imperial provinces—General character
of the new regime—The homely manners of Augustus—Liberal
outlay for public objects—Ready acquiescence in these changes
The chief mirristers of Augustus—Agrippa—His energy, self-
sacrifice—Public works—Marries Marcella—Retires to Lesbos
—Marries Julia—Dies—Maecenas—His diplomatic skill—The
chief adviser of Augustus—Influenced the tone of Roman
circles through the poets—His domestic trials—Livia—Sources
of her influence over Augustus, and its nature—Suspicion of
her sinister dealings to secure the succession of Tiberius—Treat-

31 3 SVI

Contents.

ment of Agrippa Postumus—Story of Livia poisoning Augustus
—Julia—Her betrothals and marriages—Extravagance and
profligacy at last made known to her father—Her banishment
and misery—Disasters in Germany—Defeat of Lollius—Loss
of Varus with three legions—Panic at Rome, and grief of
Emperor—Augustus grew morose, and resented criticism—
Leges majestatis enforced against authors—Ovid—Banished to
Tomi—Augustus at last less popular at Rome than in the
provinces—Died at Nola—His survey of the Roman world,
and summary of official statistics, and advice to his successors
—The Monumentum Ancyranum—Augustus deified—Expla-
nations: i. Polytheism less scrupulous; 2. Eastern peoples had
deified their kings; 3. The rationalizing tendency; 4. The
Italian worship of the Lares especially fostered by Augustus—
Augustales	. . . page 6

CHAPTER II.

tiberius: a.d. 14-37.

The early life of Tiberius—Little liked by Augustus—His retire-
ment to Rhodes—He wished to return to Rome, but was not
allowed—His danger and suspense—Livia procures his recall
and adoption by Augustus—He was usually away from Rome
with the army—Recalled to the death-bed of Augustus—Pre-
cautions of Livia—Claim to succeed based on adoption and
tribunicia polestas—Consent of the legions all-important—
They were in mutiny—Caution of Tiberius, and ambiguous
language—He shrank from titles of honor and from flattery—
Referred all business to the Senate, but neglected the popular
assemblies and the amusements of the people—Seemed anxious
to govern well—The great influence of Livia, now called
Augusta—Her politic patronage of art—Tiberius showed
jealousy of the honor paid to Augusta—Fear of Germanicus,
who was recalled from Germany and sent on a mission to theContents.

VII

East—The appointment of Cn. Piso to be governor of Syria—
His offensive conduct to Germanicus, who believed that he was
poisoned by Piso—Grief at Rome when the death of Germani-
cus was known—Popular suspicions—The people disliked Ti-
berius from the first—Reasons—The " delatores " of the Empire
now first appeared—Their influence under Tiberius, and in-
crease in numbers—The character of Sejanus—His rise in
power and favor—He schemed to revenge himself on Drusus
for the insult of a blow—Seduced Livilla and poisoned Drusus,
widened the breach between Tiberius and Agrippina, and urged
Tiberius to leave Rome—Tiberius retired to Capreae—The
death of Augusta, followed by the fall of Agrippina and her
children—The fate of Asinius Gallus—The great power of
Sejanus at Rome, his haughtiness—Suspicions of Tiberius at
length aroused—His dissimulation—The scene in the Senate-
house, where the Emperor's letter is read, and^Sejanus is
dragged off to death—Cruelty of Tiberius—The trials and
bloodshed at Capreae—His death—The pleas of later critics in
favor of a new estimate of the character of Tiberius—The testi-
mony of Valerius Maximus and Velleius Paterculus—The
marks of bias and exaggeration in the common story—The
assumptions as to the memoirs of Agrippina, and the guilt of
the victims of Tiberius—Ancient writers have formed too
harsh an opinion of his motives in some cases, arid reported
scandalous gossip too lightly .	. . i PAGE 44

CHAPTER III*

CALIGULA: A.D. 37-4t.

The general joy at the death of Tiberius, and at the succession of
Caius, named Caligula—The claims of the young grandchild of
Tiberius were ignored—The general gladness—The fimperor's
popularity and sense of power turned his head—Hg claimed
divine honors—Could bear no rival greatness, as in the case of
Seneca and Domitius Afer—Was jealous even of the dea4—VIII

Contents.

Thought himself raised above moral laws, and indulged in wild
caprices—His devices to refill his exhausted coffers—Resorted
to confiscation—Morbid ferocity—The campaign in Germany—
Ludicrous close—His wild dreams of massacre • . • 74

CHAPTER IV.

claudius : a.d. 41-54.

The hesitation of the Senate after the murder of Caius—The sol-
diers meantime saluted Claudius Emperor—In early life he had
been weak in mind and body—He had sorry treatment from
Tiberius* and Caius, and indulged in coarse habits, but he had
literary tastes—As Emperor he was ruled by wives and freed-
men—The domestic position of the freedmen of Rome, and in
the imperial household-—Their ambition and greed and oppor-
tunities of gaining wealth—Pallas—Narcissus—Polybius—Cal-
listus—Felix—Posides—Claudius kept in good humor by his
freedmen His love for judicial work, and care for provisioning
Rome—Want of dignity in his proclamations—A campaign
and victory arranged for him—Scandalous traffic of the freed-
men—They confiscate the property of the rich by working on
their masters' fears—His wives—Messalina—Her unbounded
wantonness and cruelty—At last she causes public scandal by
marrying Silius—Narcissus tells Claudius, and procures her
death—Debate among the freedmen as to the choice of a new
wife—Agrippina, his niece, carried off the prize, and showed at
once her intention to rule supreme—Had Octavia betrothed to
her son, and the trusted servants of Britannicus removed—Afraid
of Narcissus and delay, she had Claudius poisoned—The satire
of Seneca on the deification of Claudius . . . page 84Contents.

IX

CHAPTER V.

nero: A.d. 54-68.

The early life of Nero—Saluted as Emperor by the soldiers—His
mother, Agrippina, tried at first to govern, but Burrhus and
Seneca took her place and ruled in his name—He showed a
passion for the fine arts and for low dissipation—His impatience
of his mother's restraint—Treatment of Britannicus and Octavia
—The attempts to poison Agrippina failed—The dark scheme
to drown her in the Bay of Naples—Its failure followed by her
murder—Burrhus and Seneca defended the deed—Nero gave
himself up to his pleasures, drove freeborn Romans on the
stage, and at last appeared on it himself—Nero had a real love
of art, but the art was bad—Nero's extravagant display, espe-
cially in building—The great fire of Rome—The strange rumors
of his conduct and suspicions—He had the " Golden House"
built for him—Its most privileged inmates—To turn suspicion
from himself Nero made the Christians his victims and his
scapegoats—His victims -generally of a higher rank—His aunt
—His wife Octavia—Poppsea—Burrhus—Seneca spared for a
time—Philosophers were looked on with distrust—Stoicism
especially distasteful to the prince, but spread) rapidly through
society—The character and fate of Thrasea Paetus, of Seneca,
and of Corbulo—Other victims—Lucan fell into disgrace at
court—Took part in a conspiracy and lost both life and honor
—Petronius Arbiter excited the jealousy of Tigellinus, and died
with frivolous indifference—The rising in Britain and great loss
of life and other disasters of the time—The revolt of Vindex in
Gaul, taken up "by Galba after the death of Vindex—Nero's in-
difference at first, followed by despair—He fled to a freedman's
house and hid himself, then at last found nerve to kill himself—
Strange affection for his memory shown by some of the popu-
lace—Pretenders appeared in his name . . . page 104X

Contents

CHAPTER VI.

galba : a.d. 68-69.

The career of Galba before his accession—As governor of Spain he
had only a small force—Rival pretenders rose and fell, and
Galba made his way to Rome -without a struggle, but preceded
by ugly rumors—Discontent of the marines, praetorians, legion-
aries, and city populace, of Nero's servants and favorites, and
of the Senate—The favorites of Galba shamelessly abuse their
power—Galba adopted Piso as his colleague, but Otho intrigued
with the soldiers of the guard, and was saluted Emperor—Galba
set out for the camp, but while on his way was set upon and
killed, and Piso, who had fled to sanctuary, was killed at the
temple steps.........128

CHAPTER VII.

otho : a.d. 69.

Otho's early career of dissipation—Of better repute in provincial
rule—Returned to Rome with Galba and displaced him—He
gained the soldiers' loyalty and love—But the armies of the
Rhine had chosen Vitellius, and were on the march to Rome—
After fruitless overtures of peace, Otho marched to meet them
—His generals urged delay, but he would not wait—His army
was routed on the battle-field of Bedriacum, and he died by his
own hand ........ page 134

CHAPTER VIII.

Vitellius; A.d. 69.

The antecedents of Vitellius—Sent by Galba to command the
army on the Rhine—Glutton and spendthrift thpugh he was he
won the affections of the soldiers—Valens and Caecina, beingContents.

XI

disaffected to Galba, stir the army and put Vitellius forward;
he is proclaimed Emperor—The march into Italy and victory
of Bedriacum—The entry into Rome of the soldiers of the
Rhine with Vitellius—His favorites governed while he feasted
—But in the East Vespasian was soon in arms—The treachery
of Bassus and Caecina, and second battle of Bedriacum—Sad
fate of Cremona—Vitellius tried to abdicate but was prevented
by the soldiers, who stormed the Capitol—In the fray the
temple of Jupiter was burnt—Antonius entered Rome and
slaughtered the Vitellians—Vitellius was dragged from his
hiding-place and slain .	. . • PAGE I39:

CHAPTER IX.

VESPASIAN ; A.D. 69-79.

The humble origin and chequered career of Vespasian—He is
sent to command in Judaea—He showed his skill and won the
soldiers' trust—Titus and Mucianus pressed him to make him-
self Emperor, and he consented with reluctance—The rebellion
in Gaul and Germany ; Its causes, early successes, and speedy
failure—Vespasian restored order at Rome—The causes of the
insurrection in Judaea, and earlier relations of the Jews to
Rome—A hasty rising at Jerusalem spread widely till Vespa-
sian was sent to command the army—The siege of Jerusalem
was left to Titus to finish—The obstinate defence and utter
destruction of the city and temple—The triumph after the
Jewish war as described by Josephus—The economy and
homely tastes of Vespasian—He needed and raised a large
revenue, and imposed new tolls and taxes—But the money
was well used for public objects—He was free from jealousy
and suspicion, yet was persuaded to put to death Helvidius
Priscus, and also J. Sabinus, iii spite of the story of his wife's
faithful love—Vespasian worked hard and died in harness—
The characteristic jest at his funeral . . 4 page 147XII

Contents.

CHAPTER X.

titus ; a.d. 79-81.

The bright prospects of the early life of Titus—His ambitious
hopes and intrigues in Judaea—Skill in the siege and cruelty to
. the prisoners—He shared the imperial power with his father,
and studied magnificence of outward show—Money was spent
largely on great works—His relations with Berenice were so
unpopular that he had to yield—Sinister rumors about him—
The change after his father's death—His courtesy and liberality
made him loved, and universally lamented—The disasters of
the time—The eruption of Vesuvius—The account of the
younger Pliny—The scene at Pompeii, and various forms of
death and ruin—The objects since collected , . page 162

CHAPTER XI.

domitian : a.d. 81-96.

Domitian's early life and danger from the soldiers—Sudden change
turned his head—He was kept in strict tutelage by Vespasian
—He ill requited the tenderness of Titus—His power of self-
restraint as Emperor and wish to rule well—He discouraged
informers and legacies to himself—The probable causes of the
marked change of temper—His complete failure as a general—
Conspiracy against him—Want of money—His numerous
victims—The Philosophers—Apollonius of Tyana—The gene-
rals — Julius Agricola — Literary men — Martial — Statius —
Juvenal—Tacitus—Domitian assassinated by his wife and
freedmen ,	»	. . . . page 171

CHAPTER XII.

the position of the emperor.

The Emperor virtually the source of law; he interprets the law,
and enforces it, as head of the executive—His powers uniqueContents.

XIII

in kind, without check or balance—There was no escape from
the Emperor's power, nor for him—His power was based on
military force, but his policy was commonly not warlike—
Little police force needed . . . . . page 181

CHAPTER XIII.

the rights of roman citizenship.

The citizens of Rome a mixed race—Their rights and privileges-
Jus Suffragii—Jus honorum—Right of appeal—Immunity from
personal violence—Jus exjlii—Freedom of speech and writing
—Religious liberty—Right of Assembly—Right to food . 184

CHAPTER XIV.

life in the provinces.

Great variety of political status in the provincial towns, and large
amount of self-rule—Scanty reference in literature to the life of
the provincial towns—Fuller details in the inscriptions—The
executive officials, duumviri juri dicundo, sediles, quaestors,
quinquennales—The town council or ordo decurionum—Popu-
lar assemblies—Offices were burdensome rather than lucrative
—Public spirit and munificence—The attractions of Roman
culture—The liberal outlay of the rich lightened the burdens of
local government—General well-being—-Evidences of improve-
ment and of prosperity—But no guarantees of permanence

page 190

CHAPTER XV.

the state of trade.

The early contempt for industrial art at Rome—The contempt ex-
tended to professions and the fine arts—Disdain of retail trade
did not extend to commerce on a large scale—Growth of a classXIV

Contents.

of merchant capitalists who enrich themselves without benefit
to the world—What the Empire did for trade—11 secured the
roads and seas—Confined war to the frontiers—Removed a
variety of hindrances—Diminished indirectly the supply of slave
labor—Lessened the competition of war and politics—The
Emperors favored the higher branches of industrial art—Influ-
ence of Eastern sentiment—The higher status given to industrial
classes through magistri vicorum—A vast system of free trade
flourished—Balance of trade against Italy . . PAGE 202

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GROWING DEPOPULATION OF ITALY AND GREECE.

The ominous signs of depopulation—Strabo's account of Greece—
Polybius notices the diminishing military force of Italy—Re-
marks of Livy—Pliny—Dion Cassius—Attempts of Augustus
to meet the evil—The causes of decline; 1. War; 2. Changes
from peasant proprietors to large estates with slave labor;
3. Slavery was wasteful of life; 4. Attraction of town life
and discouragement to industry; 5. Influence of vice and
profligacy............PAGE 209

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FRONTIERS AND THE ARMY.

The frontiers well defined—Dependent kingdoms and diplomatic
relations—The pacific policy of the Empire—The standing
army of Augustus, and the stations of the legions and of the
fleets—The legions recruited from the distant provinces were
loyal and steadfast, and attached by many ties to their camp—
The moral qualities fostered in the camps by work and disci-
pline—Two examples of the break-down of discipline—The pay
and pensions of the soldiers and " missio honesta" . PAGE 216Contents.

xv

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MORAL STANDARD OF THE AGE.

The natural tendency to believe that there was a moral decline in
the first century of the Empire; i. But satire is not fair evi-
dence; 2. Juvenal was too vehement to be fair; 3. Literature
deals with the life of Rome; 4. Complaints about luxury need
to be carefully weighed: 5. Philosophy becomes a great moral
power—the case of Seneca; 6. The change of tone and thought
on the subject of slavery; 7. The change in the estimate of
women's character; 8. The evidence of a higher tone in
Pliny's letters........PAGE 223

CHAPTER XIX.

THE REVIVAL OF RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT.

Religion seemed to be losing its hold on the Romans of education
—The policy of Augustus to strengthen the old religion—Rea-
sons for believing that the reaction left enduring traces ; 1. The
legends might be given up without loss of religious faith; 2.
The tone of philosophy was earnest and devout; 3. The intro-
duction of new creeds and rites; 4. The change in the literary
tone ; 5. Monumental evidence—Paganism died hard PAGE 232

INDEX

PAGE 237The Chief Original Authorities for the History of the
First Century.

Appian, " Civil Wars " : for the period of the civil struggle.

Dion Cassius, " Roman History."

Inscriptionum Latinarum Corpus: Auctoritate Acad. Berol. ed.
Josephus: for the Jewish war.

"Monumentum Ancyranum v. Res. gestae divi Augusti" : ed. Th.
Mommsen.

Pliny,Letters" : for the close of the period.

Plutarch, " Lives of Julius Caesar, Cicero, Antonius, M. Brutus
Galba, Otho."

Seneca, in the historical illustrations of his moral treatises.
Suetonius, " Lives of the Caesars."

Tacitus, "Annals and Histories."

Velleius Paterculus, for the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius.
Of the poets: Horace, Juvenal, and Martial especially illustrate
the history of the period.

17MAPS.

Roman Empire.......Frontispiece

Ancient Italy". .	. • . . To face i

18Genealogical Tables.

Cams Julius Csesar=Aureli a.

C. Julius Caesar Dictator=Cornelia.	Julia=M. Attius Balbus.

Tulia=Cn. Pompeius Magnus.	Attia—C. Octavius.

J

/ \ p. j. i f C. Octavius afterwards (2) M. Antonius=Octavia=(i) M. Claudius Marcellus.
(Ji Srrihonia i "l JU^1US Caesar Octavianus=(3) Livia Drusilla. triumvir I
w	I C Augustus.	|......

(2) Agrippa=Julia={^ TiBKU^Nero Emp.	..	|.----,

M. Claudius Marcellus==Julia d. of
Augustus

L. Domitius=Antonia Major.	Antonia Minor

j | j j j j Ahenobarbus I	=Nero Claudius

C. Caesar. L. Csesar. Agrippina=Germanicus. Julia . Agrippa |	Drusus

(v. Table II.) Minor. Postumus. | I	(v. Table II.)

| Domitia Lepida	s
t Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus=M. Valerius Messalinus.
^ =Agrippina Minor. |

|	-	Messalina,

L. Domitius Ahenobarbus Wife of Claudius.

(Nero).Genealogical Tables (continued)

n.

Tib. Claudius^Nero=Li via Drusilla.	T. Pomponius Atticus.

r T " .	M. Vipsanius Agrippa=Pomponia.

Nero Claudius Drusus==Antonia Minor.	j

| (v.'Table I.)	Tiberius Claudius Nero=Vipsania Agrippina.

Germanicus—Agrippina Major.	Ti. Claudius Nero==(i) Messalina. Livilla==Nero Claudius Drusus Caesar.

(2) Agrippina	I

Nero Drusus C. Caesar Agrippina=(i} Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus.
Caesar. Caesar. Caligula Minor I (2) Crispus Passienus.

=Caesonia.	(3) Ti. Claudius Emp.

/Linor.

Julia.	L. Domitius Ahenobarbus	f	f

Drusilla.	Nero = Octavia	~

Julia=Nero Caesar,	Tiberius.

Son of Germanicus. Gemellus.

Octavia	Britannicus.

Vespasius Pollio.

III.

? Manceps Operarum (Suet. 1).
T. Flavius Petro.

Vespasia Polla===(T. Flavius) Sabinus.

Flavius iabinus.	T. Flavius vespasianus=Domitilla.	Cn. Domitius

■_I__■ _ Corbulo.

Titos Flav. Vesp.=Marcia.	Domi'tilla	Domitianus—Domitia

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THE EARLIER EMPIRE.

INTRODUCTION.

The genius and statesmanship of Julius Caesar secured
only a few years of absolute power, and had not time
enough to shape the forms of empire, or R id
carry out far-reaching plans. .When he fell Rome5 from
under the daggers of his murderers, he left the death of
no system of established rule, and no sue- tothe bSdeof
cessor to replace him. The Commonwealth Actium-
had been discredited by years of impotence; anarchy at
home, misgovernment abroad had shown the break-
down of the ancient institutions of the state, and the frail
plant of liberty needed more to bring it back to healthy
Mfe than to be watered with the blood of Caesar. But
when the young Octavius left his books at Apollonia,
and came to Rome to claim his rights, few could have
had serious fears of his ambition, or could have foreseen
In him the man who was to close the drama of the great
Republic and bring the empire on the stage. For he
had played no part as yet in public life, was known to
be of feeble health, had given no proof of genius or of
self-reliant courage. Sent on before to the advanced

B2

The Earlier Empire. B.C. 44-31.

camp in Epirus, to be ready for campaigns in the far
East, he was startled from his round of rhetoric and drill
by the news of his great uncle's murder. He crossed the
b	sea without delay; and hearing on his way

that his,kinsman's will had named him heir,
he took at once the name of Caesar Octavianus, and
hurried on to claim his heritage at Rome. His mother
told him of her fear, his stepfather urged the need of
caution, and pointed to the dangers jn his way ; but he
persisted, .though almost alone, and though he saw the
need to be resolute and wary. The daggers that had
been sharpened against Julius might be drawn upon him-
self, if he spoke too openly of vengeance, or appealed at
once to the soldiers'and the people. The name that he
had just assumed had an ominous sound in the ears of *
Senate and of nobles; and M. Antonius, the old confi-i
dant and partisan of Caesar, by right of his authority as
consul, had taken the reins of power into his Jiands, had
gained possession of the treasures and the papers of the
fallen ruler, and was in no mood to share them with a
rival claimant. The conduct of Octavianus, though bold,
Was very politic and far-sighted. Resolved at any cost
to show respect for the last wishes of his kinsman, he
drew largely on the means of his family or friends to pay
the legacies bequeathed by Caesar to every citizen of
Rome, and defrayed even the expenses of the public
shows that had been promised. He paid his court with
tact to the members of the Senate, and talked of amnes-
ty and peace; put on a show of winning deference for
the leaders of the moderate party, and for Cicero above
all, and fed their hopes, that they might find in his grow-
ing popularity a harmless counterpoise to the violent am-
bition of Antonius. Even when forced at last to arm in
self-defence, and to levy troops among the veterans ofB.C. 44-3

Introduction.

3

Caesar, he courted the old statesman still; he played upon
his vanity, and called him father. Affecting to draw his
sword only in defence of the constitution and the
Senate, he offered to serve with his own legions under
the new consuls against Antonius, the common enemy
of all loyal citizens. But he clearly read the jealous sus-
picions of the nobles, and had no mind to be used awhile
and then thrown aside like a dishonored
tool. So, after the successes won at Mutina, b-c-4j.
which cost the lives of both the consuls, he flung away
the mask that he had worn, came to terms of union with
Antonius and with Lepidus, the governor of Gaul, and
marched with his soldiers straight to Rome to wrest the
consulship from the reluctant Senate. Then the era of
Proscriptions opened, for the confederates agreed to ce-
ment their league with blood. Each marked his victims'
names upon the fatal list, and each consented to give up
adherents of his own to the greed or hatred of his col-
leagues. Meanwhile the Senatorian party, crushec^.t
Rome, was gathering fresh strength beyond the sfes.
Brutus in Macedonia, Cassius in Syria, the foremost of
the murderers of Caesar, had turned the provinces which
they governed into one vast recruiting-ground for a last
decisive struggle. When all was ready they combined
their forces and offered battle to the enemies who had
crossed over to attack them. Once more
came the crash of mighty armies met again B'c* 42*
in civil war, and the battle-fields of Philippi saw the fall
of the last of the great republicans of Rome.

The world lay prostrate at the conquerors' feet; it re-
mained only to divide the spoil. Antonius stayed behind
to organize and rule the East. The Province of Africa was
thought enough to content the absent Lepidus, while Italy
and all the West fell to the portion of Octavianus,4

The Earlier Empire. B. c. 44-31.

But still as the young schemer mounted higher the
dangers seemed to thicken in his path, to test his hardi-
hood and patient statecraft. He returned to Italy to find
an exhausted treasury and half-ruined people; veterans
clamoring for their pay and settling with fierce eager-
ness upon the promised lands; peasants ousted from
their homes, taken to brigandage from sheer despair ;
the city populace in no loyal mood to a master who had
little to bestow; while the wife and brother of his rival
fanned the smouldering discontent, and vexed him sorely
with intrigues, then flew to arms at last, and when beaten
stood sullenly at bay within the beleagured fortress of
Perusia. The sea meanwhile was at the
*• c. 4*- mercy of the bold Sextus Pompeius, who
scoured the coasts of Italy with galleys manned by
motley crews of republicans who had fought under his
father's lead, of pirates to whom that father's name had
been once a sound of terror, of ruined victims of the
late proscriptions, of slaves and runaways of every class.
The corn-ships dared not venture near the blockaded
ports, and prices mounted to famine height, till the
starving population rose in fierce mutiny against their
ruler; while Antonius was on his way with a great fleet to
call him to account for the treatment of his brother, who
had hardly escaped with life from the horrors of the
siege. But Italy was sick of civil war. The soldiers,
tired of constant bloodshed, made their leaders sheath
their swords and join in league and amity, in pledge of
which Antonius took to wife Octavia, the sister of his
rival, while Sextus bargained as the price of peace to
keep his hold upon the islands and the sea, and Lepi-
dus, displaced already from his office of command, held
only in his feeble grasp the dignity and functions of High
Pontiff.B.C. 44-31-

Introduction.

5

For six more years of divided power Octavianus
schemed, and toiled, and waited. He secured his hold
on Italy, calmed the elements of disorder in its midst,
refilled the treasury and stocked the granaries, till he felt
himself strong enough to defy Sextus on the seas and
crush the bold buccaneer after many a hard-fought strug-
gle. At last, but not till all was safe elsewhere, came the cri-
sis of the duel with Antonius. Eastern luxury had done its
work upon his passionate nature. Slothful self-indulg-
ence, broken only by fitful moods of fiery energy, clout ed
his reason and unnerve|i his manhood. The Egyptifcii 4
Cleopatra had lured *fiim with her blandishments and
wound her snares around his heart, till Rome heard with
indignation of the wrongs of the forsaken wife and of the
orgies of the wanton pair. Nay, more, they heard that
not content with parodying the names and attributes of
foreign gods, tfeey claimed the right to change the seat of
empire and make Alexandria the new capital of the
Roman world. Was the dignity of a chaste matron, it
was asked, to be the sport of the minions of an Eastern
court ? Should Octavianus tamely wait to see the na-
tional honor further outraged, and the monstrous forms
of uncouth worships install themselves, within the Seven
Hills and drive the old deities from their venerable
shrines ? The personal quarrel was transformed into a
war of creeds and races. In place of the horrors of a
civil struggle men thought only of the motley aggregate
of foreign peoples arrayed at Actium in the extravagance
of barbaric pomp against the discipline and valor of the
West.

In the actual conflict Antonius displayed neither a
general's skill nor a soldier's courage. He fought, seem-
ingly, to cover a retreat that had been
planned before. Cleopatra's galleys gave the B' c*3I"6

The Earlier Empire.

b.c. 31-

signal for the flight, and the leader of what was now a
hopeless, cause hastened after her to Egypt, where he
found discontent and treachery spread around him.
After a few months spent in moody despair or riotous
excesses he died by his own hand, to be soon followed
by his paramour to his dishonored grave.

CHAPTER I.

augustus : b.c. 31—a.d. 14.

The victory of Actium had made Octavianus the undis-
puted master of the Roman world. One by one rivals
and obstacles had been swept away, and the
able change" patient schemer had now mounted to the top-
anus^ter he most round of the ladder of ambition. Dur-
fute etwer°"	troublous years of the long struggle

for power his public life had been one
course of selfish aims, unscrupulous acts, and makeshift
policy; he had yet to prove that there was anything of
real and abiding greatness in his schemes to raise him
from the ranks of mere political adventurers. But from
this time we may trace a seeming change of character,
which is the more remarkable because it is so hard to
parallel.

It was no change of measures only, such as often comes
with new conditions, such as that which
chang^o?5 made the founder of the dynasty reverse
policy,	much of the policy of earlier years.

For, spendthrift and prodigal as Julius had been be-
fore, he used his power to curtail extravagance, sent
police agents to the markets, and even to the houses of—a.d. 14.	Augustus.

7

the wealthy, to put down luxury by force; the leader of
the popular party forbade the growth of guilds and social
clubs like those which had often carried the elections
in his favor; the favorite of the populace was anxious to
check the pride of pauperism by sterner measures ; the
revolutionary general whose tent had been the refuge of
the men of tarnished name and ruined fortunes baffled
all their hopes of plunder, by passing stringent measures
to restore credit and to curb official greed. Octavianus
also in like case resorted to like policy. One of his first
cares was to repeal the unconstitutional acts of his earlier
life, and so to close the period of revolution. He took
steps without delay to restore order and to strengthen
the moral safeguards which years qf anarchy and civil
war had almost ruined. To this end he passed laws like
those of Julius, and, unlike his kinsman, was enabled by
his long tenure of power to carry out a conservative reform
in morals and religion which left some enduring traces.

But the change in character lay deeper far than this.
He had shown while the struggle lasted a cruelty with^
out excuse. Though possibly reluctant at
the first to engage in the proscriptions, he is and demeanor'
said to have acted in them more relentlessly
than either of his colleagues; he had his prisoners of
war butchered in cold blood, mocked at their prayers for
decent burial, and calmly watched their dying agonies.

That he was hard and pitiless beyond the spirit of his
times is implied in many stories of the day, and among
others we read that when the captives of Philippi passed
in bonds before their conquerors they saluted Antonius
with marked respect, but vented their deepest curses on
Octavianus to his face.

But after Actium he showed what was for that age ai}
unusual clemency. He spared his open enemies, he8

The Earlier Empire.

B.C. 31-

hunted out 11a victims, and professed even to burn the
secret papers of his rival which might have compromised
his partisans at Rome. The same gentler spirit breathes
through the whole of his long period of rule. His jeal-
ous intolerance had led him once to drive a consul elect
to suicide for a bitter word, and to fine or banish citizens
of Nursia for honoring with a monument their dead who
had fallen, as they wrote, in defence of freedom on the
field of Mutina. But he was ready now to show respect
to the memory of Pompeius, to let historians write the
praises of the great republicans of Rome, to congratu-
late the men of Mediolanum (Milan) for prizing the
busts of Brutus, to listen calmly to the gibes vented on
himself in popular satires or in dead men's wills, to let
even lampoons be scattered in the Senate House, and
make no effort to hunt out the authors. His suspicious
fears had made him once give orders for the instant ex-
ecution of a curious bystander who had pressed in too
eagerly to hear him speak in public, and put even to the
torture a praetor who came to greet him, and whose hid-
den note book was mistaken for a dagger; but in later
life he walked without an escort through the streets,
went to and fro to join the social gatherings of his
friends, and showed no fear of an assassin's knife. The
cheerful cordiality and homely courtesies of his maturer
age were a marked contrast to the cold, ungenial reserve
of earlier days; and those who find his real character
hard to read may see perhaps a fitting symbol of it in the
figure of the Sphinx which he wore upon his signet-ring.

But this change of manner could not be an easy thing,
and was probably not soon effected. There are signs
The change which seem to show that constant watchful-
toabeeas1iyat ness an<* self-restraint were needed to curb
made.	his natural temper, and that personal influ-—A.D. 14.

Augustus.

9

ences were at work to help him. Though he was patient
and merciful in most cases that were brought before him
when on the seat of judgment, it is said that Maecenas,
who was standing by, marked on one occasion the old
blood-thirsty instinct reappear, and flung to him a hasty
note with the words " Rise, Hangman! " written on it.
Another time, when stung by what was ut- Called for
tered in the Senate, he hurried out abruptly,

and excused himself afterwards for want of restraint,
courtesy by saying that he feared his anger would slip
from his control. We are told that with others com-
monly, and even with Livia, his wife, he would not al-
ways trust himself to speak on subjects of grave mo-
ment without writing down the notes of what he had to
say. In the gloom that settled on him in old age, when
family losses and dishonor, coupled with national disas-
ters, weighed upon his mind, the hard, unlovely features
of his character, long hidden out of sight, seemed to
come to light once more as the force of self-control was
weakened by the laws of natural decay. Yet even with
such reserves his history presents a spectacle almost un-
exampled of the force of will in moulding and temper-
ing an ungenial nature, and of the chastening influence
of sovereign rule. The signal victory just won, the hon-
ors voted by the servile Senate, the acclamations of the.
people, the license of unbounded power, might well
have turned his head, as they proved fatal to the temper
of many a later emperor; but the dagger of Brutus
haunted his memory and warned him to beware of out-
raging Roman feeling.

But, far beyond its effect upon his personal bearing,
we may trace the influence of these warning memories
on the work which lay before him, of giving The change ;n
shape and system to the future government coiSSaoa?16io	The Earlier Empire.	.B.C. 31—

of Rome. Power and repute had passed away from
the old forms of the Republic. The whole world lay
at the feet of the master of many legions; it re-
mained only to define the corfstitutional forms in which
the new forces were to work. But to do this was no easy
task. The perplexities of his position, the fears and hopes
that crossed his mind, are thrown into dramatic form by
the historian Dion Cassius, who brings a scene before our
The debate fancy in which Octavianus listens to the
ject'in Dioa conflicting counsels of his two great advisers
Cassius. Agrippa and Maecenas. The former is sup-
posed to paint in sombre colors the difficulties of a
monarch's lot, to remind him of the warnings of the
past and the dangers of the future, and strongly to
urge him to copy the example set by Sulla, and after
passing needful laws, and strengthening the safeguards
against anarchy and license, to resign the outward
show of power and come down from the dizzy pinnacle
of greatness. Maecenas, on the other hand, counsels
absolute rule, though masked by constitutional dis-
guises and describes at great length a system of cen-
tralized government, in sketching which the historian
drew mainly from the experience of his own later times,
and with slight regard for historic truth, attributed
to the inventive genius of Maecenas a full-grown system
of political machinery which took some centuries of
imperialism to develop. But though we must regard the
narrative in question more as the writer's own political
theorizing than as a sketch of matter of fact, yet there is
little doubt that the schemes of resignation were at some
time discussed by the Emperor and by his circle of ad-
visers. It is even possible, as the same writer tells us,
The r ai ^e laid before the Senators at this time
to resign.pos some proposal to leave the helm of state and-A. D. 14.	AUgUSfUS.

11

let them guide it as of old. We are told that they were
thrown into confusion by his words, and that, mistrust-
ing his sincerity, or fearing the return of anarchy and
the scramble for power that would soon ensue, they all
implored him to withdraw his words and take back the
power which he had resigned. The scene, if ever really
acted, was but an idle comedy, and the offer could scarcely
have been seriously meant, though there may have been
some passing thought of it even at this time and still
more at a later period, when he had long been sated with
power and burdened with the cares of office. It is more
probable that he was content with some faint show of
resistance, when the Senate heaped their honors on
his head, as afterwards when, more than once, after a
ten years' interval they solemnly renewed the tenure of
his power.

But we cannot doubt his sincerity in one respect—in
his wish to avoid the kingly title and all the odious
associations of the name. It had been from
early times offensive to Roman ears; it had wishesio
grown far more so as they heard more of the ^ ofKing,
wanton lust and cruelty and haughtiness of
Eastern monarchs, and they scorned to be degraded
themselves to the level of their cringing subjects. The
charge of aspiring to be king had often been an ominous
cry in party struggles, and had proved fatal to more than
one great leader; it had been truly said perhaps of
Caesar, and had largely helped to ruin him, and his suc-
cessor was too wary to be dazzled by the bauble of a
name. He shrank also from another title, truly Roman
in its character, but odious since the days of
Sulla; and though the populace of Rome,

when panic-struck by pestilence and famine,

clamored to have him made dictator, and threatened to12

The Earlier Empire,	B.C. 31-

burn the Senate as it sat in council if their will was not
obeyed, yet nothing would induce him to bear the hate-
ful name. But the name of Caesar he had
tekfnathcady taken long ago, after his illustrious uncle's
Sesar°f death, and this became the title first of the
dynasty and then of the imperial office.
Besides this he allowed himself to be styled Augustus, a
name which roused no jealousy and outraged no Roman
sentiment, yet vaguely implied some dignity and rever-
ence from its long association with the objects of religion.

As such he preferred it to the suggested
Is styled. name of Romulus, and allowed one of the

Augustus.

months to be so called after him, as the
preceding one of Julius had been named after his kins-
man. With this exception he assumed no new symbol
of monarchic power, but was satisfied with the old official
titles, which though charged with memories of the Re-
Takes the public, yet singly corresponded to some side
old repub- or fragment of absolute authority. The first
of these was Imperator, which served to
Imperator. connect him with the army. The imperium
which the name expressed, has stood in earlier days for
the higher functions, more especially for the power of
the sword, which belonged to civil as well as military
authority. But, gradually curtailed in other cases by the
jealousy of the republic, it had kept its full meaning only
in the camp; the imperator was the general in command,
or, in a still more special case, he was the victorious
leader whose soldiers had saluted him upon the field of
battle. Julius, whose veterans had often greeted him with
this title in many a hard-fought campaign, chose it
seemingly as a fitting symbol of the new regime, as a
frank avowal of its military basis, and in this sense it was
found convenient by his successors. It implied absolute—A.D. 14.

Augustus.

13

authority, such as the general has over his soldiers, and
the concentration in a single chief of the wide-spread
powers entrusted to subordinate commanders; it sug-
gested little of the old forms of constitutional election,
but appealed rather to the memory of the army's loyal
acclamations, and gave seeming claim to their entire
obedience.

The title of the tribunician power connected the
monarch with the interest of the lower orders. In the
early days of privilege, when Rome was
parted into rival classes, the tribunes had
been the champions of the commons. Sa-
crosanct, or inviolate themselves, and armed with power
to shield the weak from the license of magistrate or noble,
they gradually assumed the right to put a veto or check
on all public business in Rome. In the party struggles
of the last century of the republic they had abused their
constitutional powers to destroy the influence of the
Senate and organize the popular movement against the
narrow oligarchy of the ruling classes. Such authority
was too important to be overlooked or intrusted in its
fulness into other hands. The emperor did not, indeed,
assume the tribunate, but was vested with the tribunician
power which overshadowed the annual holders of the
office. It made his person sacred, not in the city only
or in discharge of official acts, as in their case, but at all
times and through the whole breadth of the empire. It
gave him the formal right to call the meetings of the
Senate, and to lay before them such business as he
pleased, ^tnd thus secured the initiative in all concerns of
state. Out of the old privilege of appeal to the protec-
tion of a tribune came the right of acquittal in judicial
functions, which made the Emperor a high court of ap-
peal from all the lower. courts, and out of which seem-14

The Earlier Empire.

B.C. 31-

ingly has grown the right of pardon vested in the kings
of modern Europe. The full meaning and extension of
the title seems not to have been discerned at once, but
once grasped it was too important to be dropped. By it
succeeding emperors dated the tenure of their power, as
by the years of a king's reign, and the formal act by
which the title was conferred on the kinsman or the con-
fidant who stood nearest to the throne seemed to point
him out for succession to the imperial rank.

The familiar name of prince was one of dignity rather
than of power. The "princeps senatus" in old days
Princeps	keen t^ie ^oremost senator of his time,

distinguished by weight of character and the
experience of high rank, early consulted in debate, and
carrying decisive influence by his vote. No one but the
Emperor could fill this position safely, and he assumed
the name henceforth to connect him with the Senate, as
other titles seemed to bind him to the army and the
people.

For the post of Supreme * Pontiff, Augustus was con-
tent to wait awhile, until it passed by death from the
feeble hands of Lepidus. He then claimed
Max/mus. t^e exclusive tenure of the office, and after
this time Pontifex Maximus was always added
to the long list of imperial titles. It put into his hands,
as the highest functionary of religion, the control of all
the ritual of the State; it was a convenient instrument
for his policy of conservative reform, and associated
with his name some of the reverence that gathered round
the domain of spiritual life. Besides these titles *to which
he assumed an exclusive right he also filled occasionally
and for short periods most of the republican offices of
higher rank, both in the capital and in the coun-
try towns. He took from time to time the consular-A.D. 14-

Augustus.

15

power, with its august traditions and impo- consSaS
sing ceremonial. The authority of censor
lay ready to his hands when a moral reform was to be
set on foot, and a return attempted to the censoria
severity of ancient manners, or when the
Senate was to be purged of unworthy members and the
order of the equites or knights to be reviewed and its
dignity consulted. Beyond the capital the
proconsular power was vested in him with- uSs/1*11"
out local limitations, and gave him the right
to issue his instructions to the commanders of the legions,
as the great generals of the republic had done before.
Finally he deigned often to accept offices of local dignity
in the smaller towns throughout the empire, appointing
in each case a deputy to discharge the duties of the post.
The offices of the State of Rome, meantime, lasted on
from the Republic to the Empire, unchanged
in name, and with little seeming change of offices of the
functions. Consuls, Praetors, Quaestors, executive.
Tribunes, and ^Ediles rose from the same classes as be-
fore, and moved for the most part in the same round of
work, though they had lost forever their power of ini-
tiative and real control. Elected by the people formerly,
but with much sinister influence of bribery and auguries,
they were now mainly the nominees of Caesar, though
the forms of popular election were still for a time ob-
served, and though Augustus condescended to canvass
in person for his friends and to send letters of commen-
dation for those whom he wished to have elected. The
consulship was entirely reserved for his nominees, but
passed rapidly from hand to hand, since in order to
gratify, a larger number it was granted at varying intervals
for "a few months only. For though it was in fact a poli-
tical nullity henceforth, and "its value lay mainly in thex6

The Earlier Empire.

B.C. 31-

evidence of imperial favor or its prospects of provincial
office, yet the old dignity lasted still, and for centuries
the post was spoken of by Romans as almost the
highest prize of their ambition. For lower posts a dis-
tinction was observed between the places, generally one-
half, reserved entirely for the Emperor to fill with his
candidati Ccesaris, as they are called in their inscriptions,
and those which were left for some show of open voting,
though influenced, it might be, by court favor.

The peculiar feature of the old Roman executive had
been its want of centralized action. Each magistrate
might thwart and check his colleague; the collision
between different officials, the power of veto, and the
absence of supreme authority might bring the political
machinery to a dead lock. The imperial system swept
aside these dangers, left each magistrate to the routine of
his own work, and made him feel his responsibility to the
central chief. It was part of the policy of Augustus to
disturb as little as possible the old names and forms of
the Republic; to leave their old show and dignity, that
those who filled them might seem to be not his own
creatures, but the servants of the state. But besides these
he set up a number of new offices, often of more real power
New offices though of lower rank; he filled the most im-
created. portant of them with his confidants, delegat-
ingto them the functions which most needed his control,
and in which he could not brook any show of independ-
ence, and left behind him the rudiments of a centralized
bureaucracy which his successors gradually enlarged.
Two terms correspond respectively to two great classes.

The name prcefectus, the prtftt of modern
Praefectus. France, stood in earlier days for the deputy
of any officer of state charged specially to execute some
definite work. The praefects of Caesar were his servants,-A.D. 14.	Augustus.

named by him and responsible to him, set to discharge
duties which the old constitution had commonly ignored.
The prefect of the city had appeared in
shadowy form under the Republic to rep re- Urb?.feCtttS
sent the consul in his absence. Augustus .

felt the need, when called away from Rome, to have
some one there whom he could trust to watch the jealous
nobles and control the fickle mob. His trustiest confix
dants, Maecenas and Agrippa, filled the post, and it be-
came a standing office with a growing sphere of compe-
tence, overtopping the magistrates of earlier date.

The praefects of the praetorian cohorts first appeared
when the Senate formally assigned a body-guard to
Augustus later in his reign. The troops were praetoria
named after the picked soldiers who were	' *

quartered round the tents of the generals of the Repub-
lic, and when they were concentrated by the city walls
their chief commanders soon filled a formidable place in
history, arid their loyalty or treachery often decided the
fate of Rome. Next to these in power and importance
came the praefects of the watch—the new
police force organized by Augustus as a pro- IlSon®.
tection against the dangers of the night; and
of the corn supplies of Rome, which were always an ob-
ject of especial care on the part of the imperial govern-
ment. And besides these, there were many various
duties entrusted by the head of the state to special dele-
gates, both in the capital and through the provinces. The
title procurator% which has come down to us Procura-
in the form of " proctor," was at first mainly torfcS-
a term of civil law, and was used for a financial agent or
attorney. The officers so called were regarded at first
as stewards of the Emperor's property or managers of
his private business. They were^ therefore for some time

Ci8

The Earlier Empire.

B.C. 31-

of humble origin, for the Emperor's household was
organized like that of any Roman noble. Slaves or
freedmen filled the offices of trust, wrote his letters, kept
his books, managed his affairs, and did the work of the
treasurers and secretaries of state of later days. Kept
within bounds by sterner masters, they abused the con-
fidence of weak emperors, and outraged Roman pride by
•their wealth, arrogance, and ostentation. The agents of
the Emperor's privy purse throughout the provinces were
called by the same title, but were commonly of higher
rank and more repute.

Such in its bare outline was the executive of the im-
perial government. We have next to see what was the
position of the Senate. That body had been
The Senate. jn eariy times the council summoned to ad-
vise the king or consul. By the weight and experience
of its members, and their lifelong tenure of office, it soon
towered above the short-lived executive, and became the
chief moving force at Rome. But the policy of the
Gracchi had dealt a fatal blow at its supremacy. Pro-
scriptions and civil wars had thinned its ranks. The first
Caesar had treated it with studied disrespect, and in the
subsequent times of anarchy the influence of the order
and the reputation of its members had sunk to the lowest
depth of degradation. It was one of the first cares of
Augustus to restore its credit. At the risk of odium and
personal danger he more than once revised the list, and
purged it of unworthy members, summoning eminent
provincials in their place. He was careful of their outward
dignity, and made the capital of a million sesterces a
needful condition of the rank. The functions also of the
Senate were in theory enlarged. Its decrees on questions
brought before it had henceforth the binding force of
law* As the popular assemblies ceased to meet for legis-—A.D. 14.

Augustus.

19

lation, case after case was submitted to its judgment,
till it gained speedily by prescription a jurisdiction of
wide range, and before long it decided the elections at its
will or registered the nominations of the Emperor.

But the substance of'power and independence had
passed away from it forever. Matters of great moment
were debated first, not in the Senate House,

but in a sort of Privy Council formed by the Council,
trusted advisers of the Emperor, while the
discussions of the larger body served chiefly to mask the
forms of absolutism, to feel the pulse of popular senti-
ment, and to register decisions formed elsewhere.
Treated with respect and courtesy by wary princes, the
senators were the special mark of the jealousy and greed
of the worst rulers.

If we now turn our thoughts from the centre to the
provinces we shall find that the imperial system brought
with it more sweeping changes and more real ThQ
improvement. Almost every country of the ment of the
Roman world had long been frightfully mis- provmces*
governed. Towards the end of the Republic there rises
from every land a cry in tones that grow ever louder—a
cry of misery and despair—that their governors are
greedy and corrupt, scandalously indifferent to justice,
conniving at the extortion of the Roman capitalists who
farmed the tithes and taxes, and of the money-lenders,
who had settled like leeches all around them.

The governors who hastened to their provinces after
a short tenure of official rank at Rome looked to the
emoluments of office to retrieve their fortunes, exhausted
frequently by public shows and bribery at home. They
abused their power in a hundred ways to amass enor-
mous wealth, with little check from the public opinion
of their order, or from the courts of law before which20

The Earlier Empire.

b.c. 31-

they might possibly be prosecuted by their victims or
their rivals.

But a new order of things was now begun. Augustus
left to the Senate the nominal control of the more
peaceful provinces, which needed little mili-

Senatorial	,

p ovinces. tary force. To these ex-consuls and ex-
praetors were sent out as before, but with no
power of the sword and little of the purse. High sala-
ries were paid to them directly by the state, but the
sources of indirect gains were gradually cut off. By
their side was a proctor of the Emperor's privy purse, to
watch their conduct and report their misdemeanors. At
home there was a vigilant ruler, ready to give ear to the
complaints of the provincials, and to see that justice was
promptly done by the tribunals or the Senate. Doubt-
less we still hear of much misgovernment, and scandal-
ous abuses sometimes are detailed, for the evils to be
checked had been the growth of ages, and the vigilance
of a single ruler, however strict, must have been often-
times at fault.

The remaining countries, called imperial provinces,
were ruled by generals, called legati, or in some few
cases by proctors only. They held office
provinces during the good pleasure of their master,
and for longer periods often than the sena-
torial governors. There are signs that the imperial pro-
vinces were better ruled, and that the transference of a
country to this class from the other was looked upon as
a real boon, and not as an empty honor.

Such in its chief features was the system of Augustus,
the rudiments of the bureaucratic system which was
General	slowly organized by later ages. This was

character of his constructive policy, and on the value of

the new	, .	.	, , .	.

regime. this creative work his claims to greatness—A.D. 14.

Augustus.

21

must be based. To the provinces the gain un-
doubtedly was great. His rule brought them peace
and order and the essentials of good government. It
left the local forms of self-rule almost untouched, and
lightened, if it did not quite remove, the incubus of
oppression which had so long tightened its grasp upon
their throats. At Rome, too, the feeling of relief was
keenly felt. Credit recovered with a rebound after the
victory at Actium. Prices and the rate of interest fell at
once. The secret adherents of the fallen cause began
to breathe again more freely when they heard no men-
tion of proscription; the friends of order learnt with joy
that the era of anarchy was closed; rigid republicans
found their jealous suspicions half-disarmed by the re-
spect shown for the ancient forms and names, by the
courtesy with which the Senate had been treated, and
above all, perhaps, by the modest, unassuming manners
of their prince. For he shunned carefully ,

* -	■	J The homely

all outward pomp, moved about the streets manners of

almost unattended, sat patiently through the
games and shows which the Romans passionately loved,
went out to dinner readily when asked, and charmed
men by his simple courtesy. He could bear plain speak-
ing too, for a blunt soldier to whose petition he said that
he was too busy to- attend, told him to his face, that he
had never said he was too busy to expose his own life
for him in battle. The expenses of his household scarcely
rose to the level of those of many a wealthy noble; he
wore no clothes save those made for him by Livia and
her women, and studiously avoided all profusion or ex-
travagance. He tried also to spare his people's purses,
for upon a journey he often passed through a town by
night, to give the citizens no chance of proving their loy-
alty by costly outlay.22

The Earlier Empire.

