 CHAPTER II THE ETERNAL PROSPERITY IN THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES III Domestic peace and union were the natural consequences of the modern and comprehensive policy embraced by the Romans. If we turn our eyes towards the monarchies of Asia, we shall behold despotism in the center and weakness in the extremities, the collection of the revenue or the administration of justice enforced by the presence of an army, hostile barbarians established in the heart of the country, hereditary satirists usurping the domination of the provinces, and subjects inclined rebellion, though incapable of freedom. But the obedience of the Roman world was uniform, voluntary, and permanent. The vanquished nations, blended into one great people, resigned the hope, nay, even the wish, of resuming their independence, and scarcely considered their own existence as distinct from the existence of Rome. The established authority of the emperors pervaded without an effort the wide extent of their dominions, and was exercised with the same faculty on the banks of the Thames or of the Nile as on those of the Tiber. The legions were destined to serve against the public enemy, and the civil magistrates seldom required the aid of a military force. In this state of general security, the leisure as well as the opulence, both of prince and people, were devoted to improve and to adorn the Roman Empire. Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism. And yet, even the majestic ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the provinces would be sufficient to prove that these countries were once the seat of a polite and powerful empire. Their greatness alone, or their beauty, might deserve our attention, but they are rendered more interesting by two important circumstances which connect the agreeable history of the arts with the more useful history of human manners. Many of these works were erected at private expense, and almost all were intended for public benefit. It is natural to suppose that the greatest number, as well as the most considerable of the Roman edifices, were raised by the emperors who possessed so unbounded a command both of men and money. Augustus was accustomed to both that he had found his capital of Brick, and that he had left it of marble. The strict economy of aspation was the source of his magnificence. The works of Trajan bear the stamp of his genius. The public monuments with which Hadrian adorned every province of the empire were executed not only by his orders but under his immediate inspection. He was himself an artist, and he loved the arts, as they conduced to the glory of the monarch. They were encouraged by the Antonines, as they contributed to the happiness of the people. But if the emperors were the first, they were not the only architects of their dominions. Their example was universally imitated by their principal subjects, who were not afraid of declaring to the world that they had spirit to conceive and wealth to accomplish the noblest undertakings. Scarcely had the proud structure of the Coliseum been dedicated at Rome before the edifices of a smaller scale indeed but of the same design and materials were erected for the use and at the expense of the cities of Capua and Verona. The inscription of the Stupendous Bridge of Alcantara attests that it was thrown over the Tagus by the contribution of a few Lusitanian communities. When Pliny was entrusted with the government of Bithynia and Pontus, provinces by no means the richest or most considerable of the empire, he found the cities within his jurisdiction striving with each other in every useful and ornamental work that might deserve the curiosity of strangers or the gratitude of their citizens. It was the duty of the proconsul to supply their deficiencies to direct their taste and sometimes to moderate their emulation. The opulent senators of Rome and the provinces esteemed it an honor and almost an obligation to adorn the splendor of their age and country, and the influence of fashion very frequently supplied the want of taste or generosity. Among a crowd of these private benefactors we may select Herodotus Atticus, an Athenian citizen who lived in the age of the Antonines. Whatever might be the motive of his conduct, his magnificence would have been worthy of the greatest kings. The family of Herod, at least after it had been favored by fortune, was linearly descended from Semen and Miltiades, Theseus and Cicrops, Asus and Jupiter. But the posterity of so many gods and heroes was fallen into the most abject state. His grandfather had suffered by the hands of justice, and Julius Atticus, his father, must have ended his life in poverty and contempt. Not discovered an immense treasure buried under an old house, the last remains of his patrimony. According to the rigor of the law the emperor might have asserted his claim, and the prudent Atticus prevented by a frank confession the officiousness of informers. But the equitable Nerva, who then filled the throne, refused to accept any part of it, and commanded him to use without scruple the present of fortune. The cautious Athenian still insisted that the treasure was too considerable for a subject, and that he knew not how to use it. Abuse it, then, replied the monarch, with a good nature of peevishness, for it is your own. Many will be of the opinion that Atticus literally obeyed the emperor's last instructions, since he expended the great part of his fortune, which was much increased by an advantageous marriage in the service of the public. He had obtained for his son Herod the prefecture of the free cities of Asia, and the young magistrate, observing that the town of Troas was indifferently supplied with water, obtained from the magnificence of Hadrian three hundred myriads of drachmas, about a hundred thousand pounds, for the construction of a new aqueduct. But in the execution of the work the charge amounted to more than double the estimate, and the officers of the revenue began to murmur until the generous Atticus silenced their complaints by requesting that he might be permitted to take upon himself the whole additional expense. The ablest preceptors of Greece and Asia had been invited by liberal rewards to direct the education of young Herod. Their pupils soon became a celebrated orator, according to the useless rhetoric of that age, which, confining itself to the schools, disdained to visit either the forum or the senate. He was honored with the consulship at Rome, but the greatest part of his life was spent in a philosophic retirement at Athens, and his adjacent villas perpetually surrounded by Sophists, who acknowledged without reluctance the superiority of a rich and generous rival. The monuments of his genius have perished, some considerable ruin still preserved the fame of his taste and munificence. Modern travelers have measured the remains of the stadium which he constructed at Athens. It was six hundred feet in length, built entirely of white marble, capable of admitting the whole body of the people and finished in four years, whilst Herod was president of the Athenian games. To the memory of his wife Regula he dedicated a theater, scarcely to be paralleled in the empire. No wood except cedar, very curiously carved, was employed in any part of the building. The odium, designed by Pericles for musical performances and the rehearsal of new tragedies, had been a trophy of the victory of the arts over barbaric greatness, as the timbers employed in the construction consisted chiefly of the masts of the Persian vessels. Notwithstanding the repairs bestowed on that ancient edifice by a king of Cappadocia, it was again fallen to decay. Herod restored its ancient beauty and magnificence, nor was the liberality of that illustrious citizen confined to the walls of Athens. The most splendid ornaments bestowed on the temple of Neptune and Ismus, at a theater in Corinth, a stadium at Delphi, a bath at Thermopylae, and an aqueduct at Canustium in Italy, were insufficient to exhaust his treasures. The people of Epirus, Thessaly, Iboa, Bocia, and Peloponnesus experienced his favors, and many inscriptions of the cities of Greece and Asia gratefully style Herod's, Atticus, their patron and benefactor. In the Commonwealth of Athens and Rome, the modest simplicity of private houses announced the equal condition of freedom, whilst the sovereignty of the people was represented in the majestic edifices designed to the public use. Nor was this republican spirit totally extinguished by the introduction of wealth and monarchy. It was in the works of national honor and benefit that the most virtuous of the emperors affected to display their magnificence. The golden palace of Nero excited a just indignation, but the vast extent of ground which had been usurped by his selfless luxury was more nobly filled under the succeeding reins, by the Colosseum, the Baths of Titus, the Claudian Portico, and the temples dedicated to the goddess of peace and to the genius of Rome. These monuments of architecture, the property of the Roman people, were adorned with the most beautiful productions of Grecian painting and sculpture, and in the temple of peace a very curious library was opened to the curiosity of the learned. At a small distance from Dense was situated the Forum of Trajan. It was surrounded by a lofty portico in the form of a quadrangle into which four triumphal arches opened a noble and spacious entrance. In the center arose a column of marble whose height of 110 feet denoted the elevation of the hill that had been cut away. This column which still subsists in its ancient beauty exhibited an exact representation of the Dacian victories of its founder. The veteran soldier contemplated the story of his own campaigns and by an easy illustration of national victory the peaceful citizen associated himself to the honors of the triumph. All the other quarters of the capital and all the provinces of the empire were embellished by the same liberal spirit of public magnificence and were filled with amphitheaters, theaters, temples, porticoes, triumphal arches, baths, and aqueducts, all variously conducive to the health, the devotion, and the pleasures of the meanest citizen. The last mentioned of those edifices deserve our peculiar attention. The boldness of the enterprise, the solidity of the execution, and the uses to which they were subservient ranked the aqueducts among the noblest monuments of Roman genius and power. The aqueducts of the capital claim a just preeminence, but the curious traveler who, without the light of history, should examine those of Spoleto, of Metz, or of Segovia would very naturally conclude that those provincial towns had formerly been the residence of some potent monarch. The solitudes of Asia and Africa were once covered with flourishing cities, whose populousness and even whose existence was derived from such artificial supplies of a perennial stream of fresh water. We have computed the inhabitants and contemplated the public works of the Roman Empire. The observation of the number and greatness of its cities will serve to confirm the former and to multiply the latter. It may not be unpleasing to collect a few scattered instances relative to that subject without forgetting, however, that from the vanity of nations and the poverty of language the vague appellation of city has been indifferently bestowed on Rome and upon Laurentium. 