 Chapter 20, Section 3 of J. B. Bure's The Student's Roman Empire, Part 2. Rebellions in Germany and Judea, 69-70 A.D., Section 3. The Revolt of Judea and Destruction of Jerusalem. In regard to the Jews, Claudius followed the policy of Tiberius. Their worship was checked in Italy, but toleration was granted to them in their own land and in the East. Claudius went even further. He gave all the lands which had formed the Kingdom of Herod to his friend Herod Agrippa, thus returning, as he loved to do, to the system of Augustus. By this means direct collision between the Romans and Jews was avoided. Agrippa acted as intermediate. But when he died in 44 A.D., his son Agrippa, aged seventeen years, was considered too young to take his father's place, and Judea was once more made a province of subordinate rank. From this moment a spirit of hatred and rebellion fomented in Judea. The Jews had not forgotten how Gaius had insisted upon receiving divine hours. They feared that another emperor might do the same, and regarded all Roman emperors as abominable. National sentiment and religious bigotry were inseparable for the Jews, and the fanatics burned to cast off the Roman yoke or die in the attempt. The insurrection did not break out till 66 A.D., but it was prepared during twenty-two years. The great fault of the Romans was that, instead of stamping out the elements of opposition, they tried to humor an irreconcilable people and yielded, wherever it was possible, to the prejudices and absurd demands of the Jews. Thus a Roman soldier was executed because he had torn a role of the law. One mistake was that too small a military force was kept in the province and was mainly recruited from the province itself. As for the Jews, they brought their destruction upon themselves. The high priests were worthless and violent, and took advantage of the yielding spirit of their rulers to make most unreasonable demands. During these twenty-two years the Romans were continually trying to suppress the brigands of the hills, whom the Jews called zealots. They combined the spirit of the robber with that of the religious fanatic. Cuspius Phaedus, the first procuator under Claudius, routed them out of their strongholds and slew them. But the evil broke out again under his successor Tiberius Alexander, a nephew of the philosopher Philo, and he succeeded in capturing two noted leaders, Jacobus and Simon, son of Judas the Galilean, whom he crucified. There was the constant feud between Galilee and Samaria, and the latter district was subject to the incursions of armed bands of Galilean brigands. This led to a serious collision in the year fifty-two A.D., in which Umidius Quadratus, the governor of Syria, was obliged to interfere. The affair was attributed to the rivalry of the two procuators, Cumanus of Galilee and Felix of Judea and Samaria, and Quadratus having held an investigation to punish Cumanus and pleased the Jews by executing a tribune, named Sela, in Jerusalem. Felix, who was equally to blame, escaped because he was the brother of the powerful freedman Pallas and the husband of a gripper's sister, Drusila. The troubles continued under Festus and Albinus, the successors of Felix. War against Rome was preached in the streets, miracles and prophecies were the order of the day, the zealots of the hills were as violent as ever. There was no real grievance. It was not the case when oppressed people rising against oppressors or bondmen struggling for their freedom. The war was due to the fanaticism of short-sighted peasants. The authority over the temple and its treasures and the nomination of the high priests had been assigned in forty-four A.D. not to the procuator, but to Herod of Chalcis, and after his death in forty-eight A.D. had been transferred to his heir Agrippa. In fifty-three A.D. Agrippa had received, instead of Chalcis, the districts of Batonea, Orannitis, Trachonitis, Golanitis and Abellini, along with the title of king, and two years later he received from Nero Tiberius and Tarakia in Galilee and Julius in Perea. Agrippa stood by the Romans faithfully throughout the Jewish War. The insurrection broke out under the procuator Gessius Flores, sixty-four to sixty-six A.D. Caesarea was inhabited by Greeks and Jews possessing the same civil rights, the Jews being the more numerous. But under Nero the Greeks disputed the rights of the Jews and appealed to the government at Rome. Burrus decided in favour of the Greeks and, the citizenship was declared to be a privilege which did not belong to the Jews, sixty-two A.D. This decision led to tummels in the town. Finally, the Jews left Caesarea, but were compelled by the governor to return, and then slaughtered in a street riot, August the sixth, sixty-six A.D. In Jerusalem things came to a crisis at the same time. The Jews were divided into two parties, the men of moderation, who putting their trust in the Lord were ready to endure Roman rule without resistance, and the men of action who resolved to found the kingdom of heaven by the sword. The former were the Pharisees, the latter the zealots, and the power of the zealots was on the increase. For this party belonged Eliezer, son of the High Priest Ananias. He was a young man of upright character, but it has been said of him that his virtues were more dangerous than his father's vices. He was the overseer of the temple, and he forbade those who did not belong to the Jewish faith to present offerings to Jehovah in the outer court, although this had always been permitted by tradition. He refused to listen to the remonstrances of the wiser Jews. The moderate party resolved to make an attempt to put down the fanatics. They asked the Romans and King Agrippa for help, and Agrippa sent some cavalry. But Jerusalem was filled with extreme patriots and desperados known as men of the dagger, who were ready to exterminate supporters of Roman rule. The Roman garrison in the citadel was surprised and cut to pieces. The greater number of the moderates, the soldiers of Agrippa and some Romans, occupied the king's palace on Zion, but could not maintain their position against overwhelming numbers and capitulated. Three departure was refused to the Romans, but they were assured that their lives would be spared. But they were disarmed and cut to pieces. Ananias the High Priest and other leaders of the moderate party were slain. After the victory a quarrel broke out between Eliezer, who seems to have felt remorse for the perfidy of his followers and his father's death, and Manahem, the most violent of the men of the dagger. It ended in the execution of Manahem. Thus, in Caesarea, the foes of the Jews had slaughtered the Jews. In Jerusalem the Jews had slaughtered their foes, and it was said that both events happened on the same day. Other Greek towns followed the example of Caesarea. The Jews in Damascus, Gadara, Schizophrenis, Ascalon were massacred. The Britoness against them broke out, too, in Alexandria, and the street tummels required the interference of the Roman troops. As soon as Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, heard what had happened in Jerusalem, he set forth with his troops to put down the insurgents. His army consisted of about twenty thousand Roman soldiers and thirteen thousand auxiliaries from the dependent kingdoms, along with forces of Syrian militia. Having taken Joppa and slain its inhabitants, he marched on Jerusalem and stood before its walls in September, but the strong fortifications defied him, and he was driven back with serious loss. The news of the failure of Gallus reached Nero in Greece, and he appointed Muqyana's Ligatis of Syria and assigned to Vespasian the task of quelling the Jewish rebellion as an independent Ligatis. The three legions, which had been sent from the Illyric lands to carry on the war with Parthia, were perhaps already returning to their original stations. If so, they were now sent back on account of the rebellion. Two of them, Fifth Macedonia and Fifteenth Apollinaris, were given to Vespasian along with one of the Syrian legions, Ten Frotensis. The other additional legion, Fourth Scythia, took the place of the Tenth in Syria and remained there permanently. In addition to his three legions and their auxiliar, Vespasian had large bodies of troops contributed by the dependent kings of Comagene, Emesa and Nabataea, as well as by Agrippa. The whole army, amounting to more than fifty thousand men, was mustered up Ptolemaeus in spring 67 AD and entered Palestine. The entire country, Galilee and Samaria, as well as Judea, was now in the hands of the insurgents, with the exception of the Greek towns. They had taken and destroyed Anthedon and Gaza, but after they had failed at Ascalon they confined themselves to defensive measures, and did not meet the Romans in the open field. Vespasian's plan was slow but sure. He decided to make no attempt against Jerusalem until he had isolated it by reducing the surrounding districts. The first campaign was occupied with a reduction of Galilee and the coast as far as Ascalon. In this warfare the historian Josephus played a considerable part. The siege of Jotapata, which he defended, lasted forty-five days. He was a member of the moderate party, but was appointed commander in Galilee. Josephus escaped with his life and found favour with Vespasian, whose client he became, adopting the name Titus Flavius. During the following winter Vespasian kept two legions at Caesarea and stationed a third at Schizopolis, so as to cut off communications between Judea and Galilee. In the spring of 68 AD he proceeded to occupy the regions beyond the Jordan, including the important towns of Gadarra and Gerasa. The fugitives, who were driven from their homes by the Roman soldiers, flocked to increase the multitude collected in Jerusalem. Vespasian then took up quarters at Jericho. Caesarea was occupied in the north, Idomia in the south, and the legions were about to advance on Jerusalem when the news of Nero's death arrived. Vespasian was not disposed to put himself in a false position by continuing to act as legatus, until his powers should be renewed by Nero's successor. Military operations were therefore suspended, and before Galva could send his commands to Vespasian winter had approached. The fall of Galva and the struggle between Otho and Vitelius gave the Jews a still longer respite, and when, after the proclamation of Vitelius, Vespasian began to assume operations, his own elevation again interrupted the warfare, and it was not till the spring of 70 AD that his son Titus marched against Jerusalem to end the miserable episode. Jerusalem, in the meantime, was a scene of wild confusion. The leader of the moderate party had been slain, the zealots reigned supreme, and quarrelled and fought among themselves. There were three main parties, one headed by Eliazah, son of Simon, and consisting of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, occupied the inner enclosure of the temple. The outer court of the temple was held by John of Giskala and his Galileans. Another party, under Simon, son of Joris of Garassa, held the upper town, the hill of Zion. But when the Romans came, these factions composed their differences and fought side by side. Eliazah's party placed itself under John, and thus the rivalry was narrowed to two competitors, Simon in the city and John in the temple. Titus might have located the city and starved the inhabitants out, but he wished to inaugurate the new Flavian dynasty and make his own reputation by a brilliant exploit. Simon was defended on all sides by impregnable rocks except on the north, on which side it had been attacked by the Assyrians, and more recently by Pompeus. Herod Agrippa had attempted to strengthen the fortifications on this accessible side, but the Romans had prevented him. The walls which he had planned were hastily raised under the direction of the sunhedrin during the insurrection. The task of Titus was not an easy one. When he had stormed the outer wall and penetrated into the new city, a second wall met him, which he had to pass before he could reach the lower city on the hill of Acre. Then he had to storm the temple, surrounded by an inner and outer wall, and the adjoining citadel, called Antonia. The strong defences of Zion on which the upper city was built, and the palace of Herod still remained. The forces of Titus had been increased by another legion from Syria, 12th, Fulminata. The first wall resisted for a long time all the attempts of the Assyrians, but at length fell beneath the battering-lam. Many of the besieged would then have been willing to submit, in fear of the famine which threatened them, and the Roman general sent to Cephas to the wall to offer honorable terms. But the chiefs would not hear of surrender. Then Titus drew a wall of circumvallation around the city, and cut off all external supplies from the inhabitants while