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Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part I.
Of The Constitution Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of The
Antonines.
Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part II. |
Of The Constitution Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of The
Antonines.
The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state, in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, is intrusted with the execution of the laws, the management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But, unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people. 101 A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince.
101 (return)
[ Often enough in the ages of superstition, but not in the
interest of the people or the state, but in that of the church to which
all others were subordinate. Yet the power of the pope has often been of
great service in repressing the excesses of sovereigns, and in softening
manners.—W. The history of the Italian republics proves the error of
Gibbon, and the justice of his German translator's comment.—M.]
Every barrier of the Roman constitution had been levelled by the vast ambition of the dictator; every fence had been extirpated by the cruel hand of the triumvir. After the victory of Actium, the fate of the Roman world depended on the will of Octavianus, surnamed Caesar, by his uncle's adoption, and afterwards Augustus, by the flattery of the senate. The conqueror was at the head of forty-four veteran legions, 1 conscious of their own strength, and of the weakness of the constitution, habituated, during twenty years' civil war, to every act of blood and violence, and passionately devoted to the house of Caesar, from whence alone they had received, and expected the most lavish rewards. The provinces, long oppressed by the ministers of the republic, sighed for the government of a single person, who would be the master, not the accomplice, of those petty tyrants. The people of Rome, viewing, with a secret pleasure, the humiliation of the aristocracy, demanded only bread and public shows; and were supplied with both by the liberal hand of Augustus. The rich and polite Italians, who had almost universally embraced the philosophy of Epicurus, enjoyed the present blessings of ease and tranquillity, and suffered not the pleasing dream to be interrupted by the memory of their old tumultuous freedom. With its power, the senate had lost its dignity; many of the most noble families were extinct. The republicans of spirit and ability had perished in the field of battle, or in the proscription. The door of the assembly had been designedly left open, for a mixed multitude of more than a thousand persons, who reflected disgrace upon their rank, instead of deriving honor from it. 2
1 (return)
[ Orosius, vi. 18. * Note: Dion says twenty-five, (or three,)
(lv. 23.) The united triumvirs had but forty-three. (Appian. Bell. Civ.
iv. 3.) The testimony of Orosius is of little value when more certain
may be had.—W. But all the legions, doubtless, submitted to Augustus
after the battle of Actium.—M.]
2 (return)
[ Julius Caesar introduced soldiers, strangers, and
half-barbarians into the senate (Sueton. in Caesar. c. 77, 80.) The
abuse became still more scandalous after his death.]
The reformation of the senate was one of the first steps in which Augustus laid aside the tyrant, and professed himself the father of his country. He was elected censor; and, in concert with his faithful Agrippa, he examined the list of the senators, expelled a few members, 201 whose vices or whose obstinacy required a public example, persuaded near two hundred to prevent the shame of an expulsion by a voluntary retreat, raised the qualification of a senator to about ten thousand pounds, created a sufficient number of patrician families, and accepted for himself the honorable title of Prince of the Senate, 202 which had always been bestowed, by the censors, on the citizen the most eminent for his honors and services. 3 But whilst he thus restored the dignity, he destroyed the independence, of the senate. The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
201 (return)
[ Of these Dion and Suetonius knew nothing.—W. Dion says the
contrary.—M.]
202 (return)
[ But Augustus, then Octavius, was censor, and in virtue of
that office, even according to the constitution of the free republic,
could reform the senate, expel unworthy members, name the Princeps
Senatus, &c. That was called, as is well known, Senatum legere. It was
customary, during the free republic, for the censor to be named Princeps
Senatus, (S. Liv. l. xxvii. c. 11, l. xl. c. 51;) and Dion expressly
says, that this was done according to ancient usage. He was empowered
by a decree of the senate to admit a number of families among the
patricians. Finally, the senate was not the legislative power.—W]
3 (return)
[ Dion Cassius, l. liii. p. 693. Suetonius in August. c. 35.]
Before an assembly thus modelled and prepared, Augustus pronounced a studied oration, which displayed his patriotism, and disguised his ambition. "He lamented, yet excused, his past conduct. Filial piety had required at his hands the revenge of his father's murder; the humanity of his own nature had sometimes given way to the stern laws of necessity, and to a forced connection with two unworthy colleagues: as long as Antony lived, the republic forbade him to abandon her to a degenerate Roman, and a barbarian queen. He was now at liberty to satisfy his duty and his inclination. He solemnly restored the senate and people to all their ancient rights; and wished only to mingle with the crowd of his fellow-citizens, and to share the blessings which he had obtained for his country." 4
4 (return)
[ Dion (l. liii. p. 698) gives us a prolix and bombast speech
on this great occasion. I have borrowed from Suetonius and Tacitus the
general language of Augustus.]
It would require the pen of Tacitus (if Tacitus had assisted at this assembly) to describe the various emotions of the senate, those that were suppressed, and those that were affected. It was dangerous to trust the sincerity of Augustus; to seem to distrust it was still more dangerous. The respective advantages of monarchy and a republic have often divided speculative inquirers; the present greatness of the Roman state, the corruption of manners, and the license of the soldiers, supplied new arguments to the advocates of monarchy; and these general views of government were again warped by the hopes and fears of each individual. Amidst this confusion of sentiments, the answer of the senate was unanimous and decisive. They refused to accept the resignation of Augustus; they conjured him not to desert the republic, which he had saved. After a decent resistance, the crafty tyrant submitted to the orders of the senate; and consented to receive the government of the provinces, and the general command of the Roman armies, under the well-known names of Proconsul and Imperator. 5 But he would receive them only for ten years. Even before the expiration of that period, he hope that the wounds of civil discord would be completely healed, and that the republic, restored to its pristine health and vigor, would no longer require the dangerous interposition of so extraordinary a magistrate. The memory of this comedy, repeated several times during the life of Augustus, was preserved to the last ages of the empire, by the peculiar pomp with which the perpetual monarchs of Rome always solemnized the tenth years of their reign. 6
5 (return)
[ Imperator (from which we have derived Emperor) signified
under her republic no more than general, and was emphatically bestowed
by the soldiers, when on the field of battle they proclaimed their
victorious leader worthy of that title. When the Roman emperors assumed
it in that sense, they placed it after their name, and marked how often
they had taken it.]
6 (return)
[ Dion. l. liii. p. 703, &c.]
