Chapter XXIII
THE EARLY ROMAN REPUBLIC: CONQUEST OF ITALY, (509-264 B.C.)
THE FIRST CONSULS.--With the monarchy overthrown and the last king and his house banished from Rome, the people set to work to reorganize the government. In place of the king, there were elected (by the comitia centuriata, in which assembly the plebeians had a place) two patrician magistrates, called consuls, [Footnote: That is, colleagues. Each consul had the power of obstructing the acts or vetoing the commands of the other. In times of great public danger the consuls were superseded by a special officer called a dictator, whose term of office was limited to six months, but whose power during this time was as unlimited as that of the kings had been.] who were chosen for one year, and were invested with all the powers, save some priestly functions, that had been held by the monarch during the regal period.
In public each consul was attended by twelve servants, called lictors, each of whom bore an axe bound in a bundle of rods (fasces), the symbols of the authority of the consul to flog and to put to death. Within the limits of the city, however, the axe must be removed from the fasces, by which was indicated that no Roman citizen could be put to death by the consuls without the consent of the public assembly.
Lucius Junius Brutus and Tarquinius Collatinus were the first consuls under the new constitution. But it is said that the very name of Tarquinius was so intolerable to the people that he was forced to resign the consulship, and that he and all his house were driven out of Rome. [Footnote: The truth is, he was related to the exiled royal family, and the people were distrustful of his loyalty to the republic.] Another consul, Publius Valerius, was chosen in his stead.
SECESSION OF THE PLEBEIANS.
FIRST SECESSION OF THE PLEBEIANS (494 B.C.).--Taking advantage of the disorders that followed the political revolution, the Latin towns which had been forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome rose in revolt, and the result was that almost all the conquests that had been made under the kings were lost. For a long time the little republic had to struggle hard for bare existence.
Troubles without brought troubles within. The poor plebeians, during this period of disorder and war, fell in debt to the wealthy class,--for the Roman soldier went to war at his own charge, equipping and feeding himself,--and payment was exacted with heartless severity. A debtor became the absolute property of his creditor, who might sell him as a slave to pay the debt, and in some cases even put him to death. All this was intolerable. The plebeians determined to secede from Rome and build a new city for themselves on a neighboring eminence, called afterwards the Sacred Hill. They marched away in a body from Rome to the chosen spot, and began making preparations for erecting new homes (494 B.C.).
THE COVENANT AND THE TRIBUNES.--The patricians saw clearly that such a division must prove ruinous to the state, and that the plebeians must be persuaded to give up their enterprise and come back to Rome. The consul Valerius was sent to treat with the insurgents. The plebeians were at first obstinate, but at last were persuaded to yield to the entreaties of the embassy to return, being won to this mind, so it is said, by one of the wise senators, Menenius, who made use of the well-known fable of the Body and the Members.
The following covenant was entered into, and bound by the most solemn oaths and vows before the gods: The debts of the poor plebeians were to be cancelled and those held in slavery set free; and two magistrates (the number was soon increased to ten), called tribunes, whose duty it should be to watch over the plebeians, and protect them against the injustice, harshness, and partiality of the patrician magistrates, were to be chosen from the commons. The persons of these officers were made sacred. Any one interrupting a tribune in the discharge of his duties, or doing him any violence, was declared an outlaw, whom any one might kill. That the tribunes might be always easily found, they were not allowed to go more than one mile beyond the city walls. Their houses were to be open night as well as day, that any plebeian unjustly dealt with might flee thither for protection and refuge.
We cannot overestimate the importance of the change effected in the Roman constitution by the creation of this office of the tribunate. Under the protection and leadership of the tribunes, who were themselves protected by oaths of inviolable sanctity, the plebeians carried on a struggle for a share in the offices and dignities of the state which never ceased until the Roman government, as yet only republican in name, became in fact a real democracy, in which patrician and plebeian shared equally in all emoluments and privileges.
CORIOLANUS.--The tradition of Coriolanus illustrates in what manner the tribunes cared for the rights of the common people and protected them from the oppression of the nobles. During a severe famine at Rome, Gelon, the King of Syracuse, sent large quantities of grain to the capital for distribution among the suffering poor. A certain patrician, Coriolanus by name, made a proposal that none of the grain should be given to the plebeians save on condition that they give up their tribunes. These officials straightway summoned him before the plebeian assembly, [Footnote: This was the Concilium Tributum Plebis, an assembly which came into existence about this time. It was made up wholly of plebeians, and was presided over by the tribunes. Later, there came into existence another tribal assembly, which was composed of patricians and plebeians, and presided over by consuls or prætors. Some authorities are inclined to regard these two assemblies as one and the same body; but others, among whom is Mommsen, with probably better reason, look upon them as two distinct organizations.] on the charge of having broken the solemn covenant of the Sacred Mount, and so bitter was the feeling against him that he was obliged to flee from Rome.
He now allied himself with the Volscians, enemies of Rome, and even led their armies against his native city. An embassy from the Senate was sent to him, to sue for peace. But the spirit of Coriolanus was bitter and revengeful, and he would listen to none of their proposals. Nothing availed to move him until his mother, at the head of a train of Roman matrons, came to his tent, and with tears pleaded with him to spare the city. Her entreaties and the "soft prayers" of his own wife and children prevailed, and with the words "Mother, thou hast saved Rome, but lost thy son," he led away the Volscian army.
CINCINNATUS MADE DICTATOR.--The enemies of Rome, taking advantage of the dissensions of the nobles and commons, pressed upon the frontiers of the republic on all sides. In 458 B.C., the Æquians, while one of the consuls was away fighting the Sabines, defeated the forces of the other, and shut them up in a narrow valley, whence escape seemed impossible. There was great terror in Rome when news of the situation of the army was brought to the city.
The Senate immediately appointed Cincinnatus, a noble patrician, dictator. The ambassadors that carried to him the message from the Senate found him upon his little farm near the Tiber, at work behind the plough. Accepting the office at once, he hastily gathered an army, marched to the relief of the consul, captured the entire army of the Æquians, and sent them beneath the yoke. [Footnote: This was formed of two spears thrust firmly into the ground and crossed a few feet from the earth by a third. Prisoners of war were forced to pass beneath this yoke as a symbol of submission.] Cincinnatus then led his army back to Rome in triumph, laid down his office, and sought again the retirement of his farm.
THE DECEMVIRS AND THE TABLES OF LAWS.--Written laws are always a great safeguard against oppression. Until what shall constitute a crime and what shall be its penalty are clearly written down and well known and understood by all, judges may render unfair decisions, or inflict unjust punishment, and yet run little risk--unless they go altogether too far--of being called to an account; for no one but themselves knows what the law or the penalty really is. Hence in all struggles of the people against the tyranny of the ruling class, the demand for written laws is one of the first measures taken by the people for the protection of their persons and property. Thus we have seen the people of Athens, early in their struggle with the nobles, demanding and obtaining a code of written laws (see p. 119). The same thing now took place at Rome. The plebeians demanded that a code of laws be drawn up, in accordance with which the consuls, who exercised judicial powers, should render their decisions. The patricians offered a stubborn resistance to their wishes, but finally were forced to yield to the popular clamor.
A commission was sent to the Greek cities of Southern Italy and to Athens to study the Grecian laws and customs. Upon the return of this embassy, a commission of ten magistrates, who were known as decemvirs, was appointed to frame a code of laws (451 B.C.). These officers, while engaged in this work, were also to administer the entire government, and so were invested with the supreme power of the state. The patricians gave up their consuls and the plebeians their tribunes. At the end of the first year, the task of the board was quite far from being finished, so a new decemvirate was elected to complete the work. Appius Claudius was the only member of the old board that was returned to the new.
The code was soon finished, and the laws were written on twelve tablets of brass, which were fastened to the rostrum, or orator's platform in the Forum, where they might be seen and read by all. These "Laws of the Twelve Tables" were to Roman jurisprudence what the good laws of Solon (see p. 120) were to the Athenian constitution. They formed the basis of all new legislation for many centuries, and constituted a part of the education of the Roman youth--every school-boy being required to learn them by heart.
MISRULE AND OVERTHROW OF THE DECEMVIRS.--The first decemvirs used the great power lodged in their hands with justice and prudence; but the second board, under the leadership of Appius Claudius, instituted a most infamous and tyrannical rule. The result was a second secession of the plebeians to the Sacred Hill. This procedure, which once before had proved so effectual in securing justice to the oppressed, had a similar issue now. The situation was so critical that the decemvirs were forced to resign. The consulate and the tribunate were restored. Eight of the decemvirs were forced to go into exile; Appius Claudius and one other, having been imprisoned, committed suicide.
CONSULAR, OR MILITARY TRIBUNES.--The overthrow of the decemvirate was followed by a long struggle between the nobles and the commons, which was an effort on the part of the latter to gain admission to the consulship; for up to this time only a patrician could hold that office. The contention resulted in a compromise. It was agreed that, in place of the two consuls, the people might elect from either order magistrates, who should be known as "military tribunes with consular powers." These officers, whose numbers varied, differed from consuls more in name than in functions or authority. In fact, the plebeians had gained the office, but not the name (444 B.C.).
THE CENSORS.--No sooner had the plebeians virtually secured admission to the consulship, than the jealous and exclusive patricians commenced scheming to rob them of the fruit of the victory they had gained. They effected this by taking from the consulate some of its most distinctive duties and powers, and conferring them upon two new patrician officers called censors. The functions of these magistrates were many and important. They took the census, and thus assigned to every man his position in the different classes of the citizens; and they could, for immorality or any improper conduct, not only degrade a man from his rank, but deprive him of his vote. It was their duty to watch the public morals and in case of necessity to administer wholesome advice. Thus we are told of their reproving the young Romans for wearing tunics with long sleeves-- an Oriental and effeminate custom--and for neglecting to marry upon arriving at a proper age. From the name of these Roman officers comes our word censorious, meaning fault-finding.
The first censors were elected probably in the year 444 B.C.; about one hundred years afterwards, in 351 B.C., the plebeians secured the right of holding this office also.
SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF VEII.--We must now turn to notice the fortunes of Rome in war. Almost from the founding of the city, we find its warlike citizens carrying on a fierce contest with their powerful Etruscan neighbors on the north. Veii was one of the largest and richest of the cities of Etruria. Around this the war gathered. The Romans, like the Grecians at Troy, attacked its walls for ten years. The length of the siege, and the necessity of maintaining a force permanently in the field, led to the establishment of a paid standing army; for hitherto the soldier had not only equipped himself, but had served without pay. Thus was laid the basis of that military power which was destined to effect the conquest of the world, and then, in the hands of ambitious and favorite generals, to overthrow the republic itself.
The capture of Veii by the dictator Camillus (396 B.C.) was followed by that of many other Etruscan towns. Rome was enriched by their spoils, and became the centre of a large and lucrative trade. The frontiers of the republic were pushed out even beyond the utmost limits of the kingdom before its overthrow. All that was lost by the revolution had been now regained, and much besides had been won. At this moment there broke upon the city a storm from the north, which all but cut short the story we are narrating.
SACK OF ROME BY THE GAULS (390 B.C.).--We have already mentioned how, in very remote times, the tribes of Gaul crossed the Alps and established themselves in Northern Italy (see p. 223). While the Romans were conquering the towns of Etruria, these barbarian hordes were moving southward, and overrunning and devastating the countries of Central Italy.
News was brought to Rome that they were advancing upon that city. A Roman army met them on the banks of the river Allia, eleven miles from the capital. The Romans were driven in great panic from the field. It would be impossible to picture the consternation and despair that reigned at Rome when the fugitives brought to the city intelligence of the terrible disaster. It was never forgotten, and the day of the battle of Allia was ever after a black day in the Roman calendar. The sacred vessels of the temples were buried; the eternal fires of Vesta were hurriedly borne by their virgin keepers to a place of safety in Etruria; and a large part of the population fled in dismay across the Tiber. No attempt was made to defend any portion of the city save the citadel. This stronghold was kept by a little garrison, under the command of the hero Marius Manlius. A tradition tells how, when the barbarians, under cover of the darkness of night, had climbed the steep rock and had almost effected an entrance to the citadel, the defenders were awakened by the cackling of some geese, which the piety of the famishing soldiers had spared, because these birds were sacred to Juno.
News was now brought the Gauls that the Venetians were overrunning their possessions in Northern Italy. This led them to open negotiations with the Romans. For one thousand pounds of gold, according to the historian Livy, the Gauls agreed to retire from the city. As the story runs, while the gold was being weighed out in the Forum, the Romans complained that the weights were false, when Brennus, the Gallic leader, threw his sword also into the scales, exclaiming, "Væ, victis!" "Woe to the vanquished." Just at this moment, so the tale continues, Camillus, a brave patrician general, appeared upon the scene with a Roman army that had been gathered from the fugitives; and, as he scattered the barbarians with heavy blows, he exclaimed, "Rome is ransomed with steel and not with gold." According to one account Brennus himself was taken prisoner; but another tradition says that he escaped, carrying with him not only the ransom, but a vast booty besides.
THE REBUILDING OF ROME.--When the fugitives returned to Rome after the withdrawal of the Gauls, they found the city a heap of ruins. Some of the poorer classes, shrinking from the labor of rebuilding their old homes, proposed to abandon the site and make Veii their new capital. But love for the old spot at last prevailed over all the persuasions of indolence, and the people, with admirable courage, set themselves to the task of rebuilding their homes. It was a repetition of the scene at Athens after the retreat of the Persians (see p. 136). The city was speedily restored, and was soon enjoying her old position of supremacy among the surrounding states. There were some things, however, which even Roman resolution and perseverance could not restore. These were the ancient records and documents, through whose irreparable loss the early history of Rome is involved in great obscurity and uncertainty.
TREASON AND DEATH OF MANLIUS.--The ravages of the Gauls left the poor plebeians in a most pitiable condition. In order to rebuild their dwellings and restock their farms, they were obliged to borrow money of the rich patricians, and consequently soon began again to experience the insult and oppression that were ever incident to the condition of the debtor class at Rome.
The patrician Manlius, the hero of the brave defence of the Capitol, now came forward as the champion of the plebeians. He sold the larger part of his estates, and devoted the proceeds to the relief of the debtor class. It seems evident that in thus undertaking the cause of the commons he had personal aims and ambitions. The patricians determined to crush him. He was finally brought to trial before the popular assembly, on the charge of conspiring to restore the office of king. From the Forum, where the people were gathered, the Capitol, which Manlius had so bravely defended against the barbarians, was in full sight. Pointing to the temples he had saved, he appealed to the gods and to the gratitude of the Roman people. The people responded to the appeal in a way altogether natural. They refused to condemn him. But brought to trial a second time, and now in a grove whence the citadel could not be seen, he was sentenced to death, and was thrown from the Tarpeian Rock. [Footnote: The Tarpeian Rock was the name given to the cliff which the Capitoline Hill formed on the side towards the Tiber (or towards the Palatine, according to some). It received its name from Tarpeia, daughter of one of the legendary keepers of the citadel. State criminals were frequently executed by being thrown from this rock.] This event occurred 384 B.C.
PLEBEIANS ADMITTED TO THE CONSULSHIP.--For nearly half a century after the death of Manlius the most important events in the history of Rome centre about the struggle of the plebeians, for admission to those offices of the government whence the jealousy of the patricians still excluded them. The Licinian laws, so called from one of their proposers, the tribune C. Licinius, besides relieving the poor of usurious interest, and effecting a more just division of the public lands, also provided that consuls should be chosen yearly, as at first (see p. 238), and that one of the consuls should be a plebeian. This last provision opened to any one of the plebeian class the highest office in the state. The nobles, when they saw that it would be impossible to resist the popular demand, had recourse to the old device. They effected a compromise, whereby the judicial powers of the consuls were taken from them and conferred upon a new magistrate, who bore the name of prætor. Only patricians, of course, were to be eligible to this new office. They then permitted the Licinian laws to pass (367 B.C.).
During the latter half of the fourth century B.C. (between the years 356- 300) the plebeians gained admittance to the dictatorship, the censorship, the prætorship, and to the College of Augurs and the College of Pontiffs. They had been admitted to the College of Priests having charge of the Sibylline books, at the time of the passing of the Licinian laws. With plebeians in all these positions, the rights of the lower order were fairly secured against oppressive and partisan decisions on the part of the magistrates, and against party fraud in the taking of the auspices and in the regulation of the calendar. There was now political equality between the nobility and the commonalty.
WARS FOR THE MASTERY OF ITALY.
THE FIRST SAMNITE WAR (343-341 B.C.).--The union of the two orders in the state allowed the Romans now to employ their undivided strength in subjugating the different states of the peninsula. The most formidable competitors of the Romans for supremacy in Italy were the Samnites, rough and warlike mountaineers who held the Apennines to the east of Latium. They were worthy rivals of the "children of Mars." The successive struggles between these martial races are known as the First, Second, and Third Samnite wars. They extended over a period of half a century, and in their course involved almost all the states of Italy.
Of the first of this series of wars we know very little, although Livy wrote a long, but unfortunately very unreliable, narration of it. In the midst of the struggle, Rome was confronted by a dangerous revolt of her Latin allies, and, leaving the war unfinished, turned her forces upon the insurgents.
REVOLT OF THE LATIN CITIES (340-338 B.C.).--The strife between the Romans and their Latin allies was simply the old contest within the walls of the capital between the patricians and the plebeians transferred to a larger arena. As the nobles had oppressed the commons, so now both these orders united in the oppression of the Latins--the plebeians in their bettered circumstances forgetting the lessons of adversity. The Latin allies demanded a share in the government, and that the lands acquired by conquest should be distributed among them as well as among Roman citizens. The Romans refused. All Latium rose in revolt against the injustice and tyranny of the oppressor.
After about three years' hard fighting, the rebellion was subdued. The Latin League was now broken up. Some of the towns retained their independence (Tibur, Præneste, and Cora); some received full Roman citizenship (Aricia, Lanuvium, and Nomentum); while others received only the private rights of Roman citizens, the right of suffrage being withheld.
SECOND AND THIRD SAMNITE WARS (326-290 B.C.).--In a few years after the close of the Latin contest, the Romans were at war again with their old rivals, the Samnites. Notwithstanding the latter were thoroughly defeated in this second contest, still it was not long before they were again in arms and engaged in their third struggle with Rome. This time they had formed a powerful coalition which embraced the Etruscans, the Umbrians, the Gauls, and other nations.
Roman courage rose with the danger. The united armies of the league met with a most disastrous defeat (at Sentinum, 295 B.C.), and the power of the coalition was broken. One after another the states that had joined the alliance were chastised, and the Samnites were forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome. A few years later, almost all of the Greek cities of Southern Italy, save Tarentum, also came under the growing power of the imperial city.
WAR WITH PYRRHUS (282-272 B.C.).--Tarentum was one of the most noted of the Hellenic cities of Magna Græcia. It was a seaport on the Calabrian coast, and had grown opulent through the extended trade of its merchants. The capture of some Roman vessels, and an insult offered to an envoy of the republic by the Tarentines, led to a declaration of war against them by the Roman Senate. The Tarentines turned to Greece for aid. Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, a cousin of Alexander the Great, who had an ambition to build up such an empire in the West as his renowned kinsman had established in the East, responded to their entreaties, and crossed over into Italy with a small army of Greek mercenaries and twenty war- elephants. He organized and drilled the effeminate Tarentines, and soon felt prepared to face the Romans.
The hostile armies met at Heraclea (280 B.C.). It is said that when Pyrrhus, who had underestimated his foe, observed the skill which the Romans evinced in forming their line of battle, he exclaimed, in admiration, "In war, at least, these men are not barbarians." The battle was won for Pyrrhus by his war-elephants, the sight of which, being new to the Romans, caused them to flee from the field in dismay. But Pyrrhus had lost thousands of his bravest troops. Victories gained by such losses in a country where he could not recruit his army, he saw clearly, meant final defeat. As he looked over the battle-field, he is said to have turned to his companions and remarked, "Another such victory, and I must return to Epirus alone." He noticed also, and not without appreciating its significance, that the wounds of the Roman soldiers killed in the action were all in front. "Had I such soldiers," said he, "I should soon be master of the world."
The prudence of the victorious Pyrrhus led him to send to the Romans an embassy with proposals of peace. When the Senate hesitated, its resolution was fixed by the eloquence of the aged Appius: "Rome," exclaimed he, "shall never treat with a victorious foe." The ambassadors were obliged to return to Pyrrhus unsuccessful in their mission.
Pyrrhus, according to the Roman story-tellers, who most lavishly embellished this chapter of their history, was not more successful in attempts at bribery than in the arts of negotiation. Upon his attempting by large offers of gold to win Fabricius, who had been intrusted by the Senate with an important embassy, the sturdy old Roman replied, "Poverty, with an honest name, is more to be desired than wealth."
After a second victory, as disastrous as his first, Pyrrhus crossed over into Sicily, to aid the Grecians there in their struggle with the Carthaginians. At first he was everywhere successful; but finally fortune turned against him, and he was glad to escape from the island. Recrossing the straits into Italy, he once more engaged the Romans, but at the battle of Beneventum suffered a disastrous and final defeat at the hands of the consul Curius Dentatus (274 B.C.). Leaving a sufficient force to garrison Tarentum, the baffled and disappointed king set sail for Epirus. He had scarcely embarked before Tarentum surrendered to the Romans (272 B.C.). This ended the struggles for the mastery of Italy. Rome was now mistress of all the peninsula south of the Arnus and the Rubicon. It was now her care to consolidate these possessions, and to fasten her hold upon them, by means of a perfect network of colonies and military roads. [Footnote: "Colonies were not all of the same character. They must be distinguished into two classes--the colonies of Roman citizens and the Latin colonies. The colonies of Roman citizens consisted usually of three hundred men of approved military experience, who went forth with their families to occupy conquered cities of no great magnitude, but which were important as military positions, being usually on the sea-coast. These three hundred families formed a sort of patrician caste, while the old inhabitants sank into the condition formerly occupied by the plebeians at Rome. The heads of these families retained all their rights as Roman citizens, and might repair to Rome to vote in the popular assemblies."--Liddell's History of Rome.
The Latin colonies numbered about thirty at the time of the Second Punic War. A few of these were colonies that had been founded by the old Latin Confederacy; but the most were towns that had been established by Rome subsequent to the dissolution of the League (see p. 244). The term Latin was applied to these later colonies of purely Roman origin, for the reason that they enjoyed the same rights as the Latin towns that had retained their independence. Thus the inhabitants of a Latin colony possessed some of the most valuable of the private rights of Roman citizens, but they had no political rights at the capital.]
