History Of Ancient Civilization Part 24

CHAPTER XXIV

THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT

THE TWELVE CaeSARS

=The Emperor.=--In the new regime absolute authority was lodged in a single man; he was called the emperor (imperator--the commander). In himself alone he exercised all those functions which the ancient magistrates distributed among themselves: he presided over the Senate; he levied and commanded all the armies; he drew up the lists of senators, knights, and people; he levied taxes; he was supreme judge; he was pontifex maximus; he had the power of the tribunes. And to indicate that this authority made him a superhuman being, it was decreed that he should bear a religious surname: Augustus (the venerable).

The empire was not established by a radical revolution. The name of the republic was not suppressed and for more than three centuries the standards of the soldiers continued to bear the initials S.P.Q.R.

(senate and people of Rome). The emperor's power was granted to him for life instead of for one year, as with the old magistrates. The emperor was the only and lifelong magistrate of the republic. In him the Roman people was incarnate; this is why he was absolute.

=Apotheosis of the Emperor.=--As long as the emperor lived he was sole master of the empire, since the Roman people had conveyed all its power to him. But at his death the Senate in the name of the people reviewed his life and pa.s.sed judgment upon it. If he were condemned, all the acts which he had made were nullified, his statues thrown down, and his name effaced from the monuments.[145] If, on the contrary, his acts were ratified (which almost always occurred), the Senate at the same time decreed that the deceased emperor should be elevated to the rank of the G.o.ds. The majority of the emperors, therefore, became G.o.ds after their death. Temples were raised to them and priests appointed to render them worship. Throughout the empire there were temples dedicated to the G.o.d Augustus and to the G.o.ddess Roma, and persons are known who performed the functions of flamen (priest) of the divine Claudius, or of the divine Vespasian. This practice of deifying the dead emperor was called Apotheosis. The word is Greek; the custom probably came from the Greeks of the Orient.

=The Senate and the People.=--The Roman Senate remained what it had always been--the a.s.sembly of the richest and most eminent personages of the empire. To be a senator was still an eagerly desired honor; in speaking of a great family one would say, "a senatorial family." But the Senate, respected as it was, was now powerless, because the emperor could dispense with it. It was still the most distinguished body in the state, but it was no longer the master of the government.

The emperor often pretended to consult it, but he was not bound by its advice.

The people had lost all its power since the a.s.semblies (the Comitia) were suppressed in the reign of Tiberius. The population of 2,000,000 souls crowded into Rome was composed only of some thousands of great lords with their slaves and a mob of paupers. Already the state had a.s.sumed the burden of feeding the latter; the emperors continued to distribute grain to them, and supplemented this with donations of money (the congiarium). Augustus thus donated $140 apiece in nine different distributions, and Nero $50 in three. At the same time to amuse this populace shows were presented. The number of days regularly appointed for the shows under the republic had already amounted to 66 in the year; it had increased in a century and a half, under Marcus Aurelius, to 135, and in the fourth century to 175 (without counting supplementary days). These spectacles continued each day from sunrise to sunset; the spectators ate their lunch in their places. This was a means used by the emperors for the occupation of the crowd. "It is for your advantage, Caesar," said an actor to Augustus, "that the people engage itself with us." It was also a means for securing popularity.

The worst emperors were among the most popular; Nero was adored for his magnificent spectacles; the people refused to believe that he was dead, and for thirty years they awaited his return.[146]

The mult.i.tude of Rome no longer sought to govern; it required only to be amused and fed: in the forceful expression of Juvenal--to be provided with bread and the games of the circus (panem et circenses).

=The Praetorians.=--Under the republic a general was prohibited from leading his army into the city of Rome. The emperor, chief of all the armies, had at Rome his military escort (praetorium), a body of about 10,000 men quartered in the interior of the city. The praetorians, recruited among the veterans, received high pay and frequent donatives. Relying on these soldiers, the emperor had nothing to fear from malcontents in Rome. But the danger came from the praetorians themselves; as they had the power they believed they had free rein, and their chief, the praetorian prefect, was sometimes stronger than the emperor.