Without any violation of the principles of the constitution, the general of the Roman armies might receive and exercise an authority almost despotic over the soldiers, the enemies, and the subjects of the republic. With regard to the soldiers, the jealousy of freedom had, even from the earliest ages of Rome, given way to the hopes of conquest, and a just sense of military discipline. The dictator, or consul, had a right to command the service of the Roman youth; and to punish an obstinate or cowardly disobedience by the most severe and ignominious penalties, by striking the offender out of the list of citizens, by confiscating his property, and by selling his person into slavery. 7 The most sacred rights of freedom, confirmed by the Porcian and Sempronian laws, were suspended by the military engagement. In his camp the general exercise an absolute power of life and death; his jurisdiction was not confined by any forms of trial, or rules of proceeding, and the execution of the sentence was immediate and without appeal. 8 The choice of the enemies of Rome was regularly decided by the legislative authority. The most important resolutions of peace and war were seriously debated in the senate, and solemnly ratified by the people. But when the arms of the legions were carried to a great distance from Italy, the general assumed the liberty of directing them against whatever people, and in whatever manner, they judged most advantageous for the public service. It was from the success, not from the justice, of their enterprises, that they expected the honors of a triumph. In the use of victory, especially after they were no longer controlled by the commissioners of the senate, they exercised the most unbounded despotism. When Pompey commanded in the East, he rewarded his soldiers and allies, dethroned princes, divided kingdoms, founded colonies, and distributed the treasures of Mithridates. On his return to Rome, he obtained, by a single act of the senate and people, the universal ratification of all his proceedings. 9 Such was the power over the soldiers, and over the enemies of Rome, which was either granted to, or assumed by, the generals of the republic. They were, at the same time, the governors, or rather monarchs, of the conquered provinces, united the civil with the military character, administered justice as well as the finances, and exercised both the executive and legislative power of the state.
7 (return)
[ Livy Epitom. l. xiv. [c. 27.] Valer. Maxim. vi. 3.]
8 (return)
[ See, in the viiith book of Livy, the conduct of Manlius
Torquatus and Papirius Cursor. They violated the laws of nature and
humanity, but they asserted those of military discipline; and the
people, who abhorred the action, was obliged to respect the principle.]
9 (return)
[ By the lavish but unconstrained suffrages of the people,
Pompey had obtained a military command scarcely inferior to that of
Augustus. Among the extraordinary acts of power executed by the former
we may remark the foundation of twenty-nine cities, and the distribution
of three or four millions sterling to his troops. The ratification of
his acts met with some opposition and delays in the senate See Plutarch,
Appian, Dion Cassius, and the first book of the epistles to Atticus.]
From what has already been observed in the first chapter of this work, some notion may be formed of the armies and provinces thus intrusted to the ruling hand of Augustus. But as it was impossible that he could personally command the regions of so many distant frontiers, he was indulged by the senate, as Pompey had already been, in the permission of devolving the execution of his great office on a sufficient number of lieutenants. In rank and authority these officers seemed not inferior to the ancient proconsuls; but their station was dependent and precarious. They received and held their commissions at the will of a superior, to whose auspicious influence the merit of their action was legally attributed. 10 They were the representatives of the emperor. The emperor alone was the general of the republic, and his jurisdiction, civil as well as military, extended over all the conquests of Rome. It was some satisfaction, however, to the senate, that he always delegated his power to the members of their body. The imperial lieutenants were of consular or praetorian dignity; the legions were commanded by senators, and the praefecture of Egypt was the only important trust committed to a Roman knight.
10 (return)
[ Under the commonwealth, a triumph could only be claimed by
the general, who was authorized to take the Auspices in the name of the
people. By an exact consequence, drawn from this principle of policy
and religion, the triumph was reserved to the emperor; and his most
successful lieutenants were satisfied with some marks of distinction,
which, under the name of triumphal honors, were invented in their
favor.]
Within six days after Augustus had been compelled to accept so very liberal a grant, he resolved to gratify the pride of the senate by an easy sacrifice. He represented to them, that they had enlarged his powers, even beyond that degree which might be required by the melancholy condition of the times. They had not permitted him to refuse the laborious command of the armies and the frontiers; but he must insist on being allowed to restore the more peaceful and secure provinces to the mild administration of the civil magistrate. In the division of the provinces, Augustus provided for his own power and for the dignity of the republic. The proconsuls of the senate, particularly those of Asia, Greece, and Africa, enjoyed a more honorable character than the lieutenants of the emperor, who commanded in Gaul or Syria. The former were attended by lictors, the latter by soldiers. 105 A law was passed, that wherever the emperor was present, his extraordinary commission should supersede the ordinary jurisdiction of the governor; a custom was introduced, that the new conquests belonged to the imperial portion; and it was soon discovered that the authority of the Prtnce, the favorite epithet of Augustus, was the same in every part of the empire.
105 (return)
[ This distinction is without foundation. The
lieutenants of the emperor, who were called Propraetors, whether they
had been praetors or consuls, were attended by six lictors; those who
had the right of the sword, (of life and death over the soldiers.—M.)
bore the military habit (paludamentum) and the sword. The provincial
governors commissioned by the senate, who, whether they had been consuls
or not, were called Pronconsuls, had twelve lictors when they had been
consuls, and six only when they had but been praetors. The provinces of
Africa and Asia were only given to ex-consuls. See, on the Organization
of the Provinces, Dion, liii. 12, 16 Strabo, xvii 840.—W]
In return for this imaginary concession, Augustus obtained an important privilege, which rendered him master of Rome and Italy. By a dangerous exception to the ancient maxims, he was authorized to preserve his military command, supported by a numerous body of guards, even in time of peace, and in the heart of the capital. His command, indeed, was confined to those citizens who were engaged in the service by the military oath; but such was the propensity of the Romans to servitude, that the oath was voluntarily taken by the magistrates, the senators, and the equestrian order, till the homage of flattery was insensibly converted into an annual and solemn protestation of fidelity.
Although Augustus considered a military force as the firmest foundation, he wisely rejected it, as a very odious instrument of government. It was more agreeable to his temper, as well as to his policy, to reign under the venerable names of ancient magistracy, and artfully to collect, in his own person, all the scattered rays of civil jurisdiction. With this view, he permitted the senate to confer upon him, for his life, the powers of the consular 11 and tribunitian offices, 12 which were, in the same manner, continued to all his successors. The consuls had succeeded to the kings of Rome, and represented the dignity of the state. They superintended the ceremonies of religion, levied and commanded the legions, gave audience to foreign ambassadors, and presided in the assemblies both of the senate and people. The general control of the finances was intrusted to their care; and though they seldom had leisure to administer justice in person, they were considered as the supreme guardians of law, equity, and the public peace. Such was their ordinary jurisdiction; but whenever the senate empowered the first magistrate to consult the safety of the commonwealth, he was raised by that decree above the laws, and exercised, in the defence of liberty, a temporary despotism. 13 The character of the tribunes was, in every respect, different from that of the consuls. The appearance of the former was modest and humble; but their persons were sacred and inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than for action. They were instituted to defend the oppressed, to pardon offences, to arraign the enemies of the people, and, when they judged it necessary, to stop, by a single word, the whole machine of government. As long as the republic subsisted, the dangerous influence, which either the consul or the tribune might derive from their respective jurisdiction, was diminished by several important restrictions. Their authority expired with the year in which they were elected; the former office was divided between two, the latter among ten persons; and, as both in their private and public interest they were averse to each other, their mutual conflicts contributed, for the most part, to strengthen rather than to destroy the balance of the constitution. 131 But when the consular and tribunitian powers were united, when they were vested for life in a single person, when the general of the army was, at the same time, the minister of the senate and the representative of the Roman people, it was impossible to resist the exercise, nor was it easy to define the limits, of his imperial prerogative.