Chapter XXIV
THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. (264-241 B.C.)
CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIAN EMPIRE.--Foremost among the cities founded by the Phoenicians upon the different shores of the Mediterranean was Carthage, upon the northern coast of Africa. The city is thought to have had its beginnings in a small trading-post, established late in the ninth century B.C., about one hundred years before the founding of Rome. Carthage was simply another Tyre. She was mistress and queen of the Western Mediterranean. At the period we have now reached, she held sway, through peaceful colonization or by force of arms, over all the northern coast of Africa from the Greater Syrtis to the Pillars of Hercules, and possessed the larger part of Sicily, as well as Sardinia, Corsica, the Balearic Isles, Southern Spain, and scores of little islands scattered here and there in the neighboring seas. With all its shores dotted with her colonies and fortresses, and swept in every direction by the Carthaginian war-galleys, the Western Mediterranean had become a "Phoenician lake," in which, as the Carthaginians boasted, no one dared wash his hands without their permission.
CARTHAGINIAN GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION.--The government of Carthage, like that of Rome, was republican in form. Corresponding to the Roman consuls, two magistrates, called Suffetes, stood at the head of the state. The Senate was composed of the heads of the leading families; its duties and powers were very like those of the Roman Senate. So well-balanced was the constitution, and so prudent was its administration, that six hundred years of Carthaginian history exhibited not a single revolution.
The religion of the Carthaginians was the old Canaanitish worship of Baal, or the Sun. To Moloch,--another name for the fire-god,--"who rejoiced in human victims and in parents' tears," they offered human sacrifices.
ROME AND CARTHAGE COMPARED.--These two great republics, which for more than five centuries had been slowly extending their limits and maturing their powers upon the opposite shores of the Mediterranean, were now about to begin one of the most memorable struggles of all antiquity--a duel that was to last, with every vicissitude of fortune, for over one hundred years.
As was the case in the contest between Athens and Sparta, so now the two rival cities, with their allies and dependencies, were very nearly matched in strength and resources. The Romans, it is true, were almost destitute of a navy; while the Carthaginians had the largest and most splendidly equipped fleet that ever patrolled the waters of the Mediterranean. But although the Carthaginians were superior to the Romans in naval warfare, they were greatly their inferiors in land encounters. The Carthaginian territory, moreover, was widely scattered, embracing extended coasts and isolated islands; while the Roman possessions were compact, and confined to a single and easily defended peninsula. Again, the Carthaginian armies were formed chiefly of mercenaries, while those of Rome were recruited very largely from the ranks of the Roman people. And then the subject states of Carthage were mostly of another race, language, and religion from their Phoenician conquerors, and were ready, upon the first disaster to the ruling city, to drop away from their allegiance; while the Latin allies and Italian dependencies of Rome were close kindred to her in race and religion, and so, through natural impulse, for the most part remained loyal to her during even the darkest periods of her struggle with her rival.
THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR.--Lying between Italy and the coast of Africa is the large island of Sicily. It is in easy sight of the former, and its southernmost point is only ninety miles from the latter. At the commencement of the First Punic War, the Carthaginians held possession of all the island save a strip of the eastern coast, which was under the sway of the Greek city of Syracuse. The Greeks and Carthaginians had carried on an almost uninterrupted struggle through two centuries for the control of the island. The Romans had not yet set foot upon it. But it was destined to become the scene of the most terrible encounters between the armaments of the two rivals. Pyrrhus had foreseen it all. As he withdrew from the island, he said, "What a fine battlefield we are leaving for the Romans and Carthaginians."
In the year 264 B.C., on a flimsy pretext of giving protection to some friends, the Romans crossed over to the island. That act committed them to a career of foreign conquest destined to continue till their arms had made the circuit of the Mediterranean.
The Syracusans and Carthaginians, old enemies and rivals though they had been, joined their forces against the insolent newcomers. The allies were completely defeated in the first battle, and the Roman army obtained a sure foothold upon the island.
In the following year both consuls were placed at the head of formidable armies for the conquest of Sicily. A large portion of the island was quickly overrun, arid many of the cities threw off their allegiance to Syracuse and Carthage, and became allies of Rome. Hiero, king of Syracuse, seeing that he was upon the losing side, deserted the cause of the Carthaginians, and formed an alliance with the Romans, and ever after remained their firm friend.
THE ROMANS GAIN THEIR FIRST NAVAL VICTORY (260 B.C.).--Their experience during the past campaigns had shown the Romans that if they were to cope successfully with the Carthaginians, they must be able to meet them upon the sea as well as upon the land. So they determined to build a fleet. A Carthaginian galley that had been wrecked upon the shores of Italy, served as a pattern. It is affirmed that, within the almost incredibly short space of sixty days, a growing forest was converted into a fleet of one hundred and twenty war galleys.
The consul C. Duillius was entrusted with the command of the fleet. He met the Carthaginian squadron near the city and promontory of Mylæ, on the northern coast of Sicily. Now, distrusting their ability to match the skill of their enemy in naval tactics, the Romans had provided each of their vessels with a drawbridge. As soon as a Carthaginian ship came near enough to a Roman vessel, this gangway was allowed to fall upon the approaching galley; and the Roman soldiers, rushing along the bridge, were soon engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with their enemies, in which species of encounter the former were unequalled. The result was a complete victory for the Romans.
The joy at Rome was unbounded. It inspired in the more sanguine splendid visions of maritime command and glory. The Mediterranean should speedily become a Roman lake, in which no vessel might float without the consent of Rome.
THE ROMANS CARRY THE WAR INTO AFRICA.--The results of the naval engagement at Mylæ encouraged the Romans to push the war with redoubled energy. They resolved to carry it into Africa. An immense Carthaginian fleet that disputed the passage of the Roman squadron was almost annihilated, and the Romans disembarked near Carthage. Regulus, one of the consuls who led the army of invasion, sent word to Rome that he had sealed up the gates of Carthage with terror. Finally, however, Regulus suffered a crushing defeat, and was made prisoner. A fleet which was sent to bear away the remnants of the shattered army was wrecked in a terrific storm off the coast of Sicily, and the shores of the island were strewn with the wreckage of between two and three hundred ships and with the bodies of one hundred thousand men.
Undismayed at the terrible disaster that had overtaken the transport fleet, the Romans set to work to build another, and made a second descent upon the African coast. The expedition, however, accomplished nothing of importance; and the fleet on its return voyage was almost destroyed, just off the coast of Italy, by a tremendous storm.
REGULUS AND THE CARTHAGINIAN EMBASSY.--For a few years the Romans refrained from tempting again the hostile powers of the sea, and Sicily became once more the battle-ground of the contending rivals. At last, having lost a great battle (battle of Panormus, 251 B.C.), the Carthaginians became dispirited, and sent an embassy to Rome, to negotiate for peace, or, if that could not be reached, to effect an exchange of prisoners. Among the commissioners was Regulus, who since his capture, five years before, had been held a prisoner in Africa. Before setting out from Carthage he had promised to return if the embassy were unsuccessful. For the sake of his own release, the Carthaginians supposed he would counsel peace, or at least urge an exchange of prisoners. But it is related, that upon arrival at Rome, he counselled war instead of peace, at the same time revealing to the Senate the enfeebled condition of Carthage. As to the exchange of prisoners, he said, "Let those who have surrendered when they ought to have died, die in the land which has witnessed their disgrace."
The Roman Senate, following his counsel, rejected all the proposals of the embassy; and Regulus, in spite of the tears and entreaties of his wife and friends, turned away from Rome, and set out for Carthage to bear such fate as he well knew the Carthaginians, in their disappointment and anger, would be sure to visit upon him.
The tradition goes on to tell how, upon his arrival at Carthage, he was confined in a cask driven full of spikes, and then left to die of starvation and pain. This part of the tale has been discredited, and the finest touches of the other portions are supposed to have been added by the story-tellers.
LOSS OF TWO MORE ROMAN FLEETS.--After the failure of the Carthaginian embassy, the war went on for several years by land and sea with varying vicissitudes. At last, on the coast of Sicily, one of the consuls, Claudius, met with an overwhelming defeat. Almost a hundred vessels of his fleet were lost. The disaster caused the greatest alarm at Rome. Superstition increased the fears of the people. It was reported that just before the battle, when the auspices were being taken, and the sacred chickens would not eat, Claudius had given orders to have them thrown into the sea, irreverently remarking, "At any rate, they shall drink." Imagination was free to depict what further evils the offended gods might inflict upon the Roman state.
The gloomiest forebodings might have found justification in subsequent events. The other consul just now met with a great disaster. He was proceeding along the southern coast of Sicily with a squadron of eight hundred merchantmen and over one hundred war galleys, the former loaded with grain for the Roman army on the island. A severe storm arising, the squadron was beaten to pieces upon the rocks. Not a single ship escaped. The coast for miles was strewn with broken planks, and with bodies, and heaped with vast windrows of grain cast up by the waves.
CLOSE OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.--The war had now lasted for fifteen years. Four Roman fleets had been destroyed, three of which had been sunk or broken to pieces by storms. Of the fourteen hundred vessels which had been lost, seven hundred were war galleys,--all large and costly quinqueremes, that is, vessels with five banks of oars. Only one hundred of these had fallen into the hands of the enemy; the remainder were a sacrifice to the malign and hostile power of the waves. Such successive blows from an invisible hand were enough to blanch the faces even of the sturdy Romans. Neptune manifestly denied to the "Children of Mars" the realm of the sea.
It was impossible for the six years following the last disaster to infuse any spirit into the struggle. In 247 B.C., Hamilcar Barcas, the father of the great Hannibal, assumed the command of the Carthaginian forces, and for several years conducted the war with great ability on the island of Sicily, even making Rome tremble for the safety of her Italian possessions.
Once more the Romans determined to commit their cause to the element that had been so unfriendly to them. A fleet of two hundred vessels was built and equipped, but entirely by private subscription; for the Senate feared that public sentiment would not sustain them in levying a tax for fitting up another costly armament as an offering to the insatiable Neptune. This people's squadron, as we may call it, was intrusted to the command of the consul Catulus. He met the Carthaginian fleet under the command of the Admiral Hanno, near the Ægatian islands, and inflicted upon it a crushing defeat.
The Carthaginians now sued for peace. A treaty was at length arranged, the terms of which required that Carthage should give up all claims to the island of Sicily, surrender all her prisoners, and pay an indemnity of 3200 talents (about $4,000,000), one-third of which was to be paid down, and the balance in ten yearly payments. Thus ended (241 B.C.), after a continuance of twenty-four years, the first great struggle between Carthage and Rome.
Chapter XXV
THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. (2l8-201 B.C.)
ROME BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.
THE FIRST ROMAN PROVINCE.--For the twenty-three years that followed the close of the first struggle between Rome and Carthage, the two rivals strained every power and taxed every resource in preparation for a renewal of the contest.
The Romans settled the affairs of Sicily, organizing all of it, save the lands belonging to Syracuse, as a province of the republic. This was the first territory beyond the limits of Italy that Rome had conquered, and the Sicilian the first of Roman provinces. But as the imperial city extended her conquests, her provincial possessions increased in number and size until they formed at last a perfect cordon about the Mediterranean. Each province was governed by a magistrate sent out from the capital, and paid an annual tribute, or tax, to Rome.
ROME ACQUIRES SARDINIA AND CORSICA.--The first acquisition by the Romans of lands beyond the peninsula seems to have created in them an insatiable ambition for foreign conquests. They soon found a pretext for seizing the island of Sardinia, the most ancient and, after Sicily, the most prized of the possessions of the Carthaginians. The island, in connection with Corsica, which was also seized, was formed into a Roman province. With her hands upon these islands, the authority of Rome in the Western, or Tuscan Sea, was supreme.
THE ILLYRIAN CORSAIRS ARE PUNISHED.--At about the same time, the Romans also extended their influence over the seas that wash the eastern shores of Italy. For a long time the Adriatic and Ionian waters had been infested with Illyrian pirates, who issued from the roadsteads of the northeastern coasts of the former sea. The Roman fleet chased these corsairs from the Adriatic, and captured several of their strongholds. Rome now assumed a sort of protectorate over the Greek cities of the Adriatic coasts. This was her first step towards final supremacy in Macedonia and Greece.
WAR WITH THE GAULS.--In the north, during this same period, Roman authority was extended from the Apennines and the Rubicon to the foot of the Alps. Alarmed at the advance of the Romans, who were pushing northward their great military road, called the Flaminian Way, and also settling with discharged soldiers and needy citizens the tracts of frontier land wrested some time before from the Gauls, the Boii, a tribe of that race, stirred up all the Gallic peoples already in Italy, besides their kinsmen who were yet beyond the mountains, for an assault upon Rome. Intelligence of this movement among the northern tribes threw all Italy into a fever of excitement. At Rome the terror was great; for not yet had died out of memory what the city had once suffered at the hands of the ancestors of these same barbarians that were now again gathering their hordes for sack and pillage. An ancient prediction, found in the Sibylline books, declared that a portion of Roman territory must needs be occupied by Gauls. Hoping sufficiently to fulfil the prophecy and satisfy Fate, the Roman Senate caused two Gauls to be buried alive in one of the public squares of the capital.
Meanwhile the barbarians had advanced into Etruria, ravaging the country as they moved southward. After gathering a large amount of booty, they were carrying this back to a place of safety, when they were surrounded by the Roman armies at Telamon, and almost annihilated (225 B.C.). The Romans, taking advantage of this victory, pushed on into the plains of the Po, captured the city which is now known as Milan, and extended their authority to the foot-hills of the Alps.
CARTHAGE BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.
THE TRUCELESS WAR.--Scarcely had peace been concluded with Rome at the end of the First Punic War, before Carthage was plunged into a still deadlier struggle, which for a time threatened her very existence. The mercenary troops, upon their return from Sicily, revolted, on account of not receiving their pay. Their appeal to the native tribes of Africa was answered by a general uprising throughout the dependencies of Carthage. The extent of the revolt shows how hateful and hated was the rule of the great capital over her subject states.
The war was unspeakably bitter and cruel. It is known in history as "The Truceless War." At one time Carthage was the only city remaining in the hands of the government. But the genius of the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barcas at last triumphed, and the authority of Carthage was everywhere restored.
THE CARTHAGINIANS IN SPAIN.--After the disastrous termination of the First Punic War, the Carthaginians determined to repair their losses by new conquests in Spain. Hamilcar Barcas was sent over into that country, and for nine years he devoted his commanding genius to organizing the different Iberian tribes into a compact state, and to developing the rich gold and silver mines of the southern part of the peninsula. He fell in battle 228 B.C.
Hamilcar Barcas was the greatest general that up to this time the Carthaginian race had produced. As a rule, genius is not heritable; but in the Barcine family the rule was broken, and the rare genius of Hamilcar reappeared in his sons, whom he himself, it is said, was fond of calling the "lion's brood." Hannibal, the oldest, was only nineteen at the time of his father's death, and being thus too young to assume command, Hasdrubal, [Footnote: Not to be confounded with Hannibal's own brother Hasdrubal.] the son-in-law of Hamilcar, was chosen to succeed him. He carried out the unfinished plans of Hamilcar, extended and consolidated the Carthaginian power in Spain, and upon the eastern coast founded New Carthage as the centre and capital of the newly acquired territory. The native tribes were conciliated rather than conquered. The Barcine family knew how to rule as well as how to fight.
HANNIBAL'S VOW.--Upon the death of Hasdrubal, which occurred 221 B.C., Hannibal, now twenty-six years of age, was by the unanimous voice of the army called to be their leader. When a child of nine years he had been led by his father to the altar; and there, with his hands upon the sacrifice, the little boy had sworn eternal hatred to the Roman race. He was driven on to his gigantic undertakings and to his hard fate, not only by the restless fires of his warlike genius, but, as he himself declared, by the sacred obligations of a vow that could not be broken.
HANNIBAL ATTACKS SAGUNTUM.--In two years Hannibal extended the Carthaginian power to the Ebro. Saguntum, a Greek city upon the east coast of Spain, alone remained unsubdued. The Romans, who were jealously watching affairs in the peninsula, had entered into an alliance with this city, and taken it, with other Greek cities in that quarter of the Mediterranean, under their protection. Hannibal, although he well knew that an attack upon this place would precipitate hostilities with Rome, laid siege to it in the spring of 219 B.C. He was eager for the renewal of the old contest. The Roman Senate sent messengers to him forbidding his making war upon a city which was a friend and ally of the Roman people; but Hannibal, disregarding their remonstrances, continued the siege, and, after an investment of eight months, gained possession of the town.
The Romans now sent commissioners to Carthage to demand of the Senate that they should give up Hannibal to them, and by so doing repudiate the act of their general. The Carthaginians hesitated. Then Quintus Fabius, chief of the embassy, gathering up his toga, said: "I carry here peace and war; choose, men of Carthage, which ye will have." "Give us whichever ye will," was the reply. "War, then," said Fabius, dropping his toga. The "die was now cast; and the arena was cleared for the foremost man of his race and his time, perhaps the mightiest military genius of any race and of any time."
THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.
HANNIBAL'S PASSAGE OF THE ALPS.--The Carthaginian empire was now stirred with preparations for the impending struggle. Hannibal was the life and soul of every movement. His bold plan was to cross the Pyrenees and the Alps and descend upon Rome from the north.
With his preparations completed, Hannibal left New Carthage early in the spring of 218 B.C., with an army numbering about one hundred thousand men, and including thirty-seven war elephants. Crossing the Pyrenees and the Rhone, he reached the foot-hills of the Alps. Nature and man joined to oppose the passage. The season was already far advanced--it was October-- and snow was falling upon the higher portions of the trail. Day after day the army toiled painfully up the dangerous path. In places the narrow way had to be cut wider for the monstrous bodies of the elephants. Often avalanches of stone were hurled upon the trains by the hostile bands that held possession of the heights above. At last the summit was gained, and the shivering army looked down into the warm haze of the Italian plains. The sight alone was enough to rouse the drooping spirits of the soldiers; but Hannibal stirred them to enthusiasm by addressing them with these words: "Ye are standing upon the Acropolis of Italy; yonder lies Rome." The army began its descent, and at length, after toils and losses equalled only by those of the ascent, its thinned battalions issued from the defiles of the mountains upon the plains of the Po. Of the fifty thousand men and more with which Hannibal had begun the passage, barely half that number had survived the march, and these "looked more like phantoms than men."
BATTLES OF THE TICINUS, THE TREBIA, AND LAKE TRASIMENUS.--The Romans had not the remotest idea of Hannibal's plans. With war determined upon, the Senate had sent one of the consuls, L. Sempronius Longus, with an army into Africa by the way of Sicily; while the other, Publius Cornelius Scipio, they had directed to lead another army into Spain.
While the Senate were watching the movements of these expeditions, they were startled with the intelligence that Hannibal, instead of being in Spain, had crossed the Pyrenees and was among the Gauls upon the Rhone. Sempronius was hastily recalled from his attempt upon Africa, to the defence of Italy. Scipio, on his way to Spain, had touched at Massilia, and there learned of the movements of Hannibal. He turned back, hurried into Northern Italy, and took command of the levies there. The cavalry of the two armies met upon the banks of the Ticinus, a tributary of the Po. The Romans were driven from the field by the fierce onset of the Numidian horsemen. Scipio now awaited the arrival of the other consular army, which was hurrying up through Italy by forced marches.
In the battle of the Trebia the united armies of the two consuls were almost annihilated. The Gauls, who had been waiting to see to which side fortune would incline, now flocked to the standard of Hannibal, and hailed him as their deliverer.
The spring following the victory at the Trebia, Hannibal led his army, now recruited by many Gauls, across the Apennines, and moved southward. At Lake Trasimenus he entrapped the Romans under Flaminius in a mountain defile, where, bewildered by a fog that filled the valley, the greater part of the army was slaughtered, and the consul himself was slain.
The way to Rome was now open. Believing that Hannibal would march directly upon the capital, the Senate caused the bridges that spanned the Tiber to be destroyed, and appointed Fabius Maximus dictator.
In one respect only had events disappointed Hannibal's expectations. He had thought that all the states of Italy were, like the Gauls, ready to revolt from Rome at the first opportunity that might offer itself. But not a single city had thus far proved unfaithful to her.
FABIUS "THE DELAYER."--The fate of Rome was now in the hands of Fabius. Should he risk a battle and lose it, the destiny of the capital would be sealed. He determined to adopt a more prudent policy--to follow and annoy the Carthaginian army, but to refuse all proffers of battle. Thus time might be gained for raising a new army and perfecting measures for the public defence. In every possible way Hannibal endeavored to draw his enemy into an engagement. He ravaged the fields far and wide and fired the homesteads of the Italians, in order to force Fabius to fight in their defence. The soldiers of the dictator began to murmur. They called him Cunctator, or "the Delayer." They even accused him of treachery to the cause of Rome. But nothing moved him from the steady pursuit of the policy which he clearly saw was the only prudent one to follow.
THE BATTLE OF CANNÆ.--The time gained by Fabius enabled the Romans to raise and discipline an army that might hope successfully to combat the Carthaginian forces. Early in the summer of the year 216 B.C. these new levies, numbering 80,000 men, confronted the army of Hannibal, amounting to not more than half that number, at Cannæ, in Apulia. It was the largest army the Romans had ever gathered on any battle-field. But it had been collected only to meet the most overwhelming defeat that ever befell the forces of the republic. Through the skilful manoeuvres of Hannibal, the Romans were completely surrounded, and huddled together in a helpless mass upon the field, and then for eight hours were cut down by the Numidian cavalry. From fifty to seventy thousand were slain; a few thousand were taken prisoners; only the merest handful escaped, including one of the consuls. The slaughter was so great that, according to Livy, when Mago, a brother of Hannibal, carried the news of the victory to Carthage, he, in confirmation of the intelligence, poured down in the porch of the Senate- house, nearly a peck of gold rings taken from the fingers of Roman knights.
EVENTS AFTER THE BATTLE OF CANNÆ.--The awful news flew to Rome. Consternation and despair seized the people. The city would have been emptied of its population had not the Senate ordered the gates to be closed. Never did that body display greater calmness, wisdom, prudence, and resolution. By word and act they bade the people never to despair of the republic. Little by little the panic was allayed. Measures were concerted for the defence of the capital, as it was expected that Hannibal would immediately march upon Rome. Swift horsemen were sent out along the Appian Way to gather information of the conqueror's movements, and to learn, as Livy expresses it, "if the immortal gods, out of pity to the empire, had left any remnant of the Roman name."
