Beacon Lights of History Volume Iii Part 11

Women support the bar; they love the law, And raise litigious questions for a straw.

Nay, more, they fence! who has not marked their oil, Their purple rigs, for this preposterous toil!

A woman stops at nothing; when she wears Rich emeralds round her neck, and in her ears Pearls of enormous size,--these justify Her faults, and make all lawful in her eye.

More shame to Rome! in every street are found The essenced Lypanti, with roses crowned; The gay Miletan and the Tarentine, Lewd, petulant, and reeling ripe with wine!"

In the sixth satire of Juvenal is found the most severe delineation of woman that ever mortal penned. Doubtless he is libellous and extravagant, for only infamous women can stoop to such arts and degradations as would seem to have been common in his time. But with all his probable exaggeration, we are forced to feel that but few women, even in the highest cla.s.s, except those converted to Christianity, showed the virtues of a Lucretia, a Volumnia, a Cornelia, or an Octavia.

The lofty virtues of a Perpetua, a Felicitas, an Agnes, a Paula, a Blessilla, a Fabiola, would have adorned any civilization; but the great ma.s.s were, what they were in Greece even in the days of Pericles, what they have ever been under the influence of Paganism, what they ever will be without Christianity to guide them,--victims or slaves of man, revenging themselves by squandering his wealth, stealing his secrets, betraying his interests, and deserting his home.

Another essential but demoralizing feature of Roman society was to be found in the games and festivals and gladiatorial shows, which accustomed the people to unnatural excitement and familiarity with cruelty and suffering. They made all ordinary pleasures insipid; they ended in making homicide an inst.i.tution. The butcheries of the amphitheatre exerted a fascination which diverted the mind from literature, art, and the enjoyments of domestic life. Very early they were the favorite sport of the Romans. Marcus and Decimus Brutus employed gladiators in celebrating the obsequies of their fathers, nearly three centuries before Christ. "The wealth and ingenuity of the aristocracy were taxed to the utmost to content the populace and provide food for the indiscriminate slaughter of the circus, where brute fought with brute, and man again with man, or where the skill and weapons of the latter were matched against the strength and ferocity of the first."

Pompey let loose six hundred lions in the arena in one day; Augustus delighted the people with four hundred and twenty panthers. The games of Trajan lasted one hundred and twenty days, when ten thousand gladiators fought, and ten thousand beasts were slain. t.i.tus slaughtered five thousand animals at a time; twenty elephants contended, according to Pliny, against a band of six hundred captives. Probus reserved six hundred gladiators for one of his festivals, and slaughtered on another two hundred lions, twenty leopards, and three hundred bears; Gordian let loose three hundred African hyenas and ten Indian tigers in the arena.

Every corner of the earth was ransacked for these wild animals, which were so highly valued that in the time of Theodosius it was forbidden by law to destroy a Getulian lion. No one can contemplate the statue of the Dying Gladiator which now ornaments the capitol at Rome, without emotions of pity and admiration. If a marble statue can thus move us, what was it to see the Christian gladiators contending with the fierce lions of Africa! "The Christians to the lions!" was the cry of the brutal populace. What a sight was the old amphitheatre of t.i.tus, five hundred and sixty feet long and four hundred and seventy feet wide, built on eighty arches and rising one hundred and forty feet into the air, with its four successive orders of architecture, and enclosing its eighty thousand seated spectators, arranged according to rank, from the Emperor to the lowest of the populace, all seated on marble benches covered with cushions, and protected from the sun and rain by ample canopies! What an excitement, when men strove not with wild beasts alone, but with one another; and when all that human skill and strength, increased by elaborate treatment, and taxed to the uttermost, were put forth in needless slaughter, until the thirsty soil was wet and saturated with human gore! Familiarity with such sights must have hardened the heart and rendered the mind insensible to refined pleasures. What theatres are to the French, what bull-fights are to the Spaniards, what horse-races are to the English, these gladiatorial shows were to the ancient Romans. The ruins of hundreds of amphitheatres attest the universality of the custom, not in Rome alone, but in the provinces.

Probably no people abandoned themselves to pleasures more universally than the Romans, after war had ceased to be their master pa.s.sion. All cla.s.ses alike pursued them with restless eagerness. Amus.e.m.e.nts were the fashion and the business of life. At the theatre, at the great gladiatorial shows, at the chariot races, emperors and senators and generals were always present in conspicuous and reserved seats of honor; behind them were the patricians, and then the ordinary citizens, and in the rear of these the people fed at the public expense. The Circus Maximus, the Theatre of Pompey, the Amphitheatre of t.i.tus, would collectively accommodate over four hundred thousand spectators. We may presume that over five hundred thousand persons were in the habit of constant attendance on these demoralizing sports; and the fashion spread throughout all the great cities of the empire, so that there was scarcely a city of twenty thousand inhabitants which had not its theatres, amphitheatres, or circus. And when we remember the heavy bets on favorite horses, and the universal pa.s.sion for gambling in every shape, we can form some idea of the effect of these amus.e.m.e.nts on the common mind,--destroying the taste for home pleasures, and for all that was intellectual and simple.