they continued their attacks on the second wall. The sufferings of the Jews from famine became terrible. A woman was known to kill her child for food. At this time a half-widget fanatic, Joshua, the son of Hanan, went about the public place as shouting, a voice of ruin from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, and, woe to Jerusalem! None dared to hinder or punish him. One day he uttered a new cry, woe to me also, and at the same moment he was killed by a stone from a catapult of the besiegers. All sorts of portents were said to have occurred. The doors of the temple burst open, and a voice more than human cried, Let us depart hence! And a great sound of departure was heard. At last, at the end of three months, the second wall was passed, and the citadel Antonia taken. This castle, close to the temple and overlooking it, was destroyed by the Romans except one wing which was left standing as a watchtower. Titus then allowed considerable numbers of the population to leave the town, but the zealots remained deaf to the ex-fossilations of Josephus and the admonitions of the Jews who had been taken captive in the lower city. They refused to spare the temple by timely submission to the besiegers. They carried on the work of defence with no regard to the sacred character of the place, and even desecrated the holy of holies by their presence. For a long time they baffled the assaults of the Romans, but the defence of the outer temple wall gradually relaxed, and at length the burning missiles of the assailants set fire to the northern portion. The two leaders, John of Giscala and Simon, son of Joris, with some of their followers escaped by the connecting causeway which they broke down behind them into the upper city. But the multitude and the priests stood firm in the inner enclosure. The Romans with difficulty passed the outer wall, making a path for themselves with the help of fire, which soon spread and consumed the royal porch of Herod. Many of the Jews perished in the flames. The rest were cut down in a final struggle. The temple and its treasures were burned to the ground, August. The chiefs still lay behind the defences of the upper city, hopeless yet resolved not to yield. But a discord raged among the garrison of the last stronghold, and a large number of Jews gave themselves up to the Romans. The rest were reduced by famine, and the chiefs at last abandoned the defence of the rampart and sought refuge in the subterranean passages with which the hill was honeycombed, and by which they hoped to reach the valleys beyond. The Romans then entered and slew, plundered and burned, September the second. The siege had lasted over five months, but at length Jerusalem was laid in ruins. Simon and John unable to escape in the underground galleries and pressed by hunger came forth from their holes and surrendered. The life of John was spared, but Simon was reserved for the triumph and put to death afterwards. Those of the insurgents who escaped held out for years in the rock fortresses of Masada and Maccarus, near the Dead Sea. The captives were put to death or sold into slavery. Many died from starvation, refusing to accept food from their waters. Although Bespasian and Titus disdained to add to their names the title of Judaicus, drawn from a people whom they despised, they did not admit to celebrate a triumph in honour of the victory, and an arch was erected by the senate to Titus after his death, on which may still be seen a sculpture of the golden candlestick with seven branches, which was rescued from the sanctuary of the temple. Another arch was erected during his lifetime in the circus, and the dedication celebrates his capture of Jerusalem, which all leaders, kings and nations before him had either attacked in vain or left wholly unattempted. The statement is ludicrously false, and if we can excuse the senate for ignorance of the Assyrian siege, or even of that of Antiochus Epiphanes, we cannot understand their ignoring Pompeyus. The demolition of Jerusalem, which lay in ruins as Carthage and Corinth had once lain, deprived the Jewish nation of the center. The High Priesthood and the Sanhedrin were abolished, and the Israelites were left without a head. The yearly tribute which every Jew, wherever he dwelled, used to send to the temple was now, by a sort of bitter parody, to be sent to the temple of Capitoline Jupiter. It is a disputed question whether Titus really wished to destroy the temple with all its wonders, or whether its destruction was an accident which he deplored. It seems on the whole more likely that its destruction was part of the political scheme which the Roman government had devised to settle the petty, but troublesome Jewish question once for all. It should be taken in connection with the fact that Vespasian at the same time closed the temple of Onias near Memphis in Egypt, the chief sanctuary of the Egyptian Jews. The conflagration was a matter for praise to the Roman poet Valerius Flacus, who in the invocation of his Argonautics celebrates Titus for scattering the torches in Salima, Salimic nigrantum pulveri fratum, Spargon temque farce et in omni torre forentum. Judea became a province of the empire, and the camp of the tenth legion—Footnote, the twelfth legion was sent to Cappadocia, the fifth and fifteenth back to their quarters in Mauricia and Pannonia respectively. End of Footnote, which was left as its garrison, was pitched on the ruins of the fallen capital. Henceforward the troops levied in Judea were employed elsewhere. A settlement of Roman veterans was made at Emmaus. In Samaria the chief town Sitchum was organised under the name Flavia Neapolis as a Greek city. On the other hand Caesarea hitherto a Greek city was made a Flavian colonia of the Roman type. King Agrippa, who had supported the Romans loyally, retained his possessions as long as he lived, but on his death about thirty years later his kingdom was incorporated in the province of Syria. End of Chapter 20, Section 3, Chapter 21, Sections 1-2 of J.B. Bury's The Student's Roman Empire, Part 2. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Recording by Mark Penfold. The Student's Roman Empire, Part 2, by John Bagnell Bury. Chapter 21 Vespacian, Titus and Domitian, Sections 1-2 Section 1, Vespacian The new ruler of the Roman world, Titus Flavius Vespacianus, has the distinction of having founded a new dynasty. Indeed he might claim to be considered a second Augustus, somewhat as Augustus claimed to be a second Romulus. He was called upon to perform a task of the same kind as that which Augustus wrought, though on a far smaller scale. The conqueror of Vitellius, like the conqueror of Antonius, had to pacify the state and restore order after civil wars. The wars which followed the death of Nero were not as great in importance or duration as those which followed the death of Julius. But they were serious enough to put the state out of joint, and Vespacian has the glory of having said it right so effectively that the machine went smoothly for another century, during which the empire enjoyed peace and plenty. Vespacian was not a man of originality. He had not a spark of genius. But then no new ideas were required for his work. He merely confirmed the Augustan system and rectified it in some details. He was fully equal to the task which fell to his lot. It required strength of character, and he was strong. It required the plainest common sense, and he had no illusions of imagination. It required caution, and he was not rash. It required determination, and when he had made up his mind, nothing deterred him from carrying out his resolve. The elevation of a sabine of humble birth to the principate is a symptom of the leveling process which was gradually raising Italy to inequality with Rome. Hitherto no man who was not of high Roman descent was regarded as a possible candidate for the empire. In appearance the homely Vespacian was very different from the aristocratic Augustus. He was square and firmly built, his neck thick, his features coarse, his eyes small. As a soldier he was competent but not brilliant. He had enjoyed a fair education and could speak and write Greek with ease. He was careless of appearances and was not ashamed of his humble origin. He laughed at the flattery of the poets who tried to discover a heroic origin for his municipal family. He had a sharp and homely wit. An anecdote is related of him that, having been criticized by Flores for pronouncing the word plowsthrum, a wagon, in provincial fashion plowsthrum, he addressed Flores on meeting him next day as o flore. He was not perhaps naturally superstitious, but while he was at Alexandria oriental flutterers practiced on his credulity. A blind man and a cripple alleged that the god Serapis had assured them that the new Imperator possessed the divine power of healing their infirmities. Vespasian was persuaded to touch the eyes of the blind with his spittle and to place his foot on the lame man. Immediately the blind received his sight and the lame walked. Vespasian was deceived by the imposture and was filled with a deep respect for the oracles of Serapis. He married Flavia Domitila, and by her had three children, Titus, Domitian, and Domitila. After her death he did not marry again but formed a permanent connection known as Contubernium, with a freedwoman named Senus, with whom he had been intimate before his marriage. Vespasian did not arrive in Rome until the summer of 70 A.D. Before he returned the Senate had taken in hand the restoration of the capital, for while the temple of Jupiter capitalinus lay in ruins it was believed that the empire could not be prosperous. The work was entrusted to El Vestinus, a night of high reputation, although such works usually devolved upon senators. The ruins of the old temple were removed by the orders of the herospises so that the new edifice might be erected on the foundations of the old. For the gods do not wish the old form to be changed. On the 21st June, being a fair day, soldiers whose names were auspicious, such as Valerius or Salvius, entered the arena, crowned with garlands, and the Vestal virgins along with boys and girls, both of whose parents were alive, sprinkled the site with the water of springs and running streams. The praetor, Helvidius Priscus, then purified it by the blood of a boar, a weather, and a bull, and having placed the entrails on an altar of turf, repeated after the pontifex a prayer to Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and the patron gods of Rome, to prosper the undertaking, and by divine help raise the temple. Then he touched the fillets which bound the foundation stone, and it was dragged to the spot where it was destined to lie by the combined efforts of priests, senators, knights, and the people. Heaps of gold and silver coins, never used for profane purposes, and nuggets of unwrought metal, were then cast on the foundations. The new temple was built on the plan of the old one, but the horospices permitted Vespasian to raise it to a greater height than the temple restored by Cthulis. This striking ceremony and the rebuilding of the capital were a fitting inauguration of the era introduced by the accession of Vespasian, an era of peace and tranquility. The temple of Janus was closed in the following year, 71 A.D., after the return of Titus from the conquest of Judea, and the peace which Vespasian bestowed upon the world was, like the Pax Augusta, appreciated by his contemporaries, celebrated by poets, and impressed on coins. Vespasian followed the example of Augustus, and the more recent example of Galba, in taking to himself a consort in the empire. Both the proconsular imperium and the tribunition power were conferred on his son Titus at the same time, and thus Titus held a position like that which Tiberius held in the last years of Augustus. The object of Vespasian was not to lighten his own labours, but to secure the succession for his son. Titus was allowed to assume more of the imperial privileges than had been conceded to any consort before. He wore the laurel wreath, and vota were offered in his name. He also styled himself imperator, but while Vespasian used this title as a prenomen, Titus bore it as a cognomen, Titus Caesar imperator Vespasianus. The position of Titus was also rendered unique in another way. The dangers which threatened the principate from the power which was in the hands of the Praetorian prefect had been clearly shown in the course of recent history. The appointment of two prefects was one solution of the difficulty, but Vespasian found a more effective solution by entrusting it to his son and consort. Vespasian made no alteration in the constitution of the principate, but he attempted to introduce some innovations in practice. He seems to have laid less stress than his predecessors on the tribunitia potestis, and to have even intended to discontinue