THE OLD ROMAN WORLD

THE GRANDEUR AND FAILURE OF ITS CIVILIZATION

BY JOHN LORD, LL. D. 

CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE CONQUESTS OF THE ROMANS. 

Early History of Rome--Wars under the Kings--Their Results--GradualSubjection of Italy--Great Heroes of the Republic--Their Virtues andVictories--Military Aggrandizement--The Carthaginian, Macedonian, andAsiatic Wars--Their Consequences--Civil Wars of Marius and Sulla, ofPompey and Caesar--The Conquests of the Barbarians--Extension of RomanDominion in the East--Conquests of the Emperors--The Military Forces ofthe Empire--Military Science--The Roman Legion--The Military Genius ofthe Romans

CHAPTER II. 

THE MATERIAL GRANDEUR AND GLORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

The vast Extent of the Empire--Boundaries--Rivers and Mountains--TheMediterranean and its Islands--The Provinces--Principal Cities--GreatArchitectural Monuments--Roads--Commerce--Agriculture--Manufactures--Wealth--Population--Unity of the Empire

CHAPTER III. 

THE WONDERS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Original Settlement--The Seven Hills--Progress of the City--PrincipalArchitectural Monuments--A Description of the Temples, Bridges, Aqueducts, Forums, Basilicas, Palaces, Amphitheatres, Theatres, Circuses, Columns, Arches, Baths, Obelisks, Tombs--MiscellaneousAntiquities--Streets--Gardens--Private Houses--Populous Quarters--Famous Statues and Pictures--General Magnificence--Population

CHAPTER IV. 

ART IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

The great Wonders of Ancient Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting--Famous Artists of Antiquity--How far the Romans copied the Greeks--Howfar they extended Art--Its Principles--Its Perfection--Causes of itsDecline--Permanence of its grand Creations

CHAPTER V. 

THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 

The Original Citizens--Comitia Calata--Comitia Curiata--ComitiaCenturiata--Comitia Tributa--The Plebs--Great Patrician Families--TheAristocratic Structure of ancient Roman Society--The Dignity and Powerof the Senate--The Knights--The Growth of the Democracy--Contestsbetween Patricians and Plebeians--Rise of Tribunes--Popular Leaders--Their Laws--The Great Officers of State--Provincial Governors--Usurpations of fortunate Generals--The Revolution under Julius Caesar andAugustus--Imperial Despotism--Preservation of the Forms of theRepublic, and utter Prostration of its Spirit

CHAPTER VI. 

ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE. 

Genius of the Romans for Government and Laws--Development ofJurisprudence--Legislative Sources--Judicial Power--Courts of Law--TheProfession of Law--Great Lawyers and Jurists--Ancient Codes--ImperialCodes--The Law of Persons--Rights of Citizens, of Foreigners, of Slaves--Laws of Marriage, of Divorce, of Adoption--Paternal Power--Guardianship--Laws relating to Real Rights--Law of Obligations--Laws ofSuccession--Testaments and Legacies--Actions and Procedure in CivilSuits--Criminal Law

CHAPTER VII. 

ROMAN LITERATURE. 

The Grecian Models--How far they contributed to Roman Creations--TheDevelopment of the Latin Language--The Orators, Poets, Dramatists, Satirists, Historians, and their chief Works--How far Literature wascultivated--Schools--Libraries--Literary Legacies of the Romans

CHAPTER VIII. 

GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

Its gradual Development from Thales to Aristotle--How far the Romansadopted the Greek Philosophy--What Additions they made to it--How far itmodified Roman Thought and Life--Influence of Philosophy onChristianity--Influence on modern Civilization

CHAPTER IX. 

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE ROMANS. 

The Mathematical Genius of the Old Astronomers--Their Labors andDiscoveries--Extent of Astronomical Knowledge--The Alexandrian School--The Science of Geometry and how far carried--Great Names--Medicine--Geography--Other Physical Sciences and their limited Triumphs

CHAPTER X. 

INTERNAL CONDITION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

The Vices and Miseries of Roman Society--Social Inequalities--Disproportionate Fortunes--The Wealth and Corruption of Nobles--Degradation of the People--Vast Extent of Slavery--The Condition ofWomen--Demoralizing Games and Spectacles--Excessive Luxury and squalidMisery--Money-making--Imperial Misrule--Universal Egotism andInsensibility to grand Sentiments--Hopelessness of Reform--Preparationfor Ruin

CHAPTER XI. 

THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE. 

False Security of the Roman People--Their stupendous Delusions--TheInvasion of Barbarians--Their Characteristics--Their alternate Victoryand Defeat--Desolation of the Provinces--The Degeneracy of the Legions--General Imbecility and Cowardice--Great public Misfortunes--GeneralUnion of the Germanic Nations--Their Leaders--Noble but vain Efforts ofa Succession of warlike Emperors--The rising Tide of Barbarians--Theirirresistible Advance--The Siege and Sack of Rome--The Fall of Cities--Miseries of all Classes--Universal Despair and Ruin--The Greatness ofthe Catastrophe--Reflections on the Fall of Rome

CHAPTER XII. 

THE REASONS WHY THE CONSERVATIVE INFLUENCES OF PAGAN CIVILIZATION DIDNOT ARREST THE RUIN OF THE ROMAN WORLD. 

Necessary Corruption of all Institutions under Paganism--Glory succeededby Shame--The Army a worn-out Mechanism--The low Aims of Government--Difficulties of the Emperors--Laws perverted or unenforced--TheDegeneracy of Art--The Frivolity of Literature--The imperfect Triumphof Philosophy--Nothing Conservative in human Creations--Necessity ofAid from foreign and Divine Sources

CHAPTER XIII. 

WHY CHRISTIANITY DID NOT ARREST THE RUIN OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

The Victories of Christianity came too late--Small Number of Convertswhen Christianity was a renovating Power--Their comparative Unimportancein a political and social View for three Centuries--The Churchconstructs a Polity for Itself rather than seeks to change establishedInstitutions--Rapid Corruption of Christianity when established, andAdoption of Pagan Ideas and Influences--No Renovation of worn-out Races--No Material on which Christianity could work--Not the Mission of theChurch to save Empires, but the Race--A diseased Body must die

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE LEGACY OF THE EARLY CHURCH TO FUTURE GENERATIONS. 

The great Ideas which the Fathers propounded--The Principle of Self-sacrifice, seen especially in early Martyrdoms--The Idea of Benevolencein connection with public and private Charities--Importance of publicPreaching--Pulpit Oratory--The Elaboration of Christian Doctrine--ItsConnection with Philosophy--Church Psalmody--The Principle of ChristianEquality--Its Effects on Slavery and the Elevation of the People--TheSocial Equality of the Sexes--Superiority in the condition of the modernover the ancient Woman--The Idea of Popular Education--The Unity of theChurch

INTRODUCTION. 

I propose to describe the Greatness and the Misery of the old Romanworld; nor is there any thing in history more suggestive andinstructive. 

A little city, founded by robbers on the banks of the Tiber, risesgradually into importance, although the great cities of the East arescarcely conscious of its existence. Its early struggles simply arrestthe attention, and excite the jealousy, of the neighboring nations. Thecitizens of this little state are warriors, and, either for defense orglory, they subdue one after another the cities of Latium and Etruria, then the whole of Italy, and finally the old monarchies and empires ofthe world. In two hundred and fifty years the citizens have becomenobles, and a great aristocracy is founded, which lasts eight hundredyears. Their aggressive policy and unbounded ambition involve the wholeworld in war, which does not cease until all the nations known to theGreeks acknowledge their sway. Everywhere Roman laws, language, andinstitutions spread. A vast empire arises, larger than the Assyrian andthe Macedonian combined, --a universal empire, --a great wonder andmystery, having all the grandeur of a providential event. It becomes toogreat to be governed by an oligarchy of nobles. Civil wars create animperator, who, uniting in himself all the great offices of state, andsustained by the conquering legions, rules from East to West and fromNorth to South, with absolute and undivided sovereignty. The Caesarsreach the summit of human greatness and power, and the city of Romulusbecomes the haughty mistress of the world. The emperor is worshiped as adeity, and the proud metropolis calls herself eternal. An empire isestablished by force of arms and by a uniform policy, such as this worldhas not seen before or since. 

Early Roman history is chiefly the detail of successful wars, aggressiveand uncompromising, in which we see a fierce and selfish patriotism, anindomitable will, a hard unpitying temper, great practical sagacity, patience, and perseverance, superiority to adverse fortune, faith innational destinies, heroic sentiments, and grand ambition. We see anation of citizen soldiers, an iron race of conquerors, bent onconquest, on glory, on self-exaltation, attaching but little value tothe individual man, but exalting the integrity and unity of the state. We see no fitful policy, no abandonment to the enjoyment of the fruitsof victory, no rest, no repose, no love of art or literature, but anunbounded passion for domination. The Romans toiled, and suffered, anddied, --never wearied, never discouraged, never satisfied, until theirmission was accomplished and the world lay bleeding and prostrate attheir feet. 

In the latter days of the Republic, the Roman citizen, originallycontented with a few acres in the plains and valleys through which theTiber flowed, becomes a great landed proprietor, owning extensiveestates in the conquered territories, an aristocrat, a knight, asenator, a noble, while his dependents disdained to labor and were fedat the public expense. The state could afford to give them corn, oil, and wine, for it was the owner of Egypt, of Greece, of Asia Minor, ofSyria, of Spain, of Gaul, of Africa, --a belt of territory around theMediterranean Sea one thousand miles in breadth, embracing the wholetemperate zone, from the Atlantic Ocean to the wilds of Scythia. TheRomans revel in the spoils of the nations they have conquered, adorntheir capital with the wonders of Grecian art, and abandon themselves topleasure and money-making. The Roman grandees divide among themselvesthe lands and riches of the world, and this dwelling-place of princeslooms up the proud centre of mundane glory and power. 

In the great success of the Romans, we notice not only their own heroicqualities, but the hopeless degeneracy of the older nations and thereckless turbulence of the western barbarians, both of whom neededmasters. 

The conquered world must be governed. The Romans had a genius foradministration as well as for war. While war was reduced to a science, government became an art. Seven hundred years of war and administrationgave experience and skill, and the wisdom thus learned became a legacyto future civilizations. 

It was well, both for enervated orientals and wild barbarians, to beruled by such iron masters. The nations at last enjoyed peace andprosperity, and Christianity was born and spread. A new power silentlyarose, which was destined to change government, and science, and all therelations of social life, and lay a foundation for a new and moreglorious structure of society than what Paganism could possibly create. We see the hand of Providence in all these mighty changes, and it isequally august in overruling the glories and the shame of a vast empirefor the ultimate good of the human race. 

If we more minutely examine the history of either Republican or ImperialRome, we read lessons of great significance. In the Republic we see aconstant war of classes and interests, --plebeians arrayed againstpatricians; the poor opposed to the rich; the struggle between capitaland labor, between an aristocracy and democracy. Although the favoredclasses on the whole retained ascendancy, yet the people constantlygained privileges, and at last were enabled, by throwing their influenceinto the hands of demagogues, to overturn the constitution. JuliusCaesar, the greatest name in ancient history, himself a patrician, bycourting the people triumphed over the aristocratical oligarchy andintroduced a new regime. His dictatorship was the consummation of thevictories of the people over nobles as signally as the submission of allclasses to fortunate and unscrupulous generals. We err, however, insupposing that the Republic was ever a democracy, as we understand theterm, or as it was understood in Athens. Power was always in the handsof senators, nobles, and rich men, as it still is in England, and was inVenice. Popular liberty was a name, and democratic institutions werefeeble and shackled. The citizen-noble was free, not the proletarian. The latter had the redress of laws, but only such as the former gave. How exclusive must have been an aristocracy when the Claudian familyboasted that, for five hundred years, it had never received any one intoit by adoption, and when the Emperor Nero was the first who received itsprivileges! It is with the senatorial families, who contrived to retainall the great offices of the state, that everything interesting in thehistory of Republican Rome is identified, --whether political quarrels, or private feuds, or legislation, or the control of armies, or theimprovements of the city, or the government of provinces. It was they, as senators, governors, consuls, generals, quaestors, who gave the peoplebaths, theatres, and temples. They headed factions as well as armies. They were the state. 

The main object to which the reigning classes gave their attention waswar, --the extension of the empire. "_Ubi castra, ibi respublica_. "Republican Rome was a camp, controlled by aristocratic generals. Dominion and conquest were their great ideas, their aim, their ambition. To these were sacrificed pleasure, gain, ease, luxury, learning, andart. And when they had conquered they sought to rule, and they knew howto rule. Aside from conquest and government there is nothing peculiarlyimpressive in Roman history, except the struggles of political leadersand the war of classes. 

But in these there is wonderful fascination. The mythic period underkings; the contests with Latins, Etruscans, Volscians, Samnites, andGauls; the legends of Porsenna, of Cincinnatus, of Coriolanus, ofVirginia; the heroism of Camillus, of Fabius, of Decius, of Scipio; thegreat struggle with Pyrrhus and Hannibal; the wars with Carthage, Macedonia, and Asia Minor; the rivalries between patrician and plebeianfamilies; the rise of tribunes; the Maenian, Hortensian, and Agrarianlaws; the noble efforts of the Gracchi; the censorship of Cato; thecivil wars of Marius and Sulla, and their exploits, followed by thestill greater conquests of Pompey and Julius; these, and other feats ofheroism and strength, are full of interest which can never be exhausted. We ponder on them in youth; we return to them in old age. 

And yet the real grandeur of Rome is associated with the emperors. Withtheir accession there is a change in the policy of the state from war topeace. There is a greater desire to preserve than extend the limits ofthe empire. The passion for war is succeeded by a passion for governmentand laws. Labor and toil give place to leisure and enjoyment. Greatworks of art appear, and these become historical, --the Pantheon, theForum Augusti, the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Column of Trajan, the Bathsof Caracalla, the Aqua Claudia, the golden house of Nero, the Mausoleumof Hadrian, the Temple of Venus and Rome, the Arch of Septimus Severus. The city is changed from brick to marble, and palaces and theatres andtemples become colossal. Painting and sculpture ornament every part ofthe city. There are more marble busts than living men. Life becomes morecomplicated and factitious. Enormous fortunes are accumulated. A liberalpatronage is extended to artists. Literature declines, but greatmasterpieces of genius are still produced. Medicine, law, and scienceflourish. A beautiful suburban life is seen on all the hills, whilegardens and villas are the object of perpetual panegyric. From allcorners of the earth strangers flock to see the wonders of the mightymetropolis, more crowded than London, more magnificent than Paris, moreluxurious than New York. Fetes, shows, processions, gladiatorialcombats, chariot races, form the amusement of the vast populace. Amajestic centralized power controls all kingdoms, and races, andpeoples. The highest state of prosperity is reached that the ancientworld knew, and all bow down to Caesar and behold in him therepresentative of divine providence, from whose will there is no appeal, and from whose arm it is impossible to fly. 

But _mene, mene, tekel, upharsin_, is written on the walls of thebanqueting chambers of the palace of the Caesars. The dream ofomnipotence is disturbed by the invasion of, Germanic barbarians. Theypress toward the old seats of power and riches to improve theircondition. They are warlike, fierce, implacable. They fear not death, and are urged onward by the lust of rapine and military zeal. The oldlegions, which penetrated the Macedonian phalanx and withstood theGauls, cannot resist the shock of their undisciplined armies; formartial glory has fled, and the people prefer their pleasures to theempire. Great emperors are raised up, but they are unequal to the taskof preserving the crumbling empire. The people, enervated andegotistical, are scattered like sheep or are made slaves. The proudcapitals of the world fall before the ruthless invaders. Desolation iseverywhere. The barbarians trample beneath their heavy feet the proudtrophies of ancient art and power. The glimmering life-sparks of the oldcivilization disappear. The world is abandoned to fear, misery, anddespair, and there is no help, for retributive justice marches on withimpressive solemnity. Imperial despotism, disproportionate fortunes, unequal divisions of society, the degradation of woman, slavery, Epicurean pleasures, practical atheism, bring forth their wretchedfruits. The vices and miseries of society cannot be arrested. Glory issucceeded by shame; all strength is in mechanism, and that wears out;vitality passes away; the empire is weak from internal decay, and fallseasily into the hands of the new races. "Violence was only a secondarycause of the ruin; the vices of self-interest were the primary causes. Aworld, as fair and glorious as our own, crumbles away. " Our admirationis changed to sadness and awe. The majesty of man is rebuked by themajesty of God. 

Such a history is suggestive. Why was such an empire permitted to riseover the bleeding surface of the world, and what was its influence onthe general destiny of the race? How far has its civilization perished, and how far has it entered into new combinations? Was its strengthmaterial, or moral, or intellectual? How far did literature, art, science, laws, philosophy, prove conservative forces? Why didChristianity fail to arrest so total an eclipse of the glory of man? Whydid a magnificent civilization prove so feeble a barrier againstcorruption and decay? Why was the world to be involved in such universalgloom and wretchedness as followed the great catastrophe? Could nothingarrest the stupendous downfall?

And when we pass from the great facts of Roman history to the questionswhich it suggests to a contemplative mind in reference to the state ofsociety among ourselves, on which history ought to shed light, whatenigmas remain to be solved. Does moral worth necessarily keep pace withaesthetic culture, or intellectual triumphs, or material strength? Do theboasted triumphs of civilization create those holy certitudes on whichhappiness is based? Can vitality in states be preserved by mechanicalinventions? Does society expand from inherent laws of development, orfrom influences altogether foreign to man? Is it the settled destiny ofnations to rise to a certain height in wisdom and power, and then passaway in ignominy and gloom? Is there permanence in any humaninstitutions? Will society move round in perpetual circles, incapable ofprogression and incapable of rest, or will it indefinitely improve? Maythere not be the highest triumphs of art, literature, and science, wherethe mainsprings of society are sensuality and egotism? Is the tendencyof society to democratic, or aristocratic, or despotic governments? DoesChristianity, in this dispensation, merely furnish witnesses of truth, or will it achieve successive conquests over human degeneracy till therace is emancipated and saved? Can it arrest the downward tendency ofsociety, when it is undermined by vices which blunt the conscience ofmankind, and which are sustained by all that is proud in rank, brilliantin fashion, and powerful in wealth?

These are inquiries on which Roman history sheds light. If history is aguide or oracle, they are full of impressive significance. Can we affordto reject all the examples of the past in our sanguine hopes for thefuture? Human nature is the same in any age, and human experiences pointto some great elemental truths, which the Bible confirms. _We_ maybe unmoved by them, but they remain in solemn dignity for allgenerations; "and foremost of them, " as Charles Kingsley has so wellsaid, "stands a law which man has been trying in all ages, as now, todeny, or at least to ignore, and that is, --that as the fruit ofrighteousness is wealth and peace, strength and honor, the fruit ofunrighteousness is poverty and anarchy, weakness and shame; for not upon_mind_, but upon _morals_, is human welfare founded. Scienceis indeed great; but she is not the greatest. She is an instrument, andnot a power. But her lawful mistress, the only one under whom she cantruly grow, and prosper, and prove her divine descent, is Virtue, thelikeness of Almighty God, --an ancient doctrine, yet one ever young, andwhich no discoveries in science will ever abrogate. "

Hence the great aim of history should be a dispassionate inquiry intothe genius of past civilizations, especially in a moral point of view. Wherein were they weak or strong, vital or mechanical, permanent ortransient? We wish to know that we may compare them with our own, andlearn lessons of wisdom. The rise and fall of the Roman Empire isespecially rich in the facts which bear on our own development. Nor canmodern history be comprehended without a survey of the civilizationwhich has entered into our own, and forms the basis of many of our owninstitutions. Rome perished, but not wholly her civilization. So far asit was founded on the immutable principles of justice, or beauty, orlove, it will never die, but will remain a precious legacy to allgenerations. So far as it was founded on pride, injustice, andselfishness, it ignobly disappeared. _Men_ die, and their trophiesof pride are buried in the dust, but their truths live. All truth isindestructible, and survives both names and marbles. 

Roman history, so grand and so mournful, on the whole suggests cheeringviews for humanity, since out of the ruins, amid the storms, aloft abovethe conflagration, there came certain indestructible forces, which, whenunited with Christianity, developed a new and more glorious condition ofhumanity. Creation succeeded destruction. All that was valuable in art, in science, in literature, in philosophy, in laws, has been preserved. The useless alone has perished with the worn-out races themselves. Thelight which scholars, and artists, and poets, and philosophers, andlawgivers kindled, illuminated the path of the future guides of mankind. And especially the great ideas which the persecuted Christians unfolded, projected themselves into the shadows of mediaeval Europe, and gave anew direction to human thought and life. New sentiments arose, morepoetic and majestic than ever existed in the ancient world, givingradiance to homes, peace to families, elevation to woman, liberty to theslave, compassion for the miserable, self-respect, to the man of toil, exultation to the martyr, patience to the poor, and glorious hopes toall; so that in rudeness, in poverty, in discomfort, in slavery, inisolation, in obloquy, peace and happiness were born, and a new race, with noble elements of character, arose in the majesty of renovatedstrength to achieve still grander victories, and confer higher blessingson mankind. 

Thus the Roman Empire, whose fall was so inglorious, and whosechastisement was so severe, was made by Providence to favor the ultimateprogress of society, since its civilization entered into newcombinations, and still remains one of the proudest monuments of humangenius. 

It is this civilization, in its varied aspects, both good and evil, lofty and degraded, which in the following chapters I seek to show. Thisis the real point of interest in Roman history. Let us see what theRomans really accomplished--the results of their great enterprises; thesystems they matured with so much thought; the institutions theybequeathed to our times; yea, even those vices and follies which theyoriginally despised, and which, if allowed to become dominant, _must_, according to all those laws of which we have cognizance, ultimately overwhelm _any_ land in misery, shame, and ruin. 

In presenting this civilization, I aim to generalize the most importantfacts, leaving the reader to examine at his leisure reconditeauthorities, in which, too often, the argument is obscured by minutedetails, and art is buried in learning. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE CONQUESTS OF THE ROMANS. 

One of the features of Roman greatness, which preeminently arrestsattention, is military genius and strength. The Romans surpassed all thenations of antiquity in the brilliancy and solidity of their conquests. They conquered the world, and held it in subjection. For many centuriesthey stamped their iron heel on the necks of prostrate and suppliantkings, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Caspian Sea. Nothing could impede, except for a time, their irresistible progress from conquering toconquer. They were warriors from the earliest period of their history, and all their energies were concentrated upon conquest. Their aggressivepolicy never changed so long as there was a field for its development. They commenced as a band of robbers; they ended by becoming masters ofall the countries and kingdoms which tempted their cupidity or arousedtheir ambition. Their empire was universal, --the only universal empirewhich ever existed on this earth, --and it was won with the sword. Itwas not a rapid conquest, but it was systematic and irresistible, evincing great genius, perseverance, and fortitude. 

[Sidenote: The Romans fight from a fixed purpose. ]

The successive and fortunate conquests of the Romans were theadmiration, the envy, and the fear of all nations--so marvelous andsuccessful that they have the majesty of a providential event. Theycannot be called a mystery, since we see the persistent adaptation ofmeans to an end. But no other nation ever evinced this uniform militarypolicy, except for a limited period, or under the stimulus of atemporary enthusiasm, such as characterized the Saracens and theGermanic barbarians. The Romans fought when there was no apparent needof fighting, when their empire already embraced most of the countriesknown to the ancients. The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, andthe Greeks made magnificent conquests, but their empire was partial andlimited, and soon passed away. The Greeks evinced great military genius, and the enterprises of Alexander have been regarded as a wonder. But theGreeks did not fight, as the Romans did, from a fixed purpose to bringall nations under their sway, and they yielded, in turn, to the Romans. The Romans were never subdued, but all nations were subdued by them--even superior races. They erected a universal monarchy, which fell topieces by its own weight, when the vices of self-interest hadaccomplished their work. They became the prey of barbarians in a verydifferent sense from that which reduced the ancient empires. They didnot yield to any powerful, warlike neighbor, as the Persians yielded tothe Greeks, but to successive waves of unknown warriors who came inquest of settlement, and then only when all Roman vigor had fled, andthe whole policy of the empire was changed--when it was the aim ofemperors to conserve old conquests, not make new ones. 

[Sidenote: War was a passion with the Romans. ]

With the Romans, for a thousand years, war was a passion; and, while itlasted, it consumed all other passions. It animated statesmen, rulers, generals, and citizens alike, ever burning, never at rest, --a passionunscrupulous, resistless, all-pervading, all-absorbing, all-conquering. Success in war gave consideration, dignity, honor beyond all othersuccesses. It always has called out popular admiration, and its gloryhas ever been highly prized, and it always will be so, but it has notmonopolized all offices and dignities as among the Romans. The Greeksthought of art, of literature, and of philosophy as well as of war, andgave their crowns of glory for civic and artistic excellence as well asfor military success. The Greeks fought to preserve or extend theircivilization; the Romans, in order to rule. They had very little respectfor any thing beyond military genius. The successful warrior alone wasthe founder of a great family. The Roman aristocracy, so proud, so rich, so powerful, was based on the glory of battle-fields. Every citizen wastrained to arms, and senators and statesmen commanded armies. The wholefabric of the State was built up on war, and for many centuries it wasthe leading occupation of the people. How insignificant was a poet, or apainter, or a philosopher by the side of a warrior! Rome was a city ofgenerals, and they preoccupied the public mind. 

[Sidenote: Value placed by the Romans on military art. ]

To a Roman, military art was the highest of all. It was constantly beingimproved, until it reached absolute perfection, with the old weapons andimplements of war. To its perfection the whole genius of the people wasconsecrated; it was to them what the fine arts were to the Greeks, whatpriestly domination was to the Middle Ages, and what material inventionsto abridge human labor are to us. The Romans despised literature, art, philosophy, commerce, agriculture, and even luxury, when they weremaking their grand conquests; they only respected their fortunategenerals. Hence there was no great encouragement to genius or ambitionin any other field; but in this field, the horizon perpetually expanded. Every new conquest prepared the way for successive conquests; ambitionhere was untrammeled, energy was unbounded, visions of glory were mostdazzling, warlike schemes were most fertile, until the whole world laybleeding and prostrate. 

[Sidenote: Lawfulness of war. ]

Military genius, however, does not present man in the highest state ofwisdom or beauty. It is very attractive, but "there is a greater thanthe warrior's excellence, " at least to a contemplative or religious eye. When men save nations, in fearful crises, by their military genius, asNapoleon did France when surrounded with hostile armies, or GustavusAdolphus did Germany when it was struggling for religious rights, thenthey render the greatest possible services, and receive no unmeritedhonors. The heart of the world cherishes the fame of Miltiades, ofCharlemagne, of Henry IV. , of Washington; for they were identified withgreat causes. War is one of the occasional necessities of our world. Nonation can live, or is worthy to live, without military virtues. Theyrescue nations on the verge of ruin, and establish great rights, withoutwhich life is nothing. War, however much to be lamented as an evil, isthe last appeal and resource of nations, and settles what cannot besettled without it; and it will probably continue so long as there areblindness, ambition, and avarice among men. Nor, under certaincircumstances, of which nations can only be the proper judges, is itinconsistent with the law of love. Hence, as it is a great necessity, itwill ever be valued as a great science. Civilization accepts it andclaims it. It calls into exercise great qualities, and these intoxicatethe people, who bow down to them as godlike. 

[Sidenote: Those who are most successful in war. ]

Still, military genius, however lauded and honored, is too often alliedwith ambition and selfishness to secure the highest favor ofphilosophers or Christians. It does not reveal the soul in its loftiestaspirations. Men of a coarser type are often most successful, --meninsensible to pity and to reproach, whose greatest merit is in will, nerve, energy, and power of making rapid combinations. We revere theintellect of the Greeks more than that of the Romans, though they wereinferior to the latter in military success. We have more respect forthose qualities which add to the domain of truth than those which securepower. A wise man elevates the Bacons, the Newtons, and the Shakespearesabove all the Marlboroughs and Wellingtons. Plato is surrounded with abrighter halo than Themistocles, and Cicero than Marius. 

[Sidenote: The general evils of war. ]

War as a trade is unscrupulous, hard, rapacious, destructive. It fomentsall the evil passions; it is allied with all the vices; it isantagonistic to human welfare. It glories merely in strength; itworships only success. It raises wicked men to power; it prostrates andhides the good. It extinguishes what is most lovely, and spurns what ismost exalted. It makes a pandemonium of earth, and drags to itstriumphal car the venerated relics of ages. It is an awful crime, makingslaves of the helpless, and spreading consternation, misery, and deathwherever it goes--marking its progress with a trail of blood, andfilling the earth with imprecations and curses. It is the greatestscourge which God uses to chastise enervated nations, and cannot becontemplated with; any satisfaction except as the wrath, which is madeto praise the Sovereign Ruler who employs what means He chooses topunish or exalt. 

[Sidenote: Spirit of the Romans in their wars. ]

Now the Romans, in a general sense, pursued war as a trade, to gratify athirst for power, to raise themselves on the ruins of ancientmonarchies, to enrich themselves with the spoils of the world, and togovern it for selfish purposes. There were many Roman wars which wereexceptions, when an exalted patriotism was the animating principle; butaggressive war was the policy and shame of Rome. Her citizens did notgenerally fight to preserve liberties or rights or national existence, but for self-aggrandizement. Incessant campaigns for a thousand yearsbrought out military science, courage, energy, and a grasping andselfish patriotism. They gave power, skill to rule, executive talents;and these qualities, eminently adapted to worldly greatness, made theRomans universal masters, even if they do not make them interesting. They developed great strength, resource, will, and even made them wisein administration, possibly great civilizers, since centralized power isbetter than anarchies; yet these traits do not make us love them, orrevere them. Providence doubtless ordered the universal monarchy, whichonly universal war could establish, for the good of the world at thattime, for the advancement of civilization itself. Universal dominionmust be succeeded by universal peace, and in such a peace the higherqualities and virtues and talents can only be manifested, so that theRoman rule was not a calamity, but a very desirable despotism. Yetdespotism it was, --cold, remorseless, self-seeking. War made the Romanspractical, calculating, overbearing, proud, scornful, imperious. 

[Sidenote: Success of the Romans in war. ]

But war made them a great people, and made them eminent in certain greatqualities. Their success in war is tantamount to saying that in onegreat field of genius, which civilization honors, they not merelydistinguished themselves, and gained a proud fame which will never dieout of the memory of man, but that they have had no equals in any age. War enabled them to build up a vast empire, which empire gave a greatimpulse to ancient civilization. 

[Sidenote: Providence seen in the ascendency of great nations. ]

There is something very singular and mysterious in the results of warswhich are caused and carried on by unprincipled and unscrupulous men. They are made to end in substantial benefits to the human race. Thewrath of man, in other words, is made to praise God, showing that He isthe Sovereign ruler on this earth, and uses what instruments He pleasesto carry out his great and benevolent designs. However atrocious thecauses of wars, and execrable the spirit in which they are carried out, they are ever made to subserve the benefit of future ages, and the greatcause of civilization in its vast connections. Men may be guilty, andmay be punished for their wickedness, and execrated through all time byenlightened nations; still they are but tools of the higher power. I donot say that God is the author of wars any more than He is of sin; butwars are yet sent as a punishment to those whom they directly andimmediately affect, while they unbind the cords of slavery, and relaxthe hold of tyrants. They are like storms in the natural world: theycreate a healthier moral life, after the disasters are past. Thoseambitious men, who seek to add province to province and kingdom tokingdom, and for whom no maledictions are too severe, since they shedinnocent blood, rarely succeed unless they quarrel with doomed nationsincapable of renovation. Thus Babylon fell before Cyrus when her day hadcome, and she could do no more for civilization. Thus Persia, in herturn, yielded to the Grecian heroes when she became enervated with theluxuries of the conquered kingdoms. Thus Greece again succumbed to Romewhen she had degenerated into a land where every vice was rampant. Thepassions which inflamed Cyrus, and Alexander, and Pompey were alikeimperious, and their policy was alike unscrupulous. They simply werebent on conquest, and on establishing powerful empires, which conquestsdoubtless resulted in the improvement of the condition of mankind. Thereis also something hard and forbidding in the policy of successfulstatesmen. We are shocked at their injustice, cruelty, andrapaciousness; but they are often used by Providence to raise nations topreeminence, when their ascendency is, on the whole, a benefit to theworld. There is nothing amiable or benign in the characters of such menas Oxenstiern, Richelieu, or Bismarck, but who can doubt the wisdom oftheir administration? It is seldom that any nation is allowed to have agreat ascendency over other nations unless the general influence of thedominant State is favorable to civilization; and when this influence isperverted the ascendency passes away. This is remarkably seen in thehistory of the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman Empires, and still moreforcibly in the empire of the popes in the Middle Ages, and of the vastinfluence of France and England during the last hundred years. This isboth a mystery and a fact. It is mysterious that bad men should beallowed to succeed so often, but it is one of the sternest facts oflife, only to be explained on the principle that they are instruments inthe hands of the Great Moral Governor whose designs we are not able tofathom, yet the wisdom of which is subsequently, though imperfectly, made known. It was wicked in the sons of Jacob to sell Joseph to theIshmaelites; their craft and lies were successful: they deceived theirfather and accomplished their purposes; yet his bondage was the means oftheir preservation from the evils of famine. The rise and fall ofempires are to be explained on the same principles as the rise and fallof families. A coarse, unscrupulous but enterprising man gets rich, buthis wealth is made to subserve interests far greater than that of hischildren. Hospitals, colleges, and libraries are endowed as monasterieswere in the Middle Ages. If vice, selfishness, and pride were notoverruled, what would become of our world? The whole history ofcivilization is the good which is made to spring out of evil. Men arenothing in comparison with Omnipotence. What are human plans? Yetenterprise and virtue and talent are rewarded. In the affairs of life wesee that goodness does not lose its recompense, and that vice ispunished; but beyond, what more impressively do we behold than this, that the instruments of punishment are often the wicked themselves. 

[Sidenote: The results of the crusades. ]

[Sidenote: Their immediate consequences are disastrous; their ultimate, beneficial. ]

Among the worst wars in history--uncalled for, unscrupulous, fanatical--were the Crusades. And when were wars more unfortunate, moreunsuccessful? Five millions of Crusaders perished miserably in those madexpeditions stimulated by hatred of Mohammedanism. No trophies consoledEurope for its enormous losses, extended over two hundred years. Butthose wars developed the resources of Europe; they broke the power offeudal barons; they promoted commerce and the arts of life; they led togreater liberality of mind; they opened the horizon of knowledge; theyintroduced learned men into rising universities; they centralized thepower of kings; they weakened the temporal jurisdiction of the popes;they improved architecture, sculpture, and painting; they built freecities; they gave a new stimulus to all the energies of the Europeannations. Their benefits to civilization were not the legitimate resultof destructive passions. The natural penalty of folly and crime was paidin hardship, sorrow, disease, captivity, disappointment, poverty, anddeath. But out of the ashes a new creation arose, not what any of theleaders of those movements ever contemplated--infinitely removed fromthe thoughts of Bernard, Urban, Philip, and Richard, great men as theywere, far-sighted statesmen, who expected other results. The hand whichguided that warfare between Europe and Asia was the hand that led theIsraelites out of Egypt across the Red Sea. Moreover, _quem deus vultperdere prius dementat_. What uprising more foolish, insane, disastrous, than the great Southern rebellion! Its result was neverdreamed of for a moment by those Southern leaders. They hoped to see theestablishment of a great empire based on slavery; they saw the utterdestruction of slavery itself. The course by which they anticipateddominion and riches ended in their temporal ruin. They were made thedestroyers of their own pet system, when it could not have beendestroyed in any other way. It was only by a great war that the fettersof the slave could be removed, and God sent war so soon as it pleasedHim to bring the wicked bondage to an end. If any thing shows the handof God it is the wars of the nations. They are sent like the famine andthe pestilence. All human wisdom and power sink into insignificance whenthey are put forth to stop these scourges of the Almighty. It is againstall reason that they ever come; yet they do come, and then crimes areavenged; evil punishes evil, and succeeding generations are made to seethat the progress of the race is through sorrow and suffering. No greatempire is built up but with the will of God. No empire falls withoutdeserving the chastisement and the ruin. But God has promised to saveand to redeem, and the world moves on in accordance with natural laws, and each successive century witnesses somehow or other a great advancein the general condition of mankind. It is not the great rulers who planthis improvement. It comes from Heaven. It comes in spite of humandegeneracy, which, if left to itself, would doubtless soon produce astate of society like that which is attributed to the nations "beforethe flood came and destroyed them all. "

[Sidenote: Wars over-ruled for the good of nations. ]

With this view of war--always aggressive with one party, always acalamity to both; the greatest calamity known to the nations, exhausting, bloody, cruel, sweeping every thing before it; a moralconflagration, bringing every kind of suffering and sorrow in its train, yet made to result as a retribution to worn-out and degenerate races, and a means of vast development of resources among those peoples whichhave life and energy, --we see the providence of God in the RomanConquests. The gradual growth of Rome as a warlike state is a mostimpressive example of the agency of a great Moral Governor in breakingup states that deserved to perish, and in building up a power such asthe world needed in order to facilitate both a magnificent civilizationand the peaceful spread of a new religion. The Greeks created art andliterature; the Romans, laws and government, by which society everywherewas made more secure and tranquil, until the good which arose from theevil was itself perverted. 

[Sidenote: Growth of Rome under the kings. ]

Under the kingly rule Rome becomes the most important and powerful ofthe cities of Latium, and a foundation is laid of social, religious, andpolitical institutions which are destined to achieve a magnificenttriumph. The kings of Rome are all great men--wise and statesmanlike, patrons of civilization among a rude and primitive people. No state formore than two hundred years was ever ruled by more enlightened princes, ambitious indeed, sometimes unscrupulous, but fortunate and successful. The benefits derived from the conquests and ascendency of the city ofRomulus were seen in the union of several petty states, and the fusionof their customs and manners. Before the foundation of the city, Italywas of no account with the older empires. In less than two hundred andfifty years a great Italian power grows up on the banks of the Tiber, imbued to some extent with the civilization of Greece, which it receivesthrough Etruria and the Tarquins. 

[Sidenote: Effect of the expulsion of the Tarquins. ]

But the growth of Rome under the kings was too rapid for its moralhealth. A series of disasters produced by the expulsion of the Tarquins, during which the Roman state dwindles into a small territory on the leftbank of the Tiber, develops strength and martial virtue. It takes Romeone hundred and fifty years to recover what it had lost. Moreover itsgreat prosperity has provoked envy, and all the small neighboringnations are leagued against it. These must be subdued, or Italy willremain divided and subdivided, with no central power. 

The heroic period of Roman history begins really with the expulsion ofthe kings; also the growth of aristocratical power. It is not underkings nor democratic influences and institutions that Rome reachespreeminence, but under an aristocracy. All that is most glorious inRoman annals took place under the rule of the Patricians. 

[Sidenote: Rome struggles for existence for 150 years. ]

[Sidenote: Beautiful legends of the heroic period. ]

[Sidenote: They indicate the existence of great virtues. ]

[Sidenote: Petty wars with neighboring states develop patriotism. ]

During the one hundred and fifty years--when the future mistress of theworld struggled for its existence with the cities and inhabitants ofLatium, Samnium, and Etruria, whose united territories scarcely extendedfifty miles from Rome, were developed the virtues of a martialaristocracy. Our minds kindle with the contemplation of their courage, fortitude, patience, hope, perseverance, energy, self-devotion, patriotism, and religious faith. They deserved success. The long andbitter struggle of one hundred and fifty years had more of the nature ofself-preservation than military ambition. The history of those pettywars is interesting, because it is romantic. Beautiful legends of earlypatriotism and heroism have been reproduced in all the histories fromLivy to our times, like those of the knights of King Arthur and thepaladins of Charlemagne in the popular literature of Europe. Poets havemade them the themes of their inspiration. Painters have chosen them asfavorite subjects of art. We love to ponder on the bitter exile ofCoriolanus, his treasonable revenge, and the noble patriotism of hisweeping and indignant mother, who saved her country but lost her son; onCincinnatus, taken from the plow and sent as general and dictatoragainst the Acquians; on the Fabian gens, defending Rome a whole yearfrom the attacks of the Veientines until they were all cut off, like theSpartan band at Thermopylae; on Siccius Dentatus, the veteran captain ofone hundred and twenty battles, who was only slain by rolling a stonefrom a high rock upon his head; on Cossos, slaying the king of Veii withhis own hand; on the siege of Veii, itself, a city as large as Rome, lasting ten years, and only finally taken by draining the Alban lake; onthe pride and avarice of the banished Camillus, and his subsequentrescue of Rome from the Gauls; on the sacred geese of the capitol, andManlius who slew its assailants; on the siege of the capitol for sevenmonths by these Celtic invaders, and the burning and sack of the city, and its deliverance by the great Camillus. These legends are notlegitimate history, but they show the self-devotion and bravery, thesimplicity and virtue of those primitive ages, when luxury was unknownand crime was severely punished. It was in those days of danger andhardship that the foundation of the future military strength of theempire was laid. We do not read of military science, of war as an art ortrade, or even of great military ambition, for the sphere of militaryoperations was narrow and obscure, but of preparation for victories, under men of genius, in the time to come. That part of Roman historybears the same relation to the age of Marius and Sulla, that theconquests of the Puritans over the Indians, and the difficulties withwhich they contended, do to the gigantic warfare of the North and Southin the late rebellion. The Puritans laid the foundation of the militaryvirtues of the Americans, in their colonial state, as the Patricians ofRome did for one hundred and fifty years after the expulsion of thekings. Those petty wars with Volscians and Acquians brought out theRoman character, and are the germ of subsequent greatness. They tookplace in the infancy of the republic, under the rule of Patricians, whowere not then great nobles, but brave and poor citizens, animated withpatriotic zeal and characterized, like the Puritans, for stern and loftyvirtues and religious faith, --superstitious and unenlightened, yetelevated and grand, --qualities on which the strength of man is based. Itis not puerile to dwell with delight on the legends of that heroic age, for the philosopher sees in those little struggles the germs of imperialpower. They were small and insignificant, like the battles of theAmerican Revolution, when measured with the marshaling of vast armies onthe plains of Pharsalia or Waterloo, but they were great in theirinherent heroism, and in their future results. Who shall say which isgreater to the eye of the Infinite--the battle of Leipsic, or the fighton Bunker Hill? It is the cause, the principles involved, the spirit ofa contest, which give dignity and importance to the battle-field. Henceall nations and ages have felt great interest in the early struggles ofRome. They are full of poetry and philosophical importance. The Romanhistorians themselves dwelt upon them with peculiar enthusiasm; and therecord of them lives in the school-books of all generations, and has notbeen deemed unworthy of the critical genius of Niebuhr, of Arnold, or ofMommsen. 

[Sidenote: The complete independence of Rome. ]

[Sidenote: The Gaulish Invasion. ]

The result of this protracted warfare with petty cities and states forone hundred and fifty years was the complete independence of the City ofthe Seven Hills, the regaining of the conquests lost by the expulsion ofTarquin, the conquest of Latium, the dissolution of the Latin League, the possession of the Pontine district, and the extension of Roman powerto the valleys of the Apennines. The war with the Gauls was not asystematic contest. It was a raid of these Celts across the Apennines, and the temporary humiliation of the Roman capital. The Gauls burned andsacked the city, but soon retreated, and Rome was never again invaded bya foreign foe until the hordes of Alaric appeared. The disaster was soonrecovered, and the Romans made more united by the lesson. 

With the retreat of the Gauls, B. C. 350, and the recovery of Latium, B. C. 341 and four hundred and sixteen years from the foundation of thecity, the aggressive period of Roman warfare begins. By this time thePlebeians made their power felt, and had obtained one of the twoconsulships; but for a long time after, the Patricians, though shorn ofundivided sovereignty, still monopolized most of the great offices ofstate--indeed were the controlling power, socially and politically. Atno period was Rome a democratic state; never had Plebeians theascendency. But now the plebeian influence begins to modify the oldconstitution. All classes, after incessant warfare for a century and ahalf, and exposed to innumerable feuds, united in enterprises ofconquest. Rome begins to appear on the stage of political history. 

[Sidenote: War with the Samnites. ]

[Sidenote: Decisive battle of Sentinum. ]

The aggressive nature of Roman warfare commenced with Samnium. TheSamnites were a warlike and pastoral people who inhabited the ruggedmountain district between the valleys of the Vulturnus and the Calor, but they were nevertheless barbarians, and the contest between them andthe Romans was for the sovereignty of Italy. I need not mention thealleged causes, or the details of a sanguinary war. The alleged causeswere not the true ones, and the details are complicated and obscure. Wedeal with results. The war began B. C. 326, and lasted, with shortintervals of peace, thirty-six years. The Roman heroes were M. ValeriusCorvus, L. Papirius Cursor, Q. Fabius Maximus, and P. Decius theyounger. All of these were great generals, and were consuls ordictators. As in all great contests, lasting a whole generation, therewas alternate victory and defeat, disgraced by treachery and bad faith. The Romans fought, assisted by Latins, Campanians, and Apulians. TheSamnites defended themselves in their mountain fastnesses withinflexible obstinacy, and obtained no assistance from allies untilnearly worn out, when Umbrians, Etrurians, and Senonian Gauls came tothe rescue. About sixty thousand men fought on each side. The battle ofSentinum determined the fate of Samnium and Italy, gained by Fabius andDecius, and the Samnites laid down their arms and yielded to theirrivals. Their brave general, Pontius, was beheaded in the prison underthe capitol, --an act of inhumanity which sullied the laurels of Fabius. The Roman power is now established over central and lower Italy, andwith the exception of a few Greek cities on the coast, Latium, Campania, Apulia, and Samnium are added to the territories of the republic. 

[Sidenote: Works of Appius Claudius. ]

In the mean time the political inequality between Patricians andPlebeians had been removed, and a plebeian nobility had grown up, created by success in war and domestic factions. The great man in civilhistory, during this war, was Appius Claudius the Censor, a proud andinflexible Patrician. His, great works were the Appian road andaqueduct. The road led to Capua through the Pontine marshes one hundredand twenty miles, and was paved with blocks of basalt; the aqueductpassed under ground, and was the first of those vast works whichsupplied the city with water. 

About ten years elapsed between the conquest of the Samnites and thelanding of Pyrrhus in Italy, B. C. 280, during which the Romans werebrought in contact with Magna Grecia and Syracuse. 

[Sidenote: Tarentum invokes the aid of Phyrrus. ]

The chief of the Greek-Italian cities was Tarentum, a very ancientLacedaemonian colony. It was admirably situated for commerce on the gulfwhich bears its name, was very rich, and abounded in fearless sailors. But like most commercial cities, it intrusted its defense tomercenaries. It viewed with alarm the growing power of Rome, and unableto meet her face to face, called in the aid of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, the greatest general of the age, which was followed by a general risingof the Italian states, to shake off the Roman yoke. 

[Sidenote: Expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy. ]

[Sidenote: He is defeated at the battle of Beneventum. ]

Pyrrhus was a soldier of fortune, and practiced war as an art, anddelighted in it like Alexander or Charles XII. He readily responded tothe overture of the Tarentine Ambassador, and sent over a general withthree thousand men to secure a footing, and soon followed with twentythousand foot, five thousand horse, and a number of elephants. Among histroops were five thousand Macedonian soldiers, a phalanx such as theRomans had never encountered. The Macedonians fought in masses; theRomans in lines. The first encounter was disastrous to the Romans, whosecavalry was frightened by the elephants. But Pyrrhus, contented withvictory, did not pursue his advantages, and advanced with easy marchestowards Rome with seventy thousand men. The battle of Heraclea, however, had greatly weakened his forces; his allies proved treacherous; and hewas glad to offer terms of peace, which were promptly rejected by theSenate. After spending nearly three years in Italy he retired toSyracuse, but again tried his fortune against the Romans, and wassignally routed at the battle of Beneventum by Curius Dentatus. Hehastily left Italy to her fate, and the fall of Tarentum speedilyfollowed, which made the Romans masters of the whole peninsula. TheMacedonian phalanx, which had conquered Asia, yielded to the Romanlegion, and a new lesson was learned in the art of war. 

[Sidenote: Results of the Fall of Tarentum. ]

[Sidenote: The Romans complete masters of Italy. ]

The Romans, by the fall of Tarentum, were now the undisputed masters ofItaly, and had made the first great step towards the conquest of theworld. The city of Romulus was now four hundred and eighty years old, and the national domain extended from the Ciminian wood in Etruria tothe middle of the Campania. It was called the Ager Romanus, in which wasa population of two hundred and ninety-three thousand men capable ofbearing arms; and the citizens of the various conquered cities, who hadserved certain magistracies in them, were enrolled among Roman citizens, with all the rights to which the citizens of the capital were entitled, --absolute authority over wife, children, and slaves, security fromcapital punishment except by a vote of the people, or under militaryauthority in the camp, access to all the honors and employments of thestate, the right of suffrage, and the possession of Quirinal property. They felt themselves to be allies of Rome, and henceforward lentefficient aid in war. To all practical intents, they were Romans ascompletely as the inhabitants of Marseilles are French. Tarentum, Neapolis, Tibur, Praeneste, and other large cities, enjoyed peculiarprivileges; but armed garrisons were maintained in them, under the formof colonies. The administration of them was organized after the model ofRome. Military roads were constructed between all places of importance. 

[Sidenote: The virtues of eminent Patricians. ]

The same sterling virtues which characterized the absolute rule of thePatricians still continued, and patriotism partook of the nature ofreligious sentiment. Three Decii surrendered their lives for the Romanarmy, and Manlius immolated his son to the genius of discipline; Runnusis degraded from the Senate for possessing ten pounds of silver plate, although twice consul and once dictator; Regulus, twice consul, possessed no more than one little field in the barren district ofPapinice. Curius like Fabricius prepared his simple meal with his ownhand, and refused the gold of the Samnites, as Fabricius refused that ofPyrrhus. The new masters of Italy deserved their empire. There was unionbecause there was now political equality. The "new men, like Fabriciusand Curius Dentatus, were not less numerous in the Senate than the oldCurial families. The aristocracy of blood was blended with thearistocracy of merit. The consulship gave unity of command, the Senatewisdom and the proper strength, preserving a happy equilibrium offorces, --the combination of royalty, aristocracy, and democracy, which, with military virtues and austere manners, made an irresistible force. "[Footnote: Durny, _Hist. Des Romains_] This period, the fifthcentury of the existence of the Roman state, was its heroic age. 

[Sidenote: Rome prepares for aggressive and unjust war. ]

But now military aggrandizement became the master-passion of the people, and the uniform policy of the government. Military virtues stillremained, but the morals of state began to decline. Aggressive wars, forconquest and power, henceforth, mark the progress of the Romans; and notmerely aggressive wars, but unjust and foreign wars. The step of theRoman is now proud and defiant. Visions of unlimited conquest rise upbefore his eye. He is cold, practical, imperious. The eagles of thelegions are the real objects of pride and reverence. Mars is thepresiding deity. Success is the only road to honor. 

[Sidenote: Rivalry between Carthage and Rome. ]

While Rome was completing the reduction of Italy, Carthage, a Tyriancolony on the opposite coast of Africa, was extending her conquests inthe Islands of the Mediterranean. The Greek colonies of Sicily hadfallen under her sway. She was a rival whose power was formidable, enriched by the commerce of the world, and proud in the number of herallies. The city contained seven hundred thousand inhabitants, and thewalls measured twenty miles in circumference. 

[Sidenote: Shall Rome or Carthage have the preeminence. ]

[Sidenote: Carthage falls after a long and memorable struggle. ]

[Sidenote: Territories acquired by the fall of Carthage. ]

Between such ambitious and unscrupulous rivals, peace could not long bemaintained. To the eye of the philosopher the ascendency of Carthage orof Rome over the countries which border on the Mediterranean was clearlyseen. Which were better? Shall the world be governed by a martial, law-making, law-loving, heroic commonwealth, not yet seduced and corruptedby luxury and wealth, or by a commercial, luxurious, selfish nation ofmerchants, whose only desire is self-indulgence and folly. Providencesides with Rome--although Rome cannot be commended, and is ruled byambitious and unscrupulous chieftains whose delight is power. If thereis to be one great empire more, before Christianity is proclaimed, whichshall absorb all other empires, now degenerate and corrupt, let that begiven to a people who know how to civilize after they have conquered. Let the sword rather than gold rule the world--enlightened statesmenrather than self-indulgent merchants. So Carthage falls, after threememorable struggles, extending over more than a century, during whichshe produced the greatest general of antiquity, next to Caesar andAlexander. But not even Hannibal could restore the fortunes of hiscountry, after having inflicted a bitter humiliation on his enemies. That city of merchants, like Tyre and Sidon, must drink of the cup ofdivine chastisement. Another type of civilization than that furnished bya "mistress of the sea, " was needed for Europe, and another rule forAsia and Africa. The Carthaginians taught the Romans, in their contest, how to build ships of war and fight naval battles. As many as threehundred thousand men were engaged in that memorable sea-fight of Ecnomuswhich opened to Regulus the way to Africa. Three times did the Romanslose their fleets by tempests, and yet they persevered in building newones. The fortitude of the Romans, in view of the brilliant successes ofHannibal, can never be sufficiently admired. The defeat at Cannae was acatastrophe, but the troops of Fabius, to whom was left the defense ofthe city, were not discouraged, and with Scipio--religious, self-reliant, and lofty--the tide of victory turned. By the first Punic war, whichlasted twenty-two years, Rome gained Sicily; by the second, which openedtwenty-three years after the first, and lasted seventeen years, shegained Sardinia, a foothold in Spain and Gaul, and a preponderancethroughout the western regions of Europe and Africa; by the third, whichoccurred fifty years after the second, and continued but four years, shegained all the provinces of Africa ruled by Carthage, and a great partof Spain. Nothing was allowed to remain of the African capital. Thedeparting troops left behind complete desolation. The captives were soldas slaves, or put to death, and enough of spoil rewarded the victors toadorn a triumph only surpassed by that of Paulus on his return from theconquest of Greece. 

[Sidenote: Condition of the Macedonian empire. ]

[Sidenote: Principles and passions which led to the conquest of Greece. ]

In the mean time, in the interval between the second and third Punicwars, occurred the Macedonian wars, which prepared the way for conquestsin the East. The great Macedonian empire was split up into severalmonarchies among the generals of Alexander and their successors. ThePtolemies reigned in Egypt; the successors of Seleucus in Babylonia;those of Antigonus in Syria and Asia Minor; those of Lysimachus inThrace; and of Cassander in Macedonia. It was the mission of Rome tosubdue these monarchies, or rather her good fortune, for she wasdestined to conquer the world. The principles which animated these warscannot be defended on high moral grounds, any more than the conquest ofIndia by England, or of Algeria by France. They were based entirely uponambition--upon the passion for political aggrandizement. I confess Ihave no sympathy with them. Roman liberties were not jeopardized, norwere these monarchies dangerous rivals like Carthage. The subjugation ofItaly was in accordance with what we now call the Monroe doctrine--toobtain the ascendency on her own soil; and even the conquest or ofSicily was no worse than the conquest of Ireland, or what would be thefuture absorption of Cuba and Jamaica within the limits of the UnitedStates. The Emperor Napoleon would probably justify both the humiliationof Carthage and the conquest of Greece and Asia and Egypt, and otherswould echo his voice in defense of aggressive domination, on some pleaof pretended schemes of colonization, and the progress of civilization. But I do not believe in overturning the immutable laws of moralobligation for any questionable policy of expediency. I look upon thegreat civil wars of the Romans, which followed these conquests, in whichso much blood was shed, and in which Marius and Sulla and Caesar andPompey exhausted the resources of the state, and made an imperial_regime_ necessary, only as the visitation of God in rebuke of suchwicked ambition. 

[Sidenote: Greece reaps the penalty of the unscrupulous wars ofAlexander. ]

[Sidenote: Degeneracy of the Greeks. ]

[Sidenote: Spoils of Greece fall into the hands of the Romans. ]

[Sidenote: The triumph of Paulus. ]

[Sidenote: Grecian provinces added to the empire. ]

The conquest over the Macedonians, however, by the Romans, was not anunmixed calamity, and was a righteous judgment on the Greeks. Nothingcould be more unscrupulous than the career of Alexander and hisgenerals. Again, the principle which had animated the Oriental kingsbefore him was indefensible. We could go back still further, and showfrom the whole history of Asiatic conquests that their object was toaggrandize ambitious conquerors. The Persians, at first, were a braveand religious people, hardy and severe, and their conquest of oldermonarchies resulted in a certain good. But they became corrupt byprosperity and power, and fell a prey to the Greeks. The Greeks, at thatperiod, were the noblest race of the ancient world--immortal for geniusand art. But power dazzled them, and little remained of that gloriousspirit which was seen at Thermopylae and Marathon. The Greek ascendencyin Asia and Egypt was followed by the same luxury and extravagance andeffeminacy that resulted from the rule of Persia. The Greeks had donegreat things, and contributed to the march of civilization, but they haddone their work, and their turn of humiliation must come. Their vastempire fell into the hands of the Romans, and the change was beneficialto humanity. They who had abused their trust were punished, and thosewere exalted above them who were as yet uncorrupted by those vices whichare most fatal to nations. The great fruit of these wars were thetreasures of Greece, especially precious marbles, and other works ofart. The victory at Pydna, B. C. 168, which gave the final superiority tothe Roman legion over the Macedonian phalanx, was followed by thetriumph of Paulus himself--the grandest display ever seen at Rome. Firstpassed the spoils of Greece--statues and pictures--in two hundred andfifty wagons; then the arms and accoutrements of the Macedoniansoldiers; then three thousand men, each carrying a vase of silver coin;then victims for sacrifice, with youths and maidens with garlands; thenmen bearing vases of gold and precious stones; then the royal chariot ofthe conquered king laden with armor and trophies; then his wife andchildren, and the fallen monarch on foot; then the triumphal car of thevictorious general, preceded by men bearing four hundred crowns of gold--the gift of the Grecian cities--and followed by his two sons onhorseback, and the whole army in order. The sack of Corinth by Mummiuswas the finale of Grecian humiliation, soon followed by the totalsubjection of Macedonia, Greece, and Illyria, forming three provinces. Nine provinces now composed the territories of Rome, while the kings ofAsia Minor, Syria, and Egypt were vassals rather than allies, B. C. 133. 

[Sidenote: Change of manners and morals at Rome. ]

[Sidenote: Reforms of Cato the Censor. ]

[Sidenote: Great degeneracy produced by the Grecian wars. ]

The manners and habits of the imperial capital had undergone a gradualchange since the close of the second Punic War. During these fiftyyears, the sack of so many Grecian cities, the fall of Carthage, and theprestige of so many victories, had filled Rome with pride and luxury. Invain did M. Portius Cato, the most remarkable man who adorned thisdegenerate age, lift up his voice against increasing corruption. In vainwere his stringent measures as censor. In vain did he strike senatorsfrom the list, and make an onslaught on the abuses of his day. In vainwere his eloquence, his simple manners, his rustic garb, and hispatriotic warnings. That hard, narrow, self-sufficient, arbitrary, worldly-wise old statesman, whose many virtues redeemed his defects, andwhose splendid abilities were the glory of his countrymen, could notrestore the simplicities of former times. An age of "progress" had setin, of Grecian arts and culture, of material wealth, of sumptuousbanquets, of splendid palaces, of rich temples, of theatrical shows, ofcircus games, of female gallantries, of effeminated manners--all theusual accompaniments of civilization, when it is most proud of itstriumphs; and there was no resisting its march--to the eye of many agreat improvement; to the eye of honest old Cato, the _descensusaveri_. Wealth had become a great power; senatorial families grewimmensely rich; the divisions of society widened; slavery was enormouslyincreased, while the rural population lost independence and influence. 

Then took place the memorable struggles of Rome, not merely with foreignenemies, but against herself. Factions and parties convulsed the city;civil war wasted the national resources. 

[Sidenote: Wars with the Cimbri and Teutones. ]

[Sidenote: Success of Marius, who rolls back the tide of northernemigration. ]

It was in that period of civic strife, when factions and partiesstruggled for ascendency--when the Gracchi were both reformers anddemagogues, patriots and disorganizes, heroes and martyrs--whenfortunate generals aimed at supreme power, and sought to overturn theliberties of their country, that Rome was seriously threatened by thebarbarians. Both Celts and Teutones, from Gaul and Germany, formed ageneral union for the invasion of Italy. They had successively defeatedfive consular armies, in which one hundred and twenty thousand men wereslain. They rolled on like a devastating storm--some three hundredthousand warriors from unconquered countries beyond the Alps. They weremet by Marius the hero of the African war, who had added Numidia, to theempire--now old, fierce, and cruel, a plebeian who had arisen by forceof military genius--and the Gaulish hordes were annihilated on the Rhoneand the Po. The Romans at first viewed those half-naked warriors--sofull of strength and courage, so confident of victory, so reckless oflife, so impetuous and savage--with terror and awe. But their time hadnot yet come. Numbers were of no avail against science, when science wasitself directed by genius and sustained by enthusiasm. The result of thedecisive battles of Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae was to roll back the tideof northern immigration for three hundred years, and to prepare the wayfor the conquests of Caesar in Gaul. 

[Sidenote: The Social War. ]

[Sidenote: Rise of Sulla. ]

Then followed that great insurrection of the old states of Italy againsttheir imperious mistress--their last struggle for independence, calledthe Social War, in which three hundred thousand of the young men ofItaly fell, and in which Sulla so much distinguished himself as to beregarded as the rival of Marius, who had ruled Rome since the slaughterof the Cimbrians and Teutones. Sulla, who had served under Marius inAfrica, dissolute like Antony, but cultivated like Caesar--a man full ofambition and genius, and belonging to one of the oldest and proudestpatrician families, the Cornelian gens--was no mean rival of the oldtyrant and demagogue, and he was sent against Mithridates, the mostpowerful of all the Oriental kings. 

This Asiatic potentate had encouraged the insurgents in Italy, and wasalso at war with the Romans. Marius viewed with envy and hatred thepreference shown to Sulla in the conduct of the Mithridatic War, andsucceeded, by his intrigues and influence with the people, in causingSulla to be superseded, and himself to be appointed in his place. 

[Sidenote: Civil wars between Marius and Sulla. ]

Hence that dreadful civil contest between these two generals, in whichRome was alternately at the mercy of both, and in which the mosthorrible butcheries took place that had ever befallen the city--a reignof terror, a burst of savage passion, especially on the part of Marius, who had lately abandoned himself to wine and riotous living. He diedB. C. 86, victor in the contest, in his seventh consulate, worn out bylabor and dissolute habits, nearly seventy years of age. 

[Sidenote: Death of Marius. ]

His opportune death relieved Rome of a tyrannical rule, and opened theway for the splendid achievements of Sulla in the East. A great warriorhad arisen in a quarter least expected. In the mountainous region alongthe north side of the Euxine, the kingdom of Pontus had grown from aprincipality to a kingdom, and Mithridates, ruling over Cappadocia, Papalagonia, and Phrygia, aspired for the sovereignty of the East. Hewas an accomplished and enlightened prince, and could speak twenty-five-languages, hardy, adventurous, and bold, like an ancient Persian. Byconquests and alliances he had made himself the most powerful sovereignin Asia. 

[Sidenote: Mithridates. ]

Availing himself of the disturbance growing out of the Social War, hefomented a rebellion of the provinces of Asia Minor, seized Bithynia, and encouraged Athens to shake off the Roman yoke. Most of the Greekcommunities joined the Athenian insurrection, and Asia rallied aroundthe man who hoped to cope successfully with Rome herself. 

[Sidenote: Conquests of Sulla in Greece. ]

At this juncture, Sulla was sent into Greece with fifty thousand men. Athens fell before his conquering legions, B. C. 88, and the lieutenantsof Mithridates retreated before the Romans with one hundred thousandfoot and ten thousand horse, and one hundred armed chariots. On theplains of Chaeronea, where Grecian liberties had been overthrown byPhilip of Macedon, two hundred and fifty years before, a desperateconflict took place, and the Pontic army was signally defeated. Shortlyafter, Sulla gained another great victory over the generals of the Kingof Pontus, and compelled him to accept peace, the terms of which hehimself dictated, after exacting heavy contributions from the cities ofGreece and Asia Minor. 

[Sidenote: Death of Sulla. ]

The civil war between Sulla and the chiefs of the popular faction thathad been created by Marius, which ended in his complete ascendency inItaly, stopped for a while the Roman conquests in the East. Sulla, having undone the popular measures of the last half century, and reignedsupreme over all factions as dictator, died B. C. 78, after a mostsuccessful career, and left his mantle to the most enterprising of hislieutenants, Cnaeus Pompey, who was destined to complete the Mithridaticwar. 

[Sidenote: Character of Sulla. ]

If Sulla had not been so inordinately fond of pleasure and luxuriousself-indulgence, he might have seized the sceptre of universal dominion, and have made himself undisputed master of the empire. He was a man ofextraordinary genius, fond of literature, and a great diplomatist. Buthe was not preeminently ambitious like Caesar, and was diverted by thefascinations of elegant leisure; nor was he naturally cruel, though hispassions, when aroused, were fierce and vindictive. He lived in an ageof exceeding corruption, when it was evident to contemplative minds thatRoman liberties could not be much longer preserved. He had, for a time, restored the ascendency of the senatorial families, but faction was atwork among the unprincipled chiefs of the republic. 

[Sidenote: Lucullus marches against Mithridates. ]

On the death of the great dictator, Mithridates broke the peace he hadconcluded, and marched into Bithynia, which had been left by will to theRoman people by Nicomedes, with the hope of its reconquest. He had anarmy of one hundred and twenty thousand foot and fifteen thousand horse. Lucullus, with thirty thousand foot and one thousand horse, advancedagainst him, and the vast forces of Mithridates were defeated, and theking was driven into Armenia, and sought the aid of Tigranes, his son-in-law, king of that powerful country. He, too, was subdued by the Romanlegions, and all the nations from the Halys to the Euphratesacknowledged the dominion of Rome. 

[Sidenote: Rising greatness of Pompey. ]

Still, Mithridates was not subdued, and Pompey, who had annihilated theMediterranean pirates, was the only person fit to finish the Mithridaticwar. His successes had been more brilliant than even those of Sulla, orLucullus, or Metellus. He was made Dictator of the East, with greaterpowers than had ever before been intrusted to a Roman general. He hadsuccess equal to his fame; drove Mithridates across the Caucasus;reduced Pontus, and took possession of Syria, which had been subject toTigranes. The defeated King of Pontus, who had sought to unite all thebarbarous tribes of Eastern Europe against Rome, destroyed himself. Pompey, after seven years' continued successes, returned to Italy toclaim his triumph, having subdued the East, and added the old monarchyof the Seleucidae to the dominion of Rome, B. C. 61. 

[Sidenote: The early career of Julius Caesar. ]

[Sidenote: His victories in Spain. ]

[Sidenote: Caesar sent into Gaul. ]

But while Pompey was pursuing his victories over the effeminate peopleof Asia, a still more brilliant career in the West marked the risingfortunes of Julius Caesar. I need not dwell on the steps by which hearose to become the formidable rival of the conqueror of the East. Hebears the most august name of antiquity. A patrician by birth, ademagogue in his principles, popular in his manners, unscrupulous in hismeans, he successively passed through the various great offices ofstate, which he discharged with prodigious talent. As leader of the oldpopular party of Marius, he sought the humiliation of the Senate, whilehis ambition led him to favor every enterprise which promised to advancehis own interests. Leaving the province of Spain, after his praetorship, before Pompey's return to Italy, his great career of conquest commenced. He first availed himself of some disturbances in Lusitania to declarewar against its gallant people, overran their country, and then turnedhis arms against the Gallicians. In two years he had obtained spoilsmore than sufficient to pay his enormous debts, the result of hisprodigality, by which, however, he won the hearts of the thoughtlesscitizens, and paved the way for honor. Conqueror of Spain, and idol ofthe people, he returned to Rome, B. C. 60, when Pompey was quarrelingwith the Senate, formed an alliance with him and Crassus, and by theiraid was elected consul. His measures in that high office all tended tosecure his popularity with the people, and supported by Pompey andCrassus, he triumphed over the Senate. He then secured the government ofCisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, with two legions, for the extraordinaryterm of five years. The Senate added the province of Transalpine Gaul, then threatened by the Allobrogians, Suevi, Helvetians, and otherbarbaric tribes, with the intention of confining him to a dangerous anduncertain field of warfare. 

[Sidenote: His great military genius. ]

[Sidenote: His difficulties in the conquest of Gaul. ]

[Sidenote: Results of the Gaulish wars. ]

[Sidenote: Gaul becomes Latinized. ]

That field, however, established his military fame, and paved the wayfor his subsequent usurpations. The conquests of Caesar in Western Europeare unique in the history of war, and furnish no parallel. Otherconquests may have been equally brilliant and more imposing, but nonewere ever more difficult and arduous, requiring greater perseverance, energy, promptness, and fertility of resources. The splendid successesof Lucullus and Pompey in Asia resembled those of Alexander. We seemilitary discipline and bravery triumphing over the force of multitudes, and a few thousand men routing vast armies of enervated or undisciplinedmercenaries. Such were the conquests of the English in India. They makea great impression, but the fortunes of an empire are decided by asingle battle. It was not so with the conflicts of Caesar in Gaul. He hadto fight with successive waves of barbarians, inured to danger, adventurous and hardy, holding life in little estimation, willing to diein battle, intrepid in soul, and bent on ultimate victory. He had tofight in hostile territories, unacquainted with the face of the country, at a great distance from the base of his supplies, exposed to perpetualperils, and surrounded with unknown difficulties. And these wereappreciated by his warlike countrymen, who gave him the credit hedeserved. The ten years he spent in Gaul were the years of his truestglory, and the most momentous in their consequences on the futurecivilization of the world, since it was not worn-out monarchies he addedto the empire, but a new territory, inhabited by brave and simple races, who were to learn the arts and laws and literature of Rome, and supplythe government with powerful aid in the decline of its strength. It wasthe conquered barbarians who, henceforth, were to furnish Rome withsoldiers, and even scholars and statesmen and generals. Among them theold civilization was to take root, among them new states were to ariseon which the Romans could impress their own remarkable characteristics. It was the western provinces of the empire that alone were vital withenergy and strength, and which were destined to perpetuate the spirit ofRoman institutions. The eastern provinces never lost the impress of theGreek mind and manners. They remained Greek even when subdued by theimperial legions. Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, were filled with Greciancities, and Asiatic customs were modified by Grecian civilization. TheWest was purely Roman, and the Latin language, laws, and arts werecontinued, in a modified form, through the whole period of the MiddleAges. Even Christianity had a different influence in the West from whatit had in the East. In other words, the West was completely Latinized, while the East remained Grecian. Though the East was governed by Romanproconsuls, they could not change the Graeco-Asiatic character of itsinstitutions and manners; but the barbarians were willing to learn newlessons from their Roman masters. 

[Sidenote: Greatness of Caesar. ]

It would require a volume to describe the various campaigns of Caesar inGaul, in which a million of people were destroyed. But I only aim toshow results. Most people are familiar with the marvelous generalshipand enterprises of the Roman conqueror--the conquest and reconquest ofthe brave barbarians, most of whom were Celts; the uprising of Germanictribes as well, and their fearful slaughter near Coblentz; the bloodybattles, the fearful massacres, the unscrupulous cruelties which hedirected; the formidable insurrection organized by Vercingetorix; thespirit he infused into his army; the incessant hardships of thesoldiers, crossing rivers, mountains, and valleys, marching with theirheavy burdens--fighting amid every disadvantage, until all thecountries north of the Alps and west of the Rhine acknowledged his sway--all these things are narrated by Caesar himself with matchless force andsimplicity of language. 

[Sidenote: Rivalry between Caesar and Pompey. ]

Caesar now probably aspired to the sovereignty of the empire, as Napoleondid after the conquest of Italy. But he had a great rival in Pompey, whohad remained chiefly at Rome, during his Gaulish campaigns, virtuallydictator, certainly the strongest citizen. And Pompey had also hisambitious schemes. One was the conqueror of the East; the other of theWest. One leaned to the aristocratic party, the other to the popular. Pompey was proud, pompous, and self-sufficient. Caesar was politic, patient, and intriguing. Both had an inordinate ambition, and both wereunscrupulous. Pompey had more prestige, Caesar more genius. Pompey was agreater tactician, Caesar a greater strategist. The Senate rallied aroundthe former, the people around the latter. Cicero distrusted both, andflattered each by turns, but inclined to the side of Pompey, asbelonging to the aristocratic party. 

[Sidenote: Battle of Pharsalia. ]

[Sidenote: Death of Pompey. ]

Between such ambitious rivals coalition for any length of time could notcontinue. Dissensions arose between them, and then war. The contest wasdecided at Pharsalia. On the 6th of June, B. C. 48, "Greek met Greek, "yet with forces by no means great on either side. Pompey had only fortythousand, and Caesar less, but they were veterans, and the victory wascomplete. Pompey fled to Egypt, without evincing his former greatness, paralyzed, broken, and without hope. There he miserably died, by theassassin's dagger, at the age of sixty, and the way was now prepared forthe absolute rule of Caesar. 

[Sidenote: Dictatorship of Caesar. ]

But the party of Pompey rallied, connected with which were some of thenoblest names of Rome. The battle of Thapsus proved as disastrous toCato as Pharsalia did to Pompey. Caesar was uniformly victorious, notmerely over the party which had sustained Pompey, but in Asia, Africa, and Spain, which were in revolt. His presence was everywhere required, and wherever he appeared his presence was enough. He was now dictatorfor ten years. He had overturned the constitution of his country. He wasvirtually the supreme ruler of the world. In the brief period whichpassed from his last triumphs to his death, he was occupied inlegislative labors, in settling military colonies, in restoring thewasted population of Italy, in improving the city, in reforming thecalendar, and other internal improvements, evincing an enlarged andliberal mind. 

[Sidenote: Death of Caesar. His character. ]

But the nobles hated him, and had cause, in spite of his abilities, hisaffability, magnanimity, and forbearance. He had usurped unlimitedauthority, and was too strong to be removed except by assassination. Ineed not dwell on the conspiracy under the leadership of Brutus, and histragic end in the senate-house, where he fell, pierced by twenty-twowounds, at the base of Pompey's statue, the greatest man in Romanhistory--great as an orator, a writer, a general, and a statesman; a manwithout vanity, devoted to business, unseduced by pleasure, unscrupulousof means to effect an end; profligate, but not more so than his times;ambitious of power, but to rule, when power was once secured, for thebenefit of his country, like many other despots immortal on a bloodycatalogue. After his passage of the Rubicon his career can only becompared with that of Napoleon. 

[Sidenote: Character of his later wars. ]

But Roman territories were not much enlarged by Caesar after the conquestof Celtic Europe. His later wars were either against rivals or to settledistracted provinces. Nor were they increased in the civil wars whichsucceeded his death, between the various aspirants for the imperialpower and those who made one more stand for the old constitution. At thefatal battle of Philippi, when the hopes of Roman patriots vanishedforever, double the number of soldiers were engaged on both sides thanat Pharsalia, but fortune had left the senatorial party, of which Brutuswas the avenger and the victim. 

[Sidenote: Civil wars after the death of Caesar. ]

[Sidenote: Ascendency of Octavian. ]

Civil war was carried on most vigorously after the death of Julius. Butit was now plainly a matter between rival generals and statesmen forsupreme command. The chief contest was between Octavian and Antony, theformer young, artful, self-controlled, and with transcendent abilitiesas a statesman; the latter bold, impetuous, luxurious, and the ablest ofall Caesar's lieutenants as a general. Had he not yielded to thefascinations of Cleopatra, he would probably have been the master of theworld. But the sea-fight of Actium, one of the great decisive battles ofhistory, gave the empire of the world to Octavian B. C. 31, and two yearsafter the victor celebrated three magnificent triumphs, after theexample of his uncle, for Dalmatia, Actium, and Egypt. The kingdom ofthe Ptolemies passed under the rule of Caesar. The Temple of Janus wasshut, for the first time for more than two hundred years; and theimperial power was peaceably established over the civilized world. 

[Sidenote: Necessity for the empire. ]

The friends of liberty may justly mourn over the fall of republicanRome, and the centralization of all power in the hands of Augustus. Butit was a calamity which could not be averted, and was a revolution whichwas in accordance with the necessities of the times. Fifty years' civilwar taught the Romans the hopelessness of the struggle to maintain theirold institutions so long as the people were corrupt, and fortunategenerals would sacrifice the public welfare to their ambition. Order wasbetter than anarchy, even though a despot reigned supreme. When men areworse than governments, they must submit to the despotism of tyrants. Itis idle to dream of liberty with a substratum of folly and vice. Thestrongest man will rule, but whether he rule wisely or unwisely, thereis no remedy. Providence gave the world to the Romans, after continualand protracted wars for seven hundred years; and when the people who hadconquered the world by their energy, prudence, and perseverance, were nolonger capable of governing themselves, then the state fell into thepossession of a single man. 

[Sidenote: Change in the imperial policy. ]

Under the emperors, the whole policy of the government was changed. Theyno longer thought of further aggrandizement, but of retaining theconquests which were already made. And if they occasionally embarked innew wars, those wars were of necessity rather than of ambition, weredefensive rather than aggressive. New provinces were from time to timeadded, but in consequence of wars which were waged in defense of theempire. The conquest of Britain and Judea was completed, and variousconflicts took place with the Germanic nations, who, in the reign ofAntoninus, formed a general union for the invasion of the Roman world. These barbarians were the future aggressors on the peace of the empire, until it fell into their hands. The empire of Augustus may be said tohave reached the utmost limits it ever permanently retained, extendingfrom the Rhine and the Danube to the Euphrates and Mount Atlas, embracing a population variously estimated from one hundred to onehundred and thirty millions. 

[Sidenote: Perfection of military art. ]

When Augustus became the sovereign ruler of this vast empire, militaryart had reached the highest perfection it ever attained among any of thenations of antiquity. It required centuries to perfect this science, ifscience it may be called, and the Romans doubtless borrowed from thepeople whom they subdued. They learned to resist the impetuous assaultsof semi-barbarous warriors, the elephants of the East, and the phalanxof the Greeks. Military discipline was carried to the severest extent byMarius, Pompey, and Caesar. 

[Sidenote: The spirit of the Roman soldier. ]

The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under aburden of eighty pounds; yea, to swim rivers, to climb mountains, topenetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taughtthat his destiny was to die in battle. He expected death. He was readyto die. Death was his duty, and his glory. He enlisted in the armieswith little hope of revisiting his home. He crossed seas and deserts andforests with the idea of spending his life in the service of hiscountry. His pay was only a denarius daily, equal to about sixteen centsof our money. Marriage was discouraged or forbidden. He belonged to thestate, and the state was exacting and hard. He was reduced to abjectobedience, yet he held in his hand the destinies of the empire. Andhowever insignificant was the legionary as a man, he gained importancefrom the great body with which he was identified. He was the servant andthe master of the state. He had an intense _esprit de corps_. Hewas bound up in the glory of his legion. Both religion and honor boundhim to his standards. The golden eagle which glittered in his front wasthe object of his fondest devotion. Nor was it possible to escape thepenalty of cowardice or treachery, or disobedience. He could bechastised with blows by his centurion; his general could doom him todeath. Never was the severity of military discipline relaxed. Militaryexercises were incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peacethe Roman troops were familiarized with the practice of war. 

[Sidenote: Military genius of the Romans. ]

[Sidenote: The perfection of military art. ]

It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the disciplineto which they were inured, which gave them their irresistible strength. When we remember that they had not our fire-arms, we are surprised attheir efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities. Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, and the most elaboratefortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, beside the aidreceived from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than fourmonths before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great thescience to reduce a place of such strength, in so short a time, withoutthe aid of other artillery than the ancient catapult and battering-ram!Whether the military science of the Romans was superior or inferior toour own, no one can question that it was carried to utmost perfectionbefore the invention of gunpowder. We are only superior in theapplication of this great invention, especially in artillery. There canbe no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a feudal army in thebrightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no generals superiorto Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever won greatervictories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no armies of theirsize, ever retained in submission so great an empire, and for so long atime. At no period in the history of the empire were the armies so largeas those sustained by France in time of peace. Two hundred thousandlegionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled diverse nationsand powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria once boasted of amilitary force equal in the number of soldiers to that wielded byTiberius. Twenty-five legions made the conquest of the world, andretained that conquest for five hundred years. The self-sustained energyof Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush the efforts of all modern generals, except Frederic II. , Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great geniuses which a warlike age developed; nor isthere a better text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesarhimself in his Commentaries. And the great victories of the Romans overbarbarians, over Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians, were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, likethose of Attila and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years. TheRomans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits. Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill inthe most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus were, at home, enervated and luxurious, but, at the head of the legions, werecapable of any privation and fatigue. The Roman legion was a mostperfect organization, a great mechanical force, and could sustainfurious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and public spirit had fled. Forthree hundred years a vast empire was sustained by mechanism alone. 

[Sidenote: The Roman Legion. ]

[Sidenote: Its composition. ]

[Sidenote: The infantry the strength of the legion. ]

[Sidenote: Its armor. ]

[Sidenote: Its weapons. ]

[Sidenote: The cavalry. ]

[Sidenote: Term of military service. ]

The legion is coeval with the foundation of Rome, but the number of thetroops of which it was composed varied at different periods. It rarelyexceeded six thousand men. Gibbon estimates the number at six thousandeight hundred and twenty-six men. For many centuries it was composedexclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year B. C. 107, no one waspermitted to serve among the regular troops except those who wereregarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the stability ofthe republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and after theclose of the Social War, B. C. 87, the whole free population of Italy wasallowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated with thelegion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians filled up theranks, on account of the degeneracy of the times. But during the periodwhen the Romans were conquering the world every citizen was trained toarms, and was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In theearly age of the republic, the legion was disbanded as soon as thespecial service was performed, and was in all essential respects amilitia. For three centuries, we have no record of a Roman armywintering in the field; but when Southern Italy became the seat of war, and especially when Rome was menaced by foreign enemies, and still morewhen a protracted foreign service became inevitable, the same soldiersremained in activity for several years. Gradually the distinctionbetween the soldier and the civilian was entirely obliterated. Thedistant wars of the republic, like the prolonged operations of Caesar inGaul, and the civil contests, made a standing army a necessity. Duringthe civil wars between Caesar and Pompey, the legions were forty innumber; under Augustus but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased themto thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire, from onehundred and fifty to two hundred and forty thousand men, and this wasstationed in the various provinces. The main dependence of the legionwas on the infantry, which wore heavy armor consisting of helmet, breastplate, greaves on the legs, and buckler on the left arm four feetin length and two and a half in width. The helmet was originally made ofleather or skin, strengthened and adorned by bronze or gold, andsurmounted by a crest which was often of horse-hair, and so made as togive an imposing look The crest not only served for ornament but todistinguish the different centurions. The breastplate or cuirass wasgenerally made of metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mailwas also used. The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining ofleather or felt, and reached above the knees. The shield, worn by theheavy-armed infantry, was not round, like that of the Greeks, but ovalor oblong, adapted to the shape of the body, and was made of wood orwicker-work. The weapons were a light spear, a pilum or javelin six feetlong, terminated by a steel point, and a sword with a double edge, adapted to striking or pushing. The legion was drawn up eight deep, andthree feet intervened between rank and file, which disposition gavegreat activity, and made it superior to the Macedonian phalanx, thestrength of which depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes wedgedtogether. The cavalry attached to each legion were three hundred men, and they originally were selected from the leading men in the state. They were mounted at the expense of the state, and formed a distinctorder. The cavalry was divided into ten squadrons; and to each legionwas attached a train of ten military engines of the largest size, andfifty-five of the smaller, --all of which discharged stones and dartswith great effect. This train corresponded with our artillery. Besidesthe armor and weapons of the legionaries they usually carried on theirmarches provisions for two weeks, and three or four stakes used informing the palisade of the camp, beside various tools, --altogether aburden of sixty or eighty pounds per man. The general period of servicefor the infantry was twenty years, after which the soldier received adischarge together with a bounty in money or land. 

[Sidenote: Organization of the legion. ]

[Sidenote: The Hastati. ]

[Sidenote: The Principes and Velites. ]

[Sidenote: The Triarii. ]

[Sidenote: The Pilarii. ]

[Sidenote: The Equites. ]

The Roman legion, whether it was composed of four thousand men, as inthe early ages of the republic or six thousand, as in the time ofAugustus, of was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composedof Hastati, Principes, Triarii, and Velites. The soldiers of the firstline, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, andwere distributed into fifteen companies or maniples. Each companycontained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. Twothirds were heavily armed, and bore the long shield, the remaindercarried only a spear and light javelins. The second line, the Principes, was composed of men in the full vigor of life, divided also into fifteencompanies, all heavily armed, and distinguished by the splendor of theirequipments. The third body, the Triarii, was also composed of triedveterans, in fifteen companies, the least trustworthy of which wereplaced in the rear. These formed three lines. The Velites were light-armed troops, employed on outpost duty, and mingled with the horsemen. The Hastati were so called because they were armed with the hasta; thePrincipes, for being placed so near to the front; the Triarii, fromhaving been arrayed behind the first two lines as a body of reserve, armed with the pilum, thicker and stronger than the Grecian lance, --fourand a half feet long, of wood, with a barbed head of iron, --so that thewhole length of the weapon was six feet nine inches. It was used eitherto throw or thrust with, and when it pierced the enemy's shield, [Footnote: Liv. Viii. 8. ] the iron head was bent, and the spear, owingto the twist in the iron, still held to the shield. [Footnote: Plut. Mar. 25. ] Each soldier carried two of these weapons. [Footnote: Polyb. Vi. 23. ] The Principes were in the front ranks of the phalanx, clad incomplete defensive armor, --men in the vigor of strength. The Pilariiwere in the rear, who threw the heavy pilum over the heads of theircomrades, in order to break the enemy's line. In the time of the empire, when the legion was modified, the infantry wore cuirasses and helmets, and two swords; namely, a long one and a dagger. The select infantrycarried a long spear and a shield, the rest a pilum. Each man carried asaw, a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain, and provisions for three days. The Equites wore helmets and cuirasses, like the infantry, with a broad sword at the right side, and in theirhand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were alsofurnished with a quiver containing three or four javelins. 

[Sidenote: The artillery. ]

[Sidenote: The Testudo. ]

[Sidenote: The Helepolis. ]

[Sidenote: The Turris. ]

[Sidenote: Scailing-ladders. ]

The artillery were used both for hurling missiles in battle, and for theattack of fortresses. The _tormentum_, which was an elasticinstrument, discharged stones and darts, and was continued until thediscovery of gunpowder. In besieging a city, the ram was employed fordestroying the lower part of a wall, and the balista, which dischargedstones, was used to overthrow the battlements. The balista would projecta stone weighing from fifty to three hundred pounds. The _aries_, or battering-ram, consisted of a large beam made of the trunk of a tree, frequently one hundred feet in length, to one end of which was fasteneda mace of iron or bronze, which resembled in form the head of a ram, andwas often suspended by ropes from a beam fixed transversely over it, sothat the soldiers were relieved from supporting its weight, and wereable to give it a rapid and forcible motion backward and forward. Andwhen this machine was further aided by placing a frame in which it wassuspended upon wheels, and constructing over it a roof, so as to form a_testudo_, which protected the besieging party from the assaults ofthe besieged, there was no tower so strong, no wall so thick, as toresist a long-continued attack. Its great length enabled the soldiers towork across the ditch, and as many as one hundred men were oftenemployed upon it. The Romans learned from the Greeks the art of buildingthis formidable engine, which was used with great effect by Alexander, but with still greater by Vespasian in the siege of Jerusalem. It wasfirst used by the Romans in the siege of Syracuse. The _vinea_ wasa sort of roof under which the soldiers protected themselves when theyundermined walls. The _helepolis_, also used in the attack ofcities, was a square tower furnished with all the means of assault. Thisalso was a Greek invention, and that used by Demetrius at the siege ofRhodes, B. C. 306, was one hundred and thirty-five feet high and sixty-eight wide, divided into nine stories. Towers of this description wereused at the siege of Jerusalem, [Footnote: Josephus _B. J. _, ii. 19. ]and were manned by two hundred men employed upon the catapults and rams. The _turris_, a tower of the same class, was used both by Greeks andRomans, and even by Asiatics. Mithridates used one at the siege ofCyzicus one hundred and fifty feet in height. This most formidableengine was generally made of beams of wood covered on three sides withiron and sometimes with raw hides. They were higher than the walls andall the other fortifications of a besieged place, divided into storiespierced with windows. In and upon them were stationed archers andslingers, and in the lower story was a battering-ram. They also carriedscaling-ladders, so that when the wall was cleared, these were placedagainst the walls. They were placed upon wheels, and brought as near thewalls as possible. It was impossible to resist these powerful engines, unless they were burned, or the ground undermined upon which they stood, except by overturning them with stones or iron-shod beams hung from amast on the wall, or by increasing the height of the wall, or theerection of temporary towers on the wall beside them. 

[Sidenote: The advantages of defenders. ]

[Sidenote: Ordinary way of capture. ]

[Sidenote: Strength and advantage of fortresses. ]

Thus there was no ancient fortification capable of withstanding a longsiege when the besieged city was, short of defenders or provisions. Withequal forces an attack was generally a failure, for the defenders hadalways a great advantage. But when the number of defenders was reduced, or when famine pressed, the skill and courage of the assailants wouldultimately triumph. Some ancient cities made a most obstinateresistance, like Tarentum; Carthage, which stood a siege of four years;Numantia in Spain, and Jerusalem. When cities were of immense size, population, and resources, like Rome when besieged by Alaric, it waseasier to take them by cutting off all ingress and egress, so as toproduce famine. Tyre was only taken by Alexander by cutting off theharbor. Babylon could not have been taken by Cyrus by assault, since thewalls were three hundred and thirty-seven feet high, according toHerodotus, and the ditch too wide for the use of battering-rams. Heresorted to an expedient of which the blinded inhabitants of that doomedcity never dreamed, which rendered their impregnable fortificationsuseless. Nor would the Romans have probably prevailed against Jerusalemhad not famine decimated and weakened the people. Fortified cities, though scarcely ever impregnable, were yet more in use in ancient thanmodern times, and greatly delayed the operations of advancing armies. And it was probably the fortified camp of the Romans, which protected anarmy against surprises and other misfortunes, which gave such efficacyto the legions. 

[Sidenote: The Tribunes. ]

[Sidenote: The Centurions. ]

[Sidenote: Gradation of ranks. ]

The chief officers of the legion were the tribunes, and originally therewas one in each legion from the three tribes--the Ramnes, Luceres, andTities. In the time of Polybius the number in each legion was six. Theirauthority extended equally over the whole legion; but, to preventconfusion, it was the custom for these military tribunes to dividethemselves into three sections of two, and each pair undertook theroutine duties for two months out of six. They nominated the centurions, and assigned to each the company to which he belonged. These tribunes, at first, were chosen by the commander-in-chief, --by the kings andconsuls; but during the palmy days of the republic, when the patricianpower was preeminent, they were elected by the people, that is, thecitizens. Later they were named half by the Senate and half by theconsuls. No one was eligible to this great office who had not served tenyears in the infantry or five in the cavalry. They were distinguished bytheir dress from the common soldier. Next in rank to the tribunes, whocorresponded to the rank of brigadiers and colonels in our times, werethe centurions, of whom there were sixty in each legion, --men who weremore remarkable for calmness and sagacity than for courage and daringvalor; men who would keep their posts at all hazards. It was their dutyto drill the soldiers, to inspect arms, clothing, and food, to visit thesentinels, and regulate the conduct of the men. They had the power ofinflicting corporal punishment. They were chosen for merit solely, untilthe later ages of the empire, when their posts were bought, as in theEnglish army. These centurions were of unequal rank, --those of theTriarii before those of the Principes, and those of the Principes beforethose of the Hastati. The first centurion of the first maniple of theTriarii stood next in rank to the tribunes, and had a seat in themilitary councils, and his office was very lucrative. To his charge wasintrusted the eagle of the legion. [Footnote: Liv. Xxv. 5; Caes. _B. C. _, vi. 6. ] As the centurion could rise from the ranks, androse by regular gradation through the different maniples of the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii, there was great inducement held out to thesoldiers. In the Roman legion it would seem that there was a regulargradation of rank although there were but few distinct offices. But thegradation was not determined by length of service, but for merit alone, of which the tribunes were the sole judges. Hence the tribune of a Romanlegion had more power than that of a modern colonel. As the tribunesnamed the centurions, so the centurions appointed their lieutenants, whowere called sub-centurions. 

[Sidenote: Change in the organization of the legions. ]

There was a change in the constitution and disposition of the legionafter the time of Marius, until the fall of the republic. The legionswere thrown open to men of all grades; they were all armed and equippedalike; the lines were reduced to two, with a space between each cohort, of which there were five in each line; the young soldiers were placed inthe rear, and not the van; the distinction between Hastati, Principes, and Triarii ceased; the Velites disappeared, their work being done bythe foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion, and became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed fromthe rest of the state. Formerly no one could aspire to office who hadnot completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero aman could pass through all the great dignities of the state with a verylimited experience of military life. Cicero himself served but onecampaign. 

[Sidenote: Changes under the emperors. ]

[Sidenote: Pay of soldiers. ]

Under the emperors, there were still other changes. The regular armyconsisted of legions and supplementa, --the latter being subdivided intothe imperial guards and the auxiliary troops. The auxiliaries (Socii)consisted of troops from the states in alliance with Rome, or thosecompelled to furnish subsidies. The infantry of the allies was generallymore numerous than that of the Romans, while the cavalry was three timesas numerous. All the auxiliaries were paid by the state; the infantryreceived the same pay as the Roman infantry, but the cavalry only twothirds of what was paid to the Roman cavalry. The common foot-soldierreceived in the time of Polybius three and a half asses a day, equal toabout six farthings sterling money; the horseman three times as much. The Praetorian cohorts received twice as much as the legionaries. JuliusCaesar allowed about six asses a day as the pay of the legionary, andunder Augustus the daily pay was raised to ten asses--little more thanfour pence per day. Domitian raised the stipend still higher. Thesoldier, however, was fed and clothed by the government. 

[Sidenote: The Praetorian cohort. ]

The Praetorian cohort was a select body of troops instituted by Augustusto protect his person, and consisted of ten cohorts, each of onethousand men, chosen from Italy. This number was increased by Vitelliusto sixteen thousand, and they were assembled by Tiberius in a permanentcamp, which was strongly fortified. They had peculiar privileges, andwhen they had served sixteen years, received twenty thousand sesterces, or more than one hundred pounds sterling. Each Praetorian had the rank ofa centurion in the regular army. Like the body-guard of Louis XIV. , theywere all gentlemen, and formed gradually a great power, like thejanissaries at Constantinople, and frequently disposed of the purpleitself. It would thus appear that the centurion only received twice thepay of the ordinary legionary. There was not therefore so muchdifference in rank between a private and a captain as in our day. Therewere no aristocratic distinctions in the ancient world so marked as inthe modern. 

[Sidenote: The Roman camp. ]

[Sidenote: The guardianship of the camp. ]

[Sidenote: The breaking up of the camp. ]

Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without allusion tothe camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman army never haltedfor a single night without forming a regular intrenchment capable ofholding all the fighting men, the beasts of burden, and the baggage. When the army could not retire, during the winter months, into somecity, it was compelled to live in the camp. It was arranged andfortified according to a uniform plan, so that every company andindividual had a place assigned. We cannot tell when this practice ofintrenchment began; it was matured gradually, like all other thingspertaining to the art of war. The system was probably brought toperfection during the wars with Hannibal. Skill in the choice of ground, giving facilities for attack and defense, and for procuring water andother necessities, was of great account with the generals. An area ofabout five thousand square feet was allowed for a company of infantry, and ten thousand feet for a troop of thirty dragoons. The form of a campwas an exact square, the length of each side being two thousand andseventeen feet. There was a space between the ramparts and the tents oftwo hundred feet to facilitate the marching in and out of soldiers, andto guard the cattle and booty. The principal street was one hundred feetwide, and was called Principia. The defenses of the camp consisted of aditch, the earth from which was thrown inwards, and strong palisades ofwooden stakes upon the top of the earthwork so formed. The ditch wassometimes fifteen feet deep, and the vallum or rampart ten feet inheight. When the army encamped for the first time the tribunesadministered an oath to each individual, including slaves, to the effectthat they would steal nothing out of the camp. Every morning atdaybreak, the centurions and the equites presented themselves before thetents of the tribunes, and the tribunes in like manner presentedthemselves to the praetorian, to learn the orders of the consuls, whichthrough the centurions were communicated to the soldiers. Four companiestook charge of the principal street, to see that it was properly cleanedand watered. One company took charge of the tent of the tribune, astrong guard attended to the horses, and another of fifty men stoodbeside the tent of the general that he might be protected from opendanger and secret treachery. The velites mounted guard the whole nightand day along the whole extent of the vallum, and each gate was guardedby ten men. The equites were intrusted with the duty of acting assentinels during the night, and most ingenious measures were adopted tosecure their watchfulness and fidelity. The watchword for the night wasgiven by the commander-in-chief. "On the first signal being given by thetrumpet, the tents were all struck and the baggage packed. At the secondsignal, the baggage was placed upon the beasts of burden; and at thethird the whole army began to move. Then the herald, standing at theright hand of the general, demands thrice if they are ready for war, towhich they all respond with loud and repeated cheers that they areready, and for the most part, being filled with martial ardor, anticipate the question, 'and raise their right hands on high with ashout. '" [Footnote: Smith, _Dict. Of Ant. _, art. _Castra_. ]

[Sidenote: Line of March. ]

Josephus gives an account of the line of march in which the army ofVespasian entered Galilee. "1. The light-armed auxiliaries and bowmen, advancing to reconnoiter. 2. A detachment of Roman heavy-armed troops, horse and foot. 3. Ten men out of every century or company, carryingtheir own equipments and the measures of the camp. 4. The baggage ofVespasian and his legati guarded by a strong body of horse. 5. Vespasianhimself, attended by his horse-guard and a body of spearmen. 6. Thepeculiar cavalry of the legion. 7. The artillery dragged by mules. 8. The legati, tribunes, and praefects of cohorts, guarded by a body ofpicked soldiers. 9. The standards, surrounding the eagle. 10. Thetrumpeters. 11. The main body of the infantry, six abreast, accompaniedby a centurion, whose duty it was to see that the men kept their ranks. 12. The whole body of slaves attached to each legion, driving the mulesand beasts of burden loaded with the baggage. 13. Behind all the legionsfollowed the mercenaries. 14. The rear was brought up by a strong bodyof cavalry and infantry. " [Footnote: Josephus, _B. J. _, iii. 6, Section 2. ]

[Sidenote: Excitements of military life. ]

[Sidenote: Smallness of the Roman armies. ]

[Sidenote: How battles were decided. ]

From what has come down to us of Roman military life, it appears to havebeen full of excitement, toil, danger, and hardship. The pecuniaryrewards of the soldier were small. He was paid in glory. No professionbrought so much honor as the military. And from the undivided attentionof a great people to this profession, it was carried to all theperfection which could be attained until the great invention ofgunpowder changed the art of war. It was not the number of men employedin the armies which particularly arrests attention, but the spirit andgenius which animated them. The Romans loved war, but so reduced it to ascience that it required comparatively small armies to conquer theworld. Sulla defeated Mithridates with only thirty thousand men, whilehis adversary marshaled against him over one hundred thousand; and Caesarhad only ten legions to effect the conquest of Gaul, and none of thesewere of Italian origin. At the great decisive battle of Pharsalia, whenmost of the available forces of the empire were employed, on one side orthe other, Pompey commanded a legionary army of forty-five thousand men;and the cavalry amounted to seven thousand more, but among them wereincluded the flower of the Roman nobility. The auxiliary force has notbeen computed, although it was probably numerous. Caesar had under himonly twenty-two thousand of legionaries and one thousand cavalry. Butevery man in both armies was prepared to conquer or die. The forces wereposted on the open plain, and the battle was really a hand-to-handencounter, in which the soldiers, after hurling their lances, foughtwith their swords chiefly. And when the cavalry of Pompey rushed uponthe legionaries of Caesar, no blows were wasted on the mailed panoply ofthe mounted Romans, but were aimed at the face alone, as that alone wasunprotected. The battle was decided by the coolness, bravery, anddiscipline of veterans, inspired by the genius of the greatest generalof antiquity. Less than one hundred thousand men, in all probability, were engaged in one of the most memorable conflicts which the world hasseen. 

[Sidenote: Gradual organization of military power. ]

[Sidenote: Magnanimity of the early generals. ]

Thus it was, by unparalleled heroism in war, and a uniform policy ingovernment, that Rome became the mistress of the world. The Romanconquests have never been surpassed, for they were retained until theempire fell. I wish that I could have dwelt on these conquests more indetail, and presented more fully the brilliant achievements ofindividuals. It took nearly two hundred years, after the expulsion ofthe kings, to regain supremacy over the neighboring people, and anothercentury to conquer Italy. The Romans did not contend with regular armiesuntil they were brought in conflict with the king of Epirus and thephalanx of the Greeks, "which improved their military tactics, andintroduced between the combatants those mutual regards of civilizednations which teach men to honor their adversaries, to spare thevanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended. " In thefifth century of her existence, the republic appears in peculiarsplendor. Military chieftains do not transcend their trusts; thearistocracy are equally distinguished for exploits and virtues; themagistrates maintain simplicity of manners and protect the rights of thecitizens; the citizens are self-sacrificing and ever ready to obey thecall to arms, laying aside great commands and retiring poor to privatestations. Marcus Valerius Corvus, after filling twenty-one curuleoffices, returns to agricultural life; Marcus Curius Dentatus retains nopart of the rich spoils or the Sabines; Fabricius rejects the gold ofthe Samnites and the presents of Pyrrhus. The most trustworthy areelevated to places of dignity and power. Senators mingle in the ranks ofthe legions, and eighty of them die on the field of Cannae. Discipline isenforced to cruelty, and Manlius Torquatus punishes with death adisobedient son. Soldiers who desert the field are decimated or brandedwith dishonor. Faith is kept even with enemies, and Regulus returns avoluntary prisoner to his deadly enemies. 

[Sidenote: Results of different wars. ]

After the consolidation of Roman power in Italy, it took one hundred andfifty years more only to complete the conquest of the world--of NorthernAfrica, Spain, Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Pontus, Syria, Egypt, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamus, and the islands ofthe Mediterranean. The conquest of Carthage left Rome without a rival inthe Mediterranean, and promoted intercourse with the Greeks. TheIllyrian wars opened to the Romans the road to Greece and Asia, anddestroyed the pirates of the Adriatic. The invasion of Cisalpine Gaul, now that part of Italy which is north of the Apennines, protected Italyfrom the invasion of barbarians. The Macedonian War against Philip putGreece under the protection of Rome, and that against Antiochus laidSyria at her mercy; and when these kingdoms were reduced to provinces, the way was opened to further conquests in the East, and theMediterranean became a Roman lake. 

[Sidenote: Effect of Roman conquests on society. ]

[Sidenote: Degeneracy of morals undermines military power. ]

But these conquests introduce luxury, wealth, pride, and avarice, witharts, refinements, and literature. These degrade while they elevate. Civilization becomes the alternate triumph of good and evil influences, and a doubtful boon. Successful war creates great generals, and foundsgreat families, increases slavery, and promotes inequalities. Demagoguesarise who seduce and deceive the people, and they enroll themselvesunder the standards of their idols. Rome is governed by an oligarchy ofmilitary chieftains, and has become more aristocratic and moredemocratic at the same time. The people gain rights, only to yield tothe supremacy of demagogues. The Senate is humbled, but remains theascendant power, for generals compose it, and those who have held greatoffices. Meanwhile the great generals struggle for supremacy. Civil warsfollow in the train of foreign conquests. Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Julius, Antony, Augustus, sacrifice the state to their ambition. Good menlament, and protest, and hide themselves. Cato, Cicero, Brutus, speak invain. Degenerate morals keep pace with civil contests. Rome revels inthe spoils of all kingdoms and countries, is intoxicated with power, becomes cruel and tyrannical, and, after yielding up the lives ofcitizens to fortunate generals, yields at last her liberties, andimperial despotism begins its reign, --hard, immovable, resolute, --underwhich genius is crushed, and life becomes epicurean, but under whichproperty and order are preserved. The regime is bad; but it is a changefor the better. War has produced its fruits. It has added empire, butundermined prosperity; it has created a great military monarchy, butdestroyed liberty; it has brought wealth, but introduced inequalities;it has filled the city with spoils, but sown the vices of self-interest. The machinery is perfect, but life has fled. It is henceforth the laborof emperors to keep together their vast possessions with this machinery, which at last wears out, since there is neither genius to repair it norpatriotism to work it. It lasts three hundred years, but is broken topieces by the Goths and Vandals. 

 * * * * *

The highest authority in relation to the construction of an army isPolybius, who was contemporary with Scipio, at a period when Romandiscipline was most perfect. A fragment from his sixth book givesconsiderable information. A chapter of Livy--the eighth--is also verymuch prized. Salmasius and Lepsius have also written learned treatises. Smith's Dictionary, which is full of details in every thing pertainingto the weapons, the armor, the military engines, the rewards andpunishments of the soldiers, refers to Folard's _Commentaire_, to_Memoires Militaires sur les Grecs et les Remains_, by Guischard, and to the _Histoire des Campagnes d'Hannibal en Italie_, byVaudencourt. Tacitus, Sallust, Livy, Dion Cassius, Pliny, and Caesarreveal incidentally much that we wish to know. Gibbon gives someimportant facts in his first chapter. The subject of ancient machines istreated by Folard's Commentary attached to his translation of Polybius. Caesar's Commentaries give us, after all, the liveliest idea of themilitary habits and tactics of the Romans. Josephus describes with greatvividness the siege of Jerusalem. The article on _Exercitus_, byProf. Ramsay, in Smith's Dictionary, is the fullest I have readpertaining to the structure of a Roman army. 

For the narrative of wars, the reader is referred to ordinary Romanhistories--to Livy and Caesar especially; to Niebuhr, Mommsen, Arnold, and Liddell. See also Durny, _Hist. Des Romains;_ Michelet, _Hist. De Rom. _ Napoleon's History of Caesar should be read, admirable in style, and interesting in matter, although a sophisticaldefense of usurpation. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE MATERIAL GRANDEUR AND GLORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

To the eye of an ancient traveler there must have been something verygrand and impressive in the external aspects of wealth and power whichthe Roman Empire, in the period of its greatest glory, presented inevery city and province. It will therefore be my aim in this chapter topresent those objects of pride and strength which appealed to the sensesof an ordinary observer, and such as would first arrest his attentionwere he to describe the wonders he beheld to those who were imperfectlyacquainted with them. 

[Sidenote: Culmination of Roman greatness. ]

It is generally admitted that Roman greatness culminated during thereigns of the Antonines, about the middle of the second century of theChristian era. At that period we perceive the highest triumphs ofmaterial civilization and the proudest spirit of panegyric and self-confidence. To the eye of contemporaries it seemed that Rome wasdestined to be the mistress of the world forever. 

[Sidenote: Extent of the empire. ]

[Sidenote: Square miles. ]

[Sidenote: Seas and rivers. ]

[Sidenote: Boundaries. ]

[Sidenote: Scandinavia. ]

[Sidenote: Sarmatia. ]

[Sidenote: Mountains. ]

We naturally glance, in the first place, to the extent of that vastempire which has had no parallel in ancient or modern times, and whichwas erected on the ruins of all the powerful states of antiquity. It wasa most wonderful centralization of power, spreading its arms of hopelessdespotism from the Pillars of Hercules to the Caspian Sea; from theRhine and the Danube to the Euphrates and Tigris; from the forests ofSarmatia to the deserts of Africa. The empire extended three thousandmiles from east to west, and two thousand from north to south. Itstretched over thirty-five degrees of latitude, and sixty-five oflongitude, and embraced within its limits nearly all the seas, lakes, and gulfs which commerce explored. It contained 1, 600, 000 square miles, for the most part cultivated, and populated by peoples in various stagesof civilization, some of whom were famous for arts and wealth, and couldboast of heroes and cities, --of a past history brilliant and impressive. In nearly the centre of this great empire was Mediterranean Sea, whichwas only, as it were, an inland lake, upon whose shores the great citiesof antiquity had flourished, and towards which the tide of Assyrian andPersian conquests had rolled and then retreated forever. The greatrivers--the Nile, the Po, and the Danube--flowed into this basin and itsconnecting seas, wafting the produce of distant provinces to the greatcentral city on the Tiber. The boundaries of the empire were greatoceans, deserts, and mountains, beyond which it was difficult to extendor to retain conquests. On the west was the Atlantic Ocean, unknown andunexplored--that mysterious expanse of waters which filled navigatorswith awe and dread, and which was not destined to be crossed until thestars should cease to be the only guide. On the northwest was theundefined region of Scandinavia, into which the Roman arms neverpenetrated, peopled by those barbarians who were to be the futureconquerors of Rome, and the creators of a new and more gloriouscivilization, --those Germanic tribes which, under different names, hadsubstantially the same manners, customs, and language, --a race moreunconquerable and heroic than the Romans themselves, the future lords ofmediaeval Europe, the ancestors of the English, the French, theSpaniards, and the Germans. On the northwest were the Sarmatians andScythians--Sclavonic tribes, able to conquer, but not to reconstruct;savages repulsive and hideous even to the Goths themselves. On the eastlay the Parthian empire, separated from Roman territories by theEuphrates, the Tigris, and the Armenian mountains. The Caucasian rangebetween the Euxine and the Caspian seas presented an insuperablebarrier, as did the deserts of Arabia to the Roman legions. The Atlas, the African desert, and the cataracts of the Nile formed the southernboundaries. The vulnerable part of the empire lay between the Danube andRhine, from which issued, in successive waves, the Germanic foes ofRome. To protect the empire against their incursions, the Emperor Probusconstructed a wall, which, however, proved but a feeble defense. 

[Sidenote: Provinces. ]

[Sidenote: Results of successive conquests. ]

[Sidenote: Vastness of the political power. ]

[Sidenote: Empire universal. ]

This immense empire was divided into thirty-six provinces, exclusive ofItaly, each of which was governed by a proconsul. The most important ofthese were Spain, Gaul, Sicily, Achaia, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. Gaul was more extensive than modern France. Achaia included Greece andthe Ionian Islands. The empire embraced the modern states of England, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Styria, the Tyrol, Hungary, Egypt, Morocco, Algiers, and the empire of Turkeyboth in Europe and Asia. It took the Romans nearly five hundred years tosubdue the various states of Italy, the complete subjugation of whichtook place with the fall of Tarentum, a Grecian city, which introducedGrecian arts and literature. Sicily, the granary of Rome, was the nextconquest, the fruit of the first Punic War. The second Punic War addedto the empire Sardinia, Corsica, and the two Spanish provinces of Baeticaand Tarraconensis--about two thirds of the peninsula--fertile in theproductions of the earth, and enriched by mines of silver and gold, andpeopled by Iberians and Celts. The rich province of Illyricum was addedto the empire about one hundred and eighty years before Christ. Beforethe battle of Actium, the empire extended over Achaia, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Narbonensic Gaul, Cyrenaica, Crete, Cilicia, Cyprus, Bithynia, Syria, Aquitania, Belgic and Celtic Gaul. Augustus addedEgypt, Lusitania, Numidia, Galatia, the Maritime Alps, Noricum, Vindelicia, Rhaetia, Pannonia, and Mosia. Tiberius increased the empireby the addition of Cappadocia. Claudius incorporated the twoMauritanias, Lycia, Judaea, Thrace, and Britain. Nero added Pontus. Thesevarious and extensive countries had every variety of climate andproductions, and boasted of celebrated cities. They composed most of theprovinces known to the ancients west of the Euphrates, and togetherformed an empire in comparison with which the Assyrian and Egyptianmonarchies, and even the Grecian conquests, were vastly inferior. TheSaracenic conquests in the Middle Ages were not to be compared withthese, and the great empires of Charlemagne and Napoleon could beincluded in less than half the limits. What a proud position it was tobe a Roman emperor, whose will was the law over the whole civilizedworld! Well may the Roman empire be called universal, since itcontrolled all the nations of the earth known to the Greeks. It was thevastest centralization of power which this world has seen, or probablywill ever see, extending nearly over the whole of Europe, and the finestparts of Asia and Africa. We are amazed that a single city of Italycould thus occupy with her armies and reign supremely over so manydiverse countries and nations, speaking different languages, and havingdifferent religions and customs. And when we contemplate this greatfact, we cannot but feel that it was a providential event, designed forsome grand benefit to the human race. That benefit was the preparationfor the reception of a new and universal religion. No system of "balanceof power, " no political or military combinations, no hostilities couldprevent the absorption of the civilized world in the empire of theCaesars. 

[Sidenote: The Mediterranean the centre of the empire. ]

If we more particularly examine this great empire, we observe that itwas substantially composed of the various countries and kingdoms whichbordered on the Mediterranean, and those other seas with which it wasconnected. Roman power was scarcely felt on the shores of the Baltic, orthe eastern coasts of the Euxine, or on the Arabian and Persian gulfs. The central part of the empire was Italy, the province which was firstconquered, and most densely populated. It was the richest in art, incities, in commerce, and in agriculture. 

[Sidenote: Italy. ]

[Sidenote: Natural productions. ]

[Sidenote: Population. ]

[Sidenote: Cities. ]

[Sidenote: Italian Cities. ]

[Sidenote: Memorable cities. ]

Italy itself was no inconsiderable state--a beautiful peninsula, extending six hundred and sixty geographical miles from the foot of theAlps to the promontory of Leucopetra. Its greatest breadth is about onehundred and thirty miles. It was always renowned for beauty andfertility. Its climate on the south was that of Greece, and on the norththat of the south of France. The lofty range of the Apennines extendedthrough its entire length, while the waters of the Mediterranean and theAdriatic tempered and varied its climate. Its natural advantages wereunequaled, with a soil favorable to agriculture, to the culture offruits, and the rearing of flocks. Its magnificent forests furnishedtimber for ships; its rich pastures fed innumerable sheep, goats, cattle, and horses; its olive groves were nowhere surpassed; itsmountains contained nearly every kind of metals; its coasts furnished agreat variety of fish; while its mineral springs supplied luxuriousbaths. There were no extremes of heat and cold; the sky was clear andserene; the face of the country was a garden. It was a paradise to theeye of Virgil and Varro, the most favored of all the countries ofantiquity in those productions which sustain the life of man or beast. The plains of Lombardy furnished maize and rice; oranges grew to greatperfection on the Ligurian coast; aloes and cactuses clothed the rocksof the southern provinces; while the olive and the grape abounded inevery section. The mineral wealth of Italy was extolled by the ancientwriters, and the fisheries were as remarkable as agricultural products. The population numbered over four millions who were free, and couldfurnish seven hundred thousand foot and seventy thousand horse for thearmies of the republic, if they were all called into requisition. Thewhole country was dotted with beautiful villas and farms, as well asvillages and cities. It contained twelve hundred cities or large townswhich had municipal privileges. Mediolanum, now Milan, the chief city inCisalpine Gaul, in the time of Ambrose, was adorned with palaces andtemples and baths. It was so populous that it lost it is said at onetime three hundred thousand male citizens in the inroads of the Goths. It was surrounded with a double range of walls, and the houses wereelegantly built. It was also celebrated as the seat of learning andculture. Verona had an amphitheatre of marble, whose remains are amongthe most striking monuments of antiquity, capable of seating twenty-twothousand people. Ravenna, near the mouth of the Padus (Po), built onpiles, was a great naval depot, and had an artificial harbor capable ofcontaining two hundred and fifty ships of war, and was the seat ofgovernment after the fall of the empire. Padua counted among itsinhabitants five hundred Roman knights, and was able to send twentythousand men into the field. Aquileia was a great emporium of the tradein wine, oil, and salted provisions. Pola had a magnificentamphitheatre. Luna, now Spezzia, was famous for white marbles, and forcheeses which often weighed a thousand pounds. Arutium, now Avezzo, anEtrurian city, was celebrated for its potteries, many beautifulspecimens of which now ornament the galleries of Florence. Cortona hadwalls of massive thickness, which can be traced to the Pelasgians. Clusium, the capital of Porsenna, had a splendid mausoleum. Volsiniiboasted of two thousand statues. Veii had been the rival of Rome. InUmbria, we may mention Sarsina, the birthplace of Plautus; Mevania, thebirthplace of Propertius; and Sentinum, famous for the self-devotion ofDecius. In Picenum were Ancona, celebrated for its purple dye; andPicenum, surrounded by walls and inaccessible heights, memorable for asiege against Pompey. Of the Sabine cities were Antemnae, more ancientthan Rome; Nomentum, famous for wine; Regillum, the birthplace of AppiusClaudius, the founder of the great Claudian family; Reate, famous forasses, which sometimes brought the enormous price of 60, 000 sesterces, about $2320; Cutiliae, celebrated for its mineral waters; and Alba, inwhich captives of rank were secluded. In Latium were Ostia, the seaportof Rome; Laurentum, the capital of Latinus; Lavinium, fabled to havebeen founded by Aeneas; Lanuvium, the birthplace of Roscius and theAntonines; Alba Longa, founded four hundred years before Rome; Tusculum, where Cicero had his villa; Tibur, whose temple was famous throughItaly; Praeneste, now Palestrio, remarkable for its citadel and itstemple of Fortune; Antium, to which Coriolanus retired after hisbanishment, a favorite residence of Augustus, and the birthplace ofNero, celebrated also for a magnificent temple, amid whose ruins wasfound the Apollo Belvidere; Forum Appii, mentioned by St. Paul, fromwhich travelers on the Appian Way embarked on a canal; Arpinum, thebirthplace of Cicero; Aquium, where Juvenal and Thomas Aquinas wereborn, famous for a purple dye; Formiae, a favorite residence of Cicero. In Campania were Cumae, the abode of the Sibyl; Misenum, a great navalstation; Baiae, celebrated for its spas and villas; Puteoli, famous forsulphur springs; Neapolis, the abode of literary idlers; Herculaneum andPompeii, destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius; Capua, the capital ofCampania, and inferior to Rome alone; and Salernum, a great militarystronghold. In Samnium were Bovianum, a very opulent city; Beneventum, and Sepinum. In Apulia were Sarinum; Venusia, the birthplace of Horace;Cannae, memorable for the great victory of Hannibal; Brundusium, a cityof great antiquity on the Adriatic, and one of the great naval stationsof the Romans; and Tarentum, the rival of Brundusium, a great militarystronghold. In Lucania were Metapontum, at one time the residence ofPythagoras; Heraclea, the seat of a general council; Sybaris, which oncewas the mistress of twenty-five dependent cities, fifty stadia incircumference, and capable of sending an army of three hundredthousand [Footnote: Anthon, _Geog_. _Diet_. ] men into the field, --a city so prosperous and luxurious that the very name ofSybarite was synonymous with voluptuousness. 

[Sidenote: Pompeii. ]

Such were among the principal cities of Italy. More than two hundred andfifty towns or cities are historical, and were famous for the residenceof great men, or for wines, wool, dyes, and various articles of luxury. The ruins of Pompeii prove it to have been a city of great luxury andelegance. The excavations, which have brought to light the wonders ofthis buried city, attest a very high material civilization; yet it wasonly a second-rate provincial town, of which not much is commemorated inhistory. It was simply a resort for Roman nobles who had villas in itsneighborhood. It was surrounded with a wall, and was built with greatregularity. Its streets were paved, and it had its forum, itsamphitheatre, its theatre, its temples, its basilicas, its baths, itsarches, and its monuments. The basilica was two hundred and twenty feetin length by eighty feet in width, the roof of which was supported bytwenty-eight Ionic columns. The temple of Venus was profusely ornamentedwith paintings. One of the theatres was built of marble, and was capableof seating five thousand spectators, and the amphitheatre would seat tenthousand. 

[Sidenote: Sicily and Sardinia. ]

[Sidenote: Richness of Sicily. ]

[Sidenote: Syracuse. ]

But Italy, so grand in cities, so varied in architectural wonders, sofertile in soil, so salubrious in climate, so rich in minerals, soprolific in fruits and vegetables and canals, was only a small part ofthe empire of the Caesars. The Punic wars, undertaken soon after theexpulsion of Pyrrhus, resulted in the acquisition of Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, from which the Romans were supplied with inexhaustiblequantities of grain, and in the creation of a great naval power. Sicily, the largest island of the Mediterranean, was not inferior to Italy inany kind of produce. It was, it was supposed, the native country ofwheat. Its honey, its saffron, its sheep, its horses, were all equallycelebrated. The island, intersected by numerous streamy and beautifulvalleys, was admirably adapted for the growth of the vine and olive. Itscolonies, founded by Phoenicians and Greeks, cultivated all the arts ofcivilization. Long before the Roman conquest, its cities were famous forlearning and art. Syracuse, a Corinthian colony, as old as Rome, had afortress a mile in length and half a mile in breadth; a temple of Dianawhose doors were celebrated throughout the Grecian world, and a theatrewhich could accommodate twenty-four thousand people. No city in Greece, except Athens, can produce structures which vie with those of which theremains are still visible at Agrigentum, Selinus, and Segesta. 