B.C. 31-

But he spent his treasure lavishly for public ends. The
public games and festivals provided by him were on a

Libera!outlay scale of magnificence quite unexampled;
for public great sums were often spent in largess to the
objects.	populace of Rome. In times of scarcity

corn was sold in the capital below cost price, besides the
vast quantities distributed in free doles among the poor.
Noble senators of decayed fortunes were often pen-
sioned, to enable them to live up to their rank. Costly
buildings set apart for public uses, temples, baths, thea-
tres, and aqueducts, rose rapidly on every side. His
kinsmen, intimates, all whom his influence could move,
vied with him in such outlay, and helped him to realize
the boast of later days, "that he found a city of brick,
and left one of marble in its place." The great roads in
Italy and through the provinces were carefully repaired,
and a postal system set on foot, confined, it is true, to
official uses. Armed patrols marched along the roads,
brigandage was forcibly put down, slave-gangs were in-
spected, and the abuses of times of violence redressed.
In the capital itself, a police force was organized for the
first time, intended mainly at the first for protection
against fire, but soon extended and made permanent to
secure peace and order in the streets, which for centuries
the Republic had neglected. In distant countries, his
fatherly care was shown in time of need, by liberal
grants of money, to help public works, or repair the
ravages of earthquakes. The interests of the legions also
were consulted, but not at the expense of quiet citizens,
as before. Vast sums were spent in buying up lands in
the neighborhood of the great towns of Italy, where war
or slow decay had thinned their numbers, in order at
once to recruit the urban population, and supply the
veterans with farms. Colonies were planted, too, be--A.D. 14-

Augustus.

23

yond the seas, for the relief of the over-grown populace
of Rome.

There was enough in such material boons to conciliate
all classes through the Empire. The stiff-necked cham-
pions of the Republic had died upon the
battle-field; a generation had grown up de- SSncek?1""
moralized by years of anarchy, and few these changes,
were left to mourn the loss of freedom. Few eyes could
see what was one day to be apparent that the disguises
and the insincerities of the new r'egime were full of dan-
ger; that to senator and office-bearer the paths of poli-
tics were strewn with snares; that in the face of a timid
or suspicious ruler, it would be as perilous to show their
fear as to make a brave show of independence. For
a while they heard the familiar sounds of Senate, consul,
and of tribune; they saw the same pageants as of old
in daily life. Nor did they realize as yet, that liberty
was gone forever, and that the ancient forms that passed
before them were as empty of real life as the ancestral
masks that moved along the streets to the noble Ro-
man's funeral pyre.

From the imperial machinery we may next turn to the
great men who helped possibly to create and certainly
to work it. It was the singular good fortune
of Augustus to secure the services of two	XI-

ministers like Agrippa and Maecenas, of dif- gustus.
fererit genius but equal loyalty of character.

Marcus Vipsanius, surnamed Agrippa, had been, in
early days, the school-fellow and intimate of Octavius.
They were at Apollonia together studying Agrippa
the philosophy and art of Greece, when the
tidings came that Caesar had been murdered. They
were together when the bold scheme was formed and
the two youths set forth together to claim the heritage»4

The Earlier Empire.

B.C. 31-

of Caesar, and to strive for the empire of the world. To
whom the initiative was due, we know not; but we do
know that Agrippa's courage never wavered, though
Octavianus seemed at times ready to falter and draw
His ene back. To the many-sided activity of Agrippa
and to his unfailing resolution, the success
of that enterprise seems mainly due. He was the great
general of the cause that triumphed, the hero of every
forlorn hope, and the knight-errant for every hazardous
adventure in distant regions. His energy helped to win
Perusia after stubborn siege; his quick eye saw in the
Lucrine lake the shelter for the fleets that were to be
manned and trained before they could hope to face Sex-
tus Pompeius, the bold corsair chief, who swept the seas
and menaced Rome with famine. Thanks to him again
the victory of Actium was won, for the genius if not the
courage of Octavianus failed him on the scene of
battle.

Whenever danger showed itself henceforth—in Gaul,
in Spain, where the native tribes rose once more in
arms; in Pontus, where one of the line of Mithridates
unfurled the banner of revolt; on the shores of the
Danube, where the Pannonians were stirring—no hand
but Agrippa's could be trusted to dispel the gathering
storms. We find in him not heroism alone
Self-sacri- but the spirit of self-sacrifice. Three times,
we read, he refused the honors of a triumph.
At a word he stooped to the lowest round of official rank,
the sedileship, burdened as it was with the ruinous re-
sponsibilities of shows and festivals, and kept the Romans
in good humor at a critical moment of the civil struggle.
To win further popularity by the sweets of material well-
being, the soldier forsook the camp and courted the arts
of peace, busied himself with sanitary reforms, repaired—A.D. 14.

Augustus.

25

the magnificent cloaca of old Rome, con- works1*0
structed the splendid thermce for the hot
baths introduced from Eastern lands, built new
aqueducts towering aloft upon the arches of the old, and
distributed the pure water so conveyed to fountains in
every quarter of the city, which were decorated with
statues and columns of precious marbles to be counted
by the hundred. Another sacrifice was called fo*—to
divorce the daughter of Atticus, Cicero's famous friend,
and drew nearer the throne by marrying the Marrtes
Emperor's niece, Marcella; and he obeyed MwwH*.
from dutiful submission to his master, or from the ambi-
tious hope to share the power which his sword had won.
Soon it seemed as if his loyalty was to meet with its re-
ward. Augustus was brought to death's door by sudden
illness, and, in what seemed like his last hour, seized
Agrippa's hand and slipped a ring upon the finger, as if
to mark him out for his successor. But health returned
again, and with it visible coolness towards Agrippa and
increased affection for Marcellus, his young nephew.

Agrippa resigned himself without a murmur, and lived
in retirement a while at Lesbos, till the
death of Marcellus and the warnings of Lesbos^t0
Maecenas pointed him out again as the only
successor worthy of the Empire. Signs of discontent
among the populace of Rome quickened the Emperor's
desire to have his trusty friend beside him, and to draw
him yet more closely to him he bade him
put away Marcella, and gave him his own j*?*rries
daughter Julia. Once more he obeyed in
silence, and now might fairly hope to be rewarded for
his patience and one day to mount into the weakly
Emperor's place. But his lot w^s to be always second,
never first. His strong frame, slowly weakened by hard26

The Earlier Empire.

B.C. 31-

campaigns and ceaseless journeys at full speed in every
quarter of the world, gave way at last, and
CbT'm)	career was closed while he seemed yet

in his prime. In him Augustus lost a gal-
lant soldier and unselfish friend, who is said, indeed, to
have advised him after Actium to resign his power, but
who certainly had done more than any other to set him
up and to keep him on the pinnacle of greatness. It
throws a curious light upon his story to read the com-
ment on it in the pages of the naturalist,
Pliny about Pliny. He is speaking of the superstitious
him.	fancy that misery clouded the lives of all

who were called Agrippa. In spite, he says, of his bril-
liant exploits he was no exception to the rule. He was
unlucky in his wife Julia, who dishonored his good name ;
in his children, who died by poison or in exile; and un-
happy also in bearing all his life what he calls the hard
bondage of Augustus. The friend for whom he toiled
so long and faithfully showed little tenderness of heart;
the master whom he served had tasked his energies in
every sphere, and called for many an act of self-devotion,
but he had already looked coldly on his loyal minister,
and he might at any moment weary of a debt he could
not pay, and add another page to the. long chronicle of
the ingratitude of princes.

Maecenas, better known by his mother's name than
that of Cilnius, his father, came from an
Etruscan stock that had given a line of
masters to Arretium. He was better fitted for the council
chamber than the field of battle, for the delicate ma-
noeuvres of diplomacy than for the rough work of stormy
times. During the years of civic struggle, and while the
air was charged with thuncjpr-clouds, we find him always,
as the trusty agent of Octavianus, engaged on every—A.D. 14.	Augustus

27

impartant mission that needed adroitness
and address. His subtle tact and courte-

matic skill.

sies were tried with the same success upon
Sextus Pompeius and on Antonius, when the confidence
of each was to be won, or angry feelings charmed away,
or the dangers of a coalition met. His honied words
were found of not less avail with the populace of Rome,
when scarcity and danger threatened and the masters of
the legions were away. It seemed, indeed, after the
Empire was once established that his political career was
closed, for he professed no high ambition,

refused to wear the gilded chains of office, ^ciaf rank,
or to rise above the modest rank of knight-
hood. He seemed content with his great wealth (how
gained we need not ask), with the social charms of
literary circles and the refinements of luxurious ease, of
which the Etruscans were proverbially fond. But his
influence, though secret, was as potent as before. He
was still the Emperor's chief adviser, coun- ' ^
selling tact and moderation, ready to soothe chief adviser
his ruffled nerves when sick and weary of Augustus. .
with the cares of State. He was still serving on a secret
mission, and one that lasted all his life. Keenly relish-
ing the sweets of peace and all the refined and social
pleasures which a great capital alone can	^

furnish, haunted by no high principles to the tone of
vex his Sybaritic ease, and gifted with a rare ^JeT
facility of winning words, he was peculiarly
fitted to influence the tone of Roman circles and diffuse
a grateful pride in the material blessings of imperial
rule. He could sympathize with the weariness of men
who had passed through long years of civic strife and
seen every cause betrayed by turns, and who craved
only peace and quiet, with leisure to enjoy and to forget.28	The Earlier Empire.	B.C. 31-

Instinct or policy soon led him to caress the
Jtoefci2*1 th° Poets °f the day, for their social influence
might be great. Their epigrams soon passed
from mouth to mouth; a well-turned phrase or a bold
satire lingered in the memory long after the sound of the
verses died away; and the practice of public recitations
gave them at times something of the power to catch the
public ear which journalism has had in later days. So
from taste and policy alike Maecenas played the part
, .	of patron of the arts and letters. He used

its their

patron.	the fine point and wit of Horace to sing the

Horace. praises of the enlightened ruler who gave
peace and plenty to the world, to scoff meantime at high
ambitions, and play with the memory of fallen causes.
The social philosophy of moderation soothed the self-
respect of men who were sated with the fierce game of
politics and war, and gladly saw their indolent and
skeptical refinement reflected in the poet's graceful words.
Virgil	usec* n°k*er muse of Virgil to lead

the fancy of the Romans back to the good
old days, ere country life was deserted for the camp and
city, suggested the subject of the Georgics to revive the
old taste for husbandry and lead men to break up the
waste land with the plough. He helped also to degrade
that muse by leading it astray from worthier themes to
waste its melody and pathos in the uncongenial attempt
to throw a halo of heroic legend round the cradle of the
Julian line. Other poets, too, Propertius, Tibullus,
Ovid, paid dearly for the patronage which cramped their
genius and befouled their taste, and in place of truer
inspiration prompted chiefly amorous insipidities and
senile adulation. For himself his chief aim
Sais!°meStlC in lat^r life seemed careless ease, but that
boon fled away from him the more he wooed-A.D. 14.

Augustus.

29

it. The Emperor eyed Terentia, his wife, too fondly,
and the injured husband consoled himself with the best
philosophy he could. But she was a scold as well as a
coquette, and now drove him to despair with bitter
words, now lured him to her side again, till their quarrels
passed at length beyond the house and became the com-
mon talk of all the gossips of the town. As he was borne
along the streets, lolling in his litter, in a dress loose
with studied negligence, his fingers all bedecked with
rings, with eunuchs and parasites and jesters in his train,
men asked each other with a smile what was the last
news of the fickle couple—were they married or divorced
again? At last his nerves gave way and
sleep forsook him. In vain he had recourse Sleepless-

*■	ness.

to the pleasures of the table which his
Tuscan nature loved, to the rare wines that might lull
his cares to rest, to distant orchestras of soothing music.
In earlier days he had set to tuneful verse what Seneca
calls the shameful prayer, that his life might still be
spared when health and strength and comeliness forsook
him. He lived long enough to feel the vanity of all his
wishes. Nothing could cure his lingering agony of
sleeplessness or drive the spectre of death from his bed-
side. But the end came at last. He passed away,
and, loyal even in his death, he left the Emperor his
heir.

We have watched Augustus in his public life, and
marked his measures and his ministers; it is time now to
turn to his domestic circle and see what influences were
about him there. The chief figure to be
studied is Livia, his wife, who had been the	Llvia*

object of his violent love while still married to Tiberius
Nero, and had been forced to quit her reluctant husband
for the home of the triumvir. She soon gained over himThe Earlier Empire.

B.C. 31-

Sources of an influence that never wavered. Her erentle

her influence	.	0

over Au- courtesies of manner, her wifely virtues never
gustus,	tainted by the breath of scandal, the homeli-

ness with which she copied the grave matrons of old
days who stayed at home and spun the wool to clothe
their men, the discreet reserve with which she shut her
eyes to her husband's infidelities, are the reasons given
by herself, as we are told, when she was asked for the
secret of her power. Quite insufficient in themselves,
they may have helped to secure the ascendency which
her beauty arid her strength of character had won. The
and its	gradual change that may be traced in the

nature.	outward bearing of Augustus may be due

partly to her counsels. Certainly she seemed to press
patience and forbearance on him, and Dion Cassius at a
later time puts into her mouth a pretty sermon on the
grace of mercy when her husband's temper had been
soured by traitorous plots. She was open-handed too
in works of charity, brought up poor children at her own
expense, and gave many a maid a marriage dower.
Caligula, who knew her well, and had insight in his own
mad way, called her " Ulysses in petticoats;" and the men

Suspicion of ^er own ** seems» though* her such a
her sinister subtle schemer, that they credited her with
dealings actg gUjje 0f which no evidence was pro-
duced. Dark rumors floated through the streets of
Rome, and men spoke of her in meaning whispers, as
death knocked again and again at the old man's doors
and the favorites of the people passed away. It was
her misfortune or her guilt that all who were nearest to
the Emperor, all who stood between her son and the suc-
cession, died by premature and seemingly mysterious
deaths. The young Marcellus, to whose memory Virgil
raised the monument of his pathetic lines; the brave—A.D. 14.

Augustus.

3*

Agrippa, cut off when all his hopes seemed nearest to ful-
fillment; two of Julia's children by Agrippa, within
eighteen months of each other ; all died in turn befo? e
their time, and all were followed to the grave by regrets
and by suspicions that grew louder in each case. For
Livia had had no children by Augustus. The fruit of her
first marriage Drusus died in Germany, and Tiberius alone
was left. The popular fancy, goaded by re-

1r, .	7 ,. /	to secure the

peated losses, found it easy to believe that a succession of

ruthless tragedy was going on before their

eyes, and that the chief actor was a mother scheming

for her son, calmly sweeping from his path every

rival that she feared. One grandson still

,	r r f. ,	Treatment

was left, the youngest of Julia s children, of Agrippa
Agrippa Postumus, who was born after his Postumus-
father's death. On him Augustus lavished his love
awhile as the last hope of his race, adopted him even as
his own; but soon he found, or was led to fancy, that
the boy was clownish and intractable, removed him to
Surrentum, and when confinement made him worse, to
the island of Planasia. But one day pity or regret stole
over the old man's heart: he slipped away quietly with a
single confidant to see the boy, seemed to feel the old
love revive again, and spoke as if he would restore him
to his place at home. The one bystander told his wife
the story, and she whispered it to Livia's ear. That
witness died suddenly soon after, and his wife was
heard to moan that her indiscretion caused his death.
Then Livia dared no longer to wait, lest a story of
dotard's fondness should be fatal to her	.

poisoning

hopes. Quietly she took her potent drugs to Augustus,
a favorite fig tree in a garden close at hand, then as they
walked together later on offered him the poisoned figs
and ate herself of the harmless ones that grew beside.32

The Earlier Empire.

b.c. 31-

Such were the stories that were current at the time,
too lightly credited perhaps from fear or hate, but
noteworthy as reflecting the credulous suspicions of the
people, and the fatality that seemed to haunt the house-
hold of the Caesars. Of that family the two Julias yet
remained alive, the wife and daughter of Agrippa; but
they were pining in their lonely prisons, and their
memory had almost passed away.

The elder Julia was the child of Augustus by
Her be-	Scribonia. Betrothed while still in the nur-

ro	sery to a young son of Antonius, she was

promised in jest to Cotison, a chieftain of the Getse, and
then to the nephew of the Emperor, Marcellus. At his
and mar- death she passed, at the age of seventeen and
riages.	wit]1 her the hopes of succession to Agrippa's

house where an earlier wife was displaced to make room
for her. Eleven years she lived with him, and when he
died Tiberius must in his turn divorce the Agrippina
whom he loved and take the widowed princess to his
house. She had been brought up strictly, almost sternly
by her father. Profligate as he had been himself in early
life, his standard of womanly decorum was a high one,
and he wished to see in Julia the austere dignity of the
Roman matrons of old days. But she was readier to fol-
low the examples of his youth than the disguises and hy-
pocrisies of his later life. She scorned the modest home-
liness of Livia and the republican simplicity of Augustus,
aired ostentatiously her pride of race, and loved profusion

Her extra anc* ^sP^ay# ^nce freed by marriage from
vagance and the restraints of her father's home, she be-
profligacy, ^an a career jicense unparalleled even for
that age. She flung to the winds all womanly reserves,
paraded often in her speech a cynical disdain for conven-
tional restraints, and gathered round her the most reck-—A.D. 14,	Augustus.

33

less of the youth of Rome* till her excesses became a
scandal and a byword through the town. The Emperor
was the last to know of his dishonored name. ^ lagt made
He had marked, indeed, with grave dis- known to her
pleasure her love of finery and sumptuous father*

living, had even destroyed a house which she built upon
too grand a scale; but for years no one dared to tell him
more, till at last some one, perhaps Livia* raised the veil,
and the whole story of her life was known. He heard
of her long career of guilty license, and how but lately
she had roved at night through the city with her train of
revellers and made the Forum the scene of her worst
orgies, dishonoring with bold words and shameless deeds
the very tribune where her father stood but yesterday to
speak in favor of his stricter marriage laws. He was told,
thQugh with little show of truth, that she was plotting a
still darker deed and urging her paramour to take his
life. The blow fell very hardly on the^ father, and
clouded all the peace of his last years. At first his
rage passed quite from his control. Her desks were
ransacked, her slaves were tortured, and all the in-
famous details poured out before the Senate. When
he was told that Phoebe, the freed woman and con-
fidant of Julia, had hung herself in her despair he
answered grimly, " Would that I were Phoebe's father."
Nothing but her death seemed likely to content him.
Then came a change; he shut himself away from
sight, and would speak of her no more. She was
exiled to a cheerless island; and though the Her banjsh.
fickle people, and Tiberius even, pleaded ment c*2)
for her pardon, she was at most allowed at Rhegium
a less gloomy prison. There, in her despairing lone-
liness, she must have felt a lingering agony
of retribution. She heard how the hand and misery*

D34

The Earlier Empire.

B.C. 31-

of vengeance fell upon her friends and paramours, and
harder still to bear, how child after child mysteriously
died, and only two were left—Agrippa, thrust away
from sight and pity on his petty island, and Julia, who
had followed in her mother's steps, and was an exile and
a prisoner like herself.

Such family losses and dishonors might well embitter
the Emperor's last years; but other causes helped to
deepen the gloom which fell upon him. Since Agrippa's
death there was no general whom he could trust to lead
his armies, no strong hand to curb the restless tribes of
the half-conquered North, or roll back from the frontiers
the tide of war. He sent his grandsons to the distant
armies; but they were young and inexperienced, and
firmer hands than theirs were needed to save the eagles
from disgrace.

One great disaster at this time revealed the danger
and sent a thrill of horror through the Empire. The
German tribes upon the Gallic border had
Germany in kept unbroken peace of late, and many of
them seemed quite to have submitted to the
Roman rule. A few years before, indeed, some hordes
had dashed across the Rhine upon a plundering foray,
and in the course of it had laid an ambush
LomSs°f f°r Roman cavalry, and driven them
and Lollius, their leader, backward in con-
fusion and disgrace. But that storm had rolled away
again, and the tribes sent hostages and begged for
peace. Roman influence seemed spreading through the
North, as year by year the legions and the traders car-
ried the arts of settled life into the heart of Germany.
But in an evil hour Quintilius Varus was sent thither in
command. The rule seemed too lax and the change too
slow for his impatience, and he set himself to consoli--A.D. 14-

Augustus.

35

date and civilize in hot haste. Discontent and disaffec-
tion spread apace, but Varus saw no danger and had no
suspicions. The German chieftains, when their plots
were laid, plied him with fair assurances of peace, lured
him to leave the Rhine and march towards the Visurgis
(Weser) through tribes that were all ready for revolt.
Wiser heads warned him of the coming danger, but in
vain. He took no heed, he would not even keep his
troops together and in hand. At last the schemers,
Arminius (Hermann) at their head, thought the time
had come. They began the rising at a distance, and
made him think it only a local outbreak in a friendly
country ; so they led him on through forest lands, then
rose upon him on all sides in a dangerous defile. The
legions, taken by surprise as they were marching care-
lessly, hampered with baggage and camp-followers,
could make little head against their foes. They tried to
struggle on through swamps and woods, where falling
trees crushed them as they passed along, and barricades
were piled by unseen hands, while wind and rain seemed
leagued together for their ruin. Three days they stood
at bay and strove to beat off their assailants, who re-
turned with fresh fury to the charge. Then their strength
or courage failed them. The more resolute

0	.	and loss of

spirits slew themselves with their own Varus, with

hands, and the rest sank down to die. Of legfons.

three full legions few survived, and for A- D* 9-

many a year the name of that field of death—the Saltus

Teutoburgiensis—sounded ominously in Roman ears.

In the capital there was a panic for a while. A short
time before they had heard the tidings that Pannonia
was in revolt, and now came the news that
Germany was all in arms, and, forcing the Rome,at
Roman lines, stripped as they were of their36

The Earlier Empire.	B.C. 31—

army of defence, might pour even into Italy, which
seemed a possible, nay easy prey. The danger, indeed,
was not so imminent. Tiberius, and after him German-
icus, maintained the frontier and avenged their soldiers;
but the loss of prestige was very great, and the emperor
felt it till his death. For months of mourning he would
not trim his beard or cut his hair, and " Varus, give me
back my legions !" was the moan men often heard him
utter. He felt it the more keenly because soldiers were
, . . _ so hard to find. At the centre no one

and grief of	11.

the Km- would enlist. In vain he appealed to their
peror'	sense of honor, in vain he had recourse to

stringent penalties; he was forced at last to enroll
freemen and make up his legions from the rabble of
,	the streets. He had seen long since with

who can	0

hardly levy alarm that the population was decreasing,
' had re-stocked the dwindling country
towns with colonists, had tried to promote marriage
among all classes, had forced through a reluctant Sen-
ate the Lex Papia Poppaea by which celibacy was sad-
dled with penal disabilities. But men noticed with a
sneer that the two consuls after whom the law was
named were both unmarried, and it was a hopeless effort
to arrest such social tendencies by legislation. The cen-
tral countries of the Empire could not now find men to
fill the ranks. The veterans might be induced to for-
sake the little glebes of which they soon grew weary,
but others would not answer to the call. Whole regions
were almost deserted, and the scanty populations had

little mind for war. So the distant provin-
except m	,	. , . ,	. . r

the pro- ces became the legions recruiting-ground,

vinces.	^n(j tjie jast comers jn t]ie Empire must

defend it.

Under the pressure of such public and domestic cares—A.D. 14.

Augustus.

37

we need not wonder that the Emperor became moody
and morose, and that the unlovely qualities Augustus
of earlier days began to re-appear. He srew

it	1	• r • it/* morose,

shunned the gentle courtesies of social life,

would be present at no festive gatherings, disliked even
to be noticed or saluted. Increasing weakness gave
him an excuse for failing to be present in the Senate—
a few picked men could represent the body, and the
Emperor's bed-chamber became a privy council. He
heard with petulance that the exiles in the Islands were
trying to relax the rigor of their lot, and living in com-
fort and in luxury. Stringent restrictions were imposed
upon their freedom. He heard of writings
that were passing through men's hands in criticfsmnted
which his name was spoken of with caustic
wit and scant respect. The books must be hunted out
at once and burnt, and the authors punished if they
could be found. The bitter partisanship with which
Titus Labienus had expressed his republican sympathies,
and the meaning look with which he turned over pages
of his history, which could be read only after he was
dead, have made his name almost typical of the struggle
between despotism and literary independence. Cassius
Severus said he must be burnt himself, if the memory
of Labienus* work must be quite stamped out; and his
was, accordingly, the first of the long list of cases in
which the old laws of treason—the Leges Majestatis—
were strained to reach not acts alone but Leges Majes-
words. A much more familiar name, the *atis ^n"

forced

poet Ovid, is brought before us at this time, against
The spoiled child of the fashionable society
of Rome, he had early lent his facile wit to amuse the
careless worldlings round him, had made a Q
jest of the remonstrances of serious friends,3»

The Earlier Empire.

B.C. 31-

who tried to win his thoughts to politics and busy life,
and had squandered all his high gifts of poetry on friv-
olous or wanton themes. His conversational powers or
his literary fame attracted the notice of the younger
Julia, and he was drawn jnto the gay circle that sur-
rounded her. There in an evil hour, it seems, he was
made the confidant of dangerous secrets, and was one
of the earliest to suffer when the Emperor's eyes at last
were opened. To the would-be censor and reformer
of the public morals, who had turned his back upon the
follies of his youth, the poet's writings must have been
long distasteful, as thinly veiled allurements to licen-
tiousness. The indignant grandfather eyed them still
more sternly, saw in them the source or the apology of
wanton deeds, and drove their author from the Rome he
„ ., . loved so well to a half-civilized home at

Banished to	/• •	1 1

Tomi.	Tomi, on the Scythian frontier, from which

A"D' 8* all his unmanly flatteries and lamentations
failed him.

It was time Augustus should be called away; he had
lived too long for happiness and fame, his subjects were
growing weary of their master, and some were ready to
conspire against him. Still doubtless in the provinces

men blessed his name, as thev thought of
Augustus at .	. ■	. . , *,	,

last less	the prosperity and peace which he had long

lunmf than secured to them. One ship's crew of Alex-
in the pro- andria, we read, when he put into Puteoli,
vmces.	'	'	r	'

where they were, came with garlands, frank-
incense, and glad words of praise to do him honor. "To
him they owed," so ran their homage, " their lives, their
liberties, and the well-being of their trade.1' But those
who knew him best were colder in their praises now, and
scarcely wished that he should tarry long among them.
For seventy-five years his strength held out, sickly and—A.D. 14.	A UgUStUS.

39

enfeebled as his body seemed. The summons came as

he was coasting by Campania, and left him only time to

crawl to Naples and thence to Nola, where

he died. To those who stood beside his bed Nola*'

his last words, if reported truly, breathe

the spirit of his life : " What think ye of the comedy,

my friends ? Have I fairly played my part in it? If so,

applaud." The applause, if any, must be given to the

actor rather than to the man, for the least lovely features

of his character seem most truly his.

In his last years he was busy with the task of giving
an account of his long stewardship. Long ago he had
set on foot a survey of the Empire, and

His survey

maps had been prepared by the geographi- of the
cal studies of Agrippa. Valuations of landed Worid,
property had been made, as one step,

though a very partial one, towards a uniform system of
of taxation. He had now gathered up for

.	0 , , V,	and sum-

the benefit of his successors and the Sen- mary of

ate all the varied information that lay statistics,

ready to his hand. He had written out with

his own hand, we are told, the statistics of chief moment,

an account of the population in its various grades of

privilege, the muster-rolls of all the armies and the fleets,

and the balance-sheet of the revenue and expenditure

of state. Taught by the experience of later years, or

from the depression caused by decaying strength, he

added for future rulers the advice to be con- &nd advice

tent with organizing what was won already, to his suc-
, '_ .	,	cessors.

and not to push the frontiers of the army
further. Before he died he took a last survey of his own
life, wrote out a summary of all the public acts which he
cared to recall to memory, and left directions that the
chronicle should be engraved on brazen tablets in the4°

The Earlier Empire.	B.C. 31-

mausoleum built to do him honor. That chronicle may
The Monu- st^ read, though not at Rome. In a dis-

meutum An-	province, at the town of Ancyra, in

cyranum.	r	J '

Galatia, a temple had been built for the
worship of Augustus, and the guardian priests had a
copy of his own biography carved out at length in stone
on one of the side-walls. The temple has passed since
then to other uses and witnessed the rites of a different
religion ; houses have sprung up round it, and partly
hidden, though probably preserved, the old inscription.
Until of late only a part of it could be deciphered, but a
few years ago the patient energy of the explorers sent
out by the French Government succeeded in uncover-
ing the whole wall and making a complete copy of nearly
all that had been written on it. From the place where
it was found its literary name is the " Monumentum An-
cyranum." It is not without a certain grandeur, which
even those may feel who dispute the author's claim to
greatness. With stately confidence and monumental
brevity of detail it unfolds the long roll of his successes.
Disdaining seemingly to stoop to the pettiness of bitter
words, it speaks calmly of his fallen rivals; veiling, in-
deed, in constitutional terms the illegalities of his career,
but misleading or unfair only by its silence. Not a word
is there to revive the hateful memory of the proscrip-
tions, little to indicate the dire suspense of the war with
Sextus Pompeius, or the straits and anxieties of the long
struggle with Antonius ; but those questionable times of
his career once passed, the narrative flows calmly on.
It recounts with proud self-confidence the long list of
battles fought and victories won; the nations finally
subdued under his rule; the Eastern potentates who
sought his friendship; the vassal princes who courted
his protection. It tells of the many colonies which he—A.D. 14.	Augustus.

41

had founded, and of the towns recruited by its veterans;
speaks of the vast sums that he had spent on shows and
largess for the people ; and describes the aqueducts
and various buildings that had sprung up at his bidding
to add to the material magnificence of Rome. For all
these benefits the grateful citizens had hailed him as the
father of his country. To the provincials who read these
lines it might seem perhaps that there were few signs in
them of any feeling that the Empire owed any duties to
themselves. A few words of reference to the sums spent
in time of need upon their towns, and that was all. To
the administrator it might seem a strange omission to say
nothing of the great change in the ruling mechanism.
Yet in what was there omitted lay his claim to greatness.
The plea which justified the Empire was found in the
newly-organized machinery of government and in the
peace and justice long secured to the whole civilized
world.

High as he had risen in life, he was to be raised to a

yet higher rank after his death, and the
Jo	Augustus

deified Augustus became, like many a sue- deified,
ceeding emperor, the object of a national Expiana-
worship. A phenomenon so startling to tlons-
our modern thought calls for some words of comment.
First, we may note that polytheism naturally tends to
efface the boundary-lines between the human and the
divine. It peoples earth and air and water ^ poly
with its phantom beings, of bounded powers theism less
and clashing wills, and weaves with wanton scrupulous,
hand the fanciful tissue of its legends, in which it plays
with the story of their loves and hates and fitful moods of
passion, till its deities can scarcely be distinguished from
the mortal men and women in whose likeness they are
pictured.42

The Earlier Empire.	B.C. 31—

Eastern thought, moreover, seldom scrupled to honor
its great men with the names and qualities of godhead.

Often in servile flattery, sometimes perhaps
peopieshad i*1 spirit of a mystic creed, it saw in the
kin^sd their rulers whom it feared a sort of avatar or in-
carnation of a power divine, which it "made
the object of its worship. The Pharaohs of Egypt and
the monarchs of Assyria were deified in their lifetime by
the language of inscriptions, and in later times temples
were raised in Asia Minor in honor of the governors of
the day, so that Antonius and Cleopatra gave little shock
to Eastern sentiment when in their royal pageant they
assumed the titles and symbols of Isis and Osins. It was,
therefore, on this side of the Roman world that the
fashion of worshipping the Emperor began. Even in
the lifetime of Augustus deputations came from towns of
Asia which were anxious to set up altars and build
temples in his honor. For awhile, indeed, he treated
them with coldness and sometimes with mockery, he yet
could not quite repress the enthusiasm of their servile
worship, which grew apace in the more distant provinces.

Less credulous minds looked upon the tendency as
only a fanciful way of symbolizing a great
tionaiizing fact. Much of the simple faith in the old
euhemer- °* legendary creeds had passed away before
ism-	the critical spirit of Greek culture, and many

thought that the heroes and gods of the old fables were
but the great men of past times seen through the mist of
popular fancy, till a divine halo gathered round their
superhuman stature. If the sentiment of bygone days
had made gods out of the men who sowed the seeds of art
and learning and tamed the savagery of early life, the
wondering awe of ignorant folk might be allowed to
crystalize still in the same forms, and to find a national—A.D. 14.	Augustus.

43

deity in the great ruler who secured for the whole world the
boon of civilized order. So reasoned probably the criti-
cal and unimpassioned, content to humor the credulous
fancy of the masses, and to deal tenderly with an admi-
ration which they did not share, but which it might be
dangerous to thwart.

Above all, in Italy the tendency in question found sup-
port and strength in a widespread feeling which had
lingered on from early times, that the souls The Italian
of men did not pass away at death, but still wot^Mpof • -
haunted their old homes, and watched as 1116 Lares
guardian Lares over the weal and woe of the generations
that came after. Offering and prayer seemed but a fit-
ting token of respect, and might be useful to quicken
their sympathies or appease their envy. Thus every
natural unity, the family, the clan, the canton, and the
nation, had their tutelary powers and special ritual of
genuine home growth, while nearly all besides the
foreign influences had overlaid the old reli-
gious forms. It had been part of the con- f<SteredU?y
servative policy of Augustus to foster these Augustus,
old forms of worship, to repair the little chapels in the
city wards, and to give priestly functions to the
masters of the streets officially connected with them.
Even while he lived he allowed the figure of his Genius
to be placed in the chapels beside the Lares. The Genius
At his death divine honors were assigned to of Augustus,
it as to the rest, or rather it rose above them all, as the
imperial unity had towered above the petty districts
which they were thought to guard. Temples rose to the
deified Augustus, altars smoked in every land, and guilds
of Augustales were organized to do him
priestly service—for the provinces were Augustales*
eager to follow the example of the imperial city, and44

The Earlier Empire.

b.c. 31-

their loyal zeal had even outstripped the reverence of Rome.
The ruling powers were well pleased to see a halo of aw-
fulness gather round their race, while subject people saw
in the apotheosis of the monarch only a fitting climax to
the majesty of his life and a symbol of the greatness of
the Empire. And so succeeding monarchs in their turn
were deified by pagan Rome, as saints were canonized
by favor of the Pope. The Senate's vote gave divine
honors with the title of " Divus," and it was passed com-
monly as a matter of course, or withheld only as a token
of abhorrence or contempt.

CHAPTER II.

tiberius.-*-a.d. i4-37.

Tiberius Claudius Nero was the son of Tiberius Nero

and Li via, and was carried by them while still an infant

in their hurried flight after the surrender of

Hfeeofarly Perusia. On their return to Rome after the

libenus. general peace his parents were separated by

the imperious will of Octavianus, who made Li via his

wife. Losing his father at the age of nine, and taken

from the nursery to pronounce the funeral speech, he

was placed again under his mother's care and became

the object of her ambitious hopes. He married the

daughter of Agrippa, and loved her well, but was forced

to leave her afterwards for Julia, who brought as her

dowry the prospects of the imperial succession. He was

soon sent to learn the business of a soldier,
Service in	,1	.

the field serving 111 the campaign in Pannonia and

Germany, and dispatched on missions ofA.D. 14-37-

Tiberius.

45

importance, such as to crown Tigranes in Armenia as
a subject prince, and to carry home the eagles which
had been lost in Parthia by Crassus. At home all the
old offices of State were pressed upon him,

till at last he was honored even with the ^ffices
significant honor of the tribunician power.
Yet Augustus seems to have had little liking for him, and
to have noted keenly all his faults, the taci-
turn sullenness* which contrasted painfully by Augu*.
with the Emperor's ga^er moods, his awk- tus\

ward gestures and slow articulation when he spoke, the
haughtiness of manner which came naturally to all the
Claudian line, and the habit of hard drinking, on which
the rude soldiers spent their wit when they termed him"
punningly "Biberius Nero." The Emperor even went
so far as to speak to the Senate on the subject, and to
say that they were faults of manner rather than of
character. For the rest we hear that he was comely in
face and well-proportioned, and handsome enough to
attract Julia's fancy; nor could he be without strong
natural affection, for he loved his first wife fondly, and
lived happily with Julia for awhile, and showed the
sincerest sorrow when his brother Drusus died. This is
all we hear of him till the age of thirty-five. Then comes
a great break in his career. Suddenly,

without a word of explanation, he wishes to m<Sttc>etire"
leave Rome and retire from public life.

Livia's entreaties, the Emperor's protests,

and the remonstrances of friends have no effect; and
having wrung from Augustus his consent, he betakes
himself to Rhodes. What were his motives cannot now
be known. It may have been in part his disgust at
the guilty life of Julia, who outraged his honor and
allowed herparamours to make merry with his character;4 6

The Earlier Empire. a.d.i 4-3 7.

in part perhaps weariness at being always kept in lead-
ing-strings at Rome; but most probably it was jealousy
at the rising star of the young grandsons of the Emperor,
and fear of the danger that might flow from too visible
a rivalry. In the pleasant isle of Rhodes he lived awhile,

where he lives *Iu*etty enough, though he could not always
ayietiy though drop his rank. One day he was heard to
aUhow^f1011" say that he would go and see the sick. He
power.	found that he was saved *the trouble of

going far in search, as the magistrates had them all
brought out arid laid in order under the arcades, with
more regard to his convenience than theirs. Another
time, when a war of words was going on among the
wranglers in the schools, he stepped into the fray, and
was so much hurt at being roughly handled that hurry-
ing home, he sent a guard to seize the poor professor
who had ventured to ignore his dignity. At length,
growing weary of his stay at Rhodes, he said that the
He wished y°ung princes were now secure of the sue-
to return to cession, and that he might safely take a
was not	lower place at Rome, But Augustus coldly

allowed. bade him stay and take no further trouble
about those whom he was so determined to forsake.

Then came a time of terrible suspense. He knew
that he was closely watched, and that the simplest words
were easily misjudged. The Emperor reproached him
with tampering with the loyalty of the officers who put in

His danger at ^oc^es to see him. He shunned the
and sus- coast and lived in solitude, to avoid all official
pense.	visits, and yet he heard to his alarm that he

was still regarded with suspicion, that threatening words
had passed about him in the intimate circle of the young
Caesars, that his prospects looked so black that the citi-
zens of Nemausus (Nismes) had even flung his statueA.D. 14-37.

Tiberius.

47

down to curry favor with his enemies, that his innocence
would help him little, and that at any moment he might
fall. Only Thrasyllus, his astrologer, might see him, to
excite him with ambiguous words. But Li via's influence
was strong enough at last to bring him back to Rome,
after more than seven years of absence to Livia pro-
live, however, in complete retirement, in the ^2}
gardens of Maecenas, to take like a school- (A* D-*•)
boy to mythology, and pose the grammarians who formed
his little court with ni(?fc questions about the verses which
the Sirens used to sing, or the false name ana adoption
which the young Achilles bore. Not until by Ausustus-
the death of the young Caesars was he taken back to
iavor and adopted by the Emperor as his son.	*

But the weariness of those long years of forced inac-
tion, the lingering agony of that suspense had done
their work, and he resigned himself hence- H5s patient
forth without a murmur to the Emperor's sdf-Gon'rol

r	henceforth.

will. Not a moment of impatience at the
caprices of the sick old man, not an outspoken word nor
hasty gesture now betrayed his feelings ; but, as an apt
pupil in the school of hypocrisy about him, he learned
to dissemble and to wait. The only favor that he asked
was to take his post in every field of danger, and to
prove his loyalty and courage. With all Wag usually
his powers of self-restraint he must have away from
breathed more freely in the camp than in the'army.
the stifling air of Rome, and the revolt in
Pannonia gave him the opportunity he needed. That
war, said to be the most dangerous since the wars with
Carthage, tasked for three years all his resources as a
general at the head of fifteen legions. Scarcely was it
closed when the defeat of Varus summoned him to the
German frontier to avenge the terrible disaster. In the48

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 14-37.

campaigns that followed he spared no vigilance or per-
sonal effort, shared the hardships of the soldiers, and
enforced the rigorous discipline of ancient generals.
Not only does Velleius Paterculus, who served among
his troops, speak of his commander in terms of un-
bounded praise, but later writers, who paint generally a
darker picture, describe his merits at this time without
reserve.

From such duties he was called away to the death-
^ , bed of Augustus, whom he found at Nola,

Recalled to	, , , ,	•,	,

the death- either dead already or almost at the last
Augustus. gasp. But Livia had been long since on the
watch, had strictly guarded all approach to
his bed-side, and let no one know that the end was

Precautions near ^ ^er son was rea(ty an^ their mea-
of Livia. sures had been taken. He had been long
since marked out for the succession by the formal act of
adoption, which made him the natural heir,

Claim to	,	........

succeed	as also by the partnership in the tribunician

adoption and dignity, which raised him above all the
potStasia other subjects. But the title to the sovereign
rank was vague and ill-defined, and no con-
stitutional theory of succession yet existed. As the Em-
pire by name and origin rested on a military
ttu^egions basis the consent of the soldiery was all-
tintmp°r~ important. If the traditions of many years
were to have weight, the Senate must be
consulted and respected. The legions were far away
upon the frontiers, in greatest force upon the side
of Germany and Pannonia; and the first news that
came from the North was that the two ar-
fohmuOnye mies were in mutiny, clamoring for higher
pay and laxer discipline. The hasty levies
raised after the defeat of Varus had lowered the generalA.D. 14-37-

Tiberius.

49

morale, and carried to the camp the turbulent license of
the capital. On the Rhine there was the further danger
that Germanicus, his nephew, who was then in supreme
command, should rely on his influence with his troops
and lead them on, or be led by them, to fight for empire.
This son of Drusus, who had been the popular idol of
his day, and who was said to have hankered after the old
liberties of the Republic, had won himself the soldiers*
hearts by his courtesy, gallantry and grace, and the fa-
miliar name of Germanicus which they gave him is the
only one by which history has known him

J	J	J	. and were

since. They were ready to assert their ready to
right to be consulted. The power which manicus to
they defended was in their hands to give at *!^£'ghest
a word from him, and if that word had been
spoken they would certainly have marched in arms to
Rome. But he was not fired by such ambitious hopes,
nor had he seemingly any sentimental
dreams of ancient freedom. He took with- he been

will ng.

out delay the oath of obedience to Tiberius,

restored discipline after a few anxious days of mutiny,
and then tried to distract the thoughts of his soldiers
from dangerous memories by a series of campaigns into
the heart of Germany.

Tiberius meanwhile at home was feeling his way with
very cautious steps. While he was still uncertain of the at-
titude of Germanicus and the temper of the legions, he
used nothing but ambiguous language, affect- caution of
ed to decline the reins of the state, kept even
the Senate in suspense, and at last with p°^*age
feigned reluctance accepted office only for
awhile, till they should see fit to give him rest. It was Tn
keeping with such policy that he shrank shrank from
from the excessive honors which the Senate konor°f

EThe Earlier Empire. a.d. 14-37.

and from tried to lavish 011 him, and declined even the

flattery.

titles which Augustus had accepted. Either
from fear or from disgust he showed dislike to the flat-
tery which was at first rife about him, checked it when it
was outspoken, and resented even as a personal offence
the phrases "lord" and "master" as applied to him.

* „ Meantime the Senate was encouraged to

Referred all	.	«... .	-

business to think that the powers of administration rested
the Senate,	han(iSe Nothing was too paltry,

nothing was too grave to be submitted for their discussion;
even military matters were at first referred to them, and
generals in command were censured for neglecting to
report their doings to the Council. The populace of
but neg- Rome, however, was treated with less cour-
popuLrhe tesy. The ancient forms of the elections
assemblies were quite swept away, and in legislation
also the Senate took the place of the popular assembly.
Little attempt was made to keep the people in good
and the humor by shows of gladiators or gorgeous
oftheemenM pageants, and Tiberius would not try to put
people.	on the studied affability with which Augustus

sat for hours through the spectacles, or the frank courtesy
with which he stayed to salute the passers by. But, on
the other hand, he showed himself at first sincerely
Seemed desirous of just rule, warned provincial gov-
anxious to ernors who pressed him to raise higher taxes
govern well.	(t a gOQ(j ghephgnj shears but does not

flay his sheep/' and kept a careful watch on the tribunals
to see that the laws were properly enforced. Vigorous
measures were adopted to put down brigandage, the
police of Italy was better regulated, popular disturbances
in the capital or in the provinces were promptly and even
sternly checked, and many of the abuses were remedied
which had grown out of the old rights of sanctuary.a.d. 14-37-

Tiberius.

The policy of the early years of the new reign must
have been largely due to Li via's influence. For many
years Tiberius had been much away from
Rome, and it was natural that he should at Scegof LivU^"
first rely upon his mother's well-tried state-
craft, her knowledge of men and familiar experience of the
social forces of the times. He owed all to her patient
scheming, even if she had not, as men thought, swept
away by poison the obstacles to his advancement. Her
position was for many reasons a commanding one. The
will of Augustus had named her as co-heiress, given
her the official title of Augusta, and raised now called
her by adoption to the level of her son. She Au&ist&-
shared with him, therefore, in some measure the imperial
dignity ; their yiames were coupled in official language;
the letters even of Tiberius ran for some time in her name
as well as his. There were numerous coins of local cur-
rency, at Rome and in the provinces, on which her name
was stamped, sometimes joined with her son's but oftener
alone. At her bidding, or by her influence, priesthoods
were formed and temples rose in all parts of the empire
to extend the worship of the deified Augustus; and in-
scriptions still preserved upon them testify to her pride
of self-assertion, as well as to the policy with which she
strove to surround the imperial family with the solemn
associations of religious awe. To that end __

. ,	,. , , -	. .	.	Her politic

she also enlisted the fine arts in her service, patronage of

and found employment for the first sculptors,

engravers and painters of the day in multiplying copies

of the features of the ruling race, and endearing them to

the imagination of the masses.

The Senate was not slow to encourage the ambition of
Augusta. Vote after vote was passed as the members
tried to outdo each other in their flattery, till they raised52

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 14-37.

her even to the foremost place, and proposed to call the
Emperor Livius to do her honor. Tiberius,
Tiberius indeed, demurred to this ; and before long

showed jea-	1	. °

lousy of the there were signs clear enough to curious
to^gusta. eyes that he was ashamed to feel he owed
her all, impatient of her tutelage, and jea-
lous of her high pretensions. Men spoke in meaning
whispers to each other, and wits made epigrams on the
growing coldness between mother and son. They said
he vainly strove to keep her in the shade. Old as she
was, she clung to power and state, and relied on her
talents and influence to hold her own. The Senate and
the camp she could not visit, but in all else she claimed
to rule. As he seemed to shun the eyes of men she
came forward more in public, won popular favor by her
courtesies and generous gifts, gathered her crowd of
courtiers round her, conferred at her will the offices of
state, and tried to overawe the courts of justice when
the interests of her favorites were at stake. In the circle
of her intimates we hear of irreverent wits
their reia- whose caustic speeches did not spare the
open rupture. Emperor himself; and once, we read, when
words ran high between Augusta and her
son, she took from her bosom old letters of Augustus and
read sarcastic passages that bore on his faults of man-
ner or of temper. This coolness did not lead to open
rupture, for his old habits of obedience were confirmed
enough to bear the strain, and he submitted to her

She used her claims> though grudgingly and ungraciously
influence	enough.

thewhoie,	On the whole she used her influence

wisely, and while she ruled, the policy of
state was cool and wary. She could be stern and reso-
lute enough when force seemed needful. She had givena.d. 14-37-

Tiberius.

53

orders for the death of Agrippa Postumus as though she
soon as his grandfather had ceased to could be
breathe. She did not plead for pity with stern'
her son when he let Julia die a wretched death of slow
starvation in her prison, and took at last his vengeance on
her paramour for the mockery and outrage of the past. It
is likely even that her quick eye saw the and perhaps
use that might be made of the old laws of suggested

°	the new use

treason, which had come down from the of the "leges
Commonwealth. They had been meant maJestatls-
to strike at men who had by open act brought dishonor
or disaster on the state. Sulla was the first to make them
cover libellous words, and Augustus had, though spa-
ringly, enforced them in like cases. The Caesar had
already stepped into the people's place and screened
his majesty against so-called treason; but when the
Caesar had been deified, any crime against his person
was heightened by the sin of sacrilege. In the language
of the law obedience to the living Emperor soon became
confounded with the religious worship of the dead, and
loyalty became in theory a sort of adoration. Any dis-
respect might carry danger with it. Jesting words
against the late Emperor might be construed into blas-
phemy when the Emperor had become a god. His
likeness must be held in honor, and it might be fatal
even to beat a slave who clung for safety to his statue,
or to treat carelessly his effigy upon a coin. A few such
cases were enough to increase enormously the imperial
prestige, and extend to the living members of the
family some of the reverence that was gathering round
the dead. But though Augusta had few scruples she
had no taste for needless bloodshed, and while she lived
she certainly exercised a restraining influence upon her
son.54

The Earlier Empire. A.D. 14-37.

cus.