the official counting of the years of his reign as tribunitian years. He seems to have contemplated a return to the first system of Augustus, twenty-seven to twenty-three B.C., which based the position of the princeps mainly on the consulate. He was ordinary consul himself in every year of his reign except two, seventy-three and seventy-eight A.D., and his son and consort Titus was generally his colleague, but nothing came of this unusual series of imperial consulates. It was only tentative, and did not affect the future development of the principate. Vespasian was respectful to the senate, but he did not permit at such independence as it enjoyed under Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, and in the early reign of Nero. By exercising an influence on its composition, he tried to render it dependent on the emperor. This influence he exercised in two ways. By frequent consular elections, which he was able to control, he increased the number of the consulares, and, in seventy-three A.D., he assumed the censorship along with Titus and exercised the sensorial power of adlection to the senate. At the same time he created a number of patrician families to take the place of the old nobility which was exhausted. A new aristocracy dates from this reign. Vespasian abolished, chiefly in favor of Italians and provincials, trials for maestes. But on the other hand he did not permit processes to be instituted against delators, and this clemency displeased the aristocracy. There was a party of opposition in his reign, just as in the reins of his predecessors, consisting of stoic and cynic philosophers, and discontented nobles full of vain and unpractical theories. Under Nero their leader had been Thracia. Under Vespasian it was Thracia's son-in-law, Helvetius Priscus. He was a man of no judgment. Infatuated with an idea of an impossible republic, dreaming still of Cato and Brutus, he had written a book entitled The Praise of Cato. He was unable to distinguish between the tyranny of a Nero and the good government of a Vespasian. He not only indulged in untimely opposition, but took part in conspiracies, and at length, like Thracia, he died a martyr to a vain aspiration. Vespasian caused a decree for his banishment to be passed, and then ordered his death. The sects of the stoics and cynics were banished from the city, and here a popular opinion probably supported Vespasian. These philosophers kept up a constant agitation by their tracts against monarchy. The stoic, Musonius Rufus, was honorably accepted from the decree of exile. He knew that the monarchy was a necessity, and he did not bark. The only other execution of note besides that of Priscus was that of Cicina, the general who betrayed Vitellius. He was put to death for implication in a conspiracy, in 79 A.D., by the order of Titus. The most difficult and most ungrateful problem that Vespasian was called upon to solve was the ordering of the finances of the state. The treasuries were empty, and a large outlay was urgently demanded, both in the provinces and in Italy. The extravagance of Nero's reign, followed by a year of civil war, had plunged the state in bankruptcy. Priscusian required means not only for the ordinary expenses of administration, but for carrying out the work in repairs which had been neglected during the last years, owing to want of funds. He had to renew the fortifications of the Rhine Frontier, which had been destroyed in the rebellion of the Batavians, and he had to help Rome and Italy to recover from the disasters of the recent wars. He calculated that a sum of forty billion cisterces, about three hundred and twenty million lira, was required to raise the Prostrate Republic. The census was held, 73 A.D., in order to set the revenue in order and adjust the taxation, and this was one of the emperor's chief objects in assuming the censorship. Like all rulers to whom the task has fallen of rescuing a state from pecuniary embarrassment, he was obliged to make the burdens severe and to practice strict economy, and like all such rulers he got little thanks. His fiscal strictness and policy of retrenching made him unpopular. He was called avaricious and parsimonious. He renewed imposts which had been remitted by Galba and instituted new taxes. He raised in some cases even doubled the tributes of the provinces. He exercised strict control over the fiscal officers, who under a careless princeps were in the habit of diverting the public money into their private chests. Some pieces of public land in Italy, destined for the occupation of veterans but still unassigned, had been unlawfully occupied, and Vespasian endeavored to resume these for the state. He retrenched the expenses of the court, and by his own frugal life set the example of moderation. The extravagant luxury which had prevailed at the courts of Claudius and Nero seems to have gone out of fashion. The great public buildings which he erected show that he succeeded in filling the treasury. The fire of Nero's reign as well as the fire which attended the fall of Vitellius and ushered in the Flavians, had given opportunity for the erection of new buildings. Rome rose again from her ashes. Roma resergens is one of the motos on coins of Vespasian. Besides the temple of Jupiter already mentioned, Vespasian built a temple to peace, the goddess whom he preeminently revered, in 75 AD. This temple was connected with an open place which resembled the fora of Caesar and Augustus, but was not called a forum, not being used for forensic purposes. It lay behind the Basilica Emilia and east of the Forum Augustae, from which it was separated by the Argelitum. Domitian afterwards connected the Forum Augustae with the Templum Passis by the Forum Transitorium. Pliny counted the temple of peace among the finest works in the world. Vespasian deposited in it the golden treasures which Titus brought back from the temple of Jerusalem. On the southeast side of this place he erected a Templum Sacre Orbis, which served for keeping the archives of the census. But the great work by which Vespasian will be remembered is the huge amphitheater which he built in the hollow between the Esquiline and the Salion to take the place of the amphitheater of Taurus in the campus, which had been burnt down in the Great Fire. This building, now popularly known as the Colosseum, rose almost as high as the capital itself and accommodated nearly ninety thousand spectators. One of the most important cares of Vespasian was the organization of the Praetorian Guard. The cohorts formed by Vitellius out of the Germanic legions had in any case to be broken up, but Vespasian had to decide whether he would accept the innovation of his predecessor and form the new guard out of his own victorious legions and adopt the increased number of sixteen cohorts instead of nine. Both political and financial considerations induced him to return to the system of Augustus. If he filled up the Praetorian cohorts from certain legions and not from others, insolence on the one hand and jealousy on the other would be the necessary results, while the treasury could not afford to increase the number of highly paid troops. He therefore established again the old number of nine cohorts and renewed the practice of recruiting them from Italians. In regard to the legionaries, he had to replace the Germanic troops who were dismissed in consequence of the part they played in the Rebellion of Civilis by three new legions, 2nd Adjutrex IV, Flavia Felix XVI, Flavia Ferma. From this time forth Italians do not seem to have been recruited as legionaries. This however was probably the natural result of their privilege and not due to any enactment excluding them. In the provincial administration which was marked by the appointment of good governors, several changes took place. Zeus Latinum was conferred upon all the Peregrine town communities of Spain, and the new citizens were enrolled in the Tribus Quirinia, 74 AD. The same privilege was probably bestowed upon the Helvetians. Acaya, which Nero in his Phil Hellenic enthusiasm had declared free, was made tributary again and restored to the Senate, while Sardinia and Corsica were transferred back to the Emperor. The two Celesias, rough and smooth, were united as a single province under an imperial governor, 73 through 74 AD, and Lycia and Pamphylia were similarly united. The dependent kingdom of Comagini was incorporated in the province of Syria, 72 AD, the governor of Syria, Cessinius Patus, having accused King Antiochus of conspiring with Parthia. This change must have been an advantage for the inhabitants, who must have been more severely taxed to keep up a small sovereignty than as tributaries of Rome. The Parthian king tried ineffectually to procure the restoration of King Antiochus, and it is possible that these negotiations, as well as the refusal of Rome to help Parthia against the Elans, may have led to a breach between the two powers, which resulted in hostilities in 77 AD, when M. U. Pius Trajanus was governor of Syria. Velogices invaded the province, but was compelled to retire by Trajan, the future Emperor, who received for his services the triumphal insignia, and was appointed proconsul of Asia two years later. The eastern frontier was now protected not only by the four legions of Syria, but by a legion in the newly organized province of Galatia and Cappadocia, which was entrusted to a legatus Augustae pro peritore. Vespacian's measures for the protection of the Danube frontier and the wars of his lieutenant in Britain will be more conveniently told in subsequent chapters. Vespacian died on June 23, 79 AD, at the age of 70. During his last illness he carried on his public business as usual, and said that an Imperator ought to die standing. He was consecrated by a decree of the Senate, like Claudius and Augustus. Section 2 Titus Titus, already Imperator, already endowed with a tribunition power, was elected Princeps and Augustus without a demuring voice. Born in the first year of Claudius he had been educated along with Britannicus. He accompanied his father to Judea and had been sent to announce to Galba the Adhesion of the Eastern Army. He was well educated, eloquent, and accomplished, and of great personal beauty. His conquest of Jerusalem established his military reputation. He was fond of pleasure and dissipation. While he was in the East he became the lover of Baranisi, sister of Agrippa, and during his father's reign she lived with him at Rome as his mistress. But to the Romans who might have tolerated a Greek concubine, this open connection of the consort of the Emperor with a Jewish was a scandal, and Titus yielded to their prejudices, much against his will. Baranisi returned to her country, but visited Rome once more after the death of Vespasian. Titus however was firm and refused to sacrifice his influence to her seductions. He had been married twice, and by his second wife, Marcia Farnilla, had a daughter, Julia, on whom he conferred the title Augusta, after the example set by Nero in the case of Claudia. The great aim of Titus was to make himself popular. He was already the darling of the soldiers, and when he became princeps he courted favor with the aristocracy as well as with the populace. Thus his short reign bears in several respects the character of a reaction against his father's policy. He ingratiated himself with the Senate by punishing to scourged in the amphitheater and deported to islands. He did not like his father, exercise control over the public officials, and he allowed peculation to go on unchecked. He was lavish in giving away, and said that, no one ought to leave the presence of the princeps disappointed. An anecdote is told that one evening at supper he remembered that he had bestowed no gift on anyone during the day, and said to his friends, I have lost this day. He built magnificent baths, the Thermae of Titus, for the people, and on the occasion of the dedication of the great amphitheater, ATAD, he exhibited shows which lasted for a hundred days. There were combats of gladiators in which women took part, and five thousand animals were slain. The arena was then filled with water, and a sea-fight took place representing the battle of the Corinthians and Corsairians, recorded by Thucydides. There was also a representation of the Siege of Syracuse in the Naumatia of Augustus. At the end of the exhibitions, tickets for a distribution of eatables were thrown to the populace. By acts like these he wasted the funds accumulated by the economy of his father, just as Gaius had wasted the treasury of Tiberius. The reign of Titus was marked by public misfortunes at Rome and in Campania. A fire broke out in the city, ATAD, and consumed the new temple of Jupiter, Capitolinas, not yet quite completed. It also injured the Pantheon and Thermae of Agrippa, the theaters of Pompeus and Balbus, and the portico of