[Sidenote: Carthage. ]

Africa was one of the great provinces of the empire. It virtuallyembraced the Carthaginian empire, and was settled chiefly by thePhoenicians. Its capital, Carthage, so long the rival of Rome, wasprobably the greatest maritime mart of antiquity, next to Alexandria. Though it had been completely destroyed, yet it became under theemperors no inconsiderable city, and was the capital of a belt ofterritory extending one hundred and sixty miles, from the Pillars ofHercules to the bottom of the great Syrtis, unrivaled for fertility. Itspopulation once numbered seven hundred thousand inhabitants, and ruledover three hundred dependent cities, and could boast of a navy carryingone hundred and fifty thousand men. 

[Sidenote: The richness of Greece. ]

Greece, included under the province called Achaia, was the next greatconquest of the Romans, the fruit of the Macedonian wars. Though smallin territory, it was the richest of all the Roman acquisitions in itsresults on civilization. The great peninsula to which Hellas belongedextended from the Euxine to the Adriatic; but Hellas proper was not morethan two hundred and fifty miles in length and one hundred and eighty inbreadth. Attica contained but seven hundred and twenty square miles, yethow great in associations, deeds, and heroes! When added to the empire, it was rich in every element of civilization, in cities, in arts, inliterature, in commerce, in manufactures, in domestic animals, infruits, in cereals. It was a mountainous country, but had an extensivesea-coast, and a flourishing trade with all the countries of the world. Almost all the Grecian states had easy access to the sea, and each ofthe great cities were isolated from the rest by lofty mountainsdifficult to surmount. But the Roman arms and the Roman laws penetratedto the most inaccessible retreats. 

[Sidenote: Her monuments and arts and schools. ]

In her political degradation, Greece still was the most interestingcountry on the globe. Every city had a history; every monument betokeneda triumph of human genius. On her classic soil the great miracles ofcivilization had been wrought--the immortal teacher of all the nationsin art, in literature, in philosophy, in war itself. Every cultivatedRoman traveled in Greece; every great noble sent his sons to be educatedin her schools; every great general sent to the banks of the Tiber somememento of her former greatness, some wonder of artistic skill. Thewonders of Rome herself were but spoliations of this glorious land. 

[Sidenote: The glory of Athens. ]

[Sidenote: Temples. ]

First in interest and glory was Athens, which was never more splendidthan in the time of the Antonines. The great works of the age ofPericles still retained their original beauty and freshness; and thecity of Minerva still remained the centre of all that was elegant orlearned of the ancient civilization, and was held everywhere in theprofoundest veneration. There still flourished the various schools ofphilosophy, to which young men from all parts of the empire resorted tobe educated--the Oxford and the Edinburgh, the Berlin and Paris of theancient world. In spite of successive conquests, there still toweredupon the Acropolis the temple of Minerva, that famous Parthenon whosearchitectural wonders have never been even equaled, built of Pentelicmarble, and adorned with the finest sculptures of Pheidias--a Dorictemple, whose severe simplicity and matchless beauty have been thewonder of all ages--often imitated, never equaled, majestic even in itsruins. Side by side, on that lofty fortification in the centre of thecity, on its western slope, was the Propylaea, one of the masterpieces ofancient art, also of Pentelic marble, costing 2000 talents, or$23, 000, 000[Footnote: Smith, Geog. Diet. ] when gold was worth more thantwenty times what it is now. Then there was the Erechtheum, the templeof Athena Polias, the most revered of all the sanctuaries of Athens, with its three Ionic porticos, and its frieze of black marble, with itsolive statue of the goddess, and its sacred inclosures. The great templeof Zeus Olympius, commenced by Peisistratus and completed by Hadrian, the largest ever dedicated to the deity among the Greeks, was fourstadia in circumference. It was surrounded by a peristyle which had tencolumns in front and twenty on its sides. The peristyle being double onthe sides, and having a triple range at either end, besides threecolumns between the antae at each end of the cella, consisted altogetherof one hundred and twenty columns. These were sixty feet high and sixand a half feet in diameter, the largest which now remain of ancientarchitecture in marble, or which still exist in Europe. This vast templewas three hundred and fifty-four feet in length and one hundred andseventy-one in breadth, and was full of statues. The ruins of thistemple, of which sixteen columns are still standing, are among the mostimposing in the world, and indicate a grandeur and majesty in the cityof which we can scarcely conceive. The theatre of Bacchus, the mostbeautiful in the ancient world, would seat thirty thousand spectators. Ineed not mention the various architectural monuments of this classiccity, each of which was a study--the Temple of Theseus, the Agora, theOdeum, the Areopagus, the Gymnasium of Hadrian, the Lyceum, and otherbuildings of singular beauty, built mostly of marble, and adorned withpaintings and statues. What work of genius in the whole world moreinteresting than the ivory and gold statue of Athena in the Parthenon, the masterpiece of Pheidias, forty feet high, the gold of which weighedforty talents, --a model for all succeeding sculptors, and to see whichtravelers came from all parts of Greece? Athens, a city of five hundredthousand inhabitants, was filled with wonders of art, which time has notyet fully destroyed. 

[Sidenote: Corinth. ]

[Sidenote: The wonders of Corinth. ]

[Sidenote: Its luxury. ]

Corinth was another grand centre of Grecian civilization, richer andmore luxurious than Athens. When taken by the Romans she possessed themost valuable pictures in Greece. Among them was one of Dionysus byAristides for which Attalus offered 600, 000 sesterces. Rich commercialcities have ever been patrons of the fine arts. These they canappreciate better than poetry or philosophy. The Corinthians inventedthe most elaborate style of architecture known to antiquity, and whichwas generally adopted at Rome. They were also patrons of statuary, especially of works in bronze, for which the city was celebrated. TheCorinthian, vessels of terra cotta were the finest in Greece. Allarticles of elegant luxury were manufactured here, especially elaboratetables, chests, and sideboards. If there had been a great exhibition inRome, the works of the Corinthians would have been the most admired, andwould have suited the taste of the luxurious senators, among whomliterature and the higher developments of art were unappreciated. Therewas no literature in Corinth after Periander, and among the illustriouswriters of Greece not a single Corinthian appeared. Nor did it everproduce an orator. What could be expected of a city whose patron goddesswas Aphrodite! But Lais was honored in the city, and rich merchantsfrequented her house. The city was most famous for courtesans, andfemale slaves, and extravagant luxury. It was like Antioch and Tyre andCarthage. Corinth was probably the richest city in Greece, and one ofthe largest. It had, it is said, four hundred and sixty thousand slaves. Its streets, three miles in length, were adorned with costly edifices. Its fortress was one thousand eight hundred and eighty-six feet abovethe sea and very strong. 

[Sidenote: Sparta. ]

Sparta, of historic fame, was not magnificent except in publicbuildings. It had a famous portico, the columns of which, of whitemarble, represented the illustrious persons among the vanquished Medes. 

[Sidenote: Olympia. ]

Olympia, the holy city, was celebrated for its temple and itsconsecrated garden, where stood some of the great masterpieces ofancient, art, among them the famous statue of Jupiter, the work ofPheidias, --an impersonation of majesty and power, --a work whichfurnished models from which Michael Angelo drew his inspiration. 

[Sidenote: Delphi. ]

Delphi, another consecrated city, was enriched with the contributions ofall Greece, and was the seat of the Dorian religion. So rich were theshrines of its oracle that Nero carried away from it five hundredstatues of bronze at one time. 

[Sidenote: Greece enriches Rome. ]

Such was Greece, every city of which was famous for art, or literature, or commerce, or manufacture, or for deeds which live in history. It hadestablished a great empire in the East, but fell, like all otherconquering nations, from the luxury which conquest engendered. It was nolonger able to protect itself. Its phalanx, which resisted the shock ofthe Persian hosts, yielded to the all-conquering legion. When AemiliusPaulus marched up the Via Sacra with the spoils of the Macedoniankingdom in his grand and brilliant triumph, he was preceded by twohundred and fifty wagons containing pictures and statues, and threethousand men, each carrying a vase of silver coin, and four hundred morebearing crowns of gold. Yet this was but the commencement of the plunderof Greece. 

[Sidenote: Islands colonized by Greeks. ]

And not merely Greece herself, but the islands which she had colonizedformed no slight addition to the glories of the empire. Rhodes was theseat of a famous school for sculpture and painting, from which issuedthe Laocoon and the Farnese Bull. It contained three thousand statuesand one hundred and six colossi, among them the famous statue of thesun, one hundred and five feet high, one of the seven wonders of theworld, containing 3000 talents--more than 3, 000, 000 dollars. Its schoolof rhetoric was so celebrated that Cicero resorted to it to perfecthimself in oratory. 

[Sidenote: Asia Minor. ]

[Sidenote: Its extent. ]

[Sidenote: Cities. ]

[Sidenote: Antioch. ]

If we pass from Greece to Asia Minor and Syria, with their dependentprovinces, all of which were added to the empire by the victories ofSulla and Pompey, we are still more impressed with the extent of theRoman rule. Asia Minor, a vast peninsula between the Mediterranean, Aegean, and Euxine seas, included several of the old monarchies of theworld. It extended from Ilium on the west to the banks of the Euphrates, from the northern parts of Bithynia and Pontus to Syria and Cilicia, nine hundred miles from east to west, and nearly three hundred fromnorth to south. It was the scene of some of the grandest conquests ofthe oriental world, Babylonian, Persian, and Grecian. Syria embraced allcountries from the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean to the Arabiandeserts. No conquests of the Romans were attended with more eclat thanthe subjection of these wealthy and populous sections of the orientalworld; and they introduced a boundless wealth and luxury into Italy. Butin spite of the sack of cities and the devastations of armies, the oldmonarchy of the Seleucidae remained rich and grand. Both Syria and AsiaMinor could boast of large and flourishing cities, as well as every kindof luxury and art. Antioch was the third city in the empire, the capitalof the Greek kings of Syria, and like Alexandria a monument of theMacedonian age. It was built on a regular and magnificent plan, andabounded in temples and monuments. Its most striking feature was astreet four miles in length, perfectly level, with double colonnadesthrough its whole length, built by Antiochus Epiphanes. In magnitude thecity was not much inferior to Paris at the present day, and covered moreland than Rome. It had its baths, its theatres and amphitheatres, itsfora, its museums, its aqueducts, its temples, and its palaces. It wasthe most luxurious of all the cities of the East, and had a populationof three hundred thousand who were free. In the latter clays of theempire it was famous as the scene of the labors of Chrysostom. 

[Sidenote: Ephesus. ]

Ephesus, one of the twelve of the Ionian cities in Asia, was the gloryof Lydia, --a sacred city of which the temple of Diana was the greatestornament. This famous temple was four times as large as the Parthenon, and covered as much ground as Cologne Cathedral, and was two hundred andtwenty years in building. It had one hundred and twenty-eight columnssixty feet high, of which thirty-six were carved, each contributed by aking--the largest of all the Grecian temples, and probably the mostsplendid. It was a city of great trade and wealth. Its theatre was thelargest in the world, six hundred and sixty feet in diameter, [Footnote:Muller, _Anc. Art. _] and capable of holding sixty thousandspectators. Ephesus gave birth to Apelles the painter, and was themetropolis of five hundred cities. 

[Sidenote: Jerusalem. ]

[Sidenote: The Temple. ]

[Sidenote: The Acropolis. ]

Jerusalem, so dear to Christians as the most sacred spot on earth, inclosed by lofty walls and towers, not so beautiful or populous as inthe days of Solomon and David, was, before its destruction by Titus, oneof the finest cities of the East. Its royal palace, surrounded by a wallthirty cubits high, with decorated towers at equal intervals, containedenormous banqueting halls and chambers most profusely ornamented; andthis palace, magnificent beyond description, was connected with porticosand gardens filled with statues and reservoirs of water. It occupied alarger space than the present fortress, from the western edge of MountZion to the present garden of the Armenian Convent. The Temple, sofamous, was small compared with the great wonders of Grecianarchitecture, being only about one hundred and fifty feet by seventy;but its front was covered with plates of gold, and some of the stones ofwhich it was composed were more than sixty feet in length and nine inwidth. Its magnificence consisted in its decorations and the vastquantity of gold and precious woods used in its varied ornaments, andvessels of gold, so as to make it one of the most costly edifices evererected to the worship of God. The Acropolis, which was the fortress ofthe Temple, combined the strength of a castle with the magnificence of apalace, and was like a city in extent, towering seventy cubits above theelevated rock upon which it was built. So strongly fortified wasJerusalem, even in its latter days, that it took Titus five months, withan army of one hundred thousand men, to subdue it; one of the mostmemorable sieges on record. It probably would have held out against thewhole power of Rome, had not famine done more than battering rams. 

[Sidenote: Damascus and other cities. ]

Many other interesting cities might be mentioned both in Syria and AsiaMinor, which were centres of trade, or seats of philosophy, or homes ofart. Tarsus in Cilicia was a great mercantile city, to which strangersfrom all parts resorted. Damascus, the oldest city in the world, and theold capital of Syria, was both beautiful and rich. Laodicea was famousfor tapestries, Hierapolis for its iron wares, Cybara for its dyes, Sardis for its wines, Smyrna for its beautiful monuments, Delos for itsslave-trade, Gyrene for its horses, Paphos for its temple of Venus, inwhich were a hundred altars. Seleucia, on the Tigris, had a populationof four hundred thousand. Caesarea, founded by Herod the Great, and theprincipal seat of government to the Roman prefects, had a harbor equalin size to the renowned Piraeus, and was secured against the southwestwinds by a mole of such massive construction that the blocks of stone, sunk under the water, were fifty feet in length and eighteen in width, and nine in thickness. [Footnote: Josephus, _Ant_. , xv. ] The cityitself was constructed of polished stone, with an agora, a theatre, acircus, a praetorium, and a temple to Caesar. Tyre, which had resisted forseven months the armies of Alexander, remained to the fall of the empirea great emporium of trade. It monopolized the manufacture of imperialpurple. Sidon was equally celebrated for its glass and embroideredrobes. The Sidonians cast glass mirrors, and imitated precious stones. But the glory of both Tyre and Sidon was in ships, which visited all thecoasts of the Mediterranean, and even penetrated to Britain and India. 

[Sidenote: Egypt. ]

[Sidenote: Its ancient grandeur. ]

[Sidenote: Glories of Egypt. ]

[Sidenote: Thebes. ]

But greater than Tyre, or Antioch, or any eastern city, was Alexandria, the capital of Egypt, which was one of the last provinces added to theempire. Egypt alone was a mighty monarchy--the oldest which historycommemorates, august in records and memories. What pride, what pomp, what glory are associated with the land of the Pharaohs, with its mightyriver reaching to the centre of a great continent, flowing thousands ofmiles to the sea, irrigating and enriching the most fertile valley ofthe world! What noble and populous cities arose upon its banks threethousand years before Roman power was felt! What enduring monumentsremain of a its ancient very ancient yet extinct civilization! Whatsuccessive races of conquerors have triumphed in the granite palaces ofThebes and Memphis! Old, sacred, rich, populous, and learned, Egyptbecomes a province of the Roman empire. The sceptre of three hundredkings passes from Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, to AugustusCaesar, the conqueror at Actium; and six millions of different races, once the most civilized on the earth, are amalgamated with the otherraces and peoples which compose the universal monarchy. At one time themilitary force of Egypt is said to have amounted to seven hundredthousand men, in the period of its greatest prosperity. The annualrevenues of this state under the Ptolemies amounted to about 17, 000, 000dollars in gold and silver, beside the produce of the earth. A singlefeast cost Philadelphus more than half a million of pounds sterling, andhe had accumulated treasures to the amount of 740, 000 talents, or about860, 000, 000 dollars. [Footnote: Napoleon, _Life of Caesar_. ] WhatEuropean monarch ever possessed such a sum? The kings of Egypt werericher in the gold and silver they could command than Louis XIV. , in theproudest hour of his life. What monarchs ever reigned with more absolutepower than the kings of this ancient seat of learning and art! Thefoundation of Thebes goes back to the mythical period of Egyptianhistory, and it covered as much ground as Rome or Paris, equally thecentre of religion, of trade, of manufactures, and of government, --thesacerdotal capital of all who worshiped Ammon from Pelusium to Axume, from the Red Sea to the Oases of Libya. The palaces of Thebes, thoughruins two thousand years ago as they are ruins now, were the largest andprobably the most magnificent ever erected by the hand of man. What mustbe thought of a palace whose central hall was eighty feet in height, three hundred and twenty-five feet in length, and one hundred andseventy-nine in breadth; the roof of which was supported by one hundredand thirty-four columns, eleven feet in diameter and seventy-six feet inheight, with their pedestals; and where the cornices of the finestmarble were inlaid with ivory moldings or sheathed with beaten gold! ButI do not now refer to the glories of Egypt under Sesostris or Rameses, but to what they were when Alexandria was the capital of the country, --what it was under the Roman domination. 

[Sidenote: Extent and population of Alexandria. ]

[Sidenote: Library. ]

[Sidenote: Public buildings. ]

[Sidenote: Commerce. ]

The ground-plan of this great city was traced by Alexander himself, butit was not completed until the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Itcontinued to receive embellishments from nearly every monarch of theLagian line. Its circumference was about fifteen miles; the streets wereregular, and crossed one another at right angles, and were wide enoughto admit both carriages and foot passengers. The harbor was large enoughto admit the largest fleet ever constructed; its walls and gates wereconstructed with all the skill and strength known to antiquity; itspopulation numbered six hundred thousand, and all nations wererepresented in its crowded streets. The wealth of the city may beinferred from the fact that in one year 6250 talents, or more than6, 000, 000 dollars, were paid to the public treasury for port dues. Thelibrary was the largest in the world, and numbered over seven hundredthousand volumes, and this was connected with a museum, a menagerie, abotanical garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming themost famous university in the empire. The inhabitants were chieflyGreek, and had all their cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift. In acommercial point of view it was the most important in the empire, andits ships whitened every sea. Alexandria was of remarkable beauty, andwas called by Ammianus _Vertex omnium civitatum_. Its dryatmosphere preserved for centuries the sharp outlines and gay colors ofits buildings, some of which were remarkably imposing. The Mausoleum ofthe Ptolemies, the High Court of justice, the Stadium, the Gymnasium, the Palaestra, the Amphitheatre, and the Temple of the Caesars, all calledout the admiration of travelers. The Emporium far surpassed the quays ofthe Tiber. But the most imposing structure was the Exchange, to which, for eight hundred years, all the nations sent their representatives. Itwas commerce which made Alexandria so rich and beautiful, for which itwas more distinguished than both Tyre and Carthage. Unlike mostcommercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of poetry, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and theology were more renowned thaneven those of Athens during the third and fourth centuries. For wealth, population, intelligence, and art, it was the second city of the world. It would be a great capital in these times. 

[Sidenote: Power of the empire seated in the western provinces. ]

Such were Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and Africa, all of which hadbeen great empires, but all of which were incorporated with the Roman inless than two hundred years after Italy succumbed to the fortunate cityon the Tiber. But these old and venerated monarchies, with theirdependent states and provinces, though imposing and majestic, did notcompose the vital part of the empire of the Caesars. It was those newprovinces which were rescued from the barbarians, chiefly Celts, wherethe life of the empire centred. It was Spain, Gaul, Britain, andIllyricum, countries which now compose the most powerful Europeanmonarchies, which the more truly show the strength of the Roman world. And these countries were added last, and were not fully incorporatedwith the empire until imperial power had culminated in the Antonines. From a comparative wilderness, Spain and Gaul especially became populousand flourishing states, dotted with cities, and instructed in all thedepartments of Roman art and science. From these provinces the armieswere recruited, the schools were filled, and even the great generals andemperors were furnished. These provinces embraced nearly the whole ofmodern Europe. 

[Sidenote: Spain. ]

[Sidenote: Its provinces. ]

[Sidenote: Productions. ]

[Sidenote: Its towns and cities. ]

[Sidenote: Its commercial centres. ]

Spain had been added to the empire after the destruction of Carthage, but only after a bitter and protracted warfare. It was completed by thereduction of Numantia, a city of the Celtiberians in the valley of theDouro, and its siege is more famous than that of Carthage, having defiedfor a long time the whole power of the empire, as Tyre did Alexander, and Jerusalem the armies of Titus. It yielded to the genius of Scipio, the conqueror of Africa, as La Rochelle, in later times, fell beforeRichelieu, but not until famine had done its work. The civilization ofSpain was rapid after the fall of Numantia, and in the time of theAntonines was one of the richest and most prized of the Roman provinces. It embraced the whole peninsula, from the Pillars of Hercules to thePyrenees; and the warlike nations who composed it became completelyLatinized. It was divided into three provinces--Boetica, Lusitania, andTarraconensis--all governed by praetors, the last of whom had consularpower, and resided in Carthago Nova, on the Mediterranean. UnderConstantine, Spain, with its islands, was divided into seven provinces, and stood out from the rest of the empire like a round bastion towerfrom the walls of an old fortified town. This magnificent possession, extending four hundred and sixty miles from north to south, and fivehundred and seventy from east to west, including, with the BalearicIsles, 171, 300 square miles, with a rich and fertile soil andinexhaustible mineral resources, was worth more to the Romans than allthe conquests of Pompey and Sulla, since it furnished men for thearmies, and materials for a new civilization. It furnished corn, oil, wine, fruits, pasturage, metals of all kinds, and precious stones. Boetica was famed for its harvests, Lusitania for its flocks, Tarraconensis for its timber, and the fields around Carthago Nova formaterials of which cordage was made. But the great value of thepeninsula to the eyes of the Romans was in its rich mines of gold, silver, and other metals. The bulk of the population was Iberian. TheCeltic element was the next most prominent. There were six hundred andninety-three towns and cities in which justice was administered. NewCarthage, on the Mediterranean, had a magnificent harbor, was stronglyfortified, and was twenty stadia in circumference, was a great emporiumof trade, and was in the near vicinity of the richest silver mines ofSpain, which employed forty thousand men. Gades (New Cadiz), aPhoenician colony, on the Atlantic Ocean, was another commercial centre, and numbered five hundred Equites among the population, and wasimmensely rich. Corduba, on the Boetis (Guadalquivir), the capital ofBoetica, was a populous city before the Roman conquest, and was secondonly to Gades as a commercial mart. It was the birthplace of Seneca andLucan. 

[Sidenote: Richness of Gaul. ]

[Sidenote: Population and cities. ]

[Sidenote: Splendor of Gaulish cities. ]

Gaul, which was the first of Caesar's most brilliant conquests, and whichtook him ten years to accomplish, was a still more extensive province. It was inhabited chiefly by Celtic tribes, who, uniting with Germanicnations, made a most obstinate defense. When incorporated with theempire, Gaul became rapidly civilized. It was a splendid country, extending from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, with a sea-coast of more thansix hundred miles, and separated from Italy by the Alps, having 200, 000square miles. Great rivers, as in Spain, favored an extensive commercewith the interior, and on their banks were populous and beautifulcities. Its large coast on both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic gaveit a communication with all the world. It produced corn, oil, and wine, those great staples, in great abundance. It had a beautiful climate, anda healthy and hardy population, warlike, courageous, and generous. Gaulwas a populous country even in Caesar's time, and possessed twelvehundred towns and cities, some of which were of great importance. Burdigala, now Bordeaux, the chief city of Aquitania, on the Garonne, was famous for its schools of rhetoric and grammar. Massolia(Marseilles), before the Punic wars was a strong fortified city, and waslargely engaged in commerce. Vienne, a city of the Allobroges, wasinclosed with lofty walls, and had an amphitheatre whose long diameterwas five hundred feet, and the aqueducts supplied the city with water. Lugdunum (Lyons) on the Rhone, was a place of great trade, and wasfilled with temples, theatres, palaces, and aqueducts. Nemausus (NOEmes)had subject to it twenty-four villages, and from the monuments whichremain, must have been a city of considerable importance. Itsamphitheatre would seat seventeen thousand people; and its aqueductconstructed of three successive tiers of arches, one hundred and fifty-five feet high, eight hundred and seventy feet long, and fifty feetwide, is still one of the finest monuments of antiquity, built of stonewithout cement. It is still solid and strong, and gives us a vividconception of the magnificence of Roman masonry. Narbo (Narbonne) wasanother commercial centre, adorned with public buildings which calledforth the admiration of ancient travelers. The modern cities of Treves, Boulogne, Rheims, Chalons, Cologne, Metz, Dijon, Sens, Orleans, Poictiers, Clermont, Rouen, Paris, Basil, Geneva, were all considerableplaces under the Roman rule, and some were of great antiquity. 

[Sidenote: Illyricum. ]

Illyricum is not famous in Roman history, but was a very considerableprovince, equal to the whole Austrian empire in our times, and was ascompletely reclaimed from barbarism as Gaul or Spain. Both Jerome andDiocletian were born in a little Dalmatian town. 

[Sidenote: Cultivated face of nature. ]

[Sidenote: Agricultural wealth. ]

Nothing could surpass the countries which bordered on the Mediterraneanin all those things which give material prosperity. They were salubriousin climate, fertile in soil, cultivated like a garden, abounding innearly all the fruits, vegetables, and grains now known to civilization. The beautiful face of nature was the subject of universal panegyric tothe fall of the empire. There were no destructive wars. All the variousprovinces were controlled by the central power which emanated from Rome. There was scope for commerce, and all kinds of manufacturing skill. Italy, Sicily, and Egypt were especially fertile. The latter countryfurnished corn in countless quantities for the Roman market. Italy couldboast of fifty kinds of wine, and was covered with luxurious villas inwhich were fish-ponds, preserves for game, wide olive groves andvineyards, to say nothing of the farms which produced milk, cheese, honey, and poultry. Syria was so prosperous that its inhabitants dividedtheir time between the field, the banquet, and the gymnasium, andindulged in continual festivals. It was so rich that Antiochus III. Wasable to furnish at one time a tribute of 15, 000 talents, beside 540, 000measures of wheat. The luxury of Nineveh and Babylon was revived in thePhoenician cities. 

[Sidenote: Natural productions of the various provinces. ]

Spain produced horses, mules, wool, oil, figs, wine, corn, honey, beer, flax, linen, beside mines of copper, silver, gold, quicksilver, tin, lead, and steel. Gaul was so cultivated that there was little wasteland, and produced the same fruits and vegetables as at the presentday. Its hams and sausages were much prized. Sicily was famous forwheat, Sardinia for wool, Epirus for horses, Macedonia for goats, Thessaly for oil, Boeotia for flax, Scythia for furs, and Greece forhoney. Almost all the flowers, herbs, and fruits that grow in Europeangardens were known to the Romans--the apricot, the peach, thepomegranate, the citron, the orange, the quince, the apple, the pear, the plum, the cherry, the fig, the date, the olive. Martial speaks ofpepper, beans, pulp, lentils, barley, beets, lettuce, radishes, cabbagesprouts, leeks, turnips, asparagus, mushrooms, truffles, as well as allsorts of game and birds. [Footnote: Martial, B. 13. ] In no age of theworld was agriculture more honored than before the fall of the empire. 

[Sidenote: Roads. ]

And all these provinces were connected with each other and with thecapital by magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with largeblocks of stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes, but were used by travelers, and on them posts were regularlyestablished. They crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains. In Italy, especially, they were great works of art, and connected allthe provinces. Among the great roads which conveyed to Rome as a centrewere the Clodian and Cassian roads which passed through Etruria; theAmerina and Flavinia through Umbria; the Via Valeria, which had itsterminus at Alternum on the Adriatic; the Via Latina, which, passingthrough Latium and Campania, extended to the southern extremity ofItaly; the Via Appia also passed through Latium, Campania, Lucania, Iapygia to Brundusium, on the Adriatic. Again, from the central terminusat Milan, several lines passed through the gorges of the Alps, andconnected Italy with Lyons and Mayence on the one side, and with theTyrol and Danubian provinces on the other. Spain and southern Gaul wereconnected by a grand road from Cadiz to Narbonne and Arles. Lyons wasanother centre from which branched out military roads to Saintes, Marseilles, Boulogne, and Mayence. In fact, the Roman legion couldtraverse every province in the empire over these grandly built publicroads, as great and important in the second century as railroads are atthe present time. There was an uninterrupted communication from the Wallof Antonius through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons, Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem--a distance of 3740 miles. And these roads were dividedby milestones, and houses for travelers erected every five or six miles. 

[Sidenote: Commerce. ]

[Sidenote: Objects of ancient commerce. ]

Commerce under the emperors was not what it now is, but still was veryconsiderable, and thus united the various provinces together. The mostremote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome. Every yeara fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea forthe islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the riverswhich flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient navigator. Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern timesbefore the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well assails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed overin twenty-four hours. This was the average speed, or about seven knots. From the mouth of the Tiber, vessels could usually reach Africa in twodays, Massilia in three, Tarraco in four, and the Pillars of Hercules inseven. From Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, withmoderate winds, in nine days. But these facts apply only to the summer, and to objects of favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in theinclement seasons. But in summer the great inland sea was white withsails. Great fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa, Sicily, and Egypt. This was the most important trade. But a considerablecommerce was carried on in ivory, tortoise-shell, cotton and silkfabrics, pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, oil. Greek and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in greatdemand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in theGrecian cities; of wild animals for the amphitheatre; of marble, of thespoils of eastern cities, of military engines, and stores, and horses, required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probablybelonged, chiefly, to great maritime cities like Alexandria, Corinth, Carthage, Rhodes, Cyrene, Massalia, Neapolis, Tarentum, and Syracuse. These great cities with their dependencies, required even more vesselsfor communication with each other than for Rome herself--the greatcentral object of enterprise and cupidity. 

[Sidenote: The metropolis of the empire. ]

[Sidenote: The centre and the pride of the world. ]

[Sidenote: Its varied objects of interest. ]

In this survey of the provinces and cities which composed the empire ofthe Caesars, I have not yet spoken of the great central city--the City ofthe Seven Hills, to which all the world was tributary. Rome was sogrand, so vast, so important in every sense, political and social; shewas such a concentration of riches and wonders, that it demands aseparate and fuller notice than what I have been able to give of thoseproud capitals which finally yielded to her majestic domination. Allother cities not merely yielded precedence, but contributed to hergreatness. Whatever was costly, or rare, or beautiful in Greece, orAsia, or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizenswere provincial governors. All the great roads, from the Atlantic to theTigris, converged to Rome. All the ships of Alexandria and Carthage andTarentum, and other commercial capitals, were employed in furnishing herwith luxuries or necessities. Never was there so proud a city as this"Epitome of the Universe. " London, Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of fashion and power; but they arerivals, and excel only in some great department of human enterprise andgenius, as in letters, or fashions, or commerce, or manufactures--centres of influence and power in the countries of which they arecapitals, yet they do not monopolize the wealth and energies of theworld. London may contain more people than ancient Rome, and may possessmore commercial wealth; but London represents only the British monarchy, not a universal empire. Rome, however, monopolized everything, andcontrolled all nations and peoples. She could shut up the schools ofAthens, or disperse the ships of Alexandria, or regulate the shops ofAntioch. What Lyons or Bordeaux is to Paris, Corinth or Babylon was toRome--secondary cities, dependent cities. Paul condemned at Jerusalem, stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome protects him. The philosophersof Greece are the tutors of Roman nobility. The kings of the East resortto the palaces of Mount Palatine for favors or safety. The governors ofSyria and Egypt, reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, return toRome to squander the riches they have accumulated. Senators and noblestake their turn as sovereign rulers of all the known countries of theworld. The halls in which Darius, and Alexander, and Pericles, andCroesus, and Solomon, and Cleopatra have feasted, if unspared by theconflagrations of war, witness the banquets of Roman proconsuls. Babylonand Thebes and Athens were only what Delhi and Calcutta are to theEnglish of our day--cities to be ruled by the delegates of the RomanSenate. Rome was the only "home" of the proud governors who reigned onthe banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the Rhine, of the Nile, of theTigris. After they had enriched themselves with the spoils of theancient monarchies they returned to their estates in Italy, or to theirpalaces on the Aventine, for the earth had but _one_ capital--onegreat centre of attraction. To an Egyptian even, Alexandria was onlyprovincial. He must travel to the banks of the Tiber to see somethinggreater than his own capital. It was the seat of government for onehundred and twenty millions of people. It was the arbiter of taste andfashion. It was the home of generals and senators and statesmen, ofartists and scholars and merchants, who were renowned throughout theempire. It was enriched by the contributions of conquered nations foreight hundred years. It contained more marble statues than livinginhabitants. Every spot was consecrated by associations; every templehad a history; every palace had been the scene of festivities which madeit famous; every monument pointed to the deeds of the illustrious dead, and swelled the pride of the most powerful families which aristocraticages had created. 

 * * * * *

For the ancient authorities, see Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, DiodorusSiculus, Titus Livius, Pausanias, and Herodotus. There is an ablechapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Napoleon's _History ofCaesar_. Smith, _Dictionary of Ancient Geography_, is exhaustive. See, also, Muller, article on _Atticus_, in Ersch, and Gruber's_Encyclopedia_, translated by Lockhart; Stuart and Revett, _Antiquities of Atticus_; Dodwell, _Tour through Greece_; Wilkinson, _Hand-book for Travelers in Egypt_; Becker, _Hand-book of Rome_. Anthon has compiled a useful work on ancient geography, but the mostaccessible and valuable book on the material aspects of the oldRoman world is the great dictionary of Smith, from which this chapter ischiefly compiled. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE WONDERS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

[Sidenote: Early inhabitants of Italy. ]

The great capital of the ancient world had a very humble beginning, andthat is involved in myth and mystery. Even the Latin stock, inhabitingthe country from the Tiber to the Volscian mountains, which furnishedthe first inhabitants of the city, cannot be clearly traced, since wehave no traditions of the first migration of the human race into Italy. It is supposed by Mommsen that the peoples which inhabited Latium belongto the Indo-Germanic family. Among these were probably the independentcantons of the Ramnians, Tities, and Luceres, which united to form asingle commonwealth, and occupied the hills which arose about fourteenmiles from the mouth of the Tiber. Around these hills was a ruralpopulation which tilled the fields. From these settlements a fortifiedfort arose on the Palatine Hill, fitted to be a place of trade from itssituation on the Tiber, and also a fortress to protect the urbanvillages. Though unhealthy in its site, it was admirably adapted forthese purposes, and thus early became an important place. 

[Sidenote: Foundation of Rome. ]

[Sidenote: Settlement under Romulus. ]

[Sidenote: Extent of the city at the death of Romulus. ]

The legends attribute a different foundation of the "Eternal City. " Butthese also assign the Palatine as the nucleus of ancient Rome. It was onthis hill that Romulus and Remus grew up to manhood, and it was thishill which Romulus selected as the site of the city he was so desirousto build. But modern critics suppose that he did not occupy the wholehill, but only the western part of it. Varro, whose authority isgenerally received, assigns the year 753 before Christ as the date forthe foundation of the city. The first memorable incident in the historyof this little city of robbers was the care of Romulus to increase itspopulation by opening an asylum for fugitive slaves on the CapitolineHill. But this supplied only males who had no wives. And when theproposal of the founder to solicit intermarriage with the neighboringnations was rejected, he resorted to stratagem and force. He invites theSabines and the people of other Latin towns to witness games. A crowd ofmen and women are assembled, and while all are intent on the games, theunmarried women are seized by the Roman youth. Then ensues, of course, awar with the Sabines, the result of which is that the Sabines are unitedwith the Romans and settle on the Quirinal. The Saturnian Hill is leftin possession of the Sabines, while Romulus assumes the Sabine name ofQuirinus, from which we infer that the Sabines had the best of theconflict. Callius, who, it is said, assisted Romulus, receives as acompensation the hill known as the Caelian. At the death of Romulus, whoreigned thirty-seven years, Rome comprised the Palatine, the Quirinal, the Caelian, and the Capitoline hills. [Footnote: M. Ampere, _Hist. Rom. _, tom. I. Ch. Xii. ] The Sabines thus occupy two of the sevenhills, and furnish not only people for the infant city, but laws, customs, and manners, especially religious observances. 

[Sidenote: The public works of Numa. ]

The reign of Numa was devoted to the consolidation of the power whichRomulus had acquired, to the civilization of his subjects, and theimprovement of the city. He fixed his residence between the Roman andthe Sabine city, and erected adjoining to the Regia a temple to Vesta, which was probably only an _oedes sacra_. It was probably along withthese buildings that the Sacra Via came into existence. The Regia becamein after times the residence of the Pontifex Maximus. Numa establishedon the Palatine the Curia Saliorum, and built on the Quirinal a templeof Romulus, afterwards rebuilt by Augustus. He also erected on theQuirinal a citadel connected with a temple of Jupiter, with cells ofJuno and Minerva. He converted the gate which formed the entrance of theSabine city into a temple of Janus, and laid the foundation upon theCapitoline of a large temple to Fides Publica, the public faith. 

[Sidenote: The reign of Tullus Hostilius. ]

[Sidenote: Improvement of the city made by Tullus. ]

Under the reign of Tullus Hostilius was the capture of Alba Longa, theold capital of Latium, where Numa had reigned, and the transfer of itsinhabitants to Rome, which thus became the chief city of the Latinleague. They were located on the Caelian, which also became the residenceof the king. He built the Curia Hostilia, a senate chamber, toaccommodate the noble Alban families, in which the Roman Senateassembled, at the northwest corner of the Forum, to the latest times ofthe republic. It was a templum, but not dedicated for divine services, adjoining the eastern side of the Vulcanal. Out of the spoils of AlbaLonga, Tullus improved the Comitium, a space at the northwest end of theForum, fronting the Curia, the common meeting place of the Romans andSabines. On the Quirinal Hill he erected a Curia Saliorum in imitationof that of Numa on the Palatine, devoted to the worship of Quirinus. 

[Sidenote: Growth of Rome during the reign of Ancus Martius. ]

Ancus Martius, a grandson of Numa, succeeded Tullus after a reign ofthirty-two years. Under him the city was greatly augmented by theinhabitants of various Latin cities which he subdued. These settled onthe Aventine, and in the valley which separated it from the Palatine, supposed by Niebuhr to be the origin of the Roman Plebs, though it ismaintained by Lewis that the Plebeian order was coaeval with thefoundation of the city. Ancus fortified Mons Janiculus, the hill on thewestern bank of the Tiber, for the protection of the city. He connectedit with Rome by the Pons Sublicius, the earliest of the Roman bridges, built on piles. The Janiculum was not much occupied by residences untilthe time of Augustus. Ancus founded Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, which became the port of Rome. It was this king who built the famousMamertine Prison, near the Forum, below the northern height of theCapitoline. 

[Sidenote: Tarquinius Priscus. ]

[Sidenote: The Cloaca Maxima. ]

[Sidenote: Temple of the Capitoline Jupiter. ]

A new dynasty succeeded this king, who reigned twenty-four years; thatof the Tarquins, an Etrurian family of Greek extraction, which came fromCorinth, the cradle of Grecian art, celebrated as the birth-place ofpainting and for its works of pottery and bronze. Tarquinius Priscusconstructed the Cloaca Maxima, that vast sewer which drained the Forumand Velabrum, and which is regarded by Niebuhr as one of the moststupendous monuments of antiquity. It was composed of three semicirculararches inclosing one another, the innermost of which had a diameter oftwelve feet, large enough to be traversed by a Roman hay-cart. [Footnote: Arnold, _Hist. Of Rom. _, vol. I. P. 52. ] It was builtwithout cement, and still remains a magnificent specimen of theperfection of the old Tuscan masonry. Along the southern side of theForum this enlightened monarch constructed a row of shops occupied bybutchers and other tradesmen. At the head of the Forum and under theCapitoline he founded the Temple of Saturn, the ruins of which attestconsiderable splendor. But his greatest work was the foundation of theCapitoline Temple of Jupiter, completed by Tarquinius Superbus, theconsecrated citadel in which was deposited whatever was most valued bythe Romans. 

[Sidenote: Accession of Servius Tullius. ]

During the reign of Servius Tullius, who succeeded Tarquin B. C. 578, thevarious elements of the population were amalgamated, and the sevenhills, namely, the Palatine, the Capitoline, the Quirinal, the Caelian, the Viminal, the Esquiline, and the Aventine, were covered with houses, and inclosed by a wall about six miles in circuit. A temple of Diana waserected on the Aventine, besides two temples to Fortune, one to Juno, and one to Luna. Servius also dedicated the Campus Martius, and enlargedthe Mamertine Prison by adding a subterranean dungeon of impenetrablestrength. 

[Sidenote: Tarquinius Superbus. ]

On the assassination of Servius Tullius, B. C. 535, his son-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus, usurped the power, and did much for the adornmentof the city. The Capitoline Temple was completed on an artificialplatform, having a triple row of columns in front, and a double row atthe sides. It was two hundred feet wide, having three cells adjoiningone another, the centre appropriated to Jupiter, with Juno and Minervaon either hand. The temple had a single roof, and lasted nearly fivehundred years before it was burned down, and rebuilt with greatersplendor. 

[Sidenote: Rome under the early consuls. ]

[Sidenote: Roman roads. ]

Such were the chief improvements of the city during the kingly rule. Under the consuls the growth was constant, but was not marked by grandedifices. Portunus, the conqueror of the Tarquins at Lake Regillus, erected a temple to Ceres, Liber, and Libera, at the western extremityof the Circus Maximus. Camillus founded a celebrated temple to Juno onthe Aventine. But these, and a few other temples, were destroyed whenthe Gauls held possession of the city. The city was rebuilt hastily andwithout much regard to regularity. There was nothing memorable in itsarchitectural monuments till the time of Appius Claudius, whoconstructed the Via Appia, the first Roman aqueduct. In fact theconstant wars of the Romans prevented much improvement in the city tillthe fall of Tarentum, although the ambassadors of Pyrrhus were struckwith its grandeur. M. Curius Dentatus commenced the aqueduct called AnioVetus B. C. 278, the greater part of which was under ground. Its totallength was forty-three miles. Q. Flaminius, B. C. 220, between the firstand second Punic wars, constructed the great highway, called after himthe Via Flaminia--the great northern road of Italy, as the Via Appia wasthe southern. These roads were very elaborately built. In constructingthem, the earth was excavated till a solid foundation was obtained; overthis a layer of loose stones was laid, then another layer nine inchesthick of rubble-work of broken stones cemented with lime, then anotherlayer of broken pottery cemented in like manner, over which was apavement of large polygonal blocks of hard stone nicely fitted together. Roads thus constructed were exceedingly durable, so that portions ofthem, constructed two thousand years ago, are still in a high state ofpreservation. 

[Sidenote: Ancient basilicas. ]

[Sidenote: Temple of Hercules. ]

[Sidenote: Asiatic luxuries. ] The improvements of Rome were rapid afterthe conquest of Greece, although destructive fires frequently laid largeparts of the city in ruins. The deities of the conquered nations wereintroduced into the Roman worship, and temples erected to them. In thebeginning of the second century before Christ we notice the erection ofbasilicas, used as courts of law and a sort of exchange, the first ofwhich was built by M. Portius Cato, B. C. 184, on the north side of theForum. It was of an oblong form, open to the air, surrounded withcolumns, at one end of which was the tribunal of the judge. The BasilicaPortia was soon followed by the Basilica Fulvia behind the ArgentariaeNovae, which had replaced the butchers' shops. Fulvius Nobilia furtheradorned the city with a temple of Hercules on the Campus Martius, andbrought from Ambrasia, once the residence of Pyrrhus, two hundred andthirty marble and two hundred and eighty-five bronze statues, besidepictures. L. Aemilius Paulus founded an emporium on the banks of theTiber as a place of landing and sale for goods transported by sea, andbuilt a bridge over the Tiber. Sempronius Gracchus, the father of thetwo demagogue patriots, erected a third Basilica B. C. 169, on the southside of the Forum on the site of the house of Scipio Africanus. Thetriumph of Aemilius Paulus introduced into the city pictures and statuesenough to load two hundred and fifty chariots, and a vast quantity ofgold and silver. Cornelius Octavius, B. C. 167, built a grand palace onthe Palatine, one of the first examples of elegant domesticarchitecture, and erected a magnificent double portico with capitals ofCorinthian bronze. With the growing taste for architectural display, various Asiatic luxuries were introduced--bronze beds, massivesideboards, tables of costly woods, cooks, pantomimists, female dancers, and luxurious banquets. Metellus erected the first marble temple seen inRome, before which he placed the twenty-five bronze statues whichLysippus had executed for Alexander the Great. 

[Sidenote: Sack of Corinth. ]

[Sidenote: Adornment of the Forum. ]

The same year that witnessed the triumph of Metellus, B. C. 146, also sawthe fall of Carthage and the sack of Corinth by Mummius, so that many ofthe choicest specimens of Grecian art were brought to the banks of theTiber. Among these was the celebrated picture of Bacchus by Aristides, which was placed in the Temple of Bacchus, Ceres, and Proserpine. TheForum now contained many gems of Grecian art, among which were thestatues of Alcibiades and Pythagoras which stood near the comitium, theThree Sibyls placed before the rostra, and a picture by Serapion, whichcovered the balconies of the tabernae on the south side of the Forum. 

[Sidenote: Aqua Marcia. ]

In the year 144 B. C. , Q. Marcius Rex constructed the Aqua Marcia, one ofthe noblest of the Roman monuments, sixty-two miles in length, seven ofwhich were on arches, sufficiently lofty to supply the Capitoline withpure and cold water. Seventeen years after, the Aqua Tepula was added tothe aqueducts of Rome. 

[Sidenote: Triumphal Arches. ]

The first triumphal arch erected to commemorate victories was in theyear B. C. 196, by L. Sertinius. Scipio Africanus erected another on theCapitoline, and Q. Fabius, B. C. 121, raised another in honor of hisvictories over the Allobroges. This spanned the Via Sacra where itentered the Forum, and at that time was a conspicuous monument, thoughvastly inferior to the arches of the imperial regime. 

[Sidenote: Temple of Concord. ]

[Sidenote: Basilica Opimia. ]

When tranquillity was restored to Rome after the riots connected withthe murder of the Gracchi, the Senate ordered a Temple of Concord to bebuilt, B. C. 121, in commemoration of the event. This temple was on theelevated part of the Vulcanal, and was of considerable magnitude. It wasused for the occasional meetings of the Senate, and contained manyvaluable works of art. Adjoining this temple, Opimius, the consul, erected the Basilica Opimia, which was used by the silversmiths, whowere the bankers and pawnbrokers of Rome. The whole quarter on the northside of the Forum, where this basilica stood, was the Roman exchange--the focus for all monetary transactions. 

[Sidenote: Private palaces. ]

[Sidenote: Houses of the nobles. ]

The increasing wealth and luxury of Rome, especially caused by theconquest of Asia, led to the erection on the Palatine of thosemagnificent private residences, which became one of the most strikingfeatures the capital. The first of these historical houses was built byM. Livius Drusus, and overlooked the city. It afterwards passed into thehands of Crassus, Cicero, and Censorinus. Pompey had a house on thePalatine, but afterwards transferred his residence to the Casinae, another aristocratic quarter. M. Aemilius Lepidus also lived in amagnificent palace; the house of Crassus was still more splendid, adorned with columns of marble from Mount Hymettus. The house ofCatullus excelled even that of Crassus. This again was excelled by thatof Aquillius on the Viminal, which for some time was the most splendidin Rome, until Lucullus occupied nearly the whole of the Pincian Hillwith his gardens and galleries of art, which contained some of the_chefs d'oeuvre_ of antiquity. The gardens of Servilius, which layon the declivity of the Houses of Aventine, were adorned with Greekstatues, exceeded in beauty by those of Sallust between the Pincian andthe Quirinal hills, built with the spoils of Numidia, and ultimately theproperty of the emperors. The house of Clodius on the Palatine, near tothat of Cicero, was one of the finest in Rome, occupied before him byScaurus, who gave for it nearly fifteen million sesterces, about$650, 000. It was adorned with Greek paintings and sculptures. The houseof Cicero, which he bought of Crassus, cost him $150, 000. Its atrium wasadorned with Greek marble columns thirty-eight feet high. Hortensiuslived in a house on the Palatine, afterwards occupied by Augustus. Theresidence of his friend Atticus, on the Quirinal, was more modest, whosechief ornament was a grove. Pompey surrounded his house with gardens andporticos. 

[Sidenote: Destruction and rebuilding of the Capitol. ]

The year 83 B. C. Was marked by the destruction by fire of the oldCapitoline Temple, which had withstood the ravages of the Gauls. Sullaaspired to rebuild it, and caused to be transported to Rome for thatpurpose the column of the Olympian Zeus at Athens. It was completed byCaesar, and its roof was gilded at an expense of $15, 000, 000. Thepediment was adorned with statuary, and near it was a colossal statue ofJupiter. 

[Sidenote: Theatre of Pompey. ]

In the early ages of the republic there were no theatres at Rome, theatrical representations being regarded as demoralizing. The regulardrama was the last development even of Grecian genius. The Romanaristocracy set their faces against dramatic entertainments till afterthe conquest of Greece. These plays were introduced and performed ontemporary stages in the open air, or in wooden buildings. There was nogrand theatre till Pompey erected one of stone, B. C. 55, in the CampusMartius, which was capable of holding eighty thousand spectators, and ithad between its numerous pillars three thousand bronze statues. [Footnote: _Plin. H. N. _, xxxvi. 24. ] He also erected, behind histheatre, a grand portico of one hundred pillars, which became one of themost fashionable lounging-places of Rome, and which was adorned withstatues and images. Pompey also built various temples. 

[Sidenote: Forum Julian. ]

[Sidenote: Basilica Julia. ]

His great rival however surpassed him in labors to ornament the capital. Caesar enlarged the Forum, or rather added a new one, the ground of whichcost $2, 500, 000. It was called the Forum Julian, and was three hundredand forty feet long by two hundred wide, containing a temple of Venus. He did not live, however, to carry out his magnificent plans. Hecontemplated building an edifice, for the assembly of the ComitiaTributa, of marble, with a portico inclosing a space of a mile square, and also the erection of a temple to Mars of unparalleled size andmagnificence. He commenced the Basilica Julia and the Curia Julia--vastbuildings, which were completed under the emperors. 

[Sidenote: Rome under the Emperors. ]

Such were the principal edifices of Rome until the imperial sway. Augustus boasted that he found the city of brick and left it of marble. It was not until the emperors embellished the city with amphitheatres, theatres, baths, and vast architectural monuments that it was reallyworthy to be regarded as the metropolis of the world. The greatimprovements of Rome in the republican period were of a private nature, such as the palaces of senatorial families. There were no temples equalto those in the Grecian cities either for size, ornament, or beauty. Indeed, Rome was never famous for temples, but for edifices of materialutility rather than for the worship of the gods; yet the Romans, underthe rule of the aristocracy, were more religious than the Corinthians orAthenians. 

[Sidenote: Works of Augustus. ]

[Sidenote: The Subura. ]

[Sidenote: Forum Romanum. ]

[Sidenote: Its magnificence. ]

[Sidenote: Surrounding buildings. ]

[Sidenote: Temple of Castor and Pollux. ]

[Sidenote: Basilica Julia. ]

[Sidenote: Arch of Septimius Severus, and columns of Trajan. ]

[Sidenote: Forum Julium. ]

[Sidenote: Forum Augusti. ]

[Sidenote: Forum of Trajan. ]

[Sidenote: Basilica Ulpia. ]

On the destruction of the senatorial or constitutional party that hadruled since the expulsion of the kings, and probably before, and thepeaceful accession of Augustus, B. C. 31, a great impulse was given tothe embellishments of the city. His long reign, his severe taste, andhis immense resources, --undisputed master of one hundred and fiftymillions of subjects, --enabled him to carry out the designs of Julius, and to restore an immense number of monuments falling to decay. But Romewas even then deficient in those things which most attract attention inour modern capitals--the streets and squares. The longest street of Romewas scarcely three fourths of a mile in length; but the houses upon itwere of great altitude. Moreover the streets were narrow and dark--scarcely more than fifteen feet in width. But they were not encumberedwith carriages. Private equipages, which form one of the most imposingfeatures of a modern city, were unknown. There was nothing attractive ina Roman street, dark, narrow, and dirty, with but few vehicles, and withdingy shops, like those of Paris in the Middle Ages. The sun scarcelyever penetrated to them. They were damp and cold. The greater part ofthe city belonged to wealthy and selfish capitalists, like Crassus, whothought more of their gains than the health or beauty of the city. TheSubura, the Sub Velia, and the Velabrum, built in the valleys, werechoked up with tall houses, frequently more, and seldom less, thanseventy feet in height. The hills alone were covered with aristocraticresidences, temples, and public monuments. The only open space, wherethe poor people could get fresh air and extensive prospect, was CircusMaximus and the Forum Romanum. The former was three fourths of a mile inlength and one eighth in breadth, surrounded with a double row ofbenches, the lower of stone and the upper of wood, and would seat twohundred and eighty-five thousand spectators. The Forum was the centre ofarchitectural splendor, as well as of life and business. Its originalsite extended from the eastern part of the Capitoline to the spot wherethe Velia begins to ascend, and was bounded on the south by the ViaSacra, which extended to the arx or citadel. It was that consecratedstreet by which the augurs descended when they inaugurated the greatfestivals of the republic, and in which lived the Pontifex Maximus. Although the Forum Romanum was only seven hundred feet by four hundredand seventy, yet it was surrounded by and connected with basilicas, halls, porticoes, temples, and shops. It was a place of great publicresort for all classes of people--a scene of life and splendor rarely ifever equaled, and having some resemblance to the crowded square ofVenice on which St. Mark's stands. Originally it was a marketplace, busyand lively, a great resort where might be seen "good men walking quietlyby themselves, " [Footnote: _Plautus Cuve_, iv. 1. ] "flash menstrutting about without a denarius in their purses, " "gourmands clubbingfor a dinner, " "scandal-mongers living in glass houses, " "perjuredwitnesses, liars, braggarts, rich and erring husbands, worn-outharlots, " and all the various classes which now appear in the crowdedplaces of London or Paris. In this open space the people were assembledon great public occasions, and here they were addressed by orators andtribunes. Immediately surrounding the Forum Romanum, or in closeproximity to it, were the most important public buildings of the city inwhich business was transacted--the courts of law, the administrativebureaus, the senate chamber and the principal temples, as well asmonuments and shops. On the north side was the Comitium, an open spacefor holding the Comitia Curiata and heavy lawsuits, and making speechesto the assembled people. During the kingly government the temples ofJanus and Vesta and Saturn were erected, also the Curia Hostilia, asenate-house, the Senaculum, the Mamertine Prison, and the Tabernae orporticoes and shops inclosing the Forum. During the republic the templeof Castor and Pollux, which served for the assembly of the Senate andjudicial business, was erected, not of the largest size, but very richand beautiful. The Basilica Portia, where the tribunes of the peopleheld their assemblies, was founded by Cato the Censor, and this wasfollowed by the Basilica Fulvia, with columns of Phrygian marble, admired by Pliny for its magnificence, the Basilica Sempronia, theTemple of Concord, and the Triumphal Arch of Fabius, to commemorate hisvictories over the Allobroges. Under the empire, the magnificentBasilica Julia was erected for the sittings of the law courts, and itsimmense size may be inferred from the fact that one hundred and eightyjudges, divided into four courts, with four separate tribunals, withseats for advocates and spectators, were accustomed to assemble. Tiberius erected a triumphal arch near the Temple of Saturn. Domitianbuilt the Temple of Vespasian and Titus, and erected to himself acolossal equestrian statue. Near it rose the temples of Divus-Julius andof Antoninus and Faustina. Beside these were the Triumphal Arch ofSeptimius Severus, still standing; the Columns of Phocas and Trajan, thelatter of which is the finest monument of its kind in the world, onehundred and twenty-seven feet high, with a spiral band of admirablereliefs containing two thousand five hundred human figures. Besidethese, new fora of immense size were constructed by various emperors, not for political business so much as courts of justice. The ForumJulium, which connected with the old Forum Romanum, was virtually atemple of great magnificence. In front of it was the celebrated bronzehorse of Lysippus, and the temple was enriched with precious offeringsand adorned with pictures from the best Greek artists. It was devoted tolegal business. The Forum Augusti was still larger, and also inclosed atemple, in which the Senate assembled to consult about wars andtriumphs, and was surrounded with porticoes in which the statues of themost eminent Roman generals were placed, while on each side were thetriumphal arches of Germanicus and Drusus. More extensive andmagnificent than either of the old fora was the one which Trajanerected, in the centre of which was the celebrated column of theemperor, so universally admired, while the sides were ornamented with adouble colonnade of gray Egyptian marble, the columns of which werefifty-five feet in height. This was one of the most gigantic structuresin Rome, covering more ground than the Flavian Amphitheatre, and builtby the celebrated Apollodorus of Damascus. It filled the whole spacebetween the Capitoline and Quirinal. The Basilica Ulpia was only onedivision of this vast edifice, divided internally by four rows ofcolumns of gray granite, and paved with slabs of marble. 

[Sidenote: Beauty of the Roman Forum. ]

Nothing in Rome, or perhaps any modern city, exceeded the glory andbeauty of the Forum, with the adjoining basilica, and other publicbuildings, filled with statues and pictures, and crowded with people. The more aristocratic loungers sought the retired promenade afforded bythe porticoes near the Circus Flaminius, where the noise and clamor ofthe crowded streets, the cries of venders, the sports of boys, and thecurses of wagoners, could not reach them. The Forum was the peculiarglory of the republican period, where the Gracchi enlightened the peopleon their political rights, where Cato calmed the passions of the mob, where Cicero and Hortensius delivered their magnificent harangues. 

[Sidenote: Works of Augustus. ]

[Sidenote: Temple of Apollo. ]

[Sidenote: Theatre of Marcellus. ]

The glory of the Augustan age was more seen in the magnificent buildingswhich arose upon the hills, although he gave attention to the completionof many works of utility or beauty in other parts of the city. Herestored the Capitoline temple and the theatre of Pompey; repairedaqueducts; finished the Forum and Basilica Julia; and entirely built theCuria Julia. He founded, on the Palatine, the Imperial Palace, afterwards enlarged by his successors until it entirely covered theoriginal city of Romulus. Among the most beautiful of his works was theTemple of Apollo, the columns of which were of African marble, betweenwhich were the statues of the fifty Danaids. In the temple was amagnificent statue of Apollo, and around the altar were the images offour oxen--the work of Miron, so beautifully sculptured that they seemedalive. The temple was of the finest marble; its gates were of ivory, finely sculptured. Attached to this temple was a library, where thepoets, orators, and philosophers assembled, and recited theirproductions. The Forum Augusti was another of the noblest monuments ofthis emperor, in order to provide accommodation for the crowds whichoverflowed the Forum Romanum. He also built the theatre of Marcellus, capable of holding twenty thousand spectators. 

[Sidenote: Pantheon. ]

[Sidenote: Thermae Agrippae. ]

[Sidenote: Campus Martius. ]

[Sidenote: Works of the Nobles. ]

Nor was Augustus alone the patron of the arts. His son-in-law, and primeminister, Agrippa, adorned the city with many noble structures, of whichthe Pantheon remains to attest his munificence. This temple, the bestpreserved of all the monuments of ancient splendor, stood in the centreof the Campus Martius, and contained only the images of the deitiesimmediately connected with the Julian race and the early history ofRome. Agrippa was the first to establish those famous baths, whichbecame the most splendid monuments of imperial munificence. The ThermaeAgrippae stood at the back of the Pantheon. It was fed by the Aqua Virgo, an aqueduct which Agrippa purposely constructed to furnish water for hisbaths. Many other architectural monuments marked the public spirit ofthis enlightened and liberal minister, especially in the quarter of theCircus Flaminius and the Campus Martius. This quarter was like aseparate town, more magnificent than any part of the ancient city. Itwas adorned with temples, porticoes, and theatres, and other buildingsdevoted to amusement and recreation. It had not many private houses, butthese were of remarkable splendor. Other courtiers of Augustus followedhis example for the embellishment of the city. Statilius Taurus builtthe first permanent amphitheatre of stone in the Campus Martius. L. Cornelius Balbur built at his own expense a stone theatre. L. MarciusPhilippus rebuilt the temple of Hercules Musarum, and surrounded it witha portico. L. Cornificius built a temple of Diana. Asininius Pollio anAtrium Libertatis; and Munatius Plaucus a temple of Saturn. Maecenas, wholived upon the Esquiline, converted the Campus Esquilinus, near theSubura, a pauper burial-ground offensive to both sight and health, intobeautiful gardens, called the Horti Maecenatis. 

 Nunc licet esquiliis habitare salubribus atque, Aggere in Aprico Spatiari, quo modo tristes. Albis informem spectabant ossibtis agrum. 

[Footnote: Horace _Sat. _ i. 8. ]

Near these gardens Virgil lived, also Propertius, and probably Horace. The Esquiline, once a plebeian quarter, seems to have been selected bythe literary men, who sought the favor of Maecenas, for their abode. Ovidlived near the capitol, at the southern extremity of the Quirinal. 

[Sidenote: Mausoleum of Augustus. ]

Among the other buildings which Augustus erected, should not be omittedthe magnificent Mausoleum, or the tomb of the imperial family at thenorthern part of the Campus Martius, near which lay the remains of Sullaand of Caesar, and which remained the burial-place of his family down tothe time of Hadrian. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated tochapter end. ] He also brought from Egypt the obelisk which now stands onMount Citorio, and which was placed in that receptacle formonuments--the Campus Martius. 

[Sidenote: Imperial palace. ]

Tiberius did but little for the improvement of his capital beyonderecting a triumphal arch, in commemoration of the exploits ofGermanicus, on the Via Sacra, and establishing the Praetorian Camp nearthe Servian Agger. Caligula extended the imperial palace, and began theCircus Neronis in the gardens of Agrippa, near where St. Peter's nowstands. 

[Sidenote: Claudian aqueduct. ]

Claudius constructed the two noble aqueducts, the Aqua Claudia and ArnoNovis, --the longest of all these magnificent Roman monuments, --thelatter of which was fifty-nine miles in length, and some of its archeswere one hundred and nine feet in height. 

Nero still further extended the precincts of the imperial palace, andincluded the Esquiline. The great fire which occurred in his reign, A. D. 65, and which lasted six days and seven nights, destroyed some of themost ancient of the Roman structures surrounding the Palatine, and verymuch damaged the Forum, to say nothing of the statues and treasureswhich perished. But the city soon arose from her ashes more beautifulthan before. The streets were laid out on a more regular plan and madewider, the houses were built lower, and brick was substituted for wood. 

[Sidenote: The Imperial Palace. ]

The great work of Nero was the construction of the Imperial Palace onthe site of the buildings which had been destroyed by the fire. He gaveit the name of Aurea Domus, and, if we may credit Suetonius, [Footnote:Suet. _Ner_. , 31. ] its richness and splendor surpassed any othersimilar edifice in ancient times. It fronted the Forum and Capitol, andin its vestibule stood a colossal statue of the emperor, one hundred andtwenty feet high. The palace was surrounded by three porticoes, each onethousand feet in length. The back front of the palace looked upon theartificial lake, afterwards occupied by the Flavian Amphitheatre. Withinthe area were gardens and vineyards. It was entirely overlaid with gold, and adorned with jewels and mother-of-pearl. The supper rooms werevaulted, and the compartments of the ceiling, inlaid with ivory, weremade to revolve and scatter flowers upon the banqueters below. The chiefbanqueting-room was circular, and perpetually revolved in imitation ofthe motion of the celestial bodies. There are scarcely no remains ofthis extensive palace, which engrossed so large a part of the city, andwhich covered the site of so many famous temples and palaces, and whichexhausted even the imperial revenues, great as they were, even asVersailles taxed the magnificent resources of Louis XIV. , and St. Peter's obliged the Popes to appeal to the contributions of Christendom. 

[Sidenote: Temple of Peace. ]

The next great edifice which added to the architectural wonders of thecity, was the temple built by Vespasian after the destruction ofJerusalem, which he called the Temple of Peace. It was adorned with therichest sculptures and paintings of Greece, taken from Nero's palace, which Vespasian demolished as a monument of insane extravagance. In thistemple were deposited also the Jewish spoils, except the laws and veilof the temple. 

[Sidenote: Falvian Amphitheatre. ]

[Sidenote: The Colosseum. ]

But the great work of this emperor, and the greatest architecturalwonder of the world, was the amphitheatre, which he built on the groundcovered by Nero's lake, in the middle of the city, between the Velia andthe Esquiline. For magnitude it can only be compared with the pyramidsof Egypt, and its remains are the most striking monument we have of thematerial greatness of the Romans. Though not the first of theamphitheatres which were erected, its enormous size rendered theerection of subsequent ones unnecessary. It was here that emperors, senators, generals, knights, and people, met together to witness themost exciting and sanguinary amusements ever seen in the world. It wasbuilt in the middle of the city, with a perfect recklessness of expense, and could accommodate eighty-seven thousand spectators, round an arenalarge enough for the combats of several hundred animals at a time. Itwas a building of an elliptical form, founded on eighty arches, andrising to the height of one hundred and forty feet, with four successiveorders of architecture, six hundred and twenty feet by five hundred andthirteen, inclosing six acres. It was built of travertine, faced withmarble, and decorated with statues. The eighty arches of the lower storyformed entrances for the spectators. The seats were of marble coveredwith cushions. The spectators were protected from the sun and rain byample canopies, while the air was refreshed by scented fountains. Thenets designed as a protection from the wild beasts were made of goldenwire. The porticoes were gilded; the circle which divided the severalranks of spectators was studded with a precious mosaic of beautifulstones. The arena was strewed with the finest sand, and assumed, atdifferent times, the most different forms. Subterranean pipes conveyedwater into the arena. The furniture of the amphitheatre consisted ofgold, silver, and amber. The passages of ingress and egress were sonumerous that the spectators could go in and out without confusion. Onlya third part of this wonderful structure remains, and whole palaces havebeen built of its spoils. [Footnote: Dyer, _Hist. Of the City ofRome_, p. 245. Gibbon, chap. 12. Montaigne, _Essays_, in. 6. Lipsius, _de Amphitheatro_. ]

[Sidenote: Rebuilding of the Capitol. ]

[Sidenote: Arch of Titus. ]

Another great fire which took place A. D. 80, --the same in which Titusdedicated the Colosseum, --and which raged three days and nights, destroyed the region of the Circus Flaminius, including some of thefinest temples of the city, and especially on the Capitoline, andcreated the necessity for new improvements. These were made by Domitian, who rebuilt the Capitol itself with greater splendor on its old site, and erected several new edifices. Martial speaks with peculiaradmiration of the Temple of the Gens Flavia. [Footnote: Martial, _L_. , ix. Ep. 4, 35. ] He also erected that beautiful arch to hisbrother Titus which still remains one of the finest monuments of theimperial city. The Odeum, a roofed theatre, was erected by him, capableof holding twelve thousand people. He also made many additions to hispalace on the Palatine--so lofty, that Martial, his flatterer, described it as towering above the clouds, and Statius compared theceiling to the cope of heaven. 

[Sidenote: Forum Trajanum. ]

[Sidenote: Basilica Ulpia. ]

No great improvements were made in the city until Trajan commenced hisbeneficent and splendid reign. His greatest work was the Forum whichbears his name, to which allusion has been made, eleven hundred feetlong, in the centre of which was that beautiful pillar, one hundred andtwenty-eight feet high, which is still standing. The Forum, the BasilicaUlpia, and the temple dedicated by Hadrian to Trajan, were all parts ofthis magnificent structure, one of the most imposing ever built, filledwith colossal statues and surrounded with colonnades. 

[Sidenote: Temple of Venus and Rome. ]

[Sidenote: Mausoleum of Hadrian. ]

[Sidenote: Hadrians Villa. ]

None of the Roman emperors had so great a passion for building asHadrian, who succeeded Trajan A. D. 117. He erected a vast number ofedifices, and in his reign Rome attained its greatest height ofarchitectural splendor. The most remarkable among the edifices which hebuilt was the Temple of Venus and Rome, facing on one side theColosseum, and the other the Forum, on the site of the Atrium, or thegolden house of Nero. This seems to have been one of the largest of theRoman temples, erected on an artificial terrace five hundred feet longand three hundred broad. It was surrounded with a portico four hundredfeet by two hundred, and another portico of four hundred columnsinclosed the terrace on which the temple was built, the columns of whichwere forty feet in height. The roof was covered with bronze tiles. Ammianus Marcellinus classes this magnificent temple with the CapitolineTemple, the Flavian Amphitheatre, and the Pantheon. The next greatestwork of Hadrian was the Mausoleum, which is now converted into theCastle of St. Angelo, built on a platform of which each side was twohundred and fifty-three feet in length. From the magnificent colonnadewhich supported the platform on which it was built, and the successivestories supported by arches and pillars, between which were celebratedstatues, this circular edifice, one hundred and eighty-eight feet indiameter, must have been one of the most imposing edifices in the city. After eighteen centuries, it still remains a monument of architecturalstrength, and it served for one of the strongest fortresses in Italyduring the Middle Ages. I pass by, without notice, the villa thisemperor erected at Tivoli, the ruins of which are among the mostinteresting which remain of that great age. 

[Sidenote: Column of Marcus Aurelius. ]

[Sidenote: Arch of Septimius Severus. ]

[Sidenote: Baths of Caracalla. ]

Under Hadrian Rome attained its greatest splendor, and after him, therewas a progressive decline in the arts, since the public taste wascorrupted. Still successive emperors continued to adorn the city. MarcusAurelius, the wisest and best of all the emperors, erected a columnsimilar to that of Trajan, to represent his wars with the Germanictribes, and this still remains; he also built a triumphal arch. Septimius Severus erected the most beautiful of the triumphal arches, ofwhich the Arc de Triumph in Paris is an imitation; and Caracalla builtone of the greatest of the Roman baths, which, with the porticoes whichsurrounded it, formed a square of eleven hundred feet on each side--soenormous were these structures of luxury and utility, designed not onlyfor the people as a sanitary measure, but for places of gymnasticexercises, popular lectures, and the disputations of philosophers. ThePantheon was merely an entrance to the baths of Agrippa. The baths ofTrajan covered an area nearly as great. But those of Caracalla surpassedthem all in magnificence. Nothing was more striking to a traveler thanthe painted corridors, the arched ceilings, the variegated columns, theelaborate mosaic pavements, the immortal statues, and the exquisitepaintings which ornamented these places of luxury and pleasure. Fromamid their ruins have been dug out the most priceless of the statueswhich ornament the museums of Italy--the Farnese Hercules, the colossalFlorae, the Torso Farnese, the Torso Belvidere, the Atreus and Thyestes, the Laocoon, beside granite and basaltic vases beautifully polished, cameos, bronzes, medals, and other valuable relics of ancient art. Tosupply these baths new aqueducts were built, and the treasures of theempire expended. Those subsequently erected by Diocletian containedthree thousand two hundred marble seats, and the main hall now forms oneof the most splendid of the Roman churches. 

[Sidenote: Temples and Palaces. ]

[Sidenote: General aspect of the city. ]

[Sidenote: What a traveler would see in a walk. ]

[Sidenote: The Via Sacra. ]

[Sidenote: The Velabrum. ]

[Sidenote: The Fora. ]

[Sidenote: View from the summit of the Capitoline Hill. ]

[Sidenote: Gardens of Lucullus. ]

[Sidenote: The Subura. ]

[Sidenote: Circus Maximus. ]

[Sidenote: View of Rome from the Capitol. ]

Such is a brief view of the progress of those architectural wonderswhich made Rome the most magnificent city of antiquity, and perhaps thegrandest, in its public monuments, of any city in ancient or moderntimes. What a concentration of works of art on the hills, and around theForum, and in the Campus Martins, and other celebrated quarters! Therewere temples rivaling those of Athens and Ephesus; baths covering moreground than the Pyramids, surrounded with Corinthian columns and filledwith the choicest treasures, ransacked from the cities of Greece andAsia; palaces in comparison with which the Tuileries and Versailles aresmall; theatres which seated more people than any present publicbuildings in Europe; amphitheatres more extensive and costly thanCologne, Milan, and York Minster cathedrals combined, and seating eighttimes as many people as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church;circuses where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousandspectators could witness the games and chariot-races at a time; bridges, still standing, which have furnished models for the most beautiful atParis and London; aqueducts carried over arches one hundred feet inheight, through which flowed the surplus water of distant lakes; drainsof solid masonry in which large boats could float; pillars more than onehundred feet in height, coated with precious marbles or plates of brass, and covered with bass-reliefs; obelisks brought from Egypt; fora andbasilicae connected together, and extending more than three thousandfeet, in length, every part of which was filled with "animated busts" ofconquerors, kings, and statesmen, poets, publicists, and philosophers;mausoleums greater and more splendid than that Artemisia erected to thememory of her husband; triumphal arches under which marched in statelyprocession the victorious armies of the Eternal City, preceded by thespoils and trophies of conquered empires, --such was the proud capital--a city of palaces, a residence or nobles who were virtually kings, enriched with the accumulated treasures of ancient civilization. Greatwere the capitals of Greece and Asia, but how preeminent was Rome, sinceall were subordinate to her. How bewildering and bewitching to atraveler must have been the varied wonders of the city! Go where hewould, his eye rested on something which was both a study and a marvel. Let him drive or walk about the suburbs, there were villas, tombs, aqueducts looking like railroads on arches, sculptured monuments, andgardens of surpassing beauty and luxury. Let him approach the walls--they were great fortifications extending twenty-one miles in circuit, according to the measurement of Ammon as adopted by Gibbon, and forty-five miles according to other authorities. Let him enter any of thevarious gates which opened into the city from the roads which radiatedto all parts of Italy--they were of monumental brass covered with bass-reliefs, on which the victories of generals for a thousand years werecommemorated. Let him pass up the Via Appia, or the Via Flaminia, or theVia Cabra--they were lined with temples and shops and palaces. Let himpass through any of the crowded thoroughfares, he saw houses toweringscarcely ever less than seventy feet--as tall as those of Edinburgh inits oldest sections. Let him pass through the varied quarters of thecity, or wards as we should now call them, he finds some fourteenregions, as constituted by Augustus, all marked by architecturalmonuments, and containing, according to Lipsius, a population largerthan London or Paris, guarded and watched by a police of ten thousandarmed men. Most of the houses in which this vast population lived, according to Strabo, possessed pipes which gave a never-failing supplyof water from the rivers which flowed into the city through theaqueducts and out again through the sewers into the Tiber. Let him walkup the Via Sacra--that short street, scarcely half a mile in length--andhe passes the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Temple of Venus, and Rome, theArch of Titus, the temples of Peace, of Vesta, and of Castor, the ForumRomanum, the Basilica Julia, the Arch of Severus, and the Temple ofSaturn, and stands before the majestic ascent to the Capitoline Jupiter, with its magnificent portico and ornamented pediment, surpassing thefacade of any modern church. On his left, as he emerges from beneath thesculptured Arch of Titus, is the Palatine Mount, nearly covered by thepalace of the Caesars, the magnificent residences of the higher nobility, and various temples, of which that of Apollo was the most magnificent, built by Augustus of solid white marble from Luna. Here were the palacesof Vaccus, of Flaccus, of Cicero, of Catiline, of Scaurus, of Antonius, of Clodius, of Agrippa, and of Hortensius. Still on his left, in thevalley between the Palatine and the Capitoline, though he cannot see it, concealed from view by the great temples of Vesta and of Castor, and thestill greater edifice known as the Basilica Julia, is the quarter calledthe Velabrum, extending to the river, where the Pons Aemilius crosses it--a low quarter of narrow streets and tall houses where the rabble livedand died. On his right, concealed from view by the Aedes Divi Julii andthe Forum Romanum, is that magnificent series of edifices extending fromthe Temple of Peace to the Temple of Trajan, including the BasilicaPauli, the Forum Julii, the Forum Augusti, the Forum Trajani, theBasilica Ulpia, more than three thousand feet in length and six hundredin breadth, almost entirely surrounded by porticoes and colonnades, andfilled with statues and pictures--on the whole the grandest series ofpublic buildings clustered together probably ever erected, especially ifwe take in the Forum Romanum and the various temples and basilicas whichconnected the whole together--a forest of marble pillars and statues. Heascends the steps which lead from the Temple of Concord to the Temple ofJuno Moneta upon the Arx or Tarpeian Rock, on the southwestern summit ofthe hill, itself one of the most beautiful temples in Rome, erected byCamillus on the spot where the house of M. Manlius Capitolinus hadstood. Here is established the Roman mint. Near this is the templeerected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans and that built by Domitian toJupiter Gustos. But all the sacred edifices which crown the Capitolineare subordinate to the Templum Jovis Capitolini, standing on a platformof eight thousand square feet, and built of the richest materials. Theportico which faces the Via Sacra consists of three rows of Doriccolumns, the pediment is profusely ornamented with the choicestsculptures, the apex of the roof is surmounted by the bronze horses ofLysippus, and the roof itself is covered with gilded tiles. The templehas three separate cells, though covered with one roof; in front of eachstand colossal statues of the three deities to whom it is consecrated. Here are preserved what was most sacred in the eyes of Romans, and it isitself the richest of all the temples of the city. What a beautifulpanorama is presented to the view from the summit of this consecratedhill, only mounted by a steep ascent of one hundred steps. To the southis the Via Sacra extending to the Colosseum, and beyond it is the AppiaVia, lined with monuments as far as the eye can reach. Little beyond thefora to the east is the Carinae, a fashionable quarter of beautiful shopsand houses, and still further off are the Baths of Titus, extending fromthe Carinae to the Esquiline Mount. This hill, once a burial-ground, isnow covered with the house and gardens of Maecenas, and of the poets whomhe patronized. It is not rich in temples, but its gardens and groves arebeautiful. To the northeast are the Viminal and Quirinal hills, afterthe Palatine the most ancient part of the city--the seat of the Sabinepopulation. Abounding in fanes and temples, the most splendid of whichis the Temple of Quirinus, erected originally to Romulus by Numa, butrebuilt by Augustus, with a double row of columns on each of its sides, seventy-six in number. Near by was the house of Atticus, and the gardensof Sallust in the valley between the Quirinal and Pincian, afterwardsthe property of the emperor. Far back on the Quirinal, near the wall ofServius, were the Baths of Diocletian, and still further to the east thePretorian Camp established by Tiberius, and included within the wall ofAurelian. To the northeast the eye lights on the Pincian Hill covered bythe gardens of Lucullus, to possess which Messalina caused the death ofValerius Asiaticus, into whose possession they had fallen. In the valleywhich lay between the fora and the Quirinal was the celebrated Subura, --the quarter of shops, markets, and artificers, --a busy, noisy, vulgarsection, not beautiful, but full of life and enterprise and wickedness. The eye now turns to the north, and the whole length of the Via Flaminiais exposed to view, extending from the Capitoline to the Flaminian gate, perfectly straight, the finest street in Rome, and parallel to themodern Corso. It is the great highway to the north of Italy. Monumentsand temples and palaces line this celebrated street. It is spanned bythe triumphal arches of Claudius and Marcus Aurelius. To the west of itis the Campus Martius, with its innumerable objects of interest, --theBaths of Agrippa, the Pantheon, the Thermae Alexandrinae, the Column ofMarcus Aurelius, and the Mausoleum of Augustus. Beneath the Capitolineon the west, toward the river, is the Circus Flaminius, the Portico ofOctavius, the Theatre of Balbus, and the Theatre of Pompey, where fortythousand spectators were accommodated. Stretching beyond the ThermaeAlexandrinae, near the Pantheon, is the magnificent bridge which crossesthe Tiber, built by Hadrian when he founded his Mausoleum, to which itleads, still standing under the name of the Ponte S. Angelo. The eyetakes in eight or nine bridges over the Tiber, some of wood, butgenerally of stone, of beautiful masonry, and crowned with statues. Atthe foot of the Capitoline, toward the southwest, are the Portico ofOctavius and the Theatre of Marcellus, near the Pons Cestius. Stillfurther southwest, between the Capitoline and the Aventine, in a lowvalley, are the Velabrum and the Forum Boarium, once a marsh, but nowrich in temples and monuments, among which are those of Hercules Fortunaand Mater Matuta. There are no less than four temples consecrated toHercules in the Forum Boarium, one of the most celebrated places inRome, devoted to trade and commerce. Beyond still, in the valley betweenthe Palatine and the Aventine, is the great Circus Maximus, founded bythe early Tarquin. It is the largest open space inclosed by walls andporticoes in the city. It seats three hundred and eighty-five thousandpeople. How vast a city, which can spare nearly four hundred thousand ofits population to see the chariot-races! Beyond is the Aventine itself. This also is rich in legendary monuments and in the palaces of thegreat, though originally a plebeian quarter. Here dwelt Trajan, beforehe was emperor, and Ennius the poet, and Paula, the friend of St. Jerome. Beneath the Aventine, and a little south of the Circus Maximus, west of the Appian Way, are the great baths of Caracalla, the ruins ofwhich, next to those of the Colosseum, made on my mind the strongestimpression of any thing that pertains to antiquity, though these werenot so large as those of Diocletian. The view south takes in the CaelianHill, the ancient residence of Tullus Hostilius. The beautiful Temple ofDivus Claudius, the Arch of Dolabella, the Macellum Magnum, --a marketfounded by Nero, --the Castra Peregrina, the Temple of Isis, the CampusMartialis, are among the most conspicuous objects of interest. This hillis the residence of many distinguished Romans. It is covered withpalaces. Among them is the house of Claudius Centumalus--so high, thatthe augurs command him to lower it. It towers ten or twelve stories intothe air. Scarcely inferior in size is the house of Mamura, whosesplendor is described by Pliny. Here also is the house of Annius Verus, the father of Marcus Aurelius, surrounded with gardens. But grander thanany of these palaces is that of Plautius Lateranus, the _egregioeLateranorum oedes_, which became imperial property in the time ofNero, and on whose site stands the basilica of St. John Lateran, --thegift of Constantine to the bishop of Rome, --one of the most ancient ofthe Christian churches, in which, for fifteen hundred years, dailyservices have been performed. 

[Sidenote: Population. ]

[Sidenote: Number of houses. ]

Such are the objects of interest and grandeur which strike the eye as itis turned toward the various quarters of the city. But these are onlythe more important. The seven hills, appearing considerably higher thanat the present day, as the valleys are raised fifteen or twenty feetabove their ancient level, are covered with temples, palaces, andgardens; the valleys are densely crowded with shops, houses, baths, andtheatres. The houses rise frequently to the tenth platform or story. Thesuburban population, beyond the walls, is probably greater than thatwithin. The city, virtually, contains between three and four millions orpeople. Lipsius estimates four millions as the population, includingslaves, women, children, and strangers. Though this estimate is regardedas too large by Merivale and others, yet how enormous must have been thenumber of the people when there were nine thousand and twenty-fivebaths, and when those of Diocletian could accommodate three thousand twohundred people at a time. The wooden theatre of Scaurus contained eightythousand seats; that of Marcellus would seat twenty thousand; theColosseum would seat eighty-seven thousand, and give standing space fortwenty-two thousand more. The Circus Maximus would hold three hundredand eighty-five thousand spectators. If only one person out of four ofthe free population witnessed the games and spectacles at a time, wethus must have four millions of people altogether in the city. TheAurelian walls are now only thirteen miles in circumference, but Lipsiusestimates the circumference at forty-five miles, and Vopiscus nearlyfifty. The diameter of the city must have been eleven miles, sinceStrabo tells us that the actual limit of Rome was at a place between thefifth and sixth milestone from the column of Trajan in the Forum--thecentral and most conspicuous object in the city except thecapitol. [Footnote: Strabo, lib. V. Ch. 3. ] Even in the sixth century, after Rome had been sacked and plundered by Goths and Vandals, Zacharia, a traveler, asserts that there were three hundred and eighty-fourspacious streets, eighty golden statues of the gods; sixty-six largeivory statues of the gods; forty-six thousand six hundred and threehouses; seventeen thousand and ninety-seven palaces; thirteen thousandand fifty-two fountains; three thousand seven hundred and eighty-fivebronze statues of emperors and generals; twenty-two great horses inbronze; two colossi; two spiral columns; thirty-one theatres; elevenamphitheatres; nine thousand and twenty-six baths; two thousand threehundred shops of perfumers; two thousand and ninety-oneprisons. [Footnote: St. Ampere, _Hist. Romaine a Rome_. ] This seemsto be incredible. "But, " says Story, "Augustus divided the city intoeighteen regions: each region contained twenty-two vici; each vicuscontained about two hundred and thirty dwelling-houses, so that theremust have been seventy-five thousand houses; of these houses, seventeenthousand were palaces, or domus. If each contained two hundred persons, (and four hundred slaves were maintained in a single palace, ) reckoningfamily, freedmen, and slaves, we have three millions four hundredthousand people, and supposing the remaining fifty-eight thousand housesto have contained twenty-five persons each, we have in them one millionfour hundred and fifty thousand, which would give an entire populationof four millions eight hundred and fifty thousand. " If Mr. Merivale'sestimate of seven hundred thousand is correct, then the Colosseum wouldhold nearly one in six of the whole population, which is incredible. Indeed, it is probable that even four millions was under than above thetrue estimate, which would make Rome the most populous city ever seenupon our globe. Nor is it extravagant to suppose this. The citynumbered, according to the census, eighty thousand people in the year197; and in 683 it had risen to four hundred and fifty thousand. Is itstrange it should have numbered four millions in the time of Augustus, or even six millions in the time of Arelian, when we bear in mind thatit was the political and social centre of a vast empire, and that empirethe world? If London contains three millions at the present day, andParis two millions, why should not a capital which had no rival, andwhich controlled at least one hundred and twenty millions of people? Sothat Pliny was not probably wrong when he said, "_Si quis altitudinemtectorum addat, dignam profecto oestimationem concipiat, fateatur quinullius urbis magnitudinem potuisse ei comparare. _" "If any oneconsiders the height of the roofs, so as to form a just estimate, hewill confess that no city could be compared with it for magnitude. "

[Sidenote: The monuments which survive. ]

[Sidenote: Games of Titus. ]

Modern writers, taking London and Paris for their measure of materialcivilization, seem unwilling to admit that Rome could have reached sucha pitch of glory and wealth and power. To him who stands within thenarrow limits of the Forum, as it now appears, it seems incredible thatit could have been the centre of a much larger city than Europe can nowboast of. Grave historians are loth to compromise their dignity andcharacter for truth, by admitting statements which seem, to men oflimited views, to be fabulous, and which transcend modern experience. But we should remember that most of the monuments of ancient Rome haveentirely disappeared. Nothing remains of the Palace of the Caesars, whichnearly covered the Palatine Hill; little of the fora which, connectedtogether, covered a space twice as large as that inclosed by the palacesof the Louvre and Tuileries with all their galleries and courts; almostnothing of the glories of the Capitoline Hill; and little comparativelyof those Thermae which were a mile in circuit. But what does remainattests an unparalleled grandeur--the broken pillars of the Forum; thelofty columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; the Pantheon, lifting itsspacious dome two hundred feet into the air; the mere vestibule of theBaths of Agrippa; the triumphal arches of Titus and Trajan andConstantine; the bridges which span the Tiber; the aqueducts which crossthe Campagna; the Cloaca Maxima, which drained the marshes and lakes ofthe infant city; but above all, the Colosseum. What glory and shame areassociated with that single edifice! That alone, if nothing elseremained of Pagan antiquity, would indicate a grandeur and a folly suchas cannot now be seen on earth. It reveals a wonderful skill in masonry, and great architectural strength; it shows the wealth and resources ofrulers who must have had the treasures of the world at their command; itindicates an enormous population, since it would seat all the maleadults of the city of New York; it shows the restless passions of thepeople for excitement, and the necessity on the part of government ofyielding to this taste. What leisure and indolence marked a city whichcould afford to give up so much time to the demoralizing sports! Whatfacilities for transportation were afforded, when so many wild beastscould be brought to the capital from the central parts of Africa withoutcalling out unusual comment! How imperious a populace that compels thegovernment to provide such expensive pleasures! The games of Titus, onits dedication, last one hundred days, and five thousand wild beasts areslaughtered in the arena. The number of the gladiators who foughtsurpasses belief. At the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, tenthousand gladiators were exhibited, and the emperor himself presidesunder a gilded canopy, surrounded by thousands of his lords. Underneaththe arena, strewed with yellow sand and sawdust, is a solid pavement soclosely cemented that it can be turned into an artificial lake on whichnaval battles are fought. But it is the conflict of gladiators whichmost deeply stimulates the passions of the people. The benches arecrowded with eager spectators, and the voices of one hundred thousandare raised in triumph or rage as the miserable victims sink exhausted inthe bloody sport. 

[Sidenote: Roman triumphs. ]

But it is not the gladiatorial sports of the amphitheatre which moststrikingly attest the greatness and splendor of the city; nor thepalaces, in which as many as four hundred slaves are sometimesmaintained as domestic servants, twelve hundred in number according tothe lowest estimate, but probably five times as numerous, since everysenator, every knight, and every rich man was proud to possess aresidence which would attract attention; nor the temples, which numberedfour hundred and twenty-four, most of which were of marble, filled withstatues, the contributions of ages, and surrounded with groves; nor thefora and basilicae, with their porticoes, statues, and pictures, coveringmore space than any cluster of public buildings in Europe, a mile and ahalf in circuit; nor the baths, nearly as large, still more completelyfilled with works of art; nor the Circus Maximus, where more peoplewitnessed the chariot races at a time than are nightly assembled in allthe places of public amusement in Paris, London, and New York combined--more than could be seated in all the cathedrals of England and France;it is not these which most impressively make us feel that Rome was themistress of the world and the centre of all civilization. The triumphalprocessions of the conquering generals were still more exciting tobehold, for these appeal more directly to the imagination, and excitethose passions which urged the Romans to a career of conquest fromgeneration to generation. No military review of modern times equaledthose gorgeous triumphs, even as no scenic performance compares with thegladiatorial shows. The. Sun has never shone upon any human assemblageso magnificent and so grand, so imposing and yet so guilty. And werecall the picture of it with solemn awe as it moves along the Via Sacraand ascends the Capitoline Hill, or passes through the theatres ofPompey and Marcellus, that all the people might witness the brilliantspectacle. Not only were displayed the spoils of conquered kingdoms, andthe triumphal cars of generals, but the whole military strength of thecapital. An army of one hundred thousand men, flushed with victory, follows the gorgeous procession of nobles and princes. The triumph ofAurelian, on his return from the East, gives us some idea of thegrandeur of that ovation to conquerors. "The pomp was opened by twentyelephants, four royal tigers, and two hundred of the most curiousanimals from every climate, north, south, east, and west. These werefollowed by one thousand six hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruelamusement of the amphitheatre. Then were displayed the arms and ensignsof conquered nations, the plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen. Thenambassadors from all parts of the earth--all remarkable in their richdresses, with their crowns and offerings. Then the captives taken in thevarious wars, Goths, Vandals, Samaritans, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls, Syrians, and Egyptians, each marked by their national costume. Then theQueen of the East, the beautiful Zenobia, confined by fetters of gold, and fainting under the weight of jewels, preceding the beautiful chariotin which she had hoped to enter the gates of Rome. Then the chariot ofthe Persian king. Then the triumphal car of Aurelian himself, drawn byelephants. Finally the most illustrious of the Senate, the people, andthe army closed the solemn procession, amid the acclamations of thepeople, and the sound of musical instruments. It took from dawn of dayuntil the ninth hour for the procession to pass to the capital, and thefestival was protracted by theatrical representations, the games of thecircus, the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators, and navalengagements. Liberal donations were presented to the army, and a portionof the spoils dedicated to the gods. All the temples glittered with theofferings of ostentatious piety, and the Temple of the Sun receivedfifteen thousand pounds of gold. The soldiers and the citizens were thensurfeited with meat and wine. The disbanded soldiery thronged theamphitheatre, and yelled their fiendish applause at the infernal games, --the gorged robbers of the world, drunk in a festival of hell, "[Footnote: Henry Giles. ]--a representation of war as terrible as waritself, compensating to the Roman people the massacres which they couldnot see. 

If any thing more were wanted to give us an idea of Roman magnificence, we would turn our eyes from public monuments, demoralizing games, andgrand processions; we would forget the statues in brass and marble, which outnumbered the living inhabitants, so numerous that one hundredthousand have been recovered and still embellish Italy, and woulddescend into the lower sphere of material life--to those things whichattest luxury and taste--to ornaments, dresses, sumptuous living, andrich furniture. The art of working metals and cutting precious stonessurpassed any thing known at the present day. In the decoration ofhouses, in social entertainments, in cookery, the Romans wereremarkable. The mosaics, signet rings, cameos, bracelets, bronzes, chains, vases, couches, banqueting tables, lamps, chariots, coloredglass, gildings, mirrors, mattresses, cosmetics, perfumes, hair dyes, silk robes, potteries, all attest great elegance and beauty. The tablesof thuga root and Delian bronze were as expensive as the sideboards ofSpanish walnut, so much admired in the great exhibition at London. Woodand ivory were carved as exquisitely as in Japan and China. Mirrors weremade of polished silver. Glass-cutters could imitate the colors ofprecious stones so well, that the Portland vase, from the tomb ofAlexander Severus, was long considered as a genuine sardonix. Brasscould be hardened so as to cut stone. The palace of Nero glittered withgold and jewels. Perfumes and flowers were showered from ivory ceilings. The halls of Heliogabulus were hung with cloth of gold, enriched withjewels. His beds were silver, and his tables of gold. Tiberius gave amillion of sesterces for a picture for his bed-room. A banquet dish ofDrusillus weighed five hundred pounds of silver. The cups of Drusus wereof gold. Tunics were embroidered with the figures of various animals. Sandals were garnished with precious stones. Paulina wore jewels, whenshe paid visits, valued at $800, 000. Drinking-cups were engraved withscenes from the poets. Libraries were adorned with busts, and presses ofrare woods. Sofas were inlaid with tortoise-shell, and covered withgorgeous purple. The Roman grandees rode in gilded chariots, bathed inmarble baths, dined from golden plate, drank from crystal cups, slept onbeds of down, reclined on luxurious couches, wore embroidered robes, andwere adorned with precious stones. They ransacked the earth and the seasfor rare dishes for their banquets, and ornamented their houses withcarpets from Babylon, onyx cups from Bythinia, marbles from Numidia, bronzes from Corinth, statues from Athens--whatever, in short, wasprecious or rare or curious in the most distant countries. The luxuriesof the bath almost exceed belief, and on the walls were magnificentfrescoes and paintings, exhibiting an inexhaustible productiveness inlandscape and mythological scenes, executed in lively colors. From thepraises of Cicero, Seneca, and Pliny, and other great critics, we have aright to infer that painting was as much prized as statuary, and equaledit in artistic excellence, although so little remains of antiquity fromwhich we can form an enlightened judgment. We certainly infer fromdesigns on vases great skill in drawing, and from the excavations ofPompeii, the most beautiful colors. The walls of the great hall of thebaths of Titus represent flowers, birds, and animals, drawn withwonderful accuracy. In the long corridor of these baths the ceiling ispainted with colors which are still fresh, and Raphael is said to havestudied the frescoes with admiration, even as Michael Angelo found inthe Pantheon a model for the dome of St. Peter's, and in the statueswhich were dug up from the ruins of the baths, studies for his ownimmortal masterpieces. 

Thus every thing which gilds the material wonders of our day with gloryand splendor, also marked the old capitol of the world. That which ismost prized by us, distinguished to an eminent degree the Romangrandees. In an architectural point of view no modern city approachesRome. It contained more statues than all the Museums of Europe. It hadevery thing which we have except machinery. It surpassed every moderncapitol in population. It was richer than any modern city, since thepeople were not obliged to toil for their daily bread. The poor were fedby the government, and had time and leisure for the luxuries of the bathand the excitements of the amphitheatre. The citizen nobles owned wholeprovinces. Even Paula could call a whole city her own. Rich senators, insome cases, were the proprietors of twenty thousand slaves. Theirincomes were known to be 1000 pounds sterling a day, when gold andsilver were worth four times as much as at the present day. Rome wasmade up of these citizen kings and their dependants, for most of thesenators had been, at some time, governors of provinces, which theyrifled and robbed. In Rome were accumulated the choicest treasures ofthe world. Her hills were covered with the palaces of the proudestnobles that ever walked the earth, Rome was the centre, and the glory, and the pride of all the nations of antiquity. It seemed impossible thatsuch a city could ever be taken by enemies, or fall into decay. "_Quando cadet Roma cadet et mundus_, " said the admiring Saxonsthree hundred years after the injuries inflicted by Goths and Vandals. Nor has Rome died. Never has she entirely passed into the hands of herenemies. A hundred times on the verge of annihilation, she was neverannihilated. She never accepted the stranger's yoke--she never waspermanently subjected to the barbarian. She continued to be Roman afterthe imperial presence had departed. She was Roman when fires, andinundations, and pestilence, and famine, and barbaric soldiers desolatedthe city. She was Roman when the Pope held Christendom in a basesubserviency. She was Roman when Rienzi attempted to revive the virtuesof the heroic ages, and when Michael Angelo restored the wonders ofApollodorus. And Roman that city will remain, whether as the home ofprinces, or the future capitol of the kings of Italy, or the resort oftravelers, or the school of artists, or the seat of a spiritualdespotism which gains strength as political and temporal power passesaway before the ideas of the new races and the new civilization. 

 * * * * *

The most valuable book of reference for this chapter is the late work ofDr. Dyer, author of the article "Roma" in Smith's Dictionary. In factthis chapter is a mere compilation of that elaborate work, ("History ofthe City of Rome, ") which may be said to be exhaustive. Mabillon andMontfaucon--two French Benedictines--rendered great service in theseventeenth century to Roman topography. Edward Burton and RichardBurgess wrote descriptions of Roman antiquities, now superseded by thewritings of those great German scholars, who made a new epoch of Romantopography--Niebuhr, Bunsen, Platner, Gerhard, and Rostell, who, however, have succeeded in throwing doubt on many things supposed to beestablished. One of the most learned treatises on ancient Rome is thecelebrated _Handbuch_ of Becker. Stephano Piale and Luigi Caninaare the most approved of the modern Italian antiquarians. 

[Relocated Footnote:

[Sidenote: Mausoleum of Augustus. ]

[Sidenote: Those who were buried in it. ]

"This enduring structure, which survived the conflagrations, the wars, and the anarchies of fifteen hundred years, consisted of a large tumulusof earth, raised on a lofty basement of white marble, and covered on thesummit with evergreens in the manner of a hanging garden. On the summitwas a bronze statue of Augustus himself, and beneath the tumulus was alarge central hall, round which ran a range of fourteen sepulchralchambers, opening into this common vestibule. At the entrance were twoEgyptian obelisks, fifty feet in height, and all around was an extensivegrove divided into walks and terraces. The young Marcellus, whose fatewas bewailed by Virgil, was its first occupant. Here was placed Octavia, the neglected wife of Antony, and Agrippa, the builder of the Parthenon, and Livia, the beloved wife of Augustus, and beside them the firstimperator himself. Here were the poisoned ashes of the noble Germanicus, borne from Syria; here the young Drusus, the pride of the Ciaudianfamily, and at his side the second Drusus, the son of Tiberius. Herereposed the dust of Agrippina, after years of exile, by the side of herhusband, Germanicus; here Nero and his mother, Agrippina, and hisvictim, Britannicus; here Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and all theother Caesars to Nerva. Then the marble door was closed, for thesepulchral cells were full. "--Story's _Roba di Roma_. ]

CHAPTER IV. 

ART IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

In my enumeration of the external glories of the Roman world, I onlyattempted to glance at those wonders which were calculated to strike atraveler with admiration. Among these were the great developments ofArt, displayed in architecture, in statuary, and in painting. But I onlyenumerated the more remarkable objects of attraction; I did not attemptto show the genius displayed in them. But ancient art, as a proudcreation of the genius of man, demands additional notice. We wish toknow to what heights the Romans soared in that great realm of beauty andgrace and majesty. 

[Sidenote: Origins and principles of art. ]

[Sidenote: Fascinations of art. ]

[Sidenote: Development of art. ]

[Sidenote: Glory of art. ]

The aesthetic glories of art are among the grandest triumphs ofcivilization, and attest as well as demand no ordinary force of genius. Art claims to be creative, and to be based on eternal principles ofbeauty, and artists in all ages have claimed a proud niche in the templeof fame. They rank with poets and musicians, and even philosophers andhistorians, in the world's regard. They are favored sons of inspiration, urged to their work by ideal conceptions of the beautiful and the true. Their productions are material, but the spirit which led to theircreation is of the soul and mind. Imagination is tasked to the uttermostto portray sentiments and passions. The bust is "animated, " and thetemple, though built of marble, and by man, is called "religious. " Artappeals to every cultivated mind, and excites poetic feelings. It isimpressive even to every order, class, and condition of men, not, perhaps, in its severest forms, since the taste must be cultivated toappreciate its higher beauties, but to a certain extent. The pyramidsand the granite image temples of Egypt must have filled even the rudepeople with a certain awe and wonder, even as the majestic cathedrals ofmediaeval Europe, with their imposing pomps, stimulated the poeticconceptions of the Gothic nations. Art is popular. The rude savageadmires a gaudy picture even as the cultivated Leo X. Or CardinalMazarini bent in admiration before the great creations of Raphael orDomenichino. Art appeals to the senses as well as to the intellect andthe heart, and is capable of inspiring the passions as well as theloftiest emotions and sentiments. The Grecian mind was trained to thecontemplation of aesthetic beauty in temples, in statues, and inpictures; and the great artist was rewarded with honors and materialgains. The love of art is easier kindled than the love of literaryexcellence, and is more generally diffused. It is coeval with songs andepic poetry. Before Socrates or Plato speculated on the great certitudesof philosophy, temples and statues were the pride and boast of theircountrymen. And as the taste for art precedes the taste for letters, soit survives, when the literature has lost its life and freshness. Theluxurious citizens of Rome ornamented their baths and palaces withexquisite pictures and statues long after genius ceased to soar to theheights of philosophy and poetry. The proudest triumphs of genius are ina realm which art can never approach, yet the wonders of art are stillamong the great triumphs of civilization. Zeuxis or Praxiteles may nothave equaled Homer or Plato in profundity of genius, but it was only agreat age which could have produced a Zeuxis or Praxiteles. I cannotplace Raphael on so exalted a pinnacle as Luther, or Bacon, or Newton, and yet his fame will last as long as civilization shall exist. Thecreations of the chisel will ever be held in reverence by mankind, andprobably in proportion as wealth, elegance, and material prosperityshall flourish. In an important sense, Corinth was as wonderful asAthens, although to Athens will be assigned the highest place in theancient world. It was art rather than literature or philosophy which wasthe glory of Rome in the period of her decline. As great capitals becomecentres of luxury and display, artists will be rewarded and honored. Thepride of a commercial metropolis is in those material wonders whichappeal to the senses, and which wealth can purchase. A rich merchant cangive employment to the architect, when he would be disinclined to rewardthe critic or the historian. Even where liberty and lofty aspirationsfor truth and moral excellence have left a state, the arts suffer butlittle decline. The grandest monuments of Rome date to the imperialregime, not to the republican sway. When the voice of a Cicero was mute, the Flavian amphitheatre arose in its sublime proportions. Imperialdespotism is favorable to the adornment of Paris and St. Petersburg, even as wealth and luxury will beautify New York. When the early lightsof the Church were unheeded in the old capitals of the world, newtemples and palaces were the glory of the state. Art was the first to berevived of the trophies of the old civilization, and it will be the lastto be relinquished, by those whom civilization has enriched. Art excitesno dangerous passions or sentiments in a decaying monarchy, and it is afresh and perpetual pleasure, not merely to the people, but to thearbiters of taste and fashion. The Popes rewarded artists when theycrushed reformers, and persecuted inquiring genius. The developments ofart appeal to material life and interests rather than to the spiritualand eternal. St. Paul scarcely alludes to the material wonders of thecities he visited, even as Luther was insensible to the ornaments ofItaly in his absorbing desire for the spiritual and moral welfare ofsociety. Art is purely the creation of man. It receives no inspirationfrom Heaven; and yet the principles on which it is based are eternal andunchangeable, and when it is made to be the handmaid of virtue, it iscapable of exciting the loftiest sentiments. So pure, so exalted, and sowrapt are the feelings which arise from the contemplation of a greatpicture or statue, that we sometimes ascribe a religious force to theart itself, while all that is divine springs from the conception of theartist, and all that is divine in his conception arises from sentimentsindependent of his art, as he is stimulated by emotions of religion, orpatriotism, or public virtue, and which he could never have embodied hadhe not been a good man, rather than a great artist, or, at least, affected by sentiments which he learned from other sources. There can beno doubt that, through the vehicle of art, the grandest and noblestsentiments may be expressed. Hence artists may be great benefactors; yetsometimes their works are demoralizing, as they appeal to pervertedtaste and passions. This was especially true in the later days of Rome, when artists sought to please their corrupt but wealthy patrons. Thegreat artists of Greece, however, had in view a lofty ideal of beautyand grace which they sought to realize without reference to profit, orworldly advantage, or utilitarian necessities. Art, when true andexalted, as it sometimes is, and always should be, has its end initself. Like virtue, it is its own reward. Michael Angelo worked, preoccupied and wrapt, without the stimulus of even praise, even asDante lived in the visions to which his imagination gave form andreality. Art is therefore self-sustained, unselfish, lofty. It is thesoul going forth triumphant over external circumstances, jubilant andmelodious even in poverty and neglect, rising above the evils of life inits absorbing contemplation of ideal loveliness. The fortunate accidentsof earth are nothing to the true artist, striving to reach his ideal ofexcellence, --no more than carpets and chairs are to a great woman piningfor sympathy or love. And it is only when there is this soul-longing toreach the excellence it has conceived for itself alone that great workshave been produced. The sweetest strains of music sometimes come fromwomen where no one listens to their melodies. Nor does a great artistseek or need commiseration, if ever so unfortunate in worldlycircumstances. He may be sad and sorrowful, but only in the profoundseriousness of superior knowledge, in that isolation to which all geniusis doomed. 

[Sidenote: Great artists labor from inspiration. ]

We have reason to believe that the great artists of antiquity lived, asdid the Ionic philosophers, in their own glorious realms of thought andfeeling, which the world could neither understand nor share. Their ideasof grace and beauty were realized to the highest degree ever known onearth. They were expressed in their temples, their statues, and theirpictures. They did not live for utilities. When art became a utility, itdegenerated. It became more pretentious, artificial, complicated, elaborate, ornamental even, but it lacked genius, the simplicity ofpower, the glory of originality. The horses of the sun cannot be made togo round in a mill. The spiritual must keep within its own seclusion, inits inner temple of mystery and meditation. 

[Sidenote: Grecian art consecrated to Paganism. ]

[Sidenote: Greatness and beauty of Grecian art. ]

[Sidenote: Grecian admiration of art. ]

Grecian art was consecrated to Paganism, and could not therefore soarbeyond what Paganism revealed. It did not typify those exaltedsentiments which even a Gothic cathedral portrayed--sacrifice; the manon the cross; the man in the tomb; the man ascending to heaven. Nor didit paint, like Raphael, etherial beauty, such as was expressed in themother of our Lord, her whom all generations shall bless, _reginaangelorum, mater divinae gratiae_. But whatever has been reached by theunaided powers of man, it reproduced and consecrated, and it realizedthe highest conceptions of beauty and grace that have ever beenrepresented. All that the mind and the soul could, by their inherentforce, reach, it has attained. Modern civilization has no proudertriumphs than those achieved by the artists of Pagan antiquity in thosethings which pertain to beauty and grace. Grecian artists have been theschoolmasters of all nations and all ages in architecture, sculpture, and painting. How far they themselves were original we cannot decide, although they were probably somewhat indebted to the Assyrians andEgyptians. But they struck out so new a style, and so different from theolder monuments of Asia and Egypt, that we consider them the greatcreators of art. But whether original or not, they have never beensurpassed. In some respects their immortal productions remain objects ofhopeless imitation. In the realization of ideas of beauty which areeternal, like those on which Plato built his system of philosophy, theyreached absolute perfection. And hence we infer that art can flourishunder Pagan as well as Christian influences. We can go no higher thanthose ancient Pagans in one of the proudest fields of civilization; forart has as sincere and warm admirers as it had in Grecian and Romantimes, but the limit of excellence has been reached. It is the missionof our age to apply creative genius to enterprises and works which havenot been tried, if any thing new is to be found under the sun. Nor wasit the number and extent of the works of art among the Greeks andRomans, nor their perfection, which made art so distinguishing anelement of the old civilization. It was the spirit of the age, theabsorption of the public mind, the great prominence which art had in theeyes of the people. Art was to the Greeks what tournaments and churcheswere to the men of the Middle Ages, what the Reformation was to Germanyand England in the sixteenth century, what theories of political rightswere to the era of the French Revolution, what mechanical inventions toabridge human labor are to us. The creation of a great statue was anera, an object of popular interest--the subject of universal comment. Itkindled popular inspirations. It was the great form of progress in whichthat age rejoiced. Public benefactors erected temples, and lavished uponthem the superfluous wealth of the State. And public benefactors, inturn, had statues erected to their memory by their grateful admirers. The genius of the age expressed itself in marble histories. And thesehistories stand in the mystery of absolute perfection--the glory and thecharacteristic of a great and peculiar people. 

[Sidenote: Principles of art. ]

[Sidenote: Devotion of the Greeks for Art. ]

Much has been written on those principles upon which art is founded, andgreat ingenuity displayed. But treatises on taste, on beauty, on grace, and other perceptions of intellectual pleasure, are not verysatisfactory, and must be necessarily indefinite. In what does beautyconsist? Do we arrive at any clearer conceptions of it by definitions?Whether beauty, the chief glory of the fine arts, consists in certainarrangements and proportions of the parts to a whole, or in the fitnessof means to an end, or is dependent on associations which excitepleasure, or is a revelation of truth, or is an appeal to sensibilities, or is an imitation of Nature, or the realization of ideal excellence, itis difficult to settle and almost useless to inquire. "Metaphysics, mathematics, music, and philosophy have been called in to analyze, define, demonstrate, and generalize. " [Footnote: Cleghorn, _Ancientand Modern Art_, vol. I. P. 67. ] Great writers have written ingenioustreatises, like Burke, Alison, and Stewart. Beauty, according to Plato, is the contemplation of mind; Leibnitz maintained it consists inperfection; Diderot referred beauty to the idea of relation; Blondelasserted it was harmonic proportions; Peter Leigh speaks of it as themusic of the eye. Yet everybody understands what beauty is, and that itis derived from Nature, agreeable to the purest models which Naturepresents. Such was the ideal of Phidias. Such was it to the minds of theGreeks, who united every advantage, physical and mental, for theperfection of art. Nor could art have been so wonderfully developed hadit not been for the influence which the great poets, orators, dramatists, historians, and philosophers exercised on the inspiration ofthe artists. Phidias, being asked how he conceived the idea of hisOlympian Jupiter, answered by repeating a passage of Homer. We canscarcely conceive of the enthusiasm which the Greeks exhibited in thecultivation of art. Hence it has obtained an ascendency over that of allother nations. Roman art was the continuation of the Grecian. The Romansappreciated and rewarded Grecian artists. They adopted theirarchitecture, their sculpture, and their paintings; and, though artnever attained the estimation and dignity in Rome that it did in Greece, it still can boast of a great development. But, inasmuch as all thegreat models were Grecian, and appropriated and copied by the Romans, --inasmuch as the great wonders of the "Eternal City" were made byGreeks, --we cannot treat of Roman art in distinction from Grecian. Andas I wish to show simply the triumph of Pagan genius in the realm ofart, and most of the immortal creations of the great artists weretransported to Rome, and adorned Rome, it is within my province to gowhere they were originally found. 

 "Tu, regere imperio populos, Romane, memento! Hae tibi erunt artes. "

[Sidenote: Art first impressive in achitecture. ]

The first development of art was in architecture, not merely among theGreeks, but among the older nations. Although it refers, in a certainsense, to all buildings, yet it is ordinarily restricted to thoseedifices in which we recognize the principle of beauty, such assymmetrical arrangement, and attractive ornaments, like pillars, cornices, and sculptured leaves. 

The earliest buildings were houses to protect men from the inclemenciesof the weather, and built without much regard to beauty; but it is intemples for the worship of God, that architecture lays claim to dignity. It was the result of devotional feelings; nor is there a single instanceof supreme excellence in art being reached, which was not sacred, andconnected with reverential tendencies. In the erection and decoration ofsacred buildings there was a profound sentiment that they were to be thesanctuaries of God, and genius was stimulated by pious emotions. InIndia, in Egypt, in Greece, in Italy, the various temples all originatedin blended superstition and devotion. Nor did the edifice, erected forreligious worship, reach its culminating height of beauty and grandeuruntil that earnest and profoundly religious epoch which felt as injuriesthe insults offered to the tomb which covered the remains of the Saviourof the world. Then arose those hoary and Gothic vaults of Cologne andWestminster, the only modern structures which would probably have calledout the admiration of an ancient Greek. 

[Sidenote: Egyptian architecture. ]

[Sidenote: Monuments of Egypt. ]

[Sidenote: Temple of Carnack. ]

[Sidenote: Features of Egyptian art. ]

But architecture is conventional, and demands a knowledge of its systemand a mind informed as to the principles on which it depends for beauty. Hence, in the oldest temples of India and Egypt, there was probablyvastness, without elegance or even embellishment. But no nation everleft structures that, in extent and grandeur, can compare with those ofancient Egypt; and these were chiefly temples. Nothing remains of theancient monuments of Thebes but the ruins of edifices consecrated to thedeity--neither bridges, nor quays, nor baths, nor theatres. It was whenthe Israelites were oppressed by Pharaoh that the great city ofHeliopolis, which the Greeks called Thebes, arose, with its hundredgates, and stately public buildings, and magnificent temples. The ruinsof these attest grandeur and vastness. They were built of stone, in hugeblocks, and we are still at a loss to comprehend how such heavy stonescould have been transported and erected. All the monuments of thePharaohs are wonders of science and art, especially such as appear inthe ruins of Carnack--a temple formerly designated as that of JupiterAmmon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the Great, the firstof the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that architecture in Egyptreached its greatest development. Then we find the rectangular cutblocks of stone in parallel courses, and the heavy piers, and thecylindrical column, with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold andmassive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and columnto column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice. But theimposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the vast proportionsof the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of proportion, orgraceful embellishments. It was designed to awe the people, and kindlesentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this end wascontemplated, it was nobly reached. Even to this day the travellerstands in admiring amazement before those monuments which were old threethousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the Pyramids. No ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes. Thetemple of Carnack and the palace of Rameses the Great, were probably themost imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks ofstone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long andthree hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this andother structures did not possess that unity of design, which marked theGrecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes form the approach. AtCarnack the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main bodyof the edifice stand two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. Theprincipal structures do not follow the straight line, but begin withpyramidical towers which flank the gateways. Then follows, usually, acourt surrounded with colonnades, subordinate temples, and houses forthe priests. A second pylon, or pyramidical tower, now leads to theinterior and most considerable part of the temple, a portico inclosedwith walls, which only receives light through the entablature oropenings in the roof. Adjoining to this is the cella of the temple, without columns, inclosed by several walls, often divided into varioussmall chambers, with monolith receptacles for idols or mummies oranimals. The columns stand within the walls. The Egyptians had noperpetual temples. The colonnade is not, as among the Greeks, anexpansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with apertures. Thewalls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only on the inside, and beveled externally, so that the thickness at the bottom sometimesamounts to twenty-four feet, and thus the whole building assumes apyramidical form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian architecture. The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are placed closetogether, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft diminishes, andis ornamented with perpendicular or oblique furrows, but not fluted likeGrecian columns. The capitals are of the bell form, ornamented with allkinds of foliage, and have a narrow but high abacus, or bulge out below, and are contracted above, with low, but projecting abacus. They aboundwith sculptured decorations, borrowed from the vegetation of thecountry. The highest of the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and aquarter times the greatest diameter. [Footnote: Muller. ]

[Sidenote: The Pyramids. ]

But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as thePyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity, asfrom their immense size and unknown age. None but sacerdotal monarchswould ever have erected them--none but a fanatical people would everhave toiled upon them. They do not indicate civilization, but despotism. We do not know for what purpose they were raised, except as sepulchresfor kings. They do not even indicate as high a culture as the temples ofThebes, although they were built at a considerable period subsequently, even several generations after Sesostris reigned in splendor. Thepyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is sevenhundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air four hundred andfifty-two, and is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less fromtime than the mountains near it. And it is probable that it stands overan immense substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancientEgypt, and which may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of whichHerodotus speaks, built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to thisauthor, one hundred thousand men worked on this monument for fortyyears. What a waste of labor!

The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, and theonly difference of architecture is this, that the rooms are larger andin greater numbers. Some think that the labyrinth was a collectivepalace of many rulers. 

Such was the massive grandeur of Egyptian antiquities: at the bestcuriosities, but of slight avail for moral or aesthetic culture, they yetindicate a considerable civilization at a very remote period--provingnot merely by architectural monuments, but by their system of writing, an original and intellectual people. [Footnote: Muller, _AncientArt_; Wilkinson, _Topog. Of Thebes_; Champollion, _Lettres Ecritesd'Egypt_; _Journal des Sav. _ 1836; _Encyclopedia Britannica_;Strabo. ]

[Sidenote: Babylonian architecture. ]

Of Babylonian architecture we know but little, beyond what theScriptures and ancient authors allude to in scattered notices. But, though nothing survives of ancient magnificence, we feel that a citywhose walls, according to Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet inthickness, three hundred and thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles incircumference, and in which were one hundred gates of brass, must havehad considerable architectural splendor. The Tower of Belus, the Palaceof Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis, were probably wonderfulstructures, certainly in size, which is one of the conditions ofarchitectural effect. 

[Sidenote: Tyrian monuments. ]

The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection, since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancientworld, was probably built by Phoenician artists. It was not remarkablefor size; it was, indeed, very small; but it had great splendor ofdecoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solidplatform of stone, and having a striking resemblance to the oldest Greektemples, like those of aegina and Paestum. The portico of the temple, inthe time of Herod, was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the templeitself was entered by nine gates thickly coated with silver and gold. The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold, andwas dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticoes and palaceswith which it was surrounded, gave to it a very imposing effect. 