Another of the Emperor's family exerted a force of
like restraint though in a very different way. Germanicus
Restraining was darling of the legions, and might at
b°r°the fearCd an^ moment a pretender to the throne.
]fGcnnani- He had calmed his mutinous soldiery, led
them more than once into the heart of Ger-
many, visited the battle-field where Varus fell, and
brought back with him in triumph the captive wife and
child of Arminius, the national hero of the Germans. It
who was might seem dangerous to leave him longer
fromGer- at head of an army so devoted to their
many,	general—dangerous perhaps to bring him

back to win the hearts of men at Rome. But his presence
might be useful in the East, for the kingdoms of Parthia
and Armenia had been torn by civil war and thrown into
collision by the claims of rival candidates for power, and
by wars of succession due in part at least to the intrigues
of Rome. A general of high repute was needed to protect
the frontier and appease the neighboring powers, and the
death of some of the vassal kings of Asia Minor had left
thrones vacant, and wide lands to be annexed or orga-
nized. It was resolved to recall Germanicus from his
post and to despatch him to the Syrian frontier on this
d s t on important mission. On the north there was
a mission to little to be gained by border warfare, which
the East. provoked but could not crush the resistance
of the German tribes, and there was wisdom in following
the counsel of Augustus not to aim at farther conquests.
Germanicus might be unwilling to retire; but the dirties to
which he was transferred were of high dignity and trust.
Yet men noted with alarm that Silanus who was linked
_ . to him by ties of marriage, was recalled from

The ominous	, J .

appointment Syria at the time, and the haughty, self-willed
to be*g<>1SO . Cnseus Piso made governor in his stead.a.d. 14-37-

Tiberius.

55

Dark rumors spread abroad that he had been vernor of

byna.

chosen for the task of watching and of thwart-
ing the young prince, and that his wife, Plancina, had been
schooled in all the petty jealousies and spite of which
Agrippina was the mark. So far at least all was mere
suspicion, but there was no doubt that when they went to
Syria the attitude of Piso was haughty and offensive. He
made a bold parade of independence, disputed the autho-
rity and cavilled at the words and actions of His offensive
Germanicus, tampered even with the loyalty conduct to
of the soldiers, and drove him at last to open Germamcus'
feud. When Germanicus fell ill soon afterwards Piso
showed indecent glee, and though he was on the eve of
quitting Syria he lingered till further news arrived. He put
down by violence the open rejoicing of the crowd at An-
tioch when cheerful tidings came. Still he waited and the
murmur spread that the sickness was his work, and that
poison and witchcraft had been used to gratify his spite
and perhaps to do the Emperor's bidding. Germanicus
himself was ready to believe the story and , ,

. r	~ . .	...	who be-

tO tear the worst. Suspicions gained force lieved that
as he grew weaker, and his last charge on poi^mad
his death-bed to his friends was to expose aPd°j
his murderer and avenge his death. The
sad story was received at Rome with passionate sorrow
and resentment. His father's memory, his noble quali-
ties and gentle bearing, had endeared him to all classes,
and men recalled the ominous words that " those whom
the people love die early." One after another their Ik-*'
vorites had passed away, cut off in the spring-time of
their youth ; and now the last of them, the best beloved
perhaps of all, had been sent away from them, they mur-
mured, to the far East to die from the noxious air of
Syria, or it might be from the virulence of Piso's hate,'56	The Earlier Empire. A.D. 14-37.

Passionate	more outspoken was the grief when the

grief at	chief mourners reached the shores of Italy,

Rome when	.	.	, /

his death was and passed m sad procession through the

known.	towns. At the sight of the widowed Agrip-

pina, and the children gathered round the funeral urn
that held his ashes, all classes of society vied with each
other in the tokens of their sympathy. There was no
flattery in such signs of mourning, for few believed that
Tiberius was sorry, and many thought that he was glad
Popular	l°ss thzit they regretted. Was it grief

suspicions,	kept him in the palace, or fear lest men

should read his heart ? Was it due respect to his young
nephew to give such scant show of funeral honors, and
to frown at the spontaneous outburst of his people's sor-
row ? Was it love of justice or a sense of guilt that made
him so slow to punish Piso's crime, so quick to discour-
age the zeal of his accusers ? They could only murmur
and suspect, for nothing certain could be known. At
Piso's trial there was evidence enough of angry words
but no proof an^ hitter feelings, of acts of insubordina-
of foul play. tion> almost of civil strife, but no proof that
Germanicus was murdered, still less that Tiberius was
privy to the deed. It was, indeed, whispered abroad
that the accused had evidence enough to prove that he
only did what he was bidden; but if so, he feared to use
it, and before the trial was over he died by his own hand.

The popular suspicion against Tiberius was no mere
after-thought of later days, when Rome had learnt to

.	know the darker features of his* character.
The people

disliked	From the first they had never loved him,

from the	and the more they saw the less they liked

£rst*	him. He seemed of dark and gloomy tem-

Reasons	^er' n° &race or geniality °f manner,

shunning the pleasures of the people, anda.d. 14-37-

Tiberius.

57

seldom generous or open-handed. He had even an un-
gracious way of doing what was right, and spoiled a
favor by his way of granting it. There was such reserve
and constraint in what he said that men thought him a
profound dissembler and imputed to him crimes he had
no thought of. They seemed to have divined the cru-
elty that was still latent, and to have detested him before
his acts deserved their hate. Even in the early years
the satires current in the city and the epigrams passed
from mouth to mouth show us how intense was the dis-
like ; and soon we see enough to justify it.

One of the most alarming features of the times in
which men traced his influence was the rapid spread of
professional accusers, of the delatores, of The tt de]a
whom we read, indeed, before, but who now tores" of the
became a power in the state. The Roman n<wPfkst
law of early times looked to private citizens aPPeared-
to expose wrong-doing, and to impeach civil or political
offenders. Sometimes it was a moral indignation, oftener
it was the bitterness of party feeling, and oftener still the
passion of ambition, that brought them forward as ac-
cusers. The great men of the Republic were constantly
engaged in legal strife. Cato, for example, was put on
his defence some four-and-forty times, and appeared still
oftener as accuser. It was commonly the first step in a
young man's career to single out a prominent Common
member of the rival party, to charge him practice of
with some political offence, and to prove in ^nTunder
the attack his courage or knowledge of the the RePubllc-
laws. This practice naturally intensified the bitterness
of party struggles, and often led to family feuds. It took
to some extent the place of the duelling of modern times,
and led more than once to a sort of hereditary " vendetta."
It oftener served the passions of a party than the real58

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 14-37.

interests of justice; and, prized as it was as a safeguard
and privilege of freedom, fostered license more than
liberty. Yet, as if this tendency were not strong enough
already, measures were taken to confirm it.

Rewards

offered to More sordid motives were appealed to, and
zeal of e hopes of money bribes were held out to spur
informers. on t^e accuser»s zeai# These, it may be,
seemed more needful, as moral sympathies were growing
stronger and the party passions of the Commonwealth
were cooling down. Certainly the meaner motives must
have been most potent in the days of the early Empire,
when men came forward to enforce the sumptuary
and marriage laws which were almost universally dis-
liked.

We hear little of the delatores as a class under
Augustus; but in the days of his successor they became
almost at once of prominent importance. The wider
range given to the laws of treason, the vagueness
of the crimes that fell within their scope, and the
terror of the penalties that threatened the accused,
Tk . . fl armed the informers with a class of weapons
ence under which they had not known before. With a
Tiberius, ruler like Tiberius they became quite a new
wheel in the political machinery. It suited his reserve
to keep himself in the background while the objects
of his fear or his suspicions were attacked, to learn the
early stages of the trial from men who had no official
connection with himself, while the Senate or the law
courts were responsible for the result, and he could step
in at last to temper, if he pleased, the rigor of the
sentence. He did not own them for his instruments,
refused even to speak to them directly on the subject;
but with instinctive shrewdness they interpreted his
looks, divined his wishes, and acted with eagernessa.d. 14-37-

Tiberius.

59

upon a word that fell from any confidant whom he
semed to trust. No wonder that their num- and increase
bers grew apace, for it seemed an easy road in numbers,
to wealth and honor. Settling even by threes and fours
upon their victims, they disputed the precedence of the
attack, for if they were successful the goods of the con-
demned might be distributed among them; and when an
enemy of Caesar fell, quite a shower of official titles, was
rained upon them. They came from all classes alike.
Some there were of ancient lineage and good old names;
some were adventurers from the provinces who had come
to push their fortunes in the capital; some even of the
meanest rank, who crowded into a profession where a
ready tongue and impudence seemed the only needful
stock in trade. For all were trained in early youth to
speak and plead and hold their own in the keen fence
of words. In the days of the Republic all Early train-
must learn to speak who would make their ^ sd?^"
way in public life, and the training of the common,
schools remained the same when all besides was changed
around them. The orator's harangues had been silenced
in the Forum. No Cicero might hope to sway the crowd
or guide the Senate, but they disputed still and declaimed
arid labored at the art of rhetoric as if thoughof
oratory were the one end and aim of life, little use in
When.life opened on them in real earnest mostcareers>
they soon discovered how slowly honest and unaided
talent could hope to make its way to fame. The con-
ditions of the times were changed, and one only way
was left to copy the great orators of earlier days. They
could yet win wealth and honor, and make but usefui
the boldest spirits quail, and be a power in to the infor-
the State, and gain perhaps the Emperor's mers>
favor, by singling out some man of mark, high in office6o

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 14-37.

or in rank, and furbishing afresh against him the weapons
drawn from the armory of the laws of treason. If they
were not weighted with nice scruples, if they could work
upon the ruler's fears or give substance to his vague
suspicions; if they were dexterous enough to rake up
useful scraps of evidence and put their lies into a telling
form, then they might hope to amass great fortunes
speedily and to rise to high official rank. Did any wish
to pay off an old debt of vengeance, or to force a recogni-
tion from the classes that despised them, or to retrieve a
shattered fortune and to find a royal road to fame, it
needed only to swell the ranks of the reformers, to choose
a victim and invent a crime. If no plausible story could
be found to ruin him, it was always possible to put into
his mouth some threats against the Emperor's life, some
bold lampoon upon his vices, which they found all ready
who became to ^eir hand. The annals of the times are
objects of full of tales which show how terrible was the
terror,	power they wielded. Through every social

class and circle the poison of suspicion spread, for every
friend might prove a traitor and be an informer in dis-
guise. It might be perilous to speak about affairs of
d c sed State, for the frankest words of confidence
widespread might be reported, and be dangerously mis-
mistrust	construed. It might be dangerous to be too

silent, for fear of being taken for a malcontent. A man's
worst enemies might be in his home, for every house was
full of slaves, who learned or guessed the master's secrets,
and whose eyes were always on the watch to divine the
inmost feelings of his heart. In a few minutes, by a few
easy words, they could wreak their vengeance for the
slights of years, gain their freedom even by their master's
death, and with it such a slice of what was his as would
make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. No inno-A.D. 14-37.

Tiberius.

cence could be quite secure against such foes, for it was
as easy to invent as to report a crime. No council-
chamber was so safe but that some traitorous ear could
lurk unseen, for in one trial it appeared that three sena-
tors were hidden between the ceiling and the roof to
hear the conversation of the man whom ^

they accused. There was no kind of life
without its dangers. To eschew politics was not enough.
The poet's vanity might lure him to his ruin if he
ventured to compose an elegy upon the prince's son,
when the noble subject of his verse was sick, not dead.
The historian's life might pay the penalty for a few bold
words of freedom, as Cremutius Cordus had to die for
calling the murderers of Caesar the last of the old
Romans. Philosophy itself might be suspected, for a
lecture on the " whole duty of man" might recognize
another standard than the Emperor's will and pleasure,
and handle his special faults too freely. from which
There was no escape from dangers such as there was no

1	0	escape,

these. In earlier days men might leave
Rome before the trial was quite over, and shun the
worst rigor of the law by self-chosen banishment from
home. But the strong arm of the imperial ruler could
reach as far as the farthest limits of the empire, and
flight seemed scarcely possible beyond.

One only road of flight lay open, and to ISdSe"*
that many had recourse. When the fatal
charges had been laid, men often did not stay to brook the
ignominy of the trial, or face the informer's torrent of in-
vectives, but had their veins opened in the bath, or by poi-
son or the sword ended the life which they despaired to
save. They hoped to rescue by their speedy death some
little of their fortune for their children, and to secure at least
the poor advantage of a decent funeral for their bodies.The Earlier Empire. a. d. 14-37.

It was the Emperor's suspicious temper that increased
so largely the influence of the delatorss; but there was
one man who gained his trust, and gained
JfSej^anusCter ** onty to abuse it. Lucius ^Elius Sejanus
had long since won favor by artful insight
into character and affected zeal and self-devotion. His
flattery was too subtle to offend, his duplicity so skilful
as to mask completely his own pride and ambition,
while he fed the watchful jealousy of his master by whis-
pered doubts of others. His father, a knight of Tuscan
stock, had been praefect of the imperial guards, ten bat-
talions of which were quartered in different places round
the city. When the son was raised to the same rank,
his first act of note was to induce the Emperor to con-
centrate the guards in one camp near the
powerand gates, as the permanent garrison of Rome,
favor.	That done, he spared no pains to win the

good-will of the soldiers, to secure the devotion of the
officers, and raise his tools to posts of trust. To the
real power thus secured, the rapidly increasing favor of
Tiberius lent visible authority. In official language he
was sometimes named as the partner of the ruler's
labors; senators and nobles of old family courted his
patronage with humble words; official titles were be-
stowed at his discretion, and spies and informers speedi-
ly were proud to take rank in his secret service. While
ambitious hopes were growing within him with the self-
confidence of a proud and resolute nature,

He schemed to

revenge himself the passion of revenge came in to define
for theUfnsult and to mature them. Drusus, the young
of a blow. son 0f Tiberius, whom we read of as coarse,
choleric, and cruel, happened in a brawling mood to
strike Sejanus on the face. The blow was one day to be
washed out in blood, but for the moment it was borne inA.D. 14-37-

Tiberius.

$3

silence. He made no sign to rouse suspicion, but turned
to Livilla, the prince's wife, and plied her with his wily-
words, seconded by winning grace and personal beauty.
The weak woman yielded to the tempter.

Flinging away her womanly honor, and Seduced
with it tenderness and scruple, she sacrificed Livilla,
her husband to her lover. With her help a|M| poisooed
he had Drusus poisoned, and so removed Drusu*,
the heir presumptive to the throne.

Next came the turn of Agrippina and her children.
Between the widowed mother and Tiberius a certain
coolness had grown up already, which it was easy to in-
crease. Her frank, impetuous, high-souled nature could
not breathe freely in the palace. Proud of her husband's
memory and the promise of her children, and too re-
liant on the people's love, she could not stoop to weigh
her words, to curb her feelings, and school herself to
be wary and submissive. His dark looks and freezing
manner stung her often to impatience, and she allowed
herself to show too clearly the want of sympathy between
them.. The ill-timed warmth of Agrippina's friends, the
dark insinuations of Seianus, widened the ... .

J	and widened

breach already made, and each was made the breach
to fear the other and hint at poison or at Tiberius and
treason. The thunder-clouds had gathered Agrippina,
fast, and the storm would soon have burst between them,
had not Augusta stayed his hand and stepped in with
milder counsels. Jealous as he may have been, the son
still submitted to the mother's sway. He feared an open
rupture, while he chafed at her interference
and restraint. Then the schemer" thought Tiberius
of parting them. Away from Rome and ^nd Augusfa
from his mother, Tiberius would breathe
more freely, and lean more on his trusted servant, and64

The Earlier Empire. a. d. i 4-3 7.

he himself also could mature his plans more safely if he
were not always watched by that suspicious eye. For
twelve years the Emperor had scarcely left the city; but
he was weary at last of moving in the same round of
public labors, of meeting always the same curious eyes,
full as it seemed of fear or of mistrust.

The counsels of Sejanus took root and bore their fruit
in season. At first Rome only heard that its ruler was
travelling southward, then that he was at
SreTto Caprese, the picturesque island in the bay
26'	Naples which had tempted Augustus with

its charms and passed by purchase into his
estates. Soon, they thought, he would be back again,
but time went on and still he came not; and though he
talked at times of his return, and came twice almost
within sight, he never set foot within their walls again.

After three years he heard at Capreae of his mother's
, , death, but he was not present at her funeral,

The death , '	,	r	'

of Augusta long neglected even to give the needful

(a. d 29) orders, and set at nought the last wishes of

her will. Her death removed the only shield of Agrippina

and her children. One after another their chief adherents

had been swept awav. The old generals

followed by	, ,	, . '	,

the fall of that loved them had been struck down by
and herna the informers ; the relentless jealousy of the
children. Emperor and Sejanus had for years set
spies upon them to report and exaggerate unguarded
words. All the charges which had been gathered up
meantime were at once laid before the Senate in a mes-
sage full of savage harshness; the mother and her two
eldest children were hurried off to separate prisons, with
litters closed, lest the memory of Germanicus should stir
the people. They languished there awhile, then perished
miserably by sword and famine.A.D. 14-37-

Tiberius.

65

There was another whom the Emperor had long looked
at with unfriendly eyes. Asinius Gallus, a marked
figure in the higher circles, had taken to his „

,	,	, ,	The fate of

house the wife whom Tiberius had been Asinius

forced indeed to put away, yet loved too GaUus*

well to feel kindly to the man who took his place. He
had been named by the last Emperor among the few.
who might aspire to the throne, and was possibly the
child the promise of whose manhood had been heralded
by the fourth Eclogue of Virgil. He was certainly for-
ward and outspoken, with something of presumption
even in his flattery; he had often given offence by hasty
words, and above all in the early scene of mutual mis-
trust and fear in the Senate House he had tried to force
Tiberius to use plain language and drop his hypocritic
trifling. He was made to pay a hard penalty for his
boldness. The Emperor stayed his hand for years,
allowed him to pay his court and join in the debates
among the rest, and even summoned him to Caprese to
his table. But even while he sat there the news came
that the Senate had condemned him at the bidding of
their master, and he left the palace for a prison. For
years he pined in utter loneliness, while the death which
he would have welcomed as a boon was still denied him.

Meantime Sejanus ruled at Rome with almost absolute
power. His master's seemingly unbounded trust made
soldiers, senators, informers vie with each ^

other in submissive service ; his favor was the powe?rofat
passport to preferment; his enmity was fol- Rome!S at
lowed by a charge of treason or a threatening
missive from Capreae to the Senate. All classes streamed
to his ante-chambers with their greetings, and the world
of Rome flattered, feared or hated him. The Emperor
heard all intelligence through him, colored and garbled66

The Earlier Empire. a. d. 14-37.

as he pleased, approved his counsels, re-echoed his sus-
picions, and daily resigned more of the burden of rule
into his hands. There had been no sign of mistrust
even when he had asked for the hand of Livilla, the
widow of the murdered Drusus, though consent had been
delayed and reproof of his ambition hinted. Yet, wary
as„Sejanus was, he could not hide from envious eyes the
pride and ambition of his heart. He grew
H^haughti- haughtier with the confidence of power, and
men whispered that in moments of self-in-
dulgence he spoke of himself as the real autocrat of
Rome, and sneered at his master as the Monarch of the
Isle. But that master's eyes at length were opened.
His brother's widow, Antonia, long retired from public
life, had kept a watchful eye on all that passed, and
sent a trusty messenger at length to warn him. He saw his
danger instantly, felt it with a vividness that
fa>erkwnat°f seemed to paralyze his will and stay his
aroused	hand. For many months we have the curi-

ous picture of the monarch of the Roman
world brooding, scheming, and conspiring against his
servant. For months his letters were so worded as to
keep Sejanus balanced between fear and hope. Some-
times he writes as if his health was failing,
His dissimu- an(j the throne would soon be vacant, some-

lation.	7

times promotes his friend and loads him
with caresses, and then again his strength is suddenly
restored and he writes fretfully and sternly. The Senate
is kept also in suspense, but notes that he no more calls
. the favorite his colleague, and that he raises

The scene m	,	«	,

the senate- a personal enemy to be consul. The bolt
house.	at jast Suddenly there arrives in

Rome a certain Macro with letters from Capreae for the
Senate. He carries the commission in his pocket whichA.D. 14-37.

Tiberius.

67

makes him the new prsefect of the guard, and had been
told to concert measures with Laco, the prefect of the
watch. He meets Sejanus by the way, alarmed to find
that there is no message for himself, and reassures him
with the tale that the letter brings him the high dignity
of tribunician power. While Sejanus hurries in triumph
to the Senate House, Macro shows his commission to the
praetorians and sends them to their quarters far away,
while Laco guards the Senate House with his watch.
The reading of the Emperor's letter then begins. It is
long and curiously involved in style, deals

. ,	. .	. , ,	, ,	where the

with many subjects, with here and there a Emperor's
slighting word against Sejanus, to which, ^ertwsaet
however, he pays scant attention, as his fp^stoia"is
thoughts are occupied with the signs of fa- read»
vor soon to follow. Suddenly comes the unlooked-for
close. Two of his nearest intimates are denounced for
punishment, and he is to be lodged at once in prison.
Those who sat near had slipped away from him mean-
time ; Laco with his guards is by his side, while the
Senate rises on all sides and vents in angry cries the
accumulated hate of years. He is dragged- a„d Sejanus is
off to his dungeon. The people on the way d2^ifcdoffto
greet him with savage jeers, throw down A- D- 31.
the statues raised long since in his honor, and the prae-
torians in their distant quarter make no sign. The
Senate takes courage to give the order for his death, and
soon all that is left of him is a name in history to point
the moral of an unworthy favorite's rise and fall. His
death rid Tiberius of his fears, but was fatal to the party
who had looked to Sejanus as their chief, cruelty of
and possibly had joined him in treasonable J;be"us to the

. ,	^	mends or par-

plots against his master. Post after post tisansof
brought the death-warrants of fresh victims, ^e^nus»68

The Earlier Empire. a.d.i 4-3 7.

His. kinsmen were the first to suffer, then came the turn
of friends and tools. All who owed to him their ad-
vancement, all who had shown him special honor, paid
the hard penalty of their imprudence. The thirst for
blood grew fiercer daily, for the wife of Sejanus on her
death-bed told the story of the poison of
heard the which Drusus died, and the truth was known
sus'Sdeath*m" at ^ast* Tiberius had hidden his grief when
his son died, and treated with mocking
irony the citizens of Ilium who came somewhat late with
words of condolence, telling them that he was sorry that
they too had lost a great man named Hector; but the
grief he had then not shown turned now to thirst for
vengeance. On any plea that anger or suspicion could
dictate fresh names were added to the list of the accused,
till the crowded prisons could hold no more. The prae-
torians whose loyalty had been mistrusted were allowed
to show how little they had cared for their commander
by taking wild vengeance on his partisans ; the populace
also roamed the streets in riotous mobs to prove their tardy ,
hatred for his memory. In a passage of the Emperor's me-
moirs that has come down to us we read the charge that
the fallen minister had plotted against Agrippina and her
children. We may compare with this the fact that the or-
der for the death of the second son was given after the
traitor's fall. He was starved to death in the dungeon of
the palace, after trying in his agony to gnaw the bed on
which he lay, and the note-book of his gaoler gave a de-
tailed account of his last words and dying struggles.

At Capreae also there was no lack of horrors. There
too the victims came to be tried under his eye, it is said
The trials and t0 even tortured, and to glut his thirst
bloodshed at for bloodshed. He watched their agonies
Capreae,	Upon the rack, and was so busy with thatA.D. 14-37-

Tiberius*

<%>

work that when an old friend came from Rhodes at
his own wish, he mistook the name of his invited guest
and ordered him too to be tortured like the rest. Some
asked t<5 be put out of their misery by speedy death, but
he refused, saying that he had not yet forgiven them.
Even in trifling matters the like severity broke out. A
poor fisherman climbed the steep rocks at Capreae td of-
fer him a fine lobster; but the Emperor, startled in his
walk by his unbidden visitor, had his face gashed with
its sharp claws to teach him more respect for rank. Nor
is it only cruelty that stains his name. Sen- J _ ,

.. ..	...	...	, and foul

suality without disguise oj* limit, unnatural debauches,
lusts too foul to be described, debauchery
that shrank from no excess, these are the charges of the
ancient writers that brand him with eternal infamy.
Over these it may be well to drop the veil and hasten
onward to the close.

At length it was seen that his strength was breaking
up, and the eyes of the little court at Ca- His death,
preae turned to Caius, the youngest son of
Agrippina and Germanicus, whom, though wifh few
signs of love, he had pointed out as his successor. The
physician whispered that his life was ebbing, and he
sank into a swoon that seemed the sleep of death. All
turned to the living from the dead and saluted him as
the new Emperor, when they were startled with the news
that the closed eyes were opened and Tibe- hastened possi-
rius was still alive. But then—so ran the ofYth J youngnd
tale all Rome believed—the praefect Macro Caius.

bade the young prince be bold and prompt: together
they flung a pillow on the old man's head and smoth-
ered him like a mad dog as he lay.

The startling story of his later years is given with like
features in the pages of three authors, Tacitus, Sueto-7°

The Earlier Empire, A. D. 14-37.

nius, and Dion Cassius, and none besides of ancient
times describe his life or paint his character With any
fulness of detail. But modern critics have come for-
ward to contest the verdict of past history, arrd to de-
mand a new hearing of the case. We must stay, there-
fore, to see what is the nature of their plea.

They remind us that, at the worst, it was only the so-
„ ciety of Rome that felt the weight of his

The pleas of	J ■	°

the later heavy hand. Elsewhere, they say, through
vor of a new all the provinces of the vast empire his rule
thedharacf- was w*se an(* warY* His firm hand curbed
terofTibe- the license of his agents; he kept his le-
gions posted on the frontiers, but had no
wish for further conquests, and in dealing with neigh-
boring powers relied on policy rather than
At the worst force. The shelter that he offered to the

they say,

Rome only fugitive chiefs of Germany and the pretend-
suffered, while	, _	,	,	,

the Empire ers to the Eastern thrones gave them al-
vemed-1 g°* ways an excuse for diplomacy and intrigues,
which distracted the forces that were dan-
gerous. Provincial writers like Strabo the geographer,
Philo the philosopher, and Josephus the historian, speak
of his rule with thankfulness and fervor; and the praises
seem well-founded till we come to the last years of his
life. Then, says Suetonius, he sunk into a
bedtme!may sloth which neglected every public duty,
so^fquaiifi- He would not sign commissions, nor change
cation.	governors once appointed, nor fill up

the vacancies that death had caused, nor give orders to
chastise the neighboring tribes that disturbed the border
countries with their forays. It is true the Empire was so
little centralized as yet, and so much free life remained
in the old institutions of the provinces, that distant peo-
ples scarcely suffered from the torpor of the centrala.d. 14-37-

Tiberius.

7i

power, and, once relieved from the abuses of the old
Republic, were well content if they were yetthede-
only left alone. Still the degradation of gadation of
Rome, if real, must have reacted on them, have reacted
for she attracted to the centre the notabilities 911 the vorld*
of every land. She sent forth in turn her thought, her
culture, and her social influence, and the pulsations of
her moral life were felt in countries far away. The
heroism of her greatest men raised the tone of the world's
thought, and examples of craven fear and meanness
surely tended to dispirit and degrade it.

If we return now to the details of his rule at home
what evidence can his defenders find to stay our judg-
ment ? They can point to the contemporary prais§s of
Valerius Maximus, a literary courtier of the
meanest type, and to the enthusiastic words ^of valeri-
in which Velleius Paterculus speaks of his andVeiiSus
old general's virtues. But the terms of the paterculus is
latter do not sound like a frank soldier's much,
language; the style is forced and subtle,

and the value of his praises of Tiberius may well be
questioned when in the same pages we find a fulsome
flattery of Augustus and Sejanus that passes all bounds
of belief. We may note also that his history ends be-
fore the latter period of this reign begins. In default of
testimony of a stronger kind, attention has The marks
been drawn to the marks of bias and exag- of bias and
geration in the story commonly received, ** te com-
to the wild rumors wantonly spread against mon story-
a monarch who had never won his people's love, and
lightly credited by writers who reflected the prejudices
of noble coteries offended by the unyielding firmness of
his rule. On such evidence it has been thought enough
to assume that the memoirs of Agrippina, Nero's mother,yj2

The Earlier Empire,

A. D. 14-37.

The assump-
tions as to
the memoirs

i the
struggle be-
tween rival
factions at
Rome,

and the guilt
of the victims
of Tiberius,
are made
without any
evidence.

blackened the name of Tiberius and had a
sinister influence on later history; to imagine
a duel of life and death between the imperial
government and the partisans of the widow
and children of Germanicus ; to believe, but
without proof, that the chief victims of the
times were all conspirators, who paid the
just forfeit of their lives; to point to the malignant
power of Sejanus and to fancy that the real cle-
mency of Tiberius took at last a sombre hue
in the presence of universal treachery.
Whence this strange mania of disloyalty can
have come is not made clear, nor how it
*	was that of the twenty trusted senators

chosen for the privy council only two or three were left
alive, nor why Drusus, the son of Germanicus, was mur-
dered when the fall of Sejanus had removed the tempter.

Nor can the stories of the debauchery at Capreae
be lightly set aside without disproof. They left a track
too lurid on the popular imagination, they

Nor can we	, . .	...	.

set aside the stamped their impress even in vile words
debauchery6 on the language of the times, and gave a
at Capreae. fatal impulse to the tendencies of the cor-
rupted art that left the records of its shame among the
ruins of Pompeii.

It may seem strange, indeed, as has been urged, that
a character unstained for many years by gross defects
should reveal so late in life such darker features. But
we have no evidence which will enable us
to rewrite the story of these later years,
though on some points we have reason to
mistrust the fairness of the historians whose
accounts alone have reached us. . They
do seem to have judged too harshly acts

Ancient
writers may
have formed
too harsh an
opinion of
hi^ motives
in some
cases,A.D. I4-37.

Tiberius.

73

and words which admit a fair and honorable color.
Their conclusions do not always tally with the facts
which they bring forward, and seem sometimes incon-
sistent with each other; the number and details of the
criminal trials which they describe often fail to justify
their charges of excessive cruelty in the emperor, and
many of their statements as to his secret feelings ana
designs must have been incapable of proof. It was pro-
bably from prudence and not from mere irresolution that
the prince continued his provincial governors so long in
office; it may have been from true policy rather than
from jealousy that he recalled Germanicus from useless
forays on the border lands, from good sense rather than
from want of spirit that he discouraged all excessive
honors to himself. In these and many like
cases Tacitus and other writers may have scandalousd
given a false reading of his motives, as fg|ftiyS.t0°
they have certainly reported without weigh-
ing the scandalous gossip that blackened the memory
of a ruler who discredited his best qualities by ungra-
cious manners, and often made his virtues seem as odious
as his vices.

But of the natural character of his younger years we
know little. We see him trained in a school of rigid re-
pression and hypocrisy, cowering under the but weknow
gibes and censures of Augustus, wavering little of his
between the extremes of hope and fear, tor- racter* as he
tured by anxiety at Rhodes, drilled after- ^ school
wards into an impassive self-restraint, till of rigid self.

.	*	.	restraint and

natural gaiety and frankness disappeared. dissimula-
When power came at last it found him tlon'

soured by rancor and resentment, haunted by suspicion
and mistrust, afraid of the Senate and Germanicus, and
yet ashamed to own his fears ; too keen-eyed to relish74

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 37-41.

flattery, yet dreading any show of independence ; curbed
by his mother, and spurred on by Sejanus into ferocity,
inspired by fear; with an intellectual preference for good
government, but still with no tenderness or sympathy
for those whom he ruled. Possibly the partisans of
Agrippina troubled his peace with their bold words and
seditious acts, or even conspired to set her. children in
his place, and drove him to stern measures in his own
defence. At length, when the only man whom he had
fondly trusted played him false, his old mistrust settled
into a general contempt for other men and for the re-
straints of their opinion. These safeguards gone, he may
perhaps have plunged into the depths of cruelty and
lust and self-contempt which made Pliny speak of him
as the gloomiest of men—" tristissimus hominum,"—
and led him to confess in his letters to the Senate that
he was suffering from a long agony of despairing wretch-
edness. Even from the distant East we read, came the
scornful letters in which the King of Parthia poured re-
proaches on the cruelty and debaucheries of his brother
Emperor of the West.

CHAPTER III.

caligula.—a.d. 37-41.

The tidings of the gloomy emperor*s death were heard
at Rome with universal joy. The senators and men of
mark began to breathe more freely after the
joyGat theral reign of terror; the people who had suffered
TiberiSs *ess' ^ut for w^om ha.d been done in
the way of shows and largess, began to cryA.D. 37-41.	Caligula.

75

about the streets, "Tiberius to the Tiber! " and to talk
of flinging his dishonored body like carrion to the crows.

All eyes turned with joy to the young Caius. The
fond regrets with which they thought of Germanicus, his
father, the memory of Agrippina's cruel and^ttke
fate, and the piteous stories of her mur- accession of
dered children, caused an outburst of gen-
eral sympathy for the last surviving son. In early child-
hood he had been the soldiers' darling. Carried as a
baby to the camp upon the Rhine, he had been dressed
in mimic uniform and called by the familiar named c r
name of Caligula, from the tiny boots he gulabythe*
wore like the legionaries around him. The leglonanes»
mutinous troops who were deaf to the general's appeal
were shamed into submission when they saw their little
nursling carried for safety from their camp. For some
years little had been known of him. After Agrippina's
fall he had been brought up in seclusion by his grand-
mother Antonia, and thence summoned to Capreae by
the old Emperor while still a youth. He showed at that
time a marked power of self-restraint, be- wh0 had
trayed no resentments or regrets, and baf- Capreawith
fled the spies who were set to report his Tiberius,
words. Yet Tiberius, who watched him narrowly, is
said to have discerned the latent passions that were to
break out one day in the license of absolute power ; but
still he advanced him to the rank of the pontificate, al-
lowed him to be thought his probable successor, and
named him in his will as co-heir with the young Ti-
berius, his grandchild. Besides this the
praefect Macro was secretly won over to named in his
secure the support of the praetorian troops, heir with the
and together they waited for and perhaps *£j{*jg srand-
hastened the death of the old man. No7 6

The Earlier Empire,

a.d. 37-41.

such support, indeed, seemed needed, for at Rome there
was a popular movement in his favor. The people
rushed into the Senate House with acclamations when he
came, they showered endearing names upon him, the
, . claims of his young cousin were ignored,

whose claims,	r	r ^	,

however, and at the age of twenty-four Caligula be-
were ignored. came	soje monarch Qf the Roman

world. The young sovereign was welcomed with a gen-
eral outburst of excitement. Not only in the city which
for long years had not seen its ruler, but even in the
provinces, there were signs everywhere of wide-spread
joy. In three months more than one hundred and sixty
thousand victims fell in thanksgiving upon the altars.
The young sovereign could scarcely be unmoved amid
The general	general gladness. Senate, soldiers,

gladness, people, all were lavish in their honors;
the treasury was full of the hoards that had been gather-
ing there for years; there was nothing yet to cross his
will or cloud his joy. His first acts were in unison with
the glad tone of public feeling, and did much to increase
return of the	^e ex^es were brought back from the

exiles,	lonely islands where they pined; the works

of the bold writers, Labienus and the like, were allowed
once more to pass from hand to hand ; the ardor of the
, . , informers cooled, and a deaf ear was turned

and signs of

brighter to warning letters; the independence of the
magistrates was re-asserted, and the ac-
counts- of the imperial budget fully published. Some
show was even made awhile of restoring the elections
to the popular vote, while a round of civic spectacles
arranged upon a scale of long disused magnifi-
c^rce.

The bright hopes thus raised were all shortlived. The
extravagant popularity which had greeted him at first.A.D. 37-41.

Caligula.

77

the dizzy sense of undisputed power, were _

,	, , _ _.	The Empe-

enough to turn a stronger head. His nerv- ror's populari-

ous system had always been weak. Epilep- power turned^
tic from his boyhood, he suffered also from *"s head,
constant sleeplessness, and even when he slept his rest
was broken with wild dreams. His health gave way soon
after his accession; and the anxiety on all sides was so
intense, the prayers offered for his recovery so excessive,
that they seemed to have finally disturbed the balance
of his reason. Henceforth his life is one strange med-
ley of grandiose aims and incoherent fancies, relieved
at times by lucid intervals of acute and mocking insight,
but rendered horrible by a fiend's cruelty and a satyr's
lust. In a short time Rome was startled by the news
that its young Emperor claimed to be a god already. It
was not enough for him to wait to be can-	. ■

.........."	/• 1 t -TT	1 "e claimed

onized like others after death. He towered divine honors,
already above the kings of the earth; the
one thing wanting was to enjoy divine honors while he
lived. To this end temples must rise at once to do him
honor; priesthoods be established for his service; count-
less statues of the gods be brought from Greece and take
in exchange the likeness of his head for their own. The
palace was extended to the Forum, and the valley spanned
with stately arches, that the shrine of Castor and Pollux
might serve as a sort of vestibule to his own house, and that
he might take his seat as by right between the heavenly
brothers and be the object of admiring worship.

From a god something more is looked for than the
works of man, and so he was always dreaming; of great
schemes. He threw a bridge across from Planned gre^
Baiae to Puteoli, upwards of three miles in schemes,
length, and marched along it in state to furnish a two
days' wonder to the world. He thought of building a city78

The Earlier Empire. A. d. 3 7-41.

upon the highest Alps ; with greater wisdom he wished
to cut a channel through the Corinthian isthmus, and sent
even to take the measurements needed for the work.

The heathen poets have often sung of the envy and
jealousy of heaven ; and the Emperor for a like cause
Could bear no could brook no rival. His young cousin
rival greatness, Tiberius must die to expiate the crime of
being once put upon a level with him; his father-in-law,
Silanus, and his grandmother, Antonia, paid the forfeit
of their lives for having formed too low an estimate of
his majesty. Indeed, any eminence might be danger-
ous near him. Bald himself, he could not pass a fine
head of hair without the wish and sometimes too the
order that it should be shaved quite bare. He prided
himself upon his eloquence, and two men nearly suf-
fered for the reputation of their style. The first was
as in the case Seneca, then much in vogue, who was saved
of Seneca, on]y a friend's suggestion that he was
too far gone in a decline to live. The other, Domitius
Afer, was a brilliant orator and notable informer. In
and Domitius va*n	foreseen his danger and tried

Afer-	to disarm jealousy by flattering words. He

set up a statue to the Emperor to note the fact that he
was consul a second time at the age of twenty-seven ;
but this was taken ill, as a reflection on the monarch's
youth and unconstitutional procedure. Caius, who prided
himself on his fine style, came one day to the Senate
with a long speech ready-prepared against him. Afer
was too wary to reply, but falling to the ground as if
thunderstruck at eloquence so marvellous, only culled
from memory the choicest passages of what he heard
with comments on their beauties, saying that he feared
the orator more than the master of the legions. The
Emperor, delighted at praises from so good a judge,A.D. 37-4I.

Caligula.

79

looked on him henceforth with favor. His spleen was
moved not only by living worth but even by Was jeaious
the glory of the dead. He threw down the Jjl!d°fthe
statues of the famous men that graced the
Campus Martius. He thought of sweeping from the
public libraries the works of Virgil and Livy, but con-
tented himself with harshly criticising them. The titles
even that called up the memory of illustrious deeds pro-
voked his umbrage ; the old families must put aside the
surnames of the Republic, and the Pompeian race drop
the dangerous epithet of " Great."

The gods, it seemed, were above moral laws, for the
old fables told of their amours without disguise or shame.
Caius would be like Jupiter in this ; indulge Thought
at once each roving fancy and change his above •
wives from day to day.. Invited at one moral laws,
time to a noble Roman's marriage feast, he stopped the
rite and himself claimed the bride, boasting that he
acted like Augustus and the Romulus of old time. His
lewdness spared no rank nor ties of blood, but of all he
loved Caesonia best, who was famous only for her wan-
tonness. He dressed her like an Amazon and made
her ride to the reviews ; and when she bore a child he
recognised it for his own by the ferocity with which the
infant seemed to scratch and claw everything she saw.

The oracles of old, from which men tried to learn the
will of heaven, were couched often in dark mysterious
terms, and in this spirit he delighted to affected
perplex and to alarm. He summoned the [heSandentke
senators from their beds at the dead of oracles,
night, frightened them with strange sounds about them
in the palace, then sung to them awhile and let them go.
When the people clamored for a legal tariff of the new
tolls and dues, he had one written out, but in characters8o

The Earlier Empire* a.d. 3 7-41.

so small and so high-posted that ho eyes could read it.
His caprices often took a darker color. He heard that
.. ... when he was once sick rash men had vowed

and indulged	. ....	e

in wild	to give their lives or face the gladiators if

caprices.	grew better, and with grim humor he

obliged them to prove their loyalty, even to the death.

We may see by the description of an eye-witness how
great was the terror caused by these fitful moods of fero-
city and folly. At Alexandria the Emperor's claims to
deity had been regarded as impious by the Jews, but
readily acquiesced in by the Greeks, who caught eagerly
at any plea to persecute their hated rivals, and wreak the
grudge of a long-standing feud. The synagogues were
profaned with statues, the Jewish homes were pillaged
without mercy, and complaints of disloyalty forwarded
to Rome. The sufferers on tljeir side sent an embassy
to plead their cause, and at its head the learned Philo,
who has left us an account to tell us how they fared.
They were not received in state, in the presence of grave
counsellors, but after long delay the two deputations of
the Alexandrians and Jews were allowed to wait upon
the Emperor while he was looking at some country
houses near the bay of Naples. The Jews came bowing
to the ground before him, but despaired when they saw
the look of sarcasm on his face, and were accosted with
the words, " So you are the impious wretches who will
not have me for a god, but worship one whose name
you dare not mention," and to their horror he pro-
nounced the awful name. Their enemies, overjoyed at
this rebuff, showed their glee with words and looks of
insult, and their spokesman charged the Jews with wan-
ton indifference to the Emperor's health and safety.
" Not so, LordCaius," they protested loudly, " for thrice
we have sacrificed whole hecatombs in thy behalf.'*A.D. 37-41.

Caligula.

81

" Maybe," was the reply, "but ye sacrificed for me, and
not to me." This second speech completed their dis-
may, and left them all aghast with fear. But almost as
he spoke, he scampered off, and went hurrying through
the house, prying all about the room upstairs and down,
cavilling at what he saw, and giving orders on his way.
while the poor Jews had to follow in his train from place
to place, amid the mockery and ribald jests of those
about them. At length, after some direction given, he
turned and said in the same breath to them, " Why do
you not eat pork ? " They tried to answer calmly that
national customs often varied : some people, for exam-
ple, would not touch the flesh of lambs. " Quite right,
too," he said, " for it is poor tasteless stuff." Then the
insults and the gibes went on again. Presently he asked
a question about their claims to civil status, but cut them
short in the long answer which they gave him, and set
off at a run into the central hall, to have some blinds of
transparent stone drawn up against the sun. He came
back in a quieter mood, and asked what they had to
say, but without waiting for the answer hurried off again
to look at some paintings in a room close by. " At last,"
says Philo, u God in his mercy to us softened his hard
heart, and he let us go alive, saying as he sent us off,
' After all they are to be pitied more than blamed, poor
fools, who cannot believe I am a god.' "

His devices to refill the treasury, which his extrava-
gance had emptied, showed no lack of original resource,
though his plans were not quite after the rules of finan-
cial science. He put up to auction all the
heiriooms of the past that had been stored tJrefiiThis
in the imperial household, took an active cofferSSted
part even in the sale, pointed out the rare
old pieces with all the relish of a connoisseur, and gave

G82

The Earlier Empire.

A.D. 37-41.

the family pedigree of each. He made his courtiers
push the prices up ; and when one of them was sleepy he
took each motion of the nodding head for a higher bid,
and had a few gladiators knocked down to him at the cost
of millions. When the news came of his daughter's birth
he publicly bemoaned the costly burdens of paternity,
and asked his loyal subjects for their doles to help him
rear and portion the princes. He stood even at the en-
trance of his house on New Year's Day to receive with
his own hands the presents showered on him by the
crowd as they came to court. Oftentimes he did not
stay to devise such far-fetched measures,
Resorted to but simply marked down wealthy men for

confiscation.	r J	J

confiscation, betook himself as far as Gaul
in quest of plunder, and filled his coffers at the expense
of the provincials. Even without such poor excuse he
showed meantime a cruelty that seemed like the mere
wantonness of a distempered fancy, as when he invited
men to see him open a new bridge in state,
ferocity	anc^ **ad t*ie machinery contrived to fling

crowds into the water ; or when he laughed
as he sat between the consuls and told them that a sin-
gle word from him would make their heads roll off their
necks; or when, to give his guests more zest for what
they ate, he had the executioner ushered in to do his
work before their eyes.

One fiercer taste he seemed to lack—the love of war.
But, suddenly reminded that recruits were wanted to
make up the ranks of his Batavian body-

Thecam-	, ,	, r	.

giign in guard, he took a fancy to a campaign in

ermany. Germany, perhaps in memory of his father's

name. Preparations were made on a grand scale, and

he started for the seat of war, hurrying sometimes in

such hot haste that his guards could scarcely keep be-A.D. .37-41.

Caligula.

S3

side him, and then again, lolling in lordly ease, called
out the people from the country towns to sweep and water
all the roads. As soon as he had reached the camp he
made a great parade of the discipline of earlier days,
degraded general officers who were late in coming with
their troops, and dismissed centurions from the service on
trifling grounds or none at all. Little came of all this*
show. A princely refugee from Britain asked for shel-
ter. The Rhine was crossed, a parody of a night attack
was acted out, and imposing letters were sent to the Se-
nate to describe the submission of the Britons and the
terror of the Germans. Then he hurried with his legions
to the ocean, with all the pomp and circumstance of war,
while none could guess the meaning of the march. At
last when they could go no further he bade the soldiers
pick up the shells that lay upon the shore
and carry home their trophies as if to show dose°r°US
in strange burlesque the vanity of schemes
of conquest. Before he left the camp, however, the wild
fancy seized him to avenge the insult offered to his ma-
jesty in childhood, and he resolved to decimate the le-
gions that had mutinied long years before. He had
them even drawn up in close order and unarmed before
him, but they suspected danger and confronted him so
boldly that he feared to give the word and slunk away
to Rome. On his return he seemed ashamed to cele-
brate the triumph for which he had made costly prepara-
tions* forbade the Senate to vote him any honors, but
complained of them bitterly when they obeyed.

Still his morbid fancy could not rest, and wild projects

flitted through his brain. He would degrade Rome from

her place among the cities and make Alex-	...

, .	i * * • i His wild

andria, or even his birth-place, Antium, the dreams of

capital of the world. But first he medita- raassacre-84

The Earlier Empire.

A.D. 41-54.

ted $ crowning exploit to usher in the change with fitting
pomp. It was nothing less than the massacre of all the
citizens of mark. He kept two note-books, which he
called his " sword " and u dagger," and in them were
the names of all the senators and knights whom he
doomed to death. But the cup was full already, and his
'time was come, though he had only had three years of
power to abuse. He had often outraged with mocking
and foul words the patience of Cassius Choerea, a tri-
bune of the guard. At last Choerea could bear no more,
and after sounding other officers of rank, who had been
suspected of conspiracy already, and who knew their
lives to be in danger, he resolved to strike at once.
They took the Emperor unawares in a narrow passage
at the theatre, thrust him through and through with
hasty blows, and left him pierced with thirty wounds
upon the floor.

CHAPTER IV.

CLAUDIUS.—A. D. 4I-54.

Few credited at first the tidings of the death of Caius ;
many thought the story was only spread by him in some

The hesitation mad freak t0 *eSt their feelinSS> and S0 they
of the Senate feared to show either joy or grief. When at

der of Caius " last they found it was true, and that Caeso-

nia and his child were also murdered, they noted in

their gossip that all the Caesars who bore the name of

Caius had died a violent death, and then they waited

quietly to see what the Senate and the soldiers thought

of doing. The Senate met at once in the Capitol, whereA.D. 41-54-

Claudius.

85

the consuls summoned to their guard the cohorts of the
watch. There, with the memorials of the past, the to •
kens of ancient freedom, round them, they could take
counsel with becoming calmness and dignity. The Em-
peror was dead, and there seemed no claimant with a
title to the throne. Should they venture to elect a sov-
ereign, regardless of the warnings of the past, or should
they set up a commonwealth once more, and breathe
fresh life into the shadowy forms about them ? The dis-
cussion lasted all that day, and the night lasted till
passed without a final vote. Bull it was all nightfall.

idle talk, for the praetorians meanwhile had made their
choice. The tidings of the Emperor's death soon reached
the camp, and drew the soldiers to the city. Too late
to defend or even to avenge their sovereign, But the soj_
they dispersed in quest of booty, and roamed die» mean-

' *	*	J	time had found

through the palace at their will. One of the Claudius,
plunderers passing by the alcove of a room espied the
feet of some one hidden behind the half-closed curtains.
Curious to see who it might be, he dragged him out, and
recognized the face of Claudius, the late Emperor's un-
cle. He showed him to his comrades who were near,
and, possibly in jest, they saluted him as carriedhimto
their new prince, raised him at once upon the camP»
their shoulders, and carried him in triumph to the camp.
The citizens who saw him carried by marked his piteous
look of terror, and thought the poor wretch was carried
to his doom. The Senate heard that he was in the camp,
but only sent to bid him take his place among them, and
heard seemingly without concern that he was there de-
tained by force. But the next day found them in differ-
ent mood. The populace had been clamoring to have a
monarch, the praetorians had sworn obedi- a„d saluted
ence to their new found emperor, the city him Emperor.86

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 41-54.

guards had slipped away, and the Senate, divided
and disheartened, had no course left them but submis-
sion.

Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus, the son of Dru-
sus, grandson of Livia Augusta, suffered in early years
In early life he from lingering diseases which left him weak
irtmindand^ both in body and in mind. The Romans
b»endespised* commonty had little tenderness for sickly
or neglected. children. Antonia and his mother even
spoke of him as a monster, as a thing which nature had
rough-hewn but neve* finished; while his grandmother
would not deign to speak to him except by messenger or
letter. Though brought up in the palace he was little
cared for, was left to the tender mercies of a muleteer,
of whose rough usage he spoke bitterly in after life, and
even when he came to manhood was not allowed to
show himself in public life or hope for any of the offices
of State. We may still read the letters written by Au-
gustus to his wife, in which he speaks of him as too im-
becile for any public functions, too awkward and un-
gainly to take a prominent place even in the circus at
the show. The only honor which he gave him was a
place in the priesthood of the augurs, and at his death
he left him a very paltry legacy. Nor did Tiberius think
' , , more highly of him. He give him only the

He had sorry	_	'

treatment poor grace of consular ornaments; and
from Tiberius wken aske(i fa have the consulship itself

his uncle took no further notice than to send him a few
gold pieces to buy good cheer with in the holidays. His

nephew Caius made him consul, but encour-

and Caius,	*	t	.

aged the rough jests with which his cour-
tiers bantered him. If he came late among the guests
at dinner they shifted their seats and shouldered him
away till he was tired of looking for an empty place ; ifA.D. 41-5 4-

Claudius.

he fell asleep, as was his wont, they plastered up his
mouth with olives, or put shoes upon his hands, that he
might rub his eyes with them when he woke. He was
sent by the Senate into Germany to congratulate the
Emperor on his supposed successes ; but Caius took it
ill, and thought the choice of him was such a slight that
he had the deputation flung into the river* Ever after
he was the very last to be asked in the Senate for his
vote, and when he was allowed to be one of die new
priests the office was saddled with such heavy fees that
his household goods had to be put up to .... ,

,	.	,	and indulged

auction to defray them. After such treat- in coarse

ment from his kinsmen it was no wonder a 1 '

that he sank into coarse and vulgar ways, indulged his
natural liking for low company, ate largely and drank
hardly, and turned to dice for his amusement. Yet he
had also tastes of a much higher order, kept but he had
Greeks of literary culture round him, stu- £°esterary
died hard and with real interest, and at the
advice of the historian Livy took to writing and tcok to
history himself. His first choice of subject
was ambitious, for he tried to deal with the
troubled times that followed Julius Caesar's death ; but
he was soon warned to leave so dangerous a theme. He
wrote also largely on the history of Etruria and Car-
thage, and later authors often used the materials col-
lected by or for him. Of the latter of the two works
we read that a courtly club was formed at Alexandria to
read it regularly through aloud from year to year.

Such was the man who in his fiftieth year was raised
to the Empire by a soldier's freak, to rule in name bu|
to be in feet the puppet of his wives and AsEmperorhl?
freedmen. These were the real governors waaruled

„ , . , , , . . .	his wives and

of the world* and their intrigues and riyal- freeiamW !88

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 41-54.

ries and lust and greed have left their hateful stamp
upon his reign.

The freedmen had for a long time played an import-
ant part in the domestic life of Rome; for the household
slaves that were so numerous at this time in every fami-
The domestic ty ample means could look commonly
position of the for freedom after some years of faithful ser-

freedmen of	J

Rome,	vice, though their old master still had legal

claims upon them, and custom and old associations
bound them to their patron and his children. They
haunted the houses of the wealthy, filled all the offices
of trust, and ministered to their business and pleasures.
Among them there were many men of refinement and
high culture, natives of Greece and Asia, at least as well
educated as their masters, and useful to them in a hun-
dred ways as stewards, secretaries, physicians, poets,
confidants and friends. The Emperor's household was
organized like that of any noble. Here, too, there were
.. .. slaves for menial work, and freedmen for

and m the im-	.	....

gerial house- the posts of trust. The imperial position
0 '	was too new and ill-defined, the temper of

the people too republican as yet for men of high social
rank and dignity to be in personal attendance in the pa-
lace ; offices like those of high steward, chamberlain,
great seal, and treasurer to the monarch had the stigma
of slavery still branded on them, and were not such as
noblemen could covet. But these were already posts of
high importance, and much of the business of state was
already in the freedmen's hands. For by the side of the
Senate and the old curule officers of the Republic, the
Empire had set up, both in the city and the provinces, a
new system of administrative machinery, of which the
Emperor was the centre and mainspring. To issue in-
structions, check accounts, receive reports, and keep theA.D. 41-54.

Claudius.

89

needful registers became a daily increasing labor, and
many skilful servants soon were needed to

3	Important

be in constant attendance in the palace, offices filled
The funeral inscriptions of the time show by them*

that the official titles in the imperial household were be-
coming rapidly more numerous as the functions were
more and more subdivided. When the ruler was strong'
and self-contained, his servants took their proper places
as valets-de-chambre% ushers, and clerks, while a privi-
leged few were confidential agents and advisers. When
he was inexperienced or weak, they took the reins out
of his hands, and shamefully abused their power. Much
too low in rank to have a political career before them,
they were not weighted with the responsibilities of power,
and could not act like the cabinet ministers of modern
Europe. The theory of the constitution quite ignored
them, and they were only creatures of the Emperor,
who was not the fountain of honor, like later kings, and
could not make them noble if he would.

As high ambitions were denied them, and they could
not openly assert their talents, they fell back commonly
on lower aims and meaner arts. They lied Their sordid
and intrigued and flattered to push their ambition
way to higher place ; they used their power and greed'
to gratify a greedy avarice or sensual lust. Wealth was
their first and chief desire, and their master's confidence
once gained, riches flowed in upon them from all sides.
To get easy access to the sovereign's ear was a privi-
lege which all were glad to buy. The suitors who came
to ask a favor, a post of profit or of honor; the litigants
who feared for the goodness of their cause and wished
to have a friend at court; vassal princes and nume.
eager to stand well in the Emperor's graces, ]£^tic^por"
town councillors longing for some specialgo

The Earlier Empire.

a.d. 41-54.

boon or for relief from costly burdens; provincials of e very-
class and country ready to buy at any cost the substantial
gift of Roman franchise. Hundreds such as these all
sought the favorite in the antechamber, and schemed and
trafficked for his help. There was no time to be lost, in-
deed, for a monarch's favor is an unstable thing, and
shrewd adventurers like themselves were ever plotting to
displace them. At any moment they might be disgraced,
so they grasped every chance that brought
weSthinS them gain and speedily amassed colossal
fortunes. Men told a story at the time with
glee that when Claudius complained of scanty means a by-
stander remarked that he would soon be rich enough if two
of his favorite freedmen would admit him into partnership.

Now for the first time the personal attendants take a
prominent place in public thought, and history is forced
to note their names and chronicle their doings, and the
story of their influence passes from the scandalous gos-
sip of the palace to the pages of the gravest writers. In
the days of his obscurity they had shared the meaner for-
tunes of their master, enlivened his dullness by their wit,
and catered for his literary tastes. They had provided
theories of style and learning and research, though they
could not give him sense to use them, and now they
were doubtless eager to help their patron to make his-
tory, not to write it. Greedily they followed him to the
palace, and swooped upon the Empire as their prey.

Two of his old companions towered above all the
Pallas	rest, Pallas and Narcissus. The former had

been with Claudius from childhood, and
filled the place of keeper of the privy purse, or steward
of the imperial accounts. In such a post, with such a
master, it was easy for him to enrich himself, and he
did not neglect his opportunities. But his pride wasA.D. 41-54*

Claudius.

91

even more notable than his wealth. He would not
deign to speak even to his slaves, but gave them his
commands by gestures, or if that was not enough
by written orders. His arrogance did not even spare the
nobles and the Senate, but they well deserved such treat-
ment by their servile meanness. The younger Pliny
tells us some years afterwards how it moved his spleen
to find in the official documents that the Senate had
passed a vote of thanks to Pallas and a large money
grant, and that he had declined the gift and said he
would be content with modest poverty, if only he could
be still of dutiful service to his lord. A modest poverty
of many millions I

Narcissus was the Emperor's secretary, and as such
familiar alike with state secrets and with his masters'
personal concerns. He was always at his „ .

. ,	« .	1 • 1 i • • 1	Narcissus.

side, to jog his memory and guide his judg-
ment ; in the Senate, at the law courts, in cabinet coun-
cil, at the festive board, nothing could be done without
his knowledge; in most events of moment his influence
may be traced. Men chafed, no doubt, at the presump-
tion of the upstart, and told with malicious glee of the
retort made by the freedman Qf the conspirator Camil-
lus, who, when examined in the council-chamber by Nar-
cissus and asked what he would have done himself if his
master had risen to the throne, answered, " I should
have known my place, and held my tongue behind his
chair." They heard with pleasure too that when he
went on a mission to the mutinous soldiery in Britain,
and tried to harangue them from their general's tribune,
they would not even listen to him but drowned his voice
with the songs of the Saturnalia, the festive time at Rome,
when the slaves kept holiday and took their master's
places. But at Rome none dared to be so bold, though92

The Earlier Empire. A. d . 41-54.

his influence at court stirred the jealousy of many, who
whispered to each other that it was no wonder he grew
rich so fast when he made so much by peculation out of
the great works which he prompted Claudius to under-
take, and one of which at least, the outlet for the Lu-
crine Lake, caused almost a public scandal by its fail-
ure.

After them came Polybius, whose literary skill had
often served his patron in good stead and gave him con-

4 ,	stant access to his ear. No sinister motives

Polybius.

can be traced to him ; at worst we hear that
he was vain, and thought himself on a level with the
best, and liked to take the air with a consul at each side.
He had cool impudence enough, we read; for in the
theatre, when the people pointed at him as they heard a
line about a "beggar on horseback" who was hard to
brook, he quoted at once another line from the same
poet of the " kings that had arisen from a low estate."

Callistus lent to the new comers in the palace his long
experience of the habits of a court. He had served un-
der the last ruler, could suit his ways to

Callistus.

please his new master so unlike the old, and
soon took a high place among the ruling clique by his
tact and knowledge of the world of Rome. Felix, too,
Felix	whom we read of in the story of St. Paul,

gained, possibly through his brother Pallas,
the post of governor of Judea, but must have had rare
qualities to marry, as Suetonius tells us, three queens in
_ ..	succession. Posides was the soldier of the

Posides.

party. His military powers, shown in the
sixteen days' campaign of Claudius in Britain, raised
him above other generals in his master's eyes, like his
stately buildings which Juvenal mentions as out-topping
the Capitol. There is no need to carry on the list.A.B. 4I-$4.

Claudius.

93

These are only the most favored of the party, the best
endowed with natural gifts, the most trusted confidants
of Caesar.

The first care of the new government was to reassure
the public mind. Chcerea and his accom- ^ ^
pikes must die, indeed; for the murder of government
an Emperor was a fatal thing to overlook, the pubUclm
and they were said to have threatened the mmd/

life of Claudius himself. For all besides there was a
general amnesty. Marked deference was shown by the
new ruler to the Senate* and the bold words
latterly spoken by its members were un« dlkicST
noticed. Few honors were accepted in his da*wss*
own name, while the statues of Caius were withdrawn
from public places, his acts expunged from all official
registers, and his claims to divine honors ignored, as
those of Tiberius had been before. The people were
kept in good humor by the public shows and merry-ma-
kings, as the soldiers had been by the promise of fifteen
hundred sesterces a man ; and so the new reign began
amid signs of general contentment.

The next care of the little clique was to keep their
master in good humor, to flatter his vanities and gratify
his tastes, while they played upon his weak-
ness and governed in his name. This they kipuiUgoo<j
did for years with rare success, thanks to	}>y

their intimate knowledge of his character
and to the harmony that prevailed among themselves.
He had all the coarse Roman's love for public games, and
was never weary of seeing gladiators fight;

so they helped him to indulge his tastes and J^cuci£kh
make merry with the populace of Rome.

As the common round of spectacles was not enough,
new shows must be lavishly provided. From the early94

The Earlier Empire. a,d. 41-54.

morning till the entertainment closed he was always in
his seat, eager to see the cages of the wild beasts opened
and to lose nothing of the bloody sport. The spectators
could always see him, with his wagginghead and the broad
grin upon his slobbering mouth, could hear him often
crack his poor jokes on what went on, sometimes noted
with amusement how he hurried with his staggering legs
across the arena to coax or force the reluctan t gladiators
to resume their deadly work. They noted also that he
had the statue of Augustus first veiled and then remo ved
from the scene of bloodshed, as if the cruel sport that
amused the living must offend the saintly dead,

He was fond also of good cheer, so fond of it that
he sometimes lost sight of his dignity. One day as he
sat upon the judgment-seat he smelt the sa-
cS^of°oJt vor a burnt-offering in a temple close at
r"	hand, and breaking up the court in haste,

he hurried to take his seat at dinner with the priests.
At another time, in the Senate, when the discussion
turned on licensing the public-houses, he gravely spoke
about the merits of the different wine-shops where he
had been treated in old days. So feasting was the order
of the day; great banquets followed one upon the other,
and hundreds of guests were bidden to his table, at which
few ate or drank so freely or so coarsely as h imself.

But he had more royal tastes than these, for he aspired
to be a sort of Solomon upon the seat of justice. As
, , magistrate or as assessor by the curole

His love for , .	A t

judicial chair, or m the Senate, when grave cases
worSc»	were debated, he would sit for hours listen-

ing to the pleaders or examining the witnesses, sometimes
showing equity and insight, sometimes so frivolous and
childish in his comments, that litigants and lawyers lost
their patience altogether.4I-S4-

Claudius.

m

As the father of the people, it seemed one of ins first
cares to find Ms children bread, mud no little time audi
thought were spent by him or by his agents ^ ^ ^
in seeing that the granaries were filled and ^v3»i«L?«»g
t!*e markets well supplied. Yet the poor
were not always grateful, for one# when prices rose they
crowded in upon him in the Forum and pelted him with
hard words and crusts of bread, till he was glad to slink
out by aback door to his palace* for his
was certainly the familiarity that breeds
contempt; his presence* speech, and cha-
imcter were too ungainly and undignified
to impose respect; and even in his proclamations his
advisers let him air his folly to the world. Sometimes
he spoke in them about his personal foi- Want 0f
bles; confessed that he had a hasty tern- tv into py?"
per* but that it soon passed away; and ^

said that in years gone by he had acted like a simpleton
to disarm the jealousy of Caius. Then again he put out
public edicts as full of household cures and recipes as
the talk of any milage gossip.

He had little taste for military exploits % yet once It
was thought prudent to excite Ms martial ardor, that he
might lave the pleasure of a real triumph*

like the commanders of old days. At the
crisis of a campaign in Britain, when the ISjJf1*4
preparations had been made lor victory,

the general sent to summon Claudius to the seat of war*
All had been done to make the journey pleasant, the
carnage even had been specialty arranged to make it
easy for him to while away the time by the games of
dice which he loved so well; and though the waves and
winds were not so complaisant or so regardful of his
comforts, he rcached at hist the distant island, in time to96

7%e Marikr Empire.

a.IK 4*~S4-

receive the submission of the native princes and to be
hailed at Emperor on the battle-field.

Meanwhile the freedmen reaped their golden harvest;
having early agreed upon a common course of action,
e ,, they divided the spoil without dispute.
tr»mc*>fihe They trafficked in the offices of state, be-
rfc«4m«a, stored commissions in the army, sold the
verdicts of the law courts* and put up the Emperor's la*
vor to the highest bidder. One privilege, which millions
m «wi in craved, the citizenship of Rome, was above
1h«*granf©r ail a source of income to the favored freed*

dtomhip, mcn> who cmM gct their master.s sig„atore

to any deed. He has, indeed, in history the credit of a
which ma	policy of incorporation, and speeches

IccounrlS are put into his mouth in which he argues
la*httrc-iy from the best precedents of earlier days in
tpect,	favor of opening the doors to alien races.

It may be that his study of the past had taught him
something; but It is likely that the interest of his minis*
tors did more to further a course which in their hands
was so lucrative a form of jobbery* It was a common
jest to say thai the market was so overstocked at last
that the franchise went for a mere song*

But these, after all, were petty gains, and they needed
a more royal road to wealth. They found it in a new
kind of proscription. They marked out for
2t«y<h« pr£ death and confiscation those who had
^hiyfiork- houses or gardens which they coveted,
mg ««made out the rich men to be malcontents
*****' * and the city to be full of traitors. It was
easy to work upon the Emperor's fears, for he had al-
ways been an abject craven, and was always fancying
hidden daggers, A telling story, a mysterious warning,
or a dream invented for the purpose, almost anythingA.D. 41-54-

Claudius.

97

could throw him off his balance and make him give the
fatal order. Nor did they always wait for that,N One
day a centurion came to give in his report. He had, in
pursuance of his orders, killed a man of consular rank.
Claudius had never known of it before, but approved
the act when he heard the soldiers praised for being so
ready to avenge their lord. When the list was i^iade
out in later times, it was believed that thirty-five
members of the Senate and some three hundred knights
fell as victims to the caprice or greed of the clique; that
governed in the name of Claudius, many of them with-
out any forms of justice, or at best with the hurried
mockery of atrial in the palace. So fatal to a people

may be the weakness of its rulers. It was .

•	11	r r t • 1 who sc on

noticed as a scandalous proof of his reck- forgot that

lessness in bloodshed that he soon forgot the fata?ven

even what had passed, and bade the very order*

men to supper whose death-warrant he had signed, &nd

wondered why they were so late in coming.

The guilt of these atrocities must be shared also by
his wives. Of these Claudius married sev- ^ ■
eral in succession, but two especially stand	>

out in history for the horror of all times.	I

Messalina's name has passed into a byword for un-
bounded wantonness without disguise or shame. H^er
fatal influence ruined or degraded all she Mewaiina
touched. The pictures painted of her in	/

old writers give no redeeming features in her characteir,
no single unselfish aim or mental grace, nothing btit
sensual appetites in a form of clay. Her beauty gained
her an easy command over her husband's heart, but n;ot
content with that her wanton fancy ranged „

Her unbounded

through every social order and shrank from wantonness
no impure advances Some whom she -j#

H	"i98	The Earlier Empire. a.d. 41-54.

tempted had repelled her in their virtue or disgust, but
her sighted love soon turned to hatred, and on one false
plea for other she took the forfeit of their lives. For she
had jno scruples or compunction, no shrinking from the
sights of blood ; and pity, if she ever felt it, was with her
only'a mere passing thrill, a counter-irritant to other
' i . feelings of the flesh. The Roman Jezebel

and cruelty.	°	J

coveted, we read, the splenaid gardens of
Lucilillus, and to get them had a lying charge of treason
brought against Valerius Asiaticus, their owner. His
defence was so'pathetic as to move all those who heard
himi in the Emperor's chamber, and to make even Mes-
salirra weep. But as she hurried out to dry her tears she
whimpered to her agent, who stood beside, that for all
this %he accused must not escape.

For a long time she was wise enough to court or
1	humor the confederates of the palace, and

At test she	r »

defidd the so far her course of crime was easy. At

ree men jast threw off such restraints of prudence,

turped upon Polybius, who had taken her favors in too

/	serious a mood, and rid herself for ever of

Pofcbiu? kis ill-timed jealousy. The other freedmen

took his fate as a warning of defiance to

them all, looked for a struggle of life and death, and

watched their opportunity to strike. The chance soon

came, for Messalina cast her lustful eyes on

anq causes	J

s "andai b a y°un£ n°kle, an<l did not scruple to parade
marrying her insolent contempt for Claudius by
Sfiius.	forcing Silius to public marriage. It was

t^e talk of the whole town, but the Emperor was the last
•toj know it. Then Narcissus saw the time was come,
apd, though the rest wavered, he was firm. In concert
w itii his confidants he opened the husband's eyes, and
worked skilfully upon his fears with dark warningsa.d. 41-54.	Claudius.

99

about plots and revolution; prevented Narcissus tells

any intercourse between them, lest her

wiles and beauty might prove fatal to his scheme,

and at last boldly ordered her death, while

Claudius gave no sign and asked no ques- §^^res

tion. She died in the gardens of Lucullus,

purchased so lately by the murder of their owner.

The Emperor soon after made a speech to his guards
upon the subject, bemoaned his sorry lucl^in marriage,
and told them they might use their swords upon him if
he ever took another wife. But his freedmen

Debate among

knew him better, and were already in debate the freedmen
upon the choice of a new. wife. Callistus, choice of a
Pallas, and Narcissus each had his separate newwlfe>
scheme in view, and the rival claims broke up the old
harmony between them. The choice of Pallas fell on
Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus and . . .

.	.	,	Agnpptna, his

niece of Claudius. Married at the age of niece, carries
twelve to Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, a offthePnze>
man of singular ferocity of temper, she had brought him
a son who was to be one day famous. She had been
foully treated by Caligula, her brother, and banished to
an island till his death. Recalled by Claudius, she learnt
prudence from the fate of the two Juliae, sister and cousin,
who fell victims to the jealousy of Messalina. She
shunned all dangerous rivalry at court, and was content
to exchange her widowhood for the quiet country life of
a new husband, one of the richest men in Rome, who,
dying shortly after, left Domitius his heir, and gave her
back her freedom when the time was come for her to use
it. Her first care was to gain a powerful ally at court.
She found one soon in Pallas, who was as proud and
ambitious as herself, and she stooped to be the mistress
of a minion while aspiring to be an Emperor's wife.ioo

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 41-54.

When Pallas pleaded for her in the council-chamber,
where the merits of the different claimants were long
and anxiously discussed, she did not spare to use her
feminine wiles upon the weak old man. By right of
kinship she had a ready access to the palace, and could
lavish her caresses and her blandishments upon him.
yThe fort besieged so hotly fell at once, and she was soon
his wife in all but name. For awhile he seemed to waver
at the thought of shocking public sentiment by a mar-
riage with his niece; but those scruples were soon swept
aside by the courtly entreaties of the Senate and the
clamor of a hired mob.

Agrippina showed at once that she meant to be regent

who showed aS We^ aS W^e*	&rasPe(l	a ^rm

at once her hand the reins of power, still relied upon the

ruie'su-1110 veteran statecraft and experience of Pallas,

preme,	an(j maintaining with him the old intrigue,

broke up the league of the confederates. The feminine

rivals whose influence she feared were swept

swept aside aside by banishment or death. Lollia above

her rivals,	J

all had crossed her path, and seemed likely
to carry off the prize. She did not rest till the order was
given for her death and a centurion des-
Loiiia^ly patched to bring her head. Then—so runs
the horrid story—to make sure that the
ghastly face was really that of the beautiful woman she
had feared and hated, she pushed up the pallid lips to
feel the teeth, whose form she knew. Then she felt that
she was safe, and received the title of Augusta from the
Senate. She had the doings of her court reported in the
official journals of the day, and gave the law to all the
hadOctavia social world of Rome. Two children of
betrothed to Claudius, bv Messalina, Britannicus and

her son,	J	• •

Octavia, stood in the path of her ambition.A.D. 41-54.

Claudius.

101

Of these the latter was at once betrothed to her young
son, who was pushed forward rapidly in the career of
honors, ennobled even with proconsular authority, and
styled "Prince of the Youth" even in his seventeenth
year. Meantime the star of the young Britannicus was
paling, and men noted with suspicion that and ^
all the trusted guards and servants of the trusted «w-
boy were one by one removed and their Britannicus
places filled with strangers. Of the freed- removed-
men of the palace Narcissus only had not bowed before
her; with gloomy look and ill-concealed suspense he still
watched over his patron and his children. His strength
of character and long experience gave him a hold over
his master that was still unshaken, and Agrippina did
not dare to attack him face to face. But his enmity was
not to be despised. He had sealed the doom of one
wife—he might yet destroy another. There	.

,	Afraid of

was something to alarm her also in the Narcissus
mood of Claudius, weak dotard as he was, andofdelay>
for strange words fell from him in his drunken fits,
coupled with maudlin tenderness for his own children
and suspicious looks at Nero. There seemed no time,
therefore, to be lost, and she decided to act promptly.
She seized the opportunity when Narcissus , ,

f..	, ,	t* 1	she had

was sent away awhile to take the waters for the Claudius
gout; and while his watchful eye was off her, poisoned,
she calledtoheraidthe skill of the poisoner Locusta and
gave Claudius the fatal dose in the savory dish he loved.

Scarcely was he dead when Seneca wrote for the
amusement of the Roman circles a withering satire on
the solemn act by which he was raised to
the rank of the immortals. In a medley of Jhe satire of

J	Seneca on

homely prose and lofty verse he pictures the the deifica-
scene above at the moment of the Emperor's d£s.°f Clau"102

The Earlier Empire.

4I-S4-

death. Mercury had taken pity on his lingering agony,
and begged Clotho, one of the three Fates, to cut short
his span of life. She tells him that she was only waiting
till he had made an end of giving the full franchise to
the world. Already by his grace Greeks and Gauls,
Spaniards and Britons wore the toga, and only a few
remnants were still left uncared for. But at length she
lets loose the struggling soul. Then the

The scene	t	&T . .	t

when ciau- scene shifts to heaven. Jupiter is told that
fnUheavene.S a stranger had just come hobbling in, a bald
old man, who waggedhis head so much and
spoke so thick that no one could make out his meaning,
for it did not sound like Greek or Roman or any sort of
civilized speech. Hercules, as being used to monsters,
is deputed to ask him whence he comes, and he does
this as a Greek in words of Homer. Claudius, glad to
find scholars up in heaven who may perhaps think well
of his own works of history, caps the quotation with ano-
ther about a short journey made to Troy, and might have
imposed on the simple-minded god, if the goddess Fever
had not come up at that moment from the Roman shrine
where she was worshipped, and said that he was only
born at Lugdunum, in the country of the old Gauls, who,
like himself, had taken the capital by storm. Claudius,
in his anger, made the usual gesture by which he ordered
men's heads off their shoulders, but no one minded him
any more than if they had been his own proud freed-
men ; so, remembering that he could not strut and crow
any more on his own dunghill, he begs Hercules to befriend
him and to plead his cause in the council-
The debate chamber of the gods. This he does with
admission some effect, and when the debate opens
most of the speakers seem inclined to let
Claudius come in. But at length Augustus rises, and withA.D. 41-54.

Claudius.

energy denounces his successor, who had JSmaftertiie
shed so much noble blood like water, and
murdered so many of the family of the
Csesars without a trial or a hearing. His speech and
vote decide the question, and Claudius is

^	,	He is dragged

dragged away to Hades with a noose about to
his throat like the victims of his cruelty. As * es'
he passes on his way through Rome his funeral dirge is
being sung, and he hears the snatches of it and passing
which mentioned in his praise that no one through

,	,	r • J	^ Rome, hears

ever was so speedy on the seat of judgment, the dirges on
or could decide so easily after hearing one himself-
side only, or sometimes neither; and that pleaders and
gamblers would keenly feel the loss of a monarch who
had loved so much the law, court, and the dice-box.
The spirits in Hades raise a shout of triumph when they
hear that he is near, and all whom he had sent before
him throng about him as he enters. There they stand,
the intimates, the kinsmen he had doomed to

'	t	The spirits

death, the senators, the knights, and less of his victims
honored names as countless as the sand on triumph
the seashore, and silently confront the roundhim>
fallen tyrant. But Claudius, seeing all the well-known
faces, forgetting, as he often did in life, or even ignorant
of the causes of their death, said, "Why, here are all
friends! How ever came you hither?" . , ..

J	and drag him

Then they curse him to his face and drag before the

him ,to the chair of JEacus, the judge, who ceive his fit-

coi}|(femns him unheard, to the surprise of ting doom-

all, save the criminal himself. After some thought a

fitting penalty was found. Claudius was doomed to play

for all eternity with a dice-box that had no bottom.io4

The Earlier Empire.

A.D. 54-68.

CHAPTER V.

nero.—a.d. 54-68.

We read that when Domitius was told that he had a son,
he said that any child of his by Agrippina must prove
an odious and baneful creature. The mother
life of Nero asked her brother .Caius, the Emperor, to
give the child a name, but he pointed to
Claudius, his laughing-stock, and said that the little one
should bear his name, though the mother angrily pro-
tested at the omen. Soon afterwards he lost his parent's
care by death and banishment, and was brought up at
the house of his aunt Lepida, entrusted to the charge of
a dancing-master and a barber, till brighter times came
back with the return of his mother from her place of
exile. He rose with Agrippina's rise to power, and be-
came the central object of her ambitious hopes; for, the
sister of one emperor and wife of another, she was de-
, , termined to be the mother of a third. At

Brought for-
ward by his the age of ten she had him made the adopted

adopted by son of Claudius, when he took the name of

Claudius, Nero. The choice of Seneca to be his tutor

met with the approval of men of worth and culture; the

appointment of Burrhus to be the sole prsefect of the

praetorian guard secured the support of the armed force

of Rome. His betrothal to Octavia strengthened his

claims still further, and stirred the jealousy of the young

Britannicus and the grave fears of the old servants like

Narcissus. The issue showed how well-founded were

those fears. As soon as the death of Claudius was madeA.D. 54-68.

Nero.

known, Nero, hurrying to the camp of his advisers,
spoke the soldiers fairly, and making ample promises of
largess, was saluted Emperor by acclama- ,

1 •	f * •	he was saluted

tion. i he claims of Bntannicus were set as Emperor by

aside, and no voice was raised even in the the soldiers*

Senate in his favor.

At first the strong will of Agrippina seemed to give
the tone to the new government. Votes were passed in
her honor by the Senate; the watchword given to the
soldiers was, " The best of mothers." To
satisfy her resentment or to calm her fears Agrippfna^
Narcissus had to die. That she might take J"*? at first

®	to govern,

her part in all concerns of the State the
Senate was called to the palace to debate, where behind
a curtain she could hear and not be seen. But the two
chief advisers of the prince, though they owed their
places to her favor, had no mind to be the tools of a bold
bad woman, behind whom they could still see the form
of the haughty minion Pallas.

The praefect of the praetorians, Afranius Burrhus, who
wielded the armed force of the new government, was a
man of grave and almost austere character, , ' ,

, , ,	. , . , _ 'but Burrhus,

whose name had long stood high at Rome the praefect
for soldierly discipline and honor. His ofthesuard»
merits had given him a claim to his high rank, and he
would not stoop to courtier-like compliance. He used
his weighty influence for good, though he had at times to
stand by and witness evil which he was powerless to
check.

L. Annaeus Seneca represented the moral force of the
privy council, though he had the more yielding and com-
pliant temper of the two. Sprung from a and Seneca,
rich family of Corduba, in Spain, his ^^"fNero
wealth and good connections and brilliantio6

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 54-68.

powers of rhetoric had made him popular in early life
with the highest circles of the capital, till he gained to
his cost the favor of the Emperor's sister. Banished by
the influence of Messalina, he had turned to philosophy
for comfort, and won high repute among the serious
world of Rome by the earnestness and fervor of his let-
ters. Few stood higher among the moral writers of the
day, no one seemed fitter by experience and natural tastes
to bexdirector of the conscience of the young nobility.

With rare harmony, though different methods, the
took the	two advisers used their influence to sway the

reins cut of young Emperor's mind and to check the
overweening pride of Agrippina. They
took the reins of power from her hand and reassured the
public mind, which had been unnerved by the despotic
venal government of late years, with its tyrant menials
. ... and closest trials. They restored to the

and ruled in	'

his name Senate some portion of its old authority and
andhpru-mty chose the public servants wisely. For five
dence,	years the world was ruled with dignity and

order, for the young Emperor reigned in name, but did
not governs and the acts that passed for his were grave
and prudent, while the very words even were put into
his mouth for state occasions. When the Senate sent a
vote of thanks he bade them keep their gratitude till he
deserved it; and when he had to sign a death-warrant,
he said that he wished he was not scholar enough to
write his name. The pretty phrases were repeated; men
did not stay to ask if they were Seneca's or Nero's, but
hoped that they might prove the key-note of the new
reign. But the two ministers meantime had cause for
though they grave misgivings, for they had long studied
saw cause 'for their young charge with watchful eyes,
grave misgivings.	regret ^ow Xittle theya.d. 54.-68.

Nero.

could do to mould his character as they could wish.
Burrhus had failed to teach him in the camp any
of the virtues of a soldier; all the lessons of temperance,
hardihood, and patience left no traces in his mind
Seneca had been warned, we read, by Agrippina that the
quibbles of philosophy would be too mean for his young
pupil. He had little taste himself for the orators of the
Republic, and did not care to point to them for lessons
of manly dignity and freedom. But he did his best to
teach him wisdom, spoke to him earnestly of duty, wrote
for him moral treatises, full of thought and
epigram, on themes like clemency and theirefitot
anger, but could not drop the language of	his

the court, and hinted in his very warnings
that the prince was raised above the law—was almost a
god to make and to destroy.

Nero even from his youth had turned of choice to other
teachers. ^ He had little taste for the old Roman drill
in arms and law and oratory, and was, it was noted, the
first of the emperors who had his speeches
written for him, from lack of readiness in passionfora
public business. * But he had a real passion the fine arts
for the arts of Greece, for music, poetry, and acting ;*had
the first masters of the age to train him, studied with
them far into the night, and soon began to pride himself
upon the inspiration of the Muses. To gain time for
such pursuits he was well content to leave the business
of State to graver heads, and to take his part only in the
pageant. He had other pleasures of a meaner stamp.
Soon it was the talk of Rome that the young Emperor
stole out in disguise at night, went to low
haunts or roved about the streets with noisy and for low
roysterers like himself, broke into taverns dissipation,
and assaulted quiet citizens, and showedio8	The Earlier Empire. a.d. 54-68.

even in his mirth the signs of latent wantonness and
cruelty.

His boon companions were not slow to foster the pride
and insolence of rank, to bid him use the power he
had, and free himself without delay from petticoat rule
and the leading-strings of greybeards. Their counsels
fell on willing ears. He had long been weary of his
mother. She had ruled him as a boy by fear rather than
by Iovq, and now she could not stoop willingly to a
.	lower place. She wanted to be regent still,

His impa-	r	°

tience of his and hoped perhaps to see her son content to
Sraint*	sing and act and court the Muses, while she

his TdvUerf governed in his name. But he had listened
gladly to ministers who schooled him to
curb her ambition and assert himself. He looked on
calmly while they checked her control over the Senate,
put aside her chief adviser, Pallas, annulled the despotic
acts of the last reign, and took the affairs of state out of
her hands. She was not the woman to submit without a
struggle. There were stormy scenes sometimes between
them, and then again she tried with a woman's blandish-
ments to recover the ground that she had lost. She talked
of the wrongs of the young Britannicus, and spoke of
stirring the legions in his favor. As Nero's love for
Octavia cooled she took to her home the injured wife
and made public parade of sympathy and pity. When it
was too late, she changed her course of action, condoned
and offered even to disguise the amorous license on which
she had frowned before so sternly, and tried in vain to
win his love with a studied tenderness that would refuse
him nothing.

Nero's chief ministers had put him on his guard against
her and roused his jealousy and fear. They had now
to stand by and see the struggle take its course,A.D. 54-68.

Nero.

109

and watch the outcome with a growing hor- ^ toTengths
ror. Britannicus, of whose name such im- they had not
pudent use was made, was Stricken at din- e
ner with a sudden fit and taken out to die, as all men
thought, by poison. His poor sister hid her

. r .	i_Ai_	,	i- Treatment of

grief in silence, but she was soon to be ai- Brltannicu*

vorced. Agrippina was first stripped of all and°ctavia-
her guard of honor and forced to leave her house upon
the Palatine; false informers were let loose upon her and
wanton insolence encouraged. It was mur-
mured that the dread Locusta was at work ^o*sonmptS
brewing her poisonous drugs, and that three fofjJ[J£pina
times they tried in vain to poison her. One
day it was found that the canopy above her bed was so
arranged that the ropes must soon give way, and the
whole crush her as she lay in sleep. At length Nero
could wait no longer, and he found a willing tool in
Anicetus, the admiral of his fleet, and between them a
dark plot was hatched. It was holiday-time, and Nero
was taking the baths at Baise. Suddenly he wrote a
letter to his mother full of sorrow at the past estrange-
ment and of hopes that they might live on dark
better terms if she would only come and see scheme to
him as of old. She came at once, and found the BayCof
a hearty welcome; was pressed to stay on NaPles.
one plea or another till at last night was come. Nero
conducted her to a barge of state and left her with tender
words and fond embraces. She was not far upon her
homeward way across the bay, when at a signal given,
the deck fell crashing in and the barge rolled over on its
side; and the crew, far from coming to the rescue, struck
with their oars at Agrippina and her women as they
struggled in the water. But she was quiet and kept afloat
awhile, till a boat picked her up and carried her to herno

The Earlier Empire. A. D. 5 4-68.

home, to brood over the infamous design. At last she

Its failure Sent ^ messenger to ^er son	s^e was

safe though wounded. Nero, baffled in his
murderous hopes and haunted by fears of vengeance,
was for awhile irresolute. He even called into counsel
Seneca and Burrhus, and told them of his plot and of its
failure. They would have no hand in her death, though
they had no hope, perhaps no wish to save her. While
r „ ,, they talk Anicetus acts. He hastens with an

followed by	J

her murder. officer or two to Agrippina's house, makes
a. d. 59. .j^s way through the startled crowd about the
shore, and finds her in her bed-room all alone. There,
while she eyes them fiercely and bids them strike the
womb that bore the monster, they shower their blows
upon her and leave her lifeless body gashed with
wounds.

The ministers of Nero must share the infamy of this
unnatural deed. They had already tarnished their good

name by mean compliance.. To save the
Senecafto™1 power that was slipping from their grasp
1 raceme" they had closed their eyes to Nero's vices :
fendecl the they had tried even to cloak his youthful
'	passion for a freedwoman by a paltry subter-

fuge ; they had held their peace when Britannicus was
poisoned, and stooped even to share the bounties that
were showered at the time upon the courtiers; and now
they sunk so low in good men's eyes as to defend the
deed from the thought of which even Nero at first shrunk
aghast. Burrhus, we read, sent officers of the praetorian
guard to announce the soldiers' joy that their sovereign
was safe for ever from his mother's plots. Seneca's
hand drew up the despatches to the Senate in which the
murdered woman was charged with treasonable designs
against the Emperor's life, and all the worst horrors ofA.D. 54-68.

Nero.

hi

the days of Claudius were raked up to cover her memory
with shame. The Senate, too, was worthy of its prince,
and voted solemn thanksgivings for his andpublic
safety, while Thrasea alone protested by his opinion con-
silence, and walked out of the house at last ne
when he could brook their flattery no longer. Even
distant cities found an excuse for mean servility. One
deputation came to beg Nero in the name of the pro-
vincials to bear his heavy grief with patience.

*The Emperor came back to Rome to find the city
decked out in festive guise to greet him like a con-
quering hero. So, rid at length of all fear of Nero ^
rivalry or moral restraints from his advisers,* himself up to
he gave free vent to his desires.* Music and hls pleasures>
song, the circus and the theatre had been the passion,
of his childhood; they were now to be the chief object
of his life. vHe shared the tastes of the populace of Rome,
and catered for them with imperial grandeur. No cost
or care was spared to make the spectacles imposing and
worthy of the master of the world. The old national
prejudice had looked on the actor's trade as. _ -

* J	drove free-

almost infamous for freeborn Romans ; but born Romans
Nero drove upon the stage citizens of rank, on 1 e sta8e'
knights and senators of ancient lineage, and made them
play and act and dance before the people. The his-
torian Dion Cassius rises from his sober prose almost to
eloquence when he describes the descendants of the
conquered races pointing the finger at the sons of the
great families from which their victors sprung; the
Greeks asking with surprise and scorn if that was indeed
Mummius, the Spaniards marveling to see a Scipio, the
Macedonians an jEmilius before them. At last, as if it
were to cover their disgrace—or, as many thought,
to share it—Nero appeared himself in public, and112

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 54-68.

and at iajt sang and played and acted for the prize, and

appeared on	„ , ,	,	x

it himself, sought the plaudits of the crowd. He did not
take it up as the mere pastime of an idle day,
but practised and studied in real earnest, showed feverish
jealousy of rival actors, and humbly bowed before the
judges, as if the contest was a real one. No one might
- ,. . leave the theatre while he played; Vespasian

taking to it

in real	was seen to nod, and sunk at once in his

earnest.	good graces. Five thousand sturdy youths

were trained to sit in companies among the audience
and give the signal for applause. Not content with such
display at Rome, he starred it even in the provinces.
The Greeks were the great connoisseurs of all the fine
arts; in their towns were glorious prizes to be won, and
. Greece alone was worthy of his voice and talents.
Greece was worthy also of her ruler; nowhere was
adulation more refined, nowhere did men flatter with
more subtle tact the pride and vanity of the artist-prince.

We cannot doubt that Nero had a genuine love of
art. It may seem as if he lived to justify the modern
New> had a fancy that art has a sphere and canons of its
real love of own, and may be quite divorced from moral
art*	laws. But indeed the art of Nero and his

times was bad, and that because it was not moral. It
set at naught the eternal laws of truth and simplicity,
of temperance-and order. In poetry and
was'bad^be- music it was full of conceits and affecta-
immoralwaS tions, straining after the fantastic. In plastic
art size was thought of more than beauty
of proportion, and men aimed at the vast and grandiose
in enormous theatres and colossal statues. In place of
the delicate refinement of Greek taste its drama sought
for coarse material effects; it did not try by flight of
fancy to stir the nobler feelings of the heart, but reliedA.D. 54-68.

Nero.

on sensuous pageantry and carnal horrors to goad and
sate the morbid taste for what was coarse, ferocious,
and obscene.

Nero's life as Emperor was one long series of stage
effects, of which the leading feature was a feverish ex-
travagance. His return from the art-tour in

..., ,, , . , n	.	Nero's ex-

Greece outdid all the triumphal processions travagant
of the past. Thousands of carriages were awpky#
needed for his baggage; his sumpter mules were shod
with silver; and all the towns he passed upon his way
received him through a breach made in their walls, for
such he heard was the " sign of honor'' with which their
citizens were wont to welcome the Olympian victors of
old days. The public works which he designed were
more to feed his pride than serve the public. He
wanted, like another Xerxes, to cut a canal through the'
Corinthian isthmus; thought of making vast lakes to
be supplied from the hot springs of Baiae, and schemed
great works by which the sea might be brought almost
to the walls of Rome. But it was only by his buildings
that he left enduring traces, and to this the especially in
great disaster of his times gave an unlooked- buiIdins»
for impulse. Some little shops in the low grounds near
the Circus took fire by chance. The flames
spread fast through the narrow streets and gre^fire'of
crowded alleys of the quarter, and soon ^eS^^ave
began to climb up the higher ground to the petus.
statelier houses of the wealthy. Almost a
week the fire was burning, and of the fourteen wards of
the city only four escaped unharmed. Nero was at An-
tium when the startling news arrived, and he reached
Rome too late to save his palace. He threw his gardens
open to the homeless poor, lowered at once the price of
corn, and had booths raised in haste to shelter them.

Iii4

The Earlier Empire. A. D. 5 4-6 8.

He did not lack sympathy for the masses of the city,
whose tastes he shared and catered for. And yet the
story spread that the horrors of the blazing
ramoreas26	caught his excited fancy, that he saw

ductS C°n~ *n ** a scene worthy °fan Emperor to act in,
and sung the story of the fall of Troy among
the crashing ruins and the fury of the flames. Even
wilder fancies spread among the people: men whispered
that his servants had been seen with lighted
suspicions. torches in their hands as they were hurrying
to and fro to spread the fire. For Nero had
been heard to wish that the old Rome of crooked streets
and crowded lanes might be now swept clean away, that
he might rebuild it on a scale of royal grandeur. Cer-
tainly he claimed for himself the lion's share of the
space that the flames had cleared.

The palace to which the Palatine hill had given a name
now took a wider range and spread to the Esquiline,
including in its vast circuit long lines of
" Golden porticoes, lakes, woods, and parks; while
for°him onUthe tlle buildings were so lavishly adorned with
most splendid every art as to deserve the name of the

scale,

"Golden House" which the people's fancy
gave to them. In its vestibule stood the colossal figure
of the Emperor, one hundred and twenty feet in height,
which afterwards gave its name to the Colosseum. From
it stretched porticoes a mile in length, supported on triple
ranges of marble pillars, leading to the lake, round
which was built a mimic town, opening out into parks
stocked with wild animals of every sort. The halls were
lined with gold and precious stones; the banqueting-
rooms were fitted with revolving roofs of ivory, per-
forated to scatter flowers and perfumes on the guests,
while shifting tables seemed to vanish of themselves andA.D. 54-68.

Nero.

US

re-appear charged with richest viands. There,were baths
too to suit all tastes, some supplied from the waters of
the sea, and some filled with sulphurous streams that
had their sources miles away.

Thousands of the choicest works of art of Greece and
Asia had been destroyed, but their place was taken by
the paintings and the statues brought from
every quarter of the empire. Nero sent ^fh^hean^
special agents to ransack the cities for art- Greece* °f
treasures, and many a town among the isles
of Greece mourned in after days the visit that had des-
poiled it of some priceless treasure.

When all was done and the Emperor surveyed the
work, even he was satisfied, and he cried, " Now at least
I feel that I am lodged as a man should be." It was in
halls like these that the privileged few gathered round
their lord when he returned from the grave business of
the circus and the stage to indulge in the pleasures of
the table. Otho, the profligate dandy, who had been
complaisant enough to lend his wife to Nero •

n«	- - ,	,	,	Its most pnvi-

Tigellinus, praefect of the guards, ready to leged in-
pander to his master's worst caprices; Vati- mates*

nius, the hunchback, who had left his cobbler's bench
and pushed his fortunes in the palace by his scurrilous
jests and reckless attacks on honest men; Sporus, the
poor eunuch, and Pythagoras, the freedman, both de-
graded by the mockery of marriage with the wanton
prince—these and many another whose names have not
been gibbeted in history left their memories of infamy in
that " House of Gold."

The mood of the citizens meanwhile was dark and
lowering as they brooded over their disas- Xo turn suspi_
ters, and Nero looked to find some victims cion frcm him.

self,

to fill their thoughts or turn their suspicionn6

The Earlier Empire.

a.d. 54-68.

from himself. The Christians were the scapegoats chosen.

Confused in the popular fancy with the Jews,
Christians6 his whose bigotry and turbulence had made
victims and his them hated, looked upon askance by Roman

scapegoats,	r	J

rulers as members of secret clubs and pos-
sible conspirators, disliked probably by those who knew
them best for their unsocial habits or their tirades against
the fashions of the times, the Christians were sacrificed
alike to policy and hatred. They deserved their fate,
says Tacitus, not, indeed, because they were guilty of the
fire, but from their hatred of mankind. There was a
refinement of cruelty in their doom. vSome were covered
with the skins of beasts, and fierce dogs were let loose
to worry them. Others were tied to stakes and smeared
with tar, and then at nightfall, one after
mentofcrudty another, they were set on fire, that their
themnuring burning bodies might light up Nero's gar-
dens,* while the crowds made merry with
good cheer, and the Emperor looked curiously on as at
the play. No wonder that in the pages even of the hea-
then writers we hear something like a cry of horror, and
that in the Christian literature we may trace the lurid
colors of such scenes in the figures of Antichrist and in
the visions of the coming judgment.

But Nero did not often waste his thought and inge-
nuity on such poor prey as the artizans and freedmen
of the Christian Churches. CHis victims were commonly
of higher rank, and the nearer to him the
werecommo^ nearer they seemed to deaths His aunt
rank higher followed his mother to the grave, and her
tender words to him as she lay upon her
IS ' death-bed were rewarded by a message to
Octavia5' ^er doctor to prorap* an(l close her pains.

Octavia was soon divorced and killed, on aA.D. 54-68.

Nero.

117

charge of faithlessness, which was so carelessly con-
trived as to shock men by its very wantonness of power.
Poppaea, her successor, was dearly loved, and yet he
killed her in a fit of passion with a hasty
kick. He soon wearied of the grave face of Poppsea»
Burrhus, who read in his coolness the omen Burrhus
of a speedy death. Before long he grew sick
and felt that he was poisoned. He pointed to the blood
that he spat up as the signs of princely gratitude, would
not see Nero when he called to ask him how he felt,
but said only, " Well," and turned his face away and died.
Seneca was longer spared, but he too felt that his time
must come. He held himself aloof from court, tried to
give up all his wealth and honors, to live
austerely, and by the lessons of philosophy to |^n®'^fm^ared
make himself strong and self-contained, or
to be director of the consciences of those who needed
help and comfort.

