 Section 1 of the Roman Empire of the Second Century or the Age of the Antonines by William Wolfe Capes. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 1 NERVA, AD 96-98 For the murderers of Domitian raised their hands to strike the fatal blow, they looked around we read to find a successor to replace him. Others whom they sounded on the subject shrunk away in fear or in suspicion, till they thought of Marcus Caccheus Nerva, who was likely to fill worthily the office that would soon be vacant. Little is known of his career for more than sixty years, till after he had twice been consul, and when his work seemed almost done, he rose for a little while to take the highest place on earth. The tyrant on the throne had eyed him darkly, had banished him because he heard that the stars pointed in his case to the sign of sovereign power, and indeed only spared his life because other dabblers in the mystic lore said that he was fated soon to die. The sense of his danger, heightened by his knowledge of the plot, made Nerva bold when others flinched, so he lent the conspirators his name and rose by their help to the imperial seat. He had dallied with the muses and courted poetry in earlier days, but he showed no creative aims as ruler and no genius for heroic measures. The fancy or the sanguine confidence of youth was checkered perhaps by waning strength and feeble health, or more probably a natural kindliness of temper made him more careful of his people's wants. After the long nightmare of oppression caused by the caprices of a moody despot, Rome woke again to find herself at rest, under a sovereign who indulged no want and fancies, but was gentle and calm and unassuming, homely in his personal bearing, and thrifty with the coffers of the State. He had few expensive tastes, it seemed, and little love for grand parade, refusing commonly the proffered statues and gaudy trappings of official rank. As an old senator he felt a pride in the dignity of the August assembly, consulted it in all concerns of moment, and pledged himself to look upon its members' lives as sacred. A short while since, and they were cowering before Domitian's sullen frown, were shut up in the Senate House by men at arms, while the noblest of their number were dragged out before their eyes to death. But now they had an emperor who treated them as his peers, who listened patiently to their debates and met them on an easy footing in the courtesies of social life. He rose above the petty jealousy which looks the scants at brilliant powers or great historic names, and chose, even as his colleagues in the consulship, the old whereguineous Rufus, in whose hands once lay the imperial power, had he only care to grasp it. Nor was he haunted by suspicious fears, such as sometimes give the timid a fierce appetite for blood. For when he learnt that a noble of old family had formed a plot against his life, he took no steps to punish him, but kept him close beside him in his train, talked to him at the theatre with calm composure, and even handed him a sword to try its edge in temper, as if intent to prove that he had no mistrustful or revengeful thought. There were many indeed to whom he seemed too easy going, too careless of the memories of wrongdoing to satisfy their passionate zeal for justice. There were those who had seen their friends or kinsmen hunted to death by false accusers, who thought that surely now at length they might wreck their vengeance on the tyrant's bloodhounds. The early days of Nerva's rule seemed to flatter all their hopes, for the prison doors were opened to let the innocent go forth, while their place was taken by spies and perjurers, and all the heartbeats who had preyed on noble victims. For a while it seemed as if the days of retribution were at hand, but the emperor's gentle temper or the advice of wary counsellors prevailed. Nerva soon stayed his hand, and would not have the first pages of his annals scored in characters of blood. Too many such clemency seemed idle weakness. Pliny, humane and tender-hearted as he was, reflects in his familiar letters the indignation of his class, and sorely frets to think of the great criminals who flaunted in the eyes of men the pride of their ill-gotten wealth. He tells with a malicious glee the story of a supper-party in the palace, where the name of a notorious and former happened to come up, and first one, and then another of the guests, told tale after tale of his misdeeds, till the emperor asked, at last, what could be done with him if he were living still. Whereupon one bolder than the rest replied, he would be asked to supper with us to-night, and indeed, close beside Nerva, there was, allowing on the couch, an infamous professor of the same black art. We may read, too, in a letter written long afterwards to a young friend how Pliny came forward in the senate, to laud the memory of the great Helvides, and brand with infamy the wretch who caused his death. At first he found scant sympathy from those who heard him. Some troubled with a guilty conscience tried to drown his voice in clamor on the plea that no notice had been given of his motion. Some begged him not to raise the ghosts of worn-out feuds, but to let them rest in peace awhile after the long reign of terror, where he friends, too, warned him to be cautious lest he should make himself a mark for the jealousy of future rulers. But Pliny was resolute and persevered. The consul who acted as speaker in the senate silenced him indeed at first, but let him rise at length in his own turn, and, leaving the subject then before the house, speak for the memory of his injured friend. Till the full stream of his indignant eloquence carried the listening senators along and swept away the timid protests raised for the accused. The emperor stepped in, and stayed proceedings in the senate. But the orator recalled with pride in later years the enthusiasm which his vehemence had stirred, and felt no throb of pity in his kindly heart when he was told that the wretched man whom he accused was haunted soon after in his dying moments by his own stern look and passionate words. But Nerva was determined to let the veil fall on the past. He raised no question about the favors and the boons of earlier rulers, but respected the immunities and dispensations however carelessly bestowed. There were still three powers that must be reckoned with before any government could feel secure, the populace of Rome, the frontier legions, and the praetorian guards. The first looked to be courted and caressed as usual, but the treasury was empty and Nerva was too thrifty to spend lavishly on the circus or the theatres or the processions which helped to make a Roman holiday. Still he was careful of the real interests of the poor. He gave large sums for land to be granted freely to the colonists who would exchange the lounging indolence of Rome for honest industry and country work. Where funds were wanting for this purpose he stripped the palace of its costly wares and sold even the heirlooms of his family and gave up houses and broad lands to carry out his plans for the well-being of his subjects. To show that such self-sacrifice was due to no caprice of passing fancy he had the new name of the Palace of the People set up in characters which all might read upon the mansion of the Caesars while the coins that were struck in his imperial mint bore the old name of Liberty upon their face. Before he tried, says Tacitus, to reconcile the claims of monarchy and freedom, the two things found incompatible before. The distant legions had suffered little from Domitian's misrule. His father and brother had been generals of Mark and the thought of his own inglorious campaign soon faded from their memory. They knew him chiefly as a liberal paymaster and indulgent chief, and they heard with discontent that the Flavian dynasty had fallen and that Rome had chosen a new ruler. The soldiers on the Danube broke out into open riot when they heard the news and talked of marching to avenge their master. But by good-hap a certain Dion, a poor wandering scholar, was at hand. Driven by the fallen tyrant into exile as a philosopher of note, he had lived a vagrant life upon the frontier, working for a paltry pittance as a gardener's daily drudge and carrying in his little bundle for the solace of his leisure only the phyton of Plato and a single oration of Domostinys. Roused now to sudden action by the mutiny among the legions, he flung aside like the hero of the Odyssey the rags that had disguised him, and gathering a crowd together he held the rude soldier's spellbound by the charms of an eloquence which had won for him the name of Chrysostome or Goldenmouth, while he called up before their fancy the outrages that had wearied a long suffering world and armed against the despot the foes of his own household. So Dion's well-turned phrases, on which his biographer dwells with admiring pride, soothed the excited mutineers and caused the bonds of discipline to regain their hold. But the Praetorians were dangerously near to Rome and had already learned their power to set up or to dethrone their rulers. Their generals and chief had taken part in the murder of Domitian and had influence enough at first to keep their troops in hand and make them swear fealty to another emperor. But discontent soon spread among them. The creatures of Domitian plied them with intrigues and found mouths ready to complain of scanty largesse and of slow promotion under the influence of the new regime. The smoldering vire soon burst into a flame. The guards marched an open riot to the palace with ominous cries and clamored for the murderer's heads. It was in vain that Nureva tried to sue their fury. In vain he bared his neck and bade them strike. The ring-leaders would have their will and drag their victims off to death before the feeble emperor's eyes. Such a confession of his weakness was fatal as he felt to his usefulness as a ruler. He knew that stronger hands than his were needed to steer the state through the troubled waters, and he resolved to choose at once a worthy colleague and successor. He chose, with a rare unselfishness, no kinsmen are intimate of his own, not even a noble of old Roman lineage, but a soldier of undoubted merit, who was then in high command among the legions on the German frontier. A few days afterwards the emperor made his way in state to the temple on the capital to offer thanks for the news of victory just brought from Panonia to Rome, and there, in the hearing of the crowd, he adopted Trajan as his son, with an earnest prayer that the choice might prove a blessing to the state. And in the senate house he had the name of Caesar given to his partner in the cares of office, and that done soon passed away from life, after sixteen months of rule, which served only as a fitting prelude to the government of his successor. End of section one. Section two of the Roman Empire of the second century by William Wolfe Capes. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 2. Trajan, A.D. 97 to 117, Part 1. Marcus Ulpius Trionus, a native of Italica in Spain, had been trained from early youth in the hard discipline of Roman warfare, and by long service in the camps had earned a title to the round of civil honors and to a place among the senators of Rome. Armed by Domitian from Spain at the head of Elysion to the Rhine, he had come probably too late to help in quelling a revolt. But he had won by his promptitude the honor of a consulship, and was advanced by Nerva to the command of Upper Germany, then the most important of provincial offices, in which his energy was being proved when the unlooked-for news arrived that he was chosen for the imperial succession, and the tidings of Nerva's death found him still busy with his military duties on the Rhine. He was yet in the full vigor of his manhood when the cares of state fell with the purple mantle on his shoulders. The changing scenes of his laborious life had taught him experience of men in manners, and it was with no wavering hands that he took up the reins of office, and he grasped them firmly to the end. Mutiny and discontent seemed to have vanished already at his name, but he had not forgotten the outrage done to Nerva nor the parting charge in which he prayed him, like the aged crises in the words of Homer, to avenge the suppliance unavailing tears. Trajan was prompt and secret. The ring leaders of the riot were called away to Germany on various pleas, and none came back to tell how they were treated there. But though he could enforce discipline with needful rigor, he had no lack of reverence for constitutional forms. One of his earliest official acts was a letter to the Senate full of regard for its august traditions, in the course of which he promised to respect the life of every man of worth. The credulous fancy of the age, as reported in the history of Deon Cassius, saw the motive for the promise in a dream, in which a venerable figure came before him, clad in purple robe, and with the garland on his head, such as was the painter's symbol for the Senate, and laid his finger upon Trajan's neck, leaving his signet stamp, first on one side, and then upon the other. Whatever we may think the cause, whether sense of justice or mysterious warning, prompted him to write that letter, he tried certainly to make good the promise it contained, and trod the dizzy heights of absolute power with the calmness of a serene and balanced temper. He was in no haste to enter Rome or receive the homage of the Senate and the people. Perhaps he breathed more freely in the camp, where he lived as simply as his ancient comrades, and mistrusted the parade and insincerity of the great city. Perhaps he waited till he felt his throne secure, and till he knew that the far-off legions had ratified the choice of Nerva. At length, after a year's delay, he quietly set out upon the journey, without any stately train of followers to burden with exactions the towns through which he passed. The only trace of ostentation which he showed was in publishing the items of his traveling expenses, side by side with the accounts of the processions of Domitian. At his first entry into Rome there was the same absence of parade. He eschewed the white horses and triumphal car of the imperial pageants. No numerous bodyguard kept the people at a distance, but as his manly figure moved along the streets, men saw him interchange a hearty greeting with the senators he met, and pass no old acquaintance unobserved. They marked also the same simple earnestness in the bearing of his wife Platina, who walked calmly by his side, and as she passed into the palace that was now to be her home, prayed with a quiet emphasis in the hearing of the crowd that she might leave it in the same temper that she entered it. A like unassuming spirit was shown in Trajan's dealings with the Senate. He called upon it to resume its work as in an age of freedom and to acknowledge the responsibilities of power. He honestly respected its traditions and wished the government to be carried forward in its name. The holders of official rank were encouraged to look upon themselves as ministers of state and not as servants of the Caesar, and the new generals of the imperial guards had their swords given them with the words, use this in my defense while I rule justly, but against me if I prove to be unworthy. For there was little danger now that the old constitutional forms would be misused. The Senate was no longer an assembly of great nobles, proudly reliant on the traditions of the past and on the energy which had laid the world prostrate at their feet. Many of the old families had passed away. Their wealth, their eminence, their historic glories had made them victims to a tyrant's jealousy or greed. Their places had been taken by newcomers from the provinces or creatures of imperial favour, and this century had passed away since the Senate of the Commonwealth had claimed or had deserved to rule. The ancient offices, even the consulship itself, were little more than empty honors, and therefore passed rapidly from hand to hand. And even Pliny, full as he was of sentimental reverence for the past, asked himself if the tribunate which he held a while had indeed any meaning for his days or was only a venerable sham. Hence Trajan, strong and self-reliant though he was, had no jealousy of names and titles and cared little for the outer forms, so the work was done as he would have it. He had little interest in meddling with the mere machinery of government, and though some parts were chiefly ornamental and others seemed rusty and outworn, yet he would not pull a hole to pieces for the sake of symmetry and finish, if there were only working wheels enough, to bear the necessary strain. He knew that from the force of habit men loved the venerable forms, and that vital changes soon grew crusted over with the fanciful associations of the past, till all seemed old while all was really new. So new coins came from his mints with the symbols of the old Republic, his courtiers were allowed to guard with reverent care their statues of Brutus and Cassius and the Catoes, and the once-dreaded name of liberty came freely to the pen of every writer of his day. He shrank with instinctive modesty from the naked assertion of his power, not like Augustus, from fear or hypocritic craft, and therefore with the sense of lifelong self-restraint, but with the frankness of a soldier who disliked high airs and stiff parade. He went through the streets almost unguarded, allowed suitors of every class and easy access to his chamber, and took part with genial courtesy in the social gatherings of Rome. Flattering phrases had no music for his ear, and made him feel none of the divinity of kingship, so he delayed as long as possible the customary honors for his kinsmen and flatly refused to pose himself as a deity before the time. It was therefore only natural for him to rebuke the officious zeal of the informers who reported words or acts of seeming disrespect, and the old loss of treason which had covered charges so fatal because so ill-defined dropped for a while at least into abeyance. After the morbid suspicions of Domitian, men could hardly understand at first the fearless trustfulness of the present ruler, and they still told him of their fears and whispered their misgivings of many a possible malcontent and traitor. One case of this kind must be singled out to throw light upon the emperor's temper. Lachinius Surra was one of the wealthiest of living Romans, and a marked figure in the social circles in which the intimates of treason moved. He had won his sovereign's confidence, who owed his throne as it was said to Surra's influence when Nerva was looking round for a successor. Yet sinister rumors of disloyal plots were coupled with his name, and zealous friends soon brought the stories to the emperor's ear and wearied him with their repeated warnings. At last he started on a visit to Lachinius himself, sent his guards home and chatted freely with his host, then asked to see the servant who acted as the doctor of the house, and had himself dosed for some slight ailment. After this he begged to have his friend's own barber sent to him to trim his beard as he sat talking on, and that done he stayed to dinner, took his leave, and went away without one word or symptom of suspicion. Ever afterwards he said to those who came to him with any ugly tale about Lachinius, why did he spare me then when he had me in his power and his servant's hand was on my throat? But perhaps his special merit in the eyes of all classes in Italy saved the very poorest was his frugal thrift. Augustus had husbanded with care the resources of the state and restored the financial credit of the empire, but he drew largely from the purses of his subjects, had recourse at first to proscriptions and forced loans, and in spite of angry clamour had imposed succession duties which were odious to all the wealthy Romans. The Spasian had ruled with wise economy and replenished his exhausted coffers, but then his name recalled the memory of a mean and sorted parsimony that trafficked and haggled for the pettiest gains. Most of the other Caesars had supplied their needs by rapine, had struck down wealthy victims when they coveted their lands or mansions, or had let the informers loose upon their prey to harry and to prosecute and to rake the spoils into the emperor's privy purse. But Trajan checked with a firm hand all the fiscal abuses of the last century that were brought before his eye, withdrew all bounties and encouragements from the informers, and had the disputed claims of his own agents brought before the courts of law and decided on their legal merits. The presence which town councils and other corporate bodies had offered to each sovereign at his accession had grown into a burdensome exaction, and they heard with thankfulness that Trajan would take nothing at their hands. The pressure of the succession duties too was lightened. Here kinsmen were exempted from the charge, and a minimum of property was fixed below which the heir paid nothing. Men's dying wishes also were respected. No longer were greedy hands laid on their property in the interests of Caesar, nor quibbling charges brought to quash their wills. The legacies that fell to Trajan were the tokens of a genuine regard, and not the poor shifts of a dissembling fear which sacrificed a part to save the rest. The financial policy so just and liberal was hailed on all sides with a hearty welcome. But shrewd heads may well have thought there was a danger that such self-denials might be pushed too far. The cool accountants and close-handed agents of the treasury murmured probably that the state would soon be bankrupt if systems so lax came into vogue, and even Pliny, in his stately panagyric after a passing jest at their expense, stays the current of his unbroken praise to hint that there may possibly be rocks ahead. When I think, he says, of the loyal offerings declined, of the imperial duties remitted by the treasury, of the informers thrust aside, and then again of the largesse granted to the soldiers and the people, I am tempted to inquire whether you have balanced carefully enough the ways and means of the imperial budget. And indeed the Roman ruler's purse was not too full, nor was it an easy task to meet the charges upon it. The charges of the civil service were a new burden of the empire. In the best days of the republic men served their country from a sense of duty or for honor. In the worst age of its decline they received no pay directly from the state, but pillaged the poor provincials at their mercy. Now salaries were given to all the officials of the central government throughout the Roman world, save a few only in the capital, and the outlay on this head tended always to mount higher as the mechanism in each department grew more complex. The world had been conquered at the first by troops of citizens serving only on short campaigns, and in after years the needy soldiers of the later Commonwealth were in great measure fed and penchoned out of the plunder of the provinces. But the standing armies now encamped upon the borders of the empire, though small if measured by the standard of our modern life, were large enough to make their maintenance a problem somewhat hard to solve. The dissolute populace of Rome, too proud to work but not to beg, looked to have their food and pleasures provided for them by the state, and were likely to rise in riotous discontent if their civil list was paired too close. Under these heads there was little saving to be made, and it remained only for the emperor to stint himself. Happily, he had few costly tastes, no pampered favorites to be endowed, no passion for building sumptuous palaces, no wish to squander the revenues of a province on a single stately pageant to be a nine days wonder to the world. He was blessed too with a wife of rare discretion. Content like the old Roman matrons to rule her house with singleness of heart and be the lifelong partner of her husband's cares, Platina showed no restless vanity as the queen of changing fashions in the gay society of the great city, but discouraged luxury and ostentation, and was best pleased to figure in the coinage of her times as the familiar type of wifely fidelity and womanly decorum. Little was spent upon the imperial household, but there was large outlay on great public works, planned and carried out with grand magnificence. Gradually by patient thrift the funds were gathered for such ends as trade revived, and credit was restored, and capital came forth once more from its hiding-places in an epoch of mutual confidence and justice. As the national wealth increased under the influence of favoring conditions, the burdens of taxation pressed