Octavia. In 79AD, August 23rd, 24th, the great eruption of Vesuvius took place which overwhelmed the cities of Pompey and Herculaneum. Owing to this disaster, a picture of the Greek civilization of Campania was safely preserved under the lava for the benefit of the present century. A description of the eruption has been preserved by an eyewitness, the younger Pliny, whose uncle, the elder Pliny, perished by approaching too nearly the volcanic eruption, which was also fatal to the Lyric poet, Cassius Basis. The health of Titus was seriously undermined before he became princeps, and no remedies availed to cure him. He died in his father's native district at Riate on September 13th, 81AD. His short term of power was not stained by a single execution of a senator, and the Romans regretted his death. But it is impossible to know what he might have turned out if he had lived longer. He began somewhat like Nero and Gaius, and it is possible that when he had exhausted the treasury he might have ended like Nero and Gaius too. He was popular, the darling of the world, but his popularity rested on a false foundation, and he bequeathed to his successor the invidious task of replenishing the fiscous which his extravagance had well nigh emptied. The brevity of his reign was indeed fortunate for Titus, who, like his father, was enrolled among the gods. End of Chapter 21, Sections 1 and 2, Recording by Mark Penfold The Student's Roman Empire Part 2 by John Bagnell Bury Chapter 21 Vespacean, Titus and Domitian 69-96AD Section III Domitian Titus was succeeded by his brother Domitian, who had just reached the age of thirty. It has been already mentioned how he escaped from the sac of the capital by the Fatalians, and was saluted as Caesar after the Flavian victory. But Musianus did not allow him to exercise political power. He was eager to win military fame like his brother, and wished to take part in the Batavian War. But Musianus urged that it would be enough to exhibit the pomp of the Principate at Lugdonum, as Sirialus had nearly finished the war. Domitian yielded, but was so disgusted at his want of influence that when he returned to Rome he refused any longer to act as a figurehead in public matters, and retired to Avia on the Alban Mount, where he lived with his mistress, Domitia, daughter of Corbulo, the hero of the Armenian Wars. But in the few months during which he had represented his father, he had tasted the pleasures of power and sovereignty, and he felt bitter when, after his father's return, he was kept strictly in the background. He lived with his father, and it was thus clearly shown that he was under the patria potestas. He was jealous of his brother who had been made consort in the Empire. While Vespasian and Titus were born in the Sela, Domitian had to follow in the Lectica. He was six times consul, but only once at the beginning of the year, 73 AD, and then because Titus retired in his favor. He still yearned to distinguish himself in warfare, and when the Parthian King asked for Roman help against an invasion of the Sons, Domitian left nothing undone to induce Vespasian to send him, and when Vespasian refused, he tried by gifts to induce other Eastern potentates to make similar requests for help. Outwardly indeed, Domitian received all the honors which an Emperor's son might expect. He was allowed to wear the laurel wreath, his image was represented on coins, and his superscription along with those of his father and brother on public buildings. He was made a member of all the sacred colleges, but he had no political influence, he was given no opportunity of winning military renown, and no mere outward marks of honor could reconcile him to his position. It was said that on his father's death he formed the plan of bribing the Praetorians to make him Imperator by a double donative. He seems at all events to have hoped that he would occupy the same place under Titus which Titus himself had occupied under Vespasian, but though Titus recognized him in an unofficial way as his consort and successor, the proconsular Imperium and Tribunitian power were not conferred upon him. This was a new and bitter disappointment, and there is no doubt that jealousy and suspicion prevailed between the brothers. Titus, however, really regarded Domitian as his successor. For he had no male children, and in order to avoid any question about the succession he actually proposed a marriage between his daughter Julia and Domitian. Relations between uncles and nieces had been legitimized by Claudius, but they were a gross defiance of old Roman prejudices, and Domitian was a strong upholder of Roman religion. Besides this he was passionately fond of his mistress Domitia whom he married, and the idea of Titus fell through. Julia was united to her cousin Flavius Sabinus, the son of Vespasian's brother, who perished in the Vitellian catastrophe. Domitian had written at full speed to Rome from his brother's bedside, and was greeted imperator by the Praetorians, and he counted September 13 as the Die Imperiai, from which he also dated his Tribunician year, although the Tribunicia potestas was not conferred upon him till September 30. He assumed the chief pontificate immediately, and also the title Peter Patrie, which his predecessors had been accustomed not to accept for some time after the accession. This trait is characteristic of the autocratic and imperious nature of Domitian. The reign of Domitian was marked by a new and distinct departure in autocratic policy, forming, it is hardly too much to say, an epoch in the growth of the Principate towards absolute monarchy, by important wars against Dacians and Germans on the Danube frontier, and by the advance of Roman arms in Britain. These wars will be described in the following chapter. Here must be mentioned a small campaign on the ride, by which Domitian secured the military distinction which he had desired and which befitted the position of an Imperator. In 83 AD the Emperor proceeded to gall on the plea of a census in that country, but his real object was to cross the Rhine and invade the country of the Chatai. What the Chatai had done to provoke this attack is not known. The chastisement of their plundering bans, which often troubled the upper province, hardly required an imperial expedition. In any case a victory was gained over the Chatai, and Domitian celebrated a splendid triumph and assumed the name Germanicus, by which he is constantly called in contemporary literature. His enemies ridiculed this victory as a mere farce, and it was maliciously whispered that in the triumphal procession slaves wearing wigs of fair hair and dressed in German fashion acted the part of Chatec captives. On the other hand, the poets seeking for imperial favour exaggerated the imperial exploit. The victory of whatever nature it was must have been of some importance, though this is not always recognized, and it was connected with a new plan of frontier defense which will be described in the following chapter. In the beginning of his reign Domitian was gracious to the Senate, as the Senators themselves admitted. Like Titus he put down deletion and punished deletors on the principle that unless a deletor is chastised he is encouraged. But when the Emperor had established his power securely and felt himself after his Germanic triumph, a true Imperator, he soon began to let the nobles see that they were greatly mistaken if they expected him to adhere to the Constitution of Augustus. Naturally endowed with a capacity for governing, and imbued with an autocratic spirit, he was determined to rule the State himself. The joint rule of the Senate, the Diarchy which Augustus had framed so tenderly, seemed to Domitian intolerable, and he aimed at reducing it to a nullity. Other Emperors had indeed assumed more than their own share of the government, and made the Senate feel its dependent position. But they had done so only by fits and starts. Tiberius and Nero had been autocratic in their last years, but they had made no constitutional innovation vitally affecting the relation between Princeps and Senate. But Domitian worked towards the political annihilation of the Senate systematically and in cold blood, and that is why the Senatorial Party regarded him with such intense hatred. 1. It has been already explained that the Princeps exercised influence on the Constitution of the Senate by his right of commendation in the case of those magistracies which conferred admission to that body, but he had no right of directly appointing Senators. Such right of adlection, as it was called, could only be exercised by the Sensor, and the Sensorial Power did not belong to the competence of the Princeps according to the Augustan Constitution. Claudius had assumed the censorship, and more recently Vespasian had assumed it, but in each case only to lay it down again at the end of a year. In fact, the maintenance of the censorship as an independent magistracie, not connected with the Principate as such, but which the Princeps or any other eligible citizen might fill when required, was an essential feature of the Principate, and Domitian saw this clearly. He saw that the censorship was the means by which he could reduce the position of the Senate to insignificance. Once the Princeps possessed the powers of the Sensor perpetually, the control of the Senate was entirely in his hands, and the system of Augustus was undermined. Domitian did not hesitate. He first caused the Sensoria protestus to be conferred on him, end of 84 or early in 85 AD, but a few months later assumed the office of censor for life. With this power of electing and ejecting whomever he chose, he made the Senate completely dependent on his own will. The Principate thus received a permanent shock, for his successors, though they did not assume the title of censor, silently retained the Sensorial powers. The Senate continued, indeed, to share the cares of government. Its nominal position in the Constitution remained unchanged, but virtually the Principate had become a monarchy without disguise. In connection with this important innovation, it is probable that the Census Office, a sensipus populus romanus, which was under the control of the Senate, was made an imperial office over which a knight presided. 2. Domitian was consul ten times during his Principate, seven times in succession from 82 to 88 AD, then again in 90, 92, and 95 AD. He never continued an office beyond the first of May, sometimes not beyond the Ides of January, but it looks as if he intended to assert for the Princips the right of giving the name to the year. In this he was following the example of his father, who throughout his reign generally assumed the consulship. But Domitian went further than Vespasian. In 84 AD he caused himself to be designated consul for ten years. He had precedence for this in the case of Tiberius, who, along with Sajanus, had been designated consul for five years, 29 AD, and in that of Nero, who had been designated for ten years, 58 AD. Neither Tiberius nor Nero had cared to carry out their designations, and Domitian did not fully carry out his, but he went nearer to a continuous consulship than any of his predecessors since the consulships of Augustus himself from 30 to 23 BC. 3. The Senate was very anxious for its own safety to have the principle laid down that the Emperor was incompetent to condemn a senator to death. Titus had acted on this principle, but he had not formally admitted it. Domitian, a strong assertor of the higher power of the Princips, refused to recognize a decree of this kind which the Senate wished to pass. And what made matters worse was that Domitian formed his consilium out of knights as well as senators, so that when a senator was tried before the Imperial Court, a knight might be one of his judges. 4. Practically Domitian treated the Senate as of no account. He only asked its opinion on matters of no consequence, and he constantly used his right of voting first in order to force the rest to vote as he willed. The senators were completely cowed. 5. In outward forms, too, Domitian displayed his autocratic spirit. The Procurators were permitted to designate the Emperor as Dominus Akdeus, and the same expression was used by the Poets, but it was not recognized as an official title. The citizens, however, always spoke of him as Dominus. Domitian was regarded by the people as something very different from a first citizen. Further, he regularly wore the purple garment of triumph even when he appeared in the Senate. He was attended by twenty-four instead of twelve lictors, and he allowed only statues of gold and silver to be set up in his honor. 