The leader of the Numidian cavalry, Maharbal, urged Hannibal to follow up his victory closely, "Let me advance with the cavalry," said he, "and in five days thou shalt dine in the capital." But Hannibal refused to adopt the counsel of his impetuous general. Maharbal turned away, and, with mingled reproach and impatience, exclaimed, "Alas! thou knowest how to gain a victory, but not how to use one." The great commander, while he knew he was invincible in the open field, did not think it prudent to fight the Romans behind their walls.
Hannibal now sent an embassy to Rome to offer terms of peace. The Senate, true to the Appian policy never to treat with a victorious enemy (see p. 245), would not even permit the ambassadors to enter the gates. Not less disappointed was Hannibal in the temper of the Roman allies. For the most part they adhered to the cause of Rome with unshaken loyalty through all these trying times. Some tribes in the South of Italy, however, among which were the Lucanians, the Apulians, and the Bruttians, went over to the Carthaginians. Hannibal marched into Campania and quartered his army for the winter in the luxurious city of Capua, which had opened its gates to him. Here he rested and sent urgent messages to Carthage for re- inforcements, while Rome exhausted every resource in raising and equipping new levies, to take the place of the legions lost at Cannæ. For several years there was an ominous lull in the war, while both parties were gathering strength for a renewal of the struggle.
THE FALL OF SYRACUSE AND OF CAPUA.--In the year 216 B.C., Hiero, King of Syracuse, who loved to call himself the friend and ally of the Roman people, died, and the government fell into the hands of a party unfriendly to the republic. An alliance was formed with Carthage, and a large part of Sicily was carried over to the side of the enemies of Rome. The distinguished Roman general, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, called "the Sword of Rome," was intrusted with the task of reconquering the island. After reducing many towns, he at last laid siege to Syracuse.
This noted capital was then one of the largest and richest cities of the Grecian world. For three years it held out against the Roman forces. It is said that Archimedes (see p. 213), the great mathematician, rendered valuable aid to the besieged with curious and powerful engines contrived by his genius. But the city fell at last, and was given over to sack and pillage. Rome was adorned with the rare works of Grecian art--paintings and sculptures--which for centuries had been accumulating in this the oldest and most renowned of the colonies of ancient Hellas. Syracuse never recovered from the blow inflicted upon her at this time by the relentless Romans.
Capua must next be punished for opening her gates and extending her hospitalities to the enemies of Rome. A line of circumvallation was drawn about the devoted city, and two Roman armies held it in close siege. Hannibal, ever faithful to his allies and friends, hastened to the relief of the Capuans. Unable to break the enemy's lines, he marched directly upon Rome, as if to make an attack upon that city, hoping thus to draw off the legions about Capua to the defence of the capital. The "dread Hannibal" himself rode alongside the walls of the hated city, and, tradition says, even hurled a defiant spear over the defences. The Romans certainly were trembling with fear; yet Livy tells how they manifested their confidence in their affairs by selling at public auction the land upon which Hannibal was encamped. He in turn, in the same manner, disposed of the shops fronting the Forum. The story is that there were eager purchasers in both cases.
Failing to draw the legions from Capua as he had hoped, Hannibal now retired from before Rome, and, retreating into the southern part of Italy, abandoned Capua to its fate. It soon fell, and paid the penalty that Rome never failed to inflict upon an unfaithful ally. The chief men in the city were put to death, and a large part of the inhabitants sold as slaves. Capua had aspired to the first place among the cities of Italy: scarcely more than the name of the ambitious capital now remained.
Hasdrubal attempts to carry Aid to his Brother.--During all the years Hannibal was waging war in Italy, his brother Hasdrubal was carrying on a desperate struggle with the Roman armies in Spain. At length he determined to leave the conduct of the war in that country to others, and go to the relief of his brother, who was sadly in need of aid. Like Pyrrhus, Hannibal had been brought to realize that even constant victories won at the cost of soldiers that could not be replaced, meant final defeat.
Hasdrubal followed the same route that had been taken by his brother Hannibal, and in the year 207 B.C. descended from the Alps upon the plains of Northern Italy. Thence he advanced southward, while Hannibal moved northward from Bruttium to meet him. Rome made a last great effort to prevent the junction of the armies of the two brothers. At the river Metaurus, Hasdrubal's march was withstood by a large Roman army. Here his forces were cut to pieces, and he himself was slain (207 B.C.). His head was severed from his body and sent to Hannibal. Upon recognizing the features of his brother, Hannibal exclaimed sadly, "Carthage, I see thy fate."
WAR IN AFRICA: BATTLE OF ZAMA.--The defeat and death of Hasdrubal gave a different aspect to the war. Hannibal now drew back into the rocky peninsula of Bruttium, the southernmost point of Italy. There he faced the Romans like a lion at bay. No one dared attack him. It was resolved to carry the war into Africa, in hopes that the Carthaginians would be forced to call their great commander out of Italy to the defence of Carthage. Publius Cornelius Scipio, who after the departure of Hasdrubal from Spain had quickly brought the peninsula under the power of Rome, led the army of invasion. He had not been long in Africa before the Carthaginian Senate sent for Hannibal to conduct the war. At Zama, not far from Carthage, the hostile armies came face to face. Fortune had deserted Hannibal; he was fighting [Footnote: Son of the consul mentioned on page 259.] against fate. He here met his first and final defeat. His army, in which were many of the veterans that had served through all the Italian campaigns, was almost annihilated (202 B.C.). Scipio was accorded a splendid triumph at Rome, and given the surname Africanus in honor of his achievements. [Footnote: Some time after the close of the Second Punic War, the Romans, persuading themselves that Hannibal was preparing Carthage for another war, demanded his surrender of the Carthaginians. He fled to Syria, and thence to Asia Minor, where, to avoid falling into the hands of his implacable foes, he committed suicide by means of poison (183 B.C.).]
THE CLOSE OF THE WAR.--Carthage was now completely exhausted, and sued for peace. Even Hannibal himself could no longer counsel war. The terms of the treaty were much severer than those imposed upon the city at the end of the First Punic War. She was required to give up all claims to Spain and the islands of the Mediterranean; to surrender her war elephants, and all her ships of war save ten galleys; to pay an indemnity of five thousand talents at once, and two hundred and fifty talents annually for fifty years; and not to engage in any war without the consent of Rome. Five hundred of the costly Phoenician war galleys were towed out of the harbor of Carthage and burned in the sight of the citizens.
Such was the end of the Second Punic, or Hannibalic War, as called by the Romans, the most desperate struggle ever maintained by rival powers for empire.
Chapter XXVI
THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. (149-146 B.C.)
EVENTS BETWEEN THE SECOND AND THE THIRD PUNIC WAR.
The terms imposed upon Carthage at the end of the Second Punic War left Rome mistress of the Western Mediterranean. During the fifty eventful years that elapsed between the close of that struggle and the breaking-out of the last Punic war, her authority became supreme also in the Eastern seas. In a preceding chapter (see p. 170), while narrating the fortunes of the most important states into which the great empire of Alexander was broken at his death, we followed them until one after another they fell beneath the arms of Rome, and were successively absorbed into her growing kingdom. We shall therefore speak of them here only in the briefest manner, simply indicating the connection of their several histories with the series of events which mark the advance of Rome to universal empire.
THE BATTLE OF CYNOSCEPHALÆ (197 B.C.).--During the Hannibalic War, Philip V. (III.) of Macedonia had aided the Carthaginians, or at least had entered into an alliance with them. He was now troubling the Greek cities which were under the protection of Rome. For these things the Roman Senate determined to punish him. An army under Flamininus was sent into Greece, and on the plains of Cynoscephalæ, in Thessaly, the Roman legion demonstrated its superiority over the unwieldy Macedonian phalanx by subjecting Philip to a most disastrous defeat (197 B.C.). The king was forced to give up all his conquests, and Rome extended her protectorate over Greece.
THE BATTLE OF MAGNESIA (190 B.C.).--Antiochus the Great of Syria had at this time not only overrun all Asia Minor, but had crossed the Hellespont into Europe, and was intent upon the conquest of Thrace and Greece. Rome, that could not entertain the idea of a rival empire upon the southern shores of the Mediterranean, could much less tolerate the establishment in the East of such a colossal kingdom as the ambition of Antiochus proposed to itself. Just as soon as intelligence was carried to Italy that the Syrian king was leading his army into Greece, the legions of the republic were set in motion. Some reverses caused Antiochus to retreat in haste across the Hellespont into Asia, whither he was followed by the Romans, led by Scipio, a brother of Africanus.
At Magnesia, Antiochus was overthrown, and a large part of Asia Minor fell into the hands of the Romans. Not yet prepared to maintain provinces so distant from the Tiber, the Senate conferred the new territory, with the exception of Lycia and Caria, which were given to the Rhodians, upon their friend and ally Eumenes, King of Pergamus (see p. 171). This "Kingdom of Asia," as it was called, was really nothing more than a dependency of Rome, and its nominal ruler only a puppet-king in the hands of the Roman Senate.
Scipio enjoyed a magnificent triumph at Rome, and, in accordance with a custom that had now become popular with successful generals, erected a memorial of his deeds in his name by assuming the title of Asiaticus.
THE BATTLE OF PYDNA (168 B.C.).--In a few years Macedonia, under the leadership of Perseus, son of Philip V., was again in arms and offering defiance to Rome; but in the year 168 B.C. the Roman consul Æmilius Paulus crushed the Macedonian power forever upon the memorable field of Pydna. This was one of the decisive battles fought by the Romans in their struggle for the dominion of the world. The last great power in the East was here broken. The Roman Senate was henceforth recognized by the whole civilized world as the source and fountain of supreme political wisdom and power. We shall have yet to record many campaigns of the Roman legions; but these were efforts to suppress revolt among dependent or semi-vassal states, or were struggles with barbarian tribes that skirted the Roman dominions.
THE DESTRUCTION OF CORINTH (146 B.C.).--Barely twenty years had passed after the destruction of the Macedonian monarchy before the cities and states that formed the Achæan League (see p. 175) were goaded to revolt by the injustice of their Roman protectors. In the year 146 B.C. the consul Mummius signalized the suppression of the rebellion by the complete destruction of the brilliant city of Corinth, the "eye of Hellas," as the ancient poets were fond of calling it. This fair capital, the most beautiful and renowned of all the cities of Greece after the fall of Athens, was sacked, and razed to the ground. Much of the booty was sold on the spot at public auction. Numerous works of art,--rare paintings and sculptures,--with which the city was crowded, were carried off to Italy. "Never before or after," says Long, "was such a display of the wonders of Grecian art carried in triumphal procession through the streets of Rome."
THE THIRD PUNIC WAR.
"CARTHAGE MUST BE DESTROYED."--The same year that Rome destroyed Corinth (146 B.C.), she also blotted her great rival Carthage from the face of the earth. It will be recalled that one of the conditions imposed upon the last-named city at the close of the Second Punic War was that she should, under no circumstances, engage in any war without the permission of the Roman Senate. Taking advantage of the helpless condition of Carthage, Masinissa, King of Numidia, began to make depredations upon her territories. She appealed to Rome for protection. The envoys sent to Africa by the Senate to settle the dispute, unfairly adjudged every case in favor of the robber Masinissa. In this way Carthage was deprived of her lands and towns.
Chief of one of the embassies sent out was Marcus Cato the Censor. When he saw the prosperity of Carthage,--her immense trade, which crowded her harbor with ships, and the country for miles back of the city a beautiful landscape of gardens and villas,--he was amazed at the growing power and wealth of the city, and returned home convinced that the safety of Rome demanded the destruction of her rival. Never afterwards did he address the Romans, no matter upon what subject, but he always ended with the words, "Carthage must be destroyed" (delenda est Carthago).
ROMAN PERFIDY.--A pretext for the accomplishment of the hateful work was not long wanting. In 150 B.C. the Carthaginians, when Masinissa made another attack upon their territory, instead of calling upon Rome, from which source the past had convinced them they could hope for neither aid nor justice, gathered an army, and resolved to defend themselves. Their forces, however, were defeated by the Numidians, and sent beneath the yoke.
In entering upon this war without the consent of Rome, Carthage had broken the conditions of the last treaty. The Carthaginian Senate, in great anxiety, now sent an embassy to Italy to offer any reparation the Romans might demand. They were told that if they would give three hundred hostages, members of the noblest Carthaginian families, the independence of their city should be respected. They eagerly complied with this demand. But no sooner were these in the hands of the Romans than the consular armies, numbering eighty thousand men, secured against attack by the hostages so perfidiously drawn from the Carthaginians, crossed from Sicily into Africa, and disembarked at Utica, only ten miles from Carthage.
The Carthaginians were now commanded to give up all their arms; still hoping to win their enemy to clemency, they complied with this demand also. Then the consuls made known the final decree of the Roman Senate-- "That Carthage must be destroyed, but that the inhabitants might build a new city, provided it were located ten miles from the coast."
When this resolution of the Senate was announced to the Carthaginians, and they realized the baseness and perfidy of their enemy, a cry of indignation and despair burst from the betrayed city.
THE CARTHAGINIANS PREPARE TO DEFEND THEIR CITY.--It was resolved to resist to the bitter end the execution of the cruel decree. The gates of the city were closed. Men, women, and children set to work and labored day and night manufacturing arms. The entire city was converted into one great workshop. The utensils of the home and the sacred vessels of the temples, statues, and vases were melted down for weapons. Material was torn from the buildings of the city for the construction of military engines. The women cut off their hair and braided it into strings for the catapults. By such labor, and through such means, the city was soon put in a state to withstand a siege.
When the Romans advanced to take possession of the place, they were astonished to find the people they had just treacherously disarmed, with weapons in their hands, manning the walls of their capital, and ready to bid them defiance.
THE DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE.--It is impossible for us here to give the circumstances of the siege of Carthage. For four years the city held out against the Roman army. At length the consul Scipio Æmilianus succeeded in taking it by storm. When resistance ceased, only 50,000 men, women, and children, out of a population of 700,000, remained to be made prisoners. The city was fired, and for seventeen days the space within the walls was a sea of flames. Every trace of building which the fire could not destroy was levelled, a plough was driven over the site, and a dreadful curse invoked upon any one who should dare attempt to rebuild the city.
Such was the hard fate of Carthage. It is said that Scipio, as he gazed upon the smouldering ruins, seemed to read in them the fate of Rome, and, bursting into tears, sadly repeated the lines of Homer:
"The day shall come in which our sacred Troy, And Priam, and the people over whom Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all."
The Carthaginian territory in Africa was made into a Roman province, with Utica as the leading city; and Roman civilization was spread rapidly, by means of traders and settlers, throughout the regions that lie between the ranges of the Atlas and the sea.
WAR IN SPAIN.
SIEGE OF NUMANTIA.--It is fitting that the same chapter which narrates the destruction of Corinth in Greece, and the blotting-out of Carthage in Africa, should tell the story of the destruction of Numantia in Spain.
The expulsion of the Carthaginians from the Spanish peninsula really gave Rome the control of only a small part of that country. The war-like native tribes--the Celtiberians and Lusitanians--of the North and the West were ready stubbornly to dispute with the new-comers the possession of the soil.
The war gathered about Numantia, the siege of which was brought to a close by Scipio Æmilianus, the conqueror of Carthage. Before the surrender of the place, almost all the inhabitants had met death, either in defence of the walls, or by deliberate suicide. The miserable remnant which the ravages of battle, famine, pestilence, and despair had left alive were sold into slavery, and the city was levelled to the ground (133 B.C.).
The capture of Numantia was considered quite as great an achievement as the taking of Carthage. Scipio celebrated another triumph at Rome, and to his surname Africanus, which he had received for his achievements in Africa, added that of Numantinus. Spain became a favorite resort of Roman merchants, and many colonies were established in different parts of the country. As a result of this great influx of Italians, the laws, manners, customs, language, and religion of the conquerors were introduced everywhere, and the peninsula became rapidly Romanized.
Chapter XXVII
THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. (133-31 B.C.)
We have now traced the growth of the power of republican Rome, as through two centuries and more of conquest she has extended her authority, first throughout Italy, and then over almost all the countries that border upon the Mediterranean. It must be our less pleasant task now to follow the declining fortunes of the republic through the last century of its existence. We shall here learn that wars waged for spoils and dominion are in the end more ruinous, if possible, to the conqueror than to the conquered.
THE SERVILE WAR IN SICILY (134-132 B.C.).--With the opening of this period we find a terrible struggle going on in Sicily between masters and slaves --or what is known as "The First Servile War." The condition of affairs in that island was the legitimate result of the Roman system of slavery. The captives taken in war were usually sold into servitude. The great number of prisoners furnished by the numerous conquests of the Romans caused slaves to become a drug in the slave-markets of the Roman world. They were so cheap that masters found it more profitable to wear their slaves out by a few years of unmercifully hard labor, and then to buy others, than to preserve their lives for a longer period by more humane treatment. In case of sickness, they were left to die without attention, as the expense of nursing exceeded the cost of new purchases. Some Sicilian estates were worked by as many as 20,000 slaves. That each owner might know his own, the poor creatures were branded like cattle. What makes all this the more revolting is the fact that many of these slaves were in every way the peers of their owners, and often were their superiors. The fortunes of war alone had made one servant and the other master.
The wretched condition of these slaves and the cruelty of their masters at last drove them to revolt. The insurrection spread throughout the island, until 200,000 slaves were in arms, and in possession of many of the strongholds of the country. They defeated four Roman armies sent against them, and for three years defied the power of Rome. Finally, however, in the year 132 B.C., the revolt was crushed, and peace was restored to the distracted island. [Footnote: In the year 102 B.C. another insurrection of the slaves broke out in the island, which it required three years to quell. This last revolt is known as "The Second Servile War."]
THE PUBLIC LANDS.--In Italy itself affairs were in a scarcely less wretched condition than in Sicily. When the different states of the peninsula were subjugated, large portions of the conquered territory had become public land (ager publicus); for upon the subjugation of a state Rome never left to the conquered people more than two-thirds of their lands, and often not so much as this. The land appropriated was disposed of at public sale, leased at low rentals, allotted to discharged soldiers, or allowed to lie unused. [Footnote: These land matters may be made plain by a reference to the public lands of the United States. The troubles in Ireland between the land-owners and their tenants will also serve to illustrate the agrarian disturbances in ancient Rome.]
Now, it had happened that, in various ways, the greater part of the public lands had fallen into the hands of the wealthy. They alone had the capital necessary to stock and work them to advantage; hence the possessions of the small proprietors were gradually absorbed by the large landholders. These great proprietors, also, disregarding a law which forbade any person to hold more than five hundred jugera of land, held many times that amount. Almost all the lands of Italy, about the beginning of the first century B.C., are said to have been held by not more than two thousand persons; for the large proprietors, besides the lands they had secured by purchase from the government, or had wrested from the smaller farmers, claimed enormous tracts to which they had only a squatter's title. So long had they been left in undisturbed possession of these government lands that they had come to look upon them as absolutely their own. In many cases, feeling secure through great lapse of time,--the lands having been handed down through many generations,--the owners had expended large sums in their improvement, and now resisted as very unjust every effort to dispossess them of their hereditary estates. Money-lenders, too, had, in many instances, made loans upon these lands, and they naturally sided with the owners in their opposition to all efforts to disturb the titles.
These wealthy "possessors" employed slave rather than free labor, as they found it more profitable; and so the poorer Romans, left without employment, crowded into the cities, especially congregating at Rome, where they lived in vicious indolence. The proprietors also found it to their interest to raise stock rather than to cultivate the soil. All Italy became a great sheep-pasture.
Thus, largely through the workings of the public land system, the Roman people had become divided into two great classes, which are variously designated as the Rich and the Poor, the Possessors and the Non- Possessors, the Optimates (the "Best"), and the Populares (the "People"). We hear nothing more of patricians and plebeians. As one expresses it, "Rome had become a commonwealth of millionaires and beggars."
For many years before and after the period at which we have now arrived, a bitter struggle was carried on between these two classes; just such a contest as we have seen waged between the nobility and the commonalty in the earlier history of Rome. The most instructive portion of the story of the Roman republic is found in the records of this later struggle. The misery of the great masses naturally led to constant agitation at the capital. Popular leaders introduced bill after bill into the Senate, and brought measure after measure before the assemblies of the people, all aiming at the redistribution of the public lands and the correction of existing abuses.
THE REFORMS OF THE GRACCHI.--The most noted champions of the cause of the poorer classes against the rich and powerful were Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. These reformers are reckoned among the most popular orators that Rome ever produced. They eloquently voiced the wrongs of the people. Said Tiberius, "You are called 'lords of the earth' without possessing a single clod to call your own." The people made him tribune; and in that position he secured the passage of a law for the redistribution of the public lands, which gave some relief. It took away from Possessors without sons all the land they held over five hundred jugera; Possessors with one son might hold seven hundred and fifty jugera, and those with two sons one thousand.
At the end of his term of office, Tiberius stood a second time for the tribunate. The nobles combined to defeat him. Foreseeing that he would not be re-elected, Tiberius resolved to use force upon the day of voting. His partisans were overpowered, and he and three hundred of his followers were killed in the Forum, and their bodies thrown into the Tiber (133 B.C.). This was the first time that the Roman Forum had witnessed such a scene of violence and crime.
Caius Gracchus, the younger brother of Tiberius, now assumed the position made vacant by the death of Tiberius. It is related that Caius had a dream in which the spirit of his brother seemed to address him thus: "Caius, why do you linger? There is no escape: one life for both of us, and one death in defence of the people, is our fate." The dream came true. Caius was chosen tribune in 123 B.C. He secured the passage of grain-laws which provided that grain should be sold to the poor from public granaries, at half its value or less. This was a very unwise and pernicious measure. It was not long before grain was distributed free to all applicants; and a considerable portion of the population of the capital were living in vicious indolence and feeding at the public crib.
Caius proposed other measures in the interest of the people, which were bitterly opposed by the Optimates; and the two orders at last came into collision. Caius sought death by a friendly sword (121 B.C.), and three thousand of his adherents were massacred. The consul offered for the head of Caius its weight in gold. "This is the first instance in Roman history of head-money being offered and paid, but it was not the last" (Long).
The people ever regarded the Gracchi as martyrs to their cause, and their memory was preserved by statues in the public square. To Cornelia, their mother, a monument was erected, simply bearing the inscription, "The Mother of the Gracchi."
THE WAR WITH JUGURTHA (111-106 B.C.).--After the death of the Gracchi there seemed no one left to resist the heartless oppressions and to denounce the scandalous extravagances of the aristocratic party. Many of the laws of the Gracchi respecting the public lands were annulled. Italy fell again into the hands of a few over-rich land-owners. The provinces were plundered by the Roman governors, who squandered their ill-gotten wealth at the capital. The votes of senators and the decisions of judges, the offices at Rome and the places in the provinces--everything pertaining to the government had its price, and was bought and sold like merchandise. Affairs in Africa at this time illustrate how Roman virtue and integrity had declined since Fabricius indignantly refused the gold of Pyrrhus.