less heavily while the revenues of the state grew larger every year. Safety and ease of intercourse were among the primary needs of civilized life, and the Romans might be proud of being the great road-makers of the ancient world. But of late years we read the needful works had been neglected, and some of the famous highways of old times were falling fast into disrepair. The Appian above all, the Queen of Rhodes as it had once been styled, was figured in the coins and by reliefs of Trajan's reign as a woman leaning on a wheel, and imploring the emperor to come to her relief. Sucker was given with a liberal hand, and where it ran through the dangerous pontine marshes, foundations of solid stone were raised above the surface of the boggy soil, bridges were built over the winding rivulets, and houses of refuge erected here and there along the way. Other parts of Italy were also the objects of like care. Three new roads at least connected the great towns that lay upon the coast, and though the fragmentary annals of the times make no mention of them, the milestones or monuments, since found, speak of the careful forethought of the ruler whose name they bore. We have also in like forms and other countries the same enduring witnesses to roads and works, like the famous bridge of Alcantara, and the cost of these was sometimes met by his own privy purse, sometimes by the imperial treasury, or else by the corporate funds of neighboring towns. Much was done too in the interests of trade to open up Italy to foreign navies. The old port of Ostia, deepened and improved a century before, had been nearly choked by sand and mud. Fresh efforts were now made to arrest the forces of decay and under the new name of Trajan's port, it appears upon the faces of the coins as a wide bay in which triremes could ride at anchor. But Rome seemed to need a safer outlet to the sea, as the old one at the Tiber's mouth was really doomed to fail. A new port was therefore made at Quentum Kelly, the Chivitavecchia of later days in AD 106 or 107. Pliny, who went there on a visit when the work was going on, describes in lively style what was being done before his eyes, and tells of the breakwater which rising at the entrance of the harbour looked almost like a natural island, though formed of rocks from the mainland. End of section 2. Section 3 of the Roman Empire of the Second Century by William Wolfe Capes. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. A third work of the same kind was carried forward on the other coast in the harbour of Ancona, and a grand triumphal arch built of enormous blocks of stone is left still standing to record the senate's grateful praises of the ruler who had spent so much out of his own purse to open Italy and make the sea secure. The Isthmus of Suez II was cared for in the interests of trade, and the name of Trajan which it bears in Ptolemy points to the efforts of the monarch to carry out the needful works in connection with the granite quarries of the neighbouring Claudian range in which inscriptions of the period are found. Nor was Rome neglected while other lands were cared for. The great aqueducts of the Republic and the early Empire were not now enough to content the citizens of Rome, and complaints were often heard that the streams of water brought in them from the hills far away were often turbid and impure and polluted by the carelessness of those who used them. But now the various sources of supply were kept carefully distinct. A lake was formed in and reserved for separate uses, which the waters of the Anio might stand and clear themselves after their headlong course over the rough mountain ground, and besides these and the purer streams of the aqua Marcia others were provided by the bounty of the present ruler and specially honoured with his name. For nearly three hundred thousand Roman paces the various aqueducts were carried on the long lines of countless arches, and their vast remains still moved the travellers wonder as he sees them stretched from the city walls far into the Campania and perhaps even more as he comes here and there upon some stately fragment in the lonely valleys of the Sabine Hills. The policy of the great statesmen of the Augustan age, the vanity and pomp of other rulers, had filled the capital with great buildings, destined for every variety of use, but as if the supply was still too scanty fresh baths and portagos and theatres were raised to speak to future ages of the sovereign who lived simply but built grandly. For his own personal comfort it would seem no mason toiled, and when the great circus was enlarged to hold some thousand more spectators the emperor's balcony was swept away and no projecting lines were left to interrupt the people's view. Pliny had once said of him in the formal eulogy of earlier days that his modesty of temper led him to preserve the old works rather than raise new ones and that the streets of Rome at last had rest from the heavy loads of the contractor's wagons. And this was true perhaps of the first years of his reign, it may have held good always of the wants of himself and of his family, but it seems a curious contrast to the words in which after seeing Trajan's name inscribed on one after another of the national monuments which he had raised, Constantine compared it to the parasitic herb which grew as a thing of course on every wall. But in all this he was only following the imperial traditions, and the only trace of novelty therein was doing so much without putting fresh burdens on his people. Another form of outlay showed a more original conception, and the end and means in this case were both new. In the middle of the eighteenth century some peasants near Plechentia, Piacenza, turned up with a plow a bronze tablet which was no less than ten feet broad, six feet high, and six hundred pounds in weight. It was soon broken into pieces, some of which were sold as old metal to be melted down for bells, but happily they caught the eyes of men who had scholarship enough to read the Latin words engraved on them. By their liberality and zeal the other fragments were brought up, and the whole when pieced together brought to light one of the longest classical inscriptions yet discovered, written in as many as six hundred and seventy lines. It consists of mortgage deeds by which large sums were lent by the emperor on landed property throughout some districts near Plechentia. The names of the several farms and owners and the various amounts were specified in great detail, and the interest at five percent was to be paid over to a fund for the maintenance of poor boys and girls whose number and pensions were defined. Fragments of alike inscription have been found since then had been eventum, and we have reason to believe that throughout Italy there were similar provisions for a measure which history speaks of in quite general terms. In this there are several things that call for notice. First as to the end proposed. In Rome itself there had been for two centuries a sort of poor-law system by which many thousands of the citizens had received their monthly dole of corn. No emperor had been rash enough to repeal this law, though thoughtful statesmen mourned over the lazy, able-bodied poppers crowded in the capital and the discouragement to industry abroad. The custom in old times had grown out of no tenderness of charity, but from the wish to keep the populace in good humor at the expense of the provincials who had to pay the cost, and in later times it was kept up from fear of the riots that might follow if the stream ceased to flow. But in all parts there were helpless orphans, or children of the destitute and disabled, to whom the world was hard and pitiless, and for whom real charity was needed. From these the actual government had nothing to hope, nothing to fear, and to care for these was to recognize a moral duty which had never been owned on a large scale by any ruler before Trajan. There was yet this further reason to make their claim more pressing, in that it rested with the father's will to expose or rear the newborn babe. Infanticide was sadly common as hope and industry declined, and good land was passing into desert from want of hands to till the soil. There was no fear then that the increase of population should outrun the means of living, but there was danger that the selfish or improvident should decline the cares of fatherhood, hurry out of life again those whom they had called into the world, or leave them to struggle at haphazard to the tender years of childhood. As to the end therefore we may say that tender heartedness was shown in caring for the young and helpless, and also statesmanship in trying to rear more husbandmen to till the fields of Italy. The coins and monuments bring both of these aims before our eyes, sometimes portraying Trajan as raising from the ground, women kneeling with their little ones, at other times referring to the methods by which he had provided for the eternity of his dear Italy. As to means again we may note the measures taken to set on foot a lasting system. Payments from the treasury made by one ruler might have been withdrawn by his successor. Personal caprice or the pressure of other needs might cause the funds to be withheld and starve the charitable work. The endowment therefore took the form of loans made to the landowners throughout the country, and the interest was paid by them to a special bounty office for which commissioners were named each year to collect and to dispense the sums accruing. There was also this advantage to the course, that the landed interest gained by the new capital employed upon the soil, while needful works brought to a standstill for the want of funds, could be pushed forward with fresh vigor to multiply the resources of the country. Finally we may be curious to know something more of the results. The government had done so much that it might well have been expected that the work would be taken up by other hands, and that kindly charities of the same sort would spread fast among the wealthy, and some did copy the fashion, set them from above. Pliny in his letters tells us how he acted in like spirit by saddling some estates with a rent charge, which was always to be spent on the maintenance of poor boys and girls, and we may still read an inscription in which the town of Como gives him thanks for the kindly charity of his endowment. His beneficence states probably in its earliest form from nervous reign, but others seemingly began to follow the example of their rulers, for the legal codes speak of it as a practice not uncommon, and each of the three emperors who followed gave something to help on the cause in the interest more often of the girls than of the boys, because perhaps they had been less cared for hitherto, and at their birth Roman fathers more often refused to bear the expense of rearing them. But in the darker times that were presently in store later rulers found the treasury bankrupt, and laid greedy hands upon the funds which for a century had helped so many through the years of helplessness, and all notice of them vanishes at last from history in the strife and turmoil of the ages of decline. The beneficence of former rulers we have seen took the questionable form of monthly doles of corn to the populace of Rome. To fill the granaries and stock the markets of the capital they had the tribute paid in kind by the great corn-bearing provinces. They had bought up large quantities of grain, and fixed an arbitrary scale of prices, had forbidden the export of produce to any but Italian ports, and had watched over Egypt with jealous care as the storehouse of the empire, in which at first no Roman noble might even land without a passport. But Trajan had the breadth of view to begin a more enlightened policy. He trusted wholly to free trade to balance the supply and the demand, declined to fix the legal maximum for what he bought, and trusted the producers to bring the supplies in their own way to Rome. Egypt itself was suffering from a dearth because the Nile refused to rise, but happily elsewhere the failure of her stores was lightly felt, for thanks to the freedom of the carrying trade other rich countries stepped into her place, and after keeping the markets of Italy supplied even fed Egypt with the surplus. Trajan's treatment of provincial interests showed the same large-minded policy. A curious