=The Freedmen of the Emperor.=--Ever since the monarchy had superseded the republic, there was no other magistrate than the emperor. All the business of the empire of 80,000,000 people originated with him. For this crushing task he required a.s.sistants. He found them, not among the men of great family whom he mistrusted, but among the slaves of whom he felt sure. The secretaries, the men of trust, the ministers of the emperor were his freedmen, the majority of them foreigners from Greece or the Orient, pliant people, adepts in flattery, inventiveness, and loquacity. Often the emperor, wearied with serious matters, gave the government into their hands, and, as occurs in absolute monarchies, instead of aiding their master, they supplemented him. Pallas and Narcissus, the freedmen of Claudius, distributed offices and p.r.o.nounced judgments; Helius, Nero's freedman, had knights and senators executed without even consulting his master. Of all the freedmen Pallas was the most powerful, the richest, and the most insolent; he gave his orders to his underlings only by signs or in writing. Nothing so outraged the old n.o.ble families of Rome as this. "The princes," said a Roman writer, "are the masters of citizens and the slaves of their freedmen." Among the scandals with which the emperors were reproached, one of the gravest was governing Roman citizens by former slaves.

=Despotism and Disorder.=--This regime had two great vices:

1. _Despotism._--The emperor was invested for life with a power unlimited, extravagant, and hardly conceivable; according to his fancy he disposed of persons and their property, condemned, confiscated, and executed without restraint. No inst.i.tution, no law fettered his will.

"The decree of the emperor has the force of law," say the jurisconsults themselves. Rome recognized then the unlimited despotism that the tyrants had exercised in the Greek cities, no longer circ.u.mscribed within the borders of a single city, but gigantic as the empire itself. As in Greece some honorable tyrants had presented themselves, one sees in Rome some wise and honest monarchs (Augustus, Vespasian, t.i.tus). But few men had a head strong enough to resist vertigo when they saw themselves so elevated above other men. The majority of the emperors profited by their tremendous power only to make their names proverbial: Tiberius, Nero, Domitian by their cruelty, Vitellius by his gluttony, Claudius by his imbecility. One of them, Caligula, was a veritable fool; he had his horse made consul and himself worshipped as a G.o.d. The emperors persecuted the n.o.bles especially to keep them from conspiring against them, and the rich to confiscate their goods.

2. _Disorder._--This overweening authority was, moreover, very ill regulated; it resided entirely in the person of the emperor. When he was dead, everything was in question. It was well known that the world could not continue without a master, but no law nor usage determined who was to be this master. The Senate alone had the right of nominating the emperor, but almost always it would elect under pressure the one whom the preceding emperor had designated or the man who was pleasing to the soldiers.

After the death of Caligula, some praetorians who were sacking the palace discovered, concealed behind the tapestry, a poor man trembling with fear. This was a relative of Caligula; the praetorians made him emperor (it was the emperor Claudius). After the death of Nero, the Senate had elected Galba; the praetorians did not find him liberal enough and so they ma.s.sacred him to set up in his place Otho, a favorite of Nero. In their turn the soldiers on the frontier wished to make an emperor: the legions of the Rhine entered Italy, met the praetorians at Bedriac near Cremona, and overthrew them in so furious a battle that it lasted all night; then they compelled the Senate to elect Vitellius, their general, as emperor. During this time the army of Syria had elected its chief Vespasian, who in turn defeated Vitellius and was named in his place; thus in two years three emperors had been created and three overthrown by the soldiers. The new emperor often undid what his predecessor had done; imperial despotism had not even the advantage of being stable.

=The Twelve Caesars.=--This regime of oppression interrupted by violence endured for more than a century (31 B.C. to 96 A.D.).