Jugurtha, king of Numidia, had seized all that country, having put to death the rightful rulers of different provinces of the region, who had been confirmed in their possessions by the Romans at the close of the Punic wars. Commissioners sent from Rome to look into the matter were bribed by Jugurtha. Even the consul Bestia, who had been sent into Africa with an army to punish the insolent usurper, sold himself to the robber. An investigation was ordered; but many prominent officials at Rome were implicated in the offences, and the matter was hushed up with money. The venality of the Romans disgusted even Jugurtha, who exclaimed, "O venal city, thou wouldst sell thyself if thou couldst find a purchaser!"
In the year 106 B.C. the war against Jugurtha was brought to a close by Caius Marius, a man who had risen to the consulship from the lowest ranks of the people. Under him fought a young nobleman named Sulla, of whom we shall hear much hereafter. Marius celebrated a grand triumph at Rome. Jugurtha, after having graced the triumphal procession, was thrown into the Mamertine dungeon, beneath the Capitoline, where he died of starvation.
INVASION OF THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONES.--The war was not yet ended in Africa before terrible tidings came to Rome from the north. Two mighty nations of "horrible barbarians," three hundred thousand strong in fighting-men, coming whence no one could tell, had invaded, and were now desolating, the Roman provinces of Gaul, and might any moment cross the Alps and pour down into Italy.
The mysterious invaders proved to be two Germanic tribes, the Teutones and Cimbri, the vanguard of that great German migration which was destined to change the face and history of Europe. These intruders were seeking new homes. They carried with them, in rude wagons, all their property, their wives, and their children. The Celtic tribes of Gaul were no match for the newcomers, and fled before them as they advanced. Several Roman armies beyond the Alps were cut to pieces. The terror at Rome was only equalled by that occasioned by the invasion of the Gauls two centuries before. The Gauls were terrible enough; but now the conquerors of the Gauls were coming.
Marius, the conqueror of Jugurtha, was looked to by all as the only man who could save the state in this crisis. Accompanied by Sulla as one of his most skilful lieutenants, Marius hastened into Northern Italy. The barbarians had divided into two bands. The Cimbri were to cross the Eastern Alps, and join in the valley of the Po the Teutones, who were to force the defiles of the Western, or Maritime Alps. Marius determined to prevent the union of the barbarians, and to crush each band separately.
Anticipating the march of the Teutones, he hurried over the Alps into Gaul, and falling upon them at a favorable moment (at Aquæ Sextæ, not far from Marseilles, 102 B.C.), almost annihilated the entire host. Two hundred thousand barbarians are said to have been slain. Marius now recrossed the Alps, and, after visiting Rome, hastened to meet the Cimbri, who were entering the northeastern corner of Italy. He was not a day too soon. Already the barbarians had defeated the Roman army under the nobleman Catulus, and were ravaging the rich plains of the Po. The Cimbri, unconscious of the fate of the Teutones, sent an embassy to Marius, to demand that they and their kinsmen should be given lands in Italy. Marius sent back in reply, "The Teutones have got all the land they need on the other side of the Alps." The devoted Cimbri were soon to have all they needed on this side.
A terrible battle almost immediately followed at Vercellæ (101 B.C.). The barbarians were drawn up in an enormous hollow square, the men forming the outer ranks being fastened together with chains, to prevent the lines being broken. This proved their ruin. More than 100,000 were killed and 60,000 taken prisoners to be sold as slaves in the Roman markets. Marius was hailed as the "Saviour of his Country."
"The forlorn-hope of the German migration had performed its duty; the homeless people of the Cimbri and their comrades were no more" (Mommsen). Their kinsmen yet behind the Danube and the Rhine were destined to exact a terrible revenge for their slaughter.
THE SOCIAL, OR MARSIC WAR (91-89 B.C.).--Scarcely was the danger of the barbarian invasion past, before Rome was threatened by another and greater evil arising within her own borders. At this time all the free inhabitants of Italy were embraced in three classes,--Roman citizens, Latins, and Italian allies. The Roman citizens included the inhabitants of the capital and of the various Roman colonies planted in different parts of the peninsula (see p. 246, note), besides the people of a number of towns called municipia; the Latins were the inhabitants of the Latin colonies (see p. 246, note); the Italian allies (socii) included the various subjugated races of Italy.
The Social, or Marsic War (as it is often called on account of the prominent part taken in the insurrection by the warlike Marsians) was a struggle that arose from the demands of the Italian allies for the privileges of Roman citizenship, from which they were wholly excluded. Their demands were stubbornly resisted by both the aristocratic and the popular party at Rome. Some, however, recognized the justice of these claims of the Italians. The tribune Livius Drusus championed their cause, but he was killed by an assassin. The Italians now flew to arms. They determined upon the establishment of a rival state. A town called Corfinium, among the Apennines, was chosen as the capital of the new republic, and its name changed to Italica. Thus, in a single day, almost all Italy south of the Rubicon was lost to Rome. The Etrurians, the Umbrians, the Campanians, the Latins, and some of the Greek cities were the only states that remained faithful.
The greatness of the danger aroused all the old Roman courage and patriotism. Aristocrats and democrats hushed their quarrels, and fought bravely side by side for the endangered life of the republic. The war lasted three years. Finally Rome prudently extended the right of suffrage to the Latins, Etruscans, and Umbrians, who had so far remained true to her, but now began to show signs of wavering in their loyalty. Shortly afterwards she offered the same to all Italians who should lay down their arms within sixty days. This tardy concession to the just demands of the Italians virtually ended the war. It had been extremely disastrous to the republic. Hundreds of thousands of lives had been lost, many towns had been depopulated, and vast tracts of the country made desolate by those ravages that never fail to characterize civil contentions.
In after-years, under the empire, the rights of Roman citizenship, which the most of the Italians had now so hardly won, were extended to all the free inhabitants of the various provinces, beyond the confines of Italy (see p. 327).
THE CIVIL WAR OF MARIUS AND SULLA.--The Social War was not yet ended when a formidable enemy appeared in the East. Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus (see p. 170, note), taking advantage of the distracted condition of the republic, had encroached upon the Roman provinces in Asia Minor, and had caused a general massacre of the Italian traders and residents in that country. The number of victims of this wholesale slaughter has been variously estimated at from 80,000 to 150,000. The Roman Senate instantly declared war.
A contest straightway arose between Marius and Sulla for the command of the forces. The sword settled the dispute. Sulla, at the head of the legions he commanded, marched upon Rome, entered the gates, and "for the first time in the annals of the city a Roman army encamped within the walls." The party of Marius was defeated, and he and ten of his companions were proscribed. Marius escaped and fled to Africa; Sulla embarked with the legions to meet Mithridates in the East (87 B.C.).
THE WANDERINGS OF MARIUS: HIS RETURN TO ITALY.--Leaving Sulla to carry on the Mithridatic War, we must first follow the fortunes of the outlawed Marius. The ship in which he embarked for Africa was driven back upon the Italian coast at Circeii, and he was captured. A Cimbrian slave was sent to despatch him in prison. The cell where Marius lay was dark, and the eyes of the old soldier "seemed to flash fire." As the slave advanced, Marius shouted, "Man, do you dare to kill Caius Marius?" The frightened slave dropped his sword, and fled from the chamber, half dead with fear.
A better feeling now took possession of the captors of Marius, and they resolved that the blood of the "Saviour of Italy" should not be upon their hands. They put him aboard a vessel, which bore him and his friends to an island just off the coast of Africa. When he attempted to set foot upon the mainland near Carthage, Sextius, the Roman governor of the province, sent a messenger to forbid him to land. The legend says that the old general, almost choking with indignation, only answered, "Go, tell your master, that you have seen Marius a fugitive sitting amidst the ruins of Carthage."
A successful move of his friends at Rome brought Marius back to the capital. He now took a terrible revenge upon his enemies. The consul Octavius was assassinated, and his head set up in front of the Rostrum. Never before had such a thing been seen at Rome--a consul's head exposed to the public gaze. The senators, equestrians, and leaders of the Optimate party fled from the capital. For five days and nights a merciless slaughter was kept up. The life of every man in the capital was in the hands of the revengeful Marius. If he refused to return the greeting of any citizen, that sealed his fate: he was instantly despatched by the soldiers who awaited the dictator's nod. The bodies of the victims lay unburied in the streets. Sulla's house was torn down, and he himself declared a public enemy.
Rumors were now spread that Sulla, having overthrown Mithridates, was about to set out on his return with his victorious legions. He would surely exact speedy and terrible vengeance. Marius, old and enfeebled by the hardships of many campaigns, seemed to shrink from again facing his hated rival. He plunged into dissipation to drown his remorse and gloomy forebodings, and died in his seventy-first year (86 B.C.).
SULLA AND THE MITHRIDATIC WAR.--When Sulla left Italy with his legions for the East, he knew very well that his enemies would have their own way in Italy during his absence; but he also knew that, if successful in his campaign against Mithridates, he could easily regain Italy, and wrest the government from the hands of the Marian party.
We can here take space to give simply the results of Sulla's campaigns in the East. After driving the army of Mithridates out of Greece, Sulla crossed the Hellespont, and forced the king to sue for peace. He gave up his conquered territory, surrendered his war ships, and paid a large indemnity to cover the expenses of the war.
With the Mithridatic War ended, Sulla wrote to the Senate, saying that he was now coming to take vengeance upon the Marian party,--his own and the republic's foes.
The terror and consternation produced at Rome by this letter were increased by the accidental burning of the Capitol. The Sibylline books, which held the secrets of the fate of Rome, were consumed. Such an event, it was believed, could only foreshadow the most direful calamities to the state.
THE PROSCRIPTIONS OF SULLA.--The returning army from the East landed in Italy. With his veteran legions at his back, Sulla marched into Rome with all the powers of a dictator. The leaders of the Marian party were proscribed, rewards were offered for their heads, and their property was confiscated. Sulla was implored to make out a list of those he designed to put to death, that those he intended to spare might be relieved of the terrible suspense in which all were now held. He made out a list of eighty, which was attached to the Rostrum. The people murmured at the length of the roll. In a few days it was extended to over three hundred, and grew rapidly, until it included the names of thousands of the best citizens of Italy. Hundreds were murdered, not for any offence, but because some favorites of Sulla coveted their estates. A wealthy noble coming into the Forum, and reading his own name in the list of the proscribed, exclaimed, "Alas! my villa has proved my ruin." The infamous Catiline, by having the name of a brother placed upon the fatal roll, secured his property. Julius Cæsar, at this time a mere boy of eighteen, was proscribed on account of his relationship to Marius; but, upon the intercession of friends, Sulla spared him: as he did so, however, he said warningly, and, as the event proved, prophetically, "There is in that boy many a Marius."
Senators, knights, and wealthy land-owners fell by hundreds and by thousands; but the poor Italians who had sided with the Marian party were simply slaughtered by tens of thousands. Nor did the provinces escape. In Sicily, Spain, and Africa the enemies of the dictator were hunted and exterminated like noxious animals. It is estimated that the civil war of Marius and Sulla cost the republic over one hundred and fifty thousand lives.
When Sulla had sated his revenge, he celebrated a splendid triumph at Rome, and the Senate enacted a law declaring all that he had done legal and right, caused to be erected in the Forum a gilded equestrian statue of the dictator, which bore the legend, "To Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the Commander Beloved by Fortune," and made him dictator for life. Sulla used his position and influence in recasting the constitution in the interest of the aristocratic party. After enjoying the unlimited power of an Asiatic despot for three years, he suddenly resigned the dictatorship, and retired to his villa at Puteoli, where he gave himself up to the grossest dissipations. He died the year following his abdication (78 B.C.).
Chapter XXVIII
THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC (concluded). (133-31 B.C.)
POMPEY THE GREAT IN SPAIN.--The fires of the Civil War, though quenched in Italy, were still smouldering in Spain. Sertorius, an adherent of Marius, had there stirred up the martial tribes of Lusitania, and incited a general revolt against the power of the aristocratic government at Rome. Cnæus Pompey, a rising young leader of the oligarchy, upon whom the title of Great had already been conferred as a reward for crushing the Marian party in Sicily and Africa, was sent into Spain to perform a similar service there.
For several years the war was carried on with varying fortunes. At times the power of Rome in the peninsula seemed on the verge of utter extinction. Finally, the brave Sertorius was assassinated, and then the whole of Spain was quickly regained. Pompey boasted of having forced the gates of more than eight hundred cities in Spain and Southern Gaul. Throughout all the conquered regions he established military colonies, and reorganized the local governments, putting in power those who would be, not only friends and allies of the Roman state, but also his own personal adherents. How he used these men as instruments of his ambition, we shall learn a little later.
SPARTACUS: WAR OF THE GLADIATORS.--While Pompey was subduing the Marian faction in Spain, a new danger broke out in the midst of Italy. Gladiatorial combats had become, at this time, the favorite sport of the amphitheatre. At Capua was a sort of training-school, from which skilled fighters were hired out for public or private entertainments. In this seminary was a Thracian slave, known by the name of Spartacus, who incited his companions to revolt. The insurgents fled to the crater of Vesuvius, and made that their stronghold. There they were joined by gladiators from other schools, and by slaves and discontented men from every quarter. Some slight successes enabled them to arm themselves with the weapons of their enemies. Their number at length increased to one hundred thousand men. For three years they defied the power of Rome, and even gained control of the larger part of Southern Italy. Four Roman armies sent against them were cut to pieces. But at length Spartacus himself was slain, and the insurgents were crushed.
The rebellion was punished with Roman severity. The slaves that had taken part in the revolt were hunted through the mountains and forests, and exterminated like dangerous beasts. The Appian Way was lined with six thousand crosses, bearing aloft as many bodies--a terrible warning of the fate awaiting slaves that should dare to strike for freedom.
THE ABUSES OF VERRES.--Terrible as was the state of society in Italy, still worse was the condition of affairs outside the peninsula. At first the rule of the Roman governors in the provinces, though severe, was honest and prudent. But during the period of profligacy and corruption upon which we have now entered, the administration of these foreign possessions was shamefully dishonest and incredibly cruel and rapacious. The prosecution of Verres, the proprætor of Sicily, exposed the scandalous rule of the oligarchy, into whose hands the government had fallen. For three years Verres plundered and ravaged that island with impunity. He sold all the offices, and all his decisions as judge. He demanded of the farmers the greater part of their crops, which he sold, to swell his already enormous fortune. Agriculture was thus ruined, and the farms were abandoned. Verres had a taste for art, and when on his tours through the island confiscated gems, vases, statues, paintings, and other things that struck his fancy, whether in temples or private dwellings. He even caused a Roman trader, for a slight offence, to be crucified, "the cross being set on the beach within sight of Italy, that he might address to his native shores the ineffectual cry 'I am a Roman citizen.'"
Verres could not be called to account while in office; and it was doubtful whether, after the end of his term, he could be convicted, so corrupt and venal had become the members of the Senate, before whom all such offenders must be tried. Indeed, Verres himself openly boasted that he intended two thirds of his gains for his judges and lawyers, while the remaining one third would satisfy himself.
At length, after Sicily had come to look as though it had been ravaged by barbarian conquerors, the infamous robber was impeached. The prosecutor was Marcus Tullius Cicero, the brilliant orator, who was at this time just rising into prominence at Rome. The storm of indignation raised by the developments of the trial caused Verres to flee into exile to Massilia, whither he took with him much of his ill-gotten wealth.
WAR WITH THE MEDITERRANEAN PIRATES (66 B.C.).--The Roman republic was now threatened by a new danger from the sea. The Mediterranean was swarming with pirates. Roman conquests in Africa, Spain, and especially in Greece and Asia Minor, had caused thousands of adventurous spirits from those maritime countries to flee to their ships, and seek a livelihood by preying upon the commerce of the seas. The cruelty and extortions of the Roman governors had also driven large numbers to the same course of life. These corsairs had banded themselves into a sort of government, and held possession of numerous strongholds--four hundred, it is said--in Cilicia, Crete, and other countries. With a full thousand swift ships they scoured the waters of the Mediterranean, so that no merchantman could spread her sails in safety. They formed a floating empire, which Michelet calls "a wandering Carthage, which no one knew where to seize, and which floated from Spain to Asia."
These buccaneers, the Vikings of the South, made descents upon the coast everywhere, plundered villas and temples, attacked and captured cities, and sold the inhabitants as slaves in the various slave-markets of the Roman world. They carried off merchants and magistrates from the Appian Way itself, and held them for ransom. At last the grain-ships of Sicily and Africa were intercepted, and Rome was threatened with the alternative of starvation or the paying of an enormous ransom.
The Romans now bestirred themselves. Pompey was invested with dictatorial power for three years over the Mediterranean and all its coasts for fifty miles inland. An armament of five hundred ships and one hundred thousand men was intrusted to his command. The great general acted with his characteristic energy. Within forty days he had swept the pirates from the Western Mediterranean, and in forty-nine more hunted them from all the waters east of Italy, captured their strongholds in Cilicia, and settled the twenty thousand prisoners that fell into his hands in various colonies in Asia Minor and Greece. Pompey's vigorous and successful conduct of this campaign against the pirates gained him great honor and reputation.
POMPEY AND THE MITHRIDATIC WAR.--In the very year that Pompey suppressed the pirates (66 B.C.), he was called to undertake a more difficult task. Mithridates the Great, led on by his ambition and encouraged by the discontent created throughout the Eastern provinces by Roman rapacity and misrule, was again in arms against Rome. He had stirred almost all Asia Minor to revolt. The management of the war was eventually intrusted to Pompey, whose success in the war of the pirates had aroused unbounded enthusiasm for him.
In a great battle in Lesser Armenia, Pompey almost annihilated the army of Mithridates. The king fled from the field, and, after seeking in vain for a refuge in Asia Minor, sought an asylum beyond the Caucasus Mountains, whose bleak barriers interposed their friendly shield between him and his pursuers. Desisting from the pursuit, Pompey turned south and conquered Syria, Phoenicia, and Coele-Syria, which countries he erected into a Roman province. Still pushing southward, the conqueror entered Palestine, and after a short siege captured Jerusalem (63 B.C.).
While Pompey was thus engaged, Mithridates was straining every energy to raise an army among the Scythian tribes with which to carry out a most daring project. He proposed to cross Europe and fall upon Italy from the north. A revolt on the part of his son Pharnaces ruined all his plans and hopes; and the disappointed monarch, to avoid falling into the hands of the Romans, took his own life (63 B.C.). His death removed one of the most formidable enemies that Rome had ever encountered. Hamilcar, Hannibal, and Mithridates were the three great names that the Romans always pronounced with respect and dread.
POMPEY'S TRIUMPH.--After regulating the affairs of the different states and provinces in the East, Pompey set out on his return to Rome, where he enjoyed such a triumph as never before had been seen since Rome had become a city. The spoils of all the East were borne in the procession; 322 princes walked as captives before the triumphal chariot of the conqueror; legends upon the banners proclaimed that he had conquered 21 kings, captured 1000 strongholds, 900 towns, and 800 ships, and subjugated more than 12,000,000 people; and that he had put into the treasury more than $25,000,000, besides doubling the regular revenues of the state. He boasted that three times he had triumphed, and each time for the conquest of a continent--first for Africa, then for Europe, and now for Asia, which completed the conquest of the world.
THE CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE.--While the legions were absent from Italy with Pompey in the East, a most daring conspiracy against the government was formed at Rome. Catiline, a ruined spendthrift, had gathered a large company of profligate young nobles, weighed down with debt and desperate like himself, and had deliberately planned to murder the consuls and the chief men of the state, and to plunder and burn the capital. The offices of the new government were to be divided among the conspirators. They depended upon receiving aid from Africa and Spain, and proposed to invite to their standard the gladiators in the various schools of Italy, as well as slaves and criminals. The proscriptions of Sulla were to be renewed, and all debts were to be cancelled.
Fortunately, all the plans of the conspirators were revealed to the consul Cicero, the great orator. The Senate immediately clothed the consuls with dictatorial power with the usual formula, that they should take care that the republic received no harm. The gladiators were secured; the city walls were manned; and at every point the capital and state were armed against the "invisible foe." Then in the Senate-chamber, with Catiline himself present, Cicero exposed the whole conspiracy in a famous philippic, known as "The First Oration against Catiline." The senators shrank from the conspirator, and left the seats about him empty. After a feeble effort to reply to Cicero, overwhelmed by a sense of his guilt, and the cries of "traitor" and "parricide" from the senators, Catiline fled from the chamber, and hurried out of the city to the camp of his followers, in Etruria. In a desperate battle fought near Pistoria (62 B.C.), he was slain with many of his followers. His head was borne as a trophy to Rome. Cicero was hailed as the "Saviour of his Country."
CÆSAR, CRASSUS, AND POMPEY.--Although the conspiracy of Catiline had failed, it was very easy to foresee that the downfall of the Roman republic was near at hand. Indeed, from this time on only the name remains. The basis of the institutions of the republic--the old Roman virtue, integrity, patriotism, and faith in the gods--was gone, having been swept away by the tide of luxury, selfishness, and immorality produced by the long series of foreign conquests and robberies in which the Roman people had been engaged. The days of liberty at Rome were over. From this time forward the government was really in the hands of ambitious and popular leaders, or of corrupt combinations and "rings." Events gather about a few great names, and the annals of the republic become biographical rather than historical.
There were now in the state three men--Cæsar, Crassus, and Pompey--who were destined to shape affairs. Caius Julius Cæsar was born in the year 100 B.C. Although descended from an old patrician family, still his sympathies, and an early marriage to the daughter of Cinna, one of the adherents of Marius, led him early to identify himself with the Marian, or democratic party. In every way Cæsar courted public favor. He lavished enormous sums upon public games and tables. His debts are said to have amounted to 25,000,000 sesterces ($1,250,000). His popularity was unbounded. A successful campaign in Spain had already made known to himself, as well as to others, his genius as a commander.
Crassus belonged to the senatorial, or aristocratic party. He owed his influence to his enormous wealth, being one of the richest men in the Roman world. His property was estimated at 7100 talents (about $7,500,000).
With Pompey and his achievements we are already familiar. His influence throughout the Roman world was great; for, in settling and reorganizing the many countries he subdued, he had always taken care to reconstruct them in his own interest, as well as in that of the republic. The offices, as we have seen, were filled with his friends and adherents (see p. 285). This patronage had secured for him incalculable authority in the provinces. His veteran legionaries, too, were naturally devoted to the general who had led them so often to victory.
THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE.--What is known as the First Triumvirate rested on the genius of Cæsar, the wealth of Crassus, and the achievements of Pompey. It was a coalition or private arrangement entered into by these three men for the purpose of securing to themselves the control of public affairs. Each pledged himself to work for the interests of the others. Cæsar was the manager of the "ring," and through the aid of his colleagues secured the consulship (59 B.C.).
CÆSAR'S CONQUESTS IN GAUL AND BRITAIN.--At the end of his consulship, the administration of the provinces of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul was assigned to Cæsar. Already he was revolving in his mind plans for seizing supreme power. Beyond the Alps the Gallic and Germanic tribes were in restless movement. He saw there a grand field for military exploits, which should gain for him such glory and prestige as, in other fields, had been won and were now enjoyed by Pompey. With this achieved, and with a veteran army devoted to his interests, he might hope easily to attain that position at the head of affairs towards which his ambition was urging him.
In the spring of 58 B.C. alarming intelligence from beyond the Alps caused Cæsar to hasten from Rome into Transalpine Gaul. Now began a series of eight brilliant campaigns directed against the various tribes of Gaul, Germany, and Britain. In his Commentaries Cæsar himself has left us a faithful and graphic account of all the memorable marches, battles, and sieges that filled the years between 58 and 50 B.C. The year 55 B.C. marked two great achievements. Early in the spring of this year Cæsar constructed a bridge across the Rhine, and led his legions against the Germans in their native woods and swamps. In the autumn of the same year he crossed, by means of hastily constructed ships, the channel that separates the mainland from Britain, and after maintaining a foothold upon that island for two weeks withdrew his legions into Gaul for the winter. The following season he made another invasion of Britain; but, after some encounters with the fierce barbarians, recrossed to the mainland without having established any permanent garrisons in the island. Almost one hundred years passed away before the natives of Britain were again molested by the Romans (see p. 311).
In the year 52 B.C., while Cæsar was absent in Italy, a general revolt occurred among the Gallic tribes. It was a last desperate struggle for the recovery of their lost independence. Vercingetorix, chief of the Arverni, was the leader of the insurrection. For a time it seemed as though the Romans would be driven from the country. But Cæsar's despatch and military genius saved the province to the republic.
In his campaigns in Gaul, Cæsar had subjugated three hundred tribes, captured eight hundred cities, and slain a million of barbarians--one third of the entire population of the country. Another third he had taken prisoners. Great enthusiasm was aroused at Rome by these victories. "Let the Alps now sink," exclaimed Cicero: "the gods raised them to shelter Italy from the barbarians: they are now no longer needed."
RESULTS OF THE GALLIC WARS.--The most important result of the Gallic wars of Cæsar was the Romanizing of Gaul. The country was opened to Roman traders and settlers, who carried with them the language, customs, and arts of Italy.
Another result of the conquest was the checking of the migratory movements of the German tribes, which gave Græco-Roman civilization time to become thoroughly rooted, not only in Gaul, but also in Spain and other lands.
RIVALRY BETWEEN CÆSAR AND POMPEY: CÆSAR CROSSES THE RUBICON.--While Cæsar was in the midst of his Transalpine wars, Crassus was leading an army against the Parthians, hoping to rival there the brilliant conquests of Cæsar in Gaul. But his army was almost annihilated by the Parthian cavalry, and he himself was slain (54 B.C.). His captors, so it is said, poured molten gold down his throat, that he might be sated with the metal which he had so coveted during life. In the death of Crassus, Cæsar lost his stanchest friend, one who had never failed him, and whose wealth had been freely used for his advancement.
The world now belonged to Cæsar and Pompey. That the insatiable ambition of these two rivals should sooner or later bring them into collision was inevitable. Their alliance in the triumvirate was simply one of selfish convenience, not of friendship. While Cæsar was carrying on his campaigns in Gaul, Pompey was at Rome watching jealously the growing reputation of his great rival. He strove, by a princely liberality, to win the affections of the common people. On the Field of Mars he erected an immense theatre with seats for forty thousand spectators. He gave magnificent games, and set public tables; and when the interest of the people in the sports of the Circus flagged, he entertained them with gladiatorial combats. In a similar manner Cæsar strengthened himself with the people for the struggle which he plainly foresaw. He sought in every way to ingratiate himself with the Gauls; increased the pay of his soldiers; conferred the privileges of Roman citizenship upon the inhabitants of different cities in his province; and sent to Rome enormous sums of gold to be expended in the erection of temples, theatres, and other public structures, and in the celebration of games and shows that should rival in magnificence those given by Pompey.
The terrible condition of affairs at the capital favored the ambition of Pompey. So selfish and corrupt were the members of the Senate, so dead to all virtue and to every sentiment of patriotism were the people, that even such patriots as Cato and Cicero saw no hope for the maintenance of the republic. The former favored the appointment of Pompey as sole consul for one year, which was about the same thing as making him dictator. "It is better," said Cato, "to choose a master than to wait for the tyrant whom anarchy will impose upon us." The "tyrant" in his and everybody's mind was Cæsar.
Pompey now broke with Cæsar, and attached himself again to the old aristocratic party, which he had deserted for the alliance and promises of the triumvirate. The death at this time of his wife Julia, the daughter of Cæsar, severed the bonds of relationship at the same moment that those of ostensible friendship were broken.
The Senate, hostile to Cæsar, now issued a decree that he should resign his office, and disband his Gallic legions by a stated day. The crisis had now come. Cæsar ordered his legions to hasten from Gaul into Italy. Without waiting for their arrival, at the head of a small body of veterans that he had with him at Ravenna, he crossed the Rubicon, a little stream that marked the boundary of his province. This was a declaration of war. As he plunged into the river, he exclaimed, "The die is cast."
THE CIVIL WAR OF CÆSAR AND POMPEY (49-48 B.C.).--The bold movement of Cæsar produced great consternation at Rome. Realizing the danger of delay, Cæsar, without waiting for the Gallic legions to join him, marched southward. One city after another threw open its gates to him; legion after legion went over to his standard. Pompey and the Senate hastened from Rome to Brundisium, and thence, with about twenty-five thousand men, fled across the Adriatic into Greece. Within sixty days Cæsar made himself undisputed master of all Italy.
Pompey and Cæsar now controlled the Roman world. It was large, but not large enough for both these ambitious men. As to which was likely to become sole master, it were difficult for one watching events at that time to foresee. Cæsar held Italy, Illyricum, and Gaul, with the resources of his own genius and the idolatrous attachment of his soldiers; Pompey controlled Spain, Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Greece, and the provinces of Asia, with the prestige of his great name and the indefinite resources of the East.
Cæsar's first care was to pacify Italy. His moderation and prudence won all classes to his side. Many had looked to see the terrible scenes of the days of Marius and Sulla re-enacted. Cæsar, however, soon gave assurance that life and property should be held sacred. He needed money; but, to avoid laying a tax upon the people, he asked for the treasure kept beneath the Capitol. Legend declared that this gold was the actual ransom-money which Brennus had demanded of the Romans, and which Camillus had saved by his timely appearance (see p. 241). It was esteemed sacred, and was never to be used save in case of another Gallic invasion. When Cæsar attempted to get possession of the treasure, the tribune Metellus prevented him; but Cæsar impatiently brushed him aside, saying, "The fear of a Gallic invasion is over: I have subdued the Gauls."
With order restored in Italy, Cæsar's next movement was to gain control of the wheat-fields of Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. A single legion brought over Sardinia without resistance to the side of Cæsar. Cato, the lieutenant of Pompey, fled from before Curio out of Sicily. In Africa, however, the lieutenant of Cæsar sustained a severe defeat, and the Pompeians held their ground there until the close of the war. Cæsar, meanwhile, had subjugated Spain. In forty days the entire peninsula was brought under his authority. Massilia had ventured to close her gates against the conqueror; but a brief siege forced the city to capitulate. Cæsar was now free to turn his forces against Pompey in the East.
THE BATTLE OF PHARSALUS (48 B.C.).--From Brundisium Cæsar embarked his legions for Epirus. The armies of the rivals met upon the plains of Pharsalia, in Thessaly. The adherents of Pompey were so confident of an easy victory that they were already disputing about the offices at Rome, and were renting the most eligible houses fronting the public squares of the capital. The battle was at length joined. It proved Pompey's Waterloo. His army was cut to pieces. He himself fled from the field, and escaped to Egypt. Just as he was landing there, he was assassinated.
The head of the great general was severed from his body; and when Cæsar, who was pressing after Pompey in hot pursuit, landed in Egypt, the bloody trophy was brought to him. He turned from the sight with generous tears. It was no longer the head of his rival, but of his old associate and son- in-law. He ordered the assassins to be executed, and directed that fitting obsequies should be performed over the body.
CLOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR.--Cæsar was detained at Alexandria nine months in settling a dispute respecting the throne of Egypt. After a severe contest he overthrew the reigning Ptolemy, and secured the kingdom to the celebrated Cleopatra and a younger brother. Intelligence was now brought from Asia Minor that Pharnaces, son of Mithridates the Great, was inciting a revolt among the peoples of that region. Cæsar met the Pontic king at Zela, defeated him, and in five days put an end to the war. His laconic message to the Senate, announcing his victory, is famous. It ran thus: Veni, vidi, vici,--"I came, I saw, I conquered."
Cæsar now hurried back to Italy, and thence proceeded to Africa, which the friends of the old republic had made their last chief rallying-place. At the great battle of Thapsus (46 B.C.) they were crushed. Fifty thousand lay dead upon the field. Cato, who had been the very life and soul of the army, refusing to outlive the republic, took his own life.
CÆSAR'S TRIUMPH.--Cæsar was now virtually lord of the Roman world. Although he refrained from assuming the title of king, no Eastern monarch was ever possessed of more absolute power, or surrounded by more abject flatterers and sycophants. He was invested with all the offices and dignities of the state. The Senate made him perpetual dictator, and conferred upon him the powers of censor, consul, and tribune, with the titles of Pontifex Maximus and Imperator (whence Emperor). "He was to sit in a golden chair in the Senate-house, his image was to be borne in the procession of the gods, and the seventh month of the year was changed in his honor from Quintilis to Julius [whence our July]."
His triumph celebrating his many victories far eclipsed in magnificence anything that Rome had before witnessed. In the procession were led captive princes from all parts of the world. Beneath his standards marched soldiers gathered out of almost every country beneath the heavens. Seventy-five million dollars of treasure were displayed. Splendid games and tables attested the liberality of the conqueror. Sixty thousand couches were set for the multitudes. The shows of the theatre and the combats of the arena followed one another in an endless round. "Above the combats of the amphitheatre floated for the first time the awning of silk, the immense velarium of a thousand colors, woven from the rarest and richest products of the East, to protect the people from the sun" (Gibbon).
CÆSAR AS A STATESMAN.--Cæsar was great as a general, yet greater, if possible, as a statesman. The measures which he instituted evince profound political sagacity and surprising breadth of view. He sought to reverse the jealous and narrow policy of Rome in the past, and to this end rebuilt both Carthage and Corinth, and founded numerous colonies in all the different provinces, in which he settled about one hundred thousand of the poorer citizens of the capital. Upon some of the provincials he conferred full Roman citizenship, and upon others Latin rights (see p. 246, note), and thus strove to blend the varied peoples and races within the boundaries of the empire in a real nationality, with community of interests and sympathies. He reformed the calendar so as to bring the festivals once more in their proper seasons, and provided against further confusion by making the year consist of 365 days, with an added day for every fourth or leap year.
Besides these achievements, Cæsar projected many vast undertakings, which the abrupt termination of his life prevented his carrying into execution. Among these was his projected conquest of the Parthians and the Germans. He proposed, in revenge for the defeat and death of his friend Crassus, to break to pieces the Parthian empire; then, sweeping with an army around above the Euxine, to destroy the dreaded hordes of Scythia; and then, falling upon the German tribes in the rear, to crush their power forever, and thus relieve the Roman empire of their constant threat. He was about to set out on the expedition against the Parthians, when he was struck down by assassins.
THE DEATH OF CÆSAR.--Cæsar had his bitter personal enemies, who never ceased to plot his downfall. There were, too, sincere lovers of the old republic, who longed to see restored the liberty which the conqueror had overthrown. The impression began to prevail that Cæsar was aiming to make himself king. A crown was several times offered him in public by Mark Antony; but, seeing the manifest displeasure of the people, he each time pushed it aside. Yet there is no doubt that secretly he desired it. It was reported that he proposed to rebuild the walls of Troy, whence the Roman race had sprung, and make that ancient capital the seat of the new Roman empire. Others professed to believe that the arts and charms of the Egyptian Cleopatra, who had borne him a son at Rome, would entice him to make Alexandria the centre of the proposed kingdom. So many, out of love for Rome and the old republic, were led to enter into a conspiracy against the life of Cæsar with those who sought to rid themselves of the dictator for other and personal reasons.
The Ides (the 15th day) of March, 44 B.C., upon which day the Senate convened, witnessed the assassination. Seventy or eighty conspirators, headed by Cassius and Brutus, both of whom had received special favors from the hands of Cæsar, were concerned in the plot. The soothsayers must have had some knowledge of the plans of the conspirators, for they had warned Cæsar to "beware of the Ides of March." On his way to the Senate- meeting that day, a paper warning him of his danger was thrust into his hand; but, not suspecting its urgent nature, he did not open it. As he entered the assembly chamber he observed the astrologer Spurinna, and remarked carelessly to him, referring to his prediction, "The Ides of March have come." "Yes," replied Spurinna, "but not gone."
No sooner had Cæsar taken his seat than the conspirators crowded about him as if to present a petition. Upon a signal from one of their number their daggers were drawn. For a moment Cæsar defended himself; but seeing Brutus, upon whom he had lavished gifts and favors, among the conspirators, he exclaimed reproachfully, Et tu, Brute!--"Thou, too, Brutus!" drew his mantle over his face, and received unresistingly their further thrusts. Pierced with twenty-three wounds, he sank dead at the foot of Pompey's statue.
FUNERAL ORATION by MARK ANTONY.--The conspirators, or "liberators," as they called themselves, had thought that the Senate would confirm, and the people applaud, their act. But both people and senators, struck with consternation, were silent. Men's faces grew pale as they recalled the proscriptions of Sulla, and saw in the assassination of Cæsar the first act in a similar reign of terror. As the conspirators issued from the assembly hall, and entered the Forum, holding aloft their bloody daggers, instead of the expected acclamations they were met by an ominous silence. The liberators hastened for safety to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, going thither ostensibly for the purpose of giving thanks for the death of the tyrant.
Upon the day set for the funeral ceremonies, Mark Antony, the trusted friend and secretary of Cæsar, mounted the rostrum in the Forum to deliver the usual funeral oration. He recounted the great deeds of Cæsar, the glory he had conferred upon the Roman name, dwelt upon his liberality and his munificent bequests to the people--even to some who were now his murderers; and, when he had wrought the feelings of the multitude to the highest tension, he raised the robe of Cæsar, and showed the rents made by the daggers of the assassins. Cæsar had always been beloved by the people and idolized by his soldiers. They were now driven almost to frenzy with grief and indignation. Seizing weapons and torches, they rushed through the streets, vowing vengeance upon the conspirators. The liberators, however, escaped from the fury of the mob, and fled from Rome, Brutus and Cassius seeking refuge in Greece.
THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE.--Antony had gained possession of the will and papers of Cæsar, and now, under color of carrying out the testament of the dictator, according to a decree of the Senate, entered upon a course of high-handed usurpation. He was aided in his designs by Lepidus, one of Cæsar's old lieutenants. Very soon he was exercising all the powers of a real dictator. "The tyrant is dead," said Cicero, "but the tyranny still lives." This was a bitter commentary upon the words of Brutus, who, as he drew his dagger from the body of Cæsar, turned to Cicero, and exclaimed, "Rejoice, O Father of your Country, for Rome is free." Rome could not be free, the republic could not be reestablished because the old love for virtue and liberty had died out from among the people--had been overwhelmed by the rising tide of vice, corruption, sensuality, and irreligion that had set in upon the capital.
To what length Antony would have gone in his career of usurpation it is difficult to say, had he not been opposed at this point by Caius Octavius, the grand-nephew of Julius Cæsar, and the one whom he had named in his will as his heir and successor. Upon the Senate declaring in favor of Octavius, civil war immediately broke out between him and Antony and Lepidus. After several indecisive battles between the forces of the rival competitors, Octavius proposed to Antony and Lepidus a reconciliation. The three met on a small island in the Rhenus, a little stream in Northern Italy, and there formed a league known as the Second Triumvirate (43 B.C.).
The plans of the triumvirs were infamous. They first divided the world among themselves: Octavius was to have the government of the West; Antony, that of the East; while to Lepidus fell the control of Africa. A general proscription, such as had marked the coming to power of Sulla (see p. 283), was then resolved upon. It was agreed that each should give up to the assassin such friends of his as had incurred the ill will of either of the other triumvirs. Under this arrangement Octavius gave up his friend Cicero,--who had incurred the hatred of Antony by opposing his schemes,-- and allowed his name to be put at the head of the list of the proscribed.
The friends of the orator urged him to flee the country. "Let me die," said he, "in my fatherland, which I have so often saved!" His attendants were hurrying him, half unwilling, towards the coast, when his pursuers came up and despatched him in the litter in which he was being carried. His head was taken to Rome, and set up in front of the rostrum, "from which he had so often addressed the people with his eloquent appeals for liberty." It is told that Fulvia, the wife of Antony, ran her gold bodkin through the tongue, in revenge for the bitter philippics it had uttered against her husband. The right hand of the victim--the hand that had penned the eloquent orations--was nailed to the rostrum.
Cicero was but one victim among many hundreds. All the dreadful scenes of the days of Sulla were re-enacted. Three hundred senators and two thousand knights were murdered. The estates of the wealthy were confiscated, and conferred by the triumvirs upon their friends and favorites.
LAST STRUGGLE OF THE REPUBLIC AT PHILIPPI (42 B.C.).--The friends of the old republic, and the enemies of the triumvirs, were meanwhile rallying in the East. Brutus and Cassius were the animating spirits. The Asiatic provinces were plundered to raise money for the soldiers of the liberators. Octavius and Antony, as soon as they had disposed of their enemies in Italy, crossed the Adriatic into Greece, to disperse the forces of the republicans there. The liberators, advancing to meet them, passed over the Hellespont into Thrace.
Tradition tells how one night a spectre appeared to Brutus and seemed to say, "I am thy evil genius; we will meet again at Philippi." At Philippi, in Thrace, the hostile armies met (42 B.C.). In two successive engagements the new levies of the liberators were cut to pieces, and both Brutus and Cassius, believing the cause of the republic forever lost, committed suicide. It was, indeed, the last effort of the republic. The history of the events that lie between the action at Philippi and the establishment of the empire is simply a record of the struggles among the triumvirs for the possession of the prize of supreme power. After various redistributions of provinces, Lepidus was at length expelled from the triumvirate, and then again the Roman world, as in the times of Cæsar and Pompey, was in the hands of two masters--Antony in the East, and Octavius in the West.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.--After the battle of Philippi, Antony went into Asia for the purpose of settling the affairs of the provinces and vassal states there. He summoned Cleopatra, the fair queen of Egypt, to meet him at Tarsus, in Cilicia, there to give account to him for the aid she had rendered the liberators. She obeyed the summons, relying upon the power of her charms to appease the anger of the triumvir. She ascended the Cydnus in a gilded barge, with oars of silver, and sails of purple silk. Beneath awnings wrought of the richest manufactures of the East, the beautiful queen, attired to personate Venus, reclined amidst lovely attendants dressed to represent cupids and nereids. Antony was completely fascinated, as had been the great Cæsar before him, by the dazzling beauty of the "Serpent of the Nile." Enslaved by her enchantments, and charmed by her brilliant wit, in the pleasure of her company he forgot all else--ambition and honor and country.
Once, indeed, Antony did rouse himself and break away from his enslavement to lead the Roman legions across the Euphrates against the Parthians. But the storms of approaching winter, and the incessant attacks of the Parthian cavalry, at length forced him to make a hurried and disastrous retreat. He hastened back to Egypt, and sought to forget his shame and disappointment amidst the revels of the Egyptian court.
THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM (31 B.C.).--Affairs could not long continue in their present course. Antony had put away his faithful wife Octavia for the beautiful Cleopatra. It was whispered at Rome, and not without truth, that he proposed to make Alexandria the capital of the Roman world, and announce Cæsarion, son of Julius Cæsar and Cleopatra, as heir of the empire. All Rome was stirred. It was evident that a conflict was at hand in which the question for decision would be whether the West should rule the East, or the East rule the West. All eyes were instinctively turned to Octavius as the defender of Italy, and the supporter of the sovereignty of the Eternal City. Both parties made the most gigantic preparations. Octavius met the combined fleets of Antony and Cleopatra just off the promontory of Actium, on the Grecian coast. While the issue of the battle that there took place was yet undecided, Cleopatra turned her galley in flight. The Egyptian ships, to the number of fifty, followed her example. Antony, as soon as he perceived the withdrawal of Cleopatra, forgot all else, and followed in her track with a swift galley. Overtaking the fleeing queen, the infatuated man was received aboard her vessel, and became her partner in the disgraceful flight.
The abandoned fleet and army surrendered to Octavius. The conqueror was now sole master of the civilized world. From this decisive battle (31 B.C.) are usually dated the end of the republic and the beginning of the empire. Some, however, make the establishment of the empire date from the year 27 B.C., as it was not until then that Octavius was formally invested with imperial powers.
DEATHS OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.--Octavius pursued Antony to Egypt, where the latter, deserted by his army, and informed by a messenger from the false queen that she was dead, committed suicide. Cleopatra then sought to enslave Octavius with her charms; but, failing in this, and becoming convinced that he proposed to take her to Rome that she might there grace his triumph, she took her own life, being in the thirty-eighth year of her age. Tradition says that she effected her purpose by applying an asp to her arm. But it is really unknown in what way she killed herself.
Chapter XXIX
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. (From 31 B.C. to A.D. 180.)
REIGN OF AUGUSTUS CÆSAR (31 B.C. to A.D. 14).--The hundred years of strife which ended with the battle of Actium left the Roman republic, exhausted and helpless, in the hands of one wise enough and strong enough to remould its crumbling fragments in such a manner that the state, which seemed ready to fall to pieces, might prolong its existence for another five hundred years. It was a great work thus to create anew, as it were, out of anarchy and chaos, a political fabric that should exhibit such elements of perpetuity and strength. "The establishment of the Roman empire," says Merivale, "was, after all, the greatest political work that any human being ever wrought. The achievements of Alexander, of Cæsar, of Charlemagne, of Napoleon, are not to be compared with it for a moment."