1. Ancient Italy is said to have contained eleven hundred and ninety-seven cities, and for whatsoever era of antiquity that expression might be intended, there is not any reason to believe the country less populous in the age of the Antonines than in that of Romulus. The petty states of Lachem were contained within the metropolis of the Empire, by whose superior influence they had been attracted. Those parts of Italy which have so long languished under the lazy tyranny of priests and viceroys had been afflicted only by the more tolerable calamities of war, and the first symptoms of decay which they experienced were amply compensated by the rapid movements of the Cisalpine Gaul. The splendor of Verona may be traced in its remains, yet Verona was less celebrated than Aqualia or Padua, Milan or Ravenna. 2. The spirit of improvement had passed the Alps and had been felt even in the woods of Britain which were gradually cleared away to open a free space for convenient and elegant habitations. York was the seat of government. London was already enriched by commerce, and Bath was celebrated for the salutary effects of its medicinal waters. Gaul could boast of her twelve hundred cities, and though in the northern parts many of them, without accepting parrots itself, were little more than the rude and imperfect townships of arising people, the southern provinces imitated the wealth and elegance of Italy. Many were the cities of Gaul, Marseille, Arles, Narbonne, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Aten, Vienna, Lyon, Langre, and Treve, whose ancient condition might sustain an equal and perhaps advantageous comparison with their present state. With regard to Spain, that country flourishes a province, and has declined as a kingdom. Exhausted by the abuse of her strength, by America, and by superstition, her pride might possibly be confounded if we require such a list of three hundred and sixty cities as Pliny has exhibited under the reign of Vespasian. 3. Three hundred African cities had once acknowledged the authority of Carthage, nor is it likely that their numbers diminished under the administration of the emperors. Carthage itself rose with new splendor from its ashes, and that capital, as well as Capua and Corinth, soon recovered all the advantages which can be separated from independent sovereignty. 4. The provinces of the East present the contrast of Roman magnificence with Turkish barbarism. The ruins of antiquity scattered over uncultivated fields and ascribed by ignorance to the power of magic scarcely afford a shelter to the oppressed peasant or wandering Arab. Under the reign of the Caesars the proper Asia alone contained five hundred populous cities, enriched with all the gifts of nature, and adorned with all the refinements of art. Eleven cities of Asia had once disputed the honour of dedicating a temple of Tiberias, and their respective merits were examined by the senate. Four of them were immediately rejected as unequal to the burden, and among these was Laodicea, whose splendor is still displayed in its ruins. Laodicea collected a very considerable revenue from its flocks of sheep, celebrated for the finest of their wool, and had received, a little before the contest, a legacy of above four hundred thousand pounds by the testament of a generous citizen. If such was the poverty of Laodicea, what must have been the wealth of those cities whose claim appeared preferable and particularly of Pergamas, of Smyrna, and of Evises, who so long disputed with each other the titular primacy of Asia? The capitals of Syria and Egypt held a still superior rank in the empire. Antioch and Alexandria looked down with disdain on a crowd of dependent cities, and yielded with reluctance to the majesty of Rome itself. End of Part 3 Chapter 2 Part 4 of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon Chapter 2 The Internal Prosperity in the Age of the Antonines Part 4 All these cities were connected with each other and with the capital by the public highways, which issuing from the Forum of Rome traversed Italy, pervaded the provinces, and were terminated only by the frontiers of the empire. If we carefully trace the distance from the Wall of Antoninus to Rome, and from thence to Jerusalem, it will be found that the great chain of communication from the northwest to the southeast point of the empire was drawn out to the length of 4,080 Roman miles. The public roads were accurately divided by milestones and ran in a direct line from one city to another with very little respect for the obstacles either of nature or private property. Mountains were perforated, and bold arches thrown over the broadest and most rapid streams. The middle part of the road was raised into a terrace which commanded the adjacent country, consisted of several strata of sand, gravel, and cement, and was paved with large stones or in some places near the capital with granite. Such was the solid construction of the Roman highways, whose firmness has not entirely yielded to the effort of 15 centuries. They united the subjects of the most distant provinces by an easy and familiar intercourse. Out their primary object had been to facilitate the marches of their legions, nor was any country considered as completely subdued till it had been rendered in all its arts pervious to the arms and authority of the conqueror. The advantage of receiving the earliest intelligence and of conveying their orders with celerity induced the emperors to establish throughout their extensive dominions the regular institution of posts. Houses were everywhere erected at the distance of only five or six miles. Each of them was constantly provided with 40 horses, and by the help of these relays it was easy to travel 200 miles in a day along the Roman roads. The use of post was allowed to those who claimed it by an imperial mandate, but though originally intended for the public service it was sometimes indulged to the business or convenience of private citizens. Nor was the communication of the Roman Empire less free and open by sea than it was by land. The provinces surrounded and enclosed the Mediterranean, and Italy in the shape of an immense promontory advanced into the midst of that grey lake. The coasts of Italy are in general destitute of safe harbors but human industry had corrected the deficiencies of nature and the artificial port of Ostia in particular situated at the mouth of the Tiber and formed by the Emperor Claudius was a useful monument of Roman greatness. From this port, which was only 16 miles from the capital, a favorable breeze carried vessels in seven days to the columns of Hercules and in nine or ten to Alexandria in Egypt. Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices diffused likewise the improvements of social life. In the more remote ages of antiquity the world was unequally divided. The East was in the immemorable possession of arts and luxury whilst the West was inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians who either disdained agriculture or to whom it was totally unknown. Under the protection of an established government the productions of happier climates and the industry of more civilized nations were gradually induced into the western countries of Europe and the natives were encouraged by an open and profitable commerce to multiply the former as well as to improve the latter. It would be almost impossible to enumerate all the articles either of the animal or the vegetable rain which excessively imported into Europe from Asia and Egypt but it will not be unworthy of the dignity and much less of the utility of an historical work slightly to touch on a few of the principal heads. Almost all the flowers the herbs and the fruits that grow in our European gardens are a foreign extraction which in many cases is betrayed even by their names. The apple was a native of Italy and when the Romans had tasted the richer flavor of the apricot the peach pomegranate the citron and the orange they contented themselves with applying to all these new fruits the common denomination of apple discriminating them from each other by the additional epithet of their country. In the time of Homer the vine grew wild in the island of Sicily and most probably in the adjacent continent but it was not improved by the skill nor did it afford a liquor grateful to the taste of the savage inhabitants. A thousand years afterwards Italy could boast that of the four score most generous and celebrated wines more than two-thirds were produced from her soil. The blessing was soon communicated to the Narbonese province of Gaul but so intense was the cold to the north of the Sivanese that in the time of Strabo it was thought impossible to ripen the grapes in those parts of Gaul. This difficulty however was gradually vanquished and there is some reason to believe that the vineyards of Burgundy are as old as the age of the Antonines. 3. The olive in the western world followed the progress of peace of which it was considered as the symbol. Two centuries after the foundation of Rome both Italy and Africa were strangers to that useful plant. It was naturalized in those countries and at length carried into the heart of Spain and Gaul. The timid errors of the ancients that it required a certain degree of heat and could only flourish in the neighborhood of the sea were insensibly exploded by industry and experience. 4. The cultivation of flax was transported from Egypt to Gaul and enriched the whole country. However it might impoverish the particular lands on which it was sown. 5. The use of artificial grasses became familiar to the farmers both of Italy and the provinces particularly the Lucerne which derived its name and origin from Medea. The assured supply of wholesome and plentiful food for the cattle during winter multiplied the number of the docks and herds which in their turn contributed to the fertility of the soil. 6. To all these improvements may be added an assiduous attention to mines and fisheries which by employing a multitude of laborious hands served to increase the pleasures of the rich and the subsistence of the poor. The elegant treatise of Colomela describes the advanced state of the Spanish husbandry under the reign of Tiberias and it may be observed that those famines which so frequently afflicted the infant republic were seldom or never experienced by the extensive empire of Rome. The accidental scarcity in any single province was immediately relieved by the plenty of its more fortunate neighbors. 