[Sidenote: Early Doric monuments. ]

[Sidenote: The principles of Doric architecture. ]

[Sidenote: The features of the Doric order. ]

[Sidenote: The Parthenon. ]

Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and highcivilization, was perfected only by the Greeks. Egyptian monuments werecuriosities to the Greek and Roman mind, as they are to us objects ofawe and wonder. And as we propose to treat of the arts in theirculminating excellence chiefly, --to show what the Pagan intellect of mancould accomplish, unaided by light from heaven, we turn to the greatteacher of the last two thousand years. It was among the ancientDorians, who descended from the mountains of Northern Greece eightyyears after the fall of Troy, that art first appeared. The Pelasgi, supposed to be Phoenicians, erected cyclopean structures fifteen hundredyears before Christ, as seen in the giant walls of the Acropolis, [Footnote: _Dodwell's Classical Tour_, Muller. ] constructed of hugeblocks of hewn stone, and the palaces of the princes of heroic times, [Footnote: Homer's description of the palace of Odysseus. ] like theMycenaean treasury, the lintel of the doorway of which is one stonetwenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. [Footnote: Mure, _Tour inGreece_. ] But these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richnessmerely, were deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have givenimmortality to the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architectureevery thing was suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. Thegreat thickness of the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ampleproportion of the capital; the great horizontal lines of the architraveand cornice, predominating over the vertical lines of the columns; theseverity of geometrical forms, produced for the most part by straightlines, gave an imposing simplicity to the Doric temple. How far theGreek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot tell, forthough columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian temples, theyare of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the structures ofThebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical columns, fromwhich amalgamation might have been produced the Doric column. The Greeksseized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved upon it. The Doriccolumn was not, probably, an entirely new creation, but shaped after themodels furnished by the most original of all the ancient nations, eventhe Egyptians. The Doric style was used exclusively until after theMacedonian conquest, and was chiefly applied to temples. The Dorictemples are uniform in plan. The columns were fluted, and were generallyabout six diameters in height. They diminished gradually from the base, with a slight convexed swelling downward. They were superimposed bycapitals proportionate, and coming within their height. The entablaturewhich the column supported is also of so many diameters in height. Soregular and perfect was the plan of the temple, that, "if the dimensionsof a single column, and the proportion the entablature should bear toit, were given to two individuals acquainted with the style, withdirections to compose a temple, they would produce designs exactlysimilar in size, arrangement, and general proportions. " Then the Doricorder possessed a peculiar harmony, but taste and skill werenevertheless necessary in order to determine the number of diameters acolumn should have, and, accordingly, the height of the entablature. TheDoric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand years, and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. The massive templesof Paestum, the colossal magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the moreelegant proportions of the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon andTemple of Theseus, show the perfection of the Doric architecture. Although the general style of all the Doric temples is so uniform, yethardly two temples were alike. The earlier Doric was more massive; thelatter were more elegant, and were rich in sculptured decorations. Nothing could surpass the beauty of a Doric temple in the time ofPericles. The stylobate or pedestal, from two thirds to a whole diameterof a column in height, was built in three equal courses, which graduallyreceded from the one below, and formed steps, as it were, of a grandplatform on which the pillars rested. The column was from four to sixdiameters in height, with twenty flutes, with a capital of half adiameter supporting the entablature. This again, two diameters inheight, was divided into architrave, frieze, and cornice. But the greatbeauty of the temple was the portico in front, a forest of columns, supporting the pediment, about a diameter and a half to the apex, makingan angle at the base of about 14 degrees. From the pediment projects thecornice, while, at the apex and at the base of it, are sculpturedornaments, generally, the figures of men or animals. The whole outlineof columns supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety oflight and shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitalsproduce a grand effect. The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen ofthe Doric, has never been equaled, and it still stands august in itsruins--the glory of the old Acropolis, and the pride of Athens. It wasbuilt of Pentelic marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It wastwo hundred and twenty-seven feet in length, and one hundred and one inbreadth, and sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight flutedcolumns, six feet and two inches at the base, and thirty-four feet inheight, while within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior rangeof columns, standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and thepediment were elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, while thecella, within and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures ofPhidias. The grandest was the colossal statue of Minerva, in the easternapartment of the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold andivory; while the inner walls were decorated with paintings, and thetemple itself was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon, so regular, with its vertical and horizontal lines, was curved in everyline, with the exception of the gable, --pillars, architrave, entablature, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement--all archedupwards, though so slightly as not to be perceptible, and these curvedlines gave to it a peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well assolidity. 

[Sidenote: The Acropolis. ]

Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by theAsiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. TheAcropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is ninediameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented. The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and alternate fillets, andthe fillet is about a quarter the width of the flute. The pediment isflatter than of the Doric order, and more elaborate. The greatdistinction of the Ionic column is a base, and a capital formed withvolutes, with a more slender shaft. Vitruvius, the greatest authorityamong the ancients in architecture, says that, "the Greeks, in inventingthese two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity anddignity of a man, and in the other, the delicacy and ornaments of awoman; the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and thevolutes of ringlets. "

[Sidenote: Temple of Minerva. ]

The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegancethan the other two, and was introduced toward the end of thePeloponnesian war. Its peculiarity is columns with foliated capitals, and still greater height, about ten diameters, with a more ornamentedentablature. Of this order, the most famous temple in Greece was that ofMinerva at Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire fourhundred years before Christ. 

Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, thegrace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves. The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, orwave, concave at one end, and convex at the other, like an Italic_f_, the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve, according to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes. 

[Sidenote: Architecture among the Greeks seen in greatest perfection intemples. ]

The most beautiful application of Grecian architecture was in thetemples, which were very numerous, and of extraordinary grandeur, longbefore the Persian war. Their entrance was always to the west or theeast. They were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostlyadorned with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in thefront alone, in the fore and back fronts, or on all the four sides. Theygenerally had porticoes attached to them. They had no windows, receivingtheir light from the door or from above. The friezes were adorned withvarious sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no expense wasspared upon them. The most important part of the temple was the cella, where the statue of the deity was kept, and was generally surroundedwith a balustrade. Beside the cella was the vestibule, and a chamber inthe rear or back front in which the treasures of the temple were kept. Names were applied to the temples, as well as the porticoes, accordingto the number of columns in the portico at either end of the temple, such as the tetrastyle with four columns in front, or hexastyle whenthere were six. There were never more than ten columns in front. TheParthenon had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule tohave twice as many columns along the sides as in front, and one more. Some of the temples had double rows of columns on all sides, like thatof Diana at Ephesus, and of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between thecolumns varied from a diameter and half of a column to four diameters. About five eighths of a Doric temple were occupied by the cella, andthree eighths by the portico. 

[Sidenote: Simplicity of Grecian temples. ]

That which gives so much simplicity and harmony in the Greek temples, which are the great elements of beauty in architecture, is the simpleoutline, in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines arestraight and uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicityand harmony are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the otherorders, and pertain to all the temples of which we have knowledge. Norcan any improvement be made upon them, or any alteration which does notconflict with established principles. The Ionic and Corinthian, or theVoluted and Foliated orders, do not possess that harmony which pervadesthe Doric, but the more beautiful compositions are so consummate thatthey will ever be taken as models of study. 

[Sidenote: Matchless proportions of the Grecian temples. ]

It is not the magnitude of the Grecian temples and other works of artwhich most impresses us. It is not for this that they are importantmodels. It is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in allthe modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared withthe temples of Egypt, or the vast dimensions of Roman amphitheatres. Only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic cathedral, likethe Parthenon, the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, and the Temple of Diana atEphesus. Even the Pantheon at Rome is small, compared with the latermonuments of the Caesars. The traveler is always disappointed incontemplating their remains, so far as size is concerned. But it istheir matchless proportions, their severe symmetry, the grandeur ofeffect, the undying beauty, the graceful form which impress us, and makeus feel that they are perfect. By the side of the Colosseum they areinsignificant in magnitude. They do not cover acres like the baths ofCaracalla. Yet who has copied the Flavian amphitheatre? Who erects anedifice after the style of the Thermae? But all artists copy theParthenon. That, and not the colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappearsin the capitals of Europe, and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angeloor a Christopher Wren. 

The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period fromPericles to Alexander--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonianconquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Romanconquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orderswere used indiscriminately. 

[Sidenote: Beginning of Roman art. ]

[Sidenote: Romans copied the Greeks. ]

In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world, and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was stillessentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledgefrom the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima was built during the reign of thesecond Tarquin--the grandest monument of the reign of the kings. It isnot probable that temples and other public buildings were eitherbeautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece, when Grecianarchitects were employed. The Romans adopted the Corinthian style, whichthey made even more ornamental, and by the successful combination of theEtruscan arch with the Grecian column, laid the foundation of a new andoriginal style, susceptible of great variety and magnificence. Theyentered into architecture with the enthusiasm of their teachers, but, intheir passion for novelty, lost sight of the simplicity which is thegreat fascination of a Doric Temple. "And they deemed that lightness andgrace were to be attained not so much by proportion between the verticaland the horizontal, as by the comparative slenderness of the former. Hence we see a poverty in Roman architecture in the midst of profuseornament. The great error was a constant aim to lessen the diameter, while they increased the elevation, of the columns. Hence the massivesimplicity and severe grandeur of the ancient Doric disappear in theRoman, the characteristics of the order being frittered down into amultiplicity of minute details. " [Footnote: Memes, _Sculpture andArchitecture. _] And when they used the Doric at all, they used thebase, which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doriccapital, which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Dorictemples were peripteral, that is, were surrounded with pillars on allthe sides. But the Romans did not build with porticoes even on eachfront, but only on one, which had a greater projection than the Grecian. They generally are projected three columns. Many of the Roman templesare circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columnsprojected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethraltemples, or uncovered, with internal columns, like the Greeks. ThePantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one greatornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internalcolumns placed in the front of niches, composed with antae, or pier-formed ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic onwhich the cupola rests. They also adopted coupled columns, broken andrecessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes. They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exteriordecoration of their palaces and baths, as we may infer from the ruins ofAdrian's villa at Tivoli, and the excavations of Pompeii. 

The Roman Corinthian, like the Greek orders, consisted of three parts, stylobate, column, and entablature, but the stylobate was much loftier, and was not graduated, except in the access before a portico. The columnvaried from nine and a half to ten diameters, and was always fluted withtwenty-four flutes and fillets. The height of the capital is a diameterand one eighth; the entablature varies from one diameter and seveneighths to two diameters and a half. The portico of the Pantheon is oneof the best specimens of the Corinthian order. The entablature of thetemple of Jupiter Stator, like that of the Pantheon, is two diametersand one half. The pediments are steeper than those made by the Greeks, varying in inclination from eighteen to twenty-five degrees. Themouldings used in Roman architectural works are the same as the Grecianin general form, although they differ from them in contour. They areless delicate and graceful, but were used in great profusion. Romanarchitecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding carved, and everystraight surface sculptured with foliage or historical subjects inrelief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and animals, witha variety of other things. The great exuberance of ornament isconsidered a defect, although when applied to some structures it isexceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars architecture hada character of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared inall the leading public buildings, columns generally forming theexternal, and arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabricarose on the ruins of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices ofNero, which ministered to debauchery, by structures of public utility. 

[Sidenote: Changes made by the Romans. ]

[Sidenote: Invention of the arch. ]

[Sidenote: Uses of the arch. ]

The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, except the arch, which was not known to the Greeks, and carried out by them to greaterperfection than by the Romans; but this, for simplicity, harmony, andbeauty, has never been surpassed in any age, or by any nation. TheRomans were a practical and utilitarian people, and needed for theirvarious structures greater economy of material than large blocks ofstone, especially for such as were carried to great altitudes. The archsupplied this want, and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made inarchitecture. No instance of its adoption occurs in the construction ofGreek edifices, before Greece became a part of the Roman Empire. Itsapplication dates back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been ofEtrurian invention. It was not known to Egyptians, or Persians, orIndians, or Greeks. Some maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was theinventor, but to whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it iscertain that the Romans were the first to make a practical applicationof its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast edifices intothe air with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts, sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples andpalaces; its merits have never been lost sight of by succeedinggenerations, and it is at the foundation of the magnificent Gothiccathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application extends to domes andcupolas, to arched floors and corridors and roofs, and to various otherparts of buildings where economy of material and labor is desired. Itwas applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an ornament aswell as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman architecture may betraced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch, and as brick wasmore extensively used than any other material, the arch was invaluable. The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon, except its porticoand internal columns, the temples of Peace, of Venus and Rome, and ofMinerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Adrian, the city walls, thevilla of Maecenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of the nobility;although, like many of the temples, they were faced with stone. TheColosseum was of travertine faced with marble. It was the custom tostucco the surface of the walls, as favorable to decorations. Inconsequence of this invention, the Romans erected a greater variety offine structures than either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose publicedifices were chiefly confined to temples. The arch entered into almostevery structure, public or private, and superseded the use of long stonebeams, which were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of woodentimbers, in the use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which donot really pertain to the art of architecture. An imposing building mustalways be constructed of stone or brick. The arch also enabled theRomans to economize in the use of costly marbles, of which they werevery fond, as well as of other stones. Some of the finest columns weremade of Egyptian granite, very highly polished. 

The extensive application of the arch doubtless led to the deteriorationof the Grecian architecture, since it blended columns with arcades, andthus impaired the harmony which so peculiarly marked the temples ofAthens and Corinth. And as taste became vitiated with the decline of theEmpire, monstrous combinations took place, which were a great fall fromthe simplicity of the Parthenon, and the interior of the Pantheon. 

[Sidenote: Magnificence of Roman architecture. ]

But whatever defects marked the age of Diocletian and Constantine, itcan never be questioned that the Romans carried architecture to aperfection rarely attained in our times. They may not have equaled thesevere simplicity of their teachers, the Greeks, but they surpassed themin the richness or their decorations, and in all buildings designed forutility, especially in private houses and baths and theatres. 

[Sidenote: The effect of columns in architecture. ]

The Romans do not seem to have used other than semicircular arches. TheGothic, or Pointed, or Christian architecture, as it has been variouslycalled, was the creation of the Middle Ages, and arose nearlysimultaneously in Europe after the first Crusade, so that it would seemto be of Eastern origin. But it was a graft on the old Roman arch, --inthe shape of an ellipse rather than a circle. Aside from this invention, to which we are indebted for the most beautiful ecclesiasticalstructures ever erected, we owe every thing in architecture to theGreeks and Romans. We have found out no new principles which were notequally known to Vitruvius. No one man was the inventor or creator ofthe wonderful structures which ornamented the cities of the ancientworld. We have the names of great architects, who reared various andfaultless models, but they all worked upon the same principles. Andthese can never be subverted. So that in architecture the ancients areour schoolmasters, whose genius we revere the more we are acquaintedwith their works. What more beautiful than one of those grand templeswhich the heathen but cultivated Greeks erected to the worship of theirunknown gods: the graduated and receding stylobate as a base for thefluted columns, rising at regular distances, in all their severeproportion and matchless harmony, with their richly carved capitals, supporting an entablature of heavy stones, most elaborately moulded andornamented with the figures of plants and animals, and rising abovethis, on the ends of the temple, or over a portico several columns deep, the pediment, covered by chiseled cornices, with still richer ornamentsrising from the apices and at the feet; all carved in white marble, andthen spread over an area larger than any modern churches, making aforest of columns to bear aloft those ponderous beams of stone, withoutany thing tending to break the continuity of horizontal lines, by whichthe harmony and simplicity of the whole are seen. So accurately squaredand nicely adjusted were the stones and pillars of which these templeswere built, that there was scarcely need of even cement. Without noiseor confusion or sound of hammers did those temples rise, since all theirparts were cut and carved in the distant quarries, and with mathematicalprecision. And within the cella, nearly concealed by the surroundingcolumns, were the statues of the gods, and the altars on which incensewas offered, or sacrifices made. In every part, interior and exterior, do we see a matchless proportion and beauty, whether in the shaft, orthe capital, or the frieze, or the pilaster, or the pediment, or thecornices, or even the mouldings--everywhere grace and harmony, whichgrow upon the mind the more they are contemplated. The greatest evidenceof the matchless creative genius displayed in those architecturalwonders is that, after two thousand years, and with all the inventionsof Roman and modern artists, no improvement can be made, and thoseedifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed beautifulas they approximate the ancient models which will forever remain objectsof imitation, No science can make two and two other than four. No artcan make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon without departingfrom the settled principles of beauty and proportion which all ages haveendorsed. Such were the Greeks and Romans in an art which is one of thegreatest indices of material civilization, and which by them was derivedfrom geometrical forms, or the imitation of Nature. 

 * * * * *

[Sidenote: Perfection of Grecian sculpture. ]

The genius displayed by the ancients in sculpture, is even moreremarkable than in architecture. It was carried to perfection, however, only by the Greeks. But they did not originate the art, since we read ofsculptured images from the remotest antiquity. The earliest names ofsculptors are furnished by the Old Testament. Assyria and Egypt are fullof relics to show how early this art was cultivated. It was not carriedto perfection as early, probably, as architecture; but rude images ofgods, carved in wood, are as old as the history of idolatry. The historyof sculpture is in fact identified with that of idols. It was fromPhoenicia that Solomon obtained the workmen for the decoration of hisTemple. But the Egyptians were probably the first who made considerableadvances in the execution of statues. They are rude, simple, uniform, without beauty or grace, but colossal and grand. Nearly two thousandyears before Christ, the walls of Thebes were ornamented with sculpturedfigures, even as the gates of Babylon were of sculptured bronze. Thedimensions of Egyptian colossal figures surpass those of any othernation. The sitting figures of Memnon at Thebes are fifty feet inheight, and the Sphinx is twenty-five, and these are of granite. Thenumber of colossal statues was almost incredible. The sculptures foundamong the ruins of Carnac must have been made nearly four thousand yearsago. [Footnote: Wilkinson's _Ancient Egyptians_. ] They exhibitgreat simplicity of design, but without much variety of expression. Theyare generally carved from the hardest stones, and finished so nicelythat we infer that the Egyptians were acquainted with the art ofhardening metals to a degree not known in our times. But we see no idealgrandeur among any of the remains of Egyptian sculpture. Howeversymmetrical or colossal, there is no expression, no trace of emotion, nointellectual force. Every thing is calm, impassive, imperturbable. Itwas not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that anyremarkable excellence was reached. But the progress of development wasslow. The earliest carvings were rude wooden images of the gods, andmore than a thousand years elapsed before the great masters wereproduced which marked the age of Pericles. 

It is not my object to give a history of the development of the plasticart, but to show the great excellence it attained in the hands ofimmortal sculptors. 

[Sidenote: Admiration for sculpture among the Greeks. ]

[Sidenote: High estimation of sculpture among the Greeks. ]

The Greeks had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to thisgreat national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpturemade. Nature was most carefully studied, and that which was mostbeautiful in Nature became the object of imitation. They ever attainedto an ideal excellence, since they combined in a single statue whatcould not be found in a single individual, as Zeuxis is said to havestudied the beautiful forms of seven virgins of Crotona in order topaint his famous picture of Venus. Great as was the beauty of Thryne, orAspasia, or Lais, yet no one of them could have served for a perfectmodel. And it required a great sensibility to beauty in order to selectand idealize what was most perfect in the human figure. Beauty wasadored in Greece, and every means were used to perfect it, especiallybeauty of form, which is the characteristic excellence of Grecianstatuary. The gymnasia were universally frequented, and the great prizesof the games, bestowed for feats of strength and agility, were regardedas the highest honors which men could receive--the subject of thepoet's ode and the people's admiration. Statues of the victorsperpetuated their fame and improved the sculptor's art. From the studyof these statues were produced those great creations which allsubsequent ages have admired. And from the application of the principlesseen in these forms we owe the perpetuation of the ideas of grandeur andbeauty such as no other people have ever discovered and scarcelyappreciated. The sculpture of the human figure became a noble object ofambition, and was most munificently rewarded. Great artists arose, whoseworks adorned the temples of Greece, so long as she preserved herindependence; and when it was lost, their priceless productions werescattered over Asia and Europe. The Romans especially seized what wasmost prized, whether or not they could tell what was most perfect. Greece lived in her marble statues more than in her government or laws. And when we remember the estimation in which sculpture was held, thegreat prices paid for masterpieces, the care and attention with whichthey were guarded and preserved, and the innumerable works which wereproduced, filling all the public buildings, especially consecratedplaces, and even open spaces, and the houses of the rich and great, --calling from all classes admiration and praise, --it is improbable thatso great perfection will ever be reached again in those figures whichare designed to represent beauty of form. Even the comparatively fewstatues which have survived the wars and violence of two thousand years, convince us that the moderns can only imitate. They can produce nocreations which were not surpassed by Athenian artists. "No mechanicalcopying of Greek statues, however skillful the copyist, can ever securefor modern sculpture the same noble and effective character it possessedamong the Greeks, for the simple reason that the imitation, close as maybe the resemblance, is but the result of the eye and hand, while theoriginal is the expression of a true and deeply felt sentiment. Art wasnot sustained by the patronage of a few who affect to have what iscalled _taste_. In Greece, the artist, having a common feeling forthe beautiful with his countrymen, produced his works for the public, which were erected in places of honor and dedicated in temples of thegods. " [Footnote: _Encyclopedia Britannica_, "Sculpture, " R. W. T. ]

[Sidenote: Phidias and his contemporaries. ]

[Sidenote: The statue of Zeus by Phidias. ]

But it was not until the Persian wars awakened in Greece the slumberingconsciousness of national power, and Athens became the central point ofGrecian civilization, that sculpture, like architecture and painting, reached its culminating point of excellence, under Phidias and hiscontemporaries. Great artists, however, had previously made themselvesfamous, like Miron, Polycletus, and Ageladas; but the great riches whichflowed into Athens at this time gave a peculiar stimulus to art, especially under the encouragement of such a ruler as Pericles, whoseage was the golden era of Grecian history. Pheidias or Phidias was tosculpture what Aeschylus was to tragic poetry, sublime and grand. He wasborn four hundred and eighty-four years before Christ, and was the pupilof Ageladas. He stands at the head of the ancient sculptors, not fromwhat _we_ know of him, for his masterpieces have perished, but fromthe estimation in which he was held by the greatest critics ofantiquity. It was to him that Pericles intrusted the adornment of theParthenon, and the numerous and beautiful sculptures of the frieze andthe pediment were the work of artists whom he directed. _His_ greatwork in that wonderful edifice was the statue of the goddess Minervaherself, made of gold and ivory, forty feet in height, standingvictorious with a spear in her left hand and an image of victory in herright; girded with the aegis, with helmet on her head, and her shieldresting by her side. The cost of this statue may be estimated when thegold alone of which it was composed was valued at forty-four talents. [Footnote: This sum was equal to $500, 000 of our money, an immense sumin that age. Some critics suppose that this statue was overloaded withornament, but all antiquity was unanimous in its admiration. Theexactness and finish of detail were as remarkable as the grandeur of theproportions. ] Another of his famous works was a colossal bronze statueof Athena Promachus, sixty feet in height, on the Acropolis, between thePropylaea and the Parthenon. But both of these yielded to the colossalstatue of Zeus in his great temple at Olympia, represented in a sittingposture, forty feet high, on a pedestal of twenty. In this, his greatestwork, the artist sought to embody the idea of majesty and repose, --of asupreme deity no longer engaged in war with Titans and Giants, butenthroned as a conqueror, ruling with a nod the subject world, andgiving his blessing to those victories which gave glory to the Greeks. [Footnote: The god was seated on a throne. Ebony, gold, ivory, andprecious stones formed, with a multitude of sculptured and paintedfigures, the wonderful composition of this throne. ] So famous was thisstatue, which was regarded as the masterpiece of Grecian art, that itwas considered a calamity to die without seeing it; and this served fora model for all subsequent representations of majesty and power inrepose among the ancients. It was removed to Constantinople byTheodosius I. , and was destroyed by fire in the year 475. Phidiasexecuted various other famous works, which have perished; but even thosethat were executed under his superintendence, that have come down to ourtimes, like the statues which ornamented the pediment of the Parthenon, are among the finest specimens of art which exist, and exhibit the mostgraceful and appropriate forms which could have been selected, unitinggrandeur with simplicity, and beauty with accuracy of anatomicalstructure. His distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that ofthe sublimest order. [Footnote: Muller, _De Phidiae Vita_. ]

[Sidenote: Colossal statues of ivory and gold. ]

Of all the wonders and mysteries of ancient art, the colossal statues ofivory and gold were perhaps the most remarkable, and the difficulty ofexecuting them has been set forth by the ablest of modern critics, likeWinkelmann, Heyne, and De Quincy. "The grandeur of their dimensions, theperfection of their workmanship, the richness of their materials; theirmajesty, beauty, and ideal truth; the splendor of the architecture andpictorial decoration with which they were associated, all conspired toimpress the beholder with wonder and awe, and induce a belief of theactual presence of the god. "

[Sidenote: The school of Praxiteles. ]

After the Peloponnesian War, a new school of art arose in Athens, whichappealed more to the passions. Of this school was Praxiteles, who aimedto please, without seeking to elevate or instruct. No one has probablyever surpassed him in execution. He wrought in bronze and marble, andwas one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Withoutattempting the sublime impersonation of the deity, in which Phidiasexcelled, he was unsurpassed in the softer graces and beauties of thehuman form, especially in female figures. His most famous work was anundraped statue of Venus, for his native town of Cnidus, which was soremarkable that people flocked from all parts of Greece to see it. Hedid not aim at ideal majesty so much as ideal gracefulness, and hisworks were imitated from the most beautiful living models, and henceexpressed only the ideal of sensual charms. It is probable that theVenus de Medici of Cleomenes was a mere copy of the Aphrodite ofPraxiteles, which was so highly extolled by the ancient authors. It wasof Parian marble, and modeled from the celebrated Phryne. His statues ofDionysus also expressed the most consummate physical beauty, representing the god as a beautiful youth, crowned with ivy, engirt witha nebris, and expressing tender and dreamy emotions. Praxitelessculptured several figures of Eros, or the god of love, of which that atThespiae attracted visitors to the city in the time of Cicero. It wassubsequently carried to Rome, and perished by a conflagration in thetime of Titus. One of the most celebrated statues of this artist was anApollo, many copies of which still exist. His works were very numerous, but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus, Aphrodite, and Eros, in whichadoration for corporeal attractions is the most marked peculiarity, andfor which the artist was fitted by his life with the hetaerae. 

[Sidenote: Scopas. ]

Scopas was his contemporary, and was the author of the celebrated groupof Niobe, which is one of the chief ornaments of the gallery ofsculpture at Florence. He flourished about three hundred and fifty yearsbefore Christ, and wrought chiefly in marble. He was employed indecorating the Mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her husband, one ofthe wonders of the world. His masterpiece is said to have been a grouprepresenting Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce by the divinitiesof the sea, which ornamented the shrine of Domitius in the FlaminianCircus. In this, tender grace, heroic grandeur, daring power, andluxurious fullness of life were combined with wonderful harmony. [Footnote: Muller, 125. ] Like the other great artists of this school, there was the grandeur and sublimity for which Phidias was celebrated, but a greater refinement and luxury, and skill in the use of drapery. 

[Sidenote: Lysippus. ]

[Sidenote: The works of Lysippus. ]

Sculpture in Greece culminated, as an art, in Lysippus, who workedchiefly in bronze. He is said to have executed fifteen hundred statues, and was much esteemed by Alexander the Great, by whom he was extensivelypatronized. He represented men, not as they were, but as they appearedto be; and, if he exaggerated, he displayed great energy of action. Heaimed to idealize merely human beauty, and his imitation of Nature wascarried out in the minutest details. None of his works are extant; butas he alone was permitted to make the statue of Alexander, we infer thathe had no equals. The Emperor Tiberius transferred one of his statues, that of an athlete, from the baths of Agrippa to his own chamber, whichso incensed the people that he was obliged to restore it. His favoritesubject was Hercules, and a colossal statue of this god was carried toRome by Fabius Maximus, when he took Tarentum, and afterwards wastransferred to Constantinople. The Farnese Hercules and the BelvidereTorso are probably copies of this work. He left many eminent scholars, among whom were Chares, who executed the famous Colossus of Rhodes, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, who sculptured the group of the"Laocoon. " The Rhodian School was the immediate offshoot from the schoolof Lysippus at Sicyon, and from this small island of Rhodes the Romans, when they conquered it, carried away three thousand statues. TheColossus was one of the wonders of the world, seventy cubits in height, and the Laocoon is a perfect miracle of art, in which group pathos isexhibited in the highest degree ever attained in sculpture. It wasdiscovered in 1506 near the baths of Titus, and is one of the choicestremains of ancient plastic art. 

The great artists of antiquity did not confine themselves to therepresentation of man; but they also carved animals with exceedingaccuracy and beauty. Nicias was famous for his dogs, Myron for his cows, and Lysippus for his horses. Praxiteles composed his celebrated lionafter a living animal. "The horses of the frieze of the Elgin Marblesappear to live and move; to roll their eyes, to gallop, prance, andcurvet; the veins of their faces and legs seem distended withcirculation. The beholder is charmed with the deer-like lightness andelegance of their make; and although the relief is not above an inchfrom the back-ground, and they are so much smaller than nature, we canscarcely suffer reason to persuade us they are not alive. " [Footnote:Flaxman, _Lectures on Sculpture_. ]

[Sidenote: Cameos and medals. ]

The Greeks also carved gems, cameos, medals, and vases, withunapproachable excellence. Very few specimens have come down to ourtimes, but those which we possess show great beauty both in design andexecution. 

[Sidenote: Sack of the Grecian cities. ]

Grecian statuary commenced with ideal representations of deities, andwas carried to the greatest perfection by Phidias in his statues ofJupiter and Minerva. Then succeeded the school of Praxiteles, in whichthe figures of gods and goddesses were still represented, but in mortalforms. The school of Lysippus was famous for the statues of celebratedmen, especially in cities where Macedonian rulers resided. Artists wereexpected henceforth to glorify kings and powerful nobles and rulers byportrait statues. The plastic art then degenerated. Nor were works oforiginal genius produced, but rather copies or varieties from the threegreat schools to which allusion has been made. Sculpture may havemultiplied, but not new creations; although some imitations of greatmerit were produced, like the "Hermaphrodite, " the "Torso, " the Farnese"Hercules, " and the "Fighting Gladiator. " When Corinth was sacked byMummius, some of the finest statues of Greece were carried to Rome, andafter the civil war between Caesar and Pompey the Greek artists emigratedto Italy. The fall of Syracuse introduced many works of priceless valueinto Rome; but it was from Athens, Delphi, Corinth, Elis, and othergreat centres of art, that the richest treasures were brought. Greecewas despoiled to ornament Italy. The Romans did not create a school ofsculpture. They borrowed wholly from the Greeks, yet made, especially inthe time of Hadrian, many beautiful statues. They were fond of this art, and all eminent men had statues erected to their memory. The busts ofemperors were found in every great city, and Rome was filled withstatues. The monuments of the Romans were even more numerous than thoseof the Greeks, and among them some admirable portraits are found. Thesesculptures did not express that consummation of beauty and grace, ofrefinement and sentiment, which marked the Greeks; but the imitationswere good. Art had reached its perfection under Lysippus; there wasnothing more to learn. Genius in that department could soar no higher. It will never rise to loftier heights. 

[Sidenote: Degeneracy of art among the Romans. ]

It is noteworthy that the purest forms of Grecian art arose in itsearlier stages. In a moral point of view, sculpture declined from thetime of Phidias. It was prostituted at Rome under the emperors. Thespecimens which have often been found among the ruins of ancient bathsmake us blush for human nature. The skill of execution did not declinefor several centuries; but the lofty ideal was lost sight of, and grossappeals to human passions were made by those who sought to pleasecorrupt leaders of society in an effeminate age. The turgidity andluxuriance of art gradually passed into tameness and poverty. Thereliefs on the Arch of Constantine are rude and clumsy compared withthose on the Column of Marcus Aurelius. 

[Sidenote: Imitation of ancient art. ]

But I do not wish to describe the decline of art, or enumerate the namesof the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days ofPericles, or even Alexander. I simply allude to sculpture as an artwhich reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we havea right to infer from the specimens which have been preserved. How manymore must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancientauthors! The finest productions of our own age are in a measurereproductions. They cannot be called creations, like the statue of theOlympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, andthe Greek Slave a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which havebeen admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed fromPraxiteles, who succeeded in giving an appearance of living flesh. TheMuseum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand specimens ofancient sculpture which have been found among the debris of formermagnificence, many of which are the productions of Grecian artiststransported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and theFaun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, theAthlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvidere, sculptured by Apollonius, theBelvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino, the Laocoon, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvidere the work ofAgasias of Ephesus, the Sleepy Ariadne, with numerous other statues ofgods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen ofantiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, alone is amagnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was broughtcenturies after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only afew which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues whichnow embellish Italy, to say nothing of those which are scattered overEurope. We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous intheir day. Not merely the figures of men are chiseled, but animals andplants. Nature, in all her forms, was imitated; and not merely Nature, but the dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modernsculptor has equaled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies even of thoseancient statues, as they appear to us after the exposure and accidentsof two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums ofEurope, can question that, of all the nations who have claimed to becivilized, the ancient Greek and Roman deserve a proud preeminence in anart which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of humangenius. All these matchless productions of antiquity, it should beremembered, are the result of native genius alone, without the aid ofChristian ideas. Nor, with the aid of Christianity, are we sure that anynation will ever soar to loftier heights than did the Greeks in thatproud realm which was consecrated to Paganism. 

 * * * * *

We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in theart of painting as we are in reference to sculpture and architecture, since so few specimens have been preserved. We have only the testimonyof the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste and sogreat susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot suppose thattheir notions were crude in this great art which the moderns havecarried to so great perfection. In this art the moderns may be superior, especially in perspective and drawing, and light and shade. No age, wefancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, whenthe genius of Raphael, Correggio, and Domenichino blazed with suchwonderful brilliancy. 

Nevertheless, we read of celebrated schools among the ancients, all ofwhich recognized _form_ as the great principle and basis of theart, even like the moderns. The schools of Sicyon, Corinth, Athens, andRhodes were indebted for their renown, like those of Bologna, Florence, and Rome, to their strict observance of this fundamental law. 

[Sidenote: Antiquity of painting. ]

[Sidenote: Painting among the Egyptians. ]

Painting, in some form, is very ancient, though not so ancient as thetemples of the gods and the statues which were erected to their worship. It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and color, and withthe view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul by imitation. The walls of Babylon were painted after Nature with different species ofanimals and combats. Semiramis was represented on horseback, striking aleopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus wounding a lion. Ezekiel(viii. 10) represents various idols and beasts portrayed upon the walls, and even princes, painted in vermilion, with girdles around their loins(xxiii. 14, 15). In ages almost fabulous there were some rude attemptsin this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues andreliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are painted and writtenwith religious subjects, but the colors were laid without regard tolight and shade. The Egyptians did not seek to represent the passionsand emotions which agitate the soul, but rather to authenticate eventsand actions; and hence their paintings, like hieroglyphics, areinscriptions. It was their great festivals and religious rites whichthey sought to perpetuate, not ideas of beauty or grace. Hence theirpaintings abound with dismembered animals, plants, and flowers, censers, entrails, --whatever was used in their religious worship. In Greece, also, the original painting consisted in coloring statues and reliefs ofwood and clay. At Corinth, painting was early united with thefabrication of vases, on which were rudely painted figures of men andanimals. Among the Etruscans, before Rome was founded, it is said therewere beautiful paintings, and it is probable they were advanced in artbefore the Greeks. There were paintings in some of the old Etruscancities which the Roman emperors wished to remove, so much admired werethey even in the days of the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscanvases are famous for designs which have never been exceeded in purity ofform, but it is probable that these were copied from the Greeks. 

[Sidenote: Cimon of Cleona. ]

But whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, the artwas certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the former. Thedevelopment of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It probablycommenced by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediatemarkings; the next step was the complete outline with the innermarkings, such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like thedesigns of Flaxman. They were originally practiced on a white ground. Then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colorsin accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, ofthe battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred andeighteen years before Christ. And as the subject was a battle, it musthave represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing ofthe coloring, or of the real excellence of the work, except that theartist was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great nameconnected with the art in Greece, and is praised by Pliny, to whom weowe the history of ancient painting more than to any other author. Hewas contemporary with Dionysius in the eightieth Olympiad. He was notsatisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as wesee in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, andfolds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the variouspositions of figures, as they appear when looking upward or downward andsideways, and hence is the first painter of perspective. He first mademuscular articulations, indicated the veins, and gave natural folds todrapery. [Footnote: Pliny, xxxv. 34. ]

[Sidenote: Greatness of Polygnotus and his school. ]

A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, thecontemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463 B. C. , oneof the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most magnanimous;and had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding intellectualactivity. He was employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on thegreat temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously. Healso decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the superintendenceof Phidias. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which he broughtnearly to perfection by the ideal expression, the accurate drawing, andimproved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity ofhis predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He was the firstwho painted woman with brilliant drapery and variegated head-dresses. Hegave great expression to the face and figure, and his pictures weremodels of excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon thecheeks, and the gracefulness of the draperies. He was a great epicpainter, as Phidias was a sculptor, and Homer a poet, since he expressednot passion and emotion only, but ideal character. He imitated thepersonages and the subjects of the old mythology, and treated them in anepic spirit. He strove, like Phidias, to express character in repose. His subjects were almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle. His pictures had nothing of that elaborate grouping, aided by the powersof perspective, so much admired in modern art. His figures were groupedin regular lines, as in the bas-reliefs upon a frieze. He painted onpanels which were afterward let into the walls. He used the pencil, instead of painting in encaustic with the cestrum. 

Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, [Footnote: H. N. Xxx. 9, s. 35. ] are his paintings in the Temple at Delphi, in thePortico called Poecile at Athens, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, inthe Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. Hetook his subjects from the whole range of Epic poetry, but we knownothing of them except from the praises of his contemporaries. [Footnote: Pausanias, x. 25-31. ] His great merit is said to haveconsisted in accurate drawing, and in giving grace and charm to hisfemale figures. He painted in a truly religious spirit, and uponsymmetrical principles, with great grandeur and freedom, resemblingMichael Angelo more than any other modern artist. Like the Greeks, hepainted with wax, resins, and in water colors, to which the properconsistency was given with gum and glue. The use of oil was unknown. Theartists painted upon wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not uponcanvas, which was not used till the time of Nero. They painted upontablets or panels, and not upon the walls. These panels were framed andencased in the walls. The style or cestrum used in drawing, and forspreading the wax colors, was pointed on one end and flat on the other, and generally made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying andbleaching, and then mixed with colors. When painting was practiced inwater colors, glue was used with the white of an egg or with gums, butwax and resins were also worked with water, with certain preparations. This latter was called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, themost durable of all methods. It was not generally adopted till the timeof Alexander the Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since itprevented the colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practicedboth with the cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burnt in. Fresco was used for coloring walls, which were divided into compartmentsor panels. The Fresco composition of the stucco, and the method ofpainting, preparing the walls for painting, is described by the ancientwriters: "They first covered the walls with a layer of ordinary plaster, over which, when dry, were successively added three other layers of afiner quality, mixed with sand. Above these were placed three layers ofa composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper one being laid onbefore the under one was dry, by which process the different layers wereso bound together that the whole mass formed one beautiful and solidslab, resembling marble, and was capable of being detached from the walland transported in a wooden frame to any distance. The colors wereapplied when the composition was still wet. The fresco wall, whenpainted, was covered with an encaustic varnish, both to heighten thecolor and preserve it from the effects of the sun or the weather. Butthis process required so much care, and was attended with so muchexpense, that it was used only in the better houses and palaces. " Thelater discoveries at Pompeii show the same correctness of design inpainting as in sculpture, and also considerable perfection in coloring. The great artists of Greece were both sculptors and painters, likeMichael Angelo. Phidias and Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotusand Lysippus, were both. And the ancient writers praise the paintings ofthese great artists as much as their sculpture. The AldobrandiniMarriage, found on the Esquiline Mount, during the pontificate ofClement VIII. , and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII. , is admired bothfor drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle for hisdesigns and by Lucian for his color. [Footnote: _Poetica ofAristotle_, c. 286. _Imagines of Lucian_, c. 7. ]

[Sidenote: Contemporaries of Polygnotus. ]

Dionysius and Micon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, theformer of whom was celebrated for his portraits. His pictures weredeficient in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegantdrawing. [Footnote: Plutarch, _Timol. _ 36. ] Micon was particularlyskilled in painting horses, and was the first who used for a color thelight Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt vine twigs. He paintedthree of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and also the walls of theTemple of the Dioscuri. 

[Sidenote: The school of Apollodorus. ]

With Apollodorus, of Athens, a new development was made in the art ofpainting. Through his labors, about 408 B. C. , dramatic effect was addedto the style of Polygnotus, without departing from his pictures asmodels. "The acuteness of his taste, " says Fuseli, "led him to discoverthat, as all men were connected by one general form, so they wereseparated each by some predominant power, which fixed character andbound them to a class. Thence he drew his line of imitation andpersonified the central form of the class to which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its qualities administered, without beingabsorbed; agility was not suffered to destroy firmness, solidity, orweight; nor strength and weight agility; elegance did not degenerate toeffeminacy, nor grandeur swell to hugeness. " [Footnote: Fuseli, Lect. I. ] His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the semblance ofreality. He painted men and things as they really appeared. He also madea great advance in coloring. He invented chiaro-oscuro. Other paintershad given attention to the proper gradation of light and shade; heheightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus obtained whatthe moderns call _tone_. He was the first who conferred due honoron the pencil--"primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit. " [Footnote:Pliny, H. N. Xxxv. 11. ]

[Sidenote: Peculiarities of Zeuxis as a painter. ]

This great painter prepared the way for Zeuxis, [Footnote: Born 455B. C. ] who belonged to his school, but who surpassed him in the power togive ideal form to rich effects. He began his great career four hundredand twenty-four years before Christ, and was most remarkable for hisfemale figures. His "Helen, " painted from five of the most beautifulwomen of Croton, was one of the most renowned productions of antiquity, to see which the painter demanded money. He gave away his pictures, because, with an artist's pride, he maintained that their price couldnot be estimated. There is a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself todeath over an old woman painted by him. He arrived at illusion of thesenses, regarded as a high attainment in art, as in the instancerecorded of his grapes. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose head-quarters were at Ephesus, the peculiarities of which were accuracy ofimitation, the exhibition of sensual charms, and the gratification ofsensual tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture ofPhidias was completed, which modified his style. His marvelous powerswere displayed in the contrast of light and shade which he learned fromApollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in formrather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, bymaking each figure the perfect representation of the class to which itbelonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate thefeelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homerof his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable ofideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they wereperfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Herculesstrangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. [Footnote:Lucian _on Zeuxis_. ] Lucian highly praises his Female Centaur asone of the most remarkable paintings of the world, in which he showedgreat ingenuity in his contrasts. His Jupiter Enthroned is also extolledby Pliny, as one of his finest works. He acquired a great fortune, andlived ostentatiously. 

[Sidenote: Parrhasius of Ephesus. ]

Contemporaneous with him, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native ofEphesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing, and power ofexpression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minutedetails of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he didfor painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfectas to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. Heestablished a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeedingartists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some weredemoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since he painted a curtainwhich deceived his rival, whereas Zeuxis painted grapes which deceivedonly birds. He was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious, and boasted ofhaving reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined the magic toneof Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis, and the classicexpression of Polygnotus. 

[Sidenote: Contemporaries of Zeuxis. ]

Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century beforeChrist, not only in Athens, but the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes ofSicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same cityfounded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable--"Let Nature, notan artist, be your model. " Protogenes was celebrated for his highfinish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus wascelebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos forprolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro, Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth ofexpression. 

[Sidenote: Art culminates in Apelles. ]

[Sidenote: The Venus of Apelles. ]

The art probably culminated in Apelles, the Titian of his age, whounited the rich coloring and sensual charms of the Ionian with thescientific severity of the Sicyonian school. He was contemporaneous withAlexander, and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the greatconqueror. He was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus ofAmphipolis, and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and tooklessons from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the courtof Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great menand of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored soassiduously to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a daywithout practicing. [Footnote: Pliny, xxxv. 12. ] He made greatimprovement in the mechanical part of his art, and also was the firstwho covered his picture with a thin varnish, both to preserve it andbring out the colors. He invented ivory black. His distinguishingexcellence was grace, "that artless balance of motion and repose, springing from character, founded on propriety, which neither fallsshort of the demands nor overleaps the modesty of Nature. " [Footnote:Fuseli, Lect. I. ] His great contemporaries may have equaled him inperspective, accuracy, and finish; but he added a grace of conceptionand refinement of taste which placed him, by the general consent ofancient authors, at the head of all the painters of the world. Hisgreatest work was his Venus Anadyomene, or Venus rising out of the sea, in which female grace was personified. The falling drops of water fromher hair form a transparent silver veil over her form. It cost onehundred talents, [Footnote: 243 pounds x 100 = 24300 pounds x 5 =$121, 500. ] and was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos, and afterwards placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicatedto Julius Caesar. The lower part of it becoming injured, no one couldbe found to repair it. Nor was there an artist who could completean unfinished picture which he left. He was a man who courtedcriticism, and who was unenvious of the fame of rivals. He wasa great admirer and friend of Protogenes of Rhodes, who was hisequal in finish, but who never knew, as Apelles did, when tocease correcting. [Footnote: Cicero, _Brut. _ 18; _De Orat. _iii. 7. Martial, xxx. 9. Ovid, _Art. Anc. _ iii. 403. Pliny, xxxv. 37. ]

[Sidenote: Introduction of pictures into Rome. ]

After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great paintersoccasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which wasrenowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth byMummius, B. C. 146, gave a severe blow to Grecian art. He carried to Romemore works, or destroyed them, than all his predecessors combined. Sylla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater injury, and, from that time, artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and otherflourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The masterpieces offamous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and Asia wereransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius Paulus broughtfrom Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to carry them in thetriumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece, the migration ofartists commenced, and this spoliation of Greece and Asia and Sicilycontinued for two centuries; and such was the wealth of Rhodes in worksof art that three thousand statues were found for the conquerors. Norcould there have been less at Athens, Olympia, or Delphi. Scaurus hadall the public pictures of Sicyon transported to Rome. Verres plunderedevery temple and public building in Sicily. 

[Sidenote: High value placed by them on painting. ]

Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings of the world, withoutthe slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion ofSir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could soar no higher in the realm ofpainting, as well as of statuary. Yet the Romans learned to place ashigh value on the works of Grecian genius as the English do on thepaintings of the old masters of Italy and Flanders. And if they did notadd to the art, they gave such encouragement that, under the emperors, it may be said to have been flourishing. Varro had a gallery of sevenhundred portraits of eminent men. [Footnote: Pliny, H. N. Xxx. 2. ] Theportraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in thetemples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially werefilled with paintings. 

[Sidenote: Subjects among the Greeks. ]

The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical ormythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, inwhich character and passion could be delineated, were the most highlyprized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty ofform and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul as well asthe graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought toreach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for peoplewho naturally had taste and sensibility. 

[Sidenote: Landscape Painting. ]

Among the Romans, portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed theart, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothingcould be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, onehundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus, landscapedecorations were common, and were carried out with every species oflicense. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This hasbeen reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in itslatter days. Mosaic gradually superseded painting in Rome. It was firstused for floors, but finally walls and ceilings were ornamented with it, like St. Peter's at Rome. Many ancient mosaics have been preserved whichattest beauty of design of the highest character, like the Battle ofIssus, lately discovered at Pompeii. 

In fact, neither statuary nor painting was advanced by the Romans. Theyhad no sensibility, or conception of ideal beauty. The divine spark ofgenius animated the Greeks alone. Still the wonders of Grecian art werepossessed by the Romans, and were made to adorn those grandarchitectural monuments for which they had a taste. Greek productionswere not merely matters of property, they were copied and reproduced inall the cities of the Mediterranean; and though no artist of originalgenius arose from Augustus to Constantine, galleries of art existedeverywhere in which the masterpieces of Polygnotus, Pausias, Aristides, Timanthes, Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Pamphilus, Euphranor, Protogenes, Apelles, Timomachus, and of other illustrious men, were objects of asmuch praise as the galleries of Dresden and Florence. 

[Sidenote: Probable perfection of the ancients in painting. ]

"The glorious art of these masters, as far as regards tone, light, andlocal color, " says Muller, "is lost to us, and we know nothing of itexcept from obscure notices and later imitations; on the contrary, thepictures on vases give us the most exalted idea of the progress andachievements of the arts of design. " [Footnote: Muller, Ancient Art, 143. ] It is surprising that, with four colors, the Greeks should haveachieved such miracles of beauty and finish as are represented by thegreatest cities of antiquity. The great wonders of the schools ofEphesus, Athens, and Sicyon have perished, and we cannot judge of theirmerits as we can of the statues which have fortunately been preserved. Whether Polygnotus was equal to Michael Angelo, Zeuxis to Raphael, andApelles to Titian, we have no means of settling. But it is scarcely tobe questioned that critics like the Greeks, whose opinions respectingarchitecture and sculpture coincide with our own, could have erred intheir verdicts respecting those great paintings which extorted theadmiration of the world, and were held, even in the decline of art, insuch high value, not merely in the cities where they were painted, butin those to which they were transferred. What _has_ descended toour times, like the mural decorations of Pompeii and the designs onvases, go to prove the perfection which was attained in painting, aswell as sculpture and architecture. 

[Sidenote: Perfection of art among the ancients. ]

And thus, in all those arts of which modern civilization is proudest, and in which the genius of man has soared to the loftiest heights, theancients were not merely our equals: they were our superiors. It isgreater to originate than to copy. In architecture, in sculpture, and inpainting the Greeks attained absolute perfection. Any architect of ourtime, who should build an edifice in different proportions than thosewhich were recognized in the great cities of antiquity, would make amistake. Who can improve upon the Doric columns of the Parthenon, or theCorinthian capitals of the Temple of Jupiter? Indeed, it is inproportion as we accurately copy the faultless models of the age ofPericles that excellence with us is attained. When we differ from themwe furnish grounds of just criticism. So, in sculpture, the Greek Slaveis a reproduction of an ancient Venus, and the Moses of Michael Angelois a Jupiter in repose. It is only when the artist seeks to bring outthe purest and loftiest sentiments of the soul, and such as onlyChristianity can inspire, that he may hope to surpass the sculpture ofantiquity in one department of the art alone--in expression, rather thanbeauty of form, on which no improvement can be made. And if we possessedthe Venus of Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus ofCleomenes, we should probably discover greater richness of coloring, aswell as grace of figure, than in that famous Titian which is one of theproudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the greatestmarvels of Italian art. 

 * * * * *

REFERENCES. --Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; Muller's Remains ofAncient Art; A. J. Guattani, Antiq. De la Grande Grece; Mazois, Antiq. De Pomp. ; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities of Athens;Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De Quincey. These are some of the innumerable authorities on Architecture among theancients. 

In Sculpture, Pliny and Cicero are the most noted critics. There is afine article in the Encyclopedia Britannica on this subject. In Smith'sDictionary are the lives and works of the most noted masters. Muller'sAncient Art alludes to the leading masterpieces. Montfaucon's Antiquiteexpliquee en Figures; Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, by the Society ofDiettanti, London, 1809; Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, byTaylor Combe; Millin, Introduction a l'etude des Monumens Antiques;Monumens Inedits d'Antiquite figuree, recuellis et publies par Raoul-Rochette; Gerhard's Archaol. Zeit. ; David's Essai sur le ClassementChronol. Des Sculpteurs Grecs les plus celebres. 

In Painting, see Caylus, Memoires de l'ac des Inscr. Levesque, sur lesProgres successifs de la Peinture chez les Grecs; I. I. Grund, Mahlereider Griechen; Meyer's Kunstgischichte; Muller, Hist, of Ancient Art;Article on Painting, Ency. Brit. , Article "Pictura, " Smith's Dict. ;Fuseli's Lectures; Sir Joshua Reynolds' Lectures. Lanzi's History ofPainting refers to the revival of the art. Vitruvius speaks at somelength on ancient wall paintings. The finest specimens of ancientpainting are found in catacombs, the baths, and the ruins of Pompeii. Onthis subject, Winckelmann is the great authority. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 

[Sidenote: The Roman creators of civilization. ]

[Sidenote: The Romans sought to govern. ]

[Sidenote: The Romans sought to govern through laws. ]

[Sidenote: Roman sense of justice. ]

It is not from a survey of the material grandeur, or the arts, or themilitary prowess of Rome that we get the highest idea of hercivilization. These indicate strength and even genius; but the checksand balances which were gradually introduced into the government of thecity and empire, by which society was kept together, and a greatprosperity secured for centuries, also show great foresight andpractical wisdom. A State which favored individual development while itpromoted law and order; which secured liberty, while it made thegovernment stable and respectable; which guaranteed rights to the poorercitizens, while it placed power in the hands of those who were mostcapable of wielding it for the general good, is well worth ourcontemplation. The idea of aggrandizement was, it must be confessed, themost powerful which entered into the Roman mind; but the principles ofnational unity, the welfare of citizens, the reign of law, the securityof property, the network of trades and professions, also receivedattention there. The aspirations for liberty and national prosperitynever left the Roman mind. The Romans were great creators ofcivilization, though in a different sense from the Greeks. What theprinciples of art were to the Greeks, those of government were to theRomans. If the Greeks made statues, the Romans made laws. If the formerspeculated on the beautiful, or the good, or the true, the latterrealized the boast of Diogenes--the power to govern men. The passion forgovernment was the most powerful which a Roman citizen felt, next to thepassion for war. For five hundred years after the expulsion of thekings, there was the most perfect system of checks and balances in thegovernment of the state known in the ancient world, and which isscarcely rivaled in the modern. Power was so wisely distributed that noteven a successful general was able to gain a dangerous preeminence. Every citizen was a politician, and every Senator a statesman. For fivehundred years there was neither anarchy nor military despotism. If everycitizen knew how to fight, every citizen also knew how to govern, tosubmit. No consul dared to exceed his trust; no general, till Caesar, ventured to cross the Rubicon. The Roman Senate never lost its dignity--a supreme body which controlled all public interests. The Romans weresufficiently wise to bend to circumstances. Though proud, the patriciansmade concessions to plebeians whenever it was necessary. The right ofcitizenship was gradually extended throughout the Empire. Paul lived ina remote city of Asia Minor, but, by virtue of his citizenship, couldappeal to a higher court than that of the governor. The Romanssucceeded, by their wisdom, in extending their institutions over thecountries they had conquered; and every part of the Empire was wellgoverned even when military despotism had overturned the ancientconstitution. There were, of course, cases of extortion and injustice, and most governors made large fortunes; yet the provinces were betteradministered, and the rule was more in accordance with justice thanunder the native princes. Throughout the vast limits of the Empire, lifeand property were safe, and the roads were free of robbers; nor werethere riots in the cities, except on very rare occasions, in which theywere put down with merciless severity. Yet a few hundred men were enoughto preserve order in the largest cities, and a few thousand in the mostextensive provinces. Even under the most tyrannical emperors, justiceand order were enforced. The government was never better administeredthan by Tiberius, and further, was never better administered than whenhe was abandoned to pleasure in his guarded villa at Capri. There wasthe passion to govern the world, but in accordance with laws. The ruleof the Romans was not that of brute force, even when the army was at thecontrol of the Emperors. The citizens, to the last, enjoyed great socialand political rights. They had great immunities, in reference tomarriage, and the making of wills, and the possession of property. Theirpersons were secured from the disgrace of corporal punishment; theycould appeal from the decision of magistrates; they were eligible topublic offices; they were exempted from many oppressive taxes whichstill grind down the people in the most civilized states of Europe. Thegovernment of Octavius was the mildest despotism ever known to theancient world. That Ulysses of state craft exercised the most extensivepowers under the ancient forms, and all the early emperors disguisedrather than paraded their powers. Contented with real power, the Romanwas careless of its display. He had the tact to rule without seeming torule; but rule he must, though not until he had first learned to obey--obedience to laws and domination were inseparably connected. This madethe Roman yoke endurable, because it was not offensive or unjust. TheRomans were masters of the world by conquest, yet ruled the world theyhad subdued by arms in accordance with laws based on the principles ofequity. This sense of justice, in the enjoyment of unbounded domination, undoubtedly gave permanence to their government. The centurion was everpresent to enforce a decree, but the decree was in accordance withjustice. This was the idea, the recognized principle of government, although often abused. Paul appealed to Caesar. He might have beenreleased by the governor, had he not appealed. Here was justice to Paulin allowing the appeal; and still greater justice in keeping him inbonds until acquitted by Caesar himself. [Sidenote: Degeneracy underemperors. ]

[Sidenote: Skill of the Romans for government. ]

[Sidenote: On what the prosperity was based. ]

[Sidenote: Government the great art and science of the Romans. ]

[Sidenote: Prosperity of the government. ]

It must, however, be confessed that, after the Caesars were fairlyestablished on their throne, a great indifference to public affairsensued. Every office was then, directly or indirectly, in the hands ofthe emperor. Cicero expressed the popular sentiment of his day when hesaid, "that was the most perfect government which was a combination ofpopular and aristocratic authority;"--but in the eighth century of thecity, the system of checks and balances would have fallen to pieces inthe hands of a degenerate people. A constitutional monarchy even was nolonger possible. The vices of the oligarchy, and the fierce reactions ofthe democracy, had destroyed all the dreams of the earlier patriots. Themass of the people had long been passive under the sway of factions andpolitical intriguers, and they resigned themselves to the despotism ofthe emperor without a struggle. But even in this degradation the powerof government remained among the leading classes. The governors ofprovinces, taken generally from the Senate and the nobles, were skillfulin their administration of public affairs. They were enlightened in allpolitical duties. The traditional ideas of government survived forseveral generations, even as the mechanism of the army made it powerfulafter all real spirit had fled. The Roman still regarded himself as thefavorite of the gods, destined to achieve a vast mission, even thereduction of the world to political unity. Augustus made every effort, while he reigned, in the ruin of political institutions, to revive theforms and traditions of other days. The patricians were favored andhonored, and the Senate still was made to appear august, with aprostrate world at its feet, to which it was bound to dictate laws andinstitutions. Political unity was the grand idea of the Romans, and thisidea has survived to our own times. It was one of the great elements ofRoman civilization. Universal empire was based, in the better days ofthe Republic, on public morality, in the iron discipline of families, ina marvelously well-trained soldiery, in a military system which made thecivil society an army almost ready for the field, in a recognition ofpublic rights and duties, in a wise system of colonization, inconciliatory conduct to the conquered races, and in a central power asthe dispenser of all honor and emoluments. The civil wars broke up, in ameasure, this wise and considerate policy; still citizenship extended toall parts of the empire, even when it was manifest it must soon fallinto the hands of barbarians. And as for the administration of justice, it was probably better conducted under the emperors than under thesupreme rule of the Senate. Even bad emperors knew how to govern. To theRoman mind every thing was subordinate to the art of government. Andevery characteristic fitted the Romans to govern--energy of will, practical good sense, the conception of justice, an unyielding pride, fortitude, courage, and lust of power. And the spirit of domination wascarried out into every thing. It was made a science, an art. Whateverwould contribute to the ascendency of the state was remorselesslyadopted; whatever would interfere with it was abandoned or swept away. Fierce and tolerant by turns, and as circumstances prompted--such wasthe Roman. With submission life was easy, and the government was mild. And the supreme government rarely entrusted power except to faithful, capable, and patriotic rulers. The wisest and best were selected forimportant offices. The governors of provinces were men of greatexperience; they were generals and senators who had passed their term ofactive service. They easily made great mistakes. They carried out thepolicy of the State. They were acquainted with laws, and the customs ofthe people whom they ruled. They were versed in the literature of theirday. They were men of dignity and fortune. They were moderate, conciliatory, and firm. They were models for rulers for all subsequentages. There were, of course, exceptions, but the small number of riotsand rebellions shows the contentment of the people, for they were notground down by oppressive laws and exactions, until their spirit wasbroken. How munificent were the emperors to such cities as Athens andAlexandria! Athens was the seat of learning and culture, to the very endof the empire. Arts and literature and science were fostered in all thecities. They were adopted as parts of the empire, not treated likeconquered territories. After the destruction of Carthage, the Romans hadno jealousy of cities that once were equals. Their arts were made tosubserve Roman greatness, indeed, but they were left free to developtheir resources. The development of resources was a vital principle ofthe Roman government. Spain, Syria, and Egypt, were never moreprosperous than under the imperial rule. All the provinces were morethriving under the emperors than they had been under their ancientkings, until the era of barbaric invasions. If war had been the missionof the republic, peace was the pride of the empire. There were no warsof importance for three hundred years, except those of necessity. Theend of the emperors was to govern, to preserve peace, and secureobedience to the laws. 

[Sidenote: The aristocracy the real rulers of the state. ]

[Sidenote: Defects of Democratic ascendency. ]

[Sidenote: The people unfit to govern when unenlightened. ]

[Sidenote: Popular element in the Roman state. ]

[Sidenote: Rich Plebeians had a great influence in the government. ]

But we must bear in mind that, whatever were the popular rights enjoyedin the republican era, and however vast were the powers wielded by theemperors after liberty had fled, yet the constitution of Roman societywas essentially aristocratic. All the great conquests were made underthe rule of patricians, and all the leading men under the emperors werenobles. The government was virtually, from first to last, in the handsof the aristocracy. Still there was an important popular element, especially in the latter days of the republic, to which revolutionaryleaders appealed, like the Gracchi, Marius, Catiline, and Caesar. One ofthe most humiliating lessons which we learn of antiquity, we are forcedto own, was the signal incapacity of the people to govern themselves, when they had obtained a greater share of power than the oldconstitution had allowed. The republic did not long survive whensuccessful generals and eloquent demagogues were sustained by thepeople. Had Rome been a democracy, as some suppose, the empire nevercould have been established. We comfort ourselves, however, by thereflection, that when the people surrendered themselves to factions anddemagogues and tyrants, they were both ignorant and depraved. Self-government has never yet succeeded, because there have never been virtueand intelligence among the masses. So long as we can boast of virtue andintelligence among the people, we need not despair with the governmentin their hands. An enlightened self-interest will suggest the wisestpolicy. We only despair of the government of the people when they areignorant, brutal, and wicked. As there was no period in the ancientworld when they were not unenlightened, we are reconciled to the factthat a wise and vigorous administration of public affairs was alwaysconducted by kings or nobles who had intelligence and patriotism, ifthey were proud and imperious. Whatever faith we may justly cherish inreference to popular sovereignty, grounded on the principles of naturaljustice, and the hopes which are held out as the fruit of Christianideas, still, as a fact, there is but little in the history of the Romancommonwealth which reflects much glory on the people, except whencontrolled and marshalled by the aristocracy. Just so far as the popularelement prevailed, the state was hurried on to ruin. The aristocraticalelement had the ascendency when Rome was most prosperous and mostrespected. Yet, while the Roman constitution was essentiallyaristocratic for five hundred years, it had a strong popular elementmingled with it. The patricians had the chief power, but they were notlords and masters in so absolute a sense as to trample on the peoplewith impunity, nor were they able to deprive them of their rights, or ofall share in the government. They were not feudal nobles, nor a Venetianoligarchy. And yet it were a mistake to suppose that the distinctionbetween the classes implied that the aristocratic power was lodged withthe patricians alone. The patricians were not necessarily aristocrats, nor the plebeians a rabble. The political distinctions passed awaywithout destroying social inequalities. There were great families amongthe plebeians which really belonged to the aristocratic class, at leastin the time of Cicero. Aristocracy may have been based on birth, as inEngland, but it was sustained by wealth, as in that country. A very richman gained, ultimately, admission to the noble class, as Rothschild hasin London. Without wealth to uphold distinctions, any aristocracy soonbecomes contemptible. That organization of society is most aristocraticwhich confers great political and social privileges on a few men, andretains these privileges from generation to generation, as in Franceduring the reign of Louis XV. The state of society at Rome under therepublic, favored the monopoly of offices among powerful families. Itwas considered very remarkable for even Cicero to rise to the highesthonors of the state with his magnificent genius, character, attainments, and services; but he shared the consulship with a man of very ordinarycapacity. The great offices were all in the hands of the aristocracy, from the expulsion of the kings to the times of Julius Caesar. Even thetribunes of the people ultimately were selected from powerful families. 

[Sidenote: The Patricians. ]

[Sidenote: The Roman _Gens_. ]

The Roman people--_Romanus populus_--under the kings, the originalcitizens, were the warriors who built Rome, and conquered thesurrounding cities and districts. They were called _patres_, whichis synonymous with Patricians. [Footnote: Cicero, _De Repub. _, ii. 12 Liv. , i. 8. ] They were united among themselves by kindred and bypolitical and religious ties. They supported themselves by agriculturealthough engaged continually in war. They consisted originally of threetribes, which gradually were united into the sovereign people. The firsttribe was a Latin colony, and settled on the Palatine Hill; the secondwere Sabine settlers on the Quirinal; the third were Etruscans, whooccupied the Caelian. They were distinct, at first, and were not unitedfully till the time of Tarquinius Priscus, himself an Etruscan. [Footnote: Dionys. , ii. 62. ] As there were no other Roman citizens butthese patricians, they had no exclusive rights under the kings, andhence there was then no aristocracy of birth. Each of these three tribesof citizens consisted of ten curiae, and each curia of ten decuries, orgentes. The three tribes, therefore, contained three hundred gentes. Agens was a family, and the gentes were aggregates of kindred families. [Footnote: Nieb. , Lect. V. ] The name of a gens was generallycharacterized by the termination _eia_ or _ia_, as Julia, Cornelia, and it is to be presumed that each gens had a common ancestor. But with the growth of the city it came to pass that a gens oftenincluded a great number of families; we read of three hundred Fabiiforming the gens Fabia in the year 275. These families composed, ultimately, the aristocracy. They were the people who filled alloffices, and alone had the right of voting in the assemblies. As thegentes were subdivisions of the three ancient tribes, the _populus_alone had _gentes_, so that to be a patrician and to have a genswere synonymous. With the growth of Rome new gentes or families wereadded which did not claim descent from the ancient tribes. The powerfulgens of the Claudia came to Rome with Atta Claudius, their head, afterthe expulsion of the kings. Tullus Hostilius incorporated the Julii, Servilii and other gentes with the patricians. This ruling class, thedescendants of the conquerors, became a powerful aristocracy, andultimately learned to value pride of blood. There are very few names inRoman history, until the time of Marius, which did not belong to thisnoble class. What proud families were the Servilii, the Claudii, theJulii, the Cornelii, the Fabii, the Valerii, the Sempronii, the Octavii, the Sergii, and others. [Footnote: Liv. , i. 33. Dionys. , iii. 31. ]

The _Equites_ were originally elected from the patricians, and werecavalry soldiers, and did not form a distinct class till the time of theGracchi. They were composed of rich citizens, whose wealth enabled themto become judices. They had the privilege of wearing a gold ring, andhad seats reserved for them, like the Senate, at the theatre and circus. They increased in number with the increase of wealth, and formed anhonorable corps from which the highest officers of the army and thecivil magistrates were chosen. Admission to this body was anintroduction to public life, and was a test of social position. It wascomposed of rich plebeians as well as patricians, and was based whollyon wealth. Pliny says, "It became the third order in the state, and tothe title of _Senatus Populusque Romanus_, there began to be added, _et Equestris ordo_. "

[Sidenote: The Roman plebs. ]

[Sidenote: The tribunes. ]

[Sidenote: Gradual increase of their power. ]

[Sidenote: Their usurpations. ]

Beside this _Romanus populus_, which constituted the ruling classunder kings, was another body, made up of conquered people. In earlytimes their number was small, nor did they appear as a distinct classuntil the reign of Tullus Hostilius. After the subjection of Alba, thehead of the Latin Confederacy, great numbers were transferred to Rome, and received settlements on the Caelian Hill, and were kept undersubmission to the patricians. As the Roman conquests extended, theirnumbers increased, until they formed the larger part of the population. They were called _plebs_, or commonalty, and had no politicalprivileges whatever. They had not even the right of suffrage; but theywere enrolled in the army, [Footnote: Liv. , i. 33. Dionys. , iii. 31. ]and made to bear the expenses of the state. At first they were notallowed to intermarry with the patricians. Their oppression provokedresistance. The struggle which ensued is one of the most memorable inRoman history. The haughty oligarchy were obliged gradually to concederights. These rights the _plebs_ retained. First they gained a lawwhich prevented patricians from taking usurious interest. They securedthe appointment of tribunes for their protection. Soon after they hadthe right of summoning before their own _Comitia tributa_ any onewho violated their rights. In 449 they had influence sufficient toestablish the Connubium, by which they could intermarry with patricians. In 421 the plebeians were admitted to the quaestorship. Then, after afierce contest, they were made decemvirs. Their next right was thedignity of the consulship, and led to the dictatorship. In 351 theysecured the censorship, and in 336 the praetorship. Politicaldistinctions now vanished. The possession of a share of the greatoffices created powerful families, and these were incorporated with thearistocracy. The great privilege of securing tribunes was the first stepto political power, and the most important in the constitutional historyof the state. And it was the tribunes who gradually usurped the greatestpowers. They assumed the right, in 456, of convoking even the Senate. They also had the right to be present in the deliberations of theSenate; as their persons were inviolable, they interceded against anyaction which a magistrate might undertake during his term of office, andeven a command issued by a praetor. They could compel the Senate tosubmit a question to a fresh consultation, and ultimately compelled theconsuls to appoint a dictator. Their power grew to such a height thatthey acquired the right of proposing to the _Comitia tributa_, orthe Senate, measures on nearly all the important affairs of the state, and finally were elected from among the Senators themselves. 

[Sidenote: Advancement of Plebeians. ]

Through the institution of tribunes, and other circumstances, especiallythe increase of wealth, the plebeians, originally so unimportant andinsignificant that they could not obtain admission into the Senate, northe high offices of state, nor the occupancy of the public lands, ultimately obtained all the rights of the patricians, so that graduallythe political distinctions between patricians and plebeians vanishedaltogether, 286 B. C. , and the term _populus_ was applied to them aswell as to the patricians. [Footnote: Liv. , iv. 44; v. 11, 12. Cicero_de Repub. _, ii. 37. ]

[Sidenote: Gradual increase of their power. ]

These rights were only secured by bitter and fierce contests. Theplebeians, during their long struggle, did not seek power to gratifytheir ambition, but to protect themselves from oppression. Nor was thepower which they obtained abused until near the close of the Republic. 

But while they ultimately were blended, politically, with thepatricians, still the latter monopolized most of the great offices ofthe state until the time of Cicero, and socially, always werepreeminent. Yet there were many noble plebeian families who were blendedwith the aristocratic class. Aristocracy survived, after the politicaldistinctions between the two classes were abrogated. Rome was never ademocracy. Great families, whether patrician or plebeian, controlled theState, either by their wealth or social connections. The Roman nobilitywas really composed of all the families rendered illustrious by theoffices they had filled. And as the great officers were taken generallyfrom the Senate, that body was particularly august. 

[Sidenote: The Senate. ]

[Sidenote: The prerogative of Senators. ]

Until the usurpation of Caesar, the Senate was the great controllingpower of the republic. It not only had peculiar privileges and powers, but a monopoly of offices. It always remained powerful, in spite of thevictories of the plebeians. The laws proclaimed equality, but for fifty-nine years after the plebeians had the right of appointment as militarytribunes, only eighteen were plebeians, [Footnote: _Hist. JuliusCaesar_, by Napoleon; chap. Ii. 5. ] while two hundred and forty-sixwere patricians; and while the right of admission to the Senate wasacknowledged on principle, yet no one could enter it without havingobtained a decree of the censor, or exercised a curule magistracy, --favors almost always reserved for the aristocracy. The Senate was ajudicial and legislative body, and numbered for several centuries butthree hundred men, selected from the patricians. At first they wereappointed by the kings, afterwards by the consuls, and subsequently bythe censors. But as all those who had been appointed by the_populus_ to the great offices had admission into this body, thepeople, that is, the patricians, virtually nominated the candidates forthe Senate. But all magistrates were not necessarily members of theSenate, only those whom the censors selected from among them, and thecurule magistrates during their office. It was from these curulemagistrates that vacancies were filled up. The office of senator was forlife. When the plebeians obtained the great offices, the Senate ofcourse represented the whole people, as it formerly had represented the_populus_. But it was never a democratic assembly, for all itsmembers belonged to the nobles. It required, under Augustus, 1, 200, 000sesterces to support the senatorial dignity. Only a rich man could be, therefore, a senator. Nor could he carry on any mercantile business. TheSenate was ever composed of men who had rendered great public services, or who were distinguished for wealth and talents. It was probably themost dignified and the proudest body of men ever assembled. The powersof the Senate were enormous. It had the general superintendence ofmatters of religion and foreign relations; it commanded the levies oftroops; it regulated duties and taxes; it gave audience to ambassadors;it proposed, for a long time, the candidates for office to the_Comitia_; it determined upon the way that war should be conducted;it decreed to what provinces the consuls and praetors should be sent; itappointed governors of provinces; it sent out embassies to foreignstates; it carried on the negotiations with foreign ambassadors; itdeclared martial law in the appointment of dictators, and it decreedtriumphs to fortunate generals. In short it was the supreme power in thestate, and was the medium through which all the affairs of governmentpassed. It was neither an hereditary, nor a popular body, yetrepresented the state--at first the patrician order, and finally thewhole people, retaining to the end its aristocratic character. Thesenators wore on their tunics a broad purple stripe, --a badge ofdistinction, like a modern decoration, --and they had the exclusiverights of the orchestra at theatres and amphitheatres. [Footnote: Seearticle in Smith's _Dict. Of Ant. _, by Dr. Schmitz. ] Under theemperors, the Senate was degraded, and was made entirely subservient totheir will, and a mouth-piece; still it survived all the changes of theconstitution, and was always a dignified and privileged body. Itcombined, in its glory, more functions than the English Parliament; itwas convoked by the curule magistrates, and finally by the tribunes. Themost ancient place of assembly was the Curia Hostilia, thoughsubsequently many temples were used. The majority of votes decided aquestion, and the order in which senators spoke and voted was determinedby their rank, in the following order: president of the Senate, consuls, censors, praetors, aediles, tribunes, quaestors. Their decisions, called_Senatus Consulta_, were laws--_leges_--and were entrusted tothe care of aediles and tribunes. [Footnote: Nieb. _Roman Hist. _, viii. P. 264. ]

[Sidenote: The Senate composed of patricians and plebeians. ]

[Sidenote: The Senate hold the great offices of state. ]

Such was the Roman Senate--an assembly of nobles, whether patrician orplebeian. The descendants of all who had filled curule magistracies were_nobiles_, and had the privilege of placing in the atrium of thehouse the images and titles of their ancestors--an heraldic distinctionin substance. And as the patricians carried back their pedigree to theremotest historical period, there was great pride of blood. Fewplebeians could boast of a remote and illustrious ancestry, and everyplebeian who obtained a curule office, was the founder of his family'snobility, like Cicero--a _novus homo_. This nobility contrived tokeep possession of all the great offices, and it was difficult for a newman to get access to their ranks. The distinction of Patricianand Plebeian was secondary, after the _Gracchi_ to that of_Nobilitas_, yet it was rare to find a patrician gens the familiesof which had not enjoyed the highest honors many times over. Thus thearistocracy was composed of the families of those who had held thehighest offices of the state; but as these offices were controlled bythe Senate and enjoyed by the patricians chiefly, it was difficult todetermine whether nobility was the result of patrician blood, or thepossession of great offices. A man could scarcely be a patrician who hadnot held a great office; nor could he often hold a great office unlesshe were a patrician. The great offices were held in succession by themembers of the Senate. The two consuls, the ten tribunes, the eightpraetors in the time of Sulla--the twenty quaestors, together with thegovernors of provinces, and the generals who were selected from theSenate, or belonged to it, would necessarily compose a large part of thenobility, when their term of office lasted but a limited time, so that asenator with any ability was sure, in the course of his life, of thehighest honors of the state. 

[Sidenote: But only those who had distinguished themselves. ]

The great executive officers, therefore, belonged to the noble class, not of necessity, but as a general thing. Cicero was a _novushomo_, and yet rose by his talents to the highest dignities. It wasrare, however, to confer the highest offices on those who had notdistinguished themselves in war. Military fame, after all, gave thegreatest prestige to the Roman name. Consuls commanded armies, but theywould not have been chosen consuls except for military, as well aspolitical, talent. 

[Sidenote: The Consuls. ]

The consul was, after the abolition of the monarchy, the highest officerof the state. It was not till the year 366 B. C. That a plebeian obtainedthis dignity. The powers of consuls were virtually those of the oldkings, with the exception of priestly authority. They convened theSenate, introduced ambassadors, called together the people, conductedelections, commanded the armies and never appeared in public withoutlictors. Nor were they shorn of their powers till Julius Caesar assumedthe dictatorship. The whole internal machinery of the state was undertheir control. But their term of office lasted only a single year. Theirelection took place in the _Comitia Centuriata_. 

[Sidenote: The censors. ]

The censors were next in dignity, and like the consuls, there were two, and elected in the same manner under the presidency of a consul; onlymen of consular rank were chosen to this high office, and hence it wasreally higher than the consulship. The censors were chosen for a longerterm than the consuls, and had the oversight of the public morals, thecare of the census, and the administration of the finances. They couldbrand with ignominy the highest persons of the state, and could elect tothe Senate, and exclude from it unworthy men. They had, with the aediles, the control of the public buildings and all public works. They couldtake away from a knight his horse, and punish extravagance in living, orthe improper dissolution of the marriage rite. They were held in thegreatest reverence, and when they died were honored with magnificentfunerals. 

[Sidenote: The praetors. ]

Next in rank were the praetors, at first two in number, and ultimatelysixteen. They exercised the judicial power, both in civil and criminalcases. 

[Sidenote: The aediles. ]

The aediles were also curule magistrates, and to them was entrusted thecare of the public buildings, and the superintendence of publicfestivals. They were the keepers of the decrees of the Senate, and ofthe plebiscita. They superintended the distribution of water, the careof the streets, the drainage of the city, and the distribution of cornto the people. It was their business to see that no new deities wereintroduced, and they had the general superintendence of the police, andthe inspection of baths. Their office entailed large expenses, and theywere forced into great extravagance to gain popularity, as in the caseof Julius Caesar and Aemilius Scaurus; but the aediles exercised extensivepowers, which, however, were essentially diminished under the emperors. 

[Sidenote: The tribunes. ]

Allusion has already been made to the tribunes, in connection with thedevelopment of the plebeian power. At first they were only two, then increased to five, and finally to ten. It was their business to protectthe plebs from the oppression of nobles, but their authority was so muchincreased in the time of Julius Caesar that they could veto an ordinanceof the Senate. [Footnote: Caesar, _De Beil Civ_. , 1, 2. ] They notonly could stop a magistrate in his proceedings, but command theirviatores to seize a consul or a censor, to imprison him, or throw himfrom the Tarpeian rock. [Footnote: Liv. Ii. 56, iv. 26; Cicero, _DeLegibus_, iii. 9. ] The college of tribunes had the power of makingedicts. After the passage of the Hortensian law, there was no powerequal to theirs, and they could dictate even to the Senate itself. Inthe latter days of the republic, the tribunes were generally electedfrom among the senators. It was the vast influence which the people hadobtained through the tribunes which led to the usurpation of Caesar; forhe, as well as Marius, rose into power by courting them against theinterests of the aristocracy. 

[Sidenote: The quaestors. ]

The last of the great magistrates whose office entitled them to a seatin the Senate were the quaestors, who had charge of the public money. Originally only two in number, they were raised by Sulla to twenty, andby Caesar to forty, for political influence. As the Senate had thesupreme direction of the finances they were merely its agents orpaymasters. The proconsul or praetor, who had the administration of aprovince, was attended with a quaestor to regulate the collection of therevenues. The quaestors also were the paymasters of the army. 

Such were the great executive officers of the state, having a seat inthe Senate, and belonging to the noble class by their official positionas well as by birth. No one could be consul until he had passed throughall these offices successively, except the censorship. 

[Sidenote: Pontifex maximus. ]

There was, however, another great Roman dignitary who held his officefor life, which was one of transcendent importance. He was at the headof the college of priests, which had the superintendence of all mattersof religion. The college of pontiffs, of which, under Julius Caesar, there were sixteen, were not priests, but stood above all priests, andregulated the worship of the gods, and punished offenses againstreligion. The chief pontiff lived in a public palace in the Via Sacra, and might also hold other offices. It is a great proof of the talents ofCaesar and of the estimation in which he was held, that, at the age ofthirty-seven, he was chosen to this high dignity, against the powerfulopposition of Catulus, prince of the Senate, and when he had onlyreached the aedileship. 

[Sidenote: Assemblies of the people. ]

[Sidenote: The Comitia Cenuriata. ]

In regard to the assemblies of the people, where they voted for thegreat officers of state, it must be borne in mind that they were notmade up of the rabble, but of the populus or the patricians till nearlythe close of the republic. Each of the thirty curia had its building forthe discussion of political and legal questions. They had alsocollectively an assembly, called _Comitia Curiata_, where thepeople voted on the measures proposed by the magistrates. The votes weregiven by the curiae, each curia having one collective vote. The assemblyoriginated nothing, but decided upon the life of Roman citizens, uponpeace and war, and the election of magistrates. This was the primitiveform under the kings. But Servius Tullius instituted the _ComitiaCenturiata_, and hence divided the populus into six property classes, and one hundred and ninety-three centuriae. The first class was composedof ninety-eight centuriae, with a property qualification of one hundredthousand asses; the second of twenty-two centuriae with seventy-fivethousand asses; the third of twenty, with fifty thousand asses; thefourth of twenty-two, with twenty-five thousand asses; the fifth ofthirty, with eleven thousand asses; and the sixth of any one of thosebelow twelve and a half minae. Yet this class was the most numerous. Thewealthier classes voted first, and when a majority of the centuries wasobtained the voting stopped. Hence the power was virtually in the handsof the rich; for, united, they made a majority before the poorer classeswere called upon to vote. The _Comitia Centuriata_ elected themagistrates and made laws, and formed the highest court of appeal, butall its decisions had to be sanctioned by the curiae, although in courseof time the curia was a formality. The centuries met in the CampusMartius, and were presided over by the consuls, who read the names ofthe candidates. In the assemblies by centuries, the vote of the firstclass prevailed over all the others; in the _comitia_ by curiae thepatricians were supreme. 

[Sidenote: The Comitia Tributa. ]

[Sidenote: Decline of power of the comitia. ]

The _Comitia Tributa_ represented the thirty Roman tribes accordingto the Servian constitution, to whom was originally given the right toelect inferior magistrates. This was a plebian assembly, and had veryinsignificant powers, chiefly relating to the local affairs of thetribes. But when these tribes began to be real representatives of thepeople, with the increase of the plebeian classes, matters affecting thewhole state were brought before them by the tribunes. This gave to theassembly the initiative of measures, which was sanctioned by a law of L. Valerius Publicola, B. C. 449. This law gave to the decrees passed by thetribes the power of a real _lex_, binding upon the whole people, provided it had the sanction of the Senate and the populus in the_Comitia Centuriata_. In 287 B. C. The Hortensian law made theplebiscita independent of the sanction of the Senate. When the plebeiansbegan to be recognized as an essential element in the state, it wasfound inconvenient to have the first class, which included the equites, so greatly preponderant in the comitia of the centuries; and it wasdesigned to blend the _Comitia Centuriata_ and _the Tributa_in such a manner as to make only one assembly. This took place after thecompletion of the thirty-five tribes, B. C. 241. The citizens of eachtribe were divided into five property classes, and each tribe into tencenturies, making three hundred and fifty centuries. This comitia wasfar more democratic than the comitia of the centuries, and was guided bythe tribunes. When all the Italians were incorporated with the thirty-five tribes, violence and bribery became the order of the day. Sullatook away the jurisdiction of the people, and Julius Caesar encroachedstill more on popular rights when he decided upon peace and war inconnection-with the Senate--which great question was formerly settled bythe comitia alone. The people retained nothing under him but theelection of magistrates, which amounted to little, since Caesar had theright to appoint half the magistrates himself, with the exception of theconsuls. After the death of Caesar, the comitia continued to be held, butwas always controlled by the rulers, whose unlimited powers wereultimately complied with without resistance. Finally the comitia becamea mere farce, and all legislation passed away forever, and wascompletely in the hands of the emperor and Senate. 

[Sidenote: The nobles retain the chief ascendency. ]

[Sidenote: The dictator. ]

[Sidenote: The idea of popular government. ]

[Sidenote: The Senate retains all real power. ]

Thus it would appear that the Roman constitution was essentiallyaristocratic, especially for three hundred years after the expulsionof kings. The _Senate_ and the _populus_ had the whole power. Gradually, as wealth increased, the _equites_ became an influentialorder, not less aristocratical than the patricians. The _plebs_were not of much consideration till the time of the Gracchi, and alwaysobtained office with difficulty. It was two hundred years after theexpulsion of kings before the plebeians could even obtain a share of thepublic lands. So long as the aristocracy preserved their virtue andpatriotism, the state was most ably administered, and continuallyincreased in wealth and power. The conquest of Italy was entirely underthe regime of nobles, and even when wealthy plebeian families mingledwith the ancient patricians there was still great difficulty in reachingpreferment, without the advantages of birth. [Footnote: Mommsen, _Roman Hist_. , i. P. 241. ] In fourteen years, from 399 to 412, thepatricians allowed only six plebeians to reach the consulship. The livesof the citizens were protected by the laws, but public opinion remainedpowerless at the assassination of those who incurred the hatred of theSenate. The comitia were free, but the Senate had at its disposal eitherthe veto of the tribunes or the religious scruples of the people, for aconsul could prevent the meeting of the assemblies, and the augurs couldcut short their deliberations. Even the dictatorship was often a meansof oppressing the plebs, and was a lever in the hands of thearistocracy, since the dictator was appointed by the consuls under thedirection of the Senate. [Footnote: Liv. , viii. 23. ] He was a patricianas a matter of course, until the political distinctions betweenpatrician and plebeian were removed, and had absolute authority for sixmonths. He was not held responsible for his acts while in office, [Footnote: Becker, _Handbuch der Romanisch Alterthumer_, vii. P. 2;Nieb. _History of Rome_. Vol. I. P. 563. ] nor was there any appealfrom his decisions. He was preceded by twenty-four lictors, and wasvirtually supreme. Between 390 and 416 there were eighteen dictators. The Senate thus remained all-powerful, in spite of the victories of theplebeians, and such were its patriotism and intelligence that itpreserved its preponderance. It was during the conquest of Italy thataristocratic power shone in all its splendor, and the most able men wereentrusted with public affairs. Every thing was sacrificed to patriotism, and discipline was enforced with cruelty. The most powerful patriciansreadily exposed their lives in battle, and a town became a people whichultimately embraced the world. When the plebeians had grown to be apower the decline of the republic commenced, and a new organization wasnecessary. Great chieftains became dictators for life, and the imperialsceptre was seized by an unscrupulous but enlightened general. The Roman_populus_ in an important sense carried out the great idea of self-government, but, strictly speaking, self-government, as applied to thepeople generally, never existed in the Roman Commonwealth. But the ideawas advanced which gave birth to future republics. Nor did the fall ofthe old patrician oligarchy divest the Roman commonwealth of itsaristocratic character, for a new aristocracy arose. When the plebeianfamilies obtained the consulate and other high offices of state, theywere put on a level with the old patrician families, and were allowedthe privilege of placing the wax images of their illustrious ancestorsin the family hall, and to have these images carried in the funeralprocession. As curule magistrates, they had a seat in the Senate, andwore the insignia of rank--the gold finger-ring and the purple border onthe toga. "The result of the Licinian laws, " says Mommsen, "in reality, only amounted to what we now call the creation of a new batch ofofficers. " [Footnote: Mommsen, B. III. C. Xi. ] As all the descendants ofthose who had enjoyed the curule magistracy were entitled to theprivilege of these distinctions, the nobility became hereditary. And asthe great officers of state were generally selected from this class, since they controlled the comitia, the nobility was not merelyhereditary, but it was a _governing_ nobility. The nobility had thepossession of the Senate itself. It monopolized the great offices ofstate. The stability of the Roman aristocracy is seen in the fact, that, from the year 388 to 581, when the consulate was held by one patricianand one plebeian, one hundred and forty of the consuls, out of the threehundred and eighty-six, belonged to sixteen great houses. The Corneliifurnished thirty consuls in one hundred and ninety-three years, theValerii eighteen, the Claudii twelve, the Aemilii fifteen, the Fabiitwelve, the Manlii ten, the Postumii eight, the Servilii seven, theSulpicii eight, the Papirii four, to say nothing of other curuleoffices. Thus the nobility was not composed exclusively of patricianfamilies, although these were the most numerous, but of old plebeianfamilies also, in the same way that the English House of Lords iscomposed of families which trace their origin to Saxons as well asNormans, although the Normans, for several centuries, were the governingclass. And as the House of Lords has accessions occasionally from theranks of the people, in consequence of great wealth, or politicalinterest, or eminent genius, or signal success in war, so the Romannobility was increased, as old families died out, by the successfulgenerals who gained the great offices of state. Marius arose from thepeople, but his exploits in the field of battle insured his entranceamong the nobility in consequence of the offices he held, even as theLord Chancellors of England, who have been eminent lawyers merely, aremade herditary peers in consequence of their judicial position. 

[Sidenote: Roman citizens. ]

The Roman burgesses again were any thing but a rabble. They werecomposed of men of standing and wealth. If they did not compose themotive-power, they constituted a firm foundation of the state. They hada clear conception of the common good, and a sagacity in the election ofrulers, and a spirit of sacrifice for the general interests. They had alofty patriotism that nothing could seduce. The rabble of Rome were ofno account until the enormous wealth of the senatorial houses raised upclients and parasites. And when this rabble, who were merely thedependents of the rich, obtained the privilege of voting, then thedecline of liberties was rapid and fearful, since they were merely thetools of powerful demagogues. 

[Sidenote: Balance of power. ]

Thus among the Romans, until the prostration of their liberties, thepowers of government were not in the hands of kings, as among theOrientals, nor in those of the aristocracy, exclusively, nor in those ofthe people; but in all combined, one class acting as a check againstanother class. They were shared between the Senate, the magistrates, andthe people in their assemblies. Theoretically, the _populus_ wasthe real sovereign by whom power was delegated; but, for severalcenturies, the _populus_ meant the patricians, who alone could takepart in the assemblies. The preponderating influence was exercised bythe Senate. The judicial, the legislative, and the executive authoritywere as clearly defined as in our times. The magistrates were allelected by the Senate or the people, and sometimes proposed by the oneand confirmed by the other. No case, involving the life of a Romancitizen, could be decided except by the _Comitia Centuriata_. Theelection of a magistrate, or the passing of a law, though made on theground of a _senatus consultum_, yet required the sanction of thecuriae. In legislative measures, a _senatus consultum_ was broughtbefore the people by the consul, or the senator who originated themeasure, after it had previously been exhibited in public for seventeendays. The inferior magistrates, whose office it was to superintendaffairs of local interest, were elected by the _Comitia Tributa_. All the magistrates, however great their power, could, at the expirationof their office, be punished for transcending their trust. No person wasabove the authority of the laws. No one class could subvert theliberties and prerogatives of another. The Senate had the most power, but it could not ride over the Constitution. The consuls were not thecreatures of the Senate; they were elected by the centuries, andpresided over the Senate, as well as the assembly of the people. Theabuse of power by a consul was prevented by his colleague, and by thecertainty of being called to account on the expiration of his office. His power was also limited by the Senate, since he was dependent uponit. There was no absolute power exercised at Rome, except by thedictators, but they were appointed only in a national crisis, and thenonly for six months. Unless their power were perpetuated, not even theycould overturn the constitution. The senators again, the most powerfulbody in the state, were not entirely independent. They could not electmembers of their own body, nor keep them in office. The censors had theright of electing the senators from among the ex-magistrates and theequites, and of excluding such as they deemed unworthy. And as theSenate was thus composed wholly of men who had held the highest officesor had great wealth, it was a body of great experience and wisdom. Yeteven this august assembly was obliged to submit to the introduction ofany subject of discussion by the tribune. What a counterpoise to theauthority of this powerful body were the tribunes! From their right ofappearing in the Senate, and of taking part in its discussions, and fromtheir being the representatives of the whole people, in whom power wassupposed primarily to be lodged, they gradually obtained the right ofintercession against any action which a magistrate might undertakeduring the time of his office, and without giving a reason. They couldnot only prevent a consul from convening the Senate, but could veto anordinance of the Senate itself. They could even seize a consul and acensor and imprison him. Thus was power marvelously distributed, evenwhile it remained in the hands of the higher classes. The people werenot powerless when their assemblies could make laws and appointmagistrates, and when their tribunes could veto the most importantmeasures. The consuls could not remain in office long enough to bedangerous, and the senators could be ejected from their high positionwhen flagrantly unworthy. "The _nobiles_ had no legal privilegeslike a feudal aristocracy, but they were bound together by a commondistinction derived from a legal title, and by a common interest; andtheir common interest was to endeavor to confine the election to all thehigh magistracies to the members of their own body. " The term_nobilitas_ implied that some one of a man's ancestors had filled acurule magistracy, and it also implied the possession of wealth. Theoretically it would seem that the _nobiles_ were very numerous, since so many people can ordinarily boast of an illustrious ancestor;but practically the class was not so large as we might expect. A noblemight be poor, but still, like Sulla, he remained noble. The distinctionof patrician was, long before the reforms of the Gracchi, of secondaryimportance; that of _nobilitas_ remained to the close of therepublic. The nobility kept themselves exclusive and powerful from thepossession of the great offices of state from generation to generation;they prevented their own extinction by admitting into their ranks thosewho distinguished themselves to an eminent degree. 

[Sidenote: The reign of demagogues. ]

But this state of things applied only to the republic in its palmy days. When democratical influences favored the ascendency of demagogues, --thusfar in the history of our world, the inevitable consequence of a greaterextension of popular liberties than what the people are prepared for, --then wholesome restraints were removed, and the people were the mostenslaved, when they thought themselves most free. There is no moremelancholy slavery than the slavery of the passions. Ignorant self-indulgent people are led by their passions; they are rarely influencedby reason or by enlightened self-interest. Those who most skillfully andunscrupulously appeal to popular passions, when the people have power, have necessarily the ascendency in the community. The people, deceived, flattered, headstrong, follow them willingly. In times of war, andespecially among a martial people, military chieftains, by inflaming thewarlike passions, by holding out exaggerated notions of glory, byappealing to vanity and patriotism mingled, have ever had a mostextraordinary influence in republics. They have also great influence inmonarchies, when the monarch is crazed by the passion of militarysuccess. Monarchs, with the passions of the people, are led by men whoflatter them even as the people are led. Hence the reign of favoriteswith kings. The ascendency of favorites, with sovereigns like LouisXIII. , or even like Louis XIV. , is maintained by the same policy as thatwhich animated Marius and Caesar, or animates the popular favorites ofour times. And this ascendency may be for the better or the worse, according to the character of the demagogue rulers, or royal favorites. When a Richelieu or a Cavour holds the reins, a country may beindirectly benefited by the wisdom of their public acts. When aBuckingham or a Catiline prevails, a nation suffers a calamity. Ineither case, the power which is conceded to be legitimate becomes amockery. With Caesar, the popular power is a mere name, even, as withRichelieu, the kingly is a shadow. In the better days of the Romanrepublic, the executive power was kept in a healthy state by the greatauthority of the Senate, and the senatorial influence was prevented fromundue encroachment by the watchfulness of the tribunes. And when thearistocratical ascendency was most marked, the aristocratical body hadtoo much virtue and ability to be enslaved by ambitious and able men oftheir own number. Had the Roman Senate, in the height of its power, beencomposed of ignorant, inexperienced, selfish, unpatriotic members, thenit would have been easy for a great intellect among them, whetheraccompanied by virtue or not, by appealing perpetually to their pride, to their rank, to their privileges, to their peculiar passions, to haveled them, as Pitt led the House of Commons. The real rulers of our worldare few, in any community, or under any form of government. They arealways dangerous, when there is a low degree of virtue or intelligenceamong those whom they represent. Certain it is, that their power isnearly absolute when they are sustained by passion or prejudice. Therepresentative of a fanatical constituency has no continued power, unless he perpetually flatters those whom, in his heart, he knows to belost to the control of reason. And his influence is greater or less, according to the strength of the popular passions which he inflames, orin which, as is often the case, he shares. The honest representative offanatics is himself a fanatic. Thus Cromwell had so great an ascendencywith his party, because he felt more strongly than they in matters wherethey sympathized. But the liberties of Rome were not overturned byfanatical rulers, but by those who availed themselves of the passionswhich they themselves did not feel, in order to compass their selfishends. And that is the greater danger in republics--that bad men rise bythe suffrage of foolish people whom they deceive, by affecting to fallin with their wishes, like Napoleon and Caesar, rather than that honestmen climb to power by the very excess of their enthusiasm, likeCromwell, or Peter the Hermit. Hence a Mirabeau is more dangerous than aRobespierre. The former would have betrayed the people he led; thelatter would have urged them on to consistent courses, even if the waywas lined with death. Had Mirabeau lived, and retained his power, hewould have compromised the Revolution, of which Napoleon was theproduct, and the work would have had to be done over. But Robespierrepushed his principles to their utmost logical sequence, and the nationwas satisfied with their folly, in a practical point of view. Napoleonarose to rebuke anarchy as well as feudal kings, and though maddened andintoxicated by war, so that his name is a Moloch, he never dreamed ofrestoring the unequal privileges which the Revolution swept away. 

[Sidenote: Greatness of the constitution. ]

The Roman constitution, as gradually developed by the necessities andcrises which arose, is a wonderful monument of human wisdom. The peoplewere not ground down. They had rights which they never relinquished; andthey constantly gained new privileges, as they were prepared toappreciate them, or as they were in danger of subjection by thegoverning classes. They never had the ascendency, but they enjoyedrenewed and increasing power, until they were strong enough to temptaristocratic demagogues and successful generals. When Caesar condescendedto flatter the people, they had become a power, but a power incapable ofholding its own, or using it for the welfare of the state. Then it wassubverted, as Napoleon rode into absolute dominion over the bridge whichthe Revolution had built. And the Roman constitution was remarkable, notonly because it prevented a degrading subjection of the masses, evenwhile it refused them the rights of government, but because itmaintained a balance among the governing classes themselves, andrestricted the usurpations of powerful families, as well as militaryheroes. For nearly five hundred years, not a man arose whom the Romansfeared, or whom they could not control--whom they could not at any timehave hurled from the Tarpeian rock had he contemplated the subversion, Iwill not say of the liberties of the people, but of the constitutionwhich made the aristocracy supreme. There were ambitious andunscrupulous men, doubtless, among those fortunate generals whom theSenate snubbed, and whom the people adored. But, great as they were inwar, and powerful from family interest and vast wealth, no one of themever dared to make himself supreme until Caesar passed the Rubicon--notScipio, crowned with the laurels which he had taken from the head ofHannibal; not Marius, fresh from his great victories over the barbarichosts of northern Europe; not even Sulla, after his magnificentconquests in the east, and his triumph over all the parties and factionswhich democracy raised against him. Pompey may have contemplated what itwas the fortune of Caesar to secure. But that pompous magnate could havesucceeded only by using the watchwords and practicing the acts to whichnone but a demagogue could have stooped. Before his time, at least forfifty years, there were too many men in the Senate who had the spirit ofCato, of Cicero, and of Brutus. 

[Sidenote: The Revolution. ]

[Sidenote: Effects of imperial rule. ]

But, _tempora mutantur_. When the Senate was made up of men whomgreat generals selected, whether aristocratic sycophants or richplebeians; when the tribunes played into the hands of the very men whomthey were created to oppose; when the high priest of a people, originally religious, was chosen without regard to either moral orreligious considerations, but purely political; when the high offices ofthe state were filled by senators who had never seen military lifeexcept for some brief campaign; when factions and parties set oldcustoms aside; when the most aristocratic nobles sought entrance intoplebeian ranks in order, like Mirabeau, to steal the few offices whichthe people controlled, and when the people, mad and fierce fromdemoralizing spectacles, raised mobs and subverted law, then theconstitution, under which the Romans had advanced to the conquest of theworld, became subverted. Under the emperors, there was no constitution. They controlled the Senate, the army, the tribunals of the law, thedistant provinces, the city itself, and regulated taxes and imposedburdens, and appointed to high offices whomever they wished. The Senatelost its independence, the courts their justice, the army its spirit, and the people their hopes. Yet the old form remained. The Senate met asin the days of the Gracchi. There were consuls and praetors still. But itwas merely equites or rich men who filled the senatorial benches--toolsof the emperor, as were all the officers of the state. The government ofnobles was succeeded by the government of emperors who, in their turn, were too often the tools of favorites, or of praetorian guards, until theassassin's dagger cut short their days. 

[Sidenote: The rule of emperors a necessity. ]

This is not the place to speculate on the good or evil which resultedfrom this change in the Roman government. Most historians andphilosophers agree that the change was inevitable, and proved, on thewhole, benignant. It was simply the question whether the Romans shouldhave civil wars and anarchies and factions, which decimated the people, and kept society in a state of fear and insecurity, and prevented thetriumph of law, or whether they should submit to an absolute ruler, whohad unbounded means of doing good, and whom interest and duty alikeprompted to secure the public welfare. The people wanted, above allthings, safety, and the means of prosecuting their various interests. Under the emperors they obtained the greatest boons possible, when thecondition of society was hollow and rotten to the core. The people weregoverned, sometimes wisely, sometimes recklessly, but there were orderand law for three hundred years. It little mattered to the vastpopulation of the empire who was supreme master, provided they were notoppressed. The proud _Imperator_, the title and praenomen of all theRoman monarchs, and which had been invented for Octavian, remained thefountain of law, the arbiter of all interests, the undisputed ruler ofthe world. The old offices nominally remained, but, by virtue of thecensorship, the emperor had the power of excluding persons from theSenate, and of calling others into it. Thus the august body which was, under the republic, the counterpoise to executive authority, wasrendered dependent on the imperial will. There was no Senate, but inname, when it could be controlled by the government. It became a mereform, or an instrument in the hands of the administration, to facilitatebusiness. By obtaining the proconsular power over the whole of the RomanEmpire, Octavian made the provincial governors his vicegerents. The_tribunicia potestas_ which he also enjoyed, enabled him to annulany decree of the Senate, and of interfering in all the acts of themagistrates. An appeal was open to him, as tribune, from all the courtsof justice; he had a right to convoke the Senate, and to put any subjectunder consideration to the vote of senators. Augustus even seized thepontificate, which office, that of Pontifex Maximus, put into his handsall the ecclesiastical courts. As tribune and censor, he also controlledthe treasury, so that all the powers of the state were concentrated inhim alone--that of consul, tribune, censor, praetor, and high priest. What a power to be exercised by one man in so great an empire! The Romanconstitution was subverted when one man usurped the offices which wereformerly shared by many. No sovereign was ever so absolute as the RomanImperator, since he combined all the judicial, the executive, and thelegislative branches of the government; that is, he controlled them all. 

[Sidenote: The old forms of government preserved. ]

Yet the old machinery was kept up, the old forms, the old offices inname, otherwise even Augustus might not have been secure on his throne. The Comitia still elected magistrates, but only such as were proposed bythe government. The Senate assembled as usual, but it was composed ofrich men, merely to register the decrees of the Imperator. The consulswere elected as before, but they were mere shadows in authority. Theonly respectable part of the magistracy was that which interpreted thelaws. The only final authority was the edict of the emperor, who notonly controlled all the great offices of state, but was possessed ofenormous and almost unlimited private property. They owned wholeprincipalities. Augustus changed the whole registration of property inGaul on his own responsibility, without consulting any one. [Footnote:Niebuhr, Lecture 105. ] His power was so unlimited that soldiers took theoath of allegiance to him, as they once did to the _imperium populiRomani_. His armies, his fleets, and his officers were everywhere, and no one dreamed of resisting a power which absorbed everything intoitself. 

[Sidenote: The imperial power unable to save the state. ]

It is altogether another question whether the prosperity of the statewas greater or less after the subversion of the constitution. For threehundred years the state was probably kept together by the ancientmechanism controlled by one central will. The change from civil war andparty faction to imperial centralized power, considering the demoralizedcondition of society, was doubtless beneficial. The emperor could rule;he could not, however, conserve the empire. Doubtless, in most cases, heruled well, since he ruled by the of great experience and ability. It ispeculiarly the interest of despots to have able men as ministers. Theynever select those whom they deem to be weak and corrupt; they aresimply deceived in their estimate of ability and fidelity. For severalgenerations, the provinces had experienced governors, the armies hadable generals, the courts of law learned judges. The provinces were notso inexorably robbed as in the time of Cicero. The people had theirpleasures and spectacles and baths. Property was secure, unless enormousfortunes tempted the cupidity of the emperors. Justice was welladministered. Cities were rebuilt and adorned. Rome owed its greatestmonuments of art to the emperors. There was a cold and remorselessdespotism; but the unnoticed millions toiled in peace. Literature didnot thrive, since that can only live with freedom, but art receivedgreat encouragement, and genius, in the useful professions, did not gounrewarded. The empire did not fall till luxury and prosperity enervatedthe people and rendered them unable to cope with the barbarian hosts. Rome was never so rich as when she fell into the hands of Goths andVandals. But the empire, under the old constitution, might haveprotected itself against external enemies. The mortal wound to Romanpower and glory was inflicted by traitors. 

 * * * * *

AUTHORITIES. --Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome; Mommsen, Historyof Rome; Arnold, History of Rome; Merivale, History of the Romans;Gibbon, Decline and Fall; Smith's Dictionary of Greek and RomanAntiquities gives the details, and points out the old classicalauthorities, as does Napoleon's Life of Caesar. Dionysius, Polybius, Livy, Plutarch, Cicero, Sallust, all shed light on important points. Seealso Gottling, _Gesch der Rom. Staat_. A large catalogue of writerscould be mentioned, but allusion is only made to those most accessibleto American readers. 

CHAPTER VI. 

ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE. 

If the Romans showed great practical sagacity in distributing politicalpower among different classes and persons, their laws evince stillgreater wisdom. Jurisprudence is generally considered to be theirindigenous science. It is for this they were most distinguished, and bythis they have given the greatest impulse to civilization. Their lawswere most admirably adapted for the government of mankind, but they hada still higher merit; they were framed, to a considerable degree, uponthe principles of equity or natural justice, and hence are adapted forall ages and nations, and have indeed been reproduced by modernlawgivers, and so extensively, as to have formed the basis of manymodern codes. Hence it is by their laws that the Romans have had thegreatest influence on modern times, and these constitute a wonderfulmonument of human genius. If the Romans had bequeathed nothing but lawsto posterity, they would not have lived in vain. These have morepowerfully affected the interests of civilization than the arts ofGreece. They are as permanent in their effects as any thing can be inthis world--more so than palaces and marbles. The latter crumble away, but the legacy of Gaius, of Ulpian, of Paulus, of Tribonian, will beprized to the remotest ages, not only as a wonderful work of genius, butfor its practical utility. The enduring influence of Moses is chieflyseen in his legislation, for this has entered into the Christian codes, and is also founded on the principles of justice. It is for this chieflythat he ranks with the greatest intellects of earth, whether he wasdivinely instructed or not. 

[Sidenote: Object for which laws are made. ]

Roman laws were first made in reference to the political exigencies andchanges of the state, and afterwards to the relations of the state withindividuals, or of individuals with individuals. The former pertain moreproperly to constitutional history; the latter belong to what is calledthe science of jurisprudence, and only fall in with the scope of thischapter. The laws enacted by the Roman people in their centuries, or bythe Senate, pertaining to political rights and privileges--those bywhich power passed from the hands of patricians to plebeians, or fromthe _populus_ to great executive officers--are highly importantand interesting in an historical or political sense. But the genius ofthe Romans was most strikingly seen in the government of mankind; and ittherefore the relations between the governing and the governed, the lawscreated for the general good, pertaining to property and crime andindividual rights, which, in this chapter, it is my chief object toshow. 

[Sidenote: Greeks inferior to the Romans in jurisprudence. ]

The Greeks, with all their genius, their great creation in literature, philosophy, and art, did very little for civilization, which we cantrace, in the science of jurisprudence. They were too speculative forsuch a practical science. Nevertheless their speculative wisdom was madeuse of by Roman jurists. It was only so far as philosophy modified laws, that the influence of Greece was of much account. 

[Sidenote: Jurisprudence culminates with emperors. ]

Nor did Roman jurisprudence culminate in its serene majesty till thetime of the emperors. It was not perfectly developed, until Justinianconsolidated it in the Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes. Theclassical jurists may have laid the foundation; the superstructure wasraised under the auspices of those whom we regard as despots. 

[Sidenote: Early legislation. ]

[Sidenote: The Twelve Tables. ]

Ingenious writers, like Vico and Niebuhr, have extended their researchesto the government of the kings, and advanced many plausiblespeculations; but the earliest legislation worthy of notice, was thecelebrated code called the Twelve Tables, framed from the reports of thecommissioners whom the Romans sent to Athens and other Greek states, tocollect what was most useful in their legal systems. But scarcely anypart of the civil law contained in the Twelve Tables has come down tous. All we know with certainty, is that it was the intention of thedecemviral legislation to bring the estates into closer connection, andto equalize the laws for both. Nor do the provisions of the decemviralcode, with which we are acquainted, show that enlightened regard tonatural justice which characterized jurisprudence in its subsequentdevelopment. It allowed insolvent debtors to be treated with greatcruelty; they could be imprisoned for sixty days, loaded with chains, and then might be sold into foreign slavery. It sanctioned a barbarousretaliation--an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But it gave aredress for lampoons or libels, allowed an appeal from the magistrate tothe people, and forbid capital punishment except by a decision of thecenturies. [Footnote: Lord Mackenzie, part 6. ] Niebuhr maintains, [Footnote: Lecture 25. ] in his lectures on the History of Rome, that theTwelve Tables conceded the right to every _pater familias_ ofmaking a will, by which regulation the child of a plebeian, by apatrician mother, could succeed to his father's property, which was ofgreat importance, and a great step in natural justice. It is supposedthat the most important part of the decemviral legislation wasthe _jus publicum_, [Footnote: Cicero, _De Legibus_. ] or thatwhich refers to the Roman constitution. The Twelve Tables obtained amongthe Romans a peculiar reverence; they were committed to memory by theyoung; they were transcribed with the greatest care, and were consideredas the fountain of right. They were approved by the _comitiacenturiata_, which was the supreme authority, and in the time ofAppius Claudius was composed of patricians alone. If Niebuhr is right inhis statement that the power of making wills was given to plebeians, itshows a greater liberality on the part of patricians than what theygenerally have had credit for, and is hardly to be reconciled with thestatement of Lord Mackenzie, that all marriages between patricians andplebeians were prohibited by the new code. 

[Sidenote: The Twelve Tables the basis of Roman law. ]

[Sidenote: Progress of Roman Law. ]

The laws of the Twelve Tables were the basis of all the laws, civil andreligious. But the edicts of the praetors, who were the great equityjudges, as well as the common-law magistrates, [Footnote: Maine's_Ancient Law_, p. 67. ] proclaimed certain changes which custom andthe practice of the courts had introduced, and these, added to the_leges populi_ or laws proposed by the consul and passed by thecenturies, the _plebiscita_ or laws proposed by the tribunes andpassed by the tribes, and the _senatus consulta_, gradually swelledthe laws to a great number. Three thousand plates of brass, containingthese various laws, were deposited in the capitol. [Footnote: Suetonius, _In Vespa_. ] Subtleties and fictions were introduced by the lawyersto defeat the written statutes, and jurisprudence became complicated, even in the time of Cicero. The opinions of eminent lawyers were evenadopted by the legal profession, and were recognized by the courts. Theevils of a complicated jurisprudence were so evident in the seventhcentury of the city, that Q. Mucius Scaevola, a great lawyer, whenconsul, published a scientific elaboration of the civil law. Cicerostudied law under him, and his contemporaries, Alfenus Varus and AeuliusGallus, wrote learned treatises, from which extracts appear in theDigest. Caesar contemplated a complete revision of the laws, but did notlive long enough to carry out his intentions. His legislation, so far ashe directed his mind to it, was very just. Among other laws was onewhich ordained that creditors should accept lands as payment for theiroutstanding debts, according to the value determined by commissioners. In his time, the relative value of money had changed, and was greatlydiminished. The most important law of Augustus, was the _lex oeliasentia_, deserving of all praise, which related to the manumission ofslaves. But he did not interfere with the social relations of the peopleafter he had deprived them of political liberty. He once attempted, byhis _Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea_, to counteract the custom whichthen prevailed, of abstaining from legal marriage and substitutingconcubinage instead, by which the free population declined; but thisattempt to improve the morals of the people met with such oppositionfrom the tribes or centuries, that the next emperor abolished popularassemblies altogether, which Augustus feared to do. The Senate, in thetime of the emperors, composed chiefly of lawyers and magistrates, andentirely dependent upon them, became the great fountain of law. By theoriginal constitution, the people were the source of power, and theSenate merely gave or refused its approbation to the laws proposed, butunder the emperors the comitia disappeared, and the Senate passeddecrees, which have the force of laws, subject to the veto of theemperor. It was not until the time of Septimus Severus and Caracalla, that the legislative action of the Senate ceased, and the edicts andrescripts of emperors took the place of all legislation. 

[Sidenote: Q. Mucius Scaevola. ]

The golden age of Roman jurisprudence was from the birth of Cicero tothe reign of Alexander Severus. Before this period it was an occultscience, confined to praetors, pontiffs, and patrician lawyers. Therewere no books nor schools to teach its principles. But in the latterdays of the republic law became the fashionable study of Roman youth, and eminent masters arose. The first great lawyer who left behind himimportant works, was the teacher of Cicero, Q. Mucius Scaevola, who wrotea treatise in eighteen books on the civil law. "He was, " [Footnote:Cicero, _De Or. _ i. 39. ] says Cicero, "the most eloquent ofjurists, and the most learned of orators. " This work, George Longthinks, had a great influence on contemporaries and on subsequentjurists, who followed it as a model. It is the oldest work from whichthere are any excerpts in the Digest. 

[Sidenote: Servius Sulpicius. ]

[Sidenote: Labeo. ]

[Sidenote: Gaius. ]

[Sidenote: Papinian. ]

[Sidenote: Paulus. ]

Servius Sulpicius, the friend of Cicero, and fellow-student of oratory, surpassed his teachers Balbus and Gallus, and was the equal inreputation of the great Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, who saidit was disgraceful for a patrician and a noble to be ignorant of the lawwith which he had to do. Cicero ascribes his great superiority as alawyer to the study of philosophy, which disciplined and developed hismind, and enabled him to deduce his conclusions from his premises withlogical precision. He left behind him one hundred and eighty treatises, and had numerous pupils, among whom A. Ofilius and Alfenus Varus, Cato, Caesar, Antony, and Cicero, were great lawyers. Labeo, in the time ofAugustus, wrote four hundred books on jurisprudence, spending six monthsin the year in giving instruction to his pupils, and in answering legalquestions, and the other six months in the country in writing books. Like all the great Roman jurists, he was versed in literature andphilosophy, and so devoted to his profession that he refused politicaloffice. His rival, Capito, was equally learned in all departments of thelaw, and left behind him as many treatises as Labeo. These two juristswere the founders of celebrated schools, like the ancient philosophers, and each had distinguished followers. Masurius Sabinus Gaius andPomponius, were of the school of Capito. M. Cocceius Nerva, SemproniusProculus, and Juventius Celsus, were of the school of Labeo. Gaius, whoflourished in the time of the Antonines, was a great legal authority;and the recent discovery of his Institutes has revealed the leastmutilated fragment of Roman jurisprudence which exists, and one of themost valuable, and sheds great light on ancient Roman law. It was foundin the library of Verona. No Roman jurist had a higher reputation thanPapinian, who was _praefectus praetorio_ under Septimius Severus, anoffice which made him only secondary to the emperor--a sort of grandvizier--whose power extended over all departments of the state. He wasbeheaded by Caracalla. The great commentator Cujacius, declares that hewas the first of all lawyers who have been, or who are to be; that noone ever surpassed him in legal knowledge, and no one will ever equalhim. Paulus was his contemporary, and held the same office as Papinian. He was the most fertile of Roman law-writers, and there is more takenfrom him in the Digest than from any other jurist, except Ulpian. Thereare two thousand and eighty-three excerpts from this writer, one sixthof the whole Digest. No legal writer, ancient or modern, has handled somany subjects. In perspicuity, he is said to be inferior to Ulpian, oneof the most famous of jurists, who was his contemporary. He hasexercised a great influence on modern jurisprudence from the copiousextracts of his writings in Justinian's Digest. He was the chief adviserof Alexander Severus, and like Paulus was _praefectus praetorio_. Thenumber of excerpts in the Digest from him, is said to be two thousandfour hundred and sixty-two, and they form a third part of it. Somefragments of his writings remain. The last of the great civiliansassociated with Gaius, Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, as oracles ofjurisprudence, was Modestinus, who was a pupil of Ulpian. He wrote bothin Greek and Latin. There are three hundred and forty-five excerpts inthe Digest from his writings, the titles of which show the extent andvariety of his labors. [Footnote: These facts are drawn from thedifferent articles of George Long, in _Smith's Dictionary_. ]

[Sidenote: The profession of law. ]

These great lawyers shed great glory on the Roman civilization. In theearliest times men sought distinction on the fields of battle, but inthe latter days of the republic honor was conferred for forensicability. The first pleaders of Rome were not jurisconsults, butaristocratic patrons looked after their clients. But when law becamecomplicated, a class of men arose to interpret it, and these men wereheld in great honor, and reached, by their services, the highestoffices--like Cicero and Hortensius. No remuneration was givenoriginally for forensic pleading, beyond the services which the clientgave to a patron, but gradually the practice of the law becamelucrative. Hortensius, as well as Cicero, gained an immense fortune. Hehad several villas, a gallery of paintings, a large stock of wines, parks, fish-ponds, and aviaries. Cicero had villas in all parts ofItaly; a house on the Palatine with columns of Numidian marble, and afortune of twenty millions of sesterces, equal to $800, 000. Most of thegreat statesmen of Rome, in the time of Cicero, were either lawyers orgenerals. Crassus, Pompey, P. Sextus, M. Marcellus, P. Clodius, Calidius, Messala Niger, Asinius Pollio, C. Cicero, M. Antonius, Caesar, Calvus, Caelius, Brutus, Catulus, Messala Cervirus, were all celebratedfor their forensic efforts. Candidates for the bar studied four yearsunder a distinguished jurist, and were required to pass a rigorousexamination. The judges were chosen from members of the bar, as well as, in later times, the senators. The great lawyers were not only learned inthe law, but possessed great accomplishments. Varro was a lawyer, andwas the most learned man that Rome produced. But, under the emperors, the lawyers were chiefly distinguished for their legal attainments, likePaulus and Ulpian. 

[Sidenote: Roman jurists. ]

During this golden age of Roman jurisprudence, many commentaries werewritten on the Twelve Tables, the Perpetual Edict, the Laws of thePeople, and the Decrees of the Senate, as well as a vast mass oftreatises on every department of the law, most of which have perished. The Institutes of Gaius, which have reached us nearly in their originalform, are the most valuable which remain, and have thrown great light onsome important branches previously involved in obscurity. Their use inexplaining the Institutes of Justinian, is spoken of very highly byMackenzie, since the latter are mainly founded on the long lost work ofGaius. A treatise of Ulpian, preserved in the Vatican, entitled"_Tituli ex corpore Ulpiani_" also contains valuable information, as well as the "_Receptae Sententiae_" of Julius Paulus, his greatcontemporary, both of which works, as well as others of inferiorimportance, were lately published at Rome by Dr. Gneist, called"_Corpus Juris Romani Antejustinianii_. " [Footnote: Mackenzie, p. 16. ] The great lawyers who flourished from Trajan to Alexander Severus, like Gaius, Ulpian, Paulus, Papinian, and Modestinus, had no successorswho can be compared with them, and their works became standardauthorities in the courts of law. 

After the death of Alexander Severus no great accession was made toRoman law, until Theodosius II. Caused the constitutions, fromConstantine to his own time, to be collected and arranged in sixteenbooks. This was called the Theodosian Code, which in the West was heldin high esteem, although superseded shortly after in the East by theJustinian Code. 

[Sidenote: Justinian labors. ]

To Justinian belongs the immortal glory of reforming the jurisprudenceof the Romans. "In the space of ten centuries, " says Gibbon, "theinfinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousandvolumes, which no fortune could purchase, and no capacity could digest. Books could not easily be found and the judges, poor in the midst ofriches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion. "[Footnote: Gibbon, ch. 44. ] Justinian determined to unite in one bodyall the rules of law, whatever may have been their origin, and in theyear 528, appointed ten jurisconsults, among whom was the celebratedTribonian, to select and arrange the imperial constitutions, leaving outwhat was obsolete or useless or contradictory, and to make suchalterations as the circumstances required. This was called the_Code_, divided into twelve books, and comprising the constitutionsfrom Hadrian to Justinian. This was published in fourteen months afterit was undertaken. 

[Sidenote: Tribonian. ]

[Sidenote: The code of Pandects. ]

Justinian authorized Tribonian, then quaestor, "_vir magnificusmagisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratus_, " for great titles werenow given to the officers of the crown, to prepare, with the assistanceof seventeen associates, a collection of extracts from the writings ofthe most eminent jurists, so as to form a body of law for the governmentof the empire, with power to select and omit and alter; and this immensework was done in three years, and published under the title of Digest orPandects. "All the judicial learning of former times, " says LordMackenzie, "was laid under contribution by Tribonian and his colleagues. Selections from the works of thirty-nine of the ablest lawyers, scattered over two thousand separate treatises, were collected in onevolume; and care was taken to inform posterity that three millions oflines were abridged and reduced, in these extracts, to the modest numberof one hundred and fifty thousand. Among the selected jurists, onlythree names belonged to the age of the republic; the civilians whoflourished under the first emperors are seldom appealed to; so that mostof the writers, whose works have contributed to the Pandects, livedwithin a period of one hundred years. More than a third of the wholePandects is from Ulpian, and next to him, the principal writers arePaulus, Papinian, Salvius Julianus, Pomponius, Q. Cervidius Scaevola, andGaius. Though the variety of subjects is immense, the Digest has noclaims to scientific arrangement. It is a vast cyclopedia ofheterogeneous law badly arranged; every thing is there, but every thingis not in its proper place. " [Footnote: Mackenzie, p. 25. ]

[Sidenote: The Institutes. ]

But neither the Digest nor the Code was adapted to elementaryinstruction. It was necessary to prepare a treatise on the principles ofRoman law. This was entrusted to Tribonian, and two professors, Theophilus and Dorotheus. It is probable that Tribonian merelysuperintended the work, which was founded chiefly on the Institutes ofGains, and was divided into four books, and has been universally admiredfor its method and elegant precision. It was intended merely as anintroduction to the Pandects and the Code. 