6. If Vespasian had made Augustus his model, Domitian derived precepts of government from the memoirs of Tiberius, a book which he constantly studied. Like Tiberius, he was an able and clear-headed ruler. He controlled with a strong hand the officials both in the provinces and in the city. Only those were appointed of whose personal devotion the Emperor was secure, and this principle was applied even to senatorial provinces. Candidates whom Domitian mistrusted were induced to withdraw, and received in compensation the proconsular salary of a million cesterces. But Domitian, unlike Tiberius, did not suffer their Praetorian prefects to gain any political influence, like that which Sejanus and Tagalius had possessed. In this he was following the example of his father. Domitian was fully conscious that the independent position of the Emperor in regard to the Senate necessarily rested on the support of the army. The Flavian dynasty had been set up by the soldiers, with Vespasian and Titus had maintained its military character. But Domitian went even further than they in displaying the importance of the legions and in emphasizing his own character as Imperator. His breach with the Senate rendered him more dependent on the favour of the army. He added a very large item to the yearly expenditure by increasing the pay of the legionary soldiers by one-third, from nine to twelve R.I., and that of the Praetorians in a similar proportion. The ordering of the finances was one of the most difficult problems for Domitian as for his father. The extravagance of Titus had diminished the full treasury of Vespasian, and Domitian had no intention of resuming Vespasian's policy of parsimony. On the contrary, Domitian was a most open-handed sovereign. His liberality to his friends was profuse, and like Titus he entertained the populace with frequent games and shows on a magnificent scale. On these occasions he distributed congiarria or bread-money among the poorer citizens, at the rate of three hundred sistercies each. He tried to diminish the burdens of the people, and cancelled arrears due to the arrarium of longer standing than five years. He abandoned the claim of the state which had been enforced by Vespasian to the unallotted strips of land in Italy. In his financial measures he was assisted by the advice of Claudius Etruscus, who had been a minister of Nero. But a policy of this kind could not be permanent. The wars in Britain and on the Danube were costly, while the buildings which he undertook and the spectacles which he exhibited demanded immense sums. To increase the tribute and oppress the mass of the population was against the traditions of the empire, and especially opposed to the principles of Domitian. He was thus placed in the same circumstances which had driven Gaius and Nero into a systematic course of plundering the nobility. But other motives, along with these financial necessities, contributed to make the last days of Domitian a reign of terror for the aristocracy. His wife Domitia had borne him one's son, who had died in childhood, and without an heir Domitian did not feel secure. He saw in every distinguished man a possible successor, a possible assassin. His suspicions and fears were confirmed and increased by the rebellion of El Antonius Saturninus, probably early in 88 AD, the governor of Upper Germany. He was a man of noble family, and had accomplices in the senatorial ranks. He induced the two legions which were stationed in his headquarters, 11 Claudia and 21 Rapax, to proclaim him Imperator, and he relied for the success of his enterprise on the assistance of the free Germans beyond the Rhine, doubtless the Chatai. The revolt, however, was promptly and unexpectedly suppressed by El, A.P.S. Maximus Nürbinus, who arrived with the eighth legion and defeated the forces of Saturninus, who had not received the aid of his German allies, because the ice on the Rhine had suddenly thawed and prevented their crossing. It is not known for certain where Nürbinus and his legion came from, but it seems probable that he was the legatus of the legion stationed at Moghentiacum, and thus a subordinate of Saturninus, who was doubtless stationed at Vindinisa. The battle took place perhaps in the neighborhood of Basilia. The news of the revolt caused great consternation at Rome, and Domitian himself went forth to suppress the pretender, but heard on the march that Nürbinus had anticipated him. Domitian left nothing undone to discover the fellow conspirators of Saturninus, and Roman senators are said to have been subjected to horrible tortures in the investigations which followed. Many were put to death, and almost all the officers in the rebellious army were executed. From this time forth Domitian developed into a suspicious tyrant, somewhat like Tiberius in his later years. He hated and feared the aristocracy, and the aristocracy hated and feared him. His niece Julia, whom he had refused to marry, but whom he afterwards seduced from her husband, Flavius Sabinus, had exercised upon him a softening influence, and after her death in 89 A.D., he felt that he had no one whom he could trust. He still devoted his time to public business with unwearying diligence, but he lived solitary, inaccessible, and misanthropic. At a later period he made some provision for the succession to the Principate. He had two cousins, Flavius Sabinus, the husband of Julia, and Flavius Clemens, husband of Flavia Domitila. Domitian let it be understood that he destined the two infant sons of Clemens to be his successors. He changed their names to Vespation and Domitian, and entrusted their education to the learned Quintilian. Another cause which operated in converting Domitian into a tyrant was the continuance of that irritating and obstinate stoic opposition which we have seen at work under Nero and again under Vespation. In 93 A.D. a number of these worshippers of Cato fell under suspicion and were punished. Heranias Cenicio had composed a panagiric on Helvedius Priscus, who had perished under Vespation. He was accused of Meestas by the Deletor Metius Charus and was condemned to death. Thania, the widow of Priscus and daughter of Thracia, had supplied Heranias with the materials for this work. She was therefore banished and her property confiscated. The composition was publicly burned in the Comitium. El Junius Aralinas Rusticus, the ape of the Stoics, Stoicorum Simia, as an opponent called him, was condemned to death on a similar charge of having published laudations of Thracia and Priscus. The Emperor's wife Domitia had been suspected of an intrigue with Paris, a celebrated and popular actor. Domitian consequently divorced his wife and caused Paris to be stabbed in the street to the great grief of the populace. Many brought perfumes and flowers to his tomb. The younger Helvedius Priscus composed an atalane farce on the subject of Paris and Anoni, and he was accused of disguising under this form unfavorable criticisms on the Emperor. He was arrested in the Senate House and condemned to death. Other members of the same clique were sent into banishment, including Aria, the mother of Thania, Gratilla, the wife of Rusticus, and Junius Maricus, his brother. At the same time a decree of the Senate was passed by which philosophers, Mathematici, astrologers, and soothsayers, were banished from Italy just as in the reign of Vespasian. This decree affected, among others, the Stoic Epictetus and Dion, called Chrysostomus golden-mouthed, a native of Prusa whose interesting rhetorical essays are still extant. Domitian's suspicious hatred of the aristocracy, caused by his childlessness, and strengthened and increased by conspiracies and by the opposition of the party of Priscus, cooperated with the financial straits to which he was reduced, to bring about a repetition of the unjust executions and confiscations which had stained the last years of Nero. The system of dilation which Gaius, Nero, and Domitian had each in the opening years of his reign, sternly and honestly rejected, was called into requisition by Domitian as well as by the other two. Among the most prominent dilators were Catullus Messilinus and Metius Charus, M. Aquilius Regulus and Abel Orator who was regarded with jealousy by Pliny, and Massa Babius, who, having been proconsul of Betica, was accused of extortion by Pliny and Sinicio and was condemned. Perhaps the part which Sinicio played in the trial had something to do with his own condemnation shortly afterwards. Another prominent favorite at the court of Domitian was a man of low birth named Crispinus, a native of Egypt who, coming to Rome, at first dealt in saltfish, but was presently exalted to the rank of Praetorian Prefect. He affected the heirs and dress of a dandy, and seems to have been detested as an insolent upstart. Domitian knew that conspiracies were formed against him, and as he could not lay his finger on them, innocent victims often perished. His cousin Flavius Sabinus perished on suspicion of treason. The two whose death excited most indignation were Flavius Clemens and Epaphroditus. Clemens was his cousin, and father of the presumptive heirs of the empire. He and his wife Flavia Domitila had been converted to a foreign religion, and this was made a charge against them. He was put to death, and Domitila banished. Epaphroditus was the freedman who had helped Nero to commit suicide, and although twenty-eight years had passed since then, Domitian punished him for Maestas. Such examples of cruelty alarmed the emperor's household, and it was from this quarter where he felt himself safe, not from the Senate which he feared, that vengeance came. The Augusta, Domitia whom he had divorced on the suspicion of an intrigue with an actor, as already mentioned, he afterwards recalled, but she did not feel secure, and she organized a conspiracy along with the freedmen of the palace, Parthenius, Antelus, and Stefanus. The two praetorian prefects, Norbanus and Petronius Secundus, were privy to it, and the conspiracers fixed on M. Cosius Nerva as the successor of their victim. Stefanus, a man of great bodily strength, undertook to do the deed. Pretending to have hurt his left arm, he carried it for some days in a sling, and on the appointed day, September 18th, 96 A.D., hid a dagger in the cloths which bound it, obtaining an audience of the emperor to give information touching a conspiracy, he presented a document to Domitian, and as he was hastily reading it, drew the dagger and stabbed him in the loins. Domitian threw himself on the assassin, and called a page to bring him his sword and summon the attendants, but the sword which lay under a pillow was useless, for it had been tampered with by the precautions of the conspirators. As Domitian wrestled with Stefanus, the other conspirators rushed in and dispatched their victim. The attendants arrived too late to save their master, but in time to slay Stefanus. The senate rejoiced at the death of the tyrant whom it detested, and the senators hastened to the Curia to express their long concealed hatred without restraint. His statues and busts were torn down, and it was resolved to destroy everything that suggested his memory. A decree was passed that the name Domitian should everywhere be erased. The consequences of the hatred of the senate can be felt by us at the present day, for there remain extraordinarily few inscriptions dating from the reign of Domitian. A decent burial was not accorded to him, he was carried out on a common beer, such as was used by poor people. But his nurse Phyllis contrived to deposit his ashes in the Temple of the Genes Flavia, a supplicor for the Flavian dynasty which he had built, and placed them in the same urn in which reposed the ashes of his beloved niece, the Divine Julia. The soldiers did not share in the jubilation of the senate. They loved Domitian, and if they had had a capable leader they would have probably insisted by force on the consecration of their imperator. The populace neither rejoiced nor lamented, they had no reason to hate him, for he had been generous to them. But his haughty inaccessible manner hindered them from feeling personal affection for him. In his youth Domitian was noted for his beauty, but in later years he showed a tendency to corpulence, and became bald, his enemies called him Bald Nero. His eyes were large and languid, but the expression of his face was intense. The family resemblance to Vespasian and Titus comes out in his busts. He was not fond of physical exercise, but was a good archer. Though he gave luxurious banquets, he was moderate in eating. He has been accused of gross licentiousness, but such charges must be judged in relation to the practice of the times. There is no reason to suppose that he was either better or worse in this respect than his contemporaries of noble rank. He was an unusually strict defender of the national religion, and he protected morality from a religious if not from an ethical point of view. In this he followed the example of Augustus, who regarded religion as conducive to the welfare of the state, and his reign contrasts with the indifference of