7. Agriculture is the foundation of manufacturers since the productions of nature are the materials of art. Under the Roman Empire the labor of an industrious and ingenious people was variously but incessantly employed in the service of the rich. In their dress, their table, their houses, and their furniture, the favors of fortune united every refinement of convenience of elegance and of splendor whatever could soothe their pride or gratify their sensuality. Such refinements under the odious name of luxury have been severely arraigned by the moralists of every age and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue as well as happiness of mankind if all possessed the necessities and none the superfluities of life. But in the present imperfect condition of society luxuries though it may proceed from vice or folly seems to be the only means that can correct the unequal distribution of poverty. The diligent mechanic and the skillful artist who have obtained no share in the division of the earth receive a voluntary tax from the possessors of land and the latter are prompted by a sense of interest to improve with whose produce they may purchase additional pleasures. This operation the particular effects of which are felt in every society acted with much more diffusive energy in the Roman world. The provinces would soon have been exhausted of their wealth if the manufacturers and commerce of luxury had not insensibly restored to the industrious subjects the sums which were extracted from them by the arms and authority of Rome. As long as the circulation was confined within the bounds of the empire it impressed the local machine with a new degree of activity and its consequences sometimes beneficial could never become pernicious. But it is no easy task to confine luxury within the limits of an empire. The most remote countries of the ancient world were ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests of Scythia afforded some valuable furs. Amber was brought over land from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube and the barbarians were astonished at the price which they received useless a commodity. There was a considerable demand for Babylonian carpets and other manufacturers of the east, but the most important and unpopular branch of foreign trade was carried on with Arabia and India. Every year about the time of the summer solstice a fleet of 120 vessels sailed from Mios Hormos a port of Egypt on the Red Sea. By the periodical assistance of the monsoons they traversed the ocean in about 40 days. The coast of Malabar or the island of Ceylon was the usual term of their navigation and it was in those markets that the merchants from the more remote countries of Asia expected their arrival. The return of the fleet of Egypt was fixed to the months of December or January and as soon as their rich cargo had been transported on the backs of camels from the Red Sea to the Nile and had descended that river as far as Alexandria it was poured without delay into the capital of the empire. The ships of oriental traffic were splendid in trifling, silk a pound of which was esteemed not inferior in value to a pound of gold, precious stones among which the pearl claimed the first rank after the diamond and a variety of aromatics that were consumed in religious worship and the pomp of funerals. The labor and risk of the voyage was rewarded with almost incredible profit but the profit was made upon Roman subjects and a few individuals were enriched at the expense of the public. As the natives of Arabia and India were contented with the productions and manufacture of their own country, silver on the side of the Romans was the principal if not the only instrument of commerce. It was a complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate that in the purchase of female ornaments the wealth of the state was irrevocably given away to foreign and hostile nations. The annual loss is computed by a rider of an inquisitive but sensorious temper at upwards of 800,000 pounds sterling. Such was the style of discontent brooding over the dark prospect of approaching poverty and yet if we compare the proportion between gold and silver as it stood in the time of Pliny and as it was fixed in the reign of Constantine we shall discover within that period a very considerable increase. There is not the least reason to suppose that gold was become more scarce. Is therefore evident that silver was grown more common for whatever might be the amount of the Indian and Arabian exports they were far from exhausting the wealth of the Roman world and that the produce of the mines abundantly supplied the demands of commerce. Notwithstanding the propensity of mankind to exalt the past and to depreciate the present the tranquil and prosperous state of the empire was warmly felt and honestly confessed by the provincials as well as Rome. They acknowledged that the true culture and science which had been first invented by the wisdom of Athens were now firmly established by the power of Rome under whose auspicious influence the fiercest barbarians were united by an equal government and common language. They affirmed that with the improvement of arts the human species were visibly multiplied. They celebrate the increasing splendor of the cities the beautiful face of the country cultivated and adorned like an immense garden and the long interval of peace which was enjoyed by so many nations, forgetful of the ancient animosities and delivered from the apprehension of future danger. Whatever suspicions may be suggested by the air of rhetoric and declamation which seems to prevail in these passages the substance of them is perfectly agreeable to historical truth. It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity of today and corruption. This long peace and the uniform government of the Romans introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level. The fire of genius was extinguished and even the military spirit evaporated. The natives of Europe were brave and robust. Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Ilyrism supplied the legions of violent soldiers and constituted the real strength of the monarchy. Their personal valor remained but they no longer possessed that public courage which is nourished by the love of independence, the sense of national honor, the presence of danger, and the habit of command. They received laws and governors from the will of their sovereign and trusted for their defense to a mercenary army. The posterity of their boldest citizens and subjects, the most aspiring spirits resorted to the court or standard of the emperors, and the deserted provinces deprived of political strength or union insensibly sunk into the languid indifference of private life. The love of letters almost inseparable from peace and refinement was fashionable among the subjects of Hadrian and the Antonines who were themselves men of learning and curiosity. It was diffused over the whole with the most northern tribes of Britain had acquired a taste for rhetoric. Homer as well as Virgil were transcribed and studied on the banks of the Rhine and Danube, and the most liberal rewards sought out the faintest glimmerings of literary merit. The sciences of physics and astronomy were successfully cultivated by the Greeks. The observations of Ptolemy and the writings of Galen are studied by those who have improved their discoveries and corrected their errors. If we accept the inimitable Lucian, this age of indolence passed away without having produced a single writer of original genius or who excelled in the arts of elegant composition. The authority of Plato and Aristotle of Zeno and Epicurus still reigned in the schools, and their systems transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers or enlarge the limits of the human mind. The beauties of the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own, inspired only cold and servile mutations, or if any ventured to deviate from these models, they deviated at the same time from good sense and propriety. On the revival of letters, the youthful vigor of the imagination after a long repose national emulation, a new religion, new languages, and a new world called forth the genius of Europe. But the Provincials of Rome trained by a uniform, artificial foreign education were engaged in a very unequal competition with those bold ancients who, by expressing their genuine feelings in their native tongue, had already occupied every place of honor. The name of poet was almost forgotten. That of orator was usurped by the Sophists. A cloud of critics of compilers of commentators darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste. The sublime longaness, who in somewhat a later period and in the court of Assyrian queen, preserved the spirit of ancient Athens, observes and laments this degeneracy of his contemporaries, which debased their sentiments, innervated their courage, and depressed their talents. In the same manner, says he, as some children always remain pygmies whose infant limbs have been too closely confined, thus our tender minds, fettered by the prejudices and habits of most servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the ancients, who, living under a populist government, wrote with the same freedom as they acted. This diminutive stature of mankind, if we pursue the metaphor, was daily sinking below the old standard, and the Roman world was indeed peopled by a race of pygmies when the fierce giants of the North broke in, and mended the puny breed. They restored a manly spirit of freedom, and after the revolution of ten centuries freedom became the happy parent of taste and science. End of Part 4 Chapter 3 The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, is entrusted with the execution of the laws, the management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But, unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy in an age of superstition might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind, but so intimate is the connection between the throne and the altar that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people. A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince. Every barrier of the Roman constitution had been leveled by the vast ambition of the dictator. Every fence had been extirpated by the cruel hand of the triumphor. After the victory of Actium the fate of the Roman world depended on the will of Octavianus surnamed Caesar by his uncle's adoption and afterwards Augustus by the flattery of the senate. The conqueror was at the head of the forty-four veteran legions conscious of their own strength and of the weakness of the constitution habituated during twenty years civil war to every act of blood and violence and passionately devoted to the house of Caesar from whence alone they had received and expected the most lavish rewards. The provinces long oppressed by the ministers of the republic sighed for the government of a single person who would be the master not the accomplice of those petty tyrants. The people of Rome viewing with a secret pleasure the humiliation of the aristocracy demanded only bread and public shows and were supplied with both by the liberal hand of Augustus. The rich and polite Italians who had almost universally embraced the philosophy of Epicurus enjoyed the present blessings of ease and tranquility and suffered not the pleasing dream to be interrupted by the memory of their old tumultuous freedom. With its power the senate had lost its dignity. Many of the most noble families were extinct. The republicans of spirit and ability had perished in the field of battle or in the proscription. The door of the assembly had been designedly left open for a mixed multitude of more than a thousand persons who reflected disgrace upon their rank instead of driving honor from it. The reformation of the senate was one of the first steps in which Augustus laid aside the tyrant and professed himself the father of his country. He was elected censor with his faithful agrippa. He examined a list of the senators, expelled a few members whose vices or whose obstinacy required a public example, persuaded near 200 to prevent the shame of an expulsion by a voluntary retreat, raised the qualification of a senator to about 10,000 pounds, created a sufficient number of patrician families and accepted for himself the honorable title of prince of the senate which had always been bestowed by the censors on the citizen most eminent of the senators and services. But whilst he thus restored the dignity he destroyed the independence of the senate. The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost when the legislative power is nominated by the executive. Before an assembly thus modeled and prepared Augustus pronounced a studied oration which displayed his patriotism and disguised his ambition. Quote, he lamented yet excused his past conduct filial piety had required in his hands the revenge of his father's murder the humanity of his own nature had sometimes given way to the stern laws of necessity and to a forced connection with two unworthy colleagues. As long as Anthony lived the republic forbade him to abandon her to a degenerate Roman and a barbarian queen. He was now at liberty to satisfy his duty and his inclination. He solemnly restored the senate and people to all their ancient rights and wished only to mingle with the crowd of those citizens and to share the blessings which he had obtained for his country. End quote. It would