But with a prince like Nero even students were not
safe, and philosophy itself was dangerous ground. The
noblest minds at Rome were at this time mainly Stoics,
and among the long line of Nero's victims there were
many who were in some sense martyrs to Phitosophers
the Stoic creed. They were not republicans, were looked on
though they have sometimes passed for such WIt mu,trust*
in later history. They were not disloyal, though they
were looked at with disfavor. They were ready to serve
the ruling powers either in the Senate or the camp; there
was a largeness even in their social views as citizens of
the world that would seem to fit them markedly for
carrying out the levelling spirit of the imperial policy.
Nevertheless they were regarded with jealousy and mis-
trust ; nor is the* reason far to seek. Stoicism in passing
from the schools of Greece had ceased

Stoicism,11'-8

7he Earlier Empire.

a.d. 54-68.

to be an abstract theory, with interest only for the
curious mind that loved the subtleties of paradox. It
was a standard of duty for the Romans, and a creed to
live and die for. The resolute spirit and the hard out-
lines of its doctrines had a fascination for the higher
type of Roman mind. To live up to the ideal of a noble
life, in which reason should rule and virtue be its own
reward; to care very much for a good conscience, for
personal dignity and freedom, and to think slightingly
of short-lived goods over which the will has no control
—here was a rule that was not without a certain grandeur,
however wanting it might be at times in tenderness and
sympathy. But such high teaching was distasteful to
the sensualist and tyrant; its tone rebuked his follies
and his vices. It set up a higher standard
diftSefui to than the will of Caesar, and was too marked
the prince, a contrast to the servile flattery of the times.
It was not the spiritual Quixotism of a few, which might
be safely disregarded, but men flocked to it'on every
side for lessons of comfort and of hardihood in evil days.
Weak women turned to it to give them strength, as Arria,
in the days of Claudius, had shown her husband how to
die, when she handed him the dagger that
rapidfjTthrough had pierced her with the words, " See,
society.	Paetus, it does not hurt." Some spread the

doctrines with a sort of apostolic fervor, and may well
have said at times uncourtly things of the vices in high
places, like the Puritan preachers of our own land. Some
again, mistook bluntness of speech for love of truth, like
Cornutus, who, when some one pressed Nero to write a
work in some four hundred books, remarked that " no
one then would read them ; it was true Crysippus wrote
as many, but they were of some use to mankind."
Others, influencing the world of fashion in quiet inter-a.d. 54-68.

Nero.

lI9

course and friendly letters, showed the young how to
live in times of danger; or when the fatal message came
stood by and calmed the pains of death, like the father-
confessors of the Churdi.

Of the great Stoics of that time there was no more
commanding figure than that of Thrasea Paetus. He had
none of the hard austerity of a Cato nor the
one-sided vehemence of a social reformer; and fate ofC*Cr
he was fond even of the play, and mixed
gaily in the social circles of the city ; would
not blame even vice severely, for fear of losing sight of
charity to men. In the Senate he was discreet and calm,
even when he disliked what was donfe ; tempered his
blame with words of praise, spoke of Nero as an eminent
prince, and voted commonly with his colleagues, though
he did not stoop to mean compliance. Sometimes, in-
deed, he protested by his silence, as when he rose and
left the Senate-hpuse rather than hear the apology of
Nero for the murder of his mother, and when he de-
clined to come and join the vote for the apotheosis of
Poppsea. At last, when the evils seemed too strong for
cure, he would take no part in public actions. For the
last three years of his life he would not sit in his place
among the senators, nor take the yearly vow of loyalty,
nor offer prayer or sacrifice for Caesar. The rebuke of
his silence was a marked one, for the world, watching
his bearing, turned even to the official journals to see
what Thrasea had not done, and to put their construc-
tion on his absence. The calm dignity of his demeanor,
seems to have awed even Nero for a while, but at las|
the Emperor wearied of his quiet protest. The fatal or-
der found him in his garden, surrounded by a circle of
his kinsmen and choice spirits, with whom he tranquilly
conversed upon high themes. Like another Socrates he120

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 54-68."

heard his doom with cheerfulness, and passed away
without a bitter word.

Seneca, too, found consolation but not safety in the
Stoic doctrines. He had long retired from the active
Of Seneca world, and shunned the Emperor's jealous
(a. d. 65), *eye« He had sought in philosophy the les-
sons of a lofty self-denial, and was spending the last
years of his life in studying how to die. The rash con-
spiracy of a few of his acquaintance, in which he took
no part himself, was the excuse, though not the motive,
for his murder. The sentence found him with his young
wife and intimates, prepared for but not courting death.
Denied the pleasure of leaving them by will the last
tokens of affection, he told his friends that he could be-
queath them only the pattern of an honest life, and
gently reproved the weakness of their grief. His veins
were opened ; but he talked on still while life was slow-
ly ebbing, and was calm through all the agony of linger-
ing death.

Corbulo, the greatest soldier of his day, whose charac-
ter was cast in an antique mould, and was true to the

, „	traditions of the camp, had also to experi-

and of	.	. 1 r •	-rx \

Corbulo. ence the ingratitude of princes. He had
(a. d. 67).	kis troops to victory in the North, had

baffled the Parthian force and guile, and saved a Roman
army from disaster ; he had been so loyal to his Empe-
ror in the face of strong temptation as to cause the Ar-
menian Tiridates to say in irony to Nero that he was
lucky in having such a docile slave. Suddenly he was
recalled with flattering words. The death-warrant met
him on his way, and he fell upon his sword, saying only,
1t I deserved it." So unlooked for was the deed that
men could only say that Nero was ashamed to meet his
eye while busied in pursuits so unworthy of a monarch.A.D. 54-68.

Nero.

121

A crowd of other victims pass before us on the scene.
The least distinguished were driven forth from Rome to
people lonely islands, while the chiefs

1 ,	, 1	-i 1 1	1 Other victims,

proved to the world that they had learned

from the Stoic creed the secret how to live nobly and die

grandly. Women too were not wanting in

f .	r women

heroic courage. Paulina, the young wife of among the
Seneca, tried to go with him to the grave. numbcr>
Others were glad to save their self-respect by death. Of
these some fell as victims to the jealousy of Caesar;
their eminence, their virtues, and historic

suffered for

names made them dangerous rivals. Some different
found their wealth a fatal burden when the reasons-
Emperor's wild extravagance had drained his coffers
and fresh funds were needed for his lavish outlay. More
frequently they died to expiate a moral protest, which
was often silent, but not the less expressive. The abso-
lute ruler was provoked by men who would not crouch
or bend. He felt instinctively that they abhorred him,
and fancied that he saw even in the look of Thrasea
something of the sour pedagogue's frown. Their fate
marked the crisis of the struggle between high thought
and ignoble acting.

Lucan too at this time, by a less honorable death,
closed a short life of poetic fame. He had risen to early
eminence in the social circles of the capital,

*	Lucan

stood high in favor at the court, where the
passion for the fine arts was in vogue, and, as the nephew
of Seneca, he shared the studies and for a time the con-
fidence of Nero. But the sunshine of princely favor
was soon clouded ; he was coldly welcomed in the
palace, and then forbidden to recite in pub- fell into dis_
lie. What was the reason of the change grace at court,
we cannot say with certainty. Perhaps he was too bold122

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 54-68,

in the choice of his great subject. The civil wars of the
Republic had seemingly a fascination for the literary-
genius of this time, and many a . pen was set to work
and many a fancy fired by the story of the men who
fought and died in the name of liberty or for the right
to misgovern half the world. There was, of course, a
danger in such themes. Julius Caesar had written an
Anti-Cato, to attack a popular 'ideal, and later rulers
might be tempted to meet his eulogists with the sword
rather than the pen. Historians had already suffered
for their ill-timed praises of the great republicans ; and
Claudius had been warned not to meddle with so perilous
from his choice a theme. Lucan, therefore, may well have
of subject given offence to the instinctive jealousy of
a despot, though he was not sparing of his flattering
words, as when he bids him take a central place among
the heavenly constellations, for fear of disturbing the
equilibrium of the world; and in the opening books, at
least, which alone had seen the light, he was wary and
cautious in his tone. Or it may be he of-
or of style, fended Nero's canons of poetic style, for he
cast aside the old tradition and boldly dispensed with the
dreamland of fable and all the machinery of the mar-
vellous and superhuman. He aspired to set history to
heroic verse, but claimed no knowledge of the world
unseen. Or, as it is more likely still, his fame gave um-
brage to his master, who was himself a
j?ea^sydthe would-be poet, and could not bear to
of Nero. have a rival. Whatever may have been the
cause of his disgrace, Lucan could not patiently submit
to be thus silenced. His vanity needed the plaudits of

In his resent	crowc* > ^is £enius perhaps seemed

ment	cramped and chilled for the want of kindly

sympathy. For the habit of public readings, then soA.D. 54-68.

Nero.

123

common, took to some extent the place of the journals
and reviews of modern times, and brought an author
into immediate relation with the cultivated world for
whom he wrote. When this pleasure was denied him
Lucan first distilled into his poem some of the bitterness
of his wounded pride, and then joined a
band of resolute men who were conspiring a conspiracy,m
to strike down the monarch of whom they
were long weary and to set up a'noble Piso in his place.
The plot came to an untimely end, and most of those
who joined it lost their lives. Lucan lost not his life
only, but his honor, for when his fears were worked
upon he gave evidence against his friends, and even de-
nounced his mother as an accomplice in the
plot. We can have little pity when we read ufeind honor,
that he could not save his life even by such
means, nor can we feel interest in the affected calmness
with which, in his last moments, he recited from his
poem an account of death-agonies somewhat like his
own.

There died at the same time the chief professor of a
very different creed from that of the great Stoics. Pe-
tronius had given a lifetime to the study of
the refinements of luxurious ease: his wit Arbiter,US
and taste and ingenuity had made him the
oracle of Roman fashion, or the "arbiter," as he was
called, of elegance. Nothing new could pass current in
the gay world of the city till it had the stamp of his ap-
proval. He was the probable author of a ^ prpbabie
satire which curiously reflects the tone of author of a
social thought around him, its self-contempt, satiric novel,
its mocking insight, and its shameless im-
morality. The work is a strange medley. It contains
among other things a specimen of a heroic poem on the124

The Earlier Empire.

A.D. 54-68.

same theme as that of Lucan's, full of the mythological
machinery which the bolder poet had eschewed, and
intended, therefore, possibly as a protest against Lucan's
revolutionary canons. It gives us also, in the supper
of Trimalchio, a curious picture of the tasteless extrava-
gance and vulgar ostentation of the wealthy upstarts of
the times, such as might please the fastidious pride of
the nobles in Roman circles. It might amuse them
also, sated as they were with fashionable gossip, to hear
the common people talk, and to be led in fancy into
the disreputable haunts through which the hero of the
piece is made to wander in the course of strange adven-
tures, like a "Gil Bias'' of old romance. The writer,
if he really was Petronius, roused at last a jealousy which
caused his ruin; for the vile favorite, Tigellinus, who
had gained the ear of Nero, and aspired to
excited the	the master of ceremonies at the palace,

jealousy of	.	r	'

Tigellinus as could not bear a rival near him. He trumped
the fashions, UP a false charge against him, worked upon
his master's fears which had been excited
lately by the widespread conspiracy of Piso, and had an
order sent to him to keep away from court. Petronius
took the message for his death-warrant, and
fVombcourt,td calmly prepared to meet his end. He set
his house in order, gave instructions to re-
ward some and punish others of his slaves, wrote out his
will, and composed a stinging satire upon the Emperor's
foul excesses which he sealed and sent to him before he
died. It was noted that at last no philosopher stood at
, , his bedside to whisper words of comfort or

and died	r

with frivo- dwell on hopes of immortality, but that true,
encSe.ln 1 er~ even in death, to his ignoble, godless creed,
he amused himself as the streams of life
were ebbing with frivolous epigrams and wanton verses.A.D. 54-68.

Nero.

125

Besides the portents of cruelty and lust, confined
mainly to the walls of Rome, other disasters were not
wanting to leave their gloomy traces on the annals of
the times. A hasty rising of the British tribes under
Queen Boadicea was followed by the sack
of two great Roman colonies, Camalodunum StainTand'n
and Londinium, and the loss of seventy g?at loss of ,
thousand men. In Armenia a general's in-
capacity had brought dishonor on the legions and nearly
caused the loss of Syria. Italy had been
visited with hurricane and plague; and g?el°disas-
the volcanic forces that had been long pent of Ac
up beneath Vesuvius gave some token of
their power by rocking the ground on which Pompeii
stood and laying almost all its buildings low.

It was the monarch's turn at length to suffer some of
the agony now felt around him; and after fourteen
years he fell because the world seemed weary of him,
and none raised a hand in his defence. The The revolt of
signal of revolt was given first in Gaul, q^cx' in
where Vindex, a chieftain of a powerful clan
of Aquitania, roused the slumbering discontent into a
flame by describing, as an eye-witness, the infamj of
Nero's rule and the ends to which the heavy taxes were
applied. He told them of Sporus carried as a bride in
Nero's litter, and submitting publicly to his caresses; of
Tigellinus lording it at Rome, and making havoc among
noble lives, while his master was fiddling in all the thea-
tres of Greece; of Poppaea Sabina, first his mistress then
his wife, who had her mules shod with shoes of gold,
and five hundred asses daily milked to fill her bath ; of
the countless millions wrung from toiling subjects and
squandered on a vile favorite or a passing fancy.
Waiving all hopes of personal ambition, he urged Galba,126

The Earlier Empire.

A.D. 54-68.

the governor of Spain, to lead the movement, and came
to terms with Verginius Rufus, who was marching from
Germany against him. He killed himself,
Gaiba^after indeed, soon after with his own hand in
the death of despair, when the soldiers of Verginius fell

Vmdex.	r .	®

upon his followers without orders from their
jgeneral; but Galba was moving with his legions, and
courier after courier arrived in Rome to say that the
West of the Empire was in arms.

Nero heard the tidings first at Naples, but took little
„ . . heed of anything except the taunts of Vin-

Nero s in-	.	.	,

difference at dex at his sorry acting; and even when he

first'	came at length to Rome he wavered be-

tween childish levity and ferocious threats. Sometimes
followed by he could think only of silly jests and sci-
strange alter- entific toys, sometimes he dreamed of fear-

nations of	J	.

hope and ful vengeance on the traitors and their par-
despair. tisans in Rome, and then again he would
drop into maudlin lamentations, talk of moving his
legions to sympathy by pathetic scenes, or of giving up
the throne to live for art in humble peace. He tried to
levy troops, but none answered to the call;
aifsldef °n	Pr3etor^an guards refused to march, the

sentries even slunk away and left their posts,
while the murmurs grew hourly more threatening, and
ominous cries were heard even in the city. Afraid to stay
within the palace, he went at night to ask his friends for
shelter; but the doors of all were barred. He came back
again to find his chambers plundered, and the box of
poisons which he had hoarded gone. At length a freed-
man, Phaon, offered him a hiding-place out-
at n!ghtWtoY a s*^e wa^s I an<* barefooted as he was, with
freedman's covered face, Nero rode away to seek it. As
he went by the quarters of the soldiers heA.D. 54-68.

Nero.

127

heard them curse him, and wish Galba joy. At last he
and his guide leave the horses and creep through the
brushwood and the rushes to the back of Phaon's house,
where on hands and feet he crawls through a narrow
hole which was broken through the wall. Stretched on
a paltry mattress, in a dingy cell, hungry, but turning in
disgust from the black bread, with the water and hid
from the marsh to slake his thirst, he listens hin?®flf.

awhile m an

with reluctance to friends who urge him agony of
to put an end to such ignoble scenes. He suspense#
has a grave dug hastily to the measure of his body, and
fragments of marble gathered for his monument, and he
feels the dagger's edge, but has not nerve enough to use
it. He asks some of the bystanders to show
him by their example how to die, and then found nervl*
he feels ashamed of his own weakness and tokul him-

self.

mutters, " Fie, Nero! now is the time to play
the man." At last comes Phaon's courier with the
news that the Senate had put a price upon his head; the
tramp of the horses tells him that his pursuers are on
his track, and fear gives him the nerve to put the dagger
to his throat, while, true to the passion of his life, he
mutters, "What a loss my death will be to art!"
Stoicism had taught his victims how to die with grand
composure ; but all his high art and dramatic studies
could not save him from the meanest exit from the
stage. His last wish was granted, and they burnt the
body where it lay, to save it from the outrage that might
follow. Two poor women, who had nursed him as a
baby, and Acte, the object of his boyish love, gathered
up his ashes and laid them beside the rest of his own
race.

It might be thought that few but his own pampered
favorites could retain any affectionate remembrance of128

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 68-69.

such a monster of sensuality and cruel ca-
price, who at his best was moody and vola-
tile, undignified and vain; yet it seems that
a fond memory of him lingered in the hearts
of many of the people, who brought their
flowers to deck his grave or posted up proclamations
which announced that he was living still and would come
to take vengeance on his enemies. Preten-
appearedin ders started up from time to time and
his name. gathered adherents round them in his name,
and even after twenty years one such adventurer, of
humble birth, received from the Parthians a welcome and
support, and was reluctantly abandoned by them at the
last.

Strange
affection for
iiis memory-
shown by
some of the
populace.

CHAPTER VI.

GALBA.—A.D. 68-69.

The accession of Sulpicius Galba was due to a stir of
independence in the provinces. Gaul would not brook
„ the rule of Nero longer, and the chief who

The career of	. 0	.

Galba before came forward in the name of Vindex to
his accession. majntain their liberty of choice, and whose
fiery proclamations hurled Nero from his throne, called
upon Galba to succeed him. He came of ancient line-
age, though unconnected with the family which through
natural ties or by adoption had given six emperors to
Rome. Early omens are said to have drawn upon him
as a boy the notice of Augustus and Tiberius; he was
hotly-courted by the widowed Agrippina, and took aA.D. 68-69.

Galba.

129

high place among the legatees of Livia Augusta in the
will that was not carried out. Many years of his life were
spent in high command in Africa, Germany, and Spain,
where he became eminent for energy and strict discipline,
bordering at times on harshness, till he put on a show of
easy sloth to disarm the jealousy of Nero. As governor
The force at his command was small. A of Spain, he
single legion and two troops of horse formed smalfforcc,
but a scanty army to carry an Emperor to ^hUrty in
Rome. His soldiers showed no great en- his cause»
thusiasm for him, and some of his cavalry were minded
even to desert him. When he heard the news of the
death of Vindex he despaired not of success only but
of life, and thought of ending his career by his own
hand.

So far he had appealed only to the province that he
ruled, had begun to levy troops and strengthen his tiny
army, and to form a council of provincial notabilities to
advise him like a senate. He called himself the servant
only of the Roman State. But when the

...	, ,	. , , ,	, but was ac-

tidings came that the capital had accepted cepted by
him for their new ruler he took at once the laceinstead
name of Caesar, and put forth without dis- ofNero-
guise imperial claims. Rival pretenders R{val pre_
started up at once around him. In Africa, tende;re rose
in Germany, in the quarters of the Praetorian	'

guards, generals came forward to dispute the prize, for
every camp might have its claimant when the power of
the sword would give a title to the throne ; but one after
another fell, while their soldiers wavered or deserted them.
So Galba made his way to Rome without a struggle.
But before him came the rumors of his harshness and
his parsimony. He had sternly fined and

,	,	and Galba

punished the cities that were slow to recog- made his
K13°

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 68-69.

way*to Rome njse him and put men to death unheard as
without a	.	A

struggle, partisans of the fallen causes. Ugly stories
bytUgiyCeded reappeared of the severities of earlier days—
rumors,	money-changer whose hands he had

nailed to the bench where he had given false weight, of
the criminal for whom he had provided in mockery a
higher cross than usual, as he protested that he was a
citizen of Rome. There was little to attract the people
in the sightof their new prince, who entered
attractive110 Rome upon a litter, with hands and feet
look-	crippled by the gout, and face somewhat

cold and hard, marked already with the feebleness of old
age.

The soldiers were the first to murmur. The marines

whom Nero had called out mutinied when they were

sent back to join their ships, but they were

Discontent of sternly checked and decimated. The im-
the marines,	J

perial body-guard of Germans was disbanded
and sent back home empty-handed. The praetorians,
ashamed already of the death of Nero and

praetorians,	.	.

their praefect, heard with rage that the new
sovereign would not court their favor or stpop to buy the
. . . loyalty of his soldiers. The?"legions on the

legionaries	.

frontier were ill-pleased to think that their
voices counted for so little, that they were not thought
worthy of a word or promise. The German army chafed
because their general Verginius had been removed on
flattering pretexts, but really because his influence oyer
them was feared; and they construed his forced absence
from the camp as an insult to their loyalty, and the ex-
ceptional favors shown to some towns of Gaul as a
marked affront offered to themselves. Nor
populace. was the city populace in a cheerful mood.

For years they had been feasted and ca-a.d. 68*~6g.	Galba.	131

ressed; races and games, gladiators and wild beasts had
made life seem a holiday and kept them ever In good
humor. Mow they heard that there was to be an end to
all such cheer, for their ruler was a morose, penurious
old man, who thought a few silver pieces awarded to the
inest actor of the day a present worthy of a prince.

Hero's favorites and servants heard with rage that
they must disgorge at once the plunder of the past
rwgtm** A commission was appointed to f
call them to account and to wrest from them valSamT
what their master's prodigality had given,

and as a special grace to leave them each a beggarly
tithe of all the presents, in which he had expended dur-
ing the few years of his reign 110 less than two thousand
one hundred millions sesterces. The Senate
and the men of worth and rank were full of
hope at first, for Galba seemed upright and
spoke them fair* But soon they found, to their dismay,
that all influence had passed out of their hands, and
that the Emperor himself was not the ruling power in the
State. Three favorites—one a freedman, Icelus; two o(
higher rank, T. Vinius, his legate, and Cor* The favor
melius Laco, an assessor in his court of km of Cai&a
Justice—had followed him from Spain* and IbusctttJ
gained, as it seemed* an absolute control power*
over his acts. They never left him, and the wits ol
Eome called them the Emperor#s pedagogues; indeed,
they seemed to guide the old man as by the leading-
strings of childhood, and to recall the memory of the
worst days of the dotard Claudius* Public offices of
trust, boons, immunities# and honors were put up shame-
lessly to auction, and the life and honor of free men were
sacrificed to the caprice and greed of haughty and venal
minions, while the most infamous of Hero's creatures,The Earikr Empire, a,d. 68-69.

Tigellinus, was saved by their influence from the late he
merited.

It* a short time the discontent was universal. Already
the legions of the Rhine had revised the oath of loyalty,
and called on the Senate and the people to choose
another Emperor, while in the city the temper of all
classes boded ill But Galba took one more step, and
cm*	that was lata!. Feeling that at the age of

applet! seventy-three he had not strength to rule
hi4a£ alone, he decided to adopt a colleague and
league; successor, His choice fell on Fiso Frugi
Lidnianus, who was young* noble, and of eminent worth.
But the act came too late to regain the confidence that
had been lost, and only provoked a speedier explosion
of fear, jealousy, and disaffection; the more so because
the speech in which he told the soldiers of his choice was
of almost disdainful brevity, and irritated minds that were
still wavering and might have been won over by a little
timely liberality.

The blow came from the praetorian camp in which two
common soldiers undertook to give away the throne, and
kept their word, A freedman had tampered
iSigied with them in the interest of his master Otho,
who had hoped to take the place that Piso
the guard, filled, and who would now try foul means,
?s (air had failed. The soldiers felt the temper of their
comrades,and Otho's intimates and servants were lavish
with their presents to the guard on all occasions. While
Galba stood one morning beside the altar on which the
victim lay, and the priest read presages of disaster in the
entrails, Otho was beckoned suddenly away on the pica
of buying an old property with the advice of his archi-
tects and builders. In the Forum he found
bun'Sj^crto twenty-three praetorians, who hurried himA.D. 68-69.

Tiberius.

I33

in a litter to their camp} and then presented
him to the homage of their comrades. All Erapcror'
were soon won over with fair words and liberal promises
of bounty. The marines had not forgiven the Emperor
his harsh treatment of their comrades, and therefore
joined the movement eagerly, while the armed forces
quartered in the city made common cause with the in-
surgents, thrusting aside the officers who tried to hold
them in.

Rumors passed rapidly through Rome meanwhile.
At first men heard that the guards were up in arms
against their prince and had carried off a Akrmlngni.
senator, some said Otho, to their camp, mor^prcad
Messengers were dispatched at once by the through
startled rulers to secure if possible the obe- Romc'
dience of the other forces, while Piso appealed to the
company on guard around the palace to be staunch and
true even though others wavered, and then set out to face
the insurgents in the camp. Shortly after came the
news that the pnetorians had slain Otho to assert their
loyalty, and that they were coming to salute their sove-
reign. The false news spread, designedly or not, and all
classes who had hesitated before streamed into the palace
to make a show of joy, and to conduct Galba to the
camp, while one soldier in the crowd waved in the air
his sword, dripping, as he said, with Otho's ^
blood. But the Emperor, mindful of disci- after much
pline to the last, said, 11 Comrade, who bade
you do the deed?" At length he started, the camp;
after much debate and doubt, but could make little way
among the densely crowded streets, and hardly reached
the Forum, when the insurgent troops appeared in sight.
They were joined at once by his single company of
guards; together they charged and dispersed the crowi*34

The Earlier Empire,	a.d. 69#

that followed him, while the slaves that bore the litter
flung it down upon the ground and left their master
stunned and helpless and undefended, to be hacked to
death by the fierce soldiery that closed about
his way him. So died, says Tacitus, one whom all
-f{cTa would have thought fit for empire, had he
not been Emperor in deed. There were
many claimants for the honor of dispatching him, and
Vitellius received more than one hundred and twenty
letters of petition from men who looked for high reward
for such a signal merit. To save the trouble of deciding
and to discourage so dangerous a precedent, he ordered
all the suitors to be put to death*

Piso had lied for sanctuary meantime to Vesta's
temple, where a poor slave took pity on him and gave him
the shelter of his hut. But the emissaries of

and who _ ,	.	■ ■■»»•

had fkd to Otho were soon upon the spot to drag him

from his hiding-place and slay him on the

temple steps, temple steps and take his head to feast his

master's eyes. The friends of the fallen rulers were

allowed by special favor to buy their bodies from the

soldiers, and show them the last tokens of respect

CHAPTER VII.

otho.—a, d, 69.

M. Salvius Otho began in early youth a wild and dis-
solute career. To gain a footing in the palace he paid
his court to an old waiting-maid of influence,
ofHy and before long became one of the most
dissipation. prominent of the set of young roysterers who
surrounded Nero. He rose to be the chief friend andA.D. 69.

Otka,

confidant of the young prince, encouraged him in his
worst excesses, was privy even to his mother's murder,
and gave the luxurious supper which lulled her fears to
rest He relied too much, however, on his influence, and
presumed to be the Emperor's rival for the heart ol
Poppsea Sabina, after giving her his hand and home to
cloak Nero's wanton love. To cover his disgrace and
check the scandalous gossip of the city he was appointed
to official duties in Lusitanta, where for ten years his
equity and self-restraint were a marked contrast to the
infamy of his earlier and later life. In
Galba's rise to power he saw his opportunity pUlc inpreT
of return, and he exhausted all his arts of vu,elaJ
flattery and address in the attempt to win the old man's
favor, with the further hope that he might take the
place which the Emperor's death would soon
vacate. That hope once baffled, he calmly Horaewuh*
laid his plans, and swept away without com-
punction the obstacles that barred his road to power.
On the evening of the day when Galba fell he made his
way across the blood-stained Forum to the palace, while
the Senate in a hurried meeting passed all the usual
votes of honor for their new prince. The
populace were ready with their cheers, and
pressed him to take the name of Nero, in
memory of the revels of his youth. But the real power
was in the soldiers* hands, and they watched with jealous
care the puppet they had set upon the throne. He had
nothing of the soldier's bearing, was effeminate in look
and carriage, with beardless face and an un- Hc |Bed the
gainly walk. Yet, strange to say, they loved soldiers' loyal*
him well, and were loyal to him to the last. ty aa ove*
They kept watch and ward with anxious care that no
evil might befall him. They once flew to arms in ground*The Earlier Empire,	a.d. 69.

less panic when he was seated with his friends at supper,
forced their way even to his presence, to make sure that
their favorite was safe; and when he died some slew
themselves in their despair, as the dog dies upon his
master's grave. Otho could refuse them nothing. He let
them choose their own commanders, listened readily to
all their grievances, gave them freely all they asked for,
and had recourse to subterfuges to rescue from their
clutches some whom he wished to spare. He had soon
need of all their loyalty, for even before Galba's death

. . the armies of the Rhine had hailed as
but the armies	,	.

of the rhine Emperor their general v itellms, and their

ViteHkw as legions were already on the march for Rome,
their Emperor, p0r |hCy were weary of the monotony of

constant drill and border camps, and (lushed with triumph
at the case with which they had crushed the hopes of
Vindcx. They cast greedy eyes on the wealth of Gaul,
and were jealous of the privileged prsetori&ns; they felt
their power and longed to use it, now that the fatal secret
had been learnt, that emperors were not made at Rome
alone.

So leaving Vitellius himself to follow slowly with the
levies newly raised, two armies made their way to Italy,
with Valens and Caecina at their head, and crossing the
Alps by different passes, after spreading

and were on	*	.	« r ~ 1.1**1

the march for terror among the peoples of Gaul and Hci-
R°me.	vetia, met at last upon the plains of Lom-

hardy. Letters meantime had passed between Vitellius
and Otho, in which each urged the other to abate his
claims, and to take anything short of the imperial power.
From promises they passed to threats, and thence to
plots. Each sent assassins to destroy the other, and
each failed to gain his end. But the legions of the North
came daily nearer, and Otho lost no time in musteringa.d. 6g>

Otho.



his forces, and showed an energy of which Aftcr froiliess
few had thought him capable* He could overturn of
count upon the army in the East, where Ves- *****

pasian was acting in his name. The nearerlegions in Fan-
nonia and Dalmatia were true to him, and would soon be
ready to join the forces that he led from
Rome* So with such household troops as S^ectThcmf
he could gather and the questionable con-
tingent of two thousand gladiators, he set out to meet
the enemy and to appeal to the decision of the sword.
With him there went perforce many of the chief officers
of state, the senators of consular rank, nobles and
knights of high position ; some proud of their gay arms
and trappings, but raw and timid soldiers for the most
part, thinking often more of the pleasures of the table
than of the real business of war. But their presence in
the camp gave moral support to Otho's cause, and les-
sened the danger of disaffection in the rear. His most
skilful generals urged delay till his distant
forces could come up from Illyria or the urgeSe|«by*
East; but his soldiers were rash and head- wait01*14
strong and, flushed by slight successes at
first over Oecina, accused their chiefs of treachery.
His confidants were inexperienced and sanguine, and
Otho would not wait. He had not the nerve to bear
suspense nor yet to brave the crash of battle. So weak-
ening his army by the withdrawal of his guard, he re-
tired to Brixellum (Brescia), to wait impatiently for the
Jesuit, and to send messages in quick succession to urge
his generals to fight without delay. The armies met in
the shock of battle on the plains near Be-

, .	, _ , 4 » r	. „ , Bis army wa$

driacum, where Otho s best generals, forced routed omhc
to fight against their will, were the first to i&drfac«!n,0f
leave the field, and his ill-led and mutinousi38

The Earlier Empire.

a.D. 69.

soldiers broke and lied. But the poor gladiators stood
their ground and died almost to a man. The fugitives
from the field of battle soon brought the tidings to Brix-
ellum, and Otho saw that all was over. His guards, in-
deed, boasted of their loyal love, and urged him to live
and to renew the struggle, and told him of his distant
armies on the march. But he had staked his all upon a
single battle, and he knew that he must pay his losses.
He was sick perhaps of civil bloodshed, though the fine
words which Tacitus ascribe to him sound strange in the
mouth of one who plotted against Galba and gloated
over Piso's death. He waited one more day to let the
senators retire who had reluctantly followed him to war,
and to save Yerginius from the blind fury of the soldiers,
or perhaps with some faint lingering hope of rescue; he
,, , spent one more night, we know not in what

and he died ,	, . , , .	,

by bis own thoughts, upon his bed, and at the dawn
Equant. took up his dagger and died by his own
hand. It was certainly no hero's death.
The meanest of that day, the poor gladiator of the stage,
could face death calmly when his hour was come; and
reigns of terror and the Stoics' creed had long made
suicide *a thing of course to every weary or despairing
soul. Yet so rare were the lessons of unselfishness in
high places, that men thought it noble in him to risk no
more his soldiers1 lives, painted with a loving hand the
picture of his death, and whispered that his bold stroke
for empire was perhaps the act, not of an unscrupulous
adventurer, but of a republican who wished to restore
his country's freedom.a.d. 69.

Vitellius*

*39

CHAPTER VIII.

VITEIXI US.—A, D. 69.

A. Vitellivs had only a short term of power, but it was
long enough to mark perhaps the lowest depth to which
elective monarchy has ever fallen. His fa- ^

, . ;	,	,	, The antcce-

ther Lucius had done good service as a sol- dents of
dier, but he came back to Rome to disgrace Vitclliu*'
his name by mean and abject flattery of the ruling
powers. To pay his homage to the divine
Caligula he veiled his beard and bowed to
the ground in silent adoration. To push compi^m*.
his fortunes in the court of Claudius, where
wives and freedmen ruled, he kept the efEgies of Pallas
and Narcissus among those of his household gods, and
carried one of Messaltna's slippers in his bosom, to have
the pleasure of kissing it in public. He rose to be thrice
consul, and the admiring Senate had graven on his sta-
tue in the Forum the words which told of his unswerv-
ing loyalty towards his prince* The son followed in his
father's steps and pandered to the vices of three Empe-
rors in turn. As a youth he shared the sensual orgies a(
Tiberius at Capreae, he pleased Claudius by his skill at
dice, and Nero by using a show of force when he was
too shy to sing in public. In the province of Africa he
bore a better character as proconsul, but as commis-
sioner of public works at Rome he was said to have
filched the gold out of the temples and replaced it witfc
ornaments of baser metal. Yet on the re- Semh
call of Verginius he was sent byrGalba to ^command
command the camp in lower Germany. Men fSSLT*
thought the appointment strange enough.140

The Earlier Empire.

A.D. 69.

Some said he owed it to a favorite's caprice; some fan-
cied that he was chosen from contempt, as too mean and
slothful to be dangerous in command. He was the great--

est glutton of his times, had eaten all his
Glutton and	0	.	.

spendthrift means away, and had to leave his family m
though he was,	|0CjgjngS and to pledge his mother's

jewels to pay the expenses of his journey. But he started
in the gayest mood, made messmates and friends of all
he met, and did not stay to pick and choose. His low
pleasantries and jovial humor charmed all the muleteers
and soldiers on the road, and in the camp he was hearty
and affable to all alike, was always ready to relax the
rules of discipline, and seldom took the trouble to refuse
, . a prayer* The army saw in him a general

be won the af- f	\	®

feetioaofthe who was too liberal and open-handed to
wish to stint them to their beggarly pittance
mre.	and keep them to taskwork on the frontier.

He would not try to curb their license or deny them
plunder if they were once upon the march to Rome.
Vatem and Two leading generals, Fabius Valens and
Cxcina, being Alienus Qecina, saw in him also a conve-

disaffcctcd to	, -	t t r

Galba, stir the nicnt tool, whose very vices caught the fan-
VhcMwtto?'1 cy of the soldiers, and whose name would
ward'	sound well in a proclamation, but who was

too weak and indolent to wish to rule, and would be
obliged to fall back on men of action like themselves.
Both wished for civil war on personal grounds. Valens
resented bitterly the neglect -of the good service ren-
dered by him to Galba's cause ; Caecina had just been
detected in fraudulent use of public money and would
soon be called to an account.

Within a month a crowd of soldiers gather at nightfall
round their general's tent, force their way into his pre-
sence, and carry him upon their shoulders through theA.D, 69,

ViteiUus.

141

camp, while their comrades salute their new Emperor
with acclamations. The legions of the upper who 1s ftOOJ1
province were already in revolt, and soon pwlaimeci

I * , •	, * ».	« Emperor,

broke the idle oath of allegiance to the
Senate and joined their comrades of the lower Rhine.
The two armies under Valens and Caecina
pushed forward by separate routes to cross tottSyr**
the Alps. Their track was marked by license
and by rapine, The frightened villagers fled away; the
townsfolk trembled lest their riches should tempt the
soldiers' greed, or jealous neighbors vent their spite in
treacherous charges, and were glad at any cost to pur-
chase safety from the leaders. Caecina was the first to
front the foe, but was beaten off from the strong walls
of Placentia after a vain attempt to storm it, which
caused the ruin of the amphitheatre, the finest of the kind
in Italy and the pride of all the townsmen. an(i victory
Valens, however, was not far behind, and jJl®re<Ua*
the two armies once united crushed the
badly-handled troops of Otho in the victory of Bedria-
cum, near the confluence of the Addua and the Padus.

Vitellius was in no mood to hurry. He was very well
content to move in pomp and triumph on the road, or
float at ease along the rivers, while his guards did the
fighting. The provincials vied with each other in their
eagerness to do him honor, and they found that the one
passport to his favor was to provide abundance of good
cheer. He was glutton and epicure in one. The coun-
tries through which he passed were drained
of all their choicest, costliest viands, and umh
every halt upon the way was the signal for lhc
a round of sumptuous banquets, which never
came too fast for his voracious appetite; while his train
of followers gave loose to insolent license, plunderingThe £ artier Empire.	A.D, 69.

as they went, and quarreling with their hosts, and Vitel-
lius only laughed in uproarious mirth to see their brawls.
The rude soldiers of the North settled like a cloud
of locusts on the fair lands of Italy; corn-fields and vine-
yards were stripped for many a league upon their way,
and towns were ruined to supply their food. Pillage
and rioting took place of the stern disci-*
hucf Rome of pline of frontier armies, and camp-followers
&7ng ravaged what the soldiers spared. Even in
^5of the streets of Rome the quiet citizens stood
c ne> aghast as the wild-looking troops came
pouring in, the untanned skins of beasts upon their
shoulders, their clumsy sandals slipping on the stones.
But the soldiers were in no mood to brook a curious stare
or mocking jibe, for a blow soon followed on a word, and
bloody brawls destroyed the peace of the streets where
they were quartered. Caecina, with his cloak of plaid
and Gallic trousers, had little of the Roman general's
look, nor did men eye his wife with pleasure as she rode
by on her fine horse With purple trappings,
X? Vlta With them in military guise came the new
master of the world, the soldier's choice,
with the drunkard's Eery face and weak legs that could
scarcely carry his unwieldy frame. He now returned in
state to the city from which he stole away but lately to
avoid importunate creditors. His first care was to pay
honor to the memory of Nero and to call at a concert for
the song that he had loved, as if he saw in him the ideal
of a ruler. But the substance of power
passed«at once out of his feeble hands; the
govern^ generals who had led his troops governed in
his name, while Asiaticus, his freedman,
copied the insolence of the favorites of Clau-
dius* Their master meantime gave all his thoughts toA.D. 69.

Vitellius.

143

the pleasures of the table, inventing new dishes to con-
tain portentous pasties to which every land must yield
its quota, and spending in a few short months nine hun-
dred million sesterces in sumptuous fare.

But he had no long time to eat and drink undisturbed.
Within eight months the armies of the East
took the oath of allegiance to Vespasian, £^st vS-
and the legions in Mcesia ai)d Pannonia, pasianwas
which had not been able to strike a blow for s°°n m arms'
Otho, were ready to avenge him by turning their arms
against Vitellius. The main army of the enemy, indeed,
was slow «to move ; but Primus Antonius, a bold and
resolute officer, pushed on with the scanty forces that
lay nearest on the road to Italy, and reached Verona
before a blow was struck. He might have paid dearly
for his rashness if the generals of Vitellius had been
prompt and, loyal; but their mutual jeal-
ousies caused treachery and wavering coun- seemed to
sels in their midst, and all seemed to con- conspire to

help him.

spire to help Vespasian. The air and luxury
of Rome had done their work upon the vigor of the Ger-
man legions, and their morale had suffered even more.
The auxiliary forces had been disbanded and sent home;
recruiting had been stopped for want of funds; furloughs
were freely granted ; and the old praetorians had been
broken up and were streaming now to join Antonius.
The Etesian winds, which were blowing at this time,
wafted the ships towards the East, but delayed all the
homeward-bound, so that little was known of the plans
and movements of the enemy, while it was no secret
that the forces of Vitellius were daily growing weaker,
and that Caecina was chafing visibly at the rising popu-
larity of Valens. The fleet at Ravenna was the first to
declare against Vitellius, for their admiral Lucilius144

The Earlier Empire.	a.d. 69.

Bassus, had failed to gain the post, of prse-
cheryrof" torian praefect, and was eager to avenge the
Cacinaand shght. Caecina, who was taking the command
in the north of Italy, tried first to let the
war drag slowly on, and then to spread disaffection in
the ranks, and to raise the standard for Vespasian. But
the soldiers had more sense of honor than their leaders.
Hearing of the plot, they rose at once, threw Caecina and
some others into chains, and fought on doggedly with-
and second out a general. The crash of. war came a
battle of second time upon the plains of Bedriacum,

Bedriacum.	1	A

where, after hard fighting, the legrons of Ger-
many were routed, and flying in confusion to their en-
trenchments at Cremona, brought upon the unoffending
town all the horrors of havoc and destruction.

Even amid the scenes of that year of strife and car-
nage the fate of Cremona sent a thrill of horror through-
out Italy. So suddenly came the ruin on the
Cremona?f city that the great fair held there at that
time was crowded with strangers from all
parts, who shared the fate of the poor citizens. At a
hasty word from their general Antonius, who said that
the water in the bath was lukewarm and should be
hotter soon, the soldiers broke all the bands of disci-
pline, and for four days pillaged and burnt and tortured
at' their pleasure, till there was left only a heap of smoking
ruins, and crowds of miserable captives kept for sale,
whom for very shame no one would buy.

Vitellius meanwhile had hardly realized his danger,
till the news came of the treachery of Caecina and the
,T. . disasters at Bedriacum and Cremona. Even

Vitetlius in-
capable and then at first he tried to hide them from the

world and to silence the gloomy murmurs

that were floating through the city. The enemy returnedA. D. 69.

Vitellius.

145

to him the scouts whom he had sent, but after hearing
what they had to tell in secret he had their mouths
stopped forever. A centurion, Julius Agrestis, tried in
vain to rouse him to be stirring, and volunteered to as-
certain the truth with his own eyes. He went, returned,
and when the Emperor affected still to disbelieve, he
gave the best proof he could of his sincerity by falling
on his sword upon the spot. Then, at last, Vitellius
summoned resolution to raise recruits from the populace
of Rome, and to call out the newly-levied cohorts of the
guards. He set out at their head to guard the passes of
the Apennines, but he soon wearied of the hardships.of
the field, and came back again to Rome to hear fresh
tidings of treachery and losses, and to be told that Va-
lens had been captured in the effort to raise Gaul in his
defence, and to feel that his days of power were num-
bered. In despair at last he thought of abdication, and
came to terms with Vespasian's brother,

Flavius Sabinus, who had long been praefect ^tcate
of the city. In a few hopeless words he told but was pre-

vented by

the soldiers and the people that he resigned the soldiers,
all claims upon them, and laid aside the
insignia of empire in the shrine of Concord. But the
troops from Germany, who had felt their power a few
months since, could not believe that it had passed out
of their hands, and they rose in blind fury at the thought
of tame submission. They forced Vitellius to resume
his titles, and hurried to attack Sabinus, who, with some
of the leading men of Rome and a scanty band of fol-
lowers, was driven for refuge to the Capitol.

They found shelter for a single night, but Jhe°CapSfd
on the morrow the citadel was attacked andsiew
and stormed by overpowering numbers. A
few resolute men died in its defence; and some slipped

L146

The Earlier Empire.

A.D. 69.

away in various disguises, and among them Domitian,
the future Emperor; but the rest were hunted down and
and in the slain in flight. In the confusion of the strife
teniph^of	famous temple of Jupiter caught fire.

Jupiter was All were too busy to give time or thought
to stay the flames, and in a few hours only
ruins were left of the greatest of the national monuments
of Rome, which, full of the associations of the past, had
served for ages as a sort of record office in which were
treasured the memorials of ancient history, the laws, the
treaties, and the proclamations of old times. The loss
was one that could not be replaced, but it was soon to
be avenged. Antonius was not far away with the van-
guard o.f Vespasian's army. Messengers came fast to
tell him first that the Capitol was besieged, and then that
it was stormed. They were followed soon by envoys
from the Senate to plead for peace, but they were
roughly handled by the soldiers; and Musonius Rufus,
of the Stoic creed, who had come unbidden with his
calming lessons of philosophy found scant hearing for
his balanced periods about concord, for the rude soldiers
jeered and hooted till the sage dropped his ill-timed
lecture for fear of still worse usage. Vestal Virgins
came with letters from Vitellius asking for a single day
of truce, but in vain, for the murder of Sabinus had put
an end to the courtesies of war. Soon the army was at
the gates of Rome, and scenes of fearful
carnage followed in the gardens and the
Rome and streets even of the city, for the Vitellians still

slaughtered	J

the Vitelii- sullenly resisted, though without leaders or
ans*	settled methods of defence, till at length

they were borne down by numbers, while the population
turned with savage jeers against them, and helped to
hunt them from their hiding-places and to strip thea.d. 69-79.	Vespasian.

147

bodies of the fallen. When the enemy was at the city-
gates, Vitellius slunk quietly away in a litter, with his
butler and his cook to bear him company, in the hope
of flying to the South. Losing heart or nerve, he had
himself carried back again, and wandered restlessly
through the deserted chambers of the palace. His ser-
vants even slipped away, and he was left alone. Before
long the plunderers made their way into the palace, and
after searching high and low found him at
length hidden between a mattress in the dragged Wa#
porter's lodge, or, as another version of the h°jdingSpiace
story runs, crouching in a kennel with the and slain,
dogs. They dragged him out with insults
and blows, paraded him in mockery through the streets,
and buffeted him to death at last in the place where the
bodies of the meanest criminals were flung to feed the
birds of prey.

CHAPTER IX.

vespasian.—a.d, 69-79.

The Flavian family, to which the next three Emperors
belonged, was of no high descent. It was said, indeed—■
though Suetonius could find no evidence for The tumble
the story—that Vespasian's great-grand- -chequered
father was a day laborer of Umbria, who career of
came each year to work in the hire of a Sa- vespasian-
bine farmer, till at last he settled at Reate. His father had
been a tax-gatherer in Asia, and had taken afterwards
to the money-lender's trade, and dying left a widow
with two sons, Sabinus and Vespasianus. The youngerThe Earlier Empire.

A.D. 69—79.

showed in early life no high ambition, did not care even
to be senator, and was only brought to sue for honors by
the taunts and entreaties of his mother. Fortune did
not seem to smile on him at first. Caligula was angry
because the streets were foul when he was asdile, and
had his bosom plastered up with mud. He proved his
valor as a soldier in many a battle-field in Germany and
^Britain, but fell into disgrace again because his patron
was Narcissus, on whose friends Agrippina looked
askance. Then he rose to be governor of Africa, and
was too fair not to give offence; but his worst danger
was from Nero's vanity, which he sorely wounded, by
going to sleep while he was singing, or by leaving the
party altogether. Shunning the court, he lived in quiet
till the rising in Judaea made Nero think of

Sent to com- .	.	,	. ,

mand in him again as a general of tried capacity, yet
Judaea,	^ modest and unambitious to be feared.

By his energy and valor he soon restored discipline and
won the soldiers' trust, and was going on vigorously
he showed	t^ie wor^ °f conquest when the news

his skill, and came of Nero's fall. His son Titus set out

won the

soldiers'	to pay his compliments to Galba, and pos-

trust'	sibly to push his fortunes at the court; but

hearing at Corinth that Galba too had fallen, and that
Otho was in his place, he sailed back at once to join his
father.

Vespasian's friends now thought that the time was
come for him to strike a blow for Empire. The two rivals
who were quarreling for the prize were men of infamous
character and no talents for command, while the legions
of the East trusted their generals and were jealous of
the Western armies. The rumor was spread among
them that they were to be shifted from their quarters to
the rigor of the German frontier, to let others reap thea.d. 69-79.	Vespasian.