[Sidenote: The Novels of Justinian. ]

The _Novels of Justinian_ were subsequently published, being thenew ordinances of the emperor, and the changes he thought proper tomake, and are therefore a high authority. 

The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels of Justinian, comprise theRoman law, as received in Europe, in the form given by the school ofBologna, and is called the "_Corpus Juris Civilis_. " "It was inthat form, " says Savigny, "that the Roman law became the common law ofEurope; and when, four centuries later, other sources came to be addedto it, the _Corpus Juris_ of the school of Bologna had been souniversally received, and so long established as a basis of practice, that the new discoveries remained in the domain of science, and servedonly for the theory of the law. For the same reason, the Anti-Justinianlaw is excluded from practice. " [Footnote: Savigny, _Droit Romani_, vol. I. P. 68. ] After Justinian, the old texts were left to moulder asuseless though venerable, and they have nearly all disappeared. TheCode, the Pandects, and the Institutes, were declared to be the onlylegitimate authority and alone were admitted to the tribunals or taughtin the schools. The rescripts of the early emperors recognized too manypopular rights to suit the despotic character of Justinian, and theolder jurists, like the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distastefulfrom their sympathy with free institutions. Different opinions have beenexpressed by the jurisconsults as to the merits of the Justiniancollection. By some it is regarded as a vast mass of legal lumber; byothers, as a beautiful monument of human labor. After the lapse of somany centuries, it is certain that a large portion of it is of nopractical utility, since it is not applicable to modern wants. Butagain, no one doubts that it has exercised a great and good influence onmoral and political science, and introduced many enlightened viewsconcerning the administration of justice, as well as the nature of civilgovernment, and thus has modified the codes of the Teutonic nations, which sprang up on the ruins of the old Roman world. It was used in theGreek empire until the fall of Constantinople. It never entirely lostauthority in Italy, although it remained buried till the discovery ofthe Florentine copy of the Pandects at the siege of Amalfi in 1135. Peter Valence, in the eleventh century, made use of it in a law-bookwhich he published. With the rise of the Italian cities, the study ofRoman law revived, and Bologna became the seat from which it spread overEurope. In the sixteenth century, the science of theoretical law passedfrom Italy to France, under the auspices of Francis I. , when Cujas orCujacius became the great ornament of the school of Bourges, and thegreatest commentator on Roman law until Dumoulin appeared. Grotius, inHolland, excited the same interest in civil law that Dumoulin did inFrance, followed by eminent professors in Leyden and the Germanuniversities. It was reserved for Pothier, in the middle of theeighteenth century, to reduce the Roman law to systematic order--one ofthe most gigantic tasks which ever taxed the industry of man. The recentdiscoveries, especially that made by Niebuhr, of the long lost work ofGaius have given a great impulse to the study of Roman law in Germany, and to this impulse no one has contributed so greatly as Savigny ofBerlin. 

The great importance of the subject demands a more minute notice of theprinciples of the Roman law, than what the limits of this work shouldproperly allow. I shall therefore endeavor to abridge what has beenwritten by the more eminent authorities, taking as a basis the late workof Lord Mackenzie and the learned and interesting essay of ProfessorMaine. 

[Sidenote: Law of persons. ]

The Institutes of Justinian commenced with the law of persons, recognizing the distinction of ranks. All persons are capable ofenjoying civil rights, but not all in the same degree. Greaterprivileges are allowed to men than to women, to freemen than to slaves, to fathers than to children. 

[Sidenote: Equality of citizens. ]

In the eye of the law all Roman citizens were equal, wherever theylived, whether in the capital or the provinces. Citizenship embracedboth political and civil rights. The political rights had reference tothe right of voting in the comitia, but this was not considered theessence of citizenship, which was the enjoyment of the _connubium_and _commercium_. By the former the citizen could contract a validmarriage, and acquire the rights resulting from it, particularly thepaternal power; by the latter he could acquire and dispose of property. Citizenship was acquired by birth and by manumission; it was lost when aRoman became a prisoner of war, or had been exiled for crime, or becamea citizen of another state. An unsullied reputation was necessary for acitizen to exercise his rights to their full extent. 

[Sidenote: Slaves. ]

The Roman jurists acknowledged all persons originally free by naturallaw; and, while they recognized slavery, ascribed the power of mastersentirely to the law and custom of nations. Persons taken in war wereconsidered at the absolute control of their captors, and were therefore, _de facto_, slaves; and the children of a female slave followed thecondition of their mother, and belonged to her master. But masters couldmanumit their slaves, who thus became Roman citizens, with somerestrictions. Until the time of Justinian, they were not allowed to wearthe gold ring, the distinguishing symbol of a man born free. Thisemperor removed all restrictions between freedmen and citizens. Previously, after the emancipation of a slave, he was bound to rendercertain services to his former master as patron, and if the freedmandied intestate his property reverted to his patron. 

[Sidenote: Marriage. ]

Marriage was contracted by the simple consent of the parties, though inearly times, equality of condition was required. The _lexCanuleia_, A. U. C. 309, authorized connubium between patricians andplebeians, and the _lex Julia_, A. U. C. 757, allowed it betweenfreedmen and freeborn. By the _conventio in manum_, a wife passedout of her family into that of her husband, who acquired all herproperty; without it, the woman remained in the power of her father, andretained the free disposition of her property. Poligamy was notpermitted; and relationship within certain degrees rendered the partiesincapable of contracting marriage, and these rules as to forbiddendegrees have been substantially adopted in England. Celibacy wasdiscouraged. The law of Augustus _Julia et Papia Poppaea_ containedsome seven regulations against it, which were abolished by Constantine. Concubinage was allowed, if a man had not a wife, and provided theconcubine was not the wife of another man. This heathenish custom wasabrogated by Justinian. [Footnote: D. 25. 7. C. 5, 26. ] The wife wasentitled to protection and support from her husband, and she retainedher property independent of her husband, when the _conventio_ wasabandoned, as it was ultimately. The father gave his daughter, on hermarriage, a dowry in proportion to his means, the management of which, with its fruits during marriage, belonged to the husband; but he couldnot alienate real estate without the wife's consent, and on thedissolution of marriage the _dos_ reverted to the wife. Divorceexisted in all ages at Rome, and was very common at the commencement ofthe empire. To check its prevalence, laws were passed inflicting severepenalties on those whose bad conduct led to it. Every man, whethermarried or not, could adopt children, under certain restrictions, andthey passed entirely under paternal power. But the marriage relationamong the Romans did not accord after all with those principles ofjustice which we see in other parts of their legislative code. The Romanhusband, like the father, was a tyrant. The facility of divorcedestroyed mutual confidence, and inflamed every trifling dispute, for aword, or a message, or a letter, or the mandate of a freedman, was quitesufficient to secure a separation. It was not until Christianity becamethe religion of the empire, that divorce could not be easily effectedwithout a just cause. 

[Sidenote: Paternal power. ]

Nothing is more remarkable in the Roman laws than the extent of paternalpower. It was unjust, and bears the image of a barbarous age. Moreover, it seems to have been coeval with the foundation of the city. A fathercould chastise his children by stripes, by imprisonment, by exile, bysending them to the country with chains on their feet. He was even armedwith the power of life and death. "Neither age nor rank, nor theconsular office, could exempt the most illustrious citizen from thebonds of filial subjection. Without fear, though not without danger ofabuse, the Roman legislators had reposed unbounded confidence in thesentiments of paternal love, and the oppression was tempered by theassurance that each generation must succeed in its turn to the awfuldignity of parent and master. " [Footnote: Gibbon, c. Xliv. ] By anexpress law of the Twelve Tables a father could sell his children asslaves. But the abuse of paternal power was checked in the republic bythe censors, and afterwards by emperors. Alexander Severus limited theright of the father to simple correction, and Constantine declared thefather who should kill his son to be guilty of murder. [Footnote: Ch. Iv. 17. ] The rigor of parents in reference to the disposition of theproperty of children, was also gradually relaxed. Under Augustus, theson could keep absolute possession of what he had acquired in war. UnderConstantine, he could retain any property acquired in the civil service, and all property inherited from the mother could also be retained. Inlater times, a father could not give his son or daughter to another byadoption without their consent. Thus this _patria potestas_ wasgradually relaxed as civilization advanced, though it remained apeculiarity of Roman law to the latest times, and severer than is everseen in the modern world. [Footnote: Maine, _Ancient Law_, p. 143. ]No one but a Roman citizen could exercise this awful paternal power, nordid it cease until the father died, or the daughter had entered intomarriage with the _conventio in manum_. Illegitimate children weretreated as if they had no father, and the mother was bound to supportthem until Justinian gave to natural children a right to demand alimentfrom their father. [Footnote: N. 89, ch. Xii. ] Fathers were bound tomaintain their children when they had no separate means to supply theirwants, and children were also bound to maintain their parents in want. These reciprocal duties, creditable to the Roman law-givers, arerecognized in the French Code, but not in the English, which alsorecognizes the right of a father to bequeath his whole estate tostrangers, which the Roman fathers had not power to do. [Footnote: LordMackenzie, p. 142. ] The age when children attain majority among theRomans, was twenty-five years. Women were condemned to the perpetualtutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians, as it was supposed theynever could attain to the age of reason and experience. The relation ofguardian and ward was strictly observed by the Romans. They made adistinction between the right to govern a person, and the right tomanage his estate, although the tutor could do both. If the pupil was aninfant, the tutor could act without the intervention of the pupil; ifthe pupil was above seven years of age, he was considered to have animperfect will. The tutor managed the estate of the pupil, but wasliable for loss occasioned by bad management. He could sell movableproperty when expedient, but not real estate, without judicialauthority. The tutor named by the father was preferred to all others. 

[Sidenote: Real rights. ]

The Institutes of Justinian pass from persons to things, or the lawrelating to real rights; in other words, that which pertains toproperty. Some things, common to all, like air, light, the ocean, andthings sacred, like temples and churches, are not classed as property. Originally, the Romans divided things into _res mancipi_, and_res nec mancipi_. The former comprehended houses, lands, slaves, and beasts of burden, and could only be acquired by certain solemnforms, which, if not observed, the property was not legally transferred. The latter included all other things, and admitted of being transferredby simple tradition. 

[Sidenote: Occupancy. ]

Occupancy, one of the original modes of acquiring property, was appliedto goods and persons taken in war; to things lost by negligence, orchance, or thrown away by necessity; to pearls, shells, and preciousstones found on the sea-shore; to wild animals, to fish, to hiddentreasure. 

Acquisition, by accession, pertained to the natural and industrialfruits of the land, the rents of houses, interest on money, the increaseof animals, lands gained from the sea, and movables. 

[Sidenote: Transfer of property. ]

[Sidenote: Testaments and legacies. ]

[Sidenote: Laws of succession. ]

[Sidenote: The laws in inheritance. ]

Two things were required for the transfer of property, for it is theessence of property that the owner of a thing should have the right totransfer it, --first, the consent of the former owner to transfer thething upon some just ground; and secondly, the actual delivery of thething to the person who is to acquire it. Movables were presumed to bethe property of the possessors, until positive evidence was produced tothe contrary. A prescriptive title to movables was acquired bypossession for one year, and to immovables by possession for two years. Undisturbed possession for thirty years constituted in general a validtitle. When a Roman died, his heirs succeeded to all his property, byhereditary right. If he left no will, his estate devolved upon hisrelations in a certain order prescribed by law. The power of making atestament only belonged to citizens above puberty. Children under thepaternal power could not make a will. Males above fourteen, and femalesabove twelve, when not under power, could make wills without theauthority of their guardian; but pupils, lunatics, prisoners of war, criminals, and various other persons, were incapable of making atestament. The testator could divide his property among his heirs insuch proportions as he saw fit; but if there was no distribution, allthe heirs participated equally. A man could disinherit either of hischildren by declaring his intentions in his will, but only for gravereasons, such as grievously injuring his person or character orfeelings, or attempting his life. No will was effectual unless one ormore persons were appointed heirs to represent the deceased. Wills wererequired to be signed by the testator, or some person for him, in thepresence of seven witnesses who were Roman citizens. If a will was madeby a parent for distributing his property solely among his children, nowitnesses were required, and the ordinary formalities were dispensedwith among soldiers in actual service, and during the prevalence ofpestilence. The testament was opened in the presence of the witnesses, or a majority of them; and after they had acknowledged their seals, acopy was made, and the original was deposited in the public archives. According to the Twelve Tables, the powers of a testator in disposing ofhis property were unlimited, but in process of time laws were enacted torestrain immoderate or unnatural bequests. By the Falcidian law, in thetime of Augustus, no one could leave in legacies more than three fourthsof his estate, so that the heirs could inherit at least one fourth. Again a law was passed, by which the descendants were entitled to onethird of the succession, and to one half if there were more than four. In France if a man die leaving one lawful child, he can only dispose ofhalf of his estate by will; if he leaves two children, the third; if heleaves three or more, the fourth. [Footnote: _Code Civil_, Art. 913. ] In England a man can cut off both his wife and children. [Footnote: Williams, _Exec. _, p. 3. ] The Romans recognized bequestsin trust, besides testaments, by which property descended directly tothe heir. The person charged with a trust was bound to restore thesubject at the time appointed by the testator. The trustee could notalienate an estate without the consent of all the parties interested, except for the payment of debts. All persons capable of making a willcould leave legacies, real or personal, but these were not due if thetestator died insolvent. When a man died intestate, the successiondevolved on the descendants of the deceased; but, these failing, thenearest ascendants were called; if there were brothers and sisters, theywere entitled to succeed together along with the ascendants in the sameclass. Children succeeded to property, if their father died intestate, in equal portions, without distinction of sex, and if there was only onechild he took the whole estate. A descendant of either sex, or anydegree, was preferred to all ascendants and collaterals. The descendantsof a son or daughter, who had predeceased, took the same share of thesuccession that their parent would have done had he been alive. InEngland, if all the children are dead, and only grandchildren exist, they all take, not by families, but _per capita_, equal shares intheir own right as next of kin, and Mackenzie thinks this arrangement ismore equitable than the Roman. [Footnote: Mackenzie, p. 288] If therewere no descendants, the Roman father and mother, and other ascendants, excluded all collaterals from the succession except brothers and sistersof the whole blood, and the children of deceased brothers and sisters. When ascendants stood alone, the father and mother succeeded in equalportions, and if only one survived, he or she succeeded to the whole, sothat grandparents were excluded. If there were brothers and sisters ofthe whole blood, the estate was divided among them _in capita_, according to the number of persons, including the father and mother. Thechildren of a deceased brother were not admitted to the succession alongwith ascendants and surviving brothers and sisters. [Footnote:_Ibid. _ 290] If a person died leaving neither ascendants nordescendants, his brothers and sisters succeeded to his estate in equalshares. And if the intestate left also nephews and nieces by a deceasedbrother or sister, these succeeded, along with their uncles and aunts, to the share their parent would have taken. On the failure of brothersand sisters by the whole blood, the brother and sisters by the halfblood succeeded, and if any of these brothers and sisters have diedleaving children, the right of representation was extended to them also, just as in the case of children of brothers-german. When husband or wifedied, without leaving relations, the survivor was called to thesuccession. A widow who was poor and unprovided for had a right to sharein the succession of her deceased husband. When he left more than threedescendants, she was entitled to participate with them equally. If therewere only three or fewer, she was entitled to one fourth of the estate. If she had children by the deceased, she had only the usufruct of herportion during her life, and was bound to preserve it for them. If a manhad no legitimate children, he could leave his whole inheritance to hisnatural children, or to their mother; but if he had lawful children, hecould leave only one twelfth to the natural children and their mother. If the father died intestate, without leaving a lawful wife or issue, his natural children and their mother were entitled to one sixth of thesuccession, and the rest was divided among the lawful heirs. 

[Sidenote: Contracts. ]

In the matter of contracts, the Roman law was especially comprehensive, and the laws of France and Scotland are substantially based upon theRoman system. The Institutes of Gaius and Justinian distinguishfour sorts of obligation, --aut _re_, aut _verbis_, aut _literis_, aut _consenser_. Gibbon, in his learned chapter, prefers to considerthe specific obligations of men to each other under promises, benefits, and injuries. Lord Mackenzie treats the subject in the order of theInstitutes. 

"Obligations contracted _re_--by the intervention of things--arecalled by the moderns real contracts, because they are not perfectedtill something has passed from one party to another. Of this descriptionare the contracts of loan, deposit, and pledge. Till the subject isactually lent, deposited, or pledged, it does not form the specialcontract of loan, deposit, or pledge. " [Footnote: Mackenzie. ]

[Sidenote: Loans. ]

In regard to loans, the borrower was obliged to take care of it as if itwere his own. _In rebus commodatis tails diligentia proestanda est, qualem quisque diligentissimus paterfamilias suis rebus adhibet_. [Footnote: D. 13, 6, 1 pr. ] He could only use a thing for the purpose forwhich it was lent; he could not keep it beyond the time agreed upon, nordetain it as a set-off against any debt. He was bound to restore thearticle in the same condition as received, subject only to thedeterioration arising from reasonable use, whether a horse, a house, ora carriage. And he was required to make good all injuries caused by hisown fault or negligence. If the article perished, without any blame orneglect, the loss fell on the owner. If the loan was for consumption, which was called _mutuum_, like corn, or oil, or wine, the borrowerwas required to return as much of the same kind and quality, whether theprice of the commodity had risen or fallen. In a loan of money, under_mutuum_, the borrower was not required to pay interest. Interestwas only due _ex lege_, or by agreement. The rate varied atdifferent times; generally, it was eight and one third per cent. , andeven more than this in the latter years of the republic. Justinianintroduced a scale which varied with different classes of society. Persons of illustrious rank could lend money at four per cent. , ordinarypeople at six, and for maritime risks twelve; but it was unlawful tocharge interest upon interest. [Footnote: C. 4, 32, 26, Section 1. ]Property would double, at eight and one third, in twelve years, not sorapidly as by our system of compound interest, especially at the rate ofseven per cent. In England the usury laws of different monarchs limitedinterest from ten per cent, to five; but these were repealed in 1854. Only five per cent. Can now be recovered upon any contract. 

[Sidenote: Deposits. ]

A deposit differed from a loan in this, --that the depositary was notentitled to any use of a thing deposited, and was bound to preserve itwith reasonable care, and restore it on demand. As he derived noadvantage, he was entitled to be reimbursed for all necessary charges. Ship-masters, innkeepers, and stablers, were responsible for the luggageand effects of travellers intrusted to their care, which policy is nowadopted in both Europe and America, on the ground that if they were notheld strictly to their charge, being not a very reputable class of menin ancient times, they might be in league with thieves. An innkeeper wastherefore held responsible for loss, or damage, or theft, to secure theprotection of travellers, whose patronage was a compensation. In case ofrobbery, when goods were taken by superior force, he was notresponsible, nor was he for loss occasioned by inevitable accident. 

[Sidenote: Pledges and securities. ]

At Rome, pledges were customary, as a security for money due, oncondition of their restoration after the payment of a debt. Realproperty, like houses and lands, as well as movables, were the subjectof pledge. [Footnote: D. 20, 1. ] The creditor was bound to bestowordinary care and diligence in the preservation of the subject, but hecould not use it, or take the profits of it, without a special contract. By the _pactum antichresis_, the creditor was allowed to take theprofits in lieu of the interest on his debt; by the _lexcommissoria_, the thing pledged became the absolute property of thecreditor if the debt was not paid at the time agreed on. But as thiscondition was found to be a source of oppression, it was prohibited by alaw of Constantine. [Footnote: C, 7, 35. ] When the debt, interest, andall necessary expenses were paid, the debtor was entitled to have hispledge restored to him. After the time of payment was passed, thecreditor had a right to sell the pledge, and retain his debt out of theproduce of the sale; if there was a deficiency, the balance could berecovered by an action; if there was a surplus, the debtor was entitledto it. The Roman pledge was of the nature of the modern business ofpawnbroking and of a mortgage. 

[Sidenote: Verbal Contracts. ]

Next to the perfection of contracts by the intervention of things_re_, were obligations contracted by _verbis_--solemn words--and by _literis_ or writing. The _verborum obligatio_ was contractedby uttering certain formal words of style, an interrogationbeing put by one party and an answer given by the other. Thesestipulations were binding. In England all guarantees must be in writing. 

[Sidenote: Written obligations. ]

The _obligatio literis_ was a written acknowledgment of debtchiefly employed when money was borrowed, but the creditor could not sueupon the note within two years from its date, without being called uponalso to prove that the money was in fact paid to the debtor. 

[Sidenote: Sales. ]

Contracts perfected by consent--_consenses_--had reference to sale, hiring, partnership, and mandate. All contracts of sale were goodwithout writing. When an article was sold and delivered, the marketprice, as fixed by custom, determined the price, if nothing had beensaid about it. The seller was bound to warrant that the thing sold wasfree from defects, and when the subject did not answer this impliedwarranty, the sale might be set aside. But the seller could stipulatethat he should not be held to warrant against defects. Property was nottransferred without actual delivery. When the sale was completed, allthe risks of the thing sold passed to the purchaser. In the case ofcommodities sold by weight, number, or measure, the contract was notcompleted until the goods were weighed, counted, or measured, whichsometimes caused considerable difficulty. After delivery, the seller wasbound to warrant the title to the buyer, and to indemnify him for anyloss. [Footnote: D. 22, 2. C. 8, 45. ]

[Sidenote: Leases. ]

[Sidenote: Agents and Partners. ]

In regard to hiring, all sorts of things, which were the subject ofcommerce, may be let for hire. Leases of land and houses come under thishead. They were generally given for five years, and unless there was anexpress stipulation, the lessee might sublet to another. The lessor wasrequired to deliver the subject in a good state of repair, and maintainit in that condition, and to guarantee its peaceable enjoyment; thelessee was bound to use the subject well, to put it to no use exceptthat for which it was let, to preserve it in good condition, and restoreit at the end of the term. He was bound also to pay the rent at thestipulated period, and when two years' rent were in arrear, the tenantcould be ejected. The tenant of a farm was entitled to a remission ofhis rent if his crop was destroyed by an unforeseen accident orcalamity. A contractor who agreed to undertake a piece of work wasrequired to finish it in a proper manner, and if from negligence orignorance the work was defective, he was liable to damages. In apartnership, if there were no express agreement, the shares of profitand loss were divided equally. Each partner was bound to exercise thesame care for the joint concern as if it were his own. The acts of onepartner were not binding on another, if he acted beyond the scope of thepartnership. If one of the partners advanced money on account of thepartnership, each of the partners were bound to contribute to theindemnity in proportion to his share of the concern; and if any of thembecame insolvent, the solvent shareholders were obliged to make up thedeficiency. [Footnote: D. 17, 2, 67. ] An agent could be employed totransact business for another, but was required to act strictlyaccording to his orders, and the mandant, who gave the orders, was boundto ratify what was done by the mandatary, and to reimburse him for alladvances and expenses incurred in executing the commission. By the Romanlaw agents were not remunerated. Donations could not be made beyond acertain maximum. Justinian ordered that when gifts exceeded five hundredsolidi, a formal act stating the particulars of the donation should beinscribed in a public register. 

When a person spontaneously assumed the management of the affairs ofanother in his absence, and without any mandate, this was called_negotiorum gestio_, and the person was bound to perform any actwhich he had begun, as if he held a proper mandate, and strictly accountfor his management, while the principal was bound to indemnify him forall advances and expenses. 

When money was paid through error it could be recovered, under certaincircumstances. But this point is a matter concerning which the juristsdiffer. 

[Sidenote: Libels. ]

[Sidenote: Damages. ]

Acts which caused damage to another obliged the wrongdoer to makereparation, and this responsibility extended to damages arising not onlyfrom positive acts, but from negligence or imprudence. In an action oflibel or slander, the truth of the allegation might be pleaded injustification. [Footnote: D. 47, 10, 18. ] In all cases it was necessaryto show that an injury had been committed maliciously. But if damagearose in the exercise of a right, as killing a slave in self-defense, noclaim for reparation could be maintained. If any one exercised aprofession or trade for which he was not qualified, he was liable to allthe damage his want of skill or knowledge might occasion. When anydamage was done by a slave or an animal, the owner of the same wasliable for the loss, though the mischief was done without his knowledgeand against his will. If any thing was thrown from a window of a housenear the public thoroughfare, so as to injure any one by the fall, theoccupier was bound to repair the damage, though done by a stranger. Claims arising under obligations might be transferred to a third person, by sale, exchange, or donation; but to prevent speculators frompurchasing debts at low prices, it was ordered that the assignee shouldnot be entitled to exact from the debtor more than he himself had paidto acquire the debt with interest, --a wise and just regulation which itwould be well for us to copy. In regard to the extinction of obligationsthe creditor is not bound to accept of payments by instalments, or anything short of proper payment at the time and place agreed upon. Whenseveral debts were due, the debtor, in making payment, could appropriateit to any one he pleased. [Footnote: D. 46, 3, 1. ] When performancebecame impossible, without any fault of the debtor, such as when thespecific subject had perished by unavoidable accident, the obligationwas extinguished; but if the impossibility was caused by the fault ofthe debtor, he was still liable. This was a great modification of theseverity of the ancient code, when a debtor could be sold into slaveryfor his debt. As certain contracts are formed by consent alone, so theycould be extinguished by the mutual consent of the contracting parties, without performance on either side. In some cases the mere lapse of timeextinguished an obligation, as in accordance with the modern system ofoutlawry. 

[Sidenote: Law of actions. ]

The next great department of Roman jurisprudence pertained to actionsand procedure. The state conferred on a magistrate or judge jurisdictionto determine questions according to law. Civil jurisdiction pertains toquestions of private right; criminal jurisdiction takes cognizance ofcrimes. When jurisdiction was conferred on a Roman magistrate, heacquired all the powers necessary to exercise it. The _imperiummerum_ gave the power to inflict punishment; the _imperiummixtum_ was the power to carry civil decrees into execution. A_real action_ was directed against a person in the territory wherethe subject in dispute was located. 

By the ancient constitution, the king had the prerogative of determiningcivil causes. The right then devolved on the consuls, afterwards on thepraetor, and in certain cases on the curule and plebeian ediles, whowere charged with the internal police of the city. 

[Sidenote: The Praetors. ]

The praetor, a magistrate next in dignity to the consuls, acted assupreme judge of the civil courts, assisted by a council ofjurisconsults to determine questions in law. At first one praetor wassufficient, but as the limits of the city and empire extended, he wasjoined by a colleague. After the conquest of Sicily, Sardinia, and thetwo Spains, new praetors were appointed to administer justice in theprovinces. The praetor held his court in the comitium, wore a robebordered with purple, sat in a curule chair, and was attended bylictors. 

[Sidenote: Other judges. ]

The praetor delegated his power to judges, called Judex, Arbiter, andRecuperatores. When parties were at issue about facts, it was the customfor the praetor to fix the question of law upon which the action turned, and then to remit to a delegate to inquire into the facts and pronouncejudgment according to them. In the time of Augustus there were fourthousand judices, who were merely private citizens, generally senatorsor men of consideration. The judex was invested by the magistrate with ajudicial commission for a single case only. After being sworn to duty, he received from the praetor a formula containing a summary of all thepoints under litigation, from which he was not allowed to depart. He wasrequired not merely to investigate facts, but to give sentence. And aslaw questions were more or less mixed up with the case, he was allowedto consult one or more jurisconsults. If the case was beyond his powerto decide, he could decline to give judgment. The arbiter, like thejudex, received a formula from the praetor, and seemed to have moreextensive power. The recuperatores heard and determined cases, but thenumber appointed for each case was usually three or five. 

[Sidenote: The centumvirs. ]

The centumvirs constituted a permanent tribunal composed of membersannually elected, in equal numbers, from each tribe, and this tribunalwas presided over by the praetor, and divided into four chambers, which, under the republic, was placed under the ancient quaestors. Thecentumvirs decided questions of property, embracing a wide range ofsubjects. [Footnote: _Cicero de Orat_. , i. 38. ] The Romans had noclass of men like the judges of modern times. The superior magistrateswere changed annually, and political duties were mixed with judicial. The evil was partially remedied by the institution of legal assessors, selected from the most learned jurisconsults. Under the empire, thepraetors were greatly increased. Under Tiberius, there were sixteen whoadministered justice, beside the consuls, six ediles, and ten tribunesof the people. The emperor himself became the supreme judge, and he wasassisted in the discharge of his judicial duties by a council composedof the consuls, a magistrate of each grade, and fifteen senators. ThePraetorian prefects, although, at first, their duties were purelymilitary, finally discharged important judicial functions. The prefectof the city, in the time of the emperors, was a great judicialpersonage, who heard appeals from the praetors themselves. 

[Sidenote: Witnesses. ]

In all cases brought before the courts, the burden of proof was with theparty asserting an affirmative fact. Proof by writing was generallyconsidered most certain, but proof by witnesses was also admitted. Pupils, lunatics, infamous persons, interested parties, near relations, and slaves, could not bear evidence, or any person who had a strongenmity against the party. The witnesses were required to give theirtestimony on oath. Two witnesses were enough to prove a fact, in mostinstances. When witnesses gave conflicting testimony, the judge regardedthose who were worthy of credit rather than numbers. In the Englishcourts, the custom used to be as with the Romans, of refusing testimonyfrom those who were interested, but this has been removed. On thefailure of regular proof, the Roman law allowed a party to refer thefacts in a civil action to the oath of his adversary. 

[Sidenote: Condition of debtors. ]

Under the empire every judgment was reduced to writing and signed by thejudge, and then entered upon a register. [Footnote: C. Vii. 45, 12. ]After the sentence, the debtor was allowed thirty days for the paymentof his debt, after which he was assigned over to the creditor and keptin chains for sixty days, during which he was publicly exposed for threemarket days, and if no one released him by paying the debt, he could besold as a slave. Justinian extended the period to four months for thepayment of a judgment debt, after which, if the debt was not paid, thedebtor could be imprisoned, but not, as formerly, in the creditor'shouse. At first the goods of the debtor were sold in favor of any onewho offered to pay the largest dividend, but in process of time, thegoods of the debtor were sold in detail, and all creditors were paid aratable dividend. In no respect are modern codes superior to the Roman, so much as in reference to imprisonment for debt. In the United Statesit has practically ceased, and in England no one can be imprisoned for adebt under 20 pounds, and in France under 8 pounds. 

[Sidenote: Appeal. ]

Under the Roman republic, there was no appeal in civil suits, but underthe emperors a regular system was established. Under Augustus, there wasan appeal from all the magistrates to the prefect of the city, and fromhim to the Praetorian prefect or emperor. In the provinces there was anappeal from the municipal magistrates to the governors, and from them tothe emperor. Under Justinian, no appeal was allowed from a suit whichdid not involve at least twenty pounds in gold. 

[Sidenote: Criminal courts. ]

In regard to criminal courts, among the Romans, during the republic, theonly body which had absolute power of life and death was the _comitiacenturiata_. The Senate had no jurisdiction in criminal cases, so faras Roman citizens were concerned. It was only in extraordinaryemergencies that the Senate, with the consuls, assumed theresponsibility of inflicting summary punishment. Under the emperors, theSenate was armed with the power of criminal jurisdiction. And as theSenate was the tool of the imperator, he could crush whomsoever hepleased. 

As it was inconvenient, when Rome had become a very great city, toconvene the comitia for the trial of offenders, the expedient wasadopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the people to persons investedwith temporary authority, called _quaesitores_. These wereestablished at length into regular and permanent courts, called_quaestiones perpetuae_. Every case submitted to these courts wastried by a judge and jury. It was the duty of the judge to preside andregulate proceedings according to law; and it was the duty of the jury, after hearing the evidence and pleadings, to decide upon the guilt orinnocence of the accused. As many as fifty persons frequently composedthe jury, whose names were drawn out of an urn. Each party had a rightto challenge a certain number, and the verdict was decided by a majorityof votes. At first the judices were chosen from the Senate, andafterwards from the Equestrians, and then again from both orders. But inprocess of time the _quaestiones perpetuae_ gave place to imperialmagistrates. The accused defended himself in person or by counsel. 

[Sidenote: Crimes. ]

The Romans divided _crimes_ into public and private. Private crimescould only be prosecuted by the party injured, and were generallypunished by pecuniary fines, as among the old Germanic nations. 

[Sidenote: Treason. ]

Of public crimes, the _crimen loesoe majestatis_, or treason, wasregarded as the greatest, and this was punished with death, and withconfiscation of goods, [Footnote: I. 4, 18, 3. ] while the memory of theoffender was declared infamous. Greater severity could scarcely bevisited on a culprit. Treason comprehended conspiracy against thegovernment, assisting the enemies of Rome, and misconduct in the commandof armies. Thus Manlius, in spite of his magnificent services, washurled from the Tarpeian Rock, because he was convicted of an intentionto seize upon the government. Under the empire, not only any attempt onthe life of the emperor was treason, but disrespectful words or acts. The criminal was even tried after death, [Footnote: C. 9, 8, 6. ] thathis memory might become infamous, and this barbarous practice existedeven in France and Scotland, as late as the beginning of the seventeenthcentury. In England, men have been executed for treasonable words. Beside treason there were other crimes against the state, such as abreach of the peace, extortion on the part of provincial governors, embezzlement of public property, stealing sacred things, bribery, mostof which offenses were punished by pecuniary penalties. 

[Sidenote: Capital punishments. ]

[Sidenote: Criminal law gradually ameliorated. ]

But there were also crimes against individuals which were punished withthe death penalty. Willful murder, poisoning, parricide, were capitallypunished. Adultery was punished by banishment, beside a forfeiture ofconsiderable property. [Footnote: D, 48, 5. ] Constantine made it acapital offense. The Romans made adultery to consist in sexualintercourse with another man's wife, but not with a woman who was notmarried, even if he were married. Rape was punished with death[Footnote: C. 9, 13. ] and confiscation of goods, as in England till alate period, when transportation for life became the penalty. Thepunishments inflicted for forgery, coining base money, and perjury, werearbitrary. Robbery, theft, patrimonial damage, and injury to person andproperty, were private trespasses, and not punished by the state. Aftera lapse of twenty years, without accusation, crimes were supposed to beextinguished. The Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian laws formed thefoundation of criminal jurisprudence, which never attained theperfection that was seen in the Civil Code. It was in this that the fullmaturity of wisdom was seen. The emperors greatly increased the severityof punishments, as probably necessary in a corrupt state of society. After the decemviral laws fell into disuse, the Romans, in the days ofthe republic, passed from extreme rigor to great lenity, as isobservable in the transition from the Puritan regime to our times in theUnited States. Capital punishment for several centuries was exceedinglyrare, and this was prevented by voluntary exile. Under the empire, public executions were frequent and revolting. 

[Sidenote: Fines. ]

[Sidenote: Exile. ]

Fines were a common mode of punishment with the Romans, as with theearly Germans. Imprisonment in a public jail was also rare, the customof bail being in general use. Although retaliation was authorized by theTwelve Tables for bodily injuries, it was seldom exacted, sincepecuniary compensation was taken in lieu. Corporal punishments wereinflicted upon slaves, but rarely upon citizens, except for militarycrimes. But Roman citizens could be sold into slavery for variousoffenses, chiefly military, and criminals were often condemned to laborin the mines or upon public works. Banishment was common--_aquae etignis interdictio_--and this was equivalent to the deprivation of thenecessities of life, and incapacitating a person from exercising therights of citizenship. Under the emperors, persons were confined oftenon the rocky islands off the coast, or a compulsory residence in aparticular place assigned. Thus Chrysostom was sent to a dreary place onthe banks of the Euxine. Ovid was banished to Tomi. Death, wheninflicted, was by hanging, scourging, and beheading, also by stranglingin prison. Slaves were often crucified, and were compelled to carrytheir cross to the place of execution. This was the most ignominious andlingering of all deaths. It was abolished by Constantine from reverenceto the sacred symbol. Under the emperors, execution took place also byburning alive and exposure to wild beasts. It was thus the earlyChristians were tormented, since their offense was associated withtreason. Persons of distinction were treated with more favor than thelower classes, and the punishment was less cruel and ignominious. ThusSeneca, condemned for privity to treason, was allowed to choose his modeof death. The criminal laws of modern European states followed too oftenthe barbarous custom of the emperors until a recent date. Since theFrench Revolution, the severity of the penal codes has been muchmodified. 

[Sidenote: Excellence of laws pertaining to property. ]

[Sidenote: Rights of citizens. ]

The penal statutes of Rome, as Gibbon emphatically remarks, "formed avery small portion of the Code and the Pandects; and in all judicialproceedings, the life or death of the citizen was determined with lesscaution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant orinheritance. " This was owing to the complicated relations of society, bywhich obligations are created or annulled, while duties to the state areexplicit and well known, being inscribed not only on tables of brass, but on the conscience itself. It was natural, with the growth anddevelopment of commerce and dominion, that questions would arise whichcould not be ordinarily settled by ancient customs, and the practice oflawyers and the decisions of judges continually raised new difficulties, to be met only by new edicts. It is a pleasing fact to record thatjurisprudence became more just and enlightened as it became moreintricate. The principles of equity were more regarded under theemperors than in the time of Cato. It is in the application of theseprinciples that the laws of the Romans have obtained so highconsideration. Their abuse consisted in the expense of litigation, andthe advantages which the rich thus obtained over the poor. But if delaysand forms led to an expensive and vexatious administration of justice, these were more than compensated by the checks which a complicatedjurisprudence gave to hasty or partial decisions. It was in theminuteness and precision of the forms of law, and in the foresight withwhich questions were anticipated in the various transactions ofbusiness, that prove that the Romans, in their civil and socialrelations, were very much on a level with modern times. And it would bedifficult to find, in the most enlightened of modern codes, greaterwisdom and foresight than what appear in the legacy of Justinian, as toall questions pertaining to the nature, the acquisition, the possession, the use, and the transfer of property. Civil obligations are mostadmirably defined, and all contracts are determined by the wisestapplication of the natural principles of justice. What can be moreenlightened than the laws which relate to leases, to sales, topartnerships, to damages, to pledges, to hiring of work, and to quasicontracts! How clear the laws pertaining to the succession to property, to the duties of guardians, to the rights of wards, to legacies, tobequests in trust, and to the general limitation of testamentary powers!How wise the regulations in reference to intestate succession, and tothe division of property among males and females. We find no laws ofentail, no unequal rights, no absurd distinctions between brothers, nopeculiar privileges given to males over females, or to older sons. Inthe Institutes of Justinian, we see on every page a regard to theprinciples of natural justice. We discover that the property of the wifecannot be alienated nor mortgaged by a prodigal husband; that wards areto be protected from the cupidity of guardians; that property could bebequeathed by will, and that wills are sacred; that all promises are tobe fulfilled; that he who is intrusted with the property of another isbound to restitution by the most imperative obligations; that usuryshould be restrained; that all injuries should be repaired; that cattleand slaves should be protected from malice and negligence; thatatrocious cruelties in punishment should not be inflicted; thatmalicious witnesses should be punished; that corrupt judges should bevisited with severe penalties; that libels and satires should subjecttheir authors to severe chastisement; that every culprit should beconsidered innocent until his guilt was proved. In short, every thingpertaining to property and contracts and wills is guarded with the mostzealous care. A man was sure of possessing his own, and of transmittingit to his children. No infringement on personal rights could betolerated. A citizen was free to go where he pleased, to do whatsoeverhe would, if he did not trespass on the rights of another; to seek hispleasure unobstructed, and pursue his business without vexatiousincumbrances. If he was injured or cheated, he was sure of redress. Norcould he be easily defrauded with the sanction of the laws. A rigorouspolice guarded his person, his house, and his property. He was supremeand uncontrolled within his family. And this security to property andlife and personal rights was guaranteed by the greatest tyrants. Thefullest personal liberty was enjoyed under the emperors, and it wasunder their sanction that jurisprudence, in some of the most importantdepartments of life, reached perfection. If injustice was suffered, itwas not on account of the laws, but the depravity of men, the venalityof the rich, and the tricks of lawyers. But the laws were wise andequal. The civil jurisprudence could be copied with safety by the mostenlightened of European states. And, indeed, it is the foundation oftheir civil codes, especially in France and Germany. 

[Sidenote: Abuse of paternal power. ]

That there were some features in the Roman laws which we, in theseChristian times, cannot indorse, and which we reprehend, cannot bedenied. Under the republic, there was not sufficient limit to paternalpower, and the _paterfamilias_ was necessarily a tyrant. It wasunjust that the father should control the property of his son, and cruelthat he was allowed such absolute control, not only over his children, but his wife. But the limits of paternal power were more and morecurtailed, so that under the latter emperors, fathers were not allowedto have more authority than was perhaps expedient. 

[Sidenote: Evils of slavery. ]

The recognition of slavery as a domestic institution was another blot, and slaves could be treated with the grossest cruelty and injusticewithout redress. But here the Romans were not sinners beyond all othernations, and our modern times have witnessed a parallel. 

It was not the existence of slavery which was the greatest evil, but thefacility by which slaves could be made. The laws pertaining to debt weresevere, and it was most disgraceful to doom a debtor to the absolutepower of a creditor. To subject men of the same blood to slavery fortrifling debts, which they could not discharge, was the great defect ofthe Roman laws. But even these cruel regulations were modified, so thatin the corrupt times of the empire, there was no greater practicalseverity than what was common in England one hundred years ago. Thetemptations to fraud were enormous in a wicked state of society, anddemanded a severe remedy. It is possible that future ages may see toogreat leniency shown to debtors, who are not merely unfortunate butdishonest, in these our times; and the problem is not yet solved, whether men should be severely handled who are guilty of reckless andunprincipled speculations and unscrupulous dealings, or whether theyshould be allowed immunity to prosecute their dangerous and disgracefulcourses. 

[Sidenote: Evils of divorce. ]

The facility of divorce was another stigma on the Roman laws, and thedegradation of woman was the principal consequence. But woman never washonored in any pagan land. Her condition at Rome was better than it wasat Athens. She always was regarded as a possession rather than as a freeperson. Her virtue was mistrusted, and her aspirations were scorned. Shewas hampered and guarded more like a slave than the equal companion ofman. But the whole progress of legislation was in her favor, and shecontinued to gain new privileges to the fall of the empire. 

[Sidenote: Severity of penal law. ]

[Sidenote: Certainty of punishment. ]

Moreover, the penal code of the Romans, in reference to breaches oftrust, or carelessness, or ignorance, by which property was lost orsquandered, may have been too severe, as is the case in England inreference to hunting game on another's grounds. It was hard to doom aman to death who drove away his neighbor's cattle, or entered in thenight his neighbor's house. But severe penalties alone will keep menfrom crimes where there is a low state of virtue and religion, andsociety becomes impossible when there is no efficient protection toproperty. If sheep can be killed by dogs, if orchards can be stripped oftheir fruit, and jewelry be appropriated by servants with impunity, agreat stimulus to honest industry is taken away, and men will be forcedto seek more distant homes where they can reap the fruits of toil, orwill give up in despair. Society was never more secure and happy inEngland than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenieswere visited with certain retribution. Every traveler in France andEngland feels that in regard to the punishment of crime, those oldcountries, restricted as are political privileges, are vastly superiorto our own. The Romans lost, under the emperors, their political rights;but they gained protection and safety in their relations with society. And where quiet and industrious citizens feel safe in their homes, andare protected in their dealings from scoundrels, and have ample scopefor industrial enterprise, and are free to choose their privatepleasures, they resign themselves to the loss of electing their rulerswithout great unhappiness. There are greater evils in the world than thedeprivation of the elective franchise, great and glorious as is thisprivilege. The arbitrary rule of the emperors was fatal to politicalaspirations and rights, but the evils of political slavery werequalified and set off by the excellence of the civil code, and theprivileges of social freedom. 

[Sidenote: Intricacy and uncertainty of the law. ]

The great practical evil connected with Roman jurisprudence was theintricacy and perplexity and uncertainty of the laws, together with theexpense involved in litigation. The class of lawyers was large, andtheir gains were extortionate. Justice was not always to be found on theside of right. The law was uncertain as well as costly. The most learnedcounsel could only be employed by the rich, and even judges were venal. So that the poor did not easily find adequate redress, and the goodbecame an evil. But all this is the necessary attendant on a factitiousstate of society. Material civilization will lead to an undue estimateof money. And when money purchases all that artificial people desire, then all classes will prostitute themselves for its possession, andjustice, dignity, and elevation of sentiment are forced to retreat, ashermits sought a solitude, when society had reached its lowestdegradation, out of pure despair of its renovation. 

 * * * * *

The authorities for this chapter are very numerous. Since the Institutesof Gaius have been recovered, very many eminent writers on Roman lawhave appeared, especially in Germany and France. Among those who couldbe cited, are Beaufort, Histoire de la Republique Romaine; Colquhoun, Summary of the Roman Civil Law; De Fresquet, Traite Elementaire de DroitRomain; Ducaurroy (A. M. Professor of Roman Law at Paris), LesInstitutes de Justinien nouvellement expliquees; Gneist (Dr. Reed), Institutionum et Regularum Juris Romani; Halifax (Dr. Samuel), Analysisof the Roman Civil Law; Heineccius (Jo. Gott. ), Elementa Juris CivilisSecundum Ordinem Institutionum; Laboulaye, Essai sur les LoisCriminelles des Remains; Long's Articles on Roman Law in Dr. Smith'sDictionary; Maine's Ancient Law; Gaius, Institutionum CommentariiQuatuor; Marezole (Theodore, Professor at Leipsic), Lebruch derInstitutionem des Romischen Rechts; Maynz (Charles, Professor of Law atBrussels), Elements du Droit Romain; Ortolan (M. , Professor at Paris), Explication Historique des Institutes de l'Empereur Justinien;Phillimore, Introduction to the Study and History of Roman Law; Pothier, Pandectae Justinianae in Novum Ordinem Digestae; Savigny, Geschichte desRom. Rechts; Walter, Histoire de la Procedure Civile Chez Romains. 

I have found the late work of Lord Mackenzie, on Roman Law, togetherwith the articles of George Long, in Smith's Dictionary, the most usefulin compiling this notice of Roman jurisprudence. Mr. Maine's Treatise onRoman Law is exceedingly interesting and valuable. Gibbon's famouschapter should also be read by every student. There is a finetranslation of the Institutes of Justinian, which is quite accessible, by Dr. Harris of Oxford. The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels, are, of course, the original authority, with the long-lost Institutes ofGaius. 

In connection with the study of the Roman law, it would be well to readSir George Bowyer's Commentaries on the Modern Civil Law; Irving, Introduction to the Study of the Civil Law; Lindley, Introduction to theStudy of Jurisprudence; and Wheaton's Elements of International Law;Vattel, Le Droit des Gens. 

CHAPTER VII. 

ROMAN LITERATURE. 

If the ancient civilization rivaled the modern in the realm of_art_, it was equally remarkable in the field of letters. It is notmy object to show that it was equal, or superior, or inferior to modernliterature, either in original genius or artistic excellence. That pointwould be difficult to settle, and unprofitable to discuss. There is nodoubt as to the superior advantage which the modern world derives inconsequence of the invention of printing, and the consequent diffusionof knowledge. But the question is in reference to the height which wasattained by the ancient pagan intellect, unaided by Christianity. Isimply wish to show that the ancients were distinguished in alldepartments of literature, and that some of the masterpieces of geniuswere created by them. 

Nor is it my object to write a summary of the literature of antiquity. It would be as dull as a catalogue, or a dictionary, or a compendium ofuniversal history for the use of schools in a single volume. And itwould be as profitless. My aim is simply to show that the oldcivilization can boast of its glories in literature, as well as in art, and that the mind of man never more nobly asserted its power than inGreece and Rome. Our present civilization delights in thosephilosophers, poets, and historians, who caught their inspiration fromthe great pagan models which have survived the wreck of materialgreatness. The human intellect achieved some of its greatest featsbefore Christianity was born. The inborn dignity of the mind and soulwas never more nobly asserted than by Plato and Aristotle, by Thucydidesand Tacitus, by Homer and Virgil, by Demosthenes and Cicero. Inattestation, therefore, of the glory of the ancient civilization, in therealm of literature, it is quite sufficient for our purpose to point outsome of those great lights which, after the lapse of two thousand yearsor more, still continue to shine, and which are objects of hopelessimitation, even as they are of universal admiration. If we can show thatthe great heights were reached, even by a few, we prove the extent ofcivilization. If genius can soar, under Pagan, as well as underChristian influences, it would appear that civilization, in anintellectual point of view, may be the work of man, unaided byinspiration. It is the triumph of the native intellect of man which Iwish to show. 

[Sidenote: Romans borrow from the Greeks. ]

Although it is my chief aim to present the magnificent civilization ofthe Roman empire under the emperors, I must cite the examples of Grecianas well as Roman genius, since Greece became a part of that grandempire, and since Grecian and Roman culture is mixed up and blendedtogether. Roman youth were trained in the Grecian schools. Young menwere sent to Athens and Rhodes after they had finished their educationin the capital. Athens continued to be, for several hundred years afterher political glory had passed away, the great university city of theworld. Educated Romans were as familiar with the Greek classics as theywere with those of their own country, and could talk Greek as modernGermans can talk French. The poems which kindled the enthusiasm of Romanyouth are as worthy of notice as the statues which the conquerorsbrought from the Ionian cities, to ornament their palaces and baths. They equally attest the richness of the old civilization. And as it isthe triumph of the pagan intellect which I wish to show, it matters butlittle whether we draw our illustrations from Greece or Rome. Withoutthe aid of Greece, Rome could never have reached the height sheattained. 

[Sidenote: Richness of Greek Poetry. ]

[Sidenote: The Homeric poems. ]

Now how rich in poetry was classical antiquity, whether sung in theGreek or Latin languages. In all those qualities which give immortality, it has never been surpassed, whether in simplicity, in passion, infervor, in fidelity to nature, in wit, or in imagination. It existedfrom the early ages, and continued to within a brief period of the fallof the empire. With the rich accumulation of ages, the Romans werefamiliar. They knew nothing indeed of the solitary grandeur of theJewish muse, or the mythological myths of the Ante-Homeric songsters;but they possessed the Iliad and the Odyssey, with their wonderfultruthfulness, and clear portraiture of character, their absence of allaffectation, their serenity and cheerfulness, their good sense andhealthful sentiments, yet so original that the germ of almost everycharacter which has since figured in epic poetry can be found in them. We see in Homer [Footnote: Born probably at Smyrna, an Ionian city, about one hundred and fifty years after the Trojan War. ] a poet of thefirst class, holding the same place in literature that Plato does inphilosophy, or Newton in science, and exercising a mighty influence onall the ages which have succeeded him. For nearly three thousand yearshis immortal creations have been the delight and the inspiration of menof genius, and they are as marvelous to us as they were to theAthenians, since they are exponents of the learning, as well as of theconsecrated sentiments of the heroic ages. We see no pomp of words, nofar-fetched thoughts, no theatrical turgidity, no ambitiousspeculations, no indefinite longings; but we read the manners andcustoms of the primitive nations, and lessons of moral wisdom and humannature as it is, and the sights and wonders of the external world, allnarrated with singular simplicity, yet marvelous artistic skill. We findaccuracy, delicacy, naturalness, yet grandeur, sentiment, and beauty, such as Pheidias represented in his statues of Jupiter. No poems haveever been more popular, and none have extorted greater admiration fromcritics. Like Shakespeare, Homer is a kind of Bible to both the learnedand unlearned among all people and ages--one of the prodigies of thisworld. His poems form the basis of Greek literature, and are the bestunderstood and the most widely popular of all Grecian composition. Theunconscious simplicity of the Homeric narrative, its vivid pictures, itsgraphic details and religious spirit, create an enthusiasm such as fewworks of genius can claim. Moreover, it presents a painting of society, with its simplicity and ferocity, its good and evil passions, itscompassion and its fierceness, such as no other poem affords. [Footnote:The Homeric poems have been translated into nearly all the Europeanlanguages, and several times into English. The last translation is bythe Earl of Derby--a most remarkable work. Guizot, _Cours d'Hist. Mod_. , Lecon 7me; Grote, vol. Ii. P. 277; _Studies in Homer_, byHon. W. E. Gladstone; Mure, _Critical Hist. Of Lang. And Lit. OfGreece_; Muller, _Hist, of the Lit. Of Ancient Greece_, translatedby Donaldson. ] Nor is it necessary to speak of any other Grecianepic, when the Iliad and the Odyssey attest the perfection whichwas attained one hundred and twenty years before Hesiod was born. Grotethinks that the Iliad and the Odyssey were produced at some periodbetween 850 B. C. , and 776 B. C. 

[Sidenote: Pindar. ]

In lyrical poetry the Greeks were no less remarkable, and indeed theyattained to absolute perfection, owing to the intimate connectionbetween poetry and music. Who has surpassed Pindar in artistic skill?His _triumphal odes_ are paeans, in which piety breaks out inexpressions of the deepest awe, and the most elevated sentiments ofmoral wisdom. They alone of all his writings have descended to us, butall possess fragments of odes, songs, dirges, and panegyrics, which showthe great excellence to which he attained. He was so celebrated that hewas employed by the different states and princes of Greece to composechoral songs for special occasions, especially the public games. Although a Theban, he was held in the highest estimation by theAthenians, and was courted by kings and princes. [Footnote: Born inThebes 522 B. C. , and died probably in his eightieth year, and wascontemporary with Aeschylus and the battle of Marathon. ] We possess, also, fragments of Sappho, Simonides, Anacreon, and others, enough toshow that, could the lyrical poetry of Greece be recovered, we shouldprobably possess the richest collection that the world has produced. 

[Sidenote: Greek dramatic poetry. ]

But dramatic poetry was still more varied and remarkable. Even the greatmasterpieces of Sophocles and Euripides, were regarded by contemporariesas inferior to many tragedies utterly unknown to us. 

[Sidenote: Aeschylus. ]

The great creator of the Greek drama was Aeschylus, born at Eleusis, 525B. C. It was not till the age of forty-one that he gained his firstprize. Sixteen years afterwards, defeated by Sophocles, he quittedAthens in disgust, and went to the court of Hiero, king of Syracuse. Buthe was always held, even at Athens, in the highest honor, and his pieceswere frequently reproduced upon the stage. It was not so much his objectto amuse an audience, as to instruct and elevate it. He combinedreligious feeling with lofty moral sentiment. And he had unrivaled powerover the realm of astonishment and terror. "At his summons, " says SirWalter Scott, "the mysterious and tremendous volume of destiny, in whichis inscribed the doom of gods and men, seemed to display its leaves ofiron before the appalled spectators; the more than mortal voices ofDeities, Titans, and departed heroes, were heard in awful conference;heaven bowed, and its divinities descended; earth yawned and gave up thepale spectres of the dead, and yet more undefined and ghastly forms ofthose infernal deities who struck horror into the gods themselves. " Hisimagination dwells in the loftiest regions of the old mythology ofGreece; his tone is always pure and moral, though stern and harsh. Heappeals to the most violent passions, and he is full of the boldestmetaphors. In sublimity he has never been surpassed. He was in poetry, what Pheidias and Michael Angelo were in art. The critics say that hissublimity of diction is sometimes carried to an extreme, so that hislanguage becomes inflated. His characters are sublime, like hissentiments; they were gods and heroes of colossal magnitude. Hisreligious views were Homeric, and he sought to animate his countrymen todeeds of glory, as it became one of the generals who fought at Marathonto do. He was an unconscious genius, and worked, like Homer, without aknowledge of artistical laws. He was proud and impatient, and his poetrywas religious rather than moral. He wrote seventy plays, of which onlyseven are extant; but these are immortal, among the greatest creationsof human genius, like the dramas of Shakespeare. He died in Sicily inthe sixty-ninth year of his age. The principal English translation ofhis plays are by Potter, Harford, and Medwin. [Footnote: See Muller andBode, histories of Greek Literature. ]

[Sidenote: Sophocles. ]

The fame of Sophocles is scarcely less than that of Aeschylus. He wastwenty-seven years of age when he appeared as a rival. He was born inColonus, in the suburbs of Athens, 495 B. C. , and was the contemporary ofHerodotus, of Pericles, of Pindar, of Pheidias, of Socrates, of Cimon, of Euripides--the era of great men; the period of the Peloponnesian War, when every thing that was elegant and intellectual culminated at Athens. Sophocles had every element of character and person which fascinated theGreeks: beauty of person, symmetry of form, skill in gymnastics, calmness and dignity of manner, a cheerful and amiable temper, a readywit, a meditative piety, a spontaneity of genius, an affectionateadmiration for talent, and patriotic devotion to his country. Histragedies, by the universal consent of the best critics, are theperfection of the Grecian drama, and they, moreover, maintain that hehas no rival, Shakespeare alone excepted, in the whole realm of dramaticpoetry, unless it be Aeschylus himself, to whom he bears the samerelation in poetry that Raphael does to Michael Angelo in the world ofart. It was his peculiarity to excite emotions of sorrow and compassion. He loved to paint forlorn heroes. He was human in all his sympathies, not so religious as his great rival, but as severely ethical; not sosublime, but more perfect in art. His sufferers are not the victims ofan inexorable destiny, but of their own follies. Nor does he even exciteemotion apart from a moral end. He lived to be ninety years old, andproduced the most beautiful of his tragedies in his eightieth year, the"Oedipus at Colonus. " He wrote the astonishing number of one hundred andthirty plays, and carried off the first prize twenty-four times. His"Antigone" was written when he was forty-five, and when Euripides hadalready gained a prize. Only seven of his tragedies have survived, butthese are priceless treasures. The fertility of his genius was onlyequaled by his artistic skill. [Footnote: Schlegel, _Lectures onDramatic Art_; Muller, _Hist. Lit. _; Donaldson's _Antigone_;Lessing, _Leben des Sophokles_; Philip Smith, article in Smith's_Dict. _. ]

[Sidenote: Euripides. ]

Euripides, the last of the great triumvirate of the Greek tragic poets, was born at Athens, B. C. 485. He had not the sublimity of Aeschylus, northe touching pathos of Sophocles, but, in seductive beauty andsuccessful appeal to passion, was superior to both. Nor had he theirstern simplicity. In his tragedies the passion of love predominates, nordoes it breathe the purity of sentiment. It approaches rather to thetone of the modern drama. He paints the weakness and corruptions ofsociety, and brings his subjects to the level of common life. He was thepet of the Sophists, and was pantheistic in his views. He does not paintideal excellence, and his characters are not as men ought to be, but asthey are, especially in corrupt states of society. He wrote ninety-fiveplays, of which eighteen are extant. Whatever objection may be urged inreference to his dramas on the score of morality, nobody can questiontheir transcendent art, or his great originality. With the exception ofShakespeare, all succeeding dramatists have copied these three greatpoets, especially Racine, who took Sophocles for his model. [Footnote:Muller, Schlegel. Sir Walter Scott on the Drama; Gote, vol. Viii. P. 442, Thorne, _Mag. Via. Eurip. _ Potter has made a translation ofall his plays. ]

[Sidenote: Greek comedy. ]

[Sidenote: Aristophanes. ]

The Greeks were no less distinguished for comedy. Both tragedy andcomedy sprung from feasts in honor of Bacchus; and as the jests andfrolics were found misplaced when introduced into grave scenes, aseparate province of the drama was formed, and comedy arose. At first itdid not derogate from the religious purposes which were at thefoundation of the Greek drama. It turned upon parodies, in which theadventures of the gods are introduced by way of sport, like the appetiteof Hercules, or the cowardice of Bacchus. Then the comic authorsentertained spectators by fantastic and gross displays; by theexhibition of buffoons and pantomimes. But the taste of the Athenianswas too severe to relish such entertainments, and comedy passed intoridicule of public men and measures, and of the fashions of the day. Thepeople loved to see their great men brought down to their own level. Nordid comedy flourish until the morals of society were degenerated, andridicule had become the most effective weapon to assail prevailingfollies. Comedy reached its culminating point when society was both themost corrupt and the most intellectual, as in France, when Molierepointed his envenomed shafts against popular vices. It pertained to theage of Socrates and the Sophists, when there was great bitterness inpolitical parties, and an irrepressible desire for novelties. InCratinus, comedy first made herself felt as a great power, who espousedthe side of Cimon against Pericles, with great bitterness and vehemence. Many were the comic writers of that age of wickedness and genius, butall yielded precedence to Aristophanes, whose plays only have reachedus. Never were libels on persons of authority and influence uttered withsuch terrible license. He attacked the gods, the politicians, thephilosophers, and the poets of Athens; even private citizens did notescape from his shafts, and women were subjects of his irony. Socrateswas made the butt of his ridicule, when most revered, and Cleon in theheight of his power, and Euripides when he had gained the highestprizes. He has furnished jests for Rabelais, and hints to Swift, andhumor for MoliEre. In satire, in derision, in invective, and bitterscorn, he has never been surpassed. No modern capital would toleratesuch unbounded license. Yet no plays were ever more popular, or morefully exposed follies which could not otherwise be reached. He is calledthe Father of Comedy, and his comedies are of great historicalimportance, although his descriptions are doubtless caricatures. He waspatriotic in his intentions, and set up for a reformer. His peculiargenius shines out in his "Clouds, " the greatest of his pieces, in whichhe attacks the Sophists. He wrote fifty-four plays. He was born B. C. 444, and died B. C. 380. His best comedies are translated by Mitchell. 

Thus it would appear that in the three great departments of poetry, --theepic, the lyric, and the dramatic, --the old Greeks were great masters, and have been the teachers of all subsequent nations and ages. 

The Romans, in these departments, were not their equals, but they werevery successful copyists, and will bear competition with modern nations. If the Romans did not produce a Homer, they can boast of a Virgil; ifthey had no Pindar, they furnished a Horace, while in satire theytranscended the Greeks. 

[Sidenote: Naevius. ]

The Romans, however, produced no poetry worthy of notice until the Greeklanguage and literature were introduced. It was not till the fall ofTarentum that we read of a Roman poet. Livius Andronicus, a Greek slave, B. C. 240, rudely translated the Odyssey into Latin, and was the authorof various plays, all of which have perished, and none of which, according to Cicero, were worth a second perusal. Still he was the firstto substitute the Greek drama for the old lyrical stage poetry. One yearafter the first Punic War, he exhibited the first Roman play. As thecreator of the drama, he deserves historical notice, though he has noclaim to originality, and like a schoolmaster as he was, pedanticallylabored to imitate the culture of the Greeks. And his plays formed thecommencement of Roman translation-literature, and naturalized the Greekmetres in Latium, even though they were curiosities rather than works ofart. [Footnote: Mommsen, vol. Ii. B. Ii. Ch. Xiv. ] Naevius, B. C. 235, produced a play at Rome, and wrote both epic and dramatic poetry, but solittle has survived, that no judgment can be formed of his merits. Hewas banished for his invectives against the aristocracy, who did notrelish severity of comedy. [Footnote: Horace, _Ep_. Ii. 11, 53. ]Mommsen regards Naevius as the first among the Romans who deserves to beranked among the poets. He flourished about the year 550, and closelyadhered to Andronicus in metres. His language is free from stiffness andaffectation, and his verses have a graceful flow. Plautus was perhapsthe first great poet whom the Romans produced, and his comedies arestill admired by critics, as both original and fresh. He was born inUmbria, B. C. 257, and was contemporaneous with Publius and CneiusScipio. He died B. C. 184. 

[Sidenote: Plautus. ]

The first development of Roman genius in the field of poetry, seems tohave been the dramatic, in which the Greek authors were copied. Plautusmight be mistaken for a Greek, were it not for the painting of Romanmanners. His garb is essentially Greek. He wrote one hundred and thirtyplays, not always for the stage, but for the reading public. He livedabout the time of the second Punic War, before the theatre was fairlyestablished at Rome. His characters, although founded on Greek models, act, speak, and joke like Romans. He enjoyed great popularity down tothe latest times of the empire, while the purity of his language, aswell as the felicity of his wit, was celebrated by the ancient critics. [Footnote: Quint. , x. I. Section 99. ] Cicero places his wit on a parwith the old Attic comedy, [Footnote: Cicero, _De Off_. , i. 29. ]while Jerome spent much time in reading his comedies, even though theyafterward cost him tears of bitter regret. Modern dramatists owe much tohim. Moliere has imitated him in his "_Avare_, " and Shakespeare inhis "Comedy of Errors. " Lessing pronounces the "_Captivi_" to bethe finest comedy ever brought upon the stage. [Footnote: Smith, _Dict. Of Ant. _ art. _Plaut_. ] He has translated this play into German. It has also been admirably translated into English. The great excellenceof Plautus was the masterly handling of the language, and the adjustingthe parts for dramatic effect. His humor, broad and fresh, producedirresistible comic effects. No one ever surpassed him in his vocabularyof nicknames, and his happy jokes. Hence he maintained his popularity inspite of his vulgarity. [Footnote: Mommsen, vol. Ii. B. Iii. Ch. Xiv. ]

[Sidenote: Terence. ]

Terence shares with Plautus the throne of Roman comedy. He was aCarthaginian slave, and was born B. C. 160, but was educated by a wealthyRoman, into whose hands he fell, and ever after associated with the bestsociety, and traveled extensively into Greece. He was greatly inferiorto Plautus in originality, nor has he exerted a lasting influence likehim; but he wrote comedies characterized by great purity of diction, andwhich have been translated into all modern languages. [Footnote:Coleman's _Terence_; Dryden, _On Dram. Poet. _; Mommsen, vol. Iii. B. V. Ch. Xiii. ] Anterior to the Augustan age, no tragic productionhas reached us, although Quintilian speaks highly of Accius, [Footnote:Quint. , x. 1. Section 97. ] especially of the vigor of his style. Buthe merely imitated the Greeks. Terence closely copied Menander, whomMommsen regards as the most polished, elegant, and chaste of all thepoets of the newer comedy. Unlike Plautus, he draws his characters fromgood society, and his comedies, if not moral, were decent. Plautus wrotefor the multitude; Terence for the few. Plautus delighted in a noisydialogue and slang expressions; Terence confines himself to quietconversation and elegant expressions, for which he was admired by Ciceroand Quintilian, and other great critics. He aspired to the approval ofthe good, rather than the applause of the vulgar; and it is a remarkablefact that his comedies supplanted the more original productions ofPlautus in the latter years of the republic, showing that the literatureof the aristocracy was more prized than that of the people, even in adegenerate age. The "_Thyestes_" [Footnote: Hor. , _Sat_. I 9;Martial, viii. 18. ] of Varius, was regarded in its day as equal to Greektragedies. Ennius composed tragedies in a vigorous style, and wasregarded by the Romans as the parent of their literature, although mostof his works have perished. [Footnote: Born B. C. 239. ] Virgil borrowedmany of his thoughts, and he was regarded as the prince of Roman song inthe time of Cicero. The Latin language is greatly indebted to him. Pacuvius imitated Aeschylus in the loftiness of his style. [Footnote:Born B. C. 170] The only tragedy of the Romans which has reached us waswritten by Seneca the philosopher. 

[Sidenote: The Aeneid. ]

[Sidenote: Virgil. ]

In epic poetry the Romans accomplished more, though still inferior tothe Greeks. The "Aeneid" has certainly survived the material glories ofRome. It may not have come up to the exalted ideal of its author; it maybe defaced by political flatteries; it may not have the force andoriginality of the "Iliad, " but it is superior in art, and delineatesthe passion of love with more delicacy than can be found in any Greekauthor. In soundness of judgment, in tenderness of feeling, in chastenedfancy, in picturesque description, in delineation of character, inmatchless beauty of diction, and in splendor of versification, it hasnever been surpassed by any poem in any language, and proudly takes itsplace among the imperishable works of genius. "Availing himself of thepride and superstition of the Roman people, the poet traces the originand establishment of the 'Eternal City, ' to those heroes and actionswhich had enough in them of what was human and ordinary to excite thesympathies of his countrymen, intermingled with persons andcircumstances of an extraordinary and superhuman character to awakentheir admiration and awe. No subject could have been more happilychosen. It has been admired also for its perfect unity of action; forwhile the episodes command the richest variety of description, they arealways subordinate to the main object of the poem, which is to impressthe divine authority under which Aeneas first settled in Italy. The wrathof Juno, upon which the whole fate of Aeneas seems to turn, is at oncethat of a woman and a goddess; the passion of Dido, and her generalcharacter, bring us nearer to the present world; but the poet iscontinually introducing higher and more effectual influences, until, bythe intervention of gods and men, the Trojan name is to be continued inthe Roman, and thus heaven and earth are appeased. " [Footnote: Thompson, _Hist. Rom. Lit. _, p. 92. ] No one work of man has probably had sucha wide and profound influence as this poem of Virgil, --a text-book inall schools since the revival of learning, the model of the Carlovingianpoets, the guide of Dante, the oracle of Tasso. [Footnote: Virgil wasborn seventy years before Christ, and was seven years older thanAugustus. His parentage was humble, but his facilities of education weregreat. He was a most fortunate man, enjoying the friendship of Augustusand Maecenas, fame in his own lifetime, leisure to prosecute his studies, and ample rewards for his labors. He died at Brundusium at the age offifty. ]

[Sidenote: Horace. ]

In lyrical poetry, the Romans can boast of one of the greatest mastersof any age or nation. The Odes of Horace have never been transcended, and will probably remain through all the ages, the delight of scholars. They may not have the deep religious sentiment, and the unity ofimagination and passion which belong to the Greek lyrical poets, but asworks of art, of exquisite felicity of expression, of agreeable images, they are unrivaled. Even in the time of Juvenal, his poems were thecommon school books of Roman youth. Horace, like Virgil, was a favoredman, enjoying the friendship of the great with ease, fame, and fortune. But his longings for retirement, and his disgust at the frivolitiesaround him, are a sad commentary on satisfied desires. [Footnote: BornB. C. 65. The best translation of his works is by Francis; but Horace isuntranslatable. ] His odes compose but a small part of his writings. Hisepistles are the most perfect of his productions, and rank with theGeorgics of Virgil and the satires of Juvenal, as the most perfect formof Roman verse. His satires are also admirable, but without the fiercevehemence and lofty indignation that characterized Juvenal. It is thefolly rather than the wickedness of vice which he describes with suchplayful skill and such keenness of observation. He was the first tomould the Latin tongue to the Greek lyric measures. Quintilian'scriticism is indorsed by all scholars. "_Lyricorum Horatius fere soluslegi dignus, in verbis felicissime audax_. " No poetry was ever moreseverely elaborated than that of Horace, and the melody of the languageimparts to it a peculiar fascination. If inferior to Pindar in passionand loftiness, it glows with a more genial humanity, and with purer wit. It cannot be enjoyed fully, except by those versed in the experiences oflife. Such perceive a calm wisdom, a penetrating sagacity, a soberenthusiasm, and a refined taste, which are unusual even among themasters of human thought. It is the fashion to depreciate the originalmerits of this poet, as well as those of Virgil and Plautus and Terence, because they derived so much assistance from the Greeks. But the Greeksborrowed from each other. Pure originality is impossible. It is themission of art to add to its stores, without hoping to monopolize thewhole realm. Even Shakespeare, the most original of modern poets, wasvastly indebted to those who went before him, and even he has notescaped the hypercriticism of minute observers. 

[Sidenote: Catullus. ]

In this allusion to lyrical poetry, I have not spoken of Catullus, unrivaled in tender lyric, and the greatest poet before the Augustanera. He was born B. C. 87, and enjoyed the friendship of the mostcelebrated characters. One hundred and sixteen of his poems have comedown to us, most of which are short, and many of them defiled by greatcoarseness and sensuality. Critics say, however, that whatever hetouched he adorned; that his vigorous simplicity, pungent wit, startlinginvective, and felicity of expression, make him one of the great poetsof the Latin language. 

[Sidenote: Lucretius. ]

In didactic poetry, Lucretius was preeminent, and is regarded bySchlegel as the first of Roman poets in native genius. [Footnote: BornB. C. 95, died B. C. 52. Smith's _Dict. _] He lived before theAugustan era, and died at the age of forty-two by his own hand. Hisgreat poem "De Rerum Natura, " is a delineation of the epicureanphilosophy, and treats of all the great subjects of thought with whichhis age is conversant. It somewhat resembles Pope's "Essay on Man, " instyle and subject, but immeasurably superior in poetical genius. It is alengthened disquisition, in seven thousand four hundred lines, of thegreat phenomena of the outward world. As a painter and worshiper ofnature, he was superior to all the poets of antiquity. His skill inpresenting abstruse speculations is marvelous, and his outbursts ofpoetic genius are matchless in power and beauty. Into all subjects hecasts a fearless eye, and writes with sustained enthusiasm. But he wasnot fully appreciated by his countrymen, although no other poet has sofully brought out the power of the Latin language. Professor Ramsay, [Footnote: The translation of Lucretius into English was made by I. M. Goode, Evelyn, and Drummond. ] while alluding to the melancholytenderness of Tibullus, the exquisite ingenuity of Ovid, the inimitablefelicity and taste of Horace, the gentleness and splendor of Virgil, andthe vehement declamation of Juvenal, thinks that, had the verses ofLucretius perished, we should never have known that it could giveutterance to the grandest conceptions with all that self-sustainedmajesty and harmonious swell, in which the Grecian muse rolls forth herloftiest outpourings. The eulogium of Ovid is--

 "Carmina sublimis tune sunt peritura Lucreti, Exitio terras quum dabit una dies. "

[Sidenote: Ovid. ]

Elegiac poetry has an honorable place in Roman literature. To thisschool belongs Ovid, [Footnote: Born B. C. 43. Died A. D. 18. ] whose"Metamorphoses" will always retain their interest. He, with that self-conscious genius common to poets, declares that his poem would be proofagainst sword, fire, thunder, and time, --a prediction, says Bayle, [Footnote: Bayle, _Dict. _] which has not yet proved false. Niebuhr[Footnote: _Lect. _, vol. Ii. P. 166. ] thinks that, next toCatullus, he was the most poetical of his countrymen. Milton thinks hecould have surpassed Virgil had he attempted epic poetry. He was nearestto the romantic school of all the classical authors, and Chaucer, Ariosto, and Spenser owe to him great obligations. Like Pope, his versesflowed spontaneously. His "Tristia" were more admired by the Romans thanhis "Amores" or "Metamorphoses, "--probably from the doleful descriptionof his exile, --a fact which shows that contemporaries are not always thebest judges of real merit. His poems, great as was their genius, aredeficient in the severe taste which marked the Greeks, and are immoralin their tendency. He had great advantages, but was banished by Augustusfor his description of licentious love, "Carmina per libidinosa. " Nordid he support exile with dignity. He died of a broken heart, andlanguished, like Cicero, when doomed to a similar fate. But fewintellectual men have ever been able to live at a distance from thescene of their glories, and without the stimulus of high society. Chrysostom is one of the few exceptions. Ovid, as an immoral man, wasjustly punished. 

[Sidenote: Tibullus. ]

Tibullus was also a famous elegiac poet, and was born the same year asOvid, and was the friend of Horace. He lived in retirement, and was bothgentle and amiable. At his beautiful country seat he soothed his soulwith the charms of literature and the simple pleasures of the country. Niebuhr pronounces his elegies doleful, [Footnote: _Lect. _, vol. Iii. P. 143. ] but Merivale [Footnote: _Hist_, vol. Iv. P. 602. ]thinks that "the tone of tender melancholy in which he sung hisunprosperous loves had a deeper and purer source than the caprices ofthree inconstant paramours. " "His spirit is eminently religious, thoughit bids him fold his hands in resignation rather than open them in hope. He alone of all the great poets of his day remained undazzled by theglitter of the Caesarian usurpation, and pined away in unavailingdespondency, in beholding the subjugation of his country. "

[Sidenote: Propertius. ]

His contemporary, Propertius, [Footnote: Born B. C. 51. ] was, on thecontrary, the most eager of all the flatterers of Augustus, --a man ofwit and pleasure, whose object or idolatry was Cynthia, a poetess and acourtesan. He was an imitator of the Greeks, but had a greatcontemporary fame, [Footnote: Quint. , x. 1. Section 93. ] and showsgreat warmth of passion, but he never soared into the sublime heights ofpoetry, like his rival. Such were among the great elegiac poets of Rome, generally devoted to the delineation of the passion of love. The olderEnglish poets resembled them in this respect, but none of them havesoared to such lofty heights as the later ones, like Wordsworth andTennyson. It is in lyric poetry that the moderns have chiefly excelledthe ancients, in variety, in elevation of sentiment, and in imagination. The grandeur and originality of the ancients were displayed rather inepic and dramatic poetry. 

[Sidenote: Juvenal. ]

[Sidenote: Perseus. ]

In _satire_ the Romans transcended both the Greeks and the moderns. There is nothing in any language which equals the fire, the intensity, and the bitterness of Juvenal, --not even Swift and Pope. But heflourished in the decline of literature, and has neither the taste norelegance of the Augustan writers. He was the son of a freedman, and wasborn A. D. 38, and was the contemporary of Martial. He was banished byDomitian on account of a lampoon against a favorite dancer, but underthe reign of Nerva he returned to Rome, and the imperial tyranny was thesubject of his bitterest denunciation, next to the degradation of publicmorals. His great rival in satire was Horace, who laughed at follies;but he, more austere, exaggerated and denounced them. His sarcasms onwomen have never been equaled in severity, and we cannot but hope thatthey were unjust. In an historical point of view, as a delineation ofthe manners of his age, his satires are priceless, even like theepigrams of Martial. Satire arose with Lucilius, [Footnote: Born B. C. 148. ] in the time of Marius, an age when freedom of speech wastolerated. Horace was the first to gain immortality in this department. Persius comes next, born A. D. 34, the friend of Lucan and Seneca in thetime of Nero; and he painted the vices of his age when it was passing tothat degradation which marked the reign of Domitian when Juvenalappeared, who, disdaining fear, boldly set forth the abominations of thetimes, and struck without distinction all who departed from duty andconscience. This uncompromising poet, not pliant and easy like Horace, animadverted, like an incorruptible censor, on the vices which wereundermining the moral health and preparing the way for violence; on thehypocrisy of philosophers and the cruelty of tyrants; on the weakness ofwomen and the debauchery of men. He discourses on the vanity of humanwishes with the moral wisdom of Dr. Johnson, and urges self-improvementlike Socrates and Epictetus. [Footnote: The best translations of Juvenalare those of Dryden, Gifford, and Badham. ]

I might speak of other celebrated poets, --of Lucan, of Martial, ofPetronius; but I only wish to show that the great poets of antiquity, both Greek and Roman, have never been surpassed in genius, in taste, andin art, and few were ever more honored in their lifetime by appreciatingadmirers showing the advanced state of civilization which was reached inevery thing pertaining to the realm of thought. 

But the genius of the ancients was displayed in prose composition aswell as in poetry, although perfection was not so soon attained. Thepoets were the great creators of the languages of antiquity. It was notuntil they had produced their immortal works that the languages weresufficiently softened and refined to admit of great beauty in prose. Butprose requires art as well as poetry. There is an artistic rhythm in thewritings of the classical authors, like those of Cicero and Herodotusand Thucydides, as marked as in the beautiful measure of Homer andVirgil. Burke and Macaulay are as great artists in style as Tennysonhimself. Plato did not write poetry, but his prose is as "musical asApollo's lyre. " And it is seldom that men, either in ancient or moderntimes, have been distinguished for both kinds of composition, althoughVoltaire, Schiller, Milton, Swift, and Scott are among the exceptions. Cicero, the greatest prose writer of antiquity, produced only aninferior poem, laughed at by his contemporaries. Bacon could not writepoetry, with all his affluence of thought and vigor of imagination andcommand of language, any easier than Pope could write prose. 

All sorts of prose compositions were carried to perfection by bothGreeks and Romans, in history, in criticism, in philosophy, in oratory, in epistles. 

[Sidenote: Herodotus. ]

The earliest great prose writer among the Greeks was Herodotus, [Footnote: Born B. C. 484. ] from which we may infer that _History_was the first form of prose composition which attained development. ButHerodotus was not born until Aeschylus had gained a prize for tragedy, more than two hundred years after Simonides, the lyric poet, flourished, and probably six hundred years after Homer sung his immortal epics. After more than two thousand years the style of this great "Father ofHistory" is admired by every critic; while his history, as a work ofart, is still a study and a marvel. It is difficult to understand why noanterior work in prose is worthy of note, since the Greeks had attaineda high civilization two hundred years before he appeared, and thelanguage had reached a high point of development under Homer for morethan five hundred years. The history of Herodotus was probably writtenin the decline of life, when his mind was enriched with greatattainments in all the varied learning of his age, and when he hadconversed with most of the celebrated men of the various countries whichhe visited. It pertains chiefly to the wars of the Greeks with thePersians; but, in his frequent episodes, which do not impair the unityof the work, he is led to speak of the manners and customs of theoriental nations. It was once the fashion to speak of Herodotus as acredulous man, who embodied the most improbable, though interestingstories. But now it is believed that no historian was ever moreprofound, conscientious, and careful; and all modern investigationsconfirm his sagacity and impartiality. He was one of the mostaccomplished men of antiquity, or of any age, --an enlightened andcurious traveler, a profound thinker, a man of universal knowledge, familiar with the whole range of literature, art, and science in hisday, acquainted with all the great men of Greece and at the courts ofAsiatic princes, the friend of Sophocles, of Pericles, of Thucydides, ofAspasia, of Socrates, of Damon, of Zeno, of Pheidias, of Protagoras, ofEuripides, of Polygnotus, of Anaxagoras, of Xenophon, of Alcibiades, ofLysias, of Aristophanes, --the most brilliant constellation of men ofgenius who were ever found together within the walls of a Grecian city, respected and admired by these great lights, all of whom he transcendedin knowledge. Thus was he fitted for his task by travel, by study, andby intercourse with the great, to say nothing of his original genius, and the greatest prose work which had yet appeared in Greece wasproduced, --a prose epic, severe in taste, perfect in unity, rich inmoral wisdom, charming in style, religious in spirit, grand in subject, without a coarse passage; simple, unaffected, and beautiful, like thenarratives of the Bible; amusing, yet instructive, easy to understand, yet extending to the utmost boundaries of human research--a model forall subsequent historians. So highly was it valued by the Athenians, when their city was at the height of its splendor, that they decreed toits author ten talents, about twelve thousand dollars, for reciting it. He even went from city to city, a sort of prose rhapsodist, or like amodern lecturer, reciting his history--an honored and extraordinary man, a sort of Humboldt, having mastered every thing. And he wrote, not forfame, but to communicate the results of his inquiries, from the purelove of truth which he learned by personal investigation at Dodona, atDelphi, at Samos, at Athens, at Corinth, at Thebes, at Tyre; yea, hetraveled into Egypt, Scythia, Asia Minor, Palestine, Babylonia, Italy, and the islands of the sea. His episode in Egypt is worth more, in anhistorical point of view, than every thing combined which has descendedto us from antiquity. Herodotus was the first to give dignity tohistory; nor, in truthfulness, candor, and impartiality, has he everbeen surpassed. His very simplicity of style is a proof of histranscendent art, even as it is the evidence of his severity of taste. [Footnote: Dahlman has written an admirable life of Herodotus; butRawlinson's translation, with his notes, is invaluable. ]

[Sidenote: Thucydides. ]

To Thucydides, as an historian, the modern world also assigns a proudpreeminence. He treated only of a short period, during the PeloponnesianWar; but the various facts connected with that great event could only beknown by the most minute and careful inquiries. He devoted twenty-sevenyears to the composition of his narration, and he weighed his testimonywith the most scrupulous care. His style has not the fascination ofHerodotus, but it is more concise. In a single volume he relates whatcould scarcely be compressed into eight volumes of a modern history. Asa work of art, of its kind, it is unrivaled. In his description of theplague of Athens he is minute as he is simple. He abounds with richmoral reflections, and has a keen perception of human character. Hispictures are striking and tragic. He is vigorous and intense, and everyword he uses has a meaning. But some of his sentences are not alwayseasily understood. One of the greatest tributes which can be paid to himis, that, according to the estimate of an able critic, [Footnote: GeorgeLong, Oxford. ] we have a more exact history of a long and eventfulperiod by Thucydides than we have of any period in modern history, equally long and eventful; and all this is compressed into a volume. [Footnote: Born 471 B. C. ; lived twenty years in exile on account of amilitary failure. ]

[Sidenote: Xenophon. ]

Xenophon is the last of the trio of the Greek historians, whose writingsare classical and inimitable. [Footnote: Born probably about 444 B. C. ]He is characterized by great simplicity and absence of affectation. His"Anabasis, " in which he describes the expedition of the younger Cyrusand the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, is his most famous book. Buthis "Cyropaedia, " in which the history of Cyrus is the subject, althoughstill used as a classic in colleges for the beauty of the style, has novalue as a history, since the author merely adopted the current storiesof his hero without sufficient investigation. Xenophon wrote a varietyof treatises and dialogues, but his "Memorabilia" of Socrates is themost valuable. All antiquity and all modern writers unite in giving toXenophon great merit as a writer, and great moral elevation as a man. 

If we pass from the Greek to the Latin historians, --to those who were asfamous as the Greek, and whose merit has scarcely been transcended inour modern times, if, indeed, it has been equaled, --the great names ofSallust, of Caesar, of Livy, of Tacitus, rise up before us, together witha host of other names we have not room or disposition to present, sincewe only aim to show that the ancients were at least our equals in thisgreat department of prose composition. The first great masters of theGreek language in prose were the historians, so far as their writingshave descended, although it is probable that the orators may have shapedthe language before them, and given it flexibility and refinement. Thefirst great prose writers of Rome were the orators. Nor was the Latinlanguage fully developed and polished until Cicero appeared. But we donot write a history of the language: we speak only of those who wroteimmortal works in the various departments of learning. 

As Herodotus did not arise until the Greek language had been alreadyformed by the poets, so no great prose writer appeared among the Romansfor a considerable time after Plautus, Terence, Ennius, and Lucretiusflourished. 

[Sidenote: Sallust. ]

The first great historian was Sallust, the contemporary of Cicero, bornB. C. 86, the year that Marius died. Q. Fabius Pictor, M. Portius Cato, L. Cal. Piso had already written works which are mentioned with respectby the Latin authors, but they were mere annalists or antiquarians, likethe chroniclers of the Middle Ages, and had no claim as artists. Sallustmade Thucydides his model, but fell below him in genius and elevatedsentiment. He was born a plebeian, and rose to distinction by histalents, but was ejected from the Senate for his profligacy. Afterwardshe made a great fortune as praetor and governor of Numidia, and lived inmagnificence on the Quirinal--one of the most profligate of the literarymen of antiquity. We possess but a small portion of his works, but thefragments which have come down to us show peculiar merit. He sought topenetrate the human heart, and reveal the secret motives which actuatethe conduct of men. His style is brilliant, but his art is alwaysapparent. He is clear and lively, but rhetorical. Like Voltaire, whoinaugurated modern history, he thought more of style than of accuracy offacts. He was a party man, and never soared beyond his party. He apedthe moralist, but erected egotism and love of pleasure into propersprings of action, and honored talent disconnected with virtue. Like Carlyle, he exalted _strong_ men, and _because_ they werestrong. He was not comprehensive like Cicero, or philosophical likeThucydides, although he affected philosophy as he did morality. He wasthe first who deviated from the strict narratives of events, and alsointroduced much rhetorical declamation, which he puts into the mouths ofhis heroes. [Footnote: The best translations of this author are those byStewart, 1806, and Murphy, 1807. ] He wrote for eclat. 

[Sidenote: Caesar. ]

Caesar, as an historian, ranks higher, and no Roman ever wrote purerLatin than he. But his historical works, however great their merit, butfeebly represent his transcendent genius--the most august name ofantiquity. He was mathematician, architect, poet, philologist, orator, jurist, general, statesman--imperator. In eloquence he was only secondto Cicero. The great value of his history is in the sketches of theproductions, the manners, the customs, and the political state of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. His observations on military science, on theoperation of sieges, and construction of bridges and military engines, are valuable. But the description of his military operations is only astudied apology for his crimes, even as the bulletins of Napoleon wereset forth to show his victories in the most favorable light. His famerests on his victories and successes as a statesman rather than on hismerits as an historian, even as Louis Napoleon will live in history forhis deeds rather than as the apologist of Caesar. [Footnote: See_History of Caesar_, by Napoleon, a work more learned than popular, however greatly he may be indebted to the labors of others. ] The"Commentaries" resemble the history of Herodotus more than any otherLatin production, at least in style; they are simple and unaffected, precise and elegant, plain and without pretension. 

Caesar was born B. C. 100, and while I admire his genius and hisgenerosity, I hold in detestation the ambition which led him to overturnthe constitution of his country on the plea of revolutionary necessity. It is true that there was the strife of parties and factions, greedy ofrevenge, and still more of spoils. It was a period of "_greatoffenses_, " but it was also the brightest period in Roman history, sofar as pertains to the development of genius. It was more favorable toliterature than the lauded "Augustan era. " It was an age of freeopinions, in which liberty gave her last sigh, and when heroic effortswere made to bring back the ancient virtue, and to save the state fromdespotism. The lives of Piso, of Milo, of Cinna, of Lepidus, of Cotta, of Dolabella, of Crassus, of Quintus Maximus, of Aquila, of Pompey, ofBrutus, of Cassius, of Antony, show what extraordinary men of actionwere then upon the stage, both good and evil, while Varro, Cicero, Catullus, Lucretius, and Sallust gave glory to the world of letters. Itmay have resulted favorably to the peace of society that the imperialrule supplanted the aristocratic regime, but it was a change fatal toliberty of speech and all independent action--a change, the good ofwhich was on the outside, and in favor of material interests, but theevil of which was internal, and consumed secretly, but surely, the realgreatness of the empire. 

[Sidenote: Prose composition. ]

[Sidenote: High social position of historians. ]

The Augustan age, though it produced a constellation of poets who shedglory upon the throne before which they prostrated themselves in abjecthomage, like the courtiers of Louis XIV. , still was unfavorable to prosecomposition, --to history as well as eloquence. Of the historians, Livyis the only one whose writings are known to us, and only fragments ofhis history. [Footnote: Born B. C. 59. ] He was a man of distinction atcourt, and had a great literary reputation--so great that a Spaniardtraveled from Cadiz on purpose to see him. Most of the great historiansof the world have occupied places of honor and rank, which were given tothem not as prizes for literary successes, but for the experience, knowledge, and culture which high social position and ample meanssecured. Herodotus lived in courts; Thucydides was a great general, alsoXenophon; Caesar wrote his own exploits; Sallust was praetor and governor;Livy was tutor to Claudius; Tacitus was praetor and consul suffectus;Eusebius was bishop and favorite of Constantine; Ammianus was the friendof the Emperor Julian; Gregory of Tours was one of the leading prelatesof the West; Froissart attended in person, as a man of rank, themilitary expeditions of his day; Clarendon was Lord Chancellor; Burnetwas a bishop and favorite of William III. ; Thiers and Guizot both wereprime ministers; while Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Macaulay, Grote, Milman, Neander, Niebuhr, Muller, Dahlman, Buckle, Prescott, Irving, Bancroft, Motley, have all been men of wealth or position. Nor do I remember asingle illustrious historian who has been poor and neglected. 

[Sidenote: Livy. ]

The ancients regarded Livy as the greatest of historians, --an opinionnot indorsed by modern critics, on account of his inaccuracies. But hisnarrative is always interesting, and his language pure. He did not siftevidence like Grote, nor generalize like Gibbon; but he was, likeVoltaire and Macaulay, an artist in style, and possessed undoubtedgenius. His annals are comprised in one hundred and forty-two books, extending from the foundation of the city to the death of Drusus, B. C. 9, of which only thirty-five have come down to us--an impressivecommentary on the vandalism of the Middle Ages, and the ignorance of themonks who could not preserve so great a treasure. "His story flows in acalm, clear, sparkling current, with every charm which simplicity andease can give. " He delineates character with great clearness and power;his speeches are noble rhetorical compositions; his sentences arerhythmical cadences. He was not a critical historian, like Herodotus, for he took his materials secondhand, and he was ignorant of geography;nor did he write with the exalted ideal of Thucydides, but as a painterof beautiful forms, which only a rich imagination could conjure, he isunrivaled in the history of literature. Moreover, he was honest andsound in heart, and was just and impartial in reference to those factswith which he was conversant. 

[Sidenote: Tacitus. ]

In the estimation of modern critics, the highest rank, as an historian, is assigned to Tacitus, and it would be difficult to find his rival inany age or country. He was born A. D. 57, about forty-three years afterthe death of Augustus. He belonged to the equestrian rank, and was a manof consular dignity. He had every facility for literary labors thatleisure, wealth, friends, and social position could give, and he livedunder a reign when truth could be told. 

The extant works of this great writer are the "Life of Agricola, " hisfather-in-law; his "Annales, " which commence with the death of Augustus, A. D. 14, and close with the death of Nero, A. D. 68; the "Historiae, "which comprise the period from the second consulate of Galba, A. D. 68, to the death of Domitian; and a treatise on the Germans. 

[Sidenote: Histories of Tacitus. ]

His histories describe Rome in the fullness of imperial glory, when thewill of one man was the supreme law of the empire. He also wrote ofevents when liberty had fled, and the yoke of despotism was nearlyinsupportable. He describes a period of great moral degradation, nordoes he hesitate to lift the veil of hypocrisy in which his generationhad wrapped itself. He fearlessly exposes the cruelties and iniquitiesof the early emperors, and writes with judicial impartiality respectingall the great characters he describes. No ancient writer shows greatermoral dignity and integrity of purpose than Tacitus. In point ofartistic unity he is superior to Livy and equal to Thucydides, whom heresembles in conciseness of style. His distinguishing excellence as anhistorian is his sagacity and impartiality. Nothing escapes hispenetrating eye; and he inflicts merited chastisement on the tyrants whoreveled in the prostrated liberties of his country, while heimmortalizes those few who were faithful to duty and conscience in adegenerate age. But his writings were not so popular as those of Livy. Neither princes nor people relished his intellectual independence andmoral elevation. He does not satisfy Dr. Arnold, who thinks he ought tohave been better versed in the history of the Jews, and who dislikes hisspeeches because they were fictitious. 

[Sidenote: Qualities which give immortality to historians. ]

Neither the Latin nor Greek historians are admired by those dry critics, who seek to give to rare antiquarian matter a disproportionateimportance, and to make this matter as fixed and certain as the truthsof natural science. History can never be other than an approximation tothe truth, even when it relates to the events and characters of our ownage. History does not give positive knowledge which cannot be disputedexcept in general terms. We _know_ that Caesar was ambitious, but wedo not know whether he was more or less so than Pompey, nor do we knowhow far he was justified in his usurpation. A great history must haveother merits than mere accuracy, or antiquarian research, or display ofauthorities and notes. It must be a work of art, and art has referenceto style and language, to grouping of details and richness ofillustration, to eloquence and poetry and beauty. A dry history, if everso learned, will never be read; it will only be consulted, like a law-book, or Mosheim's "Commentaries. " We wish _life_ in history, andit is for the life that the writings of Livy and Tacitus will beperpetuated. Voltaire and Schiller have no great merit as historians, ina technical sense, but the "Life of Charles XII. " and the "Thirty Years'War" are still classics. Neander has written one of the most searchingand recondite histories of modern times, but it is too dry, toodeficient in art, to be cherished, and may pass away, like thevoluminous writings of Varro, the most learned of the Romans. It is the_art_ which is immortal in a book, not the knowledge, or even thethoughts. What keeps alive the "Provincial Letters"? It is the style, the irony, the elegance. It is the exquisite delineation of character, the moral wisdom, the purity and force of language, the artisticarrangement, and the lively and interesting narratives, appealing to allminds, like the "Arabian Nights, " or Froissart's "Chronicles, " whichgive immortality to the classic authors of antiquity. We will not letthem perish, because they amuse us, and inspire us. Livy doubtless wastoo ambitious in aspiring to write accurately the whole history of hiscountry. He would have been wiser had he confined himself to aparticular epoch, of which he was conversant, like Tacitus andThucydides. But it is taking a narrow view of history to make allwriters after the same pattern, even as it would be bigoted to make allChristians belong to the same sect. Some will be remarkable for style, others for learning, and others again for moral and philosophicalwisdom. Some will be minute, and others generalizing. Some dig out amultiplicity of facts without apparent object, and others induce fromthose facts. Some will make essays, and others chronicles. We have needof all styles and all kinds of excellence. A great and original thinkermay not have the time or opportunity or taste for a minute and searchingcriticism of original authorities; but he may be able to generalizepreviously established facts, so as to draw most valuable moralinstruction. History is a boundless field of inquiry. No man can masterit, in all its departments and periods. What he gains in minute details, he is apt to lose in generalization. If he attempts to embody too muchlearning, he may be deficient in originality; if he would say everything, he is apt to be dry; if he elaborates too much, he loses life. Society, too, requires different kinds and styles of history, --historyfor students, history for ladies, histories for old men, histories foryoung men, histories to amuse, and histories to instruct. If all menwere to write history according to Dr. Arnold's views, then we shouldhave histories of interest only to classical scholars. A fellow ofChrist Church may demand authorities, even if he never consults one ofthem, but a member of Congress may wish to see learning embodied in thetext, and animated by genius, after the fashion of the ancienthistorians, who never quoted their sources of knowledge, and who werevalued for the richness of thoughts and artistic beauty of style. Theages in which they flourished, attached no value to pedantic displays oflabor, or evidences of learning paraded in foot-notes. 

[Sidenote: Greatness of the ancient historians. ]

Thus the great historians whom I have alluded to, both Greek and Latin, have few equals and no superiors, in our own times, in those thingswhich are most to be admired. They were not pedants, but men of immensegenius and learning, who blended the profoundest principles of moralwisdom with the most fascinating narratives, men universally popularamong learned and unlearned, and men who were great artists in style, and masters of the language in which they wrote. We claim a superiorityto them, because we are more recondite and critical; but the decline ofRoman literature can be dated to times when commentaries became thefashion. We improve on commentaries. They are chiefly confined tobiblical questions. _We_ write dictionaries and encyclopedias. Inthis respect we are superior to the ancients. Our latest fashion ofhistories makes them very long, and very uncertain, containing muchirrelevant matter, and more remarkable for learning than for genius, orelegance of diction. Yet Macaulay, Prescott, and Motley have few equalsamong the ancients in interest or artistic beauty. 

[Sidenote: Suetonius. ]

[Sidenote: Marcellinus. ]

Rome can boast of no great historian after Tacitus, who should havebelonged to the Ciceronian epoch. Suetonius, born about the year A. D. 70, shortly after Nero's death, was rather a biographer than historian. Nor as a biographer does he take a high rank. His "Lives of the Caesars, "like Diogenes Laertius' "Lives of the Philosophers, " are ratheranecdotical than historical. L. A. Florus, who flourished during thereign of Trajan, has left a series of sketches of the different warsfrom the days of Romulus to those of Augustus. Frontinus epitomized thelarge histories of Pompeius. Marcellinus wrote a history from Nerva toValens, and is often quoted by Gibbon. But none wrote who should beadduced as examples of the triumph of genius, except Sallust, Caesar, Livy, and Tacitus. 

[Sidenote: Ancient orators. ]

[Sidenote: Ancient eloquence. ]

There is another field of prose compositions in which the Greeks andRomans gained great distinction, and proved themselves equal to anynation of modern times, and this was that of eloquence. It is true wehave not a rich collection of ancient speeches. But we have every reasonto believe that both Greeks and Romans were most severely trained in theart of public speaking, and that forensic eloquence was highly prizedand munificently rewarded. It commenced with democratic institutions, and flourished as long as the people were a great power in the state. Itdeclined whenever and as soon as tyrants bore rule. Eloquence andliberty flourished together; nor can there be eloquence when there isnot freedom of debate. In the fifth century before Christ--the firstcentury of democracy--great orators arose, for without the power and theopportunity of defending himself against accusation, no man could holdan ascendent position. Socrates insisted upon the gift of oratory to ageneral in the army, [Footnote: Xen. _Mem. _, iii. 3, 11. ] as well asto a leader in political life. In Athens the courts of justice werenumerous, and those who could not defend themselves were obliged tosecure the services of those who were trained in the use of publicspeaking. Thus the lawyers arose, among whom eloquence has been more indemand, and more richly paid than in any other class, certainly ofancient times. Rhetoric became connected with dialectics, and in Greece, Sicily, and Italy, both were most extensively cultivated. Empedocles wasdistinguished as much for rhetoric as for philosophy. It was not, however, in the courts of law that eloquence displayed the greatest fireand passion, but in political assemblies. These could only coexist withliberty; and a democracy was more favorable than an aristocracy to alarge concourse of citizens. In the Grecian republics, eloquence as anart, may be said to have been born. It was nursed and fed by politicalagitations; by the strife of parties. It arose from appeals to thepeople as a source of power; and, when the people were not cultivated, it appealed chiefly to popular passions and prejudices. When they wereenlightened, it appealed to interests. 

[Sidenote: Pericles. ]

It was in Athens, where there existed the purest form of democraticinstitutions, that eloquence rose to the loftiest heights in the ancientworld, so far as eloquence appeals to popular passions. Pericles, thegreatest statesman of Greece, was celebrated for his eloquence, althoughno specimens remain to us. It was conceded by the ancient authors, thathis oratory was of the highest kind, and the epithet of Olympian wasgiven him as carrying the weapons of Zeus upon his tongue. [Footnote:Plutarch; Cic. _De Orat_. , iii. 34; Quin. , x. I. Section 82;Plat. _Phed_. , p. 262. ] His voice was sweet, and his utterancedistinct and rapid. Pisistratus was also famous for his eloquence, although he was a usurper and a tyrant. Isocrates [Footnote: Born 436B. C. ] was a professed rhetorician, and endeavored to base it upon soundmoral principles, and rescue it from the influence of the Sophists. Hewas the great teacher of the most eminent statesmen of his day. Twenty-one of his orations have come down to us, and they are excessivelypolished and elaborated; but they were written to be read; they were notextemporary. His language is the purest and most refined Attic dialect. Lysias [Footnote: Born B. C. 458. ] was a fertile writer of orations also, and he is reputed to have produced as many as four hundred and twenty-five. Of these only thirty-five are extant. They are characterized bypeculiar gracefulness and elegance, which did not interfere withstrength. So able were these orations, that only two were unsuccessful. They were so pure that they were regarded as the best canon of the Atticidiom. [Footnote: Dion. _Lys_. , ii. 3. ]

[Sidenote: Demosthenes. ]

But all the orators of Greece--and Greece was the land of orators--gaveway to Demosthenes, born B. C. 385. He received a good education, and issaid to have been instructed in philosophy by Plato, and in eloquence byIsocrates. But it is more probable that he privately prepared himselffor his brilliant career. As soon as he attained his majority, hebrought suits against the men whom his father had appointed hisguardians for their waste of property, and was, after two years, successful, conducting the prosecution himself. It was not until the ageof thirty that he appeared as a speaker in the public assembly onpolitical matters, and he enjoyed universal respect, and became one ofthe leading statesmen of Athens, and henceforth he took an active partin every question that concerned the state. He especially distinguishedhimself in his speeches against Macedonian aggrandizements, and hisPhilippics are, perhaps, the most brilliant of his orations. But thecause which he advocated was unfortunate. The battle of Cheronea, B. C. 338, put an end to the independence of Greece, and Philip of Macedon wasall-powerful. For this catastrophe Demosthenes was somewhat responsible, but his motives were pure and his patriotism lofty, and he retained theconfidence of his countrymen. Accused by Aeschines, he delivered hisfamous Oration on the Crown. Afterwards, during the supremacy ofAlexander, he was again accused, and suffered exile. Recalled fromexile, on the death of Alexander, he roused himself for the deliveranceof Greece, without success, and, hunted by his enemies, he took poisonin the sixty-third year of his age, having vainly contended for thefreedom of his country, --one of the noblest spirits of antiquity, spotless in his public career, and lofty in his private life. As anorator, he has not probably been equaled by any man of any country. Byhis contemporaries he was regarded as faultless as a public speaker, andwhen it is remembered that he struggled against physical difficultieswhich, in the early part of his career, would have utterly discouragedany ordinary man, we feel that he deserves the highest commendation. Henever spoke without preparation, and most of his orations were severelyelaborated. He never trusted to the impulse of the occasion. And all hisorations exhibit him as a pure and noble patriot, and are full of theloftiest sentiments. He was a great artist, and his oratorical successeswere greatly owing to the arrangement of his speeches and theapplication of the strongest arguments in their proper places. Added tothis moral and intellectual superiority was the "magic power of hislanguage, majestic and simple at the same time, rich yet not bombastic, strange and yet familiar, solemn without being ornamented, grave and yetpleasing, concise and yet fluent, sweet and yet impressive, whichaltogether carried away the minds of his hearers. " [Footnote: LeonhardSchmitz. ] His orations were most highly prized by the ancients, whowrote innumerable commentaries on them, but most of these criticisms arelost. Sixty, however, of these great productions of genius have comedown to us, and are contained in the various collections of the Atticorators by Aldus, Stephens, Taylor, Reiske, Dukas, Bekker, Dobson, andSauppe. Demosthenes, like other orators, first became known as thecomposer of speeches for litigants; but his great fame was based on theorations he pronounced in great political emergencies. His rival wasAeschines, but he was vastly inferior to Demosthenes, although bold, vigorous, and brilliant. Indeed, the opinions of mankind, for twothousand years, have been unanimous in ascribing to Demosthenes thehighest position as an orator of all the men of ancient and moderntimes. David Hume says of him, "that, could his manner be copied, itssuccess would be infallible over a modern audience. " "It is rapidharmony exactly adjusted to the sense. It is vehement reasoning, withoutany appearance of art. It is disdain, anger, boldness, freedom involvedin a continual stream of argument; so that, of all human productions, his orations present to us the models which approach the nearest toperfection. " [Footnote: _Dissertation of Lord Brougham on theEloquence of the Ancients. _]

[Sidenote: Roman orators. ]

It is probable that the Romans were behind the Athenians in all the artsof rhetoric; and yet in the days of the republic celebrated oratorsarose, called out by the practice of the law and political meetings. Itwas, in fact, in forensic eloquence that Latin prose first appears as acultivated language; for the forum was to the Romans what libraries areto us. And the art of public speaking was very early developed. Cato, Laelius, Carbo, and the Gracchi are said to have been majestic andharmonious in speech. Their merits were eclipsed by Antonius, Crassus, Cotta, Sulpitius, and Hortensius. The last had a very brilliant careeras an orator, although his orations were too florid to be read. Caesarwas also distinguished for his eloquence, the characteristics of whichwere force and purity. Caelius was noted for lofty sentiment; Brutus forphilosophical wisdom; Callidus for a delicate and harmonious style, andCalvus for sententious force. 

[Sidenote: Cicero. ]

But all the Roman orators yielded to Cicero, as the Greeks did toDemosthenes. These two men are always coupled together when allusion ismade to eloquence. They were preeminent in the ancient world, and havenever been equaled in the modern. 

Cicero was not probably equal to his great Grecian rival in vehemence, in force, in fiery argument, which swept every thing away before him;and he was not probably equal to him in original genius; but he was hissuperior in learning, in culture, and in breadth. [Footnote: Born B. C. 106. ] He distinguished himself very early as an advocate; but his firstgreat public effort was in the prosecution of Verres for corruption. Although defended by Hortensius, and the whole influence of the Metelliand other powerful families, Cicero gained his cause, --more fortunatethan Burke in his prosecution of Warren Hastings, who was also sustainedby powerful interests and families. Burke also resembled Cicero in hispeculiarities and in his fortunes more than any modern orator. Hisspeech on the Manilian law, when he appeared as a political orator, greatly contributed to his popularity. I need not describe his memorablecareer; his successive election to all the highest offices of state, hisdetection of Catiline's conspiracy, his opposition to turbulent andambitious partisans, his alienations and friendships, his brilliantcareer as a statesman, his misfortunes and sorrows, his exile andrecall, his splendid services to the state, his greatness and hisdefects, his virtues and weaknesses, his triumphs and martyrdom. Theseare foreign to my purpose. No man of heathen antiquity is better knownto us, and no man, by pure genius, ever won more glorious laurels. Hislife and labors are immortal. His virtues and services are embalmed inthe heart of the world. Few men ever performed greater literary labors, and in most of its departments. Next to Aristotle, he was the mostlearned man of antiquity, but performed more varied labors than he, since he was not only great as a writer and speaker, but as a statesman, and was the most conspicuous man in Rome after Pompey and Caesar. He maynot have had the moral greatness of Socrates, nor the philosophicalgenius of Plato, nor the overpowering eloquence of Demosthenes, but hewas a master of all the wisdom of antiquity. Even civil law, the greatscience of the Romans, became interesting in his hands, and is divestedof its dryness and technicality. He popularized history, and paid honorto all art, even to the stage. He made the Romans conversant with thephilosophy of Greece, and systematized the various speculations. He maynot have added to the science, but no Roman, after him, understood sowell the practical bearing of all the various systems. His glory ispurely intellectual, and it was by pure genius that he rose to hisexalted position and influence. 

But it was in forensic eloquence that he was preeminent, and in which hehad but one equal in ancient times. Roman eloquence culminated in him. He composed about eighty orations, of which fifty-nine are preserved. Some were delivered from the rostrum to the people, and some in theSenate. Some were mere philippics, as savage in denunciation as those ofDemosthenes. Some were laudatory; some were judicial; but all wereseverely logical, full of historical allusion, profound in philosophicalwisdom, and pervaded with the spirit of patriotism. "He goes round andround his object, surveys it in every light, examines it in all itsparts, retires and then advances, compares and contrasts it, illustrates, confirms, and enforces it, till the hearer feels ashamed ofdoubting a position which seems built on a foundation so strictlyargumentative. And having established his case, he opens upon hisopponent a discharge of raillery so delicate and good natured that it isimpossible for the latter to maintain his ground against it; or, whenthe subject is too grave, he colors his exaggerations with all thebitterness of irony and vehemence of passion. But the appeal to thegentler emotions is reserved for the close of the oration, as in thedefense of Cluentius, Caelius, Milo, and Flaccus; the most strikinginstances of which are the poetical bursts of feeling with which headdresses his client, Plaucius, and his picture of the desolatecondition of the vestal Fonteia, should her brother be condemned. Atother times his peroration contains more heroic and elevated sentiments, as in the invocation of the Alban Altars, and in his defense of Sextius, and that on liberty at the close of the third Philippic. " [Footnote:Newman, _Hist. Rom. Lit. _, p. 305. ]

Critics have uniformly admired his style as peculiarly suited to theLatin language, which, being scanty and unmusical, requires moreredundancy than the Greek. The simplicity of the Attic writers wouldmake Latin composition bold and tame. To be perspicuous, the Latin mustbe full. Thus Arnold thinks that what Tacitus gained in energy he lostin elegance and perspicuity. But Cicero, dealing with a barren andunphilosophical language, enriched it with circumlocutions andmetaphors, while he formed it of harsh and uncouth expressions, and thusbecame the greatest master of composition the world has seen. He was agreat artist, making use of his scanty materials to the best effect; andsince he could not attain the elegance of the Greeks, he sought to excelthem in vigor. He had absolute control over the resources of hisvernacular tongue, and not only unrivaled skill in composition, but tactand judgment. Thus he was generally successful, in spite of the venalityand corruption of the times. The courts of justice were the scene of hisearliest triumphs; nor did he speak from the rostra until he was praetoron mere political questions, as in reference to the Manilian andAgrarian laws. It is in his political discourses that he rises to thehighest ranks. In his speeches against Verres, Catiline, and Antony, hekindles in his countrymen lofty feelings for the honor of his country, and abhorrence of tyranny and corruption. Indeed, he hated bloodshed, injustice, and strife, and beheld the downfall of liberty withindescribable sorrow. 

Cicero held a very exalted position as a philosophical writer andcritic; but we defer what we have to say on this point until we speak ofthe philosophy of the ancients. Upon eloquence his main efforts were, however, directed, and eloquence was the most perfect fruit of histalents. Nor can we here speak of Cicero as a man. He has his admirersand detractors. He had great faults and weaknesses as well as virtues. He was egotistical, vain, and vacillating. But he was industrious, amiable, witty, and public spirited. In his official position he wasincorruptible. He was no soldier, but he had a greater than a warrior'sexcellence. In spite of his faults, his name is one of the brightest ofthe ancients. His integrity was never impeached, even in an age ofunparalleled corruption, and he was pure in morals. He was free fromrancor and jealousy, was true in his friendships, and indulgent to hisdependents. [Footnote: Professor Ramsay, of Glasgow, has written a mostadmirable article on Cicero in Smith's _Dictionary_. It is veryfull and impartial. Cicero's own writings are the best commentary on hislife. Plutarch has afforded much anecdote. Forsythe is the last work oferudition. The critics sneer at Middleton's _Life of Cicero_; butit has lasted one hundred years. It is, perhaps, too eulogistic. Drumannis said to have most completely exhausted his subject in his_Geschichte Roms_. ]

Thus in oratory, as in history, the ancients can boast of mostillustrious examples, never even equaled. Still, we cannot tell thecomparative merits of the great classical orators of antiquity, with themore distinguished of our times. Only Mirabeau, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Brougham, Webster, and Clay, can even be compared with them. In power ofmoving the people, some of our modern reformers and agitators may bementioned favorably; but their harangues are comparatively tame whenread. 

[Sidenote: Varro. ]

In philosophy, the Greeks and Romans distinguished themselves more thaneven in poetry, or history, or eloquence. Their speculations pertainedto the loftiest subjects which ever tasked the intellect of man. Butthis great department deserves a separate chapter. There wererespectable writers, too, in various other departments of literature, but no very great names whose writings have descended to us. Contemporaries had an exalted opinion of Varro, who was considered themost learned of the Romans, as well as their most voluminous author. Hewas born ten years before Cicero, and he is highly commended byAugustine. [Footnote: Born B. C. 116; _Civ. Dei_. , vi. 2. ] He wasentirely devoted to literature, took no interest in passing events, andlived to a good old age. St. Augustine says of him, "that he wrote somuch that one wonders how he had time to read; and that he read so much, we are astonished how he found time to write. " He composed four hundredand ninety books. Of these only one has descended to us entire--"De ReRustica"--written at the age of eighty; but it is the best treatisewhich has come down from antiquity on ancient agriculture. We have partsof his other books, and we know of books which have entirely perishedwhich, for their information, would be invaluable; especially his"Divine Antiquities, " in sixteen books--his great work, from which St. Augustine drew his materials for his "City of God. " He wrote treatiseson language, on the poets, on philosophy, on geography, and variousother subjects. He wrote satire and criticism. But although his writingswere learned, his style was so bad that the ages have failed to preservehim. It is singular that the truly immortal books are most valued fortheir artistic excellences. No man, however great his genius, can affordto be dull. Style is to written composition, what delivery is to apublic speaker. John Foster, one of the finest intellects of the lastgeneration, preached to a "handful" of hearers, while "Satan" Montgomerydrew ecstatic crowds. Nobody goes to hear the man of thoughts, everybody to hear the man of words, being repelled or attracted by_manner_. 

[Sidenote: Seneca. ]

Seneca was another great writer among the Romans, but he belongs to thedomain of philosophy, although it is his ethical works which have givenhim immortality, as may be truly said of Socrates and Epictetus, although they are usually classed among the philosophers. He was aSpaniard, and was born a few years before the Christian era, was alawyer and a rhetorician, a teacher and minister of Nero. It was hismisfortune to know one of the most detestable princes that everscandalized humanity, and it is not to his credit to have accumulated, in four years, one of the largest fortunes in Rome, while serving such amaster. But since he lived to experience his ingratitude, he is morecommonly regarded as a martyr. Had he lived in the republican period, hewould have been a great orator. He wrote voluminously on many subjects, and was devoted to a literary life. He rejected the superstitions of hiscountry, and looked upon the ritualism of religion as a mere fashion;but his religion was a mere deism, and he dishonored his own virtues bya compliance with the vices of others. He saw much of life, and died atfifty-three. What is remarkable in his writings, which are clear butlabored, is, that under pagan influences and imperial tyranny, he shouldhave presented such lofty moral truth; and it is a mark of almosttranscendent talent that he should, unaided by Christianity, have soaredso high in the realm of ethical inquiry. Nor is it easy to find anymodern author who has treated great questions in so attractive a way. 

[Sidenote: Quintilian. ]

Quintilian is a Latin classic, and belonged to the class ofrhetoricians, and should have been mentioned among the orators, likeLysias the Greek, a teacher, however, of eloquence, rather than anorator. He was born A. D. 40, and taught the younger Pliny, also twonephews of Domitian, receiving a regular salary from the imperialtreasury. His great work is a complete system of rhetoric. "_Institutiones Oratoriae_" is one of the clearest and fullest ofall rhetorical manuals ever written in any language, although, as aliterary production, inferior to the "_De Oratore_" of Cicero. Itis very practical and sensible, and a complete compendium of every topiclikely to be useful in the education of an aspirant for the honors ofeloquence. In systematic arrangement, it falls short of a similar workby Aristotle; but it is celebrated for its sound judgment and keendiscrimination, showing great reading and reflection. He should beviewed as a critic rather than as a rhetorician, since he entered intothe merits and defects of the great masters of Greek and Romanliterature. In his peculiar province he has had no superior. LikeCicero, or Demosthenes, or Plato, or Thucydides, or Tacitus, he would bea great man if he lived in our times, and could proudly challenge themodern world to produce a better teacher than he in the art of publicspeaking. 

[Sidenote: Lucian. ]

There are other writers of immense fame, who do not represent anyparticular class in the field of literature, which can be compared withthe modern. But I can only draw attention to Lucian, a witty andvoluminous Greek author, who lived in the reign of Commodus, wroterhetorical, critical, and biographical works, and even romances whichhave given hints to modern authors. But his fame rests on his"Dialogues, " intended to ridicule the heathen philosophy and religion, and which show him to have been one of the great masters of ancientsatire and mockery. His style of dialogue--a combination of Plato andAristophanes--is not much used by modern writers, and his peculiar kindof ridicule is reserved now for the stage. Yet he cannot be called awriter of comedy, like MoliEre. He resembles Rabelais and Swift morethan any other modern writers, and has their indignant wit, indecentjokes, and pungent sarcasms. He paints, like Juvenal, the vices andfollies of his time, and exposes the hypocrisy that reigns in the highplaces of fashion and power. His dialogues have been imitated byFontanelle and Lord Lyttleton, but they do not possess his humor orpungency. Lucian does not grapple with great truths, but contentshimself in ridiculing those who have proclaimed them; and, in his coldcynicism, depreciates human knowledge, and all the great moral teachersof mankind. He is even shallow and flippant upon Socrates. But he waswell read in human nature, and superficially acquainted with all thelearning of antiquity. In wit and sarcasm, he may be compared withVoltaire, and his end was the same, to demolish and pull down, withoutsubstituting any thing in its stead. His skepticism was universal, andextended to religion, to philosophy, and to every thing venerated andancient. His purity of style was admired by Erasmus, and he has beentranslated into most European languages. The best English version isrendered by Dr. Franklin, London, 2 vols. 4to. In strong contrast to the"Dialogues" is the "City of God, " by Saint Augustine, in which hedemolishes with keener ridicule all the gods of antiquity, butsubstitutes instead the knowledge of the true God. 

Thus the Romans, as well as Greeks, produced works in all departments ofliterature which will bear comparison with the masterpieces of moderntimes. And where would have been the literature of the early Church, orof modern nations, had not the great original writers of Athens and Romebeen our schoolmasters? And when we further remember that their gloriousliterature was created by native genius, without the aid ofChristianity, we are filled with amazement, and may almost be excused ifwe deify the reason of man. At least we are assured that literature aswell as art may flourish under pagan influences, and that Christianityhas a higher mission than the culture of the mind. Religious skepticismcannot be disarmed if we appeal to Christianity as the test ofintellectual culture. The realm of reason has no fairer fields thanthose which are adorned by pagan art. Nor have greater triumphs ofintellect been witnessed in these, our Christian times, than among thatclass which is the least influenced by Christian ideas. Some of theproudest trophies of genius have been won by infidels, or by menstigmatized as such. Witness Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Hegel, Fichte, Gibbon, Hume, Buckle. And then how many great works are written withoutthe inspiration or the spirit of a living Christianity! How littleBulwer, or Byron, or Dumas, or Goethe owe, apparently, to Christianteachings! Is Emerson superior to Epictetus, in an ethical point ofview? Was Franklin a great philosopher, or Jefferson a great statesman, because they were surrounded by Christian examples? May there not be thegreatest practical infidelity, with the most artistic beauty and nativereach of thought? Milton justly ascribes the most sublime intelligenceto Satan and his angels on the point of rebellion against the majesty ofHeaven. A great genius may be kindled by the fires of discontent andambition, which will quicken the intellectual faculties, even while theyconsume the soul, and spread their devastating influence on the homesand hopes of man. 