The government which Octavius established was a monarchy in fact, but a republic in form. Mindful of the fate of Julius Cæsar, who fell because he gave the lovers of the republic reason to think that he coveted the title of king, Octavius carefully veiled his really absolute sovereignty under the forms of the old republican state. The Senate still existed; but so completely subjected were its members to the influence of the conqueror that the only function it really exercised was the conferring of honors and titles and abject flatteries upon its master. All the republican officials remained; but Octavius absorbed and exercised their chief powers and functions. He had the powers of consul, tribune, censor, and Pontifex Maximus. All the republican magistrates--the consuls, the tribunes, the prætors--were elected as usual; but they were simply the nominees and creatures of the emperor. They were the effigies and figure-heads to delude the people into believing that the republic still existed. Never did a people seem more content with the shadow after the loss of the substance.
The Senate, acting under the inspiration of Octavius, withheld from him the title of king, which ever since the expulsion of the Tarquins, five centuries before this time, had been intolerable to the people; but they conferred upon him the titles of Imperator and Augustus, the latter having been hitherto sacred to the gods. The sixth month of the Roman year was called Augustus (whence our August) in his honor, an act in imitation of that by which the preceding month had been given the name of Julius in honor of Julius Cæsar.
The domains over which Augustus held sway were imperial in magnitude. They stretched from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, and upon the north were hemmed by the forests of Germany and the bleak steppes of Scythia, and were bordered on the south by the sands of the African desert and the dreary wastes of Arabia, which seemed the boundaries set by nature to dominion in those directions. Within these limits were crowded more than 100,000,000 people, embracing every conceivable condition and variety in race and culture, from the rough barbarians of Gaul to the refined voluptuary of the East.
Octavius was the first to moderate the ambition of the Romans, and to council them not to attempt to conquer any more of the world, but rather to devote their energies to the work of consolidating the domains already acquired. He saw the dangers that would attend any further extension of the boundaries of the state.
The reign of Augustus lasted forty-four years, from 31 B.C. to A.D. 14. It embraced the most splendid period of the annals of Rome. Under the patronage of the emperor, and that of his favorite minister Mæcenas, poets and writers flourished and made this the "golden age" of Latin literature. During this reign Virgil composed his immortal epic of the Æneid, and Horace his famous odes; while Livy wrote his inimitable history, and Ovid his Metamorphoses. Many who lamented the fall of the republic sought solace in the pursuit of letters; and in this they were encouraged by Augustus, as it gave occupation to many restless spirits that would otherwise have been engaged in political intrigues against his government.
Augustus was also a munificent patron of architecture and art. He adorned the capital with many splendid structures. Said he proudly, "I found Rome a city of brick; I left it a city of marble." The population of the city at this time was probably about one million.
Although the government of Augustus was disturbed by some troubles upon the frontiers, still never before, perhaps, did the world enjoy so long a period of general rest from the preparation and turmoil of war. Three times during this auspicious reign the gates of the Temple of Janus at Rome, which were open in time of war and closed in time of peace, were shut. Only twice before during the entire history of the city had they been closed, so constantly had the Roman people been engaged in war. It was in the midst of this happy reign, when profound peace prevailed throughout the civilized world, that Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea. The event was unheralded at Rome; yet it was filled with profound significance, not only for the Roman empire, but for the world.
The latter years of the life of Augustus were clouded both by domestic bereavement and national disaster. His beloved nephew Marcellus, and his two grandsons Caius and Lucius, whom he purposed making his heirs, were all removed by death; and then, far away in the German forest, his general Varus, who had attempted to rule the freedom-loving Teutons as he had governed the abject Asiatics of the Eastern provinces, was surprised by the barbarians, led by their brave chief Hermanu,--Arminius, as called by the Romans,--and his army destroyed almost to a man (A.D. 9). Twenty thousand of the legionaries lay dead and unburied in the tangled woods and morasses of Germany.
The victory of Arminius over the Roman legions was an event of the greatest significance in the history of European civilization. Germany was almost overrun by the Roman army. The Teutonic tribes were on the point of being completely subjugated and Romanized, as had been the Celts of Gaul before them. Had this occurred, the entire history of Europe would have been changed; for the Germanic element is the one that has given shape and color to the important events of the last fifteen hundred years. Those barbarians, too, were our ancestors. Had Rome succeeded in exterminating or enslaving them, Britain, as Creasy says, would never have received the name of England, and the great English nation would never have had an existence.
In the year A.D. 14, Augustus died, having reached the seventy-sixth year of his age. It was believed that his soul ascended visibly amidst the flames of the funeral pyre. By decree of the Senate divine worship was accorded to him, and temples were erected in his honor.
One of the most important of the acts of Augustus, in its influence upon following events, was the formation of the Prætorian Guard, which was designed for a sort of body-guard to the emperor. In the succeeding reign this body of soldiers, about ten thousand in number, was given a permanent camp alongside the city walls. It soon became a formidable power in the state, and made and unmade emperors at will.
REIGN OF TIBERIUS (A.D. 14-37).--Tiberius succeeded to an unlimited sovereignty. The Senate conferred upon him all the titles that had been worn by Augustus. One of the first acts of Tiberius gave the last blow to the ancient republican institutions. He took away from the popular assembly the privilege of electing the consuls and prætors, and bestowed the same upon the Senate, which, however, must elect from candidates presented by the emperor. As the Senate was the creation of the emperor, who as censor made up the list of its members, he was now of course the source and fountain of all patronage. During the first years of his reign, Tiberius used his practically unrestrained authority with moderation and justice, but soon yielding to the promptings of a naturally cruel, suspicious, and jealous nature, he entered upon a course of the most high- handed tyranny. He enforced oppressively an old law, known as the law of majestas, which made it a capital offence for any one to speak a careless word, or even to entertain an unfriendly thought, respecting the emperor. "It was dangerous to speak, and equally dangerous to keep silent," says Leighton, "for silence even might be construed into discontent." Rewards were offered to informers, and hence sprang up a class of persons called "delators," who acted as spies upon society. Often false charges were made, to gratify personal enmity; and many, especially of the wealthy class, were accused and put to death that their property might be confiscated.
Tiberius appointed, as his chief minister and as commander of the prætorians, one Sejanus, a man of the lowest and most corrupt life. This officer actually persuaded Tiberius to retire to the little island of Capreæ, in the Bay of Naples, and leave to him the management of affairs at Rome. The emperor built several villas in different parts of the beautiful islet, and, having gathered a band of congenial companions, passed in this pleasant retreat the later years of his reign. Both Tacitus the historian and Suetonius the biographer tell many stories of the scandalous profligacy of the emperor's life on the island; but these tales, it should be added, are discredited by some.
Meanwhile, Sejanus was ruling at Rome very much according to his own will. No man's life was safe. He even grew so bold as to plan the assassination of the emperor himself. His designs, however, became known to Tiberius; and the infamous and disloyal minister was arrested and put to death.
After the execution of his minister, Tiberius ruled more despotically than ever before. Multitudes sought refuge from his tyranny in suicide. Death at last relieved the world of the monster. His end was probably hastened by his attendants, who are believed to have smothered him in his bed, as he lay dying.
It was in the midst of the reign of Tiberius that, in a remote province of the Roman empire, the Saviour was crucified. Animated by an unparalleled missionary spirit, His followers traversed the length and breadth of the empire, preaching everywhere the "glad tidings." Men's loss of faith in the gods of the old mythologies, the softening and liberalizing influence of Greek culture, the unification of the whole civilized world under a single government, the widespread suffering and the inexpressible weariness of the oppressed and servile classes,--all these things had prepared the soil for the seed of the new doctrines. In less than three centuries the Pagan empire had become Christian not only in name, but also very largely in fact. This conversion of Rome is one of the most important events in all history. A new element is here introduced into civilization, an element which we shall find giving color and character to very much of the story of the eighteen centuries that we have yet to study.
REIGN OF CALIGULA (A.D. 37-41).--Caius Cæsar, better known as Caligula, was only twenty-five years of age when the death of Tiberius called him to the throne. His career was very similar to that of Tiberius. After a few months spent in arduous application to the affairs of the empire, during which time his many acts of kindness and piety won for him the affections of all classes, the mind of the young emperor became unsettled, and he began to indulge in all sorts of insanities. The cruel sports of the amphitheatre possessed for him a strange fascination. When animals failed, he ordered spectators to be seized indiscriminately, and thrown to the beasts. He entered the lists himself, and fought as a gladiator upon the arena. In a sanguinary mood, he wished that "the people of Rome had but one neck." As an insult to his nobles, he gave out that he proposed to make his favorite horse, Incitatus, consul. He declared himself divine, and removing the heads of Jupiter's statues, put on his own.
After four years the insane career of Caligula was brought to a close by some of the officers of the prætorian guard, whom he had wantonly insulted.
REIGN OF CLAUDIUS (A.D. 4l-54).--The reign of Claudius, Caligula's successor, was signalized by the conquest of Britain. Nearly a century had now passed since the invasion of the island by Julius Cæsar, who, as has been seen (see p. 292), simply made a reconnoissance of the island and then withdrew. Claudius conquered all the southern portion of the island, and founded many colonies, which in time became important centres of Roman trade and culture. The leader of the Britons was Caractacus. He was taken captive and carried to Rome. Gazing in astonishment upon the magnificence of the imperial city, he exclaimed, "How can a people possessed of such splendor at home envy Caractacus his humble cottage in Britain?"
Claudius distinguished his reign by the execution of many important works. At the mouth of the Tiber he constructed a magnificent harbor, called the Portus Romanus. The Claudian Aqueduct, which he completed, was a stupendous work, bringing water to the city from a distance of forty-five miles.
The delight of the people in gladiatorial shows had at this time become almost an insane frenzy. Claudius determined to give an entertainment that should render insignificant all similar efforts. Upon a large lake, whose sloping bank afforded seats for the vast multitudes of spectators, he exhibited a naval battle, in which two opposing fleets, bearing nineteen thousand gladiators, fought as though in real battle, till the water was filled with thousands of bodies, and covered with the fragments of the broken ships.
Throughout his life Claudius was ruled by intriguing favorites and unworthy wives. For his fourth wife Claudius married the "wicked Agrippina," who secured his death by means of a dish of poisoned mushrooms, in order to make place for the succession of her son Nero.
REIGN OF NERO (A.D. 54-68).--Nero was fortunate in having for his preceptor the great philosopher and moralist Seneca; but never was teacher more unfortunate in his pupil. For five years Nero ruled with moderation and equity. He then broke away from the guidance of his tutor Seneca, and entered upon a career filled with crimes of almost incredible enormity. The dagger and poison--the latter a means of murder the use of which at Rome had become a "fine art," and was in the hands of those who made it a regular profession--were employed almost unceasingly, to remove persons that had incurred his hatred, or who possessed wealth that he coveted.
It was in the tenth year of his reign that the so-called Great Fire laid more than half of Rome in ashes. It was rumored that Nero had ordered the conflagration to be lighted, and that from the roof of his palace he had enjoyed the spectacle, and amused himself by singing a poem which he had written, entitled the "Sack of Troy."
Nero did everything in his power to discredit the rumor. To turn attention from himself, he accused the Christians of having conspired to destroy the city, in order to help out their prophecies. The doctrine which was taught by some of the new sect respecting the second coming of Christ, and the destruction of the world by fire, lent color to the charge. The persecution that followed was one of the most cruel recorded in the history of the Church. Many victims were covered with pitch and burned at night, to serve as torches in the imperial gardens. Tradition preserves the names of the Apostles Peter and Paul as victims of this Neronian persecution.
As to Rome, the conflagration was a blessing in disguise. The city rose from its ashes as quickly as Athens from her ruins at the close of the Persian wars. The new buildings were made fireproof; and the narrow, crooked streets reappeared as broad and beautiful avenues. A considerable portion of the burnt region was appropriated by Nero for the buildings and grounds of an immense palace, called the "Golden House." It covered so much space that the people "maliciously hinted" that Nero had fired the old city, in order to make room for it.
The emperor secured money for his enormous expenditures by new extortions, murders, and confiscations. No one of wealth knew but that his turn might come next. A conspiracy was formed among the nobles to relieve the state of the monster. The plot was discovered, and again "the city was filled with funerals." Lucan the poet, and Seneca, the old preceptor of Nero, both fell victims to the tyrant's rage.
Nero now made a tour through the East, and there plunged deeper and deeper into every shame, sensuality, and crime. The tyranny and the disgrace were no longer endurable. Almost at the same moment the legions in several of the provinces revolted. The Senate decreed that Nero was a public enemy, and condemned him to a disgraceful death by scourging, to avoid which he instructed a slave how to give him a fatal thrust. His last words were, "What a loss my death will be to art!"
Nero was the sixth and last of the Julian line. The family of the Great Cæsar was now extinct; but the name remained, and was adopted by all the succeeding emperors.
GALBA, OTHO, AND VITELLIUS (A.D. 68-69).--These three names are usually grouped together, as their reigns were all short and uneventful. The succession, upon the death of Nero and the extinction in him of the Julian line, was in dispute, and the legions in different quarters supported the claims of their favorite leaders. One after another the three aspirants named were killed in bloody struggles for the imperial purple. The last, Vitellius, was hurled from the throne by the soldiers of Flavius Vespasian, the old and beloved commander of the legions in Palestine, which were at this time engaged in a war with the Jews.
REIGN OF VESPASIAN (A.D. 69-79).--The accession of Flavius Vespasian marks the beginning of a period, embracing three reigns, known as the Flavian Age (A.D. 69-96). Vespasian's reign was signalized both by important military achievements abroad and by stupendous public works undertaken at Rome.
After one of the most harassing sieges recorded in history, Jerusalem was taken by Titus, son of Vespasian. The Temple was destroyed, and more than a million of Jews that were crowded in the city are believed to have perished. Great multitudes suffered death by crucifixion. The miserable remnants of the nation were scattered everywhere over the world. Josephus, the great historian, accompanied the conqueror to Rome. In imitation of Nebuchadnezzar, Titus robbed the Temple of its sacred utensils, and bore them away as trophies. Upon the triumphal arch at Rome that bears his name may be seen at the present day the sculptured representation of the golden candlestick, which was one of the memorials of the war.
In the opposite corner of the empire a dangerous revolt of the Gauls was suppressed, and in the island of Britain the Roman commander Agricola subdued or crowded back the native tribes until he had extended the frontiers of the empire into what is now Scotland. Then, as a protection against the incursions of the Caledonians, the ancestors of the Scottish Highlanders, he constructed a line of fortresses from the Frith of Forth to the Frith of Clyde.
Vespasian rebuilt the Capitoline temple, which had been burned during the struggle between his soldiers and the adherents of Vitellius; he constructed a new forum which bore his own name; and also began the erection of the celebrated Flavian amphitheatre, which was completed by his successor. After a most prosperous reign of ten years, Vespasian died A.D. 79, the first emperor after Augustus that did not meet with a violent death.
At the last moment he requested his attendants to raise him upon his feet that he might "die standing," as befitted a Roman emperor.
REIGN OF TITUS (A.D. 79-81).--In a short reign of two years Titus won the title, the "Delight of Mankind." He was unwearied in acts of benevolence and in bestowal of favors. Having let a day slip by without some act of kindness performed, he is said to have exclaimed reproachfully, "I have lost a day."
Titus completed and dedicated the great Flavian amphitheatre begun by his father, Vespasian. This vast structure, which accommodated more than eighty thousand spectators, is better known as the Colosseum--a name given it either because of its gigantic proportions, or on account of a colossal statue of Nero which happened to stand near it.
The reign of Titus, though so short, was signalized by two great disasters. The first was a conflagration at Rome, which was almost as calamitous as the Great Fire in the reign of Nero. The second was the destruction, by an eruption of Vesuvius, of the Campanian cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The cities were buried beneath showers of cinders, ashes, and streams of volcanic mud. Pliny the elder, the great naturalist, venturing too near the mountain to investigate the phenomenon, lost his life. [Footnote: In the year 1713, sixteen centuries after the destruction of the cities, the ruins were discovered by some persons engaged in digging a well, and since then extensive excavations have been made, which have uncovered a large part of Pompeii, and revealed to us the streets, homes, theatres, baths, shops, temples, and various monuments of the ancient city--all of which presents to us a very vivid picture of Roman life during the imperial period, eighteen hundred years ago.]
DOMITIAN--LAST OF THE TWELVE CÆSARS (A.D. 81-96).--Domitian, the brother of Titus, was the last of the line of emperors known as "the Twelve Cæsars." The title, however, was assumed by, and is applied to, all succeeding emperors; the sole reason that the first twelve princes are grouped together is because the Roman biographer Suetonius completed the lives of that number only.
Domitian's reign was an exact contrast to that of his brother Titus. It was one succession of extravagances, tyrannies, confiscations, and murders. Under this emperor took place what is known in Church history as "the second persecution of the Christians." This class, as well as the Jews, were the special objects of Domitian's hatred, because they refused to worship the statues of himself which he had set up (see p. 322).
The last of the Twelve Cæsars perished in his own palace, and by the hands of members of his own household. The Senate ordered his infamous name to be erased from the public monuments, and to be blotted from the records of the Roman state.
THE FIVE GOOD EMPERORS: REIGN OF NERVA (A.D. 96-98).--The five emperors-- Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines--that succeeded Domitian were elected by the Senate, which during this period assumed something of its former weight and influence in the affairs of the empire. The wise and beneficent administration of the government by these rulers secured for them the enviable distinction of being called "the five good emperors." Nerva died after a short reign of sixteen months, and the sceptre passed into the stronger hands of the able commander Trajan, whom Nerva had previously made his associate in the government.
REIGN OF TRAJAN (A.D. 98-117).--Trajan was a native of Spain, and a soldier by profession and talent. His ambition to achieve military renown led him to undertake distant and important conquests. It was the policy of Augustus--a policy adopted by most of his successors--to make the Danube in Europe and the Euphrates in Asia the limits of the Roman empire in those respective quarters. But Trajan determined to push the frontiers of his dominions beyond both these rivers, scorning to permit Nature by these barriers to mark out the confines of Roman sovereignty.
He crossed the Danube by means of a bridge, the foundations of which may still be seen, and subjugated the bold and warlike Dacian tribes lying behind that stream--tribes that had often threatened the peace of the empire. After celebrating his victories in a magnificent triumph at Rome, Trajan turned to the East, led his legions across the Euphrates, reduced Armenia, and wrested from the Parthians most of the territory which anciently formed the heart of the Assyrian monarchy. To Trajan belongs the distinction of extending the boundaries of the empire to the most distant points to which Roman ambition and prowess were ever able to push them.
But Trajan was something besides a soldier. He had a taste for literature: Juvenal, Plutarch, and the younger Pliny wrote under his patronage; and, moreover, as is true of almost all great conquerors, he had a perfect passion for building. Among the great works with which he embellished the capital was the Trajan Forum. Here he erected the celebrated marble shaft known as Trajan's column. It is one hundred and forty-seven feet high, and is wound from base to summit by a spiral band of sculptures, containing more than twenty-five thousand human figures. The column is nearly as perfect to-day as when reared eighteen centuries ago. It was intended to commemorate the Dacian conquests of Trajan; and its pictured sides are the best, and almost the only, record we now possess of those wars.
Respecting the rapid spread of Christianity at this time, the character of the early professors of the new faith, and the light in which they were viewed by the rulers of the Roman world, we have very important evidence in a certain letter written by Pliny the Younger to the emperor in regard to the Christians of Pontus, in Asia Minor, of which remote province Pliny was governor. Pliny speaks of the new creed as a "contagious superstition, that had seized not cities only, but the lesser towns also, and the open country." Yet he could find no fault in the converts to the new doctrines. Notwithstanding this, however, because the Christians steadily refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods, he ordered many to be put to death for their "inflexible obstinacy."
Trajan died A.D. 117, after a reign of nineteen years, one of the most prosperous and fortunate that had yet befallen the lot of the Roman people.
REIGN OF HADRIAN (A.D. 117-138).--Hadrian, a kinsman of Trajan, succeeded him in the imperial office. He possessed great ability, and displayed admirable moderation and prudence in the administration of the government. He gave up the territory conquered by Trajan in the East, and made the Euphrates once more the boundary of the empire in that quarter. He also broke down the bridge that Trajan had built over the Danube, and made that stream the real frontier line, notwithstanding the Roman garrisons were still maintained in Dacia. Hadrian saw plainly that Rome could not safely extend any more widely the frontiers of the empire. Indeed, so active and threatening were the enemies of the empire in the East, and so daring and numerous had now become its barbarian assailants of the North, that there was reason for the greatest anxiety lest they should break through even the old and strong lines of the Danube and the Euphrates, and pour their devastating hordes over the provinces.
More than fifteen years of his reign were spent by Hadrian in making tours of inspection through all the different provinces of the empire. He visited Britain, and secured the Roman possessions there against the Picts and Scots by erecting a continuous wall across the island. Next he journeyed through Gaul and Spain, and then visited in different tours all the remaining countries bordering upon the Mediterranean. He ascended the Nile, and, traveller-like, carved his name upon the vocal Memnon. The cities which he visited he decorated with temples, theatres, and other monuments.
In the year 131, the Jews in Palestine, who had in a measure recovered from the blow Titus had given their nation, broke out in desperate revolt, because of the planting of a Roman colony upon the almost desolate site of Jerusalem, and the placing of the statue of Jupiter in the Holy Temple. More than half a million of Jews perished in the useless struggle, and the survivors were driven into exile--the last dispersion of the race.
The latter years of his reign Hadrian passed at Rome. It was here that this princely builder erected his most splendid structures. Among these was the Mole, or Mausoleum, of Hadrian, an immense structure surmounted by a gilded dome, erected on the banks of the Tiber, and designed as a tomb for himself.
THE ANTONINES (A.D. 138-180).--Aurelius Antoninus, surnamed Pius, the adopted son of Hadrian, and his successor, gave the Roman empire an administration singularly pure and parental. Of him it has been said that "he was the first, and, saving his colleague and successor Aurelius, the only one of the emperors who devoted himself to the task of government with a single view to the happiness of his people." Throughout his long reign of twenty-three years, the empire was in a state of profound peace. The attention of the historian is attracted by no striking events, which, as many have not failed to observe, illustrates admirably the oft-repeated maxim, "Happy is that people whose annals are brief."