149

fruits of war; and they began to clamor for an Empe-
ror off their own. Mucianus, the governor

,	Titus and

of Syria, might have been a formidable Mucianus
rival, for he^vas brilliant and dexterous in tomakeb™
action, of winning ways and ready speech, Emperor
had moved among the highest circles, and
won the affections of his soldiers. He was no friend to
Vespasian, for he had coveted his post in Palestine; yet
now, from a rare prudence or self-sacrifice, or gained
over, it may be, by the graceful tact of Titus, he was
willing to waive all claims of personal ambition and to
share all the dangers of the movement. But Vespasian
himself was slow to move. He had made his army take
the oath to each Emperor in turn, and he
thought mainly now of the war that lay ready seiftecfwith"
to his hand. The urgent pleadings of his reluctance,
son, the well-turned periods of Mucianus,

such as Tacitus puts into his mouth, the sanguine hopes
of friends, might have failed to make him risk the
hazard; but the soldiers' talk had compromised his
name, the troops at Aquileia had declared for him
already, and he felt that it might be dangerous to draw
back. The praefect of Egypt, with whom Titus had in-
trigued already, took the first decisive step, and put at
Vespasian's command his important province and the
corn-supplies of Rome. The armies of Palestine and
Syria rose soon after and joined the movement with
enthusiasm. Berenice, AgrippaV sister, who had long
since gained the ear of Titus, helped him with her state-
craft and brought offers of alliance from Eastern princes
and even from the Parthian empire. But Vespasian was
still slow and wary. While Primus Antonius pushed on
with the vanguard of his army from Illyria, not staying
in his adventurous haste to hear the warning to be cau-The Earlier Empire. A. d. 69-79.

tious, Mucianus followed with the main body to find
the struggle almost over before he made his

and was in

Egypt when way to Rome. Vespasian himself crossed
won?aUSe WaS over into Egypt to take measures to starve
his enemies into submission, or to hold the
country as a stronghold in case of failure. There he
heard of the bold march of the vanguard into Italy,
of the bloody struggle near Cremona, and of the undis-
puted march to Rome. Then came the tidings from the
North-west that the withdrawal of the legions had been
followed by a rising of the neighboring races, and that
even Roman troops had stooped so low as to swear
fealty to the Gaul. The Britons and Dacians too were
stirring, and brigands were pillaging the undefended
Pontus. Soon he learnt that the Capital had been
stormed and his brother killed in the blind fury of the
soldiers' riot, but that vengeance had been taken in the
blood of Vitellius and his troops. Each ship brought
couriers with eventful news, or senators coming to do
homage, till the great town of Alexandria was thronged
to overflowing. Still he stayed in Egypt, till at length
he could not in prudence tarry longer, for Mucianus
having set Antonius aside was in absolute command at
Rome, and his own son Domitian, a. youth of seventeen,
who had been left in the city but escaped his uncle's
fate, seemed to have lost his head at the sudden change
of fortune, and was indulging in arrogant caprices.
Titus was with his father in Egypt till the last, and
pleaded with him to daal tenderly with his brother's
wilful ways, then left to close the war in Palestine, while
Vespasian hastened with the corn-ships on to Rome,
where the granaries had only food for ten days left, and
Mucianus had been ruling with a sovereign's airs.

Meantime the rising on the Rhine was quelled. ItA. d. 69-79.	Vespasian.

had its source in the revengeful ambition of Civilis, a
chieftain of the ruling class of the Batavi,

who had twice narrowly escaped with life ^hGa^b^[jfn
from the charge of disloyalty to Rome. His Germany-
people had long sent their contingents to	'

serve beside the legions. Bold, brave, and proud of
their military exploits, they were easily encouraged to
believe that they could take the lead in a national move-
ment of the Germans. The frontier had been almost
stripped in the excitement of the civil war, and the scanty
remnants of the legions knew not which side to join, and
had no confidence in their leaders. To supply the waste
of war fresh levies were demanded, and the Batavi,
stung to fury by the recruiting officers, listened readily
to Civilis. They rose to arms, at first in Vespasian's
name, and then, throwing off the mask, frankly unfurled
the national banner, to which the neighboring races
streamed.

The Treveri and Lingones tried to play the same part
among the Gauls and to lead them too against the im-
perial troops, who, half-hearted and mutiny-
ing against their leaders, laid down their cesses!"0"
arms or were overpowered by numbers.

Some even took the military oath in the name of the
sovereignty of Gaul. It was but an idle title after all.
The mutual jealousy between the several clans and
towns barred the way to real union among them, nor
would the Germans calmly yield to the pretensions of
their less warlike neighbors. Soon, too, the tramp of
the advancing legions was heard along the great high-
ways, for the struggle once over at the centre, no time
was lost in sending Cerealis to restore order on the
Rhine.

The wavering loyalty of the Gauls was soon secured,*52

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 69-79.

and it scarcely needed the general's proclamation to re-
mind them that the Roman Empire brought
fai?ure.eedy peace and safety to their homes, and that
even if they could rend that union to pieces,
they would be the first to suffer from its ruin. To reduce
the Batavi to submission force was needed more than
words ; but the strife grew more hopeless as their allies
fell off, and such as still remained in arms were routed
after an obstinate battle, in which a river's bed was
choked with the bodies of the slain. The submission
pf Civilis closed an insurrection, formidable in itself, but
most noteworthy as an ominous sign of the possible dis-
ruption of the Empire.

It was left for Vespasian on his return to heal the
gaping wounds of civil war, to restore good order to
the provinces, and to calm the excitement of
Stored"1	capital after scenes of fire and carnage,

Komeat anc^ vicissitude °f ^e last eventful year,
which had seen three Emperors rise and
fall. The city was beautiful again, and rose with fresh
grandeur from the havoc and the ruin. The temple on
the Capitol was magnificently restored, and all the dig-
nitaries of Rome assembled in great pomp to share in
laying the foundation-stone. The temple finished, they
were careful to replace some at least of what had been
destroyed within it. Careful search was made for copies
of the treaties, laws, and ancient records which had
perished in the flames, and three thousand were replaced,
as in a national museum.

But while pious hands were dealing reverently with
the greatest of Rome's ancient temples the forces of
destruction were let loose elsewhere, and prophecies of
woe upon the Holy City of Jerusalem were nearing
their fulfilment. To understand the causes of thea.d 69-79.	Vesftasian.

*53

rising in Tudasa it may be well to glance at The causes of
0 , J	J	0	the msurrec-

Rome s earlier relations with that country, tion in
The first of her generals to conquer it was eariS reia-
the great Pompeius, and it was on his forci- °*the
ble entry into the Temple that attention was Rome,
directed to the religion of a people who had a.d. 66.
a shrine seemingly without god. Falling
with the provinces of the East to the portion of Antonius,
Judaea was conferred by him as a kingdom upon Herod,
and Augustus afterwards confirmed that prince's tenure
and added fresh districts to his rule. For it was a settled :
maxim of his policy to draw a girdle of dependent king-
doms round the distant provinces, and gradually to ac-
custom hardy races to the yoke of Rome. In the case
of the Jews there seemed to be good reasons for this
course. They were soon known to be a stubborn, peo-
ple, tenacious of their national customs, and ready to fly
to arms in their defence. They were spread widely
through the Empire, in the great cities and the marts of
industry; but men liked them less the more they saw
them. They thought them turbulent and stiff-necked,
and mutual prejudice prevented any real insight into
national temper, or any sympathy for the noble qualities
of the race. It is curious to read in Tacitus the strange
medley of gross errors about their history and creed—
monstrous fancies gathered from malicious gossip or re-
ported by credulous and ignorant writers. It is the
more strange when we think that he must have seen
hundreds of the men whose habits and beliefs he un-
wittingly misjudged, and one of whom at least wrote in
His own days to enlighten the world of letters on the
subject. At Rome the Jewish immigrants were looked
upon with marked disfavor. Under Tiberius we read
that thousands of them were forcibly removed as settlersiS4

The Earlier Empire.

A.D. 69-79.

to Sardinia, where, if they sickened of malaria, as was
likely, it would be but a trifling loss. In Judaea the ca-
prices of the Emperors affected them but little, though
they flew to arms ^rather than allow the statue of Cali-
gula to be set up in their Temple. But hard times began
when, under Claudius, the country passed from the dy-
nasty of the Herods to the rule of Roman knights or
freedmen. It was their misfortune to be exposed to the
a d 66	greed or lust of men as bad as the provin-

A hasty	cial governors of the Republic, while zealots,

Jerusalem. who mistook the times, were fanning the
widely till flame of national discontent. They bore
with the vile Felix; but at length the inso-
lence of Gessius Florus provoked a hasty rising, which
spread rapidly from place to place, till the whole coun-
try was in arms.

The general in command of Syria could make no head
against the insurrection, which carried all before it till
the strong hand of Vespasian turned upon
wasPsent to the rebels with resistless force the strong
command the engine of Roman discipline. But the war

army.	#

which had begun in a hasty riot was per-
sisted in with stubborn resolution. Towns and strong-
holds had to be stormed or starved into surrender, till
the last hopes and fanaticism of the people stood at bay
within the walls of Jerusalem and the lines of the be-
sieging legions. Two summers passed away while thus
much was being done, and the third year was spent in
further-reaching schemes of conquest, and the be-
The siege of leaguered city was left almost unassailed. It

Jerusalem was at thjs p0jnt that Titus was left in sole
was left to	r	.

Titus to command, eager to push forward the siege
s "	and to enjoy the sweets of victory at Rome.

But he had no easy task before him. The city, stronga.d. 69-79.	Vespasian.

155

by natural position, was fortified by walls of unusual
breadth and height, and amply supplied with water.
Within were resolute men who had flocked thither from
all sides to defend'the shrine of their most
sacred memories and the stronghold of Th®°3)5i"

0	nate aeience

freedom, and whose fiery zeal swept every -
thought aside before their duty to their country and their
God. There were also others more timid or more pru-
dent, who better knew the force of Rome and feared the
zealots' narrow bigotry. Thus mutual distrust and mu-
tual slaughter weakened the forces of defence. After
long months of obstinate fighting, discipline and skill
prevailed over the dogged valor of the
Jews—the Holy City was taken by storm,	of"

and the great Temple, the one centre of the the city and
nation's worship, was utterly destroyed. It a.d. 71.
was said that Titus was grieved to see the
ruin of so glorious a monument of art. He had no such
tender feeling for his prisoners of war. The outbreak
which Roman misgovernment had provoked had been
already fearfully avenged. Jerusalem was left a heap
of ruins, and its defenders were dragged in their con-
queror's train, to die of misery and hardship on the way,
or to feed the wild beasts with their bodies at the am-
phitheatres of the great cities on the road to Rome.

When the successful general returned to Italy it re-
mained only to celebrate the triumph of the war, and the
Jewish historian Josephus describes, as an
eye-witness, the splendid pageant, which was
one magnificent beyond all parallel. The Jewish war

7	described

procession of the day began at the lri- by Josephus.
umphal Gate, through which for ages so
many conquering armies had passed along in pomp.
The rich spoil, gathered from many a ransacked town,156	The Earlier Empire. a.d. 69-79.

was followed by the long line of captives, the poor re-
mains of the multitudes which had been carried off to
furnish cruel sport for the citizens of- Syrian towns.
Then came the pictured shows that filled the kindling
fancy with the memories of glory, strife, and carnage;
the battle scenes, the besieging lines, the dread con-
fusion of the storming armies, the sky all aglow with the
blazing Temple, and streams of blood flowing through
the burning cities. With each scene passed a captive
leader, to give reality to what men saw. Then came the
sight most piteous to Jewish eyes—the plunder of the
Holy Place, the sacred vessels which profane hands had
feared to touch before, the golden table of the shew-
bread, the candlestick, which may be still seen portrayed,
with its seven branching lamps, by those who pass be-
neath the Arch of Titus. After these came the images
of victory, and then the ruling powers of Rome, the
father with the two sons who were in their turn to suc-
ceed him. Hour after hour passed away as the proces-
sion moved in stately splendor through the streets. At
last it wound along the Sacred Way which led up to the
Capitol, and halted when the Emperor stood at the door
of the great temple of Jupiter. While he waited there,
the chief prisoner, Simon, the son of Gioras, was dragged
off, with a noose about his neck, to the dark prison not
many steps away. There was a silence of suspense while
he was there buffeted and slain; then the shout was
raised that Rome's enemy was no more; the last sac-'
rifices of the day were offerecUn the temple by Vespasian,
and all was over.

The war thus closed was a legacy of Nero's rule, for
the present government was one of peace. Happily
the new Emperor was a man of .different stamp from
any of the Caesars who had gone before. There hadA.D. 69-79.	Vespasian.

157

been fearful waste of treasure, and the Em- .Theecono
pire needed a good manager who would my and
husband its resources, and a quiet ruler ^astesof
who would soothe men's ruffled nerves. Vespasian.
Vespasian was not a man of high ambition or heroic
measures. Soldier as he was, he was glad to sheathe
the sword; but otherwise he carried to the palace the
habits of earlier life. He was simple and homely in his
tastes, affected no dignity, kept little state, and had no
expensive pleasures.

Much of the cruelty of previous monarchs grew out of
their wanton waste. The imperial revenue was small,
and their extravagance soon drained their coffers ; to re-
plenish them they had recourse to rapine or judicial
murder. Vespasian saw the need of strict economy.
To maintain his legions and the civil service, to feed and
amuse a population of proud paupers, and to make good
the ravages of fire and sword, he needed a full treasury,
and there could be little left to spend upon himself. But
for himself he needed little. He loved his little house
among the Sabine hills better than the palace of the
Caesars; dtank his wine with keener relish from his old
grandmother's cup than from gold or silver goblets ;
disliked parade or etiquette, and could scarcely sit
through the stately weariness of triumphal show. He
mocked at the flatterers who thought to please his vanity
by making Hercules the founder of his race ; and unwill-
ingly, at Alexandria, submitted to test the virtue of his
imperial hands on the blind who were brought to him to
cure, as in later days monarchs used to touch for the
king's evil.

Stories soon passed from mouth to mouth to show how
he disliked luxurious habits. A perfumed fop, we read,
came to thank him for the promise of promotion, but saw158

The Earlier Empire.

A.D. 69-79.

the great man turn away saying, " I would rather that
you smelt of garlic," and found his apointment cancelled
after all. But as ruler he never seemed content. He
„ ,	said from the first that he must have a vast

But he

needed and sum to carry on the government, and he
large re-	showed no lack of energy in raising it.

venue,	Even at Alexandria, the first city to salute

him Emperor, the people who looked for gratitude heard
only of higher taxes in the place of bounty, and vented
their disgust in angry nicknames. Fresh

and imposed . 1n , ,	.	,	. ,

new toils tolls and taxes were imposed on every side

and taxes, ^y a financier who was indifferent to public
talk or ridicule, and shrank from no source of income,
however mean or unsavory the name might seem, if only
it filled his coffers. Men remembered that his father
had been taxgatherer and usurer by turns, and they said
the son took after him, when they saw their ruler stoop-
ing to unworthy traffic, selling his favors and immunities,
bestowing honors on the highest bidder, and prostituting
and jnade as fancied, the justice of his courts of
money in un- law. It was said that he employed his mis-
atwllichgos- tress, Caenis, as a go-between in such de-
dps made grading business, and that he allowed his
fiscal agents to enrich themselves by greed
and fraud, stepping in at last to take the spoil, and
draining them like sponges dry. The wits of Rome of
course amused themselves at his expense, and told their
stories of his want of dignity. A servant one day asked
him for a favor for one whom he called his brother. The
Emperor sent at once to call the suitor to him, made
him pay him down the sum which he had promised to
his friend at court, and then when the servant came
again to ask the favor said in answer " Look out for
another brother, for he whom you call yours is nowa.d. 69-79.	Vespasian. ,

*59

mine." Another time a deputation came to. tell him that
a town had voted a costly statue in his honor. " Set
it up at once," ae said, and, holding out the hollow of
his hand, " here is the base already to receive it." There
was, indeed, nothing royal in his talk or manners. He
freely indulged in vulgar banter, and was never, it is said,
in a gayer mood than when he had hit upon some sordid
trick for raising money. Of such tales many, perhaps,
were mere idle talk, the spleen of men who thought it
hard to be called upon to pay their quota to the expenses
of the State.

The money was certainly well used, however it was
gotten. Government was carried on with a strong though
thrifty hand, and peace and order were £utthe
everywhere secured. Liberal grants were money was
made to cities in which fire and earthquake public^ f°r
had made havoc; senators were provided obJects-
with means to support their rank, and old families saved
from ruin by timely generosity. The fine arts and liberal
studies were encouraged; public professorships were
founded and endowed out of the Emperor's privy purse.
Nor were the amusements of the people overlooked,
though his outlay on this score seemed mean and parsi-
monious as compared with the extravagance of Nero. It
was the great merit of Vespasian that abso- He was
lute power had no disturbing influence on fre®from

.	jealousy

his judgment or his temper. He had no and sus-
suspicious fears, but let his doors stand open pici0n>
to all comers through the day, and dropped the earlier
habit of the court of searching those who entered. He
showed no jealousy of great men round him, and treated
Mucianus with forbearance, though his patience was
sorely tried by his haughty airs. He was in no haste to
assert his dignity, and when Demetrius the Cynic kepti6o

The Earlier Empire.

A.D. 69-79.

his seat and vented some rude speech as he came near
him, he only called him "a snarling cur" and passed on
his way.

In one case, indeed, he was persuaded to take harsher
measures. Helvidius Priscus, the son-in-law of Thrasea
Paetus, had from the first asserted in the

Yet was per-
suaded to most offensive forms his claims to republi-

Seiv^dius1 can equality. He spoke of his prince by

Pnscus,	name without a title of rank or honor; as

praetor he ignored him in all official acts, and treated him

when they met with almost cynical contempt. He was

not content seemingly to be let alone, but aspired to be

a martyr to his Stoic dogmas. Vespasian was provoked

at last to give the order for his death, recalling it, indeed,

soon after, but only to be told that it was too late to save

him, for Titus and his chief advisers felt the danger from

the philosophic malcontents, saw how much their policy

of abstention had weakened the government of Nero,

and were resolved that Helvidius should die, though at

the cost of Vespasian's regret and self-reproach.

There was also another scene, and one too of unusual
pathos, in which he acted sternly. Julius Sabinus was a
chieftain of the Lingones who called his
jn|abinus, clan to arms for Gallic independence. The
the touching movement failed—the Sequani against
story of his whom he marched having defeated him.
Snove?Ith" He heard that the Roman eagles were at
hand, and in despair the would-be Caesar
burnt his house over his head and hid himself in a dark
cave, in hope that men might think him dead. His wife
Epponina believed he was no more, and gave way to
such an agony of grief that he sent a trusty messenger
to tell her all and bid her join him. For years she lived,
in the town by day among her unsuspecting friends, anda.d. 69-79.	Vespasian.	161

in the hours of darkness with her husband. She began
to hope that she might free them both from the weari-
ness of this concealment if she could but go to Rome
and win his pardon. She dared not leave him in his
hiding-place alone, so she took him with her in disguise.
But the long journey was a fruitless one—the boon was
never granted. Sadly and wearily they made their way
back to their hiding-place, to carry on the old life of dis-
guise and of suspense. Then, to make her trial harder,
she bore two children to her husband. She hid her state
from every eye, hid her little ones even from her friends,
suckled and reared them for some time in that dark cave
with their father. At length the secret was discovered,
and the whole family was carried off to hear their
sentence from Vespasian's lips. In vain she asked for
mercy, in vain she pleaded that the rash presumption of
a moment had been atoned for by long years of lingering
suspense; in vain she brought her little ones to lisp with
their infant lips the cry for pity, till the Emperor's heart
was touched and he was ready to relent. But Titus stood
by and was seemingly unmoved. He urged that it
would be a dangerous example to let any hope for mercy
who had showed such high ambition, and that State
policy required that they should die. Unable to save
her husband, the noble-hearted woman bore him com-
pany in death, and left the Emperor's presence with de-
fiance on her lips.

Vespasian was soon to follow her. He had passed ten
years of sovereignty and sixty-nine of life. His career as
a ruler had been one of unremitting toil, and
even when his powers began to fail he would WorkS'hard
not give himself more rest. Physicians
warned him that he must slacken work and
change the order of his daily life, but " an emperor," he
m162

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 79-81.

said, " should die upon his feet; " and he was busy with
the cares of office almost to the last. His jesting humor
did not leave him even on his death-bed, and as the
streams of life were ebbing he thought of the divine
honors given to the earlier Caesars and said, " I feel that
I am just going to be a god."

Nor did the populace forget to jest in their sorrow at
his death. When the funeral rites were going on, an
^ ,	actor was seen to personate the dead man

The charac-	, , .	,	, ,

teristic jest at by his dress and bearing and to ask the

his funeral. undertaker how much the funeral cost.

When a large sum was named, " Give me the hundredth

part of it," Vespasian was made to say, " and fling my

body into the Tiber."

CHAPTER X.

titus.—a.d. 79-81.

Titus was born in the tiny cell of a poor house at Rome,
when his father was struggling on with straitened means.

But when Vespasian caught the eye of the
j^ospectf1 favorite Narcissus and was sent to serve in
ife of Titus kigh command in Britain, his young son
was taken to court, to be brought up with
Britannicus and share his pursuits as school-fellow and
playmate. His powers of mind and body ripened rapid-
ly, and he gave promise of a brilliant future, till his early
career at court was cut short by the murder of Britanni-
cus. He was said even to have touched with his lips thej
poisoned cup and to have long suffered from the potion.
' Little is told of the years that followed save that he servedA.D. 79-8l.

Titus.

163

with credit in campaigns in Germany and Britain and
gave some time to legal studies, till his father took the
command of the army in the Jewish war and the pros-
pects of civil strife opened a wider horizon to his ambi-
tious hopes. The memories of his early years spent in
the palace may well have fired his fancy, and his ad-
venturous spirit probably outstripped the
slow caution of Vespasian. It was Titus tjous hope's
who intrigued with Mucianus, who went to jjj1 jud®/ueS
and fro between Egypt, Palestine, and
Syria, who plotted and schemed with Berenice in the in-
tervals of gayer moods, who compromised his father's
name and drove him to come forward as a candidate
for empire.

When all was won and Vespasian's strong hand was
needed in the capital, Titus was left to close the war in
Palestine and to pacify the East. The struggle dragged
slowly on in spite of his impatience to return.

TT.	1 „	SkUl in the

His personal gallantry and skill m the con- siege and

duct of the siege won the trust and affection thepnson-
of his soldiers ; but his merciless cruelty to ers*
the conquered left a lasting stain upon his name. The
winter months were spent by him with royal pomp in
the great towns of Syria, where the Eastern princes
flocked to do him honor, and alarming rumors spread
at Rome of the sovereign airs which he put on, of the
ominous influence of Berenice, of his unbounded popu-
larity with the army of the East. Men began to fear that
he would not be content to wait and share the Empire,
but would rend it asunder in a parricidal war. Such
fears were soon put to rest when in early spring he left
his train to follow as it could and hurried with all speed
to greet Vespasian with the simple words, " See, father,
here#I am."164

The Earlier Empire. a. d. 79-81.

From that time he shared in full the titles and reality
of empire, assuming in his thirtieth year the Tribunician
dignity which his father had till this time
theimperfal modestly declined, and dazzling Roman
Enfetter*1 eyes t^ie PomP and magnificence of the
triumphal shows. For Titus felt perhaps
that Vespasian's homely vulgarity was out of place in
the founder of a new dynasty, and that to balance the
traditions of the Caesars and the profusion of a Nero it
would be prudent for the new rulers to do something to
make themselves admired or feared. He
magnificence had himself a princely bearing and a ready
showWard ^ow graceful words ; he excelled in man-
ly exercises, and was a lover of the fine arts.
He keenly felt the ridicule that clung to some of his
father's ways of raising money, and urged him to think
more of appearances; but in this Vespasian was not to be
moved. He even bantered Titus on his delicate nerves,
asking if he disliked the smell of the coins that were paid
as the impost on unsavory matter. But in other things
he was more yielding. He was willing to follow the im-
perial traditions and to spend largely on the
spentiargdy great works which Titus raised to dignify the
works3* Flavian name or to eclipse the memory of
Nero. The parks and woods included in
the circuit of the Golden House were given back to their
earlier uses. The palace itself was in part pulled down,
and the Baths of Titus swallowed up the rest, while the
Temple of Peace was built to hold the works of art which
had been stored within it. The bronze colossus of the
Emperor, founded for Nero by Zenodorus, was changed
into a statue of the Sun, and gave probably its name to
the Flavian Amphitheatre which still survives in ruins.
In after years a triumphal arch was planned and finished,A.D. 79-81.

Titus.

on which we can still see the solemn pageant and note
the great candlestick and other national trophies of
which the Temple at Jerusalem had been despoiled.

Besides such tokens of imperial grandeur Titus relied,
it seems, on sterner action; but in this he took his
measures without concert with his father.

_ _	,	. , .	1 Titus made

He had managed to win his consent to the himself
death of Helvidius Priscus, but Vespasian feared»
would be no party to a reign of terror. His son took
the unusual step of becoming prasfect of the praetorian
guards, an office filled commonly by knights. The sol-
diers were convenient agents, who asked no questions
but acted at a word; and if any one at Rome was too
outspoken in his criticism or likely to be dangerous, he
was easily removed in a hasty riot or a soldiers' brawl,
or a cry could be got up in the theatre or in the camp,
and the traitor's head be called for. In one case, it is
true, treasonable letters were found to prove the guilt of
a noble who was seized as he left the palace where he
had been dining; but then it was remembered that
Titus had a strange facility for copying handwriting,
and boasted that he could have been a first-rate forger
if he would.

If it was his wish to inspire terror he succeeded, for

men already began to whisper to each other about his

cruelty, and to fear that they would see another Nero on

the throne. Still more unpopular were his

relations with Berenice, which might end, and his re-

0	' lations with

it was thought, in marriage. Had she not Berenice
already, like another Cleopatra, bound his popular that
fancy to her by her Eastern spells, and yfeid^10
would he not probably go on to seat the
hated Jewish paramour upon his throne ? The populace
of Rome, which had borne with Caligula's itiad anticsThe Earlier Empire. a.d. 79-81.

and Nero's monstrous orgies, were stirred with inexpli-
cable loathing at the thought. Titus tried to silence the
outcry with harsh measures, and had one bold caviller
beaten with rods for a rude jest. But the storm grew
louder; he saw at last that he must yield, and reluc-
.	tantly consented to dismiss her. This was

Sinister	'	...

rumors	not all that men had to say against him.

about him. There were ugly stories of rapacious greed,
of debauches carried far into the night, of sensual ex-
cesses better left unnamed.

Such was his character at Rome when Vespasian's
death left him sole occupant of the imperial office, and
from that moment a change passed over the
SerChuT1Se spirit of his life. Like Octavius he had been
father's	feared—he would now like Augustus win

death.	.

his people s love. The boon companions
who had shared his midnight parties, the unworthy fa-
vorites whose hands were tingling for the money-bags
which Vespasian had filled, the informers who had
tasted blood and thought the chief hindrance in their
way had been removed by death—all these vanished at
once like birds of night when dawn is come, and were
driven even from the city. He was full of
His courtesy tenderness and courtesy for every class,
raiity made sanctioned by one stroke of the pen all the
byman,Ved concessions made by earlier monarchs; said
it was not a princely thing to let any suitor
leave him in sadness with his boon ungranted, and
complained that he had lost a day in which he blest no
man with a favor. So scrupulous was he of any show of
greed that he would hardly receive the customary pre-
sents ; so fearful of staining the sanctity of his reputation
that he aimed at universal clemency, and pardoned two
young conspirators with a graceful tenderness for theirA. D. 79-81.

Titus.

167

mother's anxious feelings, which made the mercy doubly
precious. His father's strict economy had left the trea-
sury full, and Titus could enjoy awhile in safety the
pleasure of giving freely and the luxury of being loved,
for the people who had feared a tyrant thought that the
golden age was come at last, and soon began to idolize
a ruler who refused them nothing, who spoke with such
a royal grace and spent so freely on their pleasures.
They did not ask if it could last, or if the revenue could
bear the constant strain; they did not think that their
ruler's character might change again when he had to
face the trial of an empty treasury and a disappointed
people. Happily, perhaps, for the memory of Titus, his
career upon the throne was short. He had little more
than two short years of absolute power, when Rome
heard with a genuine outburst of universal
grief that its beloved ruler had caught a Sty "a-Ver"
fever on his way to his villa on the Sabine m£ntehe
hills, and died, complaining that it was hard died.

to be robbed of life so soon, when he had
only a single crime upon his conscience. What that
crime was no one knew. Posterity perhaps might think
that his one crime as sovereign was the leaving the
legacy of empire to Domitian, his brother, whose vices
he had clearly read and weakly pardoned.

Some great disasters mark in sombre colors the annals
of his rule; in all he had shown for the sufferers un-
stinted sympathy and bounty. A great fire
raged three days and nights through Rome; Jrs ofShis
a terrible plague spread its ravages through time.
Italy ; and lastly, the world was startled by
the horrors of a story so unparalleled in history as to
tempt us to dwell longer on details.

The volcanic energies had been slumbering for agesi68

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 79-81.

beneath Vesuvius, or had found a vent perhaps here and
there in spots higher up along the coast that
ofVesuviusn were full of horror to the ancients, but seem
beforeyearS harmless now to modern eyes. A few years
earlier they had given tokens of their power
by shaking to the ground the buildings of Pompeii, a
city peopled by industrious traders. The Roman Senate,
warned by the disaster, thought of removing the city to
a safer spot; but the Pompeians clung to their old
neighborhood and repaired in haste their ruined dwell-
ing. The old town was swept away, with its distinctive
Oscan forms, that told of times before Greeks or Romans
set the local fashions, and a copy of the capital upon a
humble scale, with forum, theatres, and temples, took
its place. Some of the well-to-do migrated probably to
distant homes and left their houses, to be hastily an-
nexed to those of neighbors, who soon adapted them,
though on different levels, to their use. But
repeated on scarcely was the work of restoration over

a larger	J

scale.	when the great catastrophe came upon

them. The little cloud that rests always on
the mountain-top expanded suddenly to unwonted size.
The credulous fancy of Dion Cassius pictures to us
phantom shapes of an unearthly grandeur, like the giants
that the poets sing of, riding in the air before the startled
eyes of men; but the younger Pliny, who
JhtheCCOunt was a distant eye-witness, describes the
Pliny*6' scene in simpler terms. He was with his
uncle, the great naturalist, who was in com-
mand of the fleet then stationed at Misenum. Suddenly
they were called upon to note the unusual appearance
ofVesuvius, where the cloud took to their eyes the form
of an enormous pine-tree. The elder Pliny, who never
lost a chance of learning, resolved to start at once toA.D. 79-81.

Titus.

169

study the new marvel, and asked his nephew to go with
him. But the young student, who even in later life
cared more for books than nature, had a task to finish
and declined to go. As the admiral was starting he re-
ceived pressing messages from friends at Stabias, close
beneath the mountain, to help them to take refuge on
shipboard, as the way round by land was long to take
under the fiery hail that was fast falling. The fleet
neared the shore, where the frightened families had
piled their baggage ready to embark; but the hot ashes
fell upon the decks, thicker and hotter every moment,
and, stranger still, the waters seemed to retire from the
beach and to grow too shallow to allow them to reach
the poor fugitives, who strained their eyes only to see
the ships move off, and with them seemingly all hope
of succor. The volcanic force was doubtless raising the
whole beach and making the sea recede before it. But
Pliny was not to be discouraged, and landed finally at
another point, where a friend had a villa, on the coast.
Here he bathed tranquilly, and supped and slept till the
hot showers threatened to block up the doors, and the
rocking earth loosened the walls within which they
rested. So they made their way out on to the open beach,
with cushions bound upon their heads for shelter from
the ashes, and waited vainly for a fair wind to take them
thence. Pliny lay down to rest beside the water, while
the sky was red with fire and the air loaded
with sulphureous gases; and when his slaves ^efder*1 of
tried at last to lift him up he rose only to fall Pliny.

A.D. 79.

and die. By a curious irony of fortune the
student, whose great work is a sort of encyclopaedia of
the knowledge which men had gathered about nature,
chose the unhealthiest spot and the worst posture for
his resting-place, while his ignorant servants managedThe Earlier Empire.

a.d. 79-81.

to escape. For the waves were charged with sulphur
that escaped from the fissures of the rocks, and the
heavy gas, moving along the surface of the earth, was
most fatal to those who stooped the lowest.

Meantime at Pompeii the citizens first learned their
danger as they were seated at the theatre and keeping
holiday. The lurid sky and falling showers
Pompdi16 at drove them to their homes. Some hurried
thither to seize their valuables and hasten
to be gone out of reach of further risk; some felt the
ground rock beneath them as they went and were
crushed beneath the falling pillars; others sought a
refuge in their cellars, and found the scoriae piled around
their dwellings. Hot dust was wafted through every
crevice ; noxious gases were spread around them; and
thus their hiding-place became their tomb. Hour after
hour the fiery showers fell and piled their heaps higher
and higher over the doomed city, while a

and various	,, e , .	-	,	,

forms of death pall oi darkness was spread over the earth,
and rum. Then the hot rain came pouring down, as
the sea-waters, finding their way through fissured rocks
into the boiling mass, were belched forth again in vapor,
which condensing fell in rain. The rain, mingling with
the scoriae, formed streams of mud, which grew almost
into torrents on the steep hillsides, and poured through
the streets of Herculaneum, choked up the houses as
they passed, then rose over the walls, till an indistinguish-
able mass was left at last to hide the place where once a
fair city stood.

.	Weeks after, when the volcano had spent

The survi-	.	r

vors returned its force, some of the citizens of Pompeii
rSidtheally who had escaped came back to see the
thecityf scene of desolation, guessed as they best
could the site of their old homes, dug theira.d. 81-96.	Domitian~	• 171

way here and there through any hole which they could
makeinto the rooms tu carry off all the articles they prized
and then they left the place for ever. Time after time
since then the struggling forces have burst
forth from the mountain, and the volcanic trace again
showers have fallen and covered the old city dlsappeared-
with a thicker crust, till all trace of it was lost to sight and
memory. After many centuries it was discovered by acci-
dent, and the work of clearance has been slowly going for-
ward, constantly enriching the great Museum at Naples
with stores to illustrate the industrial arts of ancient times,
and restoring to our eyes a perfectly unique
example of the country town of classical Jnce°col-°tS
antiquity in all its characteristic features. lected-
At Herculaneum there has been less done, and there is
more perhaps to be looked for. It was a
resort of fashion rather than a market town,

was more under Greek influence, and there-	u"

fore, had a higher taste for the fine arts than
Pompeii; and above all it does not seem to have been
rifled by its old inhabitant, from whose eyes it was hid-
den probably by thick coats of hardened mud.

More to be
looked for

CHAPTER XI.

domitian.—a.d. 81-96.

During Domitian's early years his father Vespasian was

hiding in disgrace. He lived in a little house at Rome

so meanly furnished that it had not a single

piece of silver plate, and his straitened Sriy'life"S

means may possibly have tempted him to

vice, as the scandalous stories of later days asserted.172

The Earlier Empire. a.d. 81-96.

He first attracted public notice when liis father headed
the movement in the East, but Vitellius still left him
, ,	unmolested. There was danger, however,

and danger r	i r	r	it	i

from the from the fury of the soldiers, and he took
soldiers. refuge with his uncle Sabinus on the Capi-
tol to see the fortress stormed and the defenders slain.
He escaped from the massacre in disguise, and lurked
for awhile in the house of a poor friend in a mean
quarter of the town, But succor was near at hand,.and
the vanguard of his father's army not only brought him
safety but raised him suddenly to unlooked-for greatness.

The change was fatal to his modesty and self-control.
He aired at once all the insolence of absolute powfcr,
gave the rein to his sensual desires, and
furnedhis131126 bestowed all the offices of State at his caprice,
head.	Vespasian even wrote in irony to thank him

for not appointing a successor to himself. The arrival
of Mucianus, the vicegerent of the Emperor, put some
check upon his license ; but it needed all the statesman's
authority and tact to temper the arrogance of the head-
strong youth. The crisis on the Rhine was pressing,
and they set out together for the seat of war, but all was
over before they reached Lugdunum; and Domitian,
detained from going further, is said to have sent fruitless
messages to tamper with the fidelity of Cerealis. If
he had ever seriously hoped to raise himself to the
level of his brother he had quite failed, and he had gone
too far to meet his father's eye without misgiving. To
disarm the anger that he dreaded he feigned even folly
and took to hunting flies, for the often-quoted jest of
Kept in strict Vibius Crispus, that there was no one, " not
Vespasian7 even a fly, with Caesar," belongs more pro-
bably to this than to a later time. Thanks
to his father's tenderness or the entreaties of his brother,A.D. 81-96.

Domitian.

173

he suffered nothing worse than warning words; but Ves-
pasian watched him narrowly henceforth, kept him al-
ways by his side, trusted him with no public functions,
and flatly refused to let him lead the forces which the
Parthian king had sent to beg for in return for his own
proffers of support. But by this time Domitian had
learnt to abide his time and to be patient. He hid his
chagrin at being kept thus in the leading-strings of
childhood, and took to poetry, coquetting with the Muses
in default of graver duties.

At Vespasian's death, however, the old temper broke
out afresh. At first he thought of outbidding ^ m requited
Titus by offering the soldiers a bounty twice the tenderness
as large, but wanted nerve to appeal to	b"

force ; then he complained that he was kept out of his
rights, as his father's will had named him partner in the
imperial power, and to the last he tried the long-suffering
tenderness of Titus by moody sullenness and discontent,
and possibly even by plots against his life.

His brother's death soon removed the only obstacle
to his ambition and the only restraint upon

, His power of

his will. But, strange to say, wanton and self-restraint at

, j	1 i_ j i_ i- r -i	first as Emperor,

headstrong as he had been before, he now
exerted a rare faculty of self restraint, as if he were
weighted with the responsibility of power and wished
to win and to deserve the popularity of Titus. He spent
some time in quiet every morning to think over his
course of action and to school himself for the duties of
the day. He saw that justice was the first requisite of
social well-being, and he spared no effort
to secure it. In the law courts he was often an,d wis£to

rule well.

to be seen listening to the pleadings and the
sentence given. The judges knew that his eye was on
them, and that it was dangerous to take a bribe or show174

The Earlier Empire. A. D. 81-9 6.

caprice. Even in distant provinces the governors felt
that they were closely watched, and never, it is said, did
they show more equity and self-restraint than in this
opening period of Domitian's rule.

His treatment of another class showed a like spirit.

The rise and fall of the informers had been
raged m-" a sort of weather-gauge of the moral atmos-
formers,	phere around. Since Nero's death the

bolder spirits in the Senate had tried under each Empe-
ror in turn to bring the false accusers to the bar of
justice. The leading Stoics had come forward smarting
with the memory of the friends whom they had lost, full
of indignant eloquence against the blood-hounds who had
hunted them to death. The infamous names of Marcel-
lus, Crispus, Regulus called out an explosion of re-
vengeful sentiment. The Senate even went so far as to
ask that the old notebooks of the Emperors might be pro-
duced to furnish evidence against the men they hated.
But little had been really done, and men thought they
traced the malign influence of Mucianus in screening the
criminals from attack. Titus had driven them away in
disgrace; but now perhaps they were creeping, like un-
clean things, out of .their hiding-places to study the new
sovereign's temper. They could not be encouraged by
the words that dropped from him: " The prince who fails
to chastise informers whets their zeal;" nor by the
penalty of exile fixed for the accuser who brought a charge
of defrauding the treasury or privy purse and failed to
make it good.

He tried next to meet a growing evil of the times that
and legacies was significant of misrule. He announced
to Himself.	he WOuld receive n9 legacies save from

the childless, and quashed the wills made out of vanity
or ostentation to the prejudice of the natural heirs.A.D. 81-96.

Domitian.

175

Not content with such reforms, he tried to give a
higher moral tone to the social life of the , . ,

0	and tried to

great city, to check the license of the thea- raise the

j •	-J t	• j	, moral tone of

tres to discourage indecent pasquinades, and society.

raise the respect for chastity and moral ties.

Had he only ruled as short a time as Titus he would
have borne as fair a character in history, and he would
seemingly have deserved it better, for he grasped the
reins with a firmer hand and wished to merit rather than
to win his subjects' love. How was it that The proba-
so fair an opening was so sadly clouded, or ]£* marked^
whence the change that came over the spirit change of
of his rule ? In the meagre account of an- temper*
ccient writers we find no attempt made to solve the
problem. But we may see perhaps some explanation in
the events that happened at the time. One
thing was wanting still, the laurel crown of pie^'l^e
victory, to raise Domitian to the level of his as a general,
brother. In an evil hour he coveted military
glory, and set out for Germany, where a pretext for war
was never wanting. But, high as was the order of his
talents, he had neither the general's eye nor the soldier's
courage, and his heart failed him when he drew nearer
to the enemy. The German expedition
ended as it began, in plundering a few poor A'D' 84'
villages, and in pompous proclamations to the army and
the Senate. But far away towards the Danube there
was the sound of the real crash of war. Decebalus, at
the head of his Dacian hordes, was an enemy worthy of
the most skilful generals of Rome. Bold, fertile in re-
source, and skilled in all the fence of war, he had drilled
and organized a formidable power, which for years tried
the mettle of the Roman armies. Hither	Q.

A.D. 86.

also came Domitian to gain his laurels, and176

The Earlier Empire.

A.D. 81-96.

here too his courage failed him. He stayed in the rear
away from all the fighting, while his legions, badly led,
were driven backward in disgrace. Unwilling to return
without striking a blow to retrieve his tarnished fame,
he hurried to Pannonia to chastise the Marcomanni for
neglecting to send him succor in the war. But thither
also he was followed by his evil star. Instead of the
submission that he looked for he found a vigorous de-
fence ; he was ensnared and routed by an enemy whom
he had thought to find an easy prey. Sick of war and
of its dangers, he came to terms with Decebalus without
delay; and rare as it was for a Roman leader to con-
clude a war after defeat, he was glad to purchase peace
at any cost, and to give not money only but tools and
workmen to teach the Dacian tribes the arts of civilized
life.

He could not face his people with the confession of
his failure, so lying bulletins went homeward to the
Senate to tell of victories never won, and to disguise the
history of the campaigns. Honors and thanksgivings
were voted in profusion. The imperial city and the
provincial towns accepted the official story, and raised
with dutiful joy triumphal statues to their prince. But
the truth leaked out, of course, and Domitian returned
to Rome an altered man. He read mockery in the eyes
of all he met, detested their praises as gross flattery, yet
resented silence as a censure. He gave costly enter-
tainments to the people, but with a gaiety so forced and
a mien so changed that men spoke of them currently as
funeral feasts, till at last he took them at their word, in-
viting the senators to a strange parody of a supper in the
tombs, and played with grim humor on their fears.

While he was in this capricious mood another even
served yet further to embitter him. Antonius, a governora.d. 81-96.	*Domitian.

177

upon the Rhine, began once more the fatal a .
game of civil war. .Though he was soon racy against
crushed and slain, and his note-books
burnt, to compromise no partisans, yet the suspicious
fears of Domitian were not to be lulled so easily, and he
fancied universal treachery around him. The plot was
the motive or excuse for an outburst of vindictive feel-
ing, which would not stay to wait for proofs, but grew
ever more relentless the faster its victims fell. Like
some half-tamed animals we read of, he needed to taste
blood to reveal to himself and others the ferocity of his
feline nature.

One further cause perhaps there was—a frequent one
with vicious rulers—to tempt him to yet further evil.
This was simply want of money. The fruit-
less expenses of the wars, the heavy price money?* °f
he paid for peace, the lavish outlay to keep
up the farce and put the populace in good humor—these
had drained the coffers which Vespasian had filled, and
which the easy prodigality of Titus had already emptied.
At first he was minded to economize by reducing the
strength or number of the legions; but he feared to
weaken the thin line of border armies, and in his present
mood he saw a readier way to fill his treasury—the old,
old story of these evil times. Fines, confiscations, and ju-
dicial murders, became once more the order
of the day, colored at times by various pleas, Sus victims,
but often too by none at all. He talked of
conspiracies and treasons till his morbid fancy saw
traitors everywhere around him; his suspictous fears
settled at last into general mistrust as the hatred of the
world grew more intense.

The Philosophers were among the first to suffer. Rus-
ticus and Senecio died for their outspoken reverence for

ni78

The Earlier Empire.

a.D. 81-96,

the great martyrs of their Stoic creed, and
sophS.llQ" many another suffered -with them, till by one
sweeping edict all were banished from the
city and from Italy. Philosophy did not, indeed, make
conspirators, but he feared its habits of bold speech and
criticism, <as modern despots are intolerant of a free
press ; and he looked with an evil eye at men who would
not stoop to Caesar-worship, as persecuting Churches
would trample out Dissent.

Among those who were brought before him at this
time and banished with the rest one name is mentioned
that may stand apart, that of Apollonius
^Tyansu8 ofTyana. He was, it seems, a wandering
sage, so renowned for sanctity and wisdom
that a band of admiring scholars grouped themselves
around him, and were glad to follow him from land to
land. Strange legends of his unearthly power gathered
in time about his name, and words of more than human
insight were reported to feed the credulous fancy of the
world. In the last phase of the struggle between Pagan
and Chiistian thought the figure of Apollonius was
chosen as a rival to the Jesus of the Gospels, and his life
was written by Philostratus to prove that the religious
philosophy of heathenism could show its sermons, mira-
cles, and inspiration.

These were hard times for earnest thinkers; they were

not encouraging for men of action. Military prowess

and success were too marked a contrast to

The gene- ^ ^e humfoiing disasters on the Danube to

juims	meet with much favor from the Emperor;

Agricola.	.	, •

but there were few generals of renown to try
his temper. Julius Agricola is prominent among them,
because the skilful pen of Tacitus, his son-in-law, has
written for us the story of his life. His just, firm ruleA.D. 81-96.

Domitian.

179

as governor of Britain, the promptitude with which he
swept away the abuses of the past, the courage with
which he pushed his arms into the far North and brought
Caledonia within the limits of his province, form a bright
page in the annals of this period. But they gave little
pleasure to his jealous sovereign, who eyed AD 85
him coldly on his return to Rome, and gave
him no further chance of service or of glory. He lived
a few years more in modest dignity, without a word of
flattery, yet not desirous to court a useless death by of-
fensive speech. When he died men whispered their
suspicions of foul play, but the Emperor, who was named
among his heirs, accepted gladly the token of his respect,
forgetting his own earlier principles, or that, as the his-
torian tells us, " only a bad prince is left a legacy in a
good father's will."

But though he feared serious thought and action, the
lighter charms of literature might perhaps have soothed
the moody prince. In earlier days he had
turned to poetry for solace, and the sad menrary
Muses, whom he had courted in retirement,

had, as Juvenal tells us, no patron else to look to than
the Domitian who had just risen to the throne. But the
Emperor read little else himself besides the memoirs
of Tiberius, and the writers of his day had but scant
cause to bless his princely bounties. Mar- Martial,
tial, with all his ready flow of sparkling
verse, his pungent epigrams, and witty sallies, had a hard
life of it enough at Rome, and was reduced to cringe
and flatter for the gift of a new toga or paltry dole.
Statius, well read and highly gifted as he was with fluency
and fancy, found it easy to win loud applause when
he read his Thebaid in public, but gained Statius
little by his ingenious compliments andi8o

The Earlier Empire. A. D. 81-96.

conceits as poet laureate of the court, and had not means
enough at last to find a marriage-portion for his daughter.
Juvenal's appeal in favor of the starving Muses met
seemingly with no response, and disappointment may
have added to his high-toned vehemence

Juvenal.	.

and studied scorn. It was no time certainly
for Tacitus to write without partiality or fear, and the
Tacitus	condensed vigor of his style, its vivid por-

traiture and power of moral indignation
might have been lost wholly to the world had not
another Emperor come at last to combine monarchy
with freedom.

Meantime Rome had grown weary of the bloodthirsty
mania of its ruler, who loved to pounce with stealthy
suddenness upon his victims, and to talk of mercy when
he meant to slay. It was the rich, the noble, the large •
hearted who suffered most in this reign of
SsSsfnated terror, and it was left to his wife and freed-
by his wife men to cut it short. Finding, it is said, a

and freed-	.

men.	note-book in his bed, and in it their own

names marked down for deathf they formed
their plans without delay. It was in vain that Domitian
was haunted by his warning fears, that he had his por-
ticoes inlaid with polished stone to reflect the assassin's
dagger; in vain he sent for astrologers and soothsayers
to read the future; he could not be always armed
against the enemies of his own household. The con-
spirators surprised him alone in an unguarded moment
and dispatched him with many wounds, though he
struggled fiercely to the last.Position of the Emperor.	181

CHAPTER XII.

the position of the emperor.

After studying the lives of the early Emperors in some
detail it may be well to call attention to the marked pe-
culiarities of the position which they filled.

1.	Henceforth the Emperor is virtually the sole source
of law, for all the authorities quoted in the codes are
embodiments of his will. As magistrate*he

issued edicts in accordance with old usage J virtually™*
in connection with the higher offices which [^source of
he held, as did the praetors of earlier days.

When sitting judicially he gave decrees; he sent man-
dates to his own officials, and rescripts when consulted
by them. He named the authorized jurists whose
responses had weight in the nice points of law. Above
all, he guided the decisions of the Senate, whose Sena-
tus consulta took the place of the forms of the republican
legislation.

2.	He was called on also to interpret law, either in the
ordinary course of his functions when he served as
yearly magistrate, or as the high court of

appeal from the sentences of lower tribu- heinter-

r r	prets the

nals, or through the Senate, which became law,
a court of judicature for large classes of
trials, and looked constantly for imperial guidanoe. We
read often in the .lives of the earlier rulers of the unre-
mitting care with which they took part in such inquiries.

3.	As the head of the executive the Emperor must
enforce the law. Most of the officials soon and enforces
became his nominees, though a few of the as head.of

,	the executive.

dignified posts were filled up with some182

The Earlier Empire.

show of free election in the Senate; but the master of
the legions holds the power of the sword, and cannot
share it with others if he would.