his predecessors. In 83 A.D., three Vestal Virgins were charged with unchastity and condemned. They were allowed to choose the mode of their death, and their seducers were banished. But sometime later the chief Vestal Cornelia was accused of a criminal intrigue with a knight named Seler, and was found guilty. Domitian, as Pontifex Maximus, revived in her case the ancient punishment, which was generally regarded as obsolete, and Cornelia, in spite of her protestations of innocence, was buried alive in the campus Scaleratus. It is worth noting that Pliny, in speaking of this case, feels less indignation at the cruelty of the sentence than at the circumstance that Domitian judged the case in his albin villa, and not in the Regia, the office of the Pontifex. Seler was scourged to death in the Commitium. In maintaining the national religion, Domitian tried to hinder the spread of Oriental cults. The Jews did not specifically suffer, although the tribute of two Drachmas to Jupiter of the capital was strictly exacted. There was a Jewish rising in Judea, 85-86 AD, which was easily put down. Some Christians suffered death for refusing to worship the Emperor's image, but there is no evidence of a general persecution. The tale of the martyrdom of Saint John the Evangelist is universally recognized to be a fable. It has been supposed that Flavius Clemens and Domitila, who are said to have been accused of impiety, were Christians, and this is not improbable. He encouraged, however, one Oriental cult, that of Isis, the Egyptian goddess, and built a splendid temple to her and Serapus, the Isium et Serpeum. In 88 AD he celebrated the Ludii Secularis, reckoning the hundred years from the celebration held by Augustus. If Domitian was severe as Pontifex Maximus, he was also severe as censor. He strictly enforced the Lex Scantinia against unnatural crimes, and the Lex Yulia against adultery. Many senators and knights were condemned by these laws, and his strictness increased the hatred with which he was regarded. He deprived women, who had been condemned under the Julian law, of the right of using a litter, lectica, or accepting legacies. He tried to suppress the licentiousness of the theatres and forbade pantomimes to appear in public, while he allowed them to hold performances in private houses. He put down the Oriental practice of mutilating boys in order to sell them as eunuchs, and endeavored to diminish the trade in eunuchs by lowering the prices. It devolved upon Domitian to restore the buildings which had been consumed by the fire in the reign of Titus. The temple of Jupiter Capitolinas had to be rebuilt once more, and it rose under his auspices in greater magnificence than ever. He also erected on the capital a temple to Jupiter Custos, in thanksgiving for his own rescue from the hands of the Vitalians. The temple of the Divine Vespatian and the Divine Titus was built at the western extremity of the Forum, between the Clivus Capitolinas and the Temple of Concord. Many Corinthian pillars of this small building still stand. Several temples were erected to Minerva, the goddess whom Domitian specially revered. For the purpose of games he built a stone stadium in the campus, and also an odium for musical performances. The former of these buildings accommodated thirty thousand, the latter ten thousand people. Domitian also completed the palace begun by Nero, but confined it to the limits of the Palatine. On all buildings, whether first built by him or only restored, Domitian inscribed his own name. Our records of Domitian are very scanty, and come almost entirely from prejudiced witnesses, so that it is difficult to get a clear and fair view of his acts and policy. On the one hand we have the flatteries of the poets who courted his favor, on the other the venomous invectives written by members of the senatorial party, like Pliny and Tacitus, after his death. Marshall and Statius generally speak of him as a God, and all that apportains to him as divine. Capitoline, the epithet of Jupiter, is applied to him. He is the Alsonian Jupiter, and Domitia the Roman Juno. To Tacitus he is a tyrant without a redeeming virtue, and so the aristocracy in general regarded him. His contemptuous treatment of the Senate, as far as it was represented in the Emperor's Concilium, is cleverly travesty by the satirist juvenile. The scene is placed in the end of 85 AD. The members of the Council, such is this true history, were suddenly summoned in haste to the Emperor's Alban citadel. They were, it seems, eleven in number, and in twice or thrice as many verses their crimes are succinctly traced for us with a pen of cynical sincerity. One after another passed before us, Pegasus the prefect, say rather the bailiff of the city, for what is Rome but the Emperor's farm, and the prefect of Rome but his mansiple. Fuscus, brave and voluptuous, soon to leave his limbs a prey to the Decian vultures. Crispus, a mild and genial greybeard, who has long owed his life to the meekness with which he has yielded to the current, and shrunk from the vain assertion of independence. The Glabrio's father and son, of whom the elder slunk through an inglorious existence in pusillanimous security, the younger was doomed to perish innocently, condemned to fight with beasts in the arena. The blind Catullus, deadliest of delators, with whom Domitian, as with a blind and aimless weapon, aimed at his destined victims. To these were added the sly Viento, the fat old sycophant. Montanus, crispiness, regulant with the perfumes of his native east, the vile spy Pompeus, who slit men's throats with a whisper, and rubrius, the perpetrator of some crime too bad it seems, to be specified even in that day of evil deeds and shameless scandals. Such were the men who now hurried in the darkness along the Appian Way, and met at midnight in the vestibule of the Imperial Villa, or the tyrant's fortress, which crowned the long hill of the Ascent to Alba. Presently they asked each other, what news? What the purport of their unexpected summons? What foes of Rome had broken the Prince's slumbers, the Chatai, or the Sycambrie, the Britons, or the Dacians? While they were yet waiting for admission, the menials of the palace entered, bearing aloft a huge torpet, a present to the Emperor, which they had the mortification of seeing introduced into his presence, while the doors were still shut against themselves. A humble fisherman of the Upper Coast had found the monster stranded on the beach, beneath the Fane of Venus at Ancona, and had hurried with his prize across the Appennanese, to receive a reward for so rare an offering to the Imperial Table. When at last the councillors were admitted, the question reserved for their deliberations was no other than this, whether the big fish should be cut in pieces, or served up whole on some enormous platter constructed in its honour. The cabinet was no doubt sensibly persuaded that the question allowed at least of no delay, and with due expressions of surprise and admiration, voted the dish, and set the potter's wheel in motion. CHAPTER XXII by John Bagnall Burie CHAPTER XXII Britain and Germany under the Flavians Dacian War Section I, a Greekola in Britain Under the Flavian emperors no important addition was made to the Roman Empire, such as had been made under Claudius by the conquest of Britain. But in two quarters the boundaries were pushed forward. The eastern boundary of Upper Germany advanced considerably into trans-Renane territory, and the province of Britain was enlarged by a further advance northward. The Legatus of Britain, Petronius Terpillianus, 62-64 AD, had been succeeded by Trebellius Maximus, 64-69 AD, and Vettius Bolanus, 69-70 AD. These governors seemed to have contented themselves with administering the province as they found it, without attempting to enlarge it. Bolanus seems to have founded forts against the natives. His successor, Petillius Serialus, who had commanded the Ninth Legion when it was nearly exterminated in the Great Revolt of the Isenne, and who had recently distinguished himself by the suppression of the rebellion of Sevilleus, was not satisfied with the inaction of his predecessors. He made war upon the Burganties, the most powerful of all the British tribes, whose name was sometimes used as synonymous with Britons. The Fourteenth Legion, which had been sent from Britain to his assistance in Germany, did not return to its old station, but Vespasian sent him second agitrix in its place. After many battles with the Burganties, whose territory extended from the Solway to the Wash, Serialus reduced part of their land under Roman sway, including the town of Lindum, Lincoln, where he established the second agitrix. This Legion was removed to Pannonia at the beginning of the Domitian's reign, but some tombstones found at Lincoln show that its station was there during the few intervening years. Thus, the result of the War of Serialus was that the northern boundary line of the province was no longer drawn from Glavum to Camillodunum, with an advance post at Deva in the west, but from Deva to Lindum. But south of this frontier, the western highlands, Wales, could not yet be considered part of the province. The subjugation of the tribes in this quarter devolved upon the two successors of Serialus, Sextus Julius Frantinus, whose name is well known as an authority on the art of war, and who was capable of applying his theory, reduced the Silorius in the south, while his successor, Neus Julius Agricola, 78-85 AD, conquered the Ordovises and occupied the island of Mona, which Suetonius Polinus had been compelled to abandon in the first year of his governorship. In the conquest of Mona he was, like Polinus, assisted by the skill of the Batavians in swimming. Agricola, whom Vespasian thus called to be governor of Britain, had already, like Serialus, served his time in that country in subordinate posts. He had served under Suetonius Polinus as military tribune, and again under Vettius Bolanus as legatus of the 20th Legion. On this occasion, 70 AD, he had the difficult task of restoring discipline among the troops, who had been demoralized by a quarrel between his predecessor Roses Calius and the governor Trebellius Maximus. He had then been appointed legatus proprietary of Aquitania, had been recalled to Rome to fill the consulship, and then sent to succeed frontinas in Britain. A governor of Britain might engage in one or both of two enterprises at this period. He might devote his attention either to intensive conquest, that is, the civilization and consolidation of the province as he founded, or to extensive conquest, that is, to carrying its boundaries further north by conquering new tribes. Agricola professed to do both, but really sacrificed the intensive conquest to the extensive. The confidence which the emperors reposed in him was shown by the unusually long period during which he was suffered to remain in his command. The second year, 79 AD, of Agricola's legateship, was spent in completing the reduction of the recently conquered tribes, probably in Wales, by building forts and making roads through woods and marshes. During the winter, the troops remained in their quarters, and Agricola occupied himself with the Romanization of the natives. In the third summer, 80 AD, he advanced against new tribes in the north, laying the land waste as far as an estuary called Tanaus. It has been thought that this unknown name may represent the north tine at Dunbar. The Britons did not attempt to oppose the legions, and they had time to establish some castella in which they remained during the winter. The following summer, 81 AD, was spent in completing the occupation of the land which had been traversed, and the army advanced as far as the estuaries of Clota and Bodetria, the Clyde and the Forth. The narrow strip of land between these friths was fortified and occupied by garrisons, and it seemed as if the enemy, who retreated into the northern highlands, had been removed to another island. In this expedition, Agricola had probably about 30,000 men with him, counting both legions and auxiliaries, and his operations were supported by a fleet, perhaps, on the east coast. At this time, the Britannic legions were reduced to three by the recall of the second adjutrix, whose removal left Linden without a garrison. A new station more northerly than Linden was probably established. It seemed certain that Agricola did not venture to push so far into the unknown regions of the north without securing the territory north of the Humber, and we may take it for granted that he occupied Eboracum, the chief town of the Brigantes, the modern York. This position took the place of Linden and was perhaps garrisoned by the ninth legion. In later times, Eboracum became the chief center in Britain. In the next year, Agricola sailed across the estuary of Clota to the western districts of