Early European History Part 40

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARCUS AURELIUS IN HIS TRIUMPHAL CAR (Palace of the Conservatori, Rome)

A panel from an arch erected by the emperor.]

69. THE PROVINCES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

THE STANDING ARMY

The Roman Empire, at its widest extent in the second century, included forty-three provinces. They were protected against Germans, Parthians and other foes by twenty-five legions, numbering with the auxiliary forces, about three hundred thousand men. This standing army was one of Rome's most important agencies for the spread of her civilization over barbarian lands. Its membership was drawn largely from the border provinces, often from the very countries where the soldiers' camps were fixed. Though the army became less and less Roman in blood, it always kept in character and spirit the best traditions of Rome. The long intervals of peace were not pa.s.sed by the soldiers in idleness. They built the great highways that penetrated every region of the empire, spanned the streams with bridges, raised dikes and aqueducts, and taught the border races the arts of civilization. It was due, finally, to the labors of the legionaries, that the most exposed parts of the frontiers were provided with an extensive system of walls and ramparts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PANTHEON The original building was the work of Agrippa, a minister of Augustus. The temple was reconstructed by Hadrian who left the Greek portico unchanged but added the rotunda and the dome. This great dome, the largest in the world, is made of solid concrete. During the Middle Ages, the Pantheon was converted into a church. It is now the burial place of the kings of Italy.]

THE ROMAN ROADS

The Roman system of roads received its great extension during the imperial age. The princ.i.p.al trunk lines began at the gates of Rome and radiated thence to every province. Along these highways sped the couriers of the Caesars, carrying dispatches and making, by means of relays of horses, as much as one hundred and fifty miles a day. The roads resounded to the tramp of the legionaries pa.s.sing to their stations on the distant frontier. Travelers by foot, horseback, or litter journeyed on them from land to land, employing maps which described routes and distances. Traders used them for the transport of merchandise. Roman roads, in short, were the railways of antiquity. [11]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TOMB OF HADRIAN The building was formerly topped by another of smaller size which bore a statue of the emperor. In medieval times this stately tomb was converted into a castle. It is now used as a museum. The bridge across the Tiber was built by Hadrian.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, ROMAN BRITAIN SHOWING CHIEF ROMAN ROADS]

THE PAX ROMANA

In her roads and fortifications, in the living rampart of her legions, Rome long found security. Except for the districts conquered by Trajan but abandoned by Hadrian, [12] the empire during this period did not lose a province. For more than two hundred years, throughout an area as large as the United States, the civilized world rested under what an ancient writer calls "the immense majesty of the Roman peace." [13]

EXTENSION OF ROMAN CITIZENSHIP

The grant of Roman citizenship to all Italians after the Social War [14]

only increased for a time the contrast between Italy and the provinces.

But even before the fall of the republic Caesar's legislation had begun the work of uniting the Roman and the provincial. [15] More and more the emperors followed in his footsteps. The extension of Roman citizenship was a gradual process covering two centuries. It was left for the emperor Caracalla, early in the third century, to take the final step. In 212 A.D.

he issued an edict which bestowed citizenship on all freeborn inhabitants of the empire. This famous edict completed the work, begun so many centuries before, of Romanizing the ancient world.

PRIVILEGES OF ROMAN CITIZENS

The grant of citizenship, though it increased the burden of taxation, brought no slight advantage to those who possessed it. A Roman citizen could not be maltreated with impunity or punished without a legal trial before Roman courts. If accused in a capital case, he could always protect himself against an unjust decision by an "appeal to Caesar", that is, to the emperor at Rome. St. Paul did this on one occasion when on trial for his life. [16] Wherever he lived, a Roman citizen enjoyed, both for his person and his property, the protection of Roman law.

70. THE ROMAN LAW AND THE LATIN LANGUAGE

IMPROVEMENT OF ROMAN LAW

The Romans were the most legal-minded people of antiquity. It was their mission to give laws to the world. Almost at the beginning of the republic they framed the code of the Twelve Tables, [17] which long remained the basis of their jurisprudence. This code, however, was so harsh, technical, and brief that it could not meet the needs of a progressive state. The Romans gradually improved their legal system, especially after they began to rule over conquered nations. The disputes which arose between citizens and subjects were decided by the praetors or provincial governors in accordance with what seemed to them to be principles of justice and equity. These principles gradually found a place in Roman law, together with many rules and observances of foreign peoples. Roman law in this way tended to take over and absorb all that was best in ancient jurisprudence.

CHARACTER OF ROMAN LAW

Thus, as the extension of the citizenship carried the principles and practice of Roman law to every quarter of the empire, the spirit of that law underwent an entire change. It became exact, impartial, liberal, humane. It limited the use of torture to force confession from persons accused of crime. It protected the child against a father's tyranny. It provided that a master who killed a slave should be punished as a murderer, and even taught that all men are originally free by the law of nature and therefore that slavery is contrary to natural right. Justice it defined as "the steady and abiding purpose to give every man that which is his own." [18] Roman law, which began as the rude code of a primitive people, ended as the most refined and admirable system of jurisprudence ever framed by man. This law, as we shall see later, has pa.s.sed from ancient Rome to modern Europe. [19]

LATIN IN ITALY

The conquest by Latin of the languages of the world is almost as interesting and important a story as the conquest by Rome of the nations of the world. At the beginning of Latin in Roman history Latin was the speech of only the Italy people of Latium. Beyond the limits of Latium Latin came into contact with the many different languages spoken in early Italy. Some of them, such as Greek and Etruscan, soon disappeared from Italy after Roman expansion, but those used by native Italian peoples showed more power of resistance. It was not until the last century B.C.

that Latin was thoroughly established in the central and southern parts of the peninsula. After the Social War the Italian peoples became citizens of Rome, and with Roman citizenship went the use of the Latin tongue.