The power so expressed was unique in kind. It ex-
tended over the whole civilized world, over all the cities
His power • historic fame and all the great nations of
kind"6 in antiquity. It rested upon an overwhelming
military force, and was met by no threat of
physical resistance from wTithin. Nor were there con-
trolling influences to be counted on such as monarchy
without	^as commonly t0 face. Of political assem-

checkor blies the popular comitia passed speedily
away, and the Senate became the instru-
ment of his will, consisting chiefly of his nominees, and
never asserting the right of independent action. There
was no power of privilege to face him, such as orders of
nobility and corporations have claimed and held in
other states. There was no powerful civil service or
bureaucracy, such as can thwart while seeming to obey,
and afford a potent but impalpable resistance even to a
despot's will. There was no sentiment of public mo-
rality or national pride that he might not dare to
outrage, for the people of Rome were a mixed rabble,
swollen rapidly by slaves who had gained the boon of
freedom, and recruited from every race under the sun.
The men of dignity and moral worth might frown or
shudder when Caligula played mad pranks and Nero
acted pn the public stage; but their displeasure mattered
little if the populace were merry and the army loyal.
Religion itself had no counteracting force, for at Rome
it was a matter more of formal observance than of moral
faith. It was not organized in outward forms'to balance
the authority of the civil power, and by a curious
anomaly the Emperor was at once the highest func-Position of the Emperor.

tionary of the state religion, as supreme pontiff, and was
also soon to be deified and to become the object of the
veneration of the world.

It was a system of unqualified despotism, without
ministry, nobles, church, or parliaments, such as it is
impossible to parallel, such as was likely to produce the
best and worst of governors, according as men were
sobered by the responsibilities or maddened by the
license of absolute power.

From the imperial will there was no escape. The
Emperor might and did commonly observe the consti-
tutional forms and act on the sentence of
the courts of law, or he might dispense with There was

'or	no escape

such tedious formalities, and send a quiet from the ^
message to bid a man set his house in order power,
or let his veins be opened in a bath. A
few soldiers could carry the death-warrant to the greatest
of his subjects in a far-off land, and execute it in the
midst of his retainers. There seemed no hope of flight,
for only barbarians or deserts lay beyond the Roman
world. But in return there was no escape . ,.

r nor for him.

for the Emperor himself. He could not
weary of the cares of state, and lay his burden down in
peace. There was no cloistered calm for him like that
which Christian princes have sometimes found. He
could not abdicate in favor of his natural successor; he
must rule on, to be the mark for the dagger of every
malcontent, and see a possible rival and successor in
every great man or military chief.

The Emperor's power, again, was based on physical
force. It rested on no sanctions of religion, noble birth,
immemorial usage, or definite election, for it
was of revolutionary origin and took its very was basS on
title from the power of the sword. Yet after milltafy184

The Eai'lier Empire.

his°policy Julius the early Emperors were not men of
was com- war, and had no military policy or ambition.
warlike?0' They had every thing to lose and nothing
seemingly to gain from war. The balance
of the Empire might be lost while the chief was on the
distant frontier, and a successful general might prove a
dangerous usurper.

They seldom even saw the armies, for these were far
Little police away upon the borders, and at home there

force	was so little need of armed repression that a

needed.	r

handful of the city watch and a few thousand

of the household troops sufficed for the police of all the
central countries of the Empire. Municipal self-rule
kept the towns contented ; and though the nationalities
had lost their ancient freedom th^y seldom showed a
wish to strike a blow to win it back. In Rome itself the
old nobility was little to be feared. They had no power-
ful following of clients or retainers, no rallying cry nor
hold upon the imaginations of the masses; and their
feelings might be outraged, their fortunes pillaged with
impunity, if only the populace could be kept in cheerful
humor and the praetorians and legions did not stir.

CHAPTER XIII.

J THE RIGHTS OF ROMAN CITIZENSHIP.

vast multitudes gathered within the walls of Rome

a motley assemblage of every class and race.

The citizens War, proscription, and imperial jealousy had

of Rome a thinned the numbers of the old families of
mixed race.	. .

pure descent, and many of the great historicThe Rights of Roman Citizenship. 185

names had already disappeared; but early under the
Republic complaints were made by the Italians that the
attractions of the capital were draining the country towns
of their inhabitants, and for centuries there had been a
steady influx of provincials of every race; while the
slaves of the wealthy households, gaining frequently
their freedom after a few years of bondage, passed into
the class of libertini, and left children to recruit every
order of the state. There were still differences of legal
status left between the children of the full citizen and of
the freed slave, but the lines that parted them became
gradually fainter.

But in what did the status of the citizen consist, and
how far did the Empire modify the rights and privileges
of the franchise ? Of the civil law we need not speak.
The rights of family life and property were specially
determined by the old Jus Privatum, and Their rights
only slowly changed by an admixture of feg^sprivi"
equity from the Praetors' Edicts, and by an
infusion of the wider spirit of Greek philosophy. The
political privileges of citizenship were more directly
modified.

1.	Of these the earliest and most distinctive, the right
of voting in the popular assemblies, became an idle form
and passed away. After a few years the

Comitia ceased to meet to pass laws or elect	suf"

magistrates, for no representative system
had been devised to collect the votes of millions scat-
tered over the murticipia of the whole Empire, and no
statesman could regret the loss of the turbulent meet-
ings of the Roman rabble which had disgraced the last
century of the Republic.

2.	Th ejus Uonorum, or right to hold official rank, was
still real and valued. It had not been an integral part186

The Earlier Empire.

of the Roman franchise in the earliest days
honorum.	distinction between the patres and

the plebs. It did not always go with it in
later times, for we read in Tacitus the speech of Claudius
in the Senate when some of the nobles of Gallia Comata
pleaded for the right of office.

3.	The right of appeal to the popular assembly, or
provocatio ad populum, in capital trials, was a highly-

prized defence against the magistrate's ca-
apiSf1 °f price, secured by the Valerian law, enlarged
by the veto of the tribunes, and reinforced
by the Sempronian law of C. Gracchus. But the Em-
peror now stepped into the place of both tribune and
Comitia ; he was the high court of appeal, and from him
there was no flight.

4.	The security from personal outrage or bodily chas-
tisement which the Porcian laws provided had empha-
sized the difference of dignity between the

4. Immunity

from personal Roman and the Latin, and continued in
imperial days to be the constitutional right
of every citizen, of Paul of Tarsus as of the inhabitants
of Rome.

5.	The power of voluntary exile, of leaving Rome be-
fore trial in the law-courts or the Comitia, to live in some
5 Jus exilii	community, became meaningless from

this time. The Emperor's hand could reach
as well to Rhodes or to Massilia as to Tibur or Aricia,
and the exiles of whom we read henceforth had been
banished to inhospitable rocks for the most part by the
sentence of the Senate or the courts, or sometimes by a
message from the palace.

6.	Freedom of speech and writing had been leMarge,
but not unrestricted, by the Commonwealth. Scurrilous
lampoons had been made penal by the Twelve Tables,The Rights of Roman Citizenship. 187

and the jealousy of an oligarchy dealt „ „

, ,	. ,	,	. . 6. Freedom of

harshly, now and then with petulant cnti- speech and

cism. But orators in the Forum and the wntmg-
law-courts used the utmost license of invective. Augus-
tus was careful at the first t<*do little to abridge such
freedom, and to let men find in talk the safety-valve of
passionate feeling. But when his temper grew soured
with age, and the Empire seemed more firmly planted,
he became more jealous of his dignity, and the formida-
ble "Laws of Treason" were extended to cover words
as well as acts. Spies and informers started up to report
unwary utterances and garble social gossip. The praises
of a Cato or a Brutus might cost the historian his life, an
epigram against a favorite be avenged by his imperial
master, and Lucan be driven to conspire when his
verses had given umbrage to the tyrant. There was as
yet no censorship of the press, no means of seizing
some thousand copies of a journal before it had ap-
peared for sale, no way of warping or poisoning the
public mind by official lies and comments. Yet such
freedom as was left lived by sufferance only, and des-
potism needed only more spies and agents and a more
centralized machinery to be terribly oppressive.

7. Religious liberty was little meddled with as yet.
Polytheism is naturally a tolerant and elastic creed, and
a niche might be found for almost any deity
in the Pantheon of the Roman ruler. Athe- ii'bStygl°us
ism itself was safe, for the state religion was
a matter of forms and observances rather than of
thought. If jealousy was shown towards any creed or
worship by the statesmen, it was towards such as were
exclusive and aggressive, like the Jewish and the Chris-
tian, leading, as they seemed to do, to turbulence and
disrespect for established powers; or towards such asi88

The Earlier Empire.

were linked with sacerdotal claims, like that of the Druids,
which might foster national memories and come between
the masses and the Roman rulers ; or towards such as
seemed of too extravagant and mystical a type, outra-
ging sober reason or acting as hot-beds of secret societies
and clubs.

8.	The right of meeting was largely used, under the
Republic. The contiones or mass meetings of the streets

were addressed by every great party leader
ass«nbiy?f	^s turn, and no government had tried to

put them down, except when they met by
night in secret or led to open riotings. More permanent
unions, called partnerships, clubs, guilds, and colleges,
were freely formed, and most of these were recognized
by law, and only interfered with when, at the end of the
Republic, their machinery was thought to be abused by
political wire-pullers and electioneering agents. Warned
by such experience, the earlier Caesars looked at such
clubs with a watchful and suspicious eye, put down the
newly-formed and barely tolerated the older. They
feared, it seems, centres of attraction for the discon-
tented, and secret societies that might meet under cover
of a harmless name. But before long the restrictions
were relaxed. Inscriptions show that vast numbers of
such unions existed all over the Roman Empire, claim-
ing on their face a legal sanction, connected with every
variety of trade and interest, and recruited mainly from
the lowest ranks—often, like the provident clubs of later
times, with occasional meetings for good cheer. Formal
history is almost silent on their humble interests, but the
monumental evidence is full and clear.

9.	The citizens of Rome claimed and enjoyed one
further privilege, which the franchise did not elsewhere
Carry with it. This was the right to food. FromThe Rights of Roman Citizenship.

189

early ages the Government had bought ^0dightt0
up large quantities of corn to distribute
freely or below cost price, or had fixed a maximum of
price in harder times. C. Gracchus was the first to sys-
tematize the practice and let every household have its
monthly allowance from the state at a sum far below its
value. This was to be the Roman's salary for the
trouble of governing the world. The step could never
be retraced, though Sulla tried in vain to do so; the
price was eten lowered, and the corn was at last freely
given. The first Emperors saw the dangerous effects of
this—the discouragement to honest industry, the tempta-
tion to the idle and improvident to flock to Rome, the
burden on the treasury of the state—but they dared not
give it up, lest the malcontents should find a rival and a
rallying cry ; so they were content to scrutinize the claims
and reduce the number to the narrowest limits and to
confine it to the poorer of the inhabitants of Rome.

It was in this seemingly unlike our Poor Law system,
that it did not &t first at least imply as a matter of course
the extremest poverty, for a noble Piso came, we read,
to take his dole, saying that if the state was so reckless
with its money he would have his share with the rest.
It was unlike the French Socialist's " right to labor,"
urged of late years with so much vehemence, for it set
a premium on vicious indolence and made the Romans
the pensioners of the world.190

The Earlier Empire.

CHAPTER XIV.

life in the provinces.

The Republic had bequeathed to the imperial govern-
ment the greatest possible variety of political conditions
e	throughout the different provinces. As in

variety of personal status there were many intermedi-
statu^fn the ate positions between slavery and full
town^and Roman citizenship, so there were many

large amount stages of privilege and power between a
of self-rule.	.	, , .

humble village community and the mistress
city. During her long period of conquest Rome had
never tried to act on any uniform system. As state after
state had been annexed she allowed the conquering gen-
eral, with the help of a commission or instructions from
the Senate, to define the political conditions of the
country, and to lay down the lex provincial. The object
of this was mainly to fix the amount of tithe and tribute,
to map out the countries newly won into assize districts
for the courts of justice, and to give or to withhold spe-
cial privileges in the case of those who had been most
marked as friends or foes. But the Roman statesmen
were always tolerant of local customs, and had no wish
for uniformity of system. They broke up, indeed, the
political unions or federations which had been strong
and might still be dangerous, but they respected the old
forms of national life, and let their subjects manage
their affairs for the most part as they pleased. Each
country lived its separate life, with varying usages that
had been slowly shaped in the course of ages, and everyLife in the Provinces.	191

part of it enjoyed a large measure of self-government.
Where the towns were all-important, as in states affected
by Greek and Latin culture, there the old names and in-
stitutions lingered undisturbed. In Gaul the tribes kept
something of their federal character, and the old name
for the capital of each union outlived in many cases the
one of Roman origin, as that of the Remi lives on still
in Rheims. In Egypt the political unit was the Nome,
and the laws of Ptolemy were still respected, as those
of Hiero were in Sicily. The old Greek names of Ar-
chon and of Demarch often lingered on beside the offi-
cial titles that were of Latin source.

The cities of the highest rank were Colonics or Muni-
cifiia, whose citizens had either carried with them to new
homes or enjoyed by special boor\ the privileges of the
full Roman franchise. To this class belonged all the
towns in Italy and Sicily and some few in the provinces.
Next in order came the towns of Latin right, uncon-
nected usually with the Latin race, but promoted-to the
rank which Rome's nearest neighbors and allies had
once enjoyed. Here and there, too, were privileged
cities enjoying by the bounty of Rome the rights of free-
dom and immunity from taxes as guaranteed by special
treaty, and called on that account free or federate cities.
Below these came the mass of stipendiary towns, subject
to tax and tithe at the discretion of the Roman rulers,
but administered by their own magistrates and little
meddled with by the central government. Around each
of these were often grouped a number of villages, can-
tons, hamlets, called by various names, and more or less
dependent on the central town, of whose territory they
formed a part, and by whose magistrates they were ad-
ministered. Sometimes, too, wilder mountain regions
were annexed in this way to the nearer towns, through192

The Earlier Empire.

which a civilizing influence might be brought to bear
upon their ruder neighbors. In general, however, there
was no marked distinction between town and country-
life, as land-owners and farmers were grouped together
for mutual defence, and lived within easy reach of the
community whose civil rights they shared.

The ancient writers seldom speak directly about social
life in any town but Rome. It lay outside the plan of
formal history: its details were too well known

Scanty refe-	J

rence in litera-	to call for comment, and the national come-

ofTheprovin-	dy, which must have thrown most light upon

cial towns.	js now qUjte iost us< The literary men

could not live happily save in the capital. Though
Juvenal speaks with bitterness of the trials of the poor
client's life, yet he still trudged wearily about the streets
to pay his court to his rich patrons, and kept his garret
rather than to move to the healthy country towns where
life was cheap. Martial spent thirty years of meanness
as a needy parasite of fashionable circles, catering for
their appetite for scandalous talk, and selling for a paltry
dole his wit, his gaiety, and his licentious fancy; and
when he went at last to his little town in Spain whose
calm he had long sighed for, he spoke of it with disgust
and weariness, and longed to be back at Rome again.
Statius, again, grew tired of the city, where in spite of his
poetic fame he could only get a miserable pittance by
dwelling on the virtues of Domitian, and he determined
to go back to his native Naples; but his wife was deaf to
all his praises of the country, and preferred the Suburra
and the crowded streets to the baths of Baiae and the
beauties of the charming bay. We cannot expect, there-
fore, to find in these writers much about the course of
that provincial life which was so distasteful to them. Our
knowledge on the subject is drawn mainly from theLife in the Provinces.	193

inscriptions on stone and bronze of which so

1 1	- Fuller details

many have been found in different countries, in the inscrip-
From this source we may trace the efforts tlons*

made to regulate the condition of the municipia, and to
fix some uniform principles for the government of the
most favored communities throughout the Empire.
Thus, fragments have been found of what was probably
the Lex yulia Municipalise passed to regulate the choice
of town councils and their magistrates. Two other laws
found near Malaga a few years back date from Domitian,
and go still more into detail about the constitutional
features of the Spanish towns, from which they take the
names of Leges Salpensana and Malacitana. Much may
be learnt also from the funeral inscriptions, though in-
deed we should not glean much information of the kind
from the grave-yards of our own times. But the old epi-
taphs seldom fail to note the local titles and honors of
the dead, and tell us much incidentally of the nature of
their rank and offices that would be otherwise unknown
to us. To these, too, must be added the formal eulogies,
the votes of honor, the thank-offerings and words of dedi-
cation, the records of the guilds and corporations, which,
after being buried from sight and thought for ages, have
been found in course of time in a rapidly increasing
store. A whole city, too, Pompeii, has risen from the
grave, to show us not merely the houses and the streets
in which men lived and died under the early Empire, but
the words even which their hands had traced, sometimes
in stately inscriptions on their public monuments, some-
times in advertisements roughly sketched upon the walls,
sometimes in the scribblings of school-boys or the care-
less scrawls by which the idle whiled away their time,
and wrote out for all to read the story of their jests and
loves and hates.

0194

The Earlier Empire.

In the towns of the highest class the powers of ad-
ministration were vested in a few magistrates, who held
office only for a year. The chief of these
officials?"^6 filled the place of the consuls or praetors of
dicundcT*	times> and were styled from their j udicial

functions duumviri juri dicundo, being also
presidents of the town councils. Below them were the
two cediles, who, as at Rome, had a variety
of police functions and the care of the
streets, markets, and public monuments. Sometimes
the comprehensive term quattuor viri juri dicundo was
used to include both of the classes above named. There
were also in the larger towns two ancestors

quaestors;	,

to be treasurers of the public funds and con-
trol the statements of accounts. It was usual to take
the census every five years throughout the Empire, and
in the days of the Republic it had been the duty of the
censors to preside over the work, and to carry it through
with becoming ceremony and religious pomp. The
Emperor took the censor's place at Rome, and no special
officers or commissions were appointed for the purpose
in the provinces, but the duumvirs of the year were
charged to make all the entries of personal and real
estate within the course of sixty days, and to send copies
of the registers to the central record office. To mark
the importance of the * functions the honorary term of
quinquennalis was added to the official tittle
ST"	duumvir, and as such appears often on

the funeral inscriptions. It was the more
prized as it carried with it also the duty of drawing up
the list of the town councillors, as the censors had to do
for the Roman Senate.

The town council, or ordo decurionum, consisted of
the ex magistrates and others of local dignity andLife in the Provinces.	195

wealth, subject only to a few conditions The town

J	J	council or

stated in the municipal laws that have been ordo decuri•
found, such as those which shut out from onum"
office convicted thieves and bankrupts, or men engaged
in trades regarded as discreditable, like the gladiator,
auctioneer, and undertaker. A minimum of age and
income was also fixed, but it was one that varied at dif-
ferent times and places.

A lucky accident has preserved for us the alburn
decurionutn, or roll of the town council of Canusium. At
the head we find a number of titular patroni, for it was
the usage of the town to connect themselves if possible
with members of influential families at Rome, who might
watch over their interests, and also to confer the hono-
rary name on the most eminent of the local notabilities.
At the end of the register came the names of some firce-
textati, or young men of high family, who were allowed
to be present at the meetings of the council and train
themselves for public life by hearing the debates. The
councillors themselves managed most of the affairs -of
public interest, voted their local taxes, controlled the ex-
penditure of their funds, made grants for public build-
ings, conferred honors, immunities, and pensions, and
watched over the ceremonials of religion.

But the popular assemblies of the citizens had not yet,
as at Rome, become a nullity. In the in-
scriptions we can still read of the votes that fssembiies
had been passed "with the approval of the business f°r
people." The municipal laws of the two
Spanish towns, which may be fairly taken as types of
the whole class, give full details of the mode in which the
magistrates were named in public and voted for openly
in all the city wards. The election placards posted on
the liouses of Pompeii show that the popular contests196	The Earlier Empire.

were very real and the excitement strong. At times
even the women longed to air their sympathies; and
though they could not vote they scrawled the names of
their favorite candidates upon the walls. Sometimes
party spirit was carried to such dangerous lengths that
the Emperors were called upon to interfere and name a
special prsefect to take the place of the magistrate who
could not be chosen peacefully.

If these municipal offices were hotly coveted it was
only for the honor and not for any substantial ad-
vantages which they carried with them.

Such offices	. 1 ,	,

were burden- Their holders received no salaries, as did
th^iucratlve. the agents of the imperial government, nor
had they lucrative patronage at their dis-
posal. Their main privilege was rather that of ruining
themselves to please the citizens. They had first to pay
a sort of entrance-fee on taking office ; they had to re-
gale the populace on the day after their election with at
least cake and wine, and often with more costly fare.
The town councillors too expected a state dinner on a
lordly scale; a present of varying amount was looked
for by the members of every guild and corporation, and
often by the citizens in general. The people grumbled
bitterly if they were not amused by shows of gladiators
or well-appointed plays. To secure re-election it was
often needful to spend great sums on public works, such
as roads, aqueducts, and temples; and, finally, to win
the gratitude of future generations men often willed
away large sums, the interest of which was to feed,
amuse, or shelter for all time the citizens of the favored
town.

In the less privileged communities throughout the
provinces there was more variety of conditions,
for the old institutions lasted on with the ^£.meLife in the Provinces.

197

names and many of the same forms as ^ariet^ofcon-
before the Roman conquest. The agents ditions in the
of the central government had a larger con-

towns, and

trol over their actions, especially in matters
of finance and jurisdiction and their con-
sent was needed in all questions of moment. But they
were too few in number to look much into details, and
the towns retained everywhere a large measure of self-
government.

Municipal freedom prevailed perhaps more widely
than at any other period. Local senates met in council,
magistrates were chosen by popular elec- public spirit
tion, and patriotism, though confined within and munifi-
narrow range, was still intense. The in- cence*
scriptions which are found in every part of the old
Roman world, as well as the ruins of the great works
which here and there are left, show us how real and
widespread was the public spirit. The citizens vied with
each other in their outlay for the public good. Temples,
aqueducts, baths, theatres, guild-halls, triumphal arches
rose on all sides, not at the expense of the whole society,
but by the beneficence of the wealthy and the generous.

Augustus set the example first, and urged his friends
and courtiers to make a show of munificence in public
works, and other Emperors were anxious to add to the
pomp and brilliancy of the imperial rtgime. The weal-
thy and the noble copied the fashion of the

j	*•	The attrac-

day, which spread from Rome to the furtlv tions of

est provinces, from the city to the village.

But the spirit of imitation reached much

further. Roman life was a centre of attraction for the

world, and exerted a levelling and centralizing influence

before which local usages and manners passed rapidly

away. The ruder races were drawn irresistibly towards198

The Earlier Empire.

the customs of their conquerors. Their own chiefs tried
in vain to check the movement. Roman pride put bar-
riers in their way, and agreed at times to refuse the
franchise and the speech of Italy to the new-comers,
but in vain. The leaven of the Roman culture spread
among them, and their national usages and laws and
even their language tended rapidly to disappear. The
wiser Emperors respected jealously the local liberties
and traditions, and had no -wish, in the first century at
least, to carry out a uniform system. But Roman in-
fluence spread through many channels. The legions,
as they passed along the roads or remained encamped
upon the frontier, acted on the men with whom they
were in daily contact. The traders who followed in their
train carried with their wares the speech, thought, and
customs of the central city. The governors and finan-
cial agents who came direct from Rome brought the
newest fashions with them to dazzle the higher circles
of the country towns, and gave the tone to social inter-
course. The journals of Rome, or acta as they were
called, were read in far-off provinces ; the latest epigram
passed from mouth to mouth; the finest passages of the
orators of note, the latest poems of a Martial, travelled
either in the governor's train or were dispatched in re-
gular course of trade as literary wares to the provincial
booksellers.

As at Rome, the lower orders soon learnt to expect
amusements ready-made, looked to the wealthy and
munificent to give them shows and costly
outfay^o/the spectacles, and grumbled at their magis-
rich light- trates if they were not liberal enough, or if
burdens6of they seemed to think too much of what they
ment.g0Vern" gave. But commonly they were ready with
their thanks; and if the largess had beenLife in the Provinces.

199

generous and if the gladiators died with becoming grace,
the grateful people passed a vote of thanks, or made the
council pass it, decided to erect a statue in their bene-
factor's honor, but, as the inscriptions tell us, often let
him pay for it himself. Liberalities such as these must
have materially lightened the expenses of the local gov-
ernment. With no salaries for the chief officials and no
costly civil service to keep up, no schools nor paupers
to maintain out of the rates, and with so many examples
of munificence among the citizens, the burdens of muni-
cipal taxation could not have been heavy. The towns
had commonly some revenues from lands or mines or
forests ; religion was endowed with its own funds, and
the claims of the imperial treasury were moderate.

At the end of the Republic the burdens caused by
war and confiscation, the merciless exactions of the
governors, and the cancer of usury had
spread bankruptcy and ruin throughout the well-being,
provinces; but in the course of the first
century of the Empire peace and order and settled rule
had caused a widely-diffused comfort; the freedom of
self-government secured contentment; and public spirit,
feeble as it seemed in the ruling city, was lively and vig-
orous elsewhere.

The great boon of the imperial system to the world
was the higher conduct of its agents as compared with
that of the proconsuls and propraetors of	^ ^

the Republic. They were paid high sala- ofUie™6
ries directly from the state; they needed governors,
not to ruin themselves by bribery and shows
to win their places; they were watched by a financial
agent of the government, and liable to a strict account
at Rome before the Emperor, who had no interest, like
their peers, in their acqi^ittal.	t200

The Earlier Empire.

It is true that if we think only of the numerous cases
of extortion and misrule which we meet with in the
pages of Tacitus we may believe there is little proof of
better things. But the evidences of juster rule are real
and solid. Oppression had been scarcely thought a
stain upon the characters of the statesmen
improvement, of the Republic ; but now even the sensu-
alist and debauchee often seems to change
his nature when he is weighted with the responsibilities
of office. Petronius, Otho, and Vitellius redeem in part
the infamy of earlier days by their clean-handed in-
tegrity in the purer air of a provincial government. The
very frequency of the trials for misrule, which may
startle us at first, is in itself a proof of the watchfulness
of the central power, which was as vigilant with Domi-
tian as with Augustus. The abuses of ages could not
be swept away at once, and it must have needed time
and vigor to convince men that the Empire was in earn-
est in the matter. The provincials themselves sdon
recognized the difference, and their literature speaks far
more strongly on the subject than the Roman. Philo
the Alexandrian, Josephus the Jew of Palestine, Strabo
the geographer of Pontus, Plutarch the Greek, Epictetus
the Phrygian philosopher, bear emphatic witness to the
higher spirit of equity and moderation in their rulers.
Countries not long subjugated show no wish to assert
their freedom, though the legions stationed in their midst
are mainly recruited from their own inhabitants, and
become fixed to the soil which they defend and strangers
to the Emperor whose name they bear.

The results, too, speak loudly for themselves. The
impoverished cities of Asia raised them-
prospeiity selves at once when the incubus of the re-
publican governors was removed. There, asLife in the Provinces.

20I

in other countries, the inscriptions abound in evidence
of real prosperity. The cities adorned themselves with
stately buildings; the rich, no longer afraid to show their
wealth, used it with lavish generosity. Trade flourished
once more when the roads were cared for and brigan-
dage and piracy put down. Commercial guilds spread
themselves over the world, and even the provident
unions of the humblest classes gained a recognition and
a sanction from the state.

Men looked only at the present, and forgot that there
were no guarantees of permanence in the municipal
freedom and happiness now enjoyed, no
lasting gain in the absorption of so many guarantees
distinct centres of national culture, nothing ofperma-

i	*	nence in

to give dignity and independence to the freedom and
provinces, as the federal or national unions ment.8°Vern"
had done; no security that the cautious,

easy, and tolerant government of the present would not
be gradually changed into the grinding machinery of a
centralized despotism. They thought of their material
blessings, and forgot the moral qualities that should
make them lasting. They looked back with a feeling
of relief at the turbulence of former days, at the evils
done and suffered in the name of liberty, and felt with
Dion Chrysostom, "Our fathers fought, as they believed,
for freedom, but really for a phantom of the fancy, like
the Trojans who fought in defence of Helen when she
was no longer within their walls."

Thus it was in no mean spirit of flattery that they
raised in every land statues and altars to the Emperors,
to some even of the vilest who have ever ruled. Of
their personal characters they often knew but little; and
though dark stories of what had passed at Rome may
have circulated awhile among the higher classes in the202

The Earlier Empire.

provinces, yet the people knew next to nothing of their
vices and their follies, and thought of them chiefly as
the symbol of the ruling Providence which throughout
the civilized world had silenced war and faction, and
secured the blessings of prosperity and peace, before
unknown.

CHAPTER XV.

THE STATE OF TRADE.

To appreciate the influence of the Empire upon the

interests of commerce it is needful to look back to some

of the facts and feelings of earlier days. The

Sntemp?" for Roman writers speak commonly with dis-

industriai favor and contempt of the handicrafts and
art at Rome,	r

retail trades, and the common sentiment
which they reflect seems to have grown more intense in
the later ages of the Republic, at the very time when the
tendency towards democracy became more marked.
While the hardy life of the old yeoman was the ideal of
the moralist and patriot, the work of the artizan or
tradesman was a lasting stain upon a family name.
This was due probably in part to the warlike and aggres-
sive spirit of the old Roman policy, which relied chiefly
on its husbandmen and shepherds to fill the
warhke'spirit ranks of its militia, while the industrial arts

which was feu [nt0 the hands of the needv homeless
fostered,	'

aliens who were attracted to the city and
could not serve among the freemen in the armies. The
growing contempt for the weaker races of Greece and
Asia heightened the dislike for the trades they filled and
the work which they monopolized. But above all theThe State of Trade.

203

vast influx of slave labor that followed the career of con-
quest supplied living tools for every need, and the
made manual work seem servile, and rapidly influx of

* J slave labor.

drove free labor out of every field. The
tendency extended even from the industrial to the fine
arts, and to some even of what we call the learned' pro-
fessions. The great Roman households had highly-edu-
cated slaves, who were trained to amuse their masters
and to satisfy their aesthetic tastes. In old time Fabius
Pictor had gained a name foif skill in painting, but
it would have been a discredit in a later age; and Pliny
tells us of one of gentle birth who was mocked at and
insulted for taking to the art. Roman dignity, says the
same writer, will not stoop to practise medicine, but
leaves it to the Greek and freedman. Slaves were
trained to be actors on the stage ; and much
as the Romans loved spectacles, they could The contempt

r	J	extended to

not themselves act without disgrace, except professions
in the old Atellan farces, which, says Livy, ans.the fine
were never polluted by professional actors.

Education was mainly in the hands of aliens and freed-
men, who kept schools under the name of grammarians
or rhetoricians, and the same classes also supplied the
copyists, librarians, and secretaries whose useful labors
furnished the materials that were worked up by literary
men of note.

. But while the Romans disdained retail trade and
manual labor, they had not the same dislike for com-
mercial enterprise upon a larger scale. Soon Disda;n of
after the Punic wars we may trace the rapid retail trade
growth of a class of great speculators and teMa to com-
contractors, who belonged chiefly to the upscale,
second order of the state, the Equites, and
whose objects were more financial than political.204

The Earlier Empire.

They -followed the movements of the conquering
armies, engaged to supply the commissariat, formed joint-
stock companies for every variety of under-
?c?assoff taking, farmed the revenues of the lands
clpkafists, annexed to the Roman Empire, profited by
the monopolies of commerce when the old
federal unions were broken up and trading intercourse
was suspended between the members, and came for-
ward as money-lenders to advance the sums to be paid
down in indemnities or confiscated by the governors'
greed. At home they lent their money to the bankers,
or bought up lands in times of cheapness, like Pom-
ponicus Atticus, or had their slaves highly educated
in industrial arts, or speculated in building-land, like
Crassus. But their energy was of little profit to the
world, nor did it further the legitimate interests of trade.
It enriched Rome, or a few hundreds of its citizens,
but it impoverished the provinces. It made
who en-	wealth change hands ; but it did not stimu-

seives without late production or facilitate exchange or
wo^id.1 t0 the promote the growth of peaceful enterprise.

The influence of the moneyed aristocracy
upon the central government had long been very great;
and if trade had not been the gainer for it, it was not from
lack of power on their part, but of will or insight. They
could make their resentment felt by the few proconsuls^
who were clean-handed themselves, and who would not
stand by and see wrong done. They could protect in
the Roman courts the more criminal and unscrupulous
of their body. They could in their short-sighted jealousy
strike down great commercial rivals, as in the case of
Carthage, Corinth, and Rhodes; but they do not seem
to have raised their voices to protest while war was de-
stroying or weakening so many distinct centres of civi-The State of Trade.

205

lization and production throughout Italy, while injudi-
cious taxation and bad poor-law systems were injuring
industry, and sumptuary laws discouraging consumption,
while roads were made rather for the transport of armies
than for the interchange of products. They were never
so strong a power in the state as towards the close of the
Republic, when the corsairs swept the seas and organized
themselves almost as a belligerent power, while on the
mainland runaway slave-bands and professional bri-
gands were infesting the highways.

We may now turn to trace the action of the Em-
pire upon these conditions. When Augustus was finally
seated in his place, it was his first aim to

1 , • ,	r	,	What the

secure the high-roads of commerce, and to Empire did
maintain safety of intercourse throughout the for trade*
Roman world. He put down brigandage with a strong
hand, appointing special officers to do the

» rr	& r	^	It secured

work and armed patrols to maintain peace the roads
and order. Inspectors visited the factories and seas'
and farms in country districts, where the slave-gangs
toiled in chains, restored to liberty many who had been
kidnapped by violence, and returned to their masters
some thirty thousand runaways. The highways were
made safe for quiet travellers, though the satires and
romances still speak of brigands from time to time, just
as they are brought occasionally upon the modern stage.
On the seas, too, piracy was put down, and almost
banished for centuries from the Mediterranean, though
in the Black Sea it was still a matter of complaint.

It was a greater boon to trade that war was
confined mainly to the frontiers, among the scarcely
civilized neighbors of the Empire. After confined
Nero's death, indeed, great armies tramped frontiers*6
across the central countries, spreading havoc20 6

The Earlier Empire.

and desolation in their track, but with this exception
the soldiers were confined to border camps, and no fatal
check was given by the horrors of war to peaceful enter-
prise and industry.

By a series of further measures the Empire did its
best to remove checks and hindrances to the activity of
commerce. The careful survey and census
variety of °'f the Roman world under Augustus was one
hindrances s*eP *° PrePare the way for equalized taxa-
tion, and it was followed by others as im-
portant. Financial agents were watchfully controlled;
legalized tariffs of the tolls and dues were made stricter
to resist vexatious overcharge, while the courts of law
administered more impartial justice between the official
and the common subject. The old sumptuary laws
which aimed at checking luxury and extravagance, were
given up after a short trial and regarded as a mischiev-
ous anachronism. The endless variety of monetary
systems which delayed easy intercourse between land
and land soon ceased to inconvenience the world. Many
of them disappeared, others were kept for local use or
retail trade ; but by their side one uniform standard was
set up, and beyond all the various national coinages the
imperial currency was the legalized tender which appears
henceforth in official documents in all parts of the
Roman world.

Still more direct was the influence on sentiment
which affected the social estimate of industrial art.
^ . . h d Slavery had been the formidable rival of free

indirectly

labor; but the countries which in earlier
si^ave^abor,^ times had supplied the most serviceable
tools were now annexed, and only an outer
fringe of barbarians was left to supply the slave markets
by wars of conquest. The Northern nations furnishedThe State of Trade.

207

less pliant and docile laborers, whose work was far less
lucrative than that of Greeks and Asiatics. As the
sources of supply were being cut off, the fashion of en-
franchisement set in, and the slave-born were set free
so rapidly that laws had to be passed to check the
growing custom. At the very time when the competition
of slave labor was reduced, less scope was
left to enterprise in what had been before iompiSkion
absorbing interests. The old game of war poifticSand
gave fewer prizes, and the soldier's life
seemed likely to be henceforth one of monotony and
patient drill. The statesman's career was less tempting
to ambition when the show of talent might be dangerous
and stir the jealousy of Caesar. The laurels of the ora-
tor soon faded when power passed out of the Senate's
hands, and when the pleadings of the law-courts had no
influence on the course of public life. But in the place
of these interests of the Republic the early Emperors had
tried to foster industry and learning. Julius gave the
grant of citizenship to all who would practise _ „

■ r -	a ,	j The Emperors

liberal professions; Augustus encouraged favored the

literary labor through Maecenas; and Nero, branches of

the artist-prince, weakened the old send- mdustrial art.

ment in other branches. In short we soon lose all traces

of the feeling which prompted Cicero in his public

speeches to disguise his familiar knowledge of the culture

and the arts of Greece.

The currents of national sentiment could no longer
flow in separate channels, as men of every people flocked
to Rome. In Asia handicrafts and indus-
trial labor had never been despised, and the Extern6 °f
gradual infusion of Eastern thought weak- sentiment,
ened the supercilious pride of Western prejudice. Some-
thing too was directly done by Augustus to give a higher208

The Earlier Empire.

status to the industrial classes. A new office and badge
of dignity was devised by the appointment of the
" Masters of the Streets," a large number of whom were
The higher taken from among the artisans and freea-
industnalen t0 men *ke to discharge certain police
classes	duties, and also to minister as priests in the

dignity*of16 little chapels raised in honor of the Genius
vSfrum.	R°me and of the ruling Emperor. Guilds

answering to this office spread, under the
name of Augustales, through the towns, and helped to
give organized force and self-respect to retail trade and
manual labor.

It is still, indeed, a striking fact that there is no refer-
ence in Latin literature to any history of trade; nor do
we hear of special treatises connected with the subject,
though the works on agriculture were many. Nothing
is said of the moral benefits of international commerce;

nor, careful as the Romans were about

Without liter-	, .	, ,	,	. ,

ary notice a statistics, did they connect them with the

free'Sie111 °f balance of supply and of demand. Yet
flourished. under cover of the imperial r'egime a vast
system of free trade began to flourish, such as the world
perhaps has seldom known. Merchant fleets passed
peacefully from land to land and exchanged the pro-
ducts of their different climates, while the central gov-
ernment was content to keep the police of sea and land,
allowing tolls and harbor dues to be levied far purposes
of local revenue, and watching over the corn trade with
especial care, that the markets of the capital might be
always stocked. But this trade was hampered with no
theories of protection, and was not interfered with by
commercial or navigation laws. The vast population
gathered in one city required, of course, an enormous
retail trade upon the spot; but there were few manu-Depopulation of Italy and Greece. 209

factories upon a large scale near Rome. The necessa-
ries of life came largely from the South and West, the
luxuries from the East, while industrial wares were
brought for the most part ready-made, owing to the
greater cheapness of labor in other countries. The
balance of trade was always against Italy, Balance of
for she failed to supply herself even with £ade against
food, exported little beside wine and oil, and
had few great manufacturing centres. In old days the
riches that had been gained by plunder and extortion
went out again to seek investment in the provinces; but
now that Rome was the queen of fashion and the centre
of attraction for the wealthy of all countries, the realized
fortunes came thither to be spent. The productive cen-
tres and the hives of industry were to be found in other
lands—at Alexandria, which Strabo calls the greatest
emporium of the world; at the flourishing marts of
trade among the isles of the ./Egean; or among the
hundred cities of Asia Minor, whose industrial demo-
cracies had soon recovered from the pillage and mis-
government of republican proconsuls, and enjoyed a
magnificent prosperity, with which no other land could
vie.

CHAPTER XVI.

the growing depopulation of italy and greece,

Among all these evidences of material well-being there
were ominous signs to catch the watchful eye. The
queen of cities had clothed herself in pomp The ominous
and splendor; and stately villas, parks, and signs of de-

r	x	, population.

pleasure-grounds were spread over the
p2IO

The Earlier Empire.

country; but Italy herself grew poor in men, in moral
energy, and in natural products. The culture of Greece
had made its way over the world ; but her cities of re-
nown were sadly dwindled, and scanty populations lived
among the ghosts of former glories. The heart of .the
Strabo's ac- Empire was growing more feeble, though
count of the extremities were sound. Strabo, who

Greece.	'

travelled in Greece early in this period,
gives in his geography a melancholy list of ruined and
deserted towns, ^Etolia and Acarnania were exhausted ;
Doris has no trace of her ancient peoples. Thebes was
a poor village cowering within the walls of the old
citadel; and save Tanagra and Thespiae in all Boeotia
there were only pauperized hamlets. Messenia and Ar-
cadia were deserts. Laconia had not men enough to till
it, and seventy of the hundred townships of old times
were quite abandoned.

As early as the days of the historian Polybius it was
observed that Italy could no more put into the field such
forces as she raised in the second Punic war, and that
not for lack of manhood but of men. The
Gracchi not long after called public notice
to the fact of the decreasing numbers of
free laborers in the country, and tried to
check the evil by sweeping changes in the
tenure of land. Again in the first years of
the Empire complaints mingled with alarm are heard on
every side. Livy speaks with wonder of
Livyarksof	armies that fought in old time upon the

battle-fields of Latium, and says that in his
day only a few slaves tenanted the lands that were once
the home of so many hardy warriors. Pliny tells us of
Pliny	more than fifty towns in Latium alone that

had passed away and left no traces, and of

Polybius
notices the
diminishing
military force
of Italy.

The Gracchi.Depopulation of Italy and Greece. 211

the ruins of old peoples that the traveller found in every
part of Central Italy. Dion Cassius men- _ .

1 ,	t 1	, • .. t • , Dion Cassius.

tions the terrible depopulation which
Julius Caesar noted with concern, and the difficulty which
Augustus found in levying troops to fill up the void
made by the loss of Varus and his legions ; while Pliny
tells us of the grief and wounded pride which the same
Emperor felt when he enlisted slaves in place of free-
men.

The stress which Augustus laid upon the remedies
which he applied shows how urgent seemed the evil. He
reduced, and would have limited still further Attempts of
had he dared, the number of the paupers Augustus to

r r meet the evil.

on the free list of the state, to check if pos-
sible the drain upon the public funds and the great dis-
couragement to industry. He drafted off his veterans
into colonies and bought them lands in every part of
Italy to recruit with healthy labor the decaying muni-
cipia,K He provided an outlet even for the city populace,
supplying them with land in settlements beyond the sea.
Finding among the higher and middle classes a wide-
spread dislike to the burdens of married life, he tried to
bring legal pressure to bear upon the morbid sentiment,
enacted civil disabilities against those who would not
marry, and various privileges for those who had given
legitimate children to the state. The laws Papia Pop-
psea were passed in the teeth of serious opposition; but,
as we have seen, it was a current jest that the consuls
whose names they bore were bachelors themselves; and
Plutarch tells us that many married, not to have heirs
but to become heirs themselves, since they could only
receive legacies on that condition. What causes had
brought about this ominous decline in numbers ?

1. The career of Rome had been one of constant war-212

The Earlier Empire.

fare. The obstinate resistance of the ^Equian, Volscian,
The causes of an^ Sabine races gave a formidable check
i e\Var"	t0 t^ie ^aws natural increase. It was long

before Italy recovered the fearful waste of
life and means caused by the Punic struggles. To
gratify the ambition of the ruling classes, to gain fresh
lands for them to rule, the bones of the Italian yeomen
were left to moulder in every country to which the con-
quering eagles made their way. The losses in the So-
cial War alone are set down in the lowest estimate at
three hundred thousand men, and are raised by some
writers to a million. But, exhausting as was the con-
stant drain of life, it was not too great perhaps for na-
ture's forces to resist if others had not come also into
play, whose influence lasted on when the Empire en-
joyed at length a period of peace.

2. The land-owners of Central Italy had been long
unable to compete with the corn-growers of foreign
lands. The stores of Sicily and Africa had been poured
into their markets : the tithes paid in kind had been
brought to the capital in natural course ; governors had
sent large quantities to be sold below cost price at Rome
to keep her populace in good humor. Carriage by seat
had proved cheaper than that by land over

2. Change from	L	x	J

peasant pro- bad country roads, and free trade and the

large°estates, policy of the government together ruined

labor.slaVe	corn-trade of the husbandmen of Italy^

The small proprietors or yeomen could no

longer pay their way or hold their land, and were bought

out by the capitalists who sought investments for wealth

gained in subject countries. The small farms gave

place to the great holdings of the rich, the " latifundia

quae perdidere Italiam," the vast domains which were

the bane of Italy. Pasturage superseded tillage, andDepopulation of Italy and Greece. 213

slave labor took the place of free. A few wild herdsmen
and shepherds wandering at large, with here and there
a slave-gang laboring in chains, was all that could be
seen in districts that had once been thickly set with
thriving villages.

3.	Slavery was doubtless wasteful of human life. In
the Campagna of Rome, as in many other parts, un-
healthy influences must have been alway

near at hand, and malaria had to be met was^Ystefui
and combated. It was less dangerous when ofllfe*

land was tilled and drained, and the constant experience
and traditional remedies of the hardy natives enabled
them to lessen or survive the evil. But slaves drawn
from far-off countries,knowing nothing of the climate and
its laws, guarded often by reckless task-masters and
crowded in the unwholesome cells of the ergastula or
work-houses, were less able to resist the ravages of
pestilence, which spread faster as pasturage took the place
of arable ground. For a time the loss of life was easily
supplied from slave markets like those of Delos, where,
as we read, fifty thousand human beings often changed
owners in a single day; but they grew dearer as the
boundaries of the Roman world included more subject
races, and the voids were no longer easily or profitably
filled up.

4.	The free population that had been driven from the
fields betook themselves to the army or the city. The
doles of corn, the frequent largesses, the	^
shows and gaieties attracted to the crowded of town^fe*1
streets and alleys thousands who were too agements to
indolent to work but not ashamed to beg, industry,
and who could contribute nothing to the productive
energies of the world. The country towns copied Rome
as far as their means allowed, and attracted the idlers214

The Earlier Empire.

and improvident who lived upon the bounty of the rich.
The veterans who had been sent out as colonists to set-
tle in the deserted regions wearied often of the irksome
restraint of the unwonted work, mortgaged or sold their
little farms and.gradually came back to swell the num-
bers of the dissolute and needy populace, and lived as
paupers on the pittance of the state.

5. To these causes must be added the untoward in-
fluence of luxury, profligacy, and crime. Polybius noted
the physical effects of the foreign customs
ofv?ceUande that were spreading fast among the young
profligacy. men	ruling classes, and pointed to it

as a symptom of decline. The moralists and satirists
of later days were full of passionate complaints of the
luxury which they saw around them. These rapid
changes broke down the moral safeguards of the past
and gave free vent to morbid appetites. The spread of
ease and license discouraged honest industry and
weakened hardihood and strength of body. The sumpu-
ous mansions of the wealthy, the fish-ponds, bird-farms,
and deer-parks which reared luxuries for Roman tables,
absorbed unproductively the capital which might have
maintained multitudes of thriving husbandmen and
turned all Italy into a garden. The riches of the world
had been poured into the coffers of the ruling classes,
but with little benefit to their own country, which grew
poorer, while large sums flowed yearly back to pay for
the costly wares and delicacies of foreign lands. Pliny,
as a patriot, laments the steady drain of money caused
by the silks and jewels and spices of the East But
moralists sarid less of what called for far severer censure.
Infanticide was widely prevalent, sometimes in the form
of the destruction of unborn life, but more commonly in
the exposure of the newly-born. It rested with theDepopulation of Italy and Greece.	215

father to decide if he would rear his child, and custom
sanctioned the usage of exposure, though early laws had
tried to limit it to monstrous births. The discretionary-
power was put in force most frequently in the case of
female children, and passing references in literature
show that they were often victims. Private charity some-
times reared the foundlings, and the inscriptions bear
witness to the number of such cases, and leave us to
imagine how many were exposed. Polybius had speci-
fied this among the causes of the dwindling numbers of
the Greeks. Tacitus notes that the Germans looked
upon the act as criminal; but he does so probably to
point a moral, and is thinking of the vice of Rome.
Still the usage lasted on under the Empire, and the
Christian Tertullian brands the heathen of his day with
the infamy of the practice then continued. In the
Eastern provinces the usage was less prevalent. Some-
times religious sentiment discountenanced the practice,
and often the spread of the industrial spirit and the
vigor of productive energy gave a stimulus to the in-
crease of numbers. Material well-being was diffused
among the teeming populations of the commercial towns
in Asia Minor, while the patriot mourned over increas-
ing poverty in the western cities of the Empire, and the
statesman had to recruit the legions from the nations
most recently annexed.2l6

The Earlier Empire.

CHAPTER XVII.

the frontiers and the army.