11 (return)
[ Cicero (de Legibus, iii. 3) gives the consular office the
name of egia potestas; and Polybius (l. vi. c. 3) observes three powers
in the Roman constitution. The monarchical was represented and exercised
by the consuls.]
12 (return)
[ As the tribunitian power (distinct from the annual office)
was first invented by the dictator Caesar, (Dion, l. xliv. p. 384,) we
may easily conceive, that it was given as a reward for having so nobly
asserted, by arms, the sacred rights of the tribunes and people. See his
own Commentaries, de Bell. Civil. l. i.]
13 (return)
[ Augustus exercised nine annual consulships without
interruption. He then most artfully refused the magistracy, as well as
the dictatorship, absented himself from Rome, and waited till the fatal
effects of tumult and faction forced the senate to invest him with a
perpetual consulship. Augustus, as well as his successors, affected,
however, to conceal so invidious a title.]
131 (return)
[ The note of M. Guizot on the tribunitian power applies
to the French translation rather than to the original. The former
has, maintenir la balance toujours egale, which implies much more than
Gibbon's general expression. The note belongs rather to the history of
the Republic than that of the Empire.—M]
To these accumulated honors, the policy of Augustus soon added the splendid as well as important dignities of supreme pontiff, and of censor. By the former he acquired the management of the religion, and by the latter a legal inspection over the manners and fortunes, of the Roman people. If so many distinct and independent powers did not exactly unite with each other, the complaisance of the senate was prepared to supply every deficiency by the most ample and extraordinary concessions. The emperors, as the first ministers of the republic, were exempted from the obligation and penalty of many inconvenient laws: they were authorized to convoke the senate, to make several motions in the same day, to recommend candidates for the honors of the state, to enlarge the bounds of the city, to employ the revenue at their discretion, to declare peace and war, to ratify treaties; and by a most comprehensive clause, they were empowered to execute whatsoever they should judge advantageous to the empire, and agreeable to the majesty of things private or public, human of divine. 14
14 (return)
[ See a fragment of a Decree of the Senate, conferring
on the emperor Vespasian all the powers granted to his predecessors,
Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius. This curious and important monument is
published in Gruter's Inscriptions, No. ccxlii. * Note: It is also in
the editions of Tacitus by Ryck, (Annal. p. 420, 421,) and Ernesti,
(Excurs. ad lib. iv. 6;) but this fragment contains so many
inconsistencies, both in matter and form, that its authenticity may be
doubted—W.]
When all the various powers of executive government were committed to the Imperial magistrate, the ordinary magistrates of the commonwealth languished in obscurity, without vigor, and almost without business. The names and forms of the ancient administration were preserved by Augustus with the most anxious care. The usual number of consuls, praetors, and tribunes, 15 were annually invested with their respective ensigns of office, and continued to discharge some of their least important functions. Those honors still attracted the vain ambition of the Romans; and the emperors themselves, though invested for life with the powers of the consul ship, frequently aspired to the title of that annual dignity, which they condescended to share with the most illustrious of their fellow-citizens. 16 In the election of these magistrates, the people, during the reign of Augustus, were permitted to expose all the inconveniences of a wild democracy. That artful prince, instead of discovering the least symptom of impatience, humbly solicited their suffrages for himself or his friends, and scrupulously practised all the duties of an ordinary candidate. 17 But we may venture to ascribe to his councils the first measure of the succeeding reign, by which the elections were transferred to the senate. 18 The assemblies of the people were forever abolished, and the emperors were delivered from a dangerous multitude, who, without restoring liberty, might have disturbed, and perhaps endangered, the established government.
15 (return)
[ Two consuls were created on the Calends of January; but in
the course of the year others were substituted in their places, till
the annual number seems to have amounted to no less than twelve. The
praetors were usually sixteen or eighteen, (Lipsius in Excurs. D. ad
Tacit. Annal. l. i.) I have not mentioned the Aediles or Quaestors
Officers of the police or revenue easily adapt themselves to any form
of government. In the time of Nero, the tribunes legally possessed
the right of intercession, though it might be dangerous to exercise it
(Tacit. Annal. xvi. 26.) In the time of Trajan, it was doubtful whether
the tribuneship was an office or a name, (Plin. Epist. i. 23.)]
16 (return)
[ The tyrants themselves were ambitious of the consulship.
The virtuous princes were moderate in the pursuit, and exact in the
discharge of it. Trajan revived the ancient oath, and swore before the
consul's tribunal that he would observe the laws, (Plin. Panegyric c.
64.)]
17 (return)
[ Quoties Magistratuum Comitiis interesset. Tribus cum
candidatis suis circunbat: supplicabatque more solemni. Ferebat et ipse
suffragium in tribubus, ut unus e populo. Suetonius in August c. 56.]
18 (return)
[ Tum primum Comitia e campo ad patres translata sunt.
Tacit. Annal. i. 15. The word primum seems to allude to some faint
and unsuccessful efforts which were made towards restoring them to the
people. Note: The emperor Caligula made the attempt: he rest red the
Comitia to the people, but, in a short time, took them away again. Suet.
in Caio. c. 16. Dion. lix. 9, 20. Nevertheless, at the time of Dion,
they preserved still the form of the Comitia. Dion. lviii. 20.—W.]
By declaring themselves the protectors of the people, Marius and Caesar had subverted the constitution of their country. But as soon as the senate had been humbled and disarmed, such an assembly, consisting of five or six hundred persons, was found a much more tractable and useful instrument of dominion. It was on the dignity of the senate that Augustus and his successors founded their new empire; and they affected, on every occasion, to adopt the language and principles of Patricians. In the administration of their own powers, they frequently consulted the great national council, and seemed to refer to its decision the most important concerns of peace and war. Rome, Italy, and the internal provinces, were subject to the immediate jurisdiction of the senate. With regard to civil objects, it was the supreme court of appeal; with regard to criminal matters, a tribunal, constituted for the trial of all offences that were committed by men in any public station, or that affected the peace and majesty of the Roman people. The exercise of the judicial power became the most frequent and serious occupation of the senate; and the important causes that were pleaded before them afforded a last refuge to the spirit of ancient eloquence. As a council of state, and as a court of justice, the senate possessed very considerable prerogatives; but in its legislative capacity, in which it was supposed virtually to represent the people, the rights of sovereignty were acknowledged to reside in that assembly. Every power was derived from their authority, every law was ratified by their sanction. Their regular meetings were held on three stated days in every month, the Calends, the Nones, and the Ides. The debates were conducted with decent freedom; and the emperors themselves, who gloried in the name of senators, sat, voted, and divided with their equals. To resume, in a few words, the system of the Imperial government; as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and that of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed. 19
19 (return)
[Dion Cassius (l. liii. p. 703—714) has given a very loose and partial sketch of
the Imperial system. To illustrate and often to correct him, I have
meditated Tacitus, examined Suetonius, and consulted the following
moderns: the Abbe de la Bleterie, in the Memoires de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, tom. xix. xxi. xxiv. xxv. xxvii. Beaufort Republique
Romaine, tom. i. p. 255—275. The Dissertations of Noodt and Gronovius
de lege Regia, printed at Leyden, in the year 1731 Gravina de Imperio
Romano, p. 479—544 of his Opuscula. Maffei, Verona Illustrata, p. i.
p. 245, &c.]