 * * * * *

RERERENCES. --There are no better authorities than the classical authorsthemselves, and their works must be studied in order to comprehend thespirit of ancient literature. Modern historians of Roman literature aremerely critics, like Drumann, Schlegel, Niebuhr, Muller, Mommsen, Mure, Arnold, Dunlap, and Thompson. Nor do I know of an exhaustive history ofRoman literature in the English language. Yet nearly every great writerhas occasional criticisms, entitled to respect. The Germans, in thisdepartment, have no equals. As critics and commentators they areunrivaled. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

Whatever may be said of the inferiority of the ancients to the modernsin natural and mechanical science, which no one is disposed to question, or even in the realm of literature, which can be questioned, there wasone department which they carried to absolute perfection, and to whichwe have added nothing of consequence. In the realm of art they were ourequals, and probably our superiors; in philosophy they carried logicaldeductions to their utmost limit. They created the science. Theyadvanced, from a few crude speculations on material phenomena, to ananalysis of all the powers of the mind, and finally to the establishmentof ethical principles which even Christianity did not overturn. Theprogress of the science, from Thales to Plato, is the most stupendoustriumph of the human understanding. The reason of man soared to theloftiest flights that it has ever attained. It cast its searching eyeinto the most abstruse inquiries which ever tasked the famous intellectsof the world. It exhausted all the subjects which dialectical subtletyever raised. It originated and it carried out the boldest speculationsrespecting the nature of the soul and its future existence. Itestablished most important psychological truths. It created a method forthe solution of the most abstruse questions. It went on, from point topoint, until all the faculties of the mind were severely analyzed, andall its operations were subjected to a rigid method. The Romans neveradded a single principle to the philosophy which the Greeks elaborated;the ingenious scholastics of the Middle Ages merely reproduced theirideas; and even the profound and patient Germans have gone round in thesame circles that Plato and Aristotle marked out more than two thousandyears ago. It was Greek philosophy in which noble Roman youth wereeducated, and hence, as it was expounded by a Cicero, a Marcus Aurelius, and an Epictetus, it was as much the inheritance of the Romans as it wasof the Greeks themselves, after their political liberties were sweptaway, and the Grecian cities formed a part of the Roman empire. TheRomans learned, or might have learned, what the Greeks created andtaught, and philosophy became, as well as art, identified with thecivilization which extended from the Rhine and the Po to the Nile andthe Tigris. Grecian philosophy was one of the distinctive features ofancient civilization long after the Greeks had ceased to speculate onthe laws of mind, or the nature of the soul, or the existence of God, orfuture rewards and punishments. Although it was purely Grecian in itsorigin and development, it cannot be left out of the survey of thetriumphs of the human mind when the Romans were masters of the world, and monopolized the fruits of all the arts and sciences. It became oneof the grand ornaments of the Roman schools, one of the pricelesspossessions of the Roman conquerors. The Romans did not originatemedicine, but Galen was one of its greatest lights; they did not inventthe hexameter verse, but Virgil sung to its measure; they did not createIonic capitals, but their cities were ornamented with marble temples onthe same principles as those which called out the admiration ofPericles. So, if they did not originate philosophy, and generally hadbut little taste for it, still its truths were systematized andexplained by Cicero, and formed no small accession to the treasures withwhich cultivated intellects sought everywhere to be enriched. It formedan essential part of the intellectual wealth of the civilized world, when civilization could not prevent the world from falling into decayand ruin. And as it was the noblest triumph which the human mind, underpagan influences, ever achieved, so it was followed by the mostdegrading imbecility into which man, in civilized countries, was everallowed to fall. Philosophy, like art, like literature, like science, arose, shined, grew dim, and passed away, and left the world in night. Why was so bright a glory followed by so dismal a shame? What a commentis this on the greatness and littleness of man!

[Sidenote: Commencement of Grecian speculations. ]

The development of Greek philosophy is doubtless one commence-of themost interesting and instructive subjects Grecian in the whole historyof mind. In all probability it originated with the Ionian Sophoi, thoughmany suppose it was derived from the East. It is questionable whetherthe oriental nations had any philosophy distinct from religion. TheGermans are fond of tracing resemblances in the early speculations ofthe Greeks to the systems which prevailed in Asia from a very remoteantiquity. Gladish sees in the Pythagorean system an adoption of Chinesedoctrines; in the Heraclitic system, the influence of Persia; in theEmpedoclean, Egyptian speculations; and in the Anaxagorean, the Jewishcreeds. [Footnote: Lewes, _Biog. Hist. Of Philos_. , Introd. ] Butthe Orientals had theogonies, not philosophies. The Indian speculationsaim to an exposition of ancient revelation. They profess to liberate thesoul from the evils of mortal life--to arrive at eternal beatitudes. Butthe state of perfectibility could only be reached by religiousceremonial observances and devout contemplation. The Indian systems donot disdain logical discussions, or a search after the principles ofwhich the universe is composed; and hence we find great refinements insophistry, and a wonderful subtlety of logical discussion; but these aredirected to unattainable ends, --to the connection of good with evil, andthe union of the supreme with nature. Nothing came out of thesespeculations but an occasional elevation of mind among the learned, anda profound conviction of the misery of man and the obstacles to hisperfection. [Footnote: See Archer Butler's fine lecture on the IndianPhilosophies. ] The Greeks, starting from physical phenomena, went on insuccessive series of inquiries, until they elevated themselves abovematter, above experience, even to the loftiest abstractions, and untilthey classified the laws of thought. It is curious how speculation ledto demonstration, and how inquiries into the world of matter preparedthe way for the solution of intellectual phenomena. Philosophy kept pacewith geometry, and those who observed nature also gloried in abstrusecalculations. Philosophy and mathematics seem to have been allied withthe worship of art among the same men, and it is difficult to say whichmore distinguished them, aesthetic culture or power of abstrusereasoning. 

[Sidenote: Thales. ]

[Sidenote: Water the vital principle of Nature. ]

We do not read of any remarkable philosophical inquirer until Thalesarose, the first of the Ionian school. He was born at Miletus, a Greekcolony in Asia Minor, about the year B. C. 636, when Ancus Martius wasking of Rome, and Josiah reigned at Jerusalem. He has left no writingsbehind him, but he was numbered as one of the seven wise men of Greece. He was numbered with the wise men on account of his political sagacityand wisdom in public affairs. [Footnote: Miller, Hist, of Grec. Lit. , ch. Xvii. ]

 "And he, 't is said, did first compute the stars Which beam in Charles' wain, and guide the bark Of the Phoenician sailor o'er the sea. "

He was the first who attempted a logical solution of material phenomena, without resorting to mythical representations. Thales felt that therewas a grand question to be answered relative to the _beginning ofthings_. "Philosophy, " it has been well said, "may be a history of_errors_, but not of _follies_" It was not a folly, in a rudeage, to speculate on the first or fundamental principle of things. Helooked around him upon Nature, upon the sea and earth and sky, andconcluded that water or moisture was the vital principle. He felt it inthe air, he saw it in the clouds above, and in the ground beneath hisfeet. He saw that plants were sustained by rain and by the dew, thatneither animal nor man could live without water, and that to fishes itwas the native element. What more important or vital than water? It wasthe _prima materia_, the [Greek: archae], the beginning of all things--theorigin of the world. [Footnote: Aristotle, _Metaph. _, 1. C. 3;Diog. Laertius, _Thales_. ] I do not here speak of his astronomicaland geometrical labors--as the first to have divided the year into threehundred and sixty-five days. He is celebrated also for practical wisdom. "Know thyself, " is one of his remarkable sayings. But the foundationprinciple of his philosophy was that water is the first cause of allthings--the explanation, of the origin of the universe. How so crude aspeculation could have been maintained by so wise a man it is difficultto conjecture. It is not, however, the _reason_ which he assignsfor the beginning of things which is noteworthy, so much as the_fact_ that his mind was directed to the solution of questionspertaining to the origin of the universe. It was these questions whichmarked the Ionian philosophers. It was these which showed the inquiringnature of their minds. What is the great first cause of all things?Thales saw it in one of the four elements of nature, as the ancientsdivided them. And it is the earliest recorded theory among the Greeks ofthe origin of the world. It is an induction from the phenomena ofanimated nature--the nutrition and production of a seed. [Footnote:Bitter, b. Iii. C. 3; Lewes, ch. 1. ] He regarded the entire world in thelight of a living being gradually maturing and forming itself from animperfect seed state, which was of a moist nature. This moisture enduesthe universe with vitality. The world, he thought, was full of gods, butthey had their origin in water. He had no conception of God as_Intelligence_, or as a _creative_ power. He had a great andinquiring mind, but he was a pagan, with no knowledge of a spiritual andcontrolling and personal deity. 

[Sidenote: Anaximenes. Air the _animus mundi_. ]

Anaximenes, his disciple, pursued his inquiries, and adopted his method. He also was born in Miletus, but at what time is unknown, probably B. C. 529. Like Thales, he held to the eternity of matter. Like him, hedisbelieved in the existence of any thing immaterial, for even a humansoul is formed out of matter. He, too, speculated on the origin of theuniverse, but thought that _air_, not water, was the primal cause. [Footnote: Cicero, _De Nat. D_. , i. 10. ] This seemed to beuniversal. We breathe it; all things are sustained by it. It is Life--that is pregnant with vital energy, and capable of infinitetransmutations. All things are produced by it; all is again resolvedinto it; it supports all things; it surrounds the world; it hasinfinitude; it has eternal motion. Thus did this philosopher reason, comparing the world with our own living existence, --which he took to beair, --an imperishable principle of life. He thus advanced a step onThales, since he regarded the world not after the analogy of animperfect seed-state, but that of the highest condition of life, --thehuman soul. [Footnote: Ritter, b. Iii. C. 3. ] And he attempted to referto one general law all the transformations of the first simple substanceinto its successive states, for the cause of change is the eternalmotion of the air. 

[Sidenote: Diogenes. Air and soul identical. ]

Diogenes of Apollonia, in Crete, one of his disciples, born B. C. 460, also believed that air was the principle of the universe, but he imputedto it an intellectual energy, yet without recognizing any distinctionbetween mind and matter. [Footnote: Diog. Laert. , ii. 3; Bayle, _Dict. Hist. Et Crit. _] He made air and the soul identical. "For, " says he, "man and all other animals breathe and live by means of the air, andtherein consists their soul. " [Footnote: Ritter, b. Iii. C. 3. ] And asit is the primary being from which all is derived, it is necessarily aneternal and imperishable body; but, as _soul_, it is also enduedwith consciousness. Diogenes thus refers the origin of the world to anintelligent being--to a soul which knows and vivifies. Anaximenesregarded air as having Life. Diogenes saw in it also Intelligence. Thusphilosophy advanced step by step, though still groping in the dark; forthe origin of all things, according to Diogenes, must exist in_Intelligence_. 

[Sidenote: Heraclitus--Fire the principle of life. ]

Heraclitus of Ephesus, classed by Ritter among the Ionian philosophers, was born B. C. 503. Like others of his school, he sought a physicalground for all phenomena. The elemental principle he regarded as_fire_, since all things are convertible into it. In one of itsmodifications, this fire, or fluid, self-kindled, permeating every thingas the soul or principle of life, is endowed with intelligence andpowers of ceaseless activity. "If Anaximenes discovered that he hadwithin him a power and principle which ruled over all the acts andfunctions of his bodily frame, Heraclitus found that there was lifewithin him which he could not call his own, and yet it was, in the veryhighest sense, _himself_, so that without it he would have been apoor, helpless, isolated creature; a universal life which connected himwith his fellow-men, --with the absolute source and original fountain oflife. " [Footnote: Maurice, _Moral and Metaph. Phil. _] "Heproclaimed the absolute vitality of nature, the endless change ofmatter, the mutability and perishability of all individual things incontrast with the eternal Being--the supreme harmony which rules overall. " [Footnote: Lewes, _Biog. Hist. Of Phil. _] To trace the divineenergy of life in all things was the general problem of his philosophy, and this spirit was akin to the pantheism of the East. But he was one ofthe greatest speculative intellects that preceded Plato, and of all thephysical theorists arrived nearest to spiritual truth. He taught thegerms of what was afterwards more completely developed. "From his theoryof perpetual fluxion Plato derived the necessity of seeking a stablebasis for the universal system in his world of ideas. " [Footnote: ArcherButler, series i. Lect. V. ; Hegel, _Gesch. D. Phil. _, i. P. 334. ]

Anaxagoras, the most famous of the Ionian philosophers, was born B. C. 500, and belonged to a rich and noble family. Regarding philosophy asthe noblest pursuit of earth, he abandoned his inheritance for the studyof nature. He went to Athens in the most brilliant period of her history, and had Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates for pupils. He taught that thegreat moving force of nature was intellect [Greek: nous]. Intelligencewas the cause of the world and of order, and mind was the principle ofmotion; yet this intelligence was not a moral intelligence, but simplythe _primum mobile_--the all-knowing motive force by which theorder of nature is effected. He thus laid the foundation of a new systemwhich, under the Attic philosophers, sought to explain nature, not byregarding matter in its different forms, as the cause of all things, butrather mind, thought, intelligence, which both knows and acts--a grandconception unrivaled in ancient speculation. This explanation ofmaterial phenomena by intellectual causes was his peculiar merit, andplaces him in a very high rank among the thinkers of the world. Moreover, he recognized the reason as the only faculty by which webecome cognizant of truth, the senses being too weak to discover thereal component particles of things. Like all the great inquirers, he wasimpressed with the limited degree of positive knowledge, compared withwhat there is to be learned. "Nothing, " says he, "can be known; nothingis certain; sense is limited, intellect is weak, life is short"[Footnote: Cicero, _Qu. Ac. _, i. 12. ]--the complaint, not of askeptic, but of a man overwhelmed with the sense of his incapacity tosolve the problems which arose before his active mind. [Footnote:Lucret. , lib. I. 834-875. ] Anaxagoras thought that this spirit [Greek:Nous] gave to all those material atoms, which, in the beginning of theworld, lay in disorder, the impulse by which they took the forms ofindividual things, and that this impulse was given in a circular direction. Hence that the sun, moon, and stars, and even the air, are constantlymoving in a circle. [Footnote: Muller, _Hist. Lit. Of Greece_, chap. Xvii. ]

[Sidenote: Anaximander thought that the Infinite is the origin ofthings. ]

In the mean time another sect of philosophers arose, who like theIonians, sought to explain nature, but by a different method. Anaximander, born B. C. 610, was one of the original mathematicians ofGreece, yet, like Pythagoras and Thales, speculated on the beginning ofthings. His principle was that the _Infinite_ is the origin of all things. He used the word [Greek: archae] to denote the material out of whichall things were formed, as the everlasting and divine. [Footnote: Arist. , _Phy_. , iii. 4. ] The idea of elevating an abstraction into a greatfirst cause is certainly puerile, nor is it easy to understand hismeaning, other than that the abstract has a higher significance than theconcrete. The speculations of Thales tended toward discovering thematerial constitution of the universe, upon an _induction_ fromobserved facts, and thus made water to be the origin of all things. Anaximander, accustomed to view things in the abstract, could not acceptso concrete a thing as water; his speculations tended towardmathematics, to the science of pure _deduction_. The primary beingis a unity, one in all, comprising within itself the multiplicity ofelements from which all mundane things are composed. It is only ininfinity that the perpetual changes of things can take place. [Footnote:Diog. Laert. , i. 119; Cicero, _Tus. Qu. _, i. 16; Tennemann, p. 1, ch. I. Sec. 86. ] This original but obscure thinker prepared the way forPythagoras. 

[Sidenote: Pythagoras--Number the essence of things. ]

[Sidenote: Order and harmony in nature. ]

This philosopher and mathematician, born about the year B. C. 570, is oneof the great names of antiquity; but his life is shrouded in dimmagnificence. The old historians paint him as "clothed in robes ofwhite, his head covered with gold, his aspect grave and majestic, wraptin the contemplation of the mysteries of existence, listening to themusic of Homer and Hesiod, or to the harmony of the spheres. " [Footnote:Lewes, _Biog. Hist. Phil. _] To him is ascribed the use of the word_philosopher_ rather than _sophos_, a lover of wisdom, not wiseman. He taught his doctrines to a select few, the members of whichsociety lived in common, and venerated him as an oracle. His greatdoctrine is, that _number_ is the essence of things, by which isunderstood the _form_ and not the _matter_ of the sensible. The elements of numbers are the _odd_ and _even_, the formerbeing regarded as limited, the latter unlimited. Diogenes Laertius thussums up his doctrines, which were that "the _monad_ is--thebeginning of every thing. From the monad proceeds an indefinite_duad_. From the monad and the duad proceed _numbers_, and fromnumbers _signs_, and from these _lines_, of which plain figuresconsist. And from plain figures are derived solid bodies, andfrom these sensible bodies, of which there are four elements, fire, water, earth, and air. The world results from a combination of theseelements. " [Footnote: Diog. Laert. , _Lives of Phil. _] All this isunintelligible or indefinite. We cannot comprehend how the number theorywill account for the production of corporeal magnitude any easier thanwe can identify monads with mathematical points. But underlying thismysticism is the thought that there prevails in the phenomena of naturea rational _order, harmony_, and conformity to _law_, and thatthese laws can be represented by numbers. Number or harmony is theprinciple of the universe, and order holds together the world. LikeAnaximander, he passes from the region of physics to metaphysics, andthus opens a new world of speculation. His method was purely deductive, and his science mathematical. "The _Infinite_ of Anaximander becamethe _One_ of Pythagoras. " Assuming that number is the essence ofthe world, he deduced that the world is regulated by numericalproportions, in other words, by a system of laws, and these laws, regular and harmonious in their operation, _may_ have suggested tothe great mind of Pythagoras, so religious and lofty, the necessity foran intelligent creator of the universe. It was in moral truth that hedelighted as well as metaphysical, and his life and the lives of hisdisciples were disciplined to a severe virtue, as if he recognized innumbers or order the necessity of a conformity to all law, and saw inobedience to it both harmony and beauty. But we have no _direct_and positive evidence of the kind or amount of knowledge which thisgreat intellect acquired. All that can be affirmed is, that he was a manof extensive attainments; that he was a great mathematician, that he wasvery religious, that he devoted himself to doing good, that he placedhappiness in the virtues of the soul or the perfect science of numbers, and made a likeness to the Deity the object of all endeavors. Hebelieved that the soul was incorporeal, [Footnote: Ritter, b. Iv. Chapi. ] and is put into the body by the means of number and harmonicalrelation, and thus subject to a divine regulation. Every thing wasregarded by him in a moral light. The order of the universe is only aharmonical development of the first principle of all things to virtueand wisdom. [Footnote: Our knowledge of Pythagoras is chiefly derivedfrom Aristotle. Both Ritter and Brandis have presented his viewselaborately, but with more clearness than was to be expected. ] Heattached great value to music, as a subject of precise mathematicalcalculation, and an art which has a great effect on the affections. Hence morals and mathematics were linked together in his mind. As theheavens were ordered in consonance with number, they must move ineternal order. "The spheres" revolved in harmonious order around thegreat centre of light and heat--the sun--"the throne of the elementalworld. " Hence the doctrine of "the music of the spheres. " _Pythagorasad harmoniam canere mundum existimat_. [Footnote: Cicero, _De Nat. D_. , iii. Ii. 27. ] The tendency of his speculations, obscure as theyare to us, was to raise the soul to a contemplation of order and beautyand law, in the material universe, and hence to the contemplation of asupreme intelligence reigning in justice and truth. Justice and truthbecame therefore paramount virtues, to be practiced, to be sought as thegreat end of life, allied with the order of the universe, and withmathematical essences--the attributes of the deity, the sublime unitywhich he adored. 

The Ionic philosophers, and the Pythagoreans, sought to find the natureor first principle of all things in the elements, or in numbers. But theEleatics went beyond the realm of physics to pure metaphysicalinquiries. This is the second stage in the history of philosophy--anidealistic pantheism, which disregarded the sensible and maintained thatthe source of all truth is independent of sense. 

[Sidenote: Xenophanes. --God the first great cause. ]

The founder of this school was Xenophanes, born in Colophon, an Ioniancity of Asia Minor, from which, being expelled, he wandered over Sicilyas a rhapsodist or minstrel, reciting his elegiac poetry on the loftiesttruths; and at last came to Elea, about the year 536, where he settled. The great subject of his inquiries was God himself--the first greatcause--the supreme intelligence of the universe. "From the principle_ex nihilo nihil fit_, he concluded that nothing could pass fromnon-existence to existence. All things that exist are eternal andimmutable. God, as the most perfect essence, is eternally One, unalterable, neither finite nor infinite, neither movable nor immovable, and not to be represented under any human semblance. " [Footnote:Tennemann, _Hist. Of Phil. _, p. 1, Section 98. ] What a greatstride was this! Whence did he derive his opinions? He starts with theproposition that God is an all-powerful being, and denies all beginningof being, and hence infers that God must be from eternity. From thistruth he advances to deny all multiplicity. A plurality of gods isimpossible. With these sublime views--the unity and eternity andomnipotence of God--he boldly attacked the popular errors of his day. Hedenounced the transference to the deity of the human form; he inveighedagainst Homer and Hesiod; he ridiculed the doctrine of migration ofsouls. Thus he sings, --

 "Such things of the gods are related by Homer and Hesiod, As would be shame and abiding disgrace to mankind, -- Promises broken, and thefts, and the one deceiving the other. "

[Footnote: See Ritter, on Xenophanes. See note 20, in Archer Butler, series i. Lect vi. ]

And, again, respecting anthropomorphic representations of the Deity, --

 "But men foolishly think that gods are born like as men are, And have, too, a dress like their own, and their voice and their figure But there's but one God alone, the greatest of gods and of mortals, Neither in body, to mankind resembling, neither in ideas. "

God seen in all the manifestations of nature. 

[Sidenote: God seen in all manifestations of nature. ]

[Sidenote: He sought to create a knowledge of God. ]

Such were his sublime meditations. He believed in the _One_, whichis God; but this all-pervading, unmoved, undivided being was not apersonal God, nor a moral governor, but the deity pervading all space. He could not separate God from the world, nor could he admit theexistence of world which is not God. He was a monotheist, but hismonotheism was pantheism. He saw God in all the manifestations ofnature. This did not satisfy him, nor resolve his doubts, and hetherefore confessed that reason could not compass the exalted aims ofphilosophy. But there was no cynicism in his doubt. It was the soul-sickening consciousness that Reason was incapable of solving the mightyquestions that he burned to know. There was no way to arrive at thetruth, "for, " as he said, "error is spread over all things. " It was notdisdain of knowledge, it was the combat of contradictory opinions thatoppressed him. He could not solve the questions pertaining to God. Whatuninstructed reason can? "Canst thou by searching find out God, canstthou know the Almighty unto perfection. " What was impossible to Job, wasnot possible to him. But he had attained a recognition of the unity andperfections of God, and this conviction he would spread abroad, and teardown the superstitions which hid the face of truth. I have greatadmiration of this philosopher, so sad, so earnest, so enthusiastic, wandering from city to city, indifferent to money, comfort, friends, fame, that he might kindle the knowledge of God. This was a lofty aimindeed for philosophy in that age. It was a higher mission than that ofHomer, [Footnote: Lewes has some shallow remarks on this point, althoughspirited and readable. Ritter is more earnest. ] great as his was, butnot so successful. 

Parmenides of Elea, born about the year B. C. 536, followed out thesystem of Xenophanes, the central idea of which was the existence ofGod. With him the central idea was the notion of _being_. Being isuncreated and unchangeable; the fullness of all being is _thought_;the _All_ is thought and intelligence. He maintained the uncertaintyof knowledge; but meant the knowledge derived through the senses. He did not deny the certainty of reason. He was the first who drewa distinction between knowledge obtained by the senses, and thatobtained through the reason; and thus he anticipated the doctrine ofinnate ideas. From the uncertainty of knowledge derived through thesenses, he deduced the twofold system of true and apparent knowledge. [Footnote: Prof. Brandis's article in Smith's _Dictionary_. ]

[Sidenote: Zeno introduces a new method. ]

Zeno of Elea, the friend and pupil of Parmenides, born B. C. 500, broughtnothing new to the system, but invented _Dialectics_, that logicwhich afterwards became so powerful in the hands of Plato and Aristotle, and so generally admired among the schoolmen. It seeks to establishtruth by refuting error by the _reductio ad absurdum_. WhileParmenides sought to establish the doctrine of the _One_, Zenoproved the non-existence of the _Many_. He denied that appearanceswere real existences, but did not deny existences. It was the mission ofZeno to establish the doctrines of his master. But, in order to convincehis listeners, he was obliged to use a new method of argument. So hecarried on his argumentation by question and answer, and was, therefore, the first who used dialogue as a medium of philosophical communication. [Footnote: Cousin, _Nouveaux Fragments Philosophiques_. ]

[Sidenote: Empedocles. --Love the moving cause of all things. ]

Empedocles, born B. C. 444, like others of the Eleatics, complained ofthe imperfection of the senses, and looked for truth only in reason. Heregarded truth as a perfect unity, ruled by love, --the only true force, the one moving cause of all things, --the first creative power by whomthe world was formed. Thus "God is love, " a sublime doctrine whichphilosophy revealed to the Greeks. 

[Sidenote: The loftiness of the Eleatic philosophers. ]

Thus did the Eleatic philosophers speculate almost contemporaneouslywith the Ionians, on the beginning of things and the origin ofknowledge, taking different grounds, and attempting to correct therepresentations of sense by the notions of reason. But both schools, although they did not establish many truths, raised an inquisitivespirit and awakened freedom of thought and inquiry. They raised upworkmen for more enlightened times, even as scholastic inquirers in theMiddle Ages prepared the way for the revival of philosophy on sounderprinciples. They were all men of remarkable elevation of character aswell as genius. They hated superstitions and attacked theAnthropomorphism of their day. They handled gods and goddesses withallegorizing boldness, and hence were often persecuted by the people. They did not establish moral truths by scientific processes, but theyset examples of lofty disdain of wealth and factitious advantages, anddevoted themselves with holy enthusiasm to the solution of the greatquestions which pertain to God and nature. Thales won the respect of hiscountrymen by devotion to studies. Pythagoras spent twenty-two years inEgypt to learn its science. Xenophanes wandered over Sicily as arhapsodist of truth. Parmenides, born to wealth and splendor, forsookthe feverish pursuit of sensual enjoyments to contemplate "the quiet andstill air of delightful studies. " Zeno declined all worldly honors todiffuse the doctrines of his master. Heraclitus refused the chiefmagistracy of Ephesus that he might have leisure to explore the depthsof his own nature. Anaxagoras allowed his patrimony to run to waste inorder to solve problems. "To philosophy, " said he, "I owe my worldlyruin and my soul's prosperity. " They were, without exception, thegreatest and best men of their times. They laid the foundation of thebeautiful temple which was constructed after they were dead, in whichboth physics and psychology reached the dignity of science. [Footnote:Archer Butler in his lecture on the Eleatic school follows closely, andexpounds clearly, the views of Ritter. ]

Nevertheless, these great men, lofty as were their inquiries, andblameless their lives, had not established any system, nor any theorieswhich were incontrovertible. They had simply speculated, and the worldridiculed their speculations. They were one-sided; and, when pushed outto their extreme logical sequence, were antagonistic to each other, which had a tendency to produce doubt and skepticism. Men denied theexistence of the gods, and the grounds of certainty fell away from thehuman mind. 

[Sidenote: Circumstances which favoured the Sophists. ]

[Sidenote: Character of the Sophists. ]

This spirit of skepticism was favored by the tide of worldliness andprosperity which followed the Persian War. Athens became a great centreof art, of taste, of elegance, and of wealth. Politics absorbed theminds of the people. Glory and splendor were followed by corruption ofmorals and the pursuit of material pleasures. Philosophy went out offashion, since it brought no outward and tangible good. More scientificstudies were pursued--those which could be applied to purposes ofutility and material gains; even, as in our day, geology, chemistry, mechanics, engineering, having reference to the practical wants of men, command talent, and lead to certain reward. In Athens, rhetoric, mathematics, and natural history supplanted rhapsodies and speculationson God and Providence. Renown and wealth could only be secured byreadiness and felicity of speech, and that was most valued which broughtimmediate reward, like eloquence. Men began to practice eloquence as an_art_, and to employ it in furthering their interests. They madespecial pleadings, since it was their object to gain their point, at anyexpense of law and justice. Hence they taught that nothing was immutablyright, but only so by convention. They undermined all confidence intruth and religion by teaching its uncertainty. They denied to men eventhe capability of arriving at truth. They practically affirmed the coldand cynical doctrine that there is nothing better for a man than that heshould eat and drink. _Qui bono_, the cry of the Epicureans, of thelatter Romans, and of most men in a period of great outward prosperity, was the popular inquiry, --who shall show us any good?--how can we becomerich, strong, honorable?--this was the spirit of that class of publicteachers who arose in Athens when art and eloquence and wealth andsplendor were at their height in the fifth century before Christ, andwhen the elegant Pericles was the leader of fashion and of politicalpower. 

[Sidenote: Power and popularity of the Sophists. ]

[Sidenote: Influence of the Sophists. ]

These men were the Sophists--rhetorical men who taught the children ofthe rich; worldly men who sought honor and power; frivolous men, trifling with philosophical ideas; skeptical men, denying all certaintyto truths; men who, as teachers, added nothing to the realm of science, but who yet established certain dialectical rules useful to laterphilosophers. They were a wealthy, powerful, honored class, not muchesteemed by men of thought, but sought out as very successful teachersof rhetoric. They were full of logical tricks, and contrived to throwridicule upon profound inquiries. They taught also mathematics, astronomy, philology, and natural history with success. They werepolished men of society, not profound nor religious, but very brilliantas talkers, and very ready in wit and sophistry. And some of them weremen of great learning and talent, like Democritus, Leucippus, andGorgias. They were not pretenders and quacks; they were skeptics whodenied subjective truths, and labored for outward advantage. They weremen of general information, skilled in subtleties, of powerful socialand political connections, and were generally selected as ambassadors ondifficult missions. They taught the art of disputation, and soughtsystematic methods of proof. They thus prepared the way for a moreperfect philosophy than that taught by the Ionians, the Pythagoreans, orthe Elentae, since they showed the vagueness of their inquiries, conjectural rather than scientific. They had no doctrines in common. They were the barristers of their age, _paid_ to make the "worseappear the better reason, " yet not teachers of immorality any more thanthe lawyers of our day, --men of talents, the intellectual leaders ofsociety. If they did not advance positive truths, they were useful inthe method they created. They taught the art of disputation. Theydoubtless quibbled when they had a bad cause to present. They broughtout the truth more forcibly when they defended a good cause. They had nohostility to truth; they only doubted whether it could be reached in therealm of psychological inquiries, and sought to apply it to their ownpurposes, or rather to distort it in order to gain a case. They are nota class of men whom I admire, as I do the old sages they ridiculed, butthey were not without their use in the development of philosophy. [Footnote: Grote has a fine chapter on the Sophists (part ii. Ch. 67). ]The Sophists also rendered a service to literature by givingdefiniteness to language, and creating style in prose writing. Protagoras investigated the principles of accurate composition; Prodicusbusied himself with inquiries into the significance of words; Gorgiasproposed a captivating style. He gave symmetry to the structure ofsentences. 

[Sidenote: Socrates. ]

[Sidenote: The method of Socrates. ]

[Sidenote: Ethical inquiries of Socrates. ]

The ridicule and skepticism of the Sophists brought out the great powersof Socrates, to whom philosophy is probably more indebted than to anyman who ever lived, not so much for a perfect system, but for theimpulse he gave to philosophical inquiries, and his successful exposureof error. He inaugurated a new era. Born in Athens in the year 470 B. C. , the son of a poor sculptor, he devoted his life to the search for truth, for its own sake, and sought to base it on immutable foundations. He wasthe mortal enemy of the Sophists, whom he encountered, as Pascal did theJesuits, with wit, irony, puzzling questions, and remorseless logic. Like the earlier philosophers, he disdained wealth, ease, and comfort, but with greater devotion than they, since he lived in a more corruptage, when poverty was a disgrace and misfortune a crime, when successwas the standard of merit, and every man was supposed to be the arbiterof his own fortune, ignoring that Providence who so often refuses therace to the swift and the battle to the strong. He was what in our timewould be called eccentric. He walked barefooted, meanly clad, and withalnot over cleanly, seeking public places, disputing with every bodywilling to talk with him, making every body ridiculous, especially ifone assumed airs of wisdom or knowledge, --an exasperating opponent, since he wove a web around a man from which he could not be extricated, and then exposed him to ridicule, in the wittiest city of the world. Heattacked every body, and yet was generally respected, since it was_errors_ and not the person, _opinions_ rather than vices; andthis he did with bewitching eloquence and irresistible fascination; sothat, though he was poor and barefooted, a Silenus in appearance, withthick lips, upturned nose, projecting eyes, unwieldy belly, he wassought by Alcibiades and admired by Aspasia. Even Xantippe, a beautifulyoung woman, very much younger than he, a woman fond of the comforts andpleasures of life, was willing to be his wife, even if she didafterwards torment him, when the _res angusta domi_ disenchantedher from the music of his voice and the divinity of his nature. "I haveheard Pericles, " said the most dissipated and voluptuous man in Athens, "and other excellent orators, but was not moved by them; while thisMarsyas--this Satyr--so affects me that the life I lead is hardly worthliving, and I stop my ears, as from the Syrens, and flee as fast aspossible, that I may not sit down and grow old in listening to histalk. " He learned his philosophy from no one, and struck out an entirelynew path. He declared his own ignorance, and sought to convince otherpeople of theirs. He did not seek to reveal truth so much as to exposeerror. And yet it was his object to attain correct ideas as to moralobligations. He was the first who recognized natural right, and heldthat virtue and vice are inseparably united. He proclaimed thesovereignty of virtue, and the immutability of justice. He sought todelineate and enforce the practical duties of life. His great object wasthe elucidation of morals, and he was the first to teach ethicssystematically, and from the immutable principles of moral obligation. Moral certitude was the lofty platform from which he surveyed the world, and upon which, as a rock, he rested in the storms of life. Thus he wasa reformer and a moralist. It was his ethical doctrines which were mostantagonistic to the age, and the least appreciated. He was a profoundlyreligious man, recognized Providence, and believed in the immortality ofthe soul. From the abyss of doubt, which succeeded the speculations ofthe first philosophers, he would plant grounds of certitude--a ladderon which he would mount to the sublime regions of absolute truth. He didnot presume to inquire into the Divine essence, yet he believed that thegods were omniscient and omnipresent, that they ruled by the law ofgoodness, and that, in spite of their multiplicity, there was unity--asupreme intelligence that governed the world. Hence he was hated by theSophists, who denied the certainty of arriving at the knowledge of God. From the comparative worthlessness of the body he deduced theimmortality of the soul. With him, the end of life was reason andintelligence. He proved the existence of God by the order and harmony ofnature, which belief was certain. He endeavored to connect the moralwith the religious consciousness, and then he proclaimed his convictionsfor the practical welfare of society. In this light Socrates stands outthe grandest personage of pagan antiquity, --as a moralist, as a teacherof ethics, as a man who recognized the Divine. 

[Sidenote: The mission of Socrates. ]

[Sidenote: The great aim of the Socratic method. ]

So far as he was concerned in the development of Grecian philosophyproper, he was probably inferior to some of his disciples. Yet he gave aturning-point to a new period, when he awakened the _idea_ ofknowledge, and was the founder of the theory of scientific knowledge, since he separated the legitimate bounds of inquiry, and was thus theprecursor of Bacon and Pascal. He did not attempt to make physicsexplain metaphysics, nor metaphysics the phenomena of the natural world. And he only reasoned from what was assumed to be true and invariable. Hewas a great pioneer of philosophy, since he resorted to inductivemethods of proof, and gave general definiteness to ideas. [Footnote:Arist. , _Metaph_. , xiii. 4. ] He gave a new method, and used greatprecision of language. Although he employed induction, it was his aim towithdraw the mind from the contemplation of nature, and to fix it on itsown phenomena, --to look inward rather than outward, as carried out soadmirably by Plato. The previous philosophers had given their attentionto external nature; he gave up speculations about material phenomena, and directed his inquiries solely to the nature of knowledge. And, as heconsidered knowledge to be identical with virtue, he speculated onethical questions mainly, and the method which he taught was that bywhich alone man could become better and wiser. To know one's self, inother words, "that the proper study of mankind is man, " he was the firstto proclaim. He did not disdain the subjects which chiefly interestedthe Sophists, --astronomy, rhetoric, physics; but he discussed moralquestions, such as, what is piety? what is the just and the unjust? whatis temperance? what is courage? what is the character fit for acitizen?--and such like ethical points. And he discussed them in apeculiar manner, in a method peculiarly his own. "Professing ignorance, he put perhaps this question--What is law? It was familiar and wasanswered off-hand. Socrates, having got the answer, then put freshquestions applicable to specific cases, to which the respondent wascompelled to give an answer inconsistent with the first, thus showingthat the _definition_ was too narrow or too wide, or defective insome essential condition. [Footnote: Grote, part ii. Ch. 68. ] Therespondent then amended his answer; but this was a prelude to otherquestions, which could only be answered in ways inconsistent with theamendment; and the respondent, after many attempts to disentanglehimself, was obliged to plead guilty to his inconsistencies, with anadmission that he could make no satisfactory answer to the originalinquiry which had at first appeared so easy. " Thus, by this system ofcross-examination, he showed the intimate connection between thedialectic method, and the logical distribution of particulars intospecies and genera. The discussion first turns upon the meaning of somegeneric term; the queries bring the answers into collision with variousparticulars which it ought not to comprehend, or which it ought tocomprehend, but does not. He broke up the one into many by hisanalytical string of questions, which was a novel mode of argument. Thiswas the method which he invented, and by which he separated _real_knowledge from the _conceit_ of knowledge, and led to precision inthe use of definitions. It was thus that he exposed the false, withoutaiming even to teach the true; for he generally professed ignorance, andput himself in the attitude of a learner, while he made by his cross-examinations the man from whom he apparently sought knowledge to be asignorant as himself, or, still worse, absolutely ridiculous. Thus hepulled away all the foundations on which a false science had beenerected, and indicated the way by which alone the true could beestablished. Here he was not unlike Bacon, who pointed out the way thatscience could be advanced, without founding any school or advocating anysystem; but he was unlike Bacon in the object of his inquiries. Baconwas disgusted with ineffective _logical_ speculations, and Socrateswith ineffective _physical_ researches. [Footnote: Archer Butler, s. I. 1. Vii. ] He never suffered a general term to remain undetermined, but applied it at once to particulars, and by questions the purport ofwhich was not comprehended. It was not by positive teaching, but byexciting scientific impulse in the minds of others, or stirring up theanalytical faculties, which constitute his originality. "The Socraticdialectics, clearing away, " says Grote, [Footnote: Grote, part ii. Ch. 68; Maurice, _Ancient Philosophy_, p. 119. ] "from the mind its mistof fancied knowledge, and, laying bare the real ignorance, produced animmediate effect like the touch of the torpedo; the newly createdconsciousness of ignorance was humiliating and painful, yet it wascombined with a yearning after truth never before experienced. Suchintellectual quickening, which could never commence until the mind hadbeen disabused of its original illusion of false knowledge, wasconsidered by Socrates not merely as the index and precursor, but as theindisputable condition of future progress. " It was the aim of Socratesto force the seekers after truth into the path of inductivegeneralization, whereby alone trustworthy conclusions could be formed. He thus improved the method of speculative minds, and struck out fromother minds that fire which sets light to original thought andstimulates analytical inquiry. He was a religious and intellectualmissionary preparing the way for the Platos and Aristotles of thesucceeding age by his severe dialectics. This was his mission, and hedeclared it by talking. He did not lecture; he conversed. For more thanthirty years he discoursed on the principles of morality, until hearrayed against himself enemies who caused him to be put to death, forhis teachings had undermined the popular system which the Sophistsaccepted and practiced. He probably might have been acquitted if he hadchosen it, but he did not wish to live after his powers of usefulnesshad passed away. He opened to science new matter and a new method, as abasis for future philosophical systems. He was a "colloquialdialectician, " such as this world has never seen, and may never seeagain. He was a skeptic respecting physics, but as far as man andsociety are concerned, he thought that every man might and ought to knowwhat justice, temperance, courage, piety, patriotism, etc. , were, andunless he did know what they were he would not be just, temperate, etc. He denied that men can know that on which they have bestowed no pains, or practice what they do not know. "The method of Socrates survivesstill in some of the dialogues of Plato, and is a process of eternalvalue and universal application. There is no man whose notions have notbeen first got together by spontaneous, unartificial associations, resting upon forgotten particulars, blending together disparities orinconsistencies, and having in his mind old and familiar phrases andoracular propositions of which he has never rendered to himself anaccount; and there is no man who has not found it a necessary branch ofself-education to break up, analyze, and reconstruct these ancientmental compounds. " [Footnote: Grote has written very ably, and atunusual length, respecting Socrates and his philosophy. Thirlwall hasalso reviewed Hegel and other German authors on Socrates' condemnation. Ritter has a full chapter of great value. See Donaldson's continuationof Muller. The original sources of knowledge respecting Socrates arefound chiefly in Plato and Xenophon. Cicero may be consulted inhis _Tusculan Questions_. ] The services which he rendered tophilosophy, as enumerated by Tennemann, [Footnote: Tennemann;Schliermacker, _Essay on the Worth of Socrates as a Philosopher_, translated by Bishop Thirlwall, and reprinted in Dr. Wigger's _Life ofSocrates_. ] "are twofold, --negative and positive: _Negative_, inasmuch as he avoided all vain discussions; combated mere speculativereasoning on substantial grounds, and had the wisdom to acknowledgeignorance when necessary, but without attempting to determine accuratelywhat is capable, and what is not, of being accurately known. _Positive_, inasmuch as he examined with great ability the grounddirectly submitted to our understanding, and of which man is thecentre. "

Socrates cannot be said to have founded a school, like Xenophanes. Hedid not bequeath a system of doctrines; he rather attempted to awakeninquiry, for which his method was admirably adapted. He had hisadmirers, who followed in the path which he suggested. Among these wereAristippus, Antisthenes, Euclid of Megara, Phaedo of Elis, and Plato, allof whom were disciples of Socrates, and founders of schools. Some onlypartially adopted his method, and all differed from each other. Nor canit be said that all of them advanced science. Aristippus, the founder ofthe Cyreniac School, was a sort of Epicurean, teaching that pleasure wasthe end of life. Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynics, was bothvirtuous and arrogant, placing the supreme good in virtue, but despisingspeculative science, and maintaining that no man can refute the opinionsof another. He made it a virtue to be ragged, hungry, and cold, like theancient monks; an austere, stern, bitter, reproachful man, who affectedto despise all pleasures, like his own disciple Diogenes, who lived in atub, and carried on a war between the mind and body--brutal, scornful, proud. To men who maintained that science was impossible, philosophy isnot much indebted, although they were disciples of Socrates. Euclidmerely gave a new edition of the Eleatic doctrines, and Phaedo speculatedon the oneness of the good. 

[Sidenote: Plato. ]

[Sidenote: His education and travels. ]

[Sidenote: He adopts the Socratic method. ]

It was not till Plato arose that a more complete system of philosophywas founded. He was born of noble Athenian parents B. C. 429, the yearthat Pericles died, and the second year of the Peloponnesian War, andthe most active period of Grecian thought. He had a severe education, studying poetry, music, rhetoric, and blending these with philosophy. Hewas only twenty when he found out Socrates, with whom he remained tenyears, and from whom he was separated only by death. He then went on histravels, visiting every thing worth seeing in his day, especially inEgypt. When he returned, he commenced to teach the doctrines of hismaster, which he did, like him, gratuitously, in a garden near Athens, planted with lofty plane-trees, and adorned with temples and statues. This was called the Academy, and gave a name to his system ofphilosophy. And it is this only with which we have to do. It is not thecalm, serious, meditative, isolated man that I would present, but _hiscontribution_ to the developments of philosophy on the principles ofhis master. And surely no man ever made a richer contribution. He maynot have had the originality or breadth of Socrates, but he was moreprofound. He was preeminently a great thinker--a great logician--skilledin dialectics, and his "Dialogues" are such exercises of dialecticalmethod that the ancients were divided whether he was a skeptic or adogmatist. He adopted the Socratic method, and enlarged it. "Socratesrelied on inductive reasoning, and on definitions, as the two principlesof investigation. Definitions form the basis of all philosophy. To knowa thing, you must know what it is not. Plato added a more efficientprocess of analysis and synthesis, of generalization andclassification. " [Footnote: Lewes, _Biog. Hist. Of Philos_. ]"Analysis, " continues the same author, "as insisted on by Plato, is thedecomposition of the whole into its separate parts--is seeing the_one_ in many. Definitions were to Plato, what general or abstractideas were to later metaphysicians. The individual thing was transitory;the abstract idea was eternal. Only concerning the latter couldphilosophy occupy itself. Socrates, insisting on proper definitions, hadno conception of the classification of those definitions which mustconstitute philosophy. Plato, by the introduction of this process, shifted philosophy from the ground of inquiries into man and society, which exclusively occupied Socrates, to that of dialectics. " Plato wasalso distinguished for skill in composition. Dionysius of Halicarnassusclasses him with Herodotus and Demosthenes in the perfection of hisstyle, which is characterized by great harmony and rhythm, as well asthe variety of elegant figures. [Footnote: See Donaldson's quotations, _Hist. Lit. Of Greece_, vol. Ii. P. 257. ]

[Sidenote: His doctrines. ]

[Sidenote: The end of science is the contemplation of truth. ]

Plato made philosophy to consist in the discussion of general terms, orabstract ideas. General terms were synonymous with real existences, andthese were the only objects of philosophy. These were called_Ideas_; and ideas are the basis of his system, or rather thesubject matter of dialectics. He was a Realist, that is, he maintainedthat every general term, or abstract idea, has a real and independentexistence. Here he probably was indebted to Pythagoras, for Plato was amaster of the whole realm of philosophical speculation; but hisconception of _ideas_ is a great advance on the conception of_numbers_. He was taught by Socrates that beyond this world ofsense, there was the world of eternal truth, and that there were certainprinciples concerning which there could be no dispute. The soulapprehends the idea of goodness, greatness, etc. It is in the celestialworld that we are to find the realm of ideas. Now God is the supremeidea. To know God should be the great aim of life. We know him by thedesire which like feels for like. The divinity within feels for thedivinity revealed in beauty, or any other abstract idea. The longing ofthe soul for beauty is _Love_. Love then is the bond which unitesthe human to the divine. Beauty is not revealed by harmonious outlineswhich appeal to the senses, but is _Truth_. It is divinity. Beauty, truth, love, these are God, the supreme desire of the soul tocomprehend, and by the contemplation of which the mortal soul sustainsitself, and by perpetual meditation becomes participant in immortality. The communion with God presupposes immortality. The search for theknowledge of God is the great end of life. Wisdom is the consecration ofthe soul to the search; and this is effected by dialectics, for only outof dialectics can correct knowledge come. But man, immersed in the fluxof sensualities, can never fully attain this high excellence--theknowledge of God, the object of all rational inquiry. Hence theimperfection of all human knowledge. The supreme good is attainable; itis not attained. God is the immutable good, and justice the rule of theuniverse. "The vital principle of his philosophy is to show that truescience is the knowledge of the good; is the eternal contemplation ortruth, or ideas; and though man may not be able to apprehend it in itsunity, because he is subject to the restraints of the body, he is, nevertheless, permitted to recognize it, imperfectly, by calling to mindthe eternal measure of existence, by which he is in his originconnected. " [Footnote: Ritter, _Hist, of Phil_. , b. Viii. P. 2, chap. I. ] He was unable to find a transition from his world of ideas tothat of sense, and his philosophy, vague and mystical, though severelylogical, diverts the mind from the investigations of actual life--fromthat which is the object of experience. 

[Sidenote: The object of Plato's inquiries. ]

The writings of Plato have come down to us complete, and have beenadmired by all ages for their philosophical acuteness, as well as beautyof language. He was not the first to use the form of dialogue, but hehandled it with greater mastery than any one who preceded him, or hascome after him, and all with a view to bring his hearers to aconsciousness of knowledge or ignorance. He regarded wisdom as theattribute of the godhead; that philosophy is the necessity of theintellectual man, and the greatest good to which he can attain. Thiswisdom presupposes, however, a communion with the divine. He regardedthe soul as immortal and indestructible. He maintained that neitherhappiness nor virtue can consist in the attempt to satisfy our unbridleddesires; that virtue is purely a matter of intelligence; that passionsdisturb the moral economy. 

[Sidenote: God the immutable good. ]

"When we review the doctrines of Plato, it is impossible to deny, " saysHitter, "that they are pervaded with a grand view of life and theuniverse. This is the noble thought which inspired him to say, that Godis the constant and immutable good; the world is good in a state ofbecoming, and the human soul that in and through which the good in theworld is to be consummated. In his sublimer conception, he shows himselfthe worthy disciple of Socrates. His merit lies chiefly in havingadvanced certain distinct and precise rules for the Socratic method, andin insisting, with a perfect consciousness of its importance, upon thelaw of science, that to be able to descend from the higher to the lowerideas by a principle of the reason, and reciprocally from themultiplicity of the lower to the higher, is indispensable to the perfectpossession of any knowledge. He thus imparted to this method a moreliberal character. While he adopted many of the opinions of hispredecessors, and gave due consideration to the results of the earlierphilosophy, he did not allow himself to be disturbed by the mass ofconflicting theories, but breathed into them the life-giving breath ofunity. He may have erred in his attempts to determine the nature ofgood; still he pointed out to all who aspire to a knowledge of thedivine nature, an excellent road by which they may arrive at it. "

Plato is very much admired by the Germans, who look upon him as theincarnation of dialectical power; but it were to be hoped that, someday, these great metaphysicians may make a clearer exposition of hisdoctrines, and of his services to philosophy, than they have as yetdone. To me, Ritter, Brandis, and all the great authorities, areobscure. But that Plato was one of the greatest lights of the ancientworld, there can be no reasonable doubt. Nor is it probable that, as adialectician, he has ever been surpassed; while his purity of life, andhis lofty inquiries, and his belief in God and immortality, make him, inan ethical point of view, the most worthy of the disciples of Socrates. He was to the Greeks what Kant was to the Germans, and these two greatthinkers resemble each other in the structure of their minds and theirrelations to society. 

The ablest part of the lectures of Archer Butler of Dublin, is devotedto the Platonic philosophy. It is a criticism and an eulogium. No modernwriter has written more enthusiastically of what he considers thecrowning excellence of the Greek philosophy. The dialectics of Plato, his ideal theory, his physics, his psychology, and his ethics, are mostably discussed, and in the spirit of a loving and eloquent disciple. Herepresents the philosophy which he so much admires as a contemplationof, and the tendency to, the absolute and eternal good. The good isenthroned by Plato in majesty supreme at the summit of the wholeuniverse, and the sensible world is regarded as a development of supremeperfection in an inferior and transitory form. Nor are ideasabstractions, as some suppose, but archetypal conceptions of the divinemind itself--the eternal laws and reasons of things. The sensible worldis regarded as an imperfect image of ideal perfection, yet theuncertainty of physical researches is candidly admitted. The discoveryof theological and moral truth, is the great object even of the"_Timoeus_. " Hence the physics of Plato have a theologicalcharacter--are mathematical rather than experimental. The psychologyrepresents the body as the prison of the soul, somewhat after the spiritof oriental theogonists, and the aim of virtue is to preserve thedistinctness of both, and realize liberty in bonds. The doctrine ofpreexistence is maintained, as well as a future state. In the ethics, the perfection of the human soul--the perfection which it may attain--isdistinctly unfolded, and also the unity of the great ideas of thebeautiful, just, and good. The "_Phoedo_" enforces the supremacyof wisdom, and the "_Philebus_" the "_summum bonum_. " _Love_ isthe aspiration after a communion with perfection. The chiefexcellence of the philosophy which Plato taught, consists in theimmutable basis assigned to the principles of moral truth; the defectsare a want of distinct apprehension of the claims of divine justice inconsequence of human sin, and an indirect discouragement of activevirtue. 

The great disciple of Plato was Aristotle, and he carried on thephilosophical movement which Socrates had started to the highest limitthat it ever reached in the ancient world. He was born at Stagira B. C. 384, of wealthy parents, and early evinced an insatiable thirst forknowledge. When Plato returned from Sicily he joined his disciples, andwas his pupil for seventeen years, at Athens. On the death of Plato, hewent on his travels, and became the tutor of Alexander the Great, andB. C. 335, returned to Athens, after an absence of twelve years, and setup a school, and taught in the Lyceum. He taught while walking up anddown the shady walks which surrounded it, from which he obtained thename of Peripatetic, which has clung to his name and philosophy. Hisschool had a great celebrity, and from it proceeded illustriousphilosophers, statesmen, historians, and orators. He taught thirteenyears, during which he composed most of his greater works. He not onlywrote on dialectics and logic, but also on physics in its variousdepartments. His work on "The History of Animals" was deemed soimportant that his royal pupil presented him with eight hundred talents--an enormous sum--for the collection of materials. He also wrote onethics and politics, history and rhetoric; letters, poems, and speeches, three fourths of which are lost. He was one of the most voluminouswriters of antiquity, and probably the most learned man whose writingshave come down to us. Nor has any one of the ancients exercised upon thethinking of succeeding ages so great an influence. He was an oracleuntil the revival of learning. 

[Sidenote: Genius of Aristotle. ]

"Aristotle, " says Hegel, "penetrated into the whole mass, and into everydepartment of the universe of things, and subjected to the comprehensionits scattered wealth; and the greater number of the philosophicalsciences owe to him their separation and commencement. " [Footnote: Hagelis said to have comprehended Aristotle better than any modern writer, and the best work on his philosophy is by him. ] He is also the father ofthe history of philosophy, since he gives an historical review of theway in which the subject has been hitherto treated by the earlierphilosophers. 

"Plato made the external world the region of the incomplete and bad, ofthe contradictory and the false, and recognized absolute truth only inthe eternal immutable ideas. Aristotle laid down the proposition thatthe idea, which cannot of itself fashion itself into reality, ispowerless, and has only a potential existence, and that it becomes aliving reality, only by realizing itself in a creative manner by meansof its own energy. " [Footnote: Adolph Stahr, Oldenburg. ]

[Sidenote: Vast attainments of Aristotle. ]

But there can be no doubt as to his marvelous power of systematization. Collecting together all the results of ancient speculation, he soelaborated them into a coordinate system, that for two thousand years hereigned supreme in the schools. In a literary point of view, Plato wasdoubtless his superior, but Plato was a poet making philosophy divineand musical; but Aristotle's investigations spread over a far widerrange. He wrote also on politics, natural history, and ethics, in socomprehensive and able manner, as to prove his claim to be one of thegreatest intellects of antiquity, the most subtle and the most patient. He differed from Plato chiefly in relation to the doctrine of ideas, without however resolving the difficulty which divided them. As he madematter to be the eternal ground of phenomena, he reduced the notion ofit to a precision it never before enjoyed, and established thereby anecessary element in human science. But being bound to matter, he didnot soar, as Plato did, into the higher regions of speculation; nor didhe entertain as lofty views of God, or of immortality. Neither did hehave as high an ideal of human life. His definition of the highest goodwas a perfect practical activity in a perfect life. 

With Aristotle closed the great Socratic movement in the history ofspeculation. When Socrates appeared there was the general prevalence ofskepticism, arising from the unsatisfactory speculations respectingnature. He removed this skepticism by inventing a new method, and bywithdrawing the mind from the contemplation of nature, to the study ofman himself. He bade men to look inward. 

[Sidenote: Ethics the great subject of inquiry with Plato. ]

Plato accepted his method, but applied it more universally. LikeSocrates, however, ethics were the great subject of his inquiries, towhich physics were only subordinate. The problem he sought to solve wasthe way to live like the gods. He would contemplate truth as the greataim of life. 

[Sidenote: Main inquiries of Aristotle had reference to physics andmetaphysics. ]

With Aristotle, ethics formed only one branch of his attention. His maininquiries were in reference to physics and metaphysics. He thus, bybringing these into the region or inquiry, paved the way for a new epochof skepticism. [Footnote: Lewes, Ritter, Hegel, Maurice, DiogenesLaertius. See fine article in _Encyclopedia Britannica. _ Schwegler, translated by Seelyn. ]

It is impossible, within the proper limits of this chapter, to enterupon an analysis of the philosophy of either the three great lights ofthe ancient world, or to enumerate and describe their other writings. Imerely wish to show what are considered to be the vital principles onwhich their systems were based, and the general spirit of theirspeculations. The student must examine these in the elaborate treatisesof modern philosophers, and in the original works of Plato andAristotle. 

[Sidenote: Their characteristic inquiries. ]

Both Plato and Aristotle taught that reason alone could form science;but Aristotle differed from his master respecting the theory of ideas. He did not deny to ideas a _subjective_ existence, but he did denythat they have an objective existence. And he maintained that theindividual things alone _existed_, and if individuals only exist, they can only be known by _sensation_. Sensation thus becomes thebasis of knowledge. Plato made reason the basis of knowledge, but Aristotle made _experience_. Plato directed man to thecontemplation of ideas; Aristotle, to the observations of Nature. Instead of proceeding synthetically and dialectically like Plato, hepursues an analytic course. His method is hence inductive--thederivation of certain principles from a sum of given facts andphenomena. It would seem that positive science commenced with him, sincehe maintained that experience furnishes the principles of every science;but, while his conception was just, there was not sufficient experiencethen accumulated from which to generalize with effect. He did notsufficiently verify his premises. His reasoning was correct upon thedata given, as in the famous syllogism, "All black birds are crows; thisbird is black; therefore this bird is a crow. " The defect of thesyllogism is not in the reasoning, but in the truth of the majorpremise, since all black birds are not crows. It is only a mostextensive and exhaustive examination of the accuracy of a propositionwhich will warrant reasoning upon it. Aristotle reasoned withoutsufficient examination of the major premise of his syllogisms. 

[Sidenote: Logic of Aristotle. ]

Aristotle was the father of logic, and Hegel and Kant think there hasbeen no improvement upon it since his day. And this became to him thereal organon of science. "He supposed it was not merely the instrumentof thought, but the instrument of investigation. " Hence it was futilefor purposes of discovery, although important to aid the processes ofthought. Induction and syllogism are the two great instruments of hislogic. The one sets out from particulars already known to arrive at aconclusion; the other sets out from some general principle to arrive atparticulars. The latter more particularly characterized his logic, whichhe presented in sixteen forms, showing great ingenuity, and useful as adialectical exercise. This syllogistic process of reasoning would beincontrovertible, if the _general_ were better known than the_particular_. But it is only by induction, which proceeds from theworld of experience, that we reach the higher world of cognition. Wearrive at no new knowledge by the syllogism, since the major premise ismore evident than the conclusion, and anterior to it. Thus he madespeculation subordinate to logical distinctions, and his system, whencarried out by the schoolmen, led to a spirit of useless quibbling. Instead of interrogating Nature, as Bacon led the way, they interrogatedtheir own minds, and no great discoveries were made. From a want of aproper knowledge of the conditions of scientific inquiry, the method ofAristotle became fruitless. [Footnote: Maurice, _Anc. Phil_. SeeWhewell, _Hist. Ind. Science_. ]

Though Aristotle wrote in a methodical manner, yet there is greatparsimony of language. There is no fascination in his style. It iswithout ornament, and very condensed. His merit consisted in greatlogical precision, and scrupulous exactness in the employment of terms. 

[Sidenote: The Skeptics. ]

Philosophy, as a great system of dialectics, as an analysis of the powerand faculties of the mind, as a method to pursue inquiries, as anintellectual system merely, culminated in Aristotle. He completed thegreat fabric of which Thales laid the foundation. The subsequent schoolsof philosophy directed attention to ethical and practical questions, rather than to intellectual phenomena. The skeptics, like Pyrrho, hadonly negative doctrines, and had a disdain of those inquiries whichsought to penetrate the mysteries of existence. They did not believethat absolute truth was attainable by man. And they attacked theprevailing systems with great plausibility. Thus Sextus attacked bothinduction and definitions. "If we do not know the thing we define, " saidhe, "we do not comprehend it because of the definition, but we impose onit the definition because we know it; and if we are ignorant of thething we would define, it is impossible to define it. " Thus the skepticspointed out the uncertainty of things and the folly of striving tocomprehend them. 

The Epicureans despised the investigations of philosophy, since, intheir view, they did not contribute to happiness. The subject of theirinquiries was happiness, not truth. What will promote this, was thesubject of their speculation. Epicurus, born B. C. 342, contended thatpleasure was happiness; that pleasure should not be sought for its ownsake, but with a view of the happiness of life obtained by it. He taughtthat it was inseparable from virtue, and that its enjoyments should belimited. He was averse to costly pleasures, and regarded contentednesswith a little to be a great good. He placed wealth not in greatpossessions, but few wants. He sought to widen the domain of pleasure, and narrow that of pain, and regarded a passionless state of life thehighest. Nor did he dread death, which was deliverance from misery. Epicurus has been much misunderstood, and his doctrines weresubsequently perverted, especially when the arts of life were broughtinto the service of luxury, and a gross materialism was the greatfeature of society. Epicurus had much of the practical spirit of aphilosopher, although very little of the earnest cravings of a religiousman. He himself led a virtuous life, because it was wiser and better tobe virtuous, not because it was his duty. His writings were veryvoluminous, and in his tranquil garden he led a peaceful life of studyand enjoyment. His followers, and they were numerous, were led intoluxury and effeminacy, as was to be expected from a skeptical andirreligious philosophy, the great principle of which was that whateveris pleasant should be the object of existence. [Footnote: the doctrinesof the Epicureans are best set forth in Lucretius. ]

The Stoics were a large and celebrated sect of philosophers; but theyadded nothing to the domain of thought, --they created no system, theyinvented no new method, they were led into no new psychologicalinquiries. Their inquiries were chiefly ethical. And if ethics are apart of the great system of Grecian philosophy, they are well worthy ofattention. Some of the greatest men of antiquity are numbered amongthem--like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. The philosophy they taught wasmorality, and this was eminently practical and also elevated. 

[Sidenote: Zeno. ]

The founder of this sect, Zeno, born rich, but reduced to poverty bymisfortune, was a very remarkable man, and a very good one, andprofoundly revered by the Athenians, who intrusted him with the keys oftheir citadel. The date of his birth is unknown, but he lived in adegenerate age, when skepticism and sensuality were eating out the lifeand vigor of Grecian society, when Greek civilization was rapidlypassing away, when ancient creeds had lost their majesty, and generallevity and folly overspread the land. Deeply impressed with theprevailing laxity of morals and the absence of religion, he lifted uphis voice, more as a reformer than as an inquirer after truth, andtaught for more than fifty years in a place called the Porch, which hadonce been the resort of the poets. He was chiefly absorbed with ethicalquestions, although he studied profoundly the systems of the oldphilosophers. He combated Plato's doctrine that virtue consists incontemplation, and of Epicurus, that it consisted in pleasure. Man, inhis eyes, was made for active duties. He also sought to opposeskepticism, which was casting the funereal veil of doubt and uncertaintyover every thing pertaining to the soul, and God, and the future life. "The skeptics had attacked both perception and reason. They had shownthat perception is, after all, based upon appearance, and appearance isnot a certainty; and they showed that reason is unable to distinguishbetween appearance and certainty, since it had nothing but phenomena tobuild upon, and since there is no criterion to apply to reason itself. "Then they proclaimed philosophy a failure, and without foundation. Buthe, taking a stand on common sense, fought for morality, as did Reid andBeattie, when they combated the skepticism of Hume. 

[Sidenote: Doctrines of the Stoics. ]

[Sidenote: Influence of the Stoics. ]

Philosophy, according to Zeno and other Stoics, was intimately connectedwith the duties of practical life. The contemplation, recommended byPlato and Aristotle, seemed only a covert recommendation of selfishenjoyment. The wisdom, which it should be the aim of life to attain, isvirtue. And virtue is to live harmoniously with nature. To liveharmoniously with nature is to exclude all personal ends. Hence pleasureis to be disregarded, and pain is to be despised. And as all moralaction must be in harmony with nature, the law of destiny is supreme, and all things move according to immutable fate. With the predominanttendency to the universal which characterized their system, the Stoicstaught that the sage ought to regard himself as a citizen of the worldrather than of any particular city or state. They made four things to beindispensable to virtue: a knowledge of _good and evil_, which isthe province of the reason; _temperance_, a knowledge of the dueregulation of the sensual passions; _fortitude_, a conviction thatit is good to suffer what is necessary; and _justice_, oracquaintance with what ought to be to every individual. They made_perfection_ necessary to virtue, and saw nothing virtuous in themere advance to it. Hence the severity of their system. The perfectsage, according to them, is raised above all influence of externalevents; he submits to the law of destiny; he is exempt from desire andfear, joy or sorrow; he is not governed even by what he is exposed tonecessarily, like sorrow and pain; he is free from the restraints ofpassion; he is like a god in his mental placidity. Nor must the sagelive only for himself, but for others; he is a member of the whole bodyof mankind; he ought to marry, and to take part in public affairs, buthe will never give way to compassion or forgiveness, and is to attackerror and vice with uncompromising sternness. But with this ideal, theStoics were forced to admit that virtue, like true knowledge, althoughattainable, is beyond the reach of man. They were discontented withthemselves, and with all around them, and looked upon all institutionsas corrupt. They had a profound contempt of their age, and of humanattainments; but it cannot be denied they practiced a lofty and sternvirtue, and were the best people in their degenerate times. Their Godwas made subject to Fate, and he was a material god, synonymous withNature. Thus their system was pantheistic. But they maintained thedignity of reason, and the ideal in nature, the actualization of whichwe should strive after, though without the hope of reaching it. "As areaction against effeminacy, Stoicism may be applauded; as a doctrine, it is one-sided, and ends in apathy and egotism. " [Footnote: See Cicero, _De Fin_. And _Tusculan Questions_; Diogenes Laertius on Zeno. This historian is quite full on this subject, and seems to furnish thebasis for Ritter. ]

With the Stoics ended all inquiry among the Greeks of a philosophicalnature worthy of especial mention, until philosophy was revived in theChristian schools of Alexandria, where faith was united with reason. TheStoics endeavored to establish the certitude of human knowledge in orderthat they might establish the truth of moral principles, and the basisof their system was common sense, with which they attacked the godlessskepticism of their times, and raised up a barrier, feeble though itwas, to prevailing degeneracy. The struggles of so many great thinkers, from Thales to Aristotle, all ended in doubt and in despair. It wasdiscovered that all of them were wrong, but that their error was withouta remedy. 

[Sidenote: Bright period of Grecian philosophy. ]

The bright and glorious period of Grecian philosophy was from Socratesto Aristotle. Philosophical inquiries began about the origin of things, and ended with an elaborate systematization of the forms of thought, which was the most magnificent triumph that the unaided intellect of manever achieved. Socrates founds a school, but does not elaborate asystem. He reveals most precious truths, and stimulates the youth wholisten to his instructions by the doctrine that it is the duty of man topursue a knowledge of himself, which is to be sought in that divinereason which dwells within him and which also rules the world. Heconfides in science; he loves truth for its own sake; he loves virtue, which consists in the knowledge of the good. 

[Sidenote: Summary. ]

Plato seizes his weapons and is imbued with his spirit. He is full ofhope for science and humanity. With soaring boldness he directs hisinquiries to futurity, dissatisfied with the present, and cherishing afond hope of a better existence. He speculates on God and the soul. Heis not much interested in physical phenomena. He does not, like Thales, strive to find out the beginning of all things, but the highest good, bywhich his immortal soul may be refreshed and prepared for the futurelife he cannot solve, yet in which he believes. The sensible is animpenetrable empire, but ideas are certitudes, and upon these he dwellswith rapt and mystical enthusiasm, --a great poetical rhapsodist likeXenophanes, severe dialectician as he is, believing in truth and beautyand goodness. 

Then Aristotle, following out the method of _his_ teachers, attempts to exhaust experience, and directs his inquiries into theoutward world of sense and observation, but all with the view ofdiscovering from phenomena the unconditional truth, in which he, too, believes. But every thing in this world is fleeting and transitory, and, therefore, it is not easy to arrive at truth. A cold doubt creeps intothe experimental mind of Aristotle with all his learning and all hislogic. 

The Epicureans arise. They place their hopes in sensual enjoyment. Theydespair of truth. But the world will not be abandoned to despair. TheStoics rebuke the impiety which is blended with sensualism, and placetheir hopes on virtue. But it is unattainable virtue, while their God isnot a moral governor, but subject to necessity. 

Thus did those old giants grope about, for they did not know the God whowas revealed unto Abraham, and Moses, and David, and Isaiah. They solvednothing, since they did not _know_, even if they speculated on, the_Great First Cause_. And yet, with all their errors, they were thegreatest benefactors of the ancient world. They gave dignity tointellectual inquiries, while they set, by their lives, examples of apure morality--not the morality of the gospel, but the severest virtuepracticed by the old guides of mankind. 

[Sidenote: Philosophy among the Romans. ]

The Romans added absolutely nothing to the philosophy of the Greeks. Norwere they much interested in any speculative inquiries. It was only theethical views of the old sages which had attraction or force to them. They were too material to love pure subjective inquiries. They hadconquered the land; they disdained the empire of the air. 

[Sidenote: Followers of the Greeks. ]

There were, doubtless, students of the Greek philosophy among theRomans, perhaps as early as Cato the Censor. But there were only twopersons of note who wrote philosophy, till the time of Cicero, Aurafanius and Rubinus, and these were Epicureans. 

[Sidenote: Cicero. ]

Cicero was the first to systematize the philosophy which contributed sogreatly to his intellectual culture. But even he added nothing. He wasonly a commentator and expositor. Nor did he seek to found a system or aschool, but merely to influence and instruct men of his own rank. Heregarded those subjects, which had the greatest attraction for theGrecian schools, to be beyond the power of human cognition, and, therefore, looked upon the practical as the proper domain of humaninquiry. Yet he held logic in great esteem, as furnishing rules formethodical investigation. He adopted the doctrine of Socrates as to thepursuit of moral good. He regarded the duties which grow out of therelations of human society preferable to the obligations of pursuingscientific researches. Although a great admirer of Plato and Aristotle, he regarded patriotic calls of duty as paramount to any study of scienceor philosophy, which he thought was involved in doubt. He had a greatcontempt for knowledge which could neither lead to the clearapprehension of certitude, nor to practical applications. He thought itimpossible to arrive at a knowledge of God, or the nature of the soul, or the origin of the world. And he thus was led to look upon thesensible and the present as of more importance than inconclusiveinductions, or deductions from a truth not satisfactorily established. 

[Sidenote: His eclecticism. ]

Cicero was an Eclectic, seizing on what was true and clear in theancient systems, and disregarding what was simply a matter ofspeculation. This is especially seen in his treatise "De Finibus Bonorumet Malorum, " in which the opinions of all the Grecian schools concerningthe supreme good are expounded and compared. Nor does he hesitate todeclare that happiness consists in the cognition of nature and science, which is the true source of pleasure both to gods and men. Yet these arebut hopes, in which it does not become us to indulge. It is the actual, the real, the practical, which preeminently claims attention; in otherwords, the knowledge which will but furnish man with a guide and rule oflife. [Footnote: _De Fin. _, v. 6. ] Indeed, the sum of Philosophy, to the mind of Cicero, is that she is an instructress and a comforter. He takes an entirely practical view of the end of philosophy, which isto improve the mind, and make a man contented and happy. For philosophyas a science, --a series of inductions and deductions, --he had profoundcontempt. He also regards the doctrines of philosophy as involved indoubt, and even in the consideration of moral questions he is pursued bythe conflict of opinions, although, in this department, he is most athome. The points he is most anxious to establish are the doctrines ofGod and the soul. These are most fully treated in his essay, "De NaturaDeorum, " in which he submits the doctrines of the Epicureans and theStoics to the objections of the Academy. [Footnote: _De Nat. D. _, iii. 10. ] He admits that man is unable to form true conceptions of God, but acknowledges the necessity of assuming one supreme God as thecreator and ruler of all things, moving all things, remote from allmortal mixture, and endued with eternal motion in himself. He seems tobelieve in a divine providence ordering good to man; in the soul'simmortality, in free-will, in the dignity of human nature, in thedominion of reason, in the restraint of the passions as necessary tovirtue, in a life of public utility, in an immutable morality, in theimitation of the divine. 

[Sidenote: His ethics. ]

The doctrines of Cicero on ethical subjects, are chiefly drawn from theStoics and Peripatetics. They are opinions drawn sometimes from onesystem and sometimes from another. Thus he agrees with the disciples ofAristotle, that health, honors, friends, country, are worthy objects ofdesire. Then again, he coincides with the Stoics that passions andemotions of the soul are vices. But he recedes from their severe tone, which elevated the sage too high above his fellow-men. 

[Sidenote: Character of his philosophical writings. ]

Thus there is little of original thought in the moral theories ofCicero, and these are the result of observation rather than of anyphilosophical principle. We might enumerate his various opinions, andshow what an enlightened mind he possessed; but this would not be thedevelopment of philosophy. His views, interesting as they are, andgenerally wise and lofty, yet do not indicate any progress of thescience; He merely repeats earlier doctrines. These were not withouttheir utility, since they had great influence on the Latin fathers. Theywere esteemed for their general enlightenment. He softened down theextreme views of the great thinkers before his day, and clearly unfoldedwhat had become obscured. He is a critic of philosophy; an expositorwhom we can scarcely spare. 

If any body advanced philosophy among the Romans, it was Epictetus, andhe even only in the realm of ethics. Qumtius Sextius, in the time ofAugustus, had revived the Pythagorean doctrines. Seneca had recommendedthe severe morality of the Stoics, but they added nothing that was notpreviously known. The Romans had no talent for philosophy, although theywere acquainted with its various systems. Their greatest light was aPhrygian slave. 

[Sidenote: Epictetus. ]

[Sidenote: His lofty ethical system. ]

Epictetus taught in the time of Domitian, and though he did not leaveany written treatises, his doctrines were preserved and handed down byhis disciple Arrian, who had for him the reverence that Plato had forSocrates. The loftiness of his recorded views makes us feel that he musthave been indebted to Christianity; for no one, before him, has revealedprecepts so much in accordance with its spirit. He was a Stoic, but heheld in the highest estimation Socrates and Plato. It is not for thesolution of metaphysical questions that he was remarkable. He was not adialectician, but a moralist, and, as such, takes the highest ground ofall the old inquirers after truth. With him, philosophy, as it was toCicero and Seneca, is a wisdom of life. He sets no value on logic, normuch on physics; but he reveals sentiments of great simplicity andgrandeur. His great idea is the purification of the soul. He believes inthe severest self-denial; he would guard against the syren spells ofpleasure; he would make men feel that, in order to be good, they mustfirst feel that they are evil; he condemns suicide, although it had beendefended by the Stoics; he would complain of no one, not even ofinjustice; he would not injure his enemies; he would pardon alloffenses; he would feel universal compassion, since men sin fromignorance; he would not easily blame, since we have none to condemn butourselves; he would not strive after honor or office, since we putourselves in subjection to that we seek or prize; he would constantlybear in mind that all things are transitory, and that they are not ourown; he would bear evils with patience, even as he would practice self-denial of pleasure; he would, in short, be calm, free, keep insubjection his passions, avoid self-indulgence, and practice a broadcharity and benevolence. He felt he owed all to God; that all was hisgift, and that we should thus live in accordance with his will; that weshould be grateful not only for our bodies, but for our souls, andreason, by which we attain to greatness. And if God has given us such apriceless gift, we should be contented, and not even seek to alter ourexternal relations, which are doubtless for the best. We should wish, indeed, for only what God wills and sends, and we should avoid pride andhaughtiness, as well as discontent, and seek to fulfill our allottedpart. [Footnote: A fine translation of Epictetus has been published byLittle and Brown. ]

[Sidenote: Marcus Aurelius. ]

Such were the moral precepts of Epictetus, in which we see the nearestapproach to Christianity that had been made in the ancient world. Andthese sublime truths had a great influence, especially on the mind ofthe most lofty and pure of all the Roman emperors, Marcus Aurelius, who_lived_ the principles he had learned from a slave, and whose"Maxims" are still held in admiration. 

[Sidenote: General observations. ]

Thus did the speculations about the beginning of things lead toelaborate systems of thought, and end in practical rules of life, until, in spirit, they had, with Epictetus, harmonized with many of therevealed truths which Christ and his Apostles laid down for theregeneration of the world. Who cannot see in the inquiries of the oldphilosopher, whether into nature, or the operations of mind, or theexistence of God, or the immortality of the soul, or the way tohappiness and virtue, a magnificent triumph of human genius, such as hasbeen exhibited in no other department of human science? We regret thatour limits preclude a more extended view of the various systems whichthe old sages propounded--systems full of errors, yet also marked byimportant truths, but whether false or true, showing a marvelous reachof the human understanding. Modern researches have discarded manyopinions which were highly valued in their day, yet philosophy, in itsmethods of reasoning, is scarcely advanced since the time of Aristotle;while the subjects which agitated the Grecian schools, have been fromtime to time revived and rediscussed, and are still unsettled. If anyscience has gone round in perpetual circles, incapable, apparently, ofprogression or rest, it is that glorious field of inquiry which hastasked more than any other the mightiest intellects of this world, andwhich, progressive or not, will never be relinquished without the lossof what is most valuable in human culture. 

 * * * * *

For original authorities in reference to the matter of this chapter, read Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers; the Writings of Platoand Aristotle; Cicero, De Nat. , De Or. , De Offic. , De Div. , De Fin. , Tusc. Quaest. ; Xenophon, Memorabilia; Boethius, De Idea Hist. Phil. ;Lucretius. 

The great modern authorities are the Germans, and these are verynumerous. Among the most famous writers on the history of philosophy, are Bruckner, Hegel, Brandis, I. G. Buhle, Tennemann, Ritter, Plessing, Schwegler, Hermann, Meiners, Stallbaum, and Speugel. The history ofRitter is well translated, and is always learned and suggestive. Tennemann, translated by Morell, is a good manual, brief, but clear. Inconnection with the writings of the Germans, the great work of Cousinshould be consulted. 

The English historians of ancient philosophy are not so numerous as theGermans. The work of Enfield is based on Bruckner, or is rather anabridgment. Archer Butler's Lectures are suggestive and able, butdiscursive and vague, as is the History of Ancient Philosophy byMaurice. Grote has written learnedly on Socrates and the other greatlights. Lewes' Biographical History of Philosophy has the merit ofclearness, and is very interesting, but rather superficial. Henry haswritten a good epitome. See also Stanley's History of Philosophy, andthe articles in Smith's Dictionary, on the leading ancient philosophers. Donaldson's continuation of Muller's History of the Lit. Of Greece, islearned, and should be consulted with Thompson's Notes on Archer Butler. There are also fine articles in the Encyclopedias Britannica andMetropolitana. Schleirmacher, on Socrates, translated by BishopThirlwall. 

CHAPTER IX. 

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE ROMANS. 

[Sidenote: Wonders of modern science. ]

[Sidenote: Every great age distinguished for something never afterwardsequaled. ]

It would be absurd to claim for the ancients any great attainments inscience, such as they made in the field of letters or the realm of art. It is in science, especially when applied to practical life, that themoderns show their great superiority to the most enlightened nations ofantiquity. In this great department, modern genius shines with thelustre of the sun. It is this which most strikingly attests the advanceof society, which makes their advance a most incontestible fact. It isthis which has distinguished and elevated the races of Europe moretriumphantly than what has resulted from the combined energies of Greeksand Romans in all other departments combined. With the magnificentdiscoveries and inventions of the last three hundred years in almostevery department of science, --especially in physics, in theexplorations of distant seas and continents, in the analysis of chemicalcompounds, in the explanation of the phenomena of the heavens, in thewonders of steam and electricity, in mechanical appliance to abridgehuman labor or destroy human life, in astronomical researches, in themiracles which inventive genius has wrought, --seen in our ships, ourmanufactories, our wondrous instruments, our printing-presses, of ourobservatories, our fortifications, our laboratories, our mills, ourmachines to cultivate the earth, to make our clothes, to build ourhouses, to multiply our means of offense and defense, to make weakchildren do the work of Titans, to measure our time with the accuracy ofthe orbit of the planets, to use the sun itself in perpetuating ourlikenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide themariner with assurance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy shipagainst the wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriagesascend mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, toconvey intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent tocontinent, under oceans that ancient navigators never dared to cross;these and other wonders attest an ingenuity and audacity of intellectwhich would have overwhelmed with amazement the most adventurous ofGreeks and the most potent of Romans. The achievements of modern sciencesettle forever the question as to the advance of society and thesuperiority of modern times over those of the most favored nations ofantiquity. But the great discoveries and inventions to which we owe thismarked superiority are either accidental or the result of generations ofexperiment, assisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from whichsafe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of theTeutonic races over the Greeks and Romans to which we may ascribe thewonderful advance of modern society, but the particular direction whichgenius was made to take. Had the Greeks given the energy of their mindsto mechanical forces as they did to artistic creations, they might havemade wonderful inventions. But it was so ordered by Providence. Nor wasthe world in that stage of development when this particular direction ofintellect would have been favored. There were some things which theGreeks and Romans exhausted, some fields of labor and thought in whichthey never have been, and, perhaps, never will be, surpassed; and somefuture age may direct its energies into channels which are as unknown tous as clocks and steam-engines were to the Greeks. This is the age ofmechanism and of science, and mechanism and science sweep every thingbefore them, and will probably be carried to their utmost capacity anddevelopment. Then the human mind may seek some new department, some newscope for energies, and a new age of wonders may arise, --perhaps afterthe present dominant races shall have become intoxicated with thegreatness of their triumphs and have shared the fate of the oldmonarchies of the East. But I would not speculate on the destinies ofthe European nations, whether they are to make indefinite advances, until they occupy and rule the whole world, or are destined to besucceeded by nations as yet undeveloped, --savages, as their fatherswere when Rome was in the fullness of material wealth and grandeur. Weknow nothing of the future. We only know that all nations are in thehands of God, who setteth up and pulleth down according to his infinitewisdom. 

I have shown that in the field of artistic excellence, in literarycomposition, in the arts of government and legislation, and even in therealm of philosophical speculations, the ancients were ourschoolmasters, and that among them were some men of most marvelousgenius, who have had no superiors among us. 

[Sidenote: The ancients deficient in the application of science. ]

But we do not see the exhibition of genius in what we call science, atleast in its application to practical life. It would be difficult toshow any department of science which the ancients carried to any degreeof perfection. Nevertheless, there were departments in which they madenoble attempts, and in which they showed considerable genius, even ifthey were unsuccessful in great practical results. 

[Sidenote: Labors of the ancients in astronomy. ]

Astronomy was one of these. So far as mathematical genius is concerned, so far as astronomy taxed the reasoning powers, such men asEratosthenes, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy were great lights, ofwhom humanity may be proud; and, had they been assisted by our modernaccidental inventions, they might have earned a fame scarcely eclipsedby that of Kepler and Newton. The Ionic philosophers added but little tothe realm of true philosophy, but they were pioneers of thought, andgiants in their native powers. The old astronomers did as little as theyto place science on a true foundation, but they showed great ingenuity, and discovered some great truths which no succeeding age has repudiated. They determined the circumference of the earth by a method identicalwith that which would be employed by modern astronomers. Theyascertained the position of the stars by right ascension anddeclination. They knew the obliquity of the ecliptic, and determined theplace of the sun's apogee as well as its mean motion. Their calculationson the eccentricity of the moon prove that they had a rectilineartrigonometry and tables of chords. They had an approximate knowledge ofparallax. [Footnote: Delambre, _Hist. D'Astr. Anc. _, tom. 1, p. 184. ] They could calculate eclipses of the moon, and use them for thecorrection of their lunar tables. They understood sphericaltrigonometry, and determined the motions of the sun and moon, involvingan accurate definition of the year, and a method of predicting eclipses. They ascertained that the earth was a sphere, and reduced the phenomenaof the heavenly bodies to uniform movements of circular orbits. [Footnote: Lewis, _Hist. Of Astron. _, p. 209. ] We have settled, byphysical geography, the exact form of the earth, but the ancientsarrived at their knowledge by astronomical reasoning. "The reduction ofthe motions of the sun, moon, and five planets to circular orbits, aswas done by Hipparchus, implies deep concentrated thought and scientificabstraction. The theory of eccentrics and epicycles accomplished the endof explaining all the known phenomena. The resolution of the apparentmotions of the heavenly bodies into an assemblage of circular motions, was a great triumph of genius, [Footnote: Whewell, _Hist. Induc. Science_, v. I. P. 181. ] and was equivalent to the most recent andimproved processes by which modern astronomers deal with such motions. "

But I will not here enumerate the few discoveries which were made by theAlexandrian school. I only wish to show that there are a few names amongthe ancients which are inscribed on the roll of great astronomers, limited as were the triumphs of the science itself. But, until the timeof Aristarchus, most of the speculations were crude and useless. Nothingcan be more puerile than the notions of the ancients respecting thenature and motions of the heavenly bodies. 

[Sidenote: Astronomy born in Chaldea. ]

Astronomy was probably born in Chaldea as early as the time of Abraham. The glories of the firmament were impressed upon the minds of the rudeprimitive races with an intensity which we do not feel with all thetriumphs of modern science. The Chaldean shepherds, as they watchedtheir flocks by night, noted the movements of the planets, and gavenames to the more brilliant constellations. Before religious ritualswere established, before great superstitions arose, before poetry wassung, before musical instruments were invented, before artistssculptured marble or melted bronze, before coins were stamped, beforetemples arose, before diseases were healed by the arts of medicine, before commerce was known, before heroes were born, those orientalshepherds counted the hours of anxiety by the position of certainconstellations. Astronomy is, therefore, the oldest of the ancientsciences, although it remained imperfect for more than four thousandyears. The old Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks made but few discoverieswhich are valued by modern astronomers, but they laid the foundation ofthe science, and ever regarded it as one of the noblest subjects whichcould stimulate the faculties of man. It was invested with all that wasreligious and poetical. 

[Sidenote: Discoveries made by oriental nations. ]

The spacious level and unclouded horizon of Chaldea afforded peculiarfacilities of observation; and its pastoral and contemplativeinhabitants, uncontaminated by the vices and superstitions of subsequentages, active-minded and fresh, discovered, after a long observation ofeclipses--some say extending over nineteen centuries--the cycle of twohundred and twenty-three lunations, which brings back the eclipses inthe same order. Having once established their cycle, they laid thefoundation for the most sublime of all the sciences. Callisthenestransmitted from Babylon to Aristotle a collection of observations ofall the eclipses that preceded the conquests of Alexander, together withthe definite knowledge which the Chaldeans had collected about themotions of the heavenly bodies. It was rude and simple, and amounted tolittle beyond the fact that there were spherical revolutions about aninclined axis, and that the poles pointed always to particular stars. The Egyptians also recorded their observations, from which it wouldappear that they observed eclipses at least one thousand six hundredyears before the commencement of our era. Nor is this improbable, if thespeculations of modern philosophers respecting the age of the world areentitled to respect. The Egyptians discovered, by the rising of Sirius, that the year consists of three hundred and sixty-five and one quarterdays, and this was their sacred year, in distinction from the civil, which consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days. They also hadobserved the courses of the planets, and could explain the phenomena ofthe stations and retrogradations, and it is even asserted that theyregarded Mercury and Venus as satellites of the sun. Some havemaintained that the obelisks which they erected served the purpose ofgnomons, for determining the obliquity of the ecliptic, the altitude ofthe pole, and the length of the tropical year. It is thought that eventhe Pyramids, by the position of their sides toward the cardinal points, attest their acquaintance with a meridional line. The Chinese boast ofhaving noticed and recorded a series of eclipses extending over a periodof three thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight years, and it isprobable that they anticipated the Greeks two thousand years in thediscovery of the Metonic cycle, or the cycle of nineteen years, at theend of which time the new moons fall on the same days of the year. Theydetermined the obliquity of the ecliptic, one thousand one hundred yearsbefore our era, to be 23 degrees 54' 3-15". The Indians, at a remoteantiquity, represented celestial phenomena with considerable exactness, and constructed tables by which the longitude of the sun and moon aredetermined. Bailly thinks that astronomy was cultivated in Siam threethousand one hundred and two years before Christ, which hardly yields inaccuracy to that which modern science has built on the theory ofuniversal gravitation. The Greeks divided the heavens intoconstellations fourteen centuries before Christ. Thales, born 640 B. C. , taught the rotundity of the earth, and that the moon shines withreflected light. He also predicted eclipses. Anaximander, born 610 B. C. , invented the gnomon, and constructed geographical charts. 

[Sidenote: The early Greek investigators. ]

But the Greeks, after all, were the only people of antiquity whoelevated astronomy to the dignity of a science. They however confessedthat they derived their earliest knowledge from the Babylonian andEgyptian priests, while the priests of Thebes asserted that they werethe originators of exact astronomical observations. [Footnote: Diod. , i. 50. ] Diodorus asserts that the Chaldeans used the Temple of Belus, inthe centre of Babylon, for their survey of the heavens. [Footnote:Diod. , ii. 9. ] But whether the Babylonians or the Egyptians were theearliest astronomers, it is of little consequence, although the pedantsmake it a grave matter of investigation. All we know is, that astronomywas cultivated by both Babylonians and Egyptians, and that they made butvery limited attainments. The early Greek philosophers, who visitedEgypt and the East in search of knowledge, found very little to rewardtheir curiosity or industry; not much beyond preposterous claims to ahigh antiquity, and an esoteric wisdom which has not yet been revealed. They approximated to the truth in reference to the solar year, byobserving the equinoxes and solstices, and the heliacal rising ofparticular stars. Plato and Eudoxus spent thirteen years in Heliopolisfor the purpose of extracting the scientific knowledge of the priests, but they learned but little beyond the fact that the solar year was atrifle beyond three hundred and sixty-five days. No great names havecome down to us from the priests of Babylon or Egypt. No one gained anindividual reputation. The Chaldean and Egyptian priests may havefurnished the raw material of observation to the Greeks, but the latteralone possessed the scientific genius by which indigested facts wereconverted into a symmetrical system. The East never gave valuableknowledge to the West. It gave only superstition. Instead of astronomy, it gave astrology; instead of science, it gave magic and incantationsand dreams--poison which perverted the intellect. [Footnote: Sir G. G. Lewis, _Hist. Of Anc. Astron. _, p. 293. ] They connected theirastronomy with divination from the stars, and made their antiquity reachback to two hundred and seventy thousand years. There were soothsayersin the time of Daniel, and magicians, exorcists, and interpreters ofsigns. [Footnote: Dan. I. 4, 17, 20. ] They were not men of scientificresearch, seeking truth. It was power they sought, by perverting theintellect of the people. The astrology of the East was founded on theprinciple that a star or constellation presided over the birth of anindividual, and either portended his fate, or shed a good or badinfluence upon his future life. The star which looked upon a child atthe hour of his birth, was called the horoscopus, and the peculiarinfluence of each planet was determined by professors of the genethliacart. The superstitions of Egypt and Chaldea unfortunately spread bothamong the Greeks and Romans, and these were about all that the westernnations learned from the boastful priests of occult science. Whateverwas known of real value among the ancients, is due to the earnestinquiries of the Greeks. 

[Sidenote: Researches of the Greeks. ]

And yet their researches were very unsatisfactory until the time ofHipparchus. The primitive knowledge, until Thales, was almost nothing. The Homeric poems regarded the earth as a circular plain, bounded by theheaven, which was a solid vault or hemisphere, with its concavity turneddownwards. And this absurdity was believed until the time of Herodotus, five centuries after; nor was it exploded fully in the time ofAristotle. The sun, moon, and stars, were supposed to move upon, orwith, the inner surface of the heavenly hemisphere, and the ocean wasthought to gird the earth around as a great belt, into which theheavenly bodies sunk at their setting. [Footnote: _Il_. , vii. 422;_Od_. , iii. I. Xix. 433. ] Homer believed that the sun arose out ofthe ocean, ascending the heaven, and again plunging into the ocean, passing under the earth, and producing darkness. [Footnote: _Il_. Viii. 485. ] The Greeks even personified the sun as a divine charioteerdriving his fiery steeds over the steep of heaven, until he bathed themat evening in the western waves. Apollo became the god of the sun, asDiana was the goddess of the moon. But the early Greek inquirers did notattempt to explain how the sun found his way from the west back again tothe east. They merely took note of the diurnal course, the alternationof day and night, the number of the seasons, and their regularsuccessions. They found the points of the compass by determining therecurrence of the equinoxes and solstices; but they had no conception ofthe ecliptic--of that great circle in the heaven, formed by the sun'sannual course, and of its obliquity when compared with the equator. Likethe Egyptians and Babylonians, they ascertained the length of the yearto be three hundred and sixty-five days; but perfect accuracy waswanting for want of scientific instruments, and of recorded observationsof the heavenly bodies. The Greeks had not even a common chronologicalera for the designation of years. Thus Herodotus informs us that theTrojan War preceded his time by eight hundred years: [Footnote:_Il_, ii. 53. ] he merely states the interval between the event inquestion and his own time; he had certain data for distant periods. Thusthe Greeks reckoned dates from the Trojan War, and the Romans from thebuilding of their city. And they divided the year into twelve months, and introduced the intercalary circle of eight years, although theRomans disused it afterwards until the calendar was reformed by JuliusCaesar. Thus there was no scientific astronomical knowledge worthmentioning among the primitive Greeks. 

Immense research and learning have been expended by modern critics, toshow the state of scientific astronomy among the Greeks. I am equallyamazed at the amount of research, and its comparative worthlessness, for what addition to science can be made by an enumeration of thepuerilities and errors of the Greeks, and how wasted and pedantic thelearning which ransacks all antiquity to prove that the Greeks adoptedthis or that absurdity. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocatedto chapter end. ]

[Sidenote: Thales. ]

[Sidenote: Anaximander and Anaximenes. ]

But to return. The earliest historic name associated with astronomy inGreece was Thales, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophers, born639 B. C. He is reported to have predicted an eclipse of the sun, to havemade a visit to Egypt, to have fixed the year at three hundred andsixty-five days, and to have determined the course of the sun fromsolstice to solstice. He attributed an eclipse of the moon to theinterposition of the earth between the sun and moon; and an eclipse ofthe sun to the interposition of the moon between the sun and earth. [Footnote: Sir G. G. Lewis, _Hist. Of Astron. _, p. 81. ] He alsodetermined the ratio of the sun's diameter to its apparent orbit. As hefirst solved the problem of inscribing a right-angled triangle in acircle, [Footnote: Diog. Laert, i. 24. ] he is the founder of geometricalscience in Greece. He left, however, nothing to writing, hence allaccounts of him are confused. It is to be doubted whether in fact hemade the discoveries attributed to him. His speculations, which sciencerejects, such as that water is the principle of all things, areirrelevant to a description of the progress of astronomy. That he was agreat light, no one questions, considering the ignorance with which hewas surrounded. Anaximander, who followed him in philosophy, held topuerile doctrines concerning the motions and nature of the stars, whichit is useless to repeat. His addition to science, if he made any, was intreating the magnitudes and distances of the planets. He attempted todelineate the celestial sphere, and to measure time by a sun-dial. Anaximenes of Miletus taught, like his predecessors, crude notions ofthe sun and stars, and speculated on the nature of the moon, but didnothing to advance his science on true grounds, except the constructionof sun-dials. The same may be said of Heraclitus, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Anaxagoras. They were great men, but they gave to the worldmere speculations, some of which are very puerile. They all held to theidea that the heavenly bodies revolved around the earth, and that theearth was a plain. But they explained eclipses, and supposed that themoon derived its light from the sun. Some of them knew the differencebetween the planets and the fixed stars. Anaxagoras scouted the notionthat the sun was a god, and supposed it to be a mass of ignited stone, for which he was called an atheist. 

[Sidenote: Socrates. ]

[Sidenote: Pythagoras. ]

Socrates, who belonged to another school, avoided all barrenspeculations concerning the universe, and confined himself to humanactions and interests. He looked even upon geometry in a very practicalway, so far as it could be made serviceable to land measuring. As forthe stars and planets, he supposed it was impossible to arrive at a trueknowledge of them, and regarded speculations upon them as useless. TheGreek astronomers, however barren were their general theories, stilllaid the foundation of science. Pythagoras, born 580 B. C. , taught theobliquity of the ecliptic, probably learned in Egypt, and the identityof the morning and evening stars. It is supposed that he maintained thatthe sun was the centre of the universe, and that the earth revolvedaround it. But this he did not demonstrate, and his whole system wasunscientific, assuming certain arbitrary principles, from which hereasoned deductively. "He assumed that fire is more worthy than earth;that the more worthy place must be given to the more worthy; that theextremity is more worthy than the intermediate parts; and hence, as thecentre is an extremity, the place of fire is at the centre of theuniverse, and that therefore the earth and other heavenly bodies moveround the fiery centre. " But this was no heliocentric system, since thesun moved like the earth, in a circle around the central fire. This wasmerely the work of the imagination, utterly unscientific, though boldand original. Nor did this hypothesis gain credit, since it was thefixed opinion of philosophers, that the earth was the centre of theuniverse, around which the sun and moon and planets revolved. But thePythagoreans were the first to teach that the motions of the sun, moon, and planets, are circular and equable. Their idea that they emitted asound, and were combined into a harmonious symphony, was exceedinglycrude, however beautiful. "The music of the spheres" belongs to poetry, as well as the speculations of Plato. 

[Sidenote: Eudoxus. ]

Eudoxus, who was born 406 B. C. , may be considered the founder ofscientific astronomical knowledge among the Greeks. He is reputed tohave visited Egypt with Plato, and to have resided thirteen years inHeliopolis, in constant study of the stars, communing with the Egyptianpriests. His contribution to the science was a descriptive map of theheavens, which was used as a manual of sidereal astronomy to the sixthcentury of our era. He distributed the stars into constellations, withrecognized names, and gave a sort of geographical description of theirposition and limits, although the constellations had been named beforehis time. He stated the periodic times of the five planets visible tothe naked eye, but only approximated to the true periods. 

The error of only one hundred and ninety days in the periodic time ofSaturn, shows that there had been, for a long time, close observations. Aristotle, whose comprehensive intellect, like that of Bacon, took inall forms of knowledge, condensed all that was known in his day in atreatise concerning the heavens. [Footnote: Delambre, _Hist. Del'Astron. Anc. _, tom. I. P. 301. ] He regarded astronomy as moreintimately connected with mathematical science than any other branch ofphilosophy. But even he did not soar far beyond the philosophers of hisday, since he held to the immobility of the earth--the grand error ofthe ancients. Some few speculators in science, like Heraclitus of Pontusand Hicetas, conceived a motion of the earth itself upon its axis, so asto account for the apparent motion of the sun, but they also thought itwas in the centre of the universe. 

[Sidenote: Meton. ]

The introduction of the gnomon and dial into Greece advancedastronomical knowledge, since they were used to determine the equinoxesand solstices, as well as parts of the day. Meton set up a sun-dial atAthens in the year 433 B. C. , but the length of the hour varied with thetime of the year, since the Greeks divided the day into twelve equalparts. Dials were common at Rome in the time of Plautus, 224 B. C. ;[Footnote: Ap. Gell. , _N. A. _, iii. 3. ] but there was a difficultyof using them, since they failed at night and in cloudy weather, andcould not be relied on. Hence the introduction of water-clocks instead. 

[Sidenote: Aristarchus. ]

Aristarchus is said to have combated (280 B. C. ) the geocentric theory sogenerally received by philosophers, and to have promulgated thehypothesis "that the fixed stars and the sun are immovable; that theearth is carried round the sun in the circumference of a circle of whichthe sun is the centre; and that the sphere of the fixed stars having thesame centre as the sun, is of such magnitude that the orbit of the earthis to the distance of the fixed stars, as the centre of the sphere ofthe fixed stars is to its surface. " [Footnote: Lewis, p. 190. ] Thisspeculation, resting on the authority of Archimedes, was ridiculed byhim; but if it were advanced, it shows a great advance in astronomicalscience, and considering the age, was one of the boldest speculations ofantiquity. Aristarchus also, according to Plutarch, [Footnote: Plut. , _Plac. Phil. _, ii. 24. ] explained the apparent annual motion of thesun in the ecliptic, by supposing the orbit of the earth to be inclinedto its axis. There is no evidence that this great astronomer supportedhis heliocentric theory with any geometrical proof, although Plutarchmaintains that he demonstrated it. [Footnote: _Quaest. Plat. _, viii. 1. ] This theory gave great offense, especially to the Stoics, andCleanthes, the head of the school at that time, maintained that theauthor of such an impious doctrine should be punished. Aristarchus hasleft a treatise "On the Magnitudes and Distances of the Sun and Moon, "and his methods to measure the apparent diameters of the sun and moon, are considered sound by modern astronomers, [Footnote: Lewis, p. 193. ]but inexact owing to defective instruments. He estimated the diameter ofthe sun at the seven hundred and twentieth part of the circumference ofthe circle, which it describes in its diurnal revolution, which is notfar from the truth; but in this treatise he does not allude to hisheliocentric theory. 

[Sidenote: Archimedes. ]

[Sidenote: Eratosthenes. ]

Archimedes, born 287 B. C. , is stated to have measured the distance ofthe sun, moon, and planets, and he constructed an orrery in which heexhibited their motions. But it was not in the Grecian colony ofSyracuse, but of Alexandria, that the greatest light was shed onastronomical science. Here Aristarchus resided, and also Eratosthenes, who lived between the years 276 and 196 B. C. He was a native of Athens, but was invited by Ptolemy Euergetes to Alexandria, and placed at thehead of the library. His great achievement was the determination of thecircumference of the earth. This was done by measuring on the ground thedistance between Syene, a city exactly under the tropic, and Alexandriasituated on the same meridian. The distance was found to be fivethousand stadia. The meridional distance of the sun from the zenith ofAlexandria, he estimated to be 7 degrees 12', or a fiftieth part of thecircumference of the meridian. Hence the circumference of the earth wasfixed at two hundred and fifty thousand stadia, not far from the truth. The circumference being known, the diameter of the earth was easilydetermined. The moderns have added nothing to this method. He alsocalculated the diameter of the sun to be twenty-seven times greater thanof the earth, and the distance of the sun from the earth to be eighthundred and four million stadia, and that of the moon seven hundred andeighty thousand stadia--a very close approximation to the truth. 

[Sidenote: Hipparchus. ]

[Sidenote: Greatness of Hipparchus. ]

Astronomical science received a great impulse from the school ofAlexandria, and Eratosthenes had worthy successors in Aristarchus, Aristyllus, Apollonius. But the great light of this school wasHipparchus, whose lifetime extended from 190 to 120 years B. C. He laidthe foundation of astronomy upon a scientific basis. "He determined, "says Delambre, "the position of the stars by right ascensions anddeclinations; he was acquainted with the obliquity of the ecliptic. Hedetermined the inequality of the sun, and the place of its apogee, aswell as its mean motion; the mean motion of the moon, of its nodes andapogee; the equation of the moon's centre, and the inclination of itsorbit; he likewise detected a second inequality, of which he could not, for want of proper observations, discover the period and the law. Hiscommentary on Aratus shows that he had expounded, and given ageometrical demonstration of, the methods necessary to find out theright and oblique ascensions of the points of the ecliptic and of thestars, the east point and the culminating point of the ecliptic, and theangle of the east, which is now called the nonagesimal degree. He couldcalculate eclipses of the moon, and use them for the correction of hislunar tables, and he had an approximate knowledge of parallax. "[Footnote: Delambre, _Hist. De l'Astron. Anc. _, tom. I. P. 184. ]His determination of the motions of the sun and moon, and method ofpredicting eclipses, evince great mathematical genius. But he combined, with this determination, a theory of epicycles and eccentrics, whichmodern astronomy discards. It was, however, a great thing to conceive ofthe earth as a solid sphere, and reduce the phenomena of the heavenlybodies to uniform motions in of circular orbits. "That Hipparchus shouldhave succeeded in the first great steps of the resolution of theheavenly bodies into circular motions is a circumstance, " says Whewell, "which gives him one of the most distinguished places in the roll ofgreat astronomers. " [Footnote: _Hist. Ind. Science_, vol. I. P. 181. ] But he even did more than this. He discovered that apparent motionof the fixed stars round the axis of the ecliptic, which is called thePrecession of the Equinoxes, one of the greatest discoveries inastronomy. He maintained that the precession was not greater than fifty-nine seconds, and not less than thirty-six seconds. Hipparchus framed acatalogue of the stars, and determined their places with reference tothe ecliptic, by their latitudes and longitudes. Altogether, he seems tohave been one of the greatest geniuses of antiquity, and his works implya prodigious amount of calculation. 

[Sidenote: Posidonius. ]

[Sidenote: The Roman Calendar. ]

Astronomy made no progress for three hundred years, although it wasexpounded by improved methods. Posidonius constructed an orrery, whichexhibited the diurnal motions of the sun, moon, and five planets. Posidonius calculated the circumference of the earth to be two hundredand forty thousand stadia by a different method from Eratosthenes. Thebarrenness of discovery, from Hipparchus to Ptolemy, in spite of thepatronage of the Ptolemies, was owing to the want of instruments for theaccurate measure of time, like our clocks, to the imperfection ofastronomical tables, and to the want of telescopes. Hence the greatGreek astronomers were unable to realize their theories. Their theorieswere magnificent, and evinced great power of mathematical combination;but what could they do without that wondrous instrument by which thehuman eye indefinitely multiplies its power?--by which objects aredistinctly seen, which, without it, would be invisible? Moreover, theancients had no accurate almanacs, since the care of the calendarbelonged to the priests rather than to the astronomers, who tamperedwith the computation of time for temporary and personal objects. Thecalendars of different communities differed. Hence Julius Caesar rendereda great service to science by the reform of the Roman calendar, whichwas exclusively under the control of the college of pontiffs. The Romanyear consisted of three hundred and fifty-five days, and, in the time ofCaesar, the calendar was in great confusion, being ninety days inadvance, so that January was an autumn month. He inserted the regularintercalary month of twenty-three days, and two additional ones ofsixty-seven days. These, together of ninety days, were added to threehundred and sixty-five days, making a year of transition of four hundredand forty-five days, by which January was brought back to the firstmonth in the year after the winter solstice. And to prevent therepetition of the error, he directed that in future the year shouldconsist of three hundred and sixty-five and one quarter days, which heeffected by adding one day to the months of April, June, September, andNovember, and two days to the months of January, Sextilis, and December, making an addition of ten days to the old year of three hundred andfifty-five. And he provided for a uniform intercalation of one day inevery fourth year, which accounted for the remaining quarter of a day. [Footnote: Suet. , _Caesar_, 49; Plut. , _Caesar_, 59. ]

 "Ille moras solis, quibus in sua signa rediret, Traditur exactis disposuisse notis. Is decies senos tercentum et quinque diebus Junxit; et pleno tempora quarta die. Hic anni modus est. In lustrum accedere debet Quae consummatur partibus, una dies. "

[Footnote: Ovid, _Fast. _, iii. ]

[Sidenote: Caesar's labors. ]

Caesar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for itscontemplation. He is said even to have written a treatise on the motionof the stars. He was assisted in his reform of the calendar bySosigines, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took it out of the hands of thepriests, and made it a matter of pure civil regulation. The year wasdefined by the sun, and not, as before, by the moon. 

Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of theGreeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a greatapproximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks tomeasure diurnal time. And even these were not constructed as they shouldhave been. The hours on the sun-dial were all made equal, instead ofvarying with the length of the day, so that the hour varied with thelength of the day. The illuminated interval was divided into twelveequal parts, so that, if the sun rose at five A. M. And set at eightP. M. , each hour was equal to eighty minutes. And this rude method ofmeasurement of diurnal time remained in use till the sixth century. Butclocks, with wheels and weights, were not invented till the twelfthcentury. 

The earlier Greek astronomers did not attempt to fix the order of theplanets; but when geometry was applied to celestial movements, thedifference between the three superior planets and the two inferior wasperceived, and the sun was placed in the midst between them, so that theseven movable heavenly bodies were made to succeed one another in thefollowing order: 1. Saturn; 2. Jupiter; 3. Mars; 4. The Sun; 5. Venus;6. Mercury; 7. The Moon. Archimedes adopted this order, which wasfollowed by the leading philosophers. [Footnote: Lewis, p. 247. ]

[Sidenote: Ptolemy and his system. ]

The last great light among the ancients in astronomical science wasPtolemy, who lived from 100 to 170 A. D. In Alexandria. He was acquaintedwith the writings of all the previous astronomers, but acceptedHipparchus as his guide. He held that the heaven is spherical andrevolves upon its axis; that the earth is a sphere, and is situatedwithin the celestial sphere, and nearly at its centre; that it is a merepoint in reference to the distance and magnitude of the fixed stars, andthat it has no motion. He adopted the views of the ancient astronomers, who placed Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars next under the sphere of the fixedstars, then the sun above Venus and Mercury, and lastly the moon next tothe earth. But he differed from Aristotle, who conceived that the earthrevolves in an orbit round the centre of the planetary system, and turnsupon its axis--two ideas in common with the doctrines which Copernicusafterward unfolded. But even he did not conceive the heliocentric theorythat the sun is the centre of the universe. Archimedes and Hipparchusboth rejected this theory. 

In regard to the practical value of the speculations of the ancientastronomers, it may be said that, had they possessed clocks andtelescopes, their scientific methods would have sufficed for allpractical purposes. The greatness of modern discoveries lies in thegreat stretch of the reasoning powers, and the magnificent field theyafford for sublime contemplation. "But, " as Sir G. Cornwall Lewisremarks, "modern astronomy is a science of pure curiosity, and isdirected exclusively to the extension of knowledge in a field whichhuman interests can never enter. The periodic time of Uranus, the natureof Saturn's ring, and the occupation of Jupiter's satellites, are as farremoved from the concerns of mankind as the heliacal rising of Sirius, or the northern position of the Great Bear. " This may seem to be autilitarian view with which those philosophers, who have cultivatedscience for its own sake, finding in the same a sufficient reward, as intruth and virtue, can have no sympathy. 

[Sidenote: Result of ancient investigations. ]

The upshot of the scientific attainments of the ancients, in themagnificent realm of the heavenly bodies, would seem to be that theylaid the foundation of all the definite knowledge which is useful tomankind; while in the field of abstract calculation they evincedreasoning and mathematical powers which have never been surpassed. Eratosthenes, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were geniuses worthy to beplaced by the side of Kepler, Newton, and La Place. And all ages willreverence their efforts and their memory. It is truly surprising that, with their imperfect instruments, and the absence of definite data, theyreached a height so sublime and grand. They explained the doctrine ofthe sphere and the apparent motions of the planets, but they had noinstruments capable of measuring angular distances. The ingeniousepicycles of Ptolemy prepared the way for the elliptic orbits and lawsof Kepler, which, in turn, conducted Newton to the discovery of the lawsof gravitation--the grandest scientific discovery in the annals of ourrace. 

[Sidenote: Geometry. ]

[Sidenote: Ancient Greek geometers. ]

[Sidenote: Euclid. ]

[Sidenote: Archimedes. ]

Closely connected with astronomical science was geometry, which wasfirst taught in Egypt, --the nurse and cradle of ancient wisdom. It arosefrom the necessity of adjusting the landmarks, disturbed by theinundations of the Nile. Thales introduced the science to the Greeks. Heapplied a circle to the measurement of angles. Anaximander invented thesphere, the gnomon, and geographical charts, which required considerablegeometrical knowledge. Anaxagoras employed himself in prison inattempting to square the circle. Pythagoras discovered the importanttheorem that in a right-angled triangle the squares on the sidescontaining the right angle are together equal to the square on theopposite side of it. He also discovered that of all figures having thesame boundary, the circle among plane figures and the sphere amongsolids, are the most capacious. The theory of the regular solids wastaught in his school, and his disciple, Archytas, was the author of asolution of the problem of two mean proportionals. Democritus of Abderatreated of the contact of circles and spheres, and of irrational linesand solids. Hippocrates treated of the duplication of the cube, andwrote elements of geometry, and knew that the area of a circle was equalto a triangle whose base is equal to its circumference, and altitudeequal to its radius. The disciples of Plato invented conic sections, anddiscovered the geometrical loci. They also attempted to resolve theproblems of the trisection of an angle and the duplication of a cube. ToLeon is ascribed that part of the solution of a problem, called its_determination_, which treats of the cases in which the problem ispossible, and of those in which it cannot be resolved. Euclid has almostgiven his name to the science of geometry. He was born B. C. 323, andbelonged to the Platonic sect, which ever attached great importance tomathematics. His "Elements" are still in use, as nearly perfect as anyhuman production can be. They consist of thirteen books, --the first fouron plane geometry; the fifth is on the theory of proportion, and appliesto magnitude in general; the seventh, eighth, and ninth are onarithmetic; the tenth on the arithmetical characteristics of thedivision of a straight line; the eleventh and twelfth on the elements ofsolid geometry; the thirteenth on the regular solids. These "Elements"soon became the universal study of geometers throughout the civilizedworld. They were translated into the Arabic, and through the Arabianswere made known to mediaeval Europe. There can be no doubt that thiswork is one of the highest triumphs of human genius, and has been valuedmore than any single monument of antiquity. It is still a text-book, invarious English translations, in all our schools. Euclid also wrotevarious other works, showing great mathematical talent. But, perhaps, agreater even than Euclid was Archimedes, born 287 B. C. , who wrote on thesphere and cylinder, which terminate in the discovery that the solidityand surface of a sphere are respectively two thirds of the solidity andsurface of the circumscribing cylinder. He also wrote on conoids andspheroids. "The properties of the spiral, and the quadrature of theparabola were added to ancient geometry by Archimedes, the last being agreat step in the progress of the science, since it was the firstcurvilineal space legitimately squared. " Modern mathematicians may nothave the patience to go through his investigations, since theconclusions he arrived at may now be reached by shorter methods, but thegreat conclusions of the old geometers were only reached by prodigiousmathematical power. Archimedes is popularly better known as the inventorof engines of war, and various ingenious machines, than as amathematician, great as were his attainments. His theory of the leverwas the foundation of statics, till the discovery of the composition offorces in the time of Newton, and no essential addition was made to theprinciples of the equilibrium of fluids and floating bodies till thetime of Stevin in 1608. He detected the mixture of silver in a crown ofgold which his patron, Hiero of Syracuse, ordered to be made, and heinvented a water-screw for pumping water out of the hold of a great shiphe built. He used also a combination of pulleys, and he constructed anorrery to represent the movement of the heavenly bodies. He had anextraordinary inventive genius for discovering new provinces of inquiry, and new points of view for old and familiar objects. Like Newton, he hada habit of abstraction from outward things, and would forget to take hismeals. He was killed by Roman soldiers when Syracuse was taken, and theSicilians so soon forgot his greatness that in the time of Cicero theydid not know where his tomb was. [Footnote: See article in Smith's_Dictionary_, by Prof. Darkin, of Oxford. ]

[Sidenote: Eratosthenes. ]

Eratosthenes was another of the famous geometers of antiquity, and didmuch to improve geometrical analysis. He was also a philosopher andgeographer. He gave a solution of the problem of the duplication of thecube, and applied his geometrical knowledge to the measurement of themagnitude of the earth--one of the first who brought mathematicalmethods to the aid of astronomy, which, in our day, is almostexclusively the province of the mathematician. 

[Sidenote: Apollonius of Perga. ]

Apollonius of Perga, probably about forty years younger than Archimedes, and his equal in mathematical genius, was the most fertile and profoundwriter among the ancients who treated of geometry. He was called theGreat Geometer. His most important work is a treatise on conic sections, regarded with unbounded admiration by contemporaries, and, in somerespects, unsurpassed by any thing produced by modern mathematicians. He, however, made use of the labors of his predecessors, so that it isdifficult to tell how far he is original. But all men of science mustnecessarily be indebted to those who have preceded them. Even Homer, inthe field of poetry, made use of the bards who had sung for a thousandyears before him. In the realms of philosophy the great men of all ageshave built up new systems on the foundations which others haveestablished. If Plato or Aristotle had been contemporaries with Thales, would they have matured so wonderful a system of dialectics? and ifThales had been contemporaneous with Plato, he might have added to hissublime science even more than Aristotle. So of the great mathematiciansof antiquity; they were all wonderful men, and worthy to be classed withthe Newtons and Keplers of our times. Considering their means, and thestate of science, they made as _great_, though not as _fortunate_discoveries--discoveries which show patience, genius, and powerof calculation. Apollonius was one of these--one of the masterintellects of antiquity, like Euclid and Archimedes--one of the masterintellects of all ages, like Newton himself. I might mention thesubjects of his various works, but they would not be understood exceptby those familiar with mathematics. [Footnote: See Bayle's _Dict_. ;Bossuet, _Essai sur L'Hist. Gen. Des Math_. ; Simson's _SectionesConicae_. ]

[Sidenote: Cultivation of geometry by the Greeks. ]

Other famous geometers could also be mentioned, but such men as Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius are enough to show that geometry wascultivated to a great extent by the philosophers of antiquity. Itprogressively advanced, like philosophy itself, from the time of Thales, until it had reached the perfection of which it was capable, when itbecame merged into astronomical science. It was cultivated moreparticularly by the disciples of Plato, who placed over his school thisinscription, "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here. " He believedthat the laws by which the universe is governed are in accordance withthe doctrines of mathematics. The same opinion was shared by Pythagoras, the great founder of the science, whose great formula was, that numberis the essence or first principle of all things. No thinkers eversurpassed the Greeks in originality and profundity, and mathematics, being highly prized by them, were carried to the greatest perfectiontheir method would allow. They did not understand algebra, by theapplication of which to geometry modern mathematicians have climbed togreater heights than the ancients. But then it is all the moreremarkable that, without the aid of algebraic analysis, they were ableto solve such difficult problems as occupied the minds of Archimedes andApollonius. No positive science can boast of such rapid development asgeometry for two or three hundred years before Christ, and never was theintellect of man more severely tasked than by the ancientmathematicians. 

[Sidenote: Empirical sciences. ]

No empirical science can be carried to perfection by any one nation orin any particular epoch. It can only expand with the progressivedevelopments of the human race itself. Nevertheless, in that sciencewhich for three thousand years has been held in the greatest honor, andwhich is one of the three great liberal professions of our modern times, the ancients, especially the Greeks, made considerable advance. Thescience of medicine, having in view the amelioration of human misery, and the prolongation of life itself, was very early cultivated. It was, indeed, in old times, another word for _physics_, --the science ofnature, --and the _physician_ was the observer and expounder ofphysics. The physician was supposed to be acquainted with the secrets ofnature--that is, the knowledge of drugs, of poisons, of antidotes tothem, and the way to administer them. He was also supposed to know theprocess of preserving the body after death. Thus Joseph commanded hisphysician to embalm the body of his father seventeen hundred yearsbefore the birth of Christ, and the process of embalming was probablyknown to the Egyptians beyond the period when history begins. Helen, ofTrojan fame, put into wine a drug that "frees man from grief and angerand causes oblivion of all ills. " [Footnote: _Odyssey_, b. Iv. ]Solomon was a great botanist, with which the science of medicine isindissolubly connected. The "Ayur Veda, " written nine hundred yearsbefore Hippocrates was born, sums up the knowledge of previous periodsrelating to obstetric surgery, to general pathology, to the treatment ofinsanity, to infantile diseases, to toxicology, to personal hygiene, andto diseases of the generative functions. [Footnote: Wise, _On theHindu System of Medicine_, p. 12. ] The origin of Hindu medicine islost in remote antiquity. 