The twelve emperors who came to the throne during this time are called the Twelve Caesars, although only the first six were of the family of Augustus. It is difficult to judge them equitably. Almost all of them persecuted the n.o.ble families of Rome of whom they were afraid, and it is the writers of these families that have made their reputation. But it is quite possible that in the provinces their government was mild and just, superior to that of the senators of the republic.

THE CENTURY OF THE ANTONINES

=The Antonines.=--The five emperors succeeding the twelve Caesars, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius (96-180), have left a reputation for justice and wisdom. They were called the Antonines, though this name properly belongs only to the last two.

They were not descended from the old families of Rome; Trajan and Hadrian were Spaniards, Antoninus was born at Nimes in Gaul. They were not princes of imperial family, destined from their birth to rule.

Four emperors came to the throne without sons and so the empire could not be transmitted by inheritance. On each occasion the prince chose among his generals and his governors the man most capable of succeeding him; he adopted him as his son and sought his confirmation by the Senate. Thus there came to the empire only experienced men, who without confusion a.s.sumed the throne of their adoptive fathers.

=Government of the Antonines.=--This century of the Antonines was the calmest that the ancient world had ever known. Wars were relegated to the frontier of the empire. In the interior there were still military seditions, tyranny, and arbitrary condemnations. The Antonines held the army in check, organized a council of state of jurisconsults, established tribunals, and replaced the freedmen who had so long irritated the Romans under the twelve Caesars by regular functionaries taken from among the men of the second cla.s.s--that is, the knights.

The emperor was no longer a tyrant served by the soldiers; he was truly the first magistrate of the republic, using his authority only for the good of the citizens. The last two Antonines especially, Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, honored the empire by their integrity.

Both lived simply, like ordinary men, although they were very rich, without anything that resembled a court or a palace, never giving the impression that they were masters. Marcus Aurelius consulted the Senate on all state business and regularly attended its sessions.

=Marcus Aurelius.=--Marcus Aurelius has been termed the Philosopher on the Throne. He governed from a sense of duty, against his disposition, for he loved solitude; and yet he spent his life in administration and the command of armies. His private journal (his "Thoughts") exhibits the character of the Stoic--virtuous, austere, separated from the world, and yet mild and good. "The best form of vengeance on the wicked is not to imitate them; the G.o.ds themselves do good to evil men; it is your privilege to act like the G.o.ds."

=Conquests of the Antonines.=--The emperors of the first century had continued the course of conquest; they had subjected the Britons of England, the Germans on the left bank of the Rhine, and in the provinces had reduced several countries which till then had retained their kings--Mauretania, Thrace, Cappadocia. The Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates were the limits of the empire.

The emperors of the second century were almost all generals; they had the opportunity of waging numerous wars to repel the hostile peoples who sought to invade the empire. The enemies were in two quarters especially:

1. On the Danube were the Dacians, barbarous people, who occupied the country of mountains and forests now called Transylvania.

2. On the Euphrates was the great military monarchy of the Parthians which had its capital at Ctesiphon, near the ruins of Babylon, and which extended over all Persia.

Trajan made several expeditions against the Dacians, crossed the Danube, won three great battles, and took the capital of the Dacians (101-102). He offered them peace, but when they reopened the war he resolved to end matters with them: he had a stone bridge built over the Danube, invaded Dacia and reduced it to a Roman province (106).

Colonies were transferred thither, cities were built, and Dacia became a Roman province where Latin was spoken and Roman customs were a.s.similated. When the Roman armies withdrew at the end of the third century, the Latin language remained and continued throughout the Middle Ages, notwithstanding the invasions of the barbarian Slavs. It is from Transylvania (ancient Dacia) that the peoples came from the twelfth to the fourteenth century who now inhabit the plains to the north of the Danube. It has preserved the name of Rome (Roumania) and speaks a language derived from the Latin, like the French or Spanish.