The face of the court corresponded with the forms of the administration. The emperors, if we except those tyrants whose capricious folly violated every law of nature and decency, disdained that pomp and ceremony which might offend their countrymen, but could add nothing to their real power. In all the offices of life, they affected to confound themselves with their subjects, and maintained with them an equal intercourse of visits and entertainments. Their habit, their palace, their table, were suited only to the rank of an opulent senator. Their family, however numerous or splendid, was composed entirely of their domestic slaves and freedmen. 20 Augustus or Trajan would have blushed at employing the meanest of the Romans in those menial offices, which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of Britain.
20 (return)
[ A weak prince will always be governed by his domestics.
The power of slaves aggravated the shame of the Romans; and the senate
paid court to a Pallas or a Narcissus. There is a chance that a modern
favorite may be a gentleman.]
The deification of the emperors 21 is the only instance in which they departed from their accustomed prudence and modesty. The Asiatic Greeks were the first inventors, the successors of Alexander the first objects, of this servile and impious mode of adulation. 211 It was easily transferred from the kings to the governors of Asia; and the Roman magistrates very frequently were adored as provincial deities, with the pomp of altars and temples, of festivals and sacrifices. 22 It was natural that the emperors should not refuse what the proconsuls had accepted; and the divine honors which both the one and the other received from the provinces, attested rather the despotism than the servitude of Rome. But the conquerors soon imitated the vanquished nations in the arts of flattery; and the imperious spirit of the first Caesar too easily consented to assume, during his lifetime, a place among the tutelar deities of Rome. The milder temper of his successor declined so dangerous an ambition, which was never afterwards revived, except by the madness of Caligula and Domitian. Augustus permitted indeed some of the provincial cities to erect temples to his honor, on condition that they should associate the worship of Rome with that of the sovereign; he tolerated private superstition, of which he might be the object; 23 but he contented himself with being revered by the senate and the people in his human character, and wisely left to his successor the care of his public deification. A regular custom was introduced, that on the decease of every emperor who had neither lived nor died like a tyrant, the senate by a solemn decree should place him in the number of the gods: and the ceremonies of his apotheosis were blended with those of his funeral. 231 This legal, and, as it should seem, injudicious profanation, so abhorrent to our stricter principles, was received with a very faint murmur, 24 by the easy nature of Polytheism; but it was received as an institution, not of religion, but of policy. We should disgrace the virtues of the Antonines by comparing them with the vices of Hercules or Jupiter. Even the characters of Caesar or Augustus were far superior to those of the popular deities. But it was the misfortune of the former to live in an enlightened age, and their actions were too faithfully recorded to admit of such a mixture of fable and mystery, as the devotion of the vulgar requires. As soon as their divinity was established by law, it sunk into oblivion, without contributing either to their own fame, or to the dignity of succeeding princes.
21 (return)
[ See a treatise of Vandale de Consecratione Principium.
It would be easier for me to copy, than it has been to verify, the
quotations of that learned Dutchman.]
211 (return)
[ This is inaccurate. The successors of Alexander were not
the first deified sovereigns; the Egyptians had deified and worshipped
many of their kings; the Olympus of the Greeks was peopled with
divinities who had reigned on earth; finally, Romulus himself had
received the honors of an apotheosis (Tit. Liv. i. 16) a long time
before Alexander and his successors. It is also an inaccuracy to
confound the honors offered in the provinces to the Roman governors, by
temples and altars, with the true apotheosis of the emperors; it was not
a religious worship, for it had neither priests nor sacrifices. Augustus
was severely blamed for having permitted himself to be worshipped as
a god in the provinces, (Tac. Ann. i. 10: ) he would not have incurred
that blame if he had only done what the governors were accustomed to
do.—G. from W. M. Guizot has been guilty of a still greater inaccuracy
in confounding the deification of the living with the apotheosis of the
dead emperors. The nature of the king-worship of Egypt is still
very obscure; the hero-worship of the Greeks very different from the
adoration of the "praesens numen" in the reigning sovereign.—M.]
22 (return)
[ See a dissertation of the Abbe Mongault in the first
volume of the Academy of Inscriptions.]
23 (return)
[ Jurandasque tuum per nomen ponimus aras, says Horace to
the emperor himself, and Horace was well acquainted with the court of
Augustus. Note: The good princes were not those who alone obtained
the honors of an apotheosis: it was conferred on many tyrants. See
an excellent treatise of Schaepflin, de Consecratione Imperatorum
Romanorum, in his Commentationes historicae et criticae. Bale, 1741, p.
184.—W.]
231 (return)
[ The curious satire in the works of Seneca, is the strongest
remonstrance of profaned religion.—M.]
24 (return)
[ See Cicero in Philippic. i. 6. Julian in Caesaribus. Inque
Deum templis jurabit Roma per umbras, is the indignant expression of
Lucan; but it is a patriotic rather than a devout indignation.]
In the consideration of the Imperial government, we have frequently mentioned the artful founder, under his well-known title of Augustus, which was not, however, conferred upon him till the edifice was almost completed. The obscure name of Octavianus he derived from a mean family, in the little town of Aricia. 241 It was stained with the blood of the proscription; and he was desirous, had it been possible, to erase all memory of his former life. The illustrious surname of Caesar he had assumed, as the adopted son of the dictator: but he had too much good sense, either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared with that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to dignify their minister with a new appellation; and after a serious discussion, that of Augustus was chosen, among several others, as being the most expressive of the character of peace and sanctity, which he uniformly affected. 25 Augustus was therefore a personal, Caesar a family distinction. The former should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was bestowed; and however the latter was diffused by adoption and female alliance, Nero was the last prince who could allege any hereditary claim to the honors of the Julian line. But, at the time of his death, the practice of a century had inseparably connected those appellations with the Imperial dignity, and they have been preserved by a long succession of emperors, Romans, Greeks, Franks, and Germans, from the fall of the republic to the present time. A distinction was, however, soon introduced. The sacred title of Augustus was always reserved for the monarch, whilst the name of Caesar was more freely communicated to his relations; and, from the reign of Hadrian, at least, was appropriated to the second person in the state, who was considered as the presumptive heir of the empire. 251
241 (return)
[ Octavius was not of an obscure family, but of a considerable
one of the equestrian order. His father, C. Octavius, who possessed
great property, had been praetor, governor of Macedonia, adorned with
the title of Imperator, and was on the point of becoming consul when he
died. His mother Attia, was daughter of M. Attius Balbus, who had also
been praetor. M. Anthony reproached Octavius with having been born in
Aricia, which, nevertheless, was a considerable municipal city: he was
vigorously refuted by Cicero. Philip. iii. c. 6.—W. Gibbon probably
meant that the family had but recently emerged into notice.—M.]