[Sidenote: Hippocrates. ]

Thus Hippocrates, the father of European medicine, must have derived hisknowledge, not merely from his own observations, but from the writingsof men unknown to us, and systems practiced for an indefinite period. The real founders of Greek medicine are fabled characters, like Herculesand Aesculapius--that is, benefactors whose names have not descended tous. They are mythical personages, like Hermes and Chiron. One thousandtwo hundred years before Christ temples were erected to Aesculapius inGreece, the priests of which were really physicians, and the templesthemselves were hospitals. In them were practiced rites apparentlymysterious, but which modern science calls by the names of mesmerism, hydropathy, mineral springs, and other essential elements of empiricalscience. And these temples were also medical schools. That of Cos gavebirth to Hippocrates, and it was there that his writings were commenced. Pythagoras--for those old Grecian philosophers were the fathers of allwisdom and knowledge, in mathematics and empirical sciences, as well asphilosophy itself--studied medicine in the schools of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldea, and India, and came in conflict with sacerdotal power, whichhas ever been antagonistic to new ideas in science. He traveled fromtown to town as a teacher or lecturer, establishing communities in whichmedicine as well as numbers was taught. 

The greatest name in medical science, in ancient or in modern times, --the man who did the most to advance it; the greatest medical genius ofwhom we have record, --is Hippocrates, born on the island of Cos B. C. 460, of the great Aesculapian family, and was instructed by his father. We know scarcely more of his life than we do of Homer himself, althoughhe lived in the period of the highest splendor of Athens. And hiswritings, like those of Homer, are thought by some to be the work ofdifferent men. They were translated into Arabic, and were no slightmeans of giving an impulse to the Saracenic schools of the Middle Agesin that science in which the Saracens especially excelled. TheHippocratic collection consists of more than sixty works, which wereheld in the highest estimation by the ancient physicians. Hippocratesintroduced a new era in medicine, which, before his time, had beenmonopolized by the priests. He carried out a system of severe inductionfrom the observation of facts, and is as truly the creator of theinductive method as Bacon himself. He abhorred theories which could notbe established by facts. He was always open to conviction, and candidlyconfessed his mistakes. He was conscientious in the practice of hisprofession, and valued the success of his art more than silver and gold. The Athenians revered him for his benevolence as well as genius. Thegreat principle of his practice was trust in nature. Hence he wasaccused of allowing his patients to die; but this principle has manyadvocates among scientific men in our day, and some suppose the wholephilosophy of homeopathy rests on the primal principle which Hippocratesadvanced. He had great skill in diagnosis, by which medical genius ismost severely tested. His practice was cautious and timid in contrastwith that of his contemporaries. He is the author of the celebratedmaxim, "Life is short and art is long. " He divides the causes of diseaseinto two principal classes, --the one comprehending the influence ofseasons, climates, and other external forces; the other from the effectsof food and exercise. To the influence of climate he attributes theconformation of the body and the disposition of the mind. He alsoattributes all sorts of disorders to a vicious system of diet. For morethan twenty centuries his pathology was the foundation of all themedical sects. He was well acquainted with the medicinal properties ofdrugs, and was the first to assign three periods to the course of amalady. He knew, of course, but little of surgery, although he was inthe habit of bleeding, and often employed his knife. He was alsoacquainted with cupping, and used violent purgatives. He was not awareof the importance of the pulse, and confounded the veins with thearteries. He wrote in the Ionic dialect, and some of his works have gonethrough three hundred editions, so highly have they been valued. Hisauthority passed away, like that of Aristotle, on the revival ofEuropean science. Yet who have been greater ornaments and lights thanthese distinguished Greeks?

[Sidenote: Galen. ]

The school of Alexandria produced eminent physicians, as well asmathematicians, after the glory of Greece had departed. So highly was itesteemed that Galen went there to study five hundred years after itsfoundation. It was distinguished for inquiries into scientific anatomyand physiology, for which Aristotle had prepared the way. He was theHumboldt of his day, and gave great attention to physics. In eight bookshe developed the general principles of natural science known to theGreeks. On the basis of the Aristotelian researches, the Alexandrianphysicians carried out extensive inquiries in physiology. Herophilusdiscovered the fundamental principles of neurology, and advanced theanatomy of the brain and spinal cord. 

[Sidenote: Medical science among the Romans. ]

Although the Romans had but little sympathy for science or philosophy, being essentially political and warlike in their turn of mind, yet whenthey had conquered the world, and had turned their attention to arts, medicine received great attention. The first physicians were Greekslaves. Of these was Asclepiades, who enjoyed the friendship of Cicero. It is from him that the popular medical theories as to the "pores" havedescended. He was the inventor of the shower-bath. Celsus wrote a workon medicine which takes almost equal rank with the Hippocratic writings. Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens inHippocrates. He was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed himselfof all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians. He wasborn at Pergamus about the year A. D. 165, where he learned, under ablemasters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics. He finished his studiesat Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the emperor. Likehis patron, he was one of the brightest ornaments of the heathen world, and one of the most learned and accomplished men of any age. "_Medicorum dissertissimus atque doctissimus_. " [Footnote: St. Jerome, _Comment. In Aoms_, c. 5, vol. Vi. ] He left five hundredtreatises, most of them relating to some branch of medical science, which give him the merit of being one of the most voluminous of authors. His celebrity is founded chiefly on his anatomical and physiologicalworks. He was familiar with practical anatomy, deriving his knowledgefrom dissection. His observations about health are practical and useful. He lays great stress on gymnastic exercises, and recommends thepleasures of the chase, the cold bath in hot weather, hot baths to oldpeople, the use of wine, three meals a day, and pork as the best ofanimal food. The great principles of his practice were that disease isto be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease itself, and thatnature is to be preserved by that which has relation with nature. Asdisease cannot be overcome so long as its cause exists, that, ifpossible, was first to be removed, and the strength of the patient is tobe considered before the treatment is proceeded with. His "Commentarieson Hippocrates" served as a treasure of medical criticism, from whichsucceeding annotators borrowed. No one ever set before the medicalprofession a higher standard than Galen, and few have more nearlyapproached it. He did not attach himself to any particular school, butstudied the doctrines of each--an eclectic in the fullest sense. [Footnote: See Leclerc, _Hist. De la Medicine_; Hartt Shoengel, _Geschichte der Arzneykunde_. W. A. Greenhill, M. D. , of Oxford, hasa very learned article in Smith's _Dictionary_. ] The works of Galenconstituted the last production of ancient Roman medicine, and from hisday the decline in medical science was rapid, until it was revived amongthe Arabs. 

The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by theancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physicalgeography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch ofknowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly onthe coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position ofcountries could not be ascertained with the definiteness that it is atpresent. But geography was not utterly neglected, nor was naturalhistory. 

[Sidenote: Physical geography. ]

Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners andcustoms of oriental and barbarous nations, and Pliny has written anatural history, in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwardsof two thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters ofimportance. He was born A. D. 23, and was fifty-three when the eruptionof Vesuvius took place which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called ascientific genius, in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was hean original observer. His materials are drawn up second hand, like amodern encyclopedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection. He had a great love of the marvelous, and is often unintelligible. Buthis work is a wonderful monument of human industry. It treats of everything in the natural world--of the heavenly bodies, of the elements, ofthunder and lightning, of the winds and seasons, of the changes andphenomena of the earth, of countries and nations, seas and rivers, ofmen, animals, birds, fishes, and plants, of minerals and medicines andprecious stones, of commerce and the fine arts. He is full of errors;but his work is among the most valuable productions of antiquity. Buffonpronounced his natural history to contain an infinity of knowledge inevery department of human occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate andbrilliant. It is a literary rather than a scientific monument, and assuch it is wonderful--a compilation from one hundred and sixty volumesof notes. In strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works ofmodern research; but there are few minds, even in these times, who havedirected inquiries to such a variety of subjects. 

[Sidenote: Strabo. ]

[Sidenote: Construction of maps. ]

[Sidenote: Ptolemy. ]

Geographical knowledge was advanced by Strabo, who lived in the Augustanera; but researches were chiefly confined to the Roman empire. Strabowas, like Herodotus, a great traveler, and much of his geographicalinformation is the result of his own observations. It is probable he ismuch indebted to Eratosthenes, who preceded him by three centuries, andwho was the first systematic writer on geography. The authorities ofStrabo are chiefly Greek, but his work is defective, from the imperfectnotions which the ancients had of astronomy; so that the determinationof the earth's figure by the measure of latitude and longitude, theessential foundations of geographical description, was unknown. Theenormous strides, which all forms of physical science have made sincethe discovery of America, throw all ancient descriptions andinvestigations into the shade, and Strabo appears at as greatdisadvantage as Pliny or Ptolemy; yet the work of Strabo, consideringhis means, and the imperfect knowledge of the earth's surface, andastronomical science, was really a great achievement of industry. Hetreats of the form and magnitude of the earth, and devotes eight booksto Europe, six to Asia, and one to Africa. His great authorities areEratosthenes, Polybius, Aristotle, Antiochus of Syracuse, Posidonius, Theopompus, Artemidorus Ephorus, Herodotus, Anaximenes, Thucydides, andAristo, chiefly historians and philosophers. Whatever may be said of theaccuracy of the great geographer of antiquity, it cannot be denied thathe was a man of immense research and learning. His work in seventeenbooks is one of the most valuable which have come down from antiquity, both from the discussions which run through it, and the curious factswhich can be found nowhere else. It is scarcely fair to estimate thegenius of Strabo by the correctness and extent of his geographicalknowledge. All men are lost in science, and science is progressive. Thegreat scientific lights of our day may be insignificant, compared withthose who are to arise, if profundity and accuracy of knowledge is thetest. It is the genius of the ancients, their grasp and power of mind, their original labors which we are to consider. Anaxagoras was one ofthe greatest philosophical geniuses of all ages; but, as philosophy is ascience, and is progressive, his knowledge could not be compared withthat of Aristotle. Again, who doubts the original genius and grasp ofAristotle, but what was he, in accuracy of knowledge and true method, incomparison with the savants of the nineteenth century; yet, it would bedifficult to show that Aristotle was inferior to Bacon or Cuvier, orStuart Mill. If, however, we would compare the geographical knowledge ofthe ancients with that of the moderns, we confess to the immeasurableinferiority of the ancients in this branch. When Eratosthenes began hislabors, it was known that the surface of the earth was spherical. Heestablished parallels of latitude and longitude, and attempted thedifficult undertaking of measuring the circumference of the globe by theactual measurement of a segment of one of its great circles. Posidoniusdetermined the arc of a meridian between Rhodes and Alexandria to be aforty-eighth part of the whole circumference--an enormous calculation, yet a remarkable one in the infancy of astronomical science. Hipparchusintroduced into geography a great improvement, namely, the relativesituation of places, by the same process that he determined thepositions of the heavenly bodies. He also pointed out how longitudemight be determined by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. Thisled to the construction of maps; but none have reached us except thosewhich were used to illustrate the geography of Ptolemy. Hipparchus wasborn B. C. 276, the first who raised geography to the rank of a science. He starved himself to death, being tired of life, like Eratosthenes, more properly an astronomer, and the most distinguished among theancients, born about 160 B. C. , although none of his writings havereached us. The improvements he pointed out were applied by Ptolemyhimself, an astronomer who flourished about the year 160 at Alexandria. His work was a presentation of geographical knowledge known in his day, so far as geography is the science of determining the position of placeson the earth's surface. The description of places belongs to Strabo. Hiswork was accepted as the textbook of the science till the fifteenthcentury, for in his day the Roman empire had been well surveyed. Hemaintained that the earth is _spherical_, and introduced the terms_longitude_ and _latitude_, which Eratosthenes had established, and computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousandstadia in circumference, and a degree five hundred stadia in length, or sixty-two and a half Roman miles. His estimates of the lengthof a degree of latitude were nearly correct; but he made great errors inthe degrees of longitude, making the length of the world from east towest too great, which led to the belief in the practicability of awestern passage to India. He also assigned too great length to theMediterranean, arising from the difficulty of finding the longitude withaccuracy. But it was impossible, with the scientific knowledge of hisday, to avoid errors, and we are surprised that he made so few. 

 * * * * *

REFERENCES. --An exceedingly learned work has recently been issued inLondon, by Parker and Son, on the Astronomy of the Ancients, by SirGeorge Cornwall Lewis, though rather ostentatious in his parade ofauthorities, and minute on points which are not of much consequence. Delambre's History of Ancient Astronomy has long been a classic, butricher in materials for a history than a history itself. There is avaluable essay in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which refers to a list ofauthors, among which are Biccoli, Weilder, Bailly, Playfair, La Lande. Lewis makes much reference to Macrobius, Vitruvius, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, and Suidas, among the ancients, and to Ideler, Unters. Uberdie Art. Beob. Der Alten. 

Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences may also be consulted withprofit. Leclerc, Hist, de Med. ; Spengel, Gesch. Der Arzneykunde. Strabo's Geography is the most valuable of Antiquity. See also Polybius. 

[Relocated Footnote: The style of modern historical criticism may thusbe exemplified, like the discussions of the Germans, whether the Arx onthe Capitoline Hill occupied the northeastern or southwestern corner, which take up nearly one half of the learned article in Smith'sDictionary, on the Capitoline. "Thales supposed the earth to float onthe water, like a plank of wood": [Greek: oi d hudatos keisthai toutongar archaiotaton pareilaephamen ton logon hon phasin eipein thalae tonMilaesion]. Aristot. , _De Coel_. , ii. 13: "_Quoe sequitur Thaletisineptq sententia est. Ait enim terrarum orbem aqua sustineri. _" Seneca, _Nat. Quoest_. , iii. 13. This notion is mentioned in _Schol. Iliad_, xiii. 125. This doctrine Thales brought from Egypt. See Plut. , _Pac_. , in. 10; Galen, c. 21. But this maybe doubted. Callimach. , _Frag_. , 94;Hygin, _Poet. Astr_. , ii. 2; Martin, _Timee de Platon_. , tom. Ii. P. 109, thinks it questionable whether Thales saw Egypt. Diog. Laert. , viii. 60. Compare, however, Sturz, _Thales_, p. 80; Proclus, _in Tim_. , i. P. 40; _Schol. Aristophanes, Nub_. , ii. 31; Varro, ii. Vi. 10. Seealso, _Ideler Chron_. , vol. I. P. 300. But Brandis sheds light upon thepoint, though his suggestions conflict with Origen, _Phil_. , p. 11; alsowith Aristotle, _De Coel_. , ii. 13. 

This style of expending learning on nothing, meets with great favor withthe pedants, who attach no value to history unless one half of the pageis filled with erudite foot-notes which few can verify, and which provenothing, or nothing of any consequence. ]

CHAPTER X. 

INTERNAL CONDITION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

We have now surveyed all that was glorious in the most splendid empireof antiquity. We have seen a civilization which, in many respects, rivals all that modern nations have to show. In art, in literature, inphilosophy, in laws, in the mechanism of government, in the cultivatedface of nature, in military strength, in aesthetic culture, the Romanswere our equals. And this high civilization was reached by the nativeand unaided strength of man; by the power of will, by courage, byperseverance, by genius, by fortunate circumstances; by great men, gifted with unusual talents. We are filled with admiration by all thesetrophies of genius, and cannot but feel that only a superior race couldhave accomplished such mighty triumphs. 

But all this splendid external was deceptive. It was hollow at heart. And the deeper we penetrate the social condition of the people, theirreal and practical life, the more we feel disgust and pity supplantingall feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman empire, in its shameand degradation, suggests melancholy feelings in reference to thedestiny of man, so far as his happiness and welfare depend upon his ownunaided strength. And we see profoundly the necessity of some foreignaid to rescue him from his miseries. 

It is a sad picture of oppression, of injustice, of poverty, of vice, and of wretchedness, which I have now to present. Glory is succeeded byshame, and strength by weakness, and virtue by vice. The condition ofthe great mass is deplorable, and even the great and fortunate shine ina false and fictitious light. We see laws, theoretically good, practically perverted; monstrous inequalities of condition, selfishness, and egotism the mainsprings of life. We see energies misdirected, andart corrupted. All noble aspirations have fled, and the good and thewise retire from active life in despair and misanthropy. Poets flatterthe tyrants who trample on human rights, and sensuality and Epicureanpleasures absorb the depraved thoughts of a perverse generation. 

[Sidenote: The imperial despotism. ]

The first thing which arrests our attention as we survey the grandempire which embraced the civilized countries or the world, is theimperial despotism. It may have been a necessity, an inevitable sequenceto the anarchy of civil war, the strife of parties, great militarysuccesses, and the corruptions of society itself. It may be viewed as aprovidential event in order that general peace and security might usherin the triumphs of a new religion. It followed naturally the subversionof the constitution by military leaders, the breaking up of the power ofthe Senate, the encroachments of democracy and its leaders, the wars ofSulla and Marius, of Pompey and Julius. It succeeded massacres andfactions and demagogues. It came when conspiracies and proscriptions andgeneral insecurity rendered a stronger government desirable. The empirewas too vast to be intrusted to the guidance of conflicting parties. There was needed a strong, central, irrepressible, irresistible power inthe hands of a single man. Safety and peace seemed preferable to gloryand genius. So the people acquiesced in the changes which were made;they had long anticipated them; they even hailed them with silent joy. Patriots, like Brutus, Cassius, and Cato, gave themselves up to despair;but most men were pleased with the revolution that seated Augustus onthe throne of the world. For twenty years the empire had been desolatedby destructive and exhaustive wars. The cry of the whole empire was forpeace, and peace could be secured only by the ascendency of a singleman, ruling with absolute and unresisted sway. 

[Sidenote: Necessity of revolution. ]

[Sidenote: Imperial Rule. ]

Historians generally have regarded the revolution, which changed therepublic to a monarchy, as salutary in its influences for severalgenerations. The empire was never so splendid as under the Caesars. Theenergies of the people were directed into peaceful and industrialchannels. A new public policy was inaugurated by Augustus--to preserverather than extend the limits of the empire. The world enjoyed peace, and the rich consoled themselves with riches. Society was establishedupon a new basis, and was no longer rent by factions and parties. Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace, nor were the provincesransacked and devastated to provide for the means of carrying on war. Solong as men did not oppose the government they were safe frommolestation, and were left to pursue their business and pleasure intheir own way. Wealth rapidly increased, and all mechanical arts, andall elegant pleasures. Temples became more magnificent, and the city waschanged from brick to marble. Palaces arose upon the hills, and shopswere erected in the valleys. There were fewer riots and mobs and publicdisturbances. Public amusements were systematized and enlarged, and thepeople indulged with sports, spectacles, and luxuries. Rome became astill greater centre of wealth and art as well as of political power. The city increased in population and beautiful structures. The emperorswere great patrons of every thing calculated to dazzle the eyes of theirsubjects, whether amusements, or palaces, or baths, or aqueducts, ortriumphal monuments. Artists and scholars flocked to the great emporium, as well as merchants and foreign princes. Nor was imperial cruelty oftenvisited on the humble classes. It was the policy of the emperors toamuse and flatter the people, while they deprived them of politicalrights. But social life was free. All were at liberty to seek theirpleasures and gains. All were proud of their metropolis, with its gildedglories and its fascinating pleasures. The city was probably suppliedwith better water, and could rely with more certainty on the necessariesof life, than under the old regime. The people had better baths, andlarger houses, and cheaper corn. The government, for a time, wassplendidly administered, even by tyrants. Outrages, extortions, anddisturbances were punished. Order reigned, and tranquillity, and outwardand technical justice. All classes felt secure. They could sleep withoutfear of robbery or assassination. And all trades flourished. Art waspatronized magnificently, and every opportunity was offered for makingand for spending fortunes. In short, all the arguments which can beadduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war and violence, and the strife of factions and general insecurity of life and property, can be urged to show that the change, if inevitable, was beneficial inits immediate effects. 

[Sidenote: Despotism of the emperors. ]

[Sidenote: Tyranny of the emperors. ]

Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition ofthings which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties wereprostrated forever. Tyrants, armed with absolute and irresponsiblepower, ruled over the empire; nor could their tyranny end but with theirlives. Noble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. The times wereunfavorable to the development of genius, except in those ways whichsubserved the interests of the government. Under the emperors we read ofno more great orators like Cicero, battling for human rights, anddefending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed. Nor was thereliberty of speech in the Senate. The usual jealousy of tyrants wasawakened to every emancipating influence on the people. They were nowamused with shows and spectacles, but could not make their voices heardregarding public injuries. The people were absolutely in the hands ofiron masters. So was the Senate. So were all orders and conditions ofmen. One man reigned supreme. His will was law. Resistance to it wasvain. It was treason to find fault with any public acts. From thePillars of Hercules to the Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all classesand orders. No one could fly from the agents and ministers of theempire. He was the vicegerent of the Almighty, worshiped as a deity, undisputed master of the lives and liberties of one hundred and twentymillions of people. There was no restraint on his inclinations. He coulddo whatever he pleased, without rebuke and without fear. No general orsenator or governor could screen himself from his vengeance. Hecontrolled the army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internaladministration of the empire, and the religious worship of the people. All offices and honors and emoluments emanated from him. All oppositionceased, and all conspired to elevate still higher that supreme arbiterof fortune whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt wasmadness, and treason absurdity. And so perfect was the mechanism of thegovernment that the emperor had time for his private pleasures. It wasnever administered with greater rigor than when Tiberius secludedhimself in his guarded villa. And a timid, or weak, or irresoluteemperor was as much to be feared as a monster, since he was surroundedwith minions who might be unscrupulous. Nor was the imperial powerexercised to check the gigantic social evils of the empire, --those whichwere gradually but surely undermining the virtues on which strength isbased. They did not seek to prevent irreligion, luxury, slavery, andusury, the encroachments of the rich upon the poor, the tyranny offoolish fashions, demoralizing sports and pleasures, money-making, andall the follies which lax principles of morality allowed. They fed therabble with com and oil and wine, and thus encouraged idleness anddissipation. The world never saw a more rapid retrograde in humanrights, or a greater prostration of liberties. Taxes were imposedaccording to the pleasure or necessities of the government. Provincialgovernors became still more rapacious and cruel. Judges hesitated todecide against the government. A vile example was presented to thepeople in their rulers. The emperors squandered immense sums on theirprivate pleasures, and set public opinion at defiance. Patriotism, inits most enlarged sense, became an impossibility. All lofty spirits werecrushed. Corruption, in all forms of administration, fearfullyincreased, for there was no safeguard. Women became debased from thepernicious influences of a corrupt and unblushing court. Adultery, divorce, and infanticide became still more common. The emperors thoughtmore of securing their own power and indulging their own passions thanof the public good. The humiliating conviction was fastened upon allclasses that liberty was extinguished, and that they were slaves to anirresponsible power. There are those who are found to applaud adespotism; but despotism presupposes the absence of the power of self-government, and the necessity of severe and rigorous measures. Itpresupposes the tendency to crime and violence, that men are brutes andmust be coerced like wild beasts. We are warranted in assuming a verylow condition of society when despotism became a necessity. Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are wiseand just; but, practically, as men are, despotisms are cruel andrevengeful. There are great and glorious exceptions; but it cannot bedenied that society is mournful when tyrants bear rule. And it is seldomthat society improves under them, without very powerful religiousinfluences. It generally grows worse and worse. Despotism impliesslavery, and slavery is the worst condition of mankind, --doubtless awholesome discipline, under certain circumstances, yet still a greatcalamity. 

[Sidenote: Augustus. ]

The Roman world was fortunate in having such a man as Augustus forsupreme ruler, after all liberties were subverted. He was one of thewisest and greatest of the emperors. He inaugurated the policy of hissuccessors, from which the immediate ones did not far depart. He wascareful, in the first place, to disguise his powers, and offend themoral sentiments of the people as little as possible. He met with butlittle opposition in his usurpation, for the most independent of thenobles had perished in the wars, and the rest consulted their interests. He selected the ablest and most popular men in the city to be hisfavorite ministers--Maecenas and Agrippa. His policy was peace. Hedeclined the coronary gold proffered by the Italian states. He wasprofuse in his generosity, without additional burdens on the state, for, as the heir of Caesar, he came into possession of eight hundred and fiftymillions of dollars, the amount which the Dictator had amassed from thespoils of war. He was but thirty-three years of age, in the prime of hisstrength and courage. He purged the Senate of unworthy members, andrestored the appearance of its ancient dignity. He took a census of theRoman people. He increased the largesses of corn. He showed confidencein the people whom he himself deceived. He was modest in his demeanor, like Pericles at Athens. He visited the provinces and settled theirdifficulties. He appointed able men as governors, and perpetuated astanding army. He repaired the public edifices, and adorned the city. 

But he gradually assumed all the great offices of the state. He clothedhimself with the powers and the badges of the consuls, the praenomen ofimperator, the functions of perpetual dictator. He exacted the militaryoath from the whole mass of the people. He became _princepssenatus_. He claimed the prerogatives of the tribunes, which gave tohim inviolability, with the right of protection and pardon. He was alsoinvested with the illustrious dignity of the supreme pontificate. As theSenate and the people continued to meet still for the purpose oflegislation, he controlled the same by assuming the initiative, ofproposing the laws. He took occasion to give to his edicts, in hisconsular or tribunitian capacity, a perpetual force; and his rescriptsor replies which issued from his council chamber, were registered aslaws. He was released from the laws, and claimed the name of Caesar. Thepeople were deprived of the election of magistrates. All officers of thegovernment were his tools, and through them he controlled all publicaffairs. The prefect of the city became virtually his minister andlieutenant. Even the proconsuls received their appointment from him. Thus he became supreme arbiter of all fortunes, the fountain of allinfluence, the centre of all power, absolute over the lives and fortunesof all classes of men. Strange that the people should have submitted tosuch monstrous usurpations, although decently veiled under the names ofthe old offices of the republic. But they had become degenerate. Theywished for peace and leisure. They felt the uselessness of anyindependent authority, and resigned themselves to a condition which theRomans two centuries earlier would have felt to be intolerable. 

[Sidenote: General character of the emperors. ]

Of the immediate successors of Augustus, none equaled him in moderationor talents. And with the exception of Titus and Vespasian, the emperorswho comprised the Julian family, were stained with great vices. Somewere monsters; others were madmen. But, as a whole, they were notdeficient in natural ability. Some had great executive talents, likeTiberius--a man of vast experience. But he was a cruel and remorselesstyrant, full of jealousy and vindictive hatred. Still, amid disgracefulpleasures, he devoted himself to the cares of office, and exhibited thevirtues of domestic economy. Nor did he take pleasure in the sports ofthe circus and the theatre, like most of his successors. But hedestroyed all who stood in his way, as most tyrants do. Nor did he sparehis own relatives. He was sensual and intemperate in his habits, and alllooked to him with awe and trepidation. There was a perfect reign ofterror at Rome during his latter days, and every body rejoiced when thetyrant died. 

[Sidenote: Caligula. ]

Caligula, who succeeded Tiberius, belonged to the race of madmen. He putto death some of the most eminent Romans, in order to seize on theirestates. He repudiated his wife; he expressed the wish that Rome had butone neck, that it could be annihilated by a blow; he used to invite hisfavorite horse to supper, setting before him gilded corn and wine ingolden goblets; he wasted immense sums in useless works; he took awaythe last shadow of power from the people; he impoverished Italy bysenseless extravagance; he wantonly destroyed his soldiers by wholecompanies; he was doubtless as insane as he was cruel, luxurious, rapacious, and prodigal; he adorned the poops of galleys with preciousstones, and constructed arduous works with no other purpose thancaprice; he often dressed like a woman, and generally appeared with agolden beard; he devoted himself to fencing, driving, singing, anddancing, and was ruled by gladiators, charioteers, and actors. Such wasthe man to whom was intrusted the guardianship of an empire. No wonderhe was removed by assassination. 

[Sidenote: Claudius. ]

His successor was Claudius, made emperor by the Praetorians. He tookAugustus for his model, was well disposed, and contributed greatly tothe embellishment of the capital. But he was gluttonous and intemperate, and subject to the influence of women and favorites. He was feeble inmind and body. He was married to one of the worst women in history, andMessalina has passed into a synonym for infamy. By this woman he wasinfluenced, and her unblushing effrontery and disgraceful intrigues madethe reign unfortunate. She trafficked in the great offices of the state, and sacrificed the best blood of the class to which she belonged. Claudius was also governed by freedmen, who performed such offices asLouis XV. Intrusted to his noble vassals. Claudius resembled thisinglorious monarch in many respects, and his reign was as disastrous onthe morals of the people. When the death of his wife was announced tohim at the banquet, he called for wine, and listened to songs and music. But she was succeeded by a worse woman, Agrippina, and the marriage ofthe emperor with his niece, was a scandal as well as a misfortune. Plinymentions having seen this empress in a sea-fight on the Fucine Lake, clothed in a soldier's cloak. Daughter of an imperator, sister ofanother, and consort of a third, she is best known as the mother ofNero, and the patroness of every thing that was shameful in the folliesof the times. That an emperor should wed and be ruled by two suchinfamous women, indicates either weakness or depravity, and bothqualities are equally fatal to the welfare of the state over which hewas called to rule. 

[Sidenote: Nero. ]

The supreme power then fell into the hands of Nero. He gave the promiseof virtue and ability, and Seneca condescended to the most flatteringpanegyrics; but the prospects of ruling beneficently were soon cloudedby the most disgraceful enormities. He destroyed all who were offensiveto those who ruled him, even Seneca who had been his tutor. Lost to alldignity and decency, he indulged in the most licentious riots, disguising himself like a slave, and committing midnight assaults. Hekilled his mother and his aunt, and divorced his wife. He sung songs onthe public stage, and was more ambitious of being a good flute-playerthan a public benefactor. It is even said that he fiddled when Rome wasdevastated by a fearful conflagration. He built a palace, which coveredentirely Mount Esquiline, the vestibule of which contained a colossalstatue of himself, one hundred and twenty feet high. His gardens werethe scenes of barbarities, and his banqueting halls of orgies which werea reproach to humanity. He wasted the empire by enormous contributions, and even plundered the temples of his own capital. His wife, Poppaea, died of a kick which she received from this monster, because she hadpetulantly reproved him. Longinus, an eminent lawyer, Lucan the poet, and Petronius the satirist, alike, were victims of his hatred. This lastof the Caesars, allied by blood to the imperial house of Julius, killedhimself in his thirty-first year, to prevent assassination, to theuniversal joy of the Roman world, without having done a great deed, orevinced a single virtue. Flute-playing and chariot races were his maindiversions, and every public interest was sacrificed to his pleasures, or his vengeance--a man delighting in evil for its own sake. 

[Sidenote: Galba. ]

Nero was succeeded by Galba, who also was governed by favorites. He wasa great glutton, exceedingly parsimonious, and very unpopular. In theearly stages of his life, he appeared equal to the trust and dignityreposed in him; but when he gained the sovereignty, he proved deficientin those qualities requisite to wield it. Tacitus sums up his characterin a sentence. "He appeared superior to his rank before he was emperor, and would have always been considered worthy of the supreme power, if hehad not obtained it. " He was assassinated after a brief reign. 

[Sidenote: Otho. ]

His successor, Otho, finding himself unequal to the position to which hewas elevated, ended his life by suicide. Vitellius, who wore the purplenext to him, is celebrated for cruelty and gluttony, and was removed byassassination. Titus and Vespasian were honorable exceptions to thetyrants and sensualists that had reigned since Augustus, but Domitiansurpassed all his predecessors in unrelenting cruelty. He banished allphilosophers from Rome and Italy, and violently persecuted theChristians, and was dissolute and lewd in his private habits. He alsomet a violent death from the assassin's dagger, the only way thatinfamous monsters could be hurled from power. Yet such was the fulsomeflattery to which he and all the emperors were accustomed, that Martialaddressed this monster, preeminent of all in wickedness and cruelty, --

 "To conquer ardent, and to triumph shy, Fair Victory named him from the polar sky. Fanes to the gods, to men he manners gave; Rest to the sword, and respite to the brave; So high could ne'er Herculean power aspire: The god should bend his looks to the Tarpeian fire. "[Footnote: Book ix. 101. ]

[Sidenote: The latter emperors. ]

Of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, I will not speak, sincethey were great exceptions to those who generally ruled at Rome. Theirvirtues and their talents are justly eulogized by all historians. Greatin war, and greater in peace, they were ornaments of humanity. Undertheir sway, the empire was prosperous and happy. Their greatness almostatoned for the weakness and wickedness of their predecessors. If suchmen as they could have ruled at Rome, the imperial regime would havebeen the greatest blessing. But with them expired the prosperity of theempire, and they were succeeded by despots, whose vices equaled those ofNero and Vitellius. Commodus, Caracalla, Elagabalus, Maximin, Philip, Gallienus, are enrolled on the catalogue of those who have obtained aninfamous immortality. At last no virtue or talent on the part of thefew emperors who really labored for the good of the state, could arrestthe increasing corruption. The empire was doomed when Constantineremoved the seat of government to Constantinople. Forty-four sovereignsreigned at Rome from Julius to Constantine, in a period of little morethan three hundred and fifty years, of whom twenty were removed byassassination. What a commentary on imperial despotism! In spite of thevirtues of such men as Trajan and the Antonines, the history of theemperors is a loathsome chapter of human depravity, and of its awfulretribution. Never were greater powers exercised by single men, andnever were they more signally abused. From the time of Augustus thosevirtues which give glory to society steadily declined. The reigns of theemperors were fatal to all moral elevation, and even to genius, as inthe latter days of Louis XIV. The great lights which illuminated theAugustan age, disappeared, without any to take their place. Under theemperors there are fewer great names than for one hundred years beforethe death of Cicero. Eloquence, poetry, and philosophy were alikeeclipsed. Noble aspirations were repressed by the all-powerful andirresistible despotism. 

The tyranny of these emperors was rendered endurable by the generalfamiliarity with cruelty. In every Roman palace, the slave was chainedto the doorway; thongs hung upon the stairs, and the marks of violenceon the faces of the domestics impressed the great that they were despotsthemselves. They were accustomed to the sight of blood in the sports ofthe amphitheatre. They ruled as tyrants in the provinces they governed. 

But it must be allowed that the system of education was left untrammeledby the government, provided politics were not introduced; and itproduced men of letters, if not practical statesmen. It sharpened theintellect and enlivened thought. The text-books of the schools were themost famous compositions of republican Greece, and the favorite subjectsof declamation were the glories of the free men of antiquity. Nor wasthere any restriction placed upon writing or publication analogous toour modern censorship of the press, and many of the emperors, likeClaudius and Hadrian, were patrons of literature. Even the stoicalphilosophers who tried to persuade the emperor that he was a slave, wereendured, since they did not attempt to deprive him of sovereignty. 

Nor could the imperial tyranny be resisted by minds enervated byindulgence and estranged from all pure aspirations, by the pleasures ofsense. They crouched like dogs under the uplifted arm of masters. Theydid not even seek to fly from the tyranny which ground them down. 

[Sidenote: Character of the emperors. ]

It cannot be denied that, on the whole, this long succession of emperorswas more intellectual and able than oriental dynasties, and even manyoccidental ones in the Middle Ages, when the principle of legitimacy wasundisputed. The Roman emperors, as men of talents, favorably comparewith the successors of Mohammed, and the Carlovingian and Merovingiankings. But if these talents were employed in systematically crushing outall human rights, the despotism they established became the moredeplorable. 

Nor can it be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, whowould have ornamented any age or country. Titus, Hadrian, MarcusAurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus, Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well astalents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. MarcusAurelius was one of the purest and noblest characters of antiquity. Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most illustrioussovereigns that ever wore a crown--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, withWilliam III. , with Gustavus Adolphus. 

Of these Roman emperors some stand out as world heroes--greatest amongmen--remarkable for executive ability. Julius is the most renowned nameof antiquity. He ranks only with Napoleon Bonaparte in modern times. Hisgenius was transcendent; and, like Napoleon, he had great traits whichendear him to the world--generosity, magnanimity, and exceeding culture;orator, historian, and lawyer, as well as statesman and general. But heoverturned the liberties of his country to gratify a mad ambition, andwaded through a sea of blood to the mastership of the world. Augustuswas a profound statesman, and a successful general; but he was stainedwith the arts of dissimulation and an intense ambition, and sacrificedpublic liberties and rights to cement his power. Even Diocletian, tyrantand persecutor as he was, was distinguished for masterly abilities, andwas the greatest statesman whom the empire saw, with the exception ofAugustus. Such a despot as Tiberius ruled with justice and ability. Constantine ranks with the greatest monarchs of antiquity. The vices andambition of these men did not dim the lustre of their genius andabilities. 

[Sidenote: The Imperial despotism. ]

Their cause was wrong. It matters not whether the emperors were good orbad, if the regime, to which they consecrated their energies, wasexerted to crush the liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism, whether brilliant or disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde in thepolity of Rome. It implied the extinction of patriotism, and the generaldegradation of the people, or else the fabric of despotism could nothave been erected. It would have been impossible in the days of Cato, Scipio, or Metellus. It was simply a choice of evils. When nationsemerge from utter barbarism into absolute monarchies, like the ancientPersians or the modern Russians, we forget the evils of a central powerin the blessings which extend indirectly to the degraded people. Butwhen a nation loses its liberties, and submits without a struggle totyrants, it is a sad spectacle to humanity. The despotism of Louis XIV. Was not disgraceful to the French people, for they never had enjoyedconstitutional liberty. The despotism of Louis Napoleon is mournful, because the nation had waded through a bloody revolution to achieve therecognition of great rights and interests, and dreamed that they wereguaranteed. It is a retrograde and not a progress; a reaction ofliberty, which seats Napoleon on the throne of Louis Philippe; even asthe reign of Charles II. Is the saddest chapter in English history. Ifliberty be a blessing, if it be possible for nations to secure itpermanently, then the regime of the Roman emperors is detestable andmournful, whatever necessities may have called it into being, since itannulled all those glorious privileges in which ancient patriotsgloried, and prevented that scope for energies which made Rome mistressof the world. It was impossible for the empire to grow stronger andgrander. It must needs become weaker and more corrupt, since despotismdid not kindle the ambition of the people, but suppressed their noblestsentiments, and confined their energies to inglorious pursuits. Menmight acquire more gigantic fortunes under the emperors than in thetimes of the republic, and art might be more extensively cultivated, andluxury and refinement and material pleasures might increase; but publicvirtue fled, and those sentiments on which national glory rests vanishedbefore the absorbing egotism which pervaded all orders and classes. Theimperial despotism may have been needed, and the empire might havefallen, even if it had not existed; still it was a sad and mournfulnecessity, and gives a humiliating view of human greatness. No lover ofliberty can contemplate it without disgust and abhorrence. Nophilosopher can view it without drawing melancholy lessons of humandegeneracy--an impressive moral for all ages and nations. 

If we turn to the class which, before the dictatorship of Julius, hadthe ascendency in the state, and, for several centuries, the supremepower, we shall find but little that is flattering to a nation or tohumanity. 

[Sidenote: The Roman aristocracy. ]

The Roman aristocracy was the most powerful, most wealthy, and mostaugust that this world has probably seen. It was under patricianleadership that the great conquests were made, and the greatness of thestate reached. The glory of Rome was centred in those proud familieswhich had conquered and robbed all the nations known to the Greeks. Theimmortal names of ancient Rome are identified with the aristocracy. Itwas not under kings, but under nobles, that military ambition became thevice of the most exalted characters. In the days of the republic, theyexhibited a stern virtue, an inflexible policy, an indomitable will, andmost ardent patriotism. The generals who led the armies to victory, thestatesmen who deliberated in the Senate, the consuls, the praetors, thegovernors, originally belonged to this noble class. It monopolized allthe great offices of the state, and it maintained its powers andprivileges, in spite of conspiracies and rebellions. It may have yieldedsomewhat to popular encroachments, but when the people began to acquirethe ascendency, the seeds of public corruption were sown. The realdignity and glory of Rome coexisted with patrician power. 

[Sidenote: Great families. ]

And powerful families existed in Rome until the fall of the empire. Somewere descendants of ancient patrician houses, and numbered theillustrious generals of the republic among their ancestors. Others owedtheir rank and consequence to the accumulation of gigantic fortunes. Others, again, rose into importance from the patronage of emperors. Allthe great conquerors and generals of the republic were founders ofcelebrated families, which never lost consideration. Until thesubversion of the constitution, they took great interest in politics, and were characterized for manly patriotism. Many of them were famousfor culture of mind as well as public spirit. They frowned on thegrowing immoralities, and maintained the dignity of their elevated rank. The Senate was the most august assembly ever known on earth, controllingkings and potentates, and making laws for the most distant nations, andexercising a power which was irresistible. 

[Sidenote: Degeneracy of the nobles. ]

Under the emperors this noble class had degenerated in morals as well asinfluence. They still retained their enormous fortunes, originallyacquired as governors of provinces, and continually increased byfortunate marriages and speculations. Indeed, nothing was more markedand melancholy at Rome than the disproportionate fortunes, the generalconsequences of a low or a corrupt civilization. In the better days ofthe republic, property was more equally divided. The citizens were notambitious for more land than they could conveniently cultivate. But thelands, obtained by conquest, gradually fell into the possession ofpowerful families. The classes of society widened as great fortunes wereaccumulated. Pride of wealth kept pace with pride of ancestry. And whenPlebeian families had obtained great estates, they were amalgamated withthe old aristocracy. The Equestrian order, founded substantially onwealth, grew daily in importance. Knights ultimately rivaled senatorialfamilies. Even freedmen, in an age of commercial speculation, becamepowerful for their riches. Ultimately the rich formed a body bythemselves. Under the emperors, the pursuit of money became a passion;and the rich assumed all the importance and consideration which had oncebeen bestowed upon those who had rendered great public services. Thelaws of property were rigorous among the Romans, and wealth, when onceobtained, was easily secured and transmitted. 

[Sidenote: Gigantic fortunes. ]

Such gigantic fortunes were ultimately made, since the Romans weremasters of the world, that Rome became a city of palaces, and the spoilsand riches of all nations flowed to the capital. Rome was a city ofprinces, and wealth gave the highest distinction. The fortunes werealmost incredible. It has been estimated that the income of some of therichest of the senatorial families equaled a sum of five million dollarsa year in our money. It took eighty thousand dollars a year to supportthe ordinary senatorial dignity. Some senators owned whole provinces. Trimalchio--a rich freedman whom Petronius ridiculed--could afford tolose thirty millions of sesterces in a single voyage without sensiblydiminishing his fortune. Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, possessed a fortune of three hundred millions of sesterces. Seneca, thephilosopher, amassed an enormous fortune. 

[Sidenote: Character of the nobles. ]

[Sidenote: Excessive luxury. ]

[Sidenote: Luxury of the aristocracy. ]

[Sidenote: Luxury of the nobles. ]

The Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, and theyaccordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their livingwhich has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares ofthe kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in thedays of the greatest corruption. They had around them a regular court ofparasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank astheir chamberlains and stewards. Carving was taught in celebratedschools, and the masters of this sublime art were held in higherestimation than philosophers or poets. Says Juvenal:--

 "To such perfection now is carving brought, That different gestures, by our curious men Are used for different dishes, hare or hen. "

Their entertainments were accompanied with every thing which couldflatter vanity or excite the passions. Musicians, male and femaledancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, andgladiators, exhibited while the guests reclined at table. The tableswere made of Thuja-root, with claws of ivory or Delian bronze, and costimmense sums. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six hundred andfifty pounds for his banqueting table. These tables were waited upon byan army of slaves, clad in costly dresses. In the intervals of coursesthey played with dice, or listened to music, or were amused with dances. They wore a great profusion of jewels--such as necklaces and rings andbracelets. They reclined at table after the fashion of the Orientals. They ate, as delicacies, water-rats and white worms. Gluttony wascarried to such a point that the sea and earth scarcely sufficed to setoff their tables. The women passed whole nights at the table, and wereproud of their power to carry off an excess of wine. As Cleopatra saysof her riotings with Antony, --

 "O times!-- I laughed him out of patience; and that night I laughed him into patience: and next morn, Ere the ninth hour, I drank him to his bed. "

The wines were often kept for two ages, and some qualities were sohighly prized as to sell for about twenty dollars an ounce. Large hogswere roasted whole at a banquet. The ancient epicures expatiate onram's-head pies, stuffed fowls, boiled calf, and pastry stuffed withraisins and nuts. Dishes were made of gold and silver, set with preciousstones. Cicero and Pompey one day surprised Lucullus at one of hisordinary banquets, when he expected no guests, and even that cost fiftythousand drachmas--about four thousand dollars. His beds were of purple, and his vessels glittered with jewels. The halls of Heliogabalus werehung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels. His beds were of massivesilver, his table and plate of pure gold, and his mattresses, coveredwith carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with down found only underthe wings of partridges. Crassus paid one hundred thousand sesterces fora golden cup. Banqueting rooms were strewed with lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred millions of sestercesin debauchery and gluttony. Having only ten millions left, he ended hislife with poison, thinking he might die of hunger. The suppers ofHeliogabalus never cost less than one hundred thousand sesterces. Andthings were valued for their cost and rarity, rather than their realvalue. Enormous prices were paid for carp, the favorite dish of theRomans. Drusillus, a freedman of Claudius, caused a dish to be made offive hundred pounds weight of silver. Vitellius had one made of suchprodigious size that they were obliged to build a furnace on purpose forit; and at a feast in honor of this dish which he gave, it was filledwith the livers of the scarrus (fish), the brains of peacocks, thetongues of a bird of red plumage, called Phaesuicopterus, and the roes oflampreys caught in the Carpathian Sea. Falernian wine was never drunkuntil ten years old, and it was generally cooled with ices. The passionfor play was universal. Nero ventured four hundred thousand sesterces ona single throw of the dice. Cleopatra, when she feasted Antony, gaveeach time to that general the gold vessels, enriched with jewels, thetapestry and purple carpets, embroidered with gold, which had been usedin the repasts. Horace speaks of a debauchee who drank at a meal agoblet of vinegar, in which he dissolved a pearl worth a million ofsesterces, which hung at the ear of his mistress. Precious stones wereso common that a woman of the utmost simplicity dared not go without herdiamonds. Even men wore jewels, especially elaborate rings, and upon allthe fingers at last. The taste of the Roman aristocracy, with theirimmense fortunes, inclined them to pomp, to extravagance, toostentatious modes of living, to luxurious banquets, toconventionalities and ceremonies, to an unbounded epicureanism. Theylived for the present hour, and for sensual pleasures. There was noelevation of life. It was the body and not the soul, the present and notthe future, which alone concerned them. They were grossly material inall their desires and habits. They squandered money on their banquets, their stables, and their dress. And it was to their crimes, saysJuvenal, that they were indebted for their gardens, their palaces, theirtables, and their fine old plate. The day was portioned out in thepublic places, in the bath, the banquet. Martial indignantly rebukesthese extravagances, as unable to purchase happiness, in his Epigram toQuintus: "Because you purchase slaves at two hundred thousand sesterces;because you drink wines stored during the reign of Numa; because yourfurniture costs you a million; because a pound weight of wrought silvercosts you five thousand; because a golden chariot becomes yours at theprice of a whole farm; because your mule costs you more than the valueof a house--do not imagine that such expenses are the proof of a greatmind. " [Footnote: Book iii. P. 62. ]

Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn markedthis noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historiansand satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity. The sole result of friendship with a great man was a meal, at whichflattery and sycophancy were expected; but the best wine was drunk bythe host, instead of by the guest. Provinces were ransacked for fish andfowl and game for the tables of the great, and sensualism was thought tobe no reproach. They violated the laws of chastity and decorum. Theyscourged to death their slaves. They degraded their wives and sisters. They patronized the most demoralizing sports. They enriched themselvesby usury, and enjoyed monopolies. They practiced no generosity, exceptat their banquets, when ostentation balanced their avarice. Theymeasured every thing by the money-standard. They had no taste forliterature, but they rewarded sculptors and painters, if theyprostituted art to their vanity or passions. They had no reverence forreligion, and ridiculed the gods. Their distinguishing vices weremeanness and servility, the pursuit of money by every artifice, theabsence of honor, and unblushing sensuality. 

[Sidenote: Gibbon's account of the nobles. ]

[Sidenote: Sarcasms of Ammianus Marcellinus. ]

Gibbon has eloquently abridged the remarks of Ammianus Marcellinus, respecting these people: "They contend with each other in the emptyvanity of titles and surnames. They affect to multiply their likenessesin statues of bronze or marble; nor are they satisfied unless thesestatues are covered with plates of gold. They boast of the rent-rolls oftheir estates. They measure their rank and consequence by the loftinessof their chariots, and the weighty magnificence of their dress. Theirlong robes of silk and purple float in the wind, and, as they areagitated by art or accident, they discover the under garments, the richtunics embroidered with the figures of various animals. Followed by atrain of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move alongthe streets as if they traveled with post-horses; and the example of thesenators is boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose coveredcarriages are continually driving round the immense space of the cityand suburbs. Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, theyassume, on their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, andmaintain a haughty demeanor, which, perhaps, might have been excused inthe great Marcellus, after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes theseheroes undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates inItaly, and procure themselves, by servile hands, the amusements of thechase. And if, at any time, especially on a hot day, they have thecourage to sail in their gilded galleys from the Lucrine Lake to theirelegant villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cargeta, they comparethese expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander. Yet, should afly presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded chink, they deploretheir intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that theywere not born in the regions of eternal darkness. In the exercise ofdomestic jurisdiction they express an exquisite sensibility for anypersonal injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest ofmankind. When they have called for warm water, should a slave be tardyin his obedience, he is chastised with an hundred lashes; should hecommit a willful murder, his master will mildly observe that he is aworthless fellow, and should be punished if he repeat the offense. If aforeigner of no contemptible rank be introduced to these senators, he iswelcomed with such warm professions that he retires charmed with theiraffability; but when he repeats his visit, he is surprised and mortifiedto find that his name, his person, and his country are forgotten. Themodest, the sober, and the learned are rarely invited to their sumptuousbanquets; but the most worthless of mankind--parasites who applaud everylook and gesture, who gaze with rapture on marble columns and variegatedpavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance which he istaught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the Roman table, the birds, the squirrels, the fish which appear of uncommon size, arecontemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned toattest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method ofintroduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is asure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, ifplaced, at a supper, below a magistrate, displays in his countenance asurprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel whenrefused the praetorship. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages theattention of the nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain theadvantages of study; and the only books they peruse are the 'Satires ofJuvenal, ' or the fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The librariesthey have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like drearysepulchres, from the light of day; but the costly instruments of thetheatre, flutes and hydraulic organs, are constructed for their use. Intheir palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body tothat of the mind. The suspicion of a malady is of sufficient weight toexcuse the visits of the most intimate friends. The prospect of gainwill urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment ofarrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance orlegacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of theRomans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxuryoften reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. Whenthey wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of theslaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assumethe royal and tragic declamations of the grandsons of Hercules. If thedemand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant tomaintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent creditor, whois seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of thewhole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superstition whichdisgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to theproductions of haru-spices, who pretend to read in the entrails ofvictims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and thissuperstition is observed among those very skeptics who impiously deny ordoubt the existence of a celestial power. " [Footnote: Found in the sixthchapter of the fourteenth, and the fourth of the twenty-eighth, book ofAmmianus Marcellinus. ]

Such, in the latter days of the empire, was the leading class at Rome, and probably in the cities which aped the fashions of the capital. Therewas a melancholy absence of elevation of sentiment, of patriotism, ofmanly courage, and of dignity of character. Frivolity and luxuryloosened all the ties of society. The animating principle of their liveswas a heartless Epicureanism. They lived for the present hour, and fortheir pleasures, indifferent to the great interests of the public, andto the miseries of the poor. They were bound up in themselves. They weregrossly material in all their aims. They had lost all ideas of publicvirtue. They degraded women; they oppressed the people; they laughed atphilanthropy; they could not be reached by elevated sentiments; they hadno concern for the future. Scornful, egotistical, haughty, self-indulgent, affected, cynical, all their thoughts and conversation weredirected to frivolities. Nothing made any impression upon them butpassing vanities. They ignored both Heaven and Hell. They were like thecourtiers of Louis XV. In the most godless period of the monarchy. Theywere worse, for they superadded pagan infidelities. There were memorableexceptions, but not many, until Christianity had reached the throne. "One after another, the nobles sunk into a lethargy almost without aparallel. The proudest names of the old republic were finally associatedwith the idlest amusements and the most preposterous novelties. AGabrius, a Callius, and a Crassus were immortalized by the elegance oftheir dancing. A Lucullus, a Hortensius, a Philippus estimated oneanother, not by their eloquence, their courage, or their virtue, but bythe perfection of their fish-ponds, and the singularity of the breedsthey nourished. They seemed to touch the sky with their finger if theyhad stocked their preserves with bearded mullets, and taught them torecognize their masters' voices, and come to be fed from their hands. "[Footnote: Merivale, chap. Ii. ]

[Sidenote: Condition of the people. ]

As for the miserable class whom they oppressed, their condition becameworse every day from the accession of the emperors. The Plebeians hadever disdained those arts which now occupy the middle classes. Thesewere intrusted to slaves. Originally, they employed themselves upon thelands which had been obtained by conquest. But these lands weregradually absorbed or usurped by the large proprietors. The smallfarmers, oppressed with debt and usury, parted with their lands to theirwealthy creditors. In the time of Cicero, it was computed that therewere only about two thousand citizens possessed of independent property. These two thousand people owned the world. The rest were dependent; andthey were powerless when deprived of political rights, for the greatcandidate for public honors and offices liberally paid for votes. Butunder the emperors the commons had subsided into a miserable populace, fed from the public stores. They would have perished but for largesses. Monthly distributions of corn were converted into daily allowance forbread. They were amused with games and festivals. From the stately bathsthey might be seen to issue without shoes and without a mantle. Theyloitered in the public streets, and dissipated in gaming their miserablepittance. They spent the hours of the night in the lowest resorts ofcrime and misery. As many as four hundred thousand sometimes assembledto witness the chariot races. The vast theatres were crowded to see maleand female dancers. The amphitheatres were still more largely attendedby the better populace. They expired in wretched apartments withoutattracting the attention of government. Pestilence and famine andsqualid misery thinned their ranks, and they would have been annihilatedbut for constant succession to their ranks from the provinces. In thebusy streets of Rome might be seen adventurers from all parts of theworld, disgraced by all the various vices of their respective countries. They had no education, and but little of religious advantages. They wereheld in terror by both priests and nobles. The priest terrified themwith Egyptian sorceries, the noble crushed them by iron weight. LikeIazzaroni, they lived in the streets, or were crowded into filthyapartments. Several families tenanted the same house. A gladiatorialshow delighted them, but the circus was their peculiar joy. Here theysought to drown the consciousness of their squalid degradation. Theywere sold into slavery for trifling debts. They had no home. The poorman had no ambition or hope. His wife was a slave; his children wereprecocious demons, whose prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughterwas the howl of pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of prematureiniquity, whose beauty was the squalor of disease and filth. He fledfrom a wife in whom he had no trust, from children in whom he had nohope, from brothers for whom he felt no sympathy, from parents for whomhe felt no reverence. The circus was _his_ home, the wild beast_his_ consolation. The future was a blank. Death was the releasefrom suffering. Historians and poets say but little of his degradedexistence; but from the few hints we have, we infer depravity and brutaltastes. If degraded at all, they must have been very degraded, since theRomans had but little sentiment, and no ideality. They were sunk invice, for they had no sense of responsibility. They never emerged fromtheir wretched condition. The philosophers, poets, scholars, and lawyersof Rome, sprang uniformly from the aristocratic classes. In theprovinces, the poor sometimes rose, but very seldom. The whole aspect ofsociety was a fearful inequality--disproportionate fortunes, slavery, and beggary. There was no middle class, of any influence orconsideration. It was for the interest of people without means to enrollthemselves in the service of the rich. Hence the immense numbersemployed in the palaces in menial work. They would have been enrolled inthe armies, but for their inefficiency. The army was recruited from theprovinces--the rural population--and even from the barbariansthemselves. There were no hospitals for the sick and the old, except oneon an island in the Tiber. The old and helpless were left to die, unpitied and unconsoled. Suicide was so common that it attracted noattention, but infanticide was not so marked, since there was so littlefeeling of compassion for the future fate of the miserable children. Superstition culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests anddevotees of all the countries which it governed--"the dark-skinneddaughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees ofthe Persian Mithras, imported by the Pompeians from Cilicia; emasculatedAsiatics, priests of Berecynthian Cybele, with their wild dances anddiscordant cries; worshipers of the great goddess Diana; barbariancaptives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians, Jews, Chaldeanastrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers. " Oh, what scenes of sin andmisery did that imperial capital witness in the third and fourthcenturies--sensualism and superstition, fears and tribulations, pestilence and famine, even amid the pomps of senatorial families, andthe grandeur of palaces and temples. "The crowds which flocked to Romefrom the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, brought with thempractices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of initiation, thetricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets and charms, theriddles of emblematical idolatry, with which the superstition of theEast abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who neither had theenergy for a moral belief, nor the boldness requisite for logicalskepticism. " They were brutal, bloodthirsty, callous to the sight ofsuffering, and familiar with cruelties and crimes. They weresuperstitious, without religious faith, without hope, and without God inthe world. 

[Sidenote: The slaves. ]

[Sidenote: Slavery. ]

We cannot pass by, in this enumeration of the different classes of Romansociety, the number and condition of slaves. A large part of thepopulation belonged to this servile class. Originally introduced byforeign conquest, it was increased by those who could not pay theirdebts. The single campaign of Regulus introduced as many as a fifth partof the whole population. Four hundred were maintained in a singlepalace, at a comparatively early period. A freedman in the time ofAugustus left behind him four thousand one hundred and sixteen. Horaceregarded two hundred as the suitable establishment for a gentleman. Somesenators owned twenty thousand. Gibbon estimates the number at aboutsixty millions, one half of the whole population. One hundred thousandcaptives were taken in the Jewish war, who were sold as slaves, and soldas cheap as horses. [Footnote: Wm. Blair, _On Roman Slavery_, Edinburgh, 1833; Robertson, _On the State of the World at theIntroduction of Christ_. ] Blair supposes that there were three slavesto one freeman, from the conquest of Greece to the reign of AlexanderSeverus. Slaves often cost two hundred thousand sesterces. [Footnote:Martial, xii. 62. ] Every body was eager to possess a slave. At one timehis life was at the absolute control of his master. He could be treatedat all times with brutal severity. Fettered and branded he toiled tocultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at night he was shut upin subterranean cells. The laws did not recognize his claim to beconsidered scarcely as a moral agent. He was _secundum hominumgenus_. He could acquire no rights, social or political. He wasincapable of inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting alegal marriage. His value was estimated like that of a brute. He was athing and not a person--"a piece of furniture possessed of life. " He washis master's property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified. If awealthy proprietor died, under circumstances which excited suspicion offoul play, his whole household was put to the torture. It is recorded, that, on the murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slavein his possession was condemned to death. Slaves swelled the uselessrabbles of the cities, and devoured the revenues of the state. Allmanual labor was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country. Eventhe mechanical arts were cultivated by the slaves. And more, slaves wereschoolmasters, secretaries, actors, musicians, and physicians. Inintelligence, they were on an equality with their masters. They camefrom Greece and Asia Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and theAfrican deserts. They were white as well as black. All captives in warwere made slaves, and unfortunate debtors. Sometimes they could regaintheir freedom; but, generally, their condition became more and moredeplorable. What a state of society when a refined and cultivated Greekcould be made to obey the most offensive orders of a capricious andsensual Roman, without remuneration, without thanks, without favor, without redress. [Footnote: Says Juvenal, _Sat. _ vi. , "Crucify thatslave. What is the charge to call for such a punishment? What witnesscan you present? Who gave the information? Listen! Idiot! So a slave isa man then! Granted he has done nothing. I _will_ it. I insist uponit. Let my will stand instead of reason. " Read Martial, Juvenal, andPlautus. ] What was to be expected of a class who had no object to livefor. They became the most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, andjustly to be feared in the hour of danger. Slavery undoubtedly provedthe most destructive canker of the Roman state. It destroyed itsvitality. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, whichundermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse, destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honestlabor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent, powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for thisincubus, the standing disgrace of the pagan world. Paganism neverrecognized what is most noble and glorious in man; never recognized hisequality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights. There was nocompunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highestprivileges. Its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and causeforgetfulness of immortality. Slavery thrives best, when the generousinstincts are suppressed, and egotism and sensuality and pride are thedominant springs of human action. 

[Sidenote: Degradation of woman. ]

The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which God hasgiven him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the generalintercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female sex. In theearlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life wassimple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic, woman was comparatively virtuous and respected. She asserted her naturalequality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon thetraining of her children, and inspiring her husband to noble deeds. But, under the emperors, these virtues had fled. Woman was miserablyeducated, being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomedto ribald conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superstitions. She was regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, andwas chiefly valued for household labors. She was reduced to dependence;she saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to herhome as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and femaleslaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could beeasily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as ananimal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as theinferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave. Love after marriage was not frequent, since she did not shine in thevirtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous, or frivolous, without dignity or public esteem. Her happiness was in extravagantattire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in aretinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, involuptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, infrivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness. If virtuous, it was not somuch from principle as from fear. Hence she resorted to all sorts ofarts to deceive her husband. Her genius was sharpened by perpetualdevices, and cunning was her great resource. She cultivated no loftyfriendships; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished noennobling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration. Heramusements were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected, her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned. Andhere I do not allude to great and infamous examples which history hashanded down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or thatunblushing depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of thetimes. I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, thedebauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas andAgrippinas of imperial Rome. I allude not to the orgies of the PalatineHill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings ofPompeii. But there was a general frivolity and extravagance among womenwhich rendered marriage inexpedient, unless large dowries were broughtto the husband. Numerous were the efforts of emperors to promotehonorable marriages, but the relation was shunned. Courtesans usurpedthe privilege of wives, and with unblushing effrontery. A man wasderided who contemplated matrimony, for there was but little confidencein female virtue or capacity. And woman lost all her fascination whenage had destroyed her beauty. Even her very virtues were distasteful toher self-indulgent husband. And whenever she gained the ascendency byher charms, she was tyrannical. Her relations incited her to despoil herhusband. She lived amid incessant broils. She had no care for thefuture, and exceeded men in prodigality. "The government of her house isno more merciful, " says Juvenal, "than the court of a Sicilian tyrant. "In order to render herself attractive, she exhausted all the arts ofcosmetics and elaborate hair-dressing. She delighted in magicalincantations and love-potions. In the bitter satire of Juvenal, we getan impression most melancholy and loathsome:--

 "'T were long to tell what philters they provide, What drugs to set a son-in-law aside. Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong, By every gust of passion borne along. To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows; Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes, And triumphs in his spoils; her wayward will Defeats his bliss and turns his good to ill. Women support the _bar_; they love the law, And raise litigious questions for a straw; Nay, more, they fence! who has not marked their oil, Their purple rigs, for this preposterous toil! A woman stops at nothing, when she wears Rich emeralds round her neck, and in her ears Pearls of enormous size; these justify Her faults, and make all lawful in her eye. More shame to Rome! in every street are found The essenced Lypanti, with roses crowned, The gay Miletan, and the Tarentine, Lewd, petulant, and reeling ripe with wine!"

[Sidenote: Condition of woman. ]

In the sixth satire of Juvenal is found the most severe delineation ofwoman that ever mortal penned. Doubtless he is libellous andextravagant, for only infamous women can stoop to such arts anddegradations, which would seem to be common in his time. But, with allhis exaggeration, we are forced to feel that but few women, even in thehighest class, except those converted to Christianity, showed thevirtues of a Lucretia, a Volumnia, a Cornelia, or an Octavia. There wasbut a universal corruption. The great virtues of a Perpetua, aFelicitas, an Agnes, a Paula, a Blessilla, a Fabiola, would have adornedany civilization. But the great mass were, what they were in Greece, even in the days of Pericles, what they have ever been under theinfluence of Paganism, what they ever will be without Christianity toguide them, victims or slaves of man, revenging themselves bysquandering his wealth, stealing his secrets, betraying his interests, and deserting his home. 

[Sidenote: Games and festivals. ]

Another essential but demoralizing feature of Roman society, were thegames and festivals and gladiatorial shows, which accustomed the peopleto unnatural excitements, and familiarity with cruelty and suffering. They made all ordinary pleasures insipid. They ended in making homicidean institution. The butcheries of the amphitheatre exerted a fascinationwhich diverted the mind from literature, art, and the enjoyments ofdomestic life. Very early it was the favorite sport of the Romans. Marcus and Decimus Brutus employed gladiators in celebrating theobsequies of their fathers, nearly three centuries before Christ. "Thewealth and ingenuity of the aristocracy were taxed to the utmost, tocontent the populace and provide food for the indiscriminate slaughterof the circus, where brute fought with brute, and man again with man, orwhere the skill and weapons of the latter were matched against thestrength and ferocity of the first. " Pompey let loose six hundred lionsin the arena in one day. Augustus delighted the people with four hundredand twenty panthers. The games of Trajan lasted one hundred and twentydays, when ten thousand gladiators fought, and ten thousand beasts wereslain. Titus slaughtered five thousand animals at a time. Twentyelephants contended, according, to Pliny, against a band of six hundredcaptives. Probus reserved six hundred gladiators for one of hisfestivals, and massacred, on another, two hundred lions, twentyleopards, and three hundred bears. Gordian let loose three hundredAfrican hyenas and ten Indian tigers in the arena. Every corner of theearth was ransacked for these wild animals, which were so highly valuedthat, in the time of Theodosius, it was forbidden by law to destroy aGetulian lion. No one can contemplate the statue of the Dying Gladiatorwhich now ornaments the capitol at Rome, without emotions of pity andadmiration. If a marble statue can thus move us, what was it to see theChristian gladiators contending with the fierce lions of Africa. The"Christians to the lions, " was the watchword of the brutal populace. What a sight was the old amphitheatre of Titus, five hundred and sixtyfeet long, and four hundred and seventy feet wide, built on eightyarches, and rising one hundred and forty feet into the air, with itsfour successive orders of architecture, and inclosing its eightythousand seated spectators, arranged according to rank, from the emperorto the lowest of the populace, all seated on marble benches, coveredwith cushions, and protected from the sun and rain by ample canopies!What an excitement when men strove not with wild beasts alone, but withone another, and when all that human skill and strength, increased byelaborate treatment, and taxed to the uttermost, were put forth in theneedless homicide, and until the thirsty soil was wet and matted withhuman gore! Familiarity with such sights must have hardened the heartand rendered the mind insensible to refined pleasures. What theatres areto the French, what bull-fights are to the Spaniards, what horse-racesare to the English, these gladiatorial shows were to the ancient Romans. The ruins of hundreds of amphitheatres attest the universality of thecustom, not in Rome alone, but in the provinces. 

[Sidenote: The circus. ]

The sports of the circus took place from the earliest periods. TheCircus Maximus was capable of containing two hundred and sixty thousand, as estimated by Pliny. It was appropriated for horse and chariot races. The enthusiasm of the Romans for races exceeded all bounds. Lists of thehorses, with their names and colors, and those of drivers, were handedabout, and heavy bets made on each faction. The games commenced with agrand procession, in which all persons of distinction, and those whowere to exhibit, took part. The statues of the gods formed a conspicuousfeature in the show, and were carried on the shoulders as saints arecarried in modern processions. The chariots were often drawn by eighthorses, and four generally started in the race. 

The theatre was also a great place of resort. Scaurus built one capableof seating eighty thousand spectators. That of Pompey, near the CircusMaximus, could contain forty thousand. But the theatre had not the sameattraction to the Romans that it had to the Greeks. They preferredscenes of pomp and splendor. 

[Sidenote: The circus and theatre. ]

[Sidenote: Baths. ]

No people probably abandoned themselves to pleasures more universallythan the Romans, after war ceased to be the master passion. All classesalike pursued them with restless eagerness. Amusements were the fashionand the business of life. At the theatre, at the great gladiatorialshows, at the chariot races, senators and emperors and generals werealways present in conspicuous and reserved seats of honor; behind themwere the ordinary citizens, and in the rear of these, the people fed atthe public expense. The Circus Maximus, the Theatre of Pompey, theAmphitheatre of Titus, would collectively accommodate over four hundredthousand spectators. We may presume that over five hundred thousandpeople were in the habit of constant attendance on these demoralizingsports. And the fashion spread throughout all the great cities of theempire, so that there was scarcely a city of twenty thousand peoplewhich had not its theatres, or amphitheatres, or circus. The enthusiasmof the Romans for the circus exceeded all bounds. And when we rememberthe heavy bets on favorite horses, and the universal passion forgambling in every shape, we can form some idea of the effect of theseamusements on the common mind, destroying the taste for home pleasures, and for all that was intellectual and simple. What are we to think of astate of society, where all classes had leisure for these sports. Habitsof industry were destroyed, and all respect for employments whichrequired labor. The rich were supported by the contributions from theprovinces, since they were the great proprietors of conquered lands. Thepoor had no solicitude for a living, for they were supported at thepublic expense. They, therefore, gave themselves up to pleasure. Eventhe baths, designed for sanatory purposes, became places of resort andidleness, and ultimately of improper intercourse. When the thermae camefully into public use, not only did men bathe together in numbers, buteven men and women promiscuously in the same baths. In the time ofJulius Caesar, we find no less a personage than the mother of Augustusmaking use of the public establishments; and in process of time theemperors themselves bathed in public with the meanest of their subjects. The baths in the time of Alexander Severus were not only kept open fromsunrise to sunset, but even the whole night. The luxurious classesalmost lived in the baths. Commodus took his meals in the bath. Gordianbathed seven times in the day, and Gallienus as often. They bathedbefore they took their meals, and after meals to provoke a new appetite. They did not content themselves with a single bath, but went through acourse of baths in succession, in which the agency of air as well aswater was applied. And the bathers were attended by an army of slavesgiven over to every sort of roguery and theft. "_O furum optumebalmariorum_, " exclaims Catullus, in disgust and indignation. Nor waswater alone used. The common people made use of scented oils to anointtheir persons, and perfumed the water itself with the most preciousperfumes. Bodily health and cleanliness were only secondaryconsiderations; voluptuous pleasure was the main object. The ruins ofthe baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, in Rome, show that theywere decorated with prodigal magnificence, and with every thing thatcould excite the passions--pictures, statues, ornaments, and mirrors. Says Seneca, Epistle lxxxvi. , "_Nisi parietes magnis et preciosisorbibus refulserunt_. " The baths were scenes of orgies consecrated toBacchus, and the frescoes on the excavated baths of Pompeii still raisea blush on the face of every spectator who visits them. I speak not ofthe elaborate ornaments, the Numidian marbles, the precious stones, theexquisite sculptures, which formed part of the decorations of the Romanbaths, but the demoralizing pleasures with which they were connected, and which they tended to promote. The baths became, according to theancient writers, ultimately places of excessive and degradingdebauchery. 

 "_Balnea, vina, Venas corrumpunt corpora nostra_. "

[Sidenote: Dress and ornament. ]

The Romans, originally, were not only frugal, but they dressed withgreat simplicity. In process of time, they became extravagantly fond ofelaborately ornamented attire, particularly the women. They wore a greatvariety of rings and necklaces; they dyed their hair, and resorted toexpensive cosmetics; they wore silks of various colors, magnificentlyembroidered. Pearls and rubies, for which large estates had beenexchanged, were suspended from their ears. Their hair glistened with anetwork of golden thread. Their stolae were ornamented with purple bands, and fastened with diamond clasps, while their pallae trailed along theground. Jewels were embroidered upon their sandals, and golden bands, pins, combs, and pomades raised the hair in a storied edifice upon theforehead. They reclined on luxurious couches, and rode in silverchariots. Their time was spent in paying and receiving visits, at thebath, the spectacle, and the banquet. Tables, supported on ivorycolumns, displayed their costly plate; silver mirrors were hung againstthe walls, and curious chests contained their jewels and money. Bronzelamps lighted their chambers, and glass vases, imitating preciousstones, stood upon their cupboards. Silken curtains were suspended overthe doors and from the ceilings, and lecticae, like palanquins, wereborne through the streets by slaves, on which reclined the effeminatedwives and daughters of the rich. Their gardens were rendered attractiveby green-houses, flower-beds, and every sort of fruit and vine. 

But it was at their banquets the Romans displayed the greatest luxuryand extravagance. No people ever thought more of the pleasures of thetable. And the prodigality was seen not only in the indulgence of thepalate by the choicest dainties, but in articles which commanded, fromtheir rarity, the highest prices. They not only sought to eat daintily, but to increase their capacity by unnatural means. The maxim, "_Ilfaut manger pour vivre, et non pas vivre pour manger_, " was reversed. At the fourth hour they breakfasted on bread, grapes, olives, and cheeseand eggs; at the sixth they lunched, still more heartily; and at theninth hour they dined; and this meal, the _coena_, was theprincipal one, which consisted of three parts: the first--the_gustus_--was made up of dishes to provoke an appetite, shell-fishand piquant sauces; the second--the _fercula_--composed ofdifferent courses; and the third--the dessert, a _mensaesecundae_--composed of fruits and pastry. Fish were the chief objectof the Roman epicures, of which the _mullus_, the _rhombus_, and the _asellus_ were the most valued. It is recorded that amullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousandsesterces. Oysters, from the Lucrine Lake, were in great demand. Snailswere fed in ponds for the purpose, while the villas of the rich hadtheir piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peacocks andpheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although theabsurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatestfavorite was the wild boar, the chief dish of a grand _coena_, andcame whole upon the table, and the practiced gourmand pretended todistinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, thevery names of which excite disgust, were used at fashionable banquets, and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his"Epigrams" to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet. Herefers to almost every fruit and vegetable and meat that we now use--tocabbages, leeks, turnips, asparagus, beans, beets, peas, lettuces, radishes, mushrooms, truffles, pulse, lentils, among vegetables; topheasants, ducks, doves, geese, capons, pigeons, partridges, peacocks, Numidian fowls, cranes, woodcocks, swans, among birds; to mullets, lampreys, turbots, oysters, prawns, chars, murices, gudgeons, pikes, sturgeons, among fish; to raisins, figs, quinces, citrons, dates, plums, olives, apricots, among fruit; to sauces and condiments; to wild game, and to twenty different kinds of wine; on all of which he expatiateslike an epicure. He speaks of the presents made to guests at feasts, thetablets of ivory and parchment, the dice-boxes, style-cases, toothpicks, golden hair-pins, combs, pomatum, parasols, oil-flasks, tooth-powder, balms and perfumes, slippers, dinner-couches, citron-tables, antiquevases, gold-chased cups, snow-strainers, jeweled and crystal vases, rings, spoons, scarlet cloaks, table-covers, Cilician socks, pillows, girdles, aprons, mattresses, lyres, bath-bells, statues, masks, books, musical instruments, and other articles of taste, luxury, or necessity. The pleasures of the table, however, are ever uppermost in his eye, andthe luxuries of those whom he could not rival, but which he reprobates:--

 "Nor mullet delights thee, nice Betic, nor thrush; The hare with the scut, nor the boar with the tusk; No sweet cakes or tablets, thy taste so absurd, Nor Libya need send thee, nor Phasis, a bird. But capers and onions, besoaking in brine, And brawn of a gammon scarce doubtful are thine. Of garbage, or flitch of hoar tunny, thou'rt vain; The rosin's thy joy, the Falernian thy bane. "[Footnote: Martial, b. Iii. P. 77. ]

[Sidenote: A poet's dinner. ]

He thus describes a modest dinner, to which he, a poet, invites hisfriend Turanius: "If you are suffering from dread of a melancholy dinnerat home, or would take a preparatory whet, come and feast with me. Youwill find no want of Cappadocian lettuces and strong leeks. The tunnywill lurk under slices of egg; a cauliflower hot enough to burn yourfingers, and which has just left the garden, will be served fresh on ablack platter; white sausages will float on snow-white porridge, and thepale bean will accompany the red-streaked bacon. In the second course, raisins will be set before you, and pears which pass for Syrian, androasted chestnuts. The wine you will prove in drinking it. After allthis, excellent olives will come to your relief, with the hot vetch andthe tepid lupine. The dinner is small, who can deny it? but you will nothave to invent falsehoods, or hear them invented; you will recline atease, and with your own natural look; the host will not read aloud abulky volume of his own compositions, nor will licentious girls, fromshameless Cadiz, be there to gratify you with wanton attitudes; but thesmall reed pipe will be heard, and the nice Claudia, whose society youvalue even more than mine. " [Footnote: _Ibid_. B. V. P. 78. ]

How different this poet's dinner, a table spread without luxury, andenlivened by wit and friendship, from that which Petronius describes ofa rich freedman, which was more after the fashion of the vulgar andluxurious gourmands of his day. 

[Sidenote: Expensive furniture. ]

Next to the pleasures of the table, the passion for expensive furnitureseemed to be the prevailing folly. We read of couches gemmed withtortoise-shell, and tables of citron-wood from Africa. Silver and goldvases, Tables, also, of Mauritanian marble, supported on pedestals ofLybian ivory; cups of crystal; all sorts of silver plate, themasterpieces of Myro, and the handiwork of Praxiteles, and theengravings of Phidias. Gold services adorned the sideboard. Couches werecovered with purple silks. Chairs were elaborately carved; costlymirrors hung against the walls, and bronze lamps were suspended from thepainted ceilings. But it was not always the most beautiful articleswhich were most prized, but those which were procured with the greatestdifficulty, or brought from the remotest provinces. That which cost mostreceived uniformly the greatest admiration. 

[Sidenote: Money making. ]

If it were possible to allude to an evil more revolting than the sportsof the amphitheatre, or the extravagant luxuries of the table, I wouldsay that the universal abandonment to money-making, for the enjoyment ofthe factitious pleasures it purchased, was even still more melancholy, since it struck deeper into the foundations which supported society. Theleading spring of life was money. Boys were bred from early youth to allthe mysteries of unscrupulous gains. Usury was practiced to such anincredible extent that the interest on loans, in some instances equaled, in a few months, the whole capital. This was the more aristocratic modeof making money, which not even senators disdained. The pages of thepoets show how profoundly money was prized, and how miserable werepeople without it. Rich old bachelors, without heirs, were held in thesupremest honor. Money was the first object in all matrimonialalliances, and provided that women were only wealthy, neither bridegroomnor parent was fastidious as to age, or deformity, or meanness offamily, or vulgarity of person. The needy descendants of the oldPatricians yoked themselves with fortunate Plebeians, and the bloomingmaidens of a comfortable obscurity sold themselves, without shame orreluctance, to the bloated sensualists who could give them what theysupremely valued, chariots and diamonds. It was useless to appeal toelevated sentiments when happiness consisted in an outside, factitiouslife. The giddy women, in love with ornaments and dress, and the godlessmen, seeking what they should eat, could only be satisfied with whatpurchased their pleasures. The haughtiest aristocracy ever known onearth, tracing their lineage to the times of Cato, and boasting of theirdescent from the Scipios and the Pompeys, accustomed themselves at lastto regard money as the only test of their own social position. There wasno high social position disconnected with fortune. Even poets andphilosophers were neglected, and gladiators and buffoons preferredbefore them. The great Augustine found himself utterly neglected atRome, because he was dependent on his pupils, and his pupils were meanenough to run away without paying. Literature languished and died, sinceit brought neither honor nor emolument. No dignitary was respected forhis office, only for his gains; nor was any office prized which did notbring rich emoluments. And corruption was so universal, that an officialin an important post was sure of making a fortune in a short time. Withsuch an idolatry of money, all trades and professions fell intodisrepute which were not favorable to its accumulation, while those whoadministered to the pleasures of a rich man were held in honor. Cooks, buffoons, and dancers, received the consideration which artists andphilosophers enjoyed at Athens in the days of Pericles. But artists andscholars were very few indeed in the more degenerate days of the empire. Nor would they have had influence. The wit of a Petronius, the ridiculeof a Martial, the bitter sarcasm of a Juvenal, were lost on a peopleabandoned to frivolous gossip and demoralizing excesses. The haughtyscorn with which a sensual beauty, living on the smiles and purse of afortunate glutton, would pass, in her gilded chariot, some of theimpoverished descendants of the great Camillus, might have provoked asmile, had any one been found, even a neglected poet, to have given themcountenance and sympathy. But, alas! every body worshiped the shrine ofMammon. Every body was valued for what he _had_, rather than forwhat he _was_; and life was prized, not for those pleasures whichare cheap and free as heaven, not for quiet tastes and rich affectionsand generous sympathies and intellectual genius, --the gloriouscertitudes of love, esteem, and friendship, which, "be they what theymay, are yet the fountain-life of all our day, "--but for thegratification of depraved and expensive tastes; those short-livedenjoyments which ended with the decay of appetite, and the _ennui_of realized expectation, --all of the earth, earthy; making a wreck ofthe divine image which was made for God and heaven, and preparing theway for a most fearful retribution, and producing, on contemplativeminds, a sadness allied with despair, driving them to caves andsolitudes, and making death the relief from sorrow. Cynicism, scorn, unbelief, and disgusting coarseness and vulgarity, made grand sentimentsan idle dream. The fourteenth satire of Juvenal is directed mainly tothe universal passion for gain, and the demoralizing vices it brings inits train, which made Rome a Pandemonium and a Vanity Fair. "Flatterers, " says he, "consider misers as men of happy minds, sincethey admire wealth supremely, and think no instance can be found of apoor man that is also happy; and therefore they exhort their sons toapply themselves to the arts of money making. Come, boys; sack theNumidian hovels and the forts of Brigantes, that your sixtieth year maybestow on you the eagle which will make you rich. Or, if you shrink fromthe long-protracted labors of the camp, then bring something that youmay profitably dispose of, and never let disgust of trade enter yourhead, nor think that any difference can be drawn between perfumes andleather. The smell of gain is good from any thing whatever. No oneasks you _how_ you get money, but _have_ it you must. " The poetPersius paints this passion for gold, displayed in the customs of theday, in a strain at once lofty and mournful, bitter and satirical:[Footnote: _Satire_ ii. ]--

 "O that I could my rich old uncle see In funeral pomp! O that some deity To pots of buried gold would guide my share! O that my ward, whom I succeed as heir, Were once at rest! Poor child! he lies in pain, And death to him must be accounted gain. By will thrice has Nerius swelled his store, And now he is a widower once more. O groveling souls, and void of things divine! Why bring our passions to the immortal's shrine?"

The old Greek philosophers gloried in their poverty; but poverty was thegreatest reproach to a Roman. "In exact proportion to the sum of money aman keeps in his chest, " says Juvenal, [Footnote: _Satire_ iii. ]"is the credit given to his oath. And the first question ever asked of aman is in reference to his income, rather than his character. How manyslaves does he keep? How many acres does he own? What dishes are histable spread with?--these are the universal inquiries. Poverty, bitterthough it be, has no sharper sting than this, --that it makes themridiculous. Who was ever allowed at Rome to become a son-in-law if hisestate was inferior, and not a match for the portion of the young lady?What poor man's name appears in any will? When is one summoned to aconsultation even by an aedile?"

 "Long, long ago, in one despairing band, The poor, self-exiled, should have left the land. "

And with this reproach of poverty there was no means to escape from it. Nor was there alleviation. A man was regarded as a fool who gave anything except to the rich. Charity and benevolence were unknown virtues. The sick and the miserable were left to die unlamented and unknown. Prosperity and success, no matter by what means they were purchased, secured reverence and influence. 

Indeed, the Romans were a worldly, selfish, Epicurean people, for whomwe can feel but little admiration in any age of the republic. They neverwere finely moulded. They had no sentiment, unless in the earlier ages, it took the form of glory and patriotism. In their prosperity, they wereproud and scornful. In adversity, they buried themselves in lowexcesses. They were not easily moved by softening influences. They hadno lofty idealism, like the Greeks; nor were they even social, as theywere. They were disgustingly _practical. Oui bono?_--"who shallshow us any good?"--this was their by-word, this the sole principle oftheir existence. They were jealous of their dignity, and carried away bypomps and show. They were fond of etiquette and ceremony, and wereconventional in all their habits. They had very little true intellectualindependence, and were slaves of fashion as they were of ceremony anddress. They were inordinately greedy of social position and of socialdistinctions. They loved titles and surnames and inequalities of rank. They plumed themselves on taking a common-sense view of life, disdainingall lofty standards. They were dazzled by an outside life, and cared butlittle for the great certitudes on which real dignity and happinessrest. They had no conception of philanthropy. They lived for themselves. Nor had they veneration for ideal worth or beauty or abstract truth. They were reserved and reticent and haughty in social life. They weresuperstitious, and believed in dreams and omens and talismans. They werehospitable to their friends, but chiefly to display their wealth andpomp. They were coarse and indecent in banquets. They loved moneysupremely, but squandered it recklessly to gratify vanity. They had nohigh conceptions of art. They were copyists of the Greeks, and neverproduced any thing original but jurisprudence. They did not even add tothe arts and sciences, which they applied to practical purposes. Theirliterature never produced a sentimentalist; their philosophy neversoared into idealism; their art never ventured upon new creations. Theirsupreme ambition was to rule, and to rule despotically. They gloried inslavery, and degraded women and trod upon the defenseless. They had nopity, no gentleness, no delicacy of feeling. They could not comprehend adisinterested action. They lived to eat and drink, and wear robes ofpurple, and ride in chariots of silver, and receive greetings in themarket-place, and be attended by an army of sycophants, flatterers, andslaves. What was elevated and what was pure were laughed at as unreal, as dreamy, as transcendental. All science was directed to_utilities_, and utilities were wines, rare fishes and birds, carpets, silks, cooking, palaces, chariots, horses, pomps. Their supremeidea was conquest, dominion over man, over beast, over seas, overnature--all with a view of becoming rich, comfortable, honorable. Thiswas their Utopia. Epicurus was their god. Sensualism was the convertibleterm for their utilities, and pervaded their literature, their sociallife, and their public efforts; extinguishing poetry, friendship, affections, genius, self-sacrifice, lofty sentiments--the real utilitieswhich make up our higher life, and fit man for an ever-expandingfelicity. Practically, they were atheists--unbelievers of what is fixedand immutable in the soul, and glorious in the soul's aspirations. Theyhad will and passion, sagacity and the power to rule, by which theybecame aggrandized; but they were wanting in those elements and virtueswhich endear their memory to mankind. They were both tyrants andsensualists; fitted to make conquests, unfitted to enjoy them. In animportant sense, they were great civilizers, but their civilizationpertained to material life. They worshiped the god of the sense, ratherthan the god of the reason; and, compared with the Greeks, bequeathedbut little to our times which we value, except laws and maxims ofgovernment, and ideas of centralized power. 

Such was imperial Rome, in all the internal relations of life, and amidall the trophies and praises which resulted from universal conquest. Icannot understand the enthusiasm of Gibbon for such a people, or forsuch an empire, --a grinding and resistless imperial despotism, asensual and proud aristocracy, a debased and ignorant populace, disproportionate fortunes, slavery flourishing to a state unprecedentedin the world's history, women the victims and the toys of men, laxsentiments of public morality, a whole people given over to demoralizingsports and spectacles, pleasure the master passion of the people, moneythe mainspring of society, all the vices which lead to violence andprepare the way for the total eclipse of the glory of man. What was acultivated face of nature, or palaces, or pomps, or a splendid materialcivilization, or great armies, or a numerous population, or the triumphof energy and skill, when the moral health was completely undermined?The external grandeur was nothing amid so much vice and wickedness andwretchedness. A world, therefore, as fair and glorious as our own, mustneeds crumble away. There were no proper conservative forces. The poisonhad descended to the extremities of the social system. A corrupt bodymust die when vitality had fled. The soul was gone. Principle, patriotism, virtue, had all passed away. The barbarians were advancingto conquer and desolate. There was no power to resist them, butenervated and timid legions, with the accumulated vices of all thenations of the earth, which they had been learning for four hundredyears. Society must needs resolve itself into its original elements whenmen would not make sacrifices, and so few belonged to their country. Themachine was sure to break up at the first great shock. No state couldstand with such an accumulation of wrongs, with such complicated andfatal diseases eating out the vitals of the empire. The house was builtupon the sands. The army may have rallied under able generals, in viewof the approaching catastrophe; philosophy may have gilded the days of afew indignant citizens; good emperors may have attempted to raisebarriers against corruption; and even Christianity may have converted bythousands: still nothing, according to natural laws, could save theempire. It was doomed. Retributive justice must march on in its majesticcourse. The empire had accomplished its mission. The time came for it todie. The Sibylline oracle must needs be fulfilled: "O haughty Rome, thedivine chastisement shall come upon thee; the fire shall consume thee;thy wealth shall perish; foxes and wolves shall dwell among thy ruins:and then what land that thou hast enslaved shall be thy ally, and whichof thy gods shall save thee? for there shall be confusion over the faceof the whole earth, and the fall of cities shall come. " [Footnote: Ifany one thinks this general description of Roman life and mannersexaggerated, he can turn from such poets as Juvenal and Martial, andread what St. Pani says in the first chapter of the _Epistle to theRomans. _]

 * * * * *

REFERENCES. --Mr. Merivale has written most fully of modern writers onthe condition of the empire. Gibbon has occasional paragraphs which showthe condition of Roman society. Lyman's Life of the Emperors should beread, and also DeQuincy's Lives of the Caesars. See, also, Niebuhr, Arnold, and Mommsen, though these writers have chiefly confinedthemselves to republican Rome. But, if one would get the truest and mostvivid description, he must read the Roman poets, especially Juvenal andMartial. The work of Petronius is too indecent to be read. AmmianusMarcellinus gives us some striking pictures of the latter Romans. Suetonius, in his Lives of the Caesars, furnishes many facts. Becker'sGallus is a fine description of Roman habits and customs. Smith'sDictionary of Antiquities should be consulted, as it is a greatthesaurus of important facts. Lucian does not describe Roman manners, but he aims his sarcasms on the hollowness of Roman life, as do thegreat satirists generally. Tillemont is the basis of Gibbon's history, so far as pertains to the emperors. 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE. 

We have contemplated the grandeur and the glory of the Roman empire; andwe have also seen, in connection with the magnificent triumphs of art, science, literature, and philosophy, a melancholy degradation ofsociety, so fatal and universal, that all strength was undermined, andnothing was left but worn-out mechanisms and lifeless forms to resistthe pressure of external enemies. So vast, so strong, so proud was thisempire, that no one dreamed it could ever be subverted. With all themiseries of the people, with that hateful demoralization which pervadedall classes and orders and interests, there was still a splendidexternal, which called forth general panegyrics, and the idea of publicdanger was derided or discredited. If Rome, in the infancy of therepublic, had resisted the invading Gauls, what was there to fear fromthe half-naked barbarians who lived beyond the boundaries of the empire?The long-continued peace and prosperity had engendered not merely thevices of self-interest, those destructive cankers which ever insure aruin, but a general feeling of security and self-exaggeration. Theeternal city was still prosperous and proud, the centre of all that wasgrand in the civilization of the ancient world. Provincial cities viedwith the capital in luxuries, in pomps, in sports, and in commercialwealth. The cultivated face of nature betokened universal prosperity. Nothing was wanting but energy, genius, and virtue among the people. 

[Sidenote: Prosperity deceptive. ]

But all this prosperity was deceptive. All was rotten and hollow atheart; and, had there not been universal delusion, it would have beenapparent that the machine would break up at the first great shock. Therewas no spring in the splendid mechanism. It was broken, and society hadreally been retrograding from the time of Trajan--from the moment thatit had completed its task of conquest. There was a strange torporeverywhere, so soon as external antagonism had ceased, and if thebarbarians had not come the empire would have been disintegrated, andwould scarcely have lasted two centuries longer. 

[Sidenote: The empire had fulfilled its mission. ]

Moreover, the empire had fulfilled its mission. It had conquered theworld that a great centralization of power might be created, under whichpeace and plenty might reign, and a new religion might spread. 

Still, whatever the plans of Providence may have been in allowing thatimperial despotism to grow and spread from the banks of the Tiber to theuttermost parts of the civilized world, we cannot but feel that a greatretribution was deserved for the crimes which Rome had committed uponmankind. He that takes the sword shall perish with the sword. Rome haddrank of the blood of millions, and was foul with all the abominationsof the countries she had subdued, and her turn must come, and a new racemust try new experiments for humanity. 

[Sidenote: War the instrument of punishment. ]

The great instrument of God in punishing wicked nations and effectingimportant changes, is war. There are other forms or divine displeasure. Plague, pestilence, and famine are often sent upon degraded peoples. Butthese are either the necessary attendants on war itself, or they arelimited and transient. They do not produce the great revolutions inwhich new ideas are born and new forms of social life arise. 

But war seems to be the ultimate scourge of God, when he dooms nationsto destruction, or to great changes. It combines within itself all kindsof evil and calamity--poverty, sickness, captivity, disgrace, anddeath. A conquered nation is most forlorn and dismal. The song of theconquered is--"By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept. "

The passions which produce war are born in hell. They are pride, ambition, cruelty, avarice, and lust. These are the natural causes whicharray nation against nation, or people against people. But these aresecond causes. The primary cause is God, who useth the passions andinterests of men, as his instruments of punishment. 

[Sidenote: Illustrated by the history of nations. ]

How impressive the history of the different civilized nations, whichformed so large a part of the universal monarchy of the Romans. Assyria, Egypt, Persia, Asia Minor, Palestine, Greece, had successively beengreat empires and states--independent and conquering. They arose fromthe prevalence of martial virtues, of courage, temperance, fortitude, allied with ambition and poverty. Then monarchs craved greater power andpossessions. Their passions were inexcusable; but they possessed men whowere powerful and not enslaved to enervating vices. They made war onnations sunk in effeminacy and vile idolatries--men worse than they. Theconquered nations needed chastisement and reconstruction; and, generally, by their blindness and arrogance, provoked the issue. Wealthand power had inflated them with false security, with egotistic aims; orelse had enervated them and undermined their strength. They becamesubject to a stronger power. Their pride was buried in the dust. Theybecame enslaved, miserable, ruined. They were punished in as signal, though not miraculous manner, as the Antediluvians, or the cities ofSodom and Gomorrah. The same hand, _however_, is seen in vengeanceand in mercy. They regained in adversity the strength they had lost inprosperity, and civilization lost nothing by their sufferings. 

[Sidenote: Wars over-ruled. ]

The conquering powers, in their turn, became powerful, wealthy, andcorrupt. Effeminacy and weakness succeeded; war came upon them, and theybecame the prey of the stronger. Their conquerors, again, were enslavedby their vices, and their empire passed away in the same gloom anddespair. 

We see, however, in each successive conquest, the destruction, not ofcivilization, but of men. Countries are overrun, thrones are subverted, the rich are made slaves, the proud utter cries of despair; but the landsurvives, and arts and science take a new direction, and the new mastersare more interested in great improvements than the old tyrants. Thecondition of Babylonia was probably better for the Persian conquest, while the whole oriental world gained by the wars of Alexander. Grecianculture succeeded Persian misrule. The Romans came and took away fromGrecian dynasties, in Asia and Egypt, when they became enfeebled byprosperity and self-indulgence, the powers they had usurped, withoutdestroying Grecian civilization. That remained, and will remain, in someform, forever, as an heirloom of priceless value to all future nations. The Greeks, when they conquered the Persians, had also spared the mostprecious monuments of their former industry and genius. The Romans, also, when they conquered Greece itself, guarded and prized her peculiarcontributions to mankind. And they gave to all these conqueredterritories, something of their own. They gave laws, and a goodgovernment. The Grecian and Asiatic cities were humiliated by what theyregarded as barbaric inroads; for the culture of Athens, Corinth, Antioch, and Ephesus, was higher than that of Rome, at that time; butwho can doubt a beneficent change in the administration of publicaffairs? Society was doubtless improved everywhere by the Romanconquests. It is not probable that Athens, after she became tributary toRome, was equal to the Athens of Pericles and Plato; but it is probablethat society in Athens was better than what it was for a century beforeher fall. But what if particular cities suffered? These did notconstitute the whole country. Can it be doubted that Syria, as aprovince, enjoyed more rational liberty and more scope for energy, underthe Roman rule, than under that of the degenerate scions of the oldGrecian kings? We see a retribution in the conquest, and also a blessingin disguise. 

[Sidenote: The Celtic nations. ]

But still more forcibly are these truths illustrated in the conquest ofthe Celtic nations of Europe. They were barbarians; they had neitherscience, nor literature, nor art; they were given over to perpetualquarrels, and to rude pleasures. Ignorance, superstition, andunrestrained passions were the main features of society. Other rudewarriors wandered from place to place, with no other end than pillage. They had fine elements of character, but they needed civilization. Theywere conquered. The Romans taught them laws, and language, andliterature, and arts. Cities arose among them, and these conqueredbarbarians became the friends of order and peace, and formed the mostprosperous part of the whole empire. It was from these Celtic nationsthat the Roman armies were recruited. The great men of Rome, in thesecond and third centuries, came from these Celtic provinces. Theyinfused a new blood into the decaying body. Who can doubt the benefit tomankind by the conquests of Britain, of Gaul, and of Spain? The Romansproved the greatest civilizers of the ancient world, with all theirarrogance and want of appreciation of those things which gave a glory tothe Greeks. They introduced among the barbaric nations their own arts, language, literature, and laws; and the civilization which they taughtnever passed away. It was obscured, indeed, during the revolutions whichsucceeded the fall of the empire, but it was gradually revived, andbeamed with added lustre when its merits were at last perceived. 

Thus wars are not an unmixed calamity, since the evils are overruled inthe ultimate good of nations. But they are a great calamity for thetime, and they are sent when nations most need chastisement. 

[Sidenote: Conquest of the Celts. ]

The Romans triumphed, by their great and unexampled energy and patienceand heroism, over all the world, and erected their universal empire uponthe ruins of all the states of antiquity. They were suffered to increaseand prosper, that great ends might be accomplished, either by thepunishment of the old nations, or the creation of a new civilization. 

But they, in their turn, became corrupted by prosperity, and enervatedby peace. They had been guilty of the most heartless and cruelatrocities for eight hundred years. Their empire was built upon themiseries of mankind. They also must needs suffer retribution. 

It was long delayed. It did not come till every conservative influencehad failed. The condition of society was becoming worse and worse, untilit reached a depravity and an apathy fatal to all genius, and moredisgraceful than among those people whom they stigmatized as barbarians. Then must come revolution, or races would run out and civilization belost. 

[Sidenote: Barbaric conquests. ]

God sent war--universal, cruel, destructive war, at the hands of unknownwarriors; and they effected a total eclipse of the glory of man. Theempire was resolved into its original elements. Its lands were overrunand pillaged; its cities were burned and robbed; and unmitigatedviolence overspread the earth, so that the cry of despair ascended toheaven, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Caspian Sea. Indeed, the endof the world was so generally believed to be at hand, on this universalupturning of society, that some of the best men fled to caves anddeserts; and there were more monks that sought personal salvation bytheir austerities, than soldiers who braved their lives in battle. 

It is this great revolution which I seek to present, this greatcatastrophe to which the Romans were subjected, after having conqueredone hundred and twenty millions of people. It was probably the mostmournful, in all its aspects, ever seen on the face of this earth sincethe universal deluge. Never, surely, were such calamities produced bythe hand of man. The Greeks and Romans, when they had conquered arebellious or enervated nation, introduced their civilization, andpromoted peace and general security. They brought laws, science, literature, and arts, in the train of their armies; they did not sweepaway ancient institutions; they left the people as they found them, onlywith greater facilities of getting rich; they preserved the pictures, the statues, and the temples; they honored the literature and reveredthe sages who taught it; they may have brought captives to theircapitals as slaves, but they did not root out every trace ofcultivation, or regarded it with haughty scorn. But, when their turn ofpunishment came, the whole world was filled with mourning anddesolation, and all the relations of society were reversed. 

[Sidenote: Infatuation of the Romans. ]

It was a sad hour in the old capital of the world, when its blindedinhabitants were aroused from the stupendous delusion that they wereinvincible; when the crushing fact stared every one in the face, thatthe legions had been conquered, that province after province had beenoverrun, that proud and populous cities had fallen, that the barbarianswere advancing, treading beneath their feet all that had been deemedvaluable, or rare, or sacred, that they were advancing to the very gatesof Rome, --that her doom was sealed, that there was no shelter to whichthey could fly, that there was no way by which ruin could be averted, that they were doomed to hopeless poverty or servitude, that their wivesand daughters would be subject to indignities which were worse thandeath, and that all the evils their ancestors had inflicted in theirtriumphant march, would be visited upon them with tenfold severity. TheRomans, even then, when they cast their eyes upon external nature, sawrich corn-fields, smiling vineyards, luxurious gardens, yea, villas andtemples and palaces without end; and how could these be destroyed whichhad lasted for centuries? How could the eternal city, which had not seena foreign enemy near its gates since the invasion of the Gauls, whichhad escaped all dangers, so rich and gay, how could she now yield tonaked barbarians from unknown forests? They still beheld the splendidmechanism of government, the glitter and the pomp of armies, triumphalprocessions, new monuments of victory, the proud eagles, and all theemblems of unlimited dominion. What had _they_ to fear? "_Nihilest, Quirites, quod timere possitis_. "

[Sidenote: Fatal security of the Romans. ]

Nor to the eye of contemporaries was the great change, which hadgradually taken place since the reign of Trajan, apparent. Cowardice andweakness were veiled from the view of men. In proportion to theimbecility of the troops, were the richness of their uniform, and theinsolence of their manners. It was the day of boasts and pomps. Allforms and emblems had their ancient force. All men partook of the vicesand follies which were praised. In their levity and delusion, they didnot see the real emptiness and hollowness of their institutions. Ablinded generation never can see the signs of the times. Only a fewcontemplative men hid themselves in retired places, but were denouncedas croakers or evil minded. Every body was interested in keeping up thedelusion. Panics seldom last long. The world is too fond of its ease tobelieve the truths which break up repose and gains. All felt safe, because they had always been protected. Ruin might come ultimately, butnot in their day. "_Apres moi le deluge_" No one would makesacrifices, since no one feared immediate danger. Moreover, publicspirit and patriotism had fled. If their cities were in danger, theysaid, better perish here with our wives and children than die on thefrontiers after having suffered every privation and exposure. There musthave been a universal indifference, or the barbarians could not havetriumphed. The Romans had every inducement which any people ever had toa brave and desperate resistance. Not merely their own lives, but thesecurity of their families was at stake. Their institutions, theirinterests, their rights, their homes, their altars, all were injeopardy. And they were attacked by most merciless enemies, without pityor respect, and yet they would not fight, as nations should fight, anddo sometimes fight, when their country is invaded. Why did they offer nomore stubborn resistance? Why did the full-armed and well-trainedlegions yield to barbaric foes, without discipline and without the mosteffective weapons? Alas, dispirited and enervated people will neverfight. They prefer slavery to death. Thus Persia succumbed beforeAlexander, and Asia Minor before the Saracen generals. Martial couragegoes hand in hand with virtue. Without elevation of sentiment there willbe no self-sacrifice. There is no hope when nations are abandoned tosensuality or egotism. 

[Sidenote: Weakness of the empire. ]

We must believe in a most extraordinary degeneracy of society, or Romewould not have fallen. With any common degree of courage, the empireshould have resisted the Goths and Vandals. They were not more numerousthan those hordes which Marius and Caesar annihilated even in their ownmarshes and forests. It was not like the Macedonians, with theirimpenetrable phalanx, and their perfected armor, contending with semi-barbarians. It was not like the Spaniards, marching over Peru andMexico. It was not like the English, with all the improved weapons ofour modern times, firing upon a people armed with darts and arrows. Butit was barbarians, without defensive armor, without discipline, withoutprestige, attacking legions which had been a thousand years learning theart of war. _Proh Pudor!_ The soldiers of the empire must have losttheir ancient spirit. They must have represented a most worthlesspeople. We lose our pity in the strength of our indignation and disgust. A civilized nation that will yield to barbarians must deserve theirfate. Noble as were the elements of character among the Germanic tribes, they were yet barbarians in arts, in manners, in knowledge, inmechanisms. They had nothing but brute force. Science should haveconquered brute force; but it did not. We cannot but infer a moststartling degeneracy. It is to be regretted that we have no moresatisfactory data as to the precise state of society. I am inclined tothe opinion that society was much more degraded than it is generallysupposed. When for two centuries the whole empire scarcely produced apoet, or a philosopher, or an historian; when even the writings offamous men in the time of Augustus were lost or unread; when, fromTrajan to Honorius, a period of three hundred and fifty years, scarcelya work of original genius appeared, it must be that society was utterlydemoralized, and all life and vigor had fled. 

[Sidenote: Conquerors of Rome. ]

Then it was time for the empire to fall. And it is our work to sketchthe ruin--and such a ruin. The bloody conquerors were Goths and Vandals, and other Teutonic tribes--Franks, Sueves, Alans, Heruli, Burgundians, Lombards, Saxons. They came originally from Central Asia, in the regionof the Caspian Sea, and were kindred to the Medes and Persians. Theydrove before them older inhabitants, probably Celtic nations, andultimately settled in the vast region between the Baltic and the Danube, the Rhine and the Vistula, embracing those countries which are nowcalled Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. 

[Sidenote: The Germanic nations. ]

All these tribes were probably similar in manners, habits, tastes, andnatural elements of character. Tacitus has furnished us with the mostauthentic record of their customs and peculiarities. [Footnote: Tacitus, _De Moribus Germanorum_. ] Their eyes were stern and blue, theirhair red, their bodies large, their strength great. They were ruled bykings, but not with unlimited power. The priests had also anextraordinary influence, which they shared with the women, who werepresent in battles, and who were characterized for great purity andcourage. Even the power to predict the future was ascribed to women. TheGermans were superstitious, and were given to divinations by omens andlots, by the flight of birds and the neighing of horses. They transactedno business, public or private, without being armed. They were warlikein all their habits and tastes, and the field of battle was the field ofglory. Their chief deity was an heroic prince. Odin, the type-man of thenation, was a wild captain, who taught that it was most honorable to diein battle. They hated repose and inactivity, and, when not engaged inwar, they pursued with eagerness the pleasures of the chase; yet, duringthe intervals of war and hunting, they divided their time betweensleeping and feasting. They loved the forests, and dangerous sports, andadventurous enterprises. They abhorred cities, which they regarded asprisons of despotism. A rude passion for personal independence was oneof their chief characteristics, as powerful as veneration for the womenand religious tendency of mind. They would brook no restraint on theirwills or their passions. Their wills were stern and their passionsimpetuous. They only yielded to the voice of entreaty or of love. Theywere ordinarily temperate, except on rare occasions, when they indulgedin drunken festivities. Chastity was a virtue which was rigorouslypracticed. There were few cases of adultery among them, and theunfaithful wife was severely punished. Men and women, without seductivespectacles or convivial banquets, were fenced around with chastity, andbound together by family ties. Polygamy was unknown, and the marriageobligation was sacred. The wife brought no dowry to her husband, butreceived one from him, not frivolous presents, but oxen, a caparisonedsteed, a shield, spear, and sword, to indicate that she is to be apartner in toil and danger, to suffer and to dare in peace and war. Hospitality was another virtue, extended equally to strangers andacquaintances, but, at the festive board, quarrels often took place, andenmities once formed were rarely forgiven. Vindictive resentments wereas marked as cordial and frank friendships. They drank beer or ale, instead of wine, at their feasts, although their ordinary drink waswater. Their food was fruits, cheese, milk, and venison. They had aninordinate passion for gambling, and would even stake their very freedomon a throw. Slavery was common, but not so severe and ruthless as amongthe Romans. They had but little commerce, and were unacquainted with thearts of usury. Their agriculture was rude, and corn was the only productthey raised. They had the ordinary domestic animals, but their horseswere neither beautiful nor swift. 

[Sidenote: The native elements of character of the barbarians. ]

It is easy to see that, in their manners and traits, they had a greatresemblance to the Celts, before they were subdued and civilized, butwere not so passionate, nor impulsive, nor thoughtless, nor reckless asthey. Nor were they so much addicted to gluttony and drunkenness. Theywere more persevering, more earnest, more truthful, and more chaste. Norwere they so much enslaved by the priesthood. The Druidical rule wasconfined to the Celts, yet, like the Celts, they worshiped God in theconsecrated grove. Their religion was pantheistic: they saw God in therocks, the rain, the thunder, the clouds, the rivers, the mountains, thestars. He was supposed to preside everywhere, and to be a supremeintelligence. Their view of God was quite similar to the early Ionicphilosophers of Greece: "_Regnator omnium deus, coetera subjecta atqueparentia_. " They Were never idol-worshipers; they worshiped nature, and called its wonders gods. But this worship of nature was modified bythe worship of a hero. In Odin they beheld strength, courage, magnanimity, the attributes they adored. To be brave was an elementalprinciple of religion, and they attributed to the Deity every thingwhich could inspire horror as the terrible, --the angry god who markedout those destined to be slain. Hence their groves, where he wassupposed to preside, were dark and mysterious. We adore the gloom ofwoods, the silence which reigns around. "_Lucos atque in iis silentia, ipsa adoremus_. " While the priests of this awful being were not sodespotic as the Druids, they still exercised a great ascendency: theyconjured the storms of internal war; they pronounced the terribleanathema; they imparted to military commanders a sacred authority; andthey carried at the head of their armies the consecrated banner of theDeity. In short, they wielded those spiritual weapons which afterwardbecame thunderbolts in the hands of the clergy, and which prepared theway for the autocratic reign of the popes, in whom the Germanic nationsever recognized the vicegerent of their invisible Lord. They were mostpreeminently a religious people, governed by religious ideas--by which Imean they recognized a deity to whose will they were to be obedient, andwhose favor could only be purchased by deeds of valor or virtue. Theirmorality sprung out of veneration for the Great Unseen, in whose handswere their destinies. 

This trait is the most remarkable and prominent among the Germans, nextto their fierce passion for war, their veneration for woman, and theirlove of personal independence, to which last Guizot attaches greatimportance. The feeling one's self a man in the most unrestricted sense, was the highest pleasure of the German barbarian. There was apersonality of feeling and interest hostile to social forms andmunicipal regulations. They cared for nothing beyond the gratificationof their inclinations. To be unrestrained, to be free in the wildestsense, to do what they pleased under the impulse of the moment, this wastheir leading characteristic. Who cannot see that such a trait washostile to civilization, and would prevent obedience to law--would makethe uncultivated warrior unsocial and solitary, and lead him, in after-times, when he got possession of the lands of the conquered Romans, tobuild his castle on inaccessible heights and rugged rocks? Henceisolated retreats, wild adventures, country life, the pleasures of thechase, characterized the new settlers. They avoided cities, and builtcastles. 

[Sidenote: National traits. ]

[Sidenote: Character of the Germanic nations. ]

This passion for liberty, accompanied with the spirit of daring, adventure, and war, would have been fatal but for the rule of priests, and the great influence of woman. In this latter element of character, the barbarians from Scandinavia stand out in interesting contrast withthe civilized nations whom they subverted. They evidently had a greaterrespect for woman than any of the nations of antiquity, not exceptingthe Jews. In her they beheld something sacred and divine. In her voicewas inspiration, and in her presence there was safety. There was no trueenthusiasm for woman in Greece even when Socrates bowed before thecharms of Aspasia. There was none at Rome when Volumnia screened thecity from the vengeance of her angry son. But the Germans worshiped thefair, and beheld in her the incarnation of all virtue and loveliness. And thus, among such a race, arose the glorious old institution ofchivalry, which could not have existed among the Romans or the Greeks, even after Christianity had softened the character and enlarged theheart. In the baronial mansion of the Middle Ages this naturalveneration was ripened into devotion and gallantry. Among the knights, zeal for God and the ladies was enjoined as a single duty; and "he whowas faithful to his mistress, " says Hallam, "was sure of salvation, inthe theology of castles, if not of cloisters. " This devotion wasexpressed in the rude poetry of barbarous ages, in the sports of thetournament and tilt, in the feasts of the castle, in the masculinepleasures of the chase, in the control of the household, in theeducation of children, in the laws which recognized equality, in thefree companionship with man, in the trust reposed in female honor andvirtue, in the delicacy of love, and in the refinements of friendship. This trait alone shows the superior nature of the Germanic races, especially when taught by Christianity, and makes us rejoice that themagnificent conquests of the Romans were given to them for their proudinheritance. 

Such were the men who became the heirs of the Romans, --races neversubdued by arms or vices, among whom Christianity took a peculiar hold, and gradually developed among them principles of progress such as werenever seen among the older nations. Can we wonder that such men shouldprevail?--men who loved war as the Romans did under the republic; menwho gloried in their very losses, and felt that death in the field wouldsecure future salvation and everlasting honor; men full of hope, energy, enthusiasm, and zeal; men who had, what the old races had not, --a soul, life, uncorrupted forces. 

Yet, when they invaded the Roman world, it must not be forgotten thatthey were rude, ignorant, wild, fierce, and unscrupulous. They were heldin absolute detestation, as the North American Indians, whom theyresembled in many important respects, were held in this country twohundred years ago. Their object was pillage. They roamed in search ofmore fruitful lands and a more congenial sky. They were bent onconquest, rapine, and violence. They were called the Northern Hordes--barbarians--and even their vices were exaggerated. They were, indeed, most formidable and terrific foes; and when conquered in battle wouldrally their forces, and press forward with renewed numbers. 

[Sidenote: The Goths. ]

The first of these Teutonic barbarians who made successful inroads werethe Goths. I do not now allude to the Celtic nations who were completelysubdued and incorporated with the empire before the accession of theemperors. Nor do I speak of the Teutons whom Marius defeated one hundredyears before the Christian era, nor yet of the Germanic tribes who madeunsuccessful inroads during the reigns of the earlier emperors. Augustusmust have had melancholy premonitions of danger when his general, Varus, suffered a disgraceful defeat by the sword of Arminus in the darkrecesses of the Teuto-burger Wald, even as Charlemagne covered his facewith his iron hands when he saw the invasion of his territories by theNorman pirates. For three centuries there was a constant strugglebetween the Roman armies and the barbarians beyond the Rhine. In thereign of Marcus Antoninus they formed a general union for the invasionof the Roman world, but they were signally defeated, and the greatpillar of Marcus Aurelius describes his victories on the Danube, whodied combating the Vandals, A. D. 180. In the year 241 A. D. , the greatAurelian is seen fighting the Franks near Mayence, who, nevertheless, pressed forward until they made their way into Spain. 

[Sidenote: Invasion of the Goths. ]

The most formidable of the enemies of Rome were the Goths. When firstspoken of in history they inhabited the shores of the Baltic. They werecalled by Tacitus, Gothones. In the time of Caracalla they had migratedto the coast of the Black Sea. Under the reign of Alexander Severus, 222-235, A. D. , they threatened the peace of the province of Dacia. UnderPhilip, A. D. 244-249, they succeeded in conquering that province, andpenetrated into Mosia. In the year 251, they encountered a Roman armyunder Decius, which they annihilated, and the emperor himself was slain. Then they continued their ravages along the coasts of the Euxine untilthey made themselves masters of the Crimea. With a large fleet of flat-boats they sailed to all the northern parts of the Euxine, took Pityusand Trapezus, attacked the wealthy cities on the Thracian Bosphorus, conquered Chalcedon, Nicomedia, and Nice, and retreated laden withspoil. The next year, with five hundred boats--they cannot be calledships, --they pursued their destructive navigation, destroyed Cyzicus, crossed the Aegean Sea, and landed at Athens, which they plundered. Thebes, Argos, Corinth, and Sparta were unable to defend theirdilapidated fortifications. They advanced to the coasts of Epirus anddevastated the whole Illyrian peninsula. In this destructive expeditionthey destroyed the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus, with its onehundred and twenty-seven marble columns sixty feet in height, and itsinterior ornamented with the choicest sculptures of Praxiteles. But theyat length got wearied of danger and toil, and returned through Mosia totheir own settlements. Though this incursion was a raid rather than aconquest, yet what are we to think of the military strength of theempire and the condition of society, when, in less than three hundredyears after Augustus had shut the temple of Janus, fifteen thousandundisciplined barbarians, without even a leader of historic fame, wereallowed to ravage the most populous and cultivated part of the empire, even the classic cities which had resisted the Persian hosts, and retireunmolested with their spoils? The Emperor Gallienus, one of the mostfrivolous of all the Caesars, received the intelligence with epicureanindifference, and abandoned himself to inglorious pleasures; and as Nerois said to have fiddled while his capital was in ashes, so he, in thisgreat emergency, consumed his time in gardening and the arts of cookery, and was commended by his idolatrous courtiers as a philosopher and ahero. 

In fact, this invasion of the Goths was not contemplated with that alarmwhich it ought to have excited, but rather as an accidental evil, like apestilence or a plague. Moreover, it was lost sight of in the generalmisery and misfortunes of the times. The Emperor Valerian had just beendefeated and taken prisoner by Sapor. Pretenders had started up innineteen different places for the imperial purple. Banditti had spreaddevastation in Sicily. Alexandria was disturbed by tumults. Famine andthe plague raged for ten years in nearly all parts of the empire. Romelost by the pestilence five thousand daily, while half the inhabitantsof Alexandria were swept away. Soldiers, tyrants, barbarians, and thevisitation of God threatened the ruin of the Roman world. 

But the ruin was staved off one hundred years by the labors and geniusof a series of great princes, who traced their origin to the martialprovince of Illyricum. And all that was in the power of the emperors todo was done to arrest destruction. No empire was ever ruled by asuccession of better and greater men than the calamities of the timesraised up on the death of Gallienus, A. D. 268. But what avail the energyand talents of rulers when a nation is doomed to destruction? We havethe profoundest admiration for the imperial heroes who bore the burdensof a throne in those days of tribulation. They succeeded in restoringthe ancient glories--but glories followed by a deeper shame. Theyattempted impossibilities when their subjects were sunk in sloth anddegradation. 

[Sidenote: Success and the defeat of the Goths. ]

Claudius, one of the generals of Gallienus, was invested with the purpleat the age of fifty-four. He restored military discipline, revived law, repressed turbulence, and bent his thoughts to head off the barbaricinvasions. The various nations of Germany and Sarmatia, united under theGothic standard, and in six thousand vessels, prepared once more toravage the world. Sailing from the banks of the Dniester, they crossedthe Euxine, passed through the Bosphorus, anchored at the foot of MountAthos, and assaulted Thessalonica, the wealthy capital of the Macedonianprovinces. Claudius advanced to meet these three hundred and twentythousand barbarians. At Naissus, in Dalmatia, was fought one of the mostmemorable and bloody battles of ancient times, but not one of the mostdecisive. Fifty thousand Goths were slain in that dreadful fight. ThreeGothic women fell to the share of every imperial soldier. Thediscomfited warriors fled in consternation, but their retreat was cutoff by the destruction of their fleet; and on the return of spring themighty host had dwindled to a desperate band in the inaccessible partsof Mount Hemus. 

[Sidenote: Victories of Claudius. ]

Claudius survived his victory but two years, and was succeeded, A. D. 270, by a still greater man--his general Aurelian, whose father had beena peasant of Sirmium. Every day of his short reign was filled withwonders. He put an end to the Gothic war; he chastised the Germans whoinvaded Italy; he recovered Gaul, Spain, and Britain, from the hands ofan usurper; he destroyed the proud monarchy which Zenobia had built upin the deserts of the East; he defeated the Alemanni who, with eightythousand foot and forty thousand horse, had devastated the country fromthe Danube to the Po; and, not least, he took Zenobia herself a prisoner--one of the most celebrated women of antiquity, equaling Cleopatra inbeauty, Elizabeth in learning, and Artemisia in valor--a woman whoblended the popular manners of the Roman princes with the stately pompof oriental kings. 

Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, the widow of Odenatus, ruled a large portionof Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, and with a numerous army she advancedto meet the imperial legions. Conquered in two disastrous battles, sheretired to the beautiful city which Solomon had built, shaded withpalms, ornamented with palaces, and rich in oriental treasure. Thenagain, attacked by her persevering enemy, she mounted the fleetest ofher dromedaries, but was overtaken on the banks of the Euphrates, andbrought a captive to the tent of the martial emperor, while Palmyra, hercapital, with all its riches, fell into the hands of the conqueror. 

[Sidenote: Successes of Aurelian. ]

Aurelian, with the haughty queen who had presumed to rise up in armsagainst the empire, returned to successes of Rome, and then wascelebrated the most magnificent triumph which the world had seen sincethe days of Pompey and of Caesar. And since the foundation of the city, no conqueror more richly deserved a triumph than this virtuous andrugged soldier of fortune. And as the august procession, with all thepomp and circumstance of war, moved along the Via Sacra, up theCapitoline Hill, and halted at the Temple of Jupiter, to receive thebenediction of the priests, and to deposit within its sacred walls thetreasures of the East, it would seem that Rome was destined to surmountthe ordinary fate of nations, and reign as mistress of the world _persecula seculorum_. 

But this grand pageant was only one of the last glories of the settingsun of Roman greatness. Aurelian had no peace or repose. "The godsdecree, " said the impatient emperor, "that my life should be a perpetualwarfare. " He was obliged to take the field a few months after histriumph, and was slain, not in battle, but by the hands of assassins--the common fate of his predecessors and successors--"the regular portal"through which the Caesars passed to their account with the eternal Judge. He had boasted that public danger had passed--_"Ego efficiam ne sitaliqua solicitudo Romana. Nos publicae necessitates teneant; vos occupentvoluptates. "_ But scarcely had this warlike prince sung his requiemto the agitations of Rome before new dangers arose, and his sceptredescended to a man seventy-five years of age. 