light is thrown upon the subject by the letters written to him by Pliny, while Governor of Bithynia, and these are still left for us to read together with the emperor's replies. First we may notice by their help how large a range of local freedom and self-government remained throughout the empire. Though in that distant province there were few citizens of the highest class, and scarcely any municipia or colonies, yet the currents of free civic life flowed strongly. Popular assemblies, senates, and elected magistrates managed the affairs of every petty town. The richest men were proud to serve their countrymen in posts of honor and to spend largely of their means in the interests of all. But these privileges, though in some few cases guaranteed by special treaty dating from the times of conquest, had commonly no legal safeguard to secure them. They lasted on by sufferance only because the Roman governors had neither will nor leisure to rule all the details of social life around them. The latter had, however, large powers of interference subject only to appeal to Rome, and if they were passionate or venal they abused their power to gratify caprice or greed, though often called to account for their misdeeds when their term of office had expired. Conscientious rulers also were tempted to meddle or dictate, sometimes from the strong man's instinctive grasp of power, sometimes from impatience of disorder and confusion, or from a love of symmetry and uniformity of system, and above all it seemed their duty to step in to prevent such waste or misuse of public funds as might burden future ages or dry the sources of the streams that fed the imperial treasury. Pliny was a talker and a student, rather than a man of action, and feeling the weight of power heavy, he lent upon the emperor for support and guidance. Not content with referring to his judgment all grave questions, he often wrote on things of very little moment. Prusa has an old and dirty bath, may not the town enlarge it on a scale more worthy of the credit of the city and the splendor of your reign? The aqueduct at Nicomedia is in ruins, though large sums have been wasted more than once upon the works, as they really are in want of water would it not be well to see that they spend their money wisely and use up the old materials as far as they will go, though for the rest bricks will be cheaper than hewn stone? The theatre and gymnasium at Nicaea have been very badly built, ought not an architect to be employed to see if they can be repaired without throwing good money after bad? Nicomedia would like to enlarge the area of its marketplace, but an old half-ruined temple of the great goddess stops the way. Might it not be transferred to a new site, as I can find nothing in the form of consecration to forbid it? Also there has been great havoc done by fire of late in the same city for the want of engines and men to work them. Would there be any danger in setting up a guild of firemen to meet like cases in the future, if all due care is taken against possible abuses? On some of these points indeed the emperor might wish to be consulted, as they had to do with the power of the purse. But he read with more impatience the requests that Pliny made to him to have architects and surveyors sent from Rome to carry out the works. He reminded him that such artists were no specialty of Italian growth, but were trained more easily in Greece and Asia. Still more emphatic is the language in which he rebuked his minister's ill-timed zeal, which would make light of the charters and traditions of the province. He tells him that it might be convenient, that it would not be seemly to force the town councilors, as he wished, to take up at interest on loan the public funds which were then lying idle, that the old privilege of Appameia to draw up its budget for itself without control must be respected, anomaly as it might seem. He had no wish for the mere sake of symmetry to set aside the variety of local usages as to the entrance fees paid on admission to the Senate, and in general he repeats that he will have no want in meddling with any rights based on real charters or with any old established customs. As we read the letters we admire the cautious self-restraint of Trajan in refusing to allow smooth systems of centralized machinery to take the place of the motley aggregate of local usages. But there are also, to be noted, some ominous tokens for the future. If the gentle Pliny, while in office under Trajan, was tempted to propose despotic measures, would not other ministers be likely to go further in that course with more favor from their master? If the central government had such watchful care already for the revenues of every town, would it not in time of need help itself freely to the funds which it had husbanded so jealously? The answer to these questions would reveal, in a later age, two causes of the empire's slow decline, the paralysis of the local energy which was displaced by centralized bureau, and the exhaustion of a society overburdened by taxation. Great as were Trajan's merits in the art of peace, the world knew him chiefly as a soldier, renewing after a century of disuse the imperial traditions of the early Caesars. The genius of Julius, the steady progress of the generals of Augustus, had carried the conquering arms of Rome into new lands and pushed the frontiers forward till well-defined natural boundaries were reached. Since then there had been little effort to go onward and save in the case of Britain no conquest of importance had been made. The emperors had kept their generals to the border camps and had shown little taste for warlike enterprise, even those who like Vespasian had been trained as soldiers, found the round of official work task all their energies at Rome, or feared the risk of a long absence in a far-off province. Trajan had other views. It seemed to him perhaps that the machinery of central government was working smoothly and securely, while his own warlike qualities were rusting away for want of use. Perhaps he might whisper that an empire one by force must be maintained by constant drill and timely energy, and that the spirit of the legions might grow faint if they were always cooped up in border camps in the dull routine of an inglorious service, while the neighbouring races of the north were showing daily a bolder and more threatening front. On the side of Germany indeed there was for a while no pressing danger. The hostile tribes were weakened by their internecine struggles, and the Germania of Tacitus, which was written early in this reign, records in tones of cruel triumph, the bloody feuds which had almost blotted from the Book of Nations the name of the once powerful Bruteri. But in the Roman ranks themselves there had been licence and disorder, and Trajan seems to have been sent by Domitian to hold the chief command upon the Rhine as a general who could be trusted to tighten the bands of discipline and secure the wavering loyalty of the legions. One of their chiefs had lately risen in revolt against his master, and the mutiny, though soon put down, had left behind it a smoldering discontent and restlessness in the temper of the soldiers. The spirit of discipline had commonly declined at once, when the highest posts were filled by weak and selfish generals, and it needed a strong hand and a resolute will to check the evils of misrule. He found work enough ready to his hand to last for years, and even the tidings of his great rise in life and of the death of Nerva did not tempt him for some time to leave his post of military duty. He left some enduring traces of his organizing care in the towns and fortresses which he founded or restored, and in the greater line of defense which he strengthened on the frontier. On the site of the old camp or fort, Kastra Wettera, which was stormed by the Germans in the War of Sixty-Seven, he built the colony of Uphia Triana, the name of which reappears in the curious form of the little Troy in the early German poems, and helped to give currency to the old fancy that the Franks had come from Troy. While in a later age it changed to that of Zanten, Uub Sanktorum, as the supposed scene of the great massacre of Victor and his sainted followers by the Theban legion. Among the other scenes which he chose for colonies or castles, the most famous probably in later times was that of Akkwai, Baden Baden, where many traces had been found of the legions which were serving under him, and of the soldiers who probably were often glad to take the waters there like the invalids of later days. But the greatest works on this side of the empire were carried on for the defense of the tithe grounds, Agri Decumates, between the Danube and the Rhine, to which colonists had been invited from all parts of Gaul with the offer of a free grant of lands, subject only to the payment of a tenth as rent charged to the state. This corner was the weak place in the Roman border on the north, and as such needed special lines for its defense, Drusus and Tiberius had long ago begun to raise them, and they were now pushed on with energy and continued by succeeding rulers. The Limes Romanorum ran along for many a mile from one great river to another, with wall and dike and palisade and forts at short intervals to protect the works. Remains of them are still left here and there, scarcely injured by the wreck of ages, and are called in the peasant's patois, the devil's wall, or heathens dike, and many more fantastic names. Years after Trajan, some of the defenses of this country still bore his name and history as well as local fancy, and witnessed to his energy and office, and modern travelers have fancied though with little reason that ruins found near Mainz belong to a stone bridge built by him across the Rhine on the same plan as the famous one upon the Danube. End of Section 3 Section 4 of the Roman Empire of the 2nd Century by William Wolfe Capes. This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 2 Trajan, AD 97-117, Part 3 His work in Germany was done so thoroughly before he left that he never needed to return, but on the Danube there was soon a pressing call for resolute action and the Emperor answered it without delay. The peoples scattered on both sides of the lower Danube appear in history under many names of which the most familiar are Thracians, Getai, Dacians, but all seemingly were members of the same great race. They had come often into hostile contact with the powers of Greece and Rome, till at last under Augustus all the southern tribes were brought into subjection and their land, under the name of Misia, became a Roman province. Their kinsmen on the north retained their independence and the Dacian peoples had been lately drawn together and welded into a formidable nation by the energy of Decebalus their chieftain. Not content with organizing a powerful kingdom within the mountain chains of Transylvania, he had sallied from his natural fastness and crossed the Danube to spread havoc among the villages of Misia. Domitian had marched in person to the rescue, but found too late that he had neither the soldiers daring nor the general skill and was glad to purchase an inglorious peace by the rich presence that the Dacians looked upon his tribute. Artists also and mechanics were demanded to spread the arts of Roman culture in the north, for Decebalus was no mere barbarian of vulgar aim, but one who had the insight to see the advantages of civilized ways and to meet his rivals with the weapons drawn from their own armory. Emboldened by success he raised his terms and took a threatening attitude upon the Danube, presuming on the weakness of the timid Domitian and the aged Nerva. Betrayian was in no mood to brook such hostile insults, and when asked for the usual presence he haughtily replied that he at least had not been conquered, then hearing of fresh insults and of intrigues with the neighboring races and even with the distant Parthians he resolved on war and set out himself to secure the safety and avenge the honors of the empire in AD 101. With him went his young kinsman Hadrian as aid to camp, Comes expeditionis dachikai, and the trusted Luchinius Sura was always by his side in the campaign, while the ablest generals of the age were gathered on the scene of action to win fresh laurels in the war. He had passed it seems unchanged, through the luxurious life of Rome, and