25 (return)
[ Dion. Cassius, l. liii. p. 710, with the curious
Annotations of Reimar.]
251 (return)
[ The princes who by their birth or their adoption belonged
to the family of the Caesars, took the name of Caesar. After the
death of Nero, this name designated the Imperial dignity itself, and
afterwards the appointed successor. The time at which it was employed in
the latter sense, cannot be fixed with certainty. Bach (Hist. Jurisprud.
Rom. 304) affirms from Tacitus, H. i. 15, and Suetonius, Galba, 17, that
Galba conferred on Piso Lucinianus the title of Caesar, and from that
time the term had this meaning: but these two historians simply say that
he appointed Piso his successor, and do not mention the word Caesar.
Aurelius Victor (in Traj. 348, ed. Artzen) says that Hadrian first
received this title on his adoption; but as the adoption of Hadrian is
still doubtful, and besides this, as Trajan, on his death-bed, was
not likely to have created a new title for his successor, it is more
probable that Aelius Verus was the first who was called Caesar when
adopted by Hadrian. Spart. in Aelio Vero, 102.—W.]
The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he had destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant. A cool head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted him at the age of nineteen to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which he never afterwards laid aside. With the same hand, and probably with the same temper, he signed the proscription of Cicero, and the pardon of Cinna. His virtues, and even his vices, were artificial; and according to the various dictates of his interest, he was at first the enemy, and at last the father, of the Roman world. 26 When he framed the artful system of the Imperial authority, his moderation was inspired by his fears. He wished to deceive the people by an image of civil liberty, and the armies by an image of civil government.
26 (return)
[ As Octavianus advanced to the banquet of the Caesars,
his color changed like that of the chameleon; pale at first, then red,
afterwards black, he at last assumed the mild livery of Venus and
the Graces, (Caesars, p. 309.) This image, employed by Julian in his
ingenious fiction, is just and elegant; but when he considers this
change of character as real and ascribes it to the power of philosophy,
he does too much honor to philosophy and to Octavianus.]
I. The death of Caesar was ever before his eyes. He had lavished wealth and honors on his adherents; but the most favored friends of his uncle were in the number of the conspirators. The fidelity of the legions might defend his authority against open rebellion; but their vigilance could not secure his person from the dagger of a determined republican; and the Romans, who revered the memory of Brutus, 27 would applaud the imitation of his virtue. Caesar had provoked his fate, as much as by the ostentation of his power, as by his power itself. The consul or the tribune might have reigned in peace. The title of king had armed the Romans against his life. Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom. A feeble senate and enervated people cheerfully acquiesced in the pleasing illusion, as long as it was supported by the virtue, or even by the prudence, of the successors of Augustus. It was a motive of self-preservation, not a principle of liberty, that animated the conspirators against Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. They attacked the person of the tyrant, without aiming their blow at the authority of the emperor.
27 (return)
[ Two centuries after the establishment of monarchy, the
emperor Marcus Antoninus recommends the character of Brutus as a perfect
model of Roman virtue. * Note: In a very ingenious essay, Gibbon has
ventured to call in question the preeminent virtue of Brutus. Misc
Works, iv. 95.—M.]
There appears, indeed, one memorable occasion, in which the senate, after seventy years of patience, made an ineffectual attempt to re-assume its long-forgotten rights. When the throne was vacant by the murder of Caligula, the consuls convoked that assembly in the Capitol, condemned the memory of the Caesars, gave the watchword liberty to the few cohorts who faintly adhered to their standard, and during eight-and-forty hours acted as the independent chiefs of a free commonwealth. But while they deliberated, the praetorian guards had resolved. The stupid Claudius, brother of Germanicus, was already in their camp, invested with the Imperial purple, and prepared to support his election by arms. The dream of liberty was at an end; and the senate awoke to all the horrors of inevitable servitude. Deserted by the people, and threatened by a military force, that feeble assembly was compelled to ratify the choice of the praetorians, and to embrace the benefit of an amnesty, which Claudius had the prudence to offer, and the generosity to observe. 28
[See The Capitol: When the throne was vacant by the murder of Caligula, the consuls convoked that assembly in the Capitol.]
28 (return)
[ It is much to be regretted that we have lost the part
of Tacitus which treated of that transaction. We are forced to content
ourselves with the popular rumors of Josephus, and the imperfect hints
of Dion and Suetonius.]
II. The insolence of the armies inspired Augustus with fears of a still more alarming nature. The despair of the citizens could only attempt, what the power of the soldiers was, at any time, able to execute. How precarious was his own authority over men whom he had taught to violate every social duty! He had heard their seditious clamors; he dreaded their calmer moments of reflection. One revolution had been purchased by immense rewards; but a second revolution might double those rewards. The troops professed the fondest attachment to the house of Caesar; but the attachments of the multitude are capricious and inconstant. Augustus summoned to his aid whatever remained in those fierce minds of Roman prejudices; enforced the rigor of discipline by the sanction of law; and, interposing the majesty of the senate between the emperor and the army, boldly claimed their allegiance, as the first magistrate of the republic.
During a long period of two hundred and twenty years from the establishment of this artful system to the death of Commodus, the dangers inherent to a military government were, in a great measure, suspended. The soldiers were seldom roused to that fatal sense of their own strength, and of the weakness of the civil authority, which was, before and afterwards, productive of such dreadful calamities. Caligula and Domitian were assassinated in their palace by their own domestics: 281 the convulsions which agitated Rome on the death of the former, were confined to the walls of the city. But Nero involved the whole empire in his ruin. In the space of eighteen months, four princes perished by the sword; and the Roman world was shaken by the fury of the contending armies. Excepting only this short, though violent eruption of military license, the two centuries from Augustus 29 to Commodus passed away unstained with civil blood, and undisturbed by revolutions. The emperor was elected by the authority of the senate, and the consent of the soldiers. 30 The legions respected their oath of fidelity; and it requires a minute inspection of the Roman annals to discover three inconsiderable rebellions, which were all suppressed in a few months, and without even the hazard of a battle. 31
281 (return)
[ Caligula perished by a conspiracy formed by the officers
of the praetorian troops, and Domitian would not, perhaps, have been
assassinated without the participation of the two chiefs of that guard
in his death.—W.]
29 (return)
[ Augustus restored the ancient severity of discipline.
After the civil wars, he dropped the endearing name of Fellow-Soldiers,
and called them only Soldiers, (Sueton. in August. c. 25.) See the use
Tiberius made of the Senate in the mutiny of the Pannonian legions,
(Tacit. Annal. i.)]
30 (return)
[ These words seem to have been the constitutional language.
See Tacit. Annal. xiii. 4. * Note: This panegyric on the soldiery is
rather too liberal. Claudius was obliged to purchase their consent to
his coronation: the presents which he made, and those which the
praetorians received on other occasions, considerably embarrassed the
finances. Moreover, this formidable guard favored, in general, the
cruelties of the tyrants. The distant revolts were more frequent than
Gibbon thinks: already, under Tiberius, the legions of Germany would
have seditiously constrained Germanicus to assume the Imperial purple.