Tacitus, the new emperor, was however worthy of his throne. He wasselected as the most fitting man that could be found. Scarcely was heinaugurated, before he was obliged to march against the Alans, who hadspread their destructive ravages over Pontus, Cappadocia, Cilicia, andGalatia. He lost his life, though successful in battle, amid thehardships of a winter campaign, and Probus, one of his generals, who hadonce been an Illyrian peasant, was clothed with the imperial purple, A. D. 278. 

[Sidenote: The successes of Probus. ]

This vigorous monarch was then forty-five years of age, in the prime ofhis strength, popular with the army, and patriotic and enlarged in hisviews. He reigned six years, and won a fame equal to that of the ancientheroes. He restored peace and order in every province of the empire; hebroke the power of the Sarmatian tribes; he secured the alliance of theGothic nation; he drove the Isaurians to their strongholds among themountains; he chastised the rebellious cities of Egypt; he deliveredGaul from the Germanic barbarians, who again inundated the empire on thedeath of Aurelian; he drove back the Franks into their morasses at themouth of the Rhine; he vanquished the Burgundians, who had wandered inquest of booty from the banks of the Oder; he defeated the Lygii, afierce tribe from the frontiers of Silesia, and took their chieftainSemno alive; he passed the Rhine and pursued his victories to the Elbe, exacting a tribute of corn, cattle, and horses, from the defeatedGermans; he even erected a bulwark against their future encroachments--astone wall of two hundred miles in length, across valleys and hills andrivers, from the Danube to the Rhine--a feeble defense indeed, but suchas to excite the wonder of his age; he, moreover, dispersed the captivebarbarians throughout the provinces, who were afterward armed in defenseof the empire, and whose brethren were persuaded to make settlementswith them, so that, at length, "there was not left in all theprovinces, " says Gibbon, "a hostile barbarian, a tyrant, or even arobber. "

After having destroyed four hundred thousand barbarians, the victorreturned to Rome, and, like Aurelian, celebrated his successes in one ofthose gorgeous triumphs to which modern nations have no parallel. Thenhe again, like the conqueror of Zenobia, mounted the Pisgah of hope, anddescried the Saturnian ages which, in his vision of Peace, he fanciedwere to follow his victories. _"Respublica orbis terrarum, ubiquesecura, non arma fabricabit. Boves habebuntur aratro; equus nasciter adpacem. Nulla erunt bella; nulla captivitas. Aeternes thesauros haberetRomana respublica. "_ But scarcely had the paeans escaped him, before, in his turn, he was assassinated in a mutiny of his own troops--a man ofvirtue and abilities, although his austere temper insensibly, undermilitary power, subsided into tyranny and cruelty. 

Without the approbation of the Senate, the soldiers elected a newemperor, and he too was a hero. Carus had scarcely assumed the purple, A. D. 282, before he marched against the Persians, through Thrace andAsia Minor, in the midst of winter, and the ambassadors of the Persianking found the new emperor of the world seated on the grass, at a frugaldinner of bacon and pease, in that severe simplicity which afterwardmarked the early successors of Mohammed. But before he could carry hisvictorious arms across the Tigris, he suddenly died in his tent, struck, as some think, by lightning. His son Carinus was unworthy of the throneto which he succeeded, and his reign is chiefly memorable for themagnificence of his games and festivals. His reign, and that of hisbrother Numerian, was however short, and a still greater man than anywho had mounted the throne of the Caesars since Augustus, took the helmat the most critical period of Roman history, A. D. 285. 

[Sidenote: Diocletian. ]

This man was Diocletian, rendered infamous in ecclesiastical history, asthe most bitter persecutor the Christians ever had; a man of obscurebirth, yet of most distinguished abilities, and virtually the founder ofa new empire. He found it impossible to sustain the public burdens in anage so disordered and disorganized, when every province was menaced bythe barbarians, and he associated with himself three colleagues who hadwon fame in the wars of Aurelian and Carus, and all of whom had renderedsubstantial services--Galerius, Maximian, and Constantius. These fourCaesars, alive to the danger which menaced the empire, took up theirresidence in the distant provinces. They were all great generals; andthey won great victories on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, inAfrica and Egypt, in Persia and Armenia. Their lives were spent in thecamp; but care, vexation, and discontent pursued them. The barbarianswere continually beaten, but they continually advanced. Their progressreminds one of the rising tide on a stormy and surging beach. Wave afterwave breaks upon the shore, recedes, returns, and nothing can stop thegradual advance of the waters. So in the hundred years after Gallienus, wave after wave of barbaric invasion constantly appeared, receded, returned, with added strength. The heroic emperors were uniformlyvictors; but their victories were in vain. They were perpetuallyreconquering rebellious provinces, or putting down usurpers, orpunishing the barbarians, who acquired strength after every defeat, andwere more and more insatiable in their demands, and unrelenting in theirwills. They were determined to conquer, and the greatest generals of theRoman empire during four hundred years could not subdue them, althoughthey could beat them. 

[Sidenote: Constantine. ]

The empire is again united under Constantine, after bloody civil wars, A. D. 324, thirty-four years after Diocletian had divided his power andprovinces with his associates. He renews the war against the Goths andSarmatians, severely chastises them as well as other enemies of Rome, and dies leaving the empire to his son, unequal to the task imposed uponhim. The inglorious reigns of Constantius and Gallus only enabled thebarbarians to renew their strength. They are signally defeated by theEmperor Julian, A. D. 360, who alone survives of all the heirs ofConstantius Chlorus. The studious Julian, who was supposed to be a merephilosopher, proves himself to be one of the most warlike of all theemperors. He repulses the Alemanni, defeats the Franks, delivers Gaul, and carries the Roman eagles triumphantly beyond the Rhine. Hisvictories delay the ruin of the empire; they do not result in theconquest of Germany, and he dies, mortally wounded, not by a Germanspear, but by the javelin of a Persian horseman, beyond the Tigris, inan unsuccessful enterprise against Sapor, A. D. 363. 

[Sidenote: New invasions of barbarians. ]

After his death the ravages of the barbarians became still more fearful. The Alemanni invade Gaul, A. D. 365, the Persians recover Armenia, theBurgundians appear upon the Rhine, the Saxons attack Britain, and spreadthemselves from the Wall of Antoninus to the shores of Kent, the Gothsprepare for another invasion; in Africa there is a great revolt underFirmus. The empire is shaken to its centre. 

Valentinian, a soldier of fortune, and an able general, now wears theimperial purple. Like Diocletian, he finds himself unable to bear theburdens of his throne. He elects an associate, divides the empire, andgives to Valens the eastern provinces. All idea of reigning in peace, and giving the reins to pleasure, has vanished from the imperial mind. The office of emperor demands the severest virtues and the sternestqualities and the most incessant labors. "Uneasy sits the head thatwears a crown, " can now be said of all the later emperors. The day ispast for enjoyment or for pomp. The emperor's presence is required hereand there. Valentinian rules with vigor, and gains successes over thebarbarians. He is one of the great men of the day. He reserves tohimself the western provinces, and fixes his seat at Milan, but cannotpreserve tranquillity, and dies in a storm of wrath, by the bursting ofa blood-vessel, while reviling the ambassadors of the Quadi, A. D. 375, at the age of fifty-four. 

[Sidenote: Disasters of Valens. ]

His brother, Valens, Emperor of the East, had neither his talents norenergy; and it was his fate to see the first great successful inroads ofthe Goths. For thirty years the Romans had secured their frontiers, andthe Goths had extended their dominions. Hermanric, the first historicname of note among them, ruled over the entire nation, and had won aseries of brilliant victories over other tribes of barbarians after hewas eighty years of age. His dominions extended from the Danube to theBaltic, including the greater part of Germany and Scythia. In the year366 his subjects, tempted by the civil discords which Procopiusoccasioned, invaded Thrace, but were resisted by the generals of Valens. The aged Hermanric was exasperated by the misfortune, and madepreparations for a general war, while the emperor himself invaded theGothic territories. For three years the war continued, with varioussuccess, on the banks of the Danube. Hermanric intrusted the defense ofhis country to Athanaric, who was defeated in a bloody battle, and ahollow peace was made with Victor and Arintheus, the generals of Valens. The Goths remained in tranquillity for six years, until, driven by theScythians, who emerged in vast numbers from the frozen regions of thenorth, they once more advanced to the Danube and implored the aid ofValens. [Footnote: See Ammianus Marcellinus, b. Xxi. , from which Gibbonhas chiefly drawn his narratives. ] The prayers of the Goths wereanswered, and they were transported across the Danube--a suicidal act ofthe emperor, which imported two hundred thousand warriors, with theirwives and children, into the Roman territories. The Goths retained theirarms and their greed, and pretended to settle peaceably in the provinceof Mosia. But they were restless and undisciplined barbarians, and itrequired the greatest adroitness to manage them in their new abodes. They were insolent and unreasonable in their demands and expectations, while the ministers of the emperor were oppressive and venal. Difficulties soon arose, and, too late, it was seen by the emperor thathe had introduced most dangerous enemies into the heart of the empire. 

[Sidenote: Fritigern, leader of the Goths. ]

[Sidenote: Death of the Emperor Valens. ]

The great leader of these Goths was Fritigern, who soon kindled theflames of war. He united under his standard all the various tribes ofhis nation, increased their animosities, and led them to the mouth ofthe Danube. There they were attacked by the lieutenants of Valens, and abattle was fought without other result than that of checking for a timethe Gothic progress. But only for a time. The various tribes ofbarbarians, under the able generalship of Fritigern, whose cunning wasequal to his bravery, advanced to the suburbs of Hadrianople. Under thewalls of that city was fought the most disastrous battle, A. D. 378, tothe imperial cause which is recorded in the annals of Roman history. Theemperor himself was slain with two thirds of his whole army, while theremainder fled in consternation. Sixty thousand infantry and sixthousand cavalry were stretched in death upon the bloody field--onethird more than at the fatal battle of Cannae. The most celebrated oratorof the day, though a Pagan, [Footnote: Libanius of Antioch. ] pronounceda funeral oration on the vanquished army, and attributed thecatastrophe, not to the cowardice of the legions, but the anger of thegods. "The fury of the Goths, " says St. Jerome, "extended to allcreatures possessed of life: the beasts of the field, the fowls of theair, and the fishes of the sea. " The victors, intoxicated with theirfirst great success, invested Hadrianople, where were deposited enormousriches. But they were unequal to the task of taking so strong a city;and when the inhabitants aroused themselves in a paroxysm of despair, they raised the siege and departed to ravage the more unprotected West. Laden with spoils, they retired to the western boundaries of Thrace, andthence scattered their forces to the confines of Italy. From the shoresof the Bosphorus to the Julian Alps nothing was to be seen butconflagration and murders and devastations. Churches were turned intostables, palaces were burned, works of priceless value were destroyed, the relics of martyrs were desecrated, the most fruitful provinces wereoverrun, the population was decimated, the land was overgrown withforests, cultivation was suspended, and despair and fear seized theminds of all classes. So great was the misfortune of the Illyrianprovinces that they never afterward recovered, and for ten centuriesonly supplied materials for roving robbers. The empire never had seensuch a day of calamity. 

[Sidenote: Desperate condition of the Romans. ]

This melancholy state of affairs, so desperate and so general, demandeda deliverer and a hero; but where was a hero to be found? Nothing buttranscendent ability could now arrest the overthrow. Who should succeedto the vacant throne of Valens?

[Sidenote: Theodosius. ]

[Sidenote: His character and illustrious deeds. ]

The Emperor Gratian, who wielded the sceptre of Valentinian in the West, in this alarming crisis, cast his eyes upon an exile, whose father hadunjustly suffered death under his own sanction three years before. Thisman was Theodosius, then living in modest retirement on his farm inSpain, near Valladolid, as unambitious as David among his sheep, ascontented as Cincinnatus at the plough. Great deliverers are frequentlyselected from the most humble positions; but no world hero, in ancientor modern times, is more illustrious than Theodosius for modesty andmagnanimity united with great abilities. No man is dearer to the Churchthan he, both for his services and his virtues. The eloquent Flechierhas emblazoned his fame, as Bossuet has painted the Prince of Conde. Even Gibbon lays aside his sneers to praise this great ChristianEmperor, although his character was not free from stains. He modestlybut readily accepted the vacant sceptre and the conduct of the Gothicwar. He was thirty-three years of age, in the pride of his strength, andwell instructed in liberal pursuits. No better choice could have beenmade by Gratian. He was as prudent as Fabius, as magnanimous as Richard, as persevering as Alfred, as comprehensive as Charlemagne, as beneficentas Henry IV. , as full of resources as Frederic II. One of the greatestof all the emperors, and the last great man who swayed the sceptre ofTrajan his ancestor, his reign cannot but be too highly commended, living in such an age, exposed to so many dangers, invested with so manydifficulties. He was the last flickering light of the expiring monarchy, beloved and revered by all classes of his subjects. "The vulgar gazedwith admiration on the manly beauty of his face and the graceful majestyof his person, which they were pleased to compare with the pictures andmedals of the Emperor Trajan; while intelligent observers discovered, inthe qualities of the heart and understanding, a more importantresemblance to the best and greatest of the Roman emperors. " [Footnote:Gibbon, chap. Xxvi. ]

Mr. Long, of Oxford, in a fine notice of Theodosius, thinks that thepraises of Gibbon are extravagant, and that the emperor was probably avoluptuary and a persecutor. But Gibbon is not apt to praise thefavorites of the Church. Tillemont presents him in the same light asGibbon. [Footnote: Tillemont, _Hist, des Emp. _ vol. V. ] A man whocould have submitted to such a penance as Ambrose imposed for theslaughter of Thessalonica, could not have been cast in a different mouldfrom old David himself. For my part I admire his character and hisdeeds. 

[Sidenote: Defeat of the Goths. ]

Soon as he was invested with the purple, he gave his undivided energiesto the great task intrusted to him; but he never succeeded in fullyrevenging the battle of Hadrianople, which was one of the decisivebattles of the world in its ultimate effects. He had the talents and theenergy and the prudence, but he was beset with impossibilities. Still, he staved off ruin for a time. The death of Fritigern unchained thepassions of the barbarians, and they would have been led to freshrevolts had they not submitted to the authority of Athanaric, whom theemperor invited to his capital and feasted at his table, and astonishedby his riches and glory. The Visigoths, won by the policy or courtesy ofTheodosius, became subjects of the empire. The Ostrogoths, who hadretired from the provinces of the Danube four years before, returnedrecruited with a body of Huns, and crossed the Danube to assail theRoman army, but were defeated by Theodosius; and a treaty was made withthem, by which they were settled in Phrygia and Lydia. Forty thousand ofthem were kept in the service of the emperor; but they were doubtfulallies, as subsequent events proved, even in the lifetime of themagnanimous emperor. [Footnote: Zosimus, i. 4. ]

[Sidenote: Honorius and Arcadius. ]

Theodosius died at Milan in the arms of Ambrose, A. D. 395, and with hisdeath the real drama of the fall of Rome begins. His empire was dividedbetween his two sons, Honorius and Arcadius, who were unworthy orunequal to maintain their great inheritance. The barbarians, releasedfrom the restraint which the fear of Theodosius imposed, recommencedtheir combinations and their ravages, while the soldiers of the empirewere dispirited and enervated. About this time they threw away theirdefensive armor, not able to bear the weight of the cuirass and thehelmet; and even the heavy weapons of their ancestors, the short swordand the pilum, were supplanted by the bow, --a most remarkable retrogradein military art. Without defensive armor, not even the shield, they wereexposed to the deadly missiles of their foes, and fled at the firstserious attacks, especially of cavalry, in which the Goths and Hunsexcelled. 

[Sidenote: Alaric, king of the Visigoths. ]

History has taken but little notice of the leaders of the various tribesof barbarians until Alaric appeared, the able successor of Fritigern. Hebelonged to the second noblest family of his nation, and first appearsin history as a general of the Gothic auxiliaries in the war ofTheodosius against Eugenius, A. D. 394. In 396, stimulated by anger orambition, or the instigation of Rufinus, [Footnote: Socrates, _Eccles. Hist. _, vii. 10. ] he invaded Greece at the head of a powerful body, and devastated the country. He descended from the plains of Macedoniaand Thessaly, and entered the classic land, which for a long time hadescaped the ravages of war, through the pass of Thermopylae. Degeneratesoldiers, half armed, now defended the narrow passage where threehundred heroes had once arrested the march of the Persian hosts. ButGreece was no longer Greece. The soldiers fled as Alaric advanced, andthe fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were at once covered withhostile and cruel barbarians, who massacred the men and ravished thewomen in all the villages through which they passed. Athens purchasedher preservation by an enormous ransom. Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yieldedwithout a blow, but did not escape the fate of vanquished cities. Theirpalaces were burned, their works of art destroyed, their women subjectedto indignities which were worse than death, and their families wereenslaved. [Footnote: Gibbon, chap. Xxx. ]

[Sidenote: Succeses of the Goths. ]

Only one hope remained to the feeble and intimidated Arcadius, and thatwas the skill and courage of Stilicho, by birth a Vandal, but who hadrisen in the imperial service until he was virtually intrusted byTheodosius with the guardianship of his sons and of the empire. He wasthe lieutenant of Honorius, who had espoused his daughter, but summonedby the dangers of Arcadius, he advanced to repulse the invaders ofGreece, who had not met with any resistance from Thermopylae to Corinth. A desperate campaign followed in the woody country where Pan and theDryads were fabled to reside in the olden times. The Romans prevailed, and Alaric was in imminent peril of annihilation, but was saved by thetoo confident spirit of Stilicho, and his indulgence in the pleasures ofthe degenerate Greeks. He effected his release by piercing the lines ofhis besiegers and performing a rapid march to the Gulf of Corinth, wherehe embarked his soldiers, his captives, and his spoil, and reachedEpirus in safety, from which he effected a treaty with the ministers ofArcadius, which he never intended to keep, and was even made master-general of Eastern Illyricum. Successful war brings irresistible_eclat_ equally among barbarians and civilized nations. There is nofame like the glory of a warrior. Poets and philosophers drop theirheads in the presence of great military chieftains; and those people whorest their claims to the gratitude or the admiration of the world ontheir intellectual and moral superiority, are among the first to yieldprecedence to conquering generals, whether they are ignorant, orunscrupulous, or haughty, or ambitious. The names of warriors descendfrom generation to generation, while the benefactors of mind areforgotten or depreciated. Who can wonder at military ambition whensuccess in war has been uniformly attended with such magnificentrewards, from the times of Pompey and Caesar to those of Marlborough andNapoleon?

The Gothic robber and murderer was rewarded by his nation with all thepower and glory it could bestow. He was made a king, and was assured ofunlimited support in all his future enterprises. 

[Sidenote: Danger of Italy. ]

He cast his eyes on Italy, for many generations undefiled by thepresence of a foreign enemy, and enriched with the spoils of threehundred triumphs. He marched from Thessalonica, through Pannonia to theJulian Alps; passed through the defiles of those guarded mountains, andappeared before the walls of Aquileia, one of the most important citiesof Northern Italy, enriched by the gold mines of the neighboring Alps, and a prosperous trade with the Illyrians and Pannonians. Here the greatJulius had made his head-quarters when he made war upon Illyria, andhere the younger Constantine was slain. It was the capital of Venetia, and had the privilege of a mint. It was the ninth city of the wholeempire, inferior in Italy to Rome, Milan, and Capua alone. It wassituated on a plain, and was strongly fortified with walls and towers. And it seems to have resisted the attacks of Alaric, who retired to theDanube for reinforcements for a new campaign. 

[Sidenote: Stilicho commands the Romans. ]

The Emperor Honorius, weak, timid, and defenseless at Milan, wasoverwhelmed with fear, and implored the immediate assistance of his onlyreliable general. Stilicho responded to the appeal, and appreciated thedanger. He summoned from every quarter the subjects or the allies of theemperor. The fortresses of the Rhine were abandoned; the legions werewithdrawn from Britain; the Alani were enlisted as auxiliaries, andStilicho advanced to the relief of his fugitive sovereign, who had fledfrom Milan to a town in Piedmont, just in time to rescue him from thegrasp of Alaric, who, in his turn, became besieged by the troops whichissued from all the passes of the Alps. The Goths were attacked in theirintrenchments at Pollentia, and were obliged to retreat, leaving thespoils of Corinth and Argos, and even the wife of Alaric. The poetClaudian celebrated the victory as greater than even that achieved byMarius over the Cimbri and Teutones. The defeated Goth, however, rosesuperior to misfortune and danger. He escaped with the main body of hiscavalry, broke through the passes of the Apennines, and spreaddevastation on the fruitful fields of Tuscany, and was resolved to riskanother battle for the great prize which he coveted--the possession ofRome itself. He was, however, foiled by Stilicho, who _purchased_the retreat of the enemy for forty thousand pounds of gold. But theGoths respected no treaties. Scarcely had they crossed the Po, beforetheir leader resolved to seize Verona, which commanded the passes of theRhaetian Alps. Here he was again attacked by Stilicho, and sufferedlosses equal to those incurred at Pollentia, and was obliged to retreatfrom Italy, A. D. 404. 

[Sidenote: Infatuation of the Romans. ]

The conqueror was hailed with joy and gratitude; too soon succeeded byenvy and calumny, as is usual with benefactors in corrupt times. Theretreat of Alaric was regarded as a complete deliverance; and the Romanpeople abandoned themselves to absurd rejoicings, gladiatorial shows, and triumphant processions. In the royal chariots, side by side with theemperor, Stilicho was seated, and the procession passed under atriumphal arch which commemorated the complete destruction of the Goths. For the last time, the amphitheatre of Rome was polluted with the bloodof gladiators, for Honorius, exhorted by the poet Claudian, abolishedforever the inhuman sacrifices. 

[Sidenote: New hordes of barbarians. ]

[Sidenote: Devastation of Gaul. ]

Yet scarcely was Italy delivered from the Goths, before an irruption ofVandals, Suevi, and Burgundians, under Rodogast or Rhadagast, twohundred thousand in number of fighting men, beside an equal number ofwomen and children, issued from the coast of the Baltic. One third ofthese crossed the Alps, the Po, and the Apennines, ravaged the cities ofNorthern Italy, and laid siege to Florence, which was reduced to itslast necessity, when the victor of Pollentia appeared beneath its walls, with the _last_ army which the empire could furnish, and introducedsupplies. Moreover, he surrounded the enemy in turn with strongintrenchments, and the barbaric host was obliged to yield. The leaderRodogast was beheaded, and the captives were sold as slaves. Stilicho, asecond time, had delivered Italy; but one hundred thousand barbariansstill remained in arms between the Alps and the Apennines. Shut out ofItaly, they invaded Gaul, and never afterward retreated beyond the Alps. Gaul was then one of the most cultivated of the Roman provinces; thebanks of the Rhine were covered with farms and villas, and peace andplenty had long accustomed the people to luxury and ease. But all wassuddenly changed, and changed for generations. The rich corn-fields andfruitful vineyards became a desert. Mentz was destroyed and burned. Worms fell after an obstinate siege, and experienced the same fate. Strasburg, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens, passed under theGerman yoke, and the flames of war spread over the seventeen provincesof Gaul. The country was completely devastated, and all classesexperienced a remorseless rigor. Bishops, senators, and virgins werealike enslaved. No retreat was respected, and no sex or condition wasspared. Gaul ceased to exist as a Roman province. 

[Sidenote: Assassination of Stilicho. ]

Italy, however, had been for a time delivered, and by the only man ofability who remained in the service of the emperor. He might possiblyhave checked the further progress of the Goths, had the weak emperorintrusted himself to his guidance. But imperial jealousy, and the voiceof faction, removed forever this last hope of Rome. The frivolous Senatewhich he had saved, and the timid emperor whom he had guarded, werealike demented. The savior of Italy was an object of fear and hatred, and the assassin's dagger, which cut short his days, inflicted a fataland suicidal blow upon Rome herself. 

[Sidenote: Alaric ravages Italy. ]

[Sidenote: Rome without defenders. ]

The Gothic king, in his distant camp on the confines of Italy, beheldwith undissembled joy, the intrigues and factions which deprived theemperor of his best defender, and which placed over his last armyincompetent generals. So, hastening his preparations, he again descendslike an avalanche upon the plains of Italy. Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, yielded to his arms, and increased his forces. He then ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic; and, following the Flaminianway, crossed the passes of the Apennines, ravaged the fertile plains ofUmbria, and reached without obstruction the city which for six hundredyears had not been violated by the presence of a foreign enemy. But Romewas not what she was when Hannibal led his Africans to her gates. Shewas surrounded with more extensive fortifications, indeed, and containedwithin her walls, which were twenty-one miles in circuit, a largepopulation. But where were her one hundred and fifty thousand warriors?Where were even the three armies drawn out in battle array, that hadconfronted the Carthaginian leader? She could boast of senators whotraced their lineage to the Scipios and the Gracchi; she could enumerateone thousand seven hundred and eighty palaces, the residence of wealthyand proud families, many of which were equal to a town, including withintheir precincts, markets, hippodromes, temples, fountains, baths, porticoes, groves, and aviaries; she could tell of senatorial incomes offour thousand pounds of gold, about eight hundred thousand dollarsyearly, without computing the corn, oil, and wine, which were equal tothree hundred thousand dollars more--men so rich that they could affordto spend five hundred thousand dollars in a popular festival, and thisat a time when gold was worth at least eight times more than its presentvalue; she could point with pride to her Christian saints, one of whom, the illustrious Paula, the friend of St. Jerome, was the sole proprietorof the city of Nicopolis, which Augustus had founded to commemorate hisvictory over Antony; she could count two millions of inhabitants, crowded in narrow streets, and four hundred thousand pleasure-seekerswho sought daily the circus or the theatre, and three thousand publicfemale dancers, and three thousand singers who sought to beguile thehours of the lazy rabble who were fed at the public expense, and who, for a small copper coin, could wash their dirty bodies in the marblebaths of Diocletian and Caracalla; but where were her defenders--wherewere her legions?

[Sidenote: Alaric beseiges Rome. ]

[Sidenote: Disgraceful terms of peace. ]

The day of retribution had come, and there was no escape. Alaric made noefforts to storm the city, but quietly sat down and inclosed thewretched citizens with a cordon through which nothing could force itsway. He cut off all communications with the country, intercepted thenavigation of the Tiber, and commanded the twelve gates. The city, unprovided for a siege, and never dreaming of such a calamity, soon feltall the evils of famine, to which those of pestilence were added. Themost repugnant food was eagerly devoured, and even mothers are said tohave tasted the flesh of their murdered children. Thousands perisheddaily in the houses, and the public sepulchres infected the air. Despairat last seized the haughty citizens, and they begged the clemency of theGothic king. He derided the ambassadors who were sent to treat, andinsulted them with rude jests. At last he condescended to spare thelives of the people, on condition that they gave up _all_ theirgold and silver, _all_ their precious movables, and _all_ theirslaves of barbaric birth. More moderate terms were afterwardgranted; but the victor did not retreat until he had loaded his wagonswith more wealth and more liberated captives than the Romans had broughtfrom both Carthage and Antioch. He retired to the fertile fields ofTuscany to make negotiations with Honorius; and it was only on conditionthat he were appointed master-general of the armies of the emperor, withan annual subsidy of corn and money, and the free possession of theprovinces of Dalmatia, Noricum, and Venetia, for the seat of hiskingdom, that he would grant peace to the emperor, who had entrenchedhimself at Ravenna. These terms were disregarded, and once more Alaricturned his face to Rome. He took possession of Ostia, one of the moststupendous works of Roman magnificence, and the port of Rome secured, the city was once again at his mercy. Again the Senate, fearful offamine and impelled by the populace, consented to the demands of theconqueror. He nominated Atticus, prefect of the city, emperor instead ofthe son of Theodosius, and received from him the commission of master-general of the armies of the West. 

[Sidenote: Alaric takes Rome. ]

[Sidenote: The miseries of the Romans. ]

The new emperor had a few days of prosperity, and the greater part ofItaly submitted to his rule, backed by the Gothic forces. But he wasafter all a mere puppet in the hands of Alaric, who used him as a tool, and threw him aside when it suited his purposes. Atticus, after a briefreign, was degraded, and renewed negotiations took place between Alaricand Honorius. The emperor, having had a temporary relief, broke finallywith the barbarians, who held Italy at their mercy, and Alaric, vindictive and indignant, once again set out for Rome, now resolved onplunder and revenge. In vain did the nobles organize a defense. Cowardice and treachery opened the Salarian gate. No Horatius kept thebridge. No Scipio arose in the last extremity. In the dead of night theGothic trumpet rang unanswered in the streets. The Queen of the World, the Eternal City, was the prey of savage soldiers. For five days andnights she was exposed to every barbarity and license. Only thetreasures collected in the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul weresaved. Although the captor had promised to spare the lives of thepeople, a cruel slaughter was made, and the streets were filled with thedead. Forty thousand slaves were let loose by the bloody conquerors togratify their long-stifled passions of lust and revenge. The matrons andvirgins of Rome were--exposed to every indignity, and suffered everyinsult. The city was abandoned to pillage, and the palaces were strippedeven or their costly furniture. Sideboards of massive silver, andvariegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were piled upon the wagons. Theworks of art were destroyed or injured. Beautiful vases were melted downfor the plate. The daughters and wives of senatorial families becameslaves--such as were unable to purchase their ransom. Italian fugitivesthronged the shores of Africa and Syria, begging daily bread. They werescattered over various provinces, as far as Constantinople andJerusalem. The whole empire was filled with consternation. The news madethe tongue of old St. Jerome to cleave to the roof of his mouth in hiscell at Bethlehem, which even was besieged with beggars. "For twentyyears, " cried he, "Roman blood has been flowing from Constantinople tothe Julian Alps. Scythia, Thrace, Macedonia, Dacia, Epirus, Dalmatia, Achaia, the two Pannonias, " yea, he might have added, Gaul, Britain, Spain, and Italy, "all belong to the barbarians. Sorrow, misery, desolation, despair, death, are everywhere. What is to be seen but oneuniversal shipwreck of humanity, from which there is no escape save onthe plank of penitence. " The same bitter despair came from St. Augustine. The end of the world was supposed to be at hand, and thegreat churchmen of the age found consolation only in the doctrine thatthe second coming of our Lord was at hand to establish a newdispensation of peace and righteousness on the earth, or to appear as astern and final judge amid the clouds of heaven. 

[Sidenote: The Goths in Italy. ]

After six days the Goths evacuated the city they had despoiled, andadvanced along the Appian way into the southern provinces of Italy, destroying ruthlessly all who opposed their march, and loadingthemselves with still greater spoils. The corn, wine, and oil of thecountry were consumed within the barbarian camp, and the beautifulvillas of the coast of Campania were destroyed or plundered. The rudeinhabitants of Scythia and Germany stretched their limbs under the shadeof the Italian palm-trees, and compelled the beautiful daughters of theproud senators of the fallen capital to attend on them like slaves, while they quaffed the old Falernian wines from goblets of gold andgems. Nothing arrested the career of the Goths. Their victorious leadernow meditated the invasion of Africa, but died suddenly after a shortillness, and the world was relieved, for a while, of a mighty fear. 

[Sidenote: Ravages in other provinces. ]

His successor Adolphus suspended the operations of war, and negotiatedwith the emperor a treaty of peace, and even enlisted under his standardto chastise his enemies in Gaul. But the oppressed provincials werecruelly ravaged by their pretended friends, who occupied the cities ofNarbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and spread from the Mediterranean tothe Ocean. Adolphus espoused Placidia, a sister of Honorius, to theintense humiliation of the ministers of Honorius. But the marriageproved fortunate for the empire, and the Goths settled down in thefertile provinces they had conquered, and established a Gothic kingdom. Among the treasures which the Goths carried to Narbonne, was a famousdish of solid gold, weighing five hundred pounds, ornamented withprecious stones, and exquisitely engraved with the figures of men andanimals. But this precious specimen of Roman luxury was not to becompared with the table formed from a single emerald, encircled withthree rows of pearls, supported by three hundred and sixty-five feet ofgems and massive gold, which was found in the Gothic treasury whenplundered by the Arabs, and which also had been one of the ornaments ofa senatorial palace. [Footnote: This emerald table was probably coloredglass. It was valued at five hundred thousand pieces of gold. ] The favorof the Franks was, in after times, purchased with this golden dish by aSpanish monarch, who stole it back, but compensated by a present of twohundred thousand pieces of gold, with which Dagobert founded the Abbeyof St. Denys. [Footnote: Gibbon, chap. Xxx. ]

[Sidenote: New barbaric invasions. ]

[Sidenote: Permanent settlements of the Goths in Spain. ]

The sack of Rome by the Goths was followed by the successful inroads ofother barbaric tribes. The Suevi, the Alans, and the Vandals invadedSpain, which for four hundred years had been prosperous in all the artsof peace. The great cities of Corduba, Merida, Seville, Bracara, andBarcelona, testified to her wealth and luxury, while science andcommerce both elevated and enfeebled the people. Yet no one of the Romanprovinces suffered more severely. Gibbon thus quotes the language of aSpanish historian. "The barbarians exercised an indiscriminate crueltyon the fortunes of both Spaniards and Romans, and ravaged with equalfury the cities and the open country. Famine reduced the miserableinhabitants to feed on the flesh of their fellow-creatures, andpestilence swept away a large portion of those whom famine spared. Thenthe barbarians fixed their permanent seats in the country they hadravaged with fire and sword; Galicia was divided between the Suevi andthe Vandals; the Alani were scattered over the provinces of Carthageniaand Lusitania, and Botica was allotted to the Vandals. " But he adds, andthis is a most impressive fact, "that the greater part of the Spaniardspreferred the condition of poverty and barbarism to the severeoppressions of the Roman government. " [Footnote: Gibbon, chap. Xxx. ]

The successors of Alaric, A. D. 419, established themselves at Toulouse, forty-three years after they had crossed the Danube, which became theseat of the Gothic empire in Gaul. About the same time the Burgundiansand the Franks obtained a permanent settlement in that distracted butwealthy province, and effected a ruin of all that had been deemedopulent or fortunate. 

[Sidenote: The Romans leave Britain. ]

Meanwhile, Britain had been left, by the withdrawal of the legions, tothe ravages of Saxon pirates, and the savages of Caledonia. The islandwas irrevocably lost to the empire, A. D. 409, although it was fortyyears before the Saxons obtained a permanent footing, and secured theirconquest. 

But a more savage chastisement than Rome received from the Goths--themost powerful and generous of her foes--was inflicted by the Vandals, whose name is synonymous with all that is fierce and revolting. 

[Sidenote: The Vandals. ]

These barbarians belonged to the great Teutonic race, although somemaintain that they were of Slavonic origin. Their settlements werebetween the Elbe and the Vistula; and, during the reign of MarcusAurelius, they had, with other tribes, invaded the Roman world, but weredefeated by the Roman emperor. One hundred years later they settled inPannonia, where they had a bitter contest with the Goths. Defeated bythem, they sought the protection of Rome, and enlisted in the imperialarmies. In 406, they crossed the Rhine and invaded Gaul, and it was notin the power of the Franks to resist them. They advanced to the veryfoot of the Pyrenees, inflicting every atrocity upon the Celtic andRoman inhabitants. Neither age, nor sex, nor condition was spared, andthe very churches were given to the flames. They then crossed intoSpain, A. D. 409, and settled in Andalusia, and under its sunny skiesresumed the agricultural life they had led in Pannonia. [Footnote:Sheppard's _Fall of Rome_, p. 364. ] The land now wore an aspect ofprosperity; rich harvests covered the plains, while the hills were whitewith flocks. They seem to have lived in amity with the Romans, so that"there were found those who preferred freedom with poverty among thebarbarians, to a life rendered wretched by taxation among their owncountrymen. " [Footnote: Orosious, vii. 41. ] This testimony is confirmedby Salvian, who declares, "they prefer to live as freemen under theguise of captivity, rather than as captives under the guise of freedom. "[Footnote: _De Gub. Dei_, v. ] If this be true, it would seem thatthe rule of the barbarians was preferred to the taxation and oppressionwith which they were ground down by the Roman officials. And thisconclusion is legitimate, when we remember the indifference and apathythat seized the old inhabitants when the empire was seriouslythreatened. It may have been that the irruptions of the barbarians werenot regarded as so great a calamity after all, if they should break thebondage and alleviate the misery which filled the Roman world. 

[Sidenote: Success of the Vandals. ]

The Roman government, it would seem, [Footnote: Sheppard, p. 364. ] wouldnot tolerate the Vandals in Spain, and intrigued with the Goths, theirhereditary enemies, to make an attack upon them, perhaps with the viewof weakening the strength of the Goths themselves, A. D. 416. Wallia, king of the Goths, was successful, and the Vandals were worried. TheRomans also sent an army to reconquer Spain from their grasp, whichdrove the Vandals into Andalusia. But the Vandals turned upon theirenemies and entirely discomfited them, and twenty thousand men were leftdead upon the field. Spain was now entirely at the mercy of theseinfuriated barbarians, who might have peacefully settled had it not beenfor the jealousy of the imperial government, which, in those days, drewupon itself evils by its own mismanagement. For two years "Vandalism"reigned throughout the peninsula, which was pillaged and sacked. 

[Sidenote: Genseric. ]

The king of these Vandals was Genseric, the worthy rival of Alaric andAttila, as a "scourge of God. " If we may credit the writers who belongedto the people whom he humbled, [Footnote: Procopious, _Bell. Vand. _, i. 3. ] he was one of the most hideous monsters ever clothedwith power. He was ambitious, subtle, deceitful, revengeful, cruel, andpassionate. But he was temperate, of clear vision, and inflexiblepurpose. 

[Sidenote: The Vandals Threaten Africa. ]

He cast his eyes on Africa, the granary of Rome, and the only provincewhich had thus far escaped the ravages of war. In the hour of triumph, and in the plenitude of power, he resolved on leaving Spain, which heheld by uncertain tenure, since he was only an illegitimate son of thelate monarch Gunderic, and founding a new kingdom in Africa. It was richin farms and cities, whose capital, Carthage, had arisen from her ashes, and was once again the rival of Rome in majesty and splendor. She hadeven outgrown Alexandria, and her commerce was more flourishing thanthat of the capital of Egypt. She was even famous for schools and chairsof philosophy; but more for those arts which material prosperity everproduces. 

[Sidenote: Dissensionsof Roman generals. ]

There were, at that time, two distinguished generals in the service ofthe empire--Boniface and Aetius, the former of whom was governor ofAfrica. They were, unfortunately, rivals, and their dissensions andjealousies compromised the empire. United, they could have withstood, perhaps, the torrent which was about to sweep over Africa and Italy. Aetius persuaded the emperor to recall Boniface, while he advised theCount to disobey the summons, representing it as a sentence of death. Boniface put himself in the attitude of a rebel, and fearing theimperial forces, invited Genseric and his Vandals to Africa, with theproposal of an alliance and an advantageous settlement. Doubtless he wasdriven to this grand folly by the intrigues of Aetius. 

Genseric gladly availed himself of an invitation which held out to himthe richest prize in the empire. With fifty thousand warriors he landedon the coast of Africa, formed an alliance with the Moors, and became asdangerous an ally to Count Boniface, as Lord Clive was to the nativeprinces of India. Africa was then disturbed by the schism of theDonatists, and these fanatical people were taken under the_protection_ of the Vandals. The Moors always hated their Romanmasters. With Vandals, Moors, and Donatists, leagued together, Africawas in serious danger. 

[Sidenote: The Vandals invade Africa. ]

The landing of the Vandals, who, of all barbarians, bore the mostterrible name, was the signal of head-long flight. Consternation seizedall classes of people. The gorges and the caverns of Mount Atlas werecrowded with fugitives. The Vandals burned the villages through whichthey marched, and sacked the cities, and destroyed the harvests, and cutdown the trees. The Moors swelled the ranks of the invaders, andindulged their common hatred of civilization and of Rome. Boniface, toolate, perceived his mistake, and turned against the common foe; but wasdefeated in battle, and forced to cede away three important provinces asthe price of peace, A. D. 432. But peace was not of long duration. TheVandals continually encroached upon more valuable territory. Moreover, they had been nominally converted to Christianity, and were bitterzealots of the Arian faith, and most relentlessly persecuted theCatholic Christians who adhered to the Nicene Creed. 

[Sidenote: Genseric at Carthage. ]

[Sidenote: Fate of the city. ]

At last (439 A. D. ), the storm burst out, and the world was thunderstruckwith the intelligence that Genseric had seized and plundered Carthage. Suddenly, without warning, in a day looked not for, this magnificentcity was plundered, and her inhabitants butchered by the most faithlessand perfidious barbarians, who trampled out the dying glories of theempire. Her doom was like that pronounced upon Tyre and Sidon. Thebitter cry which went up from the devastated city proclaimed theretribution of God for sins more hideous than those of Antioch orBabylon. Of all the cities of the world, Carthage was probably thewickedest--a seething caldron of impurities and abominations, the homeof all the vices which disgraced humanity--so indecent and scandalous asto excite the disgust of the barbarians themselves. According to one ofthe authors of those times, as quoted by Sheppard, [Footnote: Salvian, _De Gub. Dei_, vii. 251. ] "they were notorious for drunkenness, avarice, and perjury--the peculiar sins of degenerate commercialcapitals. The Goths are perfidious but chaste, the Franks are liars buthospitable, the Saxons are cruel but continent; but the Africans are ablazing fire of impurity and lust; the rich are drunk with debauchery, the poor are ground down with relentless oppression, while other vices, too indecent to be named, pollute every class. Who can wonder at thefall of Roman society? What hope can there be for Rome, when barbariansare more chaste and temperate than they?"

In the sack of Carthage, the voluminous writings of Augustine, thenbreathing his last in prayer to God that the fate of Sodom might beaverted, were fortunately preserved, and have doubtless done more toinstruct, and perhaps civilize, the western nations, than all the artsand sciences of the commercial metropolis. It is singular how littleremains of the commercial cities of antiquity, which we value astrophies of civilization. A few sculptured ruins are all that attestancient pride and glory. The poems of a blind schoolmaster at Chios, andthe rhapsodies of a wandering philosopher on the hills of Greece, haveproved greater legacies to the world than the combined treasures ofAfrica and Asia Minor. Where is the literature of Carthage, except aspreserved in the writings of Augustine, the influence of which indeveloping the character of the barbarians cannot be estimated. 

[Sidenote: Renewed dangers of Rome. ]

The cry of agony which went from Carthage across the Mediterranean, announced to Rome that her turn would come. She looked in vain to everyquarter for assistance. Every city and province had need of their ownforces. Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, was contending with Aetius; inSpain the Sueves were extending their ravages; Attila menaced theeastern provinces; the Emperor Valentinian was forced to hide in themarshes of Ravenna, and see the second sack of the imperial capital, nowa prostrate power--a corpse in a winding-sheet. 

[Sidenote: The Vandals in Italy. ]

The Vandals landed on the Italian coast. They advanced to the Tiber'sbanks. The Queen of Cities wrapped around her the faded folds of herimperial purple, rent by faction, pierced with barbaric daggers, andtrampled in the dust. Yet not with the dignity of her great Julius didshe die. She begged for mercy, not proud and stately amid herexecutioners, but like a withered hag, with the wine-cup of sorceries inher hand, pale, haggard, ghastly, staggering, helpless. 

[Sidenote: Sack and fall of Rome. ]

The last hope of Rome was her Christian bishop, and the great Leo, whowas to Rome what Augustine had been to Carthage, in his pontificalrobes, hastened to the barbarians' camp. But all he could secure was thepromise that the unresisting should be spared, the buildings protectedfrom fire, and the captives from torture. Even this promise was onlypartially fulfilled. The pillage lasted fourteen days and fourteennights, and all that the Goths had spared was transported to the shipsof Genseric. Among the spoils were the statues of the old pagan godswhich adorned the capitol, the holy vessels of the Jewish temples whichTitus had brought away from Jerusalem, and the shrines and altars of theChristian churches enriched by the liberality of popes and emperors. Thegilding of the capitol had cost Domitian twelve million dollars, ortwelve thousand talents, but the bronze on which it was gilt was carriedaway. The imperial ornaments of the palace, the magnificent furnitureand wardrobe of senatorial mansions, and the sideboards of massiveplate, gold, silver, brass, copper, whatever could be found, weretransported to the ships. The Empress Eudoxia herself was stripped ofher jewels, and carried away captive with her two daughters, the onlysurvivors of the great Theodosius. Thousands of Romans were forced uponthe fleet, while wives were separated from their husbands, and childrenfrom their parents, and sold into slavery. [Footnote: Gibbon, chap. Xxxvi. ]

[Sidenote: The doom of Rome. ]

[Sidenote: The heroism of the Pope. ]

Such was the doom of Rome, A. D. 455, forty-five years after the Gothicinvasion. The haughty city had met the fate she had inflicted upon herrivals. And she never would probably have arisen from her fall, butwould have remained ruined and desolate, had not her great bishop, rising with the greatness of the crisis, and inspired with the oldimperishable idea of national unity, which had for three hundred yearssustained the crumbling empire, exclaimed to the rude spoliators, nowconverted to his faith, while all around him were desolation and ruin, weeping widows, ashes, groans, lamentations, bitter sorrows--nothingleft but recollections, nothing to be seen but the desolation spoken ofby Jeremy the prophet, as well as the Cumean Sybil; all central powersubverted, law and justice by-words, literature and art crushed, vicerampant multiplying itself, the contemplative hiding in cells, the richmade slaves, women shrieking in terror, bishops praying in despair, theheart of the world bleeding, barbarians everywhere triumphant--in thismournful crisis, did Leo, the intrepid Pontiff, alone and undismayed, and concentrating within himself all that survived of the ambition andhaughty will of the ancient capital, exclaim to the superstitiousvictors, in the spirit if not in the words of Hildebrand, "Beware, I amthe successor of St. Peter, to whom God has given the keys of thekingdom of heaven, and against whose church the gates of hell cannotprevail; I am the living representative of divine power upon the earth;I am Caesar, a Christian Caesar, ruling in love, to whom all Christiansowe allegiance; I hold in my hands the curses of hell, and thebenedictions of heaven; I absolve all subjects from allegiance to kings;I give and take away, by divine right, all thrones and principalities ofChristendom--beware how you desecrate the patrimony given me by yourinvisible king, yea, bow down your necks to me, and pray that the angerof God may be averted. " And the superstitious conquerors wept, and bowedtheir faces to the dust, in reverence and in awe, and Rome again arosefrom her desolation--the seat of a new despotism more terrible than thecentralized power of the emperors, controlling the wills of kings, priests, and people, and growing more majestic with the progress ofages; a vital and mysterious power which even the Reformation could notbreak, and which even now gives no signs of decay, and boldly defies, inthe plenitude of spiritual power, a greater prince than he who stood inthe winter time three days and nights before the gates of the castle ofCanossa, bareheaded and barefooted, in abject submission to Gregory VII. 

[Sidenote: Renewed invasion of barbarians. ]

[Sidenote: The Huns. ]

While the Vandals were thus plundering Rome, a still fiercer race ofbarbarians were trampling beneath their feet the deserted sanctuaries ofthe empire. The Huns, a Slavonic race, most hideous and revoltingsavages, Tartar hordes, with swarthy faces, sunken eyes, flat noses, square bodies, big heads, broad shoulders, low stature, without pity, orfear, or mercy--equally the enemies of the Romans and the Germans--racesthus far incapable of civilization, now spread themselves from the Volgato the Danube, from the shores of the Caspian to the Hadriatic. Theywere a nomadic people, with flocks and herds, planting no seed, reapingno harvest, wandering about in quest of a living, yet powerful withtheir horses and darts. For fifty years after they had invaded SouthernEurope, their aid was sought and secured by the rash court ofConstantinople, as a counterpoise to the power of the Goths and otherGermanic tribes. They were obstinate pagans, and had an invinciblehatred of civilization. They had various fortunes in their migrationsand wars, and experienced some terrible defeats. But they had their eyesopen to the spoil of the crumbling empire--"ripe fruit" for them topluck, as well as for the Goths and Vandals. 

[Sidenote: Attila. ]

The leader of the Huns at this period was Attila--a man of greatastuteness and military genius, who succeeded in conquering, one afteranother, every existing tribe of barbarians beyond the Danube and theRhine, and then turned his arms against the eastern empire. This was inthe year 441. They ravaged Pannonia, routed two Roman armies, laidThessaly in waste, and threatened Constantinople. The EmperorTheodosius, A. D. 446, purchased peace by an ignominious tribute, sogreat as to reduce many leading families to poverty. "The scourge of God"then turned his steps to the more exhausted fields of the westernprovinces, and invaded Gaul. The Visigoths had there established akingdom, hostile to the Vandal power. The Huns and the Vandals united, with all the savage legions which could be collected from Lapland to theIndus, against the Goths and imperial forces under the command of Aetius. "Never, " says Thierry, [Footnote: _Histoire d'Attilla_, vol. I. P. 141] "since the days of Xerxes, was there such a gathering of nationsas now followed the standard of Attila, some five hundred thousandwarriors--Huns, Alans, Gepidae, Neuvi, Geloni, Bastarnae, Heruli, Lombards, Belloniti, Rugi, some German but chiefly Asiatic tribes, withtheir long quivers and ponderous lances, and cuirasses of plaited hair, and scythes, and round bucklers, and short swords. " This heterogeneoushost, from the Sarmatian plains, and the banks of the Vistula andNiemen, extended from Basle to the mouth of the Rhine. Attila directedit against Orleans, on the Loire, an important strategic position. Aetiuswent to meet him, bringing all the barbaric auxiliaries he couldcollect--Britons, Franks, Burgundians, Sueves, Saxons, Visigoths. It wasnot so much Roman against barbarian, as Europe against Asia, which wasnow arrayed upon the plains of Champagne, for Orleans had fallen intothe hands of the Huns. There, at Chalons, was fought the most decisiveand bloody battle of that dreadful age, by which Europe was deliveredfrom Asia, even as at a later day the Saracens were shut out of Franceby Charles Martel. "_Bellum atrox, multiplex, immane, pertinax, cuisimile nulla usquam narrat antiquitas. _" [Footnote: Jordanes. ] Attilabegan the fight; on his left were the Ostrogoths under Vladimir, on hisright were the Gepidae, while in the centre were stationed the Huns, withtheir irresistible cavalry. Aetius stationed the Franks and Burgundians, whose loyalty he doubted, in the centre, while he strengthened hiswings, and assumed the command of his own left. The Huns, as expected, made their impetuous charge; the Roman army was cut in two; but thewings of Aetius overlapped the cavalry of Attila, and drove back hiswings. Attila was beaten, and Gaul was saved from the Slavonic invaders. It is computed that three hundred thousand barbarians, on both sides, were slain--the most fearful slaughter recorded in the whole annals ofwar. The discomfited king of the Huns led back his forces to the Rhine, ravaging the cities and villages through which he passed, and collecteda new army. The following year he invaded Italy. 

[Sidenote: The Roman general Aetius. ]

[Sidenote: Retreat of Attila. ]

Aetius alone remained to stem the barbaric hosts. He had won one of thegreatest victories of ancient times, and sought for a reward. Andconsidering the brilliancy of his victory, and the greatness of hisservices, the marriage of his son with the princess Eudoxia was not anunreasonable object of ambition. But his greatness made him unpopularwith the debauched court at Ravenna, and he was left without asufficient force to stem the invasion of the Huns. Aquileia, the mostimportant and strongly fortified city of Northern Italy, for a timestood out against the attack of the barbarians, but ultimately yielded. Fugitives from the Venetian territory sought a refuge among the islandswhich skirt the northern coast of the Adriatic--the haunts of fishermenand sea-birds. There Venice was born, which should revive the glory ofthe West, and write her history upon the waves for a thousand years. Attila had spent the spring in his attack on Aquileia, and the summerheats were unfavorable for further operations, and his soldiers clamoredfor repose; but, undaunted by the ravages which sickness produced in hisarmy, he resolved to cross the Apennines and give a last blow to Rome. Leo again sought the barbarians' camp, and met with more success than hedid with the Vandals. Attila consented to leave Italy in considerationof an annual tribute, and the promise of the hand of the princessHonoria, sister of the Emperor Valentinian, who, years before, in a fitof female spitefulness for having been banished to Constantinople, hadsent her ring as a _gage d'amour_ to the repulsive barbarian. Hethen retired to the Danube by the passes of the Alps, where he spent thewinter in bacchanalian orgies and preparations for an invasion of theeastern provinces. But his career was suddenly cut off by the avengingponiard of Ildigo, a Bactrian or Burgundian princess, whom he had takenfor one of his numerous wives, and whose relations he had slain. 

[Sidenote: Disasters of the Huns. ]

On his death, the German tribes refused longer to serve under thedivided rule of his sons, and after a severe contest with the morebarbarous Huns, the empire of Attila disappeared as one of the greatpowers of the world, and Italy was delivered forever from this plague oflocusts. The battle of Netad, in which they suffered a disastrousdefeat, was perhaps as decisive as the battle of Chalons. They returnedto Asia, or else were gradually worn out in unavailing struggles withthe Goths. 

[Sidenote: The Avars. ]

The Avars, a tribe of the great Turanian race, and kindred to the Huns, a few years after their retreat, crossed the Danube, establishedthemselves between that river and the Save, invaded the Greek empire, and ravaged the provinces almost to the walls of Constantinople. Itwould seem from Sheppard that the Avars had migrated from the verycentre of Asia, two thousand miles from the Caspian Sea, fleeing fromthe Turks who had reduced them to their sway. [Footnote: Sheppard, Lect. Iv. ] In their migration to the West, they overturned every thing intheir way, and spread great alarm at Constantinople. Justinian, then anold man, A. D. 567, purchased their peace by an annual tribute and thegrant of lands. In 582, the Avar empire was firmly established on theDanube, and in the valleys of the Balkan. But it was more hostile to theSlavic tribes, than to the Byzantine Greeks, who then occupied thecentre and southeast of Europe, and who were reduced to miserableslavery. With the Franks, the Avars also came in conflict, and, aftervarious fortunes, were subdued by Charlemagne. Their subsequent historycannot here be pursued, until they were swept away from the roll of theEuropean nations. Moreover, it was not until _after_ the fall ofRome, that they were formidable. 

[Sidenote: Final disasters of the empire. ]

[Sidenote: Imbecile emperors. ]

The real drama of the fall of Rome closes with the second sack of thecity by the Vandals, since the imperial power was nearly prostrated inthe West, and shut up within the walls of Ravenna. But Italy was thescene of great disasters for twenty years after, until the last of theemperors--Augustulus Romulus; what a name with which to close the seriesof Roman emperors!--was dethroned by Odoacer, chief of the Heruli, aScythian tribe, and Rome was again stormed and sacked, A. D. 476. Duringthese twenty years, the East and the West were finally severed, andItaly was ruled by barbaric chieftains, and their domination permanentlysecured. Valentinian, the last emperor of the race of Theodosius, wasassassinated in the year 455 (at the instigation of the Senator Maximus, of the celebrated Anician family, whose wife he had violated), a man whohad inherited all the weaknesses of his imperial house, without itsvirtues, and under whose detestable reign the people were so oppressedwith taxes and bound down by inquisitions that they preferred thebarbarians to the empire. The successive reigns of Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Severus, Anthemius, Olybrius, Glycerius, Nepos, andAugustulus, nine emperors in twenty--one years, suggests nothing butdisorder and revolution. The murderer of Valentinian reigned but threemonths, during which Rome was sacked by the Vandals. Avitus was raisedto his vacant throne by the support of the Visigoths of Gaul, then ruledby Theodoric, a majestic barbarian, and the most enlightened andcivilized of all the leaders of the Gothic hosts who had yet appeared. He fought and vanquished the Suevi, who had established themselves inSpain, in the name of the emperor whom he had placed upon the throne, but he really ruled on both sides of the Alps, and Avitus was merely hispuppet, and distinguished only for his infamous pleasures, although, asa general, he had once saved the empire from the Huns. 

[Sidenote: Last days of Rome. ]

He was in turn deposed by Count Ricimer, a Sueve, and generalissimo ofthe Roman armies, and Majorian, whom Ricimer thought to make a tool, wasplaced in his stead. But he was an able and good man, and attempted torevive the traditions of the empire, and met the fate of all reformersin a hopeless age, doubtless under the influence of Ricimer, whosubstituted Severus, a Lucanian, who perished by poison after a reign offour years, so soon as he became distasteful to the militarysubordinate, who was all-powerful at Rome, and who ruled Italy for sixyears without an emperor with despotic authority. During these six yearsItaly was perpetually ravaged by the Vandals, who landed and pillagedthe coast, and then retired with their booty. Ricimer, without ships, invoked the aid of the court of Constantinople, who imposed a Greek uponthe throne of Italy. Though a man of great ability, Anthemius, the newemperor, was unpopular with the Italians and the barbarians, and he, again, was deposed by Ricimer, and Olybrius, a senator of the Anicianhouse, reigned in his stead, A. D. 472. It was then that Rome for thethird time was sacked by one of her own generals. Olybrius reigned but afew months, and Glycerius, captain of his guard, was selected as hissuccessor--an appointment disagreeable to the Greek Emperor Leo, whoopposed to him Julius Nepos--a distinguished general, who succeeded inejecting Glycerius. The Visigoths, offended, made war upon Roman Gaul. Julius sent against them Orestes, a Pannonian, called the Patrician, whoturned a traitor, and, on the assassination of Julius, entered Ravennain triumph. His son, christened Romulus, the soldiers elevated upon ashield and saluted Augustus; but as he was too small to wear the purplerobe, they called him Augustulus--a bitter mockery, recalling the battleof Actium, and the foundation of Rome. He was the last of the Caesars. Itwas easier to make an emperor than keep him in his place. The bands ofOrestes clamored for lands equal to a third of Italy. Orestes hesitated, and refused the demand. The soldiers were united under Odoacer--chief ofthe Heruli, a general in the service of the Patrician--one of theboldest and most unscrupulous of those mercenaries who lent their armsin the service of the government of Ravenna. The. Standard of revolt wasraised, and the barbarian army marched against their former master. Leaving his son in Ravenna, Orestes, himself an able general trained inthe service of Attila, went forth to meet his enemy on the Lombardplains. Unable to make a stand, he shut himself up in Pavia, which wastaken and sacked, and Orestes put to death. The barbarians then marchedto Ravenna, which they took, with the boy who wore the purple, who wasnot slain as his father was, but pensioned with six thousand crowns, andsent to a Campanian villa, which once belonged to Sulla and Lucullus. The throne of the Caesars was hopelessly subverted, and Odoacer was kingof Italy, and portioned out its lands to his greedy followers, A. D. 476. He was not unworthy of his high position, but his kingdom was in a sadstate of desolation, and after a reign of fourteen years he was in turnsupplanted by the superior genius of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, under whom a new era dawned upon Italy and the West, A. D. 490. 

[Sidenote: Dismemberment of the empire. ]

The Roman empire was now dismembered, and the various tribes ofbarbarians, after a contest of two hundred years were fairly settled inits provinces. 

[Sidenote: The settlement of the Ostrogoths in Italy. ]

In Italy we find the Ostrogoths as a dominant power, who, migrating fromthe mouth of the Danube, with all the barbarians they could enlist underthe standard of Theodoric, prevailed over Odoacer, and settled in Italy. The Gothic kingdom was assailed afterward by Belisarius and Narses, thegreat generals of Justinian, also by the Lombards under Alboin, whomaintained themselves in the north of Italy. 

[Sidenote: The settlement of the franks in Gaul. ]

Gaul was divided among the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Visigoths, whose perpetual wars, and whose infant kingdom, it is not my object topresent. 

[Sidenote: The settlement of the Saxons in Britain. ]

Britain was possessed by the Saxons, Spain by the Vandals, Suevi, andVisigoths, and Africa by the Vandals, while the whole eastern empirefell into the hands of the Saracens, except Constantinople, whichpreserved the treasures of Greek and Roman civilization, until thebarbarians, elevated by the Christian religion, were prepared to ingraftit upon their own rude laws and customs. 

It would be interesting to trace the various fortunes of these Teutonictribes in the devastated provinces which they possessed by conquest. Butthis would lead us into a boundless field, foreign to our inquiry. It isthe fall of Rome, not the reconstruction by the new races, which I seekto present. It would also be interesting to survey the old capital ofthe world in the hands of her various masters, pillaged and sacked byall in turn; but her doom was sealed when Alaric entered the gates whichhad been closed for six hundred years to a foreign enemy, and the empirefell, virtually, when the haughty city, so long a queen among thenations, yielded up her palaces as spoil. The eastern empire had alonger life, but it was inglorious when Rome was no longer the superiorcity. 

[Sidenote: Reflections on the fall of the empire. ]

The story of the fall of the grandest empire ever erected on our earthis simple and impressive. Genius, energy, and patience led to vastpossessions, which were retained by a uniform policy which nothing couldturn aside. Prosperity and success led to boundless self-exaggerationand a depreciation of enemies, while the vices of self-interestundermined gradually all real strength. Society became utterlydemoralized and weakened, and there were no conservative forcessufficiently, strong to hold it together. Vitality was destroyed bydisproportionate fortunes, by slavery, by the extinction of the middleclasses, by the degradation of woman, by demoralizing excitements, byfactitious life, by imperial misrule, by proconsular tyranny, byenervating vices, by the absence of elevated sentiments, by an all-engrossing abandonment to money-making and the pleasures it procured, sothat no lofty appeal could be made to which the degenerate people wouldlisten, or which they could understand. The empire was rotten to thecore--was steeped in selfishness, sensuality, and frivolity, and thepoison pervaded all classes and orders, and descended to the extremitiesof the social system. What could be done? There was no help from man. The empire was on the verge of dissolution when the barbarians came. They only gave a shock and hastened the fall. The empire was ripe fruit, to be plucked by the strongest hand. 

Three centuries earlier a brave resistance would have been' made, andthe barbarians would have been overthrown and annihilated or sold asslaves. But they were now the stronger, even with their rude weapons, and without the arts of war which the Romans had been learning for athousand years. Yet they suffered prodigious losses before they becameultimately victorious. But they persevered, driven by necessity as wellas the love of adventure and rapine. Wave after wave was rolled back bydesperate generals; but the tide returned, and swept all away. 

Fortunately, they reconstructed after they had once destroyed. They wereconverts of Christianity, and had sympathy with many elements ofcivilization. "Some solitary sparks fell from the beautiful world thatwas passed upon the night of their labors. " These kindled a fire whichhas never been extinguished. They had, with all their barbarism, somegreat elements of character, and in all the solid qualities of theheart, were superior to the races they subdued. They brought their freshblood into the body politic, and were alive to sentiments of religion, patriotism, and love. They were enthusiastic, hopeful, generous, anduncontaminated by those subtle vices which ever lead to ruin. They madeinnumerable mistakes, and committed inexcusable follies. But, after along pilgrimage, and severely disciplined by misfortunes, they erected anew fabric, established by the beautiful union of German strength andRoman art, on the more solid foundations of Christian truth. 

 * * * * *

The authorities for this chapter are not numerous. They are thehistorians of the empire in its decline and miseries. Gibbon's historyis doubtless the best in English. He may be compared with Tillemont'sHist, des Emperors. Sheppard has written an interesting and instructingbook on this period, but it pertains especially to the rise of the newbarbaric states. Tacitus' chapter on the Manners of the Germans shouldbe read in connection with the wars. Gibbon quotes largely from AmmianusMarcellinus, who is the best Latin historian of the last days of Rome. Zosimus is an authority, but he is brief. Procopius wrote a history ofthe Vandal wars. Gregory of Tours describes the desolations in Gaul, aswell as Journandes. The writings of Jerome, Augustine, and otherfathers, allude somewhat to the miseries and wickedness of the times. But of all the writers on this dark and gloomy period, Gibbon is themost satisfactory and exhaustive; nor is it probable he will soon besupplanted in a field so dreary and sad. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE REASONS WHY THE CONSERVATIVE INFLUENCES OF PAGAN CIVILIZATION DIDNOT ARREST THE RUIN OF THE ROMAN WORLD. 

[Sidenote: Nothing conservative in mere human creation. ]

It is a most interesting inquiry why art, literature, science, philosophy, and political organizations, and other trophies of theunaided reason of man, did not prevent so mournful an eclipse of humanglory as took place upon the fall of the majestic empire of the Romans. There can be no question that civilization achieved most splendidtriumphs, even under the influence of pagan institutions. But it was notpaganism which achieved these victories; it was the will and the reasonof a noble race, in spite of its withering effects. It was the proudreason of man which soared to such lofty heights, and attempted tosecure happiness and prosperity. These great ends were measurablyattained, and a self-sufficient philosopher might have pointed to thesevictories as both glorious and permanent. When the eyes ofcontemporaries rested on the beautiful and cultivated face of nature, oncommerce and ships, on military successes and triumphs, on the gloriesof heroes and generals, on a subdued world, on a complicated mechanismof social life, on the blazing wonders of art, on the sculptures andpictures, the temples and monuments which ornamented every part of theempire, when they reflected on the bright theories which philosophyproposed, on the truths which were incorporated with the system ofjurisprudence, on the wondrous constitution which the experience of ageshad framed, on the genius of poets and historians, on the whole systemof social life, adorned with polished manners and the graces of genialintercourse--when they saw that all these triumphs had been won overbarbarism, and had been constantly progressing with succeedinggenerations, it seemed that the reign of peace and prosperity would beperpetual. It is nothing to the point whether the civilization of whichall people boasted, and in which they trusted, was superior or inferiorto that which has subsequently been achieved by the Gothic races. Thequestion is, _Did_ these arts and sciences produce an influencesufficiently strong to conserve society? That they polished and adornedindividuals cannot be questioned. Did they infuse life into the decayingmass? Did they prolong political existence? Did they produce valor andmoral force among the masses? Did they raise a bulwark capable ofresisting human degeneracy or barbaric violence? Did they lead to self-restraint? Did they create a lofty public sentiment which scornedbaseness and lies? Did they so raise the moral tone of society thatpeople were induced to make sacrifices and noble efforts to preserveblessings which had already been secured. 

[Sidenote: Civilisation can only rise to a certain height by unabledreason. ]

I have to show that the grandest empire of antiquity perished from thesame causes which destroyed Babylon and Carthage; that all themagnificent trophies of the intellect were in vain; that the sources ofmoral renovation were poisoned; that nothing worked out, practically andgenerally, the good which was intended, and which enthusiasts had hoped;that the very means of culture were perverted, and that the savor untolife became a savor unto death. In short, it will appear from theexample of Rome, that man cannot save himself; that he cannot originateany means of conservation which will not be foiled and rendered nugatoryby the force of human corruption; that man, left to himself, will defeathis own purposes, and that all his enterprises and projects will end inshame and humiliation, so far as they are intended to preserve society. The history of all the pagan races and countries show that only alimited height can ever be reached, and that society is destined toperpetual falls as well as triumphs, and would move on in circlesforever, where no higher aid comes than from man himself. And this greattruth is so forcibly borne out by facts, that those profound and learnedhistorians who are skeptical of the power of Christianity, havegenerally embraced the theory that nations _must_ rise and fall tothe end of time; and society will show, like the changes of nature, onlyphases which have appeared before. Their gloomy theories remind us ofthe perpetual swinging of a pendulum, or the endless labors of Ixion--circles and cycles of motion, but no general and universal progress to aperfect state of happiness and prosperity. And if we were not supportedby the hopes which Christianity furnishes, if we adopted the paganprinciples of Gibbon or Buckle, history would only confirm the darkesttheories. But the history of Greece and Rome and Egypt are only chaptersin the great work which Providence unfolds. They are only acts in thegreat drama of universal life. The history of those old pagan empires isfull of instruction. In one sense, it seems mournful, but it only showsthat society must be a failure under the influences which man's geniusoriginates. This world is not destined to be a failure, although theempires of antiquity were. I fall in with the most cheerless philosophyof the infidel historians, if there is no other hope for man, asillustrated by the rise and fall of empires, than what the paganintellect devised. But this induction is not sufficiently broad. Theyhave too few facts upon which to build a theory. Yet the theory theyadvance is supported by all the facts brought out by the history ofpagan countries. And this is my reason for bringing out so much that istruly glorious, in an important sense, in Roman history, to show thatthese glories did not, and could not, save. And the moral lesson I woulddraw is, that _any_ civilization, based on what man creates ororiginates, even in his most lofty efforts, will fail as signally as theGrecian and the Roman, so far as the conservation of society isconcerned, in the hour of peril, when corruption and degeneracy havealso accomplished their work. Paganism cannot give other than temporarytriumphs. Its victories are not progressive. They do not tend toindefinite and ever-expanding progress. They simply show an intellectualbrilliancy, which is soon dimmed by the vapors which arise out of thefermentations of corrupt society. 

[Sidenote: The virtues of the primitive races. ]

[Sidenote: Decline of civilization in the ancient races. ]

The question here may arise why the Greeks and Romans themselves arosefrom a state of barbarism to the degree of culture which has given themimmortality? Why did they not remain barbarians, like the natives ofCentral Africa? But they belonged to a peculiar race--that greatCaucasian race which, in all of its ramifications, showed superiorexcellences, and which, in the earliest times, seems to have cherishedideas and virtues which probably were learned from a primitiverevelation. The Romans, in the early ages of the republic, were superiorto their descendants in the time of the emperors in all those qualitieswhich give true dignity to character. I doubt if there was ever anygreat improvement among the Romans in a moral point of view. Theyacquired arts as they declined in virtue. If strictly scrutinized Ibelieve it would appear that the Roman character was nobler six hundredyears before Christ than in the second century of our era. It was themagnificent material on which civilizing influences had to work thataccounts for Roman greatness, in the same sense that there was a dignityin the patriarchal period of Jewish history not to be found under thereigns of the kings. The same may be said of the Greeks. The Homericpoems show a natural beauty and simplicity more attractive than therationalistic character of the Athenians in the time of Socrates. Therewas a progress in arts which was not to be seen in common life. And thisis true also of the Persians. They were really a greater people underCyrus than when they reigned in Babylon. There are no records of theIndo-Germanic races which do not indicate a certain greatness ofcharacter in the earliest periods. The Germanic tribes were barbarians, but in piety, in friendship, in hospitality, in sagacity, in severemorality, in the high estimation in which women were held, in the verymagnificence of superstitions, we see the traits of a noble nationalcharacter. It would be difficult to show absolute degradation at anytime among these people. How they came to have these grand traits intheir primeval forests it is difficult to show. Certainly they werenever such a people as the Africans or the Malay races, or even theSlavonic tribes. These natural elements of character extorted theadmiration of Tacitus, even as the Orientals won the respect ofHerodotus. It is more easy to conceive why such a people as the Greeksand Romans were, in their primitive simplicity, when they were brave, trusting, affectionate, enterprising, should make progress in arts andsciences, than why they should have degenerated after a highcivilization had been reached. They made the arts and sciences. The artsand sciences did not make them. They were great before civilization, astechnically understood, was born. Why they were so superior to otherraces we cannot tell. They were either made so, or else they must havereceived a revelation from above, or learned some of the great truthswhich by God were taught to the patriarchs. Possibly the wisdom theyvery early evinced had come down from father to son from the remotestantiquity. The divine savor may have leavened the whole race beforehistory was written. With their uncorrupted and primitive habits, theyhad a moral force which enabled them to make great improvements. Withoutthis force they never would have reached so high a culture. And when themoral force was spent, the civilization they created also passed awayfrom them to other uncorrupted races. The Greeks learned from Egyptians, as Romans learned from Greeks. Civilization only reached a limited stateamong the Egyptians. It never advanced for three thousand years. Greekculture retrograded after the age of Pericles. There were but few worksof genius produced at Rome after the Antonines. The age of Augustus sawa higher triumph of art than the age of Cato, yet the moral greatness ofthe Romans was more marked in the time of Cato than in that of Augustus. If moral elevation kept pace with art, why the memorable decline inmorals when the genius of the Romans soared to its utmost height? Thevirtues of society were a soil on which art prospered, and art continuedto be developed long after real vigor had fled, but only reached acertain limit, and declined when life was gone. In other words, theforce of character, which the early Romans evinced, gave an immenseimpulse to civilization, whose fruits appeared after the glory ofcharacter was gone; but, having no soil, the tree of knowledge at lastwithered away. If the old civilization had a life of itself, it wouldhave saved the race. But as it was purely man's creation, his work, ithad no inherent vitality or power to save him. The people were greatbefore the fruits of their culture appeared. They were great inconsequence of living virtues, not legacies of genius. They ran theusual course of the ancient nations. The sterling virtues of primitivetimes produced prosperity and material greatness. Material greatnessgave patronage to art and science. Art and science did not corrupt thepeople until they had also become corrupted. But prosperity producedidleness, pride, and sensuality, by which science, art, and literaturebecame tainted. The corruption spread. Society was undermined, and thearts fell with the people, except such as ministered to a corrupt taste, like demoralizing pictures and inflammatory music. Why did not the artsmaintain the severity of the Grecian models? Why did philosophydegenerate to Epicureanism? Why did poetry condescend to such trivialsubjects as hunting and fishing? Why did, the light of truth become dim?Why were the great principles of beauty lost sight of? Why thediscrepancy between the laws and the execution of them? Why was everytriumph of genius perverted? It was because men, in their wickedness, were indifferent to truth and virtue. Good men had made good laws; badmen perverted them. A corrupted civilization hastened, rather thanretarded the downward course, and civilization must needs become corruptwhen men became so. We cannot see any progress in peoples without moralforces, and these do not originate in man. They may be retained a longtime among a people; they are not natural to them. They are _given_to them; they are given originally by God. They are the fruit of hisrevelations. Neither in the wilderness nor in the crowded city are theynaturally produced. A perfect state of nature, without light fromHeaven, is extreme rudeness, poverty, ignorance, and superstition, wherebrutal passions are dominant and triumphant. The vices of savages are asfatal as the vices of cities. They equally destroy society. Place mananywhere on the earth, or under any circumstances, without religiouslife, and moral degradation follows. Whence comes religious life? Wheredid Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, those eastern herdsmen and shepherds, get their moral wisdom? Surely it was inherited from earlier patriarchs, taught them by their fathers, or given directly from God himself. 

[Sidenote: Virtues of primitive life. ]

The most that can be said of a primitive state of society is that it isfavorable for the _retention_ of religious and moral truth, more sothan populous cities, since it has fewer temptations to excite thepassions. But a savage in any country will remain a savage, unless he iselevated and taught through influences independent of himself. Hottentots make no progress. Greeks made progress, since they had moralwisdom communicated to them by their ancestors: the divine lightstruggled with human propensities. When outward circumstances werefavorable the virtues were retained; they were not born, and these werethe stimulus to all improvement; and when they were lost, allimprovement that is real vanished away. Civilization is the fruit ofman's genius, when man is virtuous. But it does not renovate races. Itis only religion coming from God which can do this. 

It would be an interesting inquiry how far the religion of the oldGreeks and Romans was pure--how far it was uncontaminated bysuperstitions. I think it would be found on inquiry, if we had the meansof definite knowledge, that all that was elevating to the character haddescended from a remote antiquity, and that the superstitions with whichit was blended were more recent inventions. The ancestors of the Greekswere probably more truly religious than the Greeks themselves. And asnew revelations were not made by God, the primitive revelations wereobscured by increasing darkness, until superstition formed thepredominant element. 

[Sidenote: Christianity the only conservative power. ]

Hence the revelations of God can only be preserved in a written form, without change or comment. Christianity is perpetuated by the Bible. Solong as the Bible exists Christianity will have converts, and will beable to struggle successfully with human degeneracy. The revelationsoriginally made to the eastern nations became traditions. The standardwas not preserved in a written form to which the people had access. 

[Sidenote: Primitive life favors virtue. ]

[Sidenote: Evils of prosperity. ]

[Sidenote: The superiority of the early to the later Greeks in Virtue. ]

Moreover, the Greeks and Romans, when they were most virtuous, when theywere in a state to produce a civilization, had great obstacles tosurmount and difficulties to contend with. These ever develop genius andkeep down destructive passions. Strength ever comes through weakness anddependence. This is the stern condition of our moral nature. It is aprimeval and unalterable law that man must earn his living by the sweatof his brow, even as woman can only be happy and virtuous when her willis subject to that of her husband. A condition where labor is notnecessary engenders idleness, sensuality, indifference to suffering, self-indulgence, and a conventional hardness that freezes the soul. Never, in this world, have more exalted virtues been brought to lightthan among the Puritans in their cold and dreary settlements in NewEngland, even those which it is the fashion to attribute to congenialclimates and sunny skies. The Puritan character was as full of passionas it was of sacrifice. We read of the existence and culture offriendship, love, and social happiness when the country was moststerile, and the difficulty of earning a living greatest. There was anoutward starch and acerbity produced by toil and danger. But when peoplefelt they could unbend, they were not icebergs but volcanoes, becausethe fires which burned unseen were those of the soul. The mirth of wineis maudlin and short-lived. It prompts to no labor, and kindles nosacrifices. It is satanic; it blazes and dies, a horrid mockery, exultant and evanescent. But the joy of homes, the beaming face offorgiveness, the charity which covers a multitude of faults, theassistance rendered in hours of darkness and difficulty, enthusiasm fortruth, the aspiration for a higher life, the glorious interchange ofthoughts and sentiments, these are well-springs of life, of peace, andof power. Nothing is to be relied upon which does not stimulate thehigher faculties of the mind and soul. Ease of living blunts the moralsensibilities, and even the beauty of nature is not appreciated, when"all save the spirit of man is divine. " But when men are earnest andtrue, uncorrupted by the vices of self-interest, and unseduced by thepleasures of factitious life, then even nature, in all her wildness, isa teacher and an inspiration. The grand landscape, the rugged rocks, themystic forests, and the lofty mountains, barren though they be, bringout higher sentiments than the smiling vineyard, or the rich orange-grove, or the fertile corn-field, where slaves do the labor, and lazyproprietors recline on luxurious couches to take their mid-day sleep, ortoy with frivolous voluptuousness. Neither a great nor a rich country isanything, if only pride and folly are fostered; while isolation, poverty, and physical discomfort, if accompanied by piety andresignation, are frequently the highest boons which Providence bestowsto keep men in mind of Him. Prosperity may have been the blessing of theold Testament, but adversity is the blessing of the New--the mysteriousbenediction of Christ and Apostles and martyrs. A rich country does notmake great men, except in craft or politics or business calculations;nor is there a more subtle falsehood than that which builds a nation'shope on the extent of its prairies, or the deep soil of its valleys, orthe rich mines of its mountains, or the great streams which bear itswealth to the ocean. Mr. Buckle, fallaciously and sophistically, instances--Egypt as peculiarly fortunate and happy, because it possessedthe Nile; but all that was glorious in Egypt passed away beforeauthentic history was written, while Greece, with her barren mountains, laid the foundation of all that was valuable in the ancientcivilization. What survives of Carthage or Antioch or Tyre that societynow cherishes? Yet much may be traced to Greece when the people werepoor, and struggling with the waves and the forests. It is not naturethat ennobles man; it is man that consecrates nature. The development ofmind is greater than the development of material resources. Truegreatness is not in an easy life, but in the struggle against nature andthe victory over adverse influences. Even in our own country, it will beseen that schools and colleges and religious institutions have morefrequently flourished when the people were poor and industrious thanwhen they were rich and prodigal. Why has New England produced so manyeducators? Why is it that so few eminent men of genius and learning havearisen out of the turmoil and vanity of prosperous cities? Why is itthat money cannot create a college, and is useless unless there is avitality among its professors and students? The condition of nationalgreatness is the same as that seen in the rise and fortunes ofindividuals. Industry, honesty, and patience, are greater than banks andstorehouses. Character, even in a wicked and busy city, is of more valuethan money. 

These truths are most emphatically illustrated by the civilization ofthe Romans. We are attracted by the glitter and the glare of arts andsciences. Let us see what they did for Rome, when Rome becamedegenerate. Let us review the chapters that have been written in thisbook. We point with pride to the trophies of genius and strength. We donot disparage them. They were human creations. Let us see how far theyhad a force to save. 

The first great development of genius among the Romans was militarystrength. We are dazzled by the glory of warlike deeds. We see a grandarmy, the power of the legions, the science of war. Why did not militaryorganizations save the empire in the hour of trial?

[Sidenote: The Roman armies in the republic. ]

[Sidenote: Decline of military virtues. ]

[Sidenote: Degeneracy of the legions. ]

The legions who went forth to battle in the days of Aurelian andSeverus, were not such as marched under Marius and Caesar. The soldiersof the republic went forth to battle expecting death, and ready to die. The sacrifice of life in battle was the great idea of a Roman hero, asit was of a Germanic barbarian. Without this idea deeply impressed upona soldier's mind, there can be no true military enthusiasm. It hascharacterized all conquering races. Mere mechanism cannot do the work oflife. Under the empire, the army was mere machinery. It had lost itsancient spirit; it was not inspired by patriotic glory; it maintainedthe defensive. The citizens were unwilling to enlist, and the ranks weregradually filled with the very barbarians against whom the Romans hadformerly contended. The army was virtually composed of mercenaries fromall nations, adventurers who had nothing to lose, who had but little togain. They were turbulent and rebellious. Revolts among the soldierswere common. They brought new vices to the camps, and learned inaddition all the vices of the Romans. They were greedy, unreliable, andcherished concealed enmities. They had no common interest or bond ofunion. They were always ready for revolt, and gave away the highestprizes to fortunate generals. They sold the imperial dignity, and becamethe masters rather than the servants of the emperors. Diocletian wasobliged to disband the Praetorian band. The infantry, which hadpenetrated the Macedonian phalanx, threw away their defensive armor, andwere changed to troops of timid horsemen, whose chief weapon was thebow. And they wasted their strength in civil contests more than againstbarbaric foes. They no longer swam rivers, or climbed mountains, ormarched with a burden of eighty pounds. They scorned their ancient fareand their ancient pay. They sought pleasure and dissipation. The expenseof maintaining the army kept pace with its inefficiency. Soldiers were anuisance wherever they were located, and fanned disturbances and mobs. Their license and robbery made them as much to be dreaded by friends asby enemies. They assassinated the emperors when they failed to complywith their exorbitant demands. They often sympathized with the veryenemies whom they ought to have fought. Enfeebled, treacherous, withoutpublic spirit, caring nothing for the empire, degenerate, they were thusunable to resist the shock of their savage enemies. Finally, they couldnot even maintain order in the provinces. "There was not, " says Gibbon, "a single province in the empire in which a uniform government wasmaintained, or in which man could look for protection from his fellowman. " What could be hoped of an empire when people were unwilling toenlist, and when troops had lost the prestige of victory? The details ofthe military history of the latter Romans are most sickening--revolts, rival generals, an enfeebled central power, turbulence, anarchy. Evenmilitary obedience was weakened. What would Caesar have thought of thesoldiers of Valentinian siding with the clergy of Milan, when Ambrosewas threatened with imperial vengeance? What would Tiberius have thoughtof the seditions of Constantinople, when the most trusted soldiersdemanded the head of a minister they detested? Where was the power ofmechanism, without genius to direct it? What could besieged cities do, when treachery opened the gates? The empire fell because no one wouldbelong to it. How impotent the army, without spirit or courage, when thehardy races of the North, adventurous and daring, were pouring down uponthe provinces--men who feared not death; men who gloried in their verylosses! The legions became utterly unequal to their task; they wererecalled from the distant provinces in the greater danger of thecapitals; and the boundaries of the empire were left without protectors. The empire was created by strength, enthusiasm, and courage; when thesefailed, it melted away. And even if the old discipline were maintained, how inadequate the army against the overwhelming tide of barbarians, fully armed, and bent on conquest. In all the victories of Valerian, Constantine, and Theodosius, we see only the flickering lights ofdeparting glory. Military genius, united with patriotism, might havedelayed the fall, but where was the glory of the legions in those lastdays? Military science belonged to the republic, not the empire. Onereason why the army did not save the empire was, because there was noarmy capable of meeting the exigencies of the fourth and fifthcenturies. It was corrupted, perverted, conquered. 

[Sidenote: The hopeless imbecility of the army under emperors. ]

[Sidenote: Despair of the military emperors. ]

Nor could _any_ army, however strong, do more than prop up existinginstitutions. These themselves were rotten. Despotism cannot save astate. The reign of Louis XIV. Was one of the most brilliant in modernannals. But no reign ever more signally undermined the state. It is thepatriotism of soldiers that saves, not their physical force. Their forcecan be turned against the interests of a state as well as employed inits favor. Despotism sows the seeds of future ruin. No state was eversupported by military strength, except for a time, and then only whenthe soldiery were animated by noble sentiments. The imperial forces ofRome, while they preserved the throne of absolutisms, destroyed theself-reliance of the citizens, and supported wicked institutions. Thedifference in the aims of government under the Caesars, and under theconsuls, was heaven-wide. The military genius which created an empire, was misdirected when that empire sought to perpetuate wrong. Howdifferent is the spirit which animated the armies of the United States, when they sought to preserve the institutions of liberty and theintegrity of the state, from that spirit which animates the armies ofthe Sultan of Turkey! The Roman empire under the later emperors was morelike the Ottoman empire, than the republic in the days of Cato. It wassick, and must die. A great army devoted to the interests of despotismgenerates more evils than it cures. It eats out the vitals of strength, and poisons the sources of renovation. It suppresses every generousinsurrection of human intelligence. It merely arms tyrants with thepower to crush genius and patriotism. It prevents the healthfuldevelopment of energies in useful channels. The most that can be said infavor of the armies of the empire is, that they preserved for a time thedecaying body. They could not restore vitality; they warded off theblows of fate. They could only keep the empire from falling until theforces of enemies were organized. No generalship could have saved Rome. The great military emperors must have felt that they were powerlessagainst the combination of barbaric forces. The soul of Theodosius musthave sunk within him to see how fruitless were his victories, how barren_any_ victories to such a diseased and crumbling empire. Diocletianretired, in the plenitude of his power, to die of a broken heart. Theutmost the emperors could do, was to erect on the banks of the Bosphorusa new capital, and virtually make a new combination of those provincesmost removed from danger. The old capital was abandoned to its fate. 

[Sidenote: The Roman constitution. ]

[Sidenote: Infamy of the imperial regime. ]

[Sidenote: Abortive efforts of good emperors. ]

The elaborate and complicated constitution of the Romans, on which somuch genius and experience were employed, was subverted when Caesarpassed the Rubicon. Only forms remained, a bitter mockery, and a thindisguise. These were nothing. Neither consuls, nor praetors, norpontiffs, nor censors, nor tribunes existed, except in name. Everyoffice of the republic was absorbed in the imperial despotism. Theglorious constitution, which gave authority to Cato and dignity toCicero, was a dead-letter. Flatterers, and sycophants, and courtiers, took the place of senators. The imperial despotism crushed out everyelement of popular power, every protest of patriots, every gush ofenthusiasm. The constitution could not save when it was itself lost. Never was there a more wanton and determined disregard of those greatrights for which the nations had bled, than under the emperors. Everyconservative influence that came from the people was hopelesslysuppressed. The reign of beneficent emperors, like the Antonines, and ofmonsters like Nero and Caracalla, was alike fatal. The seal of politicalruin was set when Augustus was most potent and most feared. Governmentsimply meant an organized mechanism of oppression. There is nothingconservative in government which does not have in view the interests ofthe governed. When it is merely used to augment gigantic fortunes, orcreate inequalities, or encourage frivolities, and allows great evils togo unredressed, then its very mechanism becomes a refinement of despoticcruelty. When sycophants, jesters, flatterers, and panderers to passionsbecome the recipients of court favor, and control the hand that feedsthem, then there is no responsible authority. The very worst governmentis that of favorites, and that was the government of Rome, when onlycourtiers could gain the ear of the sovereign, and when it was for theirinterest to cover up crimes. What must, have been the government wheneven Seneca accumulated one of the largest fortunes of antiquity asminister? What must have been the court when such women as Messalina andAgrippina controlled its councils? The ascendency of women andsycophants is infinitely worse than the arbitrary rule of stern butexperienced generals. The whole empire was ransacked for the privatepleasure of the emperors, and those who surrounded them. "_L'etat, c'est moi_, " was the motto of every emperor from Augustus toTheodosius. With such a spirit, so monopolizing and so proud, the rightsof subjects were lost in an all-controlling despotism, which crushed outboth grand sentiments and noble deeds. None could rise but those whoadministered to the pleasures of the emperor. All were sure to fall whoopposed his will. From this there was no escape. Resistance was ruin. There was a perfect system of espionage established in every part of theempire, and it was impossible to fly from the agents of imperialvengeance. And the despotism of the emperors was particularly hateful, since it veiled its powers under the forms of the ancient republic, until in the very wantonness of its vast prerogatives it threw away itsvain disguises, and openly and insultingly reveled on the forcedcontributions of the world. There were good and wise emperors who soughtthe welfare of the state, but these were exceptions to the general rule. Octavius, that Ulysses of state craft, checked open immoralities bylegal enactments, discouraged celibacy, expelled unworthy members fromthe Senate, appointed able ministers and governors, and sought toprevent corruption, which was then so shameful. Vespasian introduced asevere military discipline among the legions, permitted citizens to havefree access to his person, and promoted many great objects of publicutility. 

[Sidenote: Hadrian. ]

[Sidenote: Marcus Aurelius. ]

Hadrian attempted to give dignity to the Senate, and visited in personnearly all the provinces of his empire, impartially administeredjustice, magnificently patronized art, and encouraged the loftiest formof Greek philosophy. Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius set, in theirown lives, examples of the sternest virtue, although they were deceivedin the character of those to whom they delegated their powers, and wereeven ruled by unworthy favorites. Marcus Aurelius was, after all, thefinest character of antiquity who was intrusted with absolute power. Contrasted with Solomon, or Augustus, or even Theodosius, he was a modelprince, for he had every facility of indulging his passions, but hispassions he restrained, and lived a life of the severest temperance andvirtue to the end, sustained by the severest doctrines of the Stoicalschool. All that his rigid severity and moral elevation could do to savea decaying empire was done. He sought to base the stability of thethrone on a rigid morality, on self-denial and self-sacrifice. When onlytwelve, he adopted the garb and the austerities of a philosopher, believing in virtue for its own sake. 

From his earliest youth he associated with his instructors in thegreatest freedom, and it was the happiness of his life to rewardphilosophers and scholars. He promoted men of learning to the highestdignities of the empire, and even showed the greatest reverence for thecultivation of the mind. Philosophy was the great object of his zeal, but he also gave his attention to all branches of science, to law, tomusic, and to poetry. His disposition was kind and amiable, and hesucceeded in acquiring that self-command and composure which it was theprofessed object of the Stoics to secure. He was firm without beingobstinate, gentle without being weak. He was modest, retiring, andstudious. He believed that it was necessary for good government thatrulers should be under the dominion of philosophy. He was so universallybeloved and esteemed, that everybody who could afford it had his statuein his house. No man on a throne was ever held in such profoundveneration. If ever there was, in a heathen country, an example ofsublime virtue, it shone in the life of Marcus Aurelius; if ever therewas an expression of supernal beauty, it was in his features beamingwith love and gentleness and humility. He never neglected the duties ofhis office. He was noble in all the relations of a family. He was themodel of an emperor. He only complained of want of time to prosecute hisliterary labors. He was probably the most learned man in his dominions. The Romans called him brother and father, and the Senate felt that itsancient dignity was restored. He had great causes of unhappiness. Thebarbarians invaded his territories; a long peace had destroyed martialenergies; the Roman world was sinking into languor and decay; hisadoptive brother Verus lived in luxury and dissoluteness; his wifeFaustina was a second Messalina, abandoned to promiscuous profligacy; apestilence ravaged Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and Gaul, still this greatman preserved his serenity, his virtues, and his fame. He was unseducedby any kind of mortal temptation, and left an unstained character, andan unrivaled veneration for his memory. And when we consider that he wasthe absolute master of one hundred and twenty millions, having at hisdisposal the riches of the world, and all its pleasures, --above publicopinion, with no law to check him--a law only to himself, we find moreto admire than in Solomon before his fall. _His meditations_ havelately been translated and published--a work full of moral wisdom, rivaling Epictetus in morality, and the sages of the Middle Ages incontemplative piety. Niebuhr says it is more delightful to speak of himthan of any man in history. The historical critic can see but onedefect--his persecution of the Christians. He was doubtless a bigotedStoic, as Paul was, at one time, a bigoted Pharisee; and the greatdelusion of his life was to rear a basis of national prosperity on thesublime morality of the philosophers whom he copied. He sought to savethe state by the Stoical philosophy. Never were nobler efforts put forthon the part of a philosophic prince; but neither his patronage ofphilosophers, nor his own bright example, nor the doctrines of thePorch, conservative as they are, were of any avail. The Roman worldcould not be saved by the philosophy of Aurelius any more easily thanthe imperial despotism could be averted by the patriotism of Cicero. Hewas succeeded, after a glorious reign of twenty years, by his sonCommodus, as incapable of managing an empire as Rehoboam was the kingdomof his father Solomon. Thus are the schemes and enterprises of the bestmen baffled by a mysterious power above us, who holds in his own handsthe destinies of nations--the Divine Providence who giveth and whowithholdeth strength. 

Marcus Aurelius did all that human virtue could do to arrest the ruinwhich he saw, with the saddest grief, was impending over the empire, inspite of all the external prosperity which called forth such universalpanegyric. And the empire was also favored by a succession of militaryemperors, who tried the force of arms, as Aurelius had philosophy. 

Never did abler men reign on an absolute throne. All that genius andexperience and skill could do to arrest the waves of the barbarians wasdone. A succession of most brilliant victories marked these later daysof Rome. Amid unparalleled disasters, there were also most memorabletriumphs. The glory of the Roman name was revived in Claudius, Aurelian, Probus, Carus, Diocletian, Constantius, Galerius, Constantine, Julian, all of whom rendered important services. These great emperors wereuniformly victors, yet were doomed to hurl back perpetually advancingforces of Teutonic warriors, who were resolved on conquest. Diocletianwas a second Augustus, and Constantine another Julius. But theirconquests and reconstructions were all in vain. The barbarians advanced. They were getting more and more powerful with defeat; the Romans weakerand weaker after victory. In the middle of the fourth century the Gothswere firmly settled in Dacia, the Persians had recovered the provincesbetween the Euphrates and the Tigris, Gaul was invaded by Germans, theSaxons had ravaged Britain, the Scots and Picts had spread themselvesfrom the wall of Antoninus to the shores of Kent, Africa had revolted, Sapor had broken his treaties, the Goths had crossed the Danube, theEmperor Valens had been slain, with sixty thousand infantry and sixthousand cavalry. From the shores of the Bosphorus to the Julian Alps, nothing was to be seen but rapes, murders, and conflagrations. Palaceswere destroyed, churches were turned into stables, the relics of martyrswere desecrated, women were ravished, bishops were praying in despair, cities had fallen, the country was laid waste; the desolation extendedto fishes and birds. Fruitful fields became pastures, or were overgrownwith forests. The day of ruin was at hand. There was needed a hero toarise, a deliverer, a second Moses. And a great man appeared in theperson of Theodosius--the most able and valiant of all the emperorsafter Julius Caesar. 

[Sidenote: Theodosius. ]

The career of Theodosius is exceedingly interesting, since it shows thatevery thing which imperial genius could do to arrest ruin, was done byhim. 

Theodosius was thirty-three years of age when summoned from retirementto govern the world. He had learned the art of war from his father inBritain, and had, in his lifetime, defeated the Sarmatians. The Romans, disheartened by the tremendous defeat they had sustained under the wallsof Adrianople, and the death of Valens the emperor, had no longer thecourage to brave the Goths in the open field, and Theodosius was tooprudent to lead them against a triumphant enemy. He retired toThessalonica to watch the barbarians. In four years he had revived thecourage of his troops, even as Alfred subsequently rekindled the martialardor of the Saxons after their defeat by the Danes. On the death ofFritigern, the first great historic name among the Visigoths, hissoldiers were demoralized, and divided by jealousies, and were won overby the arts and statesmanship of Theodosius, and a treaty was made withthem by which they obtained a settlement within the limits of theempire, and became the allies of the emperor. The Ostrogoths were soonafter defeated in a decisive battle on the Danube, and all fears wereremoved, at least for the present, of these hostile barbarians. 

[Sidenote: Successors of Theodosius. ]

[Sidenote: Diocletian. ]

Theodosius was equally fortunate in his conflicts with Maximus, who hadusurped the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and who meditated theconquest of Italy. At Aquileia the usurper was seized, after asuccession of defeats, stripped of his imperial ornaments, and deliveredto the executioner, and Theodosius reigned without a rival in therenovated empire, practicing the virtues of domestic life, rewardingeminent merit, and protecting the interests of the church. He restoredthe--authority of the laws, and corrected the abuses of the precedingreigns. Whatever rival or enemy, in those distracted times, raisedhimself up against the imperial authority, was easily subdued. Eugeniusmet the fate of Maximus, and Arbogastes turned his sword against his ownbreast. Theodosius reigned in peace and wisdom, the idol of the church, and the object of fear to the barbaric world. He had his defects andvices, and committed errors and crimes, but his reign was beneficent, and the Christian world hoped that the evils which threatened the empirewere removed. Alas, the empire was doomed. The death of Theodosius wasthe signal for renewed hostilities. His sons, the feeble Arcadius andHonorius, were unequal to the task of governing the empire, and it fellinto the hands of the barbarians, who ruthlessly marched over thecrumblings ruins, regardless of the treasures of the classic soil and ofthe guardians which Christianity presented in the presence of protestingbishops. The empire could not be saved by able emperors, however greattheir military genius. Absolutism, whether wielded by tyrants, orphilosophers, or generals, was alike a failure. What hope for the empirewhen the Senate inculcated maxims of passive obedience to tyrants; whensuch lawyers as Papinias and Paulus declared that emperors were freedfrom all restraints? What could Alexander Severus do when the mostillustrious man in the empire--the learned and immortal Ulpian--wasmurdered before his eyes by the guards, of which he was the prefect, andwhen such was the license of the soldiers, that the emperor couldneither revenge his murdered friend, nor his insulted dignity; when hisown life was sacrificed to the discontents of an army which had becomethe master of the emperors themselves? After the murder of this braveand enlightened prince, no emperor was safe upon his throne, or could domore than oppose a feeble barrier to the barbarians upon the frontiers. External dangers may have raised up able commanders, like Decius, Aurelian, and Probus; but they could not prevent the inroads of theGoths, or heal the miseries of society. Of the nineteen tyrants whoarose during the reign of Gallienus, not one died a natural death. Andwhen, after a disgraceful period of calamities, Diocletian ascended thethrone, the ablest perhaps of all the emperors after Augustus, notalents could sustain the weight of public administration, and even thisemperor attempted to extinguish the only influence that had power tosave. Absolutism had sowed seeds of ruin, which were destined to bearmost wretched fruit. 

[Sidenote: Roman jurisprudence. ]

Jurisprudence was the science of which the Romans have the most toboast; and this was not perfected until the time of the emperors. It wasclosely connected with the constitution, but was superior to it, sinceit was based upon the principles of natural justice or equity. This haslasted when all material greatness has vanished, and still forms thebasis of the laws of European nations. This was a great element ofcivilization itself; it was part of the mechanism of social order; itpervaded all parts of the empire; it made the reign of tyrantsendurable. 

There is no doubt that the excellence of the laws formed one of the mostpowerful conservative influences of pagan antiquity. We glory in thoselaws as one of the proudest achievements of the human mind. But laws arerather an exponent of the state of society than a controlling forcewhich modifies it. If a murderer is to be hung, or a thief imprisoned, the rigid law shows simply no mercy to murderers and thieves; it doesnot create a sentiment which prevents, though it may punish, iniquity. The wise division of property among heirs may operate against injuriousaccumulations, but does not prevent disproportionate fortunes. The morecomplicated the jurisprudence, the more need it seems that society hasof restraints and balances. The law cannot go higher than the fountain. The more perfect the state of society, the less need there is of laws. The cautious guards against fraud simply show that frauds are common andeasy. The minute regulations in reference to the protection of propertyand contracts, show that the prevailing customs and habits of dealerswere corrupt, and needed the strong arm of a protecting government. As ageneral thing, it will be found that the laws are best, and most rigidlyenforced, when iniquity prevails. A man is safe in Paris when he is notin Boston, but we do not infer from this fact that society is higher, but that there is a sterner necessity on the part of government torestrain crime. The laws of the Romans give the impression of thenecessity of a constant watchfulness and supervision to prevent thestrong preying upon the weak. Other influences are more necessary thanlaws to keep men virtuous and orderly. Laws are necessary, indeed; butthey are not the first conditions of social existence. 

[Sidenote: Perversion of the laws. ]

But what are we to think of laws when they are either evaded orperverted, when there is not wisdom to feel their justice or virtue toexecute them? What are laws if judges are corrupt? The venality of thejudges of Rome was proverbial. Even in the comparatively virtuous age ofCicero, a friend wrote to him not to recall a certain great functionary, since he himself was implicated in his robberies, and the request wasgranted. The empire was regarded as spoil, and the provinces were robbedof their most valuable treasures. Witness the extortions of Verres inSicily, when a residence of two years was enough to make the fortune ofa provincial governor. Nor was Roman law ever independent of politicalpower. The praetors were politicians having ambitious aims beyond theexercise of judicial authority. Influential men could ever buy verdicts, and the government winked at the infamy. There _was_ justice in the_abstract_, but not in the _reality_. And when jurisprudencebecame complicated, judgments were made on technical points rather thanon principles of equity. It was as ruinous to go to law at Rome as inLondon. Lawyers absorbed the money at issue by their tricks and delays. They made the practice of their noble profession obscure and uncertain. Clients danced attendance on eminent jurists, and received promises, smiles, and oyster-shells. It was, too, often better to submit to aninjury than seek to redress it. Cases were decided _against_justice, if some technical form or ancient usage favored the morepowerful party. Lawyers formed a large and powerful class, and they hadfortunes to make. Instead of protecting the innocent, they shielded theguilty. Those who paid the highest fees were most certain of favorableverdicts. The laws practically operated to make the rich richer and thepoor poorer. Between the venality of the court and the learned juggleryof advocates, there was little hope for the obscure and indigent. SaysMerivale: "The occupation of the bench of justice was the greatinstrument by which powerful men protected their monopolies; for, bykeeping this in their own hands, they could quash every attempt atrevealing, by legal practice, the enormities of their administration. And the means of seduction allowed by law, such as the covert bribery ofshows and festivals, were used openly and boldly. " What, then, could behoped from the laws when they were made the channel of extortion andoppression? Law, the glory of Rome in the abstract, became the mostdismal mockery of the rights of man. Salt is good, but if the salt haslost its savor it is good for nothing, not even for the dunghill. Whenthe laws practically add to the evils they were intended to cure, whathope is there in their conservative influence? The practice of the lawever remained an honorable profession, and the sons of the great weretrained to it; but we find such men as Cyprian, Chrysostom, andAugustine, who originally embarked in it, turning from it with disgust, as full of tricks and pedantries, in which success was only earned by aprostitution of the moral powers. Laws perverted were worse than no lawsat all, since they could be turned by cunning, and sharp lawyers againsttruth and innocence. It would be harsh and narrow to say that lawyerswere not necessary; but they did very little to avert evils. A wickedgeneration pressed over the feeble barriers which the laws presentedagainst iniquity. They were only cobwebs to catch the insignificant. Unless good laws are enforced by virtue and intelligence, they prove asnare. It is the enforcement of laws, on the principles of justice, notthe creation of them, that saves a state. 

[Sidenote: Art among the later Romans. ]

If a complicated system of laws and government, on which the reason andexperience of ages were expended, did not prevent the empire fromfalling into the hands of barbarians, much less was to be expected ofart, for which the Romans were also distinguished in common with theGreeks. Much is said of the ennobling influence of those great creationswhich gave so great lustre to ancient civilization. Founded onimperishable ideas, we naturally attribute to them a great element ofnational preservation, as they were of glory and pride. 

[Sidenote: Its inherent beauty. ]

It cannot be denied that art, when in harmony with the exalted ideals ofbeauty and grace, which it seeks to perpetuate on canvas or in marble, does much to improve the taste, to promote refinement and aestheticculture. And when art is pursued with a lofty end, seeking, like virtue, its own reward, there is much that is ennobling in it. Even thatliterature is most prized and most enduring which is artistic, like theodes of Horace, the epics of Virgil, the condensed narrative of Tacitus;like the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard, " or the "Deserted Village, " or"Corinne, " or "Waverley. " Varro was the most learned writer whom Romeproduced, and the most voluminous. Yet scarcely any thing remains of hisproductions. They were deficient in art, like German histories--veryuseful in their day, but only survive in the writings of those who madeuse of their materials. Hence science is not so enduring as poetry, whenpoetry is exalted, since it is superseded by new discoveries. Hencestyle in writing, when of great excellence, gives immortality to workswhich could not have lived without it, even had they been ever soprofound. Voltaire's "Charles XII. " is still a classic, like the numbersof the "Spectator, " although superficial, and, perhaps, unreliable. Agreat painting is like the history of Thucydides--it lives because it isa creation. Hence art, when severe and lofty, cannot be too highlypraised or cherished. A man cannot write for bread as he writes forfame; and he cannot write for fame as he writes to satisfy his ownideal. The immortal poets are those who sing themselves away to theregions of bliss, in a divine ecstacy, from love of art, or to giveexpression to the feelings which fill the soul. Sir Walter Scott couldwrite his "Ivanhoe" when inspired by the sentiments which warmed thechivalrous ages; he became a mere literary hack when he wrote to pay hisdebts. 

[Sidenote: The true artist. ]

The true artist is one of the favorites of Heaven, in a great measureexalted above mortal commiseration, even if his days are clouded withcares and sorrows. He lives in a different and purer atmosphere thanordinary men. He may not banquet on the pleasures of sense, but herevels in the joys of the soul. A Dante may be sad and sorrowful, aswhen, in his gloomy wanderings and isolations, he asked of Fra Ilariothe rest and peace of his sacred monastery; but he was sad as a greaterthan he wept over Jerusalem, in the profound seriousness of superiorknowledge, in the sublime solitariness of an inhabitant of another andgrander sphere. Genius ever partakes of this sadness, and it is asshallow to mistake it for misery as it would be to pity the saintpassing through the tribulations of our worldly pilgrimage, in full viewof the unending glories which are in store for him in the celestialcity. The higher joys of the soul are foreign to frivolity, tumult, andthe mirth of wine, --those pleasures most prized by the weak or sensual. There is nothing more sublime in this world than the example of a loftynature seeking the imperishable, the true, the beautiful, the good, amiddiscomfort, or reproach, or neglect. 

Such are truly great artists. Sometimes they are munificently rewardedby their generation with praises and material goods, as was Apellesamong the Greeks, and Raphael among the Italians. Sometimes theirexcellence was unappreciated, except by a few. But whether appreciatedor not, the great artists of antiquity belong to the constellation ofmen of genius which shall shine forever. They lived in their ownglorious realm of thought and feeling, which the world can neitherunderstand nor share. They did not live for utilities. They lived torealize their own exalted ideas of excellence. 

[Sidenote: Decline of art. ]

[Sidenote: Prostitution of art. ]

[Sidenote: The later Romans incapable of appreciating art. ]

[Sidenote: The degradation of art. ]

[Sidenote: utter failure of art as a conservative power. ]

But this was not the case in imperial Rome. All writers speak of a mostsignal decline in the arts from Augustus to Diocletian. Evenarchitecture became corrupted. It was without taste, or a mere copy, like the arch of Constantine, from the older models. There were nooriginal edifices erected, and such as were built were in defiance ofall the principles that were established by the Greek architects. Leastof all did art encourage grand sentiments. It did not paint etherealbeauty. It did not chisel the marble to elevate or instruct. Statueswere made to please the degraded taste of rich but vulgar families, togive pomp to luxury, to pander wicked passions. Painting was absolutelydisgraceful; and we veil our eyes and hide our blushes as we survey thedecorations of Pompeii. How degrading the pictures which are found amidthe ruins of ancient baths! Art was sensualized, perverted, corrupting. Paintings appealed either to perverted tastes, or fostered a senselesspride, or stimulated unholy passions, or flattered the vanity of therich--brought angels down to earth, not raised mortals to heaven. Theycommemorated the regime of tyrants, or amused the wealthy classes, whosewealth had bought alike the muse of the poets and the visions of thesculptor. Art was venal. She sold her glories, which ought to be asunbought as the graces of life and the smiles of beauty; and she becamea painted Haetera, drunk with the wine-cups of Babylon, and fantasticwith the sorceries of Egypt. How could she, thus prostituted, elevatethe people, or arrest degeneracy, or consecrate the ancientsuperstitions? She facilitated rather than retarded the ruin. It ismarvelous how soon art degenerated with the progress of luxury, reproducing evil more rapidly than good, and obscuring even truthitself. Pleasures that appeal to the intellect will ever be inaccordance with prevailing tastes, and the more exquisite the art themore fatally will it lead astray by the insidious entrance of a form asan angel of light. We cannot extinguish art without destroying one ofthe noblest developments of civilization; but we cannot havecivilization without multiplying the dangers and temptations of humansociety. And even granting that the arts of the pagan world had arefining influence on the few, what is this unless accompanied with thevirtues which grow out of self-sacrifice? I am not speaking of thoseglories which art ought to represent, but of those attractions which itpresents when degraded. What conservative influence can result from theVenus of Titian? Why did not art reform morals, as morals elevated art?And why did art degenerate? Why did it not keep its own? The truth is, that art is esoteric, and not popular. The imagination of the vulgar isnot sufficiently cultivated to see, in the emblems which art typifies, those passions or sentiments which have moved generations withenthusiasm. A Gothic cathedral is infinitely more interesting to a manof sentiment or learning than to an unlettered boor. The ignorant cannotappreciate the historical fidelity and marvelous study of races whichappear in such a statue as the African Sybil. We must comprehend thecharacter of Moses before we can kindle with admiration at the dignityand majesty which Michael Angelo impersonated in his statue. WhenPhidias, Praxiteles, and Lysippus moulded their clay models, they had aPericles, a Plato, or a Demosthenes for their critics and admirers. Itwas for them they worked, and by them they were stimulated--not therabble crowd of slaves and sycophants. But when, at Rome, there was noCicero, no Octavius, no Mecaenas, no Horace, the artists toiled to pleaseimperial gluttons, pretentious freedmen, ignorant generals, drunkensenators, and venal judges. Their sublime art became the handmaid ofeffeminacy, of vanity, of sensuality. It could not rise above the levelof those who dedicated themselves to its service. It did not make menbetter. Was Leo X. A wiser Pope because he delighted in pictures? Didart make the Medici at Florence more susceptible to religiousimpressions? Does art sanctify Dresden or Florence? Does it make moderncapitals stronger, or more self-sacrificing, better fitted to contendwith violence, or guard against the follies which undermine a state?What are the true conservative forces of our world? On what did Lutherand Cranmer build the hopes of regeneration? The cant of dilettantiwould be laughed at by the old apostles and martyrs. Art amuses, and mayrefine when it is itself pure. It does not brace up the soul toconflict. It does not teach how to resist temptation. It presentstemptations rather. It gilds the fascinations of earth. It does notpoint to duties, or the life to come. That which is conservative is whatsaves, not what adorns. We want ideas, invisible agencies, that whichexalts the mind above the material. So far as art can do this it iswell. It is a great element of civilization. So far as gardens andflowers and villas and groves can do this, let us have them. Let us makea paradise out of a desert. Man was put into Eden to dress and to keepit. The material, rightly directed and used, is part of our justinheritance. Man is physical as well as intellectual. It is monkish anderratic to spurn the outward blessings of Providence. An inheritance inMiddlesex is worth more than one in Utopia. Give us beauty and grace--they are invaluable. But let us remember, also, that it is chiefly frommoral truth that the soul expands--the recognition of responsibilitiesand duties. No matter how splendid we make the triumphs of art in itsaesthetic influence, the question returns, Did these, in their bestestate, in Greece and Rome, lead to patriotism, to sacrifice, to anelevated social home? And if these did not arrest corruption, how couldart, when perverted, save a falling empire? All profound inquiries as tothe progress of the race centre in moral truths, --those which havereference to the spiritual rather than the material, the future ratherthan the present. Art failed because it did not propound grand ideaswhich pertain to spiritual and future interests. It especially failedwhen it pandered to perverted tastes, when it was the mere pastime ofthe rich, and diverted the mind from what is greatest and holiest. St. Paul, when he wandered through the Grecian cities, said very little ofthe sculptures and the temples which met his eye at every turn. He wasnot insensible to beauty and grandeur. But he felt that all renovatingforces came from the ideas which he was sent to preach. He did notcondemn art; he probably admired it; but this he saw was a poorfoundation of national happiness and strength. If the severe morality ofthe Stoics was a feeble barrier against corruption, how much more feeblewere temples to Minerva, and statues to Jupiter, and pictures of Venus?Great was Diana of the Ephesians, but not as an influence to stemdegeneracy. Exalt art as highly as we can, it is not a renovating power, and it is this of which we speak. 

[Sidenote: Attempts of literature. ]

[Sidenote: Degradation of literature. ]

Literature attempted something higher than art; nor need we expatiate onits transcendent excellence in the classical ages. This itself was art, art in the highest and most enduring form, and will live when marblesmoulder away. Virgil, Cicero, Horace, Tacitus, Livy, Ovid, were greatartists, and civilization will perpetuate their fame. They cannot die. What more immortal than the artistic delineations of man and of naturewhich the poets and historians wrought out with so much labor andgenius? When did men, uninspired by Christianity, utter sentiments moretender, or thoughts more profound, or aspirations more lofty? They areour perpetual study and marvel--prodigies of genius, such as appear onlyat great intervals. All that is most valuable in the ancientcivilization is perpetuated in its literature, and survives empires andchanges. The men who were amused and instructed by these greatmasterpieces _have_ passed away, as well as their empire, but thesewill interest remotest generations. These live by their own vitality. Ifthe unaided intellect of man could soar so high under the witheringinfluence of paganism and political slavery and social degradation, wecannot but feel that Christianity has higher missions to accomplish thanto stimulate the intellectual faculties of man; and, while we rememberthat, in our own times, some of the highest creations of genius havebeen made by those who have repudiated the spirit of Christianity, wecannot but feel that conservative influences do not come fromliterature, in its best estate, unless its ideas are inspired by theGospel. The great writers of the Augustan age did not arrest degeneracy, any more than Goethe and Bulwer and Byron and Hugo have in our own day. They amused, they cultivated, they adorned; they did not save. Nor is itprobable that the great masterpieces of antiquity were favorite subjectsof study, except with a cultivated few, any more than Milton, Bacon, andPascal are read in our times by the people. They enriched libraries;they were venerated and preserved in costly bindings; but they were notfamiliar guides. The people read nothing. The great writers of antiquitycomplain of the frivolity of the public taste. Moreover, the troubles ofthe empire and the corruptions of society were unfavorable to loftycreations of genius. Men were absorbed in passing events; and literarymen generally pandered to the vile taste of the people, or stooped toadulate the monsters whom they feared. Hunting and hawking furnishedsubjects for the muse of the poets. History was reduced to dull and dryabridgments, and still drier commentaries. The people sought scandalousanecdotes, or demoralizing sketches, or frothy poetry. The decline inletters, like the decline in art, kept pace with the public misfortunes. When lofty and contemplative characters were saddened and discouraged, in view of public and private corruption, and saw ruin approaching, theyhad no spirit to make great exertions--and exertions which would not beappreciated. They sought retreats. There was no life, no enthusiasm inliterature. It was conventional--to suit fashionable coteries, with whomstrength was unpalatable and dignity a rebuke. Sound was preferred tosense. Rhetoric supplanted thought. A sentimental flow of words passedcurrent for poetry. Literary men united into mutual admirationsocieties, and exalted their own frivolous productions. As the penny-a-liners of our day enumerate in their catalogue of great men chieflythose who have written romances and poetry for magazines, and passunnoticed the stern thinkers of the age, so the literary gossips of Romemade the city ring, like grasshoppers, with their importunate chink. Unfortunately they were the only inhabitants of the field, for "no greatcattle" kept silence under the shadow of the protecting oak. Nerosuppressed the writings of Lucan, because he painted, in his"Pharsalia, " the follies of the time. Lucian gave vent to his bittersarcasms, and raised the veil of hypocrisy in which his generation hadwrapped itself; but his mockery, like that of Voltaire, demolished, without seeking to substitute any thing better instead. Petroniuslaughed at the vices he did not wish to remove, and in which he himselfshared. Juvenal and Martial both flattered the tyrants they detested. The nobles may have laughed at their bitter sarcasms, but they pursuedtheir pleasures. Literature, under Augustus, did but little to elevatethe Roman mind. What could be expected when it was coarse, feeble, andfrivolous? If intellectual strength will not keep men from vices, whatcan be expected when intellect panders to passions and interests? Thereis no more absurd cant than that the culture of the mind favors theculture of the heart. What do operas and theatres for the elevation ofsociety? Does a sentimental novel prompt to duty? Education seldom keepspeople from follies when the will is not influenced by virtues. IfSocrates sought the society of Aspasia, if Seneca amassed a giganticfortune in the discharge of great public trusts, if Cicero languished inhis exile because deprived of his accustomed pleasures, if MarcusAurelius was blind to the rights and virtues of Christians, what couldbe hoped of the literary sensualists of the fourth century? If knowledgedid not restrain the passions of philosophers, how could passions berestrained when every influence tended to excite them? Athens fell whenher arts and schools were in the zenith of their glory, how could Romestand when arts and schools undermined the moral health? Neither poets, nor historians, nor critics had in view the regeneration of society. They wrote, as poets and novelists write now, for bread, for fame, forsocial position. If such a man as Racine, so lofty and severe, waskilled by a frown from Louis XIV. , how could such an elaboratevoluptuary as Petronius live out of the smiles of Nero and theflatteries of the court? If literature is feeble to arrest degeneracywhen it is lofty, inasmuch as it reaches only the cultivated few, howinadequate it is when it is itself corrupted! The taste of our times, with all our glorious Christian literature, and our public libraries, our lecturers, our preachers, our professors, and our standard classicalauthorities, is scarcely kept from being perverted by the flimsyliterature which has inundated us, and the newspaper platitudes which wedevour with our breakfast. With every effort of true and Christianphilanthropists, it is questionable whether there is any moral progressamong us. There is a material growth; but does the moral correspond, with all our immense machinery for the elevation of society? What, then, could be expected at Rome, where there were no public libraries, nonewspapers, no lyceums, no pulpits, no printing-presses, and where bookswere the solace of a few aristocrats, and where these aristocrats couldonly be amused by scandalous anecdotes and frivolous poetry. Literaturedid not even hold its own. It steadily declined from the Augustan age. It declined in proportion as the people had leisure to read it. Insteadof elevating society, society corrupted literature. The same may be saidof literature as was said of art. It did not fulfill its mission, if itwas intended to save. It could reach only a small part of thepopulation, and those whom it did reach were simply amused. 

[Sidenote: Failure of literature. ]

It would be too sweeping to affirm that the better forms of Romanliterature did not refine and elevate, but unfortunately they reachedonly a few minds, and not always those who had political and socialpower. Literature was not powerful enough, was not sufficientlycirculated, and the greater part of it was demoralizing, thus proving asavor of death rather than a savor of life. When a civilizationreproduces evil more rapidly than good, there is not much hope forsociety, except from some signal interposition of Almighty power. Society is infinitely gloomy to a contemplative man, when there are noantidotes to the poison which is rapidly consuming the vitality ofstates. We contemplate approaching death, and death amid the array ofphysical glories. It is like a rich man laid on the bed from which hewill never rise, surrounded with every comfort and every pleasure thatmen seek. Literature was a feeble medicine to the dying patient. Had allclasses banqueted on the rich treasure of the mind, and been content, then there might have been some hope. But this was not the fact. Only afew reveled in the glories of thought. And these scorned the people. 

[Sidenote: Ancient philosophy. ]

But philosophy attempted something higher and nobler--even to reformmorals, especially at Rome. The Romans had but little taste for abstractspeculations. And hence they did not extend the boundaries of thoughtand reason beyond the limits which the Greeks arrived at. But theyadopted what was most practical in the Grecian philosophy, and appliedit to common life. 