LATIN IN THE WESTERN PROVINCES

The Romans carried their language to the barbarian peoples of the West, as they had carried it to Italy. Their missionaries were colonists, merchants, soldiers, and public officials. The Latin spoken by them was eagerly taken up by the rude, unlettered natives, who tried to make themselves as Roman as possible in dress, customs, and speech. This provincial Latin was not simply the language of the upper cla.s.ses; the common people themselves used it freely, as we know from thousands of inscriptions found in western and central Europe. In the countries which now make up Spain, France, Switzerland, southern Austria, England, and North Africa, the old national tongues were abandoned for the Latin of Rome.

ROMANCE LANGUAGES

The decline of the Roman Empire did not bring about the downfall of the Latin language in the West. It became the basis of the so-called Romance languages--French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Rumanian--which arose in the Middle Ages out of the spoken Latin of the common people. Even our English language, which comes to us from the speech of the Germanic invaders of Britain, contains so many words of Latin origin that we can scarcely utter a sentence without using some of them. The rule of Rome has pa.s.sed away; the language of Rome still remains to enrich the intellectual life of mankind.

71. THE MUNIc.i.p.aLITIES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

PREVALENCE OF CITY LIFE

The world under Roman rule was a world of cities. Some had earlier been native settlements, such as those in Gaul before the Roman conquest.

Others were the splendid h.e.l.lenistic cities in the East. [20] Many more were of Roman origin, arising from the colonies and fortified camps in which citizens and soldiers had settled. [21] Where Rome did not find cities, she created them.

SOME IMPORTANT CITIES

Not only were the cities numerous, but many of them, even when judged by modern standards, reached great size. Rome was the largest, her population being estimated at from one to two millions. Alexandria came next with more than half a million people. Syracuse was the third metropolis of the empire. Italy contained such important towns as Verona, Milan, and Ravenna. In Gaul were Ma.r.s.eilles, Nimes, Bordeaux, Lyons--all cities with a continuous existence to the present day. In Britain York and London were seats of commerce, Chester and Lincoln were military colonies, and Bath was celebrated then, as now, for its medicinal waters. Carthage and Corinth had risen in new splendor from their ashes. Athens was still the home of Greek art and Greek culture. Asia included such ancient and important centers as Pergamum, Smyrna, Ephesus, Rhodes, and Antioch. The student who reads in his New Testament the _Acts of the Apostles_ will get a vivid impression of some of these great capitals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROMAN BATHS, AT BATH, ENGLAND Bath, the ancient Aquae Sulis, was famous in Roman times for its hot springs. Here are very interesting remains, including a large pool, eighty-three by forty feet in size, and lined at the bottom with the Roman lead, besides smaller bathing chambers and portions of the ancient pipes and conduits. The building and statues are modern restorations.]

APPEARANCE OF THE CITIES

Every munic.i.p.ality was a Rome in miniature. It had its forum and senate- house, its temples, theaters, and baths, its circus for racing, and its amphitheater for gladiatorial combats. Most of the munic.i.p.alities enjoyed an abundant supply of water, and some had good sewer systems. The larger towns had well-paved, though narrow, streets. Pompeii, a small place of scarcely thirty thousand inhabitants, still exists to give us an idea of the appearance of one of these ancient cities. And what we find at Pompeii was repeated on a more splendid scale in hundreds of places from the Danube to the Nile, from Britain to Arabia.

CITY GOVERNMENT

The munic.i.p.alities of Roman origin copied the government of Rome itself.

[22] Each city had a council, or senate, and a popular a.s.sembly which chose the magistrates. These officials were generally rich men; they received no salary, and in fact had to pay a large sum on entering office.

Local politics excited the keenest interest. Many of the inscriptions found on the walls of Pompeii are election placards recommending particular candidates for office. Women sometimes took part in political contests. Distributions of grain, oil, and money were made to needy citizens, in imitation of the bad Roman practice. There were public banquets, imposing festivals, wild-beast hunts, and b.l.o.o.d.y contests of gladiators, like those at Rome.

SURVIVAL OF THE ROMAN MUNIc.i.p.aL SYSTEM

The busy, throbbing life in these countless centers of the Roman world has long since been stilled. The cities themselves, in many instances, have utterly disappeared. Yet the forms of munic.i.p.al government, together with the Roman idea of a free, self-governing city, never wholly died out. Some of the most important cities which flourished in southern and western Europe during the later Middle Ages preserved clear traces of their ancient Roman origin.

72. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN THE FIRST AND SECOND CENTURIES

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE

The first two centuries of our era formed the golden age of Roman commerce. The emperors fostered it in many ways. Augustus and his successors kept the Mediterranean free from pirates, built lighthouses and improved harbors, policed the highways, and made travel by land both speedy and safe. An imperial currency [23] replaced the various national coinages with their limited circulation. The vexatious import and export duties, levied by different countries and cities on foreign produce, were swept away. Free trade flourished between the cities and provinces of the Roman world.

PRINc.i.p.aL TRADE ROUTES

Roman commerce followed, in general, the routes which Phoenicians had discovered centuries before. After the annexation of Gaul the rivers of that country became channels of trade between western Europe and Italy.

The conquest of the districts north and south of the Danube opened up an important route between central Europe and the Mediterranean. Imports from the far eastern countries came by caravan through Asia to ports on the Black Sea. The water routes led by way of the Persian Gulf to the great Syrian cities of Antioch and Palmyra and, by way of the Red Sea, to Alexandria on the Nile. From these thriving commercial centers products were shipped to every region of the empire. [24]