On the revolt of Claudius Civilis, under Vespasian, the legions of Gaul
murdered their general, and offered their assistance to the Gauls who
were in insurrection. Julius Sabinus made himself be proclaimed emperor,
&c. The wars, the merit, and the severe discipline of Trajan, Hadrian,
and the two Antonines, established, for some time, a greater degree of
subordination.—W]
31 (return)
[ The first was Camillus Scribonianus, who took up arms in
Dalmatia against Claudius, and was deserted by his own troops in five
days, the second, L. Antonius, in Germany, who rebelled against
Domitian; and the third, Avidius Cassius, in the reign of M. Antoninus.
The two last reigned but a few months, and were cut off by their own
adherents. We may observe, that both Camillus and Cassius colored their
ambition with the design of restoring the republic; a task, said Cassius
peculiarly reserved for his name and family.]
In elective monarchies, the vacancy of the throne is a moment big with danger and mischief. The Roman emperors, desirous to spare the legions that interval of suspense, and the temptation of an irregular choice, invested their designed successor with so large a share of present power, as should enable him, after their decease, to assume the remainder, without suffering the empire to perceive the change of masters. Thus Augustus, after all his fairer prospects had been snatched from him by untimely deaths, rested his last hopes on Tiberius, obtained for his adopted son the censorial and tribunitian powers, and dictated a law, by which the future prince was invested with an authority equal to his own, over the provinces and the armies. 32 Thus Vespasian subdued the generous mind of his eldest son. Titus was adored by the eastern legions, which, under his command, had recently achieved the conquest of Judaea. His power was dreaded, and, as his virtues were clouded by the intemperance of youth, his designs were suspected. Instead of listening to such unworthy suspicions, the prudent monarch associated Titus to the full powers of the Imperial dignity; and the grateful son ever approved himself the humble and faithful minister of so indulgent a father. 33
32 (return)
[ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 121. Sueton. in Tiber. c.
26.]
33 (return)
[ Sueton. in Tit. c. 6. Plin. in Praefat. Hist. Natur.]
The good sense of Vespasian engaged him indeed to embrace every measure that might confirm his recent and precarious elevation. The military oath, and the fidelity of the troops, had been consecrated, by the habits of a hundred years, to the name and family of the Caesars; and although that family had been continued only by the fictitious rite of adoption, the Romans still revered, in the person of Nero, the grandson of Germanicus, and the lineal successor of Augustus. It was not without reluctance and remorse, that the praetorian guards had been persuaded to abandon the cause of the tyrant. 34 The rapid downfall of Galba, Otho, and Vitellus, taught the armies to consider the emperors as the creatures of their will, and the instruments of their license. The birth of Vespasian was mean: his grandfather had been a private soldier, his father a petty officer of the revenue; 35 his own merit had raised him, in an advanced age, to the empire; but his merit was rather useful than shining, and his virtues were disgraced by a strict and even sordid parsimony. Such a prince consulted his true interest by the association of a son, whose more splendid and amiable character might turn the public attention from the obscure origin, to the future glories, of the Flavian house. Under the mild administration of Titus, the Roman world enjoyed a transient felicity, and his beloved memory served to protect, above fifteen years, the vices of his brother Domitian.
34 (return)
[ This idea is frequently and strongly inculcated by
Tacitus. See Hist. i. 5, 16, ii. 76.]
35 (return)
[ The emperor Vespasian, with his usual good sense, laughed
at the genealogists, who deduced his family from Flavius, the founder of
Reate, (his native country,) and one of the companions of Hercules Suet
in Vespasian, c. 12.]
Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins of Domitian, before he discovered that his feeble age was unable to stem the torrent of public disorders, which had multiplied under the long tyranny of his predecessor. His mild disposition was respected by the good; but the degenerate Romans required a more vigorous character, whose justice should strike terror into the guilty. Though he had several relations, he fixed his choice on a stranger. He adopted Trajan, then about forty years of age, and who commanded a powerful army in the Lower Germany; and immediately, by a decree of the senate, declared him his colleague and successor in the empire. 36 It is sincerely to be lamented, that whilst we are fatigued with the disgustful relation of Nero's crimes and follies, we are reduced to collect the actions of Trajan from the glimmerings of an abridgment, or the doubtful light of a panegyric. There remains, however, one panegyric far removed beyond the suspicion of flattery. Above two hundred and fifty years after the death of Trajan, the senate, in pouring out the customary acclamations on the accession of a new emperor, wished that he might surpass the felicity of Augustus, and the virtue of Trajan. 37
36 (return)
[ Dion, l. lxviii. p. 1121. Plin. Secund. in Panegyric.]
37 (return)
[ Felicior Augusto, Melior Trajano. Eutrop. viii. 5.]
We may readily believe, that the father of his country hesitated whether he ought to intrust the various and doubtful character of his kinsman Hadrian with sovereign power. In his last moments the arts of the empress Plotina either fixed the irresolution of Trajan, or boldly supposed a fictitious adoption; 38 the truth of which could not be safely disputed, and Hadrian was peaceably acknowledged as his lawful successor. Under his reign, as has been already mentioned, the empire flourished in peace and prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted military discipline, and visited all his provinces in person. His vast and active genius was equally suited to the most enlarged views, and the minute details of civil policy. But the ruling passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity. As they prevailed, and as they were attracted by different objects, Hadrian was, by turns, an excellent prince, a ridiculous sophist, and a jealous tyrant. The general tenor of his conduct deserved praise for its equity and moderation. Yet in the first days of his reign, he put to death four consular senators, his personal enemies, and men who had been judged worthy of empire; and the tediousness of a painful illness rendered him, at last, peevish and cruel. The senate doubted whether they should pronounce him a god or a tyrant; and the honors decreed to his memory were granted to the prayers of the pious Antoninus. 39
38 (return)
[ Dion (l. lxix. p. 1249) affirms the whole to have been
a fiction, on the authority of his father, who, being governor of the
province where Trajan died, had very good opportunities of sifting
this mysterious transaction. Yet Dodwell (Praelect. Camden. xvii.) has
maintained that Hadrian was called to the certain hope of the empire,
during the lifetime of Trajan.]
39 (return)
[ Dion, (l. lxx. p. 1171.) Aurel. Victor.]
The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor.
After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished merit, whom he esteemed and hated, he adopted Aelius Verus a gay and voluptuous nobleman, recommended by uncommon beauty to the lover of Antinous. 40 But whilst Hadrian was delighting himself with his own applause, and the acclamations of the soldiers, whose consent had been secured by an immense donative, the new Caesar 41 was ravished from his embraces by an untimely death. He left only one son. Hadrian commended the boy to the gratitude of the Antonines. He was adopted by Pius; and, on the accession of Marcus, was invested with an equal share of sovereign power. Among the many vices of this younger Verus, he possessed one virtue; a dutiful reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he willingly abandoned the ruder cares of empire. The philosophic emperor dissembled his follies, lamented his early death, and cast a decent veil over his memory.