What are we to think of a state of society where all cla.s.ses had continual leisure for these sports! Habits of industry were destroyed, and all respect for employments that required labor. The rich were supported by contributions from the provinces, since they were the great proprietors of conquered lands; the poor had no solicitude for a living, since they were supported at the public expense. All therefore gave themselves up to pleasure. Even the baths, designed for sanatory purposes, became places of resort and idleness, and ultimately of intrigue and vice. In the time of Julius Caesar we find no less a personage than the mother of Augustus making use of the public establishments; and in process of time the Emperors themselves bathed in public with the meanest of their subjects. The baths in the time of Alexander Severus were not only kept open from sunrise to sunset, but even during the whole night. The luxurious cla.s.ses almost lived in the baths. Commodus took his meals in the bath. Gordian bathed seven times in the day, and Gallienus as often. They bathed before they took their meals, and after meals to provoke a new appet.i.te; they did not content themselves with a single bath, but went through a course of baths in succession, in which the agency of air as well as of water was applied; and the bathers were attended by an army of slaves given over to every sort of roguery and theft. Nor were water and air baths alone used; the people made use of scented oils to anoint their persons, and perfumed the water itself with the most precious essences. Bodily health and cleanliness were only secondary considerations; voluptuous pleasure was the main object. The ruins of the baths of t.i.tus, Caracalla, and Diocletian in Rome show that they were decorated with prodigal magnificence, and with everything that could excite the pa.s.sions,--pictures, statues, ornaments, and mirrors. The baths were scenes of orgies consecrated to Bacchus, and the frescos on the excavated baths of Pompeii still raise a blush on the face of every spectator who visits them. I speak not of the elaborate ornaments, the Numidian marbles, the precious stones, the exquisite sculptures that formed part of the decorations of the Roman baths, but of the demoralizing pleasures with which they were connected, and which they tended to promote. The baths ultimately became, according to the ancient writers, places of excessive and degrading debauchery.

"Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra."

If it were possible to allude to an evil more revolting than the sports of the amphitheatre and circus, or the extravagant luxuries of the table, I would say that the universal abandonment to money-making, for the enjoyment of the fact.i.tious pleasures it purchased, was even still more melancholy, since it struck deeper into the foundations which supported society. The leading spring of life was money. Boys were bred from early youth to all the mysteries of unscrupulous gains. Usury was practised to such an incredible extent that the interest on loans in some instances equalled, in a few months, the whole capital; this was the more aristocratic mode of making money, which not even senators disdained. The pages of the poets show how profoundly money was prized, and how miserable were people without it. Rich old bachelors, without heirs, were held in the supremest honor. Money was the first object in all matrimonial alliances; and provided that women were only wealthy, neither bridegroom nor parent was fastidious as to age, or deformity, or meanness of family, or vulgarity of person. The needy descendants of the old patricians yoked themselves with fortunate plebeians, and the blooming maidens of a comfortable obscurity sold themselves, without shame or reluctance, to the bloated sensualists who could give them what they supremely valued,--chariots and diamonds. The giddy women in love with ornaments and dress, and the G.o.dless men seeking what they should eat, could only be satisfied with what purchased their pleasures. The haughtiest aristocracy ever known on earth, tracing their lineage to the times of Cato and boasting of their descent from the Scipios and the Pompeys, accustomed themselves at last to regard money as the only test of their own social position. The great Augustine found himself utterly neglected at Rome because of his poverty,--being dependent on his pupils, and they being mean enough to run away without paying him.

Literature languished and died, since it brought neither honor nor emolument. No dignitary was respected for his office, only for his gains; nor was any office prized which did not bring rich emoluments.

Corruption was so universal that an official in an important post was sure of making a fortune in a short time. With such an idolatry of money, all trades and professions which were not favorable to its acc.u.mulation fell into disrepute, while those who administered to the pleasures of a rich man were held in honor. Cooks, buffoons, and dancers received the consideration which artists and philosophers enjoyed at Athens in the days of Pericles. But artists and scholars were very few indeed in the more degenerate days of the empire; nor would they have had influence. The wit of a Petronius, the ridicule of a Martial, the bitter sarcasm of a Juvenal were lost on a people abandoned to frivolous gossip and demoralizing excesses. The haughty scorn with which a sensual beauty, living on the smiles and purse of a fortunate glutton, would pa.s.s in her gilded chariot some of the impoverished descendants of the great Camillus might have provoked a smile, had any one been found, even a neglected poet, to give them countenance and sympathy. But, alas!

everybody worshipped at the shrine of Mammon; everybody was valued for what he _had_, rather than for what he _was_; and life was prized, not for those pleasures which are cheap and free as heaven, not for quiet tastes and rich affections and generous sympathies,--the glorious cert.i.tudes of love, esteem, and friendship, which, "be they what they may, are yet the fountain-life of all our day,"--but for the gratification of depraved and expensive tastes, of those short-lived enjoyments which ended with the decay of appet.i.te and the _ennui_ of realized expectation,--all of the earth, earthy; making a wreck of the divine image which was made for G.o.d and heaven, preparing the way for a most fearful retribution, and producing on contemplative minds a sadness allied with despair, driving them to caves and solitudes, and making death the relief from sorrow.