Trajan made war on the Parthians also. He crossed the Euphrates, took Ctesiphon, the capital, and advanced into Persia, even to Susa, whence he took away the ma.s.sive gold throne of the kings of Persia. He constructed a fleet on the Tigris, descended the stream to its mouth and sailed into the Persian Gulf; he would have delighted, like Alexander, in the conquest of India. He took from the Parthians the country between the Euphrates and the Tigris--a.s.syria and Mesopotamia--and erected there two Roman provinces.

To commemorate his conquests Trajan erected monuments which still remain. The Column of Trajan on the Roman Forum is a shaft whose bas-reliefs represent the war against the Dacians. The arch of triumph of Benevento recalls the victories over the Parthians.

Of these two conquests one alone was permanent, that of Dacia. The provinces conquered from the Parthians revolted after the departure of the Roman army. The emperor Hadrian retained Dacia, but returned their provinces to the Parthians, and the Roman empire again made the Euphrates its eastern frontier. To escape further warfare with the highlanders of Scotland, Hadrian built a wall in the north of England (the Wall of Hadrian) extending across the whole island. There was no need of other wars save against the revolting Jews; these people were overthrown and expelled from Jerusalem, the name of which was changed to obliterate the memory of the old Jewish kingdom.

Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Antonines, had to resist the invasion of several barbarous peoples of Germany who had crossed the Danube on the ice and had penetrated even to Aquileia, in the north of Italy. In order to enroll a sufficient army he had to enlist slaves and barbarians (172). The Germans retreated, but while Marcus was occupied with a general uprising in Syria, they renewed their attacks on the empire, and the emperor died on the banks of the Danube (180). This was the end of conquest.

IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION

=Extent of the Empire in the Second Century.=--The Roman emperors were but little bent on conquest. But to occupy their army and to secure frontiers which might be easily defended, they continued to conquer barbarian peoples for more than a century. When the course of conquest was finally arrested after Trajan, the empire extended over all the south of Europe, all the north of Africa and the west of Asia; it was limited only by natural frontiers--the ocean to the west; the mountains of Scotland, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Caucasus to the north; the deserts of the Euphrates and of Arabia to the east; the cataracts of the Nile and the great desert to the south. The empire, therefore, embraced the countries which now const.i.tute England, Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, European Turkey, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Asiatic Turkey. It was more than double the extent of the empire of Alexander.

This immense territory was subdivided into forty-eight provinces,[147]

unequal in size, but the majority of them very large. Thus Gaul from the Pyrenees to the Rhine formed but seven provinces.

=The Permanent Army.=--In the provinces of the interior there was no Roman army, for the peoples of the empire had no desire to revolt. It was on the frontier that the empire had its enemies, foreigners always ready to invade: behind the Rhine and the Danube the barbarian Germans; behind the sands of Africa the nomads of the desert; behind the Euphrates the Persian army. On this frontier which was constantly threatened it was necessary to have soldiers always in readiness.

Augustus had understood this, and so created a permanent army. The soldiers of the empire were no longer proprietors transferred from their fields to serve during a few campaigns, but poor men who made war a profession. They enlisted for sixteen or twenty years and often reenlisted. There were, then, thirty legions of citizens--that is, 180,000 legionaries, and, according to Roman usage, a slightly larger number of auxiliaries--in all about 400,000 men. This number was small for so large a territory.

Each frontier province had its little army, garrisoned in a permanent camp similar to a fortress. Merchants came to establish themselves in the vicinity, and the camp was transformed into a city; but still the soldiers, encamped in the face of the enemy, preserved their valor and their discipline. There were for three centuries severe wars, especially on the banks of the Rhine and of the Danube, where Romans fought fierce barbarians in a swampy country, uncultivated, covered with forests and bogs. The imperial army exhibited, perhaps, as much bravery and energy in these obscure wars as the ancient Romans in the conquest of the world.