kept all the hardyhood of his earlier habits. His old comrade saw him march bare-headed and on foot, taking his full share of danger and discomfort, joining in the mock fight which varied the sameness of the march, or ready to give and take hard blows without thought of personal dignity or safety. No retentive was his memory that he learned, as it is said, the names and faces even of the common soldiers of the legions, could speak to them of their deeds of valor or their honorable wounds, and make each feel that he was singled out for special notice. It was they saw no mere holiday campaigns such as emperors had sometimes come from Rome to witness, with its parade of unreal victories and idle triumphs. But the stern reality of war, under a commander trained in lifelong service like the great generals of earlier days. Full of reliance in their leader, and in the high tone of discipline which he restored, they were eager to begin the strife, and looked forward to success as sure. For details of the progress of the war we may look in vain to the histories of ancient writers. The chapters of Dion Cassius, which treated of it, have come down to us only in a meager summary. The epitomists compress into a page the whole story of the rain. Monumental evidence, indeed, gives more details. The bridges, fortresses, and road works of Trajan stamp themselves in local names upon the common language of the country, and left enduring traces which remain even to this day. We may track the course of the invading legions by the inscriptions graven by pious fingers to the memory of the comrades who had fallen, and the cunning hands of artists who bodied forth too fancy in a thousand varied forms, scene after scene, in the progress of the conquering armies. But even with such help we can draw at best but the outline of the campaigns, and cannot hope for any definite precision. The forces that had made their way into Pannonia by different routes were first assembled probably at Sagesica, Sizzic, on the Save, which Strabo speaks of as the natural starting point for a war in Dacia, and which had long before been strongly fortified for such a purpose. Here boats could be drawn together and sent down the stream for future use, while on the road along the river's banks, at which the legionaries of Tiberius had toiled already, new magazines and forts were formed to protect their communications in the rear, and letters carved upon the rocks near Ogradina tell us of the energy of Trajan's engineers. Moving steadily to the eastward, they at last crossed the Danube at two points between Belgrade and Orsova, probably at Viminachium and Tierno, at each of which a bridge of boats was made where the stream was at its narrowest. With one half of the army the emperor crossed in person, the other was left to the command of Lucius Quietus Amur, the most tried and trusted of his generals. The invaders were to move at first by separate roads, but to converge at the entrance of the single mountain pass which led to the stronghold of the Dacians. The enemy, meantime, had made no effort to molest them on their march or to bar their way across the river. One voice came, indeed, as if to treat for peace, but it was remarked that they were men only of mean rank, who wore long hair and were bare-headed, and they were sent away unheeded. Forged dispatches, too, were brought, as if from neighboring peoples to urge them to make peace and to be gone. But Trajan, suspecting treachery, was resolute and wary, and in the spring pushed steadily forward on his way. Invaders arrived once more, this time of the higher rank, that gave the privilege of wearing hats upon their heads, like the Spanish grandees who, by special grace, might be covered even in the presence of the king. Through them, desabalus, their masters sued for mercy, and offered to submit to any terms that the ministers of Trajan might impose. It was, however, only to gain time, for he would not meet the Roman envoys, but suddenly appeared in arms, and, springing upon the legions on their march, closed with them at Taupai in a desperate engagement. The combatants were fairly matched and fought on with a desperate valor, for each knew that their sovereign was present in their ranks. The datians at length were routed, but the victory was dearly bought, for the battlefield was strewn with the dying and the dead. There was not even lint enough to dress the wounds, and the emperor tore his own clothes to pieces to staunch the blood of the menule about him. The other army had been also way late upon its march, but beating its assailants back, it made its way to a junction with the rest. They had been moving hither too since they left the Danube in what is now called the Austrian Banet, from which Transylvania, the center of the Old Dacian kingdom, is parted by a formidable barrier of mountains. One road alone passed through a narrow rift in the great chain called the Iron Gate, either from the strength of the steep defiles or from the neighboring mines. Through these the Romans had to pass, like the travelers of later days. A less determined leader might have shrunk from the hazardous enterprise before him, but Trajan pushed resolutely on, seized the heights with his light troops, and by dint of hard fighting cleared a passage through the mountains. Where the narrow valley opens out into the open country in the Hadzigertal, the camp may still be seen where the Romans lay for a while entrenched, to rest after the hardships of the march, before they joined battle with Decebalus once more. Sarmisigetusa, Varhely, the stronghold of the Dacian chieftain was now threatened, and in its defense the nation made its last decisive stand. Once more after hard fighting they gave way in resistance now seemed hopeless. The spirit of their king was broken, for his sister in a strongly guarded fort had fallen into the invaders' power, and a last embassy of notables was sent with their hands tied behind their backs in token of entire submission. Hard terms of peace were offered and accepted. The Dacian was to raise his strongholds to the ground, to give up his conquests from the neighboring peoples, and to send back the artists, mechanics, and drill sergeants who had been enticed across the border to teach the arts of peace and war. In AD 102 he consented even to send his deputies to beg the Roman senate to ratify the treaty now agreed on, and stooped so far as to come himself to Dacian's presence to do homage to his conqueror. The war had spread over two years already, and it was hazardous for the emperor to linger so far and so long away from Rome. But he could not well have hoped that the struggle was quite ended. Decibalus had been humbled but not crushed. His own kingdom of Transylvania had not been overrun, and his people were brave and loyal still. He might fairly count on the alliance of his neighbors on the east and even of the Parthians, who were brought together by their jealousy of Rome. Soon it was heard that he was stirring to avenge his recent losses. The dismantled fortresses were rebuilt and garrisoned afresh. Lukewarm friends or deserters from his cause were made to feel his power, and all his skill and diplomacy was strained to organize a league of war-like nations and dispose of their forces in the field. Then Trajan knew he must delay no longer if he would not see the work of years crumble into pieces, so after a breathing space of a few months he set out once more for the old scene of action, resolved to turn Decius at last into a tributary province. He had first to meet treachery before open force was tried. Assassins were sent to take his life in Misia, and when the murderous project failed, Longinus the commander of a contingent was decoyed under the plea of a conference with the Decian chief, who seized and held him captive, with the threat that he would only give him back alive if the legions were withdrawn and peace secured. The high soul Roman had no wish to buy his safety with his country's loss, he would not even expose his sovereign to the cruel embarrassment of choice but hastened to meet the inevitable death. It was left to Trajan to avenge him. His plan of the campaign was soon matured and the needful preparations set on foot. Of these the greatest was the bridge across the Danube. Not content with having one or more off-boats, such as were soon made in the last war, he resolved to build upon a grander scale a bridge of stone, or possibly to finish one which had been begun already in the course of the first war, that so he might be secured in his return against frost or a sudden blow. Dion Cassius, who as governor of Pannonia in later years could see so much of the work as time had spared, writes strongly in the expression of his wonder and regards it as the greatest of the emperor's creations. Each he says of the twenty piers on which the arches rested was sixty feet in breadth and one hundred and fifty high, without taking account of the foundations. It wasn't ruins in his time but the mighty piers were standing to show the greatness of Trajan's aims and the skill of his engineer Apollodorus. Between the Wallachian tour in Severin, near the town of Chernets, and the Serbian Cladova, remains may still be seen of what was probably once the famous bridge. From this point along the right bank of the river runs an old Roman road which the Wallachs still call Trajan's highway, and passing through a mountain gorge it may be traced as far as Hermannstadt. Where it entered the Carpathians it was fortified by works of which the red tower gives its name to the whole pass, while Trajan's gate is still standing in memory of his invading army. But the work was to be done thoroughly this time, and the enemy to be taken on all sides. In AD 105 the advancing legions tramped along every great road which from the south or west converged on the Lutiltation Kingdom that lay entrenched within its fence of mountains. Through the iron gates in the Vulcan Pass and the gorge of the red tower they stormed the defenses raised to bar their way, and after many a hard struggle swept their enemies before them by the sheer weight of steady discipline, till at last they stood in the heart of the Dacian Kingdom. The league on which Decibalus had counted came to nothing. Old adherents slunk away and looked for allies had stood aloof, so that he was left to fight on unaided to the bitter end. Tracked like a wild beast from lair to lair he saw one after another of his castles rested from him, and only when his chief stronghold could hold out no longer did he close the struggle by a voluntary death in AD 106. Many of his loyal followers were faithful to him to the last, and setting fire to their homes passed from hand to hand the poisoned cup, unwilling to survive the freedom of the country which they loved. When the last city had been stormed the treasures of the fallen Decian in spite of his precautions passed into the victor's hands. In vain had he turned aside the stream Sargetia, Istrig, from its bed, and had a secret chamber for his hordes built in the dry channel by his prisoners of war. In vain had he, so ran the story, restored the current to its former bed and butchered the captives when their work was done. One friend and confidant alone was left alive, but he was languishing in Roman bonds and told the story to buy life or favor. The war was over. The kingdom of Decia had ceased to be, and it remained only to organize the conquest. No time was lost in completing and extending the great roads which led from the points where Trajan's bridges had been built. Strong works were raised for their defense as they entered the mountain passes and fortresses to command their outlets from the highlands, while in the central spots on which the highways converged new towns rose a pace with romanized names and charters of Italian rites. Many of the old inhabitants who had escaped the horrors of the war had left their ruined homesteads and bidding farewell forever to their country had sought a shelter among the kindred races to the east. But their place was taken by the veterans who were rewarded for their hardyhood with pensions and with land, while yet further, to make good the waste of life throughout the ravaged country, colonists came streaming at the emperor's call from all the border provinces which were still full of hardy peasants, only lately brought within the