40 (return)
[ The deification of Antinous, his medals, his statues,
temples, city, oracles, and constellation, are well known, and still
dishonor the memory of Hadrian. Yet we may remark, that of the first
fifteen emperors, Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was
entirely correct. For the honors of Antinous, see Spanheim, Commentaire
sui les Caesars de Julien, p. 80.]
41 (return)
[ Hist. August. p. 13. Aurelius Victor in Epitom.]
As soon as Hadrian's passion was either gratified or disappointed, he resolved to deserve the thanks of posterity, by placing the most exalted merit on the Roman throne. His discerning eye easily discovered a senator about fifty years of age, clameless in all the offices of life; and a youth of about seventeen, whose riper years opened a fair prospect of every virtue: the elder of these was declared the son and successor of Hadrian, on condition, however, that he himself should immediately adopt the younger. The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now peaking,) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. Although Pius had two sons, 42 he preferred the welfare of Rome to the interest of his family, gave his daughter Faustina, in marriage to young Marcus, obtained from the senate the tribunitian and proconsular powers, and, with a noble disdain, or rather ignorance of jealousy, associated him to all the labors of government. Marcus, on the other hand, revered the character of his benefactor, loved him as a parent, obeyed him as his sovereign, 43 and, after he was no more, regulated his own administration by the example and maxims of his predecessor. Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.
42 (return)
[ Without the help of medals and inscriptions, we should be
ignorant of this fact, so honorable to the memory of Pius. Note: Gibbon
attributes to Antoninus Pius a merit which he either did not possess, or
was not in a situation to display.
1. He was adopted only on the condition that he would adopt, in his turn, Marcus Aurelius and L. Verus.
2. His two sons died children, and one of them, M. Galerius, alone, appears to have survived, for a few years, his father's coronation. Gibbon is also mistaken when he says (note 42) that "without the help of medals and inscriptions, we should be ignorant that Antoninus had two sons." Capitolinus says expressly, (c. 1,) Filii mares duo, duae-foeminae; we only owe their names to the medals. Pagi. Cont. Baron, i. 33, edit Paris.—W.]
43 (return)
[ During the twenty-three years of Pius's reign, Marcus was
only two nights absent from the palace, and even those were at different
times. Hist. August. p. 25.]
Titus Antoninus Pius has been justly denominated a second Numa. The same love of religion, justice, and peace, was the distinguishing characteristic of both princes. But the situation of the latter opened a much larger field for the exercise of those virtues. Numa could only prevent a few neighboring villages from plundering each other's harvests. Antoninus diffused order and tranquillity over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. In private life, he was an amiable, as well as a good man. The native simplicity of his virtue was a stranger to vanity or affectation. He enjoyed with moderation the conveniences of his fortune, and the innocent pleasures of society; 44 and the benevolence of his soul displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.
44 (return)
[ He was fond of the theatre, and not insensible to the
charms of the fair sex. Marcus Antoninus, i. 16. Hist. August. p. 20,
21. Julian in Caesar.]
The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of severer and more laborious kind. 45 It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years he embraced the rigid system of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external as things indifferent. 46 His meditations, composed in the tumult of the camp, are still extant; and he even condescended to give lessons of philosophy, in a more public manner than was perhaps consistent with the modesty of sage, or the dignity of an emperor. 47 But his life was the noblest commentary on the precepts of Zeno. He was severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others, just and beneficent to all mankind. He regretted that Avidius Cassius, who excited a rebellion in Syria, had disappointed him, by a voluntary death, 471 of the pleasure of converting an enemy into a friend;; and he justified the sincerity of that sentiment, by moderating the zeal of the senate against the adherents of the traitor. 48 War he detested, as the disgrace and calamity of human nature; 481 but when the necessity of a just defence called upon him to take up arms, he readily exposed his person to eight winter campaigns, on the frozen banks of the Danube, the severity of which was at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution. His memory was revered by a grateful posterity, and above a century after his death, many persons preserved the image of Marcus Antoninus among those of their household gods. 49
45 (return)
[ The enemies of Marcus charged him with hypocrisy, and
with a want of that simplicity which distinguished Pius and even Verus.
(Hist. August. 6, 34.) This suspicions, unjust as it was, may serve to
account for the superior applause bestowed upon personal qualifications,
in preference to the social virtues. Even Marcus Antoninus has been
called a hypocrite; but the wildest scepticism never insinuated that
Caesar might probably be a coward, or Tully a fool. Wit and valor are
qualifications more easily ascertained than humanity or the love of
justice.]
46 (return)
[ Tacitus has characterized, in a few words, the principles
of the portico: Doctores sapientiae secutus est, qui sola bona quae
honesta, main tantum quae turpia; potentiam, nobilitatem, aeteraque
extra... bonis neque malis adnumerant. Tacit. Hist. iv. 5.]
47 (return)
[ Before he went on the second expedition against the
Germans, he read lectures of philosophy to the Roman people, during
three days. He had already done the same in the cities of Greece and
Asia. Hist. August. in Cassio, c. 3.]
471 (return)
[ Cassius was murdered by his own partisans. Vulcat. Gallic.
in Cassio, c. 7. Dion, lxxi. c. 27.—W.]
48 (return)
[ Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1190. Hist. August. in Avid. Cassio.
Note: See one of the newly discovered passages of Dion Cassius. Marcus
wrote to the senate, who urged the execution of the partisans of
Cassius, in these words: "I entreat and beseech you to preserve my reign
unstained by senatorial blood. None of your order must perish either by
your desire or mine." Mai. Fragm. Vatican. ii. p. 224.—M.]
481 (return)
[ Marcus would not accept the services of any of the
barbarian allies who crowded to his standard in the war against Avidius
Cassius. "Barbarians," he said, with wise but vain sagacity, "must not
become acquainted with the dissensions of the Roman people." Mai. Fragm
Vatican l. 224.—M.]
49 (return)
[ Hist. August. in Marc. Antonin. c. 18.]
If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws. Such princes deserved the honor of restoring the republic, had the Romans of their days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom.
The labors of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward that inseparably waited on their success; by the honest pride of virtue, and by the exquisite delight of beholding the general happiness of which they were the authors. A just but melancholy reflection imbittered, however, the noblest of human enjoyments. They must often have recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the character of single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching, when some licentious youth, or some jealous tyrant, would abuse, to the destruction, that absolute power, which they had exerted for the benefit of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible instrument of oppression; and the corruption of Roman manners would always supply flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers prepared to serve, the fear or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, of their master. These gloomy apprehensions had been already justified by the experience of the Romans. The annals of the emperors exhibit a strong and various picture of human nature, which we should vainly seek among the mixed and doubtful characters of modern history. In the conduct of those monarchs we may trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted perfection, and the meanest degeneracy of our own species. The golden age of Trajan and the Antonines had been preceded by an age of iron. It is almost superfluous to enumerate the unworthy successors of Augustus. Their unparalleled vices, and the splendid theatre on which they were acted, have saved them from oblivion. The dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius, 50 and the timid, inhuman Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy. During fourscore years (excepting only the short and doubtful respite of Vespasian's reign) 51 Rome groaned beneath an unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient families of the republic, and was fatal to almost every virtue and every talent that arose in that unhappy period.