=Deputies and Agents of the Emperor.=--All the provinces belonged to the emperor[148] as the representative of the Roman people. He is there the general of all the soldiers, master of all persons, and proprietor of all lands.[149] But as the emperor could not be everywhere at once, he sent deputies appointed by himself. To each province went a lieutenant (called a deputy of Augustus with the function of praetor); this official governed the country, commanded the army, and went on circuit through his province to judge important cases, for he, like the emperor, had the right of life and death.

The emperor sent also a financial agent to levy the taxes and return the money to the imperial chest. This official was called the "procurator of Augustus." These two men represented the emperor, governing his subjects, commanding his soldiers, and exploiting his domain. The emperor always chose them among the two n.o.bilities of Rome, the praetors from the senators, the procurators from the knights.

For them, as for the magistrates of old Rome, there was a succession of offices: they pa.s.sed from one province to another, from one end of the empire to the other,[150] from Syria to Spain, from Britain to Africa. In the epitaphs of officials of this time we always find carefully inscribed all the posts which they have occupied; inscriptions on their tombs are sufficient to construct their biographies.

=Munic.i.p.al life.=--Under these omnipotent representatives of the emperor the smaller subject peoples continued to administer their own government. The emperor had the right of interfering in their local affairs, but ordinarily he did not exercise this right. He only demanded of them that they keep the peace, pay their taxes regularly, and appear before the tribunal of the governor. There were in every province several of these little subordinate governments; they were called, just as at other times the Roman state was called, "cities,"

and sometimes munic.i.p.alities. A city in the empire was copied after the Roman city: it also had its a.s.sembly of the people, its magistrates elected for a year and grouped into colleges of two members, its senate called a curia, formed of the great proprietors, people rich and of old family. There, as at Rome, the a.s.sembly of the people was hardly more than a form; it is the senate--that is to say, the n.o.bility, that governs.

The centre of the provincial city was always a town, a Rome in miniature, with its temples, its triumphal arches, its public baths, its fountains, its theatres, and its arenas for the combats. The life led there was that of Rome on a small scale: distributions of grain and money, public banquets, grand religious ceremonies, and b.l.o.o.d.y spectacles. Only, in Rome, it was the money of the provinces that paid the expenses; in the munic.i.p.alities the n.o.bility itself defrayed the costs of government and fetes. The tax levied for the treasury of the emperor went entirely to the imperial chest; it was necessary, then, that the rich of the city should at their own charges celebrate the games, heat the baths, pave the streets, construct the bridges, aqueducts, and circuses. They did this for more than two centuries, and did it generously; monuments scattered over the whole of the empire and thousands of inscriptions are a witness to this.

=The Imperial Regime.=--After the conquest three or four hundred families of the n.o.bility of Rome governed and exploited the rest of the world. The emperor deprived them of the government and subjected them to his tyranny. The Roman writers could groan over their lost liberty. The inhabitants of the provinces had nothing to regret; they remained subject, but in place of several hundreds of masters, ceaselessly renewed and determined to enrich themselves, they had now a single sovereign, the emperor, interested to spare them. Tiberius stated the imperial policy in the following words: "A good shepherd shears his sheep, but does not flay them." For more than two centuries the emperors contented themselves with shearing the people of the empire; they took much of their money, but they protected them from the enemy without, and even against their own agents. When the provincials had grounds of complaint on account of the violence or the robbery of their governor, they could appeal to the emperor and secure justice. It was known that the emperor received complaints against his subordinates; this was sufficient to frighten bad governors and rea.s.sure subjects. Some emperors, like Marcus Aurelius, came to recognize that they had duties to their subjects. The other emperors at least left their subjects to govern themselves when they had no interest to prevent this.

The imperial regime was a loss for the Romans, but a deliverance for their subjects: it abased the conquerors and raised the vanquished, reconciling them and preparing them for a.s.similation in the empire.

SOCIAL LIFE UNDER THE EMPIRE