range of roman influence, but now ready, in their turn, to be the pioneers of civilized progress in the far off, Carpathian valleys. After them or even with the armies went the engineers, the architects, the artists of the older culture. Temples and baths, aqueducts and theaters rose speedily among the townships and monuments of every kind were strewn over the land, so that few regions have had more to tell the antiquarian than this last corner in the roman empire. Strange to say, even the ancestral faith of the conquerdations was lost to view, while the inscriptions found among their ruins bear witness to the exotic rites of eastern deities which now took root among them, there are no token seemingly of the old national religion. Nor are their wanting still more enduring traces of the conquest to show how thoroughly the work was done, though soon exposed to the pressure of invading races in the gradual disruption of the roman world, and torn away completely from the rest before two centuries had passed, though scourged and pillaged ruthlessly by the Goths and Huns, the Slavs and Mongols who swept the land by turns and drove its people to their mountain homes, it still clung to the memory of Trajan, and gave his name to many a monument of force and greatness, while the language of old Rome, planted by his colonists, survived the root shock of barbarous war and the slow process of decay, and as spoken by the mouths of the rumours and wallocks of the Danube, still proves its undoubted sisterhood with the French and Italian of our day. To commemorate the glory of successes which had given to the empire a province of one thousand miles in circuit, a monument at Rome seemed needed on a scale of corresponding grandeur. To find room for it, a space was cleared on the high ridge, which ran between the Capitoline and Quirinal Hills. Within this space a new forum was laid out in AD 112, and the skill of Apollodorus, the great designer of the age, was tasked to adorn it worthily. At the entrance rose the triumphal arch, of which some of the statuary and barry leafs may still be seen in the arch of Constantine, although disfigured by the tasteless additions of a later age. Opposite was built the great Basilica, one of the covered colonnades, which served then for an exchange in law court, and of which the name was borrowed from the portico at Athens, while the form lasted on to set the type of the early Christian churches. In the center of the forum, as in the place of honor was the statue of the emperor on horseback. All around in every corner were statues and warlike emblems of the conquest, to which the later emperors added in their turn, till art sunk under Constantine too low to do more than spoil the ornaments which it borrowed. Close by was the great library, rich above all others in statute law and jurisprudence, and graced with the busts of all the undying dead in art and literature and science. Far above all, towered Trajan's famous column, the height of which, 128 feet in all, marked the quantity of earth which had been cleared away below the level of the hill in the place of which the forum stood. Twenty-three blocks of marble only are piled upon each other to make up the column's shaft, round which winds in spiral form, the long series of sculptured groups which give us at once a lively portraiture of the details of Roman warfare and all the special incidents of the Dacian campaigns. Though we have often little clue to time or place or actual circumstance, still we can follow from the scenes before us the invading army on the march, see them cross each river on their bridge of boats, force their way through rock and forest, storm and burn the strongholds of the enemy, and bring the spoils of war to grace the triumph of their leader. We can distinguish the Trouser Dacians with their belted tunics skirmishing outside their quarters over which flies the national symbol of the dragon, while the stockades are decked with the ghastly skulls torn from their fallen enemies. Their ferocity is pictured to our fancy in the scene where the Roman corpses are mangled on their chariot wheels, or where their women gather round the captive legionary and hold the lighted torches to his limbs. We see them soothe or pardon with their outstretched hands, or when their way and sad procession from their homes, with wives and children, flocks and herds turning their backs upon their devastated country, or when driven like wild beasts to bay, or round the poisoned goblet and roll in the agonies of death upon the ground. This monument, the crowning glory of the splendid forum, is left to us well nigh unscathed by the ravages of time, save that the gilding and the colors have faded, almost totally from the sculpture, which once took its stand by natural right upon the top, has been replaced by that of the apostle Peter. Little remains to us of all the rest, but we may judge somewhat of our loss by the terms in which an old historian describes the scene as it first met the eyes of the emperor Constantius at his entry into Rome two centuries later. He gazed with wonder, we are told, at the historic glories of the ancient city, but when he came to Trajan's forum he stood speechless for a while in admiration at a work which seemed to rise far above the power of words to paint or the art of later days to copy. In despair of doing anything so great as what he looked on, he said at last that he would rest content with having a horse made to match the one which carried Trajan. But Hormistas, a Persian noble who was standing at his side, said, It would be well to build the stable first, for your horse should be lodged as royally as the one which we admire. While the conquering eagles were thus born over new lands in the far north, the frontier line was also carried forward on the south. Cornelius Palma, the regent of Syria, marched over the sandy deserts of Arabia, which had never seen the arms of Rome since drought and pestilence beat back the soldiers of Augustus. The country of the Edumaean Petra was subdued, and imperial coins of this period, AD 105-107, portray Arabia in woman's form offering to Trajan incense and perfumes in token of submission. While the fame of these successes brought embassies to sue for peace from countries hitherto unknown. The triumph that followed all these victories was one of extraordinary splendor and ferocity. For 120 days the long round of bloody spectacles went on. While beasts of every kind died by thousands in the circus, and the prisoners of war fenced with each other in their bloody sport, till the idle populace was gratified and sated by the offering of some ten thousand lives. The ministerial work, the grandiose constructions in the capital and throughout Italy, the plans for future usefulness and charity described already, formed labor enough for any single mind. There was no fear, therefore, that his powers should rust away from inaction in a time of peace. But there might possibly be dangers of another sort. To this period belonged seemingly the rumors of traitorous designs and plots against his life, to which he gave indeed no open credence, but loftily professed his disregard which may, however, have ruffled to calm even of his resolute nature and sickened him of longer stay at Rome. For there was something feverish in the life of the great city. The air was charged with thunder-clouds which might burst at any moment. Few of the rulers who had lived before him but had caused to fear the fickle passions of the populace or guards were the jealousy of unscrupulous intrigers. Once more, therefore, he resolved on war, in part, perhaps, from the feelings of disquietude at home, in part, it may be, from the overweening sense of absolute power and the restlessness of the great conqueror spurred by his ambition for more glory. There was one rival only of historic name, the Parthian Empire of the East, and with that it was not hard to pick a quarrel in AD 113. Its sovereign Chosros had lately claimed to treat Armenia as a dependent thief, and had set a nephew of his own upon the throne, though the Romans had long looked upon it as a vassal kingdom and Nero as a suzerain had set the crown upon its prince's head. No time was lost in resenting the affront, and instant war was threatened if the intruder did not withdraw his forces from Armenia and leave the new-made monarch to his fate. The pretext was caught at the more gladly, as on this side only of the Empire was the frontier line still undecided, and an organized power was left in arms to menace the boundaries of Rome. Once more the note of preparation sounded for the war, the arsenals were all a stirrer, and the tramp of the advancing legions was hurled along the highways of the East. For long the Emperor himself was on his way to take the field in person with his troops, but at Athens where he halted for a time, he was met by the ambassadors, who came to sue for peace and offer presents, and beg him in their master's name to accept the homage of another kinsman in place of the one who had already forfeited the kingdom which was given him. For the Parthians were no longer in the heyday of their national vigor, as when they shattered the hosts of Crassus on the fatal field of Karai, or swept almost without a check through western Asia, and drove Marcus Antonius back from a fruitless and inglorious campaign. Three centuries ago they had made themselves a name in history by humbling the dynasty of Syria, the energy of conquest had carried them from their highland homes, and sent the thrones of Asia toppling down before them, till all from the Euphrates to the Oksus and Hedaspis owned their sway. But now the tide had spent its force, and the Great Empire was slowly sinking to decay. Like the Turks of later days they had no genius to organize and to create, but were at best an aristocracy of warlike clans, lording it over subject peoples, full of their pride of race and barbarous disdain of all the arts of civilized progress, and camped awhile among the great historic cities of the past, but only to waste and to destroy. The currents of the national lifeblood now flowed feebly. The family feuds of the Arsacidae, the ruling line, threatened to distract their forces, and they could scarcely make good with the sword their right to what the sword alone had won. Trajan knew possibly something of their weakness, or expressed only the self-reliance of his own strong will, when he answered the envoys in a haughty strain, telling them that friends were secured by deeds and not by fair words, and that he would take such action as seemed good when he arrived upon the scene. From Athens he went forward on his way to the fortress of Seleucia, the key of Syria, proud of the memory of its famous siege and of the gift of Roman freedom, won by its stout defense against Tigranis. Then he marched to the neighboring Antioch, in whose crowded streets the social currents of the east and west were blended, the city where the name of Christian was first heard, but where also the cypress-grows of Daphne were the haunts of infamous debauchery in religion's name. Thither came ambassadors to ask for peace, the satraps and petty chieftains met him on his way, and swore fealty to their lord and master. He passed on to the Euphrates, and no one appeared in arms to bar his road. The New Arsacid, in Armenia, so lately seated on the throne, had sent already more than once to Trajan, but his first letter was written in lofty style as to a brother king, and was therefore left without an answer. The second struck a lower note and offered to Duhamich, through the governor of a neighboring province. Even this the emperor scarcely deigned to notice, would not even for a time displace the official from his post, but merely sent the governor's son to bear this answer. Before long the legions in their march had crossed the confines of Armenia. The towns by which they passed were occupied without a blow, and the princely part the Masiras was summoned to his master's presence in the heart of the country that was lately all his own. There on a lofty seat sat Trajan, on the earthworks raised for the entrenchments of the camp, while the legions stood around as on parade. The prince bowed low before the throne, and laid his diadem before the emperor's feet, then waited silently in hope to see it replaced with graceful courtesy upon his head. But he