require the pen of Tacitus if Tacitus had assisted at this assembly to describe the various emotions of the senate those that were suppressed and those that were affected. It was dangerous to trust the sincerity of Augustus to seem to distrust it was still more dangerous. The respective advantages of monarchy and republic have often divided speculative inquirers and the present greatness of the Roman state the corruption of manners and the license of the soldiers supplied new arguments to the advocates of monarchy and these general views of government were again warped by the hopes and fears of each individual. Admit this confusion of sentiments the answer of the senate was unanimous and decisive. They refused to accept the resignation of Augustus. They conjured him not to desert the republic which he had saved. After a decent resistance the crafty tyrant submitted to the orders of the senate and consented to receive the government of the provinces and the general command of the Roman armies under the well known names of procouncil and emperator but he would receive them only for ten years. Even before the expiration of that period he hoped that the wounds of civil discord would be completely healed and that the republic restored to its pristine health and vigor would no longer require the dangerous interposition of so extraordinary a magistrate The memory of this comedy repeated several times during the life of Augustus was preserved to the last ages of the empire by the peculiar pomp by which the perpetual monarchs of Rome always solemnized the ten years of their reign. Without any violation of the principles of the constitution the general of the Roman armies might receive and exercise an authority almost despotic over the soldiers the enemies and the subjects of the republic. With regard to the soldiers the jealousy of freedom had even from the earliest ages of Rome given way to the hopes of conquest and a just sense of military discipline. The dictator or council had a right to command the services of the Roman youth and to punish an obstinate or cowardly disobedience by the most severe and ignominious penalties by striking the offender out of the list of citizens by confiscating his property and by selling his person into slavery. The most sacred rights of freedom confirmed by the portion and Sempronian laws were suspended by military engagement. In his camp the general exercised an absolute power of life and death his jurisdiction was not confined by any forms of trial or rules of proceeding and the execution of the sentence was immediate and without appeal. The choice of the enemies of Rome was regularly decided by the legislative authority. The most important resolutions of peace and war were seriously debated in the senate and solemnly ratified by the people but when the arms of the legions were carried to a great distance from Italy the general assumed the liberty of directing them against whatever people and in whatever manner they judged most advantageous for the public service. It was from the success not from the justice of their enterprises that they expected the honors of a triumph. In the use of victory especially after they were no longer controlled by the commissioners of the senate they exercised the most unbounded despotism. When Pompeii commanded in the east he rewarded his soldiers and allies dethroned princes divided kingdoms founded colonies and distributed the treasures of the Mithridates. On his return to Rome he obtained by a single act of the senate and people the universal ratification of all his proceedings. Such was the power over the soldiers and over the enemies of Rome which was either granted to the generals of the republic. They were at the same time the governors or rather monarchs of the conquered provinces united the civil with the military character administered justice as well as the finances and exercised both the executive and legislative power of the state. From what has already been observed in the first chapter of this work some notion may be formed of the armies and provinces thus entrusted to the ruling hand of Augustus but as it was impossible to personally command the regions of so many distant frontiers he was indulged by the senate as Pompeii had already been in the permission of devolving the execution of his great office on a sufficient number of lieutenants. In rank and authority these officers seemed not inferior to the ancient proconsuls but their station was dependent and precarious. They received and held their commissions at the will of a superior to whose auspicious influence were the representatives of the emperor. The emperor alone was the general of the republic and his jurisdiction civil as well as military extended over all the conquests of Rome. It was some satisfaction however to the senate that he always delegated his power to the members of their body. The imperial lieutenants were of consular or praetorian dignity the legions were commanded by senators and the prefecture of Egypt was the only important trust committed to a Roman knight. Within six days after Augustus had been compelled to accept so very liberal a grant he resolved to gratify the pride of the senate by an easy sacrifice. He represented to them that they had enlarged his powers even beyond that degree which might be required by the melancholy condition of their times. They had not permitted him to refuse the laborious command of the armies in the frontiers but he must insist on being allowed to restore the more peaceful and secure provinces of the civil magistrate. In the division of the provinces Augustus provided for his own power and for the dignity of the republic. The proconsuls of the senate particularly those of Asia, Greece and Africa enjoyed a more honorable character than the lieutenants of the emperor who commanded in Gaul or Syria. The former were attended by lictors the latter by soldiers. A law was passed that wherever the emperor was present his extraordinary commission should supersede the jurisdiction of the governor. A custom was introduced that the new conquests belonged to the imperial portion and it was soon discovered that the authority of the prince the favorite epithet of Augustus was the same in every part of the empire. In return for this imaginary concession Augustus obtained an important privilege which rendered him master of Rome and Italy. By a dangerous exception to the ancient maxims he was authorized to preserve his military command supported by the generous body of guards even in a time of peace and in the heart of the capital. His command indeed was confined to those citizens who were engaged in the service by the military oath but such was the propensity of the Romans to servitude that the oath was voluntarily taken by the magistrates, the senators and the equestrian order till the homage of flattery was insensibly converted into an annual and solemn protestation and by the firmest foundation he wisely rejected it as a very odious instrument of government. It was more agreeable to his temper as well as to his policy to reign under the venerable names of ancient magistracy and artfully to collect in his own person all the scattered rays of civil jurisdiction. With this in view he permitted the senate to confer upon him for his life the powers of the consular and tribunition offices which were in the same manner as his successors. The councils had succeeded to the kings of Rome and represented the dignity of the state. They super-intended the ceremonies of religion, levied and commanded the legions, gave audience to foreign ambassadors and presided in the assemblies both of the senate and people. The general control of the finances was entrusted to their care and though they seldom had leisure to administer justice in person they were considered as the supreme guardians of law, equity such was their ordinary jurisdiction but whenever the senate empowered the first magistrate to consult the safety of the commonwealth he was raised by that decree above the laws and exercised in the defense of liberty a temporary despotism. The character of the tribunes was in every respect different from that of the councils. The appearance of the former was modest and humble but their persons were sacred and inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than they were instituted to defend the oppressed, to pardon offenses to arraign the enemies of the people and when they judged it necessary to stop by a single word the whole machine of government. As long as the republic subsisted the dangerous influence which either the council or the tribune might derive from their respective jurisdiction was diminished by several important restrictions. Their authority expired with the year in which they were elected. The former office was divided between two the latter among ten persons and as both in their private and public interest they were averse to each other their mutual conflicts contributed for the most part to strengthen rather than to destroy the balance of the constitution. But when the consular and tribunation powers were united, when they were vested for life in a single person, when the general of the army was at the same time the minister of the senate and the representative of the roman people was impossible to resist the exercise nor was it easy to define the limits of his imperial prerogative. To these accumulated honors the policy of Augustus soon added the splendid as well as important dignities of supreme pontiff and of censor. By the former he acquired the management of the religion and by the latter a legal inspection over the manners and fortunes of the roman people. If so many distinct and independent powers did not exactly unite with each other the complacence of the senate was prepared to supply every deficiency by the most ample and extraordinary concessions. The emperors, as the first ministers of the republic were exempted from the obligation and penalty of many inconvenient laws. They were authorized to convoke the senate to make several motions in the same day to recommend candidates for the honors of the state, to enlarge the bounds of the city, to employ the revenue at their discretion, to declare peace and war, to ratify treaties and, by a most comprehensive clause, they were empowered to execute whatsoever they should judge advantageous to the empire and agreeable to the majesty of things private or public, human or divine. When all the various powers of executive government were committed to the imperial magistrate, the ordinary magistrates of the commonwealth languished in obscurity, without vigor and almost without business. The names and forms of the ancient administration were preserved by Augustus with the most anxious care. The usual number of consuls, preachers and tribunes were annually invested with their respective ensigns of office and continued to discharge some of their least important functions. Those honors still attracted the vain ambition of the Romans, and the emperors themselves though invested for life with the powers of the consulship, frequently aspired to the title of that annual dignity which they condescended to share with the most illustrious of their fellow citizens. In the election of these magistrates the people during the reign of Augustus were permitted to expose all the inconveniences of a wild democracy. That artful prince, instead of discovering the least symptom of impatience humbly solicited their suffrages for himself or his friends and scrupulously practiced all the duties of an ordinary candidate. But we may venture to ascribe to his consuls the first measure of the succeeding reign by which the elections were transferred to the senate. The assemblies of the people were forever abolished and the emperors were delivered from a dangerous