If there is any thing lofty in paganism, it is philosophy. It proposedto seek the beautiful, the true, the good; to divert men from degradingpursuits; to set a low estimate on money, and material gains, and emptypleasures. It was calm, fearless, and inquiring. All sects ofphilosophers despised the pursuits of the vulgar, and affected wisdom. Minerva, not Venus, not Diana, was the goddess of their idolatry. Itdeified reason, and sought to control the passions. It longed for therealms of truth and love. It believed in the divine, and detested thegross. Hence the philosophers were not eager for outward rewards, andkept aloof from the demoralizing pleasures of the people. They attiredthemselves in a different garb, lived retired, and studied the welfareof the soul. Mind was adored, and matter depreciated. They were esotericmen who abhorred vice, and sought the higher good. Morally, they were ingeneral superior to other men, as they were in intellectual gifts andattainments. And they opposed the popular current of opinions, andstemmed popular vices. They were the reformers of the ancient world, thesages--earnest men, advocating the great certitudes of love andfriendship and patriotism--the lofty spirits of their time, preoccupiedand rapt in their noble inquiries into nature and God. Look at Socrates, so careless of dress, walking barefooted, giving what he had away, courting mortification, and disdaining popular favor, if he could onlypersuade his pupils of the greatness of the infinite and imperishable. Look at Pythagoras, refusing political office, and consecrating himselfto teaching. Look to Xenophanes, wandering over Sicily in the holyenthusiasm of a rhapsodist of truth. Look at Parmenides, forsakingpatrimonial wealth, that he might teach the distinction between ideasobtained through the reason, and ideas obtained through the senses. Lookat Heraclitus, refusing the splendid offers of Darius, and retiring tosolitudes, that he might explore the depths of his own nature. SeeAnaxagoras, allowing his fortune to melt away, that he might discoverthe many faces of nature. See Empedocles, giving away his fortune topoor girls, that he might attack the Anthropomorphism of his day; orDemocritus declining the sovereignty of Abdera, that he might haveleisure to speculate on the distinction between reflection andsensation; or Diogenes living in a tub; or Plato in his garden; orAristotle in the shady side of the Lyceum; or Zeno guarding the keys ofthe citadel. See the good Aurelius, in later and more corrupt ages, forsaking the pleasures of an imperial throne, that he might meditate onhis soul's welfare, or the slave Epictetus, unfolding the richestlessons of moral wisdom to a corrupt and listless generation. 

[Sidenote: The Romans fail to appreciate philosophy. ]

The loftier forms of the ancient philosophy were never popular, even atAthens. The popular teachers were sophists and rhetoricians, who, as menof fashion and ambition, despised the sublime speculations of Socratesand Plato. The Platonic philosophy had a hold only of a few, and thesewere men of powerful minds, but stood aloof from the prevailing tastesand pleasures. It had still less influence on the Roman mind, which waspractical and worldly. Platonism opposed the sensualism and materialismof the times, believed in eternal ideas, sought the knowledge of God asthe great end of life--a sublime realism which was hardly moreappreciated than Christianity itself. Platonism was doubtless thehighest effort of uninspired men, under the influence of pagan ideas andinstitutions, to attain a knowledge of God and the soul. It gloried inimmortality, and claimed for man a nature akin to the deity, anddestined to a higher development after death. It endeavored tounderstand our complex nature, and trace a connection between earth andheaven. It sought to distinguish between forms and essence, thespiritual and the sensual. It spiritualized the popular mythology, andinsisted on the unity on which it fundamentally rests. It did not sneerat religious earnestness, and looked upon the beatitudes of the soul asthe highest good of earth. 

[Sidenote: Platonism. ]

But such knowledge was too wonderful for the Romans. It was high, andthey could not attain unto it. Its ends were too spiritual and elevated. There was scarcely an eminent Roman who adopted the system. Cicero camethe nearest to understand its spiritual import, but it was too loftyeven for him. He composed a republic and a treatise of laws, in whichreason and the rule of right should be made the guide of states andempires. In this way Platonism, as a sublime hypothesis, entered intojurisprudence. It affected the thinking of master minds, even as itentered into Christianity at a later period, and formed an alliance withit. But, practically, it did not have much effect on life and manners. It was regarded as a system of mysticism, cherished by a very smallesoteric body of believers, who were spurned as dreamers. They werelooked upon very much as the transcendentalists of our own day areregarded, with whom the great body of even thinkers had but littlesympathy. There was no more respect for Plato at Rome than there is forKant among the merchants of London. His name may have been pronouncedwith an oracular admiration, but there was no profound appreciation ofhim, no general knowledge of his writings, no sympathy for hisdoctrines. They were to the Romans foolishness, somewhat after the sensethat Christianity was to the Greeks. They transcended their experience, went beyond the limits of their thoughts, and sought spiritualcertitudes which they disdained. 

[Sidenote: The Aristotelian philosophy. ]

[Sidenote: Its failure. ]

The philosophy of Aristotle was nearly as distasteful to the Romans asthat of Plato, and it was less lofty. It had a skeptical tendency, andexcluded scientific light from the sphere of activity, and inculcated aproud and self-reliant spirit. The academics denied the possibility ofarriving at truth with certainty; and, therefore, held it uncertainwhether the gods existed or not, whether the soul is mortal or survivesthe body, whether virtue is preferable to vice, or the contrary. Theysneered at religious earnestness, and tacitly encouraged influencesgreatly to be dreaded. They held in supreme contempt the popularreligion, and made a mockery of religious ceremonies. They underminedsuperstition, but weakened religion also by substituting nothing insteadof the absurdities they brushed away. Lucian was a type of thesephilosophers, and his bitter sarcasms were more powerful than the logicof Cicero to destroy what could not be proved. The academics may be saidto have been the rationalists of antiquity. The old religions could notmaintain their ground before the inquiring skepticism and sarcastic witof these irreligious philosophers, who contented themselves with alifeless deism--a system which did not, indeed, deny the existence andprovidence of God, but which attributed to the Deity an indifferencerespecting the affairs of men. Dr. Neander, in the first volume of the"History of the Church, " has shown the effects of the unbelief of theacademics on the state of society at Rome, especially on the men of rankand fashion. Infidelity, in any form, can have no conservativeinfluence. It is designed to pull down, and not to build up. Superstition, with all its puerilities, is better than a scornful andproud philosophy which takes no cognizance of popular wants andaspirations. 

[Sidenote: The Stoical philosophy. ]

If any form of ancient philosophy could have renovated society, it wasthe Stoical school, which Zeno had founded. It commended itself, in acorrupt age, to many noble and powerful minds, because it raised themabove the corruption around them, and proclaimed an ideal standard ofmorality. The Romans cared very little for mere speculations on God orthe universe; but they did revere that which proposed a practical aim. The Stoics despised prevailing baseness, and set examples of a severemorality. Marcus Aurelius, one of the loftiest followers of this school, was a model of every virtue, and he looked upon his philosophy as ameans of salvation to a crumbling empire. But the Stoics, with all theirmorality, were the Pharisees of pagan antiquity. They held themselvessuperior to all other classes of men. They gloried in their proudisolation. And with all the loftiness of Stoicism, it did not teach of aGod who governed the world in mercy and love, but according to the irondecrees of necessity. It attacked error with a stern severity, but hadno toleration for human weakness. It confounded the idea of God withthat of the universe, and therefore destroyed his personality, makingthe Deity himself an influence, or a development. The Stoic despised theage, and despised every influence to elevate it which did not come fromhimself. He treated the most wholesome truths so partially as to be ledinto the greatest absurdities of doctrine and inconsistencies with theirgeneral principle. Epictetus, indeed, infused a new life into theStoical philosophy. He taught the doctrine of passive endurance soforcibly that the Christians claimed him for their own. But there wasnothing which appealed to the people in Stoicism. It was too stern andcold. It had no humanity. Hence they stood aloof, as they did from allthe systems of Grecian philosophy. It was not for them, but for thelearned and the cultivated. It was a system of thought; it was not areligion--a speculation and not a life. Like Platonism, the Stoicalphilosophy was esoteric, and only appealed to a few elevated minds, whohad affected indifference to the evils of life, and had learned toconquer natural affections. The Stoical doctrines of Epictetus had amore practical end in view than those of Zeno, since they were appliedto Roman thought and life. We cannot deny the purity and beauty of hisaphorisms, but he was like Noah preaching before the flood. He had hisdisciples and admirers, but they made a feeble barrier againstcorruptions. It was the protest of a man before a mob of excited andangry persecutors resolved on his death. It was no more heard than thedying speech of Stephen. It was lost utterly on a people abandoned toinglorious pleasure. 

[Sidenote: The Epicurean philosophy. ]

The only form of philosophy which was popular with the Romans, and whichwas appreciated, was the Epicurean. The disciples of this school were, of course, the luxurious, the fashionable, the worldly, and it exercisedupon them but a feeble restraining influence. It denied the providenceof God; it maintained that the world was governed by chance; it deniedthe existence of moral goodness; it affirmed that the soul was mortal, and that pleasure was the only good. If the more contemplative and theleast passionate rebuked gross vices, they still advocated a tranquilindifference to outward events that showed neither loftiness nor fear ofjudgment. Their system was openly based upon atheism. Self-love was thefoundation of all action, and self-indulgence was the ultimate good. TheEpicureans were the patrons of the circus, and the theatre, and thebanquet, and, indeed, of all those vanities and follies which disgracedthe latter days of Rome. Their influence tended to enervate and corrupt. Their philosophy, instead of preserving old forms of life, old customs, old institutions, old traditions and associations, made a mockery ofthem all, and was as efficient in producing decay as was the philosophyof the eighteenth century in France in paving the way for therevolution. The purest type of Epicureanism may have refined a few ofthe better sort, but the prevailing influence, doubtless, underminedsociety. The god of the reason was allied with the god of the sense, andthe maniac soul of the lying prophet entered the schools. Education, asdirected by them, served only to make youth worldly and frivolous. Teachers sought to amuse and not to instruct, to make royal roads toknowledge, to exalt the omnipotence of money, to set a high value onwhat passes away. They limited man to himself, and acknowledged no otherobject of human exertion than is to be found within the compass of thefleeting phenomena of the present life. They had no wish beyond thepresent hour, and only aimed to console man in the corruption and miserywhich he saw around him. They had no high aims; nor did they seek toproduce profound impressions. They adapted themselves to what was, rather than what ought to be. They were easy and gracious, but utterlywithout earnestness. The Peripatetic inquired, sneeringly, "What_is_ truth?" The Epicurean languidly said, "What is truth to_me_. There is no truth nor virtue, nor is there a God, nor a placeof rewards and punishments. This world is my theatre. Let me eat anddrink, for to-morrow I die. I will abstain from inordinate self-indulgence, for it will shorten my life, or produce satiety, ennui, disgust--not because it is wrong. I will make the most of earth and ofmy faculties for pleasure. Wealth is the greatest blessing, poverty thegreatest calamity. Friends are of no account, unless they amuse me orhelp me. The sentiment of friendship is impossible, and would beunsatisfactory. " The true Epicurean quarreled with no person and with noopinions. Nothing was of consequence but ease, prosperity, self-forgetfulness. The soul of man could aspire to nothing beyond this life;and when death came, it was a release, a thing neither to be regrettednor rejoiced in, but an irresistible fate. What could be expected fromsuch a system? What renovation in such a cold, barren, negative faith, without hope, without God in the world? The most prevalent of all thesystems of philosophy, so far from doing good, did evil. How could itsave when its ends were destructive of all those sentiments on whichtrue greatness rests? What could be expected of a philosophy which onlyserved to amuse the great, to throw contempt on the people, to underminereligious aspirations, to vitiate the moral sense, to ignore God andduty and a life to come?

Thus every influence at Rome, whether proceeding from art, orliterature, or philosophy, or government, instead of saving, tended todestroy. All these things came from man, and could not elevate himbeyond himself. Even religion was a compound of superstitions, ritualobservances, and puerilities. It did not come from God. It was neitherlofty nor pure. What good there was soon became perverted, and the evilwas reproduced more rapidly than good. Only error seemed to havevitality. The false lights which sin had kindled shed only a delusivegleam. The soul occasionally asserted the dignity which God had givenit, and great men swept and garnished houses, but devils reentered, andthe normal condition of humanity was what the Bible declares it to besince Adam was expelled from Paradise. Genius, energy, ambition, wereallowed to win their victories, and they shed a glorious light, and fora time exalted the reason of man, but alas, were soon followed by shameand degradation. 

[Sidenote: All forms of civilization fail to be conservative. ]

And what is the logical inference--the deduction which we are compelledto draw from this mournful history of the failure of all those grandtrophies of the civilization which man has made? Can it be other thanthis: that man cannot save himself; that nothing which comes from him, whether of genius or will, proves to be a conservative force fromgeneration to generation; that it will be perverted, however true, orbeautiful, or glorious, because "men love darkness rather than light. "All that is truly conservative, all that grows brighter and brighterwith the progress of ages, all that is indestructible and of permanentbeauty, must come from a power higher than that of man, whethersupernatural or not--must be a revelation to man from Heaven, assistedby divine grace. It must be divine truth in conjunction with divinelove. It must be a light from Him who made us, and which alone bafflesthe power of evil. 

He did send Christianity, when every thing else had signally failed, asit will forever fail. And this is the seed of the woman which shallbruise the serpent's head. 

We have now to show why this great renovating and life-giving influencedid not prevent the destruction of the empire; and we may be convincedthat if this great end could not be accomplished in accordance with theplans of Providence, and in accordance with the laws by which He rulesthe world, Christianity was in no sense a failure, as man's deviceswere; but, through the mouths and writings of great bishops, saints, anddoctors, projected its saving truths far into the shadows of barbaricEurope, and laid the foundation for a new and more gloriouscivilization--a civilization not destined to perish, so far as it is inharmony with divine revelation. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

WHY CHRISTIANITY DID NOT ARREST THE RUIN OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

One of the most interesting inquiries which is suggested by history is, Why Christianity did not prevent the glory of the old civilization frombeing succeeded by shame? This is not only a grand inquiry, but it ismysterious. We are naturally surprised that literature, art, science, laws, and the perfect mechanism of government should have proved suchfeeble barriers against degeneracy, for these are among the highesttriumphs of the human mind, and such as the world will not willingly letdie. But a still more potent and majestic influence than any thing whichproceeds from man still remained to the haughty masters of the ancientworld. A new religion had been proclaimed with the establishment of theempire, which gradually broke down the old superstitions, conquered thehatred and prejudices of both Greeks and Romans, supplanted the oldsystems of Paganism, and went on from conquering to conquer, until itseated itself on the imperial throne, and proved itself to be the wisdomand the power of God. 

But we see that as this wonderful religion gained ground, whether inchanging the lives of individuals, or in allying itself with dominantinstitutions, the Roman Empire declined. When Christianity was firstproclaimed, the Roman eagles surmounted the principal cities ofantiquity, and the central despotism on the banks of the Tiber was thelaw of the world. When it was a feeble light on the mountains ofGalilee, the glory of Rome was the object of universal panegyric, andthe city of the seven hills rejoiced in a magnificence which promised tobe eternal. But when Paganism yielded to Christianity, and when thelatter had spread to every city and village in the empire, with itsgrand hierarchy of bishops and doctors, the proud empire was in ruins. It would even seem that its decline and fall kept pace with the triumphsof a religion it had spurned and persecuted. 

[Sidenote: Society retrograded as Christianity spread. ]

What is the explanation of this grand mystery? Why should society havedeclined as Christianity spread, if, as we believe, Christianity is thegreat conservative force of the world, and is destined to regenerate allgovernment, science, and social life? If the stability of the empirerested on virtues, and was undermined by vices, virtue must havedeclined and vice increased. But how can we reconcile such a fact withthe progress of a religion which is the mainspring of all virtue, andthe destruction of all vice? We do know that Christianity did notprevent the empire from falling, but also we have the testimony of poetsand historians to the exceeding wickedness of society when Christianitywas fairly established. 

[Sidenote: A mysterious fact. ]

In presenting the strange phenomenon of a falling empire with an all-conquering religion, it is necessary to grapple with the gloomy problem. We have unbounded faith in the power of Christianity to save the world, and yet we see a mighty empire crumbling to pieces from vices whichChristianity did not subdue. What a deduction might be drawn from thisstrange fact, that Christianity _can_, _but did not, save_. How mournful the future of modern Christian nations if thesame fact should be repeated--if civilization should decline asChristianity achieves its triumphs! Is it possible that civilization, the triumph of human genius and will, may fade away as Christianity, which gives vitality to society, advances? Has civilization nothing todo with Christianity?

[Sidenote: Christianity not however a failure. ]

But there can be nothing mournful in the developments of a divinereligion--nothing discouraging in the conquests which seemed incomplete. Nor did it really, in any important task, prove a failure; but amid theashes of the old world, as it disappeared, we see the new creation, andlisten to melodious birth-songs. Indeed, the fall of the empire, when weprofoundly survey it, instead of detracting from Christianity, onlyprepared the way for higher triumphs, and for a loftier development ofcivilization itself. Future ages have probably lost nothing by the ruinof Rome, while the world has gained by the establishment ofChristianity, even by the seeds of truth planted by the early church. 

Still, it cannot be questioned that, in the Roman empire, vices andcorruptions spread with terrific and mournful rapidity even afterChristianity was revealed--so rapidly, indeed, that Christianity opposedbut a feeble barrier. 

The history of Christianity among the Romans suggests these threeinquiries:--

First, why it proved so feeble in arresting degeneracy; secondly, howfar it conserved old institutions; and thirdly, how far it created a newand higher civilization. 

[Sidenote: Christianity fails to check degeneracy. ]

The first inquiry, on a superficial view, is discouraging. We see asublime realism making quietly its converts by thousands, withoutseemingly checking ordinary vices. We are reminded of Socrates creatingPlatos, yet failing to reform Athens. We behold witnesses of the truthin every land, which gradually sinks deeper and deeper in infamy as thewitnesses increase. And, when the land is about to be overrun bybarbarians, when despair seizes the public mind, and desolationoverspreads the earth, and good men hide in rocks, and dens, and caves, we see the church resplendent with wealth and glory, her bishopsenthroned as dignitaries, princes doing homage to saints, and even thebarbarians themselves bowing down in reverence and awe. How barren theseecclesiastical victories seem to a superficial or infidel eye! IfChristianity is what its converts claim, why did it accomplish solittle?

[Sidenote: Yet still a conquering religion. ]

But, in another aspect, the victories do not seem so barren; and theyeven appear more and more majestic the more they are contemplated. Thereis something grand in the spread of new ideas which are unpalatable tothe mighty and the wise. Considering the humble characters of the earlyApostles and their disciples, their triumphs were really magnificent. Itis astonishing that the teachings of fishermen should have supplantedthe teachings of Jewish rabbis and Grecian philosophers, amid so greatand general opposition. It is remarkable that their doctrines shouldhave so completely changed the lives of those who embraced them. It iswonderful that emperors who persecuted and sages who spurned thereligion of Jesus, should have been won over by a moral force superiorto all the venerated influences of the old religion of which they wereguardians and expounders. It is surprising that such relentless andbloody persecutions as took place for three hundred years should havebeen so futile. When we remember the extension of Christianity into allthe countries known to the ancients, and the marvelous fruits it boreamong its converts, making them brothers, heroes, martyrs, saints, doctors--a benediction and a blessing wherever they went; and when wesee these little esoteric bands, in upper chambers or in catacombs, persecuted, tormented, despised, yet gaining daily new adherents, without the aid of wealth, or learning, or social position, or politicalpower, until generals, senators, and kings came willingly into theirfraternity, and bound themselves by their rules, and changed the wholehabits of their lives, looking to the future rather than the present--the infinite rather than the finite; blameless in morals, lofty infaith, heavenly in love; sheep among wolves, yet not devoured--we feelthat Christianity cannot be too highly exalted as a conquering power. 

But the point is, not that Christianity failed to conquer, but that itfailed to save the Roman world. The conquests of the church areuniversally admitted and universally admired. They were the mostwonderful moral victories ever achieved. But, while Christianityconquered Rome, why did she fail to arrest its ruin? Vice gained onvirtue, rather than virtue gained on vice, even when the cross wasplanted on the battlements of the imperial palaces. 

[Sidenote: Christianity too late to save. ]

The victories of Christianity came not too late for the human race, butfor the stability of the Roman empire. Had Christianity completelytriumphed when Julius Caesar overturned the republic, the empire mighthave lasted. But when Constantine was converted, the empire was shakento its foundations, and the barbarians were advancing. No medicine couldhave prevented the diseased old body from dying. The time had come. Whenthe wretched inebriate embraces a spiritual religion with one foot inthe grave, with a constitution completely undermined, and the seeds ofdeath planted, then no repentance or lofty aspiration can preventphysical death. It was so in Rome. Society was completely underminedlong before the emperors became Christians. The fruits of iniquity werebeing reaped when Chrysostom and Augustine lifted up their voices. Thebody was diseased, so that no spiritual influence could work upon it. Had every man in the empire been a Christian, yet, when, the army hadlost its discipline and efficiency, when patriotism had fled, whencenturies of vices had enfeebled the physical forces, when puny raceshad lost all martial ardor, and could present nothing but weakness andcowardice--all from physical causes, how could they have successfullycontended with the new and powerful barbaric armies? Christianity savesthe soul; it does not restore exhausted physical functions. The viceswhich had undermined were learned before Christianity protested, andwere dominant when Christianity was feeble. The effects of those viceswere universal before a remedy could be applied. 

[Sidenote: Limited number of the converts. ]

[Sidenote: Early Christians unimportant. ]

Moreover, when Christianity itself was a vital and conquering force, thenumber of its converts formed but a small proportion of the inhabitantsof the empire. Witnesses of the truth were sent into every importantcity in the world, but they simply protested in a dark corner. Theirwarning voice was unheeded except by a few, and these were unimportantpeople in a social or political or intellectual point of view. Even whenConstantine was converted, the number of Christians in the empire, according to Gibbon, whose statement has not been refuted, was only onefifth of the whole population. And this accounts for the insignificantsocial changes that Christianity wrought. A vast majority was opposed tothem even in the fourth century. There were doubtless large numbers ofChristians at Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Corinth, Ephesus, and otherpopulous cities, in the third century, and also there were powerfulchurches in the great centres of trade, where people of all nationscongregated; but they were exposed to bitter persecutions, and theydurst not be ostentatious, not even in those edifices where theycongregated for the worship of Jehovah. For two centuries they worshipedGod in secret and lonely places, exposed to persecution and scorn. Notonly were the Christians few in number, when compared with the wholepopulation, but they were chiefly confined to the humble classes. In thefirst century not many wise or noble were called. No great names havebeen handed down to us. Now and then a centurion was converted, or somedependent on a great man's household, or some servant in the imperialfamily; but no philosophers, or statesmen, or nobles, or generals, orgovernors, or judges, or magistrates. In the first century theChristians were not of sufficient importance to be generally persecutedby the government. They had not even arrested public attention. Nobodywrote against them, not even Greek philosophers. We do not read ofprotests or apologies from the Christians themselves. No contemporaryhistorian or poet alludes to them. They had no great men in their ranks, either for learning, or talents, or wealth, or social position. In thecities they were chiefly artisans, slaves, servants, or mechanics, andin the country they were peasants. They were unlettered, plebeian, unimportant. If there were distinguished converts, we do not know theirnames. Ecclesiastical history is silent as to distinguished personsexcept as persecutors, or as great contemporaries. We read of thecalamities of the Jews, of Herod Agrippa, of Philo, of Nero'spersecution, of the emperors, but not of Christians. Eusebius does notnarrate a single interesting or important fact which took place in thefirst century through the agency of a great man. We know scarcely morethan what is contained in the New Testament. We read that Clement wasbishop of Rome, but know nothing of his administration. We do not knowwhether or not he was a man of any worldly consideration. Nothing inhistory is more barren than the annals of the church in the firstcentury, so far as great names are concerned. Yet in this centuryconverts were multiplied in every city, and traditions point to themartyrdoms of those who were prominent, including nearly all of theApostles. 

[Sidenote: Obscurity of the early Christians. ]

[Sidenote: Their intense religious life. ]

In the second century there are no greater names than Polycarp, Irenaeus, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Clement Melito, and Apollonius--quietbishops or intrepid martyrs--bishops who addressed their flocks in upperchambers, and who held no worldly rank--famous only for their sanctityor simplicity of character, and only mentioned for their sufferings andfaith. We read of martyrs, some of whom wrote valuable treatises andapologies; but among them we find no people of rank, not even ladieslike Paula and Marcella and Fabiola, in the time of Jerome, unlessSymphorosa is an exception. It was a disgrace to be a Christian in theeye of fashion or power. Even the great Marcus Aurelius, sodistinguished as a man and a philosopher, had supreme contempt of thenew apostles of truth, and was one of their most unrelentingpersecutors. The early Christian literature is chiefly apologetic, andthe doctrinal character of the fathers of this century is simple andpractical, showing no great acquaintance with the system of heathenthought. There were controversies in the church--an intense religiouslife--great activities, great virtues, but no outward conflicts, nosecular history, nothing to arrest public notice. But the converts toChristianity, plebeian as they were, were yet of sufficient consequenceto be persecuted. They had attracted the notice of government. They werelooked upon as fanatics who sought to destroy a reverence for existinginstitutions. But they had not as yet assailed the government, or thegreat social institutions of the empire. In this century the polity ofthe church was quietly organized. There was an organized fellowshipamong the members: bishops had become influential, not in society, butamong the Christians; dioceses and parishes were established; there wasa distinction between city and rural bishops; delegates of churchesassembled to discuss points of faith, or suppress nascent heresies; thediocesan system was developed, and ecclesiastical centralizationcommenced; deacons began to be reckoned among the higher clergy; theweapons of excommunication were forged; missionary efforts were carriedon; the festivals of the church were created; Gnosticism--a kind ofphilosophical religion--was embraced by many leading minds; catecheticalschools taught the faith systematically; the formulas of baptism and theother sacraments became of great importance; marriage with unbelieverswas discouraged; and monachism became popular. The internal history ofthe church becomes interesting, but still the Christians had no greatinfluence outside their own body; it was esoteric, quiet, unobtrusive;and it was a very small body of pure and blameless men, who did notaspire to control society. 

[Sidenote: The empire in a hopeless state. ]

While the church was thus laying the foundation of its future polity andpower, but nothing more, and failed to attract the great, or men ofambitious views--those who led society--the empire was approaching amost fearful crisis. Hadrian had built a wall from the Rhine to theDanube to arrest the incursions of barbarians; the Roman garrisonsbeyond the Danube were withdrawn; the Goths had advanced from theVistula and the Oder to the shores of the Black Sea; the Jews weredispersed; a chaos of deities was in the Roman Pantheon; Grecianphilosophy had degenerated; the taste of the people had become utterlycorrupt; games and festivals were the business and the amusement of thepeople; the despotism of the emperors had utterly annulled all rights; asuccession of feeble and wicked princes ruled supreme; the empire wasfalling into a state of luxury and inglorious peace; the middle classeshad become extinct; and disproportionate fortunes had vastly increasedslavery. The work of disintegration had commenced. 

[Sidenote: The church of the third century. ]

The third century saw the church more powerful as an institution. Regular synods had assembled in the great cities of the empire; themetropolitan system was matured; the canons of the church weredefinitely enumerated; great schools of theology attracted inquiringminds; the doctrines of faith were systematized; Christianity had spreadso extensively that it must needs be persecuted or legalized; greatbishops ruled the growing church; great doctors speculated on thequestions which had agitated the Grecian schools; church edifices wereenlarged, and banquets instituted in honor of the martyrs. The churchwas rapidly advancing to a position which extorted the attention ofmankind. But even so late as the close of the third century, there werebut few Christians eminent for riches or rank. There were some greatbishops like Cyprian, Hippolytus, Victor, Demetrius; some greattheologians like Origen, Tertullian, and Clement; some great hereticslike Hermogones, Sabellius, and Novatian--all marked men, immortal men;but of no great influence outside their ranks. 

What could they do in a time of so much public misery and misfortune asmarked the empire when it was ruled by monsters; when the barbarians hadobtained a foothold in the provinces; when the capital was deserted bythe emperors for the camp; and when signs of decay and ruin wereapparent to all thoughtful minds?

[Sidenote: The church of the fourth century. ]

It was not till the fourth century--when imperial persecution hadstopped; when Constantine was converted; when the church was allied withthe state; when the early faith was itself corrupted; when superstitionand vain philosophy had entered the ranks of the faithful; when bishopsbecame courtiers; when churches became both rich and splendid; whensynods were brought under political influence; when monachists hadestablished a false principle of virtue; when politics and dogmaticswent hand in hand, and emperors enforced the decrees of councils--thatmen of rank entered the church, and the church had a visible influenceon the state. It was not till the fourth century that such great namesas Arius, Athanasius, Hosius, Eusebius, Cyril of Alexandria, Hilary ofPoictiers, Martin of Tours, Diodorus of Tarsus, Ambrose of Milan, Basilof Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, Theophilus ofAlexandria, Chrysostom of Constantinople, arose and made their voicesheard in the council chambers of the great. 

[Sidenote: The empire dismembered before the political triumphs ofChristianity. ]

But when the church had become a mighty and recognized power, when ithad assailed social institutions, when it drew men of rank into itsfolds, when it was no longer an obloquy to be a Christian--then the seatof empire had been removed to the banks of the Bosphorus; then the Gothsand Vandals had become most formidable enemies, and Theodosius, the lastgreat emperor, was making a brave but futile attempt to revive theglories of Trajan and the Antonines. The empire was crumbling to pieces--was dying--and even Christianity could not save it politically. 

[Sidenote: The Christians form an imperfect barrier against corruption. ]

[Sidenote: The Christians an esoteric band of worshipers. ]

[Sidenote: Christians powerless outside their ranks. ]

[Sidenote: The church powerless outside its circle. ]

[Sidenote: Christianity itself corrupted. ]

Thus, when Christianity was pure, and a truly renovating religion, ithad no social influence on the leaders of rank and fashion. How couldpeople of no political or social position, who were objects of ridiculeand contempt, have effected great social or political changes? Untiltheir conversion, they had not modified a law, and still less enactedone. How could they reach the ear of those who disdained, repelled, andpersecuted them? They had no influence on the makers or the executors oflaws. They could not call in the vast power of fashion, for they had nosocial prestige. They could not create a public opinion, for they wereobliged to hide to save their lives. They had no learning to attractphilosophers. They were not allowed to preach in public, and could notreach the people. They had no schools, nor books, nor colleges. Theycould not assail public institutions, for despotism was established andwas irresistible. There was no liberty of speech by which they mighthave made converts above their rank. They could not subvert slaverywithout influencing those who controlled it. They could not destroydisproportionate fortunes, since the wealthy were protected bygovernment. They could not interfere with games and demoralizingspectacles, for these were controlled by the emperor and his ministers, whose ear they could not reach, and upon whom all lofty arguments wouldhave been wasted. The court, the army, the aristocracy, rushed withheadlong eagerness into excesses and pleasures, which could not havebeen arrested by the wise and good of their own rank; much less by aclass who were obnoxious and forgotten. The Christians could not evenutter indignant protests without personal danger, to which they were notcalled. There was no possible way of presenting a barrier againstcorruption, outside their own ranks. Obscure men in these times canwrite books, but not under the empire; now they can lecture and preach, but not then. They were obliged to conceal their sentiments when therewas danger of being suspected of being Christians. Those who haveobserved the resistless tyranny of fashion in our times--how evenChristians are drawn into its eddies, not merely in such matters asdress, and houses, and education, but even in pleasures which arequestionable, and in opinions which are false--what are we to think ofthe overwhelming influence of fashion at Rome, when society was stillmore artificial, when its leaders were kings and tyrants, and when allthe propensities of human nature were in accordance with the customshanded down for centuries, and endorsed by all who were powerful inordinary life. If Christians are so feeble in Paris, London, and NewYork, in suppressing acknowledged evils which come from the world, howcould the early Christians prevent the ascendency of evils among thoseover whom they had no influence--perhaps those who did not feel them tobe evils at all. If Christians who affect great social position in ourcities cannot break up theatres and other demoralizing pleasures, howcould the early Christians bring the games of the amphitheatre intodisrepute? If social evils increase among us in spite of churches andschools and a free press and lectures, how could we expect them todecrease when no power was exerted to bring them into disrepute, andwhen the general tone of society was infinitely lower than in the worstcapitals of modern times? What would wealthy senators, with their armiesof clients and slaves, or the frivolous courtiers of godless emperors, or the sensual equestrians who composed a moneyed class, care foropposition to their pleasures from those whom they despised, and withwhom they never associated, and who had no influence on public opinion?The Christians could not, and dared not, make their voices heard, to anyextent, outside their own esoteric circle. They had an influence, ortheir circle could not have increased, but it was private and concealed. Artisans talked with artisans, servants with servants, soldiers withsoldiers. They converted, quietly and unobtrusively, by private talk andblameless lives, those with whom alone they freely mingled. Thus theirnumbers multiplied, but their prestige did not increase, until thesemechanics and laborers and slaves exercised some fortunate influence, byoccasional entreaties, on their haughty masters. A favorite slave couldsometimes gain the ear of the lady whose hair she dressed; or someveteran and trusted servant might persuade an indulgent master to listento the new truths which were such a life to him. Thus the circle of theChristians gradually embraced some of the more candid and intellectualand fearless of the great. But it should be borne in mind that as thecircle was enlarged, especially so as to embrace people whose lives hadbeen egotistical and self-indulgent, the standard of morality waslowered. Also we should remember, as the circle increased, even ofdevout believers, that vice and degeneracy increased also outside thecircle, and also as rapidly. The overwhelming current of corruptionswept every thing away before it. What if the small minority werevirtuous, when the vast majority were vicious. They were only witnessesof truth; they were not triumphant conquerors of error. If the statecould have lasted a thousand years longer in peace and prosperity, thenthe leaven of the Gospel might have leavened the whole lump. But thebarbarians could not wait for society to be renovated. They came whensociety was most enervated. When the Christians had gained sufficientinfluence to stop the games of the circus and the amphitheatre; whenthey had induced emperors to modify slavery; when they uttered protestsagainst demoralizing amusements, the barbarians had advanced, and werebecoming the new masters of the empire. The prayers of Augustine, theletters of Jerome, the sermons of Chrysostom, the ascetic example ofBasil, could no more arrest the march of the avengers of centuries ofmisrule than the intercession of Abraham could stop the thunderbolts ofGod on the guilty inhabitants of Sodom. The Roman world, so longabandoned to every folly and sin, must reap the bitter fruit. It was noreproach to Christianity that it did not avert the consequences of sin, any more than it was a reproach to Jonah that he could not save Nineveh. If Christianity effects so little with us, when there are no opposingreligions, and all institutions are professedly in harmony with it; whenit controls the press and the schools and the literature of the country;when its churches are gilded with the emblem of our redemption in everyvillage; when its ministers go forth unopposed, and have every facilityof delivering their message, even to the wise and mighty; whenphilanthropy comes in with its mighty arm and knocks off the fetters ofthe slave, and sends the Gospel to every land--how could it affectsociety when every influence was against it. If religion wanes beforethe dazzling forces of a brilliant material civilization, and scarcelyholds her own, when all profess to be governed by Christian truth, sothat in a moral and spiritual view, society rather retrogrades thanadvances, I am amazed that it made so considerable a progress in theRoman empire, and increased from generation to generation until it shookthe throne of emperors. And the example of the early church would seemto indicate that religion can only spread in a healthy manner, byconstantly guarding and purifying those who profess it. It would seemthat the true mission of the church is to elevate her own members ratherthan to mingle in scenes which have a corrupting influence. It is noteasy to make the theatre a means of moral improvement, for it will bedeserted when it rises above popular tastes, and the more it panders tothese tastes the more it flourishes. The theatre may have been elevatedat Athens, when the citizens who thronged to hear the plays of Sophocleswere themselves cultivated. Racine may have been relished at Versailles, but only because the court of a great king composed the audience. Thetheatre never rises _above_ the taste of those who patronize it. Christian teachings would have been spurned at Rome even had there beenno persecution. The church flourished because it instructed its ownmembers, and quietly gained an extension of its influence, not becauseit appealed to those who opposed it. The church, in those days, was nota philanthropical institution, or an educational enterprise, or anetwork of agencies and "instrumentalities" to bring to bear on societyat large certain ameliorating influences or benignant reforms. Thesewere beyond its reach. But it was a secret body of believers, a kind offreemasonry which aimed to control and reform those who belonged to it. Its rules were for members, not the outside world. Hence the history ofthe early church refers chiefly to its discipline, to its officers, tothe management of dioceses, to councils, holydays, festivals, liturgies, creeds, bearing only on its own internal organization. The members ofthis secret society lived apart from the world, absorbed in their ownspiritual interests, or seeking to save the souls of those with whomthey came in contact. The true triumphs of Christianity were seen inmaking good men of those who professed her doctrines, rather thanchanging outwardly popular institutions, or government, or laws, or evenelevating the great mass of unbelievers. And it is more comforting tofeel that the church was small and pure than that it was large andcorrupt. And for three centuries there is reason to believe that theChristians, if feeble in influence and few in numbers when compared withthe whole population, were remarkable for their graces and virtues--fortheir noble resistance to those temptations which enthrall so great anumber of our modern believers. Insignificant in every public sense, they may not have lifted up their voices against the system of slaverywhich did so much to undermine the state; they may not have lecturedagainst the despotic power of the imperator; they may have taken butlittle interest in politics, rendering unto Caesar whatever was due, whether taxes or obedience; they may not have formed schools or collegesor lyceums; they may not have meddled with any thing outside theirranks, except to preach temperance, justice, and a judgment to come, anda Saviour who was crucified, and a heaven to be obtained; but they didpractice among themselves all the duties enjoined by Christ and hisApostles; they refused to sacrifice to the gods of pagan antiquity; theyvisited no shows; they attended no pageants; they gave no sumptuousbanquets; they did not witness the games of the theatre and the circus;they did not play at dice, or take usury, or dye their hair, or wearabsurd ornaments, or indulge in unseemly festivities: they detestedastrologers and soothsayers, shrines, images, and idolatry; they keptthe Sabbath, educated their children in the faith, settled theirdisputes without going to law, were patient under injuries, werecharitable and unobtrusive, were full of faith and love, practicing theseverest virtues, devout and spiritual when all were worldly andfrivolous around them, ready for the martyr's pile, and looking to themartyr's crown. That Christianity should have rescued so many from thepollution of paganism in such general degeneracy, is very wonderful. That it should have extended its circle of sincere believers amidincreasing degeneracy, is still more so, and is a most encouraging factto the friends of religious progress. If it could not reach thefashionable and the worldly wise before society was undermined, and theprovinces had become the prey of barbarians, it still could boast of aglorious army of martyrs, witnesses of the truth, whom all ages willhold in veneration, precious seed for future and better times. IfChristianity, when it was a life, --a great transforming and renovatingpower, reforming what was bad, conserving what was good, --had but littleinfluence beyond the circle of believers, still less could it save theempire when it was itself corrupted, when it was a mere nominalreligion, however extensively it had spread. When it became the religionof the court and of the fashionable classes, it was used to support thevery evils against which it originally protested, and which it wasdesigned to remove. 

[Sidenote: It adopts oriental errors. ]

It first adopted many of the errors of the oriental philosophy. Gnosticism was embraced by many of the leading intellects of the church. It was the reaction of that old aristocratic spirit which had ruled thepagan world. It was an eclecticism of knowledge and culture which hadoriginally despised the doctrines of the Cross. It united the orientaltheosophy with the Platonic philosophy, both of which were proud, exclusive, disdainful. "It drew a distinction between the man ofintellect, whose vocation it was to know, and the man who could not riseabove blind and implicit faith. " The early Christians were characterizedfor the simplicity of their faith. But with the triumphs of faith arosethe cravings for knowledge among the more cultivated part of theconverts. 

[Sidenote: Attempts to reconcile reason with faith. ]

Paul had seemingly discouraged all vain speculations, and the Grecianspirit of philosophy, believing that they would not avail to theexplanation of the Christian mysteries, but rather prove a stumbling-block and a folly, since the realm of faith was essentially differentfrom the realm of reason--not necessarily antagonistic, but distinct. This fundamental principle has ever been maintained by the more orthodoxleaders of the church--by Athanasius, Augustine, Bernard, Pascal, Calvin--even as the fundamental principle of sound philosophy whichBacon advocated, that the world of experience and observation could notbe explained by metaphysical deductions, has been the cause of all greatmodern progress in the sciences. The Gnostics, the men who aimed atsuperior knowledge, disdained the humbling doctrine of Paul, which madefaith supreme over all forms of philosophy, and were the first to seeksolutions of difficult points of theology by abstruse inquiries--honorable to the intellect, but subversive of that docile spirit whichChristianity enjoined. This tendency to speculation was unfortunate, butnatural to those active minds who sought to discover a connectionbetween the truths taught by revelation, and those which we arrive at byconsciousness. Grecian philosophy, when most lofty, as expressed byPlato, was based on these mental possessions--these internalconvictions reached by logic and reflection. What more harmless, andeven praiseworthy, to all appearance, than was this earnest attempt toreconcile reason with faith? The finest minds and characters of thechurch entered into the discussion with singular intensity and ardor. They would explain the Man-God, the Trinity, the Word made flesh, andall the other points which grew out of grace and free will. Adialectical spirit arose, which combated or explained what had formerlybeen received with unquestioning submission. In the first century therewas scarcely any need of creeds, for the faith of the Christians wasunited on a few simple doctrines, such as are expressed in the Apostles'Creed. In the second and third centuries agitations and speculationsbegan, and with the Gnostics, that class who invoked the aid of Orientaland Grecian philosophies in the propagation of the new religion. It wasto be made dependent on human speculation--a most dangerous error, sinceit reintroduced the very wisdom which knew not God, and which theApostles ignored. It ushered in the reign of rationalism, which stillrefuses to abdicate her throne, and which is absolutely rampant andexulting in the great universities of the most learned and inquiring ofEuropean nations. 

[Sidenote: Gnosticism. ]

But Gnosticism partook more of the haughty and exclusive spirit of theeastern sages, than of the patient and inquiring nature of the Grecianschools. It soared into regions whither even Platonism did not presumeto venture. It sought to subject even the Grecian mind to its wild andlofty flights. The doctrines which Zoroaster taught pertaining to thetwo antagonistic principles of good and evil--the oriental dualism--Parsism had great fascination, especially to those who were inclined tomonastic seclusion. The spirit of Evil, which seemed to be dominant onearth, and which was associated with material things, chained the soulto sense. The soul, longing for truth and holiness--for God and heaven--panted to be free of the corrupting influences of matter, whichimprisoned the noblest part of man. The oriental Christian, not fullyemancipated from the spirit which Buddhism communicated to all thecountries of the East--that is, the longing of the soul for the releasefrom matter, its reunion with the primal power from which all life hasflowed, and the estrangement from human passions and worldly interests--sought repose and retirement where the mind would be free to dwell onthe great questions which pertained to God and immortality. Thedualistic principle, one of the chief elements of Gnosticism, harmonizedwith the prevailing temper of that age, even as the pantheisticprinciple rules the schools of philosophy in our own. All Christianswere alive to consciousness of the power of evil. Gnosticism recognizedit. Christianity triumphs over it by the power of the Cross whichprocures redemption. Gnosticism would work out salvation byabstractions, by ascetic severities, by a renunciation of the pleasuresof the world. Hence it is the real father of monasticism--that spirit ofseclusion and self-abnegation which became so prevalent in the third andfourth centuries, and which remained in the church through the mediaevalperiod. Gnosticism busied itself with the solution of insolublequestions respecting the origin of evil, which Christianity justlyrelinquished to the domain of useless inquiries--"the wisdom of theworld. " Gnosticism would acknowledge no limits to human speculation;Christianity accepts mysteries hidden from the wise and prudent, and yetrevealed unto babes. Hence all sorts of crudities of belief crept intothe church, such as the idea of the demiurge, and the different ways ofcontemplating the person of Christ. Moreover, the Gnostics subjected theNew Testament to the boldest criticism, affirming it to be impossible toarrive at the true doctrines of Christ; and hence they sought to gobeyond Christ, explaining difficult subjects by rationalisticinterpretations. Cerinthus placed a boundless chasm between God and theworld, and filled it up with different orders of spirits as intermediatebeings. Basilides supposed an angel was set over the entire earthlycourse of the world. Valentine announced the distinction between apsychical and pneumatical Christianity. Ptolemaeus maintained that thecreation of the world did not proceed from the supreme God. Bardesanessought to trace the vestiges of truth among people of every nation. Carpocrates maintained that all existence flowed from one supremeoriginal being, to whom it strives to return. Prodicus asserted that asmen were sons of the supreme God, a royal race, they were bound by nolaw. Saturnine advanced a fanciful system on the creation. Tatianadvocated the mortality of the soul. Marcion attempted to sunder the Godof Nature and the God of the Old Testament from the God of the Gospel. It is difficult to enumerate all the fanciful theories propounded by theGnostics, and which arose from the attempt to engraft Orientalism uponChristianity. 

[Sidenote: Manicheism. ]

A still greater attempt to blend Christianity with the religions ofancient Asia was made by Mani, a Persian, who especially attempted tofuse Zoroastrian with Christian doctrines. He aimed to produce theutmost estrangement from all mundane influences, since the evilprinciple held in bondage the elements springing out of the kingdom oflight. Deliverance from this bondage he regarded as the great end andaim of life. His spirit was pantheistic, probably derived from Buddhism, which he had learned during his extensive journeys into India and China. He adopted the dualism of Zoroaster, and supposed two principlesantagonistic to each other, on the one side God, the primal light, fromwhom all light radiates, on the other side Evil, whose essence is self-conflicting uproar, matter, darkness. Most nearly connected with thesupreme God were Aeons, --the channels for the diffusion of light, --innumerable in number and of surpassing greatness. The Aeon-mother oflife generated the primitive man to oppose the powers of darkness. Henceman's nature is full of dignity, although he was worsted in the conflictwith Evil. But the spirit raises him once more to the kingdom of light, and purifies his soul which sprung from the primitive man. The pure soulis Christ, enthroned in the sun, superior to all contact with matter, and incapable of suffering. 

[Sidenote: Mysticism. ]

These were some of the features of that mystical philosophy which madeChrist the spirit of the sun, giving light and life to the soulimprisoned in the kingdom of darkness. Man thus becomes a copy of theworld of light and darkness, struggling against matter, elevated by thesource of life--a soul living in the kingdom of light, and a bodyderived from the kingdom of darkness, and enticed by all the pleasuresof sense, and thus drawn down to the world which is matter and evil, counteracted by the angel of light. This is the dualism which formed theessential element of the Manichean speculations, so congenial to themystic theogonies of the East, and which was embraced by a portion ofthe eastern church, especially by those who were fascinated by therefinements and pretensions of a philosophy which aimed to solve thehighest problems of existence--the nature of God, and the creation ofman. These daring speculations, which led astray so many inquiringminds, were, however, too mystical and indefinite to reach the popularmind, and they pertained to questions which did not shock Christianinstincts, like those which attacked the person or the offices ofChrist. Gnosticism was viewed as a sort of Judaism, inasmuch as it didnot rest its exclusiveness on the title of birth, but on especialknowledge communicated to the enlightened few. It was a philosophy whoseesoteric doctrines soared above the comprehension of the vulgar; but itaffected more than the surface of society; it poisoned the minds ofthose who aspired to lead the intelligence of the age. Its spirit wasantagonistic to the simplicity of the faith, and so, as it prevailed, was an influence much to be dreaded, and called forth the greatestenergies of the Alexandrian school, in order to defeat it and nullifyit. But its dangerous seeds remained to germinate a rationalistictheology, especially when united with the Neo-Platonic philosophy. 

[Sidenote: Adoption of oriental ceremonies and pomps. ]

But the church was not only impregnated with the errors of paganphilosophy, but it adopted many of the ceremonials of oriental worship, which were both minute and magnificent. If any thing marked theprimitive church it was the simplicity of worship, and the absence ofceremonies and festivals and gorgeous rites. The churches became, in thefourth century, as imposing as the old temples of idolatry. Thefestivals became authoritative; at first they were few in number, andpurely voluntary. It was supposed that when Christianity supersededJudaism, the obligations to observe the ceremonies of the Mosaic lawwere abrogated. Neither the apostles nor evangelists imposed the yoke ofservitude, but left Easter and every other feast to be honored by thegratitude of the recipients of grace. The change in opinion, in thefourth century, called out the severe animadversion of the historianSocrates, but it was useless to stem the current of the age. Festivalsbecame frequent and imposing. The people clung to them because theyobtained a cessation from labor, and obtained excitement. The ancientrubrics mention only those of the Passion, of Easter, of Whitsunday, Christmas, and the descent of the Holy Spirit. But there followed thecelebration of the death of Stephen, the memorial of John, thecommemoration of the slaughter of the Innocents, the feast of Epiphany, the feast of Purification, and others, until the Catholic Church hadsome celebration for some saint and martyr for every day in the year. They contributed to create a craving for an outward religion, whichappealed to the senses and the sensibilities rather than the heart. Theyled to innumerable quarrels and controversies about unimportant points, especially in relation to the celebration of Easter. They produced adelusive persuasion respecting pilgrimages, the sign of the cross, andthe sanctifying effects of the sacraments. Veneration for martyrsripened into the introduction of images--a future source of popularidolatry. Christianity was emblazoned in pompous ceremonies. Theveneration for saints approximated to their deification, andsuperstition exalted the mother of our Lord into an object of absoluteworship. Communion-tables became imposing altars typical of Jewishsacrifices, and the relics of martyrs were preserved as sacred amulets. 

[Sidenote: Monastic life. ]

Monastic life ripened also into a grand system of penance, and expiatoryrites, such as characterized oriental asceticism. Armies of monksretired to gloomy and isolated places, and abandoned themselves torhapsodies and fastings and self-expiations, in opposition to the granddoctrine of Christ's expiation. They despaired of society, and abandonedthe world to its fate--a dismal and fanatical set of men, overlookingthe practical aims of life. They lived more like beasts and savages thanenlightened Christians--wild, fierce, solitary, superstitious, ignorant, fanatical, filthy, clothed in rags, eating the coarsest food, practicinggloomy austerities, introducing a false standard of virtue, regardlessof the comforts of civilization, and careless of those great interestswhich were intrusted them to guard. They were often men of extraordinaryvirtue and influence, and their lives were not assailed by greattemptations. They abstained from marriage, and celibacy came to beregarded as the angelic virtue--a proof of the highest and purestChristian life. Vast numbers of men left the sanctities and beatitudesof home for a cheerless life in the desert, and their gloomy andrepulsive austerities were magnified into extraordinary virtues. Themonks and hermits sought to save themselves by climbing to Heaven by thesame ladder that had been sought by the soofis and the fakirs, --whichdelusion had an immense influence in undermining the doctrines of grace. Christianity was fast merging itself into an oriental theosophy. 

[Sidenote: Ambition and wealth of the clergy. ]

Again the clergy became ambitious and worldly, and sought rank anddistinction. They even thronged the courts or princes, and aspired totemporal honors. They were no longer supported by the voluntarycontributions of the faithful, but by revenues supplied by government, or property inherited from the old temples. Great legacies were made tothe church by the rich, and these the clergy controlled. These bequestsbecame sources of inexhaustible wealth. As wealth increased, and wasintrusted to the clergy, they became indifferent to the wants of thepeople, no longer supported by them. They became lazy, arrogant, andindependent. The people were shut out of the government of the church. The bishop became a grand personage, who controlled and appointed hisclergy. The church was allied with the state, and religious dogmas wereenforced by the sword of the magistrate. An imposing hierarchy wasestablished, of various grades, which culminated in the bishop of Rome. The emperor decided points of faith, and the clergy were exempted fromthe burdens of the state. There was a great flocking to the priestlyoffices when the clergy wielded so much power, and became so rich; andmen were elevated to great sees, not because of their piety or talents, but influence with the great. What a falling off from the teachings ofthe original clergy, when bishops were the companions of princes ratherthan preachers to the poor, and when the clergy could live without theofferings of the people, and were appointed from favor and not frommerit. The spiritual mission of the church was lost sight of in adegrading alliance with the state and the world. "Make me bishop ofRome, " said a pagan general, "and I too would become a Christian. "

[Sidenote: The church conforms to the world. ]

[Sidenote: Christianity produces witnesses, but is not all conquering. ]

When Christianity itself was in such need of reform, when Christianscould scarcely be distinguished from pagans in love of display, and inegotistical ends, how could it reform the world? When it was a pageant, a ritualism, an arm of the state, a vain philosophy, a superstition, aformula, how could it save, if ever so dominant? The corruptions of thechurch in the fourth century are as well authenticated as the purity andmoral elevation of Christians in the second century. Isaac Taylor haspresented a most mournful view of the state of Christian society whenthe religion of the cross had become the religion of the state. And thecorruptions kept pace with the outward triumphs of the faith, especiallywhen the pagans had yielded to the supremacy of the cross. The same factis noticeable in the history of Mohammedanism. When it was firstdeclared by the extraordinary man who claimed to be the greatest of theprophets of God, when it was a sublime theism, immeasurably superior tothe prevailing religions of Arabia, and especially when it waspromulgated by moral means, its converts were few, but these were lofty. When it was extended by an appeal to the sword, and to the bad passionsof men, when it gave a promise of demoralizing joys, and was embraced bypowerful classes and chieftains, it had rapidly extended over Asia andAfrica, and even invaded Europe. Mohammedanism doubtless prevailed inconsequence of its very errors, by adapting itself to the corruptinclinations of mankind. If it prospered by means of its truths, why wasits progress so slow when it was comparatively pure and elevated? Theoutward triumphs of a religion are no indications of its purity, sincethe more corrupt it is the more popular it will be, and the purer it isthe less likely it is to be embraced, except by a few, whom God designsto be witnesses of his power and truth. Buddhism and Brahminism havemore adherents than Mohammedanism, and Mohammedanism more thanChristianity, and Roman Catholic Christianity has more thanProtestantism, and Protestantism, when it is a life, is narrowed down toa very small body of believers. Christianity which is popular andfashionable, is not necessarily elevated and ennobling, and when it isfashionable or popular is very apt to assume the forms of an imposingritualism, or to be blended with philosophical speculations, or to sinkto the degradation of superstitious rites and ceremonies. WhenChristianity falls to the level of prevailing fashions and customs andopinions, it has not a very powerful renovating influence on human life. The Jesuits made great conquests in Japan and China, but how barren theyhave proved. The Puritans planted the barren hills of New England withstern and rugged believers in a spiritual and personal God, and theyhave extended their principles throughout the country. What renovatinginfluence has the nominal Christianity of South America, or Spain, orItaly? The religion embraced by the wise and great is apt to become arationalism, and that professed by the degraded populace to become asuperstition. The reception of Christianity in the heart impliessacrifices and self-denial, and will not be cordially embraced except bya few thus far, in any age. The Lollards in England, in the time ofHenry VII. , were a feeble body, but they did more to infuse a religiouslife than the whole machinery and influence of the Roman CatholicChurch. And as soon as the Church of England gained over the state, andbecame established, it began to degenerate, and had need of successivereforms. How feeble every form of dissent as a truly renovating powerwhen it has become triumphant! What have the fashionable court religionsof Europe done towards the real regeneration of society? Protestantismin Germany, when it was protesting, had a mighty life. When universitiesand courts accepted it, it became a poisonous rationalism, or a deadformula. Puritanism, established in New England just previous to theRevolution, was a very different thing from what it was when itsadherents were exiles and wanderers. It spread and was honored, butretained chiefly its forms, its traditions, its animosities. How rapidlythe Huguenots degenerated after the battle of Ivry! Even Jesuitism couldnot stand before its own triumphs. Its real life was in the times ofXavier and Aquaviva, not of Escobar and La Chaise. Any dominant faithwill find its supporters among those whose practical lives are false tothe original principles. Its powers of renovation depend upon itsexalted doctrines, not upon the numbers who profess it, because, whendominant, men are drawn to it by ambition or interest. They degrade itmore than it elevates them. Hence it would almost seem thatChristianity, in this dispensation, is designed to call out witnessesof its truths, in every land, the elect of God, rather than tobe a universally renovative power on human institutions. But if it isdestined to be all-conquering, bringing government and science andsocial life in harmony with its spirit, as most people believe, andperhaps with the greatest evidence on their side, still its _real_conquests must be slow, without supernatural aid. It will spread, fromits inherent life and power; it will become corrupted, and fail to exertas great a spiritual influence as was hoped; it will be reformed, aftergreat debasements, when it is scarcely more than a nominal faith, exceptamong the few witnesses; and the reforming party or sect will gainascendency, and in its turn become degenerate and powerless as arenovating force. So history seems to indicate, from the times ofTheodosius to our own, specially illustrated by the establishment of thedifferent monastic orders, the great awakenings under Luther and Calvinand Knox, the successes of Jesuits and Jansenists, the triumphs of thePuritans, the Quakers, and the Methodists, the rise of Puseyism, or theChurch of England. That Christianity remains vital in the world, andmakes true advances from generation to generation, can scarcely bequestioned. But these advances are slow and delusive. Spiritual powerwill pass away as the conquering party gains adherents from the world offashion and of rank. It will not become extinct, but the differencebetween its true influence, when it is persecuted and when it istriumphant, is less than generally supposed. The spiritual cannot bemeasured by the material. Who can tell wherein true and permanentinfluence abides? Who can estimate the power of spiritual agencies? Itis common to speak of enlarged spheres of usefulness; but a clergyman ina humble parish may set in motion ideas which will have more effect onthe age in which he lives, and on succeeding times, than by any splendidposition in a large and populous city. God seeth not as man seeth. Tofill the sphere which Providence appoints is the true wisdom; todischarge trusts faithfully and live exalted ideas, that is the missionof good men. 

[Sidenote: Reasons why Christianity did not save the empire. ]

Christianity, then, in the fourth century was not more of a renovatingpower in consequence of its rapid extension and vast external influence. It was never more sublime than when it made martyrs and heroes of thefew who dared to embrace its doctrines. There was more hope of itsregenerating the world when it was a continually expanding circle ofdevout believers, uncompromising and aggressive, than when it numberedthe wise and noble and mighty, with their old vices and follies. Itsexternal triumphs rather diminished its spiritual power. 

If Christianity failed as a gorgeous ritualism, armed with the weaponsof the state, and allied with pagan philosophy, attractive as it wasmade to different classes, where is the hope of the renovation of thisworld from the effects of climate, soil, material wealth, and the otherboasts of physical improvements and culture? What a poor basis for thehopes of man to rest upon is furnished by such guides as the Comtes, theBuckles, and the Mills? If a fashionable and popular religion could notsave, how can a cold materialism which chains the thoughts to sense, andconfines aspirations to worldly success. 

Christianity, as it would seem, did not avert the ruin of the empire, because, when pure, it had but little influence outside its circle ofesoteric believers, while society was rotten to the core, and wasrapidly approaching a natural dissolution. When it was dominant itfailed, because it was itself corrupted, and the ruin had begun. Thebarbarians were advancing to desolate and destroy, were routing armiesand sacking cities and enslaving citizens, when the great fathers of thechurch were laying the foundation of a Christian state. The ruin of theempire was threatening when Christianity was a proscribed and persecutedfaith; it was inevitable when it was grasping the sceptre of princes. 

[Sidenote: True mission of the church. ]

[Sidenote: The fall of the empire a necessity. ]

[Sidenote: The creation which succeeds destruction. ]

[Sidenote: What is truly valuable never perishes. ]

[Sidenote: Reconstruction. ]

Moreover, we take a low and material view of Christianity when we wonderwhy it did not save the empire. It was sent to save the world, not theinstitutions of an egotistical people. Why should we grieve that itfailed to perpetuate such an organization or government as that wieldedby the emperors? What was a central and proud despotism, with vastmilitary machinery, and accompanying aristocracies and inequalities, andthe accumulated treasure of all ages and nations on the banks of theTiber, compared with a state more favorable for the development of a newcivilization? What does humanity care for the perpetuation of Romanpride? Providence attaches but little value to human sorrows andsacrifices, to the melting away of delusions, pomps, vanities, andfollies, compared with the spread of those indestructible ideas on whichare based the real happiness of man. If the empire had withstood theshock of barbarians, a state would have existed unfavorable to thehigher and future triumphs of the cross. Where was hope, when imperialdespotism, and disproportionate fortunes, and slavery, and the reign ofconventional forms and traditions, and the tyranny of foolish fashionswere likely to be perpetuated? How could Christianity have subvertedthese monstrous evils without producing revolutions more blasting thaneven barbaric violence? There seem to be some evils so subtle, poisonous, and deeply-rooted that nothing but violence can remove them. How long before slavery would have been destroyed in the United Statesby any moral means? How could slavery be destroyed when the mosteloquent of Christian teachers were its defenders, and all its kindredinstitutions were upheld by the church? So of slavery in the RomanEmpire. There were sixty millions of slaves, not of the posterity ofHam, but of Shem and Japhet. Every prosperous person was eager topossess a slave, nor had Christianity openly and signally rebuked such agigantic institution. Where was the hope of the abolition of such anevil when Christianity adapted itself to prevailing fashions andopinions, and only thought of alleviating some of its worst forms? Wouldslaves decrease when worldly men became the overseers of the church, andemperors presided at councils? Where were the hopes of its abolitionwhen the whole world was its theatre, and every rich man its defender;where, instead of four millions, there were sixty millions, and wherethe general level of morality and intelligence was lower than it is atpresent? So of disproportionate fortunes. They were a hopeless evil. Ifaristocratic institutions keep their ground in the best country ofEurope, what must have been the grasp of nobles in the Roman world?Abandonment to money-making was another social evil. If we in Americacannot weaken its power, even in the most Christian communities; if wecannot prevent the tyranny of money in our very churches, where we arereminded every Sunday that it is the root of all evil, yea, when we haveBibles in our hands, --what could a corrupted Christianity do with itwhen material pleasures were more prized than they are with us, and whenphilanthropic institutions were unborn? If the whole power of theGallican Church was exerted to prop up the feudal privileges of theFrench noblesse, and there was needed a dreadful and bloody revolutionto destroy them, much more was a revolution needed at Rome to destroythe inherited powers of a still prouder and more powerful aristocracy. If the rights of women are so slowly recognized among the descendants ofchivalrous nations, with all the moral forces of the Gospel, howhopeless the elevation of women among peoples where woman for thousandsof years was regarded as a victim, a toy, or a slave? When we rememberthe inherited opinions of Orientals, Greeks, and Romans as to thecondition and duties and relations of the female sex, it seems as if noordinary instruction could have broken the fetters of woman for anindefinite period. The institutions of the pagan world were too firmlyrooted to afford hope to Christian teachers, if ever so enlightened. Thegreat cardinal principle of the common brotherhood of man could only beapplied under more favorable circumstances. The unity of the empire_did_ facilitate the outward triumphs and spread of Christianity, and perhaps that was the great mission which the Roman empire wasdesigned by God to promote. But the social and political institutions ofthe Romans were exceedingly adverse to a healthy development ofChristian virtue. The teachers of the new religion originally aimedentirely at the salvation of the soul. It was to save men from the wrathto come, and publish tidings of great joy to the miserable populace ofthe ancient world, that apostles labored. They did not attack politicalor great organized systems of corruption openly and directly. It wasenough to promise Heaven, not to change the structure of society. Forfour centuries neither the condition of woman nor of the slave wasradically improved. Christianity could not, without miraculous power, bear its best fruit on a Roman soil. It could not do its best work ondegenerate and worn-out races. How many centuries would it take forChristianity, even if embraced by all the people of Japan or China, tomake as noble Christians as in Scotland or New England? There must be amaterial to work upon. There was not this material in the Roman empire. A dreadful revolution was necessary, in which new and uncorrupted racesshould obtain ascendency, and on whom Christianity could work withrenewed power. In such a catastrophe, the good must suffer with theevil, the just with the unjust. A Gothic soldier would not spare acloister any sooner than a palace, or a palace sooner than a hut, aphilosopher more readily than a peasant. Christians as well as pagansmust drink the bitter cup, for natural law has no tears to shed and noindulgence to give. The iniquities of the fathers were visited upon thechildren, even to the third and fourth generation. And what if there wassuffering on the earth? Tribulation is generally a blessing in disguise. Men are not born for undisturbed happiness on earth, but for apreparation for heaven. Whatever calls the thoughts from a lower to ahigher good is the greatest boon which Providence gives. The monstrouscalamities of the fourth and fifth centuries had a marked influence inopening the portals of the church, even for the barbarians themselves--for they were not converted until they became conquerors. A new life, inspite of calamities, was infused into the empire, tottering and falling. It was among the new races that the new creation began, and it is amongtheir descendants that the loftiest triumphs of civilization have beenachieved. So it was ultimately a good thing for the world that theempire and all its bad institutions were swept away. Creation followeddestruction, and the death-song was succeeded by a melodious birth-song. All suffering and sorrow were over-ruled. Future ages were the betterfor such sad calamities. Temples were destroyed, but the sublime ideasof beauty and grace by which they were erected still survive. Armieswere annihilated, but military science was not lost. Libraries wereburned, but models of ancient style survived to incite to new creation. Anarchy prevailed, but new states arose on the ruins of the oldprovinces. Men passed away, but not the fruits of the earth, nor therelics of genius. The new races gave a new impulse, when fairlyestablished, to agriculture, to commerce, and to art. The fall of theempire was the destruction of fortunes and of farms, the change ofmasters, the dissolution of the central power of emperors, the breakingup of proconsular authority, the dissipation of conventionalities andfashions; but these were not the ruin of human hopes or the bondage ofhuman energies. Genius, poetry, faith, sentiment, and piety, remained. Nor was the earth depopulated; it was decimated. All the substantialelements of greatness were moulded into new forms. A fresh and beautifullife arose among the simple and earnest people who had descended fromthe Oder and the Vistula. Entirely new institutions were formed. The oldfabric was shattered to pieces, but of the ruins a new edifice wasconstructed more calculated to shelter the distressed and miserable. Thebarbarians seized the old traditions of the church and invested themwith poetical beauty. The Teutonic civilization, more Christian than theRoman, surpassed it in all popular forms, and became more adapted to thewants of man. Probably nothing really great in civilization has everperished, or ever will perish. I don't believe in "lost arts. " They areonly buried for a time, like the glorious sculptures of Praxiteles orLysippus, amid the debris of useless fabrics, to be dug up when wantedand valued, as models of new creations. I doubt if any thing reallyvaluable in even the Egyptian, or Assyrian, or Indian civilization hashopelessly passed away, which can be made of real service to mankind. Itis, indeed, a puzzle how the capstones of the Pyramids were elevated--such huge blocks raised five hundred feet into the air; but I believethe mechanical forces are really known, or will be known, at the propertime, and will be again employed, if the labor is worth the cost. Wecould build a tower of Babel in New York, or a temple of Carnac, or aColosseum, and would build it, if such a structure were needed or wecould afford the waste of time, material, and labor. There is nothing inall antiquity so grand as a modern railroad, or the _Great Eastern_steamship, or the Erie Canal. Nebuchadnezzar's palace would not comparewith St. Peter's Church or Versailles, nor his hanging gardens with theCroton reservoirs. Gibraltar or Ehrenbreitstein is more impregnable thanthe walls of Babylon, which Cyrus despaired to scale or batter down. Every succeeding generation inherits the riches and learning of thepast, even if Rome and Carthage are sacked, and the library ofAlexandria is burned. The barbarians destroyed the monuments of formergreatness--temples, palaces, statues, pictures, libraries, schools, languages, and laws. These _they_ did not restore, but they wererestored by their descendants, as there was need, and new creationsadded. The Parthenon reappears in the Madeleine; the Golden House ofNero in the Tuileries and the Louvre; Jupiter of Phidias in the Moses ofMichael Angelo; the Helen of Zeuxis in the Venus of Titian; the libraryof Alexandria in the Bibliotheque Imperiale; the Academy of Plato in theUniversity of Oxford; the orations of Cicero in the eloquence of Burke;the Institutes of Justinian in the Code Napoleon. In addition, we havecathedrals whose architectural effect Vitruvius could not haveconceived; pictures that Polygnotus could not have painted; books whichAristotle could not have imagined; universities before which Zeno wouldhave stood awestruck; courts of law that would have called out theadmiration of Paul and Papinian; houses which Scaurus would have envied;carriages that Nero would have given the lives of ten thousandChristians to possess; carpets that Babylon could not have woven; dyessurpassing the Tyrian purple; silks, velvets, glass mirrors, sideboards, fabrics of linen and cotton and wool, ships, railroads, watches, telescopes, compasses, charts, printing-presses, gunpowder, fire-arms, photographs, engravings, bank-notes, telegraphic wires, chemicalcompounds, domestic utensils, mills, steam-engines, balloons, and athousand other wonders of a civilization which no ancient race attained. _We_ have lost nothing of the old trophies of genius, and havegained new ones for future civilization. The Romans, if left inpossession of the provinces they had conquered for two thousand yearslonger, would never, probably, have made our modern discoveries andinventions. They would have been more like the modern inhabitants ofChina. A new race was required to try new experiments and achieve newtriumphs. The Greeks and Romans did their share, fulfilled a greatmission for humanity, but they could not monopolize forever the humanrace itself. 

[Sidenote: Every age has a peculiar mission. ]

Every great nation and age has its work to do in the field ofundeveloped energies; but the field is inexhaustible in resources, forthe intellect of man is boundless in its reserved powers. No limit canbe assigned to the future triumphs of genius and strength. We are asignorant of some future wonders as the last century was of steam andtelegraphic wires. Nor can we tell what will next arise. The wonders ofthe Greeks and Romans would have astonished Egyptians and Assyrians. TheOriental civilization gave place to the Hellenic and the Roman; and theHellenic and Roman gave place to the Teutonic. So the races and the agesmove on. They have their missions, become corrupt, and pass away. Butthe breaking up of their institutions, even by violence, when no longera blessing to the world, and the surrender of their lands and riches toanother race, not worn out, but new, fresh, enthusiastic, and strong, have resulted in permanent good to mankind, even if we feel that thehuman mind never soared to loftier flights, or put forth greater andmore astonishing individual energies than in that old and ruined world. 

[Sidenote: How far Christianity conserved. ]

How far Christianity conserved the treasures of the past we cannot tell. No one can doubt the influence of Christianity in reviving letters, ingiving a stimulus to thought, in creating a noble ambition for the goodof society, and producing that moral tone which fits the soul toappreciate what is truly great. It was the church which preserved themanuscripts of classical ages; which perpetuated the Latin language inchants and litanies and theological essays; which gave a new impulse toagriculture and many useful arts; which preserved the traditions of theRoman empire; which made use of the old canons of law; which gave a newglory to architecture in the Gothic vaults of mediaeval cathedrals; whichencouraged the rising universities; which gave wisdom to rulers and lawsto social life. The monasteries and convents, in their best ages, werereceptacles of arts, beehives of industry, schools of learning, asylumsfor the miserable, retreats for sages, hospitals for the poor, andbulwarks of civilization which rude warriors dared not assail. What didnot the Christian clergy guard and perpetuate?

[Sidenote: The real triumphs of Christianity. ]

That the Teutonic nations would have arisen to as lofty a platform asthe ancient Greeks or Romans, without Christianity, is probable enough. There is no limit to the intellect of a noble race until corrupted. Without Christianity, society might still have possessed our moderndiscoveries, since the Gothic races have shown a distinguishing geniusin mechanical inventions. I apprehend that Christianity has not much todo with many of the wonders of our present day; and I find some classesof men who have made great attainments in certain channels in antagonismto Christianity. I question whether a spiritual religion has given animpulse to steam navigation, or rifled cannons, or electrical machines, or astronomical calculations, or geological deductions. It has notcreated scientific schools, or painters' studios, or Lowell mills, orBirmingham wares, or London docks. Material glories we share with theancients; we have simply improved upon them. In some things they are oursuperiors. We do not see the superiority of modern over ancientcivilization in material wonders, so much as in immaterial ideas. Whatis really greatest and noblest in our civilization comes from Christiantruths. Certainly, what is most characteristic is the fruit of spiritualideas, such as paganism never taught, --never could have conceived; such, for instance, as pertains to social changes, to popular education, tophilanthropic enterprise, to enlightened legislation, to the elevationof the poor and miserable, to the breaking off the fetters of the slave, and to the true appreciation of the mission of woman. Nor was the Romanempire swept away until the seeds of all these great modernimprovements, which raise society, were planted by the sainted fathersand doctors of the church. They worked for us, for all future ages, forall possible civilizations, as well as for their own times. They are, therefore, immortal benefactors of the human race, since they were thefirst to declare great renovating ideas. The early church is the realarchitect of European civilization. She laid the foundation of the nobleedifice under which the nations still shelter themselves against thestorms of life. Christianity not only rescued a part of the populationof the Roman empire from degradation and ruin; it not only had gloriouswitnesses or its transcendent power and beauty in every land, thustriumphing over human infirmity and misery as no other religion everdid; but it has also proved itself to be a progressively conqueringpower by the great and beneficent ideas which were planted in the mindsof barbarians, as well as oriental Christians, and which from time totime are bearing fruit in every land, so as to make it evident to anybut a perverted intellect, that Christianity is the source of what wemost prize in civilization itself, and that without it the nations canonly reach a certain level, and will then, from the law of depravity, decline and fall like Greece, Asia Minor, and Rome. If we had noChristianity, we should be compelled, so far as history teaches uslessons, to adopt the theory of Buckle and his school, of the necessaryprogress and decline of nations--the moving round, like systems ofphilosophy, in perpetual circles. But, with the indestructible ideaswhich the fathers planted, there must be a perpetual renovation and anunending progress, until the world becomes an Eden. 

 * * * * *

REFERENCES. --The reader is directed only to the ordinary histories ofthe church. The great facts are stated by all the historians, and fewnew ones have been brought to light. Historians differ merely in themode of presenting their subject. The ecclesiastical histories aregenerally deficient in art, and hence are uninteresting. The ablest andthe most learned of modern historians is doubtless Neander. He is alsothe fullest and most satisfactory; but even he is unattractive. Mosheimis dry and dull, but learned in facts. Dr. Schaff has most ablypresented primitive Christianity, and his recent work is both popularand valuable. Milman is the best English writer on the church, and he isthe most readable of modern historians. Tillemont and Dupin are veryfull and very learned. But a truly immortal history of the church, exhaustive yet artistic, brilliant as well as learned, is yet to bewritten. The ancient historians, like Eusebius and Socrates and Zosimus, are very meagre. The genius and spirit of the early church can only bedrawn from the lives and writings of the fathers. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE LEGACY OF THE EARLY CHURCH TO FUTURE GENERATIONS. 

It is my object in this chapter to show the great Christian ideas whichthe fathers promulgated, and which have proved of so great influence onthe Middle Ages and our own civilization. These were declared before theRoman empire fell; and if they did not arrest ruin, still alleviated themiseries of society, and laid the foundation of all that is mostennobling among modern nations. The early church should be the mostglorious chapter in the history of humanity. While the work ofdestruction was going on in every part of the world, both by vice andviolence, there was still the new work of creation proceeding with it, aprecious savor of life to future ages. If there is any thing sublime, itis the power of renovating ideas amid universal degeneracy. They areseeds of truth, which grow and ripen into grand institutions. These didnot become of sufficient importance to arrest the attention ofhistorians until they were cultivated by the Germanic nations in theMiddle Ages. 

It could be shown that almost everything which gives glory to Christiancivilization had its origin in the early church. Few are aware whatgiants and heroes were those fathers and saints whom this age has beentaught to despise. We are really reaping the results of those conflicts--conflicts with bigoted Jewish sects; conflicts with the high priests ofpaganism, with Greek philosophers, with Gnostic Manichaean illuminati;with the symbolists, soothsayers, astrologers, magicians, which mysticsuperstition conjured up among degenerate people. And not merely theirconflicts with the prince of the power of the air alone, but withthemselves, with their own fiery passions, and with tangible outwardfoes. They were illustrious champions and martyrs in the midst of agreat Vanity Fair, in a Nebuchadnezzar fire of persecutions, an all-pervading atmosphere of lies, impurities, and abominations which criedto heaven for vengeance. They solved for us and for all futuregenerations the thousand of new questions which audacious paganismproposed in its last struggles; they exposed the bubbles which charmedthat giddy generation of egotists; they eliminated the falsehoods whichvain-glorious philosophers had inwrought with revelation; and theyattested, with dying agonies, to the truth of those mysteries which gavethem consolation and hope amid the terrors of a dissolving world. Theyabsorbed even into the sphere of Christianity all that was reallyvaluable in the system they exploded, whether of philosophy or sociallife, and transmitted the same to future ages. And they set examples, ofwhich the world will never lose sight, of patience, fortitude, courage, generosity, which will animate all martyrs to the end of time. And if, in view of their great perplexities, of circumstances which they couldnot control, utter degeneracy and approaching barbarism, they lent theiraid to some institutions which we cannot endorse, certainly whencorrupted, like Manichaeism and ecclesiastical domination, let usremember that these were adapted to their times, or were called out bypressing exigencies. And further, let us bear in mind that, in givingtheir endorsement, they could not predict the abuse of principlesabstractly good and wise, like poverty, and obedience, and chastity, anddevout meditation, and solitary communion with God. In all their conductand opinions, we see, nevertheless, a large-hearted humanity, atoleration and charity for human infirmities, and a beautiful spirit ofbrotherly love. If they advocated definite creeds with great vehemenceand earnestness, they yet soared beyond them, and gloried in the generalname they bore, until the fundamental doctrines of their religion wereassailed. 

For two centuries, however, they have no history out of the records ofmartyrdom. We know their sufferings better than any peculiar ideas whichthey advocated. We have testimony to their blameless lives, to theirirreproachable morals, to their good citizenship, and to their Christiangraces, rather than to any doctrines which stand out as especial marksfor discussion or conflict, like those which agitated the councils ofNice or Ephesus. But if we were asked what was the first principle whichwas brought out by the history of the early church, we should say it wasthat of martyrdom. Certainly the first recorded act in the history ofChristianity was that memorable scene on Calvary, when the founder ofour religion announced the fulfillment of the covenant made with Adam inthe Garden of Eden. And as the deliverance of mankind was effected bythat great sacrifice for sin, so the earliest development of Christianlife was the spirit of martyrdom. The moral grandeur with which themartyrs met reproach, isolation, persecution, suffering, and death, notmerely robbed the grave of its victory, but implanted a principle ofinestimable power among all future heroes. Martyrdom kindled an heroicspirit, not for the conquest of nations, but for the conquest of thesoul, and the resignation of all that earth can give in attestation ofgrand and saving truths. We have a few examples of martyrs in paganantiquity, like Socrates and Seneca, who met death with fortitude, --butnot with faith, not with indestructible joy that this mortal was aboutto put on immortality. The Christian martyrdoms were a new developmentof humanity. They taught the necessity of present sacrifice for futureglory, and more, for the great interests of truth and virtue, with whichgood men had been identified. They brought life and immortality to theview of the people, who had not dared to speculate on their futurecondition. Their martyrs inspired a spirit into society that nothingcould withstand; a practical belief that the life was more than meat;that the future was greater than the present: and this surely is one ofthe grand fundamental principles of Christianity. They incited to aspirit of fortitude and courage under all the evils of life, and gavedignity to men who would otherwise have been insignificant. The exampleof men who rejoiced to part with their lives for the sake of theirreligion, became to the world the most impressive voice which it yetheard of the insignificance of this life when compared with the life tocome. "What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose hisown soul?" became thus one of the most stupendous inquiries which couldbe impressed on future generations, and affected all the relations ofsociety. Martyrdom was one solution of this mighty question whichintroduced a new power upon the earth, for we cannot conceive ofChristianity as an all-conquering influence, except as it unfolds a newand superior existence, in contrast with which the present is worthless. The principle of martyrdom, setting at defiance the present, led tounbounded charity and the renunciation of worldly possessions. What arethey really worth? Every martyr had the comparative worthlessness ofwealth and honor and comfort profoundly impressed upon his mind, in viewof the greatness of the Infinite and the importance of the future. 

The early martyrdoms thus brought out with immeasurable force theprinciple of faith, without which life can have no object, --faith infuture destinies, faith in the promises of God, faith in the power ofthe Cross to subdue finally all forms of evil. The sacrifice of Christintroduced into the world sentiments of unbounded love and gratitude, that He, the most perfect type of humanity, and the Son of God himself, should come into this world to bear its sins upon the cross, and thusgive a heaven which could not be bought by expiatory gifts. It was lovewhich prompted the crucifixion of Jesus; and love produced love, andstimulated thousands to bear with patience the evils under which theywould have sunk. The martyrdoms of the early Christians did not indeedkindle sentiments of gratitude; but they inspired courage, and led toimmeasurable forms of heroism. The timid and the shrinking woman, thedown-trodden slave, and the despised pauper, all at once became serene, lofty, unconquerable, since they knew that though their earthlytabernacle would be destroyed, they had a dwelling in the heavens freefrom all future toil and sorrow and reproach. Martyrdoms made this worldnothing and heaven everything. They proved a powerful faith in theultimate prevalence of truth, and created an invincible moral heroism, which excited universal admiration; and they furnished models andexamples to future generations, when Christians were subjected to bittertrials. 

We cannot but feel that martyrdom is one of the most impressive of allhuman examples, since it is the mark of a practical belief in God andheaven. And while we recognize it as among the most interesting amongspiritual triumphs, we are persuaded that the absence of its spirit, orits decline, is usually followed by a low state of society. Epicureanismis its antagonistic principle, and is as destructive as the other isconservative. The moment men are unwilling to sacrifice themselves to agreat cause, they virtually say that temporal and worldly interests areto be preferred to the spiritual and the future. The language of theEpicurean is intensely egotistic. It is: "Soul, take thine ease; eat, drink, and be merry;" to which God says, "Thou fool. " Christianity wassent to destroy this egotism, which undermined the strength of theancient world; and it created a practical belief in the future, and afaith in truth. Without this faith, society has ever retrograded; withit there have been continual reforms. It is an important element ofprogress, and a mark of dignity and moral greatness. 

Shall we seek a connection between their martyrdoms and civilization?They bore witness to a religion which is the source of all true progressupon earth; they attested to its divine truth amid protracted agonies;they were illustrious examples for all ages to contemplate. 

Perhaps the most powerful effect of their voluntary sacrifice was tosecure credence to the mysteries of Christianity. Socrates died for hisown opinions; but who was ever willing to die for the opinions ofSocrates? But innumerable martyrs exulted in the privilege of dying forthe doctrines of Him whose sacrifice saved the world. Nor to these haddeath its customary terrors, since they were assured of a gloriousimmortality. They impressed the pagan world with a profound lesson thatthe future is greater than the present; that there is to be a day ofrewards and punishments. Amid all the miseries and desolations ofsociety, it was a great thing to bear witness to the reality of futurehappiness and misery. The hope of immortality must have been anunspeakable consolation to the miserable sufferers of the Roman Empire. It gave to them courage and patience and fortitude. It inspired themwith hope and peace. Amid the ravages of disease, and the incursions ofbarbarians, and the dissolution of society, and the approaching eclipseof the glory of man, it was a great and holy mystery that the soulshould survive these evils, and that eternal bliss should be the rewardof the faithful. Nothing else could have reconciled the inhabitants ofthe decaying empire to slavery, war, and pillage. There was needed somepowerful support to the mind under the complicated calamities of thetimes. This support the death and exultation of the martyrs afforded. Itwas written on the souls of the suffering millions that there was ahigher life, a glorious future, an exceeding great reward. It wasimpossible to see thousands ready to die, exulting in the privilege ofmartyrdom, anticipating with confidence their "crown, " and not feel thatimmortality was a certitude brought to light by the Gospel. And theexample of the martyrs kindled all the best emotions of the soul into ahallowed glow. Their death, so serene and beautiful, filled thespectators with love and admiration. Their sufferings brought to lightthe greatest virtues, and diffused their spirit into the heart of allwho saw their indestructible joy. Is it nothing, in such an age, to havegiven an impulse to the most exalted sentiments that men can cherish?The welfare of nations is based on the indestructible certitudes oflove, friendship, faith, fortitude, self-sacrifice. It was not Marathonso much as Thermopylae which imparted vitality to Grecian heroism, andmade that memorable self-sacrifice one of the eternal pillars which marknational advancement. So the sufferings of the martyrs, for the sake ofChrist, warmed the dissolving empire with a belief in Heaven, andprepared it to encounter the most unparalleled wretchedness which ourworld has seen. They gave a finishing blow to Epicureanism and skepticalcynicism; so that in the calamities which soon after happened, men werebuoyed with hope and trust. They may have hidden themselves in caves anddeserts, they may have sought monastic retreats, they may have lostfaith in man and all mundane glories, they may have consumed their livesin meditation and solitude, they may have anticipated the dissolution ofall things, but they awaited in faith the coming of their Lord. Preparedfor any issue or any calamity, a class of heroes arose to show the moralgreatness of the passive virtues, and the triumphs of faith amid thewrecks of material grandeur. Were not such needed at the close of thefourth century? Especially were not such bright examples needed for theages which were to come? Polycarp and Cyprian were the precursors of themartyrs of the Middle Ages, and were of the Reformation. Earlypersecutions developed the spirit of martyrdom, which is the seed of thechurch, impressed it upon the mind of the world, and prepared the wayfor the moral triumphs of the Beckets and Savonarolas of remotegenerations. Martyrdoms were the first impressive facts in the historyof the church, and the idea of dying for a faith one of the most signalevidences of superiority over the ancient religions. It was a new idea, which had utterly escaped the old guides of mankind. 

Another great idea which was promulgated by the church long before theempire fell, was that of benevolence. Charities were not one of thefruits of paganism. Men may have sold their goods and given to the poor, but we have no record of such deeds. Hospitals and eleemosynaryinstitutions were nearly unknown. When a man was unfortunate, there wasnothing left to him but to suffer and die. There was no help fromothers. All were engrossed in their schemes of pleasure or ambition, andcompassion was rare. The sick and diseased died without alleviation. "The spectator who gazed upon the magnificent buildings which coveredthe seven hills, temples, arches, porticoes, theatres, baths andpalaces, could discover no hospitals and asylums, unless perchance thetemple of Aesculapius, on an island in the Tiber, where the maimed andsick were left in solitude to struggle with the pangs of death. " But thechurch fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and visited the prisoner, and lodged the stranger. Charity was one of the fundamental injunctionsof Christ and of the Apostles. The New Testament breathes unboundedlove, benevolence so extensive and universal that self was ignored. Self-denial, in doing good to others, was one of the virtues expected ofevery Christian. Hence the first followers of our Lord had all things incommon. Property was supposed to belong to the whole church, rather thanto individuals. "Go and sell all that thou hast" was literallyinterpreted. It devolved on the whole church to see that strangers wereentertained, that the sick were nursed, that the poor were fed, thatorphans were protected, that those who were in prison were visited. Forthese purposes contributions were taken up in all assemblies convenedfor public worship. Individuals also emulated the whole church, and gaveaway their possessions to the poor. Matrons, especially, devotedthemselves to these works of charity, feeding the poor, and visiting thesick. They visited the meanest hovels and the most dismal prisons. But"what heathen, " says Tertullian, "will suffer his wife to go about fromone street to another to the houses of strangers? What heathen wouldallow her to steal away into the dungeon to kiss the chain of themartyr?" And these works of benevolence were not bestowed upon friendsalone, but upon strangers; and it was this, particularly, which struckthe pagans with wonder and admiration--that men of different countries, ranks, and relations of life, were bound together by an invisible cordof love. A stranger, with letters to the "brethren, " was sure of agenerous and hearty welcome. There were no strangers among theChristians; they were all brothers; they called each other brother andsister; they gave to each other the fraternal kiss; they knew of nodistinctions; they all had an equal claim to the heritage of the church. And this generosity and benevolence extended itself to the wants ofChristians in distant lands; the churches redeemed captives taken inwar, and even sold the consecrated vessels for that purpose on rareoccasions, as Ambrose did at Milan. A single bishop, in the thirdcentury, supported two thousand poor people. Cyprian raised at one timea sum equal to four thousand dollars in his church at Carthage, to besent to the Manichaean bishops for the purposes of charity. Especially intimes of public calamity was this spirit of benevolence manifested, andin striking contrast with the pagans. [Footnote: Neander, vol. I. Section 3. ] When Alexandria was visited with the plague during thereign of Gallienus, the pagans deserted their friends upon the firstsymptoms of disease; they left them to die in the streets, without eventaking the trouble to bury them when dead; they only thought of escapingfrom the contagion themselves. The Christians, on the contrary, took thebodies of their brethren in their arms, waited upon them withoutthinking of themselves, ministered to their wants, and buried them withall possible care, even while the best people of the community, presbyters and deacons, lost their own lives by their self-sacrificinggenerosity. [Footnote: Eusebius, 1. Vii. Chap. 22. ] And when Carthagewas ravaged by a similar pestilence in the reign of Gallus, the pagansdeserted the sick and the dying, and the streets were filled with deadbodies, which greatly increased the infection. No one came near themexcept for purposes of plunder; but Cyprian, calling his people togetherin the church, said: "If we do good only to our own, what do we morethan publicans and heathens. " Animated by his words, the members of thechurch divided the work between them, the rich giving money, and thepoor labor, so that in a short time the bodies which filled the streetswere buried. 

And this principle of benevolence has never been relinquished by thechurch. It was one of the foundation-pillars of monastic life in theMiddle Ages, when monasteries and convents were blessed retreats for themiserable and unfortunate, where all strangers found a shelter and ahome; where they diffused charities upon all who sought their aid. Themonastery itself was built upon charities, upon the gifts and legaciesof the pious. In pagan Rome men willed away their fortunes to favorites;they were rarely bestowed upon the poor. But Christianity inculcatedeverywhere the necessity of charities, not merely as a test of Christianhope and faith, but as one of the conditions of salvation itself. One ofthe most glorious features of our modern civilization is the wide-spreadsystem of public benevolence extended to missions, to destitutechurches, to hospitals, to colleges, to alms-houses, to the support ofthe poor, who are not left to die unheeded as in the ancient world. Every form of Christianity, every sect and party, has its peculiarcharities; but charities for some good object are a primal principle ofthe common creed. What immeasurable blessings have been bestowed uponmankind in consequence of this law of kindness and love! What abeautiful feature it is in the whole progress of civilization!

The early church had set a good example of patience under persecution, and practical benevolence extended into every form of social life whichhas been instituted in every succeeding age, and to which the healthycondition of society may in a measure be traced. 

The next mission of the church was to give dignity and importance to thepublic preaching of the Gospel, which has never since been lost sightof, and has been no inconsiderable element of our civilization. This wasentirely new in the history of society. The pagan priest did not exhortthe people to morality, or point out their religious duties, or remindthem of their future destinies, or expound the great principles ofreligious faith. He offered up sacrifices to the Deity, and appeared inimposing ceremonials. He wore rich and gorgeous dresses to dazzle thesenses of the people, or excite their imaginations. It was his duty toappeal to the gods, and not to men; to propitiate them with costlyrites, to surround himself with mystery, to inspire awe, and excitesuperstitious feelings. The Christian minister had a loftier sphere. While he appealed to God in prayer, and approached his altar withbecoming solemnity, it was also his duty to preach to the people, asPaul and the Apostles did throughout the heathen world, in order toconvert them to Christianity, and change the whole character of theirlives and habits. The presbyter, while he baptized believers andadministered the symbolic bread and wine, also taught the people, explained to them the mysteries, enforced upon them the obligations, appealed to their intellects, their consciences, and their hearts. Heplunged fearlessly into every subject bearing upon religious life, andboldly presented it for contemplation. 

What a grand theatre for the development of mind, for healthyinstruction and commanding influence, was opened by the Christianpulpit. There was no sphere equal to it in moral dignity and force. Itthrew into the shade the theatre and the forum. And in times whenprinting was unknown, it was almost the only way by which the peoplecould be taught. It vastly added to the power of the clergy, and gavethem an influence that the old priests of paganism could never exercise. It created an entirely new power in the world, a moral power, indeed, but one to which history presents no equal. The philosophers taught intheir schools, they taught a few admiring pupils; but the sphere oftheir teachings was limited, and also the number whom they couldaddress. The pulpit became an institution. All the Christians wererequired to assemble regularly for public instruction as well asworship. On every seventh day the people laid aside their secular dutiesand devoted themselves to religious improvement. The pulpit gave powerto the Sabbath; and what an institution is the Christian Sabbath. To theSabbath and to public preaching Christendom owes more than to all othersources of moral elevation combined. It is true that the Jewishsynagogue furnished a model to the church; but the Levitical raceclaimed no peculiar sanctity, and discharged no friendly office beyondthe precincts of the temple. In the synagogue the people assembled topray, or to hear the Scriptures read and expounded, not to receivereligious instruction. The Jewish religion was as full of ceremonials asthe pagan, and the intellectual part of it was confined to the lawyers, to the rabbinical hierarchy. But the preaching of the great doctrines ofChristianity was made a peculiarly sacred office, and given to a classof men who avoided all secular pursuits. The Christian priest was therecognized head of the society which he taught and controlled. Inprocess of time, he became a great dignitary, controlling variousinterests; but his first mission was to preach, and his first theme wasa crucified Saviour. He ascended the pulpit every week as an authorizedas well as a sacred teacher, and, in the illustration of his subjects, he was allowed great latitude in which to roam. It is not easy toappreciate what a difference there was between pagan and Christiancommunities from the rise of this new power, and we might also sayinstitution, since the pulpit and the Sabbath are interlinked andassociated together. Whatever the world has gained by the Sabbath, thatgain is intensified and increased vastly by public teaching. It placedthe Christian as far beyond the Jew, as the Jew was before beyond thepagan. It also created a sacerdotal caste. The people may have had theprivilege of pouring out their hearts before the brethren, and ofspeaking for their edification, but all the members were not fitted forthe secular office of teachers. Christianity claims the faculties ofknowledge, as well as those of feeling. Teaching was early felt to be agreat gift, implying not only superior knowledge, but superior wisdom andgrace. Only a few possessed the precious charisma to address profitablythe assembled people, [Greek: charisma didaskalias], and those fewbecame the appointed guides of the Christian flocks, [Greek: didaskaloi]. Other officers of the new communities shared with them the administration, but the teacher was the highest officer, and he became gradually thepresbyter, whose peculiar function it was to discourse to the people onthe great themes which it was their duty to learn. And even after thepresbyter became a bishop, it was his chief office to teach publicly, even as late as the fourth and fifth centuries. Leo and Gregory, thegreat bishops of Rome, were eloquent preachers. 

Thus the church gradually claimed the great prerogative of eloquence. Eloquence was not born in the church, but it was sanctified, and setapart, and appropriated to a thousand new purposes, and especiallyidentified with the public teaching of the people. The great mysteries, the profound doctrines, the suggestive truths, the touching histories, the practical duties of Christianity were seized and enforced by thepublic teacher; and eloquence appeared in the sermon. In pagan ages, eloquence was confined to the forum or the senate chamber, and wasdirected entirely into secular channels. It was always highly esteemedas the birthright of genius--an inspiration, like poetry, rather than anart to be acquired. But it was not always the handmaid of poetry andmusic; it was brought down to earth for practical purposes, and employedchiefly in defending criminals, or procuring the passage of laws, orstimulating the leaders of society to important acts. The gift of tonguewas reserved for rhetoricians, lawyers, politicians, philosophers; notfor priests, who were intercessors with the Divine. Now Christianityadopted all the arts of eloquence, and enriched them, and applied themto a variety of new subjects. She carried away in triumph the brightestornament of the pagan schools, and placed it in the hands of her chosenministers. The pulpit soon began to rival the forum in the displays of aheaven-born art, which was now consecrated to far loftier purposes thanthose to which it had been applied. As public instruction became moreand more learned, it also became more and more eloquent, for thepreacher had opportunity, subject, audience, motive, all of which arerequired for great perfection in public speaking. He assembled a livingcongregation at stated intervals; he had the range of all those loftyinquiries which entrance the soul; and he had souls to save--thegreatest conceivable motive to a good man who realizes the truths of theGospel. All human enterprises and schemes become ultimately insipid to aman who has no lofty view of benefiting mankind, or his family, or hisfriend. We were made to do good. Take away this stimulus, and energyitself languishes and droops. There is no object in life to a seeker ofpleasure or gain, when once the passion is gratified. What object ofpity so melancholy as a man worn out with egotistical excitements, andincapable of being amused. But he who labors for the good of others isnever ennuied. The benevolent physician, the patriotic statesman, theconscientious lawyer, the enthusiastic teacher, the dreaming author, allwork and toil in weary labors, with the hope of being useful to thebodies, or the intellects, or the minds of the people. This is the greatcondition of happiness. There is an excitement in gambling as inpleasure, in money-making as in money-spending; but it wears out, orexhausts the noble faculties, and ends in ennui or self-reproach andbitter disappointment. It is not the condition of our nature, which wasmade to be useful, to seek the good of others. They are the happiest andmost esteemed who have this good constantly at heart. There can be nounhappiness to a man absorbed in doing good. He may be poor andpersecuted like Socrates; he may walk barefooted, and have domesticgriefs, and be deprived of his comforts--but he is serene, for the soultriumphs over the body. Now, what motive so grand as to save theimmortal part of man. This desire filled the ancient Christian oratorwith a preternatural enthusiasm, as well as gave to him an unlimitedpower, and an imposing dignity. He was the most happy of mortals whenled to the blazing fire of his persecutors, and he was the most august. The feeling that he was kindling a fire which should never be quenched, even that which was to burn up all the wicked idols of an idolatrousgeneration, unloosed his tongue and animated his features. The moststriking examples of seraphic joy, of a sort of divine beauty playingupon the features, are among orators. In animated conversation, a personordinarily homely, like Madame de Stael, becomes beautiful andimpressive. But in the pulpit, when the sacred orator is moving acongregation with the fears and hopes of another world, there is amajesty in his beauty which is nowhere else so fully seen. There is noeloquence like that of the pulpit, when the preacher is gifted and inearnest. Greece had her Pericles and Demosthenes, and Rome herHortensius and Cicero. Many other great orators we could mention. Butwhen Greece and Rome had an intellectual existence such as that to whichour modern times furnish no parallel, in our absorbing pursuit ofpleasure and gain, and amid the wealth of mechanical inventions, therewere, even in those classic lands, but few orators whose names havedescended to our times; while, in the church, in a degenerated period, when literature and science were nearly extinct, there were a greaternumber of Christian orators than what classic antiquity furnished. Yea, in those dark and miserable ages which succeeded the fall of the Romanempire, there were in every land remarkable pulpit orators, like thosewho fanned the Crusades. There was no eloquence in the Middle Agesoutside the church. Bernard exercised a far greater moral power thanCicero in the fullness of his fame. And in our modern times, whatorators have arisen like those whom the Reformation produced, both inthe Roman Catholic church, and among the numerous sects which protestedagainst her? What orator has Germany given birth to equal in fame toLuther? What orator in France has reached the celebrity of Bossuet, orBourdaloue, or Massillon? Even amid all the excitements attending thechange of government, who have had power on the people like a Lacordaireor Monod? In England, the great orators have been preachers, with a veryfew exceptions; and these men would have been still greater in the artsof public speaking had they been trained in the church. In our day, wehave seen great orators in secular life, but they yield in fascinationeither to those who are accustomed to speak from the sacred desk, or tothose whose training has been clerical, like many of our popularlecturers. Nothing ever opened such an arena of eloquence as thepreaching of the Gospel, either in the ancient, the mediaeval, or themodern world, not merely from the grandeur and importance of the themesdiscussed, but also from the number of the speakers. In a legislativeassembly, where all are supposed to be able to address an audience, andsome are expected to be eloquent, only two or three can be heard in aday. Only some twenty or thirty able speeches are delivered in Congressor Parliament in a whole session; but in England, or the United States, some thirty thousand preachers are speaking at the same time, many ofwhom are far more gifted, learned, and brilliant than any found in thegreat councils of the nation. Nor is this eloquence confined to theProtestant church; it exists also in the Roman Catholic in every land. There are no more earnest and inspiring orators than in Italy or France. Even in rude and unlettered and remote districts, we often hearspecimens of eloquence which would be wonderful in capitals. What chancehas the bar, in a large city, compared with the pulpit, for the displayof eloquence? Probably there are more eloquent addresses delivered everySunday from the various pulpits of Christendom than were pronounced byall the orators of Greece during the whole period of her politicalexistence. Doubtless there are more touching and effective appeals madeto the popular heart every Sunday in every Christian land, than are madeduring the whole year beside on subjects essentially secular. Then whatan impulse has pulpit oratory given to objects of a strictlyphilanthropic character! The church has been the nurse and mother of allschemes of benevolence since it was organized. It is itself a greatphilanthropic institution, binding up the wounds of the prisoner, relieving the distressed, and stimulating great enterprises. For all ofthis the pulpit has been called upon, and has lent its aid; so that theworld has been more indebted to the eloquence of divines than to anyother source. Who can calculate the moral force of one hundred and fiftythousand to two hundred thousand Christian preachers in a world likeours, most of whom are arrayed on the side of morality and learning. Itmay be said that these benefits may more properly be considered to flowfrom Christianity as revealed in the Bible; that the Bible is the causeof all this great impulse to civilization. We do not object to such aninterpretation; nevertheless, in specifying the influence of the church, even before the empire fell, the creation of pulpit eloquence should bementioned, since this has contributed so much to the moral elevation ofChristendom. Christianity would be shorn of half her triumphs were itnot for the public preaching of her truths. Paganism had no publicteachers who regularly taught the people and stimulated their noblestenergies. It was a new institution, these Sabbath-day exercises, and hashad an inconceivable influence on the progress and condition of therace. The power of the Gospel was indeed the main and primary cause; butthe church must have the credit of appropriating what was most prized inthe intellectual centres of antiquity, and giving to it a new direction. Christian oratory is also an interesting subject to present in merelyits artistical relations. Its vast influence no one can question. 

Again, who can estimate the debt which civilization, in its largest andmost comprehensive sense, owes to the fathers of the early church, inthe elaboration of Christian doctrine. They found the heathen worldenslaved by a certain class of most degrading notions of God, of deity, of goodness, of the future, of rewards and punishments. Indeed, itsopinions were wrong and demoralizing in almost every point pertaining tothe spiritual relations of man. They met the wants of their times byseizing on the great radical principles of Christianity, which mostdirectly opposed these demoralizing ideas, and by giving them theprominence which was needed. Moreover, in the church itself, opinionswere from time to time broached, so intimately allied with paganphilosophies and oriental theogonies, that the faith of Christians wasin danger of being subverted. The Scriptures were indeed recognized tocontain all that is essential in Christian truth to know; but they stillallowed great latitude of belief, and contradictory creeds were drawnfrom the same great authority. If the Bible was to be the salvation ofman, or the great thesaurus of religious truth, it was necessary tosystematize and generalize its great doctrines, both to oppose dangerousheathen customs and heretical opinions in the church itself. And moreeven than this, to set forth a standard of faith for all the ages whichwere to come; not an arbitrary system of dogmas, but those which theScriptures most directly and emphatically recognized. Christian life hadbeen set forth by the martyrs in the various forms of teaching, in theworship of God, in the exercise of those virtues and graces which Christhad enjoined, in benevolence, in charity, in faith, in prayer, inpatience, in the different relations of social life, in the sacraments, in the fasts and festivals, in the occupations which might be profitablyand honorably carried on. But Christianity influenced thought andknowledge as well as external relations. It did not declare a rigidsystem of doctrines when first promulgated. This was to be developedwhen the necessity required it. For two centuries there were but fewcreeds, and these very simple and comprehensive. Speculation had notthen entered the ranks, nor the pagan spirit of philosophy. There wasgreat unity of belief, and this centered around Christ as the Redeemerand Saviour of the world. But, in process of time, Christianity wasforced to contend with Judaism, with Orientalism, and with Greekspeculation, as these entered into the church itself, and were more orless embraced by its members. With downright Paganism there was aconstant battle; but in this battle all ranks of Christians were unitedtogether. They were not distracted by any controversies whether idolatryshould be or should not be tolerated. But when Gnostic principles wereembraced by good men, those which, for instance, entered into monasticor ascetic life, it was necessary that some great genius should ariseand expose their oriental origin, and lay down the Christian lawdefinitely on that point. So when Manichaeism, and Arianism, and otherheretical opinions, were defended and embraced by the Christiansthemselves, the fathers who took the side of orthodoxy in the greatcontroversies which arose, rendered important services to all subsequentgenerations, since never, probably, were those subtle questionspertaining to the Trinity, and the human nature of Christ, andpredestination, and other kindred topics, discussed with so much acumenand breadth. They occupied the thoughts of the whole age, and emperorsentered into the debates on theological questions with an interestexceeding that of the worldly matters which claimed their peculiarattention. It is not easy for Christians of this age, when all the greatdoctrines of faith are settled, to appreciate the prodigious excitementwhich their discussion called forth in the times of Athanasius andAugustine. The whole intellect of the age was devoted to theologicalinquiries. Everybody talked about them, and they were the common themeon all public occasions. If discussions of subjects which once had suchuniversal fascination can never return again, if they are passed likeOlympic games, or the discussions of Athenian schools of philosophy, orthe sports of the Colosseum, or the oracles of Dodona, or the bulls ofmediaeval popes, or the contests of the tournament, or the "field of thecloth of gold, " they still have a historical charm, and point to thegreat stepping-stones of human progress. If they are really grand andimportant ideas, which they claimed to be, they will continue to movethe most distant generations. If they are merely dialectical deductions, they are among the profoundest efforts of reason in the Christianschools of philosophy. 

We cannot, of course, enter into the controversies through which thechurch elaborated the system of doctrines now generally received, nordescribe those great men who gave such dignity to theological inquiries. Clement was raised up to combat the Gnostics, Athanasius to head off thealarming spread of Arianism, and Augustine to proclaim the efficacy ofdivine grace against the Pelagians. The treatises of these men and ofother great lights on the Trinity, on the incarnation, and on originalsin, had as great an influence on the thinking of the age and ofsucceeding ages, as the speculations of Plato, or the syllogisms ofThomas Aquinas, or the theories of Kepler, or the expositions of Bacon, or the deductions of Newton, or the dissertations of Burke, or thesevere irony of Pascal. They did not create revolutions, since they didnot labor to overturn, but they stimulated the human faculties, andconserved the most valued knowledge. Their definite opinions became thestandard of faith among the eastern Christians, and were handed down tothe Germanic barbarians. They were adopted by the Catholic church, andpreserved unity of belief in ages of turbulence and superstition. One ofthe great recognized causes of modern civilization was the establishmentof universities. In these the great questions which the fathers startedand elaborated were discussed with renewed acumen. Had there been noOrigen, or Tertullian, or Augustine, there would have been no Anselm, orAbelard, or Erigena. The speculations and inquiries of the Alexandriandivines controlled the thinking of Europe for one thousand years, andgave that intensely theological character to the literature of theMiddle Ages, directing the genius of Dante as well as that of Bernard. Their influence on Calvin was as marked as on Bossuet. Pagan philosophyhad no charm like the great verities of the Christian faith. Augustineand Athanasius threw Plato and Aristotle into the shade. Nothing morepreeminently marked the great divines whom the Reformation produced, than the discussion of the questions which the fathers had systematizedand taught. Nor was the interest confined to divines. Louis XIV. Discussed free will and predestination with Racine and Fenelon, even asthe courtiers of Louis XV. Discussed probabilities and mentalreservations. And in New England, at Puritan firesides, the passingstranger in the olden times, when religion was a life, entered intotheological discussions with as much zest as he now would describe thefluctuations of stocks or passing vanities of crinoline and hair dyes. Nor is it one of the best signs of this material age that the interestin the great questions which tasked the intellects of our fathers ispassing away. But there is a mighty permanence in great ideas, and thetime, we trust, will come again when indestructible certitudes willreceive more attention than either politics or fashions. 

The influence of the fathers is equally seen in the music and poetrywhich have come down from their times. The church succeeded to aninheritance of religious lyrics unrivaled in the history of literature. The _Magnificat_ and the _Nunc dimittis_ were sung from theearliest Christian ages. The streets of the eastern cities echoed to theseductive strains of Arius and Chrysostom. Flavian and Diodorusintroduced at Antioch the antiphonal chant, which, improved by Ambrose, and still more by Gregory, became the joy of blessed saints in thoseturbulent ages, when singing in the choir was the amusement as well asthe duty of a large portion of religious people. So numerous were thehymns of Ambrose, Hilary, Augustine, and others, that they became thepopular literature of centuries, and still form the most beautiful partof the service of the Catholic church. Who can estimate the influence ofhymns which have been sung for fifty successive generations? What acharm is still attached to the mediaeval chants! The poetry of the earlychurch is preserved in those sacred anthems. They inspired thebarbarians with enthusiasm, even as they had kindled the rapture ofearlier Christians in the church of Milan. The lyrical poets areimmortal, and exert a wide-spread influence. The fervent stanzas ofWatts, of Steele, of Wesley, of Heber, are sung from generation togeneration. The hymns of Luther are among the most valued of his variousworks. "From Greenland's icy mountains"--that sacred lyric--shall liveas long as the "Elegy in a Country Church-yard, " or the "Cotter'sSaturday Night, " yea, shall survive the "Night Thoughts, " and the"Course of Time. " There is nothing in Grecian or Roman poetry that fillsthe place of the psalmody of the early church. The songs of Ambrose werehis richest legacy to triumphant barbarians, consoling the monk in hisdreary cell and the peasant on his vine-clad hills, speaking thesentiment of a universal creed, and consecrating the most tenderrecollections. So that Christian literature, in its varied aspects, itsexegesis, its sermons, its creeds, and its psalmody, if not equal inartistic merit to the classical productions of antiquity, have had animmeasurable influence on human thought and life, not in the Roman worldmerely, but in all subsequent ages. 

But the great truths which the fathers proclaimed in reference to themoral and social relations of society are still more remarkable in theirsubsequent influence. 

The great idea of Christian equality struck at the root of that greatsystem of slavery which was one of the main causes of the ruin of theempire. Christianity did not break up slavery; it might never haveannihilated it under a Roman rule, but it protested against it so soonas it was clothed with secular power. As in the sight of heaven there isno distinction of persons, so the idea of social equality gained groundas the relations of Christianity to practical life were understood. Theabolition of slavery, and the general amelioration of the other socialevils of life, are all a logical sequence from the doctrine of Christianequality, --that God made of one blood all the nations of the earth, thatthey are equally precious in his sight, and have equal claims to thehappiness of heaven. All theories of human rights radiate from, andcentre around, this consoling doctrine. That we are born free and equalmay not, practically, be strictly true; but that the relations ofsociety ought to be viewed as they are regarded in the Scriptures, whichreveal the dignity of the soul and its glorious destinies, cannot bequestioned; so that oppression of man by man, and injustice, and unequallaws militate with one of the great fundamental revelations of God. Impress Christian equality on the mind of man, and social equalityfollows as a matter of course. The slave was recognized to be a man, aperson, and not a thing. Whenever he sat down, as he did once a week, beside his master, in the adoration of a common Lord, the ignominy ofhis hard condition was removed, even if his obligations to obediencewere not abrogated. As a future citizen of heaven, his importance on theearth was more and more recognized, until his fetters were graduallyremoved. 

From the day when Christian equality was declared, the foundations ofslavery were assailed, and the progress of freedom has kept pace withChristian civilization, although the Apostles did not directly denouncethe bondage that disgraced the ancient world. It was something todeclare the principles which, logically carried out, would ultimatelysubvert the evil, for no evil can stand forever which is in oppositionto logical deductions from the truths of Christianity. Moral philosophyis as much a series of logical deductions from the doctrine of lovingour neighbor as ourself as that great network of theological systemswhich Augustine and Calvin elaborated from the majesty and sovereigntyof God. Those distinctions which Christ removed by his Gospel ofuniversal brotherhood can never return or coexist with the progress ofthe truth. A vast social revolution began when the eternal destinies ofthe slave were announced. It will not end with the mere annihilation ofslavery as an institution; it will affect the relations of the poor andthe rich, the unlucky and the prosperous, in every Christian countryuntil justice and love become dominant principles. What a stride fromRoman slavery to mediaeval serfdom! How benignant the attitude of thechurch, in all ages, to the poor man! The son of a peasant becomes apriest, and rises, in the Christian hierarchy, to become a ruler of theworld. There was no way for a poor peasant boy to rise in the MiddleAges, except in the church. He attracts the notice of some beneficentmonk; he is educated in the cloister; he becomes a venerated brother, anabbot, perhaps a bishop or a pope. Had he remained in service to afeudal lord, he never could have risen above his original rank. Thechurch raises him from slavery, and puts upon his brow her seal and inhis hands the thunderbolts of spiritual power, thus giving him dignityand consideration and independence. Rising, as the clergy did in theMiddle Ages, in all ages, from the lower and middle classes, they becameas much opposed to slavery as they were to war. It was thus in the bosomof the church that liberty was sheltered and nourished. Nor has thechurch ever forgotten her mission to the poor, or sympathized, as awhole, with the usurpations of kings. She may have aimed at dominion, like Hildebrand and Innocent III. , but it was spiritual domination, control of the mind of the world. But she ever sympathized withoppressed classes, like Becket, even as he defied the temporal weaponsof Henry II. The Jesuits, even, respected the dignity of the poor. Theirerrors were trust in machinery and unbounded ambition, but they laboredin their best ages for the good of the people. And in our times, themost consistent and uncompromising foes of despotism and slavery are inthe ranks of the church. The clergy have been made, it is true, occasionally, the tools of despotism, and have been absurdlyconservative of their own privileges, but on the whole, have ever liftedup their voices in defense of those who are ground down. 

The elevation of woman, too, has been caused by the doctrine of theequality of the sexes which Christianity revealed; not "woman's rights"as interpreted by infidels; not the ignoring of woman's destiny ofsubservience to man, as declared in the Garden of Eden and by St. Paul, but her glorious nature which fits her for the companionship of man. Heathendom reduces her to slavery, dependence, and vanity. Christianityelevates her by developing her social and moral excellences, her moredelicate nature, her elevation of soul, her sympathy with sorrow, hertender and gracious aid. The elevation of woman did not come from thenatural traits of Germanic barbarians, but from Christianity. Chivalryowes its bewitching graces to the influence of Christian ideas. Clemencyand magnanimity, gentleness and sympathy, did not spring from Germanforests, but the teachings of the clergy. Veneration for woman was thework of the church, not of pagan civilization or Teutonic simplicity. The equality of the sexes was acknowledged by Jerome when he devotedhimself to the education of Roman matrons, and received from the hand ofPaula the means of support while he, labored in his cell at Bethlehem. How much more influential was Fabiola or Marcella than Aspasia orPhryne! It was woman who converted barbaric kings, and reigned, not bypersonal charms, like Eastern beauties, but by the solid virtues of theheart. Woman never occupied so proud a position in an ancient palace asin a feudal castle. When Paula visited the East, she was welcomed byChristian bishops, and the proconsul of Palestine surrendered his ownpalace for her reception, not because she was high in rank, but becauseher virtues had gone forth to all the world; and when she died, a greatnumber of the most noted people followed her body to the grave withsighs and sobs. The sufferings of the female martyrs are the mostpathetic exhibitions of moral greatness in the history of the earlychurch. And in the Middle Ages, whatever is most truly glorious orbeautiful can be traced to the agency of woman. Is a town to be sparedfor a revolt, or a grievous tax remitted, it is a Godiva who intercedesand prevails. Is an imperious priest to be opposed, it is an Ethelgivawho alone dares to confront him even in the king's palace. It isEthelburga, not Ina, who reigns among the Saxons--not because the kingis weak, but his wife is wiser than he. A mere peasant-girl, inspiredwith the sentiment of patriotism, delivers a whole nation, dejected anddisheartened, for such was Joan of Arc. Bertha, the slighted wife ofHenry, crosses the Alps in the dead of winter, with her excommunicatedlord, to remove the curse which deprived him of the allegiance of hissubjects. Anne, Countess of Warwick, dresses herself like a cook-maid toelude the visits of a royal duke, and Ebba, abbess of Coldingham, cutsoff her nose, to render herself unattractive to the soldiers who ravageher lands. Philippa, the wife of the great Edward, intercedes for theinhabitants of Calais, and the town is spared. 

The feudal woman gained respect and veneration because she had the moralqualities which Christianity developed. If she entered with eagernessinto the pleasures of the chase or the honor of the banquet, if shelistened with enthusiasm to the minstrel's lay and the crusader's tale, her real glory was her purity of character and unsullied fame. Inancient Rome men were driven to the circus and the theatre for amusementand for solace, but among the Teutonic races, when converted toChristianity, rough warriors associated with woman without seductivepleasures to disarm her. It was not riches, nor elegance of manners, norluxurious habits, nor exemption from stern and laborious duties whichgave fascination to the Christian woman of the Middle Ages. It was hersympathy, her fidelity, her courage, her simplicity, her virtues, hernoble self-respect, which made her a helpmeet and a guide. She wasalways found to intercede for the unfortunate, and willing to enduresuffering. She bound up the wounds of prisoners, and never turned thehungry from her door. And then how lofty and beautiful her religiouslife. History points with pride to the religious transports andspiritual elevation of Catharine of Sienna, of Margaret of Anjou, ofGertrude of Saxony, of Theresa of Spain, of Elizabeth of Hungary, ofIsabel of France, of Edith of England. How consecrated were the laborsof woman amid feudal strife and violence. Whence could have arisen sucha general worship of the Virgin Mary had not her beatific lovelinessbeen reflected in the lives of the women whom Christianity had elevated?In the French language she was worshiped under the feudal title of NotreDame, and chivalrous devotion to the female sex culminated in thereverence which belongs to the Queen of Heaven. And hence the qualitiesascribed to her, of Virgo Fidelis, Mater Castissima, ConsolatrixAfflictorum, were those to which all lofty women were exhorted toaspire. The elevation of woman kept pace with the extension ofChristianity. Veneration for her did not arise until she showed thevirtues of a Monica and a Nonna, but these virtues were the fruit ofChristian ideas alone. 

We might mention other ideas which have entered into our moderninstitutions, such as pertain to education, philanthropy, and missionaryzeal. The idea of the church itself, of an esoteric band of Christiansamid the temptations of the world, bound together by rules of disciplineas well as communion of soul, is full of grandeur and beauty. And theunity of this church is a sublime conception, on which the wholespiritual power of the popes rested when they attempted to rule in peaceand on the principles of eternal love. However perverted the idea of theunity of the church became in the Middle Ages, still who can deny thatit was the mission of the church to create a spiritual power based onthe hopes and fears of a future life? The idea of a theocracy forms aprominent part of the polity of Calvin, as of Hildebrand himself. It isthe basis of his legislation. He maintained it was long concealed in thebosom of the primitive church, and was gradually unfolded, though in acorrupt form, by the popes, the worthiest of whom kept the idea of adivine government continually in view, and pursued it with a clearknowledge of its consequences. And those familiar with the lofty schemesof Leo and Gregory, will appreciate their efforts in raising up a powerwhich should be supreme in barbarous ages, and preserve what was most tobe valued of the old civilization. The autocrat of Geneva clung to thenecessity of a spiritual religion, and aimed to realize that which theMiddle Ages sought, and sought in vain, that the church must alwaysremain the mother of spiritual principles, while the state should be thearm by which those principles should be enforced. Like Hildebrand, hewould, if possible, have hurled the terrible weapon of excommunication. In cutting men off from the fold, he would also have cut them off fromthe higher privileges of society. He may have carried his views too far, but they were founded on the idea of a church against which the gates ofhell could not prevail. Who can estimate the immeasurable influence ofsuch an idea, which, however perverted, will ever be recognized as oneof the great agencies of the world? A church without a spiritual power, is inconceivable; nor can it pass away, even before the materialtendencies of a proud and rationalistic civilization. It will assert itsdignity when thrones and principalities shall crumble in the dust. 

Such are among the chief ideas which the fathers taught, and which haveentered even into the modern institutions of society, and form thepeculiar glory of our civilization. When we remember this, we feel thatthe church has performed no mean mission, even if it did not save theRoman empire. The glory of warriors, of statesmen, of artists, ofphilosophers, of legislators, and of men of science and literature inthe ancient world, still shines, and no one would dim it, or hide itfrom the admiration of mankind. But the purer effulgence of the greatlights of the church eclipses it all, and will shine brighter andbrighter, until the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. This is the true sun which shall dissipate the shadows of superstitionand ignorance that cover so great a portion of the earth, and this shallbring society into a healthful glow of unity and love. 

 * * * * *

In another volume I shall present, more in detail, the labors of theChristian Fathers in founding the new civilization which still reignsamong the nations. And in the creation which succeeded destruction weshall be additionally impressed with the wisdom and beneficence of theGreat First Cause, through whose providences our fallen race is led tothe new Eden, where truth and justice and love reign in perpetual beautyand glory. 

THE END. 

[Transcriber's Note: The spellings "panygeric, " "beauitful, " and"sytematically" occurred as such on lines 2285, 2473, and 10763, respectively, and were corrected. ]