hoped and waited all in vain. The soldiers who stood near raised a shout of triumph at his act of self-abasement, and startled at the din he turned as if an act to fly, but only to find himself girded in by armed battalions from which escaped seemed hopeless. Regaining self-control he begged to be received in private interview, but baffled of his hopes he turned at last with anger and despair to quit the camp. Before he had gone far he was recalled, brought once more before the throne, and bidden to make his suit in the hearing of the legions. Then at last the chieftain's pride took fire, and he gave his indignation vent. He came, he said, not as a conquered fulmin or a humble vassal, but of his free choice to court the majesty of Rome. He had laid his crown down as a token of respect, and looked to have his kingdom given him again as to tiradades and light-case from Nero's hands. The emperor's reply was stern and brief. Armenia was to be henceforth a Roman province, and its line of kings was closed. But for the rest the ex-monarch and his followers might go safely were they pleased. But the Armenian prince was too high-spirited to yield without a struggle. He flew to arms, it seems, and was slain soon after at a word from Trajan, who had not generosity enough to spare the rival whom he had humbled. Then a panic spread through all the courts of Asia, from far-off regions little known before came humble offers of submission to the invader who was so masterful and stern, and wary intrigers who had kept away before found to their dismay that they could no longer play upon him with ambiguous words. The distant chiefs, indeed, were allowed to hold their own. But in all the country between the two great rivers, in the track of the advancing army, the native princes were deposed, and Roman governors took their place. Meantime the postal service had been organized with special care. On the great roads that led to Rome, carriers and relays of horses conveyed the couriers with their state dispatches, and the great city traced, from week to week the course of the campaign, through scenes beyond the range of their experience or fancy, listening with a lively wonder to the lengthening tale of bloodless conquests. The Senate vainly tried to find a list of fitting honors for their prince. They voted the solemn services in days of thanksgiving and called him Parthicus, as they had styled him Decius after the last war. But above all other titles of their choice he prided himself the most on that of Optimus, the best, linked as it was in popular fancy with a name of Jupiter, mightiest of the gods of Rome, and pointing as he seemed to think more to the graces of his character than to the glories of his arms. But the gladness of the general triumph, both at home and at the seat of war, was rudely broken by the tidings of a great disaster. On December 13, AD 115, while the soldiers were resting from their labors in their winter quarters, an earthquake of appalling force shook many of the towns of Asia, and marked its power at Antioch by features of a special horror. The fair city was at all times a teeming hive of population, merchants and mariners of every land were crowded in its port on the Arantes, art and luxury and learning drew the votaries of fashion to the great broadway of Epiphanes, which ran its level course four miles in length, with spacious colonnades on either side. But at this time especially the emperor's presence brought a more than usual concourse dither. Soldiers and courtiers, litigants and senators, sightseers and traitors, jostled each other in the streets, and mingled the languages of east and west. The more fatal therefore was the sudden blow, which carried sorrow and bereavement to men's homes in every land. We need not dwell upon the two familiar features of all the great earthquakes that we hear of. Here too we read of the mysterious rumblings underground, of the heaving in the rocking earth, of the houses crashing into ruins and burying their inmates in the wreck, of the few survivors disinterred at last from what might have been their tomb. It adds little to the genuine horrors of the scene to be told, in the fanciful language of a later writer, of the babe found sucking at the breast of the mother who was cold and dead, or of the unknown visitor of unearthly stature, who beckoned the emperor from the place of danger to the open ground within the circus, where he stayed for days till the earthquake passed away. But the thoughts of the soldiers were soon called away from these memories of gloom and desolation. In the early spring of AD 116 once more the emperor took the field with overwhelming forces. It was no easy task indeed to cross the rapid current of the tigress in the face of an enemy drawn up in arms upon the bank, and in a country where no timber grew for rafts. But through the winter months the highland forests had been felled far up the river, shipbuilders had been busy with their work, and boats were brought in pieces to the water's edge, where they were joined together and floated down the stream to the point chosen for the passage. Then the flotillas suddenly appeared in swarms before the eyes of the startled natives, and manned by overpowering numbers pushed rapidly across the river and dislodged the thin lines that stood to bar the way. The Parthians, struck with panic at their resolute advance, were distracted by civil feuds, were swept away before them, and scarcely fronted them again that year to strike a blow for independence. Onward the legions tramped in steady progress, but their march was a triumphal pageant. They neared the ruins of Nineveh, capital of the Assyria of ancient story, passed by the battlefield of Arbella, where the phalanx of Alexander routed the multitudinous hosts of Persia. At Babylon they saw the wonders done of old by the builders and engineers of earlier despots. Testiphon, with the winter palace of the Parthian king, fell into their hands with the neighboring Seleucia that still retained the semblance of a shadowy republic, though a royal fortress towered above it. Not content with sweeping all before them in Assyria they pushed onward yet to Seucia, the old residence of Persian monarchs. The daughter of the Parthian king became a captive. His throne of beaten gold was sent as a trophy to the Roman Senate, which heard the exciting tidings that one after another the great cities of historic fame had passed under the emperor's way, who was following in the steps of Alexander and pining for more worlds to conquer. Indeed old as he was he seemed possessed with the daring of adventurous youth. Taking ship we read on the Euphrates he let the current bear him to its mouth, and there upon the shores of ocean saw the merchant boats set sail for India, the land of fable and romance, and dreamed of enterprises still to come in countries where the Roman eagles were unknown. But his career of triumph was now closed, and the few months of life which still were left to him were clouded with the gloom of failure and disaster. While he was roaming as a night errant in quest of adventures far away the conquered countries were in arms once more. The cities of Assyria rose against his garrisons as soon as the spell of his name and presence was removed. Arabia and Edessa flung off their allegiance, and the Jews of Cyrenaica, Egypt and Cyprus sprung in blind fury at their Roman masters, as if to avenge the cruelties practiced long ago in Palestine by Titus. This fierce explosion of fanatic zeal from a people girt about by alien races was hopeless, of course, and sternly repressed with fire and sword. To secure his hold on Parthia the Emperor set up a puppet king and crowned him with great parade at Testiphon, but could not give him the right to claim or the force to secure the loyalty of an unwilling nation. His generals marched with dubious success against the cities that had risen in revolt, while he took the field himself against a petty power of the south whose only strength lay in the desert in which it was entrenched. He displayed in the campaign all his old hardyhood and valor and led more than once his horsemen to the charge. But heat and drought and sickness baffled all his efforts and drove him back at last with tarnished fame and ruined health. Once more he talked of marching to chastise the rebels in Kaldia, but his strength was failing fast, and it was time to leave the scenes where he had won so much of fruitless glory and swept all before him like a passing storm. He set his face toward Italy upon his homeward way, but the long journey was too much for his enfeebled frame and he sank down at Salinas in Salicia after nearly twenty years of monarchy and more than sixty of a stirring life. So died the strongest and the justice of the imperial rulers whom Rome had seen as yet. Only in the last war can we see the traces of the despots' arrogance and vain glory. The Dacian campaigns might well seem needful to secure a frontier and chastise an insolent aggressor, and to the soldier's eye perhaps there was a danger that after a century of peace the Roman Empire might settle on its lease and lose its energy and self-respect. At home in the routine of civil government he was wary and vigilant and self-restrained, rising as ruler and as judge above the suspicion of personal bias and caprice, promptly curbing the wrong doer and checking the officious zeal of his own ministers. He was natural and unaffected in the gentle courtesies of common life, cared little for the outer forms of rank, and was easy of access to the meanest of his people. Dion Cassius, who never fails to insist upon the darker side of every character which he describes, says that he was lascivious in feeling and given to habits of hard drinking, but owns that he can find no record of any wrong or harm done by him in such moods. The refined Pliny paints for us a different picture of the social life in which he took apart. Coming fresh from the meetings of the Privy Council held for some days in the Emperor's Villa he tells how he spent the time at court. The fair it seems was somewhat simple, there was no costly show of entertainments, but public readings amused the guests and literary discussions followed with pleasant converse far into the night. Through the great monuments which were called after his name, Trajan stood to the fancy of the Middle Ages as a personal symbol of the force and grandeur of old Rome, but art and poetry brought him forward also as the favorite type of heathen justice. A scene in the sculptures of his form represented him as starting for the wars, while a woman was bending low with piteous gesture at his feet. Out of this a legend grew that a poor widow came to him to ask for vengeance on the soldiers who had killed her son. When I come back I will listen to your suit, the Emperor said. And who will write me if you die, was the reply. My successor. Your successor yes, but his act will not profit you. And it were better surely to do the good yourself and to deserve the recompense that will follow. Trajan's heart, so round the story, was touched by the widow's earnest plea. He waited patiently to hear her case and would not leave till she had justice done her. Such is the form that legend takes in the poetry of Dante, and it is with this meaning that the scene was pictured to the fancy and many a work of later art, such as that which we still may see at Venice in one of the capitals of the Doge's palace. It was a favorite addition to the story, that Gregory the Great was so moved with sympathy when it was told him that he prayed for the soul of the old pagan, who having not the law was yet a law unto himself. That very night he saw a vision in his sleep and heard that an answer to his prayer, the soul of Trajan, had winged its flight to join the spirits of the blessed. End of Section 5 Section 6 of the Roman Empire of the Second Century by William Wolfe Capes. From the story of the Frank and Ernest Trajan, we turn with a strange sense of contrast to the life and character of his successor, one of the most versatile and paradoxical of men. Throughout the career of Publius Ilius Hadrianus, little is known to us for the forty years before he gained the throne, and the meager tale may soon be told. Born himself at Rome, he came of a family which drew its name from Hadria in northern Italy, but had been settled for centuries in