Antoninus, early in his reign, united with himself in the government his adopted son Marcus Aurelius, and upon the death of the former (A.D. 161) the latter succeeded quietly to his place and work. His studious habits won for him the title of "Philosopher." He belonged to the school of the Stoics, and was a most thoughtful writer. His Meditations breathe the tenderest sentiments of devotion and benevolence, and make the nearest approach to the spirit of Christianity of all the writings of Pagan antiquity. He established an Institution, or Home, for orphan girls; and, finding the poorer classes throughout Italy burdened by their taxes and greatly in arrears in paying them, he caused all the tax-claims to be heaped in the Forum and burned.
The tastes and sympathies of Aurelius would have led him to choose a life passed in retirement and study at the capital; but hostile movements of the Parthians, and especially invasions of the barbarians along the Rhenish and Danubian frontiers, called him from his books, and forced him to spend most of the latter years of his reign in the camp. The Parthians, who had violated their treaty with Rome, were chastised by the lieutenants of the emperor, and Mesopotamia again fell under Roman authority.
This war drew after it a series of terrible calamities. The returning soldiers brought with them the Asiatic plague, which swept off vast numbers, especially in Italy, where entire cities and districts were depopulated. In the general distress and panic, the superstitious people were led to believe that it was the new sect of Christians that had called down upon the nation the anger of the gods. Aurelius permitted a fearful persecution to be instituted against them, during which the famous Christian fathers and bishops, Justin Martyr and Polycarp, suffered death.
It should be noted that the persecution of the Christians under the Pagan emperors, sprung from political rather than religious motives, and that this is why we find the names of the best emperors, as well as those of the worst, in the list of persecutors. It was believed that the welfare of the state was bound up with the careful performance of the rites of the national worship; and hence, while the Roman rulers were usually very tolerant, allowing all forms of worship among their subjects, still they required that men of every faith should at least recognize the Roman gods, and burn incense before their statues. This the Christians steadily refused to do. Their neglect of the service of the temple, it was believed, angered the gods, and endangered the safety of the state, bringing upon it drought, pestilence, and every disaster. This was the main reason of their persecution by the Pagan emperors.
But pestilence and persecution were both forgotten amidst the imperative calls for immediate help that now came from the North. The barbarians were pushing in the Roman outposts, and pouring impetuously over the frontiers. To the panic of the plague was added this new terror. Aurelius placed himself at the head of his legions, and hurried beyond the Alps. For many years, amidst the snows of winter and the heats of summer, he strove to beat back the assailants of the empire.
The efforts of the devoted Aurelius checked the inroads of the barbarians; but he could not subdue them, so weakened was the empire by the ravages of the pestilence, and so exhausted was the treasury from the heavy and constant drains upon it. At last his weak body gave way beneath the hardships of his numerous campaigns, and he died in his camp at Vindobona (now Vienna), in the nineteenth year of his reign (A.D. 180).
The united voice of the Senate and people pronounced him a god, and divine worship was accorded to his statue. Never was Monarchy so justified of her children as in the lives and works of the Antonines. As Merivale, in dwelling upon their virtues, very justly remarks, "the blameless career of these illustrious princes has furnished the best excuse for Cæsarism in all after-ages."
ROMAN EMPERORS FROM AUGUSTUS TO MARCUS AURELIUS. (From 31 B.C. to A.D. 180.)
Augustus reigns . 31 B.C. to A.D. 14 Tiberius . . . . . . A.D. 14-37 Caligula . . . . . . . . 37-41 Claudius . . . . . . . . 41-54 Nero . . . . . . . . . 54-68 Galba . . . . . . . . 68-69 Otho . . . . . . . . . 69 Vitellius . . . . . . . 69 Vespasian . . . . . . . 69-79 Titus . . . . . . . . 79-81 Domitian . . . . . . . 81-96 Nerva . . . . . . . . 96-98 Trajan . . . . . . . . 98-117 Hadrian . . . . . . . 117-138 Antoninus Pius . . . . . 138-161 Marcus Aurelius . . . . 161-180 Verus associated with Aurelius 161-169
The first eleven, in connection with Julius Cæsar, are called the Twelve Cæsars. The last five (excluding Verus) are known as the Five Good Emperors.
Chapter XXX
DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST; BEGINNING OF THE GREAT GERMAN MIGRATION. (A.D. 180-476.)
REIGN OF COMMODUS (A.D. 180-192).--Under the wise and able administration of "the five good emperors"--Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines--the Roman empire reached its culmination in power and prosperity; and now, under the enfeebling influences of vice and corruption within, and the heavy blows of the barbarians without, it begins to decline rapidly to its fall.
Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius, and the last of the Antonines, was a most unworthy successor of his illustrious father. For three years, however, surrounded by the able generals and wise counsellors that the prudent administration of the preceding emperors had drawn to the head of affairs, Commodus ruled with fairness and lenity, when an unsuccessful conspiracy against his life seemed suddenly to kindle all the slumbering passions of a Nero. He secured the favor of the rabble with the shows of the amphitheatre, and purchased the support of the prætorians with bribes and flatteries. Thus he was enabled for ten years to retain the throne, while perpetrating all manner of cruelties, and staining the imperial purple with the most detestable debaucheries and crimes.
Commodus had a passion for gladiatorial combats, and attired in a lion's skin, and armed with the club of Hercules, he valiantly set upon and slew antagonists arrayed to represent mythological monsters, and armed with great sponges for rocks. The Senate, so obsequiously servile had that body become, conferred upon him the title of the Roman Hercules, and also voted him the additional surnames of Pius and Felix, and even proposed to change the name of Rome and call it Colonia Commodiana.
The empire was finally relieved of the insane tyrant by some members of the royal household, who anticipated his designs against themselves by putting him to death.
"THE BARRACK EMPERORS."--For nearly a century after the death of Commodus (from A.D. 192 to 284), the emperors were elected by the army, and hence the rulers for this period have been called "the Barrack Emperors." The character of the period is revealed by the fact that of the twenty-five emperors who mounted the throne during this time all except four came to their deaths by violence. "Civil war, pestilence, bankruptcy, were all brooding over the empire. The soldiers had forgotten how to fight, the rulers how to govern." On every side the barbarians were breaking into the empire to rob, to murder, and to burn.
THE PUBLIC SALE OF THE EMPIRE (A.D. 193).--The beginning of these troublous times was marked by a shameful proceeding on the part of the prætorians. Upon the death of Commodus, Pertinax, a distinguished senator, was placed on the throne; but his efforts to enforce discipline among the prætorians aroused their anger, and he was slain by them after a short reign of only three months. These soldiers then gave out notice that they would sell the empire to the highest bidder. It was, accordingly, set up for sale at the prætorian camp, and struck off to Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator, who gave $1000 to each of the 12,000 soldiers at this time composing the guard. So the price of the empire was about $12,000,000.
But these turbulent and insolent soldiers at the capital of the empire were not to have things entirely their own way. As soon as the news of the disgraceful transaction reached the legions on the frontiers, they rose as a single man in indignant revolt. Each of the three armies that held the Euphrates, the Rhine, and the Danube, proclaimed its favorite commander emperor. The leader of the Danubian troops was Septimius Severus, a man of great energy and force of character. He knew that there were other competitors for the throne, and that the prize would be his who first seized it. Instantly he set his veterans in motion and was soon at Rome. The prætorians were no match for the trained legionaries of the frontiers, and did not even attempt to defend their emperor, who was taken prisoner and put to death after a reign of sixty-five days. REIGN OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS (A.D. 193-211).--One of the first acts of Severus was to organize a new body-guard of 50,000 legionaries, to take the place of the unworthy prætorians, whom, as a punishment for the insult they had offered to the Roman state, he disbanded, and banished from the capital, and forbade to approach within a hundred miles of its walls. He next crushed his two rival competitors, and was then undisputed master of the empire. He put to death forty senators for having favored his late rivals, and completely destroyed the power of their body. Committing to the prefect of the new prætorian guard the management of affairs at the capital, Severus passed the greater part of his long and prosperous reign upon the frontiers. At one time he was chastising the Parthians beyond the Euphrates, and at another, pushing back the Caledonian tribes from the Hadrian wall in the opposite corner of his dominions. Finally, in Britain, in his camp at York, death overtook him.
REIGN OF CARACALLA (A.D. 211-217).--Severus conferred the empire upon his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. Caracalla murdered his brother, and then ordered Papinian, the celebrated jurist, to make a public argument in vindication of the fratricide. When that great lawyer refused, saying that "it was easier to commit such a crime than to justify it," he put him to death. Thousands fell victims to his senseless rage. Driven by remorse and fear, he fled from the capital, and wandered about the most distant provinces. At Alexandria, on account of some uncomplimentary remarks by the citizens upon his appearance, he ordered a general massacre. Finally, after a reign of six years, the monster was slain in a remote corner of Syria.
Caracalla's sole political act of real importance was the bestowal of citizenship upon all the free inhabitants of the empire; and this he did, not to give them a just privilege, but that he might collect from them certain special taxes which only Roman citizens had to pay. Before the reign of Caracalla it was only particular classes of subjects, or the inhabitants of some particular city or province, that, as a mark of special favor, had, from time to time, been admitted to the rights of citizenship (see p. 280). By this wholesale act of Caracalla, the entire population of the empire was made Roman, at least in name and nominal privilege. "The city had become the world, or, viewed from the other side, the world had become the city" (Merivale).
REIGN OF ALEXANDER SEVERUS (A.D. 222-235).--Severus restored the virtues of the Age of the Antonines. His administration was pure and energetic; but he strove in vain to resist the corrupt and downward tendencies of the times. He was assassinated, after a reign of fourteen years, by his seditious soldiers, who were angered by his efforts to reduce them to discipline. They invested with the imperial purple an obscure officer named Maximin, a Thracian peasant, whose sole recommendation for this dignity was his gigantic stature and his great strength of limbs. Rome had now sunk to the lowest possible degradation. We may pass rapidly over the next fifty years of the empire.
THE THIRTY TYRANTS (A.D. 251-268).--Maximin was followed swiftly by Gordian, Philip, and Decius, and then came what is called the "Age of the Thirty Tyrants." The imperial sceptre being held by weak emperors, there sprang up in every part of the empire, competitors for the throne--several rivals frequently appearing in the field at the same time. The barbarians pressed upon all the frontiers, and thrust themselves into all the provinces. The empire seemed on the point of falling to pieces. [Footnote: It was during this period that the Emperor Valerian (A.D. 253-260), in a battle with the Persians before Edessa, in Mesopotamia, was defeated and taken prisoner by Sapor, the Persian king. A large rock tablet (see cut above), still to be seen near the Persian town of Shiraz, is believed to commemorate the triumph of Sapor over the unfortunate emperor.] But a fortunate succession of five good emperors--Claudius, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, and Carus (A.D. 268-284)--restored for a time the ancient boundaries, and again forced together into some sort of union the fragments of the shattered state.
THE FALL OF PALMYRA.--The most noted of the usurpers of authority in the provinces during the period of anarchy of which we have spoken, was Odenatus, Prince of Palmyra, a city occupying an oasis in the midst of the Syrian Desert, midway between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates. In gratitude for the aid he had rendered the Romans against the Parthians, the Senate had bestowed upon him titles and honors. When the empire began to show signs of weakness and approaching dissolution, Odenatus conceived the ambitious project of erecting upon its ruins in the East a great Palmyrian kingdom. Upon his death, his wife, Zenobia, succeeded to his authority and to his ambitions. This famous princess claimed descent from Cleopatra, and it is certain that in the charms of personal beauty she was the rival of the Egyptian queen. Boldly assuming the title of "Queen of the East," she bade defiance to the emperor of Rome. Aurelian marched against her, defeated her armies, and carried her a captive to Italy (273 A.D.). After having been led in golden chains in the triumphal procession of Aurelian, the queen was given a beautiful villa in the vicinity of Tibur, where, surrounded by her children, she passed the remainder of her checkered life.
The ruins of Palmyra are among the most interesting remains of Græco-Roman civilization in the East.
REIGN OF DIOCLETIAN (A.D. 284-305).--The reign of Diocletian marks an important era in Roman history. Up to this time the imperial government had been more or less carefully concealed under the forms and names of the old republic. The government now became an unveiled and absolute monarchy. Diocletian's reforms, though radical, were salutary, and infused such fresh vitality into the frame of the dying state as to give it a new lease of life for another term of nearly two hundred years.
He determined to divide the numerous and increasing cares of the distracted empire, so that it might be ruled from two centres--one in the East and the other in the West. In pursuance of this plan, he chose as a colleague a companion soldier, Maximian, upon whom he conferred the title of Augustus. After a few years, finding the cares of the co-sovereignty still too heavy, each sovereign associated with himself an assistant, who took the title of Cæsar, and was considered the son and heir of the emperor. There were thus two Augusti and two Cæsars. Milan, in Italy, became the capital and residence of Maximian; while Nicomedia, in Asia Minor, became the seat of the court of Diocletian. The Augusti took charge of the countries near their respective capitals, while the younger and more active Cæsars were assigned the government of the more distant and turbulent provinces. The vigorous administration of the government in every quarter of the empire was thus secured. The authority of each of the rulers was supreme within the territory allotted him; but all acknowledged Diocletian as "the father and head of the state."
The most serious drawback to the system of government thus instituted was the heavy expense incident to the maintenance of four courts with their trains of officers and dependants. The taxes became unendurable, husbandry ceased, and large masses of the population were reduced almost to starvation.
While the changes made in the government have rendered the name of Diocletian famous in the political history of the Roman state, the cruel persecutions which he ordered against the Christians have made his name in an equal degree infamous in ecclesiastical annals; for it was during this reign that the tenth--the last and severest--of the persecutions of the Church took place. By an imperial decree the churches of the Christians were ordered to be torn down, and they themselves were outlawed. For ten years the fugitives were hunted in forest and cave. The victims were burned, were cast to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre--were put to death by every torture and in every mode that ingenious cruelty could devise. But nothing could shake the constancy of their faith. They courted the death that secured them, as they firmly believed, immediate entrance upon an existence of unending happiness. The exhibition of devotion and constancy shown by the martyrs won multitudes to the persecuted faith.
It was during this and the various other persecutions that vexed the Church in the second and third centuries that the Christians sought refuge in the Catacombs, those vast subterranean galleries and chambers under the city of Rome. Here the Christians lived and buried their dead, and on the walls of the chambers sketched rude symbols of their hope and faith. It was in the darkness of these subterranean abodes that Christian art had its beginnings.
After a prosperous reign of twenty years, becoming weary of the cares of state, Diocletian abdicated the throne, and forced or induced his colleague Maximian also to lay down his authority on the same day. Galerius and Constantius were, by this act, advanced to the purple and made Augusti; and two new associates were appointed as Cæsars. Diocletian, having enjoyed the extreme satisfaction of seeing the imperial authority quietly and successfully transmitted by his system, without the dictation of the insolent prætorians or the interference of the turbulent legionaries, now retired to his country-seat at Salona, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic, and there devoted himself to rural pursuits. It is related that, when Maximian wrote him urging him to endeavor, with him, to regain the power they had laid aside, he replied: "Were you but to come to Salona and see the vegetables which I raise in my garden with my own hands, you would no longer talk to me of empire."
REIGN OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT (A.D. 306-337); THE EMPIRE BECOMES CHRISTIAN.--Galerius and Constantius had reigned together only one year, when the latter died at York, in Britain; and his soldiers, disregarding the rule of succession as determined by the system of Diocletian, proclaimed his son Constantine emperor. Six competitors for the throne arose in different quarters. For eighteen years Constantine fought to gain supremacy. At the end of that time every rival was crushed, and he was the sole ruler of the Roman world.
Constantine was the first Christian emperor. He was converted to the new religion--such is the story--by seeing in the heavens, during one of his campaigns against his rivals, a luminous cross with this inscription: "With this sign you will conquer." He made the cross the royal standard; and the Roman legions now for the first time marched beneath the emblem of Christianity.
By a decree issued from Milan A.D. 313, Christianity was made in effect the state religion; but all other forms of worship were tolerated. With the view of harmonizing the different sects that had sprung up among the Christians, and to settle the controversy between the Arians and the Athanasians respecting the nature of Christ,--the former denied his equality with God the Father,--Constantine called the first OEcumenical, or General Council of the Church, at Nicæa, a town of Asia Minor, A.D. 325. Arianism was denounced, and a formula of Christian faith adopted, which is known as the Nicene Creed.
After the recognition of Christianity, the most important act of Constantine was the selection of Byzantium, on the Bosporus, as the new capital of the empire. One reason which led the emperor to choose this site in preference to Rome was the ungracious conduct towards him of the inhabitants of the latter city, because he had abandoned the worship of the old national deities. But there were political reasons for such a change. Through the Eastern conquests of Rome, the centre of the population, wealth, and culture of the empire had shifted eastward. The West--Gaul, Britain, Spain--was rude and barbarous; the East--Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor--was the abode of ancient civilizations from which Rome was proud to trace her origin. Constantine was not the first to entertain the idea of seeking in the East a new centre for the Roman world. The Italians were inflamed against the first Cæsar by the report that he intended to restore Ilium, the cradle of the Roman race, and make that the capital of the empire.
Constantine organized at Byzantium a new Senate, while that at Rome sank to the obscure position of the council of a provincial municipality. Multitudes eagerly thronged to the new capital, and almost in a night the little colony grew into an imperial city. In honor of the emperor its name was changed to Constantinople, the "City of Constantine." Hereafter the eyes of the world were directed towards the Bosporus instead of the Tiber.
To aid in the administration of the government, Constantine laid out the empire into four great divisions, called prefectures (see map), which were subdivided into thirteen dioceses, and these again into one hundred and sixteen provinces.
The character of Constantine has been greatly eulogized by Christian writers, while pagan historians very naturally painted it in dark colors. It is probable that he embraced Christianity, not entirely from conviction, but partly from political motives. As the historian Hodgkin puts it, "He was half convinced of the truth of Christianity, and wholly convinced of the policy of embracing it." In any event, Constantine's religion was a strange mixture of the old and the new faith: on his medals the Christian cross is held by the pagan deity, Victory. In his domestic relations he was tyrannical and cruel. He died in the thirty-first year of his reign, leaving his kingdom to his three sons, Constans, Constantius, and Constantine.
REIGN OF JULIAN THE APOSTATE (A.D. 361-363).--The parcelling out of the empire by Constantine among his sons led to strife and wars, which, at the end of sixteen years, left Constantius master of the whole. He reigned as sole emperor for about eight years, engaged in ceaseless warfare with German tribes in the West and with the Persians [Footnote: The great Parthian empire, which had been such a formidable antagonist of Rome, was, after an existence of five centuries, overthrown (A.D. 226) by a revolt of the Persians, and the New Persian, or Sassanian monarchy established. This empire lasted till the country was overrun by the Saracens in the seventh century A.D.] in the East. Constantius was followed by his cousin Julian, who was killed while in pursuit of the troops of Sapor, king of the Persians (A.D. 363).
Julian is called the Apostate because he abandoned Christianity and labored to restore the pagan faith. In his persecution of the Christians, however, he could not resort to the old means--"the sword, the fire, the lions;" for, under the softening influences of the very faith he sought to extirpate, the Roman world had already learned a gentleness and humanity that rendered impossible the renewal of the Neronian and Diocletian persecutions. Julian's weapons were sophistry and ridicule, in the use of which he was a master. To degrade the Christians, and place them at a disadvantage in controversy, he excluded them from the schools of logic and rhetoric.
Furthermore, to cast discredit upon the predictions of the Scriptures, Julian determined to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem, which the Christians contended could not be restored because of the prophecies against it. He actually began excavations, but his workmen were driven in great panic from the spot by terrific explosions and bursts of flame. The Christians regarded the occurrence as miraculous; and Julian himself, it is certain, was so dismayed by it that he desisted from the undertaking. [Footnote: The explosions which so terrified the workmen of Julian are supposed to have been caused by accumulations of gases--similar to those that so frequently occasion accidents in mines--in the subterranean chambers of the Temple foundations.]
It was in vain that the apostate emperor labored to uproot the new faith; for the purity of its teachings, the universal and eternal character of its moral precepts, had given it a name to live. Equally in vain were his efforts to restore the worship of the old Grecian and Roman divinities. Polytheism was a transitional form of religious belief which the world had now outgrown: Great Pan was dead.
The disabilities under which Julian had placed the Christians were removed by his successor Jovian (A.D. 363-4), and the Christian worship was re- established.
VALENTINIAN AND VALENS.--Upon the death of Jovian, Valentinian, the commander of the imperial guard, was elected emperor by a council of the generals of the army and the ministers of the court. He appointed his brother Valens as his associate in office, and assigned to him the Eastern provinces, while reserving for himself the Western. He set up his own court at Milan, while his brother established his residence at Constantinople.
THE MOVEMENTS OF THE BARBARIANS.--The reigns of Valentinian and Valens were signalized by threatening movements of the barbarian tribes, that now, almost at the same moment, began to press with redoubled energy against all the barriers of the empire. The Alemanni (Germans) crossed the Rhine--sometimes swarming over the river on the winter's ice--and, before pursuit could be made, escaped with their booty into the depths of the German forests. The Saxons, pirates of the northern seas, who issued from the mouth of the Elbe, ravaged the coasts of Gaul and Britain, even pushing their light skiffs far up the rivers and creeks of those countries, and carrying spoils from the inland cities. In Britain, the Picts broke through the Wall of Antoninus, and wrested almost the entire island from the hands of the Romans. In Africa, the Moorish and other tribes, issuing from the ravines of the Atlas Mountains and swarming from the deserts of the south, threatened to obliterate the last trace of Roman civilization occupying the narrow belt of fertile territory skirting the sea.
The barbarian tide of invasion seemed thus on the point of overwhelming the empire in the West; but for twelve years Valentinian defended with signal ability and energy, not only his own territories, but aided with arms and counsel his weaker brother Valens in the defence of his. Upon the death of Valentinian, his son Gratian succeeded to his authority (A.D. 375).
THE GOTHS CROSS THE DANUBE.--The year following the death of Valentinian, an event of the greatest importance occurred in the East. The Visigoths (Western Goths) dwelling north of the Lower Danube, who had often in hostile bands crossed that river to war against the Roman emperors, now appeared as suppliants in vast multitudes upon its banks. They said that a terrible race, whom they were powerless to withstand, had invaded their territories, and spared neither their homes nor their lives. They begged permission of the Romans to cross the river and settle in Thrace, and promised, should this request be granted, ever to remain the grateful and firm allies of the Roman state.