The limits of the Roman world in the first century of the
Empire were well defined by natural boundaries. It

The frontiers sPreac* from the Atlantic on the west to the
well defined, Euphrates on the east. The Rhine and the
and6accepted Danube formed its northern frontier; while
by Augustus,	san(jy deserts of Arabia and Africa parted

it from peoples almost unknown. It had been the special
work of Augustus to provide an effective barrier against
the races of the North; and at the cost of hard fighting,
and after many dangerous campaigns, Pannonia, Nori-
cum and Maesia were finally- subdued and the Roman
arms were carried to the Danube. Nearer home the
tribes that held the passes of the Western Alps were
crushed after obstinate resistance, and many thousands
of them sold into hopeless slavery, that the great roads
leading to Gaul might be secured, In Germany tribe
after tribe had been attacked, and Roman influence had
been pushed forward to the Elbe; but the whole country
rose in arms to crush Varus and his legions, and the
boundary again receded to the Rhine. No attempt was
made at conquest in the East. Even Armenia was left
in seeming independence, and the captured standards of
Crassus were recovered from the Parthians not by force
but by diplomacy. Towards the south attempts were
made to march into ./Ethiopia and Arabia Felix, but
heat and drought alone Were enough to baffle the intruders.
Such were the frontiers finally accepted by Augustus, and
recommended by him to his successors. In them, withThe Frontiers and the Army.	217

one exception, no great change was made until the time
of Trajan. But Britain, which had been only visited
by Julius Caesar, was further attacked, explored, and
finally subdued in a series of campaigns dating specially
from the times of Claudius, Nero, and Domitian, and
thus furnished a sort of training school for the best
generals of the early Empire. It was part of the policy
of Augustus to leave a fringe of dependent kingdoms in
the countries most recently annexed, leav-
ing the people for a while to the forms of Sn|domsnt
native rule, subject only to the payment of
tribute or supply of soldiers. Of these the monarchy of
the Herods furnished a well-known example, and many
others are known in Syria, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Thrace,
and Mauretania. But one after another, as kings died
or dynasties decayed, these little kingdoms also disap-
peared ; governors were sent to administer in Roman
fashion, and the work of organizing went uniformly on.
Diplomacy and intrigue also were constantly
employed beyond the borders; treaties were ^icreia"
formed with neighboring monarchs to give tlon5,
an excuse for frequent meddling; dynastic quarrels were
fomented; shelter was offered to princely refugees, and
future rulers trained in Roman arts and letters. This
policy was specially employed in dealing with the chief-
tains of the German clans and with the kings of the
far East, and possible enemies were thus changed into
friends or weak dependents. The early Caesars prided
themselves upon the success of their diplomatic arts,
took credit for it in their speeches to the Senate, and
stamped in this way a pacific character upon

,	- , _ .	The pacific

the policy of the Empire. For indeed, if policy of the
we except the terrible crash of civil war in EmPire-
the year 69, the peace of the Roman world was scarcely218

The Earlier Empire.

broken for a century. A few border forays on the
Rhine had their source in the wanton folly of weak rulers
who thought to win a little glory upon easy terms. The
Dacian war upon the Danube was left, after a few
campaigns, for Trajan's energy to close; the national
uprisings in Gaul were crushed with little effort; and in
their guerilla warfare with the African Tacfarinas the
Roman generals were only pitted against a brigand chief,
who had to be tracked and haunted like a wild beast to
his lair. Only when opposed to the desperate energy of
Jewish fanatics and |the untamed tribes of Britain were
they called upon to cope with enemies who seriously
tasked the resources of generalship and discipline. For
the most likely rivals of the Emperors were the leaders
of their troops. Of these the most adventurous were
recalled often in their hour of triumph or warned to
advance no further, and must have sighed, like Corbulo,
" Happy were the generals of olden time ! " for they
were allowed to go on and conquer.

Pacific as was the imperial policy of Augustus in his
later years, he had for the first time set up a standing

Th tand'ng army» an<^ f°rms m which he organized
army of Au- it were long left undisturbed. On the Rhine
afsTation! of eight legions were constantly on guard di-
fleets§i0nS and v^e(^ between the higher and the lower pro-
vinces, and th$ defence of the northern
frontier was further maintained by six more, who were
siationed in Pannonia, Dalmatia, and Maesia. Four
held the lines of the Euphrates, two were needed for the
care of Egypt, the granary of Rome, while an equal
number held the rest of Africa. Three more were kept
in Spain, some of whose wilder tribes had been but
lately brought into subjection. These legions, twenty-
five in all, were attended in the field by auxiliary forcesThe Frontiers and the Army.	219

of about equal numbers, bearing the names and national
character of the races that sent their separate contingents
to the field.

The chief stations for the fleets were at Misenum and
Ravenna, on either coast of Italy, besides which the har-
bor of the Colonia Forojuliensis (Frejus) was chosen by-
Augustus to receive some of the ships that fought at
Actium. A few thousand men, nine cohorts of the
praetorian guards, and three of the urban watch sufficed
for the police of Rome ; and elsewhere through the
whole interior of the vast dominion no garrisons were
needed, and the tramp of armed men was seldom heard
upon the great highways that ran through the old coun-
tries of the Empire.

The legions themselves were seldom moved from the
frontiers to which they were attached, but remained in
permanent encampments, engaged in an unvarying
round of military drill. Near the cantonments settled
the traders, camp followers, and various classes nearly
connected with the soldiers, and many an important
town of later days derived its origin, and sometimes
even its name, from the camp in the close neighborhood
of which it grew. The legions were recruited
from the border provinces, often from the Jcru!tfd°nS
verv countries where their camp was fixed. from the

.	1 v 11.	distant

In time many ties connected the soldiers provinces
with the peoples amongst whom they lived.

Most of them had never even seen Rome or the Empe-
ror whom they served. How strong an influence was
exerted by the Empire on the imaginations of the peo-
ples, and how substantial were believed to be the benefits
of union, is found in the fact that so few efforts were
seriously made to assert a national independence and
call the native soldiery to rally round it. For the temper220

The Earlier Empire.

of the legions was in the main loyal and
steadfast. The statues and effigies of the
ruling monarch were commonly in the camp
the objects of unquestioning reverence, and
there at least Caesar-worship was something
of a reality and not a name. The military traditions of
each legion acquired of themselves an attractive force
over the fancy of the soldiers, and provident clubs and
guilds for social union grew up gradually among them,
as we learn from inscriptions found in Algeria after the
lapse of ages. They were also encouraged to deposit
their savings in a sort of bank set up in their quarters,
the funds of which were large enough to provide the
needful means for the rising of Antonius against Do-
mitian.

The camps were also the best training-schools for the
old-fashioned virtues of faithfulness, straightforwardness,
and hardihood, and in them were to be
ml5idesral found the best types of the old Roman cha-
taecamps' by racter, which, as moralists complained, were
to be found elsewhere no more. If the
funds of a country town had fallen into disorder, or up-
rightness was needed for a special post, the curator
chosen by the government was often an old soldier,
who had long been tried and trusted; and early Chris-
tian history throws, incidentally, a favorable light upon
the moral qualities of the Roman officer. Those quali-
ties were mainly formed by thoroughness of work and
discipline.

Besides the mere routine of drill, and all the exercises
of a soldier's trade, the earthworks and intrenchments
work	camP> there was no lack of constant

labor. Their armies raised the great high-
ways through miles of swamp and forest, spanned the

were loyal
and steadfast,
and attached
by many ties
to their
camps.The Frontiers and the Army.	221

streams and bridges, built dykes and aqueducts and
baths, and taught the border races as much of the arts
of peace as of the methods and appliances of war. To
save them from the monotony of garrison life and the
temptations of unlettered leisure they had for the twenty
years which was their minimum of service, a healthy
variety of useful work to call out their energy and skill.

The second requisite of discipline varied more with
the temper of the general in command. It was a singu-
lar feature of the first Caesar's habits of command that
he was careless of common rules, and al- ,

.	and discipline.

lowed much license to his troops, saying that
n<his men, perfumed as they were, could fight." But
his successors could not rely on the prestige of genius
to inspire morale, nor quell their mutinous soldiers with*
a word, and they drew the bands of discipline more
tightly. The greatest generals were commonly the
strictest, and themselves set, like Corbulo and Agricola,
a marked example to their men. The worst, like Vitel-
lius in his few weeks of command upon the Rhine, were
lax and careless, and rapidly demoralized their armies.

Next to the generals the most important influence on
the temper of the soldiers was that of the centurions, for
they might be harsh and overbearing and sorely try the
patience of the men below them. They might be venal
and exacting, and allow some to buy discharge from the
common duties of the camp, while unfairly burdening
others. They might be quite incapable and owe their
places to favor rather than to actual merit.

Twice in the course of the period before us we have
the spectacle of a complete breakdown of
military discipline, and it is instructive to Pk7ofth™~
compare the facts of each. The first followed ' of discipline
close on the succession of Tiberius. Both222

The Earlier Empire.

on the Rhine and in Pannonia the soldiers were in
open mutiny, incited seemingly by the men who had
most lately joined the standards, recruited from the city
populace after the fatal loss of Varus. The complaints
put into their mouths are those of men who chafed at
the stern drill of camp after the pleasures of the capital,
who found the strictness of the centurions hard to bear,
and looked forward with despair to twenty years of ser-
vice, remembering the higher pay of the favored praeto-
rians and their shorter term of years. The second was
in the troublous year of 69, when so many rivals strug-
gled for the post of honor. The armies had to assert
their liberty of choice by naming each their Emperor,
and the sources of discipline were thereby disturbed,
while the drill and work of stationary quarters were sud-
denly exchanged for the license and the plunder of cam-
paigns. They constantly broke out in mutiny against
their leaders, and complained that the centurions were
harsh or cruel; and twice whdh they had made an Em-
peror they would not be denied the privilege of choosing
all their officers at their caprice.

But these were the rare exceptions of exciting times,
and the legions commonly were loyal, and the Emperors,
careful of their welfare. They rarely received, indeed,
•	, the donative which the guards of the capi-

The pay and	°	r

pensions of tal could almost extort at the accession of
the soldiers a ruier. ^ut £>esicies the pay, which was in

itself a great burden on the imperial revenue, a special
fund was formed in a sort of military chest to furnish
pensions for the veterans who were discharged, and new
sources of income were devised to meet the need in the
form of a succession duty of five per cent, and of certain
tolls levied in the markets. After the civil wars it had
been common to plant military colonies, and to find landMoral Standard of the Age.	223

for all the veterans. But it was found in time that they
were sorry settlers and little suited to field-work, and the
land passed speedily out of their hands.

The system of pensions was, therefore, teTta"° •
adopted in its stead. One further privilege
we hear of, though only from the evidence of inscrip-
tions graven on metal tablets found in various lands.
They are the certified copies of the official document in
which an honorable discharge was granted to deserving
soldiers after the full term of service. It carried with it
the full franchise to the provincials who filled the legions,
and gave a Roman status to the worthy, as the Em-
peror's favor or a master's whim did to large numbers
of a different class.

CHAPTER XVIII.

the moral standard of the age.

If we think only of the most familiar of the social fea-
tures of this period we may well form a low estimate of
its moral worth, and say with Horace that
the men of his day were worse than the ^ndei^tobe-
generation that had gone before, and were litve that there
to be followed by an age still viler. The decline in the
fearful spectacles of vice seated in high
places with the Caesars: the sombre pages
in which Tacitus portrays the selfish, cowardly, and
luxurious nobles, vieing with each other in their praises
of the rulers who were slaughtering them meantime as
sheep ; the passionate invectives of Juvenal, which im-
ply that modesty and truth and honor had winged their224

The Earlier Empire.

flight to other worlds, and left the Roman in disgust to
men without dignity and women without shame ; the
epigrams of Martial, which reveal the gross profligacy
of the social circles which they were written to amuse ;
the novels of Petronius and Apuleius, reflecting the lewd-
ness and the batseness of every class in turn; and,
weightiest witness of them all, the terrible indictment of
the heathen world in the letters of St. Paul—these and
other literary evidences are often thought enough to
prove a moral decline in the early ages of the Empire.
They may be also thought to show the demoralizing in-
fluence of despotism on men who in early days would
have spent their lives in the public service, but who»
losing their self-respect when freedom failed, turned to
material pleasures to fill the void which politics had left.
But before we accept such sweeping charges there are
some pleas that may be urged, and should be weighed,
in favor of a somewhat different conclusion. Satire can
never be accepted as a fair portraiture of

But (i) satire	Tin \	i n j

is not fair evi- social manners. It dwells only on the bad

dence*	side of life, and ignores the brighter and

the nobler scenes. It may be, though it rarely is, ac-
curate and exact in what it says, but good and evil are
so blended in all our motives, thoughts, and actions that
the pen which draws only the 'evil out to view must
needs distort and falsify all the complexities of our
human life. Or if it tries, as it sometimes does, to paint
the fairer scenes as a contrast to the darker, it isolates
and overcolors, and so destroys the naturalness of both
alike, as when the Roman writers found a foil for the
vices of the city in the healthy simplicity of country life,
of ancient manners or of barbarous peoples. But satire
may be taken to show a more searching spirit of inquiry
a keener sense of the follies and vices of the age, a socialMoral Standard of the Age.	225

unrest and discontent which point to a higher moral

standard and may be the prelude to reform. T t

J	L	2. Juvenal was

Juvenal himself, from whom our popular es- too vehement

timate is mostly taken, was too vehement to	<

be accurate and fair. Soured, seemingly, by neglect and
disappointment, struggling with poverty, though con-
scious of high talents, he fiercely declaims against the
world that could not recognize his merits, and he is not
very-careful of justice or consistency. Each public
scandal of the times, the profligate woman, the lewd
paramour, the insolent upstart, the wealthy rogue, the
pampered favorite of fortune, become at once the types
of classes, and are so generalized as to cover almost all
the society of Rome.

Nor must it be forgotten that most of the literary evi-
dences before us—satirists, historians, and
moralists alike—reflect the life of a great ^Liierature
city, and tell us little of the average morality Roman life.,
of the Roman world. It was in that city
that the Caesars paraded visibly the foul examples of
their insolent license, and the temper of the court gave
the tone to the social fashions of the capital. It was
there that degradation entered into the soul of the high-
born, and drove them to forget the cares and shame of
public life in the refinements of mere self-indulgence.
It was there that the great extremes of poverty and
wealth lived side by side with the least sense of mutual
duty and mutual respect. The great fortunes of the
world came to the centre of fashion to be spent, while
the proletariat lived upon its public pittance or scram-
bled for their patrons' dole. It was there that the old
moral safeguards of local religion, public sentiment, and
national feeling had been most completely broken down
in a motley aggregate of people to which every race had
Q226

The Earlier Empire.

sent its quota. It was there that slavery reacted with
most fatal force upon the temper of the mas.ter, and
through the multitude of freedmen stamped upon the
city populace the characteristic vices of the slave.

In such a capital there was no lack of material for
satire, and earnest minds were justified, perhaps, in
thinking that the inhabitants of Rome had never been
so idle, dissolute, and corrupt. Politics had dwindled to
the scandals of court gossip, and the sterner game of
war, with its hardy virtues and its self-denial, had passed
into the hands of provincials far away. The craving for
fierce excitement might be sated by the sport with
the wild beasts, and the poor gladiators might fight
and bleed to show the Romans how their forefathers
had died. But there was much in the life of the great
city that was exceptionally morbid, and we surely
must be careful before we generalize what we read
about it.

The satirists of the Empire dwell with special force
upon the increase of luxury in their time, and the spread
of peace and of material ease caused without doubt a
larger outlay on all sides. But the luxuries of one age
seem the necessaries of the next. Civilized
aixSt^uiy5 Progress consists largely in changing and
need to be multiplying our common wants, the moral
weighed. estimate of which varies with the standard
of the times. If the animal nature is not
pampered at the expense of the moral character and
high thought, if the few do not unproductively consume
the produce of the work of thousands, the moralist need
not quarrel with the enlargement of our human needs,
which of itself becomes a spur to quickened industry.
But some of the complaints in question deal with matters
of passing sentiment and prejudice, with entirely con-Moral Standard of the Age.

227

ventional habits of dress and food and furniture, and
their strictures on these points sound meaningless to
modern ears. Even the things we look upon as the real
gains of progress, such as the interchange of natural
products, the suiting to fresh soils and climates the
growth of widely different lands, they stigmatized as the
vanity of an insane ambition that would overleap the
bounds of nature. Much of what seemed to them luxu-
rious excess would be now taken as a matter of course,
and was only thought extravagant because of the sim-
pler habits of a Southern race, which had a lower stand-
ard for its wants. For if we go into details-there is little
that exceeds or even rivals the expenditure of later
times, unless, perhaps, we may except the prices given
for works of fine art, or the passion for building, which,
for a time, seized the Roman nobles, or eccentricities
of morbid fancy as rare as they were portentous. Wealth
was confined, indeed, within few hands; but in the towns
at least they spent largely for what they thought the
common good, and baths and aqueducts, roads and
temples were works to benefit the million. Culpable
luxury, indeed, there was—selfish extravagance and idle
waste—but every age has seen the same in all the- great
cities of the world. It is fair also to remember that the
first century of the Empire had not passed away before
a change is noticed for the better. We read in Tacitus
that Vespasian's frugal habits had a lasting influence on
the tone of Roman fashion. From his days he dates the
spread of homelier ways, in which men followed the ex-
ample of the court, while the provincials, from whom
the Senate was largely recruited at the time, brought to
the capital the inexpensive forms of simpler life. With
these reserves we may accept the statements of the an-
cient writers for some at least of the social features of228

The Earlier Empire.

imperial Rome, for the vices and the follies which they
paint in such dark colors.

But there is another side to be considered before a
conclusion can be drawn.

Philosophy had now become, for theiirst time in Ro-
man history, a real power in common life, and where
Christian influences were unknown it was
fLcame°S°phy chief moral teacher of mankind. With
a great moral Cicero it had given an uncertain sound, as

power.	0	'

if to excuse his own irresolute temper; it had
furnished questions of interest for curious scholars, but
no guiding star for earnest seekers. But in the mouths
of the great teachers of the Stoic system it was very
resolute and stern. It pointed to a higher standard than
the will of any living Caesar; it taught men to live with
self-respect and to face death with calm composure. It
had dropped its airs of paradox and the subtleties of
nice disputes to become intensely practical and moral,
to lead men in the path of duty, and give them light in
hours of darkness. It is easy, indeed, to
Seneca?6 °f Point to the inconsistencies of a career like
that of Seneca, to the moralist defending
the worst act of his royal pupil, to the rich man writing
specious phrases in favor of homely poverty, to the
ascetic training of the hard wallet amid all the splendors
of the palace, like the hair shirt of the middle ages
covered by the prelate's robe. But Seneca found
strength and solace in the lessons of philosophy ; the
greatness of his life begins when honors and court favor
fail him, and he retires to meditate on the real goods of
life and the great principles of duty. There, with a little
company of chosen spirits, he can consult the books of
the undying dead, and tranquilly reason on the expe-
rience of the past and the problems of man's destiny.Moral Standard of the Age.	229

Not content with the mere selfish object of saving his
own soul, he gives his ear and earnest thoughts to the
needs of other seekers round him, writes as the director
of their conscience while they live still in the busy world,
and tells them how to keep a brave and quiet heart
among the trials of those evil days. The pages in which
Tacitus describes the last hours of Seneca and many an-
other death-bed scene; the marked way in which he
comments on the worldly levity of Petronius, who had
no sage near him when»he died; the jealous suspicions
of the Emperors, the writings of the moralists themselves,
show that philosophy was a real power in the state, and
not confined to a few thinkers. Nor was it at Rome, as
in the old days of Greece, a Babel of discordant voices
distracting serious inquirers by their disputes and con-
tradictions. The Stoic system ruled at Rome for a time
almost without a rival. The themes on which it reasoned
were chiefly moral; and hard and cold as we may think
its teaching, it roused enthusiasm in those who heard it,
and spread widely through the world. It had its spiritual
advisers for the closets of the great, its public lecturers
for the middle classes of the towns, its ardent missiona-
ries who spread the creed among the masses, and
preached in season and out of season too. Its popu-
larity was a real sign of moral progress, for all its influ-
ence was exerted to counteract the real evils of the
times. It placed its ideals of the wise and good far above
the example of the Caesars, its thoughts of a ruling
Providence above the deified despots of an official wor-
ship. It met the gross materialism of a luxurious age
by its lesspns of hardihood and self-restraint. It made
light of the accidents of nationality and rank, insisting
chiefly on the rights of conscience and the dignity of
manhood, and left us works that are of interest still in a230	The Earlier Empire.

•

literature in which the two most familiar names are one
of an Emperor, the other of a slave. To correspond to in-
fluences such as these we may trace some changes in
the tone of public thought For foul and base as was
so much in that old heathen world, which seemed to
Christian eyes so hopelessly corrupt, yet were there
elements of progress, and earnest cries for clearer light,
and a feeling after better things, for God had not left Him-
self without a witness in the midst of sensuality and sin.

In regard to slavery men speak and act with far more
of real humanity. We need not insist, indeed, upon the
6 The change Pass^onate terms in which Juvenal brands
of tone and the brutality of selfish masters, and pleads
subjec^of1 the for the human rights of the poor sufferers,
slavery,	nor on iangUage jn which the kindly-

hearted Pliny speaks of the members of his household.
But even at the beginning of the Empire it became a
growing custom to give freedom soon to the domestic
slaves, and the fashion spread so fast as to require to be
checked and ruled by law. The wording of the epi-
taphs, the common literary tone, shows the rapid growth
of kindlier feeling; and the enforcement of the stern
old law by which the slaves of a murdered master were
all condemned to death caused a cry of horror through
the city, and the fear of a rescue from the crowd. Other
suffering causes found a voice also in Roman
eviL°ther circles. Protests were heard against the
cruel sports of the arena and the demoraliz-
ing sight of needless bloodshed ; the wrongs of the pro-
vincials were pleaded, not as a matter of prudence or
of party politics, as by the orators of the Republic, but
in the interests of humanity and order.

The estimate of women's character was changing
also. They had always, indeed, been treated with highMoral Standard of the Age.

231

regard, and had managed their households
with dignity and self-respect. They had ,7Athees^mafe
been clothed with public functions as priest- character. 6
esses and Vestal Virgins, and had already
gained by forms of law a kind of independent status.
But the received type was somewhat severe and stern,
with little of the grace and accomplishment of finer cul-
ture. " To stay at home to spin the wool" was their
merit in their husbands' eyes ; and in the later years of
the Eepublic moralists spoke with grave alarm of the
gayer moods and freer tone imported with the latest
fashions, and feared to see their wives copy the ques-
tionable society of Greece. Without doubt there were
many who, like the Sempronia and the Claudia of the
days of Cicero, aimed more at attractiveness than virtue,
and too wantonly paraded their freedom from old-
fashioned notions; there were many in the early Empire
who flung themselves without reserve into every kind of
dissipation, and linked their names to infamy in the
revels of the court of Nero. But it was found in time
that grace and art need be no bar to chaste decorum,
that women could be learned without being pedants, and
study philosophy without affectation. At no time do we
read of nobler women than in the days when satire
handled them so coarsely; and, sad as are the histories
of Tacitus, he has yet bright and stirring pages where he
embalms the memory of a band of heroines who could
sympathize with their husbands' highest thoughts, and
sometimes even show them how to die. In earlier days
there had been Roman matrons as dignified and chaste
and brave, but the fuller blossoming of womanhood and
a more many-sided grace were the growth of an age
which we regard, at the first, as hopelessly corrupt and
vile.The Earlier Empire.

In fine, there is one witness we may cross-examine if
we will gauge the moral temper of the times. The
8 The evi younger Pliny lived partly in the period be-
denceofa fore us and partly also in the next. He was
i^Piin/s16 no professional moralist, and had no thesis
letters.	t0 maintain, but his familiar letters reflect

the spirit of the circles, in which he moved, of the high-
est society in Rome. He owns, indeed, that he takes a
kindly view of things about him, that he sees the merits
rather than the foibles of his friends ; and the habit of
drawing-room recitals tended perhaps, with certain
classes, to form a tone of mutual admiration. Yet withal
it is a most impressive contrast to the pictures of the sa-
tirist, and points to a real progress in the temper of the
age. The society that could furnish so many worthy
types of character, so many friends to sympathize with
the genial refinement, the courtesy and tenderness ex-
pressed in Pliny's letters, had many an element of no-
bleness and strength to retard the process of decay.

CHAPTER XIX.

the revival of religious sentiment.

Towards the end of the Republic religious sentiment
seemed to have almost lost its hold on the world of
fashion and of letters. The legends bor-

Religion	.	®

seemed to be rowed long ago with the arts and poetry of
holdontfie Greece had never flourished upon Roman
Su3onf so^* The Pr°duct °f a people's childlike
thought, they could have little charm for
colder minds in a later stage of national growth, andThe Revival of Religious Sentiment. 233

Greek philosophy helped to destroy what Greek fancy
had created.

Cicero and others of his time prized the honors of the
priesthood, observed the forms of national worship,
thought them useful for the masses, but cared little for
its hopes or fears, and in familiar correspondence they
seldom speak of it at all. It was part of the
policy of Augustus to do honor to the na- Augustus°to0f
tional religion, and to strengthen his own o5dreiigfonthe
imperial dynasty by a sort of closer union
between Church and State. . He had shown little piety
in earlier days, and was said even to have taken part in
a blasphemous parody of an Olympian banquet. But
now at his bidding the temples rose on all sides from
their ruins, the ancient rites were celebrated with a mag-
nificence long disused, and he became himself the
highest functionary of the old religion. His successors
were careful to follow in his steps, and the members of
the Flavian family, though they sought
seemingly a sort of consecration from the Se^reaction^
priests and soothsayers of the East, did not JracesdurinS
on that account neglect the worship of their
fathers. Did religion really gain from this official sanc-
tion ? We cannot tell, but we do see enduring traces
of reviving faith.

1. It is true that we still hear caustic jibes at the
old myths, and Juvenal tells us that none but children
believe the legends of the poets: but it was

A	, 1. The legends

possible to give them up without much loss might be given

of reverence and faith. They had never had To^of'reii-

much hold upon the Latin mind, whose siousfaith-

earlier creed was one of simple naturalism, or dealt with

the abstractions of pure thought rather than with forms

of personifying fancy. The venerable hymns and rituals234

The Earlier Empire.

still appealed to the devotion of the people and did not
shock the inquiring reason. Polytheism is naturally so
loose and undogmatic in its creeds that all were free
to choose the elements that satisfied their thought or in-
clination, and none were driven into unbelief by the
sweeping claims and threats of an intolerant priest-
hood.

2.	There is this also to be noted, that the current
philosophy of the early Empire was not revolutionary

^	and flippant, as it often had been in the

2. The tone	rr

ofphibso- schools of Greece. It did not encourage a
earnest and balance and suspense of judgment, like the
devout.	academic thought of Cicero, but was in the

mouths of Stoic doctors grave and earnest and devout,
leaving men to ponder on the great problems of life and
to justify the ways of Providence. It saw elements of
truth in all religious forms and languages, and could find
even "in poetic fancies many a valuable symbol of the
unseen world of faith and duty. It was soon to be more
tolerant and comprehensive still, to harmonize all creeds
and systems, with one great exception, and by the help
of mystic reveries and allegory to breathe a new spirit
into the worn-out forms of paganism and to do battle
only with the Christian faith.

3,	Meantime the peaceful union of the nations
brought with it an interchange and fusion of devotional

rites, and the gates of Rome could not be
duction1"?™" l°ng closed against the strange deities that
new c -eeds claimed the rites of citizenship and a niche in

and rites.	r

the imperial Pantheon. The Senate and
magistrates of the Republic had more than once tried in
vain to close the portals, and now the attempt was
wholly given up, as new fashions in religion flocked from
every land to find a home within the city. Sometimes itThe Revival of Religious Sentiment. 235

seemed little more than a mere change of name, when
attributes and ceremonies were like those of home-
growth ; but it was far otherwise with the Eastern Mithras
and Astarte, the Egyptian Isis and Osiris, the strange
rites of the Corybants, and the mystic orgies of Cotytto.
These helped to naturalize new thoughts and feelings on
Italian soil,—religious moods that passed from mysteri-
ous gloom to enthusiastic fervor, the idea of penitence
and ascetic self-devotion as the condition of a higher
life and of closer union with the Divine. They answered
seemingly to some deep-seated cravings that had not
been satisfied elsewhere; they spread rapidly and became
quite a power in social life without disturbing the existing
faiths, for the old and new lived peacefully together side
by side, as saints newly canonized may take their place
without prejudice to other venerable names. Under
such influences the belief in a world unseen grows in
intensity and earnestness; dreams and omens of all
kinds have power to stir the credulous fancy; sooth-
sayers, astrologers, and diviners reap their golden har-
vests and meet a widespread want.

4. The literary tone, which a century before had been
worldlv, sceptical, and careless, becomes ■ ,

' 1 r '	■«	1 /- .1. 4* The change

earnest and oftentimes devout; and famuiar in the literary

letters show that religion was with most a tone*

matter of serious concern and a real motive-force in ac-
tion. Among the historians Tacitus shows some recog-
nition of the Divine Power that guides the world, and the
will that sends its signs to warn us. Suetonius and Dion
Cassius indicate the progressive fulness of" belief, and
weary us often with their long detail of constantly re-
curring portents. In other writers there is much talk of
a spirit-world of ghostly visitors who go and come in
startling guise and haunt the homes of murdered men.236

The Earlier Empire.

They believe seemingly in the power of magic to con-
strain the forces of the unseen world, and make them
use a fatal influence on the souls and bodies of the
living. Numberless gradations are imagined between
the infinite God and finite man, till all the universe is
peopled with an endless hierarchy of supernatural
agents.

5. We have another source of evidence of the extent
of popular belief in the numerous inscriptions which en-
shrine many of the most cherished feelings
menta?U~ of every social class and race. They point
evidence. to the countless thank-offerings that grateful
piety had yet to give. Temples, altars, votive tablets
were set up for centuries by pagan hands; statues and
pictures of the gods were still the objects of religious
veneration ; the worship of domestic lares or the ancestral
spirits of the house leaves its trace on every monumental
stone. The epitaphs attest in every variety of tone the hopes
and fears of a life beyond the grave, and the yearning
sympathy of those still left behind. Even the old fancies
of the poets, the legendary forms of Charon. Cerberus,
and Pluto, linger still in popular memory and leave their
trace in the language of the tombs. Many of the popu-
lar beliefs were strong enough to resist for ages the
spread of Christian thought. Even when they seemed
to yield they only changed their language and their
symbols, and noiselessly maintained their ground in the
service of devotional art.

For when the final struggle came the religions of
paganism died hard. With the early Empire a strong
reaction had set in, growing constantly in
Sedahlrd. intensity from the greater spiritual depth of
Eastern creeds and from the mystical and
moralizing tone of philosophic thought.I N D EX.

ACTA of the Senate, 198
Acte, 127
Actium, battle of, 5
./Ediles, 15
Africa, 212, 216, 218
Agrestis, Julius, 145
Agricola, Julius, 178, 22i
Agrippa, Herod, 149

-M. Vipsanius, 10, 23, 26

39 ^

-Postumus, 31

Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus,
55, 63

daughter of Germanicus,
72, 99, 105, 109, 128
Alexandria, 5, 83, 150, *58, 209
ship's crew of 38; club at 87
Ancyranum monumentum, 40
Anicetus, 109, 110
Antioch, 55
Antium, 83, 113
Antonia, 66, 75, 85
Antonius, M., 2-5, 42, 153
Primus, 143, 145, 149
- "S., 176, 220
Apollonia, t

Apollonius of Tyana, 178

Apotheosis 44

Apuleius, 224

Aquileia, 149

Archon, title of, 191

Aricia, 186

Armenia, 125, 216

Arminius, 54

Arretium, 26

Arria, 118

Asiaticus, 142

Asinius Gallus, 65

Astarte, 235

Atellan farces, 203

Atticus, Pomponius, 204 ; daughter

of, 25
Augusta, title of 51

Augustales, 207

Augustus, 1-44, 102 ; title of, 12

BAIiE, 109, 113, 192 ; bridge at,
77

Barea Soranus, 120
Bassus Lucilius, 143
Batavi, 151

Bedriacum, 137, 141,144
Berenice, 149, 163, 164
Boadicea, 125
Britain, 178, 207
Britannicus, 100, 105, no, 162
Brixellum, 137
Brutus, 3, 8, 9, 187
Burrhus, 105, 117

CiECINA ALIENUS, 136, 137,

140
Caenis, 158

Caesar, Julius, 1; title of, 12
Caesonia, 79, 84
Caledonia, 179
Caligula, 30, 69, 74-84
Callistus, 92
Camillus 91
Cama'odunum, 125
Campagna of Rome, 213
Candidati Caesaris, 16
Capreae, 64, 68
Cappadocia, 217
Cassius, C., 3

-Chaerea, 84, 93

Cassius Severus, 37
Cato the elder, 57

-M. Porcius, 187

Censoria potestas, 15
Cerealis, 172
Chaerea v. Cassius

237Index.

238

Christians, 116, 187
Chrysippus, 118
Cicero, 2, *07, 228, 231
Cilicia, 217
Cilnius Maecenas, 26
Civilis,i5i, 152
Claudia, 231
Claudius, 84-103
Cleopatra, 5, 42
Colonia Forqjuliensis, 219
Colonise, 191
Consularis potestas, 14
Corbulo, 120, 218, 221
Corduba, 105

Corinth, 204, isthmus of, 78
Cornutus, 118
Corybants 235
Cotytto, 235
Crassus, 45, 204
Cremona, 144, 150
Cremutius Cordus, 61

DACIANS, 150, 175, 218
Dalmatia, 137, 218
Danube, 216
Decebalus, 175
Decuriones, 194
Delatores, 57
Delos, 213

Demarch, title of, 191
Demetrius, 159
Dictator, title of, 11
Diogenes, 162
Dion Cassius, 10, 30, 70, in, 168,
an, 235

-Chrysostom, 201

Domitian, 146, 150, 171-4
Domitius Afer, 78

——--Ahenobarbus, 99, 104

-Nero, 99

Druids, 188

Drusus, brother of Tiberius, 31, 45

-son of Tiberius, 62

Duumviri juri dicundo, 194

Egypt, 5,191,218

Elbe, 216
Epictetus, 200
Epponina, 160
Euphrates, 218

FABIUS, PICTOR, 203
^ Felix, 02, 154
Flavian amphitheatre, 164

-Sabinus, 145

Forojuliensis colonia, 219

GALBA, 125,128, 134
Gallia comata, 186
Germanic-is, 48, 49, 54
Germany, wars in, 175
Gessius Florus, 154
Gracchi, policy of, 17; laws of 175,

Caius Gracchus, 186,189, 210
Greece, depopulation of, 209

ELVIDIUS PRISCUS, 160,

Helvetia, 136
Hercutaneum, 170, 171
Hiero, 191
Horace, 28

T CELUS, 131
X Illyria, 149
Imperator, title of, 12
Isis, 42, 235

TERUSALEM, siege of, 154
J Jews, 153, 154, 187
Josephus, 70, 155, 200
Julia, daughter of Augustus, 25, 31

grand-daughter, 33, 37
Julius Agrestis, 145

-Agricola, 178

-Caesar, 1

-Sabinus, 160

Jus privatum, 185; honorum, 185,

exilii, 185
Juvenal, 179, 192, 223, 225, 230

LABIENUS, T., 37, 76

Laco, Cornelius, 67, 131
Lares, worship of, 43
Latin right, J91

Leges: Papia Poppaea, 36, 210;
Majestatis, 37,186; Julia muui-
cipalis, 193 ; balpensana, 193; Ma-
lacitani, 193
Lepida, 104, 116
Lepidus, 3
Lesbos 25
Lingones 155,160
Li via, 21, 29-31, 48, 63
Livilia, 63

Livia, 79, 87,203, 210
Locus ta, 101, 109Lollia, 100
Lollius, 34
Londinium, 125
Lucan, 121-125, 187
Lucilius Bassus, 144
Lucrine Lake, 24, 92
Lucullus, gardens of, 98
Lugdunum, 102, 172
Lusitania, 135 •

MAECENAS, 9, "10, 26-29; gar-
dens of, 47
Macro, 66, 69, 75
Marcella, 25
Marcellus, M., 25, 30
Marcomanni, 176
Martial, 179, 192, 198,224
Massilia, 186
Mauretania, 217
Messalina^ 97, 106, 139
"Mfeentim, 168, 218
Mithras, 235
Mithri dates, 24
Moesia, 143, 216, 218
Mucianus, 149, 150, 172
Municipia, 191
Museum at Naples, 171
Musonins Rufus, 146
Mutina, 3, 7

Naples, 39,192

Narcissus, 90, 99, 101, 104,
148

Nemausus, 46
Nero, 104-128
Nola, 39
Noricum, 216
Nursia, 7

OCTAVIA, sister of Octavius, 4;
daughter of Claudius 100,
104, 116
Octavius, 1; Octavianus, 4-10
Osiris, 42, 224

Otho, 115, 132, 133, 134-138, 204
Ovid, 28, 27

PADUS, 141
Paetus Thrasea, 118
Palestine, 150
Pallas, 91, 99, 108
Pannonia, 24,47, I37> M3> 2I^»

218,221
Papia Poppaea Lex, 36, 211
Parthia, king of, 74, 173

239

Paul, St., 186, 223

Paulina, 121

Perusia, siege of, 4,24

Petronius Arbiter, 123-124, 200, 223,

228
Phaon, 126
Philippi, battle of, 3
Philo, 70, 200
Philostratus, 178
Phoebe 33
Piso, Cn., 55
—— Cn., 123, 124
-Frugi Licinianus, 132-134

■	Frugi, 189
Planasia, 31
Plancina, 55

Pliny the elder, 26, 168, 203, 210,

215; the younger, 168, 225, 231
Plutarch, 200, 211
Pollux, shrine of, 77
Polybius, the freedman, 92, 98

-the historian, 210, 214

Pompeii, 72,125, 168,170,193
Pompeius Magnus, 7, 153

	■-Sextus, 4, 27

Pomponius Atticus,204
Pontifex Maximus, office of, 14
Pontus, 24

Poor Law System at Rome, 189
Poppaea Sabina, 117, 119, 125, 135,
Posides, 92

Praefectus, 17; urbi, 17; praetorio,

vigilum, annonae, 17
Praetor, 15

Primus, Antonius, 143, 144, 146,149

Prince, title of, 14

Privy council, 19

Proconsularis potestas, 15

Procurators, 17

Proscriptions, 3

Propertius 28

Ptolemy, 191

Punic wars, 212

Puteoli, 38 ; bridge at, 77

Pythagoras, 115

QUAESTOR, is
Quattuor, viri juri dicundo, 194
uinquennales, 194
uintilius Varus, 34, 211, 221

Ravenna, i43, 218

Reate, 147
Remi (Rheims), 191
Rhodes, 45, 186, 204
Rusticus, 177240

Index.

SABINUS FLAVIUS, 145, 147

Scribonia, 32
Sejanus, 62-67
Sempronia, 231
Sempronian laws, 186
Senate under Augustus, 18
Senatorial provinces, 20
Seneca, 29, 78, 104, 105, 110, 228

satire of, 101
Senecio, 177
Sequani, 160
Servilia, 121
Sextus Pompeius, 4, 27
Silanus, 54
Silius, 98

Simon, son of Gioras, 156
Soranus Barea, 121
Spain, 192, 218
Sporus, 115, 125
Stabise, 169
Statins, 179, 192
Stoics, 117, 174, 227, 233
S}rabo, 70, 200, 209, 210
Suburra, 192
Suetonius, 70, 71, 92, 235
Sulla, 10, 53, 189
Sulpicius Galba, 125, 128-134
Syria, 125, 149, 154

TACITUS, 70, n6,134,138,149,

i53J 178, 180, 186, 200, 214,
223, 227,228, 231, 235
Tacfarinas, 218
Terentia, 29
Tertullian, 215
Teutoburgiensis saltus,"35
Thebaid of Statius, 179
Thebes, 219
Thespise, 210
Thrace, 217

Thrasea, 111, 119, 121,160 ^
Thrasyllus, 47

Tiberius, the emperor, 44-180; me-
moirs of, 179
Tiberius Gemellus, 78
Tibullus, 28
Tibur, 186

Tig&llinus, 115, 124, 125, 132
Tigranes, 45
Tiridates, 120

Titus, 148, 149, 154, 162-171; baths

of, 164
Tomi, 38
Treviri, 151
Tribunicia potestas, 12
Trimalchio, 124
Tyana, 178

|J"MBRIA, 147

VALENS, F., 136,140
Valerius Asiaticus, 98
Valerius Maximus, 71
Varus Quintilius, 34, 211, «2i
Vatinius, 115
Velleius Paterculus, 48, 71
Vergil, 18, 30
Verginius Rufus, 126, 130
Verona, 143

Vespasian, 112, 137, 143, 147-162
227

Vesuvius, 125, 168
Vibius Crispus, 172
Vindex, 125, 128
Vinius, 131
Visurgis, 35

Vitellius, A., 134, 136, 139-T47, 172

201, 221
-L., 139

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SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACY. By Charles Sankey, M.A., late
Scholar of Queen's College, Oxford, Joint-Editor of the Series.

MACEDONIAN EMPIRE, its RISE and CULMINATION to the DEATH of
ALEXANDER the GREAT. By A. M. Curteis, M.A., Assistant-Master,
Sherborne School.

ROME, to its CAPTURE by the GAULS. By Wilhelm Ihne, Author of
" History of Rome." {Shortly.)

ROME AND CARTHAGE, the PUNIC WARS. By R. Bosworth Smith, M.A.
Assistant-Master, Harrow School.

THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE, from the Flight of Xerxes to the Fall of Athens.
By the Rev. G. W. Cox, M.A., Joint-Editor of the Series.

THE GRACCHI, MARIUS, AND SULLA. By A. H. Beesly, M.A., Assistant-
Master, Marlborough College.

THE ROMAN TRIUMVIRATES. By the Very Rev. Charles Merivale, D.D.,
Dean of Ely. {Shortly.)

THE EARLIER EMPIRE. By the Rev. W. Wolfe Capes, M.A., Reader of
Ancient History in the University of Oxford. {Shortly.)

THE AGE OF TRAJAN AND THE ANTONINES. By the Rev. W Wolfe
Capes, M.A., Reader of Ancient History in the University of Oxford.

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COMPLETION OF THE FIRST

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The BRIC-A-BRAC SERIES has achieved for itself a success altogether
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OVER SIXTY THOUSAND VOLUMES

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COMPLETE REPOSITORY OF REMINISCENCES

Of prominent men and women of this and the last century. Characteristic
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THE SERIES COMPRISES THE FOLLOWING TEN VOLUMES:

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Sent, post-paid\ or express charges paid, on receipt of price by the Publishers,

SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, & CO.

743 <0 745 Broadway, Jew York.A NEW BOOK BY DR. HOLLAND.

Everyday Topics.

BY J. G. HOLLAND,

Author of "Sevenoaks," "Arthur Bonnicastle," "The Mistress of the Manse,"
"Kathrina," Bitter Sweet," "Titcomb's Letters," "Gold Foil," etc.

ONE VOL. xamo. PRICE $1.75.

The same sound sense and practical wisdom as applied to the affairs of
everyday life which secured for "Gold Foil" and a Lessons in Life" such
wide and enduring popularity distinguish this volume in a still more marked
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land for the department " Topics of the Time" in Scribner's Monthly during
the last five years.

Only those papers furnishing permanent value and general interest here
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ive—"Culture," 4'Literature and Literary Men," "The Popular Lecture "
"The Common Moralities," "Woman," ''American Life and Manners" are
a few of the general subjects under which the different articles are grouped.

Upon them all Dr. Holland expresses himself with tl^t grace, directness,
earnestness, and force which have given him so strong a hold upon such a
multitude of readers.

Copies sent post-paid by

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743 and 745 Broadway, New York.ANOTHER GREAT HISTORICAL WORK.

5§>1jf Jjisforg of (Jpffrr,

By M. Dr. EfflST CUETIUS.

tVanslated by ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD, M.A., Fellow of St. Peter'}
College, Cambridge, Prof, of History in Owen's College, Manchester.

Complete in five vols,, crown 8vo, at $2.50 per volume.

Printed upon Tinted Paper, uniform with Mommsen's History of Rome, and thb
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Curtius' History of Greece is similar in plan and purpose to Mommsen's History oj
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it groups together in a very picturesque manner all the important events in the history of
this kingdom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the world's civilization.
The narrative of Prof. Curtius' work is flowing and animated, and the generalizations,
although bold, are philosophical and sound.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

_" Professor Curtius' eminent scholarship is a sufficent guarantee for the trustworthiness of
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tains the true dignity and impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are on
the side of justice, humanity, and progress."—London Athenceum.

"We cin not express our opinion of Dr. Curtius' book better than by saying that it may
be fidy ranked withTheodor Mommsen's great work."—London Spectator.

"As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to
the present for vivacity and picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of
statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which enrich the literature of the
age."—N. Y. Daily Tribune.

'/The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit of
the nineteenth century, that it becomes in his hands one of the worthiest and most instructive
branches of study for all who desire something more than a knowledge of isolated facts for
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of reading for young men at college, and for all who are in training for the free political
life of our country."—N. Y. Evening Post,

Sent post-paid, upon receipt of the price, by the Fublishersy

SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO,

New York.WDINBTJRGH REVIEW.—" The lSEST History of the Roman Republic ••
, IjOWDON TIMES.—" BY PAR THE BEST History of the Decline and FaD
of the Roman Commonwealth."

FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PERIOD OF ITS DECLINE.
By Dr. THEODOR MOMMSEN.

Translated, with the author's san<5tion and additions, by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, Regiufi
Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Glasgow, late Classical
Examiuer in the University of St Andrews. With an In-
troduction by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz.

REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED LONDON EDITION.

Four Volumes crown 8vo.	Price per Volume, $2.00.

Dr. Mommsen has long been known and appreciated through his researches
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the most thoroughly versed scholar now living in these departments of his-
torical investigation. To a wonderfully exa6t and exhaustive knowledge of
these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a vigorous, spirited,
and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical powers, 'which give this
history a degree of interest and a permanent value possessed by no othei
record of the decline and fall of the Roman Commonwealth. "Dr.
Mommsen's work," as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the introduction, " though
the production of a man of most profound and extensive learning and
knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for the professional
scholar as for intelligent readers of all classes who take an interest in the his-
tory of by-gone ages, and are inclined there to seek information that may
guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of modern history."

M A work of the very highest merit; its learning is exa<5t and profound j^its narrative full
of genius and skill; its descriptions of men are admirably vivid. We wish to place on
record our opinion that Dr. Mommsen's is by far the best history of the Decline and Fall
of the Roman Commonwealth."—London Times.

" Since the days of Niebuhr, no work on Roman History has appeared that combines so
much to attradt, instruft, and charm the reader. Its style—a rare quality in a German au-
thor—is vigorous, spirited, and animated. Professor Mommsen's work can stand a com-
parison with the noblest productions of modern history."-. -Dr. Schmitz.

THE

iiiatott) of Home,
 

CRITICAL NOTICES.

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Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags."—

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THE

SANS-SOUCI SERIES.

Personal Beminiscences of Famous Poets and Novelists, Wits and Humorists,
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EDITED BY

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The Sans-Souci Series is based upon the same general idea that secured such sudden
and deserved popularity for the Bric-a-Brac Series. In the ten volumes of that collection were
carefully gathered up the choicest gleanings from numerous biographies and memoirs, publishe4
during the last quarter of a century, and nearly all of which would have disappeared into oblivion
altogether had it not been for this happy conception, by which the wheat that they contained
was thus separated from the chaff. But distinguished men and women, or those who have been
on intimate relations with them, are constantly passing away, and biographies, autobiographies,
and memoirs are appearing with a rapidity never before equaled. Those wishing to learn the
lessons that are taught by the lives of the great and good, as they are rehearsed in these volumes,
are anxious to get at them as directly as possible ; those who read them for amusement are impa-
tient of ihe time lost in finding for themselves the entertaining and the amusing. The skill with
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HAYDON'S LIFE, LETTERS AND TABLE TALK.

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41 Since the appearance of the Greville Memoirs, there has been no collection of reminis-
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« MEN AND MANNERS ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO."

Edited by Mr. H. E. Scudder,

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SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO., NEW YORK.SEVEN-OAKS.

a. story o ip to-day.

BY J, G. HOLLAND,

Author of " Arthur Bonnicastle," " The Mistress of the Manse," " Kathrina,1*
" Bitter Sweet," "Titcomb's Letters," etc.

VWth 12 full-page illustrations, after original designs by Sol. Eytinge. One volume,
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Dr. Holland in his latest novel, "The Story of Sevenoaks," has .undertaken
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every reader. But it is not merely because the characters and scenes and inci-
dents. are thoroughly modern and familiar that the story has won so much
attention during its serial publication in Scribner's Monthly. The pro-
gress of events is rapid, and graphically narrated; and it is seldom that an
American Magazine Story has been followed from beginning to end by so
large an audience, and with such eager and sustained interest. The book,
too, is enlivened by those bits of out-of-door description, sympathetic touches
of character, and genial philosophies, that his readers always find in Dr.
Holland's stories, and which constitute no small part of their attraction.

Dr. HOLLAND'S WORKS

Each in One Volume^ i2moi

The MISTRESS of the MANSE - $x 5o

♦BITTERSWEET; a Poem - -	1 50

♦KATHRINA; a Poem - - -	1 50

♦LETTERS TO YOUNG PEOPLE	1 50

♦GOLD FOIL hammered from Popular

Proverbs -	1 75

♦LESSONS IN LIFE - - - 1 75
♦PLAIN TALKS on Familiar Subjects 1 75
LETTERS TO THE JONESES - 1 75

MISS GILBERT'S CAREER - $2 00

BAY PATH.....2 00

THE MARBLE PROPHECY and

other Poems -	-	1 50

GARNERED SHEAVES. Complete
Poetical Works, " Bitter Sweet,"
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red line edition,beautifully illustrated.	4 00

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