Spain. Losing his father at an early age, he came under the care of Trajan his near kinsmen, and after a few years in which he made such rapid progress in his studies as to be called the little Greekling, he took to hunting with such passion as to need a check, and was therefore put at once into the army and taken by his guardian to the wars. The news of Nervous Death found him in Upper Germany at a distance from his kinsmen, and he was the first to carry to him the tidings of his accession to the empire, outstripping, though on foot, the couriers sent by his sister's husband Cervianus who had contrived to make his carriage break down upon the way. The same relative tried also to make mischief by calling Trajan's notice to the debts and youthful follies of his ward, but Hadrian still had influence at court and stood high in the good graces of Platina, married by her help the emperor's grand-niece, and had a legion given him to command in the Second Dacian War. In this as afterwards in Panonia and Parthia his gallantry and powers of discipline were spoken of with marked approval, powerful friends began to rally round him at the court and to think of him and act for him as a possible successor to the throne. But no decisive word was uttered to encourage friends or to alarm his rivals, and all up to the last were in suspense, till he heard suddenly in Syria, where Trajan had left him in command, first that the emperor had named him as his heir, and then a few days afterwards that the post of monarchy was vacant. So sudden was the act as to give rise to ugly rumors. Platina it was whispered who loved him fondly, if not wisely, had tampered for his sake with her dying husband's will, had even kept his death a secret for a time, and written with her own hand the letters to the senate which named Hadrian his heir. But in what we read elsewhere about Platina she appears as a type of womanly dignity and honor, and the story serves best perhaps to illustrate the license of court scandal which absolute monarchy so often fosters. The first acts of the new sovereign were temperate and wary. His letters to the senate were full of filial respect for Trajan and regard for constitutional usage. He excused himself because the soldiers in their haste had hailed him emperor without waiting for their sanction, asked for divine honors for the departed ruler whose remains he went to look upon with dutiful affection, and sent to be enshrined within the famous column in the Forum. Declining the triumph for himself he had Trajan's likeness borne and stayed along the streets in the pageant that was to do honor to his exploits. But for all that Hadrian was in no mood to follow in his steps, had no wish to copy his love of war or his imperial ambition. On every frontier hostile races were in arms, in far off Britain as well as in the East, among the moors of Africa and among the bull races of the North there were rumors of invasion or revolt. There was no lack of opportunities nor indeed of armies trained to conquest, but he was not to be tempted with the hope of military laurels, and his constant policy was one of peace. He withdrew at once the weak pretender forced upon the Parthians by the arms of Rome, and left all the lands beyond the Tigris, where no Western colonists said any claims upon his care. It was far otherwise in Dacia in which peaceful settlers had found a home for years, and strongholds had been garrisoned for their defense. It would have seemed, therefore, most unlikely that he thought of drawing back his troops from the strong mountain barrier of Transylvania and of leaving the New Province to its fate. Later writers reflecting possibly the discontent of Trajan's laurels said indeed that he was minded to do this, and that he had actually begun to break the bridge across the Danube. But the facts remained that the language and the arts of Rome steadily gained ground upon that northern border, and that Hadrian surrendered nothing which was worth retaining. For the rest, in other parts of the Great Empire, he was content to restore order and waged no offensive warfare. It's strange to say not only had he personal hardyhood and valor, and was ready on the march to face the heat and labors of the day, like the meanest soldier in the ranks, but he always, with watchful care, maintained his armies in a state of vigor and efficiency that seldom had been rivaled. He swept away with an unsparing hand the abuses of the past, and insisted on the austere discipline of ancient days, putting down with peremptory sternness the luxurious arrangements of the camp, which even in Germany endangered the soldier's manliness and self-control, and still more in Syria, where the wanton Antioch, hotbed of license as it was, spread far around at the contagion of its disillusioned and unruly temper. In the spirit of the generals of olden time, he walked bare-headed, alike through alpine snows and in the scorching heats of Africa, setting them thus a pattern of robust endurance. In every land through which he passed, he inspected carefully the forts, encampments, arsenals, and stores, and seemed to have lodged in his capacious memory the story of each legion and the names even of the rank and file. In the center of Algeria, we may still trace the ramparts of a camp, where an auxiliary force was stationed to defend the border, and to be the pioneers of civilized progress. On a column which was raised in the center of the camp was posted in monumental characters a proclamation of the Emperor to the soldiers of this distant outpost, in which he dwells upon their laborious energy and loyal zeal. Thus trained and organized, his armies wore formidable weapons for the hand of an enterprising leader, but he used them wholly for repression or defense, and never with aggressive aims. Even in Britain, where the peaceful south was harassed by the incursions of the wilder tribes, in place of any war of conquest, a great wall, a triple line of earth-corks strengthened by a high wall of solid masonry, was carried for many a mile across the country to be a barrier to the northern savagery, and fragments of the work may still be seen between Newcastle and Carlisle to show how earnestly defense was sought by the ruler who built on such a scale. But it was no love of personal ease that clipped the wings of his ambition. Instead of staying quietly at Rome to take his pleasure, he was always on the move, and every province witnessed in its turn the restless activity of his imperial care. The coins struck in his honor as he went to and fro upon his journeys, the stately monuments and public works which were called into being by him as he passed along. These are evidence enough, when the meager accounts of our historians failed to tell us of the wide range of his long continued wanderings and of the benefits which followed in his train. The empire had long claimed to govern in the interests of the provinces and not of Rome alone, and here at last was an emperor who seemed resolved to see with his own eyes all his peoples wants, to spend with liberal bounty for the common good, to reform impartially the abuses of old times, and to lay the heavy rot of his displeasure upon all his weak or faithless servants. To the largeness of such aims there corresponded a breadth and many-sidedness of character and powers, and few living men were better fitted to enter with fresh interest into the varied life of all the lands through which he traveled. Had he not been emperor he might have been a sort of admirable chryton. He had thrown himself with eager curiosity into all the art and learning of his age, and his vast memory enabled him to take all knowledge for his own. Poet, geometer, musician, orator and artist, he had studied all the graces and accomplishments of liberal culture, knew something of the history and genius of every people, could estimate their literary or artistic skill, and admire the achievements of the past. But he was far from travelling merely as an antiquarian or art critic, for he left in every land enduring traces of his present care. The bridges, aqueducts, and theatres were repaired. Fresh public works were undertaken, municipal accounts were overhauled, the governor's official acts reviewed, and every department of the public service thoroughly sifted and controlled. The imperial treasury was seen to gather in its stores in the interest of the provinces at large, and not for a few dissolute favourites at court or for the idle populace of Rome. To symbolize in striking forms his impartial care for all his subjects, he was ready to accept local offices of every kind, and discharged by deputy the magisterial functions in the district towns under every variety of national title. In the movements of the imperial tourist, there was little luxury or ostentation. He walked a road and military guise before his guard with his head uncovered in all weather, ready to share without a murmur the legionaries humble fare, and to bear all the heat and labour of the day. History gives us few details as to the exact course and order of his wanderings, but inscriptions upon bronze and stone abound with the tokens of his energy in every land, and of the thankfulness with which each province hailed the presence of its ruler. In Britain, which had seen no emperor since Claudius, he came to inspect the menaced frontier, and to plan the long lines of defense against the free races of the North. In Africa, we find him soothing the disquiet caused of late by the panic fears of Jewish massacres and Roman vengeance. His diplomacy and liberal courtesies dispel the clouds of war that gather on the lines of the Euphrates, and are serious enough to require his presence on the scene. On the plains of Troy we hear of him gazing around him in the spirit of a pilgrim, and solemnly burying the gigantic relics in which his reverent fancy saw the bones of Ajax. The great towns of Western Asia are proud to let their emperor see their wealth, their industry, their teeming populations, they have to thank him for many a public monument of note, and record upon their coinage in many a varying phrase and symbol his justice, liberality, and guardian care. But it was in Athens that he tarried longest, or hither he came most frequently, to find repose as in his favorite home. Here in the center of the old Hellenic art, he put off a while the soldier and the prince, and soothed himself with the amenities of liberal culture. He tried to fancy himself back in the Greek life of Palmyr days. He presided at the public games, sat by to witness the feats of literary skill, raised the theaters and temples from their ruins, and asked to be admitted to the venerable mysteries of their national faith. To the Athens of old days he added a new quarter to be called henceforth Hadrian City. He gave it a new coat of laws to rival those of Dracon and Solon, and recalled some shadowy memories of its days of sovereign power by making it mistress of the Isle of Kefalonia. It had already academic fame, and drew its scholars from all lands, its public professorships had given a recognized status to its studies, fresh endowments were bestowed upon its chairs with a liberal hand, and nothing was spared for the encouragement of learning. The lecturers on rhetoric and philosophy, the so-called soffists, basked in the sunshine of imperial favor, had immunities and bounties showered upon them, and were raised at times to offices of state and high command. One of them was entrusted with a princely fortune to beautify the city which he honored with his learned presence. Another found his professional income large enough to feed his fellow citizens in time of famine. A third, the writer Ariane, was taken from his stoic musings to fill the place of general and governor of Cappadocia, one of the largest of the provinces of Rome. There in his turn he followed the example set him in high quarters, started from Trepezas, Trebizond, upon a journey of discovery round the coasts of the Black Sea, visited the seats of the old colonial enterprises of Miletus, studied with a careful eye the extent of trade and the facilities for intercourse in prosperous regions not yet ruined by the incursions of barbarian hordes. The explorer's journey ended, he wrote a valuable memoir to his master, which is of interest as gathering up all that geography had learned upon the subject. End of section six.