Valens consented to grant their petition on condition that they should surrender their arms, give up their children as hostages, and all be baptized in the Christian faith. Their terror and despair led them to assent to these conditions. So the entire nation, numbering one million souls,--counting men, women, and children,--were allowed to cross the river. Several days and nights were consumed in the transport of the vast multitudes. The writers of the times liken the passage to that of the Hellespont by the hosts of Xerxes.
The enemy that had so terrified the Goths were the Huns, a monstrous race of fierce nomadic horsemen, that two centuries and more before the Christian era were roving the deserts north of the Great Wall of China (see p. 13). Migrating from that region, they moved slowly to the west, across the great plains of Central Asia, and, after wandering several centuries, appeared in Europe. They belonged to a different race (the Turanian) from all the other European tribes with which we have been so far concerned. Their features were hideous, their noses being flattened, and their cheeks gashed, to render their appearance more frightful, as well as to prevent the growth of a beard. Even the barbarous Goths called them "barbarians."
Scarcely had the fugitive Visigoths been received within the limits of the empire before a large company of their kinsmen, the Ostrogoths (Eastern Goths), also driven from their homes by the same terrible Huns, crowded to the banks of the Danube, and pleaded that they might be allowed, as their countrymen had been, to place the river between themselves and their dreaded enemies. But Valens, becoming alarmed at the presence of so many barbarians within his dominions, refused their request; whereupon they, dreading the fierce and implacable foe behind more than the wrath of the Roman emperor in front, crossed the river with arms in their hands. At this moment the Visigoths, rising in revolt, joined their kinsmen that were just now forcing the passage of the Danube, and began to ravage the Danubian provinces. Valens despatched swift messengers to Gratian in the West, asking for assistance against the foe he had so imprudently admitted within the limits of the empire.
THEODOSIUS THE GREAT (A.D. 379-395).--Gratian was hurrying to the help of his colleague Valens, when news of his defeat and death at the hands of the barbarians was brought to him, and he at once appointed as his associate Theodosius, known afterwards as the Great, and entrusted him with the government of the Eastern provinces. Theodosius, by wise and vigorous measures, quickly reduced the Goths to submission. Vast multitudes of the Visigoths were settled upon the waste lands of Thrace, while the Ostrogoths were scattered in various colonies in different regions of Asia Minor. The Goths became allies of the Emperor of the East, and more than 40,000 of these warlike barbarians, who were destined to be the subverters of the empire, were enlisted in the imperial legions.
While Theodosius was thus composing the East, the West, through the jealous rivalries of different competitors for the control of the government, had fallen into great disorder. Theodosius twice interposed to right affairs, and then took the government into his own hands. For four months he ruled as sole monarch of the empire.
FINAL DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE (A.D. 395).--The Roman world was now united for the last time under a single master. Just before his death, Theodosius divided the empire between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, assigning the former, who was only eighteen years of age, the government of the East, and giving the latter, a mere child of eleven, the sovereignty of the West. This was the final partition of the Roman empire--the issue of that growing tendency, which we have observed in its immoderately extended dominions, to break apart. The separate histories of the East and the West now begin.
THE EASTERN EMPIRE.--The story of the fortunes of the Empire in the East need not detain us long at this point of our history. This monarchy lasted over a thousand years--from the accession to power of Arcadius, A.D. 395, to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, A.D. 1453. It will thus be seen that the greater part of its history belongs to the mediæval period. Up to the time of the overthrow of the Empire in the West, the sovereigns of the East were engaged almost incessantly in suppressing uprisings of their Gothic allies or mercenaries, or in repelling invasions of the Huns and the Vandals. Frequently during this period, in order to save their own territories, the Eastern emperors, by dishonorable inducements, persuaded the barbarians to direct their ravaging expeditions against the provinces of the West.
LAST DAYS OF THE EMPIRE IN THE WEST.
FIRST INVASION OF ITALY BY ALARIC.--Only a few years had elapsed after the death of the great Theodosius, before the barbarians were trooping in vast hordes through all the regions of the West. First, from Thrace and Moesia came the Visigoths, led by the great Alaric. They poured through the Pass of Thermopylæ, and devastated almost the entire peninsula of Greece; but, being driven from that country by Stilicho, the renowned Vandal general of Honorius, they crossed the Julian Alps, and spread terror throughout all Italy. Stilicho followed the barbarians cautiously, and, attacking them at a favorable moment, inflicted a terrible and double defeat upon them at Pollentia and Verona (A.D. 402-403). The captured camp was found filled with the spoils of Thebes, Corinth, and Sparta. Gathering the remnants of his shattered army, Alaric forced his way with difficulty through the defiles of the Alps, and escaped.
LAST TRIUMPH AT ROME (A.D. 404).--A terrible danger had been averted. All Italy burst forth in expressions of gratitude and joy. The days of the Cimbri and Teutones were recalled, and the name of Stilicho was pronounced with that of Marius. A magnificent triumph at Rome celebrated the victory and the deliverance. It was the last triumph that Rome ever saw. Three hundred times--such is asserted to be the number--the Imperial City had witnessed the triumphal procession of her victorious generals, celebrating conquests in all quarters of the world.
LAST GLADIATORIAL COMBAT OF THE AMPHITHEATRE.--The same year that marks the last military triumph at Rome also signalizes the last gladiatorial combat in the Roman amphitheatre. It is to Christianity that the credit of the suppression of the inhuman exhibitions of the amphitheatre is entirely, or almost entirely, due. The pagan philosophers usually regarded them with indifference, often with favor. Thus Pliny commends a friend for giving a gladiatorial entertainment at the funeral of his wife. And when the pagan moralists did condemn the spectacles, it was rather for other reasons than that they regarded them as inhuman and absolutely contrary to the rules of ethics. They were defended on the ground that they fostered a martial spirit among the people and inured the soldier to the sights of the battlefield. Hence gladiatorial games were actually exhibited to the legions before they set out on their campaigns. Indeed, all classes appear to have viewed the matter in much the same light, and with exactly the same absence of moral disapprobation, that we ourselves regard the slaughter of animals for food.
But the Christian fathers denounced the combats as absolutely immoral, and labored in every possible way to create a public opinion against them. The members of their own body who attended the spectacles were excommunicated. At length, in A.D. 325, the first imperial edict against them was issued by Constantine. This decree appears to have been very little regarded; nevertheless, from this time forward the exhibitions were under something of a ban, until their final abolition was brought about by an incident of the games that closed the triumph of Honorius. In the midst of the exhibition a Christian monk, named Telemachus, descending into the arena, rushed between the combatants, but was instantly killed by a shower of missiles thrown by the people, who were angered by this interruption of their sports. But the people soon repented of their act; and Honorius himself, who was present, was moved by the scene. Christianity had awakened the conscience and touched the heart of Rome. The martyrdom of the monk led to an imperial edict "which abolished forever the human sacrifices of the amphitheatre."
INVASION OF ITALY BY VARIOUS GERMAN TRIBES.--While Italy was celebrating her triumph over the Goths, another and more formidable invasion was preparing in the North. The tribes beyond the Rhine--the Vandals, the Suevi, the Burgundians, and other peoples--driven onward by some unknown cause, poured in impetuous streams from the forests and morasses of Germany, and bursting the barriers of the Alps, overspread the devoted plains of Italy. The alarm caused by them among the Italians was even greater than that inspired by the Gothic invasion; for Alaric was a Christian, while Radagaisus, the leader of the new hordes, was a superstitious savage, who paid worship to gods that required the bloody sacrifice of captive enemies.
By such efforts as Rome put forth in the younger and more vigorous days of the republic, when Hannibal was at her gates, an army was now equipped and placed under the command of Stilicho. Meanwhile the barbarians had advanced as far as Florence, and were now besieging that place. Stilicho here surrounded the vast host--variously estimated from 200,000 to 400,000 men--and starved them into a surrender. Their chief, Radagaisus, was put to death, and great multitudes of the barbarians that the sword and famine had spared were sold as slaves (A.D. 406).
THE RANSOM OF ROME (A.D. 409).--Shortly after the victory of Stilicho over the German barbarians, he came under the suspicion of the weak and jealous Honorius, and was executed. Thus fell the great general whose sword and counsel had twice saved Rome from the barbarians, and who might again have averted similar dangers that were now at hand. Listening to the rash counsels of his unworthy advisers, Honorius provoked to revolt the 30,000 Gothic mercenaries in the Roman legions by a massacre of their wives and children, who were held as hostages in the different cities of Italy. The Goths beyond the Alps joined with their kinsmen to avenge the perfidious act. Alaric again crossed the mountains, and pillaging the cities in his way, led his hosts to the very gates of Rome. Not since the time of the dread Hannibal (see p. 263)--more than six hundred years before--had Rome been insulted by the presence of a foreign foe beneath her walls.
The barbarians laying siege to the city, famine soon forced the Romans to sue for terms of surrender. The ambassadors of the Senate, when they came before Alaric, began, in lofty language, to warn him not to render the Romans desperate by hard or dishonorable terms: their fury when driven to despair, they represented, was terrible, and their number enormous. "The thicker the grass, the easier to mow it," was Alaric's derisive reply. The barbarian chieftain at length named the ransom that he would accept, and spare the city. Small as it comparatively was, the Romans were able to raise it only by the most extraordinary measures. The images of the gods were stripped of their ornaments of gold and precious stones, and even the statues themselves were melted down.
SACK OF ROME BY ALARIC (A.D. 410).--Upon retiring from Rome, Alaric established his camp in Etruria. Here he was joined by great numbers of fugitive slaves, and by fresh accessions of barbarians from beyond the Alps. The Gallic king now demanded for his followers lands of Honorius, but the emperor treated all the proposals of the barbarian with foolish insolence. Rome paid the penalty. Alaric turned upon the devoted city, determined upon its sack and plunder. The barbarians broke into the capital by night, "and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet." Precisely eight hundred years had passed since its sack by the Gauls. During that time the Imperial City had carried its victorious standards over three continents, and had gathered within the temples of its gods and the palaces of its nobles the plunder of the world. Now it was given over for a spoil to the fierce tribes from beyond the Danube.
Alaric commanded his soldiers to respect the lives of the people, and to leave untouched the treasures of the Christian temples; but the wealth of the citizens he encouraged them to make their own. For six days and nights the rough barbarians trooped through the streets of the city on their mission of pillage. Their wagons were heaped with the costly furniture, the rich plate, and the silken garments stripped from the palaces of the wealthy patricians and the temples of the gods. Amidst the license of the sack, the barbarian instincts of the robbers broke loose from all restraint, and the city was everywhere wet with blood, while the nights were lighted with burning buildings.
EFFECTS OF THE DISASTER UPON PAGANISM.--The overwhelming disaster that had befallen the Imperial City produced a profound impression upon both Pagans and Christians throughout the Roman world. The former asserted that these unutterable calamities had fallen upon the Roman state because of the abandonment by the people of the worship of the gods of their forefathers, under whose protection and favor Rome had become the mistress of the world. The Christians, on the other hand, saw in the fall of the Eternal City the fulfilment of the prophecies against the Babylon of the Apocalypse. The latter interpretation of the appalling calamity gained credit amidst the panic and despair of the times. The temples of the once popular deities were deserted by their worshippers, who had lost faith in gods that could neither save themselves nor protect their shrines from spoliation. "Henceforth," says Merivale, "the power of paganism was entirely broken, and the indications which occasionally meet us of its continued existence are rare and trifling. Christianity stepped into its deserted inheritance. The Christians occupied the temples, transforming them into churches."
THE DEATH OF ALARIC.--After withdrawing his warriors from Rome, Alaric led them southward. As they moved slowly on, they piled still higher the wagons of their long trains with the rich spoils of the cities and villas of Campania and other districts of Southern Italy. In the villas of the Roman nobles the rough barbarians spread rare banquets from the stores of their well-filled cellars, and drank from jewelled cups the famed Falernian wine.
Alaric led his soldiers to the extreme southern point of Italy, intending to cross the Straits of Messina into Sicily, and, after subduing that island, to carry his conquests into the provinces of Africa. His designs were frustrated by his death, which occurred A.D. 412. With religious care his followers secured the body of their hero against violation by his enemies. The little river Busentinus, in Northern Bruttium, was turned from its course with great labor, and in the bed of the stream was constructed a tomb, in which was placed the body of the king, with his jewels and trophies. The river was then restored to its old channel, and, that the exact spot might never be known, the prisoners who had been forced to do the work were all put to death.
THE BARBARIANS SEIZE THE WESTERN PROVINCES.--We must now turn our eyes from Rome and Italy to observe the movement of events in the provinces. In his efforts to defend Italy, Stilicho had withdrawn the last legion from Britain, and had drained the camps and fortresses of Gaul. The Wall of Antoninus was left unmanned; the passages of the Rhine were left unguarded; and the agitated multitudes of barbarians beyond these defences were free to pour their innumerable hosts into all the fair provinces of the empire. Hordes of Suevi, Alani, Vandals, and Burgundians overspread all the plains and valleys of Gaul. The Vandals pushed on into the south of Spain, and there occupied a large tract of country, which, in its present name of Andalusia, preserves the memory of its barbarian settlers. From these regions they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, overran the Roman provinces of Northern Africa, captured Carthage (A.D. 439), and made that city the seat of the dread empire of the Vandals. The Goths, with Italy pillaged, recrossed the Alps, and establishing their camps in the south of Gaul and the north of Spain, set up in those regions what is known as the Kingdom of the Visigoths.
In Britain, upon the withdrawal of the Roman legions, the Picts breaking over the Wall of Antoninus, descended upon and pillaged the cities of the South. The half-Romanized and effeminate provincials--no match for their hardy kinsmen who had never bowed their necks to the yoke of Rome--were driven to despair by the ravages of their relentless enemies, and, in their helplessness, invited to their aid the Angles and Saxons from the shores of the North Sea. These people came in their rude boats, drove back the invaders, and, being pleased with the soil and climate of the island, took possession of the country for themselves, and became the ancestors of the English people.
INVASION OF THE HUNS: BATTLE OF CHALONS.--The barbarians that were thus overrunning and parcelling out the inheritance of the dying empire were now, in turn, pressed upon and terrified by a foe more hideous and dreadful in their eyes than were they in the sight of the peoples among whom they had thrust themselves. These were the non-Aryan Huns, of whom we have already caught a glimpse as they drove the panic-stricken Goths across the Danube. At this time their leader was Attila, whom the affrighted inhabitants of Europe called the "Scourge of God." It was declared that the grass never grew again where once the hoof of Attila's horse had trod.
Attila defeated the armies of the Eastern emperor, and exacted tribute from the court of Constantinople. Finally he turned westward, and, at the head of a host numbering, it is asserted, 700,000 warriors, crossed the Rhine into Gaul, purposing first to ravage that province, and then to traverse Italy with fire and sword, in order to destroy the last vestige of the Roman power.
The Romans and their Gothic conquerors laid aside their animosities, and made common cause against the common enemy. The Visigoths were rallied by their king, Theodoric; the Italians, the Franks, the Burgundians, flocked to the standard of the Roman general Ætius. Attila drew up his mighty hosts upon the plain of Chalons, in the north of Gaul, and there awaited the onset of the Romans and their allies. The conflict was long and terrible. Theodoric was slain; but at last fortune turned against the barbarians. The loss of the Huns is variously estimated at from 100,000 to 300,000 warriors. Attila succeeded in escaping from the field, and retreated with his shattered hosts across the Rhine (A.D. 451).
This great victory is placed among the significant events of history; for it decided that the Christian Germanic races, and not the pagan Scythic Huns, should inherit the dominions of the expiring Roman Empire, and control the destinies of Europe.
THE DEATH OF ATTILA.--The year after his defeat at Chalons, Attila again crossed the Alps, and burned or plundered all the important cities of Northern Italy. The Veneti fled for safety to the morasses at the head of the Adriatic (A.D. 452). Upon the islets where they built their rude dwellings, there grew up in time the city of Venice, the "eldest daughter of the Roman Empire," the "Carthage of the Middle Ages."
The conqueror threatened Rome; but Leo the Great, bishop of the capital, went with an embassy to the camp of Attila, and pleaded for the city. He recalled to the mind of Attila the fact that death had overtaken the impious Alaric soon after he had given the Imperial City to be sacked, and warned him not to call down upon himself the like judgment of heaven. To these admonitions of the Christian bishop was added the persuasion of a golden bribe from the Emperor Valentinian; and Attila was induced to spare Southern Italy, and to lead his warriors back beyond the Alps. Shortly after he had crossed the Danube, he died suddenly in his camp. His followers gradually withdrew from Europe into the wilds of their native Scythia, or were absorbed by the peoples they had conquered.
SACK OF ROME BY THE VANDALS (A.D. 455).--Rome had been saved a visitation from the spoiler of the North, but a new destruction was about to burst upon it by way of the sea from the South. Africa sent out another enemy whose greed for plunder proved more fatal to Rome than the eternal hate of Hannibal. The kings of the Vandal Empire in Northern Africa had acquired as perfect a supremacy in the Western Mediterranean as Carthage ever enjoyed in the days of her commercial pride. Vandal corsairs swept the seas and harassed the coasts of Sicily and Italy, and even plundered the maritime towns of the Eastern provinces. In the year 455 a Vandal fleet, led by the dread Genseric, sailed up the Tiber.
Panic seized the people; for the name of Vandal was pronounced with terror throughout the world. Again the great Leo, who had once before saved his flock from the fury of an Attila, went forth to intercede in the name of Christ for the Imperial City. Genseric granted to the pious bishop the lives of the citizens, but said that the plunder of the capital belonged to his warriors. For fourteen days and nights the city was given over to the ruthless barbarians. The ships of the Vandals, which almost hid with their number the waters of the Tiber, were piled, as had been the wagons of the Goths before them, with the rich and weighty spoils of the capital. Palaces were stripped of their ornaments and furniture, and the walls of the temples denuded of their statues and of the trophies of a hundred Roman victories. From the Capitoline sanctuary were borne off the golden candlestick and other sacred articles that Titus had stolen from the Temple at Jerusalem.
The greed of the barbarians was sated at last, and they were ready to withdraw. The Vandal fleet sailed for Carthage, bearing, besides the plunder of the city, more than 30,000 of the inhabitants as slaves. [Footnote: The fleet was overtaken by a storm and suffered some damage, but the most precious of the relics it bore escaped harm. "The golden candlestick reached the African capital, was recovered a century later, and lodged in Constantinople by Justinian, and by him replaced, from superstitious motives, in Jerusalem. From that time its history is lost." --Merivale.] Carthage, through her own barbarian conquerors, was at last avenged upon her hated rival. The mournful presentiment of Scipio had fallen true (see p. 271). The cruel fate of Carthage might have been read again in the pillaged city that the Vandals left behind them.
FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST (A.D. 476).--Only the shadow of the Empire in the West now remained. All the provinces--Illyricum, Gaul, Britain, Spain, and Africa--were in the hands of the Goths, the Vandals, the Franks, the Burgundians, the Angles and Saxons, and various other intruding tribes. Italy, as well as Rome herself, had become again and again the spoil of the insatiable barbarians. The story of the twenty years following the sack of the capital by Genseric affords only a repetition of the events we have been narrating. During these years several puppet emperors were set up by the different leaders of the invading tribes. A final seditious movement placed upon the shadow-throne a child of six years, named Romulus Augustus. Chiefly because of the imperial farce he was forced to play, this child-emperor became known as Augustulus, "the little Augustus." He had reigned only a year, when Odoacer, the leader of a tribe of German mercenaries, dethroned him, and abolishing the title of emperor, took upon himself the government of Italy.
The Roman Senate now sent an embassy to Constantinople, with the royal vestments and the insignia of the imperial office, to represent to the Emperor Zeno that the West was willing to give up its claims to an emperor of its own, and to request that the German chief, with the title of "Patrician," might rule Italy as his viceroy. This was granted; and Italy now became in effect a province of the Empire in the East (A.D. 476). The Roman Empire in the West had come to an end, after an existence from the founding of Rome of 1229 years.
ROMAN EMPERORS FROM COMMODUS TO ROMULUS AUGUSTUS. (A.D. 180-476.) A.D. Commodus . . . . . . . . . . 180-192 Pertinax . . . . . . . . . . 193 Didius Julianus . . . . . . . 193 Septimius Severus . . . . . . 193-211 / Caracalla . . . . . . . . . 211-217 \ Geta . . . . . . . . . . . 211-213 Macrinus . . . . . . . . . . 2l7-218 Elagabalus . . . . . . . . . 218-222 Alexander Severus . . . . . . 222-235 Maximin . . . . . . . . . . . 235-238 Gordian III . . . . . . . . . 238-244 Philip . . . . . . . . . . . 244-249 Decius . . . . . . . . . . . 249-251 Period of the Thirty Tyrants. 251-268 Claudius . . . . . . . . . . 268-270 Aurelian . . . . . . . . . . 270-275 Tacitus . . . . . . . . . . . 275-276 Probus . . . . . . . . . . . 276-282 Carus . . . . . . . . . . . . 282-283 / Carinus . . . . . . . . . . 283-284 \ Numerian . . . . . . . . . 283-284 / Diocletian . . . . . . . . 284-305 \ Maximian . . . . . . . . . 286-305 / Constantius I . . . . . . . 305-306 \ Galerius . . . . . . . . . 305-311 Constantine the Great . . . . 306-337 Reigns as sole ruler .. . . 323-337 Constantine II . . . . .. . . 337-340 Constans I . . . . . . .. . . 337-350 Constantius II . . . . .. . . 337-361 Reigns as sole ruler .. . . 350-361 Julian the Apostate . . . . . 361-363 Jovian . . . . . . . . . . . 363-364 / Valentinian I . . . . . . . 364-375 \ Valens (in the East). . . . 364-378 Gratian . . . . . . . . . . . 375-383 Maximus . . . . . . . . . . . 383-388 Valentinian II . . . . .. . . 375-392 Eugenius . . . . . . . .. . . 392-394 Theodosius the Great . .. . . 379-395 Reigns as sole emperor. . . 394-395
FINAL PARTITION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. (A.D. 395.)
EMPERORS IN THE EAST. (From A.D. 395 to Fall of Rome.) A.D. Arcadius . . . . . . . . . . 395-408 Theodosius II. . . . . . . . 408-450 Marcian . . . . . . . . . . 450-457 Leo I . . . . . . . . . . . 457-474 Zeno . . . . . . . . . . . . 474-491
EMPERORS IN THE WEST. A.D. Honorius . . . . . . . . . . 395-423 Valentinian III. . . . . . . 425-455 Maximus . . . . . . . . . . 455 Avitus . . . . . . . . . . . 455-456 Count Ricimer creates and deposes emperors . . . . . 456-472 Romulus Augustus . . . . . . 475-476