multitude who, without restoring liberty might have disturbed and perhaps endangered the established government. By declaring themselves the protectors of the people, Marius and Caesar had subverted the constitution of their country. But as soon as the senate had been humbled and disarmed, such an assembly consisting of five or six hundred persons was found a much more tractable and useful instrument of dominion. It was on the dignity of the senate that Augustus and his successors founded their new empire and they affected, on every occasion to adopt the language and principles of patricians. In the administration of their own powers they frequently consulted the great national council and seemed to refer to its decisions the most important concerns of peace and war. Rome, Italy and the internal provinces were subject to the immediate jurisdiction of the senate. With regard to civil objects it was the supreme court of appeal. With regard to criminal matters a tribunal constituted for the trial of all offenses that were committed by men in any public station or that affected the peace and majesty of the Roman people. The exercise of the judicial power became the most frequent and serious occupation of the senate and the important causes that were pleaded before them afforded a last refuge to the spirit of ancient eloquence. As a council of state and as a court of justice, the senate possessed very considerable prerogatives. But in its legislative capacity in which it was supposed virtually to represent the people the rights of sovereignty were acknowledged to reside in that assembly. Every power was derived from their authority every law was ratified by their sanction their regular meetings were held on three stated days in every month the Callens, the Nones and the Ides the debates were conducted with decent freedom and the emperors themselves who gloried in the name of senators sat, voted and divided with their equals. To resume in a few words the system of imperial government as it was instituted by Augustus and maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and that of the people it may be defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness concealed their irresistible strength and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed. The face of the court corresponded with the forms of the administration the emperors if we accept those tyrants whose capricious folly violated every law of nature and decency disdained the pomp and ceremony which might offend their countrymen but could add nothing to their real power in all the offices of life they affected to confound themselves with their subjects and maintained with them an equal intercourse of visit and entertainments their habit their palace their table were suited only to the rank of an opulent senator their family however numerous or splendid was composed entirely of their domestic slaves and freed men Augustus or Trajan would have blushed at employing the meanest of Romans in those menial offices which in the household and bedchamber of a limited monarch are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of Britain the deification of the emperors was the only instance in which they departed from their accustomed prudence and modesty the Asiatic Greeks were the first inventors and successors of Alexander the first objects of this servile and impious mode of adulation it was easily transferred from the kings to the governors of Asia and the Roman magistrates very frequently were adored as provincial deities with the pomp of altars and temples of festivals and sacrifices it was natural that the emperors should not refuse what the procouncils had accepted and the divine honors which both the one and the other received from the provinces attested rather the despotism than the servitude of Rome but the conquerors soon imitated the vanquished nations in the arts of flattery and the imperious spirit of the first Caesar too easily consented to assume during his lifetime a place among the tutular deities of Rome the milder temper of his successor declined so dangerous an ambition which was never afterwards revived except by the madness of Caligula and Domitian Augustus permitted indeed some of the provincial cities to erect temples to his honor on condition that they should associate the worship of Rome with that of the sovereign he tolerated private superstition of which he might be the object but he contented himself with being revered by the senate and the people in his human character and wisely left to his successor the care of his public deification a regular custom was introduced by the emissaries of every emperor who had neither lived nor died like a tyrant the senate by a solemn decree would place him in the number of the gods and the ceremonies of his apotheosis were blended with those of his funeral this legal and it would seem injudicious profanation so adhorrent to their stricter principles was received with a very faint murmur by the easy nature of polytheism but it was received as an institution not of religion but of policy to disgrace the virtues of the Antonines by comparing them with the vices of Hercules or Jupiter even the characters of Caesar or Augustus were far superior to those of the popular deities but it was the misfortune of the former to live in the enlightened age and their actions were too faithfully recorded to admit of such a mixture of fable and mystery as the devotion of the vulgar requires as soon as their divinity was established by law it sunk into oblivion without contributing either to their own fame or to the vanity of succeeding princes in the consideration of the imperial government we have frequently mentioned the artful founder under his well-known title of Augustus which was not however conferred upon him till the edifice was almost completed the obscure name of Octavianus he derived from a mean family in the little town of Orisha it was stained with the blood of the proscription and he was desirous had it been possible to erase all memory of his former life the illustrious surname of Caesar which he had assumed as the adopted son of the dictator but he had too much good sense either to hope to be confounded or to wish to be compared with that extraordinary man it was proposed in the senate to dignify their minister with a new appellation and after a serious discussion that of Augustus was chosen among several others as being the most expressive of the character of peace and sanctity which he uniformly affected Augustus was therefore a personal Caesar a family the former should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was bestowed and however the latter was diffused by adoption and female alliance Nero was the last prince who could allege any hereditary claim to the honors of the Julian line but at the time of his death the practice of a century had inseparably connected those appellations with the imperial dignity and they have been preserved by a long succession of emperors Romans, Greeks Franks and Germans from the fall of the republic to the present time a distinction was however soon introduced the sacred title of Augustus was always reserved for the monarch whilst the name of Caesar was more freely communicated to his relations and from the reign of Hadrian at least was appropriated to the second person in the state who was considered as the presumptive heir of the empire End of chapter 3 part 1 Chapter 3 part 2 of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org That's L-I-B-R-I-V-O-X-dot-O-R-G Recording by Christy Nowak Chapter 3 The Constitution in the Age of the Antonines Part 2 The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he had destroyed can only be explained by an attentive consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant A cool head, an unfeeling heart and a cowardly disposition prompted him at the age of nineteen to assume the mask of hypocrisy which he never afterwards laid aside With the same hand and probably with the same temper he signed the prescription of Cicero and the pardon of Sina His virtues and even his vices were artificial and according to the various dictates of his interest he was at first the enemy and at last the father of the Roman world When he framed the artful system of the imperial authority his moderation was inspired by his fears He wished to deceive the people by an image of civil liberty and the armies by an image of civil government One, the death of Caesar was ever before his eyes He had lavished wealth and honors on his adherents but the most favoured friends of his uncle were in the number of the conspirators The fidelity of the legions and authority against open rebellion but their vigilance could not secure his person from the dagger of a determined Republican and the Romans who revered the memory of Brutus would applaud the imitation of his virtue Caesar had provoked his fate as much as by the ostentation of his power as by his power itself The consul or the tribune might have reigned in peace The title of king had armed the Romans against his life Augustus was sensible that his mind is governed by names nor was he deceived in his expectation that the senate and people would submit to slavery provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom A feeble senate and an enervated people cheerfully acquiesced in the pleasing illusion as long as it was supported by the virtue or even by the prudence of the successors of Augustus It was a motive of self-preservation not a principle of liberty that animated the conspirators against Caligula, Nero and Domitian They attacked the person of the tyrant without aiming their blow at the authority of the emperor There appears indeed one memorable occasion in which the senate after 70 years of patience made an ineffectual attempt to reassume its long forgotten rights When the throne was vacant by the murder of Caligula the consuls convoked that assembly in the capital, condemned the memory of the Caesars and ordered liberty to the few cohorts who faintly adhered to their standard and, during the 8 and 40 hours acted as the independent chiefs of a free commonwealth But, while they deliberated the Praetorian guards had resolved The stupid Claudius, brother of Germanicus was already in their camp invested with the imperial purple and prepared to support his election by arms The dream of liberty was at an end and the senate awoke to all the horrors of inevitable servitude deserted by the people and threatened by a military force that feeble assembly was compelled to ratify the choice of the Praetorians and to embrace the benefit of amnesty which Claudius had the prudence to offer and the generosity to observe Note, see the capital When the throne was vacant by the murder of Caligula the consuls convoked that assembly in the capital and note The insolence of the armies inspired Augustus with fears of a still more alarming nature The despair of the citizens could only attempt what the power of the soldiers was at any time able to execute How precarious was his own authority over men whom he had taught to violate every social duty He had heard their seditious clamors He dreaded their calmer moments of reflection One revolution had been purchased by immense rewards but a second revolution might double those rewards The troops professed the fondest attachment to the house of Caesar but the attachments of the multitude are capricious and inconstant Augustus summoned to his aid whatever remained in those fierce minds of the Roman prejudices enforced the rigor of discipline by the sanction of law and interposing the majesty of the senate between the emperor and the army boldly claimed their allegiance as the first magistrate of the republic During a long period of 220 years from the establishment of this artful system to the death