Caledonia, probably Aron and Cantier. He had conceived the project of conquering Hibernia, which he thought might be best approached from this point. The conquest he imagined could be easily accomplished with one legion and a small number of auxiliaries, and he held that it would prove important to the complete subjection and pacification of Britain. For Hibernia occupied much the same relation to Britain as Britain itself occupied the Gaul. One of the chief reasons for occupying Britain was that as long as the Gauls saw a free land beyond the Channel, a land into which they could themselves flee for refuge, they were restless under Roman rule. In the same way, the site of free Hibernia had a disturbing effect on the spirits of enslaved Britannia. In addition to these considerations, a false geographical notion recommended the policy of including Hibernia in the empire. It was supposed that Hibernia lay between Britain and Spain and thus formed a natural connection between the western provinces of the empire. But Agricola could not carry out his project without additional forces. The three legions in Britain were little enough for the security of the province, extended as it was by his new acquisitions. He applied to submission for another legion, but the request was refused, and the enterprise and governor was obliged to abandon his project. Demission acted in accordance with the cautious precept of Augustus, not to undertake new conquests, and the project was never revived. Hibernia never became part of the empire. But if Agricola was not permitted to attack the island of the Scots, he was resolved to carry his arms into Caledonia. In his sixth year, 83 AD, in spite of the dissuasions of his officers, he penetrated into the land north of the estuary of Bodotria, aided by his fleet. The appearance of the Romans excited consternation and fury among the Caledonian folk. Agricola had divided his army into three divisions, and one of them consisting of the ninth legion, which was especially weak, suffered serious losses from a night attack by the native tribes. The quick arrival of Agricola and other divisions of the army prevented a disastrous defeat, and the affair resulted in a Roman victory. The Caledonians, under the chief Calgacus, utilized the ensuing winter in organizing a great army to resist the invaders in the following season. In 84 AD, Agricola took the field again, and a great battle was fought at an unknown place called the Grandpian Hill. Agricola's army probably numbered from 25 to 30,000 men. He placed his 8,000 auxiliary foot in the center and 3,000 horse on the wings. The legions were arranged in the rear in front of the rampart of their camp. The enemy, who far outnumbered the Romans, had drawn up part of their forces on the plain, the rest on the hill behind. The best plan for the Britons was to use their advantage in numbers by attacking the Romans in front and on the flanks at the same time, and this was now the movement which Agricola most feared. But Calgacus did not adopt that strategy at the beginning of the battle. In close quarters, the Britons, with their long, clumsy swords and short shields, were no match for the long pillum and short sword of the Romans. The Batavian and Tungrian cohorts beat the enemy back, and matters were not mended by the intervention of the war chariots, which could not move freely on the uneven ground and amid the dense ranks of the Caledonians. The cavalry of the enemy were also routed. The Britons, who were stationed on the hills behind, had hitherto taken no part in the fighting, but when they saw their companions worsted, they began to descend from the heights and make a movement to approach the Romans in the rear. Agricola had foreseen this and attached four ale or horse, which he retained in reserve to meet them. The Britons coming up in disorder were scattered, and their plan was turned against themselves, for the Roman cavalry rode on to attack the rear of the enemy's line. This decided the battle. It is said that 10,000 Caledonians fell and only 360 Romans. The year was too far advanced to undertake further operations. Agricola led his army into the maritime district of the Barresti, an unknown people, where he received hostages and gave directions to the prefect of the fleet to circumnavigate Britain. This undertaking was successfully accomplished and Roman ports sang of the captured Orkneys. Agricola retired into winter quarters, probably to Ebirakum. No Roman army ever again penetrated as far north as he. In the following year, 85 AD, Agricola was recalled. He received the triumphal ornaments and a laureate statue in recognition of what he had done, but this did not compensate him for the disappointment of not being able to complete the Northern conquests which he had begun. Yet he had really no reason to complain of the decision of demission. He had been allowed to remain in his post far longer than any previous legatus and to carry on expensive campaigns. Financial considerations alone may have been sufficient to influence demission in discontinuing the policy of aggression in Britain. The results of Agricola were certainly not an adequate return for the enormous cost. It must especially be remembered that at the moment of Agricola's recall, a most serious war was breaking out on the Danube against the formidable kingdom of the Dacians. We can readily believe that the cost of supporting two wars simultaneously in Britain and on the Danube was quite beyond the means of the Fiscus at the time. The enemies of demission, of course, set down Agricola's recall to the petty jealousy of the emperor. Agricola himself naturally felt sore about it, but the best justification of demission is that his two successors, Nerva and Trajan, abode by his decision and did not attempt to renew the designs of Agricola. The case of Agricola recalled by demission closely resembled that of Germanicus recalled by Tiberius. In both cases, the ambition of a general was sacrificed to the prudent policy of the Imperator, who saw that the outlay was not repaid by the result. In both cases, the Imperator was said by his adversaries to be actuated only by jealousy of a possible rival. Agricola has often received a higher place than rightly belongs to him in the history of Britain because he was fortunate enough to have a brilliant historian for his son-in-law. Tacitus married Agricola's daughter and wrote his biography. This work, concerning the life and character of Julius Agricola, gives an artistic but superficial account of Britain and a brief description of Agricola's campaigns, culminating in the battle of Mons Grapeus, which is described at length. The authors neglect of almost all topographical details, which should not interest him, but would interest us very deeply, detracts greatly from the historical value of the book. Tacitus says that from Agricola's countenance you would readily believe him good, you would gladly believe him great. This epigram suggests the truth. Agricola was in no sense a great man, but he was an officer of respectable ability and ambitious enough to grasp at glory when the chances were offered to him. His son-in-law and his contemporaries overrated what he had done. Ill-advised friends at Rome, doubtless sounded his praises too loudly and admission was not sorry when the time came to remove him from Britain. He refused the offer of a pro-consulate of Asia or Africa and lived in retirement until his death, which occurred a few years later. Some maliciously whispered that he was taken off by poison. The conquests he had made were only transient. The country he had occupied was immediately abandoned and after all his warfare he left to his successor nearly the same northern boundary line which had been established by Cerealis, from Deva to Lindum. Perhaps the chief part of Agricola's work that survived was the occupation of Eboracum, which now formed an advanced post in the east, somewhat as Deva in the west before the conquest of Cerealis. Eboracum now stood to Lindum in somewhat the relation in which Deva then stood to Glavum. But Agricola's contemporaries could not appreciate the importance of Eboracum and Tacitus passes it over in silence. Section two, the Lemus Germanicus. As there were some Germans on the left bank of the Rhine, so there were some Gauls on the right. The valley of the river Nyser, Nekar, had been cleared of the Germans who had possessed it and the Romans had permitted poor and adventurous Gauls to cross the Rhine and take position of the lands where they were constantly exposed to the incursions of the neighboring German tribes. These Gauls paid a tithe of the produce of their fields and hence the whole district was called the tithed lands. Agri Decumani or Decumates, but they were exempt from other burdens and no Roman garrison was quartered in the land, which thus was loosely included in the empire but was neither a province nor part of a province. The Flavian emperors placed this doubtful territory on a clearer footing. Vespasian built roads in it and it was probably he who protected it by an elaborate system of fortification. The eastern frontier was marked by a rampart of earth and a ditch in front of it constructed just as in a Roman camp. Behind the rampart were placed Castella at nine or 10 miles distance from one another. Between the Castella occur watchtowers. This line of defense stretched from Sei Opum, Miltenburg on the menace, in a dues southward direction to the neighborhood of Loriacum, Lorch. It can still be traced and the sites of many of the Castella have been identified. Behind this there was a second system of defense. From Vindanissa, the chief camp of Upper Germany, a road led northward to a place on the Nica which is now called Rotweil. This place was selected to be a center for the Trans-Reinan territory in the same sense in which Lugedunum and Camelodunum were centers in Gaul and Britain. Here, altars were set up for the worship of the Flavian house and the place was called Are Flavier. From here northwards, a number of Castella were constructed along the course of the river Nicae which was in itself a defense. As soon as the Nicae turns westward to join the Rhine, the line of forts leaves the river and continues in a northerly direction, passing over the Odenwald and reaching the Murnus at a point near the modern Vurt, northwest of Seilopum. This second line, connecting the Murnus and the Nicae, is known as the Necker-Mümling line because it cuts the valley of the Mümling stream. It is impossible to determine how much of this defensive system is due to Vespasian and how much to his son Domitian. The forts connected with this line from Lorriacum to Seilopum may be due to Domitian successors. The object of these defenses was probably not so much military as to give the people settled habits and prevent nomads entering the empire at will. But if the main credit for the enclosure of the Agri de Comatis is due to Vespasian, the occupation of the towness district north of the mine was probably the work of Domitian. This land was inhabited by the Matiazi, a tribe of the Cati, who gave their name to the Acoe Matiazi, the springs of Vesbadn. Drusus had tried to establish the Roman power in this region by founding the fort Arianum on Mount Towness and Germanicus had restored it. Since his time, desultory hostilities had continued with the Cati and at length, Domitian determined to take the decisive step of annexing the territory of Mount Towness to the province of Upper Germany and continuing the line of defense between Mönnis and Nyser so as to connect the Mönnis and the Rhine. His campaign against the Cati in 83 AD, which was so ridiculed by his enemies, was connected with his important undertaking. He was assisted by the skill of Sextus Frontinis whom we have already met as governor of Britain. From Wirt to Hanau, the course of the mine is northerly and at Grosskrotzenberg near Hanau, the earthen rampart of Domitian begins. It does not follow a straight course but takes advantage of the nature of the ground. Crossing the lawn near Ems, it reaches the Rhine at Rhinebrul, opposite the stream which forms a boundary between the provinces of Lower and Upper Germany. Forts occurred at intervals close to the rampart and were connected by a military road. Near most of these Castella have been found the remains of villas with bath arrangements meant for the use of officers. Thus, the lemes of Upper Germany was an earthen wall, reaching from that point on the Rhine which marks the northern extremity of the province all the way to Loriakum, except where, between the points of Grosskrotzenberg and Miltenberg, the Monus takes its place. It was protected all the way by Castella and watchtowers and between the Monus and Nyser was covered in the rear by a line of forts, not connected by a rampart, reaching from the Monus to Are Flavier on the