The fourteenth satire of Juvenal is directed mainly to the universal pa.s.sion for gain and the demoralizing vices it brings in its train, which made Rome a Vanity Fair and even a Pandemonium.

The old Greek philosophers gloried in their poverty; but poverty was the greatest reproach to a Roman. "In exact proportion to the sum of money a man keeps in his chest," says Juvenal, "is the credit given to his oath.

And the first question ever asked of a man is in reference to his income, rather than his character. How many slaves does he keep; how many acres does he own; what dishes are his table spread with?--these are the universal inquiries. Poverty, bitter though it be, has no sharper sting than this,--that it makes men ridiculous. Who was ever allowed at Borne to become a son-in-law, if his estate was inferior?

What poor man's name appears in any will?"

And with this reproach of poverty there were no means to escape from it.

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

Such was imperial Rome, in all the internal relations of life, and amid all the trophies and praises which resulted from universal conquest,--a sad, gloomy, dismal picture, which fills us with disgust as well as melancholy. If any one deems it an exaggeration, he has only to read Saint Paul's first chapter in his epistle to the Romans. I cannot understand the enthusiasm of Gibbon for such a people, or for such an empire,--a grinding and resistless imperial despotism, a sensual and proud aristocracy, a debased and ignorant populace, enormously disproportionate conditions of fortune, slavery flourishing to a state unprecedented in the world's history, women the victims and the toys of men, lax sentiments of public and private morality, a whole people given over to demoralizing sports and spectacles, pleasure the master pa.s.sion of the people, money the mainspring of society, a universal indulgence in all the vices which lead to violence and prepare the way for the total eclipse of the glory of man. Of what value was the cultivation of Nature, or a splendid material civilization, or great armies, or an unrivalled jurisprudence, or the triumph of energy and skill, when the moral health was completely undermined? A world therefore as fair and glorious as our own must needs crumble away. There were no powerful conservative forces; the poison had descended to the extremities of the social system. A corrupt body must die when vitality has fled. The soul was gone; principle, patriotism, virtue, had all pa.s.sed away. The barbarians were advancing to conquer and desolate; there was no power to resist them but enervated and timid legions, with the acc.u.mulated vices of all the nations of the earth, which they had been learning for four hundred years. Society must needs resolve itself into its original elements when men would not make sacrifices, and so few belonged to their country. The machine was sure to break up at the first great shock. No State could stand with such an acc.u.mulation of wrongs, with such complicated and fatal diseases eating out the vitals of the empire. No form of civilization, however brilliant and lauded, could arrest decay and ruin when public and private virtue had fled. The house was built upon the sand.

The army might rally under able generals, in view of the approaching catastrophe; philosophy might console the days of a few indignant citizens; good Emperors might attempt to raise barriers against corruption,--still, nothing, according to natural laws, could save the empire. Even Christianity could not arrest the ruin. It had converted thousands, and had sowed the seeds of future and better civilizations.

It was sent, however, not to save a decayed and demoralized empire, but the world itself. Not until the Germanic barbarians, with their n.o.bler elements of character, had taken possession of the seats of the old civilization, were the real triumphs of Christianity seen. Had the Roman empire continued longer, Christianity might have become still more corrupted; in the prevailing degeneracy it certainly could not save what was not worth preserving. The strong grasp which Rome had laid upon the splendors of all the ancient Pagan Civilizations was to be relaxed.

Antiquity had lived out its life. The empire of the Caesars was doomed.

Retributive justice must march on in its majestic course. The empire had accomplished its mission; the time came for it to die. The Sibylline oracle must needs be fulfilled: "O haughty Rome, the divine chastis.e.m.e.nt shall come upon thee; fire shall consume thee; thy wealth shall perish; foxes and wolves shall dwell among thy ruins: and then what land that thou hast enslaved shall be thy ally, and which of thy G.o.ds shall save thee? For there shall be confusion over the face of the whole earth, and the fall of cities shall come."

AUTHORITIES.

Mr. Merivale has written fully on the condition of the empire. Gibbon has occasional paragraphs which show the condition of Roman society.

Lyman's Life of the Emperors should be read, and also DeQuincey's Lives of the Caesars. See also Niebuhr, Arnold, Mommsen, and Curtius, though these writers have chiefly confined themselves to republican Rome. But if one would get the truest and most vivid description, he must read the Roman poets, especially Juvenal and Martial. The work of Petronius is too indecent to be read. Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus gives us some striking pictures of the later Romans. Suetonius, in his lives of the Caesars, furnishes many facts. Becker's Gallus is a fine description of Roman habits and customs. Lucian does not describe Roman manners, but he aims his sarcasm at the hollowness of Roman life, as do the great satirists generally. These can all be had in translations.