of Commodus the dangers inherent to a military government were in a great measure suspended The soldiers were seldom roused to that fatal sense of their own strength and of the weakness of the civil authority which was, before and afterwards productive of such dreadful calamities Caligula and Domitian were assassinated in their palace by their own domestics The convulsions which agitated Rome on the death of the former were confined to the walls of the city but Nero involved the whole empire in his ruin In the space of 18 months four princes perished by the sword and the Roman world was shaken by the fury of the contending armies Excepting only this short though violent eruption of military license the two centuries from Augustus to Commodus passed away unstained with civil blood and undisturbed by revolutions The emperor was elected by the authority of the senate and the consent of the soldiers The legions respected their oath of fidelity and it requires a minute inspection of the Roman annals to discover three inconsiderable rebellions which were all suppressed in a few months and without even the hazard of a battle In elective monarchies the vacancy of the throne is a moment big with danger and mischief The Roman emperors desirous to spare the legions that interval of suspense and the temptation of an irregular choice invested their design successor so large a share of present power as should enable him after their decease to assume the remainder without suffering the empire to perceive the change of masters Thus, Augustus, after all his fairer prospects had been snatched from him by untimely deaths rested his last hopes on Tiberius obtained for his adopted son the sensorial and tribunation powers and dictated a law by which the future prince was invested with an authority equal to his own over the provinces and the armies Thus Vespasian subdued the generous mind of his eldest son Titus was adored by the eastern legions which under his command had recently achieved the conquest of Judea His power was dreaded and as his virtues were clouded by the intolerance of youth his designs were suspected Instead of listening to such unworthy suspicion the prudent monarch associated Titus to the full powers of the imperial dignity and the grateful son ever approved himself the humble and faithful minister of so indulgent a father The good sense of Vespasian engaged him indeed to embrace every measure that might confirm his recent and precarious elevation The military oath and the fidelity of the troops had been consecrated by the habits of a hundred years to the name and family of the Caesars and although that family had been continued only by the fictitious right of adoption the Romans still revered in the person of Nero of Germanicus and the linear successor of Augustus It was not without reluctance and remorse that the Praetorian guards had been persuaded to abandon the cause of the tyrant The rapid downfall of Golba, Otho and Vitelius taught the armies to consider the emperors as the creatures of their will and the instruments of their license The birth of Vespasian was mean His grandfather had been a private soldier His father a petty officer of the revenue His own merit had raised him in an advanced age to the empire but his merit was rather useful than shining and his virtues were disgraced by a strict and even sordid parsimony Such a prince consulted his true interest by the association of a son whose more splendid and amiable character might turn the public attention from the obscure origin to the future glories of the Flavian house Under the mild administration of Titus the Roman world enjoyed a transient felicity and his beloved memory served to protect, above fifteen years the vices of his brother Domitian Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins of Domitian before he discovered that his feeble age was unable to stem the torrent of public disorders which had multiplied under the long tyranny of his predecessor His mild disposition was respected by the good but the degenerate Romans required a more vigorous character whose justice should strike terror into the guilty Though he had several relations he fixed his choice on a stranger He adopted Trajan then about forty years of age who commanded a powerful army in the lower Germany and immediately by a decree of the senate declared him his colleague and successor in the empire It is sincerely to be lamented that whilst we are fatigued with the disgustful relation of Nero's crimes and follies we are reduced to collect the actions of Trajan from the glimmerings of an abridgment or the doubtful light of a panageric there remains, however, one panageric far removed beyond the suspicion of flattery above two hundred and fifty years after the death of Trajan, the senate in pouring out the customary acclamations on the accession of a new emperor wished that he might surpass the felicity of Augustus and the virtue of Trajan We may readily believe that the father of his country hesitated whether he ought to entrust the various and doubtful character of his kinsmen Hadrian with sovereign power In his last moments the arts of the empress Plotina either fixed the irresolution of Trajan or boldly supposed a fictitious adoption the truth of which could not be safely disputed and Hadrian was peaceably acknowledged as his lawful successor Under his reign, as had been already mentioned the empire flourished in peace and prosperity he encouraged the arts, reformed the laws asserted military discipline and visited all his provinces in person His vast and active genius suited to the most enlarged views and the minute details of civil policy But the ruling passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity As they prevailed and as they were attracted by different objects Hadrian was, by turns an excellent prince a ridiculous sophist and a jealous tyrant The general tenor of his conduct deserved praise for its equity and moderation Yet in the first days of his reign he put to death four councillor senators and enemies and men who had been judged worthy of empire and the tediousness of a painful illness rendered him at last peevish and cruel The senate doubted whether they should pronounce him a god or a tyrant and the honors decreed to his memory were granted to the prayers of the pious Antoninus The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished merit whom he esteemed and hated he adopted Aelius Verus a virtuous nobleman recommended by uncommon beauty to the lover of Antoninus But whilst Hadrian was delighting himself with his own applause and the acclamations of the soldiers whose consent had been secured by an immense Donative, the new Caesar was ravished from his embraces by an untimely death He left only one son Hadrian commended the boy to the gratitude of the Antoninus He was adopted by pious and, on the accession of Marcus was invested with an equal share of sovereign power Among the many vices of this younger Verus he possessed one virtue a dutiful reverence to his wiser colleague to whom he willingly abandoned the rudor cares of empire The philosophic emperor dissembled his follies lamented his early death and cast a decent veil over his memory As soon as Hadrian's passion was either gratified or disappointed he resolved to deserve the thanks of posterity by placing the most exalted merit on the Roman throne His discerning eye easily discovered a senator about fifty years of age blameless in all the offices of life and a youth of about seventeen whose riper years opened a fair prospect of every virtue The elder of these was declared the son and successor of Hadrian unconditioned, however, that he himself should immediately adopt the younger The two Antonines for it is of them we are now speaking governed the Roman world forty-two years by the spirit of wisdom and virtue Although Pius had two sons he preferred the welfare of Rome to the interest of his family gave his daughter Faustina in marriage to young Marcus, obtained from the senate the tribunition and proconsular powers and, with a noble disdain or rather ignorance of jealousy associated him to all the labors of government Marcus, on the other hand, revered the character of his benefactor loved him as a parent no more, regulated his own administration by the example and maxims of his predecessor Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government Titus and Antoninus Pius has been justly denominated a second Numa the same love of religion, justice and peace was the distinguishing characteristic of both princes but the situation of the latter opened a much larger field for the exercise of virtues Numa could only prevent a few neighboring villages from plundering each other's harvests Antoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth his reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history which is indeed little more than the register of crimes follies and misfortunes of mankind In private life he was an amiable as well as a good man the native simplicity of his virtue was a stranger to vanity or temptation he enjoyed with moderation the conveniences of his fortune and the innocent pleasures of society and the benevolence of his soul displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper the virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severe and more laborious kind it was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference of many a patient lecture and many a midnight lucubration at the age of twelve years he embraced the rigid system of the phytoics which taught him to submit his body to his mind his passions to his reason to consider virtue as the only good vice as the only evil all things external as things indifferent his meditations composed in the tumult of camp are still extant and he even condescended to give lessons of philosophy in a more public manner than was perhaps consistent with the modesty of a sage or the dignity of an emperor but his life was the noblest commentary of the precepts of Zeno he was severe to himself indulgent to the imperfection of others just and beneficent to all mankind he regretted that Avidius Cassius who excited a rebellion in Syria had disappointed him by a voluntary death of the pleasure of converting an enemy to a friend and he justified the sincerity of that sentiment by moderating the zeal of the senate against the adherents of the traitor war he detested as the disgrace and calamity of human nature but when the necessity of a just defense called upon him to take up arms he readily exposed his person to eight winter campaigns on the frozen banks of the Danube the severity of which was at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution his memory was revered by a grateful posterity and above a century after his death many persons preserved the image of Marcus Antoninus among those of their household gods if a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition as a human race was most happy and prosperous he would, without hesitation name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus the vast extent of the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power under the guidance of virtue and wisdom the armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four successive emperors whose characters and authority commanded involuntary respect the forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws such princes deserved the honor of restoring the Republic had the Romans of their days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom the labors of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward that inseparably waited on their success by the honest pride of virtue and by the exquisite delight of beholding the general happiness of which they were the authors they must but melancholy reflection