Nyser. It is thought probable that Domitian also built the first great permanent bridge over the Rhine at Moguntiakum. The lemes Germanicus is only part of the gigantic scheme of defence of a line reaching from the mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Danube. These two rivers formed a natural defence which merely required the erection of forts on their banks. But where the line left the rivers in artificial defence, a wall of earth or stone took the place of the water. Thus, the lemes Germanicus was not complete without another line running from west to east and connecting its southern point at Loriakum with the Danube fortresses. This was the lemes reticus, forming part of the northern boundary of the province of Retia. It is not certain whether the Flavian emperors began its construction, but it certainly did not assume its final form until the reign of Hadrian or possibly even later. But it is so closely connected with the lemes Germanicus that it may be mentioned in this place. Beginning at Loriakum, it runs due east through Württemberg and Bavaria and reaches the Danube near Kelheim where the river Alsimona, Altmu, flows in. The Retian lemes is not like the Germanic, a rampart of earth. It is formed by a wall of stones on the top of which palisades were planted such as the soldiers used in their camps and with the usual ditch in front. It seems probable that this line was protected by an earth wall in the time of the Flavians, but that at a somewhat later period when the empire was threatened by German invaders, the Devil's Wall, Tifelsmauer, as it was called in the Middle Ages, was erected. Section three, Dacian and Suevian wars. Soon after his campaign on the Rhine, Domitian's attention was demanded by a more pressing and formidable danger on the Easter. The Dacians had invaded Moesia. The country of the Dacians was comprised between Theus and Pruth from the west to the east, the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube from north to south. Thus, Dacia corresponded to the modern kingdom of Romania, along with Sibinburgen and the Banat of Temesfa. Beyond the Dacians in the modern Moldavia and Bessarabia were the Bastarnei, a German people. Beyond them again were the Roxalani, a Sarmatian tribe. The land between the Danube and the Theus was held by the Yazegas. It was easy enough for the Romans to repel the occasional invasions of their trans-Danubian neighbors, as long as they were not united and organized under an able leader. They had been conquered more than once in the reign of Augustus, and in the last years of that emperor, 50,000 barbarians had been transported into Moesia and settled on Roman territory by Eleus Catus. The same experiment had, as we have seen, been repeated under Nero, when Tiberius Plautius Elenius settled 100,000 Dacians with their wives and children in the same province. The same governor of Moesia checked the threatened movement of the Sarmatians before it broke out and compelled a number of unknown or hostile princes to do obeisance before the Roman standards on Roman soil. But though Dacians and Sarmatians were thus kept in check under the Julian and Claudian emperors, the defense of the Danube was wholly insufficient, a fact which became clearly apparent during the Civil Wars after the death of Nero. The two legions quartered in Moesia were supposed to defend the whole line from Singidunum, Belgrade, to the mouth of the river, but the defense of the lower stream was left almost altogether to the Thracians, and as the Thracians were kinsfolk of the Dacians, their help was in itself a danger. When the legions marched to Italy to overthrow Vitellius, the province was invaded by Roxalani, then by Dacians, and then by Yazegas. The opportune arrival of Musianus with his Syrian legions repelled some of these incursions, but the governor of Moesia, Fontius Agrippa, perished in the invasion of the Yazegas. Vespasian did not actually increase the army of Illyricum, but he made some changes with a view to the defense of the Danube. He seems to have moved the two legions, which were stationed in Dalmatia, to Moesia, so that the governor of that province had four legions under his command. This reinforcement was the more necessary since Thrace had been made a province. For when the native princes of Thrace were superseded, the native army on which the defense of the Danube partly relied was dissolved. But the danger which the Roman government had especially to fear was a coalition of the Dacians with their German neighbors. A joint invasion of the empire by the Dacians and Suavians would have been very formidable. The Suavian peoples, consisting chiefly of the Marcomani and Cadi, were still in the same seats which they had held under King Marabodius in the modern Bohemia and Moravia. And since his death, they had been in a sort of dependent relationship to Rome. Thus they had sent auxiliaries to the army of Vespasian in the Civil War with Vitellius. But their fidelity could not be trusted very far and Vespasian thought it prudent to move the two Panonian legions forward to the Danube frontier. 13th Gemina was stationed at Vindabona, Vienna, and 15th Apollonaris, a little lower down, at Carnuntum. He also reorganized the Danube fleet, which was hence called the Flavian fleet. If things in Dacia had remained as they had been for a century past, these measures of defense might have been sufficient. But the aspect of affairs in those regions were changed by the sudden appearance of a leader of men endowed with military genius. This was Decibalus. His conspicuous talents had attracted the attention of King Doras, who generously resigned the government in favor of one who seemed likely to regenerate his country. The idea of Decibalus was to form a great military state which might hold its own as a power of first-rate importance on the northern frontier of the Roman Empire, somewhat as Parthia itself on the eastern. This had been attempted before by Burabistus in the time of Julius Caesar, who was making preparations for a great Dacian expedition when he was assassinated. Fortunately for Rome, Burabistus perished in a sedition about the same time, and after his death, the Dacian power collapsed and fell to pieces. Meribodus, the Marcoman, attempted to form a great German realm as has been related in an earlier chapter, and it too collapsed. Like Meribodus, Decibalus aimed at introducing into his country Greek and Roman civilization, and especially in order to cope on equal terms with Rome, he set himself to learn the Roman art of war. From deserters, he learned the Roman methods of entrenchment and the construction of military engines, how far reaching his designs were, and how wide his political view may be guessed from the fact that he entered into negotiations with Parthia, the natural enemy of Rome in the east. For a Roman war, he also relied on the help of the neighboring Sarmatians, the Yazeges on one side and the Roxalani on the other, but above all on the Dacian, Gethic, and Thracian population of the provinces south of the Danube. He hoped doubtless to conquer Moesia and possibly even Thrace, and thus erect a great Dacian kingdom of homogeneous population, reaching from the Carpathians to the boundary of Asia. Dacia at this time was to the province south of the Danube what Britain before the conquest had been to the subject Celts of Gaul, a refuge and an attraction for all restless spirits. At length when he had organized a well-disciplined army, the Dacian king descended from the Istor and dealt his first blow, 85 A.D. The Legatus of Moesia, Opius Sabines, opposed him with insufficient forces and was slain. Fortresses were seized by Decibalus and the land herried. Rome was threatened by the loss of the province. When the news of the disaster reached Rome, Domitian entrusted Cornelius Fuscus, the Praetorian prefect, with the conduct of the war and himself repaired to the scene of the action. The Pannonian legions were summoned in haste and the Marcomani promised to bring aid. It seems that the Dacians had made some overtures for peace which were rejected. And Decibalus then insolently told the Romans that he would grant them peace at the price of two asses for every soldier's head. Fuscus drove the enemy out of Moesia and then, throwing a bridge of boats across the Danube, boldly penetrated into Dacia. But the Marcomaniic Confederates did not come with the sucker which they had promised and the Roman forces suffered a terrible defeat, perhaps owing to the rash confidence of their general in an unknown country. He was himself, like Sabines, slain on the field of battle. The Romans, with difficulty, found their way back, having left in the hands of the enemy a large number of captives and booty, including war engines and an eagle of one of the legions, 86 AD. But the next general, Julianus, avenged his predecessor. He invaded Dacia and gained a great victory at Tapei. The slaughter of the barbarians was immense and Vizinas, the chief who held second rank after Decibalus, only escaped by hiding himself among the dead. Julianus followed up his victory by marching upon Sarmisigathusa, Vahili, the chief town of Dacia. But some unknown circumstance hindered him from attacking it, probably a message from the emperor who had, in the meantime, determined to make peace. According to an incredible story, however, Julian was driven back from the Dacian capital by a stratagem of the Wiley king. A large number of trees near the city were cut down so that the trunks were not higher than a man's stature. Arms were attached to them and Julian, imagining that he was opposed by an immense army, hastily retreated. What disposed Demission to treat with the Dacians was a defeat which the Romans had experienced in another quarter. While Julian was operating in Dacia, the emperor himself had proceeded to Carnundum and taken the field against the Marcomani and Cadi who had tried to play the Romans' false. They sent two embassies to Demission to excuse their conduct in failing to send help against the Dacians, but he, regarding them as rebels rather than foes, put to death the second set of ambassadors. This infuriated the Suhevians and the Pannonic army under the emperor suffered a defeat. Accordingly, when Decibalus sent an embassy to Moesia headed by a noble dacian named Degas, Demission accepted his submission and placed a diadem on the head of Degas. As the representative of Decibalus, in token that Dacia was dependent on the empire and Roman poets could sing that the victorious shade of Fuscus might now haunt the vassal grove in which he had been buried. On the other hand, the emperor sent to Decibalus workmen and engineers and gifts of money which the Romans, dissatisfied with their prints, professed to regard as a shameful tribute. It was really a timely concession which involved no manner of humiliation for Rome. A tributary relation of Rome to Decibalus was out of the question after the victory of Julianus and of all emperors, the proud Demission was least likely to assume such a humiliating position. After his return to Rome, Demission celebrated a splendid triumph, 89 A.D. A great triumphal arc was erected near the temple of Fortuna Radux and in the forum, a colossal equestrian bronze statue of the emperors set up. The city was filled with arches and statues in his honor. The nobility of Rome were entertained at a great banquet and the provinces were forced to send contributions under the name of Arum Coronarium to defray the celebrations in the city. Demission did not officially assume the title Decicus, though flatterers often gave it to him. An important administrative change was introduced in Moesia as a result of the Decian War. The province was divided into two smaller provinces, Upper and Lower Moesia, each under a legatus with two legions at his disposal. Meanwhile, hostilities were continued with the Suevic nations and their Sarmatian allies, the Yazegas. The Romans suffered severe reverses, not only were they defeated on their own ground in Pannonia, but a whole legion was annihilated. In May, 92 A.D., the emperor again repaired to the scene of the war and remained there eight months. Successes seemed to have been gained by the Romans for demission sent to the Senate dispatches rived in Laurel, according to the practice of victorious generals, and on his return in January 93 A.D., he celebrated an ovation over the Sarmatians. This war, in which the Eastern Sarmatians beyond the Lower Danube were involved, as well as the Yazegas, was called the Suevian and Sarmatian War, and it was protracted into the reign of Domitian successor, Nerva. On the other hand, the peace with Dacia was preserved for 10 years, and during that period Decibalus had time to mature his plans and prepare his country for a struggle with a greater adversary than either Julian or Domitian. End of Chapter 22.