50 (return)
[ Vitellius consumed in mere eating at least six millions
of our money in about seven months. It is not easy to express his vices
with dignity, or even decency. Tacitus fairly calls him a hog, but it
is by substituting for a coarse word a very fine image. "At Vitellius,
umbraculis hortorum abditus, ut ignava animalia, quibus si cibum
suggeras, jacent torpentque, praeterita, instantia, futura, pari
oblivione dimiserat. Atque illum nemore Aricino desidem et marcentum,"
&c. Tacit. Hist. iii. 36, ii. 95. Sueton. in Vitell. c. 13. Dion.
Cassius, l xv. p. 1062.]
51 (return)
[ The execution of Helvidius Priscus, and of the virtuous
Eponina, disgraced the reign of Vespasian.]
Under the reign of these monsters, the slavery of the Romans was accompanied with two peculiar circumstances, the one occasioned by their former liberty, the other by their extensive conquests, which rendered their condition more completely wretched than that of the victims of tyranny in any other age or country. From these causes were derived, 1. The exquisite sensibility of the sufferers; and, 2. The impossibility of escaping from the hand of the oppressor.
I. When Persia was governed by the descendants of Sefi, a race of princes whose wanton cruelty often stained their divan, their table, and their bed, with the blood of their favorites, there is a saying recorded of a young nobleman, that he never departed from the sultan's presence, without satisfying himself whether his head was still on his shoulders. The experience of every day might almost justify the scepticism of Rustan. 52 Yet the fatal sword, suspended above him by a single thread, seems not to have disturbed the slumbers, or interrupted the tranquillity, of the Persian. The monarch's frown, he well knew, could level him with the dust; but the stroke of lightning or apoplexy might be equally fatal; and it was the part of a wise man to forget the inevitable calamities of human life in the enjoyment of the fleeting hour. He was dignified with the appellation of the king's slave; had, perhaps, been purchased from obscure parents, in a country which he had never known; and was trained up from his infancy in the severe discipline of the seraglio. 53 His name, his wealth,his honors, were the gift of a master, who might, without injustice, resume what he had bestowed. Rustan's knowledge, if he possessed any, could only serve to confirm his habits by prejudices. His language afforded not words for any form of government, except absolute monarchy. The history of the East informed him, that such had ever been the condition of mankind. 54 The Koran, and the interpreters of that divine book, inculcated to him, that the sultan was the descendant of the prophet, and the vicegerent of heaven; that patience was the first virtue of a Mussulman, and unlimited obedience the great duty of a subject.
52 (return)
[ Voyage de Chardin en Perse, vol. iii. p. 293.]
53 (return)
[ The practice of raising slaves to the great offices of
state is still more common among the Turks than among the Persians. The
miserable countries of Georgia and Circassia supply rulers to the
greatest part of the East.]
54 (return)
[ Chardin says, that European travellers have diffused among
the Persians some ideas of the freedom and mildness of our governments.
They have done them a very ill office.]
The minds of the Romans were very differently prepared for slavery. Oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption and of military violence, they for a long while preserved the sentiments, or at least the ideas, of their free-born ancestors. The education of Helvidius and Thrasea, of Tacitus and Pliny, was the same as that of Cato and Cicero. From Grecian philosophy, they had imbibed the justest and most liberal notions of the dignity of human nature, and the origin of civil society. The history of their own country had taught them to revere a free, a virtuous, and a victorious commonwealth; to abhor the successful crimes of Caesar and Augustus; and inwardly to despise those tyrants whom they adored with the most abject flattery. As magistrates and senators they were admitted into the great council, which had once dictated laws to the earth, whose authority was so often prostituted to the vilest purposes of tyranny. Tiberius, and those emperors who adopted his maxims, attempted to disguise their murders by the formalities of justice, and perhaps enjoyed a secret pleasure in rendering the senate their accomplice as well as their victim. By this assembly, the last of the Romans were condemned for imaginary crimes and real virtues. Their infamous accusers assumed the language of independent patriots, who arraigned a dangerous citizen before the tribunal of his country; and the public service was rewarded by riches and honors. 55 The servile judges professed to assert the majesty of the commonwealth, violated in the person of its first magistrate, 56 whose clemency they most applauded when they trembled the most at his inexorable and impending cruelty. 57 The tyrant beheld their baseness with just contempt, and encountered their secret sentiments of detestation with sincere and avowed hatred for the whole body of the senate.
55 (return)
[ They alleged the example of Scipio and Cato, (Tacit.
Annal. iii. 66.) Marcellus Epirus and Crispus Vibius had acquired two
millions and a half under Nero. Their wealth, which aggravated their
crimes, protected them under Vespasian. See Tacit. Hist. iv. 43. Dialog.
de Orator. c. 8. For one accusation, Regulus, the just object of Pliny's
satire, received from the senate the consular ornaments, and a present
of sixty thousand pounds.]
56 (return)
[ The crime of majesty was formerly a treasonable offence
against the Roman people. As tribunes of the people, Augustus and
Tiberius applied tit to their own persons, and extended it to an
infinite latitude. Note: It was Tiberius, not Augustus, who first took
in this sense the words crimen laesae majestatis. Bachii Trajanus, 27.
—W.]
57 (return)
[ After the virtuous and unfortunate widow of Germanicus had
been put to death, Tiberius received the thanks of the senate for his
clemency. she had not been publicly strangled; nor was the body drawn
with a hook to the Gemoniae, where those of common male factors were
exposed. See Tacit. Annal. vi. 25. Sueton. in Tiberio c. 53.]
II. The division of Europe into a number of independent states, connected, however, with each other by the general resemblance of religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most beneficial consequences to the liberty of mankind. A modern tyrant, who should find no resistance either in his own breast, or in his people, would soon experience a gentle restrain form the example of his equals, the dread of present censure,d the advice of his allies, and the apprehension of his enemies. The object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of his dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of the Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the hands of a single person, he wold became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. The slave of Imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drags his gilded chain in rome and the senate, or to were out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen bank of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. 58 To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing, except the ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of fierce manners and unknown language, or dependent kings, who would gladly purchase the emperor's protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious fugitive. 59 "Wherever you are," said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, "remember that you are equally within the power of the conqueror." 60
58 (return)
[ Seriphus was a small rocky island in the Aegean Sea, the
inhabitants of which were despised for their ignorance and obscurity.
The place of Ovid's exile is well known, by his just, but unmanly
lamentations. It should seem, that he only received an order to leave
rome in so many days, and to transport himself to Tomi. Guards and
jailers were unnecessary.]
59 (return)
[ Under Tiberius, a Roman knight attempted to fly to the
Parthians. He was stopped in the straits of Sicily; but so little danger
did there appear in the example, that the most jealous of tyrants
disdained to punish it. Tacit. Annal. vi. 14.]
60 (return)
[ Cicero ad Familiares, iv. 7.]