embittered however the noblest of human enjoyments they must often have recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the character of a single man the fatal moment was perhaps approaching when some licentious youth or some jealous tyrant would abuse to the destruction that absolute power which they had exerted for the benefit of their people the ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might serve to display the virtues but could never correct the vices of the emperor the military force was a blind and irresistible instrument of oppression and the corruption of roman manners would always supply flatterers eager to applaud and ministers prepared to serve the fear or the avarice the lust or the cruelty of their masters these gloomy apprehensions had been already justified by the experience of the romans the annals of the emperors exhibit a strong and various picture of human nature which we should vainly seek among the mixed and doubtful characters of modern history in the conduct of those monarchs we may trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue the most exalted perfection and the meanest degeneracy of our own species the golden age of trajan and the antonynes had been preceded by an age of iron it is almost superfluous to enumerate the unworthy successors of augustus their unparalleled vices and the splendid theater on which they were acted have saved them from oblivion the dark unrelenting tiberius the furious caligula the feeble claudius the profligate and cruel nero the beastly vitelius and the timid inhuman Domitian are condemned to everlasting infamy during four score years accepting only the short and doubtful respite of Vespasian's reign Rome groaned beneath the unrementing tyranny which exterminated the ancient families of the republic and was fatal to almost every virtue and every talent that arose in that unhappy period under the reign of these monsters the slavery of the romans was accompanied by two peculiar circumstances the one occasioned by their former liberty the other by their extensive conquests which rendered their condition more completely wretched than that of the victims of tyranny in any other age or country from these causes were derived one the exquisite sensibility of the sufferers two the impossibility of escaping from the hand of the oppressor one when Persia was governed by the descendants of Sefi the race of princes whose wanton cruelty often stained their devan, their table and their bed with the blood of their favorites there is a saying recorded of a young nobleman that he never departed from the sultan's presence without satisfying himself whether his head was still on his shoulders the experience of every day might almost justify the skepticism of Rustan yet the fatal sword suspended above him by a single thread seems not to have disturbed the slumbers or interrupted the tranquility of the persian the monarch's frown he well knew could level him with the dust but the stroke of lightning or apoplexy might be equally fatal and it was a part of a wise man to forget the inevitable calamities of human life in the enjoyment of the fleeting hour he was dignified with the appellation of the king's slave had perhaps been purchased from obscure parents which he had never known and was trained up from his infancy in the severe discipline of the sereglio his name, his wealth, his honors were the gift of a master who might without injustice, resume what he had bestowed Rustan's knowledge if he possessed any could only serve to confirm his habits by prejudices his language afforded not words for any form of government except absolute monarchy the history of the east informed him that such had ever been the condition of humankind the Koran and the interpreters of that divine book inculcated to him that the sultan was the descendant of the prophet and the vice-gerent of heaven that patience was the first virtue of a muslim and unlimited obedience the great duty of a subject the minds of the Romans were very differently prepared for slavery oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption and of military violence they for a long while preserved the sentiments or at least the ideas of their free born ancestors the education of Helvidius and Thracia of Tacitus and Pliny was the same as that of Cato and Cicero from Grecian philosophy they had imbibed the justice and most liberal notions of the dignity of human nature and the origin of civil society the history of their own country had taught them to revere a free, a virtuous and a victorious commonwealth to adhore the successful crimes of Caesar and Augustus and inwardly to despise those tyrants whom they adored with the same abject flattery as magistrates and senators they were admitted into the great council which had once dictated laws to the earth whose authority was so often prostituted to the vilest purposes of tyranny Tiberius and those emperors who adopted his maxims attempted to disguise their murders by the formalities of justice and perhaps enjoyed a secret pleasure in rendering the senate their accomplice as well as their victim by this assembly the last of the Romans were condemned for imaginary crimes and real virtues their infamous accusers assumed the language of independent patriots who arraigned a dangerous citizen before the tribunal of his country and the public service was rewarded by riches and honors the servile judges professed to assert the majesty of the commonwealth violated the person of its first magistrate whose clemency they most applauded when they trembled the most at his inexorable and impending cruelty that the government beheld their baseness with just contempt and encountered their secret sentiments of detestation with sincere and avowed hatred for the whole body of the senate 2. The division of Europe into a number of independent states connected, however, with each other by the general resemblance of religion, language and manners is productive of the most beneficial consequences to the liberty of mankind a modern tyrant who should find no resistance to fear in his people would soon experience a gentle restraint from the example of his equals the dread of present censure the advice of his allies and the apprehension of his enemies the object of his displeasure escaping from the narrow limits of his dominions would easily obtain in a happier climate a secret refuge a new fortune adequate to his merit the freedom of complaint and perhaps the means of revenge that fell into the hands of a single person the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies the slave of imperial despotism whether he was condemned to drag his gilded chain in Rome and the senate or were to live out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seraphis or the frozen bank of the Danube expected his fate in silent despair to resist was fatal and it was impossible to fly on every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land he never hoped to traverse without being discovered seized and restored to his irritated master beyond the frontiers his anxious view could discover nothing except the ocean inhospitable deserts hostile tribes of barbarians fierce manners and unknown language or dependent kings who would gladly purchase the emperor's protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious fugitive wherever you are said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus remember that you are equally in the power of the conqueror end of chapter 3 part 2 chapter 4 part 1 of the decline and fall of the roman empire volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are on the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the decline and fall of the roman empire volume 1 by Edward Gibbon chapter 4 the cruelty, follies and murder of Commodus part 1 contents the cruelty, follies and murder of Commodus election of pertinax his attempts to reform the state his assassination by the Praetorian guards the mildness of Marcus which the rigid discipline of the Stoics was unable to eradicate formed at the same time the most amiable and the only defective part of his character his excellent understanding was often deceived by the unsuspecting goodness of his heart artful men who study the passions of princes and conceal their own approached his person in the disguise of philosophic sanctity and acquired riches and honours affecting to despise them his excessive indulgence to his brother his wife and his son exceeded the bounds of private virtue and became a public injury by the example and consequences of their vices Faustina the daughter of Pius and wife of Marcus has been as much celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty the grave simplicity of the philosopher was ill calculated to engage her wanton levity or to fix that unbounded passion for variety which often discovered personal merit in the meanest of mankind the cupid of the ancients was in general a very sensual deity and the armours of an empress as they exact on her side the plainest advances are seldom susceptible of much sentimental delicacy Marcus was the only man in the empire who seemed ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of Faustina which according to the prejudices of every age reflected some disgrace on the injured husband he promoted several of her lovers to posts of honour and profit and during a connection of 30 years invariably gave her proofs of the most tender confidence and of a respect which ended not with her life in his meditations he thanks the gods who had bestowed on him a wife so faithful so gentle and of such a wonderful simplicity of manners the obsequious senate at his earnest request declared her a goddess she was represented in her temples with the attributes of Juno, Venus and Ceres and it was decreed that on the day of their naturals the youth of either sex should pay their vows before the altar of their chaste patroness the monstrous vices of the sun have cast a shade on the purity of the father's virtues it has been objected to Marcus that he sacrificed the happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a worthless boy and that he chose a successor in his own family rather than in the republic nothing however was neglected by the anxious father and by the men of virtue and learning whom he summoned to his assistants to expand the narrow mind of young Commodus to correct his growing vices and to rend him worthy of the throne for which he was designed but the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous the distasteful lesson of a grave philosopher was in a moment obliterated by the whisper of a profligate favorite and Marcus himself blasted the fruits of his labored education by admitting his son at the age of 14 or 15 to a full participation of the imperial power he lived but four years afterwards but he lived long enough to repent a rash measure which raised the impetuous youth above the restraint of reason and authority most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are produced by the restraints which the necessary but unequal laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind by confining to a few the possession of those objects that are coveted by many of all our passions and appetites the love of power imperious and unsociable nature since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude in the tumult of civil discord the laws of society lose their force and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity the ardor of contention the pride of victory the despair of success the memory of past injuries and the fear of future dangers all contribute to inflame the mind and to silence the voice of pity from such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood but these motives will not account for the unprovoked cruelties of Commodus who had nothing to wish and everything to enjoy the beloved son of Marcus succeeded to his father amidst the acclamations of the senate and armies and when he ascended the throne the happy youth saw round him neither competitor to remove nor enemies to punish in this calm elevated station it was surely natural that he should prefer the love of mankind to their detestation the mild glories of his five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and Dmitian yet Commodus was not as he had been represented a tiger born with an insatiate thirst of human blood and capable from his infancy of the most inhuman actions nature had formed him of a weak rather than a wicked disposition his simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave of his attendance who gradually corrupted his mind his cruelty which had first obeyed the dictates of others degenerated into habit and at length became the ruling passion of his soul upon the death of his father Commodus found himself embarrassed with the command of a great army and the conduct of a difficult war against the Quadi and the Marcomani the servile and profligate youths whom Marcus had banished soon regained their station and influence about the new emperor they exaggerated the hardships and dangers of a campaign in the wild countries beyond the Danube and they assured the indolent prince that the terror of his name and the arms of his lieutenants would be sufficient to complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians or to impose such conditions as were more advantageous than any conquest and the mysterious application to his sensual appetites they compared the tranquility the splendor, the refined pleasures of Rome with a tumult of a panonian camp which afforded neither leisure nor materials for luxury Commodus listened to the pleasing advice but whilst he hesitated between his own inclination and the awe which he still retained for his father's cancelers the summer insensibly collapsed and his triumphal entry into the capital was deferred till the autumn his graceful person popular address and imagined virtues attracted the public favour the honourable peace which he had recently granted to the barbarians diffused a universal joy his impatience to revisit Rome was fondly ascribed to the love of his country and his disillute course of amusements was faintly condemned to the presence of nineteen years of age during the three first years of his reign the forms and even the spirit of the old administration were maintained by those faithful cancelers to whom Marcos had recommended his son and for whose wisdom and integrity Commodus still entertained a reluctant esteem the young prince and his profligate favourites reveled in all the licence of sovereign power but his hands were yet unstained with blood and he had even displayed a generosity of sentiment which might perhaps have ripened into solid virtue a fatal incident decided his fluctuating character one evening as the emperor was returning to the palace through a dark and narrow portico in the amphitheatre an assassin who waited his passage rushed upon him with a drawn sword loudly exclaiming the senate sends you this the menace prevented the deed the assassin was seized by the guards and immediately revealed the authors of the conspiracy it had been formed not in the state but within the walls of the palace Lucilla the emperor's sister and widow of Lucius Verus impatient of the second rank and jealous of the reigning empress had armed the murderer against her brother's life she had not ventured to communicate the black design to her second husband Claudius Pompeyrus a senator of distinguished merit and unshaken loyalty but among the crowd of her lovers for she imitated the manners of Faustina she found men of desperate fortunes and wild ambition who were prepared to serve her more violent as well as her tender passions the conspirators experienced the rigor of justice and the abandoned princess was punished first with exile and afterwards with death but the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus and left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body of the senate those whom he had dreaded as importunate ministers he now suspected as secret enemies the delators a race of men discouraged and almost extinguished under the former reigns again became formidable as soon as they discovered that the emperor was desirous of finding disaffection and treason in the senate that assembly whom Marcus had ever considered as the great council of the nation was composed of the most distinguished of the Romans and distinction of every kind soon became criminal the possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit and the friendship of the father always ensured the aversion of the son suspicion was equivalent to proof, trial to condemnation the execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate and when Commodus had once tasted human blood he became incapable of pity or remorse in those innocent victims of tyranny none died more lamented than the two brothers of the quintillion family Maximus and Condianus whose fraternal love had saved their names from oblivion and endeared their memory to posterity their studies and their occupations their pursuits and their pleasures were still the same in the enjoyment of a great estate they never admitted the idea of a separate interest some fragments are now extant of a treatise which they composed in common and in every action of life it was observed that their two bodies were animated by one soul the Antonines who valued their virtues raised them in the same year to the consulship and Marcus afterwards entrusted to their joint care the civil administration of Greece and a great military command in which they obtained a signal victory over the Germans the kind cruelty of Commodus united them in death the tyrants rage after having shed the noblest blood of the senate at length recoiled on the principal instrument of his cruelty whilst Commodus was immersed in blood and luxury he devolved the detail of the public business on Parenis a servile and ambitious minister who had obtained his post by the murder of his predecessor but who possessed a considerable share of vigor and ability by acts of extortion and the forfeited estates of the nobles sacrificed to his avarice he had accumulated an immense treasure the Praetorian guards were under his immediate command and his son who already discovered a military genius was at the head of the Illyrian legions Parenis aspired to the empire or what in the eyes of Commodus amounted to the same crime he was capable of aspiring to it had he not been prevented surprised and put to death the fall of a minister is a very trifling incident in the general history of the empire but it was hastened by an extraordinary circumstance which proved how much the nerves of discipline were already relaxed the legions of Britain contented with the administration of Parenis formed a deputation of 1500 select men with instructions to march to Rome and lay their complaints before the emperor these military petitioners by their own determined behaviour by inflaming the divisions of the guards by exaggerating the strength of the British army and by alarming the fears of Commodus exacted and obtained the minister's death as the only address of their grievances this presumption of a distant army and their discovery of the weakness of government was a sure presage of the most dreadful convulsions the negligence of the public administration was betrayed soon afterwards by a new disorder which arose from the smallest beginning a spirit of desertion began to prevail among the troops and the deserters instead of seeking their safety in flight or concealment infested the highways Metanus, a private soldier of a daring boldness above his station collected these bands of robbers into a little army set open the prisons invited the slaves to assert their freedom and plundered with impunity the rich and defenceless cities of Gaul and Spain the governors of the provinces who had long been the spectators and perhaps the partners of his depredations were at length roused from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of the emperor Metanus found that he was encompassed and foresaw that he must be overpowered a great effort of despair was his last resource he ordered his followers to disperse to pass the Alps in small parties and various disguises and to assemble at Rome during the licentious tumult of the festival of Sibili to murder Commodus and to ascend the vacant throne was the ambition of no vulgar robber his measures were so ably concerted that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome the envy of an accomplice discovered and ruined this singular enterprise in a moment when it was ripe for execution Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind from a vain persuasion that those who have no dependence except on their favour will have no attachment except to the person of their benefactor Cleander the successor of Parenis was a Phrygian by birth of a nation over whose stubborn but servile temper blows only could prevail he had been sent from his native country to Rome in the capacity of a slave as a slave he entered the imperial palace rendered himself useful to his master's passions and rapidly ascended to the most exalted station which a subject could enjoy his influence over the mind of Commodus was much greater than that of his predecessor for Cleander was devoid of any ability or virtue which could inspire the emperor with envy or distrust avarice was the reigning passion of his soul and the great principle of his administration the rank of consul of patrician of senator was exposed to public sale and it would have been considered as disaffection if anyone had refused to purchase these empty and disgraceful honors with the greatest part of his fortune in the lucrative provincial employments the minister shared with the government the spoils of the people the execution of the laws was penal and arbitrary a wealthy criminal might obtain not only the reversal of the sentence by which he was justly condemned but might likewise inflict whatever punishment he pleased on the accuser the witnesses and the judge by these means Cleander in the space of three years had accumulated more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any freedmen Commodus was perfectly satisfied with the magnificent presence which the artful courtier laid at his feet in the most seasonable moments to divert the public envy Cleander under the emperor's name erected baths porticoes and places of exercise for the use of the people he flattered himself that the Romans dazzled and amused by his apparent liberality would be less affected by the bloody scenes which were daily exhibited that they would forget the deaths of Birris a senator to whose superior merit the late emperor had granted one of his daughters and that they would forgive the execution of Arius Antoninas the last representative of the name and virtues of the Antoninas the former with more integrity than Prudence had attempted to disclose to his brother-in-law the true character of Cleander an equitable sentence pronounced by the latter when proconsul of Asia against a worthless creature of the favourite proved fatal to him after the fall of Perennis the traitors of Commodus had for a short time assumed the appearance of a return to virtue he repealed the most odious of his acts loaded his memory with the public execration and ascribed to the pernicious councils of that wicked minister all the errors of his inexperienced youth but his repentance lasted only 30 days and under Cleander's tyranny the administration of Perennis often regretted end of chapter 4 part 1 recorded by Gazena in January 2007